14 Signs That The World Economy Is Getting Weaker -

14 Signs That The World Economy Is Getting Weaker - 



The United States is not the only one with massive economic problems right now.

The truth is that just about wherever you look around the globe things are getting even worse.  China is experiencing a substantial economic slowdown, and Japan has resorted to yet another round of money printing in an effort to keep the Japanese economy moving.  Unemployment in Europe continues to get even worse, and the riots this week in Spain and in Greece have been absolutely frightening at times.  In the United States there are a whole host of signs that another recession is approaching, and the number of American CEOs that say that they plan to eliminate jobs in the coming months is rapidly rising.  The world economy is more interconnected today than ever before, and that means that we are all in this together.  Just remember what happened back in 2008 and 2009.  The economic pain that started on Wall Street was felt in every corner of the planet.  So anyone that believes that the United States (or any other major nation for that matter) is going to escape the next wave of the economic crisis is simply not being realistic.  Why do you think central banks all over the world are in “panic mode” right now?  They are firing all of their ammunition and printing money like there is no tomorrow in an attempt to keep the system together.  Unfortunately, it is not going to work.
If the powers that be had an “easy button” that would quickly fix everything, they would have pressed it by now.  But despite all of their efforts things continue to unravel.  If you want to get an idea of where we are headed,  just look at what is already happening in Europe.   Unemployment has risen above 24 percent in Greece and above 25 percent in Spain.
Those two nations are on the “bleeding edge” of the next wave of economic problems.  Unemployment is rising almost everywhere else in Europe as well, and things are eventually going to get really bad in Asia and in North America too.
So hold on to your seat belts – it is going to be a bumpy ride.
The following are 14 signs from around the globe that the world economy is getting weaker….
#1 Things in China do not look good right now.  The Shanghai Composite index fell to its lowest point in over 3 years earlier this week.  Will the S&P 500 soon follow suit?
#2 The Bank of Japan has resorted to yet another round of money printing in a desperate attempt to try to bolster the faltering Japanese economy….
In Asia, the Bank of Japan has long been manufacturing money out of thin air. It has just announced an eighth round of money printing to prop up the ailing Japanese economy. The Bank of Japan is to purchase 10 trillion yen of bonds to add further liquidity into the financial system. Now it has 80 trillion yen of bonds in its portfolio, equivalent to 20 per cent of Japan’s gross domestic product.
#3 In Spain, violent demonstrations over the state of the Spanish economy just outside the national Parliament building in Madrid on Tuesday evening made headlines all over the globe.  You can view video of police brutally beating young Spanish protesters during those demonstrations right here.
#4 As unemployment hovers around the 25 percent mark, foraging through garbage bins for food has become so rampant in Spain that one city has actually started putting locks on supermarket garbage bins “as a public health precaution“.
#5 Despite all of the money printing that the ECB has been doing, the yield on 10 year Spanish bonds has risen back up to about 6 percent again.
#6 The economic protests in Greece are getting completely and totally out of control.  Just check out this descriptionof the “Day of Rage” that took place in Greece earlier this week….
Police fired stun grenades and tear gas at protesters yesterday as tens of thousands poured into the streets of Athens as part of a nationwide strike to challenge a new round of austerity measures that are expected to cut wages, pensions and healthcare once again.
Dozens of youths, some masking their faces with helmets and T-shirts, hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at police who fired back in an effort to scatter the angry crowds around the parliament building. More than 50,000 people are believed to have participated in the mass walk-out in Athens alone.
#7 The unemployment rate in France has risen for 16 months in a row and is now the highest that it has been in over a decade.
#8 As I wrote about recently, the number of unemployed workers in Italy has increased by more than 37 percentover the past year.
#9 New orders for durable goods in the United States fell by a whopping 13.2 percent in August.  That was the largest decline that we have seen since the middle of the last recession (January 2009).
#10 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. GDP only grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate during the second quarter of 2012 as opposed to the 1.7 percent annual rate previously reported.
#11 The U.S. Postal Service is about to experience its second financial default in just the past two months….
The U.S. Postal Service will default this week on a $5.6 billion congressionally mandated obligation to pre-fund retiree health benefits, marking the second time in two months the cash-strapped agency has done this.
#12 It looks like General Motors is on a path that will lead to bankruptcy (again).
#13 According to a recent survey conducted by State Street Global Advisors, 71 percent of “investors in a survey of 300 around the world, including the largest pension funds, asset managers and private banks, fear an imminent Lehman-like event.”
#14 According to a recent survey of American CEOs by Business Roundtable, the number of CEOs that plan to eliminate jobs has risen significantly from earlier this year….
The CEOs’ decline in confidence comes alongside a worsening employment outlook. Thirty-four percent of the 138 CEOs surveyed said in this quarter’s survey that they expected their companies to cut jobs in the next six months, compared to just 20 percent in the second quarter. Likewise, only 29 percent say they expect employment to grow in the next half year, down from 36 percent last quarter.
But the mainstream media in the United States would like us to believe that everything is getting better.
The mainstream media would like us to believe that QE3 is going to stimulate lots of new hiring all over America, and they are greatly celebrating the fact that the S&P 500 hit a five year high on Thursday.

