There are certain facts that are difficult to face in the world. One is that the currency you have spent you life working for isn't worth what you thought it was. In reality, it may not even be worth the paper that it's printed on. The United States paper currency has been very slowly devalued for over a century now. This was accelerated into high gear on August 15, 1971 when Nixon took the United States off the gold standard. By removing the gold backing (value) from the United States currency, it opened the door to the unfettered money printing that we have today. Many analyst over the years have seen the potential of a currency crisis and put their reputation on the line by bringing this information to the public. I will not attempt to parrot their thorough, highly-researched findings and predictions here.

The Dollar Is A Strong Fear Monger

One of the issues of debate among the public, informed and uninformed, is the fact that even though all the pieces are in place for a rapid devaluation, there seems to be a lack of perpetual hard evidence on main street. Specters of gyrating gas and commodity prices ebb and flow like a intensive care patient's heart rate monitor. Yet life seems to continue without the anticipated decline and flat line. However, in the age of information, things are done differently. Computer algorithms and Utah's NSA supercomputers reign over information, and strategic decisions are made using real-time data. Decisions can be precise, well hidden, and highly methodical given such technological advantages.

Head of major inquiry into Medomsley detention centre in County Durham shocked by scale of historical sexual abuse

Police investigating sexual abuse at a Durham detention centre say they believe they have uncovered an organised paedophile ring operating in the 1970s and 80s with more than 500 potential victims.

The head of a 70-strong major inquiry into historical abuse at the Medomsley detention centre, near Consett, told the Guardian the inquiry was triggered by mounting evidence about isolated individuals. However, they were now investigating a complex paedophile ring, with many more victims than previously thought.

D Supt Paul Goundry, senior investigating officer, said: "We always knew this would be a major inquiry but the scale of it, and the sheer number of victims who have come forward, has been a shock."

He said that as well as sexual abuse they had evidence of a "brutal regime where violence was both extreme and routine". He suggested that prosecutions would be pursued for the offences, some of which occurred more than 40 years ago.

Nearly 100 men who had come forward were already receiving therapy via a local sexual assault referral centre and others had sought support from the children's charity NSPCC.

A Malaysian team have told relatives of Chinese passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 that there was sealed evidence that cannot be made public, as they came under fire from the angry relatives at a briefing on Wednesday.

The sealed evidence included air traffic control radio transcript, radar data and airport security recordings.

The briefing at the Metropark Lido Hotel in Beijing focused on UK satellite analysis which led Malaysia to conclude that flight MH370 ended in south Indian Ocean, off Perth.

The Chinese relatives were told that a five-member high-level team from Malaysia plans to brief them once every five days. The team include MAS pilot Lim Jit Koon and senior civil aviation official Ahmad Nizar Zolfakar.

During the question-and-answer session, a relative said: "Thanks for demonstrating your ability to read every word out of the powerpoint slides."

Three Secret Service agents on President Obama's detail were sent home from the Netherlands after apparently spending a night out drinking in Amsterdam ahead of the president's arrival Monday.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told Fox News that the agents had been sent home "for disciplinary reasons" and had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Fox News is told top officials are furious this happened in the wake of the 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia. In the latest incident, Fox News is told one agent was so intoxicated he couldn't get his key to work to enter his hotel room -- so he passed out on the floor in the hallway.

The Washington Post reported that the three agents, all members of the Secret Service Agency's Counter Assault Team (CAT), went out in the Dutch capital Saturday night. Staff at their hotel alerted the U.S. Embassy after finding one of the agents passed out in a hallway Sunday morning.

A private British satellite company used a wave phenomenon discovered in the nineteenth century to analyse the seven pings its satellite picked up from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and determine its tragic final destination.

The new findings led Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to conclude that the Boeing 777, which disappeared more than two weeks ago, crashed thousands of miles away in the southern Indian Ocean, killing everyone on board.

Investigators working on the disappearance of the plane believe that it may have been flown on a suicide mission.

Radar pings from MH370, automatically transmitted every hour from the aircraft after the rest of its communications systems had stopped, indicated it continued flying for hours after it disappeared from its flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The Jefferson Davis Parish Police Jury has unanimously passed an ordinance making it illegal for any person to appear in a public place wearing pants below the waist and exposing the skin or undergarments.

