Programmable digital currency is the final piece of the global control grid that’s finally snapping into place. Catherine Austin Fitts on how to defeat it.

 

Catherine's website:

https://solari.com/

Four Horsemen - Feature Documentary

FOUR HORSEMEN is an award winning independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works.

As we will never return to 'business as usual' 23 international thinkers, government advisors and Wall Street money-men break their silence and explain how to establish a moral and just society.

FOUR HORSEMEN is free from mainstream media propaganda -- the film doesn't bash bankers, criticise politicians or get involved in conspiracy theories. It ignites the debate about how to usher a new economic paradigm into the world which would dramatically improve the quality of life for billions.

"It's Inside Job with bells on, and a frequently compelling thesis thanks to Ashcroft's crack team of talking heads -- economists, whistleblowers and Noam Chomsky, all talking with candour and clarity." - Total Film

"Four Horsemen is a breathtakingly composed jeremiad against the folly of Neo-classical economics and the threats it represents to all we should hold dear."
- Harold Crooks, The Corporation (Co-Director) Surviving Progress (Co-Director/Co-Writer)

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The Mayan 2012 Prophecy: Orwellian “End of the World” Doomsday is “Made in America”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, December 19, 2012

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-mayan-2012-prophecy-the-end-of-the-world-is-man-made-orwellian-doomsday-made-in-america/5316231

The 2012 Mayan Prophecy has been readily distorted and misunderstood. The End of the Mayan Calendar on December 21, 2012 has nothing to do with the “End of the World”.

In fact, the Mayan calendar does not end on December 21st, 2012. Rather December 21 marks the beginning of a new “Long Cycle” in the Mayan calendar system. (See Washington’s Blog, End of the World: Hear the 2012 Prophecy ... Direct from the Mouths of the Mayan Priests, Global Research, December 13, 2012)

The End of the World concept is a falsehood and misinterpretation of Mayan thought. What is at stake is a renewal, the unfolding of a new era. For the Mayans, December 21, 2012 marks the beginning of a new long cycle (Ibid).

Meanwhile, “End of the World” stories and commentary are plastered on the news tabloids. While the Western media readily refutes the Mayan prophesy, the apocalypse narrative, when repeated ad nauseam, serves as a distraction and distortion.

A Reuters-Ispos poll conducted last May confirms that 10% of the World’s population believe that: “The Mayan calendar, which some say ‘ends’ in 2012, marks the end of the world”.

Ironically, in sharp contrast to the Mayan prophesy of “renewal, the real World we live in at the outset of the 21st Century is marked by a formidable economic and social crisis which is impoverishing millions of people, literally destroying people’s lives.

In the figurative sense, we are in the midst of an unfolding “doomsday scenario” of a complex political, social and economic nature: it’s man made, it’s “Made in America”; it is the consequence of the fracture of the judicial system, the evolving Homeland Security apparatus, the fraudulent deregulation of financial markets, the mismanagement of the real economy.

These fundamental shifts in America’s institutional and social fabric are coupled with a far-reaching global military agenda and a self-serving US foreign policy. The latter under the helm of Secretary Hillary Clinton points towards potential a breakdown of the channels of international diplomacy.

War and the Economic Crisis are intimately related. While the global economy is in a state of chaos, marked by the collapse of productive systems, the US and its allies –including NATO and Israel– have embarked upon a military adventure, “a long war” under the disguise of a “global war on terrorism”.

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously. Pentagon war games routinely focus on simulating World War III scenarios. This “End of the World” military agenda potentially threatens the future of humanity.

Media Disinformation

While World public attention is riveted on the “Mayan apocalypse”, the “Real Crisis” which is affecting humanity is not an object of serious debate. The Pentagon’s “long war” combined with a murky scenario of global impoverishment and economic breakdown is not front page news.

The corporate media plays a central role in providing legitimacy to a destructive military agenda. The US-NATO weapons arsenal and military deployment in all regions of the World are routinely portrayed as instruments of peace. America’s new generation of tactical nuclear weapons are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war, which constitutes a de facto doomsday scenario, is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.

Central to an understanding of war is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion.

A good versus evil dichotomy prevails.

The perpetrators of war are presented as the victims.

According to the Western media, America and NATO’s “Atlantic area” were attacked by a “foreign power” [Afghanistan] on September 11, 2001: an a absurd proposition.

NATO’s doctrine of collective security, based on the concept of “self defense” was invoked by the Atlantic Council on the morning of September 12, 2001 as a justification to bomb and invade Afghanistan, because Afghanistan had allegedly attacked America.

Meanwhile, the media stands mum: no analysis, no debate. Public opinion is misled.

Breaking the “big lie”, which upholds war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking the propaganda apparatus, which sustains a criminal project of global destruction.

War propaganda not only sustains a profit-driven military agenda, it creates in the inner consciousness of millions of people the acceptance of war as a societal project. It literally stamps out and excludes from the human mindset fundamental human values of peace, compassion and social justice. It transforms people into unconscious zombies.

The corporate media is involved in acts of camouflage. The devastating impacts of a nuclear war are either trivialized or not mentioned. Against this backdrop, people across the land, nationally and internationally, should understand the gravity of the present situation and act forcefully at all levels of society to reverse the tide of war.

Strong “Economic Medicine”

The conduct of global warfare is accompanied by process of Worldwide macroeconomic restructuring. Throughout the World strong “economic medicine” is imposed.

People are led to believe that austerity is the “solution” to crisis when it is in fact the “cause” of economic collapse. In the 1980s and 1990s, the IMF “Structural Adjustment Program” (SAP) was imposed on the Third World, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the countries of the former Soviet block. In all these countries, the standard of living plummeted, State social programs were phased out or privatised.

In North America and the European Union, the social crisis has been is marked by the weakening or outright disintegration of Medicare, Social Security and public education. The civilian economy is in crisis. Tax revenues are reallocated to building a formidable war economy at the expense of social services. Fiscal collapse is the inevitable outcome. State budgets are dictated by the creditor banks, which increasingly decide on the fate of millions of people.

