Freedomshift

While the FT promptly retracted an article on precisely the topic of gold manipulation from earlier this week ( recorded for posterity here ), Bloomberg appears to not have had the same "editorial" concerns and pressures, and today released an article once again slamming the final conspiracy theory that while every other asset class is manipulated, gold is in a pristine class of its own, untouched by close-banging, price fixing traders or central bankers, and reports that "the London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say. " Read more: here

On 16 June 1941, as Hitler readied his forces for Operation Barbarossa, Josef Goebbels looked forward to the new order that the Nazis would impose on a conquered Russia. There would be no come-back, he wrote, for capitalists nor priests nor Tsars. Rather, in the place of debased, Jewish Bolshevism, the Wehrmacht would deliver “der echte Sozialismus”: real socialism. Goebbels never doubted that he was a socialist. He understood Nazism to be a better and more plausible form of socialism than that propagated by Lenin. Instead of spreading itself across different nations, it would operate within the unit of the Volk. Read more: here

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Last week, I highlighted the fact that the latest Press Freedom Index  showcased a 13 point plunge in America’s press freedom to an embarrassing #46 position in the global ranking. If the authoritarians in the Obama Administration have their way, this country is set to fall much further in next year’s index. Incredibly, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to roll out something called the  Critical Information Needs  study, which will embed government “researchers” into media organizations around the nation to make sure they are doing their job properly. No this isn’t “conspiracy theory.”  It is so real, and represents such a threat to the First Amendment, that a current FCC commissioner, Ajit Pai, recently wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal , warning Americans of this scheme. Read more: Here

The past 5 weeks have seen mortgage applications crumble a further 16% - their biggest such drop in 14 months as the index for home purchase applications hovers close to its lowest level since 1995 . Non-seasonally-adjusted, this is the worst start to a year in over a decade. Must be the weather? Read more: Here

One of my most popular posts of 2013 highlighted the decline of America’s once large and enviable middle class. It was titled: How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally? #27 , and it helped to dispel many myths Americans (particularly the mainstream propaganda media) continue to tell to themselves. As you might expect, the economic decline of a nation into rule by a handful of corrupt oligarchs will have many other negative repercussions . One of these is a loss of civil rights and freedoms that many of us have taken for granted. Reporters Without Borders puts out their  Press Freedom Index every year, and the 2014 ranking came out today. It was not a good showing for the USSA. Specifically, the U.S. registered one of the steepest falls of all nations, down 13 slots to the #46 position . As the screen shot shows, just above Haiti and just below Romania. Read more: here