Al Sharpton Claims American Public Voted for Socialism When Electing Obama

Al Sharpton Claims American Public Voted for Socialism When Electing Obama

Microsoft's Chinese Labor Scandal - list of alleged abuses in China is long and damning -

Microsoft's Chinese Labor Scandal - list of alleged abuses in China is long and damning -

Back in February, I wondered if Apple (AAPL) might be the next Nike(NKE) because of labor problems reported at one of its big manufacturing contractors. At the time I mentioned that other high tech firms could find themselves in hot water because of what overseas factories did in their names. Two months later and it’s happened, this time to Microsoft(MSFT). High tech companies need to wake up to a PR and ethical issue that’s waiting to engulf them.

If accurate, the report by the National Labor Committee, which bills itself as a human rights advocacy group that focused on global labor abuse, is far more damning than the information that surfaced about Foxconn, which builds many products for Apple. (Apple also issued its own comprehensive report about a greater number of its suppliers.)

The list of alleged abuses at the contractor KYE — which claimsbetween 3,600 and 4,500 employees in China, depending on seasonal need — is long and damning:

• workers reporting working 68 hours a week despite being at the factory for 83 hours
• 16- and 17-year-old students hired under the guise of work study who are put on the factory floor for 15 hours a day, six or seven days a week
• workers are unable to use the bathroom during working hours
• security guards that sexually harass women workers
• forced living in “primitive and dirty dorm rooms,” and workers must take sponge baths rather than showers
• violation of all Chinese labor laws

If true, this all put the lie to the company slogan of “Integrity Is the Best Honor.” Customers supposedly include Microsoft, HP (HPQ),Best Buy (BBY), Logitech (LOGI), and, ironically, Foxconn. Equally disturbing is the note that corporate codes of conduct “have zero impact” on KYE’s operations.

I’m not going to argue whether this report is accurate or not. The fact that something like this might be accurate should send chills down corporate spines. Monitoring conditions in a foreign factory takes dedication and significant cost and effort. The only way to know what’s really happening is to spend extensive time in a facility so management could not cover up conditions during a brief visit. A company that wants to be responsible clearly needs its own people in a facility to monitor on a continuing basis what actually happens.

But many industries, high tech clearly among them, have been happy with feelgood solutions: the annual visit and corporate labor standards for contract help. Apple’s program goes much further than those of most companies, and the company still hasn’t eliminated its problems. To avoid the embarrassment — and potential government oversight, as the political climate becomes less tolerant of sending jobs overseas — companies will have to move even more strongly. But you have to wonder whether the lure of cheap labor and the cold comfort of not knowing exactly what goes on in a factory won’t continue to win out.

Read more -http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10007108/microsofts-chinese-labor-scandal-theres-more-trouble-ahead-for-the-rest-of-high-tech/?tag=landing-pad;today

GE had plenty of earnings last year - but when push came to shove, the company owed the U.S. a whopping tax bill of $0 -

GE had plenty of earnings last year - but when push came to shove, the company owed the U.S. a whopping tax bill of $0 -

General Electric filed more than 7,000 income tax returns in hundreds of global jurisdictions last year, but when push came to shove, the company owed the U.S. government a whopping bill of $0.

How'd it pull off that trick? By losing lots of money.

GE had plenty of earnings last year -- just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company's U.S. operations lost $408 million, while its international businesses netted a $10.8 billion profit.

That left GE (GE, Fortune 500) with no U.S. profit left for Uncle Sam to tax. Corporations typically face a 35% federal income tax on their earnings. Thanks to its deductions and adjustments, GE reported an actual U.S. federal income tax rate of negative 10.5%. It got to add a "tax benefit" of $1.1 billion back into its reported earnings.

"This is the first time in at least decades that GE has reported negative U.S. pretax income and it reflects the worst economy since the Great Depression," Anne Eisele, GE's director of financial communications, said via e-mail.

But what about the $10.8 billion profit overseas? GE is "indefinitely" deferring income tax payments on those profits, Eisele said.

It may seem like accounting magic, but it's completely legit.

GE isn't the only "Top 5" company on this year's Fortune 500 list that owed no income taxes. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), which suffered major losses in 2009, included a tax benefit of $1.9 billion in its annual profit.

"That's one way of escaping taxes," said Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation. "Companies get to deduct their losses, so if there's no earnings, then they pay no income tax."

