Saturday, May 31, 2014

World Bank warns of food riots as rising food prices push world populations toward revolt

http://www.naturalnews.com/045369_World_Bank_food_riots_emergency_preparedness.html

A new report issued by the World Bank (1) warns that food prices are skyrocketing globally, with wheat up 18 percent and corn up 12 percent this quarter. Ukraine, one of the largest wheat exporters in the world, has suffered a 73 percent increase in domestic wheat costs. Argentina has seen wheat prices skyrocket 70 percent.

According to the World Bank, these price increases have been caused primarily by three factors: 1) Sharply higher demand for food in China, 2) U.S. drought conditions that hammered wheat production, and 3) unrest in Ukraine due to the near state of war with Russia.


Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/045369_World_Bank_food_riots_emergency_preparedness.html#ixzz33LkiE7PL

MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST BLOG POSTS

Negative Interest Rates

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I do not quite understand negative interest rates. Can you explain what these people are doing now?
Thanks
GS
ANSWER: Very simple. You can lend me money. I then return only 98% and the 2% is what you pay for the privilege to lend me money. Makes sense from their point of view. They cannot lower rates to stimulate the economy so instead of considering their policies do not work – hell we just have to go lower yet.
They are too stupid to realize that taking interest rates this low wipes out the savers and the elderly. Then the raise taxes to make it unprofitable to invest. They then hate people who speculate or make money through investment. This whole theory of wealth disparity is nuts. It does NOT center on wages – rather investment. Those with savings invest and earn income greater than the average person earns in wages. So this is not fair in the mind of Piketty. What he is really saying, takeALL excess income these people earn from investing and give it to those who do not invest to raise their income to be on par with those who can then no longer invest.
Panhandler
Honestly, the thinking is rather strange and very twisted. They want you to be a fund manager and hand all your profits to the guy on the street with the cardboard sign. Hey, this guy is at least honest. I would give him something. Way too many say they need money for food and when you say no problem I will buy you a meal, they say just give me the money it’s for later.
So the bottom line is simple – negative interest rates is just a new way of TAXINGyou for saving – having the audacity to live above hand-to-mouth. This is just getting beyond insane – they are really out of their minds stir crazy.

Friday, May 30, 2014

Steven Starr: The Lethality of Nuclear Weapons

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/

Paul Craig Roberts held top security clearances. He has repeatedly warned that a US-Russian nuclear war would wipe out the human race, along with all other complex forms of life. As a scientist with expert knowledge, I wish to echo and explain his warning.

Couple Fined $746 For The Crime Of Feeding Homeless People In Florida Park

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-30/couple-fined-746-crime-feeding-homeless-people-florida-park

It is a well known historical trend that as discontent and dissent spread within a society, the power structure will look to demonize unpopular or weak minorities in order to deflect frustrations away from the true culprit, the power structure itself. If we want to see how the state and crony corporate status quo will treat everyone in the future, all you have to do is look at the current “war on the homeless.”

Weaponized Agriculture — Tom Mysiewicz

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/26/weaponized-agriculture-tom-mysiewicz/

Tom Mysiewicz is a biotechnologist. In this article he shares with us his conclusions about the dangers of GMO crops.
GMO CROPS…
BOON TO HUMANITY OR RECKLESS SCIENCE? 

OBAMA'S LYING PUBLIC MOUTHPIECE QUITS, NEW LIAR STEPS IN

CARNEY PROBABLY QUIT TO AVOID GETTING HUNG WHEN THE COUNTRY COLLAPSES. I DOUBT IT WAS BECAUSE OF HIS MORAL VALUES. NO ONE WILL WANT TO BE CAUGHT HOLDING THE HOT POTATO WHEN THE WHOLE HOUSE OF CARDS COLLAPSES.

BREAKING NEWSFriday, May 30, 2014 2:04 PM EDT
Jay Carney Resigns as White House Press Secretary; Josh Earnest Steps In
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, is leaving his post as the public face of the administration, stepping down after shifting from two decades of reporting to politics at the highest levels, President Obama said on Friday.
Mr. Obama, who announced Mr. Carney’s departure, said Mr. Carney will be replaced by Mr. Carney’s deputy, Josh Earnest.
Mr. Obama called Mr. Earnest a person of “sound judgment and great temperament.”