Police Juror Steve Eastman initially asked the panel to consider banning saggy pants at the parish courthouse in January in response to courthouse employees' complaints about having to see people's underwear and body parts.

Juror Bryon Buller took the suggestion a step further and asked the panel to consider making it illegal for anyone to show their undergarments in public to limit indecent and lewd behavior.

"The guards that check people going into the courthouse complained about people coming into the courthouse dressed like that," Eastman said.

One of Italy's most notorious mafia groups made more money last year than McDonald's and Deutsche Bank put together, a study has claimed.

A report by the Demoskopika research institute in Rome has said that the annual turnover of the 'Ndrangheta organised crime syndicate was around €53bn - the equivalent to about 2.5% of Italy's GDP.

The size of the profits, based on the mafia's traditional money-spinners including drug dealing, illegal rubbish disposal, extortion, embezzlement, arms sales, prostitution and people-smuggling, make the crime family bigger than numerous global conglomerates.

The claims also highlight concerns that mafia groups' power and influence is rising unchecked - with some warning the Mob is increasingly spreading its tendrils overseas. The 'Ndrangheta is thought to have around 60,000 people worldwide involved in its activities, the report said.

The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, TEPCO, suspended the cleanup at the facility after one of the workers died while digging a ditch Friday.

A man in his fifties was buried under gravel as he was digging near the nuclear plant's storage area, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The worker was dug out and rushed to hospital, but failed to regain consciousness and was pronounced dead three hours after the incident.

"In the three years since the disaster, we had not had any worker deaths caused by work [inside the plant]. The fact that such a serious accident has occurred is deeply regrettable," said Masayuki Ono, a spokesperson for TEPCO in Tokyo, Reuters reported.

All cleanup operations at the plant have been suspended for an immediate safety inspection, Kyodo News reports.

Like most of the laborers at the disaster-hit nuclear plant, the worker was hired by TEPCO through a subcontractor.

Germany has raised the prospect of expelling EU citizens who fail to find work and have no job prospects in the country.

A draft report from a government panel, which was released on Wednesday, said that even if they were EU citizens, unemployed foreigners did not have a right to stay under EU law after three months if their job search had no chance of success.

But it added that receiving benefits alone was not reason enough to expel someone.

In discussing the limitations on residency, the draft proposal points to an EU court ruling which said six months was an appropriate period to reassess whether someone should be allowed to stay.

It also stressed that member states are allowed to limit the time that citizens from other EU countries can look for work.

The panel was formed by Chancellor Angela Merkel in January this year amid fears that EU citizens from poorer countries such as Romania and Bulgaria would flock to Germany to claim benefits.

Holyoke - A sick woman found herself shackled and locked in a cage - all stemming back to a $5 late fee to the government.

In Massachusetts, freedom is so abridged that even simple things like owning a pet require paid permission from the government. Its so onerous that in some municipalities, there are multiple licenses required. Such is the case in Holyoke, where dog owners must pay for permission from both the state and the city - every year.

But asking for permission to own her 14-year-old dog, Pumpkin, for another year was not exactly a high priority for Ann Musser, 41. Musser had been "fighting death" ever since she developed cancer. She recently underwent massive abdominal surgery for ovarian cancer and been trying to survive a regimen of harsh drugs.

She admits that she forgot about the license fee, according to The Republican. In her bouts with sickness, she went for a prolonged period without opening her mail. Musser also failed to see any additional notices of her unpaid renewal application.

As a policy, the licensing bureaucrats wait 21 days, and then turn the un-permitted pet owners over to the District Court. Musser became one of them.

Afterwards, Ann and her husband got caught up on their mail, and paid the extortionists the $5 they demanded plus a $25 late fee.

But it didn't matter. There was an outstanding warrant hanging over her head. She attempted to see a judge to clear it. She was forced to wait in a long line among many other people in a crowded courthouse, receiving no special treatment for being gravely ill. She felt that her frail health was actually being put in jeopardy due to the stress and germs. Musser has a weakened immune system caused by the toxic chemotherapeutic drugs, and has been directed by doctors to avoid crowds. She decided that 3 hours of waiting was all she could handle.