Thursday, January 30, 2014
Why Are Banking Executives In London Killing Themselves?
Bankers committing suicide by jumping from the rooftops of their own banks is something that we think of when we think of the Great Depression. Well, it just happened in London, England. A vice president at JPMorgan's European headquarters in London plunged to his death after jumping from the top of the 33rd floor. He fell more than 500 feet, and it is being reported by an eyewitness that "there was quite a lot of blood". This comes on the heels of news that a former Deutsche Bank executive was found hanged in his home in London on Sunday. So why is this happening? Yes, the markets have gone down a little bit recently but they certainly have not crashed yet. Could there be more to these deaths than meets the eye? You never know. And as I will discuss below, there have been a lot of other really strange things happening around the world lately as well.
But before we get to any of that, let's take a closer look at some of these banker deaths. The JPMorgan executive that jumped to his death on Tuesday was named Gabriel Magee. He was 39 years old, and his suicide has the city of London in shock...
A bank executive who died after jumping 500ft from the top of JP Morgan's European headquarters in London this morning has been named as Gabriel Magee.
The American senior manager, 39, fell from the 33-story skyscraper and was found on the ninth floor roof, which surrounds the Canary Wharf skyscraper.
He was a vice president in the corporate and investment bank technology department having joined in 2004, moving to Britain from the United States in 2007.
What would cause a man in his prime working years who is making huge amounts of money to do something like that?
The death on Sunday of former Deutsche Bank executive Bill Broeksmit is also a mystery. According to the Daily Mail, police consider his death to be "non-suspicious", which means that they believe that it was a suicide and not a murder...
A former Deutsche Bank executive has been found dead at a house in London, it emerged today.
The body of William ‘Bill’ Broeksmit, 58, was discovered at his home in South Kensington on Sunday shortly after midday by police, who had been called to reports of a man found hanging at a house.
Mr Broeksmit - who retired last February - was a former senior manager with close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain. Metropolitan Police officers said his death was declared as non-suspicious.
On top of that, Business Insider is reporting that a communications director at another bank in London was found dead last week...
Last week, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG died last week. The cause of death has not been made public.
Perhaps it is just a coincidence that these deaths have all come so close to one another. After all, people die all the time.
And London is rather dreary this time of the year. It is easy for people to get depressed if they are not accustomed to endless gloomy weather.
If the stock market was already crashing, it would be easy to blame the suicides on that. The world certainly remembers what happened during the crash of 1929...
Historically, bankers have been stereotyped as the most likely to commit suicide. This has a lot to do with the famous 1929 stock market crash, which resulted in 1,616 banks failing and more than 20,000 businesses going bankrupt. The number of bankers committing suicide directly after the crash is thought to have been only around 20, with another 100 people connected to the financial industry dying at their own hand within the year.
But the market isn't crashing just yet. We definitely appear to be at a "turning point", but things are still at least somewhat stable.
So why are bankers killing themselves?
That is a good question.
As I mentioned above, there have also been quite a few other strange things that have happened lately that seem to be "out of place".
For example, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report posted the following cryptic message on Twitter the other day...
"Have an exit plan..."
What in the world does he mean by that?
Maybe that is just a case of Drudge being Drudge.
Then again, maybe not.
And on Tuesday we learned that a prominent Russian Bank has banned all cash withdrawals until next week...
Bloomberg reports that 'My Bank' - one of Russia's top 200 lenders by assets - has introduced a complete ban on cash withdrawals until next week. While the Ruble has been losing ground rapidly recently, we suspect few have been expecting bank runs in Russia.
Yes, we have heard some reports of people having difficulty getting money out of their banks around the world lately, but this news out of Russia really surprised me.
Yet another story that seemed rather odd was a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that stated that Germany's central bank is advocating "a one-time wealth tax" for European nations that need a bailout...
Germany's central bank Monday proposed a one-time wealth tax as an option for euro-zone countries facing bankruptcy, reviving a idea that has circled for years in Europe but has so far gained little traction.
Why would they be suggesting such a thing if "economic recovery" was just around the corner?
According to that same article, the IMF has recommended a similar thing...
The International Monetary Fund in October also floated the idea of a one-time "capital levy," amid a sharp deterioration of public finances in many countries. A 10% tax would bring the debt levels of a sample of 15 euro-zone member countries back to pre-crisis levels of 2007, the IMF said.
So what does all of this mean?
I am not exactly sure, but I have got a bad feeling about this - especially considering the financial chaos that we are witnessing in emerging markets all over the globe right now.
So what do you think? Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below...
Credit to Economic Collapse
But before we get to any of that, let's take a closer look at some of these banker deaths. The JPMorgan executive that jumped to his death on Tuesday was named Gabriel Magee. He was 39 years old, and his suicide has the city of London in shock...
A bank executive who died after jumping 500ft from the top of JP Morgan's European headquarters in London this morning has been named as Gabriel Magee.
The American senior manager, 39, fell from the 33-story skyscraper and was found on the ninth floor roof, which surrounds the Canary Wharf skyscraper.
He was a vice president in the corporate and investment bank technology department having joined in 2004, moving to Britain from the United States in 2007.
What would cause a man in his prime working years who is making huge amounts of money to do something like that?
The death on Sunday of former Deutsche Bank executive Bill Broeksmit is also a mystery. According to the Daily Mail, police consider his death to be "non-suspicious", which means that they believe that it was a suicide and not a murder...
