Bruce Lee - Brutally Accurate

VERY well written article By Michael Snyder, on June 23rd, 2013

The Biggest Ponzi Scheme In The History Of The World

Richard Phillips Feynman

Incredible guy, I just learned about this guy.

Richard Phillips Feynman (/ˈfaɪnmən/; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988)^[2] was an American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. He developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known asFeynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World he was ranked as one of the ten greatest physicists of all time.^[3]

He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a member of the Rogers Commission, the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. In addition to his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with pioneering the field of quantum computing^[4][5] and introducing the concept of nanotechnology.^[6] He held the Richard Chace Tolman professorship in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Feynman was a keen popularizer of physics through both books and lectures, notably a 1959 talk on top-down nanotechnology called There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, and the three volume publication of his undergraduate lectures,The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman also became known through his semi-autobiographical books, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, and books written about him, such asTuva or Bust!.

Who Owns The Federal Reserve?

The Fed is privately owned. Its shareholders are private banks
By Ellen BrownGlobal Research, January 29, 2013Web of Debt and Global Research 8 October 2008

“Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”

– The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s

The Federal Reserve (or Fed) has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. In an unprecedented move in March 2008, the New York Fed advanced the funds for JPMorgan Chase Bank to buy investment bank Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. The deal was particularly controversial because Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, sits on the board of the New York Fed and participated in the secret weekend negotiations.1 In September 2008, the Federal Reserve did something even more unprecedented, when it bought the world’s largest insurance company. The Fed announced on September 16 that it was giving an $85 billion loan to American International Group (AIG) for a nearly 80% stake in the mega-insurer. The Associated Press called it a “government takeover,” but this was no ordinary nationalization. Unlike the U.S. Treasury, which took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the week before, the Fed is not a government-owned agency. Also unprecedented was the way the deal was funded. The Associated Press reported:

“The Treasury Department, for the first time in its history, said it would begin selling bonds for the Federal Reserve in an effort to help the central bank deal with its unprecedented borrowing needs.”2

This is extraordinary. Why is the Treasury issuing U.S. government bonds (or debt) to fund the Fed, which is itself supposedly “the lender of last resort” created to fund the banks and the federal government? Yahoo Finance reported on September 17:

  “The Treasury is setting up a temporary financing program at the Fed’s request. The program will auction  
    Treasury bills to raise cash for the Fed’s use. The initiative aims to help the Fed manage its balance sheet
    following its efforts to enhance its liquidity facilities over the previous few quarters.”

Normally, the Fed swaps green pieces of paper called Federal Reserve Notes for pink pieces of paper called U.S. bonds (the federal government’s I.O.U.s), in order to provide Congress with the dollars it cannot raise through taxes. Now, it seems, the government is issuing bonds, not for its own use, but for the use of the Fed! Perhaps the plan is to swap them with the banks’ dodgy derivatives collateral directly, without actually putting them up for sale to outside buyers. According to Wikipedia (which translates Fedspeak into somewhat clearer terms than the Fed’s own website):

“The Term Securities Lending Facility is a 28-day facility that will offer Treasury general collateral to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s primary dealers in exchange for other program-eligible collateral. It is intended to promote liquidity in the financing markets for Treasury and other collateral and thus to foster the functioning of financial markets more generally. . . . The resource allows dealers to switch debt that is less liquid for U.S. government securities that are easily tradable.”

“To switch debt that is less liquid for U.S. government securities that are easily tradable” means that the government gets the banks’ toxic derivative debt, and the banks get the government’s triple-A securities. Unlike the risky derivative debt, federal securities are considered “risk-free” for purposes of determining capital requirements, allowing the banks to improve their capital position so they can make new loans. (See E. Brown, “Bailout Bedlam,” webofdebt.com/articles, October 2, 2008.)

In its latest power play, on October 3, 2008, the Fed acquired the ability to pay interest to its member banks on the reserves the banks maintain at the Fed. Reuters reported on October 3:

“The U.S. Federal Reserve gained a key tactical tool from the $700 billion financial rescue package signed into law on Friday that will help it channel funds into parched credit markets. Tucked into the 451-page bill is a provision that lets the Fed pay interest on the reserves banks are required to hold at the central bank.”3

If the Fed’s money comes ultimately from the taxpayers, that means we the taxpayers are paying interest to the banks on the banks’ own reserves – reserves maintained for their own private profit. These increasingly controversial encroachments on the public purse warrant a closer look at the central banking scheme itself. Who owns the Federal Reserve, who actually controls it, where does it get its money, and whose interests is it serving?

