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A Bunch Of Criminals
By Raul Ilargi Meijer of The Automatic Earth
Bunch Of Criminals!
I was going to start out saying Thursday was the saddest day in Europe in 50 years, or something like that, because of the insane and completely nonsensical largesse the ECB permits itself to launch, aimed at once again saving a banking system, but which will not only not help the European people, it will make things even much worse than they already are.
I’ve said many times that the EU in its present form should be dismantled tomorrow morning (even though it’s not the same tomorrow morning anymore), and if Draghi’s $1.1 million x million ‘stimulus’ should make anything clear, it’s that the dismantling gets more urgent by the day.
But calling it the saddest day in Europe in 50 years would show far too little respect for the people who died in former Yugoslavia, and in eastern Ukraine. It’s still a very sad day, though. And I was already thinking about that even before I read Theopi Skarlatos’ article for the BBC; that really made me want to cry.
When you read about female doctors(!) feeling forced to prostitute themselves to feed their children, about the number of miscarriages doubling, and about the overall sense of helplessness and destitution among the Greek population, especially the young, who see no way of even starting to build a family, then I can only say: Brussels is a bunch of criminals. And Draghi’s QE announcement is a criminal act. It’s a good thing the bond-buying doesn’t start until March, and that it’s on a monthly basis: that means it can still be stopped.
I’ll get back to Skarlatos’ story in a minute. First the insanity of the ECB QE itself. The problem with Europe’s economy, what drives it into high unemployment and deflation, is that people are not spending. If QE would really be aimed at reviving the economy, or at battling deflation, it would need to assume that people will start borrowing on a massive scale just because Draghi buys bonds – and soon perhaps even stocks – from bankers. There simply is no logic in that. The stated goals, pro-growth and anti-deflation, are not true. It’s a sleight of hand.
In order to achieve the stated goals, money would have to reach the real economy. As it stands, the best Draghi can do is to ‘hope’ it will. That’s not enough by a mile. This is not about doubts over its effectiveness, that’s baloney, we know it’s not effective when it comes to the stated goals. It will still leave Europe with no growth, and deeper deflation, and now €1.1 trillion deeper in debt. While banks can grow their reserves.
And it’s not as if Draghi doesn’t understand. Draghi is Goldman. And neither is it as if this is the only option. Steve Keen’s modern version of a debt jubilee, in which money is given directly to the people, under the condition that they first use it to pay off debt if they have any, would be much more effective. But it would be far less profitable for the banks, and that’s why it’s not considered. China yesterday announced a third option: they will effectively raise salaries of government workers by 60%.
Not that I’m terribly in favor of that kind of plan; I think any stimulus plan in our time should focus on reorganizing economies in such a way that jobs are created. That must mean moving away from centralization, and the return of production of essentials to communities and societies themselves, instead of emphasizing the ‘benefit’ of hauling goods halfway across the world, or an entire continent. It’s incredibly stupid that for instance most of our furniture and clothing is made in China.
We can produce those things at home, and give people jobs doing it. And China can focus on its domestic market too. And we can swap gadgets and other sheer luxuries, but not food or tables or shirts. Because we need to make those ourselves to keep our people employed.
Back to QE, or Draghi’s big swindle. I think Simon Jenkins at the Guardian had as good a go at it this morning as anyone:
QE For The Eurozone Is A Gigantic Confidence Trick. It Should Fool No One
The former BBC economic pundit Stephanie Flanders told the world it was “Santa Claus time”; the ECB has ridden to the rescue. No it has not.
Europe’s great and good, partying on the slopes of Davos, are blinded by snow and celebrities. Santa Claus gives presents to people; the ECB gives presents to its banks. It is merely tipping large sums of money into the vaults of precisely the institutions whose crazy lending caused the crash of 2008, and which have been failing Europe’s economy ever since. There is absolutely no requirement on these banks to release this money into private or commercial bank accounts.
Given the fear of over-lending that regulators have struck into bank bosses since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the money will simply build up reserves. That is exactly what has happened to quantitative easing in Britain since 2010: there has been no surge in bank lending, except into property investment. Quantitative easing is a gigantic confidence trick.
It was promised that it would yield new investment. It has not. It was promised that it would “pump money into the economy”. It has not. It was also feared that printing money would lead to hyper-inflation. It has not, for the simple reason that no one gets to spend the money. It is a bookkeeping transaction between a central bank and a commercial bank. It means nothing as long as banks are told to build up their reserves. Money in circulation matters. The whole of Europe, including Britain, is chronically short of demand, which is why deflation is such a menace.
If no one can afford to buy anything, no one will sell anything or invest money in making anything. The chronic imbalance between northern and southern states of the eurozone, previously ameliorated by selective devaluation, has bound poor and rich countries alike in a rictus of cash starvation. Collapsing demand drives down prices and profits; there is nothing for banks to invest in. The Chinese are laughing. Greece and some other Mediterranean economies are facing poverty not seen in half a century.
A return to normal growth means they must declare themselves bankrupt, restructure past debts, leave the eurozone and devalue. Don’t bury money in their banks. Bury it in their wallet. The eurozone may still look great from the top of a Swiss mountain; it looks terrible from the foot of the Acropolis.
I also liked ADMISI’s Marc Ostwald’s take right after Draghi did the announcement, courtesy of Tyler Durden:
Risk sharing is very limited, with national central banks taking 80% of the risk on sovereign bond purchases, and rather un-reassuring was Draghi’s comment that “most national central banks have adequate buffers to absorb a negative event” – most being how many.
Not good news for Greece, while it and Cyprus will be eligible for purchases of govt under a ‘waiver’ for (bail-out) ‘programme countries’, the ECB already has a very high volume of Greek bonds on it balance sheet from the SMP programme, and given a limit on total holdings for each sovereign issuer, it will not be eligible for purchases until it redeems debt in July and August.
