Saturday, August 11, 2012

CFR: The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks

This is going to be another short post as a lot of the trends I've been writing about over the past few months are now starting to materialize and set the stage for future trends. However, notable events are still notable events. The Council on Foreign Relations has released a piece titled 'Al-Qaeda's Specter in Syria'.
Al-Qaeda is not sacrificing its "martyrs" in Syria merely to overthrow Assad. Liberation of the Syrian people is a bonus, but the main aim is to create an Islamist state in all or part of the country. Failing that, they hope to at least establish a strategic base for the organization's remnants across the border in Iraq, and create a regional headquarters where mujahideen can enjoy a safe haven. If al-Qaeda continues to play an increasingly important role in the rebellion, then a post-Assad government will be indebted to the tribes and regions allied to the Jabhat. Failing to honor the Jabhat's future requests, assuming Assad falls, could see a continuation of conflict in Syria.
Thus far, Washington seems reluctant to weigh heavily into this issue. In May 2012, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta publicly accepted al-Qaeda's presence in Syria (Guardian). And in July, the State Department's counterterrorism chief, Daniel Benjamin, rather incredulously suggested that the United States will simply ask the FSA to reject al-Qaeda. The unspoken political calculation among policymakers is to get rid of Assad first—weakening Iran's position in the region—and then deal with al-Qaeda later.
So, there you have it, folks - the Council on Foreign Relations certainly should be believed in this matter, especially since this aspect of the "rebels" in Syria has been stated by Assad himself.

However, back in NATO's wonderland of disinformation a shadow of doubt must be cast, so within our media it's not just simply terrorists, it's 'terrorists'. Because, we don't believe Assad... right?

Assad praises army for fighting 'terrorist gangs'

And from today - Al-Qaeda building well-organized network in Syria: U.S. intelligence officials.

So, which is it NATO? Is Al-Qaeda terrorists? or 'terrorists'? They can't be both. Or are they "rebels"? When Assad says to us that he will use all available tools to fight the terrorists how is that any different from when we say we will use all available tools to fight the terrorists? They're even the same terrorists!

Sooner or later the U.S. will probably convince the U.N. to implement a no-fly zone, should that happen, I ask you all to email your MP (strange, I know) and let them know that by aiding the U.S. in another no-fly zone we are taking part in their war of aggression, and we are taking part in war crimes. If Assad is guilty of "atrocities" against these terrorists, then so are we. We can't have it both ways. Indiscriminate drone strikes, depleted uranium, bombings, executions, the list goes on.

I know Elizabeth May is receptive to this information, and during the Libya votes was the only MP to raise the issue of the fact we were aiding Al-Qaeda in the House of Commons.

To conclude, I'd like to say - the reason we've been fighting Al-Qaeda and spending billions of dollars for the last 10 years in a security state is because the U.S. funded and created Al-Qaeda to fight the Russians and now, they're doing it again. It should be obvious, now more than ever, that Al-Qaeda is a tool used by the west to do our dirty work and give us the excuses we need to wage wars of aggression. We go in, we put in a puppet democracy - not unlike the democracies we have here at home - and then we proceed to contract out to western corporations. Same old, same old. I don't want this blood on my conscience, do you?

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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Mark Carney: Banker by day, Whistleblower by night?

Don't count on it, despite:

Mark Carney says he’s willing to blow the whistle on misbehaving banks

If that is true, you'd think he would start with our own:

TD staff knew about $1.2B Ponzi scheme: U.S. judge

Of course, it isn't true, remember?
“I think the impact could be very, very negative,” said Canadian Bankers Association President Terry Campbell. “If you interfere with the ability of governments and corporations to fund themselves, if you interfere with liquidity in the marketplace, which is necessary for funding, then you could have a very severe impact on our economy.”
Nice try, Carney.

Click here to recommend this post on progressivebloggers.ca and help other people find this information.

Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Securitized Influence

Today I am writing two posts as a brief exchange on Twitter has inspired some thoughts. @Min_Reyes, Samara's top #cdnpoli participant was approached by a Twitter user apparently from The Hill Times which wanted to do an interview with her and also asked this seemingly simple question:
just wondering if you feel like you have real influence/potential to influence govt
During Occupy, similar questions were asked. "What are the demands [for the government]?". It seems to nearly always be the case that when a, lets use the term activist (although i don't like that term), is queried by a "non-activist", lets say, it generally takes the form of "What do you demand/expect/hope/etc [government agency] will do to make some event happen?" An assumption of the motive and goal is always made.

