Notable Headlines (26-2-2020), Blockbuster WSJ Investigation: How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results

Blockbuster WSJ Investigation: How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results
...Google’s evolving approach marks a shift from its founding philosophy of “organizing the world’s information,” to one that is far more active in deciding how that information should appear...

If Bloomberg is so rich, why does he steal worker wages?

Top U.S. General in Europe Warns of China’s Economic Control of Continent’s Ports

Carlyle Breaks From Pack, Promising Impact Investing Across Firm
It was a curious moment last year when Carlyle Group Inc., once famous for bold bets on defense contractors, hired one of the more prominent names in socially responsible investing.

Of Course Millennials Want to Stay Home – It's All We Can Afford to Do
Today's solo dwellers are less likely to design their homes around entertaining others than previous generations were. That makes sense: We're busy, on a tight budget, and exhausted.

If Billionaire Investor Warren Buffett Ever Buys Bitcoin You Should Probably Sell

Will coronavirus trigger a global recession?
The spectre of contagious disease tends to have a disproportionate impact on economic activity because healthy people avoid traveling, shopping and even going to work.

This chart is the best explanation of middle-class finances you will ever see

Permanently Addicted to Zero
Mr. Powell also averred this gem in his latest testimony, "Low rates are not really a choice anymore; they are a fact of reality." Credit must be given here for finally admitting the truth—albeit what was probably a slip of the tongue. The Fed is tacitly stating that keeping money at a virtually-free rate is now a mandatory condition for perpetuating asset bubbles and preventing mass defaults on the record-breaking level of corporate debt.

Coronavirus wipes out $1.7 trillion in US stock market value in two days

Drivers of expensive cars are more dangerous to pedestrians

Donald Trump Promised to Eliminate the Deficit in 8 Years. So Far, He Has Increased it by 68%

Satire: Sanders Admits Receiving Free Checking from Big Banks

‘Draw good from evil’: France should use Coronavirus outbreak to reduce reliance on Chinese-supplied goods, minister says

China encourages citizens to return to work as coronavirus hits economy

Coronavirus credit crunch hits millions of Chinese firms

"It Will Be Really, Really Bad": China Faces Financial Armageddon With 85% Of Businesses Set To Run Out Of Cash In 3 Months

REVEALED: Chief magistrate in Assange case received financial benefits from secretive partner organisations of UK Foreign Office

The Greek economy is roaring back—which could lead to the mass eviction of homeowners

Eastern Mediterranean: Turkey’s third drillship to begin operations in 2020 

A Gulf apart: How Europe can gain influence with the Gulf Cooperation Council

Genoa To Keep Receiving Chinese Imports, Boosts Inspections At Ports - Authority

Eurobank applies to join Greece's Hercules bad loan scheme

Second witness keeps mum on Novartis case

Virus impact on Greece seen at 1.5 pct of the country’s GDP

Mapping out the Banking Elite’s Goal for a Cashless Monetary System – Part Two

Give Pandemic Bonds a Chance
The  securities are hardly a gimmick stunt that divert scarce health-care dollars to financial markets.

Target Warehouse Faces Its First Public Union Drive

The Usher Uprising
In the U.S. and U.K., movie theater assistants are organizing union drives, fighting for higher wages and more secure employment. They deserve it

Horror Stories From Inside Amazon's Mechanical Turk

The Silicon Valley Economy Is Here. And It’s a Nightmare.
Low pay, soaring rents, and cities littered with e-scooters. Welcome to the future.

We bought dozens of products from AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish. Over half were suspected fakes
Why you might want to think twice before shopping online

How Amazon Uses Lending to Control Small Businesses
The nature of the Amazon marketplace makes it virtually impossible for third-party sellers to borrow from private banks. Amazon’s own lending unit has filled the gap.

The Height of Idiocy

The Height of Idiocy
I remain of the opinion that we’re headed into the biggest economic smashup in history.

The Pandemic Isn’t Ending, It’s Just The Beginning Of Global Disorder & Depression

To Survive, Venezuela’s Leader Gives Up Decades of Control Over Oil

The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President
How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election

When a Black Swan Flies Over Wall Street’s House of Cards

When Even a Rich City Is Starved of Funds

Credit Suisse CEO Thiam ousted

What the new coronavirus means for the world economy

 The Mormon Church Amassed $100 Billion. It Was the Best-Kept Secret in the Investment World.

Australia Moves To Restrict Cash and Build Up Its Surveillance State

Mexico Is Showing The World How To Defeat Neoliberalism

 Ivanka Trump honored for boosting manufacturing jobs "like no one in government has ever done"

IMF Warns: Gulf States Face Risk of Losing Oil Wealth by 2034

Will China Seize an American Company's Drug For Fighting Coronavirus?

How China Will Use Its Social Credit System to Keep Control Over Its Military

Living in Inequality, Dying in Despair

Harry and Meghan attend exclusive JP Morgan event in Miami

A bank employee gave $20 to a customer in need. She and her supervisor were fired.

U.S. ends antitrust probe of 4 automakers over California emissions deal


Why the Government blocked a law forcing nursing homes to reveal staff and food budgets


Why a Shadowy Tech Firm with Ties to Israeli Intelligence Is Running Doomsday Election Simulations

Revealed: how drugs giants can access your health records

Trump was busy destroying government programs while the country was distracted by his impeachment: columnist

Nollywood movies promoting money rituals, encouraging kidnapping – Fashola

Fifty-Eight Years Later, Cuba Continues To Resist U.S. Blockade

What Happens To All The Old Wind Turbines?

New Europeans: Greece is handing residency to thousands of wealthy Chinese

Victoria's private school fees smash $40,000 mark

40 percent of food in America ends up in the trash. Is nanopackaging the answer?

