The face of Google is changing for the worse in my opinion. Rather than viewing the user of Google technology and services “as a customer”, Google is increasingly exposing the technology or service to the customer and profiting from them. Take a look at the example below (click on the thumbnail below to enlarge):

For years throughout human history there have been the murmurings of dark alliances. Improbable and outrageous conspiracy theories regarding the “true” powers that controlled the world… and for years, despite evidence to the contrary, the people that have adamantly proselytized over and over that there was a “worldwide conspiracy to control the world by unseen powers” were dismissed as “alarmist” and “unbalanced”. While I do no argue that there are unbalanced people in this world recent world events have pushed some ugly truths out into the light.

The age old conspiracy was that there is a global international banking cartel that plots to subjugate every man, woman, and child on this earth through financial means is an old one. Growing up, I would watch as adults would guffaw in outrage and pass such ideas off as radical fringe behavior. I was guilty of the same behavior myself but the conspiracy cat is out of the proverbial bag at this point.

In a strange sort of way this financial collapse is a good thing for everyone (everyone who is paying attention that is…). Its positive in the regard that it has pushed into the light, the fact that the world’s banking and financial system DOES in fact run the civilized world. I don’t think it was planned this way but the “masterminds” behind this financial disaster forgot to include one important factor in their calculations, and that is the fact that greed takes on a life of its own and ends up consuming itself.

The financial institutions, investment firms, hedge funds and loan providers got so greedy, that its culminated into a “DEFCON 1″ scenario where the whole financial system was on the verge of total collapse. So in response, the insolvent banking systems, freshly “evaluated” from the recent government stress tests are now pillaging the very citizens in which they intended to enslave, and our government is in complete support of the saddling of insurmountable debt for many generations to come.

What does it say about the power structure in this country and more importantly, the world when the flailing banking and financial industry has consumed itself in endless greed and now crawl back to world governments and begged for bailouts? The government gives the banking system the bailouts they groveled for and in response, the banks take the money that the citizens have loaned them by proxy and then re-loan our money back to us with interest!

How much more uncapitalist can you get? So my question is “when does it stop being a conspiracy and start becoming fact?”.

Since the global “recession” has been in full effect, there have been several cases of worker uprisings in France of all places. The latest uprising was diffused this past friday in Tonneins, south-western France. It seems as though the french warehouse workers at the JLG Industries facilities were protesting the layoff of 53 workers and threatened to blow up fuel tanks on the plant they were working on unless the corporation gave a $42,000 dollar severance bonus for each of the workers. The corporation evidently acquiesced and forked the money over.

There is another incident where workers are threatening to go BOOM, if money is not exchanged, from the BBC article:

Meanwhile, a tense stand-off continues at the bankrupt New Fabris car plant in Chatellerault, south-west of Paris, where workers have also made a threat to blow up the factory.

They have given a 31 July deadline for Renault and Peugeot, which provided 90% of the plant’s work, to pay them 30,000 euros each.

Renault and PSA Peugeot said it was not their responsibility to pay workers.

Who knew that the French would rise up and essentially commit terroristic acts against their masters and walk away with piles of cash? What an unpredictable world we live in.

Oh the many uses and even more joyful side effects of the wonder chemical/bio weapon known as Aspartame! Lets review the tumultuous history of this chemical concoction…

DECEMBER 1965
While working on an ulcer drug, a chemist at pharmaceutical manufacturer GD Searle accidentally discovers aspartame, a substance that is 180 times sweeter than sugar, yet has no calories.

AUTUMN 1967
GD Searle approaches eminent biochemist Dr Harry Waisman, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Joseph P Kennedy Jr Memorial Laboratory of Mental Retardation Research and a respected expert in the toxicity of phenylalanine (which comprises 50 per cent of the aspartame formula), to conduct a study of the effects of aspartame on primates. Of seven monkeys fed aspartame mixed with milk, one dies and five others have grand mal epileptic seizures.

SPRING 1971
Dr John Olney, professor of neuropathology and psychiatry at Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine, whose research into the neurotoxic food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG, a chemical cousin of aspartame) was responsible for having it removed from baby foods, informs Searle that his studies show that aspartic acid, one of the main constituents of aspartame, causes holes in the brains of infant mice. One of Searle’s researchers, Ann Reynolds, confirms Olney’s findings in a similar study.

8 MARCH 1977
Searle hires prominent Washington insider Donald Rumsfeld as its new CEO to try to turn the beleaguered company around. A former member of Congress and defence secretary in the Ford administration, Rumsfeld brings several of his Washington colleagues in as top management.

JANUARY 1981
Rumsfeld states in a Searle sales meeting that he is going to make a big push to get aspartame approved within the year. Rumsfeld vows to ‘call in his markers’ and use political rather than scientific means to get the FDA on side.

21 JANUARY 1981
One day after Reagan’s inauguration, Searle re-applies to the FDA for approval to use aspartame as a food sweetener.

AUTUMN 1983
The first carbonated beverages containing aspartame go on sale in the US.

1 OCTOBER 1985
Monsanto, the producer of recombinant bovine growth hormone, genetically engineered soya beans, the pesticide Roundup and many other industrial and agricultural chemicals, purchases Searle for $2.7 billion.

1989
The FDA has received more than 4,000 complaints from consumers about adverse reactions to the sweetener.

19 APRIL 1993
The FDA approves aspartame for use in hard and soft candies, non-alcoholic flavoured beverages, tea beverages, fruit juices and concentrates, baked goods and baking mixes, and frostings, toppings and fillings for baked goods.

