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Trends This Week – Is the fed stupid, or just playing stupid? – 02.24.16

The Federal Reserve operates the largest printing press on the planet. It seeks to hire the most qualified people to address current economic conditions and design strategies to maximize future market potential. However, when crisis strikes and with global equity markets in turmoil, those hired admit they are out of touch with the present and blindsided by the future. As minutes from their own meetings show, when the Panic of ’08 hit, which the Trends Research Institute forecast and named, the Fed was blindsided. Were they stupid then, or just playing stupid? Today, from China’s economy growing at its slowest pace in a quarter century, Japan sinking back into recession, Europe’s stagnant Gross Domestic Product, Asian economies jolted by plummeting exports, emerging-market economies and currencies crashing, commodity indexes gyrating between 1991-to-1999 lows, etc., the “outlook” is clear: Global Recession. What’s the Fed’s position? Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer recently said Fed officials “simply do not know” what course of action to anticipate since “it is still early to judge the ramifications of the increased market volatility of the first seven weeks of 2016.”

Are they stupid, or playing stupid by not seeing the Panic of 2016

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ROBERT HUNZIKER – Fukushima – Deep Trouble

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster may go down as one of history’s boundless tragedies and not just because of a nuclear meltdown, but rather the tragic loss of a nation’s soul. Imagine the following scenario: 207 million cardboard book boxes, end-to-end, circumnavigating Earth, like railroad tracks, going all the way around the planet. That’s a lot of book …

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Alternative Visions – The Billionaires Behind The US Presidential Election – 02.19.16

In today’s show host, Jack Rasmus , focuses on who is providing the big money behind US presidential candidates—Rubio, Cruz, Bush, Clinton, and Trump. The names of the big right wing donors behind the Republicans candidates are noted, where they’ve made their billions and how much they’ve contributed. How the Clinton’s have amassed more than $110 million in assets since 2001, including more than $100million in speaking fees. Hillary’s billionaire contributors. The legal corruption of the US election system is explained, including ‘dark money’ from 501 (c) groups that hide their contributors. (see his blog, jackrasmus.com, for a more detailed analysis of ‘billionaires behind the US election’). Jack then digresses to comment on the recent death this past week of the right wing ideologue, Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia, whose legacy includes advancing the corruption of the US electoral system from Citizens United case to restricting voting rights, and limits on civil liberties of minorities. At the ‘top of the show’ Jack reviews the major economic developments of the past week, including actions by central banks in the Eurozone, Japan and China; prospects for a ‘deal’ on global oil prices between Russia and Saudi Arabia; and the negotiations in Brussels in progress between the UK’s prime minister, David Cameron, and the European Union on the coming June 2016 UK election to decide whether to ‘exit’ the EU or not. Jack concludes the show with a review of his late 2015 predictions of the ‘fault lines’ in the global financial system in China, Europe, Emerging Markets, and the US, which now appear to be emerging as predicted. (see his blog, jackrasmus.com, for a free chapter from his book, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’, on why China will likely be the locus of the next financial crisis).

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Neil Irwin – Negative 0.5% Interest Rate: Why People Are Paying to Save

When you lend When you lend somebody money, they usually have to pay you for the privilege. That has been a bedrock assumption across centuries of financial history. But it is an assumption that is increasingly being tossed aside by some of the world’s central banks and bond markets. A decade ago, negative interest rates were a theoretical curiosity that …

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New Docs Link Polluted Drinking Water Supply to Massive US Military Base

Internal documents obtained by the Japan Times offer evidence that the contamination of local drinking water sources near a massive U.S. airbase in Japan is the result of years of repeated mishaps and “lax safety standards” by U.S. military forces. The reports, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, “expose a spate of accidents at the [Kadena Air Base in Okinawa] during …

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The Gary Null Show – 02.11.16

Prof. Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism and communications at SUNY College in Old Westbury on Long Island where he has taught investigative reporting for over 30 years. He is one of the nation’s most prolific investigative writers on the nuclear power, politics in the energy industry and the environment. This year he received the prestigious Pope Award for his many articles written during the past year. You can read his articles on sites such as Counterpunch, Commondreams and the Huffington Post.

He is the author of several books including “Cover Up: What You are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power” and “The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet.”

Dr. Gil Kajiki is perhaps the nation’s leading expert in non-drug treatment of thyroid conditions, particularly hypothyroidism, low thyroid and Hashimotos disease. He is the founder of the Valley Thyroid Institute in Tarzana California which treats patients worldwide and researches alternative testing methods to determine thyroid dysfunction. He developed the Kajiki Protocol which follows 11 different thyroid testing methods instead of the standard three in conventional medicine, which frequently test patients as normal. Dr. Kajiki is a certified functional medical practitioner and board certified chiropractor. He is the creator of the DVD set The Thyroid Mystery Solved, and his website is ValleyThyroidInstitute.com

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125-year mini ice age linked to the plague and fall of empires

Winter was coming. In AD 536, the first of three massive volcanic eruptions ushered in a mini ice age. It coincided with an epidemic of the plague, the decline of the eastern Roman Empire, and sweeping upheavals across Eurasia. Now we have the first evidence that the disruption to climate continued a lot longer than a decade, as was previously thought. …

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David Cay Johnston – The Trans-Pacific Partnership threatens our liberty

Economic theory holds that removing trade barriers among nations should increase global wealth. But the proposed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership that Congress must soon give a straight up-or-down vote threatens our liberties as Americans and is likely to add almost nothing to U.S. economic growth. I have been a longtime critic of the agreement, especially since WikiLeaks obtained a draft of its intellectual …

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Infectious Myth – “Open Media with David Christopher”? – 01.26.16

In Episode 86, David Crowe interviews David Christopher of OpenMedia.ca about a variety of media issues, including net neutrality, government warrantless eavesdropping on everyone’s communications, media ownership concentration, and how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will negatively affect internet users. OpenMedia.ca is similar to the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) in the United States, and many of the issues are similar.

Since the interview is relatively short, and David (Crowe) didn’t manage to get into the important media issue of freedom of speech, on the internet, or elsewhere, he continues by discussing it. The backlash against a white human rights journalist who photoshopped her face into different races and cultured. The irony of jargon of people who claim to be excluded actually excluding others from participating in discussions. Why the “Je suis Charlie Hebdou” activists are very selective about what kind of speech they rally to protect.

Finally, David addresses some environmental issues: Are tens of thousands of coal jobs more important than neurological coal pollutants? Can milk contaminated with pesticides cause Parkinson’s? What’s happening with the water in Flint, Michigan?

The resources David references can be found at: http://theinfectiousmyth.com/PRN-TIM/86.php

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Why the Black Hole of Deflation Is Swallowing the Entire World … Even After Central Banks Have Pumped Trillions Into the Economy

Many high-powered people and institutions say that deflation is threatening much of the world’s economy … China may export deflation to the rest of the world. Japan is mired in deflation. Economists are afraid that deflation will hit Hong Kong. The Telegraph reported last week: Read More