KingGebus

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Just ask John Edwards (same author as this story, and he won a Pulitzer for that one), Gary Hart, Tiger Woods, and Rush Limbaugh to name a few.

I streamed this instead of my own nations first election debate tonight. I found it to be nothing more than a glorified Q&A session, a debate requires ... well, real debate. I'm a policy wonk, I want specifics, not broad generalities. There was very little and I don't see how that helps educate the public. Having said that, given that it was also the first event, perhaps it was designed that way, and was more of a "get to know you" event on a national stage. It certainly helped keep Trump from being exposed for, in my opinion, the clown he is, as the rest of them would have had him running in circles in a 1 on 1 debate that requires more than empty rhetoric and blanket statements. Kasich probably impressed me the most. If I was an American, nothing happened though that would change my vote from Rand Paul. It will be interesting to see which one doesn't make the cut for the next one, because I suspect Carly Fiorina (if her campaign doesn't run out of money) will be movin' on up in the polls after her performance in the early debate.

You should have seen that map depicting the massive Chinese digital assault on Hong Kong during their election last year... It was a very strong reminder on why we can't have nice things like online voting in the western world.

He's just like Justin Bieber, Jim Carrey, Brian Williams, Celine Dion, and others: you broke them, you bought them. We don't want them back.

I thought there was a 3? week grace period before the ruling took effect to give time for appeals? Did I misread/hear that?

The TPP is going to have serious repercussions for us as well pokerplayer. Beyond some of the troubling trade elements to the plan, leaked documents are leading me to believe we will have to adopt the batsh!t crazy patent laws of the US in order to sign on to it. That should be equally disturbing to us. Regardless of your political affiliations (if you have one, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't), this is an issue that is not getting the deserved attention or discussion that needs to occur before our election in Oct since the next federal gov't will make the decision to sign the deal or not.

Wait, so in the same speech he rails against weapons manufactures, I agree, I'll buy all those shares so you Christians can keep your hands clean at a steep discount , but then goes on to criticize the Allies for not bombing Germany sooner during WW2? Who would have made those bombs? Would his grace have deemed the men & women that built ordance in North America during the war to be Christians? And why didn't they bomb them sooner? I dunno, maybe because the British were barely defending their own skies during the Battle of Britain? Maybe because most of the prison camps were in eastern europe and Bombers didn't have that kind of range? Even if they did, how the hell do you safely get bombers from Britain or North Africa to Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland?? Finally, for a long part of WW2, there was this pretty impressive airforce defending the German & their occupied lands called the Luftwaffe, might have heard of it? If the Pope would like to criticise people for their actions during WW2, he would do well to remember the things that SOME elements within the Catholic Church did during the war to help the Axis. Just because others within the Church did the best they could discreetly to help the persecuted, those good deeds don't wash away the evil that others participated in.

It'll be interesting to see how quickly they can "repatriate" (not the right term but we'll use it here) their gold from New York. The Dutch & Germans have been trying for years, and by all public accounts, are receiving customer service at about the same level as you'd expect from your local fast food resturant. It's almost like it may not be physically there...

Cruz is the equivalent of swinging the pendulum from one extreme to the other. Republican firebrands might want this type of person to be their nominee (and i'd wager every dime I have Ms Clinton does as well), but he cannot win a general election. If he gains any traction during the primary and turns the primary into a bloodbath that isn't 100% focused on debate & discussion of hammering out a sound economic policy & start fixing your fiscal mess, he'll force Paul, Christie & possibly Bush, who, in my opinion, are the only republicans (currently talking about running) who have a realistic chance of beating Clinton, so far to the right, it'll be damn near impossible for them to be elected. If the Republicans get bogged down in wedge issues again like they did 4 years ago, there's no electorial path to the white house. You need to win Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa and one of Pennsylvania or Florida. There aren't many other realistic paths to victory. From where I sit, the US needs a realistic & pragmatic (read: Libertarian) fiscal conservative in the white house. Cruz might be a fiscal conservative, but he is far too idiological, and therefore unelectable. But I'm Canadian, so wtf do I know.

After all the outrage from having to bail out wall street last time for their recklessness, you've passed a law that forces the American people to do it again next time? ... <---- Good 'ole Jean Luc sums it up.

