Puppet MastersS


Gold Coins

Austerity measures? UK's super-rich aren't starving, ain't jobless nor homeless and double wealth over past decade!


RT
Sun, 26 Apr 2015 05:58 UTC
Super Rich
© Getty Images for Warner Music Group/AFP/ReutersLen Blavatnik (left), Galen Weston (center), Srichand Hinduja (right)
As the EU tries to battle its way out of financial crisis, the British mega rich continue to gain capital, according to the Sunday Times' Rich List. It revealed that during the past 10 years the top one percent's fortunes more than doubled in the UK. The combined assets owned by the 1,000 wealthiest individuals in the UK have hit a new high of £547 billion ($831 billion), up from £250 billion posted in 2005.

All these gains came flooding in despite surging unemployment rates all over Europe, creeping deflation fears and overall economic slowdown. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly competitive for the rich to find a place among the top 1,000 spot, with a minimum fortune of £100 million required. Sunday Times published its list on April 26, revealing the names of 117 billionaires, with 80 of them residing in London.

Rich Pig
© iStockphoto
On top of the list is the Ukrainian businessman Len Blavatnik with £13.17 billion, taking the spot for the very first time as well as pushing the brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja with £13 billion out of the lead and into the second place.

One of Blavatnik's successful assets includes the Warner Music Group, which was purchased in 2011. The third spot went to the Galen and George Weston and family whose estimated worth is £11 billion.

However, some of the billionaires suffered some losses, including steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, whose fortune dropped to £9.2 billion and Chelsea Football Club chairman Roman Abramovich's assets plunged to £7.29 billion. The list compiles the individuals' land and property as well as financial assets like shares, but excludes bank accounts.

Comment: What are the world's richest up to?
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Red Flag

Banks increasingly refuse cash withdrawals - Switzerland joins the fun

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Sat, 25 Apr 2015 17:15 UTC
Swiss National Bank headquarters
© Daniel RohrSwiss National Bank headquarters

The war on cash is proliferating globally. It appears that the private members of the world's banking cartels are increasingly joining the fun, even if it means trampling on the rights of their customers.

Yesterday we came across an article at Zerohedge, in which Dr. Salerno of the Mises Institute notes that JP Morgan Chase has apparently joined the "war on cash", by "restricting the use of cash in selected markets, restricting borrowers from making cash payments on credit cards, mortgages, equity lines and auto loans, as well as prohibiting storage of cash in safe deposit boxes".

This reminded us immediately that we have just come across another small article in the local European press (courtesy of Dan Popescu), in which a Swiss pension fund manager discusses his plight with the SNB's bizarre negative interest rate policy. In Switzerland this policy has long ago led to negative deposit rates at the commercial banks as well. The difference to other jurisdictions is however that negative interest rates have become so pronounced, that it is by now worth it to simply withdraw one's cash and put it into an insured vault.

Having realized this, said pension fund manager, after calculating that he would save at least 25,000 CHF per year on every CHF 10 m. deposit by putting the cash into a vault, told his bank that he was about to make a rather big withdrawal very soon. After all, as a pension fund manager he has a fiduciary duty to his clients, and if he can save money based on a technicality, he has to do it.

Comment: The 'war on cash' continues as the next economic crash looks imminent:

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Bad Guys

U.S. Military performing drills in public, Army manual states need to 'reeducate dissidents on U.S. soil'


RT
Fri, 24 Apr 2015 21:57 UTC
Image
© Reuters / James Lawler DugganRick Scott of security contractor Camber Corp impersonates a hostile shooter during a training exercise at Quantico Middle High School in Quantico, Virginia
US Army field manuals admit that public drills are aimed at dealing with political dissidents that need to be "reeducated to gain a new appreciation of US policies," Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars Editor at Large told RT's In the Now.

RT: The police in the US are accused more than ever now of militarization. A video has appeared online showing armed national guardsmen conducting exercises near a children's playground in Virginia. We contacted the infantry brigade - here's what they told us: coordination was made with the Staunton Police Department, these are freshers who are training on basic military subjects like drill and ceremonies, basic first aid, military courtesies and the guns they carry are replicas. What is wrong with it?