A former Deutsche Bank executive has been found dead at a house in London, it emerged today.
The body of William ‘Bill’ Broeksmit, 58, was discovered at his home in South Kensington on Sunday shortly after midday by police, who had been called to reports of a man found hanging at a house.
Mr Broeksmit - who retired last February - was a former senior manager with close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain. Metropolitan Police officers said his death was declared as non-suspicious.
On top of that, Business Insider is reporting that a communications director at another bank in London was found dead last week...
Last week, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG died last week. The cause of death has not been made public.
Perhaps it is just a coincidence that these deaths have all come so close to one another. After all, people die all the time.
And London is rather dreary this time of the year. It is easy for people to get depressed if they are not accustomed to endless gloomy weather.
If the stock market was already crashing, it would be easy to blame the suicides on that. The world certainly remembers what happened during the crash of 1929...
Historically, bankers have been stereotyped as the most likely to commit suicide. This has a lot to do with the famous 1929 stock market crash, which resulted in 1,616 banks failing and more than 20,000 businesses going bankrupt. The number of bankers committing suicide directly after the crash is thought to have been only around 20, with another 100 people connected to the financial industry dying at their own hand within the year.
But the market isn't crashing just yet. We definitely appear to be at a "turning point", but things are still at least somewhat stable.
So why are bankers killing themselves?
That is a good question.
As I mentioned above, there have also been quite a few other strange things that have happened lately that seem to be "out of place".
For example, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report posted the following cryptic message on Twitter the other day...
"Have an exit plan..."
What in the world does he mean by that?
Maybe that is just a case of Drudge being Drudge.
Then again, maybe not.
And on Tuesday we learned that a prominent Russian Bank has banned all cash withdrawals until next week...
Bloomberg reports that 'My Bank' - one of Russia's top 200 lenders by assets - has introduced a complete ban on cash withdrawals until next week. While the Ruble has been losing ground rapidly recently, we suspect few have been expecting bank runs in Russia.
Yes, we have heard some reports of people having difficulty getting money out of their banks around the world lately, but this news out of Russia really surprised me.
Yet another story that seemed rather odd was a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that stated that Germany's central bank is advocating "a one-time wealth tax" for European nations that need a bailout...
Germany's central bank Monday proposed a one-time wealth tax as an option for euro-zone countries facing bankruptcy, reviving a idea that has circled for years in Europe but has so far gained little traction.
Why would they be suggesting such a thing if "economic recovery" was just around the corner?
According to that same article, the IMF has recommended a similar thing...
The International Monetary Fund in October also floated the idea of a one-time "capital levy," amid a sharp deterioration of public finances in many countries. A 10% tax would bring the debt levels of a sample of 15 euro-zone member countries back to pre-crisis levels of 2007, the IMF said.
So what does all of this mean?
I am not exactly sure, but I have got a bad feeling about this - especially considering the financial chaos that we are witnessing in emerging markets all over the globe right now.
So what do you think? Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below...
Credit to Economic Collapse
Deadly ice storm turns Atlanta into parking lot
(Reuters) - A rare ice storm turned Atlanta into a slippery mess on Wednesday, stranding thousands for hours on frozen roadways and raising questions about how city leaders prepared for and handled the cold snap that slammed the U.S. South.
The storm, which has killed at least seven people, on Tuesday swept over a region of about 60 million largely unaccustomed to ice and snow - stretching from Texas through Georgia and into the Carolinas - and forecasts called for more freezing weather on Thursday.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed came under fire for his response to a storm that trapped hundreds of children in schools overnight, some without provisions, and created traffic jams stretching for miles on roads coated with two inches of snow.
"Folks are angry with the mayor of Atlanta, with the governor," said Flavia DiCesare, 54, who spent the night in her office at Cox Enterprises in Atlanta, about 30 miles from home.
The mayor said schools, businesses and government offices were partly to blame for sending all the workers home just as the storm was rolling in.
"During the day, we have a million to 1.2 million people in this city and all those people were out in very bad weather. It hampered our ability to get our equipment on the ground and to prepare our roads for that," Reed told a news conference.
"The error - and we have shared responsibility for the error - the error was letting everybody out at once," he said.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal said all of Atlanta's school children had been safely returned to their families by Wednesday evening, with help from the National Guard and State Patrol.
The one-day snowfall of 2.6 inches ranked as the 20th heaviest in Atlanta, which has recorded a daily snowfall of an inch or more 55 times since 1928, according to the National Weather Service.
The city's highways became parking lots and thousands of motorists, still stuck 24 hours after the storm hit, were seeking help and food. Workers who couldn't get home were setting up makeshift accommodations in stores and offices.
The roads, littered with stranded cars, looked like a scene from the television show "Walking Dead", said DiCesare, who spent the night in her office with about 100 other employees.
"It looks like zombies walking on the side of these roads," she said.
About 800 traffic accidents were reported in the city, but there were no serious injuries, officials said. At least five deaths in Alabama and two in Georgia were blamed on the weather.
Latasha Wade, 38, said she was awaiting word of her 31-year-old brother, last heard from Tuesday night after his car was stranded in Atlanta.
"I don't know if he's laying out in the snow or what," she said. "It's the most hurtful thing because I don't know anything that's going on with my brother."