Across America, millions of households have lost their homes. Small businesses are driven into bankruptcy. What remains of social security and Medicare is slated to be scrapped. The only sectors of the US economy which are booming are the luxury goods sector geared to the “One Percent” and the state of the art weapons industry, largely composed of the defence conglomerates including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace et al.

Tax Dollars used to Wage Wars and Kill People

The war economy is booming, F35 fighter jets are to be sold at half a billion dollars a piece. Not included in this price is another 300 million dollars of related maintenance and upkeep of these state of of the art fighter jets. Canada and Norway be acquiring a large number of these planes at the expense of their social programs. “The overall cost of the program to the US military is estimated at a staggering $1.51 trillion over the so called life cycle of the program, namely $618 million per plane. (Shalal-Esa, Andrea. Government sees lifetime cost of F-35 fighter at $1.51 trillion., Chicago Tribune, April 2, 2012).

War and Globalization

War and globalization including the imposition of deadly austerity measures are intimately related. Global Warfare is good for business. It feeds billions of dollars into what Dwight D. Eisenhower call the “Military Industrial Complex”. The fanciful headlines regarding the upcoming Apocalypse serve to overshadow the grim realities of the US-NATO led wars.

Several new weapons systems have been introduced in the course of the post Cold war era. The emphasis is on unconventional warfare.

• Unmanned warfare, killing from a computer screen,
• environmental modification techniques including climatic warfare,
• a new generation of nuclear weapons made in America, not to mention the use of depleted uranium ammunition which causes cancer.

The backdrop is a culture of violence in Hollywood where war, police brutality, torture and extrajudicial killings are the “new normal”;

Meanwhile the Fukushima disaster is a nuclear war without a war, conducive to massive contamination and radiation, the consequences of which are still to be fully assessed.

Who are the main actors behind the US led war?

• The military industrial complex also described as the defence contractors, including the mercenary and security outfits on contract to the US Department of Defense (DoD)
• the Wall Street financial establishment including the institutional speculators and the hedge funds,
• the biotech conglomerates, agribusiness and big Pharma, which produce genetically modified seeds, chemical and biological weapons. This sector overlaps with the military industrial complex,
• the Anglo-American oil conglomerates and energy companies,
• the communications giants overlapping with the military and intelligence apparatus, including surveillance and police state technology,
• The media conglomerates which constitute the cornerstone of the US imperial propaganda.

Wars on the Pentagon Drawing Board

Active war preparations against Syria, Lebanon and Iran have been ongoing for the last eight years.

Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems.

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war.

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to humanity, as a doomsday scenario. Quite the opposite: it is viewed as a humanitarian endeavor which contributes to enhancing an illusive concept of global security.

The “End of the World” is an ongoing man made process. What we are witnessing in the 21st Century is the outright destruction of entire countries.

Erasing the Achievements of Post War Economic and Social Development. Dismantling the Welfare State

The European Union –which had reached a high level of economic and social development– is now beset with mass unemployment and the dismantling of the post World War II Welfare State. The governments of sovereign countries are controlled by a shadow financial establishment.

Almost one quarter of Europe’s young people are without work, with the highest youth jobless rate (52.1 percent) recorded in Greece and Spain.

In Greece and Spain, the overall unemployment rates now stand at the record levels of 21.9 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively. In both countries unemployment has risen sharply in the past year. In May 2011, unemployment stood at 20.9 percent in Spain and 15.7 percent in Greece. (See Christoph Dreier, Record Unemployment in Euro Zone, Global Research, July 03, 2012 World Socialist Web Site 3 July 2012,http://www.globalresearch.ca/record-unemployment-in-euro-zone/31740)

At the height of the great depression of the 21st century, economic chaos prevails, the possibility of financial breakdown can not be dismissed.

Criminalization of the Banking System

Known and documented, the mega-banks which oversee the economic restructuring of the European and North American economies are routinely involved in money laundering and the drug trade. Pervasive links to organized crime have been established. The banks work hand in glove with the drug cartels.

HSBC was sued for collaborating with the Mexican drug. This is not an isolated event. All major financial institutions are involved in the laundering of drug money.

And lest we forget, the drug economy is part of a long history of international trade. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation founded in 1865 in the British colony of Hong Kong was an offshoot of the British East India company (BEIC). Starting in the late 18th century, protected by the British Empire, the BEIC was involved in the lucrative opium trade. Produced in Bengal and then shipped to China, the revenues were used to finance Britain’s imperial expansion.

When the Chinese imperial government ordered the opium to be destroyed in 1839, Britain declared war on China, initiating what was called the “first opium war”. Britain’s casus belli was that China –by destroying the opium– had violated the tenets of 19th Century “free trade”.

The HKSB is no exception. Today, corporate capital continues to protect the drug trade and the most respected banking institutions annually launder billions of narco-dollars. It is worth noting that since 2001, Afghanistan’s war shattered economy supplies more than 90 percent of the World’s heroin. The highly lucrative drug trade out of Afghanistan is protected by the US-NATO occupation forces on behalf of powerful financial interests: a multibillion dollar bonanza for the banks and the criminal syndicates involved in the Golden Crescent drug trade. The resulting flow of narco-dollars is largely laundered in the Western banking system.

SOURCE: Washington’s Blog, Are American Troops Protecting Afghan Opium? U.S. Troops Patrolling Poppy Fields In Afghanistan (Photos) Global Research, October 28, 2012

Destroying Civilization: Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley

America’s wars in the Middle East and Central Asia have largely been conducive to the destabilization and decline of an entire region, considered by historians to be the cradle of civilization.

The “doomsday” wars on Iraq and more recently Syria are instrumental in the destruction of Mesopotamia, the “Land of two Rivers”.

More than 5000 years of history are erased. In Iraq. At the very outset of the occupation in April 2003, the cultural and archaeological heritage was looted by the invaders.

America’s unmanned drone attacks against civilians in Pakistan under the mandate of the “Global War on Terrorism” occur in the upper Indus Valley, another cradle of ancient civilization going back to the Bronze Age (Third Millennium BC) , which is currently being destroyed. The Indus Valley Civilization also known as the Harappan civilization, started in the third millennium BC (3300–1300 BC). Together with the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley was one of the first urban river civilizations.