I've written before about the subservient syndrome society as a whole seems to be suffering from and I believe this line of questioning stems from this syndrome and the growing difficulty to conceptualise anything other than dependence.

The government's and international corporation's heavy investment and interest in public relations serves to influence the public and convince them that what those supposedly trying to influence the government on Twitter or protests or whatever isn't actually true. So, we won, we influenced the government. They already know all about it, every issue, they issue reports on them all the time but these reports explain the problems in a very different light.

Perhaps, the point of activism or the distribution of important information is to influence those around you. Who cares about influencing the government? If the people as a whole decide to do something, the government must either follow in line or risk falling out of power. After all, a slave has a poor chance of convincing his owner to let him go free, however a slave has an excellent chance of convincing his fellow slaves they are in fact, slaves.

Even if we could influence the government to work on our behalf, they're slowly giving away their powers of sovereignty and control. Credit ratings and central banks already run the world.


There is no point in wasting our time with the government, the real question I'm interested in is - have I influenced you?

Click here to recommend this post on progressivebloggers.ca and help other people find this information.

Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.

A policy of benefits and doubts

The drums of war are beating louder and louder each day and the credibility of those calling for more death and destruction, on all sides, quietly dwindles. Large and (what I can imagine) expensive P.R. war propaganda campaigns are being waged by everyone, the fog of war over Syria and Iran is very dense but you can surely bet the two are related.

In today's political discourse the name Hitler or mentions of the Nazi's and their agenda of racial extermination still brings strong associations and feelings. Many wars have happened, and yet most are just a blip or simply considered an event to be acknowledged. However, the Nazi's - will go down in history as the defacto standard of racist extremism and crimes against humanity. We revere these names, in fact politically or journalistically, it is risky to even mention them without a sound argument or point to make. I'm sure that this paragraph has probably turned off some readers, just because I have mentioned them. There is a stigma attached to those terms, a stigma the Germans live with to this day.

Who could have known back in that era that Hitler and that war would dominate conversations for decades to come? When I sit back and look at current foreign policy, as a Canadian who is aware of our role in foreign conflicts (albeit, what I am aware of is probably only the tip of the iceberg) I have to wonder if, in 60 years 'NATO' will be remembered just the same?

You're probably thinking in response, well that's silly, we're NATO. We have nothing even close to what the Germans did. But don't we? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we are Nazis, the modern wars going on are founded on different principles, different morals, etc. Much is different, but the tactics and the moral authority, the excuses and feelings of justification, these have some similarities.

Credibility has been the underlying theme of the latest blog posts - because the credibility of everything that comprises the NATO foundation is wearing thin. Today, I read something I couldn't believe: in response to the credibility crisis generated by the summary execution story the Syrian rebels have "pledged" to... well...
"respect human rights in accordance with our legal principles, our tolerant religious principles and the international laws governing human rights,"
"I pledge not to practice any form of torture, rape, mutilation or degradation. I will observe prisoners' rights and will not exercise any of the above practices in order to abstain confessions," the rebel code said.
Seriously, you can't make this shit up. After video evidence arises showing actual war crimes, they're "pledging" not to rape or torture. Phew, thank god they're pledging, otherwise you can never be too sure, right?

So why are we not demanding a pledge from Assad? Surely this whole mess and the associated crimes could be avoided with a simple pledge, no? This new strategy should be applied everywhere, Iran? Well, Iran outta just pledge they don't intend on having nuclear weapons. The Nazi's should have just pledged they wouldn't do it again, and so on. If we have a "benefit of the doubt" military policy, why isn't it applied to all?

The policy really is more like "there's some with benefits, and some with doubts".

