sell! sell! sell!

[tiznow]

Yup chances of being affected by a terrorist attack especially in the states (u euros have to worry more due to
proxmity) are extremely minute.. Yet we have trump beating the drums of islamophia as the military industrial complex smiles.. Calling to block all Muslims entering us .. Complete kneeslapper this type of rhetoric just fuels the fire and sets off a few more of the billions Muslims many poor with no future.. It's all one big joke.. divide and conquer.. Strip freedoms under the guise of fighting of foreign enemy.. Same as it always been I guess nothing u can do but observe and shake your head..

how many christians will murder somebody in America tonight?

 

[eek.]

The Irish and the IRA fought the British on and off for hundreds of years, hundreds/thousands died on both sides at various times as the Troubles went on and on and on and on and on....

Then one day the Irish finally decided to stop wasting bombs and bullets on the little guys and blew up the elite while they lay farting in their ivory tower beds

The Brighton bombing , October 1984

Peace in Ireland was fast tracked from that day forwards, Anglo-Irish agreement Nov 1985

Most Leaders only prolong a conflict when they aren't directly in the firing line, the vast majority of Leaders are bullies and cowards who put others into positions of peril, not themselves and their families

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]Story highlights[/h](CNN)A British soldier who had his leg blown off by a bomb while serving in Iraq has taken the internet by storm after his Facebook post attacking Islamophobia went viral.

Chris Herbert, who served in the British Army in Basra, Iraq, lost his right leg when a bomb went off next to his Land Rover in 2007.
One of his comrades, Private Luke Simpson, died in the attack, while two other soldiers were also injured.


Herbert, who was 19 when he suffered the life-changing injury, took to Facebook after complaining that he was "getting frustrated" with people expecting him to be racist after losing his leg.
He told those holding the entire Muslim faith responsible for terrorism to: "Get a grip of your lives, hug your family and get back to work."
The post has been shared nearly 125,000 times and has been hugely popular on social media.
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"Yes. A Muslim man blew me up, and I lost my leg," he wrote. "A Muslim man also lost his arm that day wearing a British Uniform.
"A Muslim medic was in the helicopter that took me from the field. A Muslim surgeon performed the surgery that saved my life.
"A Muslim Nurse was part of the team that helped me when I returned to the UK.
"A Muslim Healthcare Assistant was part of the team that sorted out my day to day needs in rehabilitation when I was learning to walk.
"A Muslim taxi driver gave me a free ride the first time I went for a beer with my Dad after I came home.
"A Muslim doctor offered my Dad comfort and advice in a pub, when he didn't know how to deal with my medicines and side effects."
[h=3]"Get a grip"[/h]Herbert's post comes at the same time as a petition has been launched to prevent Donald Trump from entering the UK.
Over 400,000 people have signed the petition -- more than enough for a committee to consider sending the motion for parliamentary debate.
Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidential election, claimed that parts of London were so radicalized that British police feared for their lives -- a statement which was dismissed by British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Trump, who has previously called for surveillance against mosques and said he was open to establishing a database for all Muslims living in the U.S., also stated that he wanted to ban all Muslims from traveling to the country.
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Answering a question on Facebook, Herbert criticized Trump's policies, writing: "He's a fool, first line of the U.S. constitution declares (paraphrasing) that people cannot have rights taken away due to their religion. Even if he gets in, he has no legal right to do half the stuff he says."
Herbert, who lives in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England, said he took the decision to speak out after an "Islamophobic group tried to recruit" him as a poster boy for their organization.
He says that upon his return to the UK he was abused and discriminated against on a number of occasions by "white brits".
Herbert added: "A White brit pushed my wheelchair away from a lift so he could use it first.
"(Although, alot of people helped in my recovery! I don't hate white brits either! hahaha)."
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Donald Trump: 'I have to do what's right' 03:42

[/COLOR]

"Blaming all Muslims for the actions of groups like Daeshe and the Taliban, is like blaming all Christians for the actions of the KKK or Westboro Baptist Church," he added.
"Get a grip of your lives, hug your family and get back to work."


The post has drawn widespread praise on Facebook and Twitter. One friend, Alastair Campbell, wrote beneath the comment: "Amen brother - you've hit the nail on the head, and it couldn't have come from a better bloke."
Another friend, Alex Elbourne, added: "Your words ring true Chris. Don't ever let the haters get you down. Don't ever let anyone tell you what you should think. I am proud to call you a friend."
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[eek.]

At least Mr Trump has declared his true colours. Once he's finished his Moslem database maybe he can do one for Catholics and Jews or anyone else he doesn't like and the Constitution can go whistle

All he needs is a national emergency to be declared and he can suspend the constitution

 

[eek.]