The storm took a toll on air travel across the region, with more than 2,600 U.S. flights canceled and hundreds of others delayed, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.com.
In southern Louisiana, the ice and cold were the worst the region has seen in a decade.
Near New Orleans, sections of major roadways were closed, including the 24-mile Causeway Bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain, and nearly a full day of flights were canceled at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
Credit to Reuters
PUTIN: AMERICA IS GODLESS, HAS TURNED AWAY FROM CHRISTIAN VALUES
Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the West, including the United States, for eschewing Christian values and opting instead for a “path to degradation.”
In his State of the Nation speech last month, Putin asserted that, “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values… Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan.” Russia has adopted new laws that ban homosexual propaganda and criminalizes the insulting of religious sensibilities.
The law on religious sensibilities was approved in the wake of a protest in Moscow’s largest cathedral by a female punk rock group, Pussy Riot. State-run television said the group’s “demonic” protest was funded by “some Americans.” Russia’s newfound embrace of traditional values has prompted a rise in Orthodox vigilantism. Extreme groups such as the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers, an ultraconservative faction who adopted a slogan “Orthodoxy or Death,” are gaining prominence.
It was not that long ago that the United States was accusing Russia for being a “godless nation.” On March 8, 1983, Ronald Reagan said this about Russia to an audience of evangelicals:
Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness--pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.
History supports the 40th President of the United States' remarks. According to a 1995 Russian presidential committee report, Soviet authorities executed 200,000 clergy and believers from 1917 to 1937, many of them crucified, scalped, and otherwise tortured. Thousands of churches were destroyed, and those that survived were turned into warehouses, garages, or museums of atheism.
Moreover, another 500,000 religious figures were persecuted and 40,000 churches destroyed in the period from 1922 to 1980, the report said. Half the country’s mosques and more than half the synagogues were also destroyed. “Clergymen were crucified on churches’ holy gates, shot, scalped [and] strangled,” said Alexander Yakovlev, head of the Commission for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repression. “I was especially shocked by accounts of priests turned into columns of ice in winter,” Yakovlev said. “It was total cruelty.”
Breitbart
A crime against history and religion
By Victor Sharpe 
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda infamously said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” He told lies about the hapless Jews and millions of Germans and other Europeans believed them and willingly participated in the Holocaust.
Another such miscreant, the late and unlamented arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, told an enormous whopper, which has been repeated relentlessly by his fellow Arabs who call themselves Palestinians; namely that there were no Jewish Temples on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
Other Palestinian Arab ‘notables’ such as Chief Palestinian Justice, Sheik Taysir Tamimi, declared the Jewish Temples “never existed.” And even the Palestinian so-called moderate who the Leftists and gullible liberals love to love, Sari Nusseibeh, had made the preposterous and malicious claim that “the historical ties and attachments of the Palestinians precede any Israeli claim to Jerusalem.”
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the most sacred site of the Jewish people, the very place that the Jewish King David built the sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant and made his capital some 3,000 years ago. It is where his son, King Solomon, built the first Temple destroyed by the Babylonians and Herod later built the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans.
The very name, Jerusalem, Yerushalayim in Hebrew, was always the source of Jewish yearning and prayers down the dark centuries of exile and persecution. For those Jews not living in the ancestral homeland, (and there were always Jewish communities in the land maintaining what numbers they could under successive alien occupations), the prayers expressed the longing to return and rebuild the eternal Jewish capital. It is not by accident that wherever in the world a synagogue stands, it faces Jerusalem.
At the conclusion of Israel’s defensive war against Arab aggression in June, 1967 and the reunification of Jerusalem, which had been divided since the 1948 illegal Jordanian occupation of the eastern half of the city, the leftwing Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, committed a calamitous mistake.
Dayan believed that showing friendship to the Muslim aggressors by giving the Waqf, the erstwhile Jordanian Muslim religious authorities, the keys to the Temple Mount, they would reciprocate and Jews and Muslims would worship in peaceful harmony on the Mount. It was a monumental error. For the Waqf predictably chose to immediately discriminate against any signs of Jewish and Christian prayer on the Temple Mount. The holiest Jewish site in the world under the Waqf has practically becomejudenrein.
As Giulio Meotti, a journalist with the Italian newspaper, Il Foglio, wrote in 2012: “The Waqf is now attempting to deliberately destroy all archaeological evidence of Jewish claims to this site, while using terror and intimidation to impose its exclusive claim to the Temple Mount. The Waqf has removed every sign of ancient Jewish presence at the site. At the entrance, a Waqf sign says “The Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard and everything in it is Islamic property.
“Today Jews are barred from praying on the Mount and are not even allowed to carry any holy articles with them. With Muslim observers supervising visits, Israeli police, to their shame, have frequently arrested Jews for various “violations,” such as singing or reciting a prayer even in a whisper.
“This week, a Jewish woman was arrested following claims by police and Waqf officials that they noticed she was praying on the Temple Mount. Why is it a crime for a Jew to pray to God on the Temple Mount? And why is the State of Israel complicit in enforcing this anti-Semitic rule?”
An Indian Hindu friend expressed to me his astonishment that Jews are not allowed to build their Temple again on their holiest site. He pointed out that growing up in India, people always knew that Jerusalem is to the Jews what Mecca is to the Muslims and Varanasi is to the Hindus.
