Home · News · News Oct 2014 · Oct 06 2014
Monday October 06, 2014
News Articles

American Banks Stockpile Treasuries as Deposits Top Loans
Bloomberg | Susanne Walker | 10/06/14

American banks are loading up on U.S. government debt, a sign they remain cautious on the economy even with the jobless rate at a six-year low and corporations at their healthiest in a generation.

Commercial lenders increased their holdings of Treasuries (BUSY) and debt from federal agencies in September by $54 billion to an unprecedented $1.99 trillion, data from the Federal Reserve show. Banks have now been net buyers for 12 straight months.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Citigroup Inc. (C) are among the lenders adding government bonds this year as loan growth fails to keep up with record deposits and banks prepare for rules that take effect in January requiring them to hold more high-quality assets. While companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index are earning more than ever and carrying the lowest debt burdens in at least 24 years, the buying suggests that loan officers are less sanguine over the outlook for the U.S. economy. ... Read more

S&P 500 Companies Spend 95% of Profits on Buybacks, Payouts
Bloomberg | Lu Wang | 10/06/14

Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index really love their shareholders. Maybe too much. They're poised to spend $914 billion on share buybacks and dividends this year, or about 95 percent of earnings, data compiled by Bloomberg and S&P Dow Jones Indices show. Money returned to stock owners exceeded profits in the first quarter and may again in the third. The proportion of cash flow used for repurchases has almost doubled over the last decade while it's slipped for capital investments, according to Jonathan Glionna, head of U.S. equity strategy research at Barclays Plc.

Buybacks have helped fuel one of the strongest rallies of the past 50 years as stocks with the most repurchases gained more than 300 percent since March 2009. Now, with returns slowing, investors say executives risk snuffing out the bull market unless they start plowing money into their businesses. ... Read more

So now let's look at the big picture. The final totals are $59 billion, 3 percent of the total federal budget, for regular welfare and $92 billion, 5 percent of the total federal budget, for corporate welfare.

What Bubble? Record $924 Billion In 65 Million Auto Loans: 31% Of All New Loans Are Subprime
ZeroHedge | author | 10/06/14

At least we now know, definitively, what the reason for the US manufacturing surge in the late spring early summer was: a subprime credit-driven car buying binge.

  1. The total balance of auto loans outstanding in August is $924.2 billion, an all-time high and an increase of 10.8% from same time a year ago
  2. The total number of auto loans outstanding stands at more than 65 million, a record high and an increase of more than 6% from the same time last year;
  3. The total number of new loans originated through June is 12.5 million, an increase of 4.9% from same time a year ago
  4. The total balance of new loans is $254.2 billion, an increase of 6.9% from same time a year ago and representing nearly half of total new non-mortgage credit originated
  5. The total number of new loans originated year-to-date through June for subprime borrowers, defined as consumers with Equifax Risk Scores of 640 or lower, is 3.9 million, representing 31.2% of all auto loans originated this year.
  6. Similarly, the total balance of newly originated subprime auto loans is $70.7 billion, an eight-year high and representing 27.8% of the total balance of new auto loans
  7. Year-to-date in June, the average loan amount for borrowers with risk scores of 680 or lower are increasing the most, showing a 3% increase from the previous year. Loan sizes among borrowers with risk scores of 760 or higher show little change from the same time a year ago
Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, October 06 [10:15]
DN | Death of "Baby Doc" Duvalier Won't End Quest for Justice by Victims of Haiti's U.S.-Backed Dictator (10/06/14) [10:28]
DN | Black Prophetic Fire: Cornel West on the Revolutionary Legacy of Leading African-American Voices (10/06/14) [20:53]
*TRNN | Meteorologist Jeff Masters explains: New Evidence Links Global Heat Waves to Climate Change (10/06/14) [6:53]
*TRNN | Gaza Under Siege - Eva Bartlett on Reality Asserts Itself, Part 1 (10/06/14) [16:38], TRNN | Part 2 [16:27]
*TRNN |Economist Pavlina Tcherneva of Bard College explains: The Lower Unemployment Rate is a Recovery - for the Top 10% (10/06/14) [17:55]
Click to zoom - for bigger image
The Lower Unemployment Rate is a Recovery - for the Top 10%
* Corporate Welfare vs Social Welfare

Government Spends More on Corporate Welfare Subsidies than Social Welfare Programs
thinkbynumbers.org | author | 2012

http://thinkbynumbers.org

When one thinks about government welfare, the first thing that comes to mind is the proverbial welfare queen sitting atop her majestic throne of government cheese issuing a royal decree to her clamoring throngs of illegitimate babies that they may shut the hell up while she tries to watch Judge Judy. However, many politically well-connected corporations are also parasitically draining their share of fiscal blood from your paycheck before you ever see it. It's called corporate welfare. The intent here is to figure out which presents the greater burden to our federal budget, corporate or social welfare programs. ... Read more

Or read the Archived article here:
Click to zoom - for article

STUDY: U.S. Spends $59 Billion on Social Welfare…$92 Billion on Corporate Welfare
wepartypatriots.com | author | 09/21/12

A recent blog post by Mike Sinn for Think by Numbers questions if the government spends more on social welfare or corporate welfare. The GOP has attempted to turn the political discussion surrounding the upcoming election into a debate about President Obama and social welfare, while progressives have done the same with Mitt Romney and corporate welfare. But who is right!? There have got to be…facts…haven't there!?

