So WalMart Was An Anomaly Eh?

by Karl Denninger

Uh huh.

That’s why Target just reported a quarter with hair all over it and missed as well?

Oh, and Dollar Tree?  Same deal.

Sears also had a crap number.

Go ahead folks…. keep buying stocks when, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, every dollar that someone “saves” in reduced interest expense as a consequence of Fed tampering with the market comes out of someone else’s pocket.

You cannot evade this reality forever.

The initial impact of QE “looks good” if you’re the guy who can refinance his house or buy a car at a cheaper interest rate.  The back end of that transaction is equally damaging to the person who buys your paper as it is helpful to you.

Net impact?  Zero, but it also produces asset bubbles if for no other reason than everyone and their brother showing up on TeeVee to tell you how “wonderful” these programs are for the average person.

What a bald-faced lie that is.

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Welfare Recipient: “I Get to Sit Home… I Get to Smoke Weed… We Still Gonna Get Paid”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_r_v9cYBPY

While millions of Americans spend half their lives or more toiling for a paycheck, millions more are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the government to issue them their next monthly distribution.

You’d think that emergency funds or government subsidization through programs like welfare would be used to help recipients purchase the things that they need to get by and help them get back on their feet so that they can find meaningful labor and contribute to society, but in a system without cross-checks and billions being dished out year-after-year, many have learned that they don’t need to work.

And why should they? You’re doing the work for them in the form of taxpayer subsidies that are deducted from your earnings on a weekly basis.

In America, those who work get punished. Those who don’t, get a free ride, courtesy of a nationwide policy of spreading the wealth around through confiscation and redistribution.

Case in point: A welfare recipient in Austin recently contacted a morning radio show and explained that she gets a lot of money from the program. What she does with it may (or may not) surprise you.

Here’s how your hard earned money is being used to help the less fortunate:

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Here’s what Harry Reid would have to do to change the filibuster

Harry Reid is on the Senate floor this morning complaining, yet again, about Republicans’ frequent use of the filibuster to block President Obama’s executive-branch appointments and judicial nominations. “There are currently 75 executive branch nominations ready to be confirmed by the Senate,” he said, “waiting an average of 140 days.”

By many accounts, Reid is poised to make drastic changes to the filibuster today — so that judicial nominees and executive-branch appointments would only need 51 votes for confirmation. This is the so-called “nuclear option.”

So how would he actually do it? Usually it’s simpler for the Senate to change its rules at the beginning of a session, but there are other options for modifying the filibuster right now:

As the University of Miami’s Greg Koger explains here, there are a number of ways the Senate can change its rules mid-session.

The most prominent, detailed in this CRS report, is for the Senate to declare the filibuster unconstitutional. One way for this to happen would be for the presiding officer — most likely Vice President Biden or Senate president pro tempore Pat Leahy — to declare it unconstitutional, either in whole or in part (for example, for just judicial and executive nomination). That’s a break with Senate precedents, by which the body as a whole has to decide constitutional issues. A Republican Senator would likely appeal, and then a Democratic Senator would move to table the appeal, which would then go to a majority vote of the chamber. If a majority tables the appeal, the filibuster is effectively amended or ended.

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Rice Warns China to Curb Cyber Espionage

AP

China’s continued cyber espionage against the United States is undermining economic relations, White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned Beijing on Wednesday.

Rice said in unusually forceful language China must curtail government-backed cyber spying or risk undermining close trade ties.

“Cyber-enabled economic espionage hurts China as well as the U.S., because American businesses are increasingly concerned about the costs of doing business in China,” Rice said during a speech at Georgetown University.

“If meaningful action is not taken now, this behavior will undermine the economic relationship that benefits both our nations.”

The Obama administration is under pressure from the private sector to take action against China for a widespread campaign of cyber attacks that have included theft of both government and corporate secrets, including data on the military’s most advanced warplane, the new F-35 jet fighter.

Major corporations have told the administration that the Chinese have conducted large-scale intrusions into networks and compromised valuable data.

So far, the administration has turned down options posed by security and intelligence agencies to take action against China.

