This afternoon on CNBC, a young lady whose name is irrelevant representing a heretofore never heard of group called “Ultraviolet” made the case to demand a seat on the board of directors for a private corporation, Facebook, because they had no female board members.

Not one female venture capitalist put up any money to deserve a seat on the board.

Not one single reason financially or qualification was put forth for such a nomination.

Not one excuse for the lack of risk taken by such a candidate to have earned that position was offered.

Not one reason was given other than “fairness” and “equality” was given for a reason to “give” a seat to a woman.

This is part of the social justice movement and a reason to take the property and hard work of others for income redistribution because of fairness not hard work or creativity. Watch the CNBC video below and then reflect on the book Atlas Shrugged.

As everyone is now living the book, one painful chapter and page at a time.

In what I can only call as a shocking document, I’ll leave this to the reader’s imagination as to how this will be perceived by the more radical and tempted members of America’s young Islamist nutcases. This is a direct shot at those who wish to do harm to our families, friends, and neighbors and should be taken for what it is:

A recruitment tool for Islamic youth dissatisfied with our nation and ideals.

Many thanks to Public Intelligence.com for providing this document to share with all concerned citizens.

What can I say? Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is on a roll this week with his columns in the U.K. Telegraph and this one protion from today’s piece sums up the disaster we are facing quite nicely:

The crisis is replicating the pattern of fixed-exchange ruptures through history. Britain was forced off the Gold Standard in 1931 after pay-cut protests in the navy triggered capital flight.

 

Greek banks have lost 30pc of their deposits since late 2009. The total fell to €171bn in March. “The surprise is that there is still so much left. I can’t believe it will stay much longer,” said Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors.

 

The ECB is holding the line with an estimated €100bn of Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) for lenders, channeled through Greece’s central bank. Supplicants must pawn their loan book in exchange. “The risk is that banks will run out of collateral since these are low quality assets with haircuts of 50pc or more. The ECB could relax the rules but they would have to take an active decision to do so,” said Mr Ward.

 

JP Morgan said Greek banks have already exhausted their collateral. A refusal by the ECB to ease rules would amount to expulsion, forcing Greece “to issue its own money.”

Translation?

Got Gold and Drachma?

To read the article in full, click on the title below it is a worthy read tonight, that is for sure!

Greek euro exit looms closer as banks crumble

While the mainstream media engages in P.L.O.P.O.O. (Putting Lipstick on Pig of Obamanomics), the reality of today’s housing numbers are still so bad, they would even embarrass Lyndon Baines Johnson; hell, maybe even Harry Truman!

The Media’s PLOPOO updates look like this:

Rebound in Housing Starts

Housing market posts best stretch of growth in nearly four years

Housing starts, single-family building permits jump in April

Builders start construction on more homes in April

Based on just this small sampling of headlines, the only thing that has more lipstick than the pig is Obama’s ass.

Here are the charts, they speak for themselves:

(click on thumbnails to enlarge graphs)

APR 2012 PERMITS (ALL)

APR 2012 SINGLE FAMILY PERMITS

APR 2012 HOUSING STARTS

APR 2012 HOUSING UNDER CONSTRUCTION

APR 2012 HOUSING COMPLETIONS

To read the entire Census Bureau report, click on this link (PDF version)

The usual suspects are at their propaganda inspired best with the monthly BLS report on consumer prices. The mainstream media has the usual headlines:May 15, 2012 22:30 ET

US Consumer-Price Index Unchanged; Core Rate Climbs 0.2%

US April consumer prices flat as gasoline drops

US consumer prices flat as gas costs fall

In other words, gas distorted reality as the reality is that the impacts on things the average American need or use every month increased except for electrical utilities and natural gas prices which showed a year over year decline.

The interesting thing is that the rate of increase in gasoline prices did not spell out deflation but when combined with other increases, especially in rent prices, the dollar continues it’s decline into irrelevancy until the crisis in Europe causes the current panic stricken rush into perceived safety. Thus I guess for most items to only have a 3% to 5% increase year over year, this means that inflation is check according to the hedonic insanity of the BLS.

