“They’re not on the brink of default because they can print as much money as they want. Yes, America’s the largest debtor-nation in the entire history of the world. Nobody’s ever been this deep in debt and it’s going higher and higher,” he said.
Business as usual: Wall Street ignores government shutdown
Published time: October 01, 2013 13:48
Edited time: October 01, 2013 14:58
The government shutdown may instil short-term volatility in the global financial market, but so far, the markets haven’t roared in reaction to the political deadlock in the world’s biggest economy.
Follow RT’s LIVE UPDATES on the US budget crisis
US lawmakers failed to agree on their spending bill for the next fiscal year, as well as raising the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling, which sent the government into a shutdown effective 12:01am EST on Monday.
Investors haven’t been turned off, as they are more than certain the US will reach a decision on raising the debt ceiling before the October 17 deadline for running out of money.
During early US trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.10 percent, the S&P index, which has fallen seven of the past eight days, added 0.30 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite index gained 0.45 percent.
“The investor climate is still positive, and the US is still driving the global economy. Stability looks solid, we don’t expect any big volatility from this political dispute,” Vladimir Potapov, head of Moscow-based VTB Capital, told RT.
“We’ve seen this more than 20 times in the U.S, and remember, they still have time to resolve the default issue,” said Potapov.
The US shutdown has had little effect on foreign markets. European stock markets were mostly higher on Tuesday, despite the shaky political news from America.
Equities could actually stand to gain following the shutdown, according to Bloomberg, who reported the S&P 500 has on average risen 11 percent the year after a government shutdown, higher than the average gain. The data is based on the 12 shutdowns that have occurred since 1976.
The S&P 500 has risen 11 percent on average in the 12 months following a government shutdown, according to data compiled by Bloomberg on the 12 instances since 1976. The S&P is already at a relative peak after it gained 3 percent when the Federal Reserve decided to continue its $85 billion-per-month bond buying program.
“The economy we have today can be described as an economy of sentiment, driven mostly by market expectation. All of the crisis are hand-made today,” Igor Nikolaev, director of the strategic analysis department at PKF, told RT.
The current investment sentiment is much more dependent on long-term economic factors, which are still very strong in the US. Investors have confirmed preference of developed markets to emerging markets.
“TV networks all over the world will talk about it. But the people who are buying and selling dollars will not pay too much attention,” said Jim Rogers, chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, adding it’s more of a political show than economic reality.
“They’re not on the brink of default because they can print as much money as they want. Yes, America’s the largest debtor-nation in the entire history of the world. Nobody’s ever been this deep in debt and it’s going higher and higher,” he said.
Some analysts are more optimistic about the shutdown, hoping it will help speed along the decision to raise the debt ceiling.
Alec Phillips, a Goldman Sachs economist, said on Friday that a shutdown could “ease passage of a debt-limit increase” as Republicans will lose their influence in Congress as they are largely blamed for pushing the shutdown
Politicians, who are fighting to gain support in the budget battle, are telling a much more dramatic doomsday tale.
“We know it would have a profound destabilizing effect on the entire economy — on the world economy — because America is the bedrock of world investment,” President Obama said on Friday in a warning to Congress, adding Congress shouldn’t ‘fool’ with the world’s reserve currency and the foundation for capital markets.
URL to article: http://rt.com/business/government-shutdown-stock-market-589/
No Real Government Shutdown
bzerbel
Planet Infowars
Oct. 1, 2013
Americans are slowly realizing their government masters are totally out of control. No where is this better illustrated than with the current “government shutdown”. Contained in the subject article is a partial list of all the central government expenditures that continue as normal in spite of the “shutdown’.
Earlier in the summer our government masters tampered with the National Debt Clock making it seem like the National debt didn’t increase at all for several months. So we have bureaucrats, drunk with power, paying no attention whatsoever, to the legal requirement that government not borrow any more money. Just like they say to us on a daily basis, they are saying “go to hell” to anyone demanding they obey the law.
I have said this before and will continue to say it. There is no solution to our problems that involves “them”. “They” are the problem and nothing positive will happen until “they” go. They have to go.
URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/no-real-government-shutdown/
Tiny white elite dominates US political donor landscape – study
Published time: October 01, 2013 13:54
Edited time: October 01, 2013 22:23
Reuters / Jason Reed
A tiny wealthy male elite is behind most of the biggest contributions to the 2012 election cycle in the US, a new study shows. The report comes just as the US Supreme Court considers whether it should strip a ceiling on political donations.