According to analyzed numbers from the year 2006, the government spends $59 billion (3% of its total budget) on social welfare and $92 billion (5% of total budget) on corporate welfare. Perhaps more interesting is that in 1996, when new welfare reforms were signed into law by President Bill Clinton, both caseloads AND child poverty significantly dropped, saving the government gobs of money: ... Read more

Or read the Archived article here:
Click to zoom - for article
corporate-welfare_003_pa592.pdf
Walmart - The High Cost of Low Prices (2013) [1:37:37]
Cutting Corporate Welfare by Ralph Nader
In this groundbreaking pamphlet, based on testimony he delivered before Congress, Ralph Nader describes how corporations are picking our pockets, and what we can do to stop them. While the United States continues to experience unprecedented cuts in social service programs and millions of Americans go without health insurance, massive corporations continue to reap huge sums of taxpayer money through "corporate welfare"--corporate subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, and tax escapes. Cutting Corporate Welfare details numerous appalling examples of corporate welfare, including: the giveaway of the public airwaves, which by definition belong to the people, to private radio and television stations (including the latest $70 billion gift of the digital spectrum); taxpayer subsidies for giant defense corporation mergers and commercial weapons exports to governments overseas; and the practice of making patients pay twice for drugs--first, as taxpayers subsidize the drugs' development, and again, as patients, after the federal government gives monopolistic control over the chemical's manufacture to a price-gouging drug company.
Cato Institute | On Spending: No Sacred Cows
* So Who is Getting the Most Government Welfare?
Donald Rumsfeld Admits Day before 911 "2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD" () [3:57]
Daily Ticker | Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
Click to zoom - US Defense Budget
Click to zoom - Where Your Tax Dollars Go


10.06.2014. 12:55



Special Interest Important stuff
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Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the quiet part aloud on why he’s still so close to former President Donald Trump: because we can use him for our goals. "President Trump has gotten people who wouldn't give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe he is on their side," the senator told the America First Agenda Summit crowd on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

AIArtificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals including humans. AI research has been defined as the field of study of intelligent agents, which refers to any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

The term "artificial intelligence" had previously been used to describe machines that mimic and display "human" cognitive skills that are associated with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem-solving". This definition has since been rejected by major AI researchers who now describe AI in terms of rationality and acting rationally, which does not limit how intelligence can be articulated.
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Quantum mechanics | AI - Artificial Intelligence
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.  It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York-based financial interests.

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis,.

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Jay explore Ellsberg's latest book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. In the introduction to the book, Ellsberg writes: "No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted over a half a century is a chronicle of human madness".

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Nukes
Nukes

Nuclear weapons have come a long way and come in all types of different sizes. Some are relatively small while others are enormous, so big they boggle the mind at what they can be capable of, i.e. the Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' is/was 3,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

Ms. Foroohar says financialization delivers stagnant wages, inequality and economic crisis; the Financial Times columnist and author of "Makers and Takers" says the financial sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. economy, but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.

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The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

A report written by a Georgetown University team led by Phillip Karber conducted a three-year study to map out China’s complex tunnel system, which stretches 5,000 km (3,000 miles). The report determined that the stated Chinese nuclear arsenal is understated and as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads may be stored in the underground tunnel network.

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911
911

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists attacked the Unites States. They hijacked four airplanes in mid-flight. The terrorists flew two of the planes into two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact caused the buildings to catch fire and collapse. Another plane destroyed part of the Pentagon (the U.S. military headquarters) in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Officials believe that the terrorists on that plane intended to destroy either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Passengers on the plane fought the terrorists and prevented them from reaching their goal. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides--Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, and secret audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? VICE News' "Trump Talk" mashup series tries to answer that. And, we're happy to say, it was just nominated for two Webby Awards. Now you can watch all the nominated videos.

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

Jessica Leeds (1980s)
Kristin Anderson (1990s)
E. Jean Carroll (1995 or 1996)
Lisa Boyne (1996)
Cathy Heller (1997)
Temple Taggart McDowell (1997)
Karena Virginia (1998)
Mindy McGillivray (2003)
Jennifer Murphy (2005)
Rachel Crooks (2005)
Natasha Stoynoff (2005)
Juliet Huddy (2005 or 2006)
Jessica Drake (2006)
Ninni Laaksonen (2006)
Cassandra Searles (2013)
Allegations of pageant dressing room visits(1997)
Mariah Billado,
Victoria Hughes,
and three other Miss Teen USA contestants
Bridget Sullivan (2000)
Tasha Dixon (2001)
Unnamed contestants (2001)
Samantha Holvey (2006)

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? Watch Trump at some of his rallys and see what you think.

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