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Thursday 05.17.2012

Get Ready: We're About To Have Another 2008-Style Crisis
by Chris Martenson - ZeroHedge.com
Well, my hat is off to the global central planners for averting the next stage of the unfolding financial crisis for as long as they have. I guess there's some solace in having had a nice break between the events of 2008/09 and today, which afforded us all the opportunity to attend to our various preparations and enjoy our lives.
Alas, all good things come to an end, and a crisis rooted in 'too much debt' with a nice undercurrent of 'persistently high and rising energy costs' was never going to be solved by providing cheap liquidity to the largest and most reckless financial institutions. And it has not.

Gold to Hit $1,900 by Year End: Commodities Pro
By: Tom Mackenzie - CNBC.com
The recent sell-off in gold is unlikely to continue in the longer term, with the precious metal set to hit $1,900 an ounce towards the end of the year, according to Walter De Wet, head of commodities at Standard Bank.
"If the dollar is strong and the euro weak, gold trades lower, but ultimately it de-links especially when we get more money printing," De Wet told CNBC's "Closing Bell Europe." "Longer term we still think it's going to go up."
De Wet says two things need to happen for gold to rise. "First of all we need the uncertainty to settle," he said. "Like any other assets, gold sells off when people want liquidity."

Canary In The Gold Mine: In Historic Move, Japanese Pension Fund Switches To Gold For First Time Ever
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As US weak hands keep piling out of gold whether to make space for the Facebook IPO tomorrow, or just to load up on paper currencies in advance of central banks printing much more, two things have happened: China is now on its way to becoming the biggest source of gold demand, surpassing India, but more importantly as of hours ago, in a truly historic move, "Okayama Metal & Machinery has become the first Japanese pension fund to make public purchases of gold, in a sign of dwindling faith in paper currencies."

The Strong Dollar Leads to a Fall in Commodity Prices
By Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
Panic is on deck, to use the baseball terminology that my foreign readers are often attempting to decipher. That is the only conclusion one can reach after getting gob smacked by the price action this morning. Copper got spanked for eight cents, oil burned $2, gold shed another $26, and silver puked 70 cents.
The tantrum like stock behaviour in producing and equipment companies, like Freeport McMoRan (FCX) and Caterpillar (CAT) has been atrocious. How many of you out there know that JP Morgan (JPM) is the largest holder of futures contracts in the silver market and just got hit with a massive margin call? Why is all this happening on the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the HMS Titanic?

The Quiet Revolt
BY RICHARD RUSSELL - FinancialSense.com
I just received a large full-color pamphlet in the mail and in large letters it read, "The free ride is over. The dollar will soon be devalued and replaced." I thought the warning was interesting, but the operative word was "soon".
I've been writing about this same set of circumstances, but it's the timing that is unclear. When will the dollar be devalued -- in a month, six months two years? Actually, the dollar is being devalued each time the Fed comes up with another quantitative easing. But you don't know it unless you try to buy a car or a batch of food from Safeway. Whew!

Investors favour dollar over gold
even as Goldman Sachs sees rally
While Goldman Sachs predicts record gold prices in the next 12 months, investors are reducing their gold holdings for a third month and choosing the dollar as a haven from Europe's debt crisis.
Author: By Joe Richter - Mineweb.com
BLOOMBERG - Investors are reducing gold holdings for a third month, the longest stretch since 2004, and favoring the dollar as a haven from Europe's debt crisis, even as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts record prices for the metal.
Bullion erased its gains for 2012 this week as the dollar rose against a basket of currencies for a record 12 straight days. Gold held in exchange-traded products fell 30.8 metric tons since reaching a record 2,410.2 tons on March 13, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, ABN Amro Bank NV and Barclays Plc cut their forecasts in May, though Goldman expects prices to rise 25 percent to $1,940 an ounce in 12 months.

