Occupations of Cities Continue, Growing Income Gap, Worst Financial Crisis Ever
Revealing News Articles
October 18, 2011

Dear friends,

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on the continued occupations of cities worldwide, a growing income gap that threatens the social fabric, the Bank of England Governor's warning about the worst financial crisis in history, and more. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to function, click here. The most important sentences are highlighted for those with limited time. And don't miss the "What you can do" box below the summaries. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can and will build a brighter future.

With best wishes,
Tod Fletcher and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info

Special note: For an excellent resource on the Occupy Wall Street movement, click here. One of the best ways you can support the Occupy Wall Street movement is to take all of your money out of any major banks and put it into either credit unions or locally run banks. For assistance in how to do this, click here and here. For lots of great news on testing and validation of Italian inventor Andrea Rossi's exciting new energy invention, the E-cat, click here. For an explosive, 15-minute video tying together many previously unknown links of the 9/11 cover-up, click here. For a great comedy piece on how TV addicts us with unreal fantasies, click here.

Please help: Your donations help to keep this high-quality news service going. Please click here to donate.

Wall Street Protests Spread Globally as Rome Turns Violent
October 15, 2011, Bloomberg/Businessweek
http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LT1FUB1A1I4H01...

The Occupy Wall Street protest against income disparity spread across Western Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Canada today. Rome's demonstration turned violent, contrasting with peaceful events elsewhere. The rallies started last month in New York's financial district, where people have been staying in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park. They widened to 1,500 cities today, including Sydney and Toronto, the organizers said, in a "global day of action against Wall Street greed." Protesters say they represent "the 99 percent," a nod to a study by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz showing the top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth. In Berlin, 6,000 took to the streets and 1,500 gathered in Cologne, ZDF television said. In Frankfurt, 5,000 marched by the European Central Bank headquarters. In New York, demonstrators marched past a JPMorgan Chase & Co. branch urging clients to transfer accounts to "a financial institution that supports the 99 percent." They distributed fliers with a list of community banks and credit unions. New York police arrested 24 at a Citigroup Inc. bank branch and 6,000 gathered in Times Square. About 1,000 people gathered in Toronto's financial district carrying signs saying "Nationalize the Banks." Demonstrations turned violent in Italy, where the unemployment rate for 15-to-24-year-olds was 27.6 percent in August.

Note: For lots more on the reasons why people all over the world are occupying their city centers, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.

'Occupy Wall Street' -- It's Not What They're for, But What They're Against
October 14, 2011, Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/14/understanding-occupy-wall-street/

Critics of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement complain that the protesters don't have a policy agenda and, therefore, don't stand for anything. They're wrong. The key isn't what protesters are for but rather what they're against -- the gaping inequality that has poisoned our economy, our politics and our nation. In America today, 400 people have more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. That's not because 150 million Americans are pathetically lazy or even unlucky. In fact, Americans have been working harder than ever -- productivity has risen in the last several decades. Big business profits and CEO bonuses have also gone up. Worker salaries, however, have declined. Most of the Occupy Wall Street protesters [want] an end to the crony capitalist system now in place, that makes it easier for the rich and powerful to get even more rich and powerful while making it increasingly hard for the rest of us to get by. The question is not how Occupy Wall Street protesters can find that gross discrepancy immoral. The question is why every one of us isn't protesting with them. According to polls, most Americans support the 99% movement, even if they're not taking to the streets.

Note: For lots more on the reasons why people all over the world are occupying their city centers, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.

'Occupy Wall Street,' a primer
October 3, 2011, Washington Post blog
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/occupy-wall-street-a-primer...

'Occupy Wall Street,' the growing, decentralized protest movement that's clashing with police in New York City, spreading across the country, and grabbing headlines across the world ... is also, somewhat unusually, a protest movement without clear demands, an identifiable leadership, or an evident organizational structure. Decisions are made by the NYC General Assembly, which Nathan Schneider describes as "a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought," and thus far, the General Assembly has decided against yoking the movement to a particular set of goals, or even a particular ideology. Which is all to say that it's important to try and understand the movement on its own terms, rather than the terms most of us are used to. Here are five places to start: - The ... 'Occupy Wall Street blog', and in particular, the blog's forums. Here, for instance, is the movement's 'Declaration of the Occupation of New York City.' - Nathan Schneider's 'Occupy Wall Street FAQ'. I'd perhaps recommend this as the single best place to start. - 'Understanding the theory behind Occupy Wall Street's approach,' by Mike Konczal. Also see his post, '15 definitions of freedom from Occupy Wall Street.'

