DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
Wall Street bonuses are set to fall by an average of 20 to 30 percent this year from a year ago, according to a closely watched compensation survey — the weakest bonus season since the financial crisis and a reflection of the leaner times confronting the industry.SOCIALISTS INFLATED THE HOUSING BUBBLE WITH THE CRA AND FANNIE MAE.
Those who work in trading and investment banking — usually Wall Street’s most profitable businesses, although struggling this year — will experience the sharpest drops in pay, said Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, the firm that conducted the survey.
Employees in less volatile businesses, like asset management and commercial banking, will make about what they did in 2010.
And bonuses for top executives like Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase are likely to fall sharply as well, Mr. Johnson said.
The bonus forecast will come as no surprise to many on Wall Street. Trading profits have slumped and new Dodd-Frank regulations have raised the cost of doing business. Even Goldman Sachs, a firm known for its earning power, last month reported its first quarterly loss since the financial crisis.
I hear allegations of financial corruption and intimidation over sexual orientation.
“I’m in a tent that keeps getting flooded, ransacked and robbed,” fumes a transgender group leader -- a female who identifies as a male.
He said that the transgender group would create its own police force for transgender protesters and females, since an immense distrust loomed over the OWS-created authority.
HuffingPost The modern Chinese empire is riding a whipsaw of a politico-economic trajectory. China's billion and a half are growing old before growing rich. And they are growing old without a social safety net to speak of. Things are growing tense in the celestial kingdom already, and are likely to only grow worse.
....more than 73% of Chinese hospitals have reported violent incidents between patients and healthcare professionals. Why? Because feelings run high when you are told that your child, your parent or your spouse cannot be given treatment because you cannot pay for it. China is worried about getting both old and sick: by 2040, more Chinese will be suffering from Alzheimer's than the total populations of all the developed nations combined.
...The bullet train tragedy, the grounding of the new Airbus made in China, and similar events add up to an enormous glitch factor as China attempts to step up the technology ladder to more complex systems. Overheard comment--an inspector on the Shanghai's vaunted subway system will not allow his family to use their trains. Whenever there is an atmosphere of fear, bad news does not get reported up the command chain.
Other countries are increasingly less willing to share their technology with China for a variety of reasons. Some businesspeople have had bad experiences, either in terms of political pressure (Google) or more commonly, theft of intellectual property. Lack of protection by China's legal system is cited as the number one structural impediment to foreign companies doing business in China.
... Chinese banks are equipped to funnel loans to the large state-owned businesses, but they do not have credit analysts who can determine whether or not a business should be given a loan on its own merits. The languishing stock market is still dominated by behemoth state-owned enterprises, so when startups need capital, they often turn to foreign investors. In spite of the glut of savings within China's banking system, all of China's major Internet firms raised funds in US stock markets--Sina, Sohu, Alibaba. Lack of access to capital has also resulted in the loss of thousands of Chinese engineers and entrepreneurs who decided to come to the US to start their businesses, to the inestimable gain of Silicon Valley....The scale of this work disruption is unprecedented in China’s railway history, a high-level official from a large state-owned engineering company told The Economic Observer. Once a project stops, it triggers a domino effect; many parties, including migrant workers, construction companies, and the equipment and materials suppliers are all affected, he said.The Chinese government cannot afford its massive misallocation of capital into the "infrastructure to nowhere," but so many government officials are tied into the massive state owned enterprises, and are addicted to the wild profits of the last two decades, that they are willing to break all the rules to keep the good times coming -- at least for themselves and others who are well connected.
A supervisor at one construction site told First Financial Daily that he has been working in the railway industry for 23 years and has never seen anything this serious before. _EpochTimes
For everyone else, things are likely to become very difficult. And when you are talking about hundreds of millions of people who are essentially disenfranchised, with no voice or clout within the system, the room for unruly disenchantment is quite substantial.
Due to the One Child Policy, China’s fertility rates plummeted during the 1980’s and 90’s. In 1970, China’s fertility rate was 5.5 births per woman; by 1980, it dropped to 2.6 and in 1990, even lower at 2.3 (source: World Bank, World Development Indicators).Can China last that long? It is debatable whether the CCP government can hold the empire together under such severe demographic stress.
What this means of course, is that there will soon be a sustained decline in new entrants into the labor force. Over the past three decades, political legitimacy in China has been built on fast economic growth, which has been powered by a seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap, young labor.