Paul Joseph Watson: What is wrong with that is the fact that they are doing it not on base but in public. And we have to put this in the context of a spate of videos which have emerged in the recent weeks with not only National Guard but US Army troops in some cases working with police conducting these public drills which in some cases, not in this case but others, are based around crowd control and civil unrest. And the line they always give us that it's designed for overseas combat, foreign operations. But if you then read the US Army's actual manuals that they release, it's clear that it's for dual purpose, it's for "dissidents" on US soil. So the media regurgitate this claim that all these drills are just foreign operations. Yet they are doing it in public, in plain sight, while privately in their own field manuals admitting that it's to take on "dissidents within the continental US." That's why people are concerned about it and a lot of our audience is National Guard or former or current US military. They are concerned about these public drills. They didn't enlist to police the US people which is a lot of this seems to be geared towards.

Comment: While there may be genuine concern of more violent political unrest in the USA, if there were a sufficiently hyped 'national emergency' all these programs could easily be implemented in order to create a domestic situation eerily similar to Nazi Germany. If we look at a brief sample of news from around the world, we see that the probability of such a scenario seems to be increasing daily:

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Bad Guys

The Trans-Pacific Partnership will usher in the death of the republic

Ellen Hodgson Brown
Dissident Voice
Fri, 24 Apr 2015 21:46 UTC
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. — Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
TPP
© wilderutopia.com
A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law.

In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as "a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . ."

On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.

Comment: For more on the TPP see:

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Dollars

Losing the War on Drugs: Russian drug czar claims global drug market approaching scale of oil & gas industry


RT
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:41 UTC
stacks of drugs
© Reuters / Ricardo Rojas
The dark underworld of drug trafficking will soon be bigger than the world's $3.7 trillion oil and gas market, and is already bigger than the global auto industry, the director of Russia's drug control agency said.

"We see that drug trade is a significant part of the global economy. Unfortunately we have to state today that the drug traffic market is bigger than the automotive industry and its volume is approaching that of the oil and gas sector," Viktor Ivanov said during a ministry meeting with BRICS countries to discuss the war on drugs.

Ivanov singled out Afghanistan and South America as major drug production hubs, noting that more than 80 percent of heroin is produced in Afghanistan and 100 percent of cocaine in South America, by his estimates.


Comment: Interesting that Afghan heroin production only increased to that level after the US invaded. Coincidence?


"Unfortunately, production has once again started to increase in the so-called Golden Triangle of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos," said Ivanov.

Comment: Seeing as how the War on Drugs is a complete failure and one that cannot be won, perhaps it's time to focus our collective attention on issues of real import. Like the pedophiles running our governments.

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Passport

Whoops, how'd those get there? Iraqi fighters find Israeli weapons in ISIS position


FARS News Agency
Thu, 23 Apr 2015 15:27 UTC
israeli rifles
© AP Photo/ Sakchai Lalit
Iraqi volunteer forces, Hashid Shaabi, found Israeli-made weapons in a position of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists in Anbar province on Thursday.

According to Al-Mayadeen television, the Iraqi volunteer forces found Israeli-made weapons in an ISIL position in al-Karmah city in Anbar province.

The ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently control shrinking swathes of Syria and Iraq. They have threatened all communities, including Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Ezadi Kurds and others, as they continue their atrocities in Iraq.

Senior Iraqi officials have blamed Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and some Persian Gulf Arab states for the growing terrorism in their country.

Comment: The Iraqis know what's really going on, and their politicians regularly tell the truth about the origins of ISIS. Good luck hearing ANY of it on CNN, NBC, FOX, whatever. See also:

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Chess

Putin pushes to increase domestic food production quickly


RT
Wed, 22 Apr 2015 14:39 UTC
Putin and Tkachyov
© RIA Novosti / Michael KlimentyevPresident Vladimir Putin (R) and Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachyov
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tasked the new Agriculture Minister Aleksandr Tkachyov with strengthening the sector and solving import substitution goal quickly. Western food imports have been banned following the US and EU anti-Russia sanctions.

The president has instructed new Agriculture Minister Tkachyov and his predecessor Nikolai Fyodorov, who has become a presidential aide, to work closely with the regions to develop the sector, focusing on import substitution.