It should be added that Italy and Spain and other bail-out countries will implicitly also have a lower available volume of total purchases, until SMP holdings are redeemed.
Draghi is going the save German banks, not weaker eurozone nations. Their banks maybe.
BUT perhaps the key aspect relates to the limits on the 25% limit on purchases of a single issue, which ensures that the ECB adheres to the ECJ’s ruling about the ECB ensuring that is does not interfere with “price formation”. So here’s the key aspect, there are some $12.0 trillion of FX reserves in the world, of which roughly a quarter are held in Euros.
Operating on the traditional metric that roughly half of those will be invested in Govt Bills and Bonds, this means that FX reserve managers will have to be involved in the process of establishing prices for whatever is purchased under the Govt bond QE programme. Eminently anything that is sold by central banks will not find its way into the private financial sector, therefore that €60 billion figure may often overstate what is being injected into the market.
Last but not least, the expanded programme does not start until March 15, so “Mr Market” now has a very long waiting period to sit on holdings of EUR debt before selling to the ECB, and with plenty of event risk in the world, starting with the Greek election, and an imminent Ukrainian default. Sort this under an uncomfortably long period before the QE ‘party’ gets started.
And in case you’re still wondering whether QE works and/or how effective it is, this graph also comes from Durden:


And that doesn’t even yet include stock markets and bank reserves at the Fed. What is obvious is that the Fed’s QE3 has been a mind-boggling failure for the American people, and a smashing success for the Davos crowd.
What’s wrong in Europe is not just Draghi, it’s the entire EU. If you join into a union with other nations, you can’t let some of them sink into despair, and worse, while others sit pretty. And I know the answer from Brussels will be that what is needed is a stronger and closer union, fiscal, political, but I think that if you already let your fellow union members plunge this deep into misery in the early stages of a union, a country like Greece would be out of its mind if not outright suicidal to sign on to a closer union. Northern Europe survives by sucking the lifeblood out of the South. It’s a really simple story that nobody will tell you.
Let’s return to Theopi Skarlatos for the BBC. This is heart rendering. How can the people of Germany, Holland, France, ever have let it get this far? What could possibly be their excuse? That their media never informed them? You have the most pervasive media in history, and you didn’t know? What are you going to do? Blame the lazy Greeks? Who need to ‘reform’ their societies?
Greece was not nearly this poor before it joined the EU. And we’ve seen above that Draghi’s QE won’t do anything to relieve their misery, nothing at all. If you’re going to spend 1.1 million times a million euros, shouldn’t that go towards doing something for Greece, instead of a group of banks and their shareholders?
Love In A Time Of Crisis In Greece
As Greeks prepare to vote in Sunday’s general election, anti-austerity party Syriza is ahead in the polls and campaigning under the slogan, “Hope is on its way”. The average wage has fallen to €600 (£450: $690) a month; half of all young people are unemployed and the economy is barely emerging from six years of recession. But Greeks remain determined to maintain their hold on normality. “We don’t have much else,” they say, “we may as well enjoy our freddo cappuccinos.”
But despite the drinking, flirting and dating, since the onset of financial disaster, a fundamental change has taken place in Greek society. Deejay Tommy paints a sad picture of young Greeks waking up every day without a job. “Things have lost a little bit of their romanticism,” he says. “The crisis has forced love to become a secondary priority. There are other things to worry about. I see many women looking for someone who will have money to take them out, who’ll take them on holidays. I see this quite a lot and it saddens me.”
Down the road along the shoreline, the Bouzoukia clubs ring with live renditions of popular Greek love songs. Crowds sipping on vodka throw the singers red carnations and sing along to lyrics of heartbreak and pain. “We save up to come once every few months and we look forward to it,” says Katerina Fotopoulou, 30, at a table with her friends. “We don’t have the money to do much any more. We’re always talking about future plans, going on holiday, but no-one ever does anything.” Living at home, Katerina describes herself as an adult forced to live as a teenager, her life put on hold.
Compared with other Europeans, Greeks are still fairly traditional. For many young women, it is awkward bringing a boyfriend through the front door to meet the parents. And that poses a problem, considering the high numbers unable to afford a place of their own. “Relationships are complicated these days,” says Katerina. “No-one is even thinking about getting married or having children.”
Indeed, Greece’s population is shrinking at an increasing pace according to data released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (Elstat). Since Greece first signed its EU-IMF bailout agreement the number of births has declined rapidly. In 2010 there were 114,766 live births, and by 2013 that number had declined by almost 20,000 (94,134). Obstetrician Leonidas Papadopoulos says miscarriages at the Leto maternity hospital have doubled over the past year. “Maybe it’s down to stress,” he says. “There is no proof, but you can see it in the eyes of the people, there is stress and fear for the future.”
He describes how a woman he had been treating with IVF came to him one day crying because she was pregnant. She had lost her job and demanded an abortion. But he felt he could not perform the procedure. “Soon,” says Dr Papadopoulos, “the population will be halved and there won’t be any young people to work and pay for the pensions of the elderly. All the social problems will rise up in front of us.”
Some who have children and are struggling to support them have turned to sex work, to put food on the table. Further north, in Larissa, Soula Alevridou, who owns a legal brothel, says the number of married women coming to her looking for work has doubled in the last five years. “They plead and plead but as a legal brothel we cannot employ married women,” she says. “It’s illegal. So eventually they end up as prostitutes on the streets.”
A doctor, Georgia, explains how she also works as an escort in the sex industry to support her family. Her private clinic currently treats three patients a week, but the peak summer season in the sex industry enables her to keep up with the rental payments on her family’s home and the healthcare bills for her elderly parents. “I live a double life and only I can know about it,” she says. “I have applied for jobs in medicine abroad and wait every day in hope of a reply.”
For journalist Elini Lazarou, having a baby was not something she was prepared to put on hold while waiting for a change in the political or economic climate. “Love in the time of crisis can function as a painkiller, with which someone can forget the problems they’re facing, or as a source from which someone can draw strength, energy and optimism,” she says.