An interesting BBC article (and there aint many of those nowadays)

Normally the ultra-liberal BBC takes the piss out of religions (if they ever even get a mention), especially the western christian religions

Not so in this article, which links the climate change lobby with birth control...

Cardinal says birth control may offer climate 'solution'

The article is significant in that there is zero criticism of the religion, highly unusual

 

[snoop]

Climate Deal reached.

It should drive oil to $20s handle.

:hanging:

 

[tiznow]

97% saying fed hikes today.. I'm in the 3% camp I'll believe it when I see it..

 

[eek.]

US Fed raises interest rates by 0.25%

The sociopaths win
Told ya so

Being restrained by people with humanity at the moment, I don't expect the people who give a toss about living things to win though

This is the sociopaths trying to dig themselves out of their Japanese financial hole

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35117405

My grandparents fought two world wars against "people" like this, you point the gun, you pull the trigger, you move on to the next one, human emotion is irrelevant.

yo ho ho. merry xmas adabody

 

[eek.]

as I said:

Once you understand their mindset, they are rather easy to predict

These are people who have no empathy with other living creatures, they are intelligent and know how to act and behave so as to appear normal to the wider community, but they have no empathy or humanity

Any social cost will be nothing more than irrelevant collateral damage to them

 

[RoofTop]

Always thought that the US cannot have high fuel costs and high interest rates at the same time.

 

[tiznow]

Fed finally decided to prick the corporate debting bubble that did nothing but help Wall Street and the rich..

 

[tiznow]

Mexico north here we come!

---------

[h=1]The Tipping Point: Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class[/h]Americans have long lived in a nation made up primarily of middle-class families, neither rich nor poor, but comfortable enough.
This year, that changed, according to the Pew Research Center.
A just-released analysis of government data shows that as of 2015, middle-income households have become the minority. The trend is so firmly established that it may well continue; Americans have experienced "a demographic shift that could signal a tipping point," Pew researchers concluded Wednesday.
Thanks to factory closings and other economic factors, the country now has 120.8 million adults living in middle-income households, the study found. That compares with the 121.3 million who are living in either upper- or lower-income households.
"The hollowing of the middle has proceeded steadily for the past four decades," Pew concluded.
And middle-income Americans not only have shrunk as a share of the population but have fallen further behind financially, with their median income down 4 percent compared with the year 2000, Pew said.
So what exactly does it mean to be a middle-income family?
Pew starts with the U.S. median household income, which is the paycheck smack in the middle of them all, lined up from smallest to biggest. In other words, half of all households earn more, and half earn less. Then Pew defined "middle class" as households that had at least two-thirds of the median income, but no more than double that amount. And it adjusted for household size.
Bottom line: For a household with three people, being middle class means making between about $42,000 and $126,000. If your family of three makes less than $42,000, then you are in the lower class. If your family brings in more than $126,000, you are in the upper class.
Using that formula, Pew concluded that back in 1971, about 2 out of 3 Americans lived in middle-income households. Since then, the middle has been steadily shrinking. Today, just a shade under half of all households (about 49.9 percent) have middle incomes.
Slightly more than half of Americans (about 50.1 percent) either live in a lower-class household (roughly 29 percent) or an upper-class household (about 21 percent).
But Pew also points out that Americans have all gained. That is, the median income has risen 34 percent since 1970.
So we should be grateful, no? Yes, but here's the rub: Upper-class Americans have seen their incomes rise 47 percent, while lower-class families have gained only 28 percent.
In other words, the U.S. economy has been growing, and we all have been getting wealthier. But people who have the biggest incomes have been pulling away from the pack in a trend that shows no sign of slowing. Those upper-class households are increasingly likely to be headed by a married couple with higher educations, the data show.
[h=3]Related NPR Stories[/h]
"Those Americans without a college degree stand out as experiencing a substantial loss in economic status," Pew concluded.
The Pew study is the latest showing lost momentum for the middle class. For example, in August, Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce released a study showing that high-paying jobs are proliferating, but not middle-income jobs.
The Georgetown report concluded that the U.S. economy now has about 1 million more jobs that rank in the top third of income-generating occupations. But the middle third jobs have not yet recovered from the recession — that category is still showing 900,000 fewer jobs, compared with pre-recession levels.
The Georgetown study's key finding was this: Since the recession ended, "almost all good jobs have gone to college graduates. Out of the 2.9 million good jobs created since the recovery, 2.8 million have been filled by workers with at least a bachelor's degree."

 

[tiznow]

Always thought that the US cannot have high fuel costs and high interest rates at the same time.

