Puppet MastersS


Stock Down

Afghanistan war has cost broke Britain more than £37bn

Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian
Thu, 30 May 2013 07:52 UTC
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Jolly good then
The war in Afghanistan has cost Britain at least £37bn and the figure will rise to a sum equivalent to more than £2,000 for every taxpaying household, according to a devastating critique of the UK's role in the conflict.

Since 2006, on a conservative estimate, it has cost £15m a day to maintain Britain's military presence in Helmand province. The equivalent of £25,000 will have been spent for every one of Helmand's 1.5 million inhabitants, more than most of them will earn in a lifetime, it says.

By 2020, the author of a new book says, Britain will have spent at least £40bn on its Afghan campaign, enough to recruit over 5,000 police officers or nurses and pay for them throughout their careers. It could fund free tuition for all students in British higher education for 10 years.

Alternatively, the sum would be enough to equip the navy with an up-to-date aircraft carrier group, or recruit and equip three army or Royal Marine brigades and fund them for 10 years.
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Mr. Potato

Al-Qaida fired troublesome terrorist employee Belmoktar last October 'for failing to fill out expense reports, execute spectacular attacks'

Madison Underwood
AL.com
Wed, 29 May 2013 07:27 UTC
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Turr'ist: Turban, check. Military green jacket, check. Glass eye, check. Kalashnikov, check. Al Qaeda flag, check.

Terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, a one-eyed Algerian, was supposedly fired from al-Qaida in an October 2012 letter obtained by AP. So whose side has he been on since then? Answer: the side that justifies French, US and UK wars for resources in Africa.
The terrorist life, it's not all bombs and glitter. There are expense reports, meetings, and the kind of responsibilities you'd expect from a low-level manager in any organization.

A trove of letters found and authenticated by the Associated Press in Mali tell the story of how a man who would come to be responsible for more than 100 deaths was fired from al-Qaida for failing to carry out some of the more mundane aspects of running an international terrorist organization.

In one 10-page letter, al-Qaida leadership scolded an ambitious terrorist, the one-eyed Algerian bandit known as Moktar Belmoktar, for failing to attend meetings, for ignoring orders, for missing their phone calls, and for failing to turn in required monthly expense reports, AP reports.

But there were other problems as well.

Among al-Qaida's complaints with Belmoktar: he didn't charge enough ransom for one hostage, he failed to carry out any "spectacular operations," and he posted messages on Internet forums badmouthing the terrorist organization.

Comment: No this is not satire, but yes the War on Terror is a sick joke. AP found the letters in Mali?

About that siege of the BP gas plant in Algeria in January:

Blonde haired, blue-eyed American and Canadian 'terrorists' led international 'al Qaeda' brigade in siege on BP gas plant in Algeria, while 'English-speaking Islamic militants of European appearance' roam Mali

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War Whore

Engineering empire: A guide to the institutions of imperialism

Andrew Gavin Marshall
andrewgavinmarshall.com
Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00 UTC
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The following is my first original piece for The Hampton Institute, "a working class think tank," at which I chair the Geopolitics Division. This essay is meant as an introduction to modern American geopolitics, and a reference piece for future research and published material through The Hampton Institute's Geopolitics Division.

Educating yourself about empire can be a challenging endeavor, especially since so much of the educational system is dedicated to avoiding the topic or justifying the actions of imperialism in the modern era. If one studies political science or economics, the subject might be discussed in a historical context, but rarely as a modern reality; media and government voices rarely speak on the subject, and even more rarely speak of it with direct and honest language. Instead, we exist in a society where institutions and individuals of power speak in coded language, using deceptive rhetoric with abstract meaning. We hear about 'democracy' and 'freedom' and 'security,' but so rarely about imperialism, domination, and exploitation.