Tragically, Israeli leaders are terrified of upsetting the Muslim world and this very timidity and fear allows for triumphalist and tyrannical Islam to commit unspeakable crimes against civilization and history. What do I mean by that? Consider:
What may well be one of the worst crimes against civilization is the ruthless and relentless destruction of Jewish and Christian artifacts and antiquities by the Moslem authorities, the Waqf, who were foolishly given permission to control the Temple Mount in 1967. Remember the Taliban destruction of the 2,500 year old statues of Buddha in Afghanistan? It is the same Muslim arrogance and hatred for all other religions.
The Muslims soon began using heavy bulldozers to dig up the ground in order to build yet another mosque, in addition to the two mosques Muslim conquerors built over the site of the two biblical Jewish Temples. Despite Israeli protests, they are building under the mount, and in the process deliberately desecrating tons of precious archaeologically rich soil. One archaeologist described the disturbed sites as “an archaeological crime” and an assault upon Jewish and Christian history.
Now, funded by the City of David Foundation, and directed by Professor Gabriel Barkai, Israeli and other archeologists and volunteers are desperately searching through the tons of earth and rubble unceremoniously dumped by the Muslim Authorities in the nearby Kidron Valley.
The intrepid archaeologists and their helpers have uncovered thousands of rare and important artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods, as well as from Roman and Byzantine periods, among them a rare bulla dating from the First Temple period.
But each precious find, ripped and torn from its age old location upon the Temple Mount by Palestinian Muslims, fatally compromises what each item can tell us: a most grievous and barbarous sin against history and civilization.
The catastrophe is continuing even now as the Muslim Waqf continues remorselessly desecrating and gleefully destroying all evidence of Judeo-Christian civilization and religion upon Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
One can only shudder at what discoveries of profound spiritual and historical importance have already been destroyed and lost.
Credit to Canada Free Press
Earth's magnetic field is collapsing and it could affect the climate and wipe out power grids
Deep within the Earth, a fierce molten core is generating a magnetic field capable of defending our planet against devastating solar winds.
The protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from global communication to animal migration and weather patterns.
But this magnetic field, so important to life on Earth, has weakened by 15 per cent over the last 200 years. And this, scientists claim, could be a sign that the Earth’s poles are about to flip.
The Earth's protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from global communication to animal migration and weather patterns
Experts believe we're currently overdue a flip, but they're unsure when this could occur.
If a switch happens, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of punching holes into the ozone layer.
The impact could be devastating for mankind, knocking out power grids, radically changing Earth’s climate and driving up rates of cancer.
‘This is serious business’, Richard Holme, Professor of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences at Liverpool University told MailOnline. ‘Imagine for a moment your electrical power supply was knocked out for a few months – very little works without electricity these days.’
The Earth's climate would change drastically. In fact, a recent Danish study believes global warming is directly related to the magnetic field rather than CO2 emissions.
The study claimed that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.
The Earth's magnetic field explained
Radiation at ground level would also increase, with some estimates suggesting overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer.
Researchers predict that in the event of a flip, every year a hundred thousand people would die from the increased levels of space radiation.
'Radiation could be 3-5 times greater than that from the man-made ozone holes. Furthermore, the ozone holes would be larger and longer-lived,' said Dr Colin Forsyth from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL.
WHAT IS GEOMAGNETIC REVERSAL?
The Earth’s magnetic field is in a permanent state of change. Magnetic north drifts around and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north. The strength of the magnetic field also constantly changes and currently it is showing signs of significant weakening.
The Earth magnetic field is mainly generated in the very hot molten core of the planet. The magnetic field is basically a dipole (it has a North and a South Pole). Magnetic reversal or flip is the process by which the North Pole is transformed into the South and vice versa, typically following a considerable reduction in the strength of the magnetic field. However, weakening of the magnetic field does not always result in a reversal.
During a reversal, scientists expect to see more complicated field pattern at the Earth's surface, with perhaps more than one North and South Pole at any given time. The overall strength of the field, anywhere on the Earth, may be no more than a tenth of its strength now.
The Earth's magnetic field is generated in the very hot molten core of the planet. Scientists believe Mars used to have a magnetic field similar to that on Earth which protected its atmosphere
By examining pottery from prehistory to modern times, scientists have discovered just how dramatically the field has changed in the last few centuries.
They’ve found that Earth’s magnetic field is in a permanent state of flux. Magnetic north drifts and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north.
If the magnetic field continues to decline, over billions of years, Earth could end up like Mars - a once oceanic world that has become a dry, barren planet incapable of supporting life.
WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF A MAGNETIC FLIP?
Life has existed on the Earth for billions of years, during which there have been many reversals.
There is no obvious correlation between animal extinctions and those reversals. Likewise, reversal patterns do not have any correlation with human development and evolution.
It appears that some animals, such as whales and some birds use Earth's magnetic field for migration and direction finding.
Since geomagnetic reversal takes a number of thousands of years, they could well adapt to the changing magnetic environment or develop different methods of navigation.
Radiation at ground level would increase, however, with some estimates suggesting that overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer. ‘But only slightly,’ said Professor Richard Holme.
‘And much less than lying on the beach in Florida for a day. So if it happened, the protection method would probably be to wear a big floppy hat.’
Electric grid collapse from severe solar storms is a major risk. As the magnetic field continues to weaken, scientists are highlighting the importance off-the grid energy systems using renewable energy sources to protect the Earth against a black out.