Interest rates are staying abnormally low for a long long time..

fed just finally pricking the m&a/corporate share buyback bubble that is hurting the economy long term creating monopolies and allowing corporate leaders to fluff numbers vs finding ways to grow organically

also it gives them a bit of wiggle room to cut rates back to zero when next recession hits..

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]The time bomb lurking in US corporate debt | smh.com.au[/h]Debt in corporate United States "has exploded" following seven years of virtually zero official interest rates, raising fears about the potential impact on the sector of the mooted hike by the US Federal Reserve in December.
"A rise in US bond yields will push domestic and global funding costs higher," Morgan Stanley strategists wrote in a note to clients. "This does not bode well for domestic US corporates who have seen debt levels rise over recent years."
They note that US businesses have mostly used cheap credit to buy back shares, as well as to fund merger and acquisition activity, pushing corporate debt as a percentage of gross domestic product towards "historically elevated levels".
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"A rise in Fed rates will push funding costs higher and likely curb this activity," they say, pointing to evidence that lending standards for US businesses have already tightened.
In what could lead to a potential negative feedback loop, a member of the US Fed's monetary policy setting committee has indicated rates might need to go up faster to contain risks associated with the rapid growth in higher-risk lending.
Boston Federal Reserve chief Eric Rosengren told the Financial Timesat the weekend interest rates might need to rise "a little more quickly" should the bullish trends in commercial property and risk taking in parts of corporate lending continue.
Rosengren, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets US monetary policy, has in the past advocated a more cautious approach to raising rates than some of his peers. But he said that should current trends in commercial real estate and large syndicated loans continue, that "would be a reason to maybe think about raising rates a little more quickly than I otherwise would, given the same unemployment and inflation rate".
[h=2]Tightening cycle too late[/h]Meanwhile, the "imminent Federal Reserve tightening cycle is too late", Societe Generale global strategist Albert Edwards – a renowned "bear", or pessimist – wrote in a note to clients late last week. Edwards warned that net debt "has exploded" and that "the promiscuous US corporate sector behaviour is already way out of control".
He points out that while bank lending in the United States has taken off, little has flowed through to real economic activity, which has resulted in the central bank diverging from its usual path of tightening rates to moderate credit growth.
"The primary driver for the rapid rise in bank lending has been borrowing by US corporates and we all know they have been using the Fed's free money not to invest in capacity-expanding expenditures, but rather to buy back mountains of their own shares."
As a result of borrowing to fund unproductive activity, net debt in American businesses now "massively exceeds" aggregate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, Edwards says.
On US Federal Reserve data, Edwards says corporate debt borrowing is growing by $US674 billion ($948.1 billion) a year annual rate, closing on the all-time borrowing splurge of 2007 of about $US800 billion a year.
He believes the US Federal Reserve has repeated the sins of the past and left rates too low for too long and blown a bubble it will struggle to contain as US businesses grapple with the monetary tightening cycle.
[h=2]Teed up for another crisis[/h]"Once again, companies have chosen to waste their money buying their own shares at top-of-the-cycle valuations," he says. "We are nicely teed up for another crisis."
Rather than seeing a massive blow-up in the corporate credit market, the Morgan Stanley team see the elevated debt levels in corporate US as another reason to be cautious on the outlook for US equities, alongside tightening margins and the hit to offshore earnings from a stronger greenback – another big implication of higher US rates.
The Morgan Stanley analysts also point to another issue that is associated with rather than as a result of tighter US monetary policy: accelerating wage growth.
Wage growth, which has so far been absent from the US recovery, emerged last week – average hourly earnings rose to a six-year high.
"Higher wages and broad jobs creation will clearly benefit the consumer and should support top-line earnings. However, they will also cut into margins," they write. On Monday, Credit Suisse analysts warned of the risk of stronger-than-expected inflation.
"In a rising rate environment we expect bonds to underperform, emerging market and commodity-linked currencies to come under renewed selling pressure, and US equities to face growing headwinds."
The Morgan Stanley team tactically moved underweight Australian equities in early August, while moving overweight cash, adding a bet on a rising US dollar against the Aussie dollar, while reducing passive exchange-traded fund equity exposure within their (overweight) international equity allocation.
For the record, Edwards' global asset allocation settings looks like this: 30 per cent equities, 50 per cent bonds and 20 per cent cash.

 

[tiznow]

Spacex did it!

