Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe tomorrow calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.

Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur andSydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.

CONTINUED at Bloomberg.

If you enjoy watching financial doom, then you are quite likely to really enjoy the rest of 2012.  Right now, red flags are popping up all over the place.  Corporate insiders are selling off stock like there is no tomorrow, major economies all over Europe continue to implode, the IMF is warning that the eurozone could actually break up and there are signs of trouble at major banks all over the planet.  Unfortunately, it looks like the period of relative stability that global financial markets have been enjoying is about to come to an end.  A whole host of problems that have been festering just below the surface are starting to manifest, and we are beginning to see the ingredients for a “perfect storm” start to come together.  The greatest global debt bubble in human history is showing signs that it is getting ready to burst, and when that happens the consequences are going to be absolutely horrific.  Hopefully we still have at least a little bit more time before the global financial system implodes, but at this point it doesn’t look like anything is going to be able to stop the chaos that is on the horizon.

The following are 22 red flags that indicate that very serious doom is coming for global financial markets….

CONTINUED at the Economic Collapse.

The meltdown explanation that melts away … Although our understanding of what instigated the 2008 global financial crisis remains at best incomplete, there are a few widely agreed upon contributing factors. One of them is a 2004 rule change by the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission that allowed investment banks to load up on leverage. This disastrous decision has been cited by a host of prominent economists, including Princeton professor and former Federal Reserve Vice- Chairman Alan Blinder and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. It has even been immortalized in Hollywood, figuring into the dark financial narrative that propelled the Academy Award-winning film Inside Job. Bethany McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, and co-author with Joe Nocera of “All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis.” Her first book, “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” co-written with Peter Elkind, became an Academy Award-nominated documentary. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: The meltdown was a catastrophe. It was caused by regulations … taxes … leverage … big business … big government … mortgage products … derivatives … greed … Satan … but one thing is for certain, it wasn’t caused by fiat-monopoly central banking. We know that for sure. Central banking had nothing to do with it ….

Free-Market Analysis: Following the 2008 global economic crash on an almost day-to-day basis, as we have, we’ve regularly made the argument that it was caused by central banking monetary inflation and that its result is bound to be the eventual demise of the dollar reserve system.

We believe we’re being proven correct on both points. We’ve also pointed out that the crash itself was predictable and that the top elites that put this global central banking system in place know full well that cyclically it creates crashes, recessions and now depressions.

But, of course, there is plenty of pushback. Seems everybody has an opinion about what caused the 2008 crash. And most of these opinions, played out in the mainstream media, are focused eagerly on causes that have nothing to do with central banking.

CONTINUED at the Daily Bell.

The United Nations may be able to seize an opportunity — presented by mass resistanceagainst the “carbon tax” on air travel imposed by the European Union — to extract global taxes from airline passengers, with claims that failure to adopt a worldwide taxation regime under the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) could result in a “trade war.”

The EU, which has been among the chief promoters of international taxation, announced that it was open to discussions about substituting its own scheme for a global tax. Global airlines, meanwhile, are fervently pushing the idea of a UN-brokered “solution” to the impasse, saying the disagreements could affect global air travel and lead to counterproductive retaliation by governments.

“Europe deserves credit for pushing this issue up the international agenda and it is at the forefront on emissions trading,” claimed International Air Transport Association boss Tony Tyler during a speech at the Singapore Airshow Aviation Leadership Summit. “But its unilateral approach must change.”

In an interview with Reuters, the Director General the IATA — a lobbying group that represents over 200 airlines — alleged that the UN’s aviation arm was the “only” forum to resolve the controversy. He also said the EU would almost certainly cooperate to avoid further isolation.

“I very much hope that the EU and all its member states will work hard with ICAO to come up with a global solution,” he told the news agency, noting that the regional entity was generally supportive of a global tax instead. “It is not going to be easy.”

The EU’s tax on flying is supposedly based on dubious theories about “climate change” and the alleged effect of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activities – a tiny fraction of the overall “greenhouse gases” that exist naturally. Critics and cynics, however, argue that the regional body is simply desperate for its own independent revenue streams.

The EU taxation scheme, known as the “Emissions Trading System,” forces all passengers on flights to or from Europe to pay for so-called “emissions credits.” Much of the revenue generated from the controversial permits – which have been associated with widespread savagery from Uganda to Honduras as natives are kicked off their land to plant trees – goes to the budding regional government.

The problem for the EU, however, is that global opposition to the scheme has been overwhelming. From India and China to Russia and the U.S., dozens of governments and hundreds of airlines have balked at the idea of paying the regional entity for CO2 emissions.

CONTINUED at New American.

White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal oversight.

Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was signed by Obama on October 1 2011, yet is currently the subject of a White House petition demanding Senators be forced to ratify the treaty. The White House has circumvented the necessity to have the treaty confirmed by lawmakers by presenting it an as “executive agreement,” although legal scholars have highlighted the dubious nature of this characterization.

The hacktivist group Anonymousattacked and took offline the Federal Trade Commission’s website yesterday in protest against the treaty, which was also the subject of demonstrations across major cities in Poland, a country set to sign the agreement today.

Under the provisions of ACTA, copyright holders will be granted sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim. Whereas ISPs normally are only forced to remove content after a court order, all legal oversight will be abolished, a precedent that will apply globally, rendering the treaty worse in its potential scope for abuse than SOPA or PIPA.

A country known for its enforcement of harsh Internet censorship policies like China could demand under the treaty that an ISP in the United States remove content or terminate a website on its server altogether. As we have seen from the enforcement of similar copyright policies in the US, websites are sometimes targeted for no justifiable reason.

The groups pushing the treaty also want to empower copyright holders with the ability to demand that users who violate intellectual property rights (with no legal process) have their Internet connections terminated, a punishment that could only ever be properly enforced by the creation of an individual Internet ID card for every web user, a system that is already in the works.

“The same industry rightsholder groups that support the creation of ACTA have also called for mandatory network-level filtering by Internet Service Providers and for Internet Service Providers to terminate citizens’ Internet connection on repeat allegation of copyright infringement (the “Three Strikes” /Graduated Response) so there is reason to believe that ACTA will seek to increase intermediary liability and require these things of Internet Service Providers,” reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The treaty will also mandate that ISPs disclose personal user information to the copyright holder, while providing authorities across the globe with broader powers to search laptops and Internet-capable devices at border checkpoints.

In presenting ACTA as an “international agreement” rather than a treaty, the Obama administration managed to circumvent the legislative process and avoid having to get Senate approval, amethod questioned by Senator Wyden.

“That said, even if Obama has declared ACTA an executive agreement (while those in Europe insist that it’s a binding treaty), there is a very real Constitutional question here: can it actually be an executive agreement?” asks TechDirt. “The law is clear that the only things that can be covered by executive agreements are things that involve items that are solely under the President’s mandate. That is, you can’t sign an executive agreement that impacts the things Congress has control over. But here’s the thing: intellectual property, in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, is an issue given to Congress, not the President. Thus, there’s a pretty strong argument that the president legally cannot sign any intellectual property agreements as an executive agreement and, instead, must submit them to the Senate.”.

26 European Union member states along with the EU itself are set to sign the treaty at a ceremony today in Tokyo. Other countries wishing to sign the agreement have until May 2013 to do so.

Critics are urging those concerned about Obama’s decision to sign the document with no legislative oversight to demand the Senate be forced to ratify the treaty.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Source: Prison Planet.

The Greece drama continues. The Greek bailout proposed by the Eurozone has the possibility to bring the world economy to its knees. It has been proposed by to have Greece removed from the Eurozone. This many say is a frantic attempt to help save the drowning currency. Many believe Greece is the scapegoat for a much larger problem. Gerald Celente, publisher at The Trends Journal, gives us his take on the messy situation.

*Taken from Catholic News Service.

A Vatican document called for the gradual creation of a world political authority with broad powers to regulate financial markets and rein in the “inequalities and distortions of capitalist development.”

The document said the current global financial crisis has revealed “selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale.” A supranational authority, it said, is needed to place the common good at the center of international economic activity.

The 41-page text was titled, “Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority.” Prepared by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, it was released Oct. 24 in several languages, including a provisional translation in English.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from CNBC

With no solution in sight for Europe and new fears of a global recession, investors dumped stocks and commodities and ran to the safety of U.S. Treasurys.

Treasury yields as a result, slipped to historic lows with the 10-year yielding 1.75 percent and the 30-year at 2.86 percent.

The dollar was also a beneficiary of a massive fear trade that sent U.S. stocks sharply lower, on the heels of steep sell-offs in equities markets around the globe.

The worst performing stock market sectors mirrored the sell-off in global commodities markets, with materials down 4.6 percent and energy stocks down 4.1 percent.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from MSNBC.

The U.S. has tumbled further down a global ranking of the world’s most competitive economies, landing at fifth place because of its huge deficits and declining public faith in government, a global economic group said Wednesday.

The announcement by the World Economic Forum was the latest bad news for the Obama administration, which has been struggling to boost the sinking U.S. economy and lower an unemployment rate of more than 9 percent.

Switzerland held onto the top spot for the third consecutive year in the annual ranking by the Geneva-based forum, which is best known for its exclusive meeting of luminaries in Davos, Switzerland, each January.

Singapore moved up to second place, bumping Sweden down to third. Finland moved up to fourth place, from seventh last year. The U.S. was in fourth place last year, after falling from No. 1 in 2008.

CONTINUED..