On a wall in downtown Athens, a simple message is daubed that reads “Love or nothing”. It strikes a defiant tone amid the blighted lives hidden behind pure economics.
And against that backdrop Brussels and Frankfurt ‘heroically’ decide to prop up the banks with another €1.1 trillion. They should be dragged before judges, but what they do is presently legal (guess who makes the laws). So it’s up to the people of not just Greece in this weekend’s election, but to everyone who lives in the European Union. It’s up to the Dutch and the Germans and the Finns to end this monstrosity.
The troika is creating third world nations within the EU, and you guys are just sitting there watching them do it, and hoping that more money for your banks will mean your own petty little lives will be secure and safe, while Greek doctors are forced to prostitute themselves.
Please Syriza, please Tsipras, win the elections and fight this bunch of criminals. And please all of Europe, get up from your couches and refuse for this to be committed in your name. If not, you’re accomplices, whether anyone calls you on it or not. Shame on you, you’re a disgrace to mankind.
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Is a bunch of criminals like a pride of lions or a school of fish?
Then, is it a bunch of banksters?
Central banks are like the weather. Everybody complains, but nobody does anything about it.
Miserable Fat Belgium Based Bastard Bankers!
Adequate buffers?
Forget the Central Banks, as I have mentioned here many times, the ECB lowered the Reserve Ratio for member to banks to 1% (ONE PERCENT)!
If the unsinkable SS Titanic does sink, then lifeboats for just 1% of the depositors is adequate?
What they really meant by not needed to the same extent as under normal circumstance is 1) the banks want to be able to loan out 99% of your money to maximize profit, and 2) if they do experience bank runs, then they are counting on the runs being localized and having the ECB ride to the rescue, and in a worst-case scenario, socializing the losses via the inevitable bank bailouts...
calling them criminals is an injustice to criminals
Here's what you do to criminals:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/graphic-video-the-only-proof-you-need-that-guns-save-lives-i-did-the-right-thing_01232015
They are criminals, because they are stealing from the comman citizenry. However, when a blood sucking parasite acts in the only manner it knows how, because its survival depends on depleting and killing the host, then the only way to save the host is exterminate the parasites.
Bankers are parasites. They need to be dealt with once and for all.
Hang them for crimes against humanity.
European solidarity - to the bondholders.
It is fair to say that many in Europe remain avid supporters of the European Union as a political project, but now count the Eurozone among the most disastrous of global post-war ventures. The continued conflation of the European Union and the Eurozone by our politicians obscures most of the possible solutions to the problems of both areas.
cant be done.
“Soon,” says Dr Papadopoulos, “the population will be halved and there won’t be any young people to work and pay for the pensions of the elderly. All the social problems will rise up in front of us.”
Pay for the pensions of the elderly.
Clearly he's got his own agenda.
Fuck'em and their pensions.
The doc is talking his book, duh. Just imagine all the stress hormones that pour into his bloodstream everytime he considers the worst case scenario...
Other than that, Grexit is now a done deal. They let Syriza win and pretend to kick & bite, but in reality Brussels can't wait for the day when Greece is cut loose and turned from a EU-member state to a 3rd world country with the stroke of a pen... and if things don't get better then Portugal will be next in line; and so on.
Opening the door for Putin to manipulate another piece on the chess board. One of the most useful things to keep handy is a globe or world map.
I agree it's time to start killing the handful of parasites who are saving themselves over the billions of people being driven into a slow death for future generations. They have declared war on us and our children and we must educate our people to see what is happening against us all.
I'm still waiting for my 'Rope and Lamp post' trade to pay off
Don't laugh...it's comin'...I can feel it!
It is imperative to distinguish between central bankers who are criminal parasites, and professional bankers who actually do their best to operate within the guidelines. Your average bank at the mall is staffed with those who take their jobs seriously and generally do their utmost to serve their customers. Investing honestly earned money often requires skilled investment bankers, who also do their best to invest their client's money wisely.
The problem is that the professional bankers have to obey rules cooked up by central bankers, who are nothing but scammers. And like it or not, the scammers are at the controls, make the rules, and enforce the penalties--which loom over all financial employees and professionals except for the central bankers and their cronies who can vandalize the system at will and with impunity. Until that is corrected nothing will change.
The Lawyers protect the Bankers. The bankers pay the Lawyers(political contibutitions)...If you realize roughly 50-55% of the U.S. House and Senate are lawyers/trail lawyers then it all makes sense of why we are where we are....and don't forget Obama is/was a Lawyer as is Biden.... The Lawyers and Bankers protect each other and are at the top of the Pyramid scheme... The profession that never gets regulated or talked about is the Law profession....The majority of Lawyers in Politics are corrupt it's that simple....We live in a litigious society where you are encouraged to sue regardless of how friviolus it might be... Political correctness is driven by the Lawyers who are the Politicians....
The Lawyers protect the Bankers. The bankers pay the Lawyers(political contibutitions)...
You missed the ROOT of the problem...
And the sheep keep obeying, no matter what.
I saw those sheep, I see these sheep everywhere I look.
I saw those sheep, I see these sheep everywhere I look.
Correct, most sheep don't even pay attention to politics or world events. They just want to come home after working 8 hrs while only 3 of those hours was for themselves, and turn on some phoney distraction "Tee Vee" These people have no idea how badly they are being represented by there favourite politician that did get elected.
If you are invited to play poker with a bunch of cheaters and you accept, sit down and aloow your money to be cheated out of you.
Do you deserve it?