Not Private and Not for Profit?

The Fed’s website insists that it is not a private corporation, is not operated for profit, and is not funded by Congress. But is that true? The Federal Reserve was set up in 1913 as a “lender of last resort” to backstop bank runs, following a particularly bad bank panic in 1907. The Fed’s mandate was then and continues to be to keep the private banking system intact; and that means keeping intact the system’s most valuable asset, a monopoly on creating the national money supply. Except for coins, every dollar in circulation is now created privately as a debt to the Federal Reserve or the banking system it heads.4 The Fed’s website attempts to gloss over its role as chief defender and protector of this private banking club, but let’s take a closer look. The website states:

* “The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation’s central banking system, are organized much like private corporations – possibly leading to some confusion about “ownership.” For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.”

* “[The Federal Reserve] is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms.”

* “The Federal Reserve’s income is derived primarily from the interest on U.S. government securities that it has acquired through open market operations. . . . After paying its expenses, the Federal Reserve turns the rest of its earnings over to the U.S. Treasury.”5

So let’s review:

1. The Fed is privately owned.

Its shareholders are private banks. In fact, 100% of its shareholders are private banks. None of its stock is owned by the government.

2. The fact that the Fed does not get “appropriations” from Congress basically means that it gets its money from Congress without congressional approval, by engaging in “open market operations.”

Here is how it works: When the government is short of funds, the Treasury issues bonds and delivers them to bond dealers, which auction them off. When the Fed wants to “expand the money supply” (create money), it steps in and buys bonds from these dealers with newly-issued dollars acquired by the Fed for the cost of writing them into an account on a computer screen. These maneuvers are called “open market operations” because the Fed buys the bonds on the “open market” from the bond dealers. The bonds then become the “reserves” that the banking establishment uses to back its loans. In another bit of sleight of hand known as “fractional reserve” lending, the same reserves are lent many times over, further expanding the money supply, generating interest for the banks with each loan. It was this money-creating process that prompted Wright Patman, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1960s, to call the Federal Reserve “a total money-making machine.” He wrote:

“When the Federal Reserve writes a check for a government bond it does exactly what any bank does, it creates money, it created money purely and simply by writing a check.”

3. The Fed generates profits for its shareholders.

The interest on bonds acquired with its newly-issued Federal Reserve Notes pays the Fed’s operating expenses plus a guaranteed 6% return to its banker shareholders. A mere 6% a year may not be considered a profit in the world of Wall Street high finance, but most businesses that manage to cover all their expenses and give their shareholders a guaranteed 6% return are considered “for profit” corporations.

In addition to this guaranteed 6%, the banks will now be getting interest from the taxpayers on their “reserves.” The basic reserve requirement set by the Federal Reserve is 10%. The website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York explains that as money is redeposited and relent throughout the banking system, this 10% held in “reserve” can be fanned into ten times that sum in loans; that is, $10,000 in reserves becomes $100,000 in loans. Federal Reserve Statistical Release H.8 puts the total “loans and leases in bank credit” as of September 24, 2008 at $7,049 billion. Ten percent of that is $700 billion. That means we the taxpayers will be paying interest to the banks on at least $700 billion annually – this so that the banks can retain the reserves to accumulate interest on ten times that sum in loans.

The banks earn these returns from the taxpayers for the privilege of having the banks’ interests protected by an all-powerful independent private central bank, even when those interests may be opposed to the taxpayers’ — for example, when the banks use their special status as private money creators to fund speculative derivative schemes that threaten to collapse the U.S. economy. Among other special benefits, banks and other financial institutions (but not other corporations) can borrow at the low Fed funds rate of about 2%. They can then turn around and put this money into 30-year Treasury bonds at 4.5%, earning an immediate 2.5% from the taxpayers, just by virtue of their position as favored banks. A long list of banks (but not other corporations) is also now protected from the short selling that can crash the price of other stocks.

Time to Change the Statute?

According to the Fed’s website, the control Congress has over the Federal Reserve is limited to this:

“[T]he Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute.”