Well, those on Wall Street should celebrate this monetary “sugar high” while they still can.  Of course QE3 was going to cause stock prices to rise in the short-term, but the reality of the matter is that QE3 is not going to do a thing to stop the financial markets from crashing when the time comes for them to crash.
Economies tend to flourish in a stable, predictable environment.  When you start recklessly printing money, it may help your economic numbers in the short-term, but it disrupts the stability of the system.
And once you have created a tremendous amount of instability, it is really, really hard to convince people that you can create stability once again.
When it comes to economics, confidence is one of the most important ingredients.  If people lose confidence in the system, it almost does not matter what else you do.
As I wrote about the other day, quantitative easing worked for the Weimar Republic for a little while, but in the end it resulted in total disaster.
It will also end in total disaster for us.
All over the globe financial authorities are playing all sorts of games in an attempt to keep the system functioning smoothly.  But these games are going to steadily undermine confidence in the system, and that is going to prove to be absolutely deadly.
Take advantage of this period of relative stability while you still can, because when it is gone it is not coming back.

Read more - 
http://www.infowars.com/14-signs-that-the-world-economy-is-getting-weaker/

Chevy dealership @PriorityChevy - has man who got good deal arrested... - told officer he had stolen it -

Chevy dealership @PriorityChevy - has man who got good deal arrested... -  told officer he had stolen it -  




The president of Priority Chevrolet apologized Wednesday for the arrest of a customer in June whom the dealership mistakenly undercharged for an SUV and who resisted the company's efforts to get him to sign a new, costlier contract.

Dennis Ellmer said he's heard from Chesapeake police that one of his managers told an officer that Danny Sawyer of Chesapeake had stolen a 2012 Chevrolet Traverse.

"I owe Mr. Sawyer a big apology," said Ellmer, who manages the entire Priority Auto Group - which includes 11 dealerships in Virginia and North Carolina.

He said his staff erred when they sold the SUV to Sawyer for about $5,600 too little and erred again when they went to police. He said Sawyer should not have been arrested and definitely should not have spent four hours in jail.

"It is my plan to let him keep the $5,600 and to make Mr. Sawyer right. I can't tell you how I plan to fix it, but it is my intention to make it right," said Ellmer, adding that he would like to sit down and talk with Sawyer.

Rebecca Colaw, Sawyer's attorney, said she appreciates that Ellmer is taking responsibility for what happened. But she said he will have to do more than say he's sorry and let Sawyer keep the SUV.

"An apology is not enough," she said.

Earlier this month, Sawyer, 40, a registered nurse, filed two lawsuits against the dealership accusing it of malicious prosecution, slander, defamation and abuse of process, among other things. The lawsuits seek $2.2 million in damages, plus attorney fees.

Ellmer and his vice president, Stacy Cummings, said they were unaware of the lawsuits until they read about them Tuesday on the front page of The Virginian-Pilot. Two managers at Priority Chevrolet declined Monday to comment on the lawsuits, and two phone calls and an email to an attorney for the dealership were not returned.

According to the lawsuits, Sawyer test-drove a blue Chevrolet Traverse on May 7 but ultimately decided to buy a black one. He traded in his 2008 Saturn Vue, signed a promissory note and left in his new SUV.