The latest rebuttal to U.S. support of the Syrian rebels was pretty amusing and also inspired the next generation of headline propaganda technology "non-lethal support". Not "aid", "non-lethal" - which through stories of association about aid and non-lethal support have pulled a veil over everything non-lethal can mean. Tear gas? that's non-lethal. I'm not saying tear gas is being delivered, but what I am saying is that non-lethal can imply a lot more than aid.
"We have helped them with communications and matters of that kind, and we will help them more."
Let's go back to the report which the White House denies.
Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence finding broadly permits the CIA and other US agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust President Bashar al-Assad.
Isn't that fancy? You see, NATO countries are both simultaneously denying and admitting these reports, plus announcing more "non-lethal support" while at the same time denying we are involved in helping overthrow Assad at all and maintaining this is a civil war.

Iran's recent "Axis of Resistance" comment in regards to Syria as an ally shows that for them, this is now war. Iran clearly sees the west's intent regarding Syria as a road to Iran, Iran has already witnessed a close ally defeated. China, and Russia - with their repeated U.N. vetos - have shown they will not be fooled twice after being caught off guard by the Libyan operation. Iran has also shown intense interest in Pakistan lately, as they have been cooling off towards U.S. relations due to drone strikes.

The amount of propaganda surrounding Syria is immense, far beyond that of Libya - which itself is still the subject of misinformed propaganda measures. First, look at the title of this article: 'Will Libya use oil for good?'. Isn't it interesting that we are asking this question now, after providing expensive military support to the 'rebels' (who were directly linked to Al-Qaeda - who we claim to be at war with) - of course, you all do remember the (now never mentioned) alternative, right? So we really applied a cherished modern democratic voting technic to the issue: choosing the better of two evils. Bombs away, perhaps it could have been prevented had "the pledge" been invented last year.

Understanding that we are under military war propaganda is important to having a firm sense of morality. Until the allies had defeated the Nazi's, and revealed the full extent of the concrentration network, nobody outside the German elite had a true sense how bad it was. How much about the goings on today do we not know? In 70 years, what words will be spoken about our great NATO alliance? About our policies of intervention? About the benefits we allot to some, and the doubts we put onto others? What will be said about us?

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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.

Friday, August 3, 2012

When will central banks act?

When will the central banks act? That seems to be the question on every investor's mind. However, I would propose that the right questions to be asking are 'If central banks were to act; what would be the result? Would it be worth it? and how long would it last?'. Over the last year you may have noticed the constant announcements of emergency easing and lending having a far from drastic effect on the global economy. The effect of the acts hasn't been drastic because the acts themselves have been constant - but should central banks not act there would be a drastic drop in economic activity. In other words, emergency easing and the hope of emergency easing is the new normal and is becoming the sole factor in market moves.

So why now are the Fed and ECB "staying on the sidelines"? Analysts and experts have become so focused on what central banks are going to do next to "promote growth" that many seem to be forgetting that there are underlying fundamentals more powerful than central banks. Nothing in this blog post is new, everything I'm going to talk about now are concepts I've visited before in many other posts but as long as I continue seeing the populations of the world crying out for more central bank easing I am going to continue writing about why that won't work and is temporary at best.

Where's the growth?

You'll notice that when any amount of time passes without major central bank intervention, a significant collapse in certain sectors of the economy occurs.
NAPM Export Orders have plunged over 3 sigma in the last 3 months and have only dropped more (in history) immediately after the Lehman debacle.
If you're looking for the drastic results central bank easing should have then look no further than the drastic results that happen when it doesn't occur. The global economy has for the last few years been entirely fuelled by "growth" in central bank easing, easing which must be offset by lower and lower interest rates and heavier and heavier manipulation of commodity prices. This central bank fuelled growth has become the new standard for growth and so the "drastic" changes will not be visible just as an economic bubble isn't visible when you are within it. We are within a "central bank bubble" currently.

If you look back earlier in the year there was a significant amount of hope and faith that we were in some sort of new long term bull run. Oil was being projected by analysts as remaining above $100 / barrel, but it didn't happen. Instead, oil and all economic momentum has steadily been collapsing since. The yields (borrowing costs) of European nations continue to climb making their bailouts and easing even more unsustainable and impossible to pay down.

