It's Over!

Not really.  I'm speaking of the Euro debt mess.  They decided to print a trillion euros instead of 250 billion.  They are supposedly cutting the Greek debt by 50%.  I have a short article to address that.  This doesn't really address Italy.  Oh wait, Italy said they are going to raise the retirement from 65 to 67, in 15 years.  That should do it, HAHA.  Ok, enough sarcasm for today.

Here's How the Greek Haircut is Really 28%

Just the math, something Europe is unable to do:

• Greece has €350 billion in total debt including about €70 billion in Troika "post-petition" loans; these are untouched.
• Of the €280 billion, roughly €75 billion is held by the ECB: this, like the Troika loans, will be untouched.
• This leaves just ~€200 billion in actual debt to undergo a haircut.
• Apply a 50% haircut to this debt (ignoring the fact that of this about €35 billion is held by Greek pension funds, and once the realization that Greek pensions have been cut in half dawns upon the population, the result will be the biggest riots ever seen in Athens yet).
• Total debt to be cut: just about €100 billion.
• Hence, of the total €350 billion, just €100 billion is eliminated, most of it used to backstop and service Greek pension and retirement obligations
• €250, or the residual, of €350, the original, means 72%, or a 28% haircut.
• Greek GDP was €230 billion on December 31, 2010 and declining fast.
  

• And that is how a 50% haircut is "cut" almost in half 

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I was actually really surprised this many Americans owned a gun.  I'd like to see a stat on how many of those people own more than 1.  And this survey isn't counting the felons, I'm guessing.

Gun Ownership Soars To 18 Year High: 47% Of Americans Admit To Owning A Gun


Americans may be fleeing from stocks in droves, but they sure aren't shy about rotating the resulting meager liquidation proceeds into weaponry. According to Gallup, "Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period." Considering the social situation "out there", and the fact that the world is one badly phrased or translated headline away from a complete HFT-facilitated market collapse, this is hardly all that suprising.


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So we shipped $40 billion in cash to Iraq, but we're not sure where it went.

NY Fed's $40 Billion Iraqi Money Trail 

It has been called the largest airborne transfer of currency in the history of the world. But finding out what happened to all the money involved has become one of the biggest financial mysteries of all time.


Source: CNBC Sources
US troops get ready to unload cash transported inside Iraq by helicopter.

Beginning in the very earliest days of the war in Iraq, the New York Federal Reserve shipped billions of dollars in physical cash to Baghdad to pay for the reopening of the government and restoration of basic services.

The money was packed onto pallets inside a heavily guarded New York Federal Reserve compound in East Rutherford, New Jersey, trucked to Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, and flown by military aircraft to Baghdad International Airport.

By one account, the New York Fed shipped about $40 billion in cash between 2003 and 2008. In just the first two years, the shipments included more than 281 million individual bills weighing a total of 363 tons. But soon after the money arrived in the chaos of war-torn Baghdad, the paper trail documenting who controlled it all began to go cold.

Since then, investigators have spent years trying to trace what happened to the enormous amount of money shipped in the frantic days of the occupation of Iraq. Although there have been hundreds of pages of reports, Congressional hearings, and inquiries from Washington to Baghdad, no one in Congress, a special inspector general’s office, the Department of Defense or the Iraqi government itself can say with certainty what exactly happened to all of that money.

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Here is another story in my fast food violence chain.  What is wrong with these people?




Cops Hunt Man Who Firebombed Taco Bell Because His Chalupas Had Too Little Meat

Georgia police are hunting for the aggrieved Taco Bell customer who threw a Molotov cocktail at the restaurant’s drive-thru window after phoning in a complaint that there was not enough meat in the chalupas he had purchased.
The bizarre incident occurred around 5 AM Sunday at a Taco Bell on North Slappey Boulevard in Albany. The small blaze did not cause injuries or damage to the building.
According to a police report, Taco Bell manager Cynthia Thompson told cops that, shortly before the firebombing, a man called the restaurant to complain about a reported meat shortage in his “two XL Chalupas.” The caller told Thompson that “after getting home realized that there was not enough stuffing inside of his chalupas, and demanded his order be corrected.”
When Thompson explained that she “could not accommodate him because the business was closing,” the man replied, “You must be one of them niggers up there.” He added, “That’s alright, I’ll just come and redecorate the place.”
Thompson said that shortly after the call she and other Taco Bell employees “could smell gasoline but was unaware of where it was coming from. They then realized the fire outside of the drive thru window.”
Investigators found the makeshift incendiary device--a “melting plastic bottle with a liquid substance still inside”--outside the Taco Bell, where a large sign beckons patrons to “Come Try The New XXL Chalupa. Bigger Is Better.”
The search for the firebomb suspect has been hampered since the video feed from the drive-thru window was of poor quality, cops reported.

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This kid won't get to 18 fast enough.  I hope he's homeschooled.

Parents Name Child Adolf Hitler

Heath and Deborah Campbell, who named two of their children Adolf Hitler and JoyceLynn Aryan Nation, are claiming that a court vindicated them of all abuse allegations last month. But after 33 months in foster care, the children are still not home.

New Jersey Family Court officials had no comment Tuesday.

“Actually, the judge and DYFS told us that there was no evidence of abuse and that it was the names! They were taken over the children's names,” Heath Campbell told NBC 10 Tuesday.

Court records last year stated that the children were not removed from the home because of their names, but because of tangible evidence of abuse or neglect.

Protesting the fact that they still don't have their kids, the Campbells picketed with three other people outside of child services offices in Flemington, N.J. Tuesday. The couple spoke exclusively to NBC 10, saying that the state has no right to keep their children away from them now that the court allegedly ruled that the kids were taken away without cause.