READ MORE »

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/us/white-house-press-secretary-resigns.html?emc=edit_na_20140530

MARTIN ARMSTRONG'S LATEST BLOG POSTS

Piketty – The Greatest Justification to Just Rob Anyone Who Has more Than You

Piketty-Thomas-3

We are seeing the most dangerous trend ever. There is an agenda behind the curtain and that is to sustain government at all costs and that includes everything you own. I have warned that either government will move toward a totalitarian state or to real democracy – real Athens style without the career politicians. This takes no secret agenda of sinister corporations, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, or Bildebergs. This is plain old Adam Smith where those in government will never admit they are wrong so the reason they are losing their grip on our politic-social-economy is because they just don’t have enough resources. Piketty did not appear out of nowhere. This is a coordinated assault to set the stage for massive taxation increases without a one-world government, just a one-world agreement to hunt down capital hiding everywhere. Exceptions may be China and Russia. Even the pretend conspirators inside the Bildebergs are getting nervous because there will be no exceptions. This is not fascism – it is old fashion totalitarianism. I fear those trying so hard to point people at the Bildebergs is a deliberate diversion from the Bureaucrats desperate for money.
saint-valentines-day-massacre

Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre
Governments are moving to eliminate our rights to exist as a free people. Obama has been trying to remove guns from people claiming he wants to end violence of the street. Fine – legalize drugs and you will eliminate the violence just as legalizing booze ended the war between the Mafia and Elliot Ness. Guns are already illegal with crime. So what. It does not stop anything. Obama has been buying up all the bullets to take guns away from the normal citizens so only the criminals will have guns but the people cannot revolt against the coming socialist war they are waging against your assets.
Summers LarryLarry Summers came out about the negative interest rates and we have see how suddenly that is introduced. He also said cash should be eliminated and we should go electronic. They will say this eliminates crime, but it is to eliminate tax evasion and fill the treasury.
Lagarde Christine imfThen there was the IMF papers telling the US it should raise its taxes to 80% and the rigged the numbers to say see – it will not harm the economy. Then Piketty comes out saying the same thing and his book as reached rockstar status. This is all selling an idea and taxes will go through the roof – this is why there is a civil war inside the Republican Party to purge it of all fiscal conservatives.
Here ia a good piece written about Piketty

Paul Volcker and the move Toward a New Bretton Woods

Volcker Paul - 1
Paul Volcker spoke at the annual meeting of the Bretton Woods Committee in Washington on May 21st, 2014. His remarks offer a guide that behind the curtain there are some who see the problems we face in the monetary system, albeit not yet that from a major perspective. There is still hope that balancing budgets will somehow lead to stability and returning to a fixed peg system among world currencies, although no backing of gold.
What is critical in his lecture is the fact that the need for monetary reform exists and the who will manage that need I believe he tends to lean toward the IMF, which I would say is a mistake. Those who think the United Nations would step in I do not see as realistic for there is way too much political distrust of that many nations being involved. Volcker is still willing to see either regional currencies or even a single currency for the reserve. Nevertheless, he speaks the truth insofar as the Euro experiment has been a total disaster. He saw that the free flow of capital among the member states could not offset the lack of a central banking/bond system and the lack of the ability to control fiscal spending of each member. This goes to the heart of the problem with Europe. A unified bond market would have created a stable currency that could have rivaled the dollar but that failure left the euro a highly dangerous currency that could collapse once confidence realized there was no unifying force.
BLUEFADE
REMARKS BY PAUL A. VOLCKER 
AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BRETTON WOODS COMMITTEE 
WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 21, 2014
A NEW BRETTON WOODS???
“The current travails of the Eurozone (the equivalent of an 
absolute fixed exchange rate regime) carry interesting lessons. 
A single currency with the free flows of funds among the member 
states simply could not substitute for the absence of a unified 
banking system and incentives for disciplined and complementary 
national economic policies.
That is all a long introduction to a plea – a plea for 
attention to the need for developing an international monetary 
and financial system worthy of our time. …
What is the approach (or presumably combination of approaches) that can better reconcile reasonably free and open markets with independent national policies, maintaining in the process the stability in markets and economies that is in the common interest? …
The creation of the G-20 at the exalted level of Presidents 
and Prime Ministers has been a political accomplishment. The 
agreed changes in IMF governing structure are important in 
achieving a sense of political legitimacy for its governing 
structure and decision-making. But that is not enough – it means 
little without substantive agreement on the need for monetary 
reform and practical approaches toward that end.
We are a long way from that. But what can be done now is to 
lay the intellectual ground work for approaches that can, for 
instance, identify and limit prolonged and ultimately 
unsustainable imbalances in national payments. We should be 
able, within a broad range, to manage exchange rates among major 6 
currencies in a manner that discourages the extreme changes that 
are inconsistent with orderly adjustment. We can and should 
consider ways and means of encouraging – even insisting upon – 
needed balance of payments equilibrium.
Nor would I reject some re-assessment of the use of a 
single national currency as the dominant international reserve 
and trading vehicle. For instance, do we want to encourage or 
discourage so important a development as regional trade and 
currency areas?
A new Bretton Woods conference? We are long ways from 
that. But surely events have raised, whether we want to admit it 
or not, some fundamental questions that have been ignored for 
decades. …
All that has happened reinforces what we typically affirm: a 
strong, innovative and stable financial system is fundamental to 
open trade and to the prosperity of all nations. Participation 
in such a beneficial system that has become truly international 
implies certain responsibilities.  …
Can we not, in approaching that challenge, restore 
something of the spirit and conviction that characterized the 
planning, the negotiation and the management of the Bretton 
Woods System that I once knew 50 years ago? Our host today, the 
Bretton Woods Committee lights the candle, but we have a long 
way to go.

