AMTV News: 4th Aircraft Carrier to Gulf, Condi VP, Amerikan Incarceration & Burn Penn State

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Aircraft Carrier USS John C Stennis

This is AMTV News, I’m your host Topher Morrison.  Today is Finally Friday 13^th of July, 2012.  Our final production video is located at the bottom of this post. Enjoy...

War drums…

US Sends 4^th Aircraft Carrier to Persian Gulf

RT

Along with a fleet of SeaFox drone submersibles the aircraft carrier USS John C Stennis will join the Eisenhower, Lincoln and Enterprise in the Persian Gulf.  It’s an unexpected show of extraordinary force and comes on the heels of a 12,000 troop, 19 nation, massive military drill imitating a Middle East invasion.  US raises…Iran your bet.   

Next…

Neocons Love Them Some Condoleezza Rice

Noonan, Limbaugh, Kristol

No its not a Mexican dish – it just might be the next vice president of the United States.  They’ve all been floated Pawlenty, Huntsman, Christie, Haley, Jindal, Portman, Ryan and Rubio, but this looks to be their ’54 special reserve select.  Eager to erase a polarizing Palin this liberal kryptonite – black, female, experienced and academic – brings back the fervor and favorability of Herman Cain with none of the baggage.

Land of the free, hu…

America #1 in Incarceration

AllGov

This is what the drug war has brought us – the prison industrial complex.  Over a 30-year-period, from 1980 to 2010, the US incarceration rate has quadrupled from over half a million to over 2.2 million and leads the world in per capita incarceration 743 persons per 100,000, ahead of Rwanda and Russia. 1 in 9 state employees work in corrections to the tune of over $30,600 per inmate roughly more than what 1/3 of Americans make a year.

Here’s a lesson in futility…

Karzai: Taliban Chief Can Run For President

Dawn.com

Can’t we all just get along.  After 11 years, $546 billion and over 3,000 dead soldiers in our adventure in the Graveyard of Empires President Karzai welcomes reconciliation with Mullah Omar supreme leader of the Taliban.  This is what nation building looks like – a dog chasing its tail.

Next…

M2 Just Shy of $10 Trillion!

Zero Hedge

Still in shock after we learned the S&P 500 is 50% larger only because of the Federal Reserve’s printing press the M2 – the total amount of money available in the economy – is just 8 and a half billion dollars shy of 14 digits for the first time in history.  Gone is the housing bubble and our confidence, going are our municipalities; coming is a world wide economic train wreck.  Ground Zero is America’s Private Central Bank and everyone with a dollar to their name.

A runaway cult…

Burn Penn State Football to the Ground

Business Insider

“JoePa” over 61 years effectively became a one-man cult raising over a billion dollars for Penn State during his tenure.  The institution as a result morphed into a “roque civilization with its own structure, authority,  and ethical assumptions.”  From the janitors to the upper echelons of PSU depravity rained for over a decade as Jerry Sandusky ensconced within the pantheon of litany lions roamed wild freely sating himself one young boy after another.  Football - a base American pastime – was given precedence over innocence.  Because of it – the NCAA “death penalty” should be merely the first step along the long road of repentance.

Catch my latest choice headlines on AMTV News Monday – Friday at AMTV Media and catch our in depth commentary and analysis of stories like these at GreeneWave.com part of the AMTV network.

 

The Fed Wants to Twist Again, Until the Election

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Federal Open Market Committee.

The once arcane strategy – “Operation Twist” – is evidently becoming a trusty financial tool as much as a screwdriver is to a repairman.  The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), charged with overseeing the buying and selling of US Treasury securities, is to meet this week and it looks like another round of Operation Twist is on the table.  The FOMC’s decision whether to inject more liquidity into US markets, in an attempt to inoculate them from European debt crisis, or proceed with other more temperate measures will help influence the financial trajectory of America and with it the rest of the planet for the remainder of the year and beyond.

Operation Twist, selling short-term treasuries in order to buy longer term ones in an effort to bring down long-term yields, is one of many tools available to the Federal Reserve.  In general it is more palatable than firing up the printing presses or plugging fresh zeros into the digital currency supply and then purchasing billions (or potentially trillions) in assets, which is how quantitative easing (QE) is employed and what the Wall Street Oligarchy and Gold Bugs hope occurs.  It may, for the time being, be sufficient for markets to feel the Fed is doing something and therefore Twist 2.0 may be just the ticket.

In previous rounds of QE benefits were double edged, as one can never fool the markets. There was ‘good’ inflation (high prices for equities, corporate bonds, remember: will the Dow hit record high in 2011?) making the rich richer, so to speak, and then there was the collateral damage – ‘bad’ inflation via surging commodity prices – making the poor poorer.  This is of course how the Fed steals for the 1% and the logic, which explains how the Fed triggered the Arab Spring.

While both QE1 and QE2 became intensely controversial Operation Twist, aside from the dubious name, looks to become the preferred method of intervention.  Forbes reports on the upcoming FOMC meeting with regard to the latest limping economic numbers:

“Barclays Capital called Operation Twist ‘the most likely outcome,’ saying it would give the Fed more time to sort out whether recent softness in data is mainly ‘payback’ for hiring during a warm winter or a more prolonged slowdown. ‘If the latter is the case, then more outright asset purchases that expand the balance sheet (QE3) would become likely,’ Barclays said.”

To be sure, as the frequency of crises increase moves like Operation Twist allow the financial engineers to manipulate the economy without having to deal with the underlying causes of addicting entitlements, long term debt and growing corporate malfeasance (got Zucked lately?) and without addressing public concern over persistent and reckless intervention.  But again, nothing changes, Operation Twist is a shell game as much as everything else the Fed attempts. 

The political calculation here, however, is important.  Should Ben “Bubbles” Bernanke go on a printing spree, say by injecting a cool $500 billion, look for Obama to win in November.  If the Fed doesn’t it may harm him according to Gary Dorsch writing for Seeking Alpha:

“Without the artificial life support of QE3, the U.S. stock market could sink ahead of the upcoming election and torpedo Mr Obama's chances. On the other hand, a $500 billion printing operation could lift the Dow Industrial above the May 1st highs, and tilt public opinion in favor of the president over his Republican challenger.”

This would undoubtedly raise Republican ire like no state recognized gay marriage or stimulus bill could and would likely fuel a harder line conservative (sound money anyone?) to take place of a lukewarm Romney in 2016.  The Federal Reserve doesn’t like attention and especially the pesky kind from sound money conservatives like Ron Paul.  Not doing anything that would help Obama will sap any animosity a resurgent and victorious GOP harbors for the Fed in November.

The alternative is of course, Twist 2.0 or perhaps another series of secret European loans or some derivative thereof.   If the Federal Reserve can lay the economic turmoil entirely on Barack Obama’s doormat, which Republicans will happily aid, Ben Bernanke and crew are as usual in the clear.  Suffice it to say that has always been the magic of the Federal Reserve – out of sight and out of mind of the electorate.