Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Wednesday 02.20.2013
Gold versus Industrial Metals
By: Steve Saville, The Speculative Investor - GoldSeek.com
The financial markets have begun 2013 in remarkably similar fashion to how they began 2010, 2011 and 2012. In each of these preceding three years the average market participant became optimistic about global economic growth during the first quarter, leading to weakness in gold relative to the industrial metals. Here we go again.
As illustrated by the following chart of the gold/GYX ratio (GYX being a proxy for industrial metals such as copper, zinc, nickel, lead and aluminium), gold declined relative to the industrial metals complex during the early part of each of the last three years. Up until now, 2013 has followed the same pattern. The price action is prompting many analysts to recommend increased exposure to the industrial metals relative to gold, but note that the gold/GYX ratio made its low for the year during February-April of 2010, 2011 and 2012. This suggests that economic optimism was beginning to give way to economic realism by April in each of these prior years.
Gold "Headed for Sell Off" Despite Stronger US Coin Sales
From Ben Traynor - GoldSeek.com
WHOLESALE prices for gold bullion hovered above $1610 an ounce during Tuesday morning's London session, having ticked higher in Asian trading following losses yesterday, as stock markets also gained, with the US set to reopen following a holiday yesterday.
Gold is still down around 3% on the month however following last week's drop.
"[Last week's] bearish close should lead to a sell-off to below the $1600 level unfolding in the weeks to come," reckons Axel Rudolph, senior technical analyst at Commerzbank.
Eric Sprott: Price of Gold and Silver
are Being Suppressed & No Gold in the Treasury
Money manager Eric Sprott contends, "Physical demand for gold is out of line with supply. How can all these new people come into this market when there has been no increase in supply . . . for the last 12 years?" Sprott's analysis shows central banks are selling to make up for the shortfall and opines, "I would hate to think what happens when we all find out there is no gold in the Treasury."
Money Is A Form Of Social Control And Most Americans Are Debt Slaves
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Is America really "the land of the free"? Most people think of money as simply a medium of exchange that makes economic transactions more convenient, but the truth is that it is much more than that. Money is also a form of social control. Just think about it. What did you do this morning? Well, if you are like most Americans, you either got up and went to work (to make money) or to school (to learn the skills that you will need to make money). We spend a great deal of our lives pursuing the almighty dollar, and there are literally millions of laws, rules and regulations about how we earn our money, about how we spend our money and about how much of our money the government gets to take from us. Not that money is a bad thing in itself. Without money, it would be really hard to have a modern society. Unfortunately, our money is based on debt, and debt levels in the United States have exploded to absolutely unprecedented levels in recent years. The borrower is the servant of the lender, and if you are like most Americans, nearly every major purchase that you make in your life is going to involve debt.
The Reflation Party Is Ending
As China Withdraws Market Liquidity
For First Time In Eight Months
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Since institutional memories are short, it is time to remind readers that it was the threat, and subsequent reality, of China overheating in the spring and summer of 2011 (when record high food prices sent the entire North African region in a state of coordinated revolt and gradually moved far east), when even the Great firewall of China could not block news of frequent break outs of localized violence from hungry and angry mobs, that halted and broke the spine of the great reflation trade then (and yes, 2013 has so far been a carbon copy replica of 2011 as we summarized in "It's Deja Vu, All Over Again: This Time Is... Completely The Same").
Fears at Fed of rate payouts to banks
[Google title for free article access]
By Robin Harding in Washington and Tom Braithwaite in New York
US Federal Reserve officials fear a backlash from paying billions of dollars to commercial banks when the time comes to raise interest rates.
The growth of the Fed's balance sheet means it could pay $50bn-$75bn a year in interest on bank reserves at the same time as it makes losses and has to stop sending money to the Treasury.
It's War
By: CAPTAINHOOK - GoldSeek.com
It appears ever since the world's top money managers, crony capitalists, and corrupt politicians were in Davos again for the annual World Economic Forum increasing numbers are catching on to the fact the 'big risk' moving forward is likely to be 'currency wars', which unfortunately most common people will not understand. They don't understand the term 'currency wars' is plutocratic double speak for 'currency debasement wars', more often referred to as money printing. (i.e. which is price inflationary and the authorities chief mechanism for wealth confiscation.) Such jargon is considered boorish by the 'high and mighty' who continue to perpetuate our Ponzi finance fraud, loosely considered an economy by those who continue to benefit from it, the ranks of which growing more scarce by the day. (i.e. Keynesian Economics does not work.)