...With a virtually non-existent government pension and social welfare systems, Chinese leaders will likely need to reprioritize and shift resources away from investment and production in the coming decades. (Caixin, a Beijing newspaper, recently reported that there’s already a severe shortage of nursing services and elderly residential facilities in Beijing).
Today, China’s 65+ population is only around 8%, which is a lot lower than that of the US, Germany, or Japan (around 20% for all three). But they’ll catch up in about 30 years, when they may face the same problems that have led to Japan’s current economic stagnation: a declining labor supply, aging population, and increased public spending obligations. _ChinaTimeBomb
Soda bans in schools did not limit sugar consumption.
State laws that ban soda in schools — but not other sweetened beverages — have virtually no impact on the amount of sugary drinks middle school students buy and consume at school, a new study shows.
The study, which looked at thousands of public school students across 40 states, found that removing soda from cafeterias and school vending machines only prompted students to buy sports drinks, sweetened fruit drinks and other sugar-laden beverages instead. In states that banned only soda, students bought and consumed sugary drinks just as frequently at school as their peers in states where there were no bans at all.
However, an Israeli official said the outage was a system malfunction.EXCEPT THAT THE BLOCKADE HAS BEEN RULED LEGAL BY THE COURTS.
In a YouTube video posted on Friday, Anonymous threatened to "strike back" if Israel continued to block humanitarian boats trying to reach Gaza. Earlier that day, the Israeli Navy boarded a Canadian and Irish ship headed toward Gaza and made arrests.
"Your actions are illegal, against democracy, human rights, international, and maritime laws," the Anonymous video says. "Justifying war, murder, illegal interception, and pirate-like activities under an illegal cover of defense will not go unnoticed by us or the people of the world."
Military action against Iran would be a "very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences", Russia's foreign minister has warned.
Sergei Lavrov said diplomacy, not missile strikes, was the only way to solve the Iranian nuclear problem.
GLOBAL WARMING: NCDC data shows that the contiguous USA has not warmed in the past decade, summers are cooler, winters are getting colder. “In the middle of all those quotes being bandied about, I get an email from Burt Rutan (yes THAT Burt Rutan) with a PDF slideshow titled Winter Trends in the United States in the Last Decade citing NCDC’s ‘climate at a glance’ data. This is using the USHCN2 data, which we are told is the ‘best’, no pun intended. It had this interesting map of the USA for Winter Temperatures (December-February) by climate region on the first slide.”
UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry! Firefox 7 sometimes strips the http:// from URLs and I missed it this time.Posted at 2:34 pm by Glenn Reynolds
GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul says "offering friendship" to Iran, not sanctions, would be a more fruitful to achieving peace with Tehran.Some of those locals he mentions, unfortunately, are as anti-Israel as Ahmedinejad himself and even supported the Occupy Wall Street insanity. But let us be clear: these sanctions usually involve barring weapons and such from being shipped there, not food and drink, which Paul hasn't considered. His use of "maybe" shows he hasn't a clue how else to deal with Iran, and he's obviously making these statements because he's worried about the news that Israel may attack Iran's nuclear installations.
The Texas congressman says fears about Iran's nuclear program have been "blown out of proportion." He says tough penalties are a mistake because, as he says was the case in Iraq, they only hurt the local population and still paved a path to war.
When asked on "Fox News Sunday" what he would do to deter Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions, Paul said "maybe offering friendship to them."
Paul's remarks put him at odds with both the Bush and Obama administrations; U.S. policy has relied heavily on sanctions and diplomacy to try to convince Tehran to abandon its atomic program. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Speaking to an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the Republican presidential candidate roundly blasted Obama for approving last week's predator drone strike that killed al-Awlaki, the al Qaeda figure linked to two unsuccessful attacks on U.S.-bound airplanes.Paul, of course, refused to recognize that Khan, by joining the al Qaeda and editing their obscene propaganda, was just as abominable a creature as al-Awlaki and it was on those grounds that Khan was terminated. It's got nothing to do with his being a journalist.
Paul noted that another American, editor of online al Qaeda magazine "Inspire," Samir Kahn, was killed in the attack. Paul questioned whether the government has the right to kill journalists, as well as terrorists.
"Can you imagine being put on a [hit] list because you're a threat?" Paul told a crowd of sixty journalists and their guests. "What's going to happen if they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat."
Paul took the opportunity in the same press dinner, however, to also express sympathy for the ragtags of the left, the budding Occupy Wall Street protest movement.Just how exactly are they supposed to do that when the whole real purpose of the Occupy movement has since proven itself to be more about socialism, racism, rape and anarchy? Why, their repulsive methods have just damaged business for a resturant (H/T: Betsy's Page). As this article tells, quite a few of the Paulbots have attended these OWS gatherings, and here's news of another supporter who was arrested for arson. Those concerned about the damage the OWS movement is causing would be strongly advised to pay careful attention.