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]SpaceX finally achieves its first successful landing[/h][h=4]Science and technology[/h][h=2]Down to Earth[/h][h=1]Elon Musk’s early Christmas present to himself—and the world—is a reusable rocket[/h]Dec 22nd 2015

Technological achievements are, it seems, a bit like buses. You wait for ever, and then two come along at once. In November, an American company called Blue Origin sent a rocket to the edge of space before landing it back on the pad from which it had lifted off. That was an impressive trick. But it has just been trumped by another such firm, SpaceX, which has done the same thing with part of a rocket destined for orbit—a much harder task.
SpaceX’s vehicle, one of its Falcon 9 rockets, was sent on its way from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 0129 GMT on December 22nd. This, in itself, was no big deal. Falcons have been travelling into orbit since 2008. What is new is that when the rocket’s first and second stages separated, and the second stage carried on ascending with its payload of 11 satellites, the first stage flipped itself over, re-lit its engines to slow its descent, and headed back to the ground.
Ten minutes after launch, with the flames from those engines illuminating the Floridian evening, the first stage descended from the sky and landed itself upright on a pad a few kilometres from where it had started (a long-exposure image, above, shows both the takeoff and landing). "Holy shit", exclaimed one SpaceX staffer, amid cheering, hugs and backslapping at the firm's Californian control room. "We did it!"
SpaceX has tried to land the first stages of Falcons twice before, in January and again in April. Both attempts, which aimed to land on a robotic, ocean-going barge, ended in failure. This success is therefore an important development for the firm, and its ambition to cut the cost of space flight. One reason missions to space are so expensive is that existing rockets are one-shot machines. Using them is a bit like buying a new car for every journey made, or building a new 747 for every flight across the Atlantic, and then discarding it.
If SpaceX is thus able to land, refurbish and reuse its first stages routinely, it could greatly reduce the cost of launching things into space. The first stage of a Falcon 9 accounts for around 70% of its $54m price tag. SpaceX’s going rate for a satellite launch starts at around $60m, already the lowest in the industry, but reusable rockets would allow the company to go even lower. Its already-impressive order book, which includes America's air force, NASA and several commercial satellite firms, would swell further.
Blue Origin has yet to make a commercial flight, and its proposed business is rather different. Its New Shepard spacecraft is ultimately intended to carry passengers, though (at least at first) only just above the altitude of 100km (62 miles) that somewhat arbitrarily defines the edge of space. Crossing the Karman line, as this is known, requires a lot less energy than getting all the way into orbit. The two firms do have one thing in common, though. Both were founded by internet billionaires. Elon Musk, who started SpaceX, made his first fortune from ******. (He also runs Tesla, an electric car company.) Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder, is better known as the founder of Amazon.
SpaceX's ambition is to make the second stage re-usable as well. That will be trickier. By the time the second stage has done its job it will be far higher and travelling far faster than the first stage ever does. But it is a goal worth pursuing. Mr Musk estimates that full reusability could lower the cost his rocket launches “by a factor of a hundred”.
Besides shaking up the rocket-launching market, such low costs are the key to his ultimate goal of making humanity into a multi-planetary species by establishing a colony on Mars. But that is in the future. For now, he and his staff at SpaceX have earned themselves a well-earned Christmas break. As a famously hard worker, though, he probably won't take it.

 

[eek.]

Thunderbirds are go! F-A-B

https://www.youtube.com/user/officialthunderbirds

 

[eek.]

Sooo... who wants to fly in the repaired and refurbished second flight? (Maybe you get a discount!)

 

[eek.]

Nearly 70% of Americans say big government is top problem for nation - poll

 

[tiznow]

[h=1]Why Fed will backtrack on rates in 2016: Jim Grant[/h]The Federal Reserve will regret its interest rate hike in December and will be forced to backtrack in 2016, closely followed market watcher Jim Grant said Monday, as global stock markets were selling off on Chinese economic weakness.
Many economists expect more rate hikes from the Fed this year, but Grant argued that the cost of borrowing money is more likely to go back to zero percent.
Read MoreWall Street set for steep sell-off on China worries

"I think what they are going to do is not what people expect," he said. "As [the Fed] read the data, it felt it had to move. It had been saying for so long that it would. It had to and it did. But that doesn't mean it was right to do so."
"They missed their mark," the founder and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer told CNBC's "Squawk Box." He said the Fed should have increased rates years ago, which would have allowed asset prices to reset.
"As hard as it might have been, it seems to me a market-driven recovery with price discovery rather than price administration would have been the way forward," he said.
The Fed's easy money policies, including rock-bottom rates and years of massive bond purchases, "postponed the adjustment" in markets that need to happen eventually to make an "economy work more rationally," he continued.
Contrary to Grant's comments on interest rates, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said Sunday she does not need to see clear evidence of inflation to back additional policy tightening.
Looking at the year ahead, Grant predicted, "weakened consumption, especially for cars, and the manifestation of business failure that was masked or shrouded by these ultra-low rates."
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