Given the fact that the sheep are currently infatuated with something as rediculous as footballs being underinflated by two pounds per square inch...Yea, we do deserve it.
i work at one of the major new york lawfirms that defends them.
this is 100% correct, they protect them , but that's only because the bankers pay them outlandish billables to the partners. the vast majority of sheep lawyers, even in big firms, follow a simple rule; do what you are told.
most lawyers that go to harvard and yale that work in big new york firms, DONT think about anything other than doing their job. they are NOT curious and the lawfirms like them that way.
the one's that are curious either quit/leave, or should they be curious but ambitious, just GO with the flow of how this machine works.
but ultimately, the lawyers are disposable. and the bankers will dispose of their own employees just as they will the lawyers if and when the shit hits the fan. till then-----keep BILLING!
Thanks for the truth! In big companies, the Senior Management dictate the Policies, Employment Conditions and the Corporate Culture. It is virtually impossible to not do as you are told and keep you job. Mavericks are quickly culled from the herd.
Bravo, HH.
more like a swarm of locust
buckaroo-the pain hasn't got to the savage level of desparation that comes unrelenting hungar. europeans are lacking a true equalizer. supose pitchforks could do. until violence breaks out nothing will change. change is ussually sudden and violent. it will happen, just don't know what EXACTLY will set it off. it will not be a flase flag. that is intended to turn people vs people, but rather people vs upsurpeople..
"Central banks are like the weather. Everybody complains, but nobody does anything about it."
Hitler did, I believe.
So did Andy Jackson
Did he work with HAARP??
How long before Zero Hedge is shut down because it is an EXTREMIST website?
They'll never shut ZH down because to do so would get a bunch of creative, intelligent, and pissed off people off their asses.
It's called a diversion for a reason.
No shut down, goldstein. The jews will just buy ZH, like they did reddit.
...and 4chan...and almost everywhere else.
With Zero Hedge I'll at least be content to know that if they do sell out, they'd at least make it worth it and take their payment in physical gold and silver.
I don't see why people downvoted you. This is an outlet for all the pent-up frustration that the moderately intelligent have, and it works.
Instead of building a guillotine, I am sitting in front of a computer screen, clicking buttons, and doing nothing productive all day.
Read the second line in the voice of Morgan Freeman, and you'll understand why this site won't get shut down.
Orf with their 'eads.
or like a murder of crows?
a theft of bankers?
a sheaf of lawyers?
Finally!! A correct assessment of QE and those who propose it!
We gotta stop being complicit little BTD'ers and turn into HTFB'ers(Hang the fucken bankers).
open season -24/7,yr round, no limit, kinda like carp & coyotes.
or like a murder of crows?
a theft of bankers?
a sheaf of lawyers?
a murdering of bankers....on a regular basis......
The solution is obvious: let the petty thieves out of prison to make space when you start jailing the banksters en masse, along with seizing their property (sports cars, beachside houses, jewelry and artwork). Their whores you can ignore. Pretty soon, the banksters will start ratting out their politician accomplices to try to get out of prison.
That is a great idea. Petty theives sit in the slammer for lifting wallets and grand larceny skates. The banksters are doing far more damage to society than street thugs. If the lower or mid-level bankster participants get picked up and have to sit in jail or sing, the real power mongers will eventually get identified if not picked up.
If ever there were poster children for a more worthy cause, Bankers (especially CENTRAL bankers) would be poster children for the RICO statutes.
Unless of course you believe banking isn't an ongoing criminal enterprise.
Soooo,
How many of the few banksters that actually went to prison did just that?
Did Bernie Madoff? Nope
It isn't illegal to lose money. If it were, all of us would be in jail for spending to much for an item we wanted. That is what banksters do. They lose our money for their own profit and that is hard to prove in court.
And sadly, as most visitors here, you don't understand that if you remove one bankster, then another just takes his/her place. You remove one oligarch, then another takes their place.
Rince, repeat.
I'm still looking for an answer for that problem and haven't found it yet. As I see it, there is not yet an economic system that doesn't degrade itself into class warfare with the rich versus the rest of the population. Should we cap wealth? But that goes against individual freedom no matter how wealthy they are. I am still at lost to an answer that will EVOLVE mankind instead of simply revolve it in a circle, doomed to repeat the same things.
"Individual Freedom" is a fine ideal to honor. Like most. Up to a point, that is.
It doesn't take even a High School education, though, to see what happens when those individuals amass billions. Everybody else's freedoms inevitably go down the drain via the leverage their money gives to the billionaires in exercising theirs.
Bible thumping on "Liberty" "for all" in such an environment strikes me as effectively insane wrt the real fundamental interests of everybody else. They are clearly not our friends and they effectively become the enemies of any meaningful reality-based notions of Liberty for All.
I have no problem saying wealth should be capped at something that reasonably protects the rest of us from their abuses, say $500M. After you reach that, retire and stay the fuck away from the game in any capacity whatsoever, incl. board memberships, etc.
I can't see any other sensible solution. I can't see perversely rejecting such a necessary protection as "socialism," either. Distorting the matter in that way is like rejecting having any speed limit on the street in front of my house as police state "fascism" no matter how high the pile of dead children it creates.
Not doing something clearly necessary doesn't make us honorable--it makes us gullible suckers.
Fuck the "isms." How about we just apply an iota of common sense?
Maybe the problem isn't wealth, or its accumulation. Maybe the problem lies with inheritance. This is what the oligarchs fight tooth-and-nail to protect ... and hide via trusts, foundations, corporations, etc...
"a debt jubilee, in which money is given directly to the people, under the condition that they first use it to pay off debt if they have any"
i believe this is called 'writing off debts' which is what Wait What has been advocating since 2008. take your losses, banksters, and let the world move forward.
the chinese are on to something with their wage increase policy. solve the problem of low aggregate demand, directly. not by some disingenuous policy that actually rewards capital for concentrating itself even futher in the hands of the speculator/rentier class, but in the hands of ppl who HAVE to spend that money to sustain themselves.
The problem is the CBs don't want to alter an inch of the status quo that got the world into this mess in the 1st place, but they want everything to get magically better.
I like your idear. Probably because I'm poor.
Man evolving out of his situation is highly unlikely, even over a long term.