Note: For lots more on the reasons why people all over the world are occupying their city centers, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.

Protesters Granted 4-Month Extension to Stay on Freedom Plaza
October 13, 2011, NBC Washington (Washington DC's NBC affiliate)
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Protesters-Continue-to-Occupy-DC...

Authorities granted protesters a four-month extension to continue occupying Freedom Plaza in D.C.. A deadline for protesters with the October 2011/Stop the Machine demonstration to pack up and leave Freedom Plaza came and went Monday afternoon. The protesters were given until 2 p.m. to break down their stage and other equipment after their original four-day permit expired Sunday. While the protesters cleaned the space and took down the stage where they led rallies, made speeches and played music, they didn't leave. At about 2 p.m. Monday, Park Police went to Freedom Plaza and requested a private meeting with protest organizers. They met at National Park Service headquarters about 4 pm. Before leaving Freedom Plaza, the organizers told the crowd they'd stay until they're ready to leave. The organizers returned to a round of applause when they told demonstrators that authorities offered the four-month extension. Park Police realized it was not in their best interests to shut the demonstrators down or make arrests, organizers said, and asked if demonstrators needed to be arrested to make their point. The organizers replied that they don't need to be arrested over a permit issue and want their issues addressed.

Note: For lots more on the reasons why people all over the world are occupying their city centers, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.

Growing Income Gap May Leave U.S. More Vulnerable to Crisis
October 13, 2011, Bloomberg/Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-13/growing-income-gap-may-leave-u-s-more-vulnerable...

A widening gap between rich and poor is reshaping the U.S. economy, leaving it more vulnerable to recurring financial crises and less likely to generate enduring expansions. Left unchecked, the decades-long trend toward increasing inequality may ... shake social stability, economists and financial-industry executives say. "Income inequality in this country is just getting worse and worse and worse," James Chanos, president and founder of New York-based Kynikos Associates Ltd., told Bloomberg Radio this week. "And that is not a recipe for stable economic growth when the rich are getting richer and everybody else is being left behind." Since 1980, about 5 percent of annual national income has shifted from the middle class to the nation's richest households. That means the wealthiest 5,934 households last year enjoyed an additional $650 billion -- about $109 million apiece -- beyond what they would have had if the economic pie had been divided as it was in 1980, according to Census Bureau data. Disputes over what constitutes economic fairness are moving to center stage amid a near-stagnant U.S. economy saddled with 9.1 percent unemployment yet boasting record corporate profits.

Note: For key reports from major media sources on income inequality in the US and worldwide, click here.

World facing worst financial crisis in history, Bank of England Governor says
October 6, 2011, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8812260/World-facing-worst-financial-crisis-in-history...

The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s "if not ever", the Governor of the Bank of England said last night. Sir Mervyn King was speaking after the decision by the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee to put �75billion of newly created money into the economy in a desperate effort to stave off a new credit crisis and a UK recession. Economists said the Bank's decision to resume its quantitative easing [QE] showed it was increasingly fearful for the economy, and predicted more such moves ahead. Sir Mervyn said the Bank had been driven by growing signs of a global economic disaster. "This is the most serious financial crisis we've seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever. We're having to deal with very unusual circumstances, but to act calmly to this and to do the right thing." Announcing its decision, the Bank said that the eurozone debt crisis was creating "severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets". Financial experts said the committee's actions would be a "Titanic" disaster for pensioners, savers and workers approaching retirement. Under QE, the Bank electronically creates new money which it then uses to buy assets such as government bonds, or gilts, from banks. By increasing the demand for gilts, QE pushes down the interest rate yields paid to holders of these and other bonds. Critics of the policy say it pushes up inflation and drives down sterling.