The next morning, Sawyer returned and asked to exchange the black Traverse for the blue one.

The lawsuit claims Wib Davenport, a sales manager, agreed to the trade without discussing how much more the blue Traverse would cost. Cummings disputed that, saying Davenport told Sawyer it would cost about $5,500 more than the black one and that Sawyer orally agreed to the higher price.

Regardless, the final contract Sawyer signed did not reflect the higher price, which Cummings said should have been in the area of $39,000. He blamed a clerical error.

"We definitely made a mistake there. There is no doubt about it," said Ellmer.

After signing the contract - which listed a sale price of about $34,000 - Sawyer immediately left the dealership and returned with a cashier's check covering what he owed after dealer incentives and his trade-in.

A week later, Sawyer came back from a vacation to find numerous voicemails and a letter from the dealership, the suit said. In a phone conversation, Davenport explained they had made a mistake on the contract and sold the car for too little. He asked Sawyer to return to the dealership and sign a new contract.

The lawsuit claims Sawyer refused. Cummings said Sawyer initially agreed but never followed through.

When Sawyer did not return to the dealership, Priority staff continued their attempts to contact him via phone, text message and hand-delivered letters. They eventually contacted police.

On June 15, three Chesapeake police officers arrested Sawyer in his front yard and took him before a magistrate judge. He was released on bond after about four hours at the Chesapeake jail, the suit said.

Commonwealth's Attorney Nancy Parr said her office dropped all charges Aug. 23 after speaking with representatives of the dealership and determining there was insufficient evidence to pursue the case.

In an interview Tuesday, Ellmer and Cummings said their staff never reported the SUV stolen and never asked for Sawyer to be arrested. They said they called police only for help locating the SUV while they pursued the civil action.

After speaking with police Wednesday, however, Ellmer said he'd learned one of his managers, Brad Anderson, had indeed said the SUV was stolen.

Kelly O'Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the Chesapeake Police Department, said the officer told Anderson in advance he was going to secure a warrant for Sawyer's arrest.

Ellmer described what happened to Sawyer as an isolated incident. He noted that his dealerships sell about 13,000 cars a year.

"This shouldn't have happened," he said.

Read more - 
http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/2012/09/dealership-apologizes-error-customer-arrest-0

When the wife does the chores, the marriage lasts... -

When the wife does the chores, the marriage lasts... - 



Couples who share the housework are more likely to divorce, study finds
Divorce rates are far higher among “modern” couples who share the housework than in those where the woman does the lion’s share of the chores, a Norwegian study has found.


In what appears to be a slap in the face for gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work.
“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.
The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.
“One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.
The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” he went on.

Read more - 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/9572187/Couples-who-share-the-housework-are-more-likely-to-divorce-study-finds.html