South Korea Starts Currency War Rumblings;
Has Japan In Its Sights
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
While the rest of the developed (read trade deficit) world's foray into the currency wars was completely predictable and expected, there was one country that had so far kept very silent on the topic of Japan's attempts to crush its currency: its main export competitor, South Korea. Recall that for this Asian nation exports are everything, and as Yonhap reminds us, "exports of goods and services amounted to 538.5 trillion won (US$506 billion) in the January-September period, or 57.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), according to the data by the Bank of Korea. The reading was higher than 56.2 percent tallied for all of 2011 and the highest since the central bank began compiling related data in 1970, and South Korea's exports accounted for 13.2 percent of its GDP." The reason for South Korea's relative silence is that, as we showed yesterday, in the global race to debase launched with the end of the Bretton Woods, it was the undisputed leader, outdoing even the US.
South Korea Starts Currency War Rumblings;
Has Japan In Its Sights
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
While the rest of the developed (read trade deficit) world's foray into the currency wars was completely predictable and expected, there was one country that had so far kept very silent on the topic of Japan's attempts to crush its currency: its main export competitor, South Korea. Recall that for this Asian nation exports are everything, and as Yonhap reminds us, "exports of goods and services amounted to 538.5 trillion won (US$506 billion) in the January-September period, or 57.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), according to the data by the Bank of Korea. The reading was higher than 56.2 percent tallied for all of 2011 and the highest since the central bank began compiling related data in 1970, and South Korea's exports accounted for 13.2 percent of its GDP." The reason for South Korea's relative silence is that, as we showed yesterday, in the global race to debase launched with the end of the Bretton Woods, it was the undisputed leader, outdoing even the US.
Obama presses for stopgap sequester fix
By Zachary A. Goldfarb - WashingtonPost.com
President Obama injected fresh urgency Tuesday morning into discussions over how to avoid deep, automatic cuts to domestic and defense spending that are set to take effect in 10 days.
Speaking at the White House, surrounded by firefighters and other emergency personnel, Obama urged Congress to pass a short-term measure that would delay the cuts, known as the sequester, for a period of time until Congress can pass a permanent fix.
Obama, the puppet master President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.
By JIM VANDEHEI and MIKE ALLEN | Politico.com
Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated. Instead, the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting). And it's an equal opportunity strategy: Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.
Fed's Lockhart sees bond buying through year end
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
ATLANTA | Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:44pm EST
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will likely need to keep buying bonds until the end of this year given the still-feeble state of the U.S. labor market, a top Fed official told Reuters on Tuesday.
Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Dennis Lockhart, who is seen as a bellwether centrist at the central bank, said in an interview that the economy should benefit from the partial resolution of the so-called "fiscal cliff" budget stand-off earlier this year.
The Pound Gets Pounded
By: Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
As the global currency war intensifies, the majority of attention has been paid to the 17% fall of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar over the past few months. The implosion has given cover to the sad performance of another once mighty currency: the British pound sterling. But in many ways the travails of the pound is far more instructive to those pondering the fate of the U.S. currency.
Japan has a unique economic and demographic profile which makes it a poor stalking horse. Newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Bank of Japan have clearly and forcefully committed Japan to a policy of inflation at any cost. Even in a world of serial money printers their plans stand out as exceptional. Britain, on the other hand, is charting a more conventional course to the same destination.
What Would Ben Franklin Say About An America In Decline?
By John Tamny, Forbes.com
Writing about the successful American Revolution in his masterful 1998 book, A History of the American People, historian Paul Johnson opined that the British weren't incompetent as much as the Founders were brilliant. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Monroe, and Franklin were in the eyes of Johnson the greatest collection of minds in one place in the history of mankind.