Note: For lots more on the global financial crisis from reliable sources, click here.

Report: Pentagon doesn't know where the money is going
October 13, 2011, MSNBC
http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/13/8294595-report-pentagon-doesnt-know-where...

The Defense Department, which has promised to publish a reliable account of how it spends its money by 2017, has discovered that its financial ledgers are in worse shape than expected and that it will have to spend billions of dollars in the coming years to make its financial accounting credible, the Center for Public Integrity reported [on October 13]. The U.S. military has spent more than $6 billion to develop and deploy new financial systems, but the effort has been plagued by significant added overruns and delays, defense officials told the CPI, a nonprofit investigative news organization. The Government Accountability Office said in a report last month that although the services can now fully track incoming appropriations, they still can't demonstrate that their funds are being spent as they should be. The Pentagon's bookkeeping has come under increased scrutiny as Congress and the Obama administration have vowed to reduce the federal deficit. The department could face substantial cutbacks if a special bipartisan "supercommittee" can't agree on a formula for reducing the deficit.

Note: For an essay by a top U.S. general revealing how wars are used to bring huge profits to the powerful elite of our world, click here. For lots more from reliable sources on government corruption, click here.

Goldman Sachs let off paying �10m interest on failed tax avoidance scheme
October 11, 2011, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/11/goldman-sachs-interest-tax-avoidance

Britain's tax authorities have given Goldman Sachs an unusual and generous Christmas present, leaked documents reveal. In a secret London meeting last December with the head of Revenue, the wealthy Wall Street banking firm was forgiven �10m interest on a failed tax avoidance scheme. HM Revenue and Customs sources admit privately that the interest-free deal is "a cock-up" by officials, but refuse to say who was responsible. Documents leaked to Private Eye magazine and published in full by the Guardian record that Britain's top tax official, HMRC's permanent secretary Dave Hartnett, personally shook hands on a secret settlement last December. Hartnett also refused to give the facts about Goldman Sachs to MP Jesse Norman on the Treasury committee last month, claiming disclosure would be illegal. He also refuses to brief ministers on the details. The �10m Christmas gift for Goldman was the culmination of a prolonged attempt by the US firm to avoid paying national insurance on huge bonuses for its bankers working in London. The sum was pocket change to Goldman, whose employees received $15.3bn (�9.5bn) in pay and bonuses last year.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on corporate and government corruption, click here and here.

Government by death panel
October 15, 2011, Denver Post (Denver's leading newspaper)
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_19115979

Last week we learned from Reuters that fellow countrymen labeled "militants" by the Obama administration are now unilaterally placed on a "kill list" by "a secretive panel of senior government officials. "This is a real-life death panel inside the highest governmental office in the land -- and, according to Reuters, it acts without "any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate." This neo-Star Chamber is wholly unprecedented in its willful violations of the U.S. Constitution's due-process provisions -- and our Congress' refusal to even question it is utterly detestable. However, it reminds us that government death panels in general are anything but rare; they are all around us, making blood-curdling decisions to kill people all the time. For example, at the state level, the death panel commonly called the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles recently opted to execute Troy Davis, despite compelling evidence calling his conviction into question. Likewise ... the death panel known as the U.S. House Agriculture Appropriations Committee [is] considering cuts to food stamps at a time when Louisiana State University researchers report that between 2,000 and 3,000 elderly Americans are already dying of malnutrition every year.

Note: For key reports on government corruption from major media sources, click here.

Ron Paul: US could target journalists for killing
October 5, 2011, Boston Globe/Associated Press
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2011/10/05/ron_paul_us_could_target...

Republican presidential contender Ron Paul on [October 5] suggested that the United States could assassinate journalists the same way it targeted Americans with ties to al-Qaida. The Texas congressman again criticized President Barack Obama for approving last week's drone strikes in Yemen against a U.S. citizen who was tracked and executed based on secret intelligence. [Another American citizen] also died in the bombing. Escalating his criticism, Paul told a National Press Club luncheon that if citizens do not protest the deaths, the country will start adding reporters to its list of threats that must be taken out. "Can you imagine being put on a list because you're a threat? What's going to happen when they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat? ... This is the way this works. It's incrementalism," Paul said. Paul, making his second run for the Republican presidential nomination, has built a die-hard following among the GOP's libertarian wing and has worked to court anti-war conservatives.