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And So It Starts: the End of the Dollar

China Fires Shot Across Petrodollar Bow: Shanghai Futures Exchange May Price Crude Oil Futures In Yuan

With the US shale revolution set to make America the largest exporter of crude, however briefly, the influence of Saudi oil is rapidly declining. This has been felt most recently in the cold shoulder the US gave Saudi Arabia and Qatar first over the Syrian debacle, and subsequently in its overtures to break the ice with Iran over the stern objections of Israel and the Saudi lobby (for a good example of this the most recent soundbites by Prince bin Talal ). But despite the shifting commodity winds and the superficial political jawboning, the reality is that nothing threatens the US dollar’s hegemony in what many claim is the biggest pillar of the currency’s reserve status – the petrodollar, which literally makes the USD the only currency in which energy-strapped countries can transact in to purchase energy. This may be changing soon following news that the Shanghai Futures Exchange could price its crude oil futures contract in yuan, its chairman said on Thursday, adding that the bourse is speeding up preparatory work to secure regulatory approvals.

 In doing so China is effectively lobbing the first shot across the bow of the Petrodollar system, and more importantly, the key support of the USD in the international arena.

This would be in keeping with China’s strategy to import about 100 tons of gross gold each and every month, in addition to however much gold it produces internally, in what many have also seen as a preparation for a gold-backed currency, which however would require a far broader acceptance of the renminbi in the international arena and most importantly, its intermediation in a crude pricing loop. It is precisely the latter that China is starting to focus on.

Reuters reports:

China, which overtook the United States as the world’s top oil importer in September, hopes the contract will become a benchmark in Asia and has said it would allow foreign investors to trade in the contract without setting up a local subsidiary.

“China is the only country in the world that is a major crude producer, consumer and a big importer. It has all the necessary conditions to establish a successful crude oil futures contract,” Yang Maijun, SHFE chairman, said at an industry conference.

Yang’s presentation slides at the conference stated that the draft proposal is for the contract to be denominated in yuan and use the type of medium sour crude that China most commonly imports.

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Knockout King Game: Why Is This an Issue?

Slideshow

The latest headline is the new “knockout game” phenomenon sweeping the country. However, this game (previously known as Knockout King) started in 2009 and has been covered up by the media. Until this week. So the question is why now?

Is it a diversion for the collapse of Obamacare? Has the media suddenly lost it affection for the pResident’s black agenda as instituted by Eric Holder? Is it that this “game” is now being directed against Jews? Or has the media decided to do its work and report on this national epidemic of violence?

David DeGerolamo

Knockout Game Played Here Before and Elsewhere

This week’s fatal beating of an immigrant in south St. Louis — by teens allegedly playing the “Knock Out Game” — is not the first time St. Louis Police have dealt with the problem, which has made headlines in the past elsewhere in Missouri and around the country.

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Matthew Quain still struggles to piece together what happened after a trip to the grocery store nearly turned deadly. He remembers a group of loitering young people, a dimly lit street — then nothing. The next thing he knew he was waking up with blood pouring out of his head.

The 51-year-old pizza kitchen worker’s surreal experience happened just before midnight earlier this year, when he became another victim of what is generally known as “Knockout King” or simply “Knock Out,” a so-called game of unprovoked violence that targets random victims.

Scattered reports of the game have come from around the country including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Chicago. In St. Louis, the game has become almost contagious, with tragic consequences. An elderly immigrant from Vietnam died in an attack last spring.

The rules of the game are as simple as they are brutal. A group — usually young men or even boys as young as 12, and teenage girls in some cases — chooses a lead attacker, then seeks out a victim. Unlike typical gang violence or other street crime, the goal is not revenge, nor is it robbery. The victim is chosen at random, often a person unlikely to put up a fight. Many of the victims have been elderly. Most were alone.

The attacker charges at the victim and begins punching. If the victim goes down, the group usually scatters. If not, others join in, punching and kicking the person, often until he or she is unconscious or at least badly hurt. Sometimes the attacks are captured on cellphone video that is posted on websites.

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American Terrorism: Black on White Violence Escalates

Three “Knockout” Attacks Reported In Philadelphia Area

“Knockout” attacks have been reported in several states around the country and now investigators believe three people have been attacked in our area.

Police in Lower Merion are investigating two attacks in the area, and Philadelphia detectives are investigating an attack in Northeast Philadelphia.