Thankfully if you need a used car, the sash for clunkers program has finally stabilized prices with an average of just over 3% change year over year each month and that should help some lower class families out as long as they are looking for a hot ride like a Ford Escort or ragged out rice powered shoe box:

That’s it until next month when I expect a massive decline in CPI due to the strengthening dollar and a hedonically adjusted realization that people will replace bacon with pigs ears and hamburger with cow tongue. I suppose the other adjustment which will help is a replacement of motor fuel with wind power which after all is relatively cheap as long as one does not live near a Kennedy residence.

Last night on my live podcast I covered this story then after a customary four hours of sleep the realization hit me today of the implications of this story form the Jerusalem Post:

IDF building backup facilities for key sites

The Eurozone is in the midst of a total economic collapse, the United States mired in the summer doldrums of a political campaign between Tweedle-D and Tweedle-bo-R-edom, and in the mean time, Iran and Israel both appear to be accelerating preparations for a war which now appears set to begin in the autumn. The ignorance of the actions being taken by Israel in this article should alarm most people who have even a vague awareness of the crisis.

From the article by Yakoov Katz:

Wary of missiles attacking sensitive military installations in a future war, the IDF has approved a NIS 1.5 billion plan to build backup facilities and reinforce sites that could be targeted.

 

As of May, the IDF has budgeted NIS 750 million for the project, with plans to allocate the second half by the end of 2012. The IDF Home Front Command and Operations Directorate chooses the list of installations that require the reinforcement or construction of secondary facilities.

 

Despite having a secondary facility under construction, a key IDF base in the North will be retrofitted. The IDF fears that the base will undergo heavy damage in a future war and therefore decided to build the secondary facility. That location is confidential information, located somewhere in the center of the country.

If this is truly the case, then the retrofits and redundant facilities should be completed by August to September at the latest. Logically speaking, Israel would not dare contemplate an attack on Iran unless those hardened positions were in place, especially with the threat of Iran ordering Hezbollah to open a second front or “rocket war” on the Israeli people immediately after an Israeli attack on Iran. Hopefully my readers have some time to get their own houses in order as this might give all of us some time to deal with the European economic collapse and prepare the home front for the coming storm out of the Middle East.

Appetiser cost of Greek exit is €155bn for Germany, France: trillions for meat course

My fellow internet wanderers, no, your eyes do not deceive you. The costs are almost incalculable because the world has never experienced anything like what we will witness occurring in Greece as their exit from the European Monetary Union seems almost certain now.

In tonight’s article from the U.K. Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard makes the following, terrifying statement:

Needless to say, the real danger is contagion to Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, and the deadly linkages between €15 trillion in public and private debt in these countries and the €27 trillion European banking nexus.

 

This is where any further errors by EU leaders could take the world into full depression.

Let that sink in. Mr. Pritchard goes on to offer an outline of how the European Union could prevent such a disaster but the chart which he obtained from the ISGEG School in Lille tells the truly terrifying costs to France and Germany of this potential, and now probable collapse:

Click on the title at the top to read the disastrous entry in full. It is a must read for economic realists.

Also from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard tonight:

Italy’s banks shaken as economic slump deepens

Hide the chuldren. Hide the dogs. Hide the cats. Put the cows into the barn. And buckle up as Doomer Tuesday returns with a news vengeance tonight.

Tune into DOOMER TUESDAY at 8 p.m. ET tonight to find out more…

Just click on the banner below to find the various audio players to listen or to participate in the chat room with like minded Americans.

Does the sock puppet from Pets.com bring back any flashbacks of reality? How about these old internet dynamos and how they are doing these days:

The list of companies could fill pages but the reality is that a profitable model must be in place or demand for the product to justify expenses for investment, product purchase, or advertising expenditures. The highlights above of “Yahoo Auctions” and “Google Answers” should remind everyone that even the big boys make mistakes and on the eve of one of the most over-hyped I.P.O.’s in U.S. history, this story via Reuters and the Wall Street Journal speaks volumes as to how quirky internet business models still are:

GM plans to stop advertising on Facebook

Why? If everyone believed the financial media hype, one should be buying Facebook stock for their family, children, and future kittens the family cat might have. But General Motors, as piss poorly as it is run and burned through billions of taxpayer dollars, summed up the reason for the cessation in paid advertising in a nutshell as this excerpt from the article highlights:

GM said it will still have Facebook pages marketing its vehicles, but it will drop use of paid ads. Anyone can create a Facebook page at no cost. GM pays no fee to Facebook for its pages, which allow the automaker to reach consumers directly.