'The very highly charged particles can have a deleterious effect on the satellites and astronauts,' added Dr Mona Kessel, a Magnetosphere discipline scientist at Nasa.
In one area, there is evidence that a flip is already occurring. ‘The increasing strength of the South Atlantic anomaly, an area of weak field over Brazil, is already a problem,’ said Professor Richard Holme.
The Earth's climate could also change. A recent Danish study has found that the earth's weather has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field.
They claimed that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.
Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.
But scientists claim the rate of decline is too fast for the Earth’s core to simply burn out. Instead, the story told by ancient pottery suggests the Earth's poles could be about to undergo another flip.
According to the British Geological Survey, the Earth's magnetic field has on average four or five reversals in polarity every million years and we’re now overdue a similar event.
‘At the moment, we cannot accurately determine whether or not the Earth’s field is about to flip,’ said Dr Forsyth. ‘We have only been recording the Earth’s field for around 170 years; about 1-15 per cent of the time a flip is expected to take.’
If a flip occurs, it would cause the Earth’s magnetic shield to be weakened for thousands of years, opening up our defences and causing cosmic radiation to get through.
'We have a double layer defence shield,' Jim Wild a space scientists at Lancaster University.
'Space is full of stuff that’s not great for biological tissue. If we didn’t have an atmosphere, that stuff would be hitting us. It’s the magnetic field protects atmosphere from the solar wind.'
Credit to Mail Online
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545465/Forget-global-warming-worry-MAGNETOSPHERE-Earths-magnetic-field-collapsing-affect-climate-wipe-power-grids.html#ixzz2rtMAvvaf
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
The protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from global communication to animal migration and weather patterns.
But this magnetic field, so important to life on Earth, has weakened by 15 per cent over the last 200 years. And this, scientists claim, could be a sign that the Earth’s poles are about to flip.
The Earth's protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from global communication to animal migration and weather patterns
Experts believe we're currently overdue a flip, but they're unsure when this could occur.
If a switch happens, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of punching holes into the ozone layer.
The impact could be devastating for mankind, knocking out power grids, radically changing Earth’s climate and driving up rates of cancer.
‘This is serious business’, Richard Holme, Professor of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences at Liverpool University told MailOnline. ‘Imagine for a moment your electrical power supply was knocked out for a few months – very little works without electricity these days.’
The Earth's climate would change drastically. In fact, a recent Danish study believes global warming is directly related to the magnetic field rather than CO2 emissions.
The study claimed that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.
The Earth's magnetic field explained
Radiation at ground level would also increase, with some estimates suggesting overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer.
Researchers predict that in the event of a flip, every year a hundred thousand people would die from the increased levels of space radiation.
'Radiation could be 3-5 times greater than that from the man-made ozone holes. Furthermore, the ozone holes would be larger and longer-lived,' said Dr Colin Forsyth from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL.
WHAT IS GEOMAGNETIC REVERSAL?
The Earth’s magnetic field is in a permanent state of change. Magnetic north drifts around and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north. The strength of the magnetic field also constantly changes and currently it is showing signs of significant weakening.
The Earth magnetic field is mainly generated in the very hot molten core of the planet. The magnetic field is basically a dipole (it has a North and a South Pole). Magnetic reversal or flip is the process by which the North Pole is transformed into the South and vice versa, typically following a considerable reduction in the strength of the magnetic field. However, weakening of the magnetic field does not always result in a reversal.
During a reversal, scientists expect to see more complicated field pattern at the Earth's surface, with perhaps more than one North and South Pole at any given time. The overall strength of the field, anywhere on the Earth, may be no more than a tenth of its strength now.
The Earth's magnetic field is generated in the very hot molten core of the planet. Scientists believe Mars used to have a magnetic field similar to that on Earth which protected its atmosphere
By examining pottery from prehistory to modern times, scientists have discovered just how dramatically the field has changed in the last few centuries.
They’ve found that Earth’s magnetic field is in a permanent state of flux. Magnetic north drifts and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north.
If the magnetic field continues to decline, over billions of years, Earth could end up like Mars - a once oceanic world that has become a dry, barren planet incapable of supporting life.
WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF A MAGNETIC FLIP?
Life has existed on the Earth for billions of years, during which there have been many reversals.
There is no obvious correlation between animal extinctions and those reversals. Likewise, reversal patterns do not have any correlation with human development and evolution.
It appears that some animals, such as whales and some birds use Earth's magnetic field for migration and direction finding.
Since geomagnetic reversal takes a number of thousands of years, they could well adapt to the changing magnetic environment or develop different methods of navigation.
Radiation at ground level would increase, however, with some estimates suggesting that overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer. ‘But only slightly,’ said Professor Richard Holme.
‘And much less than lying on the beach in Florida for a day. So if it happened, the protection method would probably be to wear a big floppy hat.’
Electric grid collapse from severe solar storms is a major risk. As the magnetic field continues to weaken, scientists are highlighting the importance off-the grid energy systems using renewable energy sources to protect the Earth against a black out.
'The very highly charged particles can have a deleterious effect on the satellites and astronauts,' added Dr Mona Kessel, a Magnetosphere discipline scientist at Nasa.
In one area, there is evidence that a flip is already occurring. ‘The increasing strength of the South Atlantic anomaly, an area of weak field over Brazil, is already a problem,’ said Professor Richard Holme.