The connection between the price of oil and viability of GDP growth is essential to understanding the seemingly chaotic global economy. Even as market orders collapse and the unemployment rate rises in the U.S. commodities still have upward pressure. Growth really has no room to grow as oil is only $10 away from the $100 barrier which cash-strapped families today cannot afford. The price of oil follows growth projections, not actual growth, meaning that should the "experts" come to "consensus" about Q4 growth for instance - oil will rise in response prior to the growth it is supposed to represent and subsequently becomes unaffordable before the wealth needed to afford it can be generated. This is the source of oil's volatility and will be ongoing indefinitely as the window between the cost of production and the affordability of energy that industrial societies exist in continues to shrink.

Adding to this problem is the increasing focus on central bank announcements. Investors and speculators now instead of waiting for real data to confirm claims of growth before making their bets, simply make the bets now based on what they speculate the central bank is going to say next. Rarely do they even wait for the actual annoucement anymore, usually assuming that since thigns are getting worse the central banks will make it better. This means that before the added liquidity to fuel the anticipated central bank annouced growth is even confirmed to exist, commodity prices are already being pushed up - either negating the increase in liquidity (if it actually ends up happening) or even worse, creating demand for liquidity that doesn't even exist at all.

The window between the cost of production and consumer affordability is so small, that in no time a few annoucements can push the price of commodities up so fast that there isn't enough time for the actual wealth that's needed to purchase them to actually be built up. The result? We are borrowing further and further from wealth in the future to service today and all under the assumption that that future wealth will in fact exist.

I'd say the world as a whole has reached "peak easing", and even with central bank intervention - the accumulated debt and interest is so grand that stagnation is about the best we can hope for. Without the easing and bailouts a sharp cliff drop back towards levels of real growth is inevitable, and those levels without the inflated service and financial sectors pale in comparison to current obligations.

Why is oil manipulated?

I see a lot of theories going around on why oil is manipulated. The most common of which is the simplest: oil companies want huge profits. However, this is not the reason oil is being manipulated as if it were you would not see the drastic responses to growth projections in oil price. Oil companies simply wouldn't care about the demand side of oil and focus on supply knowing that it will be purchased sooner or later.

The reason oil is being manipulated is stability, and oil production stability is threatened by the pursuit of extreme energy and the availability of cheap energy.

OPEC is the leading producer of the world's cheapest oil. Or at least, what should be the cheapest based purely on the cost of production and supply and demand. They are well connected with pipelines, have coasts, and are a part of a large land mass with many customers, however OPEC over the last few years has been pursueing higher prices. The reason? Their populations have - since the oil negotiations with the U.S. - been promised an ever-increasing standard of living as a result of their oil work and sales. However, now that OPEC has reached peak oil they are finding the profit margins shrinking as they look more towards offshore and as maintenance costs rise and terrorist threats expand. OPEC requires the high prices to keep their own population happy, it has nothing to do with profits and everything to do with keeping the pending Arab Spring revolutions at bay.

OPEC and Alberta both have a vested interest in oil being manipulated, but for completely opposite reasons. While the OPEC populations believe they are not receiving enough, Albertans (and Canadians) actually believe they are getting more then they really are. In Alberta, our desire for high oil prices comes purely from the fact that our oilsands operations can't afford to operate at low oil prices. Actually, it's worse than that as the price itself doesn't matter. A higher price simply raises the bar on what the next higher price will have to be. Alberta relies on an economic model (which prior to 2008 proved true) in which the price of oil is always climbing. Our economic model depends on producing the oil at lower prices, and selling them at higher prices.

To understand why this is, one must understand that currency (money) simply represents energy in a transaction. The price is relative, but the value is absolute. The Alberta oilsands have a 3:1 energy return ratio as opposed to convential oil which can exceed 200:1. This means that for conventional oil, spending $1 could yield a $200 return where as in the oilsands spending $1 might yield a $3 return. On top of this, the risk associated with exploration is increasing as the number of places to look diminishes. The cost of even accessing these places can be staggering and should nothing be found all of the resouces, time and money used has been in waste.

So why is oil manipulated? In short, to keep enough stability in the oil market to continue producing oil. Instability in the oil market could quite literally compound and spread where it becomes inequitable for anyone to drill anywhere, some predictability is needed of future events to being down the risks associated and since we can't predict those events, we're just making them up instead and using portions of the banking sector to make it reality. When asking questions about the way oil profits work, ask in the context of 'if it takes you 1 barrel of oil to find and then extract 1 barrel of oil, would you bother?'.

