New York Times

"A recent outbreak of measles has concerned citizens questioning how we can protect the lives of innocent children from neglectful, or even downright abusive, parents. Some have argued that vaccination should be mandatory, since an unvaccinated child presents a danger to himself and others. After all, what is government for if not to protect life and minimize danger?"

“We like the money,” said Raymond Baker, the president of Global Financial Integrity, a Washington nonprofit that tracks the illicit flow of money. “It’s that simple. We like the money that comes into our accounts, and we are not nearly as judgmental about it as we should be”... Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program in 2013, shortly before leaving office: “If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend.”

Following his outburst at the "independence" of the Turkish Central Bank earlier this week (which crashed the Lira), President Erdogan has opened his mouth again this morning...

*ERDOGAN: TURKEY NEEDS NEW CONSTITUTION AND PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM, and
*ERDOGAN SAYS PEOPLE SHOULD RESEARCH NEW YORK TIMES OWNERS

So the blame for his nation's weakness is an independent central bank and the NY Times... The Lira just passed 2.47 to the USDollar - a record low.

As Manhattan builds eight figure luxury apartment units merely to serve as bank accounts for international oligarchs, New York City’s homeless population soars to a new record high. It’s the ultimate manifestation of how criminal and crony this so-called “recovery” has been.

In 1923 Hitler said, “Believe me, our misery will increase. The scoundrel will get by. But the decent, solid businessman who doesn’t speculate will be utterly crushed; first the little fellow on the bottom, but in the end the big fellow on top too. But the scoundrel and the swindler will remain, top and bottom. The reason: because the state itself has become the biggest swindler and crook. A robbers’ state!” Hitler wasn’t talking about hard money, he was talking about excessive money printing by a robber state. Krugman himself echoes these words, "It’s basically about revenue: when governments can’t either raise taxes or borrow to pay for their spending, they sometimes turn to the printing press." Out of control government that can’t borrow or tax enough to pay its bills? Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela... what country is next?

The Super-bowl halftime show the best concise index of how psychotic American culture is becoming from year to year, and the 2015 version signaled a complete break from reality, a nightmare of twerking robots in a hall of mirrors, as if America had utterly surrendered its tattered soul to some rogue motherboard pulsing deep within Dr. Evil’s subterranean palace of sin. Hence it is the perfect analog for understanding otherwise incomprehensible happenings such as the USA’s role in fomenting further chaos and mayhem in Ukraine.

The morphing of “terrorism” and “domestic dissent” into an all encompassing and convenient category known as “domestic terrorists” or “domestic extremists” has been a long time coming. It has always been our contention, and continues to be, that the oligarchs who have funneled all of the wealth to themselves since the 2008 banker bailouts know exactly what they are doing. They also know that it will eventually result in severe domestic unrest during the next cyclical downturn. As such, the agenda has been to utilize the entirety of the intelligence-industrial-military complex created by the “war on terror” against the domestic population once it recognizes how badly it has been looted.

The United States government and the American people cannot contend with reality, because they do not know what the reality is. In America’s make-believe world, neoconservative toadies such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, set the Group-Think tone, while knowledgeable experts are tuned out. In effect, America is both blind and deaf. It lives in delusions. Consequently, it will destroy itself and perhaps the world.

When Eric Holder announced his resignation, many breathed a sigh of relief thinking it can’t get much worse, but not so fast. The authoritarian streak and rampant cronyism of the Obama administration is a well oiled machine. You didn’t think you’d get off that easily did you? Enter Loretta Lynch.

For decades, the rest of the planet has regarded the United States as “the land of opportunity” where almost anyone can be successful if they are willing to work hard. The “American Dream” has been transformed into a very twisted game of musical chairs. With each passing year, more people are falling out of the middle class, and most of the rest are scrambling really hard to keep their own places. Something has gone horribly wrong... We are the generation that gets to witness the end of the American Dream.

UPDATE: "CONSTRUCTIVE TALKS" are over: VAROUFAKIS SAYS WILL NOT ACCEPT SELF-PERPETUATING CRISIS

As Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem (of "template" foot in mouth infamy) heads to Athens for talks today, Bloomberg reports the new Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has a clear message for his European overlords of the past: “We don’t want the 7 billion euros...We want to sit down and rethink the whole program." While this exposes the nation's banking system to further runs, yesterday's revelation that Russia could step in with financing should they need it, leaves Dijsselbloem and Shulz with less and less leverage even as Spain's chief economic advisor warns, if Greece doesn't play along, "there will be problems on all fronts."

The latest corporate scam is to blame workers for the high unemployment rate. They say there is a skills gap. Even President Obama is in on the joke. The real skills gap is the other way around: too many skills for the low-wage menial jobs that pervade the labor market. The person who makes your coffee or your Big Mac might be able to design the next major bridge or write for The New York Times. Instead of high school kids cooking up your lunch, true professionals are behind the counter, and the future of the country is behind it too. The longer they stay there, the odds increase that America will take a permanent backseat in global power. In one short century, we have gone from superpower to super size me, a plutocracy, a nation that wasted its most valuable resource: the energy and innovation of its own people.

Shortly after yesterday’s open, the S&P 500 was down nearly 2% and off its recent all-time high by 3.5%. But soon the robo-machines and day traders were buying the “dip” having apparently once again gotten the “all-clear” signal. Don’t believe it for a second! The global financial system is literally booby-trapped with accidents waiting to happen owing to six consecutive years of massive money printing by nearly every central bank in the world.

Obama: "Middle-Class Economics works.."

Davos Hedge Fund Director: “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway...”