Paul said that he shared the frustration of the protesters currently occupying the Wall Street section of New York City, and said he felt the demonstrations are rooted in a host of economic woes brought on by fiscal irresponsibility and globalization.
"I think civil disobedience, if everyone knows what they're doing, is a legitimate effort," Paul said, according to CBS News. "It's been done in this country for many grievances... The solution is to get a healthy economy back."
Group of 71 tattooed Texans express their appreciation for Israel, IDF on bike trip.YEAH, BABY!
It’s not every day you see a few dozen American bikers reciting kiddush in the Western Wall plaza, or anywhere for that matter.
Nonetheless, there they were late Sunday afternoon, a group of more than 70 Christian Harley Davidson enthusiasts from across the United States, taking part in their own rather unique pilgrimage to Israel.
Organized Christian tours are as common to Israel as chicken dinners and nosy inlaws, but this week’s “Run for the Wall Israel” had a style we don’t see too often around these parts.
The group of 71 pilgrims were brought to Israel by the Amarillo, Texas-based Christian ministry “M25: Mission of Hope,” in conjunction with “Coral Tours” and the Tourism Ministry.
Nigeria Islamist raid 'kills 63'
Dozens of people are killed in bomb attacks on police and churches in Nigeria's north-eastern town of Damaturu - Islamist group Boko Haram's deadliest raid to date.
No public memorials were planned at Fort Hood to mark the second anniversary of the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military installation.Is that because the PC crowd doesn't want this to be remembered or known about? Don't be surprised if it is.
"The thing I've heard a lot of families who've lost people in Iraq and in Afghanistan (say) is that they just don't want people to forget," Kerry Cahill said. "People don't bring it up because they don't want to remind you—well, I remind myself every day. I don't want people to forget that it happened, and I don't want people to forget my father."And we must hope he receives the former punishment, since he really deserves it.
On that sunny autumn day two years ago, a gunman wearing an Army combat uniform stood near the front door of a Fort Hood medical building where deploying and returning soldiers received vaccines and other tests. He shouted "Allahu Akbar!"—which means "God is great!" in Arabic—and opened fire, witnesses said. Some soldiers thought it was a training exercise.
He rapidly fired, pausing only to reload, shooting at soldiers hiding under desks and those fleeing the building, according to witnesses. Capt. John Gaffaney was fatally shot after throwing a chair at the gunman. Spt. Jason Dean "J.D." Hunt, Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow and Pfc. Michael Pearson died while trying to protect several nurses at the back of the building. The others who died, most in the front area, were Capt. Russell Seager, Sgt. Amy Krueger, Spc. Frederick Greene, Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, Pfc. Kham Xiong and Pvt. Francheska Velez, who was pregnant.
Some witnesses identified the gunman as Maj. Nidal Hasan, an American-born Muslim who was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan the following month. His trial is set for March. If convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, he faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
Membership in the upper ranks of the Chinese Communist Party has always had a few undeniable advantages. There are the state-supplied luxury sedans, special schools for the young ones and even organic produce grown on well-guarded, government-run farms. When they fall ill, senior leaders can check into 301 Military Hospital, long considered the capital’s premier medical institution.
But even in their most addled moments of envy, ordinary Beijingers could take some comfort in the knowledge that the soupy air they breathe on especially polluted days also finds its way into the lungs of the privileged and pampered.
Such assumptions, it seems, are not entirely accurate.
As it turns out, the homes and offices of many top leaders are filtered by high-end devices, at least according to a Chinese company, the Broad Group, which has been promoting its air-purifying machines in advertisements that highlight their ubiquity in places where many officials work and live.
AWESOME.The disk is made of gas and dust, slowly being consumed as it spirals down into the black hole’s center. As it falls in, the material spews out a tremendous amount of energy, forming what is known as a quasi-stellar radio source, or quasar.
Among the brightest objects in the sky, quasars are short-lived phenomena that only existed during the earliest eras of the universe. They are known to be huge — most are around 60 billion miles across — yet they lie billions of light years from Earth, making them nothing but insignificant pinpricks in even the most powerful telescopes.
Hubble was able to image the distant disk, which is approximately 18.5 billion light-years away, because a huge galaxy happens to sit between Earth and the quasar. The mass of the enormous galaxy bent light from the quasar and directed it toward our telescopes, acting like a gigantic gravitational lens.