Gold adds to losses as Greek uncertainty remains
News ECB might cut off Greek banks sends gold, other metals lower
By Claudia Assis and Chris Oliver, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold fell for a fourth day Wednesday as concerns about Greece's finances drained investors' appetites for risk and helped push the U.S. dollar higher.
Gold also added to its loss after news that the European Central Bank would be cutting off money to Greek banks, although in a separate report the ECB said it would continue to support that country's banking system.

The Next Money:
As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise
More consumers are walking away from fiat currencies to drive commerce -- and society -- with new ways of buying.
By Eric Garland - TheAtlantic.com
People everywhere are fed up with the status quo of the economy. With the passion our official institutions show for this tepid "recovery," many are concluding that progress will come not from the current system, which is after all what got us here in the first place, but from their own ingenuity and inventiveness. In pockets around the world, folks are declaring economic independence by starting small, local, but potentially revolutionary alternative currencies that could change not only how we buy goods and services -- but how we relate to one other in society. If these micro-currencies catch on, we could be witnessing the replacement of our monocultural monetary system, which emphasizes a certain sort of free market capitalism above all else, with a variety of currencies that will represent more diverse sets of values belonging to the groups that hold them.

The Elite Are Digging Their Own Grave
Today, Wednesday, May 16, on the Alex Jones Show, Alex welcomes long-time returning guest and contributing writer Dr. Paul Craig Roberts to discuss the impact of the Euro's instability on world markets amidst looming fears of Greece's departure. They'll also touch on why governments feel compelled to blame events like 9/11, the Euro decline, and other manufactured crises on scapegoats.

Is Greece the Lehman of 2012?
By Paul R. La Monica - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- With apologies to John Lennon: Imagine a eurozone without Greece. It's easy if you try.
That seems to be Wall Street's tune these days. Sure, investors are worried about Europe. And they should be. But so far, the market is acting as if the recent turmoil in Greece is merely a repeat of last summer -- and not the second coming of 2008.
Stocks have pulled back from this year's earlier highs, but it's been a fairly orderly sell-off, not a full-blown panic.

Euro fears rise as Greeks withdraw money from banks
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Greeks have withdrawn billions of euros from their banks in recent days, with the country's president warning of "panic" at the prospect of the country leaving the eurozone.
"My family already sent some €20,000 of our savings to my sister, who lives in Switzerland," says M.S., a Greek citizen who lives in Brussels and works in the financial sector.
Like him, many Greeks are either transferring their savings abroad or taking them out of the banks, driven by fear that the country may have to leave the eurozone.

'Vulture funds' circle as Greece fears grow
As Greeks rush to withdraw savings, bailout fund pays US tax exile €400m
by STEPHEN FOLEY and NATHALIE SAVARICAS - Independent.co.uk
An American tax exile living in the Cayman Islands has emerged as a winner from the chaos engulfing Greece, even as the political and economic turmoil in the beleaguered nation deepened yesterday, with Athens putting a senior judge in charge of an emergency government to lead it to fresh elections.
Kenneth Dart, the Michigan-born heir to a disposable cups fortune, was handed an estimated €400m (£320m) cheque from Greece this week, after successfully calling the country's bluff and refusing to take part in the restructuring of government debt that saved Greece from default in the spring.

World Banks have the Power
to save the Global Economy, if they want to
By David Beckworth - OilPrice.com
The global economy appears to be headed over cliff this year. The emerging world is experiencing a significant economic slow down, the Eurozone will probably break apart in the next few months, and the United States faces sharp austerity measures at the end of the year. There are enough bearish developments here to make the original Mayan calendar look prescient after all. So should we despair? Is the global economy fated to collapse in 2012?
No, says Willem Buiter and Ebrahim Rahbari of Citigroup. Though the outlook is dire, they argue there is much more the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of England could do not only to prevent another global economic collapse this year, but also to spur global aggregate demand above its anaemic levels as seen below:

