The Money GPS

Debt is too dangerous to hold in these uncertain times.
Individuals who hold any form of debt are well-advised to eliminate that prior to investing.
Although mortgage rates are very low, a few percentage point increase can wipe out a large portion of home owners.

The average bankrupt Canadian is getting older and has a growing level of debt, says a recent study.

“We reviewed approximately 7,000 personal insolvency filings from 2011 and 2012, and discovered the typical insolvent person is a 43-year-old male with more than $61,000 in unsecured debt,”

http://www.advisor.ca/retirement/canadians-squeezed-by-rising-debt-dependents-116683
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Jim Flaherty’s Cyprus-style bank rescue plan: Walkom

Be prepared. If you hold the wrong kind of bank accounts, Jim Flaherty may have your savings in his cross-hairs.

New rules would allow Canadian regulators to seize unspecified bank liabilities — including, perhaps, the savings of uninsured depositors — and use them to prop up a faltering institution. Which is exactly what Cyprus’ government did to deal with its banking crisis

That’s the message from the finance department, which has been set the unwelcome task of having to explain the government’s latest attempt to prevent a Cyprus-style financial meltdown Continue reading →

Janet Napolitano Denies Existence of ‘Orwellian State’

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano weighed in on the NSA intelligence leaks on Friday, telling NY1 that fears over government surveillance were overblown.

“I think people have gotten the idea that there’s an Orwellian state out there that somehow we’re operating in. That’s far from the case,” she told Errol Louis during an appearance on Road to City Hall.

Despite civil liberties advocates’ fears that monitoring efforts have gone too far, “there are lots of protections built into the system,” Ms. Napolitano said, pointing to a privacy office embedded in Continue reading →

US troops on Syria border as Obama arms rebels

Three hundred US Marines have been deployed to northern Jordan to pave the way for the West to arm Syrian rebels.
A Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, designed to protect Jordanian territory from attack by Assad missiles, has also been moved into the area.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3791863.ece

MOSCOW—The Kremlin criticized the U.S. decision to arm Syrian opposition fighters and said Washington’s evidence that the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons was unconvincing, but said Friday that Moscow is “not yet” discussing its plans to deliver of air-defense missiles Continue reading →

POLL-Yellen overwhelming favorite to replace Bernanke at Fed

(Reuters) – Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve’s powerful vice chair, is by far the most likely candidate to replace Ben Bernanke when his second term at the helm of the U.S. central bank ends early next year, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

The poll found that an overwhelming 40 of 44 economists said Yellen, the former president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, will take over for her boss in February 2014. Support for her nomination was strong but less decisive, with 23 of 38 economists backing Continue reading →

NSA director says dozens of attacks were stopped by surveillance programs

The South China Morning Post, which said it interviewed Snowden at an undisclosed location in Hong Kong, said he presented “unverified documents” describing an extensive U.S. campaign to obtain information from computers in Hong Kong and mainland China.

“We hack network backbones — like huge Internet routers, basically — that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,” he told the newspaper.

According to Snowden, the NSA has engaged in more than 61,000 hacking operations Continue reading →

EXCLUSIVE: Whistle-blower Edward Snowden talks to South China Morning Post

Ex-CIA contractor speaks to reporter from secret location in Hong Kong, revealing fresh details of US surveillance, pressure on Hong Kong, snooping and cyber attacks on China.

But he told Post reporter Lana Lam: “I’m neither traitor nor hero. I’m an American.”

People who think I made a mistake in picking HK as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality
“People who think I made a mistake in picking HK as a location misunderstand my Continue reading →

Ron Paul: I’m worried that the government might kill Edward Snowden with a drone

“I’m worried about somebody in our government might kill him with a cruise missile or a drone missile,” Paul explained. “I mean we live in a bad time where American citizens don’t even have rights and that they can be killed, but the gentlemen is trying to tell the truth about what’s going on.”

Paul added that there were no signs of Snowden defecting to a foreign country, which meant that he was not really a threat.

“It’s a shame that we are Continue reading →

(Reuters) – Canada has no access to data gathered by a top-secret U.S. government surveillance program, but the nation’s secret signals intelligence agency is monitoring foreign phone and internet traffic, officials said on Monday.

An ex-CIA employee working as a contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency says the NSA is running a massive effort called Prism that scoops up information from phone companies as well as internet data from companies such as Google and Facebook.

His revelations have opened a broad debate on privacy rights and the limits of security programs in the aftermath of the September Continue reading →

Intelligence officials overheard joking about how NSA leaker should be ‘disappeared’ after handing classified documents to press

Editor-at-large of The Atlantic Steve Clemons tweeted the ‘disturbing’ discussion after overhearing it at Washington’s Dulles airport on Saturday
The four men were speaking loudly and ‘almost bragging’
They said both the leaker and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story, should be ‘disappeared’
Comes after National Intelligence director James R Clapper defended the surveillance programs for keeping America safe
NSA filed criminal report with Justice Dept. in relation to leaks to The Guardian and The Washington Post
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