Nature is very reluctant to evolve anti-nature.
I have some solutions via a few simple laws.
1. Income Tax rate equals market share aka Walmart controls 60% of retail their taxation rate is 60%, with the only exception allowed being :
2. Income tax rate of corporations making each employee an equal owner shareholder will be zero. Aka walmart make each employee an equal shareholder owner operator.
3. Vote cards just like bank cards with 4 digit pin codes to use them. No more sneaky back door legislation people vote on issues not the next corruptocrat.
5. Income rate for all citizens is in perpetuity zero. Government prints dollars to run government as a constitutional law as a percentage of GDP. debt becomes impossible as well as taxation unneeded.
Banks use reverse fractional reserve ratios aka they can only print money to pay interests on deposits and personal loans. Banks become servants to depositors.
While I expect that aspects of the complexity of modern social/political/commercial transactions can be used to argue against your ideas, these ideas, and their root assumptions, need to become part of a discourse to replace the status quo. Hoping for the opportunity there.
Madoff was a piker. The guy is in prison for NOT being a banker.
He only acted like one.
Don't you get it?
What the 'law' establishes is that only those granted license from the STATE are permitted to be criminals.
The rest of us are to be victims.
Fucking BINGO!!!
Now that is some Civil Forfiture I can get behind!
What happens when a pack of wolves smells fear or detects a wounded animal?
(Think about that as we head into this global collapse...)
Can you just see the billions in the east rising up now?
They're already proven multiple times that QE is nothin' but Food Stamps for those well connected to the govt spigot of money such as the banks and super rich.
What is the latest stastic, 100 of the richest people on earth own more than the bottom 3 Billion?? This is a statistic you would expect to read about in the 8th Century when there was nothing but kingdoms and their impoverished peasants.
Oh, I'm sure the peasants are thrilled with this latest news!
The economic, regulatory and tax freedoms countries require to care for themselves and their citizens,, if provided, would be the death around the world of the 20th century socialcommiecrat administrative class who have spent the last 60 years leveraging themselves into an aristocracy of their own
Hey Cossack, how about a cemetery of bankers?
Is a bunch of criminals like a pride of lions or a school of fish?
I believe the collective noun should be a plague of banksters.
Hey cossak, how about, a rape of bankers.
The UK should be grabbing the crime headlines for a while, with news now on former Home Secretary Leon Brittan (1983-1985), a monster who covered up a pedophile murder ring while serving under PM Thatcher. Brittan's death Wednesday has unleashed the press, who are reporting horror stories of Tory grandees running amok raping and killing boys under Brittan and Thatcher's protection. A three decades long cover-up that could topple Cameron's governement.
http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2014/07/leon-brittan-nick-cleg...
There are only two things I can't stand in this world. Social injustice, and the Dutch. [/Nigel Powers]
Senator. We're both part of the same hypocrisy, but never think it applies to my family. [/Michael Corleone]
Dear Syriza,
Please win. If you do win -- don't sell out the people that voted for you so you can get a better seat at Davos next year. Don't sell out the people that voted you in so Brussels will buy you off, blackmail you or threaten you. The people that voted you in -- most of whom are not leftists, voted for you, not because they wanted to, but because they had no other choice. Do what you feel is best, but if you feel that selling out the people that need you the most is what is best, then I hope you end up hanging from lamp-posts like the people before you deserve to be.
Sincerely,
Someone fed up with the system.
Haus, allow me to rewrite your comment for brevity and increased comprehensibility.
Dear politicians,
Please don't be politicians.
Does this better illuminate the futility?
Syriza? A buncha commies who are in unanimous agreement that someone owes them something? Good luck with that.
Syriza - A buncha commies who are in unanimous agreement that the country owes the people its wealth.
The counterpoint to your Syriza missive is that Greeks lived above their means (even by European standards) for decades, and now the society is reaping the wages of its sins.
You and the good people of the Syriza party are effectively saying, "Yeah, yeah. Corruption, tax evasion, inflexible labor laws, general laziness and socialist policies have beeen rife, but it's not the Greeks' fault! It's someone else's! Let me look around.... hmmm... oh, perfect! It's Mario and the bankers. Well screw them and the debts we've run up."
Yes, that is it. Why not? That is how statesmen treat us.
The way I see things is this: no man is beholden to statists. Therefore, whatever happened under the coercion of the state is no justification for how man frees himself from bondage today.
Once you perform welfare upon one group of society, (WS and Banksters in general), there is a implicit obligation to perform same welfare upon the rest of society.
Welcome to Moral Hazard...
Russian ISIS AKA DNR & LNR has 27 killed (two kids), 97 wounded (5 children) in Mariupol.
Putin regime terrorist leader alexander zakharchenko admits of war crimes in Mariupol
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2300923
Fuck Obama, fuck Putin, fuck the CIA, fuck the FSB, and fuck you. Stop spewing shit which amounts to nothing more than dumb fucking propaganda.
Situation in Mariupol after Putin regime terrorist attack:
http://youtu.be/2yFyLriVXe0
http://youtu.be/bDE_J9fMnGI
http://youtu.be/j1IGTek8_5o
As Russian terrorist organization DNR has admited these war crimes, it means Putin regime and these terrorist organization leaders must be brought to war tribunal as it was done to fascists after WW2.
They didn't admit it... jezz you dumb ass fucker
Citizens told that this was a Ukrainian army
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3P2MlDQhCs&x-yt-cl=84503534&x-yt-ts=1421...
freedom123 is probably a bot.
probably, but he tell something once upon time...
Putin good!
Oh! youtube bots .
Mariupol current situation :https://www.facebook.com/gramsci?fref=ts
Editing your comment won't help
The troll is part of the Nazi fringe who hang their hopes on Kiev's Junta to bring back good old fascism to Europe. To come on here and try and sell these murders as a rebel terror attack is making it obvious. Kiev and it's hangers on get away with murder because the media is cowardly enough to follow orders from their bosses, who back the USA's Coup in Kiev.