Cost of Greek exit from euro put at $1tn
UK government making urgent preparations to cope with the fallout of a possible Greek exit from the single currency
By Larry Elliott, Jill Treanor and Patrick Wintour - The Guardian
The British government is making urgent preparations to cope with the fallout of a possible Greek exit from the single currency, after the governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, warned that Europewas "tearing itself apart".
Reports from Athens that massive sums of money were being spirited out of the country intensified concern in London about the impact of a splintering of the eurozone on a UK economy that is stuck in double-dip recession. One estimate put the cost to the eurozone of Greece making a disorderly exit from the currency at $1tn, 5% of output.

Debt crisis: Greek euro exit looms closer as banks crumble
A tsunami of capital flight from Greece threatens to overwhelm the authorities, forcing the country out of the euro before fresh elections in June.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Economists warned that the Greek financial system could crumble within weeks or days unless the European Central Bank steps up support.
President Karolos Papoulias told party leaders that banks had lost €700m in withdrawals on Monday alone as citizens rush to pre-empt capital controls and a much-feared return to the Drachma.
He cited central bank warnings that "great fear" might soon escalate to panic. The leaked details lend credence to claims that capital flight by both savers and firms have reached €4bn a week since the triumph of anti-bailout parties on May 6.

Greeks withdraw €3bn in 10 days since election
Greece's savers making daily bank visits as analysts warn faster capital flight could push country out of euro before June's poll
By Helena Smith in Athens and Jill Treanor - Guardian.co.uk
Greeks have withdrawn €3bn (£2.4bn) from the banking system since the country's inconclusive elections on 6 May, with tellers saying savers were making two or three visits a day to local banks.
Savers fear Greece leaving the eurozone and returning to the drachma. An aide to the outgoing prime minister, Lucas Papademos, said there were "serious fears that the banks were running out of money".

Greece gets worst of worlds with no euro decision
Extraordinary action from Merkel, Hollande needed
By MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — It seems almost hard to believe that the Greek situation has taken a turn for the worse, but it now has, with reports that deposits are fleeing the country and that some of its banks have now completely depleted their capital.
That's the result of a Greek election that produced no mandate for anything — not definitely for the bailout, or against it, or even for getting enough politicians to form a semi-functioning government.

Greece's Balkan Inheritance Is Heavy
By William Pfaff - Truthdig.com
The Balkans are historically apart from Europe for two reasons, one religious and the other political.
This has everything to do with the present crisis of Greece and the future of Greece's membership in—or perhaps its departure from—the European Union and its eurozone. To understand what is happening, it is necessary to understand something of the past.
Geography and the Great Schism in the development of Christianity left all the Balkan peoples in the Orthodox half of the Christian world, separating them from the Western Europe of Roman Catholic and Protestant religion, the Renaissance and scientific revolution, from which the modern Enlightenment West has emerged.

Germany will blink and won't let Greece exit euro
Marshall Plan–style aid would give Athens time
By Matthew Lynn
LONDON (MarketWatch) — It doesn't take long for an idea to become an accepted fact in the markets.
Six months ago, Greece's leaving the euro was seen as so unlikely that nobody had to think seriously about. Now the "Grexit" — as a Greek exit from the euro zone has been dubbed — is increasingly seen as a done deal.
Citibank rates the chances as high as 75% that Greece will leave the single currency in the next 18 months. The British bookmaker William Hill regards it as such as done deal it is no longer taking bets.

Britain must make ready for the storm
as clueless Europe tears itself apart
Once every half century or so, Europe "tears itself apart" in an orgy of self-destructive national tribalism. It happens just like clockwork.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Usually it's war that does the damage; there's a certain irony in the fact that this time around it's a project designed to prevent these periodic outbreaks of insanity by binding nations together in irredeemable economic and legal union – the euro.
In fact, the single currency is having the exact opposite effect, only bizarrely, Europeans still refuse to see it. Even the Greeks still cling, ever more desperately, to this totemic symbol of European solidarity.