The Earth's climate could also change. A recent Danish study has found that the earth's weather has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field.
They claimed that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.
Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.
But scientists claim the rate of decline is too fast for the Earth’s core to simply burn out. Instead, the story told by ancient pottery suggests the Earth's poles could be about to undergo another flip.
According to the British Geological Survey, the Earth's magnetic field has on average four or five reversals in polarity every million years and we’re now overdue a similar event.
‘At the moment, we cannot accurately determine whether or not the Earth’s field is about to flip,’ said Dr Forsyth. ‘We have only been recording the Earth’s field for around 170 years; about 1-15 per cent of the time a flip is expected to take.’
If a flip occurs, it would cause the Earth’s magnetic shield to be weakened for thousands of years, opening up our defences and causing cosmic radiation to get through.
'We have a double layer defence shield,' Jim Wild a space scientists at Lancaster University.
'Space is full of stuff that’s not great for biological tissue. If we didn’t have an atmosphere, that stuff would be hitting us. It’s the magnetic field protects atmosphere from the solar wind.'
Credit to Mail Online
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545465/Forget-global-warming-worry-MAGNETOSPHERE-Earths-magnetic-field-collapsing-affect-climate-wipe-power-grids.html#ixzz2rtMAvvaf
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The Sumerian King List still puzzles historians after more than a century of research
Out of the many incredible artefacts that have been recovered from sites in Iraq where flourishing Sumerian cities once stood, few have been more intriguing that the Sumerian King List, an ancient manuscript originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer (ancient southern Iraq) from Sumerian and neighbouring dynasties, their supposed reign lengths, and the locations of "official" kingship. What makes this artefact so unique is the fact that the list blends apparently mythical pre-dynastic rulers with historical rulers who are known to have existed.
The first fragment of this rare and unique text, a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet, was found in the early 1900s by German-American scholar Hermann Hilprecht at the site of ancient Nippur and published in 1906. Since Hilprecht’s discovery, at least 18 other exemplars of the king’s list have been found, most of them dating from the second half of the Isin dynasty (c. 2017-1794 BCE.). No two of these documents are identical. However, there is enough common material in all versions of the list to make it clear that they are derived from a single, "ideal" account of Sumerian history.
The first fragment of this rare and unique text, a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet, was found in the early 1900s by German-American scholar Hermann Hilprecht at the site of ancient Nippur and published in 1906. Since Hilprecht’s discovery, at least 18 other exemplars of the king’s list have been found, most of them dating from the second half of the Isin dynasty (c. 2017-1794 BCE.). No two of these documents are identical. However, there is enough common material in all versions of the list to make it clear that they are derived from a single, "ideal" account of Sumerian history.
Among all the examples of the Sumerian King List, the Weld-Blundell prism in the Ashmolean Museum cuneiform collection in Oxford represents the most extensive version as well as the most complete copy of the King List. The 8-inch-high prism contains four sides with two columns on each side. It is believed that it originally had a wooden spindle going through its centre so that it could be rotated and read on all four sides. It lists rulers from the antediluvian (“before the flood”) dynasties to the fourteenth ruler of the Isin dynasty (ca. 1763–1753 BC).
The list is of immense value because it reflects very old traditions while at the same time providing an important chronological framework relating to the different periods of kingship in Sumeria, and even demonstrates remarkable parallels to accounts in Genesis.
The ancient civilisation of Sumer
Sumer (sometimes called Sumeria), is the site of the earliest known civilization, located in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, in the area that later became Babylonia and is now southern Iraq from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf.
By the 3rd millennium BC, Sumer was the site of at least twelve separate city states: Kish, Erech, Ur,Sippar, Akshak, Larak, Nippur, Adab, Umma, Lagash, Bad-tibira, and Larsa. Each of these states comprised a walled city and its surrounding villages and land, and each worshiped its own deity, whose temple was the central structure of the city. Political power originally belonged to the citizens, but, as rivalry between the various city-states increased, each adopted the institution of kingship.
The Sumerian King List, records that eight kings reigned before a great flood. After the Flood, various city-states and their dynasties of kings temporarily gained power over the others.
Sumer’s mythical past
The Sumerian King List begins with the very origin of kingship, which is seen as a divine institution: “the kingship had descended from heaven”. The rulers in the earliest dynasties are represented as reigning fantastically long periods:
After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alaljar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years.
Some of the rulers mentioned in the early list, such as Etana, Lugal-banda and Gilgamesh, are mythical or legendary figures whose heroic feats are subjects of a series of Sumerian and Babylonian narrative compositions.
The early list names eight kings with a total of 241,200 years from the time when kingship “descended from heaven” to the time when "the Flood" swept over the land and once more "the kingship was lowered from heaven" after the Flood.
Interpretation of long reigns
The amazingly long tenure of the early kings has provoked many attempts at interpretation. At one extreme is the complete dismissal of the astronomically large figures as “completely artificial” and the view that they are unworthy of serious consideration. At the other extreme, is the belief that the numbers have a basis in reality and that the early kings were indeed gods who were capable of living much longer than humans.
In between the two extremes is the hypothesis that the figures represent relative power, triumph or importance. For example, in ancient Egypt, the phrase “he died aged 110” referred to someone who lived life to the full and who offered an important contribution to society. In the same way, the extremely long periods of reign of the early kings may represent how incredibly important they were perceived as being in the eyes of the people. This doesn’t explain, however, why the periods of tenure later switched to realistic time periods.