The objective of this report is to provide an introduction to the institutional and social structure of American imperialism. The material is detailed, but should not be considered complete or even comprehensive; its purpose is to function as a resource or reference for those seeking to educate themselves about the modern imperial system. It's not an analysis of state policies or the effects of those policies, but rather, it is an examination of the institutions and individuals who advocate and implement imperial policies. What is revealed is a highly integrated and interconnected network of institutions and individuals - the foreign policy establishment - consisting of academics (so-called "experts" and "policy-oriented intellectuals") and prominent think tanks.
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Gold Coins

Gold, currency debasement and the fall of the Roman Empire

James Delingpole
The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:41 UTC
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Have you seen what the gold price is doing? It's tanking almost as dramatically as the green energy investments, that's what. Though, of course, for rather different reasons.

The latest downward move has been prompted, at least in part, by Cyprus selling off its gold to meet its debt obligations. And also, perhaps, by Goldman Sachs revising downwards its estimate of where the gold price is going to be at the end of the year.

As a goldbug, obviously this troubles me. But not a lot. Like many true believers of the Austrian school (Margaret Thatcher was one of us, I suspect), I see this more than anything as a tremendous buying opportunity. I'm thinking this especially having read the fascinating new report from The Real Asset Company, which argues gold could go at least as high as $6,000. (Over four times its current price)

You'll say: "Well obviously they've got an interest in talking up the gold price." But they don't actually. On the occasions I've rung to ask them about where they think gold's going, they say: "We haven't a clue." As far as their business model is concerned it doesn't matter which way gold goes, because their money is made on a percentage of each trade, rather than the gold price itself.

So why, if they have no view on gold, are they yet hinting at this dramatic rise? Because, they argue, both history and market fundamentals show that it cannot be otherwise.

Comment: Was currency debasement really a cause of terminal economic decline, or was it a symptom? David Hackett Fischer has written in The Great Wave: Price-Revolutions and the Rhythm of History that the same problems associated with economic collapse that we're seeing today have repeated themselves at certain periods in history, and are generally accompanied by severe environmental downturn...

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USA

From Laos to Yemen to Pakistan: Jeremy Scahill & Noam Chomsky on secret U.S. dirty wars


Democracy Now!
Wed, 29 May 2013 12:27 UTC
Jeremy Scahill and author Noam Chomsky recently sat down together at Harvard University to discuss Scahill's groundbreaking new book, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield.

Sponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and the ACLU of Massachusetts.

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Laptop

The Pentagon and its sockpuppets

Scott Horton
Harper's Magazine
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:35 UTC
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Dear Cosmos, please strike here, signed People of the World
An internal Department of Defense review has concluded that a Rumsfeld-era program under which retired military officers who appeared on American broadcast media were given special briefings and access was consistent with Pentagon rules. The New York Times reports:
The inquiry found that from 2002 to 2008, Mr. Rumsfeld's Pentagon organized 147 events for 74 military analysts. These included 22 meetings at the Pentagon, 114 conference calls with generals and senior Pentagon officials and 11 Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Twenty of the events, according to a 35-page report of the inquiry's findings, involved Mr. Rumsfeld or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or both. One retired officer, the report said, recalled Mr. Rumsfeld telling him: "You guys influence a wide range of people. We'd like to be sure you have the facts."

The inspector general's investigation grappled with the question of whether the outreach constituted an earnest effort to inform the public or an improper campaign of news media manipulation. The inquiry confirmed that Mr. Rumsfeld's staff frequently provided military analysts with talking points before their network appearances. In some cases, the report said, military analysts "requested talking points on specific topics or issues." One military analyst described the talking points as "bullet points given for a political purpose." Another military analyst, the report said, told investigators that the outreach program's intent "was to move everyone's mouth on TV as a sock puppet."
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Oscar

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: 'It's all a hoax!' Boston Bombings and "Crazy Conspiracy Theories"

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Sun, 26 May 2013 18:00 UTC
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Crisis actors faking injury at the Boston Bombings? No schoolchildren murdered at Sandy Hook? Holographic planes flew into the World Trade Center? "Where's all the blood?!" Conspiracy theorists come in for a lot of ridicule, often unfairly, but the alarmingly high number of hits and airtime some recent choice conspiracy theories have received has even us backing away slowly and wondering just what is going on.