Gold & the Black Market & $50,000

COMMODITIES-GOLD-METALS-PRICE-SRILANKA
QUESTION: Martin,
I’ve written you a few times and greatly appreciate the replies and posts on your blog. As I have mentioned before, I worked for a metals dealer that traded on margin and caught a substantial amount if heat for being a bear w silver at 50 and gold at 1900+. I shorted silver the day you called the turning point. Unfortunately, most brokers on the floor had no interest in reading your 90+ page reports at the time, to try to learn the truth.
If I weren’t turned into you by Mr 50,000 gold, both myself and my clients would have lost a substantial amount of money. Not to mention future income derived by maintaining the trust of my clients throughout these past few years, and I’m certain the income I have lost over the past few years will come back sevenfold.
My question tonight is regarding financial privacy. Like you, I believe that high net worth investors should purchase gold, not for financial gain, but to hold assets out of the spying eyes of the gvmt. Like you, I also believe that we are heading towards digital currency (Israel is taking the reigns from what I have read) and negative nominal interest rates. Once the digital currency hits the shores of the USAA in full force, how does one liquidate their gold holdings in a private manner? Will the have to smuggle metal out if the country to be paid in cash? Will there be a black market for hard cash in the states? Ultimately, how does gold help protect folks from an out of control government?
Any advise is greatly appreciated.
Best wishes,
R
ANSWER: Let me begin by making it very clear that I do not read what other people write. Not that I do not respect other’s opinions, it is just that I have no time. Secondly, opinion does not mean much, even my own. Nobody’s opinion can be always right. My comments about $50,000 gold were not based on Jim Dines nor any reference regarding growing tired of pontificating by people who have zero experience. I would never engage in name-calling or other personal attacks. Lowering yourself to that level demonstrates you have nothing left to argue with and are in fact just hot air. Any reference was made in general to numerous people who pontificate with zero experience (new-comers) who have the audacity to pretend they know what really goes on by osmosis.