Could a Carbon Tax Save Europe?
A new report argues that reforming how Europe treats energy could, by 2020, cut some countries deficits in half
By Tim McDonnell - TheAtlantic.com
Turmoil over budget cuts roils Greek streets. France elects an anti-austerity president. Even Germany's Austerity Queen Angela Merkel faces electoral backlash. It appears Europeans are getting sick of tightening their belts. But when you can't cut any more, there's little else to do but hustle up more cash.
For governments allergic to raising income taxes, a European Climate Foundation analysis released yesterday shows there's a less painful way to slash deficits -- one that could save the planet as it saves the economy. A carbon tax.

Outgoing World Bank chief: Fix eurozone
By Jennifer Liberto - Money.CNN.com
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Wednesday he's concerned about the "ripple effects" on the rest of the eurozone if Greece leaves.
"The core question will actually not be Greece, it's Spain and Italy," Zoellick said during a forum sponsored by the Economic Club in Washington. "If Greece does leave, frankly, there has to be a lot of care taken to how that's done."
Zoellick said the situation was comparable to Lehman Brothers' collapse in 2008 and the unanticipated global repercussions on the financial markets. In Greece's case, the problem is the inter-connectiveness of economies, especially in Europe.

Federal Reserve concerned about fiscal cliff
By Annalyn Censky and Karen McGowan - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Federal Reserve is worried about indecision in Congress.
At its last meeting in April, the central bank's top officials discussed how coming tax increases and spending cuts could weigh on the recovery, and debated whether the Fed should provide additional stimulus to spur consumer spending.

Federal Reserve members
ready to step up support for US economy
Federal Reserve policymakers said on Wednesday that they were open to further efforts to stimulate the US economy if growth falters or threats escalate.
AFP - Telegraph.co.uk
Minutes of the central bank's April 24-25 meeting stated that "several members" thought additional Fed support could be needed if the recovery lost momentum or if the risks to the economy became great enough.
The minutes did not spell out what circumstances would trigger further Fed efforts to lower interest rates to boost the economy. But they did note some threats to the US economy. One is Europe's debt crisis. Another is the risk that spending cuts and tax increases that could take effect at year's end if Congress can't reach a budget agreement could slow growth more than expected.

Clinton: Debt deal should be top campaign issue
By Jennifer Liberto - Money.CNN.com
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- President Bill Clinton on Tuesday said those running for office should make reaching a debt deal the top campaign issue in the fall's elections.
"I think this budget issue should become front and center in this election, Clinton said on Tuesday at a fiscal summit sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
"As soon as this election is over, I think the incentives will be there for both parties to make more compromises than they have in the past," Clinton added later.

JPMorgan Fallout 'Could Get a Lot Worse': Whitney
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
The JPMorgan Chase trading controversy comes at an inopportune time both for the bank and the industry as a whole, which needs to rethink the way it does business, analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC.
As the fallout continues over the banking titan's $2 billion hedging loss, Whitney, head of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, said the imbroglio fuels calls in Congress for more banking regulation and exposes the general weakness of large financial institutions.

JPMorgan's Trading Loss Is Said to Rise at Least 50%
BY NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG - NYTimes.com
The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank's initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.
When Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan's chief executive, announced the losses last Thursday, he indicated they could double within the next few quarters. But that process has been compressed into four trading days as hedge funds and other investors take advantage of JPMorgan's distress, fueling faster deterioration in the underlying credit market positions held by the bank.