As we know from watching the business news, “oversight” basically means that Congress gets to see the results when it’s over. The Fed periodically reports to Congress, but the Fed doesn’t ask; it tells. The only real leverage Congress has over the Fed is that it “can alter its responsibilities by statute.” It is time for Congress to exercise that leverage and make the Federal Reserve a truly federal agency, acting by and for the people through their elected representatives. If the Fed can demand AIG’s stock in return for an $85 billion loan to the mega-insurer, we can demand the Fed’s stock in return for the trillion-or-so dollars we’ll be advancing to bail out the private banking system from its follies.

If the Fed were actually a federal agency, the government could issue U.S. legal tender directly, avoiding an unnecessary interest-bearing debt to private middlemen who create the money out of thin air themselves. Among other benefits to the taxpayers. a truly “federal” Federal Reserve could lend the full faith and credit of the United States to state and local governments interest-free, cutting the cost of infrastructure in half, restoring the thriving local economies of earlier decades.

Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her eleven books include the bestselling Nature’s Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, and Forbidden Medicine. Her websites are www.webofdebt.com  and www.ellenbrown.com .

Temasek Holdings & Bank Of America - One of the worst investments in this period!

To relieve long-term backaches and spinal related discomfort

Saw this from a friend in my Facebook...



1st move: Lie flat on your back, bend knees and rotate lower body from side-to-side relaxingly without using strength or stressing the muscles. From time to time, pause and massage abdomen and waist to relieve tense muscles. 

2nd move: Almost similar to 1st move, but rotate upper body together. Hands pointing about 45 deg downwards, cannot be straight down, or too high up. Make sure top of head, hips & feet always in contact with the ground when rotating, or else this exercise will not be effective. Again, relaxingly without using strength or stressing the muscles.

This step helps to straighten the spine. If you are suffering from back discomfort, do 2nd step for longer time per session (continuously up to 2 hours no problem).

3rd move: Lie flat on your back. Wiggle your hips up/down, your feet will look like they are in stepping motion. First do with toes up, and repeat. Then switch to toes down and repeat. Those with bad spinal alignment will feel discomfort when doing this move, DO NOT give up, spend longer time doing the 2nd move, slowly across time when the spine gets better, the discomfort from 3rd move will go away. Again, relaxingly without using strength or stressing the muscles.

Steve Jobs: Secrets of Life

TRADER or INVESTOR

well written blog about TRADER vs INVESTOR...by Jay Tun

Trading For a Living

The 5 biggest lies on Wall Street

BRETT ARENDS'S ROI Archives | Email alerts

Feb. 22, 2013, 12:18 p.m. EST · CORRECTED
Commentary: These market myths are doing the rounds — again

The Dow popped back above 14,000 this week. The market’s been booming all year. Small cap stocks just hit a new all-time high, and Mom and Pop have been jumping back into the market.

Don’t mind me. I’m sitting in the back of the theater, throwing popcorn at the screen and shouting, “Boring! We’ve seen this already!” Maybe I’ve just been to too many movies.

Like this one.

Maybe the Dow will double from here. Maybe the good times will roll.

But don’t spin me. Here are five myths about the stock market that are doing the rounds, yet again. They just don’t seem to die.

Stocks will do well because U.S. corporations are in great shape.

Well, some of them have a lot of cash in the bank. So what? They have a lot of debt, too. According to the Federal Reserve, the total liabilities of U.S. nonfinancial companies just hit a new, all-time high of $13.9 trillion. That’s up 40% from a decade ago.

In other words, they owe about the same amount as the federal government. They’ve borrowed more than a trillion in the past three years alone.

What? You hadn’t heard that? Surprise.

We hear nothing but how deep in the hole Uncle Sam is. Big Business owes about the same. But ... nothing. Not a peep. Ah, if only debts didn’t count. Why, then, yes, corporations would be in great shape. So, too, would Subprime Suzy. Did you miss that movie?

OK, so corporate profits are booming. But that’s not a reason to invest more, least of all when those high profits are already factored into high stock prices. In fact, it’s a reason to be worried.

Profits can’t keep rising indefinitely as a share of the economy. When they go up, they come back down. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, corporations’ after-tax profits as a share of the economy have been at current levels only a few times in the recorded past. Like in 2006. And 1967. And 1929.