Coronavirus turns busy Chinese cities into ghost towns

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Eire: CSI - Central Bank

This event marked the start of a campaign by the Anglo: Not Our Debt group which launched a campaign to freeze the ‘Anglo bonds’ at an examination of a financial ‘crime scene’ outside the Central Bank, Dublin this morning at 11am. ‘Forensic scientists’, dressed in ‘CSI’ style examination suits, cordoned off the Central Bank behind tape that reads “Crime Scene – Do Not Enter” and carried out an inspection of the evidence of financial crimes against the people of Ireland as a result of the socialisation of the Anglo debt.
Nessa Ní Chasaide of the campaign said,

“We are launching our campaign to freeze the remaining €25 billion of ‘Anglo bonds’ at the ‘crime scene’ of the Central Bank as it prepares to sell these ‘Anglo bonds’ to the market. These bonds must not be traded; the people of Ireland must not be held responsible for this criminal debt, and charges must be brought immediately against those who de-frauded the state.”

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The Anglo: Not Our Debt campaign, is a broad-based coalition of trade union, community, faith-based, academic and global justice groups.
http://www.notourdebt.ie

The Big Bank Opera, Act 3 (of 4)

From the Improbable Research Collection #126: The Big Bank Opera

("Big Bank Theory")

A banker explains the whole history of big banks - where they came from, how they got big, and what happened to them. She tells the complete story of The Big Bank Theory. It's remarkably similar to The Big Bang Theory that explains the history of the universe. (The music is "Una Voce Poco Fa" from Rossini's "Barber of Seville".)

This is Act 3 of "The Big Bank Opera", in which stylish bankers in a swanky Wall Street bar explain the explosive rise and fall of big banking and big bankers.

This mini-opera has music by L.v. Beethoven & G. Rossini, and words by Marc Abrahams. Starring Maria Ferrante and Ben Sears, and Brandon Grimmett, conducted by David Stockton. The premiere, seen here, was on October 1, 2009 as part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. Bar patrons: Benoit Mandelbrot, Stephen Wolfram, John Barrett, Wade Adams, Nobel laureates Rich Roberts, Wolfgang Ketterle, Dudley Herschbach, Paul Krugman, Roy Glauber, Frank Wilczek, Martin Chalfie, Orhan Pamuk, and William Lipscomb; and many Ig Nobel Prize winners.

Uprising: the crisis of civilisation and the struggle for the global commons…

Uprising: the crisis of civilisation and the struggle for the global commons by Dr Nafeez Ahmed 

The last half decade has seen the persistence of social protests in various forms, including civil disobedience and mass demonstrations. From the Occupy movement across the Western world, to the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa; from riots in European capitals, to the current protests in Cyprus: uprisings have become a regular feature of life.

With the world reeling under the impact of banking collapses, austerity, environmental crisis, energy woes and rocketing food prices, it’s no wonder that people everywhere are rising up and demanding change.
But at the heart of these disparate uprisings is a single global struggle: between the people and profit, for access to the planet’s precious land, water, energy, raw materials and resources – a struggle for the global commons.

Over three hundred years ago, the struggle kicked-off in a major way when the seeds of English capitalism were planted amidst mass evictions of peasants from public lands. Formerly landed peasants, who were compelled by threat of force to pay tribute (a percentage of their produce), to local lords, now ended up as a new, landless proletariat. They had no choice but to sell their labour power for wages to the lords who now owned and controlled what was once their land. This process of enclosure gradually enforced a new social condition – the dispossession of people from access to the sources, means and technologies of production – that was, and remains, the fundamental basis of modern capitalism.

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Nuclear power expansion plans condemned: "An unbearable inheritance to future generations"

Global coalition of “Alternative Nobel Prize” laureates and members of the World Future Council condemn nuclear power expansion plans

...In unusually clear language the signatories of the statement argue that nuclear energy is prone to insolvable infrastructural, economic, social, health, ecological, and security problems. The statement applauds the successful efforts being made around the world to advance renewable energy as the only viable alternative and those governments that have embarked on transforming their energy sectors. "We strongly support the aspirations of numerous regions across the globe in moving towards 100% decentralized renewable energy to meet electricity, heating and transport needs," state the signatories.

The statement ends with a call on governments "to remove existing barriers to renewable energy development and to abandon nuclear power – in their countries as well as outside their own territorial borders – once and for all."

The text can be accessed at full length here: www.worldfuturecouncil.org/nuclear-statement2013.html ...

Earth's Gold Came from Colliding Dead Stars

We value gold for many reasons: its beauty, its usefulness as jewelry, and its rarity. Gold is rare on Earth in part because it's also rare in the universe. Unlike elements like carbon or iron, it cannot be created within a star. Instead, it must be born in a more cataclysmic event - like one that occurred last month known as a short gamma-ray burst (GRB). Observations of this GRB provide evidence that it resulted from the collision of two neutron stars - the dead cores of stars that previously exploded as supernovae. Moreover, a unique glow that persisted for days at the GRB location potentially signifies the creation of substantial amounts of heavy elements - including gold. 

"We estimate that the amount of gold produced and ejected during the merger of the two neutron stars may be as large as 10 moon masses - quite a lot of bling!" says lead author Edo Berger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). 

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The team calculates that about one-hundredth of a solar mass of material was ejected by the gamma-ray burst, some of which was gold. By combining the estimated gold produced by a single short GRB with the number of such explosions that have occurred over the age of the universe, all the gold in the cosmos might have come from gamma-ray bursts. 

"To paraphrase Carl Sagan, we are all star stuff, and our jewelry is colliding-star stuff," says Berger. 

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