Puppet MastersS


Stock Down

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

Image
© 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

Image
© 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."

Arrow Down

Flashback Foreign Banks lock out Americans over new tax law

Image
© 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

Image
© 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.


Eye 1

Monsanto's scary new scheme: Why does it really want all this data?

Image
As biotech giant pays huge sums for data analysis about farms, many are terrified about how it might be harnessed.

Imagine cows fed and milked entirely by robots. Or tomatoes that send an e-mail when they need more water. Or a farm where all the decisions about where to plant seeds, spray fertilizer and steer tractors are made by software on servers on the other side of the sea.

This is what more and more of our agriculture may come to look like in the years ahead, as farming meets Big Data. There's no shortage of farmers and industry gurus who think this kind of "smart" farming could bring many benefits. Pushing these tools onto fields, the idea goes, will boost our ability to control this fiendishly unpredictable activity and help farmers increase yields even while using fewer resources.

The big question is who exactly will end up owning all this data, and who gets to determine how it is used. On one side stand some of the largest corporations in agriculture, who are racing to gather and put their stamp on as much of this information as they can. Opposing them are farmers' groups and small open-source technology start-ups, which want to ensure a farm's data stays in the farmer's control and serves the farmer's interests.

USA

For Queen Michelle, 17 days in paradise just not enough

Michelle Obama
© TruthRevolt
Seems 17 days in paradise just isn't enough for Michelle Obama.

When President Obama and his daughters left Hawaii to return to the White House, the first lady stayed behind in the $25,000-a-week vacation mansion. The president let his wife stay on with friends as a "birthday present," the White House said.

Yes, America, like it or not, you just bought the first lady a really nice present. See, when she flies home solo, likely on an Air Force C-40B Special Mission Aircraft flown from Washington, D.C., it'll cost taxpayers about $126,000, according to the website WhiteHouseDossier.com.

But the price tag for the extended holiday will soar much higher. Dozens of staff and Secret Service personnel have stayed behind as well, at taxpayer cost, of course.

Michelle's penchant for vacations is legendary: She took three before March one year. Her jaunt to Spain's Costa del Sol in 2010 -- on a plane packed with friends -- cost taxpayers millions. She also jetted off to the Bahamas and summers in the Vineyarhhhd (as who doesn't).

Each year, too, she takes off for the tony slopes of Aspen for a quick ski (one year flying directly from Florida to make a little sun-n-ski adventure).

But then, the first lady, who turns 50 Jan. 17, must be exhausted: Fighting fat is hard work, people.

Snakes in Suits

Percentage of Republicans who believe in evolution is shrinking

Image
A Pew study finds that the percentage of Republicans who believe that Darwin's theory of evolution is correct has dropped 11 percent in about five years. That is suggestive of the country's broader polarization, the authors say.

In another sign of the deep and growing partisan divide, American views on evolution are growing apart, as well.

Less than five years ago, 54 percent of Republicans and nearly two-thirds of Democrats said the human species evolved over time. Today, however, the share of Republicans adhering to modern theories of human evolution has dropped significantly - to 43 percent - while the number of Democrats has climbed to 67 percent, though within the sampling error range, according to a Pew Research Center study of the public's views of human evolution, released Monday.

"The gap is coming from the Republicans, where fewer are now saying that humans have evolved over time," said Cary Funk, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, according to Reuters.

As a whole, 6 of 10 Americans say they believe that "humans and other living things have evolved over time," with a third rejecting evolution altogether, saying that "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."

Syringe

FDA approves H5N1 bird flu vaccine with adjuvant

Image
© Unknown
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it has approved a vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc for use in the event of an H5N1 bird flu epidemic.

The vaccine will be added to the national stockpile and will not be available for commercial use, the FDA said. The vaccine does not have a trade name in the United States.

It is the first H5N1 vaccine approved in the United States to contain an adjuvant, or booster, that turbo-charges the body's immune response to the vaccine.

"This vaccine could be used in the event that the H5N1 avian influenza virus develops the capability to spread efficiently from human to human, resulting in the rapid spread of disease across the globe," Dr. Karen Midthun, director of the FDA's biologics division, said in a statement.

The FDA approved the vaccine for use in people over the age of 18 who are at increased risk of exposure to the virus. It would be distributed by public health officials if needed.

The approval comes amid some uncertainty over the safety of modern adjuvants such as the one used in GSK's bird flu vaccine.

Eye 1

How the Harper government committed a knowledge massacre

harper
© Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images
Scientists are calling it "libricide." Seven of the nine world-famous Department of Fisheries and Oceans [DFO] libraries were closed by autumn 2013, ostensibly to digitize the materials and reduce costs. But sources told the independent Tyee in December that a fraction of the 600,000-volume collection had been digitized. And, a secret federal document notes that a paltry $443,000 a year will be saved. The massacre was done quickly, with no record keeping and no attempt to preserve the material in universities. Scientists said precious collections were consigned to dumpsters, were burned or went to landfills.

Probably the most famous facility to get the axe is the library of the venerable St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which environmental scientist Rachel Carson used extensively to research her seminal book on toxins, Silent Spring. The government just spent millions modernizing the facility.

Comment: One of the characteristics of a pathocracy is that it systematically does away with not only knowledge and information from all spheres of life, but also with those who produce it:

Scientists continue to be muzzled by Canada's Harper government
Psychopathology in Canadian Politics: Stephen Harper's Ruthless Drive for Power