Scientists find way to make old muscles young again - Reverse aging? -

Scientists find way to make old muscles young again - Reverse aging? - 




It is a dream for everyone as they grow older to turn back the clock and live in a younger body once again.  While many have developed ways to make the body look younger cosmetically, there have been very few effective methods to combat the aging process within the body – until now.
For the first time ever, researchers have identified a crucial protein responsible for the decline of muscle repair and agility as the body ages.  Upon this discovery, the scientists were able to effectively halt muscle decline in mice, giving hope to similar treatments for humans in the future.
According to the study’s authors, loss of muscle strength and repair is one of the major concerns facing elderly citizens.
“A great advantage of medicine is that people are not dying as early as they used to, but the body hasn’t figured out how to maintain its muscle repair,” Andrew Brack, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine and corresponding study author, told FoxNews.com.  “The average loss of muscle mass for the 80-year-old male is 40 percent.  Elderly people will fall over and break bones, they go to the hospital where they lose more muscle strength, and then don’t recover.”
Brack noted that muscle strength is also one of the main factors that keeps elderly individuals out of the hospital and allows them to be productive members of the workforce.  In order to combat this muscle decline, Brack and Albert Basson, who met at King’s College London, teamed up to see if they could put the process in reverse.
The key revolves around stem cells found within muscles.  During exercise or injury, these stem cells become activated and work fervently by dividing and multiplying into new muscle fibers that help to repair the muscle.  When they are no longer need, they retreat into a reservoir within the muscle and lay dormant until they are needed again.
The problem with aging muscles is that these ‘fixer’ stem cells don’t remain dormant when they’re not needed.  Instead, they become activated more and more and unnecessarily divide and multiply – causing them to die at a faster rate.  Since muscles only have a finite amount of these stem cells, the quicker the cells die, the less effective muscles become at repairing themselves.
Wondering exactly why the stem cells became more activated with age, Brack and Basson screened older muscles, finding higher levels of a protein called FGF2 – a protein that stimulates cell division.  The scientists figured these levels could explain the unnecessary cell activation.
“As your muscle gets old, you start making more of this FGF2 protein,” Basson, senior lecturer at King’s College London Dental Institute, told FoxNews.com.  “…When there’s more, the FGF2 starts waking up these stem cells and they start dividing.  The stem cells have a limited number of times they can divide before they die or differentiate into other cells.”
Basson figured that if they were able to boost a gene called SPRY2, which inhibits FGF2, then the stem cells would lay dormant until they were absolutely needed.  To test this theory, the researchers administered a common drug containing SPRY2 to suppress FGF2 levels in elderly mice.  Sure enough, the drugs halted the decline of muscle stem cells in the mice.
“We think of this as the first study where we’ve identified something that goes wrong in the aging muscle,” Basson said.  “There are a number of these FGF inhibitor drugs used in clinics for cancer, so they certainly can be given to patients.  But we’re still quite a ways off before we can think about using this drug.”


Read more - 
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/09/27/reverse-aging-scientists-find-way-to-make-old-muscles-young-again/?test=latestnews

Businessman Offers $65Million To Any Man To Break Up Lesbian Daughter's Relationship... -

Businessman Offers $65Million To Any Man To Break Up Lesbian Daughter's Relationship... - 



A wealthy businessman in Hong Kong has reportedly offered $65 million for a man to woo away his lesbian daughter from her long-term girlfriend.

Cecil Chao Sze-tsung, 76, made the offer after he heard reports that his daughter, Gigi Chao, entered into a civil partnership with her girlfriend Sean B. Eav.

He told the South China Morning Post that those reports are false.

“I don’t mind whether he is rich or poor. The important thing is that he is generous and kind-hearted,” Mr. Chao told The Daily Telegraph about the man he is seeking for his daughter.

Chao is one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest businessmen and said the money he is offering can be used for someone to start their own business.

“Gigi is a very good woman with both talents and looks. She is devoted to her parents, is generous, and does volunteer work,” he told the Telegraph.

In 2007, Gigi gave an interview to HK Magazine and mentioned her upbringing which differs from her father’s side of the story.

“My father took a hands-off approach in parenting. I see him as a friend more than a father,” she told the magazine.

Currently, Gigi has over 6,000 subscribers on her Facebook page but is currently no longer accepting any more friend requests.

“No longer accepting Facebook friend requests…sorry. Where do all these people come from? Jerusalm? Ethiopia? Istanbul? ridiculous. It’s also quite scary that my friend requests number keeps jumping up every few seconds.”

Read more - 
http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2012/09/27/businessman-reportedly-offers-65m-to-any-man-to-break-up-lesbian-daughters-relationship/

Taxpayers spent $1.4 Billion on Obamas last year... - Royal family cost Brits $58 Million... -

Taxpayers spent $1.4 Billion on Obamas last year... - Royal family cost Brits $58 Million... - 



Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.

In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family.

Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in.

Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”

“The most concerning thing, I think, is the use of taxpayer funds to actually abet his re-election,” Gray, who worked in the Eisenhower administration and for other Republican presidents, said in an interview with TheDC on Wednesday.



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/26/taxpayers-spent-1-4-billion-on-obama-family-last-year-perks-questioned-in-new-book/#ixzz27fs4Sgxh

Johns Hopkins doctors Grow New Ear On Woman’s Arm -

Johns Hopkins doctors Grow New Ear On Woman’s Arm - 



Johns Hopkins doctors are once again making history–this time by using a woman’s own tissue to build her a new ear.

Derek Valcourt explains with doctors’ help, her own body has replaced what an aggressive form of cancer took away.