At present the creation of our Founding Fathers limps along with high unemployment, gargantuan budget deficits, and a lack of confidence that is, well, un-American. So with these United States seemingly in trouble, it's always worthwhile to consider the difficult times we're in through the eyes of the Founders themselves. Wildly successful entrepreneur Tom Blair has done just that with his highly insightful and enjoyablePoorer Richard's America – What Would Ben Say?
Bushonomics Is Back The GOP's latest rebranding effort
is a return to the gospel of George W. Bush.
By Matthew Yglesias - Slate.com
You can judge a political party's self-confidence in part by how it treats its past leaders. Democrats spent all of the George W. Bush years waxing nostalgic about the good old days of the Clinton administration. Barack Obama's election, by contrast, triggered mass amnesia in conservative circles about the name, identity, and partisan affiliation of his predecessor. To hear Republicans tell it, American politics ended in January 2001, only to suddenly shake back to life in February 2009 with a Kenyan socialist in the White House and the sound economy Ronald Reagan built lying in shambles.
But last night Florida Sen. Marco Rubio made clear in words what those of us who've been watching Republican deeds have long suspected: The party deeply yearns not for new ideas but for George W. Bush's ideas. Bushonomics is back.
Abolish The Income Tax: You Won't Believe Who Is Getting Away With Paying Zero Taxes While The Middle Class Gets Hammered
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The federal income tax is a bad joke and it needs to be abolished. All over the nation, hard working American families are being absolutely crushed by oppressive levels of taxation, and our politicians are constantlycoming up with new ways to extract money from all of us every single year. Meanwhile, many ultra-wealthy Americans and many of the most profitable corporations in the country pay little to nothing in taxes. In fact, as you will see below, there are dozens of very prominent corporations that make billions of dollars in profits and yet don't pay a dime in taxes. Tax avoidance has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. Those that have the resources to "play the game" use shell companies, offshore tax havens and the thousands of loopholes in our tax code to minimize their tax burdens as much as possible. Meanwhile, the rest of us get absolutely hammered.
Obama warns Congress over spending cuts:
'People will lose their jobs' President takes tough line against Republicans he says are jeopardising US economic stability by refusing to compromise
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama warned Tuesday that looming spending cuts are a "meat-cleaver" approach to America's debt woes that will damage the economy and safety of the nation.
"This is not an abstraction. People will lose their jobs," Obama said in a tough speech that criticised Republicans who he claimed have blocked efforts to avert roughly $85bn in federal spending cuts scheduled to begin March 1. Analysts believe compromise on the so-called sequestration is becoming less likely each day.
US business hits out at 'Obamacare' costs
[Google title for free article access]
By Barney Jopson in New York and Alan Rappeport in Washington - FT.com
US retailers and restaurants chains that employ millions of low-wage workers are considering cutting working hours or paying fines rather than enrolling employees in health insurance plans under Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law.
Employers are concerned that the law increases the cost of insuring employees on existing plans, partly by broadening the range of benefits. It also requires companies to insure some employees not previously covered.
The Unsung, But Massive Obamacare Sales Tax Increase
That Is On the Way
By Lindsay Boyd - Forbes.com
Today, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) President Karen Ignagni issued a press release in support of bipartisan legislation (H.R. 1370, S.1880) co-sponsored by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Jim Matheson (D-UT) to repeal the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health insurance tax. While much of the dialogue on healthcare reform centers on the federal mandate of health coverage for all Americans – which many conservatives call the largest tax increase in U.S history – less attention is being given to the massive sales tax increase on the purchase of health insurance also implicit within the legislation that will dramatically escalate costs for employers and consumers.
Will Local Taxation Drive Gasoline
Above $5.00 Per Gallon As A Norm?
by Jon C. Ogg - 247WallSt.com
The news flow on the price of gasoline is rather concerning. 24/7 Wall St. just took a look at the states that have the highest gasoline prices in America. After personally paying about $99 at the pump this weekend, I wanted to see which cities were bilking their citizens the most. As expected, major metros in California led the list even though Hawaii beat California on the list of states.