But GE isn't exactly escaping all tax-related pain: The company paid almost $23 billion in taxes to governments around the world from 2000 to 2009, Eisele said.

Plus, paying the accountants to crank out 7,000 tax returns can't be cheap.

And then there's all the lawyers needed to defend those returns. GE filed tax paperwork in more than 250 jurisdictions around the world last year. "We are under examination or engaged in tax litigation in many of these jurisdictions," the company dryly notes in its annual report.

GE may not owe the IRS, but it still has to file -- and its filings are epic.

In 2006, as the IRS ramped up its corporate e-filing program, the tax agency actually issued a celebratory press release when it processed GE's tax return. On paper, the return -- the nation's largest -- would have totaled a massive 24,000 pages. But instead, the IRS was able to upload the 237 MB document in under an hour.

Reading it, though, is apparently taking a bit longer. The IRS is currently auditing GE's tax returns for 2003-2007.

Read more -http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/16/news/companies/ge_7000_tax_returns/index.htm

Ron Paul Questions Ben Bernanke 4-14-2010 - Where Would The Money Come From...? We'd Create It Out Of Thin Air!

Ron Paul Questions Ben Bernanke 4-14-2010 - Where Would The Money Come From...? We'd Create It Out Of Thin Air!

TWO escaped convicts have dodged a huge manhunt - by disguising themselves as SHEEP - in full sheepskin fleeces -

TWO escaped convicts have dodged a huge manhunt - by disguising themselves as SHEEP - in full sheepskin fleeces -

TWO escaped convicts have dodged a huge manhunt - by disguising themselves as SHEEP.

The pair dressed in full sheepskin fleeces, complete with heads, to lie low among farm flocks.

Robbers Maximiliano Pereyra, 25, and Ariel Diaz, 28, stole the sheep hides from a ranch after breaking out of an Argentinian maximum security prison a week ago.

And they have managed to evade the 300 cops on their trail - despite locals seeing them running through fields at night.

A farmworker at La Almeda said: "They were wearing grey clothes but had full sheepskins, including the sheeps' heads, over their heads and backs."

Police say spotting the pair among thousands of sheep is "almost impossible". But one warned: "They can't pull the wool over our eyes forever."

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2929795/TWO-escaped-convicts-dodge-manhunt-by-dressing-as-sheep.html#ixzz0l1GqCtYj

Whistle Blower Comes Forward With Solid Proof The Price Of Gold And Silver Is Being Manipulated By Major Financial Institutions -

Whistle Blower Comes Forward With Solid Proof The Price Of Gold And Silver Is Being Manipulated By Major Financial Institutions -

For a long time many of us have had very serious suspicions that the prices of gold and silver were being highly manipulated. But now, thanks to the mind blowing testimony of one very brave whistle blower, the blatant manipulation of the world gold and silver markets is being blown wide open. What you are about to read below is absolutely staggering. Once the American people learn how incredibly corrupt the world financial system is, it is going to change everything. The government that we are all trusting to guard the integrity of the financial system is failing to do that job. It turns out that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission has been sitting on solid evidence that the elite banking powers have been openly and blatantly manipulating the price of gold and silver. Even though they were basically handed a "smoking gun", they have done absolutely nothing with it. But now the information has gone public and the CFTC is red-faced.

Back in November 2009, Andrew Maguire, a former Goldman Sachs silver trader in Goldman's London office, contacted the CFTC's Enforcement Division and reported the illegal manipulation of the silver market by traders at JPMorgan Chase.

Maguire told the CFTC how silver traders at JPMorgan Chase openly bragged about their exploits - including how they sent a signal to the market in advance so that other traders could make a profit during price suppression episodes.

Traders would recognize these signals and would make money shorting precious metals alongside JPMorgan Chase. Maguire explained to the CFTC how there would routinely be market manipulations at the time of option expiries, during non-farm payroll data releases, during commodities exchange contract rollovers, as well as at other times if it was deemed necessary.

On February 3rd, Maguire gave the CFTC a two day warning of a market manipulation event by email to Eliud Ramirez, who is a senior investigator for the CFTC’s Enforcement Division.

Maguire warned Ramirez that the price of precious metals would be suppressed upon the release of non-farm payroll data on February 5th. As the manipulation of the precious metals markets was unfolding on February 5th, Maguire sent additional emails to Ramirez explaining exactly what was going on.