Jamie Dimon's Hedge Fund
By Abigail Caplovitz Field - NakedCapitalism.com
Jamie Dimon, John Stumpf, and to a lesser extent, Vikram Pandit and Bryan Moynihan, are running massive hedge funds. They're placing enormous, incredibly risky bets. "Hot money" investors are giving them the cash to gamble because they all understand that you and me will make good on any losses, since we've started guarantying the banks-turned-hedge-funds as "Too big to fail."
The money flowing to these gamblers-in-chief is growing by double digit percentages, and includes so much borrowed money the "leverage" may be six times what Lehman Brothers was doing when it flamed out. As long as this situation continues, a new financial crisis is inevitable, and the risks of it grow faster every day. There's only one solution: cut these gamblers off from public support. The market will do the rest.

Obama has a large JPM account
Obama financial forms show big JP Morgan account
By Olivier Knox | The Ticket - Yahoo News
Maybe it's a case of putting your mouth where your money is.
President Barack Obama praised JP Morgan Chase in an interview recorded Monday as "one of the best managed banks there is" and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, as "one of the smartest bankers we got." On Tuesday, the White House made public financial disclosure forms showing the president and First Lady Michelle Obama had between $500,001 and $1,000,000 in a "JP Morgan Chase Private Client Asset Management Checking Account."
The annual peek into the Obamas' finances showed that the president held between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 in U.S. Treasury Notes, generating between $5,001 and $15,000 in interest. They also held between $500,001-$1,000,000 in Treasury Bills.

Crony Capitalism: After Lobbying Against New Financial Laws, JPMorgan Loses $2B in Risky Bet
JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank, is under fire after losing at least $2 billion in derivatives trading it was warned carried high risk. The loss has renewed calls for tougher regulation of Wall Street, with critics saying JPMorgan could have avoided it under regulations the bank opposed. We're joined by former financial regulator, white collar criminologist, and University of Missouri-Kansas City Professor William Black, author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One." Black says JPMorgan's latest woes stem from the flaws endemic to "too big too fail." "Allowing [banks] to be this big, even conservative economists call this 'crony capitalism,'" Black says. "The only way this can work is to shrink the systemically dangerous institutions -- the 20 largest banks in the United States -- down to the point that they no longer pose a systemic risk. [When] they are no longer too big to fail, they will no longer have this implicit federal subsidy that completely distorts competition [and] ... destroys democracy because these giant institutions have so much political power."

Regulators Snooze While JPMorgan Lights the Fuse
By Jonathan Weil - Bloomberg.com
Don't worry your pretty little heads, JPMorgan (JPM) Chase & Co. Chief Financial Officer Douglas Braunstein seemed to assure listeners on the bank's quarterly earnings conference call last month. Regulators knew everything JPMorgan's chief investment office was doing, he said.
"We are very comfortable with our positions as they are held today, and I would add that all of those positions are fully transparent to the regulators," Braunstein said April 13. "They review them, have access to them at any point in time," and "get the information on those positions on a regular and recurring basis as part of our normalized reporting."

Dimon didn't practice what he preached at Harvard
He warned of self-deception, and proved his point
By Al Lewis
DENVER (MarketWatch) — Here's a handy leadership tip from J.P. Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon: "You have to fight self-deception. Human beings are experts at it. I do it, too."
I found this advice on J.P. Morgan's website. It is from a June 2009 talk Dimon gave to Harvard Business School graduates on leadership qualities.
Here's the basic lesson: If you employ some guy placing billions of dollars in risky trades, and that guy has been nicknamed "The London Whale," you should not pretend rising concerns about his trading positions are "a tempest in a teapot."
Dimon is now under fire for more than $2 billion in surprise losses on credit-derivative bets that have yet to be fully explained. Some of Dimon's highly compensated executives are now stepping down because of the whale they could no longer fit in the proverbial teapot.

The Lack of Accountability
that Allowed JPMorgan to Gamble Billions
By Kurt Cobb - OilPrice.com
If I were to stake you $50,000 and set you loose in the world's largest casino, you might try your luck in a big way at a number of games to see if you could double or maybe even triple your good fortune. But it would be an entirely different matter if the $50,000 were your own money. You might decide to take advantage of the casino's restaurant for which you would at least get a meal in return for your money. And, you might even test your skills with a few hundred dollars. But unless you were a gambling addict, you would be on your way pretty soon after the house had taken the few hundred dollars you decided you could afford to lose.

Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing -
Documents Show How Goldman et al
Engaged in 'Naked Short Selling'
by Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
It doesn't happen often, but sometimes God smiles on us. Last week, he smiled on investigative reporters everywhere, when the lawyers for Goldman, Sachs slipped on one whopper of a legal banana peel, inadvertently delivering some of the bank's darker secrets into the hands of the public.
The lawyers for Goldman and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch have been involved in a legal battle for some time – primarily with the retail giant Overstock.com, but also with Rolling Stone, the Economist, Bloomberg, and the New York Times. The banks have been fighting us to keep sealed certain documents that surfaced in the discovery process of an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit filed by Overstock against the banks.

Gerald Celente - Capital Account - 15 May 2012

Time Is Running Out for Treasury Market Rally:
Pimco's Gross
By: Ansuya Harjani - CNBC.com
The time where investors are no longer willing to accept negative yields on U.S. Treasurys is near, warned Bill Gross, manager of Pimco, the world's largest bond fund.
"With the U.S. suffering a credit downgrade to AA+ and offering negative 200 basis point policy rates for the privilege of investing in Treasury bills, the willingness of creditors — as opposed to debtors — to support the existing system may soon fade," Gross wrote in a Financial Times editorial published on Tuesday.

California, the ninth largest economy in the world,
resorts to austerity
California, America's 'golden state', is slashing spending to avoid a Greek-style default
By GUY ADAMS - Independent.co.uk
Taking a deep breath, California's most powerful man strode to a lectern and unveiled the fiscal policy that he hopes will keep America's most populous state from falling into bankruptcy.
"You name it," he declared, "and we've got to cut it!"

Underwater Recession
JOY A. BUCHANAN, STEVEN GJERSTAD,
& VERNON L. SMITH - The American Interest
The U.S. economy is stuck in a painfully slow recovery. Neither accommodative monetary policy nor fiscal stimulus has done the trick in generating robust growth, and no one seems to really have a grasp on why. We propose an explanation for why they have not been working, and on that basis we will explicate a feasible path to renewed robust growth.

Young Americans delay purchase of homes
By Anjli Raval in New York - FT.com
Andrea Stautberg, 27, and her husband James wanted to buy a house after finishing graduate school in 2009. But in the face of a tough economic climate, uncertain job prospects and $115,000 in student loan payments, the couple instead decided to save money by living with James's parents in Texas.
They stayed for more than a year – longer than the three months they had planned – before deciding to rent a flat.
"We are looking to buy a house, but have yet to get pre-approved," said Ms Stautberg. "We lived with his parents for as long as we did to pay back our student loans and still save for a down payment."

Obamacare's Patient-Dumping, Privacy-Meddling Scheme
By Michelle Malkin - PatriotPost.us
The stench of Chicago cronyism over the White House just got fouler. Inhale this:
A shadowy $10 billion Obamacare agency with zero oversight just awarded first lady Michelle Obama's pet patient-dumping scheme at the University of Chicago Medical Center a $5.9 million taxpayer-funded grant. It will enable Mrs. Obama's cronies to build a government-sponsored electronic medical record-sharing system.
The Chicago program, known as the Urban Health Initiative, is run by one of President Obama's closest golfing buddies, scandal magnet Eric Whitaker, who has been entangled with Illinois corruption celebrities Rod Blagojevich and Tony Rezko over the past decade.

That Which Is Unsustainable Will Go Away: Medicare
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
Here are the sobering facts about the number of workers and those drawing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid entitlements in the U.S. While the government claims to have a "trust fund" to pay for Social Security and Medicare, this is illusory propaganda. There are no funds set aside to pay these entitlements--they are "pay as you go" programs funded by current tax revenues. If the tax revenues don't cover the programs' expenses, the Treasury sells bonds, i.e. issues debt to pay the entitlements.
Social Security (SSA) has 61 million beneficiaries as of March 2012.
Medicare has 49 million beneficiaries as of November 2011.