Obama: 'Energy Is Going to Be a Little More Expensive'
by WYNTON HALL - Breitbart.com
During a Friday Google+ hangout session, President Barack Obama conceded that his policies to address climate change will raise energy costs, a fact that could prove uncomfortable for Democrats in areas reliant on fossil fuel power plants:
I have to tell you that there are some Democrats, for example, who represent states or districts that are heavily reliant on old power plants and are more heavily manufacturing based. And the truth is that if you produce power using old power plants, you're going to be emitting more carbon, but, to upgrade those plants means energy is going to be a little more expensive, at least on the front end.
Keiser Report: When Truth is Found to be Lies (E408)
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the four horsemen of the bondpoclypse riding into town bringing with them the reversal of multi-decades long trends and as pipe swipers steal toilets and as supermarkets hit the limits of cost-cutting, the population confronts the high cost of backsliding trends. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to former energy regulator, Chris Cook, about how we move from dollar diplomacy to gas diplomacy and a world where energy as the modern water hole where you don't have to kill each other and a gas backed currency becomes a new global reserve currency in a post-dollar world.
Housing: The long climb back
[Google title for free article access]
Investors made a killing after the US bubble burst, but for average Americans the recovery is likely to be gradual
By Shahien Nasiripour and Robin Harding in Washington - FT.com
To the Green brothers, everyone seemed to be getting rich off the great Florida housing boom of the last decade except them. Their fledgling construction company couldn't compete with cash-rich rivals who had been building houses in Cape Coral, a city carved out of a mangrove swamp on the gulf coast.
By 2008, the Greens were in trouble. "Our margins were razor-thin and we were constantly being outbid on jobs," says Bill Green, a bearded former construction worker with a degree in real estate from Florida State University.
How the Fed is creating another
speculative market for housing:
Fed balance sheet now over $3 trillion and low interest rates
are causing speculation in non-traditional markets.
DoctorHousingBubble.com
The Federal Reserve has made it mission number one to create a low interest rate environment. The PR campaign claimed that this was to help average indebted homeowners but in reality, it had more to do with providing incredible banking leverage and also to support our massive national debt. The Fed's balance sheet recently crossed the $3 trillion mark. In essence, the Fed became the bad bank without any open vote or congressional debate. That much is obvious but what isn't certain is where things go from here. The ability of inflation to erode purchasing power is a real problem. Since the recession ended it is clear that profits in the financial sector have soared. Yet household incomes remain stagnant. This is important to understand and Professor Robert Shiller has talked about being cautious about the unbridled optimism now being seen in the housing market. The housing market for the last few years has been supported by massive amounts of investor money. Is the Fed simply creating a different kind of speculative fervor this time around?
After 148 years, Mississippi finally ratifies 13th Amendment, which banned slavery
By STEPHANIE CONDON - CBSNews.com
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, was ratified in 1865. Lawmakers in Mississippi, however, only got around to officially ratifying the amendment last month -- 148 years later -- thanks to the movie "Lincoln."
The state's historical oversight came to light after Mississippi resident Ranjan Batra saw the Steven Spielberg-directed film last November, the Clarion-Ledgerreports.
Biden: 'Buy a shotgun. Buy a shotgun.'
By Daniel Strauss - TheHill.com
Vice President Biden defended a proposed assault weapons ban on Tuesday during an online town hall.
Biden, responding to a question about what a possible ban would mean for citizens who want to defend themselves, argued that someone can still properly defend themselves without owning an automatic weapon.
"If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun," Biden said during the town hall, which was hosted by Parents magazine. "You don't need an AR-15. It's harder to aim, it's harder to use and, in fact, you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun. Buy a shotgun."
Gun owners get a discount at Va. pizza shop
CBS/AP
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA.A Virginia Beach pizza shop owner is showing his support for firearm rights by giving gun owners a 15 percent discount.
The discount is given to anyone who brings a gun or concealed handgun permit to All Around Pizzas and Deli.
Guns and Pensions
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
A nation's choice between spending on military defense and spending on civilian goods has often been posed as "guns versus butter." But understanding the choices of many nations' political leaders might be helped by examining the contrast between their runaway spending on pensions while skimping on military defense.
Huge pensions for retired government workers can be found from small municipalities to national governments on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a reason. For elected officials, pensions are virtually the ideal thing to spend money on, politically speaking. Many kinds of spending of the taxpayers' money win votes from the recipients. But raising taxes to pay for this spending loses votes from the taxpayers. Pensions offer a way out of this dilemma for politicians.
