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Colorado and Washington vote to become first US states to legalize marijuana
Published: 07 November, 2012, 09:06
(AFP Photo / Gabriel Bouys)
Marijuana is now legal in Colorado and Washington for recreational use, and possibly in Oregon as well.
While the decision in Colorado is historic, it was not without controversy: The measure won by a close six-point margin, 53% in favor to 47% opposed. Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper was an ardent opponent to the legalizaiton of recreational marijuana use, and reacted to the decision in the following statement: “The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don’t break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.”
Proponents of the initiative argued that pot is safer than alcohol, and that the legal sale of marijuana could rake in $45 to 100 billion in tax revenue, according to Bloomberg. The government will also save an estimated $14 billion in cannabis-related costs in fighting the war on drugs.
Massachusetts and Arkansas have also passed ballot initiatives allowing use of marijuana for medical purposes. These are two of the six states debating medical marijuana laws in 2012, a concept already accepted in around a third of US states. In California, a state often seen at the vanguard of the medical marijuana movement, there are more than 1,000 pot dispensaries in operation. It is also estimated that there are more facilities that sell medical marijuana in Colorado than there are Starbucks coffeehouses.
Read more: http://rt.com/usa/news/marijuana-colorado-first-legalize-125/
Delusional reality: Everything peddled by politicians, media, banks and television is a fiction
september 06, 2012
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
NaturalNews) The “War on Terror” is a complete fabrication. There is no terrorism other than what the government creates in order to sell its agenda of a police state takeover. Click here to read Paul Craig Roberts’ article that lays this out in brilliant detail.
The CDC’s war on West Nile virus is also a complete fabrication. There is no real West Nile virus threat. (Read article here.) The odds of being killed by West Nile are, much like with “terrorism,” even lower than the odds of being killed by a bee sting.
The “economic recovery” of America is a fairy tale. Over the last few days, the federal debt reached a jaw-dropping $16 trillion — nearly $5 trillion of that debt has been incurred under one person: President Obama. Unemployment is at record highs. Half the population is on federal aid of one form or another. Food stamp costs have skyrocketed.
“Obamacare” is a fiasco. Dubbed the “Affordable Care Act,” in reality health insurance costs have vastly increased after the passage of this ill-conceived law.
Bin Laden wasn’t killed by U.S. Navy Seals. The war is a fake. The news is faked. The media is completely, utterly faked, running totally fictional stories. CNN is actually an elaborate theater operation, faking sets, locations, sound effects and everything else you can imagine. Don’t believe me? Watch this totally faked CNN broadcast from the Gulf War, featuring “journalist” Charles Jaco:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=B55147E2052701412A47A9F2C9DA754C
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037093_fairy_tales_delusion_real_world.html#ixzz25gJwWhae
EU’s Poorest Country Smacks Down Euro As Bulgaria Refuses To Join
04 September 2012
‘If one needs a shining example of why the days of Europe’s artificial currency are numbered, look no further than the EU’s poorest country which moments ago said “Ne Mersi” to the Eurozone and the European currency. From the WSJ: “Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest member state and a rare fiscal bright spot for the bloc, has indefinitely frozen long-held plans to adopt the single currency, marking the latest fiscally prudent country to cool its enthusiasm for the embattled currency.
Speaking in interviews in Sofia, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said that the decision to shelve plans to join the currency area, a longtime strategic aim of successive governments in the former communist state, came in response to deteriorating economic conditions and rising uncertainty over the prospects of the bloc, alongside a decisive shift of public opinion in Bulgaria, which is entering its third year of an austerity program. “The momentum has shifted in our thinking and among the public…
Right now, I don’t see any benefits of entering the euro zone, only costs,” Mr. Djankov said. “The public rightly wants to know who would we have to bailout when we join? It’s too risky for us and it’s also not certain what the rules are and what are they likely to be in one year or two.”’
Read more: EU’s Poorest Country Smacks Down Euro As Bulgaria Refuses To Join
HSBC’s Criminal Clients
Thursday, 19 July 2012
‘And you thought bankers fixing interest rates and playing games with mortgage-backed securities was bad? How about laundering money for Mexican drug dealers, the Russian mafia and Mideast terrorists?
OK, if we’re talking about the potential economic impact on the average person, the interest rate and mortgage shenanigans are really bad, probably more so than the money laundering apparently brokered on a massive scale by the huge international bank HSBC.
But even so, the new report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations detailing HSBC’s multiple failings over the past years is quite the doozy. It reads like a treatment for a villain in a James Bond thriller that never got greenlighted because it was too unrealistic. We could accept getting in bed with the Russians — but the drug dealers and the terrorists as well? That’s overkill.’
The Bank of England Told Us to Do It, Claims Barclays
Thursday, 05 July 2012
‘A memo published by Barclays suggested that Paul Tucker gave a hint to Bob Diamond, the bank’s chief executive, in 2008 that the rate it was claiming to be paying to borrow money from other banks could be lowered.
His suggestion followed questions from “senior figures within Whitehall” about why Barclays was having to pay so much interest on its borrowings, the memo states.
Barclays and other banks have been accused of artificially manipulating the Libor rate, which is used to set the borrowing costs for millions of consumers, businesses and investors, by falsely stating how much they were paying to borrow money.’
Read more: The Bank of England Told Us to Do It, Claims Barclays
Barclays Settles Regulators’ Claims Over Manipulation of Key Rates
By BEN PROTESS and MARK SCOTT
Andy Rain/European Pressphoto AgencyA branch of Barclays in London.
Barclays has agreed to pay more than $450 million to resolve accusations that it attempted to manipulate key interest rates, the first settlement in a sprawling global investigation targeting many of the world’s biggest banks
The British bank struck a deal with regulators in Washington and London, as well as the Justice Department. The settlement is seen as the first in a series of potential cases against other major financial firms.
“When a bank acts in its own self-interest by attempting to manipulate these rates for profit, or by submitting false reports that result from senior management orders to lower submissions to guard the bank’s reputation, the integrity of benchmark interest rates is undermined,” said David Meister, the enforcement director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the American regulator involved in the Barclays case.
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Japan and China to dump the USD and start direct currency trading
May. 29, 2012 – 02:35PM JST
TOKYO
China overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy in 2010 AFP
Japan and China will start direct currency trading this week, Tokyo said Tuesday, the first time Beijing has let a major unit other than the dollar swap with the yuan.
The move, which will scrap the greenback as an intermediary unit, comes as China introduces measures as part of a long-term goal of internationalizing its currency to rival the dollar.
The two-way trade will also be allowed to move in a wider range than the narrow band at which the dollar and yuan change hands, Dow Jones Newswires and the Nikkei business daily reported.
China will set a daily rate based on dealer quotes with trade allowed to move within a 3% band above or below that rate, the reports said, compared with a 1% band fixed to yuan-dollar trading.
The Chinese central bank earlier Tuesday introduced a rate of 7.9480 yuan for every 100 yen, Dow Jones said.
However, there will be no fixed rates in Tokyo trade with the currencies trading freely, according to the same media reports which provided no further details.
The yen does trade freely against other major currencies on global foreign-exchange markets, including the greenback, with the dollar buying 79.50 yen in Asian afternoon trade on Tuesday.
“From June 1, the yen-yuan exchange rate will be constantly indicated in both markets, facilitating full-fledged direct exchange trading,” Finance Minister Jun Azumi told a regular press briefing.
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