October 13, there are protests planned for at least 90 college campuses across the United States today.
Also today, hundreds of janitors and security guards have joined the Wall Street protests in New York City.
Across the world, there have been anti-government, anti-corruption and anti-corporation protests in about 1,400 cities, so far.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that 82% of U.S. citizens are aware of the Occupy movement, and 38% support it. 35% are unsure, with only 24% opposed.
October 13, Reports out of New York City say that the mayor has ordered protestors out, so that city workers can clean Zucotti park.
Protestors will hold a meeting soon, to decide how they will respond.
Several War on Terror veterans were arrested, one a former U.S. Army interrogator in Iraq. At least eleven protestors in San Francisco, California, were arrested on Wednesday. They had blocked access to the Wells Fargo headquarters.
On Tuesday, about 200 protestors were arrested in Boston, Massachusetts, and about 27 in Chicago, Illinois.
A former equities broker says James Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Company, gave the New York City police millions of dollars to fight the protestors: “…$4.6 million to the New York Police Department to beef up police presence on the streets and to crack heads and to violently oppress protesters.”-Max Keiser, former equities broker
In the past Keiser called JP Morgan “…the biggest financial terrorist on Wall Street.”
The number of Japanese leaving their country, in one year, has hit a record 1.1 million. That’s according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, which counted the number of Japanese who’ve officially become permanent residents of foreign countries.
The country of choice for most Japanese expatriates is the United States, with more than 388,000 becoming residents as of the end of 2010.
China is next with about 131,000, and Australia with about 70,800. The top three countries have remained unchanged since 2008.
Within the U.S., Los Angeles is the number one destination followed by New York City.
Blaming the March 11 disasters, credit research firm Teikoku Databank says at least 373 companies have collapsed since then.
Construction firms topped the list with 63 bankruptcies (despite reconstruction opportunities), followed by hotels and inns with 32 (despite people who’ve lost their homes and need a place to stay) and clothing companies with 23 (despite people who’ve lost all their clothes in the tsunami).
Even companies far away from the disaster areas have failed. More business failures are expected, because there are 2,500 companies who say they are still unable to resume operations!
October 12, Sony announced that over the weekend their computer files were hacked, again.
This time as many as 93,000 customer data files could have been stolen. Sony officials do not think credit card data was stolen.
Once again, Sony is asking their customers to change their passwords.
Iran intends to boost the volume of its oil swaps to 200,000 barrels per day by March 20, 2012.
Iranian officials say that by using newly devised mechanisms, the demand for trading oil through barter deals, rather than using cash, is climbing.
The barters involve swapping oil related products, such as crude oil for refined fuel.
Iran is the second largest oil exporter within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Steve Jobs was a revolutionary. We wouldn’t have half the personal computer related products without him. I love my Mac, after decades of using crappy IBM based PCs I finally splurged and got me a Mac a few years ago. I’ve never had one problem that I’ve had with the IBM type PCs. I’ve had my Mac longer than any PC I’ve had in the past, which justifies what I paid for it.
Jobs was also proof you don’t need a college degree to succeed! “You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Jobs’ secret to success? Do what you want, not what society tells you to do: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”
And that’s exactly what the U.S. Declaration of Independence says you should do: “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
You read that? It says the people of the United States are supposed to base their lives on the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, not following the orders of a society brainwashed by Corporate America, or the military industrial complex, or organized religion, or the Israeli lobby! It’s one of the reasons why the creation of the United States was so revolutionary (like Steve Jobs)!
I hope Apple doesn’t go astray. Steve Jobs died October 5, 2011.
“Well, I would say very generally I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what’s happening. They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess, and they’re dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can’t blame them.”–Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman
October 5, Ben Bernanke was answering questions from a U.S. Senate panel (yet again), when he was asked about the growing, and spreading, “Occupy” demonstrations. Senators wanted to know if the protestors were justified in blaming Corporate America for the economic fall of the United States.
“Did Wall Street’s greed and recklessness cause this recession, that lead to so many people losing their jobs?” asked Senator Bernie Sanders. Bernanke replied that excessive risk taking on Wall Street and the failure of financial regulators “had a lot to do” with the recession.
Any job stimulus bill that gets passed by U.S. Congress will be much too little much too late. That’s because the upcoming, publicly announced, layoffs will shut down nearly half a million jobs!
Chicago based Gray & Christmas Incorporated added up all the publicly announced future job layoffs, and it came to 480,000 jobs. 70% of those job cuts involve Bank of America and the U.S. Army.
Analysts say we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, not all layoffs are publicly announced in advance: “Bank of America is not the only bank still struggling in the wake of the housing collapse, and the military cutbacks are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to federal spending cuts.”-John A. Challenger, CEO of Gray & Christmas
According to the Bloomberg article, it’s the biggest cuts in jobs in the past two years. A 212% increase from September 2010!
And don’t forget the intentional destruction of the U.S. Postal Service, by the U.S. Congress. Happy upcoming Holidays!
“The government may only compel a citizen to assist in law enforcement when there is imminent danger. There was no imminent danger here, and therefore the Operator’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated.”-John Samuelsen, Transport Workers Union Local 100
On the day that thousands of protestors took the Brooklyn Bridge, the NYPD forced New York city bus drivers to off load their passengers, just so the buses could be used as Paddy Wagons. Police said they needed the buses to haul away the 700+ people they had arrested.
Now the New York city bus drivers are taking the cops to court! The bus drivers’ union says police can only take over vehicles in an emergency, and peaceful protesting is not an emergency: “…this was not such an emergency, and our members’ rights were violated. They are there to transport passengers, not be an arm of City Hall to squelch free speech!”-John Samuelsen
The union is asking the New York State Supreme Court for an injunction to keep the NYPD from forcing city buses to be used as Paddy Wagons.
Union members say they are now joining the Occupy movement: “They’ve really thrown a spotlight on issues that are bothering people, especially bothering workers like our members. Right now, we’re discussing how we’re going to give them material support, what we should do for them.”-Jim Gannon, Transport Workers Union