MORE STATES TELL FEDERAL GOV: DON'T TOUCH OUR GUNS
by AWR HAWKINS - Breitbart.com
Since early January, states around the country have been pushing back against attempts at gun banning by proposing legislation that preempts any new federal gun control acts.
Although the proposals are at different stages in each state, it's encouraging to see that what started in Wyoming in early January and then spread to Texas and Oklahoma has now come to include Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona, and Washington.
Sheriff Says We're Going to See 2nd American Revolution
Alex welcomes Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke who recently urged the citizens he serves to consider learning firearm safety because of "a duty to protect yourself and your family."
Every round they buy is one less for American public FEDS BUY TWO BILLION ROUNDS OF AMMUNITION
by WILLIAM BIGELOW - Breitbart.com
Something strange is going on. Federal non-military agencies have bought two billion rounds of ammunition in the last 10 months. The Obama Administration says that federal law enforcement agents need the ammunition for "mandatory quarterly firearms qualifications and other training sessions."
Radio show host Mark Levin is suspicious. He commented:
To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, the [Department of Homeland Security] is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war. A 24-year Iraq war! I'm going to tell you what I think is going on. I don't think domestic insurrection. Law enforcement and national security agencies, they play out multiple scenarios. … I'll tell you what I think they're simulating: the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence, looting, killing in the streets, because that's what happens when an economy collapses. I suspect that just in case our fiscal situation, our monetary situation, collapses, and following it the civil society collapses, that is the rule of law, they want to be prepared. I know why the government's arming up: It's not because there's going to be an insurrection; it's because our society is unraveling.
Ohio Plans Drones to Hunt Lost Kids as They Bring Jobs
By Mark Niquette - Bloomberg.com
Medina County Sheriff Tom Miller says he understands why some people in northeastern Ohio may be wary about having his department's drone overhead.
"If I have a barbecue in my backyard, I certainly don't need somebody droning over me to see what's going on," Miller said by telephone from the county of about 173,000. "But if my grandson's missing, or my granddaughter, I would like to think there's technology available that can help us search more quickly to locate them."
Profiting From Human Misery
By Chris Hedges - Truthdig.com
Marela, an undocumented immigrant in her 40s, stood outside the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, N.J., on a chilly afternoon last week. She was there with a group of protesters who appear at the facility's gates every year on Ash Wednesday to decry the nation's immigration policy and conditions inside the center. She was there, she said, because of her friend Evelyn Obey.
Obey, 40, a Guatemalan and the single mother of a 12-year-old and a 6-year-old, was picked up in an immigration raid as she and nine other undocumented workers walked out of an office building they cleaned in Newark, N.J. Her two children instantly lost their only parent. She languished in detention. Another family took in the children, who never saw their mother again. Obey died in jail in 2010 from, according to the sign Villar had hung on her neck, "pulmonary thromboembolism, chronic bronchiolitis and emphysema and remote cardiac Ischemic Damage.' "
Zero Hour at the Vatican:
A Bitter Struggle for Control of the Catholic Church With Pope Benedict XVI's resignation drawing closer, the struggle for power in the Vatican has gotten underway in earnest. The church badly needs to reform itself, but with Ratzinger lurking in the shadows, will it be able to?
By SPIEGEL Staff - Spiegel.de
Naked and goaded viciously by hornets and wasps, his blood sucked by loathsome worms. Such was the fate of a pope in Dante's "Divine Comedy" who "by his cowardice made the great refusal."
Benedict XVI, in short, knew what could happen to one who rebelled against a centuries-old tradition in a church in which suffering is far from foreign. But he also knew that it wasn't just a matter of his own suffering -- it was a matter of the exhaustion, weakness and sickness of the church at large.
The Best Choice for Pope? A Nun
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Truthdig.com
WASHINGTON—In giving up the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI was brave and bold. He did the unexpected for the good of the Catholic Church. And when it selects a new pope next month, the College of Cardinals should be equally brave and bold. It is time to elect a nun as the next pontiff.