 

“We regularly review our overall media spend and make adjustments as needed…it’s not unusual for us to move our spending around various media outlets – especially with the growth of multiple social and digital media outlets,” GM said in a statement.

Thus before everyone gets too excited about the direction of Facebook, the company and its concepts, remember what happened to one of the founding fathers of the internet which was “too big to fail” according to conventional wisdom in the mid-1990′s. Of course, Netscape floundered and failed to exploit the opportunity it had in that era and only time will tell if Facebook becomes the MySpace of this decade.

The Greek crisis took another turn for the worse as the middle class began to realize that no deal would be struck to form a new government and the European Central Bank would never seriously consider any relief for the stricken nation. As the electoral politics spiraled out of control over the weekend, on Monday Greek citizens withdrew approximately $1,024,000,000 aka €800 million from the nation’s banks. This means that the middle class has finally realized what the wealthy figured out over two years ago:

The nation as currently constructed economically and politically will collapse regardless of the results of next month’s elections.

While the current President attempted to bolster the nation with promises that there was nothing to worry about, his statements belie the seriousness of the crisis which everyone now understands will result in a complete financial collapse and calamity. From the Greek newspaper Protothema, this excerpt from a story today only will exacerbate the problem:

As revealed by the minutes of yesterday’s meeting between Papoulias, Samaras, Venizelos and Kouvelis, the President seems to have sounded a “national alert” for the Greek banking system and added that Manuel Barroso conveyed to him the anxiety in Europe.

 

Papoulias’ words are indicative, thus we present the entire relevant part of the minutes:

 

KAROLOS PAPOULIAS (President of the Republic): I wish to welcome you. I have no intention of dramatizing the situation which you all know and which is indeed very difficult.

 

I had two interesting telephone conversations. One was with Barroso at 4 pm. They are anxiously awaiting the establishment of a government in Greece and the successful conclusion of all these efforts we are making together. The second conversation was with Provopoulos. The state of banks is very difficult. Withdrawals and outflow had already reached 700 million euros at 4 pm when we were on the phone, not including all those orders to turn deposits to German government bonds, etc. With them they calculate that the total amount would reach about 800 million.

 

FOTIS KOUVELIS (Democratic Left president): All together?

 

PAPOULIAS: Yes, all together.

 

Over the next two days the situation will be worse. Provopoulos told me that there is no panic, but a great fear that can develop into panic. He also said that the strength of banks is very limited at this time.

 

If this effort we are making to form a government fails, then I do not know how things will develop. We have a big responsibility and I feel it personally. I thought I cannot take upon me the responsibility of failing in trying to form a government. I must go out tomorrow and tell the Greek people that I failed. But I did not fail. It was not in my hands to form a government. We all had to come together.

For those who have never seen a nation collapse or are too young to remember the Argentine and Russian financial implosion, this is what it looks like. Bank runs. Starvation. Governments overturned. Elderly allowed to die as beggars as their retirements are stolen by banks and governments. Learn this lesson well my friends as this could happen here with little warning in the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, or United States if the nations of the world keep attempting to cobble together a fly by the seat of their pants approach to economics and financial oversight.

The Great Con Game will end and it will not end well for the unprepared.

After several days of just horrid technical destruction and weak trading action, look for equities to start their Facebook dead cat bounce phase. Today, if it plays out as most bear market moves do, should see a rise in prices in the morning, fade after lunch, and then it is a coin toss if the markets finish flat or lower. If there is major selling into the morning rally then that is a very ominous sign. U.S. stock market futures, as indicated by the S&P 500 chart below, already have tailed off on the news from Europe and Asia overnight.

(chart from FinViz.com)

The biggest move to watch will be in the precious metals to see if gold can recover the $1600 level before the week is over and silver above $29.50. I think that gold has a shot at it when the Facebook frenzy begins on Friday but looking at the F.D.I. report from China overnight and the increasing problems in the Spanish banking sector any rally should be sold into as it will be short lived.

The sooner this bear phase bounces down to the 1260′ish target area on the S&P 500 and either breaks decisively or holds, then and only then will the Fed hint if there is any panic move forthcoming. At this point in time, it looks like the most they will do is attempt to jawbone the markets meaning small investors who gamble are about to get Bernanked again.