Related to this perspective is the belief that although the early kings are historically unattested, this does not preclude their possible correspondence with historical rulers who were later mythicised.
Finally, some scholars have sought to explain the figures through a mathematical investigation and interpretation (e.g. Harrison, 1993).
Relation to Genesis
Some scholars (e.g. Wood, 2003) have drawn attention to the fact that there are remarkable similarities between the Sumerian King List and accounts in Genesis. For example, Genesis tells the story of ‘the great flood’ and Noah’s efforts to save all the species of animals on Earth from destruction. Likewise, in the Sumerian King List, there is discussion of a great deluge: “the flood swept over the earth.”
The Sumerian King List provides a list of eight kings (some versions have 10) who reigned for long periods of time before the flood, ranging from 18,600 to 43,200 years. This is similar to Genesis 5, where the generations from Creation to the Flood are recorded. Interestingly, between Adam and Noah there are eight generations, just as there are eight kings between the beginning of kingship and the flood in the Sumerian King List.
After the flood, the King List records kings who ruled for much shorter periods of time. Thus, the Sumerian King List not only documents a great flood early in man’s history, but it also reflects the same pattern of decreasing longevity as found in the Bible - men had extremely long life spans before the flood and much shorter life spans following the flood.
By April Holloway
Credit to Ancient Origins
- See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/sumerian-king-list-still-puzzles-historians-after-more-century-research-001287#sthash.i1KQQoPn.dpuf
The list is of immense value because it reflects very old traditions while at the same time providing an important chronological framework relating to the different periods of kingship in Sumeria, and even demonstrates remarkable parallels to accounts in Genesis.
The ancient civilisation of Sumer
Sumer (sometimes called Sumeria), is the site of the earliest known civilization, located in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, in the area that later became Babylonia and is now southern Iraq from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf.
By the 3rd millennium BC, Sumer was the site of at least twelve separate city states: Kish, Erech, Ur,Sippar, Akshak, Larak, Nippur, Adab, Umma, Lagash, Bad-tibira, and Larsa. Each of these states comprised a walled city and its surrounding villages and land, and each worshiped its own deity, whose temple was the central structure of the city. Political power originally belonged to the citizens, but, as rivalry between the various city-states increased, each adopted the institution of kingship.
The Sumerian King List, records that eight kings reigned before a great flood. After the Flood, various city-states and their dynasties of kings temporarily gained power over the others.
Sumer’s mythical past
The Sumerian King List begins with the very origin of kingship, which is seen as a divine institution: “the kingship had descended from heaven”. The rulers in the earliest dynasties are represented as reigning fantastically long periods:
After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alaljar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years.
Some of the rulers mentioned in the early list, such as Etana, Lugal-banda and Gilgamesh, are mythical or legendary figures whose heroic feats are subjects of a series of Sumerian and Babylonian narrative compositions.
The early list names eight kings with a total of 241,200 years from the time when kingship “descended from heaven” to the time when "the Flood" swept over the land and once more "the kingship was lowered from heaven" after the Flood.
Interpretation of long reigns
The amazingly long tenure of the early kings has provoked many attempts at interpretation. At one extreme is the complete dismissal of the astronomically large figures as “completely artificial” and the view that they are unworthy of serious consideration. At the other extreme, is the belief that the numbers have a basis in reality and that the early kings were indeed gods who were capable of living much longer than humans.
In between the two extremes is the hypothesis that the figures represent relative power, triumph or importance. For example, in ancient Egypt, the phrase “he died aged 110” referred to someone who lived life to the full and who offered an important contribution to society. In the same way, the extremely long periods of reign of the early kings may represent how incredibly important they were perceived as being in the eyes of the people. This doesn’t explain, however, why the periods of tenure later switched to realistic time periods.
Related to this perspective is the belief that although the early kings are historically unattested, this does not preclude their possible correspondence with historical rulers who were later mythicised.
Finally, some scholars have sought to explain the figures through a mathematical investigation and interpretation (e.g. Harrison, 1993).
Relation to Genesis
Some scholars (e.g. Wood, 2003) have drawn attention to the fact that there are remarkable similarities between the Sumerian King List and accounts in Genesis. For example, Genesis tells the story of ‘the great flood’ and Noah’s efforts to save all the species of animals on Earth from destruction. Likewise, in the Sumerian King List, there is discussion of a great deluge: “the flood swept over the earth.”
The Sumerian King List provides a list of eight kings (some versions have 10) who reigned for long periods of time before the flood, ranging from 18,600 to 43,200 years. This is similar to Genesis 5, where the generations from Creation to the Flood are recorded. Interestingly, between Adam and Noah there are eight generations, just as there are eight kings between the beginning of kingship and the flood in the Sumerian King List.
After the flood, the King List records kings who ruled for much shorter periods of time. Thus, the Sumerian King List not only documents a great flood early in man’s history, but it also reflects the same pattern of decreasing longevity as found in the Bible - men had extremely long life spans before the flood and much shorter life spans following the flood.