On this week's show, we talked about the idea of "government actors" and "fakery" at "terror attacks", including the recent killing of a British soldier in Woolwich, London, which some claim was staged and no one really died "because there was not enough blood", echoing the claims made about Jeff Bauman at the Boston Marathon finish line.

Are such ideas deliberately promoted to sow disinformation and discredit, by association, anyone attempting to analyse the hard data?

Running Time: 01:47:00

Download: MP3

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Handcuffs

Watch out BitCoin users! 'Liberty Reserve' digital currency shut down by U.S. govt for 'money-laundering'

Dominic Rushe
The Guardian
Wed, 29 May 2013 09:23 UTC
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Federal prosecutors in New York shut down Costa Rica-based digital currency firm and claim it was the 'financial hub of the cyber-crime world'

Read the indictment here

Federal prosecutors in New York have accused a Costa Rica-based company and its founder of running a $6bn money-laundering scheme that became a "bank of choice for the criminal underworld".

Digital currency company Liberty Reserve was involved in one of the biggest money-laundering operations ever uncovered, according to an indictment on Tuesday by Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the southern district of New York.

Liberty was the "financial hub of the cyber-crime world", according to the indictment. It facilitated "a broad range of online criminal activity, including credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, and narcotics trafficking".

Comment: Assuming for a minute that Liberty Reserve really was used to mask and fund dirty deeds, are we to believe that the established Wall Street players have zero interest in protecting their control of the proceeds from drug-running, slave trade, child porn, ad nauseum?

Check out our radio show on BitCoin where we discussed how it will probably wind up as a sting operation:

SOTT Talk Radio show #14: Bitcoin, Gold and the Cashless Society

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Red Flag

Doomsday investors betting on market crash

Maureen Farrell
CNN
Fri, 24 May 2013 17:13 UTC
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Stocks have had a stellar year so far. In fact, the rally has gotten so heated that some investors are making bets on a big crash.

Universa Investments, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year buying crash protection, has attracted a record amount of money into its fund this quarter.

"People are starting to recognize that these market moves are unnatural and distorted," said Universa president and chief investment officer Mark Spitznagel, who declined to say how much is spent on crash protection, citing SEC rules.

Universa's view that a crash is coming is not widely held, making crash protection cheap, he said. Universa buys this protection in the form of options that generate huge returns when the stock market falls by more than 20%. Universa's adviser, economist and former derivative trader Nassim Taleb calls it 'black swan' hedging.

That's apropos considering Taleb coined the phrase 'black swan,' described as an unforeseen event that has an extreme impact, such as the 2008 financial crisis or Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster.

Spitznagel says he's pretty confident that the market will crash, or fall by more than 20%, in the next six months -- a year max.

Comment: Two 'great economic crises' ago, in the 17th century, speculators were strung up alongside the bankers...

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Stock Up

World stock markets to grind higher

Alanna Petroff
CNN
Mon, 27 May 2013 17:09 UTC
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Major European indexes, including London's FTSE 100, have made significant gains over the past few months but have not pushed nearly as high as Japan's Nikkei or U.S. benchmarks.
World stock markets look set to bump around awhile after last week's plunge in Japan before resuming a rally fueled by cheap central bank cash.

Investors had a rude awakening last Thursday as the Nikkei index plunged by over 7% in its worst day for two years, leaving some wondering whether the surge in global equities was now over after such a significant pullback.

"This is a classic holiday market reversal," said Neil Shah, a director at London's Edison Investment.

When investors and traders return to their desks after the long weekend in the U.S. and the U.K., stocks would continue moving higher, he said.

Japan, where the benchmark Nikkei index has rallied by more than 70% in less than 12 months, could see a more substantial correction before turning higher again.

"I expect another 5% to 10% downside before another march upwards," said Nick Beecroft, senior market analyst at Saxo Capital Markets.

The Nikkei fell again on Monday, dropping 3% as a firmer yen weighed on the shares of exporters. But other Asian markets gained ground, as did major indexes in Europe.

Central banks, including the Bank of Japan, have been a big driver of the bull market in stocks. With inflation under control and no sign of an acceleration in global growth, there's little chance they'll start turning off the easy money tap any time soon.
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