The profit motive fallacy

This over-simplification of the profit motive exists within banking too as I quite often see statements such as banks are manipulating rates to keep the profits rolling in, and while this is correct you must understand the context in which this statement is correct.

For those of us making a standard wage, the pursuit of something more then just more money is hard to understand. For your average consumer, money is itself the end goal of working. To have a nice stash, and retire. etc. However, for those with a lot of money it becomes a tool used to accomplish goals. You must understand the bankers running the show are kings of their banking castles and as kings of the banking castles are the source of currency. The idea that banks are manipulating Libor rates or other interest rates for the purpose of "making money" ignores the fact that they are themselves the source of this money they would be making.

Banks, like oil companies, are interested in real assets and their currency is only a tool being used to acquire them. Assets can be houses, or cars, or even your own time you spend working. Energy exerted working is no different then the energy that moves a car and human labour is itself an asset.
Our economy is debt based, meaning that at any given time more debt obligations exist then there is available currency to pay it. The debt and associated interest also exists (generally) prior to the wealth generation needed to service it. The more debt, the more currency in circulation, the more wealth is needed. Historically, this circle of debt service is offset by savers - savers make "deposits" (loans to the bank) and the savers "make money" by not spending their cash but by having the bank pay them interest on their savings this interest based wealth accumulation is supposed to balance out the capitalization of banks that use a fractional reserve banking system (which all modern ones do).

Understanding this should help explain why the global debt crisis has been acting like a downward spiral getting ever worse even as those in charge of it promise it'll get ever better. Banks are keeping interest rates low so that they can continue lending to each other and keep it affordable to service needed liquidity, but this short term solution has a long term compounding effect in which savers are now no longer keeping up with the rate of inflation which in our current no-growth scenario is actually currency devaluation. Savers are slowly losing wealth, instead of gaining it and this causes a response in the population which is eventually seen as a "loss of confidence" and if that continues can lead to bank runs. It can lead to bank runs because without the incentive to deposit and the cumulative building of wealth for savers, banks need to "recapitalize" - meaning, they are not bringing in enough new money to back existing debt obligations (deposits) and should those deposits be requested and they exceed the bank's existing capital, look out!

So when and will central banks act?

This really depends on the action. You can still expect bailouts as the bankers attempt to starve off a chain of sovereign defaults (this is like ensuring the minimum monthly payment on a credit card is met), but when it comes to "stimulus" such as quantitative easing or "operation twist", I don't expect any until the runway to pick up momentum is long enough. Right now, there is practically no runway, which is why the moment the economy seems to be picking up steam it putters out. I suspect any growth oriented stimulus that would come would accompany a low oil price, below $80 most likely - however, since oil producing nations currently need prices upwards of $80 this doesn't seem likely for any prolonged amount of time. Interest rates are at a prolonged historic low and they can't really go any lower, so the banks have no where to go to offset the added obligations stimulus would bring. The bet on growth has to pretty well be a sure thing at this point for the banks to take it.

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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Twitter as a tool for police transparency and community building

Screenshot of the tweet in question
CTV is doing a story on this right now, but I'd like to give a different take on what I see here.

Here you are seeing direct interaction with his community by an upstanding police officer. I know I am often critical of the police on this blog, but the police I am being critical of are the global enforcers witnessed in countries around the world. Mixed with private security, militarized, in a veil of secrecy to deal with civil unrest and political dissidents.

This picture represents so much to me. It shows a successful outcome, the preferred outcome that is. CTV mentions concern that he was tweeting on the job, I trust that his judgement was sound in the safety of using his phone at this time.

What's more important though is that we are living in time of increasing distrust and severe lack of transparency when it comes to government offices. Instead of this tweet of uncensored, real, and honest police work we could have police trying to buy videos taken of them like in Anaheim recently.

More police officers need to follow Constable Power's example and help bridge the gap that's grown between community and policing.

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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

A Crisis of Credibility

Credibility. Credibility is what's necessary to have the moral authority to govern or even to be believed and taken seriously what-so-ever. A person's credibility is built (depending on what they are credible on) by having a track record of credible acts. A lack of credibility leads to a lack of confidence, not just in the person but also in any institutions they are affiliated with.