The technique allowed the Hubble telescope to see with unprecedented detail. Because of this, researchers were able to measure the disk’s size — between 60 and 180 billion miles across — and determine the temperature of different parts of the disk.
The flare originated in a humongous sunspot that was sighted earlier this week, which ranks as one of the largest sunspots seen in years. The event began at 4:27 p.m. ET (2027 GMT).
The flare "triggered some disruption to radio communications on Earth beginning about 45 minutes later," NASA officials wrote in a statement. "Scientists are continuing to watch this active region as it could well produce additional solar activity as it passes across the front of the sun."
Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in Lower Manhattan have finally landed something they've badly needed: portable toilets.OF COURSE, THESE TOILETS ARE BEING PAID FOR BY AN ANONYMOUS DONOR.
For seven weeks, the occupiers of Zuccotti Park -- a block from Wall Street -- were mostly relying on fast-food restaurants and the kindness of other establishments to do their personal business. But neighbors complained to public officials, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, that demonstrators were also urinating and defecating outdoors.
The group’s website announced Friday afternoon that Occupy Wall Street “is providing access to porta-potties in a private, well-lit space with 24-hour security, only 2 blocks away from the square.”
The announcement said the portable toilets would be “maintained by a professional service” and that volunteers would be blanketing the park with fliers directing people to the facilities.
... The portable toilets are located on a loading dock of the United Teachers Federation building that the protesters have been using to store supplies donated from around the country.
Lymus began designing jewelry when she was 7, and now has a line of clothing called Amirah Creations. She is a devout Muslim, but her dresses will surprise you.
They are full of color: blues, purples, prints and tapestry woven pieces. Lymus is determined to break down many of the stereotypes about Muslim women — like the assumption that all Muslim women are docile and wear black.
"I like colors and I like flowers, and I like head pieces with feathers coming off of them, and all I do is just put it on top of my hijab instead of putting it on my hair," Lymus says. "I am a woman — I am attracted to those things, so I really want to break down that stereotype."
Trip to the Grocery Store Costs You More. “As if Americans haven’t noticed, their trip to the grocery store over the past couple of years has cost them more. How much more? Between 12-20% depending on what you purchase.”IT'S WORSE: the packages are smaller, too! That pint of Tropicana is now 14 oz.
UPDATE: Reader Ken Alwes writes: “It’s a good thing that the cost of food and energy are excluded from the government’s formula for tracking inflation, otherwise we might be experiencing an inflationary cycle. That formula makes sense, really. I don’t know anyone who buys food or energy.”
Posted at 10:57 am by Glenn Reynolds
Could a guy who didn’t know what the “right of return” was and who whiffed on the biggest softball question ever about Gitmo really not know that China has a nuclear deterrent? I’m thinking … maybe.
"The breathtaking contempt at the heart of the British government for its own people and for democracy was showcased by its Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition on October 24. Prompted by popular sentiment, a non-binding motion on Britain and the European Union was scheduled to be debated by MPs. The motion proposed holding a referendum, giving the public a chance to express their opinion on whether the country should withdraw from the EU, or remain a part of the EU, perhaps with the intention of negotiating some powers back from Brussels.
"Neither the British nor any other people in Europe voted for its President, Herman Van Rompuy. Nor do they --or anyone, for that matter -- have the power to vote him or anyone out. Yet at least 75% of laws passed in Britain are currently drafted in the EU. Vladimir Bukovsky, a former jailed dissident who fled the former Soviet Union, calls it, "The EUSSR." The EU is, fundamentally, totalitarian.
The reaction of the three main parties has been baffling, to put it mildly. Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party congratulated the Prime Minister over the ousting of the Gaddafi regime, and spoke of the importance of Libya being able to decide its own future. Without the slightest hint of irony, he then claimed that Britain had to remain in Europe, negotiating its place. As such, he asserted, it would be wrong to allow the British public to vote on EU membership. It might be good for Libyans to decide their future, but apparently not for Britons.
Most astonishing, however, was the response by the Conservative Party leadership, rightly described by Peter Hitchens – author of The Abolition of Britain, and brother of Christopher Hitchens – as "a near-medieval group of courtiers beyond the reach of any sort of accountability." Prime Minister Cameron and his clique made British democracy appear as little more than an elaborate sham on Monday as they attempted to justify denying the public a voice on their future, and the future of their children and grandchildren. That may seem a dramatic statement, but unfortunately it is accurate."