Moody’s unleashed a firestorm with this release today piling on top of the Greece fire:

Moody’s downgrades Italian banks; outlooks remain negative

Excerpt from the official statement at the link above:

The ratings for Italian banks are now amongst the lowest within advanced European countries, reflecting these banks’ susceptibility to the adverse operating environments in Italy and Europe. Today’s rating actions reflect, to differing degrees for each affected bank, the following key drivers:

 

1.) Increasingly adverse operating conditions, with Italy’s economy back in recession and government austerity reducing near-term economic demand;

 

2.) Mounting asset-quality challenges and weakened net profits, as problem loans and loan-loss provisions are rising; and

 

3.) Restricted access to market funding which, if persistent, will exert added pressure on banks to reduce assets, posing risks to their franchises and earnings.

 

Furthermore, recent events highlight the risks for creditors from potential weaknesses in governance, controls and risk management, especially at some smaller, privately-held banks. In addition, today’s actions reflect drivers specific to some banks, which are detailed at the end of this release.

Just dang. Talk about beating a one eyed, three legged dog who has been spayed then dumped in an all female dog shelter.

Sucks to be living on the Med this year. This news on top of the anticipated Greek exit from the EMU should be enough to cause massive panic for any sane investor. But Moody’s doubled down, and my readers can check this bomb out on top of the story above by clicking on the link below:

Moody’s takes multiple actions on Italian covered bonds

B.O.H.I.C.A.

The warning I posted about the gold market signalling something bad was happening (see: Gold is Sending a Dire Economic Warning) in the world’s economy very prescient appears to have been validated to date by the data coming from Communist China. The deflationary warning signal precious metals and commodities are sending is unmistakable and in tonight’s commentary by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, that clarion is screaming a deafening alarm:

World edges closer to deflationary slump as money contracts in China

This trend was noticed in many markets this week from oil to real estate as the CMBS problem again began to rear its ugly head but what Mr. Pritchard noticed in tonight’s column in the U.K. Telegraph is that the Chinese contraction is real and should be taken into account by Western central bankers.

This excerpt from the piece is the an excellent warning for those who have been ducking the deflationary threat the world economy is now facing:
 

Narrow M1 data for April is the weakest since modern records began. Real M1 deposits – a leading indicator of economic growth six months or so ahead – have contracted since November.
 

They are shrinking faster that at any time during the 2008-2009 crisis, and faster than in Spain right now, according to Simon Ward at Henderson Global Investors.

 
If China were a normal country, it would be hurtling into a brick wall. A “hard-landing” later this year would already be baked into the pie.

<snip-more>

Something odd is now happening. The People’s Bank said new loans fell from $160bn (£99.5bn) in March to $108bn in April. Non-conventional lending seized up altogether. Trust lending fell by 96pc, bankers’ acceptance bills by 90pc. This is astonishing data.

 

It may not be as easy for Beijing to turn the tap back on again. Loan demand has been falling for months. Banks are offering credit. Companies are refusing to take it. This is the old Japanese story of pushing on a string, or the European story today.

 

“China is in deflation,” says Charles Dumas from Lombard Street Research. Yes, consumer price inflation is 3.4pc – though falling – but consumption is a third of GDP. Fixed investment is 46pc, and here prices have dropped 3.5pc in six months. Export prices have dropped 6.6pc.

I recommend everyone click on the link above to read the entire commentary as what many of us have detected appears to be coming true and the slowdown this time will impact the Untied States and Europe far worse than the “New World” and BRIC nations as we are still not completely recovered from the last period of deleveraging which either must be allowed to fade via contraction or inflation. So far, the world’s politicians are slow to the party to understand or grasp the magnitude of the problem that is approaching during this U.S. election year.

The headline from the Greek newspaper Tovima was disturbing enough:

One in two police officers voted “Golden Dawn”

The story itself though speaks volumes as to just how hardened law enforcement in Greece has turned against globalism and those wishing to impose the will of the European Union on their nation. This excerpt (translated using Google) spells trouble for the Mediterranean nation’s future should the next government wish to force the country to remain in and abide by the EU dictates:

The analysis of the votes taken by the “Golden Dawn” in 11 polling stations of Athens A is impressive. At these vote – based on the special electoral lists, thousands of police officers serving in the General Police Directorate of Attica and services such as Direct Action, DIAS, the Attica Security and others. These sections, from the 806 and 816 as a polling station, are located in school bands Ampelakia Street and 24 Street Panormos, near the headquarters of the Hellenic Police Hall, Alexandra Avenue.