Now, I know this hope of mine is the longest of long shots. I have great faith in the Holy Spirit to move papal conclaves, but I would concede that I may be running ahead of the Spirit on this one. Women, after all, are not yet able to become priests, and it is unlikely that traditionalists in the church will suddenly upend the all-male, celibate priesthood, let alone name a woman as the bishop of Rome.
3-D Printing Pioneer Wants Government
to Restrict Gunpowder, Not Printable Guns
BY ROBERT BECKHUSEN - Wired.com
Just as gun control has made a comeback among politicians after a spate of deadly mass shootings, the rapid advances in 3-D printed guns have threatened to undermine those controls before they even get started. According to a leading 3-D printing researcher, the only way to prevent printed guns from shooting a new loophole in the law may be to control the gunpowder you need to fire them.
"Perhaps the only way forward, if we choose to try and control this, is to control the gunpowder — the explosives — and not the actual device," Hod Lipson, a Cornell University professor of engineering and an early pioneer of 3-D printing, tells Danger Room. The reason, Lipson says, is that it would be the remaining "controlled substance" in a field that's otherwise uncontrollable, regardless of the shape or size of the firearm that you're using — or printing. It is the "unifying material everybody would need, and it would be a good target for regulation if people choose to regulate it."
How Big Business is Stymying Makers' High-Res,
Colorful Innovations
BY JOSEPH FLAHERTY - Wired.com
If you're waiting for desktop additive-manufacturing technology to move closer to professional-level results, be prepared to wait for a very long time.
The past year was a breakout for desktop 3-D printing. MakerBot released two new models, Formlabs debuted the first prosumer 3-D printer to use high-accuracy stereolithography, and a slew of innovative, printed projects lifted awareness and desirability of additive manufacturing for the general public.
Lethal liability insurance for gun owners? U.S. Insurers Resist Push to Make Gun Owners Get Coverage
By Elizabeth Bunn - Bloomberg.com
U.S. insurers are resisting a push by state legislators to mandate that gun owners buy coverage tied to the weapons' risk, saying such laws may encourage irresponsible behavior.
Requiring the policies would be impractical and could fail to limit gun violence, the American Insurance Association, a property-casualty trade group, said in an e-mailed statement.
The Rise of the Robots
By Robert Skidelsky - Project-Syndicate.org
LONDON – What impact will automation – the so-called "rise of the robots" – have on wages and employment over the coming decades? Nowadays, this question crops up whenever unemployment rises.
In the early nineteenth century, David Ricardo considered the possibility that machines would replace labor; Karl Marx followed him. Around the same time, the Luddites smashed the textile machinery that they saw as taking their jobs.
Stop Worrying, And Start Learning To Love Robots A Cheerful Welcome To The Robots, Our Future Work Overlords
By Scott Winship, Forbes.com
A surprising number of people seem to be freaking out about an imminent takeover by robots. It's true that only at the fringe is anyone suggesting a Matrix-style dystopia where the machines rise up and enslave us. But the commonly-expressed conviction that technological innovation will immiserate broad segments of society is only somewhat less irrational.
A number of major news outlets and commentators have raised the specter of a doom-like "rise of the robots." These alarmist speculations allege that technology will leave behind a large portion of the U.S. labor force. One recent piece goes so far to insist that taking on the robots "now poses the central economic dilemma of the Obama era." The central economic dilemma? Does not compute.
Elite Chinese unit accused of waging cyber war against US
By Brendan Sasso - TheHill.com
An elite military unit of Chinese hackers is likely behind a wave of attacks on U.S. government and business computer systems, according to a report released on Tuesday by the American security firm Mandiant.
Analysts traced a series of attacks to a 12-story building in the Pudong district of Shanghai. They concluded that the building, which likely holds hundreds or even thousands of employees, is almost certainly the headquarters of China's secretive cyber war division, the People's Liberation Army Unit 61398.
CyberHackers - Chinese People's
Liberation Army's secretive "Unit 61398 Secretive Chinese Army Unit Blamed for Costly Cyberattacks
By Alex Fitzpatrick - Mashable.com
A shadowy Chinese army unit is to blame for many of the most effective cyberattacks against the United States, argues a leading cybersecurity firm in a new report.
