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Revolving door 2014: Former Head of the Federal Communications Commission joins Carlyle

Carlyle Group
© Peu Report
What better way to kick off 2014 than with the first (and most certainly not last) egregious example of USA banana republic revolving door crony capitalism. In this case, the crony in question is former head of theFederal Communications Commission (FCC), Julius Genachowski, who was earlier today named Managing Director and partner in the U.S. Buyout team for private equity giant Carlyle Group. Carlyle is so giddy about its latest example of regulatory capture, they issued a glowing press release on the matter. Here are some excerpts:
Tech & Media Business Executive and Former Head of U.S. Federal Communications Commission Will Focus on Global Technology, Media and Telecom Investments

Will Help Carlyle Further Capitalize on Internet and Mobile Revolution

Washington, DC - Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) today named Julius Genachowski a Managing Director and partner in the U.S. Buyout team. He will focus on investments in global technology, media and telecom, including Internet and mobile. Mr. Genachowski is returning to the private sector after serving as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for four years, departing last May. He is an accomplished leader and expert in technology, media and telecom and brings to Carlyle almost 20 years of experience in the space. Mr. Genachowski joins Carlyle today and will be based in Washington, DC.

Since leaving the FCC, Mr. Genachowski has taught a joint class at Harvard's Business and Law Schools, and served as a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute, the non-partisan education and policy organization. Over the course of his career, he has been a Special Adviser at General Atlantic, a board member and advisor to several public and private companies, and a law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Since inception, Carlyle has deployed on a global basis more than $18 billion in equity in investments in the technology, media and telecom sectors. Investments include Syniverse Technologies, Nielsen, Dex Media, AMC Entertainment, Insight Communications, CommScope and SS&C Technologies.
Congrats Mr. Genachowski, this is your big payday.

Newspaper

Ezra Klein to leave WaPo after Jeff Bezos kills $10M dream project

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© BreitbartEzra Klein
As new owner Jeff Bezos begins his tenure as the head man for the Washington Post, Wonkblog editor Ezra Klein is reportedly making plans to exit the paper after being denied funding for a pet project.

Klein built a media presence on the Internet, newspapers, and TV as a "wonk" at a young age. Now, he apparently wants to expand his reach in the media with an extensive new website that he wanted the Washington Post to fund.

As described by The New York Times, the project would be a "a new website dedicated to explanatory journalism on a wide range of topics beyond political policy."

After presenting his plan to the Post's publisher Katharine Weymouth and editor Marty Baron, the major website project - costing eight figures, according to the Times' sources - was rejected by Weymouth and the paper's new owner, Jeff Bezos.

Gear

Hillary Clinton: Betrayal that whitewash won't cover

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Transparency, the current vogue word for truth-telling, is usually a good thing, unless you're trying to fool all the people some of the time, like spending 7,000 words to resurrect a fairy tale in Benghazi, all to give a helping hand to a lady in distress.

The New York Times understands that Hillary Clinton is likely to be the only credible hope the Democrats have for 2016 and that she already needs lots of remedial help. The Times huffed and puffed to deliver an excuse for betrayal in Benghazi, meant to second Mrs. Clinton's famous alibi for her tortured misfeasance as secretary of state - "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

The right response might have made a lot of difference to an American ambassador who lay dead, slain at the hands of Islamic terrorists, and three other Americans who had to give up their lives because nobody at the White House could be bothered to ride to the rescue. President Obama and his frightened and timid acolytes, including Mrs. Clinton, insisted that this was not Islamic terror or the perfidy of al Qaeda, but merely the reaction of innocent Muslims offended by a video posted on YouTube mocking the religion of the Prophet Muhammad.

Even after the White House dispatched Susan Rice, who was then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to push the confection about the video as revealed truth, almost nobody believed it. The White House couldn't even find anybody else who would say he believed it.

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Three warning signs that a financial crash is imminent

DJIA
© UnknownDow Jones Industrial Average
For years, prophets of profit have warned us that the next stock market crash "will be soon", and that such a crash will be utter catastrophic. Farber, Celente, et al., have told us that such a crash will be epic and that life as we know it will be forever changed. There are some that challenge their assertions because of fondness for the Gold Market. Many take their advice because they are conservative - play-it-safe investors.

But hearing the same wailing for years does no one any good unless you can see the threat.

Seeing a threat makes it personal. It makes it "in your face" where you MUST deal with it.

Our ancestors could see the tracks of a beast, and knew that danger was near. How near?

They couldn't know unless they saw the creature.

Welcome to our financial beast. It's right in front of you.

These three warning signs are brand new to the news, but we've told you in the past to be ready and how to prepare for it.

Eye 1

The NSA beast refuses to deny spying on members of Congress

Sen. Bernie Sanders
© Brendan Smialowski/Getty ImagesSen. Bernie Sanders
"Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other elected officials?"

That's the question Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) put to the National Security Agency's chief in a bluntly worded letter Friday. It seems, however, that the agency cannot categorically say no.

Sanders didn't use the word "spy" lightly. He was careful to define his terms, indicating he meant the collection of phone records from personal as well as official telephones, "content from Web sites visited or e-mails sent," and data that companies collect but don't release to the public.

When asked by The Washington Post, an NSA spokesman said that the agency's privacy safeguards are effective at covering all Americans.

"Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons," the spokesman said. "We are reviewing Sen. Sanders's letter now, and we will continue to work to ensure that all members of Congress, including Sen. Sanders, have information about NSA's mission, authorities, and programs to fully inform the discharge of their duties."

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Billionaires Dumping Stocks

Despite the 6.5% stock market rally over the last three months, a handful of billionaires are quietly dumping their American stocks . . . and fast.