A last minute entrant for the Darwin awards of '14. A deserving winner, though I'm sure there are plenty of other worthy nominees for this prestigious honour

I checked a couple of different weather sites this afternoon when the story broke, there was a lot bad weather in the area. It looks like the plane deviated from the normal route used on the trip to avoid the turbulence & thunderstorms. Sadly, it picked a bad detour route. At this point I personally think it's pretty clear the rebels accidentally shot down the plane thinking it was another Antonov-26 (they shot one down a couple days ago). No more than 2 hours before this story started breaking that MH17 had gone missing over eastern Ukraine, rebels were celebrating having shot down another plane, then promptly deleted all twitter, facebook, etc photo's & posts regarding it. The only reason they'd do that is because they realized what they'd really shot down. It's not the first time an airliner has been mistaken for a military target & shot down by mistake (Iran Air 655, the SK flight mentioned above, numerous others). It won't be the last. War is hell, "Stuff" happens... this can be chalked up as that. It was an accident, but it happened. What it gets hyped/turned into by those that see the potential to turn this incident into a profitable situation for themselves ($$$'s, political capital, etc), we'll see.

Looks like a collapsed Pingo to me. They happen from time to time in the arctic.

If there was ever a thing that could unite every Canadian, French & English alike, coast to coast to coast; it would be voting against any political union with the USA. Hell, even Rob Ford would be universally* applauded if he spoke out about it during a referendum... *Toronto Star readers excluded... they'd still gripe.

Too bad, with 1 exception, it's all twisted half truths or pure fiction. Even on that one (top ic bracket), there are sufficient loopholes that if anyone pays that rate, they're a fool. We all know what they say about fools & their money. 7 tax brackets though... comical. I thought we had it bad with 4.

Just folks choosing death over spending the rest of their lives in jail. There are criminal charges coming, and while corporate execs might be able to bribe (paying fines) their way out of it, the middle folks in the corporate pyramid don't have access to that kind of funding... or that level of access to politicians to save their skin. Citizens in the western world want a pound of flesh for the criminal actions of a large # of banks for the last 15 or so years (obviously some go back far further than that). And rightfully so. As to the insurance, this isn't surprising. Most professional organizations; be they engineering/construction firms, banks & other financial institutions, professional sports teams, etc, hold life insurance policies on employees holding positions of importance. This isn't something that is restricted to the pompous and mostly useless executives, but the people that really keep the corporate gears greased and the cash flow... well, flowing. I've worked for organizations where I've had a policy placed on myself, it is what it is. We aren't fry cooks, the jobs require a great deal of competency/experience to be done effectively & properly, you can't pull new folks off the street, or promote most of the front line employees to those positions and expect things to continue to operate smoothly. It's a perfectly reasonable and honestly, responsible policy. Also, though I don't know how it works in the US, in Canada the annual fees for tax-free insurance policies cannot be used as a deduction to decrease your taxable income (you can apply deductions for taxable insurance policies). So I would suspect that JP Morgan has been paying for years the annual fees of these policies out of their bottom line. Then again, we are talking about the US tax code, and knowing in general terms how tilted that playing field is, it wouldn't shock me if they can. Killing 5 of your own employees, or even a hundred, wouldn't drastically increase a company the size of JP Morgans bottom line by any sizable amount. Something else to consider, if you had a large increase in the # of payable claims, the policy costs for the rest of your work force would inevitably rise as well, and likely offset any "death-gains." So tl:dr: People are choosing suicide over spending the rest of their lives in jail. People's consciences have caught up with them and can't live with what they've been a part of or I'll throw out my own crazy nut-job conspiracy theory, a group of regular citizens have gone on a vigilante crusade against bankers to right the wrongs they've committed against all of us.

Sorry folks, much as my lurking has showed me how much ya'll love conspiracy theories, there isn't one here. These folks are choosing a quick death rather than spending the rest of their lives in jail and watching their personal lives destroyed. There are dozens of investigations going on targeting banks in Europe, North America & Asia over practices that go well beyond the basic fraud and shady dealings we've come to expect and love? them for. The recent fines paid from a few banks to their corresponding regulatory agencies/gov'ts are just the tip of the iceberg. You can expect to see a whole bunch more of them in the coming months, though some of the investigations may drag on longer than that, especially if the fall guys have... err well, already taken a big fall?

you broke him, you bought him. We don't want him back.

Either they're lying to us, or almost all of us are lying to ourselves. Those appear to be the only 2 answers left in this magical bag. Either way, doesn't look like it'll be too long before it happens (unless the Iraqi Parliament quashes it... ) On a side note: 6 to 12 million barrels a day? That's one hell of a daily variance in production. I pity the cost accountants trying to allocate fixed costs per barrel... lol.