 

In these parts the “Golden Dawn” party comes first and the rate varies from 18.64% (813th in polling station) to 23.67% (816th in polling station). Moreover, the “Golden Dawn” was 23.08% in percentage 811th polling station, 22.7% in the 808th polling station at 806th and 22.2.

 

It is notable that a few hundred yards away at polling stations Felt Street, where the police do not vote, the percentage of “Golden Dawn” drops to 12-14%. If taken into account that on average in each of these sections, as also follows from the roll, voting approximately 550-700 people and the number of policemen who vote At these ranges from 20% to 30% of total votes cast, then the relative reduction in the percentage of police officers who vote “Golden Dawn” moves between 45% and 59%.

God help the people of Greece if the banksters and internationalists who believe in nation building continue their meddling or they will indeed find themselves witness to another tragedy in human history as the communists and Nazis find themselves engaged in a battle for nationalist supremacy. The end result of any conflict of this type will not only result in a tragedy for the people of Greece but a potential powder keg in the Balkans which could easily expand beyond the region and into a modern day disaster for Europe.

A modern day disaster almost 100 years after the First World War which was created by bureaucrats, bankers, and technocrats unwilling to control their ambitions of global expansion could easily happen again if the same parties who acted irresponsible then are allowed to continue on their current course of action.

As nations and empires decline into economic chaos, one of the major signs of civilian defiance is a refusal to participate in the “normal” or above ground economy and to engage in open acts of defiance towards the tax authorities. The nation of Italy has made finding alternatives to paying some of the most oppressive taxation policies an art form. The defiance however, has been moderated by the European Central Bank’s insistence on usurping the democratic will of the citizenry and the insistence that the nation install a technocrat friendly to the global central banking cartel into power to rule over the land.

The people of Italy have witnessed an evolution in power where the Guardia di Finanza have been used to set up road blocks to check out wealthy individuals driving luxury cars to verify they are current with all their taxes to no-knock raids on homes and businesses throughout the country in an attempt to collect revenue to satisfy their masters in Berlin and Brussels. This has created a certain degree of hostility between the wealthy and the average Italian citizen towards the government and especially the Ministry of Finance and their economic hit squad.

In tonight’s U.K. Telegraph, the severe level of hate being demonstrated towards this Ministry of Finance was highlighted with this news story:

Soldiers may be deployed to protect Italian tax offices

(Click on the link above to read the story in full)

In this excerpt from the story by Nick Pisa the degree of disgust and hatred towards the government is highlighted by recent events:

Annamaria Cancellieri, the interior minister, said she was considering calling in the army in a bid to quell the rising social tensions.

 

“There have been several attacks on the offices of Equitalia in recent weeks. I want to remind people that attacking Equitalia is the equivalent of attacking the State,” she said in an interview with La Repubblica newspaper.

 

“Bringing in the army to defend sensitive targets is a possibility that we are studying. This has already been done in the past. We have a limited number of personnel available and so that is why using the army is a possible solution.

 

“We are going through a very difficult moment and some people may feel tempted (to cause disturbances). We all need to have a sense of duty and ensure that this temptation does not spread.”

Saturday night’s attack took place on the Equitalia office in Livorno and the front of the building was left severely damaged by fire after the bombs exploded. The phrases “Thieves” and “Death to Equitalia” were sprayed onto outside walls.

As this crisis is nothing new to the elder witnesses of Italy’s turbulent communist influenced terror waves of the past, this is something new for those who envisioned a world of happily obedient slaves to faceless bureaucrats and technocrats serving as the whim of financial interests in other nation’s capitols. The issue that Italy is now having to deal with has been ongoing in Greece where the tax collection mechanism is completely paralyzed with state employees not willing to risk their lives to satisfy another country’s demands on the Greek people. Italy will soon reach that crossroads as capital flight is fully engaged and the wealthy are paying whatever exit taxes are required to flee a deteriorating nation which will probably soon implode into a fiery mess of radical parties competing for power, much like their Hellenic friends across the Adriatic.

Of course Americans who are not paying attention may wish to witness the carnage in the Eurozone because eventually, if our system is not repaired with drastic action, this will occur here sooner than many would dare imagine.