In a case the Supreme Court will begin hearing next Thursday, Shaun McCutcheon, a wealthy donor backed by the Republican National Committee, is challenging this aggregate limit on how much an individual may donate overall to candidates, parties and political action committees (PACs) over an election cycle.
If the court strikes down the limit, it could prompt bigger contributions from those who already reached or were about to reach it, argues Public Campaign, a Washington-based advocacy group. Such a move would “put power even further into the hands of Wall Street bankers, billionaires, and K Street lobbyists,”it says.
The group analyzed campaign finance records and census demographic data to paint a likely portrait of those limit-restricted donors. The study included only individuals and not corporations, unions and other groups. The resulting portrait is that of a wealthy white male, possibly a billionaire from Wall Street or an influential lobbyist from K Street, the group says.
The Public Campaign says that 1,219 individual donors gave at least $105,300 – within 10 percent of the $117,000 aggregate limit – in 2012 campaign. Three of the five richest Americans – Larry Ellison, Charles Koch and David Koch – and one in every six US billionaires gave up to the contribution limit. Their donations totaled more than $150 million, with 56 percent going to Republicans and 41 percent to Democrats and the rest to independents and PACs, the study showed.
More than 80 per cent of the elite donors come from America’s richest 10 percent of neighborhoods as measured by per capita income. Wall Street and the financial sector dominate the ranks, accounting for 28 percent of the donors, the study says. One tenth of them are lawyers or lobbyists.
Less than one-in-50 of the top donors live in communities which are predominantly African-American or Hispanic, the study showed. Only about one quarter of the elite donors are female.
Larry Ellison (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / AFP)
“You’re going to end up having politics be e-Bay for millionaires and billionaires,” said Nick Nyhart, president and chief executive of Public Campaign in a reference to the popular online shopping service.
But former Federal Elections Commission Chairman Brad Smith said worries about a small group of people having disproportionate influence are unfounded.
“Historically, this is how campaigns have always been funded. A handful of people, from their personal fortunes, kept the revolution going,” he told Reuters.
Smith’s Center for Competitive Politics has filed an amicus brief in the case arguing against the contribution limits.
The 2012 election cycle was the most expensive on record, according to Washington research group The Center for Responsive Politics. It featured more than $6 billion in spending across federal campaigns.
URL to article: http://rt.com/usa/campaign-donors-rich-usa-590/
Greenwald: ‘The objective of the NSA is literally the elimination of global privacy’
Published time: October 01, 2013 19:23
Edited time: October 01, 2013 21:34
Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald (AFP Photo / Lia de Paula)
The objective of the United States National Security Agency is to eliminate privacy around the world, the American writer who helped expose the NSA’s far-reaching surveillance powers said on Tuesday.
Glenn Greenwald of the UK’s Guardian answered questions about the ongoing NSA leaks and his source, the now notorious former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, during an online question-and-answer session held Tuesday on the website Reddit.
Greenwald is among the pool of writers who have analyzed and reported on leaks attributed to Snowden since unauthorized disclosures first surfaced in June of this year detailing the otherwise largely unknown operations of the US intelligence community.
URL to article: http://rt.com/usa/glenn-greenwald-reddit-nsa-600/
Miami Herald joins suit asking FBI for 9/11 documents
4224 Escondito Circle in Prestancia, a south Sarasota gated community where a Saudi family living there had possible connections to hijacker pilots from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.HERALD-TRIBUNE ARCHIVE / 2013 / ELAINE LITHERLAND
Michael Pollick
Herald Tribune
Oct. 1, 2013
The Miami Herald Media Co. has joined the Herald-Tribune Media Group in urging a federal judge to make the FBI disclose details of its long-running Sarasota 9/11 investigation.
The two media companies want to be heard in an existing federal lawsuit against the agency by an independent news gathering organization in Fort Lauderdale, Broward Bulldog.
The FBI documents could shed light on the alleged interactions of a high-echelon Saudi family — living in Sarasota’s Prestancia neighborhood just before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon — and three hijacker pilots who trained in Venice about the same time.
URL to article: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130927/ARTICLE/130929683/2055/NEWS?Title=Miami-Herald-joins-suit-asking-FBI-for-9-11-documents&tc=ar
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