"We need to fill our market with the products of our own domestic producers, and it should be done quickly in order to ease pressure on the food market, decrease prices, and so on," Putin said.

New Agriculture Minister Tkachyov has been the governor of Krasnodar Russia's key wheat-producing region since 2000. He took over from Fyodorov, who has been at the helm of the Agriculture Ministry since 2012.

Comment: More than just easing pressure on the food market and decreasing prices, this push by Putin to increase domestic food production could be seen as a strategic move to increase Russia's self-reliance in preparation for when the global economy tanks and those dependent on foreign food imports will starve. This kind of forward thinking could just save Russia from experiencing a total collapse after the US dollar implodes, and takes most of the developed world with it.

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Attention

Ukrainian Army commanders asking Donbass self-defence forces to open fire at Azov battalion


ITAR-TASS
Sat, 25 Apr 2015 14:44 UTC
Image
© EPA/ANASTASIA VLASOVA
Ukrainian Armed Forces' officers use open communication lines to make contacts with the officers of self-defence forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, in the course of which they ask to open fire at the highly controversial Azov 'volunteer' battalions, Eduard Basurin, the spokesman for the DPR Defence Ministry said.

They accompany their requests by references to the battalion's total uncontrollability.

Comment: Interesting twist to events in Ukraine.

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Wolf

Holocaust vs. Paedophilia - in UK one matters more than the other

Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon Blog
Fri, 24 Apr 2015 10:47 UTC
Holocaust vs. Paedophilia
Allison Pearson wrote in The Telegraph two days ago, "As Oskar Groening, the so-called Accountant of Auschwitz, goes on trial at the age of 93 for his complicity in war crimes, the 86-year-old Labour peer Greville Janner is excused prosecution for 22 alleged sexual offences against nine boys in his Leicestershire constituency, from the 1960s to the 1980s, because he is suffering from 'severe dementia'."

Pearson is spot on. While Groening is merely a Goy and a German, Lord Janner is a Jew and not just an ordinary Jew, but a quite prominent one. From 1978 to 1984 Lord Janner was the chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, an institution that claims to "represent British Jews." Lord Janner is also dominant in the field of holocaust education. He is clearly concerned with Jewish suffering but apparently dismissive of the shoah he is accused of inflicting on minor boys at the same time he represented British Jews.

Apparently there has been long and ongoing massive whitewash operation for Lord Janner, allowing him to conceal his alleged egregious sex crimes. The BBC revealed recently that as early as "1989 a detective sergeant was told not to arrest Mr Janner or search his home."

Unlike German elder Oskar Groening who stands trial for being an 'instrument in a mass murder,' whatever that means; Lord Greville Janner is not going to be arrested or charged. Lord Janner is free and he has not wasted his freedom. Apparently the elder Lord who suffers 'severe dementia,' has been active in transferring and concealing his wealth, presumably in case a few of his alleged victims decide they deserve compensation for the shoah he inflicted on them.

Comment: The elite protect their own. This scandal extends world-wide, but prosecuting all but the lowest ranking offenders is nigh on impossible.

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Eye 1

Turkey foreign ministry condemns Putin's words on Armenian genocide


ITAR-TASS
Fri, 24 Apr 2015 22:24 UTC
Image
© Alexei Nikolsky/Russian presidential press service/TASSArmenia's president Serzh Sargsyan, Russia's president Vladimir Putin, France's president Francois Hollande and president of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades during a flower laying ceremony at the Armenian Genocide memorial complex.
Turkey has condemned the statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin calling the 1915 events in the Ottoman Empire genocide, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

"Despite our warnings and appeals, Russian President Vladimir Putin evaluated the events of 1915 as genocide," the statement says. "We do not accept it and condemn it. Such political statements that are a direct violation of law can have no legal effect."

Turkey's Foreign Ministry noted that "Russia should better know what genocide is like and what legal aspects it has."

"We know that once in ten years the [State] Duma [lower house of Russia's parliament] has a habit of making political statements which support Armenia's one-sided interests," it said. "Duma did not break this tradition and on April 24, 2015 issued a respective statement. We condemn it, too."

Comment: Good to hear Putin call the Armenian Genocide for what it is.

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