In a move which is designed to rebuff Iran militarily and the West economically, Bahrain is expected to announce a closer political union with Saudi Arabia during a summit of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to be held in Riyadh tomorrow. The approach is expected to be part of a broader GCC initiative to develop a European Union type of political and financial union which will draw on the feelings of the people wishing to re-establish a greater Arab based Islamic caliphate. This feeling was highlighted in an editorial from Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News:

GRASP THIS OPPORTUNITY

Sunday, May 13, 2012

 

MANAMA: A united Gulf is the great dream of GCC people, said HRH the Premier yesterday. This will enable all to live in security, peace, prosperity and stability, he said ahead of tomorrow’s mini-summit.

 

His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa called for co-ordination between GCC countries to be stepped up, especially in the light of exceptional circumstances facing the region and the need to formulate a clear strategy to face the challenges.

 

They make the “union” option imperative, to meet aspirations of the GCC countries and peoples of the region, he said.
 

“What matters today to the GCC citizens is the announcement of the Gulf union, which represents a landmark event in the region,” HRH the Premier said in a statement to Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh.

 

“We are confident that GCC leaders are working in this direction, and have the resolve to achieve it as soon as possible.”

 

Separately, Minister of State for Information Affairs Samira Rajab said the idea of Gulf union could start with two or three members.

 

Foreign ministers will meet in Riyadh today to prepare for the summit, GCC secretary-general Dr Abdullatif Al Zayani said.

 

He also said the meetings reflect the leaders’ keenness to follow up on the needs of GCC nationals and fulfil their aspirations.

The idea has the strong support of the Saudi Arabian royals as highlighted by an article in the Saudi website,  Arabian Business.com:

GCC states will discuss tomorrow a proposal for a closer political union comparable to that of the EU, AFP reported, citing Bahraini Information Minister Samira Rajab.

 

“This union could start with two or three” members, the news agency cited Rajab as saying. “In Bahrain, we support setting up a Gulf union to protect us from the threats facing the region on the political, economic, security and military fronts,” she told the news agency.

 

The GCC, formed in 1981, is made up of six member states and also includes Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

 

Last month, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs urged Gulf states to further integrate and unify in a bid to protect each other from common security threats.

Should such a union begin to occur and the political differences ironed out, this union could provide both a stabilizing and powerful force to turn the tide against Iranian expansionism and radical Arab nationalism in the Arabian Peninsula. The wild card is that for every event of this type which succeeds there is usually an equally violent and radical reaction to such a program and the unpredictable nature of the Islamic religious leadership in Saudi Arabia and other GCC states could actually invite the threat of a wider conflict with Western nations economically and politically after such a union is finalized.

As if the crisis involving Iran and the world needs any more gasoline to fan the flames higher, MP Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh of the Majlis Foreign Policy Subcommittee of Iran’s Parliament warned that the upcoming negotiations in Baghdad will fail if the West demands the Iranians cease any uranium enrichment activities. The problem with this stance is that if they pursue this course of action it is an almost 100% guaranteed mortal lock that the next sound the world will hear are F-15′s from the IAF warming up their engines and air raid sirens firing out into the night skies across Iran. The dangerous game of brinkmanship on this issue during a historically unstable month for world markets along with the European crisis could ensure an outcome which is completely unanticipated by the world’s powers.

From the semi-official MEHR News Agency of Iran:

Baghdad talks will fail if West calls for enrichment suspension: MP

TEHRAN, May 12 (MNA) – MP Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh of the Majlis Foreign Policy Subcommittee has said that the planned talks in Baghdad will fail if the West calls on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

 

Tehran and the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) held a new round of talks in Istanbul on April 14, breaking a 15-month hiatus in talks, and agreed to meet again in Baghdad on May 23.

 

“If the issue of the suspension of uranium enrichment is raised in Baghdad, the talks will fail. The 5+1 group is well aware of this point,” Falahatpisheh said in an interview with the Persian service of the Fars News Agency published on Saturday in response to recent nuclear demands made by the European Union and the United States.

 

The EU told Iran on May 7 that it must suspend uranium enrichment and the U.S. called on Iran on the same day to take “urgent practical steps” to build confidence during its negotiations with world powers.

 

“Hardliners in Western countries are under the influence of the Zionist regime’s lobbies and reactionary Arab countries. These groups are trying to invent some pretext to oppose Iran’s nuclear program and prevent Iran and the 5+1 group from reaching an agreement in Baghdad,” Falahatpisheh commented.