Perhaps said troll would like to argue MH-17. Or the 250 people killed in Gorlovka in recent Ukrainian shelling. Or the murder of nearly 100 people by Right Sector gangs, all on video, in Odessa. We who follow the news out of Ukraine, were well aware Kiev was going to do a false flag murder event now that rebels are winning on the battle fields. The two Bus events, one was a false flag, one was a simple artillery strike. Kiev blames the rebels for all civilian deaths. So this new story is more of the same, a Kiev lie, I wonder at the trolls who support and defend their murderous Kiev Junta heroes. Keep selling their lies, nobody but you believes such trash. The Junta is going to fall, and when it does, the lies and murders will be avenged. Beware Nazis, someone is coming for you! 550 dead Nazis at the Airport alone, plus dozens of captives taken, including high ranking fascists. They were taken into Donetsk and given a tour of their artillery damage. More tours like this should occur. But news out of NAF command is that taking prisoners is no longer going to be a priority, because Kiev arrests civilians and uses them to exchange for Kiev Junta prsioners of war. So Nazi supporters, your beloved gangs are now in real danger when the cowards throw down arms and try and run away. Is NAF going to let you get away?
What about the Nazis occupying the Pentagon? What is to be done with them?
Get them to dress better.
At least real Nazi's had that Hugo Boss sharp look going for them.
Nothing screams 'Serious Man' like a Schutzstaffel Totenkopf emblem on a Hugo Boss uniform.
Yup, and drive a Mercedes-Benz SS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_HGCDOYiOo
was the totenkopf head part of hohenzollern tradition? i'd read somewhere that it wasn't new to the nazis, but rather went back to the turn of the century or further.
Correct, it goes back at least to 1815, when it was worn by the "Braunschweigisches Husaren-Regiment Nr. 17". Here is a link to a german wikipedia entry whith some photographs: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunschweigisches_Husaren-Regiment_Nr._17
dup.
Click-on the 'Read More ..."s
http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com/
Either nut up, pick up a rifle and fly to Ukraine and put your ass on the line for the shit you are spewing, or go back to watching porn on a government paycheck.
And don't forget to take some ammo too!
My thoughts too! He lives close enough, he could hop a train and be in a Kiev Junta recruitment office in one day. Yet? If he wants back fascists from Lvov, he can join a Nazi guards battlion. Right now 350 bodies of dead foreign fighters are lying in Donetsk waiting for someone to claim them. They died months ago, but the Junta does not want them. Nor do the Polish of Baltic nations want their dead nationals back. At the the airport a new group of foreign fighters was killed, wearing NATO uniforms and armed with American weapons, they died when NAF cleared the terminals 5-7 days ago. Again, nobody claims these bodies of non-Ukrainian war dead. Perhaps NAF will build a foreign fighter cemetary and bury the hundrees and hundreds of bodies of these dead. Volunteer to fight for Kiev's Junta, when NAF kills you in battle, your body will lie unclaimed and rotting in some ditch for the dogs to chomp on. Glory of the Nazi Junta looks good in those torch light parades with all the flags and chants of death to ethnic Russians, but when NAF catches you on the battlefield, all that glory turns to shit.
Ukraine army grad fell short. Ukrainians in Maripol shot by their own Ukraine Army from airport west of town. Now get lost.
I understand that you are a Putin regime payed internet troll, but for others: this man in mariupol who vitnesed attack tells that rockets where fired from russian terrosit direction not from Ukraine side http://youtu.be/2yFyLriVXe0
If you really believe that and really believe that they need to be stopped, go over there and put your own ass on the line. Quit spewing propaganda that might very well help us stumble into a war with Russia. Or are you one of those fucks that thinks that because Russia is bad, somebody else should be drafted and sent over to die?
You are a troll youself. Been at ZH for only 11 weeks and in your bio you state that (and I quote):
"I am writing mainly about Russia and Putin regime. Because I see that ZH is not in balance with information about what's actually happening in Russia and what crimes Putin regime does to it's people and other nations.
I understand both English & Russian - so I think it's my duty to serve English speaking world to spread truth about Putin regime to Western world."
That makes you a troll, either paid or unpaid.
Bringin truth with arguments & references is notr trolling - you should check words before you use them.
If you want to bring truth, perhaps you should bring up how the US instagated a lot of this bullshit. I want NO FUCKING PART of where this could lead.
This article is about Greece. freedom123 is way off subject whining about Putin on here.
No, you are on a 'mission'. That makes you a troll whatever 'argument & reference' you provide.
" I understand that you are a Putin regime payed internet troll"
No you do not know that. ZH isn't the place to post bald faced lies and expect people to back you up. Liars are transparent here and we can see right through your BS. So stop telling lies about other posters, are you man enough to stop lying? Or is that part of the package that goes with the fascist dream?
why do you bother posting this stuff, with what amounts to a fancy swastika as your avatar? it's like some serious trolling, dude.
I wonder if any americans or american leadership will also be tried for their droning of entire wedding parties?
You really are a stupid fuck aren't you?
Savage bloodthirsty jihadists should alway be aware that wherever they congregate, death will rain down on them. Don't want wedding parties bombed, don't let murderers attend. Don't want your primary schools and hospitals bombed, don't set up your missile launchers there.
Murderers at a wedding? Show us the evidence asshole. Are you talking about the Clinton wedding? Lots of murderers there too.
Yet another pathetic fuck that thinks they get a different set of rules.
Good luck with that asshat!!!
Man this site is chock full of anarchist's, communists, jihadists and moral relavists.
Carry on. The world needs your types to let everyone know what true idiocy is.
Who in your brilliance is actually doing good on this planet? You?
Hmmm... Doing good you say? As much as I hate to say it, no one is doing good. That's why we are fucked. You might like your team best but I very much doubt that their main objective is doing good. Sorry to pop your balloon... Probably best for you to back to that cloud you live on.