Note: For key reports on government corruption from major media sources, click here.

How the US government secretly reads your email
October 11, 2011, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/11/us-government-secretly-reads-your-email

Somewhere, a US government official is reading through a list of those who sent or received an email from Jacob Appelbaum, a 28-year-old computer science researcher at the University of Washington who volunteered for WikiLeaks. Among those listed will be my name, a journalist who interviewed Appelbaum for a book about the digital revolution. Appelbaum is a spokesman for Tor, a free internet anonymising software that helps people defend themselves against internet surveillance. He's spent five years teaching activists around the world how to install and use the service to avoid being monitored by repressive governments. Now, Appelbaum finds himself a target of his own government as a result of his friendship with Julian Assange and the fact WikiLeaks used the Tor software. Appelbaum has not been charged with any wrongdoing; nor has the government shown probable cause that he is guilty of any criminal offence. That matters not a jot, because, as the law stands, government officials don't need a search warrant to access our digital data. Searching someone's home requires a warrant that can only be obtained by proving probable cause, but digital searches require no such burden of proof. Most people are not aware of the ease with which governments – free, open and so-called democratic – can access and peruse our private communications.

Note: For key reports on government threats to privacy from major media sources, click here.

Mistakes in Scientific Studies Surge
August 10, 2011, Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702303627104576411850666582080...

It was the kind of study that made doctors around the world sit up and take notice: Two popular high-blood-pressure drugs were found to be much better in combination than either alone. Unfortunately, it wasn't true. Six and a half years later, the prestigious medical journal the Lancet retracted the paper, citing "serious concerns" about the findings. The damage was done. Doctors by then had given the drug combination to well over 100,000 patients. Instead of protecting them from kidney problems, as the study said the drug combo could do, it left them more vulnerable to potentially life-threatening side effects, later studies showed. Today, "tens of thousands" of patients are still on the dual therapy, according to research firm SDI. When a study is retracted, "it can be hard to make its effects go away," says Sheldon Tobe, a kidney-disease specialist at the University of Toronto. And that's more important today than ever because retractions of scientific studies are surging. Since 2001, while the number of papers published in research journals has risen 44%, the number retracted has leapt more than 15-fold, data compiled for The Wall Street Journal by Thomson Reuters reveal. Just 22 retraction notices appeared in 2001, but 139 in 2006 and 339 last year

Note: To learn lots more of how the medical industry puts profit above public health, click here.

Where child sacrifice is a business
October 11, 2011, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15255357

The villages and farming communities that surround Uganda's capital, Kampala, are gripped by fear. Schoolchildren are closely watched by teachers and parents as they make their way home from school. In playgrounds and on the roadside are posters warning of the danger of abduction by witch doctors for the purpose of child sacrifice. The ritual, which some believe brings wealth and good health, was almost unheard of in the country until about three years ago, but it has re-emerged, seemingly alongside a boom in the country's economy. The mutilated bodies of children have been discovered at roadsides, the victims of an apparently growing belief in the power of human sacrifice. Many believe that members of the country's new elite are paying witch doctors vast sums of money for the sacrifices in a bid to increase their wealth. At the Kyampisi Childcare Ministries church, Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga is teaching local children a song called Heal Our Land, End Child Sacrifice. "Child sacrifice has risen because people have become lovers of money. They want to get richer," the pastor says. "They have a belief that when you sacrifice a child you get wealth, and there are people who are willing to buy these children for a price. So they have become a commodity of exchange, child sacrifice has become a commercial business."