The “collateral casualties” resulting from the drone attacks are “nothing more than a euphemism for state-sponsored mass murder.”

The recipients of these profit driven wars are the Anglo-American oil giants and the weapons conglomerates, the so-called “defence contractors” (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace, etc) which produce the humanitarian missiles and fighter planes for the US-NATO war machine. The latter includes a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The technology and sophistication of this military hardware at the height of the electronic age have expanded beyond bounds. In a bitter irony, these “weapons of peace” are used to ensure that Iran and Syria do not use their alleged WMDs against the Western World.

The Role of Al Qaeda

US led wars are geared towards in fomenting ethnic and factional divisions as well as supporting, through covert operations the formation of “Islamist” terrorist paramilitary organizations. These covert operations are essentially intended to destroy the nation state and install a puppet regime.

Over the past 30 years, US intelligence in partnership with Britain’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad, have supported the creation of Al Qaeda as well as a number of “Al Qaeda affiliated” organizations. These terrorist entities are “intelligence assets”, namely instruments of Western intelligence.

Today, the jihadists freedom fighters are recruited by NATO. In Libya and in Syria, these Al Qaeda affiliated entities, supported and integrated by French and British special forces, act on behalf of the Western military alliance. They are NATO’s foot-soldiers.

The Plight of Genetically Engineered Seeds (GMO)

In India, the Ganges which floods the fertile plains of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, thousands of bankrupt and impoverished farmers are committing suicide. The figures confirm that 250,000 farmers have committed suicide. Why? Because the organic seeds are being replaced by genetically modified varieties, which once adopted leads not only to the destruction of biodiversity but also to the demise of entire farming communities:

Monsanto offered its GM seeds to the farmers of India with hopes of reaping plentiful crops. Plain and mostly uneducated farmers thought Monsanto had come to provide a “magic” formula that would transform their lives. They had no idea what was coming.

Monsanto’s seeds in India did not produce what the company had promised and farmers hoped. The expensive seeds piled up debts and destroyed farming fields. In many instances, the crops simply failed to materialize. The farmers were not aware that the GM seeds required more water than the traditional seeds. And lack of rain in many parts of India exacerbated the crop failure.

With no harvest, the farmers could not pay back the lenders. Burdened with debts and humiliation, the farmers simply took their own lives, some by swallowing poisonous pesticides in front of their families. To date, an estimated 200,000 farmers have committed suicide all over India.

To add to the misery, wives inherited the debts along with the fear of losing their homes and lands. With no money coming in, they also had to pull their kids from the schools. The mass suicide among the Indian farmers is known as the “GM genocide.” (KILLER SEEDS: The Devastating Impacts of Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Seeds in India By Iqbal Ahmed. January 12, 2012 http://www.globalresearch.ca/killer-seeds-the-devastating-impacts-of-monsanto-s-genetically-modified-seeds-in-india/28629

A similar process is occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. In the highlands of Ethiopia, where the landraces of an ancient agricultural system are being replaced by seeds and farm inputs from Monsanto, Cargill, et al:

The hidden agenda was to eventually displace the traditional varieties and landraces reproduced in village-level nurseries. With the weakening of the system of traditional exchange, village level seed banks were being replenished with commercial hi-bred and genetically modified seeds. Michel Chossudovsky, Sowing the Seeds of Famine in Ethiopia Global Research, September 10, 2001 The Ecologist, 1 September 2000, also published as a chapter in The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, Montreal 2003

Impoverishment and Famine in sub-Saharan Africa

This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. From the onslaught of the debt crisis of the early 1980s, the IMF-World Bank had set the stage for the demise of the peasant economy across the region .

This process of planned impoverishment of the African continent under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank has been accompanied by an ongoing process of US led militarization under the mandate of the “Global War on Terrorism.

In the course of the last 30 years, civil wars triggered through covert intelligence ops have been launched. Powerful corporate interests are behind these wars. Control over resources, oil, natural gas, precious and strategic metals is the not so hidden agenda.

In South Sudan, oil was discovered in 1978. Five years later a US sponsored “civil war” supported by the CIA was launched, led by John Garang, who was trained by the US military at Fort Benning, Georgia. The Sudan war resulted in 2 million lives and another 4 million displaced. Estimates of war related deaths in Sudan are in the range of 4 million.

The Rwandan civil war and 1994 genocide resulted in a million deaths out of a total population of approximately 7 million. The resource wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in up to five million deaths.

These wars in sub-Saharan Africa are never mentioned by the media. Many people in America do not know they even happened.

More generally, the 2012 Mayan prophesy among other World events serves the useful purpose of distracting people’s attention from the most devastating crisis in word history characterised by endless war, environmental degradation and poverty triggered by macroeconomic reform.

Reversing the Tide of War. Restoring Economic and Social Development. Reinstating Civil Liberties

While we are not facing an imminent “End of the World” scenario, the World is nonetheless at the juncture of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history. The outbreak of a full fledged war against Syria and Iran could potentially lead humanity into a Third World War scenario.

The US possesses an impressive arsenal of weapons which it is being used to threaten the World.

An Orwellian police state has emerged, with spying and eves-dropping implemented at a global level. Big Brother is instated at height of the electronic age, with sophisticated data banks and surveillance techniques, operating Worldwide.

Habeas corpus has been repealed. Extrajudicial assassinations are now legal.

The international community has endorsed preemptive nuclear war in the name of world peace.

“Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, including nuclear weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality.

What we are witnessing at the outset of the 21st Century, however, is not an abrupt shift and fracture, but a gradual process of decay and social decline. What is at stake is the destruction of civilization as we know it, where progress is interrupted and the reproduction of human life is impaired. This process is marked by the implementation of a global military agenda coupled with a Worldwide economic depression.

We are living in a destructive and momentous period in World history

The ideological underpinnings of this inquisitorial New World Order are devastating:

The overriding consensus is that people should support a Wordwide criminal project, involving illegal wars, the police State, the derogation of civil liberties and financial fraud, “in the name of democracy”.

The consensus does not allow for dissent or debate. Its the American inquisition. Those opposed to this perverted brand of democracy are categorized as “terrorists”. Being opposed to criminality is a criminal offence.