It’s a violent crime that in other parts of the country has proven fatal.

Videos from cities around the country show people being punched and beaten at random.

The attackers are calling their crimes a game, the goal being to knock out the victim with one punch.

Mark Cumberland is a victim of a “Knockout” assault.

“Someone asked me for a cigarette and by the time I got my hands out my pocket I was getting hit by four kids.”

More…

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Thank you Eric Holder for implementing a two tiered justice system in the Divided States of America.

David DeGerolamo

Related Article:

Brooklyn Rabbi: Gang Of Teens Playing Disturbing Game Of ‘Knock Out The Jew’

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Buy More Votes in 2014

How will the Democrats will elections in 2014 after the Obamacare disaster? If their strategy worked in the past, why change: buy the votes. One of their new targets is senior citizens as shown below. What if it does not work and the Republican Party picks up more seats in Congress? I see no leadership in the GOP and an ever expanding national debt which by the Constitution, is controlled by the Republican held House of Representatives.

Debt equals slavery. On all levels.

David DeGerolamo

Warren: ‘This Is the Moment When We Talk About Expanding Social Security’

Books-Elizabeth Warren“We have a retirement crisis in America,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Wednesday night.

“This is no time — this is the last time — to be talking about cutting Social Security. This is the moment when we talk about expanding Social Security.”

Warren said Social Security is all that stands between 14 million Americans and poverty, and she called for “modest adjustments,” such as taxing the wealthy more, and bringing more people into the system, an apparent reference to immigration reform.

Warren — on the far left of the political scale — increasingly has been mentioned as a presidential contender. Promising to expand Social Security would appeal to the growing number of government-dependent Americans, and it would allow Warren to tout Democrats’ “values.” In fact, Warren did exactly that on Wednesday night:

“I think this is — this is our moment,” Warren said, speaking of Democrats. “I think we have come to understand that, you know, America changes much of the time. It’s in increments. It is in small pieces. But we truly have come to the crossroads now. And there are two very different visions of how we build a future.

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Sebelius asked to explain $2B in Obamacare loans

Dollars32

Several leading GOP members of Congress are asking Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, under whose watch the Healthcare.gov website rollout has experience one fiasco after another, to explain the $2 billion in taxpayer money loaned to various interests to get health insurance CO-OPs up and running – and whether the taxpayers will get any of that back.

Just when the Obamacare experience appears to be able to go no lower – the website malfunctions, millions of policies are canceled outright, only thousands are able to sign up via online offerings, prices for policies are skyrocketing, and more – come the questions about loans.

“Out of the $1.98 billion awarded to CO-OPs, what amount does HHS expect to be repaid? What is the period of time by which HHS expects these funds to be repaid?” were among the questions presented to Sebelius by Sen. Orrin Hatch, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee; Sen. Lamar Alexander, ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Sen. Michael Enzi, ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families; Sen. Tom Coburn, ranking member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee; and Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Oversight.

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Posted in Editorial, Financial, Health Care | Tagged | 1 Comment

Today’s Wealth Destruction Is Hidden by Government Debt

Still unnoticed by a large part of the population is that we have been living through a period of relative impoverishment. Money has been squandered in welfare spending, bailing out banks or even — as in Europe — of fellow governments. But many people still do not feel the pain.

However, malinvestments have destroyed an immense amount of real wealth. Government spending for welfare programs and military ventures has caused increasing public debts and deficits in the Western world. These debts will never be paid back in real terms.

The welfare-warfare state is the biggest malinvestment today. It does not satisfy the preferences of freely interacting individuals and would be liquidated immediately if it were not continuously propped up by taxpayer money collected under the threat of violence.

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But many people still do not feel the pain.

This statement is the key. What happens when:

1. People realize their wealth has been stolen by the government through Federal Reserve policies that devalue the dollar?

2. EBT, Social Security and welfare payments are cut or eliminated?

3. The government raises taxes again to pay off debt?

4. People realized that taxes are just redistribution?

5. People realize that they are enslaved to the government to pay off their malinvestments?

This is why I concentrate on financial information.

David DeGerolamo

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Zombie Vs. Brain Dead….