You can read the whole excellent article here. So as you can see, good ole Rummy, in addition to being one of the worst secretary’s of Defense ever to hold the office, was also instrumental in getting Aspartame approved! Hey, there may be more to this Illuminati thing after all.

I ran into this interesting article on the Computerworld blogs and the upcoming trend is that the IT workers in the U.S. will eventually have to equalize with workers in other parts of the world in order to stay competitive.

IBM is increasingly outsourcing the IT work to India while keeping the high paid executives here in the U.S. (sound familiar?) to manage offshore teams. I guess its sort of like Walmart buying cheap chinese goods and selling back to the consumers here in the U.S but instead its technology being developed in places like India and China and being resold back to the U.S. corporations.

From the article:

Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of Outsourcing America, says this chart represents a departure point for IBM.

“I think this moment was so important because it was when Big Blue made the fateful decision to compete by substituting low cost workers in India and elsewhere for high-cost American workers,” said Hira. “Instead of choosing to compete by investing in better tools, technologies, and training for their American workforce, they chose to compete their American workers head to head with workers in other countries who can afford to be paid less. And they gave those workers in low-cost countries the same, or better, tools, technologies and training, as their American workforce,” he said.

Is IT the next domino to fall?

This is THE same Peter Schiff that predicted this collapse over two years ago! He was labeled as a loon over his comments but he hit the nail right on the head. He was asked by U.S. News and world report the following “So how bad do you think this economy will get? “, he replied:

The other problem we’ll have during those years is civil [unrest]. There will be a big increase in crime. People are going to be hungry. People are going to be cold. There’s a sense of entitlement in this country, and when a lot of people used to having things suddenly don’t, everybody looks for someone to blame.

He then went on the FOX Business channel and predicted that Gold will skyrocket to over $5,000 dollars an ounce! To provide a barometer, Gold is currently trading at around $750.00 dollars an ounce.

I have a feeling he won’t be invited to too many more broadcasts in the future…

With the recent economic woes that have fallen upon the U.S. and reports of rampant corruption and senseless bailouts, a great and positive story about a family run ball bearing manufacturing plant outside of Chicago that was sold to a Swedish company for an undisclosed amount. The employees of the Waukegan, Illinois based Peer Bearing Co. received “thank you” bonus checks, from the family owners. The bonuses totaled $6.6 million dollars that was divided among 230 employees. From the article:

With $100 million in sales last year, Peer recently was acquired by a Swedish company for an undisclosed amount. Danny Spungen, whose grandfather founded the company in 1941, said it was a unanimous family decision to thank employees with the bonuses.

Laurence and Florence Spungen and their four children decided on a bonus formula a year before the sale closed to SKF Group, “a gamble that we would come out OK as well,” Danny Spungen said.

He and other family members signed, by hand, two thank-you cards to each employee, one in Spanish and one in English. Each card was printed with all the workers’ names and the years they were hired. The text expressed gratitude for “the loyalty and hard work of our employees over the years.”

Want to stimulate the economy? Spread the wealth around to deserving hard working people if you’ve got it to spare. So often the rule is that the highly paid executive teams make millions on the backs of everyday hard working people. If this country is going to survive in its current state, there’s going to have to be ALOT more stories like this being reported…

In the latest catastrophic economic news (most of this is not even being touched by the mainstream media in the U.S.), Brazil and Argentina is now abandoning the US dollar as the preferred trading currency From Presstv.ir.

Brazil and Argentina have launched a new payment system in their bilateral trade, doing away with the US dollar as a medium of exchange.

With OPEC nations possibly following suit, this could be the death knell for the burgeoning U.S. currency. From the Telegraph:

The Saudi central bank said today that it would take “appropriate measures” to halt huge capital inflows into the country, but analysts say this policy is unsustainable and will inevitably lead to the collapse of the dollar peg.

As a close ally of the US, Riyadh has so far tried to stick to the peg, but the link is now destabilising its own economy.

The Fed’s dramatic half point cut to 4.75pc yesterday has already caused a plunge in the world dollar index to a fifteen year low, touching with weakest level ever against the mighty euro at just under $1.40.

There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.

The danger is that this could now accelerate as the yield gap between the United States and the rest of the world narrows rapidly, leaving America starved of foreign capital flows needed to cover its current account deficit – expected to reach $850bn this year, or 6.5pc of GDP.

This could be crack that breaks the dam wide open and plunges the dollar to almost worthless levels. Lets hope that things improve soon. I don’t look forward to the idea of hauling a wheelbarrow of cash to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread…

Money.co.uk is reporting that America’s Copyright Royalty Board will meet to discuss the raising of royalties for digital music purchases from 9 cents to 15 cents per song. THis leaves the “middlemen” of the digital music peddling business stuck with the bill. Eddy Cue, the VP of the itunes store said,

“If (the iTunes store) were forced simply to absorb any increase in its mechanical royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss. Apple has repeatedly made clear that it is in this business to make money and most likely would not continue to operate (the iTunes store) if it were no longer possible to do so profitably”

With other apple products like the iphone depending on itunes activation and syncing, I wonder how this will affect the procedures if the store shuts down?

Read the full article here.

UPDATE: Looks like the appeal failed. Marketwatch is reporting that the rates will remain the same. The itunes store is safe.