I was referring to people’s comments that come in expressed in emails with no particular person even named just coughed in question. This is not a personal game to me. I do not need money so I do not have to bullshit to get readers to sell them something or to prove a point to anyone. Nor do I interpret everything in the world with a conspiracy with no proof to justify my theory. I do not need to hear myself talk and would love to hide out on a beach away from this insane world.
Nobody will ever have 100% of any market so why bother? Everyone would never follow a single “opinion” for that is against human nature. If I said the sky is blue, someone will disagree and say it is dark blue and therefore I am wrong so do not listen to anything else I have to say. That is the essence of egotistical corruption that was the driving force behind communism – denial of freedom of speech. They cook the numbers like Pikittey to sell a preconceived idea. This should always be about expanding our knowledge since nobody is born all knowledgeable. That is the journey of life. When it is time to stop learning it is time to check out.
If I wanted to kiss-ass, so to speak, I would run for politics. NO THANKS! I have no interest in singling anyone out to disagree with. I know how the game works and Piketty’s book is not merely his personal opinion, it is about a false agenda that is not even his alone. That is a different category to me. We all have opinions and I am not about to ridicule someone like Jim Dines just because we may disagree on a price.. Besides, opinions are never consistent and forecasting the future based upon opinion is a fool’s game.
Those who close their mind because of bias or are “married to some idea” be it one-world government, dark conspiracies, secret societies, in the end only block themselves from advancing in knowledge by insisting they are never wrong it is always everyone else. These types of people know everything, ridicule anything that disagrees with their beliefs, and are thus incapable of ever advancing in life destined to die as ignorant as they came in. This are the personalty types that burned Bruno at the stake, imprisoned Galileo for life, and are generally intolerant of anyone who has a different view. When they cannot attack the evidence or reasoning, you attack the messenger.
I enjoy this field because I continue to learn nuances every day for as much as you think you have seen everything, there is always something new around the next corner. What has emerged is by no means my OPINION, yet people try to attack me as if it were because that is all they have – opinions. I did not come up with a theory of capital flows, I discovered that and I have the clients to thank for my global view. They made me see that I had to do forecasting in every currency or they were not interested.
That said; I received emails about others saying that number in gold of $50,000 – not Jim Dines.Perhaps they plagiarized him – I do not know who was first. As I have said, $50,000 is not a real gold target for me because it is not about opinion. To see gold above even $10,000 requires the assumption that the dollar decline placing such a move in the realm of currency inflation. For that to take place you must see a like advance in everything else, real estate, wages etc.. The maximum price projection for 2032 seems to be the $22,000 to $24,000 dollar level. That is derived purely technically – not my opinion or what I think. That is not even a forecast saying that is where it will rise to reach by 2032. That is just what it is – answering a question as to how high is it possible FROM A TECHNICALperspective for gold to reach. If that was reached and there was a collapse, you will not hear me say see I am better or some other stupid childish remarks. I am concerned with timing and price that are two separate and distinct model designs.
That aside, gold is not an “institutional” investment for it offers only costs and risks to hold producing no income for cash flow. Gold is purely a retail product. It cannot get off the ground institutionally.
US$20Gold-pile
For the individuals it is one way to get off the grid, although they do track who is buying and how much. You cannot hop on a plane anymore and carrying a brief case full of gold bullion will only justify its confiscation. We have to be concerned about our financial privacy, which the government has converted to a crime of “money laundering” that amounts to just hiding money from their reach. True, high net worth investors should purchase gold, not for financial gain, but as the hedge against government, which it appears we may need in the years ahead. We are headed into negative interest rates and a new world of digital currency for then nothing will be private. Those who think they can create their own currency – good luck. Ain’t gonna happen. It is government that has the tanks – not the Rothschild.
The digital currency will come AFTER 2015.75. Those who thought they were clever and think they can make tax-free income in Bitcoin, all I have to say is – been there done that. There were tax straddles that allowed people to push income from one year to the next using futures. They were sold by the major brokerage houses in the late 1970s. The IRS allows such schemes to progress, then hits them with huge interest, penalties, and sometimes criminal prosecutions. If anyone thinks they can use Bitcoin tax-free – good luck. You are probably destined for real tax-free living at the closest Federal prison. Don’t worry, like Motel 6 – they will keep the light on for ya.
“How does one liquidate their gold holdings in a private manner?” Good luck. The French went after coins shows requiring that they report all attendees. The shows no longer go to Paris. The coin and bullion dealers were by law in France barred from dealing in cash. The French started to travel to Belgium to buy and sell gold. The French complained to Belgium and hence we now have coordinated G20 level monitoring. So gold may no longer provide the easy way to facilitate life as it once did. It will depend upon someone taking it in barter and to understand that possibility, you have to use coins – not bars. I know gold refiners and they must report every gram in and out even if it is coming in and out from overseas. So the Feds know who buys and sells metals.
“Will the have to smuggle metal out if the country to be paid in cash?” There comes the metal detectors and Xrays. Then just traveling with more than even $3,000 is a presumption of guilt and they get to just seize it. Perhaps now you are starting to get a feel for why the NSA really monitors everything. We did not support Ukraine with boots on the ground because there was no profit compared to Iraq that filled to coffers of friends of the court and family members. The NSA has really been tracking money more so than terrorists it could not detect like the Boston Bombers.
“Will there be a black market for hard cash in the states? Ultimately, how does gold help protect folks from an out of control government?” Gold may still be viable outside of the major cities the further you get off the grid. However, keep in mind that absent moving too far into a Dark Age where even gold loses all value, such a period historically tends to last 3.5 to 6 years max. Dark Ages you multiply that by 100.
1907 $20 Gold Coins
This is why I recommend collector’s coins dated prior to 1947. Regular common date $20 gold pieces are probably best. They were not confiscated only because Teddy Roosevelt had been an ancient coin collector. That will lend a bit more cover rather than pure bullion. You can always argue its your coin collection – not bullion. Depends upon the judge.
Gold-Jewelry
You can also place gold in jewelry as in ancient times. There are Ancient Egyptian pieces. I suppose I could ask the jeweler who makes the coins up for us what it would be to create 24k bracelets like this for those really looking hard. I have no idea. But this would get by most TSA people.