Puppet MastersS


Megaphone

Brazil's Rousseff blasts U.S. spying as breach of law

Daniel Trotta
Reuters
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 10:50 UTC
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© REUTERS/Shannon StapletonBrazil's President Dilma Rousseff addresses the 68th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 24, 2013.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff used her position as the opening speaker at the U.N. General Assembly to accuse the United States of violating human rights and international law through espionage that included spying on her email.

Rousseff had expressed her displeasure last week by calling off a high-profile state visit to the United States scheduled for October over reports that the U.S. National Security Agency had been spying on Brazil.

In unusually strong language, Rousseff launched a blistering attack on U.S. surveillance, calling it an affront to Brazilian sovereignty and "totally unacceptable."

"Tampering in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and, as such, it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations," Rousseff told the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.
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Wolf

Michelle Obama has nearly 2 million fake Twitter followers

Josh Peterson
The Daily Caller
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 10:46 UTC
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Nearly 2 million of First Lady Michelle Obama's Twitter followers are not real.

According to the Twitter analytics application Status People, 37 percent of Michelle Obama's 5,290, 506 Twitter followers - or approximately 1,957,487 followers - are considered fake. Thirty-five percent of her followers are inactive, and 28 percent are considered "good," or real.

Michelle Obama's account is run by Organizing for Action, and sent its last Tweet on March 4. It was a retweet of a message sent by the Twitter account of the First Lady's Let's Move initiative.
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Health

One man's ObamaCare nightmare

Jim Angle
Fox News
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 10:40 UTC
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Andy and Amy Mangione of Louisville, Ky. and their two boys are just the kind of people who should be helped by ObamaCare. But they recently got a nasty surprise in the mail.

"When I saw the letter when I came home from work," Andy said, describing the large red wording on the envelope from his insurance carrier, "(it said) 'your action required, benefit changes, act now.' Of course I opened it immediately."

It had stunning news. Insurance for the Mangiones and their two boys,which they bought on the individual market, was going to almost triple in 2014 --- from $333 a month to $965.

The insurance carrier made it clear the increase was in order to be compliant with the new health care law.
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Brick Wall

Cruz launches filibuster in opposition to Obamacare

Ed O'Keefe and Paul Kane
Washington Post
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 10:27 UTC
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has the backing of the tea party and has received plenty of attention, and even buzz about a presidential run in 2016.
Continuing his vow to keep speaking against the new federal health-care law "until I am no longer able to stand," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) continued with his marathon speech modeled on old-fashioned filibusters Tuesday evening in hopes of slowing debate over a short-term spending measure.

"I rise today in opposition to Obamacare," Cruz announced as he began his remarks Tuesday afternoon, saying he would be speaking on behalf of millions of Texans and Americans opposed to the new health-care law.

"A great many Texans, a great many Americans feel they do not have a voice, and so I hope to play some very small role in providing the voice," he said.

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Dollars

Quantitative easing worked for the Weimar Republic for a little while too

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Wed, 25 Sep 2013 05:04 UTC
Wheelbarrow of money
© Unknown
There is a reason why every fiat currency in the history of the world has eventually failed. At some point, those issuing fiat currencies always find themselves giving in to the temptation to wildly print more money. Sometimes, the motivation for doing this is good. When an economy is really struggling, those that have been entrusted with the management of that economy can easily fall for the lie that things would be better if people just had "more money". Today, the Federal Reserve finds itself faced with a scenario that is very similar to what the Weimar Republic was facing nearly 100 years ago. Like the Weimar Republic, the U.S. economy is also struggling and like the Weimar Republic, the U.S. government is absolutely drowning in debt. Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve has decided to adopt the same solution that the Weimar Republic chose. The Federal Reserve is recklessly printing money out of thin air, and in the short-term some positive things have come out of it. But quantitative easing worked for the Weimar Republic for a little while too. At first, more money caused economic activity to increase and unemployment was low. But all of that money printing destroyed faith in German currency and in the German financial system and ultimately Germany experienced an economic meltdown that the world is still talking about today. This is the path that the Federal Reserve is taking America down, but most Americans have absolutely no idea what is happening.
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Target

Best of the Web: Prolonging Pain: Sanctions on Iran over nukes hurt most vulnerable


RT
Wed, 25 Sep 2013 05:02 UTC
Iran's been reaching out to world powers to settle the impasse over its nuclear programme ahead of the nation's upcoming address to the UN General Assembly. The stand-off has dragged on for years, and now the country's new leader Hassan Rouhani pledged to re-start peace talks in return for an easing of painful sanctions. And as RT's Paula Slier reports, the restrictions are hurting the most vulnerable.


Comment: The way in which economic sanctions target the state is through the people... they purposely target the people who - it is hoped - will blame their government and thus pressure them into submission before the High Court of U.S. Imperialism, or rise up and overthrow their leaders, presenting opportunities for the U.S. to insert its choice of leadership.