Who were the jihadists at the wedding? I want names and hard evidence that they should have been bombed. Tangible facts. The US government does not require such things before unleashing hellfire missiles on people.
As soon as you give me hard evidence that all the butchery and carnage taking place in the middle east is by a bunch of misunderstood folks hoping to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. There is collateral damage in all wars. The allies are trying to stop the carnage while the jihadists are trying to expand it. You of course wouldn't be able to discern the difference.
Hey, numbnuts, I'm no fan of the Muslims, but bombing people based on less evidence than would be required to convict me of a speeding ticket isn't helping the situation. So, again, who were the jihadis and what TANGIBLE facts do you have that bombing them was warranted? That's right, you have none. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Yet you applaud the deaths. You talk about collateral damage as though it's OK, fail to recognize that we expanded the shit out of the carnage, then think that I'm the one who cannot discern the difference? Go fuck yourself, and consider this: You probably think that collateral damage is fine, because it's across an ocean and not in your own back yard. Perhaps you should stick to Fox News. It seems to be more your speed. No self reflection is required there.
Every jihadist should be hunted down and dispatched with extreme prejudice.
As with the Crusades, moral and civilized men need to go over there and force these savages back under their sand dunes for another 1000 years.
Those of you who spend their days apologizing for the barbarians will be ridiculed and scorned by civilized men.
When you have to choose between the barbarian and the civilized man, choose the civilized man.
OK you can start spitting your venom again. It's like a mosquito, annoying but expected.
Do you condone bombing people without tangible evidence that they are actually the people that we want to bomb? Because that's sure as hell what it sounds like. It sounds like you advocate genocide. Do you advocate killing all Muslims? Because that would be rather venomous.
I recall a story from several years back where a wedding party was bombed in Afganistan. Seems a US air attack group saw flashes from the ground and assumed they were being fired upon.
The flashes were weapons (which everyone has) being fired into the air to celebrate a wedding. The people at the wedding were allies in the fight against the talliban.
This is how you make enemies of people who would be your friends.
Nice argument, EV. Enjoyed it greatly all the way down to here. But at this point it has become clear to me that this guy is just herding forum sentiment. Don't know who he works for--and, of course, there are many people who do this shit for free--but he is definitely functioning in the manner of someone who trolls for the NSA or other organization, imo.
Just pretending to be stupid, but undeserving of the time or influence it brings.
Fucking troll.
It devolved to me calling him names down below. There is no point in debating the neocon faggot, but ridiculing him is kind of fun.
The funniest thing about neocon faggots is that some of them actually believe that they are patriotic heroes.
But that's only the stupidest 70% of the bunch. Like the guys at National Review.
So what should be done with the warmongering Zionists and Neocons?
You have a world view the size of a pin hole. Well done asshole.
wow... that is some 1st class trolling.
+1 and I know you know, but trials are worthless without convictions. For example:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Kelly_Thomas%3A_Cops_Brutally_Murder_Home...
First of all Mariupol is controlled by Ukranian people & it's army
Second terorist leader from DNR has admited attack on city
Third - citizens of Mariupol understands that it's russian terrorist who are firing rockets - as I understand you know russian language so here you go: http://youtu.be/bDE_J9fMnGI
If you are going to prosecute the Russians for war crimes then prosecute everyone for ALL war crimes asshat.
It's not the same.
At no time in history has any democracy intentionally starved 20 million like Russia did to the Ukraine. At no time in history has any democracy murdered millions of their own citizens like Stalin.
Yet you think the great democracies of the world should overlook this?
Many here think they're brilliant yet can't remember 10's of millions of cold blooded murders.
Are you fucking daft? The USSR and Russia are different political entities. To quote you, it's not the same.
Really? Yeah, this guy is a fucking idiot.
Dear DOOloser,
Still living in the past moron? Good luck with that. CHANGE is the only constant.
How many people in total has the American war machined killed over the last hundred years?
You really think the world is going to put up with a small group of ANY people being allowed a different set of rules?
300 million americans still think that they can consume 40% of the earth's resources to maintain their fat asses?
Grow the fuck up you ignorant fuck, the other 7 billion or so might have something to say about that. Welcome to 2015 where you will now find more freedom in Russia than the U.S. What a fucking tool. Perhaps anther "useful idiot" for the political classes of the world. Nice work moron.
So says the communist.
is this the russian freedom you're talking about?
http://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/russia/supreme-court-ban-witne...
So Doowleb, was the US a democracy when genocide was committed against the native population, and bounties were paid for Indian scalps? Was it a democracy when when Iraq was invaded in order to steal its oil? Perhaps the US was an ethical Republic at some point in time, but its political system has become hopelessly corrupted, and the majority of its citizens are still asleep.
As far as I know, the US taxpayer is still looking after their native population.
How much oil was stolen from Iraq by the US? Be specific. One example of at least a gallon is needed.
You actually believe a communist system is superior so of course your opinion is suspect due to insanity.
Hands down, you have to be one of the dumbest mottherfuckers to grace ZH. Accusing people here of being communists is one of the most laughable, insane, idiotic and daft ideas ever.
Doowleb: Did I say that a communist system is superior or are you putting words in my mouth?
Since you have enough time to post your hateful messages here, perhaps you have the time to read some specifics about the theft of Iraqi oil and the "collateral damage" caused by the illegal invasion. Take your time. I need to go to work.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/iraq-nation-destroyed-oil-riches-confiscate...
http://www.thedebate.org/thedebate/iraq.asp
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system...
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/
Fuck Obama, fuck Putin, fuck the CIA, fuck the FSB, and fuck you.
Just one of the diatribes on this thread that received overwelming support in the upvotes.
When guys like you accuse others of hate speach, your cognative disonence is literally dripping out your ears.
When guys like you hate my comments I take it as a badge of honor.
Do you know one of the differences between your average ZHer and you? When I spout a hateful message, I'm honest about it. You, however, are not. The following is a hateful message: Fuck you.