For this Orwellian New World Order to be sustained, realities must be turned upside down: the propaganda apparatus is predicated on instilling falsehoods in the minds of millions of people.

Citizens must accept the premises of a World Order where:

• war is heralded as peace,
• the police state is upheld as democracy,
• austerity means prosperity,
• wealth and luxury is a indicator of progress and development,
• killing and torturing alleged terrorists are required to ensure national security
• the victims of war constitute a threat to Western civilization

Realities are distorted and turned upside down, the Lie becomes the Truth.

The real global crisis affecting the people of this planet is thereby obfuscated by “fake crises” and catastrophes, not to mention warnings of impending “terrorist attacks” by unidentified “outside enemies”.

The ultimate purpose of propaganda is to create confusion and obedience to a pre-determined political consensus. The objective is to distract and divert public attention from an understanding of the real crisis which is affecting humanity: The great depression and World War III are not front page news, yet the danger of a world war is real.

Reversing the tide is tantamount to a revolution, it is the reversal of certain embedded tendencies in the capitalist World Order.

The latter is characterized by the criminalization of both the financial system and the political apparatus. Bankers are rightfully involved in fraud and money laundering, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon et al. are vying for more wars, oil companies have their eyes riveted on conquering the Middle East: more than 60 percent of the World’s oil lies in Muslim lands.

This downward spiral underlying this crisis is a gradual yet cumulative process. It can be reversed.

The conditions for its reversal imply the dismantling of fundamental structures and institutions, repealing the police state, closing down the military industrial complex, revamping the financial system, scrapping economic austerity measures and restoring the standard of living of working people, putting an end to humanitarian killings, repealing racism and xenophobia.

In essence, what is required at the outset is meaningful “Regime Change” in the USA, a massive overall in the political system as well as the financial architecture.

A revolution involves first and foremost the dismantling of the propaganda apparatus, which means targeting the sources of media disinformation.

Dismantling mainstream media disinformation is is a prerequisite to implementing more fundamental changes in the workings of the economic and social system, implying fundamental shifts in power relations.

The most important instrument at our disposal is the Truth, because the truth overrides the Lie. It is the basis for developing a mass grass-roots movement, nationally and internationally

When the Lie becomes the Truth within an Orwellian police state environment, there is no going back, humanity is precipitated onto the path of self destruction. It is therefore crucial to fully comprehend the criminal nature of the New World Order, of its legal and political underpinnings, and the nature of the elite power structures which sustain it.

To reverse the tide, war criminals in high office, must be targeted as an initial step. The weapons industry must eventually be closed down. The fraudulent financial mechanisms –including derivative trade and speculative instruments, the institutions, the legal apparatus, etc.– underlying the global capitalist economy must eventually also be dismantled.

What is presented here are a few thoughts to initiate a broader debate. The complexities underlying the military agenda and global economic system must be addressed if we are to successfully reverse the tide.

What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of war and economic austerity, a global people’s movement which criminalizes war.

Martin Luther King once said:

Youngsters will learn words they will not understand,

Children from India will ask: “What is hunger?”

Children from Alabama will ask: “What is racial segregation?”

Children from Hiroshima will ask: “What is the atomic bomb?”

Children at school will ask: “What is war?”

You will answer them, you will tell them: “Those are words not used any more,

Like ‘stage-coaches’, ‘galleys’ or ‘slavery’,

Words no longer meaningful,

That is why they have been removed from dictionaries.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 Global Research

China and Russia are Acquiring Gold, Dumping US Dollars

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, November 11, 2012

Url of this article:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/central-banks-are-acquiring-gold-dumping-us-dollars/22672

There is evidence that central banks in several regions of the World are building up their gold reserves. What is published are the official purchases.

A large part of these Central Bank purchases of gold bullion are not disclosed. They are undertaken through third party contracting companies, with utmost discretion.

US dollar holdings and US dollar denominated debt instruments are in effect being traded in for gold, which in turn puts pressure on the US dollar.

In turn, both China and Russia have boosted domestic production of gold, a large share of which is being purchased by their central banks:

It has long been assumed that China is surreptitiously building up its gold reserves through buying local production. Russia is another major gold miner where the Central bank has been purchasing gold from another state entity, Gokhran, which is the marketing arm and central repository for the country’s mined gold production. Now it has been reported by Bloomberg that the Venezuelan Central Bank director, Jose Khan, has said that country will boost its gold reserves through purchasing more than half the gold produced from its rapidly growing domestic gold mining industry.

In Russia, for example, Gokhran sold some 30 tonnes of gold to the Central Bank in an internal accounting exercise late last year. In part, so it was said at the time, the direct sale was made rather than placing the metal on the open market and perhaps adversely affecting the gold price.

China is currently the world’s largest gold producer and last year it confirmed it had raised its own Central Bank gold holdings by more than 450 tones over the previous six years. Mineweb.com – The world’s premier mining and mining investment website Venezuela taking own gold production into Central Bank reserves – GOLD NEWS | Mineweb

The 450 tons figure corresponds to an increase in the gold reserves of the central bank from 600 tons in 2003 to 1054 tons in 2009. If we go by official statements, China’s gold reserves are increasing by approximately 10 percent per annum.

China has risen to now be the largest gold producing nation in the world at around 270 tonnes. The amount bought in by the government initially looks like 90 tonnes per annum or just under, 2 tonnes a week. Before 2003 the announcement by the Chinese central bank that gold reserves had been doubled to 600 tonnes, accounted for similar purchases before that date. Why so small an amount you may well ask? We think local and national issues clouded the central bank’s view as it was the government that bought the gold since 2003 and have now placed it on the central bank’s Balance Sheet. So we would conclude that the government has ensured central bank gold purchasing must continue. “How will Chinese Central Bank Gold Buying affect the Gold Price short & Long-Term?” by Julian Phillips. FSO Editorial 05/07/2009

Russia

Russia’s Central bank holdings are in excess of 20 million troy ounces (January 2010)

click to enlarge

Russia’s Central Bank reserves have increased markedly in recent years. The RCB reported in May 2010 purchasing 34.2 tons of gold in a single month.Russian Central Bank Gold Purchases Soar In May – China Too? | The Daily Gold

The diagram below shows a significant increase in monthly purchases by the the RCB since June 2009.