Security firm Mandiant outed the unit Tuesday in a report issued after tracking individual members of a top Chinese hacking group, which it identifies as "APT1," for six years. Mandiant concluded the group is working with assistance from the Chinese government and is likely People's Liberation Army Unit 61398, a unit dedicated to cyberwar and corporate espionage on the behalf of the Chinese government.
The Cyber-Hacking of America Is Going to Cost Us Big Time
By WILLIAM PATALON III, Executive Editor, MoneyMorning.com
We've been warning for some time now that cybersecurity would emerge as one of the top issues to track.
Indeed, in column we published on February 1st , we even predicted that the cyber-hacking of America- especially from China, Russia and Iran - would turn into one of the top stories of 2013.
And that's precisely how it's turning out.
W.H. cyber policy will be slow in wake of Chinese hackers
By TONY ROMM | Politico.com
President Barack Obama's high-profile cybersecurity order last week faces a brutal reality with news of the latest case of Chinese cyber espionage: The U.S. government has work to do to keep up with the attackers.
The federal government is slow, the regulations are voluntary and cyber defenses at this point aren't yet up to snuff. Substantive changes may move at a snail's pace in comparison with the rate at which new, sophisticated attacks are coming to light.
Chinese Army Directing Cyber Espionage
Against Western Businesses
By David M. Ewalt, Forbes Staff - Forbes.com
The Chinese government directly sponsors and supports an army unit responsible for systematic cyber espionage and data theft around the world, according to a new report from computer security firm Mandiant.
The report, released on Tuesday morning and first revealed in this New York Times Story, reveals the existence of Chinese People's Liberation Army Unit 61398, a secret agency situated on Datong Road in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai. Mandiant estimates that the unit may be staffed by thousands of people, and says it may be responsible for a majority of attacks against American corporate and government computer networks.
Chinese Military Group Linked to Hacks
of More Than 100 Companies
BY KIM ZETTER - Wired.com
A large and complex hacker group connected to China's military has been linked to hacks involving more than 100 companies in the U.S. and the theft of several hundreds of terabytes of data, according to a comprehensive report released Tuesday that unabashedly blames China for some of the largest hacks detected in recent years.
The group, known as the Comment Crew and APT1, operates out of a 12-story office tower in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai, and is said to be part of Unit 61398, a unit of the People's Liberation Army that has a staff of hundreds and perhaps thousands of hackers who have systematically stolen valuable data from U.S. firms since at least 2006 using the resources of state-owned enterprises, such as China Telecom, to conduct the attacks, according to Mandiant, the computer security firm that released the detailed 76-page report.
Apple, Macs hit by hackers who targeted Facebook
By Jim Finkle and Joseph Menn
BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:50pm EST
(Reuters) - Apple Inc was recently attacked by hackers who infected Macintosh computers of some employees, the company said Tuesday in an unprecedented disclosure describing the widest known cyber attacks targeting Apple computers used by corporations.
Unknown hackers infected the computers of some Apple workers when they visited a website for software developers that had been infected with malicious software. The malware had been designed to attack Mac computers.
Apple hit by malware attack The company said it has found no evidence
that the attackers stole any data
By Agam Shah - Computerworld.com
IDG News Service - Apple on Tuesday said it was a victim of a malware attack when a small number of systems inside the company were compromised.
The malware attack was tied to a vulnerability in a Java plug-in for browsers, Apple said in a statement sent via email.
"There is no evidence that any data left Apple. We are working closely with law enforcement to find the source of the malware," the statement reads.
Apple isolated the infected systems from its network.
U.S. said to be target of massive cyber-espionage campaign
By Ellen Nakashima - WashingtonPost.com
A new intelligence assessment has concluded that the United States is the target of a massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign that is threatening the country's economic competitiveness, according to individuals familiar with the report.
The National Intelligence Estimate identifies China as the country most aggressively seeking to penetrate the computer systems of American businesses and institutions to gain access to data that could be used for economic gain.
Singularity Might Be Impossible
And Other News You Need to Know
By Stan Schroeder - Mashable.com
Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world.
Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories. Dr. Miguel Nicolelis says the brain cannot be recreated with silicon, and that our consciousness is a result of unpredictable, non-linear interactions amongst billions of cells. This would mean the Singularity just isn't going to happen.