Warren Buffett, who has been a cheerleader for U.S. stocks for quite some time, is dumping shares at an alarming rate. He recently complained of "disappointing performance" in dyed-in-the-wool American companies like Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Kraft Foods.

In the latest filing for Buffett's holding company Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett has been drastically reducing his exposure to stocks that depend on consumer purchasing habits. Berkshire sold roughly 19 million shares of Johnson & Johnson, and reduced his overall stake in "consumer product stocks" by 21%. Berkshire Hathaway also sold its entire stake in California-based computer parts supplier Intel.

With 70% of the U.S. economy dependent on consumer spending, Buffett's apparent lack of faith in these companies' future prospects is worrisome.

Unfortunately Buffett isn't alone.

Newspaper

Chinese tycoon to make move to buy The New York Times

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© Commons.wikimedia.org
The New York Times in the hands of a Chinese owner? Shares rose this week to a five-year high at the notion of Chinese business tycoon Chen Guangbiao's reported push to buy a controlling interest in the company.

Mr. Chen is reportedly going to meet a shareholder to discuss the possible purchase this weekend, The New York Post said. But the Sulzberger family still owns the bulk of shares in the company and says it's not selling - despite pressure from investors over the past few years to overcome its financial woes.

But Mr. Chen insists Times Co. could be bought, for the right amount of money.

"There's nothing that can't be bought for the right price," he said, The New York Post reported.

Star of David

And Yahweh said: You have the right

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© Christian StormRabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, the lone whistleblower among the Satmar, a powerful Hasidic sect, who recently was the victim of a bleach attack in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg - who is 63 with a long, graying beard - recently sat down with me to explain what he described as a "child-rape assembly line" among sects of fundamentalist Jews. He cleared his throat. "I'm going to be graphic," he said.

A member of Brooklyn's Satmar Hasidim fundamentalist branch of Orthodox Judaism, Nuchem designs and repairs mikvahs in compliance with Torah Law. The mikvah is a ritual Jewish bathhouse used for purification. Devout Jews are required to cleanse themselves in the mikvah on a variety of occasions: women must visit following menstruation, and men have to make an appearance before the High Holidays such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many of the devout also purify themselves before and after the act of sex, and before the Sabbath.

On a visit to Jerusalem in 2005, Rabbi Rosenberg entered into a mikvah in one of the holiest neighborhoods in the city, Mea She'arim. "I opened a door that entered into a schvitz," he told me. "Vapors everywhere, I can barely see. My eyes adjust, and I see an old man, my age, long white beard, a holy-looking man, sitting in the vapors. On his lap, facing away from him, is a boy, maybe seven years old. And the old man is having anal sex with this boy."

Rabbi Rosenberg paused, gathered himself, and went on: "This boy was speared on the man like an animal, like a pig, and the boy was saying nothing. But on his face - fear. The old man [looked at me] without any fear, as if this was common practice. He didn't stop. I was so angry, I confronted him. He removed the boy from his penis, and I took the boy aside. I told this man, 'It's a sin before God, a mishkovzucher. What are you doing to this boy's soul? You're destroying this boy!' He had a sponge on a stick to clean his back, and he hit me across the face with it. 'How dare you interrupt me!' he said. I had heard of these things for a long time, but now I had seen."

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Flashback Foreign Banks lock out Americans over new tax law

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© CNN MoneyJimmy Sexton, an American, was forced to close his checking account at Volksbank in Austria earlier this year.
Americans, take your money elsewhere!

That's what banks around the world have been telling their U.S. customers, as they try to avoid having to comply with a new tax law due to come into force next year.

Jimmy Sexton, an American, was forced to close his checking account at Volksbank in Austria earlier this year. And Genevieve Besser, an American living in Germany, was given two months notice last year to close her securities account at ING-Diba, the German arm of Dutch bank ING (INGVF).

The U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires businesses to report all assets held by Americans, aims to recoup the hundreds of billions the U.S. says it loses each year from tax evasion. But it's also leading global banks big and small to dump U.S. customers rather than wrestle with the complicated law.

"U.S. citizens living abroad are really having a hard time with their banks," said Gerard Laures, a partner in the financial services tax division at KPMG.

Proper compliance -- which means reporting everything from basic savings accounts, pension funds, investments, and more -- could easily cost institutions millions each year, he estimated. And penalties are severe; businesses face a 30% tax on U.S.-sourced income if they fail to comply.

"Many banks have taken the decision to tell U.S. customers to go away," Laures said.

Question

North Korean Dictator rumored to have executed his uncle by starving dogs

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© Rodong Sinmun/Yonhap via ReutersKim Jone Un's uncle Jang Song Thaek is dragged into court by uniformed personnel prior to last month's execution.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful uncle was stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs, according to a newspaper with close ties to China's ruling Communist Party.

The man who was believed to be in charge of training his young nephew to take over was executed as a traitor, indicating a shake-up in Kim Jong Un's regime. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

Jang Song Thaek, who had been considered Kim's second-in-command, was executed last month after being found guilty of "attempting to overthrow the state," North Korea's state-run news agency reported.

The official North Korean account on Dec. 12 did not specify how Jang was put to death.

U.S. officials told NBC News on Friday that they could not confirm the reports. "This is not ringing any bells here," said one senior official.

Hong Kong-based pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po reported that Jang and his five closest aides were set upon by 120 hunting hounds which had been starved for five days.

Kim and his brother Kim Jong Chol supervised the one-hour ordeal along with 300 other officials, according to Wen Wei Po. The newspaper added that Jang and other aides were "completely eaten up."

The newspaper has acted as a mouthpiece for China's Communist Party. The report may be a sign of the struggle between those in the party who want to remain engaged with North Korea and those who would like to distance themselves from Kim's regime.

Comment: This is ONLY a rumor.