'Magic Mushrooms' Can Improve Psychological Health Long Term
June 16, 2011, Time Magazine
http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/16/magic-mushrooms-can-improve-psychological-health-long-term/

The psychedelic drug in magic mushrooms may have lasting medical and spiritual benefits, according to new research from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The mushroom-derived hallucinogen, called psilocybin, is known to trigger transformative spiritual states, but at high doses it can also result in "bad trips" marked by terror and panic. "The important point here is that we found the sweet spot where we can optimize the positive persistent effects and avoid some of the fear and anxiety that can occur and can be quite disruptive," says lead author Roland Griffiths, professor of behavioral biology at Hopkins. Giffiths' study involved 18 healthy adults, average age 46. Nearly all the volunteers were college graduates and 78% participated regularly in religious activities; all were interested in spiritual experience. Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lives; 39% said it was the single most meaningful experience. The participants themselves were not the only ones who saw the benefit from the insights they gained: their friends, family member and colleagues also reported that the psilocybin experience had made the participants calmer, happier and kinder.

Marathon Mom: Pregnant Woman Finishes Race, Delivers Baby
October 10, 2011, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Moms/marathon-mom-pregnant-woman...

Amber Miller accomplished two monumental feats this weekend. Days from her due date, the 27-year-old joined 45,000 other runners to participate in Sunday's Bank of America Chicago Marathon and then gave birth to a baby girl named June hours later. Miller, an avid runner, said she signed up for the 26.2-mile race before finding out she was pregnant. She said she never expected to finish the race. "I was having a conversation with my parents and said, 'You know what? I have no plans of actually finishing,'" she told reporters at Central DuPage Hospital this morning. "I was planning on running half, skipping to the end, then walking across the finish line." But Miller and her husband started running, and just kept going. They ran part of the race and walked the second half as her contractions started. It took the couple 6.5 hours to finish. She said she grabbed something to eat and the two headed to the hospital. "It was very interesting hearing people's reaction," Miller said about crowds watching an extremely pregnant woman among the runners. "I've been running up to this point anyway, so I'm used to it." At 7 pounds, 13 ounces, baby June entered the world at 10:29 p.m. Sunday, just hours after her parents crossed the finish line.

Key Articles From Years Past

JPMorgan's Dangerous Derivatives
May 7, 2009, Bloomberg/Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_20/b4131069034013.htm

Gillian Tett [is the author of] Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe. Tett is a respected business journalist at the Financial Times. Tett successfully pieces together the colorful backstory of the bank's work to win acceptance in the market for its brainchild, turning credit derivatives "from a cottage industry into a mass-production business." With the benefit of hindsight, we know that while these inventions were intended to control risk, they amplified it instead. This novel idea turned noxious when applied broadly to residential mortgages, a game that the rest of Wall Street later entered into with gusto. We learn in deep detail about not only how collateralized debt obligations are assembled but also their many iterations. Perhaps it's noteworthy that Tett's book begins when JPMorgan had the face-value equivalent of $1.7 trillion in derivatives on its books. Today that number has jumped to a mind-boggling $87 trillion. Part of that portfolio includes almost $8.4 trillion in credit derivatives, more than Bank of America's (BAC), Citi's, and Goldman Sachs' (GS) holdings combined.

Note: So JP Morgan has $87 trillion in derivates, a mass market it helped to create. That is greater than the GDP for the entire world! To verify this, click here. For a New York Times review of this revealing book, click here.

Please note that most of the summarizing of the revealing news articles in the above summary was done by Tod Fletcher of WantToKnow.info. Many thanks to Tod for all the time and skill he puts into this. The box below provides several ideas on what you can do to spread the news.

Finding Balance: WantToKnow.info Inspiration Center

WantToKnow.info believes it is important to balance disturbing cover-up information with inspirational writings which call us to be all that we can be and to work together for positive change. For an abundance of uplifting material, please visit our Inspiration Center.

See our exceptional archive of revealing news articles.

Subscribe here to the WantToKnow.info email list (two messages a week)

Information Centers

Privacy and Technology
UFO Disclosure
Military Intelligence Corruption
Election Fraud
Media Manipulation
Health and Food Corruption
COVID Corruption
Mind Control
9/11 Cover-Up
Banking and Finance
JFK Assassination
Energy
Near Death Experiences
Inspiration

More

News Index
Online Courses
Donate
Reader Reviews
About PEERS
Contact Us

Subscribe to WantToKnow.info newsletter

We respect your email privacy