(click on chart to enlarge)

Central Banks in the Middle East are also building up their gold reserves, while reducing their dollar forex holding.

Gold reserves of GCC states is less than 5 percent:

Dubai International Financial Centre Authority economists released a report yesterday calling for local countries to build gold reserves, according to The National.

Despite a high interest in gold, GCC states maintain less than 5 percent of their total reserves in gold. Compared to the ECB, which holds 25 percent of reserves in gold, that leaves a lot of room for growth. http://www.businessinsider.com/gcc-boost-gold-holdings-2010-12#ixzz18FEqpTy3

GCC states should boost their foreign reserve holdings of gold to help shield their billions of dollars of assets from turbulence in global currency markets, say economists at the Dubai International Financial Centre Authority (DIFCA).

Diversifying more of their reserves from US dollars to the yellow metal would help to offer central banks in the region higher investment returns, said Dr Nasser Saidi, the chief economist of DIFCA, and Dr Fabio Scacciavillani, the director of macroeconomics and statistics at the authority.

“When you have a great deal of economic uncertainty, going into paper assets, whatever they may be – stocks, bonds, other types of equity – is not attractive,” said Dr Saidi. “That makes gold more attractive.”

Declines in the dollar during recent months have dented the value of GCC oil revenues, which are predominantly weighted in the greenback.GCC urged to boost gold reserves

According to a report in People`s Daily;

The latest rankings of gold reserves show that, as of mid-December, the United States remains the top country and the Chinese mainland is ranked sixth with 1,054 tons of reserves, the World Gold Council announced recently.

Russia climbed to eighth place because its gold reserves increased by 167.5 tons since December 2009. The top ten in 2010 remains the same compared to the rankings of the same period of last year. And Saudi Arabia squeezed to the top 20.

Developing countries and regions, including Saudi Arabia and South Africa, have become the main force driving the gold reserve increase. … .

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European central bank are the major gold sellers, and the IMF’s gold reserves decreased by 158.6 tons. (China’s gold reserves rank 6th worldwide – People’s Daily Online

It should be understood that actual purchases of physical gold are not the only factor in explaining the movement of gold prices. The gold market is marked by organized speculation by large scale financial institutions.

The gold market is characterised by numerous paper instruments, gold index funds, gold certificates, OTC gold derivatives (including options, swaps and forwards), which play a strong role, particularly in short-term movement of gold prices. The recent increase and subsequent decline of gold prices are the result of manipulation by powerful financial actors.

Copyright © 2012 Global Research

Do Not Pay Dozen: 12 CEOs Who Met Shareholder Spring Revolts

By by Pratap Chatterjee

CorpWatch Blog

June 14th, 2012

Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the global ad agency, was defeated Wednesday in his attempt to get shareholders to approve his $20 million (£13 million) a year salary. He was at least the 12th CEO to face a shareholder revolt against excessive compensation this spring.

“Ever since the first revolts erupted in earnest this year, the “shareholder spring” has been searching for its own Hosni Mubarak to rally against,” writes Jonathon Ford in the Financial Times. “Now a suitably pharaonic candidate has emerged in Sir Martin Sorrell.”

WPP began life as Wire and Plastic Products plc in 1971, as a company that manufactured wire shopping baskets, but was bought out in 1985 by Martin Sorrell, former finance director of Saatchi & Saatchi. Today it is one of the most powerful ad agencies in the world, after having bought up some of its most famous rivals like Burson-Marsteller, Grey, Hill & Knowlton, JWT, Ogilvy Group and Young & Rubicam. Sales in 2011 hit £10 billion ($16 billion)

Sorrell defended his salary in a June 5 Financial Times commentary titled "I Act Like The Owner That I Am." "I find the controversy over my compensation deeply disturbing. Some imagine that I wake up every morning and make decisions, including those over compensation, in the shaving mirror ... If the government or institutions believe pay is excessive, tax it. Do not fiddle with the market mechanism. WPP is not a failure, it is a success."

A week later, some 60 percent of shareholders voted against Sorrell’s pay package. The revolt “appeared to stun the board directors as they watched the results appear on TV screens” wrote the Independent. (The directors were meeting on Wednesday in Dublin, where the company is headquartered to avoid taxes)

"People are concerned because there is a recession, they're concerned about inequality, inequality of wealth and incomes,” a suitably chastened Sorrell told a Reuters meeting in Paris on Thursday. “At times of recession people become more concerned about that, you see that politically.”

Here is the CorpWatch list of CEOs who have seen significant shareholder votes against their multimillion dollar salaries so far this spring.

* David Brennan, CEO of AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company, resigned April 26 after shareholders voted against his £9 million pay ($14.4 million)

* Andrew Moss, CEO of Aviva, the top UK insurance company, was forced to resign on May 8 after he lost a vote against his £2.7 million ($4.3 million) pay package

* Sly Bailey, CEO of Trinity Mirror, the UK’s biggest newspaper group, decided to step down May 3 after shareholders voted against her £1.7 million ($2.7 million) pay

* Vikram Pandit, Citibank’s CEO, faced a revolt against his proposed salary of $15 million from some 55 percent of shareholders

* Brady Dougan, CEO of Credit Suisse, saw his salary slashed in half to $6.37 million

* Bill Gammell, founder of Cairn Energy, lost share options worth £2.5 million ($4 million) after 67 percent of shareholders voted against his pay package

* Mike Davies, chairman of Pendragon, a UK car dealership, saw 25 percent vote against his salary

* Andrew Sukawaty, the executive chairman of Inmarsat, the satellite phone company, saw a shareholder revolt against his £2.66 million salary ($4.25 million)

* Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill, a major UK betting company, saw 49.9 percent of shareholders vote against his £1.2 million ($1.92 million) pay package

* Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Swiss mining company Xstrata

* Kaspar Villiger, chairman of UBS bank in Zurich

Source

Where the money is going?

The Euro Crisis - Debt By Design

Jim Rogers interviews

Cameron made "bad" Euro deal, says Clegg

By Channel 4 News

The UK emerged from last week's Brussels summit with a "bad deal", says Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who fears Britain will now become "isolated and marginalised" within the EU.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg admitted today he was "bitterly disappointed" by the outcome of last week's European Council, when David Cameron wielded Britain's veto.