And it wasn't just that Maguire predicted that the price would be forced down. It was the level of precision that he was able to communicate to the CFTC that was the most stunning. He warned the CFTC that the price of silver was to be taken down regardless of what happened to the employment numbers and that the price of silver would end up below $15 per ounce. Over the next couple of days, the price of silver was indeed taken down from $16.17 per ounce down to a low of $14.62 per ounce.

Because of Maguire’s warning, the CFTC was able to watch a crime unfold, right in front of their eyes, in real time.

So what did the CFTC do about it?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Which is extremely alarming, because the size of this fraud absolutely dwarfs the Madoff or Enron scandals. In fact, this fraud is so gigantic that it is not even worth comparing to any of the other major financial scandals of recent times.

But Maguire did not give up. He sent several more emails to the CFTC detailing the open manipulation of the gold and silver markets.

The CFTC did not reply.

Finally he sent them a final email: "I have honored my commitment to assist you and keep any information we discuss private, however if you are going to ignore my information I will deem that commitment to have expired."

The reply by the CFTC?

"I have received and reviewed your email communications. Thank you so very much for your observations."

No action.

No acknowledgement that anything was wrong.

No recognition that a massive crime had been committed.

Fortunately, that was not the end of it.

On March 25th, the CFTC held a hearing on alleged manipulation in the gold market by the major banking powers.

Maguire wanted to testify during that hearing but he was not invited.

But William Murphy, chairman of Gold Anti-Trust Action (GATA), was invited to testify. GATA has been compiling data on the manipulation of the gold and silver markets for quite a long time now.

Murphy was only given five minutes to deliver his testimony. He raced through his presentation so that he could get as much information on the record as possible.

Very curiously, the live television broadcast of the CFTC hearing suffered a technical failure the minute before Murphy began his testimony. The technical failure was corrected the minute after Murphy was finished.

Coincidence?

Well, it turns out that there were are lot of coincidences surrounding this hearing.

But we'll get to that in a minute.

When Murphy finished his statement, the panel asked him for some hard proof of market manipulation. Murphy shocked the panel by revealing the name of Maguire and explaining how Maguire had informed the CFTC Enforcement Division of the market manipulation that was taking place by JPMorgan Chase. The CFTC panel seemed stunned by the revelation and seemed reluctant to learn any further and asked nothing else about it.

Video of Murphy's revelation to the panel is posted below....

In another "coincidence", Maguire and his wife were subsequently injured and hospitalized when their car was struck by a hit-and-run driver in the London suburbs.

When a bystander who saw the "accident" tried to block the other driver from getting away, the other driver accelerated directly towards the witness, forcing him to leap out of the way to avoid being hit. The hit-and-run driver’s car then hit two additional cars as he left the area.

But Maguire and his wife were fortunate.

In the past, other would-be whistle blowers that had evidence regarding the manipulation in the gold and silver markets died in "unusual accidents" before they were able to bring their evidence to light.

But there were even more "coincidences" surrounding this hearing.

A week before the hearing, the CFTC announced that they had had a fire in the room where its gold and silver records are held.

Isn't that convenient?

In addition, after the hearing was over, Murphy was contacted by a number of major media outlets for interviews.

Within 24 hours, every single interview was cancelled.

Every single one.

Is that a coincidence too?

It appears that some very powerful people do not want this information to get out.

It also shows how corrupt the mainstream media has become.

This is a story that is so much bigger than the Madoff scandal or the Enron scandal that it is not even funny.

And yet the mainstream media is avoiding it like the plague.

But there were additional bombshells that came out during the hearing as well.

During the hearing it was revealed that the gold manipulators have accumulated a huge short position in gold and that these huge short positions are "naked", which means that these positions are not hedged.

These massive short positions have put some of the largest financial institutions in the world in an extremely vulnerable position.

In addition, it has now come out that most "gold" that is traded is not backed by the actual metal itself. For years, most people have assumed that the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the world's largest gold market, had actual gold to back up the massive "gold deposits" at the major LBMA banks.

But that is not the case.

People are now realizing that there is very little actual gold in the LBMA system.

When people think they are buying "gold", they are actually just buying pieces of paper that say they own gold.

In fact, during the CFTC hearings, Jeffrey Christian of CPM Group confirmed that the LBMA banks actually have approximately a hundred times more gold deposits than actual gold bullion.

Uh oh.

So what happens if everyone decides that they want actual physical delivery of their gold?

It would be such a mess that it is painful even to think about it.

The truth is that right now most of the trading activities on the London exchange are just paper for paper.