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Better Earth

Best of the Web: Rouhani surfs the new WAVE

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online
Wed, 25 Sep 2013 04:49 UTC
Hasan Rouhani
© AP Photo/Brendan McDermid, PoolHasan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addresses the 68th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters, Tuesday.
He came. He listened. And he surfed.
"I listened carefully to the statement made by President Obama today at the General Assembly... [I'm] hoping that they will refrain from following the short-sighted interests of warmongering pressure groups and we can arrive at a framework to managing our differences."
Then he outlined what has always been the official Iranian position: "Talks can happen; equal footing and mutual respect should govern the talks."

Then he addressed the expectation (actually, the world's): "Of course, we expect to hear a consistent voice from Washington. The dominant voice in recent years has been for a military option."

But now he had another idea. So he sets the stage for the punch line: It's WAVE time. WAVE as in World Against Violence and Extremism. Not in Farsi, lost in translation; in English.
"I propose as a starting step... I invite all states... to undertake a new effort to guide the world in this direction ... we should start thinking about a coalition for peace all across the globe instead of the ineffective coalitions for war."
So the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, has just invited the whole planet to join the WAVE. How come no "coalition of the willing" leader ever thought about that?
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Bad Guys

Small firms seek to move in on Afghanistan's vast mineral wealth

Jessica Donati
Reuters
Sun, 22 Sep 2013 09:18 UTC
Kabul - Few companies showed up to Afghanistan's fresh appeal for investment in its vast mineral wealth on Sunday, apparently deterred by trouble plaguing two of its largest projects and allowing small firms to emerge as the main contenders.

The Mines Ministry pleaded to a handful of local and foreign firms to bid on a near billion dollar cement tender, luring interest with attractive terms like free currency conversions and 100 percent capital repatriation.

Hopes are pinned on Afghanistan's trillion dollar wealth in resources weaning the country off international aid, but early attempts to unlock its potential have hit serious setbacks.

These appeared to have deterred major international firms from attending - leaving the path open to small investors with unconventional backgrounds, prepared to take on deteriorating security and uncertainty ahead of next year's election.

Afghanistan has been at war for decades. It is now trying to inject life into attempts to negotiate an end to an Islamist Taliban insurgency as most NATO combat troops prepare to pull out by the end of 2014, leaving the country to handle its own security.

"Too many big international companies are too afraid about what is going to happen after 2014,"said Tom Watts, a director at SJH Group and former British paratrooper who served in Iraq.
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Dollars

The mystery of $600 million traded in the blink of an eye

Elise Hu
WKU Public Radio
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:52 UTC
Computer Trading
© Richard Drew/APA television monitor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the decision the Federal Reserve made on Sept. 18, 2013.
Here's a mystery involving physics, technology and the markets that meant the difference between nothing and millions of dollars.

Last Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced it would not be tapering its bond buying program at 2 p.m. ET. The news takes seven milliseconds - about the speed of light - to reach Chicago. But before the seven milliseconds was up, a few huge orders based on the Fed's decision were placed on Chicago exchanges. CNBC broke the story:
"According to trading data reviewed by CNBC, they began buying in Chicago-traded assets just before others in that city could possibly have been aware of the Fed's decision. By one estimate, as much as $600 million in assets changed hands in the milliseconds before most other traders in Chicago could learn of the Fed's September surprise - a sharp contrast to the very low volume of trading ahead of the Fed's decision."
How did this happen? Right now, we don't know. But in high-speed trading, where computer algorithms fed by data make trades based on pre-programmed strategies, the difference between trading at seven milliseconds after the news and two milliseconds after the news can be worth millions.
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Dollar

AIG CEO compares bonus criticism to lynch mobs

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:50 UTC
Robert Benmosche
© Gianluca Colla/Bloomberg via Getty Images Robert Benmosche, CEO of AIG.
AIG has a lengthy history of producing some of the biggest tools on Wall Street. Former CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg was considered one of the world's preeminent unapologetic narcissists even before he sued the government for providing an insufficiently generous bailout. Joe Cassano, former chief of AIG's financial products division, was another: first he arrogantly blew off the accountants who warned him his portfolio of hundreds of billions in uncollateralized bets might destroy the world, then told clients pre-crash his portfolio wouldn't lose a dollar, and then after it all went kablooey, tiptoed back to D.C. (after first being assured of not being prosecuted, mind you) from his lavish four-story townhouse in London just long enough to tell the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that he had absolutely nothing to be sorry about and they could bite him and his hundreds of millions in earnings if they disagreed.

Now a third AIG executive enters the pantheon of tone-deaf AIG bigwigs: CEO Robert Benmosche, who just told the Wall Street Journal that the post-crash public outcry over the use of bailout money to pay bonuses to executives in Cassano's Financial Products unit was comparable to - get this - lynchings in the deep south. From reporter Leslie Scism's interview:
The uproar over bonuses "was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that - sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong."
For sheer "Let them eat cake"-ness, this ranks right up there with Lloyd Blankfein's "I'm doing God's work" riff and Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Charlie Munger's line about how it was proper to bail out Wall Street, but people in foreclosure should "suck it in and cope."
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