He warned that Britain could be left "isolated and marginalised" in the wake of the summit.

"I'm bitterly disappointed by the outcome of last week's summit, precisely because I think now there is a danger that the UK will be isolated and marginalised within the European Union," Mr Clegg told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show.

"I don't think that's good for jobs, in the City or elsewhere. I don't think it's good for growth or for families up and down the country."

He said he would now be doing "everything I can to ensure this setback does not become a permanent divide".

'Spectacularly misguided'

Mr Clegg spoke by telephone to the prime minister at 4am on Friday, as talks ended in Brussels.

The Lib Dem leader said: "I said this was bad for Britain. I made it clear that it was untenable for me to welcome it."

He said Tories welcoming the outcome of the summit were "spectacularly misguided".

At prime minister's questions last Wednesday, Conservative backbenchers urged David Cameron to show "bulldog spirit" in Brussels.

But Mr Clegg said today: "There's nothing bulldog about Britain hovering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, not standing tall in Europe, not being taken seriously in Washington."

He warned the UK was "retreating further to the margins of Europe".

Read more: Will UK be left out in the cold?

'Not good for Britain'

Earlier, in today's Independent on Sunday, a source close to Mr Clegg said there had been "a spectacular failure to deliver in the country's interest" at the Brussels summit.

"Nick certainly doesn't think this is a good deal for Britain, for British jobs or British growth," the source said.

"It leaves us isolated in Europe and that is not in our national interest. Nick's fear is that we become the lonely man of Europe."

The source said Mr Clegg "couldn't believe it" when, on Friday morning, he was informed of the course of events and how Mr Cameron had sought to negotiate with fellow EU leaders.

'Reasonable requests'

Speaking on BBC Radio Nottingham, Conservative Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, a pro-European, described the outcome of the summit as "disappointing".

"There will be a big statement made by the prime minister on Monday, where I shall be sitting listening, and I shall be discussing what we are going to do now," Mr Clarke said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary William Hague, writing in The Telegraph, gave his backing to Mr Cameron.

"Our requests were moderate, reasonable and relevant, given the potential spill-over from fiscal to financial integration," wrote Mr Hague.

"We did not go to Brussels seeking a row. We went in search of agreement. It is a matter of regret that no agreement that was acceptable to all 27 EU countries could be reached.

"But it is better to have no change to the EU treaties than a change that did not protect our interests."

What actually happened with MF Global

By Gerald Celente
Trends Research Institute

ECB Preparing Italy Bailout, Massive Inflation Coming

By the NIA

Italy's 10 year bond yields rose above 7% on Wednesday and economists from around the world are now proclaiming that these interest rates are unsustainable with Italy's national debt now 120% of its GDP. NIA believes the ECB is currently working on their largest bailout in history where they will commit to purchasing over €1 trillion of Italian bonds and bonds of other eurozone countries that are at risk of becoming insolvent. Despite the signals currently being given by the ECB, they will not allow Italy to fail because it will cause a Great Depression throughout the European Union, which will lead to the destruction of the eurozone.

Economists today fail to realize that 10 year bond yields of 7% are normal for not just Italy, but the rest of the eurozone and the United States. If it wasn't for the ECB holding their benchmark interest rate at artificially low levels for over a decade, Italy and other eurozone countries wouldn't have the high levels of debt they do today and they would be able to withstand yields of 7% or higher. The ECB is entirely at fault for the European Debt Crisis and they are about to follow in the footsteps of the Federal Reserve by abandoning their objective of maintaining price stability and keeping inflation low.

German 10 year bond yields declined again today to 1.72% and the spread between Germany and Italy is at a new record of 553 basis points. Germany is benefiting from safe haven buying from investors selling Italian bonds and buying German bonds, but investors will soon realize that German bonds are no better than Italian bonds and the world will dump all Euro denominated bonds.

Bond investors currently expect very little inflation in the eurozone, as seen by Germany's low bond yields. The sole reason for the large spread between German and Italian bonds is Italy's greater risk of default. However, a default by Italy would lead to the failure of Germany's largest banks. Germany knows this but they don't want to raise inflation expectations by making the world think that the ECB will be monetizing Italy's debt. Therefore, Germany is now telling Italy to request aid from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) if needed.

Unfortunately, the EFSF doesn't have the financial resources to rescue a country the size of Italy. Last week, the EFSF had to cancel a €3 billion auction of 10 year bonds due to a lack of investor interest. On Monday, the EFSF finally had the bond sale, but was met with subdued interest that barely covered the €3 billion in bonds being offered. So far the EFSF has only raised a total of €13 billion through bond sales, but has received €440 billion in guarantees from eurozone countries. If Italy becomes a recipient of EFSF funding, the EFSF will lose one of their largest contributors.

The EFSF is looking to leverage up its €440 billion in funding to over €1 trillion. The European Debt Crisis was caused by too much leverage and debt. It is complete insanity to believe that the EFSF is going to solve the debt crisis when it too is getting deeply into debt and planning to use huge leverage to increase their funds available for bailouts.

There was recently a report that a proposal was made at the G20 summit last week in Cannes for Germany and other leading countries in the eurozone to pool together their foreign currency reserves including their gold reserves to back the EFSF, which would allow it to easily leverage up their funds and raise more money through bond sales. As soon as this report surfaced, Germany immediately announced to the world that they will not be using their gold reserves to boost the EFSF and that their gold reserves are "untouchable".

Germany's unwillingness to use their gold reserves clearly shows that gold is the real safe haven where individuals should store their savings if they want to keep their purchasing power. Investors buying German 10 year bonds with a yield of only 1.72% should ask themselves why Germany is willing to fund the EFSF with Euros but not their gold. Maybe investors will come to their senses and change their mind about buying any Euro denominated bonds.

For the past decade there has been a bond bubble in both Europe and the U.S. where we have seen bond yields at artificially low levels for an unprecedented amount of time. This has caused modern economists to believe that low bond yields are the new normal. When central banks interfere in the free market by manipulating interest rates to artificially low levels, it creates asset bubbles that eventually burst. When asset bubbles burst, the free market takes over and attempts to correct the damage by raising interest rates to extremely high levels, which encourages consumers to reduce their consumption and increase their savings.