Ah, good times. Miller time!

Stocks will do well because the economy is recovering.

And so it is! But so what? That doesn’t mean the stock market will keep booming. From 1968 to 1982 the economy grew nearly 300%, but during that time, the stock market went nowhere. In real, after-tax dollars, investors lost money.

The economy has grown by two-thirds since 1999. How’s your stock portfolio done over that period? The Japanese economy has doubled since 1989, but the Nikkei is still down by three quarters. Studies by Elroy Dimson and colleagues at the London Business School found many cases around the world of capitalist economies where investors did poorly for decades even while the economy grew.

Economic growth does not always produce good investment returns. It’s a myth.

Stocks should earn 9% a year.

Hooey. By this logic, I should change my name to Michael Jordan: It would make me a great basketball player. Yes, from 1928 through 2011, U.S. stocks produced compound average returns of 9.2% a year, but you can’t just extrapolate that to the future.  See: Annual Returns on Stock, T.Bonds and T.Bills: 1928 - Current

First, those numbers include inflation. The returns in real, or constant dollars, was a much more modest 6%. Second, this is just an average. And it’s very misleading.

During all those years, as Stern’s data shows, the stock market only beat inflation by a decent margin during two boom periods — from 1949 to 1967 and from 1982 to 1999. Both were followed by vicious bear markets which wiped out the gains.

If you missed those two booms, your total gain from U.S. stocks over the other 54 years since 1928 came to a grand total of 7%, after inflation.

No, not 7% a year. Seven percent. Total.

A balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds will always make money.

This is more nonsense. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, so I can direct you to an article I did about this last year. The elevator summary is that the so-called “foolproof” balanced portfolio of 60% stocks, 40% bonds has failed, massively, at least twice, just in the past 84 years — from 1937 through 1950, and from 1965 through 1982. It can fail again. That’s because there is nothing magical about a “balanced” portfolio of stocks and bonds. As people used to say, nothing is ever foolproof because fools are so damned inventive.

See: Why a ‘Balanced’ Portfolio May Not Work

A portfolio of bonds and stocks has only worked in the past when either the stocks were undervalued, or the bonds were undervalued, or both. That’s it.

In today’s gerrymandered market, the Federal Reserve has arranged for the 10-year Treasury bond to yield just 2%. That’s half a percentage point per year less than the central 10-year inflation forecast of the bond market. Bonds usually yield about 2% a year more than inflation. Today’s bonds are mathematically designed, with the precision of a Swiss watch, to lose half a percent of purchasing power every year.

These bonds cannot be undervalued. They are almost certainly wildly overvalued. The only circumstances in which these bonds will not lose you money, in real, inflation-adjusted terms, over the next 10 years is if a deflationary crash and depression cause your stocks to plummet.

There are billions of dollars in cash sitting “on the sidelines” waiting to come into this market.

Did you ever see John Carpenter’s “The Thing”? It was a horror flick set in Antarctica.

The monster was a shape-shifting alien that just wouldn’t die. Kurt Russell’s hero hacks it to pieces, but it keeps coming back.

When the creature’s severed head sprouts legs and it resumes its attack once again, Russell says, in disbelief: “You. Have. Got. To. Be. [Unprintable exclamation omitted]. Kidding.”

I know exactly how he feels. I feel the same way I hear someone talk about all the “cash on the sidelines” waiting to come in to the stock market and drive it higher.

You will hear this even from some sensible people. And, curiously, when others criticize the argument, they usually do so on minor technicalities, like that there really isn’t as much cash on the sidelines as people think.

No, no, no. The whole argument is wrong.

In a nutshell: Every time someone buys a stock, someone else sells a stock. If your grandma puts $10,000 into the stock market, someone takes $10,000 out of it.

If I spent $470 tomorrow buying one share of Apple, I’d have to buy it from someone. Before the transaction, I’d have $470 and he’d have one share of Apple. After the transaction, I’d have one share of Apple … and he’d have $470.

Amount that has come “into” the market? Zero.

If you don’t believe me, try it. 

Brett Arends is a MarketWatch columnist. Follow him on Twitter @BrettArends.

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Who is/are the Federal Reserve (FED)...?

Who is the FED? This guy (Glenn Beck) got fired after talking about it in his show.