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GRNC Alert: NON-INCIDENTS SPARK GUN BAN DISCUSSION

COUNTY TO DISCUSS GUN BAN

The Times-News is reporting that Alamance County Commissioners are considering a comprehensive gun ban in County Buildings. Not known for being an anti-Second Amendment group, it may seem perplexing that Alamance County leaders would consider such a thing. Apparently, the discussion springs from a couple of recent incidents that are only remarkable in the fact that they are not “incidents” at all.

On a couple of occasions, citizens going about their daily business had stopped in to county offices to pay their taxes. While doing so, they happened to be open-carrying firearms. There has been no suggestion that the citizens acted strangely or threateningly in any way, and it’s worth noting that it is perfectly legal to open-carry in Alamance County buildings. To summarize the situation: no incident occurred, and no laws were broken. However, to be fair, it should be noted that some taxes were paid. So, where’s the problem?

It’s reported that some county employees expressed that they were “scared” by the presence of the lawfully armed citizens paying their taxes. So now, based on the feelings of a few individuals, the Commissioners are considering an all-out gun ban. That would be a gun ban on the very property that is funded by the taxes that these citizens came in to pay. The irony is striking.

When asked about the non-incidents, Sheriff Terry Johnson stated:

“I am a believer in a man’s right to bear arms, but you don’t walk into a county building with a gun strapped on the side of you.”  

Continue reading

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Obama: ‘We’re Not Lavishly Spending on a Whole Bunch of Social Programs’

President Obama told a gathering of business executives on Tuesday that the federal government was not “lavishly spending” on social programs.

“What we know is, is that our — our fiscal problems are not short-term deficits. Our discretionary budget, that portion of the federal budget that isn’t defense or Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, the entitlement programs, is at its smallest level in my lifetime, probably since Dwight Eisenhower.

“We are not lavishly spending on a whole bunch of social programs out there,” Obama continued. “And in many ways, a lot of these programs have become more efficient and pretty effective,” he added.

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Enroll America Director Conspires to Release Private Data for Political Purposes

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYVpfMrDWMk

From YouTube:

Texas Enroll America Communications Lead Chris Tarango conspires to release private data to help a political action committee and admits this type of thing has happened in the past.

To support further investigations, click here to donate to Project Veritas: https://www.projectveritas.com/donate/

Enroll America is a a Sebelius-linked group dedicated to signing people up for Obamacare, conspiring to release private data to help a political action committee.

Sebelius’ relationship with Enroll America is under investigation by a government ethics audit and Cause of Action has questioned Enroll America’s tax-exempt status, asking the attorney general of Texas to further investigate this matter.

This is the third video in an investigative series into Obamacare fraud. The first two videos exposed Obamacare navigators counseling applicants to lie and cheat the health care system by erroneously reporting income status and health history.

The full, raw video plays immediately following the exposé.

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Raleigh Shoots Down 2nd Amendment; RESOLUTION Dies Without Second

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDs-JYWts0M

Marcus Hill
Greater Raleigh Resistance

http://planet.infowars.com/groups/greater-raleigh-resistance

Two weeks ago, November 5, 2013, Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane shot down the 1st Amendment, canceling two scheduled liberty-minded speakers, and defense of the 2nd Amendment was pending review http://planet.infowars.com/activism/raleigh-mayor-shoots-down-1st-amendment-2nd-amendment-pending-review.

That review has been completed.

After mysteriously missing paperwork kept A RESOLUTION TO PRESERVE AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, AND THE SOVEREIGH RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL (full text below) off of the Raleigh City Council’s Official Agenda for November 19,2013, Mayor Nancy McFarlane allowed the RESOLUTION to be heard (pertinent email correspondence pasted below).

Two voices spoke in support of the United States Constitution and the God-given right for human beings to be able to defend themselves, your’s truly (Marcus Hill) and Councilor John Odom (John.Odom@raleighnc.gov please thank him for defending liberty), who made a motion in support of the RESOLUTION.

That motion went without a second and, as Mayor McFarlane appropriately said of Raleigh’s brief step towards liberty, “the motion dies.”

When any of us stands up, however, that motion begins anew. Liberty is rising.

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Nancy McFarlane is a disgrace to this state.

David DeGerolamo

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