Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Markets Sell Off Sharply After Bernanke Talks Of Quantitative Easing Slowdown
HP | Mark Gongloff | 06/19/13

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sent tremors through U.S. financial markets on Wednesday when he announced that the Fed plans to pull back on its extraordinary efforts to help the economy later this year.

Though Bernanke insisted Fed policy had not changed and said he was merely trying to explain the Fed's thinking process more clearly, traders read his words as a loud-and-clear signal to sell -- illustrating a long-standing communication problem between policymakers and markets. ... RIGHT! ... Read more

Emerging Markets Crack as $3.9 Trillion Funds Unwind: Currencies
Bloomberg | Ye Xie | 06/20/13

Investors are pulling money from emerging markets at the fastest pace in two years as slowing economic growth and the prospect of less global stimulus sink stocks, bonds and currencies from India to Brazil.

... "These are pre-quake tremors: something big is coming," Stephen Jen, the co-founder of hedge fund SLJ Macro Partners LLP, said in a phone interview from London on June 12. "There's tremendous deceleration in emerging markets. You may see crisis-like price actions without having a crisis." ... Read more

Surveying The Global Damage
ZeroHedge | author | 06/20/13
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*Decline and fall: how American society unravelled
TheGuardian | George Packer | 06/19/13

Thirty years ago, the old deal that held US society together started to unwind, with social cohesion sacrificed to greed. Was it an inevitable process -- or was it engineered by self-interested elites?

In or around 1978, America's character changed. For almost half a century, the United States had been a relatively egalitarian, secure, middle-class democracy, with structures in place that supported the aspirations of ordinary people. You might call it the period of the Roosevelt Republic. Wars, strikes, racial tensions and youth rebellion all roiled national life, but a basic deal among Americans still held, in belief if not always in fact: work hard, follow the rules, educate your children, and you will be rewarded, not just with a decent life and the prospect of a better one for your kids, but with recognition from society, a place at the table.

This unwritten contract came with a series of riders and clauses that left large numbers of Americans -- black people and other minorities, women, gay people -- out, or only halfway in. But the country had the tools to correct its own flaws, and it used them: healthy democratic institutions such as Congress, courts, churches, schools, news organisations, business-labour partnerships. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was a nonviolent mass uprising led by black southerners, but it drew essential support from all of these institutions, which recognised the moral and legal justice of its claims, or, at the very least, the need for social peace. The Roosevelt Republic had plenty of injustice, but it also had the power of self-correction.

Americans were no less greedy, ignorant, selfish and violent then than they are today, and no more generous, fair-minded and idealistic. But the institutions of American democracy, stronger than the excesses of individuals, were usually able to contain and channel them to more useful ends. Human nature does not change, but social structures can, and they did. ... Read more

Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Thursday, June 20 [13:58]

*DN | Did U.S. Gov't Lie About TWA Flight 800? Ex-Investigators Seek Probe as New Evidence Emerges. (06/20/13) [10:32]

2013 Alaska Heat Wave: Record-Breaking Temperatures Bake 49th State
HP | Rachel D'Oro | 06/19/13

A heat wave hitting Alaska may not rival the blazing heat of Phoenix or Las Vegas, but to residents of the 49th state, the days of hot weather feel like a stifling oven -- or a tropical paradise.

... All-time highs were recorded elsewhere, including 96 degrees on Monday 80 miles to the north in the small community of Talkeetna, purported to be the inspiration for the town in the TV series, "Northern Exposure" and the last stop for climbers heading to Mount McKinley, North America's tallest mountain. One unofficial reading taken at a lodge near Talkeetna even measured 98 degrees, which would tie the highest undisputed temperature recorded in Alaska. ... Read more
Unusual Heat Wave Bakes Alaska (06/19/13) [1:36]