MIT Wants Tomorrow's Soldiers to Talk Through Their Shirts
BY SPENCER ACKERMAN - Wired.com
If a group of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have their way, the soldier of the future mumbling into his jacket won't be a crazy person. He'll be using microscopic fibers woven into his uniform to communicate with his battle buddies and clear up some of the fog of war.
Can you spot the gold threads in the Army Combat Uniform shown above? They're not included for style — but they do provide a kind of demonstration. MIT and the Army wanted to prove that they could fabricate a uniform that included a kind of fiber optic-like thread developed through a joint effort that should allow soldiers' threads to detect light, heat and sound.
UhOh… it's coming baaaaack! Bad news: The asteroid that just missed Earth
is coming back. And...
By Andrew Malcolm - Investors.com
In terms of a family car vacation, the ancient asteroid that flew by Earth Friday may have seemed far away -- 17,200 miles.
In astronomical terms, however, Asteroid 2012 AD 14 was actually very close, much closer, for example, than the Moon's 239,000 miles. And computer projections of that asteroid's Earth-like orbit into the future currently forecast an upcoming earthly encounter of the explosive kind. More on that disastrous possibility in a minute.
The Latin American Exception
By Greg Grandin, TomDispatch - Truthdig.com
The map tells the story. To illustrate a damning new report, "Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Rendition," just publishedby the Open Society Institute, theWashington Post put together an equally damning graphic: it's soaked in red, as if with blood, showing that in the years after 9/11, the CIA turned just about the whole world into a gulag archipelago.
Back in the early twentieth century, a similar red-hued map was used to indicate the global reach of the British Empire, on which, it was said, the sun never set. It seems that, between 9/11 and the day George W. Bush left the White House, CIA-brokered torture never saw a sunset either.
US has lost war in Afghanistan War on Everything But Islamic Terror If only Iran began developing the world's biggest chocolate bar, then the bombing raids would begin as soon as the chocolate enrichment process reached the caramel-nougat line.
By: Daniel Greenfield - JewishPress.com
Over a decade after thousands of New Yorkers were murdered by Muslim terrorists, the city's mayor is declaring victory in the War on Salt. Next up he plans to wage a spring offensive on Styrofoam cups. After that, who knows?
We live in surreal times. In the Middle Ages, cats and rats were put on trial. In this modern age, we began by waging wars on poverty and drugs, both of which we lost, and have now retreated to fighting wars on food ingredients, the bags we carry them in and the containers out of which we eat and drink them.
The World's North Korean Test
By Christopher R. Hill - Project-Syndicate.org
DENVER – The most recent North Korean nuclear test is the most dangerous of the three to date. How the international community responds, in both word and deed, will say much about the world we live in. And, whether the Chinese like it or not, how they respond will speak volumes about what kind of role China will play in global governance.
While details are not yet fully known, the test suggests substantial progress on the part of North Korea's scientists in increasing the yield of their weaponry. The October 2006 test suggested the possibility of a faulty design, while there were questions about whether the 2009 effort was even nuclear in nature.
North Korea threatens South with "final destruction"
By Tom Miles
GENEVA | Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:27am EST
(Reuters) - North Korea threatened South Korea with "final destruction" during a debate at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday, saying it could take further steps after a nuclear test last week.
"As the saying goes, a new-born puppy knows no fear of a tiger. South Korea's erratic behavior would only herald its final destruction," North Korean diplomat Jon Yong Ryong told the meeting.
The Iran-North Korea Connection If the Mullahs can simply buy a usable and tested bomb design from North Korea, they could transform their status into a nuclear weapons state overnight.
By: Taylor Dinerman - JewishPress.com
Before the North Koreans successfully launched a (non-functioning) satellite into orbit on December 12, 2012 there were reports, notably by space expert and NBC News consultant, James Oberg, that Iranian missile experts had been spotted in North Korea. If true, this would be perfectly consistent with the longstanding and close relationship that North Korea has had with the Islamic Republic of Iran. On February 11, the Pyongyang government exploded what it describes as a 'miniaturized' nuclear weapon. This test has dramatically raised tension levels in Northeast Asia. This underground test also raises difficult questions about Iran's nuclear weapons program.