I can't believe I'm posting a bloody rumour... I looked on the front page, can't find this posted, so if it has been already, apologies. None the less, got this in an email this morning from someone. I'm not sure where they got it, nor the validity or credentials of the original writer/origin of post or email. I don't agree with all it says (I'm a proof is in the pictures kind of guy), or understand the whole looting of Ireland thing? Yet despite that, I feel I should share this if for no other than to see it rebuked by those with more time than I currently have to analyze & tear it apart than I do (which is what this community should be doing with every rumour). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All new Iraqi Dinars are printed and ready to go. Conversion and Forex opening positions are ready. Speculators have now got very active and have focused on creating forward exit trades into mid June so a launch now has to be imminent or they short their positions. They must know something big, or take a big hit! Now we have London Forex traders calling us for advance Market Intel fast on the Iraqi Dinar. The current stress in the Capital Markets have resulted in considerable exposure for the US, and liquidity shortfalls have created delays. Next week the UK withdraws its remaining Navy support for retraining Iraq's naval forces. The world needs oil and Iraq needs its own money badly to underpin its own internal economy. If Iraq can now sell its own oil rapidly and convert to its own dinars to fund its desperate economy, the world will see an increase in Oil volume, which will settle and lower Oil price levels, helping Global economies recover. I suspect, after meeting the UK Prime Minister and Queen, the new Dinar will soon be released. Today, Tuesday, is only a full Palace ceremonial show for world PR. The real time agenda you now have. The President and British PM only meet on Wednesday to fully discuss the Middle East. No doubt some cross business is outstanding there with many agendas needing to be settled. Iraq has to disburse a lot of trade via Kuwait and Kuwait is a British protectorate, so the Brits are key to any deal now. Iraq and Kuwait will need London's Forex market support. Almost every key Tax Haven and Offshore Banking centre in the world is either British owned or protected. For sure, with all our Middle East interests we will be up to the nose in any solution. Kuwait and Iraq are so intertwined it will be impossible to impose such a Constitutional change without the Brits. Love them or not, the Brits have their noses in all the key money troughs globally with 65% of all world Forex trades routed via London. I suspect this visit to see the Queen and British PM all links into a new Iraqi market launch. It fits logically. Plus, Obama will be doing his own private EU and London Offshore banking. As well as collecting his share of the old looted US money hidden by Bush and Clinton from Ireland. His lick! With forces now withdrawing from Iraq we have to set them free, so releasing the Dinar now makes a lot of sense. How else can they grow and fund their internal businesses? The Volcanic Ash cloud erupting again from Iceland has already affected Obamas tour and schedules. He now is spending more time in Britain. He arrived a day early. His flight path back may be affected as the volcano is erupting again but slowly. The Brits will max out the Dinar deal while he's here. Huge pressure will be on for this week now. He is spending an extra day here. This looks a big week for Iraq. London will be deeply involved. Wednesday is the Middle East meeting day. Action is more likely after that. This sudden surge in Iraqi Dinar futures must be based on a lot of leaks. They are exiting in June on a 21 day cycle so market forces are already at work. Yesterday morning it was blank. It all hit the night desks without warning. Speculating launched last night. All I can assess is it's imminent. Now we have their meeting time scales we can make a few guesses. Pick your day after Wednesday and it has to be by next week or the Forex futures bets are all blown. Whatever the stresses, it's profiling strongly now like it's between one day to a week for the nightmares to end. I strongly suspect a lot of that Forex gambling is Arab money in the know. To me this summarises all the key issues. You make the guesses. Whatever the pain, it looks imminent now. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Pick it apart. And for the love of god, those of you who have drank heavily off the kool-aid, don't go do anything stupid based off this post.

As I've said before, it's almost Cult like.

There have been 2 trivial earthquakes (one of the coast of New Zealand, can't remember where the radio said the other one was. Both <6 on the scale) today & a volcano off the coast of Iceland has erupted. Or in other words, just another normal day on Planet Earth. I'm shocked...

Even though my stay has been relatively short & my time infrequent within this community, I would have to say there are clearly cults that have been created within this investment community for the same purposes as any other cult is created for. Greed, power, ego boosting & the perverse joy some twisted ... (rhymes with ducks) get from manipulating others. It is, to me at least, the only logical reason why anybody would believe or spread the lies that are spewed from the mouths of most of the... ahem... "guru's." I wouldn't lump the entire community as one though. People with dissenting views exist, and are rather vocal when the need arises. Anyone trying to create a cult would have eliminated those people, by removing any trace of them & the ability of those views from being stated & argued for. Prey on the fears/aspirations of the weak, build them up, tear them down. Rinse, repeat. Before long, all they want is for you to build them up again, and then higher, and higher & higher... Err... hmm. I just described almost every dinar community outside of Dinarvets... To a psychologist I have little doubt that using the entire dinar community as a case study would be absolutely fascinating.

So... you'd fall into the "not happy" column of votes? 1000x... that's a good one.

3x's works for me. Goodbye remaining student loans.