 

He also said that the Islamic Republic expects world powers to take practical steps during the talks to ease sanctions against Iran in order to show that they have adopted a constructive approach.

Much to the chagrin of the PPP (Perpetual Polly Pumpers) of CNBC, China has all but verified that the entire world economy has hit just a wee bit more than a speed bump as it made the following announcement this morning (via Bloomberg):

The People’s Bank of China said it is cutting the reserve ratio requirement for banks by 50 basis points starting from May 18, according to a statement on its website today.

Anything to pump the markets up and keep convincing people that the new iEconomy is the iSolution to the iFuture. Too bad many people will be on street corners soon selling iApples as in the kind you eat and iPencils, just like the 1930′s as all of the economic theories and policies of the Keynesian and Obamamites are flaming out with Hoover administration type overtones.

The nation and government of Greece is in total revolt from the street level to the civil service level now with bureaucrats at the Finance Ministry failing to engage in the Troika required tax collections per an article from the Greek newspaper Protothema. The lack of interest in engaging the citizenry for collection of these taxes, be it income, sales, or VAT indicates that the entire system is now in full collapse. The bureaucracy in Athens is now defying their masters in Berlin and Brussels which means that enforcement of any agreement, past or future, is no longer dependent on a new coalition government, but on the people of Greece being convinced that it is their duty to pay their taxes per any arrangements created by the leadership.

The Protothema article demonstrates the extent of the defiance:

If the troika auditors came in Athens these days, they would asked themselves for a renegotiation, even from scratch, since at its last quarter the government of Papademos did not sought to recover any of the taxes that were agreed for the first half.

 

The only State revenue was the hike in property (the last installment of 2011 was received in the electricity bill this year) and the adjustment of old debts with the dose of 100 euros.

 

Also, the first of the 200,000 ETAK notes of 2009 have yet to be sent -and perhaps will not be sent until the formation of a government-, from a total of 1,370,000 that remain unpaid for years because of mistakes that were made in clearing the real estate tax.

 

According to information, 100,000 from out of the 200,000 are either at zero or less than 27 euros so they do not get collected. The problem lies with issuing the rest of the 100,000 notes, asking homeowners to pay a total of 70 million. It appears that these will get a tax for 700 euros on average, that they would normally should have paid until the end of May and with no installments.

 

Rather than collecting these revenues they are continuously deferred and “until further notice.” In April the reduction of revenue by VAT and other taxes had reached 13%. Consequently, if troika auditors were to come back to Athens, they would see that all these revenues should have been collected at the 2nd half of 2012 and under conditions of even more severe recession and unemployment. In this case, the government and the troika would have re-written the memorandum, without much hope for its success.

This is what a nation’s government and economy looks like right before a total collapse and drastic change occurs. More importantly, this is a stark reminder for those who forgot what the Argentine and Russian governments looked like regarding their foreign financial obligations right before those nations engaged in a strategic default to free their citizenry. It is no longer a matter of if Greece will default, but obviously more of a matter of timing. The fear is that other member nations of the so-called PIIGS will view this as a more attractive option in the near future also.

To read the article in Protothema in full, click on the link below:

Finance ministry officials are not collecting

The Chinese Communist government is now having to deal with a new problem due to its extremely fast economic expansion and the idea of private property being introduced to the population (from Xinhua):

3 dead, 14 injured in Yunnan blast

While the media is China is attempting to downplay this story as the Xinhua story linked above indicates, the BBC has a more accurate version with the background behind the attack develops a shocking conclusion in their version:

China suicide bomber kills two in ‘housing dispute’

The truth is in the details (excerpted from the story above):

 

A woman has blown herself up in protest over the demolition of her house in southern China, killing two people, Chinese state media say.

 

(more) Local governments often demolish houses – or confiscate land – but offer little or no compensation to those affected, the BBC’s Martin Patience in Beijing reports.

Suicide attacks may have happened infrequently in the past but a suicide attack not based on political purposes but on private property rights is something the Communist authorities had best take note of. As the nation expands its private property rights and the wealth increases for the poor citizens of that nation, more and more of the citizens will do whatever it takes to protect their personal property in defiance of the regime. Even if it costs those citizens of this murderous nation their lives in defense of what little piece of freedom they might claim as their own.