But people get into gold because they want to be in a real commodity.

In fact, there are thousands of clients around the globe who think they own huge deposits of gold bullion, and are being charged large storage fees on that imaginary bullion, but what they really own are a bunch of pieces of paper.

If there comes a time when everyone starts asking for their gold it is going to create a squeeze of unimaginable proportions.

Maguire explains this situation this way: "for 100 customers who show up there is only one guy who is going to get his gold or silver and there’s 99 who will be disappointed, so without any new money coming into the market, just asking for that gold and silver will create a default."

The truth is that it is absolutely impossible for the LBMA to ever deliver all the gold and silver owed to the owners of contracts.

Yes, it is a gigantic mess.

But this type of things is not entirely unprecedented. For example, Morgan Stanley paid out several million dollars back in 2007 to settle claims that it had charged 22,000 clients storage fees on silver bullion that did not exist.

But the scale of the fraud going on now is absolutely mind blowing. The following video contains footage from the hearing related to these issues....

So what is the bottom line?

The bottom line is that the precious metals markets are cesspools of fraud and manipulation.

The markets have been suppressed by the major financial institutions for years, and this has created the potential for a "squeeze" in the precious metals markets that could send the prices of gold and silver into the stratosphere.

You see, the reality is that there would be no gold left in the entire world if all the Gold ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) asked for physical delivery.

Are you starting to get the picture?

In fact, Maguire claims that the naked short selling scam by the major financial institutions is well into the trillions of dollars, making it by far the biggest financial fraud in history.

Maguire calls what has been going on "financial terrorism", and he accuses the financial institutions involved in this fraud of "treason" for putting national security at risk.

And national security is at risk.

Because if the true extent of this fraud comes out, it could collapse the entire financial system.

If you have never heard an interview with Andrew Maguire, we encourage you to listen to the audio interview posted below. It will really open your eyes to what is going on in the precious metals markets....

The Century's Biggest Fraud Revealed

This is one of the biggest financial stories of the decade. Because it is complex, most Americans will not understand it. But the fraud and manipulation in the gold and silver markets has the potential to cause a massive economic collapse even without all of the other factors talked about on this blog.

Some very powerful people have been doing some really, really bad things. Once people understand the truth, they will never look at the financial markets the same way again. Already, faith in the major financial institutions of this country has been shaken by revelations about what has been going on over at Goldman Sachs. The American people have no more appetite for any more financial scandals or for any more Wall Street bailouts. But if the fraud and manipulation taking place in the precious metal markets ever gets totally exposed it will change the U.S. financial system forever.

Please get this information out to as many people as you can. There are a number of very powerful people who are not going to be pleased that sites like this are attempting to get the truth about this massive scandal out.

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Watching - Texas Stadium implodes -

Watching - Texas Stadium implodes -

Tiger Woods sucks - on the 6th hole at the Masters today, says to himself out loud, "Tiger Woods, you suck! Goddammit." -

Tiger Woods sucks - on the 6th hole at the Masters today, says to himself out loud, "Tiger Woods, you suck! Goddammit." -

He went on to bogey the hole.

Footage of two fighter jets chasing what appears to be a UFO has emerged - chased down the M5 by RAF fighter jets? -

Footage of two fighter jets chasing what appears to be a UFO has emerged - chased down the M5 by RAF fighter jets? -

Footage of two fighter jets chasing what appears to be a UFO has emerged.

The 30-second clip, thought to be shot from a West Midlands service station park, reveals the saucer-shaped craft zipping over the M5, with the two jets in its wake.

Former Ministry of Defence UFO expert Nick Pope told The Sun: ‘This is one of the best videos I’ve seen.
‘It could be a new drone – that might explain the military jets.

‘But you don’t normally test-fly secret projects in daylight. Alternatively, this could be the real thing – a UFO in our airspace and military aircraft scrambled to intercept, probably due to it being tracked on radar.’
The MOD confirmed it would dispatch fighter jets to combat any air threat but would not comment on the footage, which was shot by an unidentified cameraman.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264965/Is-REALLY-UFO-chased-M5-RAF-fighter-jets-Video-footage-captured-service-station.html#ixzz0kib6uOoN

Congressman Paul was on MSNBC to discuss the vacancy in the Supreme Court, the SRLC, and Federal Reserve transparency.

Congressman Paul was on MSNBC to discuss the vacancy in the Supreme Court, the SRLC, and Federal Reserve transparency.