Judge Blocks Portion of NDAA
Truthdig.com
A federal judge Wednesday issued an injunction against a National Defense Authorization Act provision that grants the military the right to detain anyone it suspects of involvement in terrorism. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled in favor of a group of plaintiffs, including Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges, who filed a lawsuit against the legislation within weeks of President Obama signing it.
Hedges was joined in the suit by linguist, author and dissident Noam Chomsky, Pentagon whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg and other high-profile activists, scholars and politicians.

Judge Napolitano: First Patriot To Shoot Down
A Government Spy Drone Will Be A Hero
Blasts illegal use of "plastic drones"
to spy on Americans in their backyards
By Steve Watson - Infowars.com
Judge Andrew Napolitano has warned Congress not to act "like potted plants" regarding the increased use of unmanned surveillance drones without warrants over US skies by military, government, and law enforcement agencies.
Echoing the recent comments of his Fox News colleague Charles Krauthammer, Napolitano also said that "The first American patriot that shoots down one of these drones that comes too close to his children in his backyard will be an American hero."

Mobile Wallet Technology:
The New Barbarians are at the Gate
BY SHAH GILANI, Capital Waves Strategist, Money Morning
As I discussed in Part One, the sky is the limit when it comes to mobile wallet technology.
The big brand credit card issuers: American Express, MasterCard, Visa, and Discover Card, along with every other card issuer and wannabe credit extension intermediary are all already into the mobile wallet space.
Their offerings vary and competition between them will be as brutal as it always has been. And that's good for consumers.
Creating choices for consumers to drive business will lead to more innovation and more services offered at more competitive prices. At least, that's the way the free market is supposed to work.

Facebook IPO: Insiders Cashing Out
[Google 'title' for free article pass]
By LYNN COWAN And MIA LAMAR - $$
Facebook Inc. on Wednesday boosted the size of its initial public offering by as much as $3 billion, as some major stockholders sharply increased the number of shares they intend to sell as part of the IPO.
In an updated filing, Facebook increased the number of shares it will offer in the IPO to 421.2 million from 337.4 million. The additional shares—which would be worth $3.2 billion at the high end of current price range—come from venture capitalists and early investors looking to cash out a greater number of their shares. The company itself isn't selling any additional shares.

Google Gets Back to Its Roots With New Search Update
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
Your Google search experience is about to change.
No, don't worry, it's not another social integration. The latest update has nothing to do with Facebook and everything to do with Google's core strengths of organizing information so that you can find it faster.
Now, when you search certain things, say, Tom Cruise, a box will pop up in the right column of your search with structured data about the topic. Google can identify 500 million people, places, and things and can serve up a custom selection of data based on the nature of the noun.

Patagonia's Founder Is America's Most Unlikely Business Guru
For years, Yvon Chouinard kept his eco-conscious, employee-friendly practices largely to himself. Now mega corporations like Walmart, Levi Straus and Nike are following his lead.
By SETH STEVENSON - WSJ Magazine
A couple of years ago, Yvon Chouinard—founder of the outdoor-clothing brand Patagonia—gave a talk at a sustainable-fisheries conference in Vancouver. He'd been invited to speak in recognition of Patagonia's longtime commitment to environmental issues and its reputation as a company that manages to churn out profit while minimizing ecological impact. Chouinard delivered his spiel, but he came away frustrated by the surprising ignorance of his audience. "They didn't know what they were doing," he says of the seafood merchants. "They had no idea about toxins, about incidental catch. Their customers are all going to want to know this stuff soon. Restaurants will want to know."

Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed
By RICH COHEN - WSJ.com
Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.
Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.

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