By April Holloway
Credit to Ancient Origins
- See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/sumerian-king-list-still-puzzles-historians-after-more-century-research-001287#sthash.i1KQQoPn.dpuf
The Carnage Continues In Asia As China PMI Confirms Contraction Deepening
Following last week's Flash PMI print of 49.6, the Final print for January China Manufacturing dropped further to 49.5 confirming the contraction is deepening. Japanese stocks were down the most since August in the early going as Nikkei futures extended the losses from the US day-session (and rather notably decoupled from USDJPY and breaking below 15,000). The Nikkei is heading for the worst month since May 2012 (-8.66% so far). S&P futures tracked USDJPY as 102.00 was defended aggressively. Chinese stocks are also tumbling (though not as hard as Japan and US) and the PBOC will not be adding liquidity today. Furthermore the blame is being shifted as Deputy FinMin Zhu warns that the "Chinese economy faces risks from overseas uncertainty." EM FX is drifting lower still.
The Final HSBC Manufacturing PMI print dropped from 49.6 Flash to 49.5 - itsbiggest drop since June and lowest since July 2013...
The Lowlights...
"Employment levels at Chinese manufacturers had quickest reduction of payroll numbers since March 2009""New export orders declined for the second month running in January, firms mentioned weaker demand in a number of key export markets."Bad for Australia: "the rate of input price deflation was marked overall, amid reports of lower raw material costs.""Reduced cost burdens were passed on to clients and marked the second consecutive month of discounting"
Japanese bank stocks are down 9% in the last 5 days and Real Estate stocks -12.5% in the last 2 weeks. But most concerning to Abe (and the rest of the carry-trade addicted mob) is the disconnect between JPY and NKY...
The Nikei is now down over 500 points from its post-Turkey-is-fixed euphoria.
EM FX continues its slide...
In other news, the Baltic Dry Index has now plunged 51% from its late December highs and has collapsed to 5-month lows...
Charts: Bloomberg
Credit to Zero Hedge
World Bank Ex-Chief Economist Calls For End To Dollar As Reserve Currency
In the past we have discussed at length the inevitable demise of the USD as the world's reserve currency noting that nothing lasts forever. However, when former World Bank chief economist Justin Yifu Lin warns that "the dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises," we suspect the world will begin to listen (especially the Chinese. Lin, now - notably - an adviser to the Chinese government, concludes that internationalizing the Chinese currency is not the answer (preferring a basket approach) but ominously concludes, "the solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency," as it will create more stable global financial system.
The infamous chart that shows nothing lasts forever...
Nothing lasts forever... (especially in light of China's earlier comments [21])
Via China Daily,
The World Bank's former chief economist wants to replace the US dollar with a single global super-currency, saying it will create a more stable global financial system.
"The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises," Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank. "The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency."Lin, now a professor at Peking University and a leading adviser to the Chinese government, said expanding the basket of major reserve currencies — the dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and pound sterling — will not address the consequences of a financial crisis. Internationalizing the Chinese currency is not the answer, either, he said...."China can only play a supporting role in realizing the plans," Lin said. "The urgent thing is for the US and Europe to endorse these plans. And I think the G20 is an ideal platform to discuss the ideas," he said, referring to the group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 major economies.The concept of a global "super currency" tied to a basket of currencies has been periodically discussed by world leaders as well as endorsed by 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz. A super currency could also be tied to a single currency, but the interconnectedness of world financial markets and concerns about the volatility that can occur as a result of the system being tied to one currency have made this idea less popular.
Arguments in favor of a global currency resurfaced during October's US budget impasse, which forced the government to shut down (as we noted here).
"It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world," a Xinhua News Agency commentary said on Oct 14. The piece argued that creating a new international reserve currency to replace reliance on the greenback, would prevent government gridlock in Washington from affecting the rest of the world.In March 2009, China's central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, called for the creation of a new "super-sovereign reserve currency" to replace the dollar. In a paper published on the People's Bank of China's website, Zhou said an international reserve currency "disconnected from individual nations" and "able to remain stable in the long run" would benefit the global financial system more than current reliance on the dollar.
Of course, as we are seeing now, it's not just the Chinese that are concerned...
On that note, David Bloom, global head of FX research at HSBC, said US monetary policy change "will bring fluctuations for emerging countries' currencies and lead to financial instability".Chen Wenling, chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a government think-tank, said, "A supranational currency may be a new direction for development of the global financial system. It also requires different countries to cooperate in coordinating macroeconomic policies."Bloom and Chen both said China needs to play a more important role in global financial governance. But Bloom said it is difficult for international financial organizations to reach a consistent conclusion on how to improve the foreign exchange system.He said the renminbi is predicted to be stronger this year, even against an appreciating US dollar, and internationalization of China's currency will accelerate when the government decides to further open the capital market.
Of course implementation will be painful...
Pierre Defraigne, executive director of the Madariaga College of Europe Foundation in Brussels, said of Lin's infrastructure proposal, "It is excellent, but the problem is how to implement these plans to link those countries that need such infrastructural construction and those with enough foreign reserves, by using an effective global mechanism."
As we noted previously, the muddle-through is over and there is no painless solution left...
Credit to Zero HedgeMichal Krol, a researcher at the Brussels-based European Center for International Political Economy, said ..."I don't think that the largest economies and their currencies are at this moment ready for the introduction of a supranational currency," Krol said. "Neither the EU nor China have financial markets and monetary systems yet that are sound, solid, predictable and well functioning to be the cornerstone for a global system. But, indeed, it is time to formulate the fundamentals for global monetary governance."
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