With such a thoughtful and well reasoned retort I obviously stand corrected. /sarc
Swearing at those you disagree with is not the same as offering rational argument. It leads to the suspicion that you have none to offer.
Hey, Droolweb, you put words into other people's mouths, don't respond to the points made, but instead respond to made up points, and generally fail to offer rational argument, then accuse others of doing the same. Offering you rational arguments and expecting you to respond in kind is an exercise in futility. You deserve to be ridiculed.
He wants a "rational argument" yet calls for Muslim genocide?
LOL. What a fuckan tool.
Wow, you accuse others of putting words in their mouthes.
I do not condone muslim genocide. I wholeheartedly condone the complete annihilation of the raping, pillaging, beheading jihadists. Those 'moderates' and apologists, like you, who protect these savages, will not be given quarter.
You can cherry pick as much malfeasance as you like about the west, but they're not keeping their women in black bags, or throwing acid in the faces of children. Pick a side. Civilization or 14th century barbarism.
Enough, I'll not pollute myself interacting with fools on this thread any further.
That's good, because you're nothing but a neocon faggot. When I see somebody's analysis of a situation that ignores a historical event that might be a teeny bit important, like the fucking fall of the Soviet Union, I know that I am dealing with a fucking moron.
It is clear what you said and meant. Using the phrase "complete annihilation" pretty well sums up your Zionist/Neocon worldview. And "pick a side" just shows your appalling ignorance of the facts.
Doowleb - I appreciare you commenst but I think you are arguing using "facts" that are old and have changed significantly over te ast 15 years. Surely the last 7 years.
Russia is no longer "communist". Most didn't want to be communist then (1917) and 95% don't want to be communist today. The Bolsheviks that thrust them nto communism back in 1913 are the same type of people , the neo Bolsheviks, that are trying to destroy the / make the genuflect to the cheesepope bankers today.
One could argue that the US is more "communist" than Russia is today. Look at the tax rates and redistribution of $$ in the US vs Russia. Looking down from Mars one would have to conclude that Russia was more democratic.
The point is, and why your comment had a less than warm welcome is because the bankers are trying to do the same thing today to the West as they did to Russia back then. It's all about their control.
the 2007 US credit collapse almost saw them ruined. The Fed printed money out of thin air and rescued them. Unnerstand ?
you have no problem when Kiev did the same thing to E.Ukrainians for months before . That is very hypocrite of you bot doing state department's job . https://www.facebook.com/TruthfromUkraine/photos/a.1462094710680543.1073...
Its not a war between east ukranians and west ukranians, its fight between ukranians (also russian speaking) and Putin regime organized terrorist organzations that occupies Ukraine, kills it's citizens and destroys its infrastructure because people of Ukraine chosen to be part of EU & NATO.
These are east ukranians from Kramatorsk:
http://youtu.be/M3AKjF4okpE
I know, why don't we go bake some pastries and hand out some fucking cookies to win the hearts and minds of some folks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVs2tcSyyuA
Fucking international politics at its finest! We've got cookies 'n shit!
Of course EU & US wants to be in friends with Ukraine or even have some influence in it - to make best deals out of it. But it's not EU who invaded Ukraine, fires GRAD at Mariupol and annexed Crimea.
Yet we have the same Nuland caught on tape deciding that Yatsenyuk should be the man of Ukraine BEFORE Yanukovych fled. It's almost as though the US State Department knew he was going ousted and "Yats" would become prime minister.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvRljAaNgg
It's not like the US would ever do something like that! No! There never was an Operation Ajax where the US was worried that Iran was pivoting towards Russia, so the CIA went in and destabilized the country and installed a pupet government! Never! Oh, wait, there was, and the CIA documents have been declassified.
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/
The US instigated this. If you don't get why that is important, then go pick up a rifle and go fight the Russians in Eastern Ukraine. Put your own ass on the line. Don't put my fucking blood on the line for your propaganda bullshit.
Sadly, the vast majority of Americans don't even know about the CIA/Nuland coup. Even worse, they don't understand that the expansion of NATO under Clinton, Bush and Obama has also led directly to this civil war in the Ukraine. Their goal is to have the Ukraine in NATO. Russia will never let that happen and has said so publicly.
Here in the USA we've got 99 problems, but Russia/Ukraine ain't one
It's a war brought upon Ukrainians by your sugar love usa . Fuck the freedom123 .
"...Putin regime organized terrorist organzations that occupies Ukraine, kills it's citizens and destroys its infrastructure..."
So, the rebels are the ones targeting civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk with heavy artillery? The Ukrainian military has nothing to do with that?
By your definition, the people of the east, both Russian and Ukrainian speaking, are Ukrainian. So, why are you killing your own people?
@freedumb123
I welcome all views, but your trolling is getting out of hand and tiresome. You are not only OFF TOPIC but you are SPAMMING the threads daily with the same worn out hyperbolic crap. Some new ones on topic would be refreshing.
Seriously Tyler? You've banned some of the most interesting, outspoken and informative ZHers, yet you let this go on? Not only is this pandering to propagandist nutjobs without any views or insights of their own, but it is unforgivably BORING.
I couldn't agree more. People are starting to wake up, but like the rest of the world, they are being manipulated. If some of them actually did the maths, they would see that no amount of printing or promises are going to sort out the problems. We are desperate for a reset now, otherwise all hope is lost.
There is nothing for it.
Find something to hold onto.
Something that can keep your fire lit through the coldest, darkest period of a persons life.
Hang onto that something and hope you come out the other side.
What we are heading into is like a long rapids on a huge river.
You are kidding yourself if you think you can effect your path though what is coming. You may enter the situation in a seemingly good position however the power of what lies ahead is incalculable and will have random twists and eddy's that can't be predicted.
TPTB are just gaming us until they have the killing boot properly lined up with the back of our collective necks.