When the credibility of governments and their institutions comes into question it's a timber box just waiting to explode. Once an institution becomes corrupt it rarely, if never, can correct itself from the top down and instead tends to either destroy itself and possibly rebuilt from the ground up. During this time of rebuilding, power is up for grabs by anyone "good" or "bad", "foreign" or "domestic". The rise and fall of empires, the beginning and end of civilizations.

Historically, when civilizations or even organizations have collapsed, it's due to a lack of cohesion and rampant corruption. Whether this pattern emerges due to simple greed or a deeper sickness I can not say. A loss of morality in all cases seems to be the result and a dog eat dog mentality takes hold.

Alberta's Budget Woes

Horner issues warning on finances.
The Redford government has a contingency plan in its back pocket - one that includes departmental spending cuts - should oil prices continue to float below budget estimates, the provincial finance minister said Monday.
Doug Horner said prognosticators such as the Conference Board of Canada say the long-term economic picture for Alberta remains sound, but in the short term, energy prices are volatile.
"The short term". "Just a few months". The dangling carrot lives on. The volatility isn't going to be short term, and it's only going to get worse. Alberta's oil industry is trapped in the small window between the cost of production and the affordability of consumers. Their model is dated, based on the patterns oil demonstrated before we crossed the $100.00 barrier for the very first time.

It's worse than that though however, because to have confidence in market performance one must make the assumption the market is not rigged. Hey, politicians - are you not noticing that every single fucking thing you are making bets on is rigged? Nothing is going to normalize until we address that elephant in the room and your future bets are not winning either.

The elephant won't be addressed though because those that would address it are themselves elephants that need addressing. Albertans really need to stop drinking the koolaid and start taking our economic predicament seriously.

Although this isn't the only koolaid being served up today now is it? The Canadian Wheat Board "monopoly" was dismantled in the name of "international trade" and just in time to join other agricultural deregulation due to the T.P.P.

The "free market" was cited as the triumphant winner which is strange considering all of the recent evidence that price discovery is being heavily manipulated, LIBOR, Drug Laundering, Terrorism - take your pick. There is no free market, its a cartel market - and do you really think commodities such as wheat are not subject to the same manipulation. Our small farmers will now have to compete with large, unaccountable, industrial agriculture. The companies they will now be competing against seek to be real international monopolies, they are predatory. I anticipate many buyouts coming of Canadian farms by foreign international corporations whose friends in the banking industry are rigging commodity prices and currency values.

To put a cherry on top Stephen Harper has today arbitrarily announced he apparently has the power to pardon. Of course he doesn't - but in light of all this other corruption why not give it a whirl right? It's not like accountability actually exists for the modern royalty.
Who can grant or issue a pardon/record suspension? The Parole Board of Canada (PBC) has exclusive jurisdiction to grant, refuse to grant or to revoke a pardon/record suspension. The law that governs pardons/record suspensions is known as the Criminal Records Act (CRA). The Criminal Records Act provides for the relief of persons who have been convicted of offences and have subsequently rehabilitated themselves.
With the market corruption, and political corruption comes budget cuts and angry mobs, leading to instability in infrastructure itself.

There just isn't really any credibility left in much of what any of these officials are promising. It's unrealistic and quite honestly it just amazes me that after four years of constant lies, failed predictions, "jobless recovery", and rampant corruption that people still even consider what those in charge have to say about the given situation.

Harvard Study Finds Fluoride Lowers IQ - Published in Federal Gov't Journal

Remember WMDs? As in, remember those WMDs which never actually existed? Remember how sickening it made you feel when Bush lied? So where is that response today? Where is the antiwar movement now? "Foreign Policy Experts", including a representative from the RAND corporation came out today "urging" the U.S. to intervene in Syria. It's funny, because you can bet they know full well that the U.S. is already intervening.
President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.
Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.
Civil War my ass. This is a western lead CIA coup against Assad and a preliminary proxy war to World War III as I eluded to in my last post. The U.N. General Assembly also asked Assad to step down today, ironically lobbied for by western allies Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The still recent lies of Libya further cast a corrupt shadow over the whole affair.

In other news, a sexual assault G20 lawsuit was filed today. Credibility? We don't need no stinking credibility. Do we?

Click here to recommend this post on progressivebloggers.ca and help other people find this information.

Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.