NIA believes that over the next five years, 10 year bond yields will reach double digit territory throughout the eurozone and the U.S. The free market wants countries like Greece and Italy to default on their debts and restructure them, which is why their bond yields are rising so high. Although Greece and Italy have the highest debt levels in the eurozone as a percentage of GDP, the whole entire eurozone borrowed too much and has too much debt. Germany and France both know that the failure of Italy will spread to them when German and French banks with Italian debt begin to fail. The EFSF will soon be exposed as a failure itself when it is unable to attract the funding necessary to rescue eurozone countries in need of bailouts. Unless the ECB decides to bailout eurozone countries through the EFSF by buying their bonds, the ECB will be forced to directly monetize debts across the entire eurozone.

Even though the destruction of the eurozone seems imminent, NIA believes it will take time to play out. Most likely, in about two or three months from now the media will begin focusing its attention on the U.S. crisis. When the spotlight is off Italy, their bond yields will temporarily dip back down, but U.S. bond yields will skyrocket. The U.S. national debt is very close to breaking 100% of GDP, which will likely be a catalyst for investors to begin dumping their U.S. dollar denominated assets. The U.S. has unfunded liabilities many times the size of Italy's unfunded liabilities. Including unfunded liabilities, while Italy's total debts are approximately 300% of their GDP, the U.S. has total debts equaling about 600% of its GDP.

Austerity cuts are becoming very common in the eurozone and although citizens still protest them, it has become politically acceptable for politicians in Italy and other eurozone countries to support them. Italy's cash budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is currently only 3.9% and their national debt has been barely growing. The U.S. cash budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is currently 8.7%, more than double Italy, and the U.S. national debt has been growing at a record rate. Americans are used to stimulus over austerity. Members of Congress are too afraid to make necessary spending cuts. The U.S. has a budget deficit from entitlement programs and interest payments on the debt alone.

The supercommittee created by Congress to recommend $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions by November 23rd, so far hasn't agreed to make reductions to any entitlement programs. The Democrats and Republicans have so far only reached consensus on changing the way the government calculates inflation for Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA) increases. They want to calculate inflation by using a new chain weighted CPI, which will understate inflation even more than the current CPI they use.

Based on how the current CPI has been miscalculating inflation for decades, Social Security recipients today should be receiving approximately triple their current payments. All Americans should be outraged that the government is planning to once again reduce the deficit through deception, when they should be eliminating wasteful government agencies like the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and the Department of Homeland Security, while bringing our troops home from the middle east and immediately cutting overseas military spending in half so that we have the resources to better protect ourselves at home.

The extremely high levels of debt in both Europe and the U.S. need to be liquidated as soon as possible. If Italy can't sustain itself with 7% interest rates, which is only average on a historical basis, think about how large the crisis will be in the U.S. when interest rates here reach 15% as price inflation spirals out of control. Less than three months ago Italy's interest rates were below 5%. Fundamentally, Italy's economy is the same as it was three months ago, but perceptions in the marketplace change quickly. Today, U.S. treasuries are still perceived to be a safe haven, but this will change 180 degrees in no time.

Just like how the U.S. government understates inflation when calculating COLA adjustments, they also understate inflation when calculating GDP growth. The U.S. recently reported 3Q GDP growth of 1.62% on a year-over-year basis, which used a price deflator of only 2.52%. If they used the real rate of price inflation, they would have reported negative GDP growth. The Federal Reserve just lowered forecasts for U.S. GDP growth in 2012 to between 2.5% and 2.9%, down from a forecast in June of between 3.3% and 3.7%. In order to ensure that we even meet the Fed's new projections, the Fed will soon be launching QE3. NIA predicts that the Fed will use fears of contagion from the European Debt Crisis as their excuse for launching QE3 in the near-future. Combined with massive inflation from Europe as the ECB monetizes debt to save banks with exposure to Italian bonds, gold will soon skyrocket to new all time highs with silver likely beginning to once again outperform gold.

If you would like your friends and family members to be among the first to see NIA's 'Occupy Wall Street the Documentary' coming soon, please tell them to become a member of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us

Too big to jail

By Robert Scheer

Truthdig

Can we all agree that a $1 billion swindle represents a lot of money, and the fact that Citigroup agreed last week to pay a $285 million fine to settle SEC charges for “misleading investors” demonstrates a damning admission of culpability?

So why has Robert Rubin, the onetime treasury secretary who went on to become Citigroup chairman during the time of the corporation’s financial shenanigans, never been held accountable for this and other deep damage done to the U.S. economy on his watch?

Rubin’s tenure atop the world of high finance began when he was co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, before he became Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary and pushed through the reversal of the Glass-Steagall Act, an action that legalized the formation of Citigroup and other “too big to fail” banking conglomerates.

Rubin’s destructive impact on the economy in enabling these giant corporate banks to run amok was far greater than that of swindler Bernard Madoff, who sits in prison under a 150-year sentence while Rubin sits on the Harvard Board of Overseers, as chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and as a leader of the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project.

Rubin was rewarded for his efforts on behalf of Citigroup with a top job as chairman of the bank’s executive committee and at least $126 million in compensation. That was “compensation” for steering the bank to the point of a bankruptcy avoided only by a $45 billion taxpayer bailout and a further guarantee of $300 billion of the bank’s toxic assets.

Those toxic assets and other collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps were exempted from government regulation by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Rubin helped design while he was treasury secretary and which was turned into law when Rubin protégé Lawrence Summers took over that Cabinet post.

In arguing that the derivatives market in housing mortgages and other debt obligations required no government oversight, Summers told Congress, “First, the parties to these kinds of contracts are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies. ... Second, given the nature of the underlying assets—namely supplies of financial exchange and other financial instruments—there would seem to be little scope for market manipulation. ...”

Oops. One wonders if Summers, who went on to be president of Harvard after playing such a disastrous role in the federal government, ever asked his mentor Rubin what went wrong. After all, it was Rubin who was a honcho at the “sophisticated financial institution” of Citigroup when, as the Securities and Exchange Commission filing against the bank explains, Citigroup structured and marketed a $1 billion toxic asset to investors without disclosing that it was simultaneously betting against that asset.