You don’t have to tell Sherrie Walters her story sounds like science fiction.

“No, I feel like an experiment,” Walters said.

The discovery of a rapidly-spreading basal cell cancer in her ear in 2008 required the removal of part of her ear, part of her skull and her left ear canal. But now, in a groundbreaking and complicated set of surgeries, Johns Hopkins doctors have attached a new ear made from Walters’ own tissue.

Read more - 
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/09/26/hopkins-doctors-give-woman-a-new-ear/

Arizona man arrested for fake grenade launcher stunt -

Arizona man arrested for fake grenade launcher stunt - 



Police have arrested an Arizona man who filmed his 16-year-old nephew walking city streets dressed in a sheet and carrying a fake grenade launcher in an apparent bid to test police responses after the Denver theater shooting, authorities said on Wednesday.

Michael David Turley, 39, was arrested on Monday over the making of the video, in which an unidentified narrator says he aims to “find out how safe I really am” in Phoenix following the July Denver shooting that killed 12 people and wounded 58.

The video depicts a man with a fake grenade launcher walking around a Phoenix intersection in what appears to be a blue sheet with dark material covering his head and face. The filmmaker said it took 15 minutes for police to respond.

The amateur video, filmed eight days after the Colorado shooting at a screening of a Batman movie, was broadcast on YouTube and titled, “Dark Knight Shooting Response, Rocket Launcher Police Test.”

Turley was charged with knowingly giving a false impression of a terrorist act, endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and misconduct involving a simulated explosive.

He is being held in county jail on a $5,000 bond. If convicted, he faces up to 45 months in prison, said Maricopa County Attorney’s Office spokesman Jerry Cobb.

“We take something like this seriously,” Phoenix police spokesman Officer James Holmes said. “It wasn’t fun and games to all the people who were affected by this. We don’t behave like this in this country to prove a point.”

Police said officers reached the scene about three minutes after receiving numerous emergency calls from passers-by who said the person was pointing a weapon as they drove by.

The 16-year-old has not been arrested, Holmes said.

“The video told us what Turley was intentionally trying to do - creating a terrorist hoax for his own personal ideals,” he said.

Read more - 
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/26/arizona-man-arrested-for-fake-grenade-launcher-stunt

Software let rent-to-own companies spy on customers - enabled keystroke logs, take screen shots and even take pictures -

Software let rent-to-own companies spy on customers - enabled keystroke logs, take screen shots and even take pictures - 



Be careful of what you do in front of a rent-to-own computer. You never know who may be watching.

On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced it had reached a settlement with seven rent-to-own companies that spied on their customers through the very computers they rented to them.

The FTC said that each of the seven companies — including Aspen Way Enterprises, J.A.G. Rents and C.A.L.M. Ventures — installed a piece of software called PC Rental Agent that enabled them to see keystroke logs, take screen shots and even take pictures using the computer's webcam, all without their customers’ knowledge.

PC Rental Agent, designed by the now-bankrupt software firm DesignerWare, was marketed to rent-to-own companies as a way to keep track of a rented computer's physical location and disable it remotely through a kill switch if the renter began skipping payments.

The FTC had no problem with those functions.

But Tracy Thorleifson, an FTC attorney at its office in Seattle, said that while the rent-to-own stores are entitled to be paid for their property … they are not entitled to spy on people.”

Read more - 
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-designerware-pc-rental-agent-20120925,0,992059.story

Chinese internet users to overtake English language users... - by 2015 -

Chinese internet users to overtake English language users... - by 2015 - 




In May 2011, there were 565 million English internet users, compared to 510 million Chinese users, representing 27 per cent and 24 per cent of total global internet users, respectively.
The report predicts that if current growth rates continue, Chinese will overtake English as the main language used by internet users in 2015.
This switch is largely due to China's massive population, now over 1.3 billion people.
Just under 40 per cent of people in China use the internet, compared to 82 per cent in the United Kingdom, and 78 in the United States.
Internet adoption in China is happening with a stronger emphasis on mobile phones. Nearly half of all smartphones are now sold in China, but only 12 out of every 100 individuals have a fixed broadband subscription.

Read more -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/broadband/9567934/Chinese-internet-users-to-overtake-English-language-users-by-2015.html