Back in January of 2008, knowing full well of the chicanery of his own bank and others with which he was quite familiar, Rubin nonetheless told an audience at Cooper Union in New York that the turmoil in the markets was “all part of a cycle of periodic excess leading to periodic disruption.” CNNMoney, reporting on his talk, noted that Rubin “doesn’t seem particularly alarmed. ... And the economic problems that he did acknowledge were blamed on just about everyone but the major financial players.”

Rubin, who became a key adviser to the Obama campaign, has long cultivated an image as a do-gooder by making philanthropic contributions that deflect attention from the consequences of his own grievous actions. He has played a major role in shaping Obama administration economic policy not only through former aides like Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner but through the Hamilton Project, which he has funded at the Brookings Institution. The Hamilton Project has had much influence over the Democratic Party, and President Barack Obama as a young senator was the project’s first public speaker.

But facts these days tend to intrude in ways inconvenient to the superrich, who assume they can control the narrative. This month the Hamilton Project released a depressing assessment of the results of the era of radical market deregulation that Rubin’s policies launched, particularly as it had a horrendous effect on children.

Referring to the “Great Recession,” dismissed by Rubin at its inception as a mere blip in the business cycle, the report noted that the family income of the median child in the U.S. has fallen nearly 14 percent in the past five years and is now 7 percent lower than in 1975, concluding that while the income of the top 10 percent of families with children has increased 45 percent in the last 35 years, “half of America’s children are worse-off than their counterparts 35 years ago.”

That’s a telling obituary for the illusion, fostered by Robert Rubin as effectively as anyone, that the 22 percent of children in the United States who suffer below the poverty line and the offspring of multimillionaires like Rubin are living in the same America.

http://www.truth-out.org/too-big-jail/1320414516

Gerald Celente: Let's stop this façade of democracy

The Greece drama continues. The Greek bailout proposed by the Eurozone has the possibility to bring the world economy to its knees. It has been proposed to have Greece removed from the Eurozone. This many say is a frantic attempt to help save the drowning currency. Many believe Greece is the scapegoat for a much larger problem. Gerald Celente, publisher at The Trends Journal, gives us his take on the messy situation.

A rant worth listening to - A message to the US government

An open letter to Wall Street

By William Rivers Pitt 

Truthout

Cancel my subscription

To the resurrection

Send my credentials to the

House of detention

I got some friends inside...

- James Douglas Morrison

Before anything else, I would like to apologize for the mess outside your office. It's been three weeks since all those hippies and punk-rockers and students and union members and working mothers and single fathers and airline pilots and teachers and retail workers and military service members and foreclosure victims decided to camp out on your turf, and I'm sure it has been quite an inconvenience for you. How is a person supposed to spend their massive, virtually untaxed bonus money on a double latte and an eight-ball with all that rabble clogging the sidewalks, right?

Your friends at JP Morgan Chase just donated $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation, the largest donation ever given to the NYPD. You'd think that much cheese would buy a little crowd control, but no. Sure, one of the "white shirt" commanding NYPD officers on the scene hosed down some defenseless women with pepper spray the other day, and a few other protesters have been roughed up here and there, and having any kind of recording device has proven to be grounds for immediate arrest, but seriously...for $4.6 million, you'd think the cops would oblige you by bulldozing these troublemakers right into the Hudson River. Better yet, pave them over with yellow bricks, so you can walk over them every day on your way in to work.

That's what you do anyway, right? Every single day. I know it. You know it. We might as well be honest about it, and if some shiny golden bricks wind up serving as anonymous tombstones for your working-class doormats, well, that's just what they call in Wisconsin "hard cheese." You're a Master of the Universe, after all, and this recess(depress)ion hasn't touched you to any great degree. Sure, you have to shoulder your way through more homeless people these days, and damn if there aren't a lot more potholes to tax the undercarriage of your Audi R8 GT, but your money is making money at a fantastic rate, and paying taxes is for other people; I mean, come on, your accountant bursts out laughing whenever he hears the words "capital gains tax," so your egregious sense of entitlement is entirely understandable.

Now is the time to bone up on your coping skills, because three weeks is nothing. The people camped out on Wall Street are not leaving unless and until they are cleared out by force. They look all kinds of silly in their outfits, and some of their statements don't make a whole lot of sense to people like you, but they have put down roots, and you better get used to them. I'm sure the whole phenomenon is quite perplexing to you - really, why don't they just go home? Don't these people have jobs?

I hate to be the Irony Police, but that's pretty much the whole point. They can't, and they don't. Have homes and jobs, I mean. There was a guy out there a few days ago holding a sign in front of a mortgage-lending institution that read "These People Took My Parent's Home." There are all sorts of people walking around Wall Street yelling their lungs out at you because, well, they really would like the opportunity to find gainful employment, as well as a future, but that nifty shell game you and yours pulled off (on our dime) wound up immolating the economy of the common man/woman, and so the common man/woman has decided - in lieu of anything else better to do - to spend their you-created idle hours on your doorstep.

Let's face it: the mess outside your office is your doing. You and your friends bought this democracy wholesale - ah, yes, the irony of freedom is found in the way you were able to corrupt so many legislators with your money, always legally, because the legislators you bought are the ones writing the laws covering political contributions, and thus the wheel of corruption turns and turns - and now you want this democracy to do your bidding after the bill for your excess and fathomless greed has come due.

You are always taken care of - see the Citizens United decision, which unleashed you in a way not seen since the dregs of the Roman empire - but, still, there are those pesky protesters, exercising their freedom of expression in order to expose you for the brigands that you are.

They're staying put, with many more on the way - to New York as well as every major city from sea to shining sea - and none of them are going anywhere else until people like you are taken from your citadels in handcuffs and made to pay for the ongoing rape of what was once quaintly called the American Dream...a dream that used to be something other than a dated metaphor, and can be something true and real and genuine once again, but only after we pave you under, and walk over you, on our way to a better, brighter future.

http://www.truth-out.org/open-letter-wall-street/1317680703