January 29, 2012


Agent Provocateur sales boosted by US First Lady Michelle Obama

Agent Provocateur saw sales jump by more than 12pc, helped by US First Lady Michelle Obama spending $50,000 (£31,794) in one shopping spree.

First Lady Michelle Obama welcomes students and celebrities to an evening of dinner and entertainment as part of Women's History Month at the White House, Washington, DC
Michelle Obama's shopping spree caused part of Madison Avenue to be closed off Photo: AFP
The First Lady – better known for shopping at more modestly-priced High Street stores – along with the Queen of Qatar, Sheikha Mozah, closed off part of Madison Avenue to spend time in the luxury lingerie shop. Their purchases contributed to a market-spanking 12.5pc lift in sales.
Agent Provocateur, which is styled on vintage Hollywood glamour, sells handmade Calais lace corsets that sell for up to £900, which could ruffle the feathers of more than just President Barack Obama in an election year.
Gary Hogarth, Agent Provocateur's chief executive, refused to be drawn on the store's closely kept "secret client list". But he admitted the brand had attracted a high number of "unexpected famous names" – especially in the US, where sales have overtaken the UK.
On the back of this growth, Agent Provocateur, which is owned by listed private equity firm 3i, is launching an aggressive expansion strategy with more than 20 new shops opening globally in 2012.
Last-minute purchases of lace corsetry and satin bras pushed Christmas trading across the eight weeks from November 27 up 8.1pc on a like-for-like basis and 15.2pc overall. In the last 43 weeks, trading has been up 12.5pc on a like-for-like basis and 21.6pc overall, outstripping most of its retail rivals. The company’s lack of competition, celebrity status and up-market clientele have insulated it from problems endured by most rival retailers. In October the company said half-year sales were up a third to £26.6m with earnings of £3.3m.
“This is a real luxury brand,” says Mr Hogarth. “But now it is also being run with a strong business discipline. That has meant a lot of changes to the finance team, mer­chandising and production and planning. It also means negotiating on every rental contract – which is more than possible in this market.”
3i’s £69m purchase of the company at the height of the 2007 buy-out bubble left the private equity firm holding all the debt. Insiders say this costly misstep has ironically allowed the business to survive across two very difficult years of trading. Now, the company’s recovery is out­pacing even 3i’s projections.
“The glamour of the AP brand is really powerful – it has a luxurious quality, that means people have a sense of walking away with a special purchase even when they are buying a pair of knickers,” says Mr Hogarth.

Staggering Graphics
 
                          One Hundred Dollars
Description: US Debt
$100 - Most counterfeited money denomination in the world. Keeps the world moving.
 
 
Ten Thousand Dollars
 
Description: US Debt
$10,000 - Enough for a great vacation or to buy a used car. Approximately one year of work for the average human on earth.
 
One Million Dollars
Description: US Debt
$1,000,000 - Not as big of a pile as you thought, huh? Still this is 92 years of work for the average human on earth.
 
One Hundred Million Dollars
Description: US Debt
$100,000,000 - Plenty to go around for everyone. Fits nicely on an ISO / Military standard sized pallet.
 
One Billion Dollars
Description:
 US Debt
$1,000,000,000 - You will need some help when robbing the bank. Now we are getting serious!
 
One Trillion Dollars
Description:
 US Debt
$1,000,000,000,000
When the U.S government speaks about a 1.7 trillion deficit - this is the volumes of cash the U.S. Government borrowed in 2010 to run itself.
Keep in mind it is double stacked pallets of $100 million dollars each, full of $100 dollar bills. You are going to need a lot of trucks to freight this around.
If you spent $1 million a day since Jesus was born, you would have not spent $1 trillion by now...but ~$700 billion - same amount the banks got during bailout..
One Trillion Dollars
Description:
 US
Comparison of $1,000,000,000,000 dollars to a standard-sized American Football field and European Football field.
Say hello to the Boeing 747-400 transcontinental airliner that's hiding on the right. This was until recently the biggest passenger plane in the world.
 
15 Trillion Dollars
Description:
 US
$15,000,000,000,000 - US national debt (credit bill) has just topped the 15 trillion 2 months before Christmas 2011.
Statue of Liberty seems rather worried as United States national debt passes 20% of the entire world's combined GDP (Gross Domestic Product). In 2011 the National Debt will exceed 100% of GDP, and venture into the 100%+ debt-to-GDP ratio that the European PIIGS have (bankrupting nations).
 
114.5 Trillion Dollars
Description:
 US
 
$114,500,000,000,000. - US unfunded liabilities
To the right you can see the pillar of cold hard $100 bills that dwarfs the WTC & Empire State Building - both at one point world's tallest buildings. If you look carefully you can see the Statue of Liberty.
The 114.5 Trillion dollar super-skyscraper is the amount of money the U.S. Government knows it does not have to fully fund the Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, Social Security, Military and civil servant pensions. It is the money USA knows it will not have to pay all its bills.
If you live in USA this is also your personal credit card bill; you are responsible along with everyone else to pay this back. The citizens of USA created the U.S. Government to serve them, this is what the U.S. Government has done while serving The People.
The unfunded liability is calculated on current tax and funding inputs, and future demographic shifts in US Population.
Note: On the above 114.5T image the size of the base of the money pile is half a trillion, not $1T as on 15T image. The height is double. This was done to reflect the base of Empire State and WTC more closely.
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Conservatism vs Liberalism



Magazine Calls Occupiers To Come To Chicago In ‘Tradition of’ 1968 Rioters

Adbusters, the radical, Vancouver-based anti-consumerist magazine,credited by many media outlets for launching the Occupy Wall Street protests, has put out an ad calling for 50,000 protestors to “Occupy” the G8 summit in May.
The Adbusters ad shows a picture of policemen beating up a defenseless protestor, and comes with the caption: “In the Tradition of the Chicago 8.”  The Chicago 8 were radicals who incited riots in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention. The 1968 convention unrest became so legendary that the band Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young) wrote a song about it called “Chicago.” The “tradition” of the Chicago 8 included calling for displays ofpublic fornication and attacking police.
According to the official statement of Adbusters (titled Tactical Briefing #25), “On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.”
The ad threatens to shut down the economy if their demands are not met: “And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.”
So the same group that called for the Occupy Wall Street protests in the first place is now calling for protestors to shut down the entire economic system of a city if their demands are not met, in the tradition of people who brought us the 1968 Democratic convention riots.
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Big Soros Money Linked to “Occupy Wall Street”| Print | 
WRITTEN BY ALEX NEWMAN   
WEDNESDAY, 05 OCTOBER 2011 15:59
Labor unions, communists, “community organizers,” socialists, and anti-capitalist agitators have all joined together to “Occupy Wall Street” and protest against “greed,” corporations, and bankers. But despite efforts to portray the movement as “leaderless” or “grassroots,” it is becoming obvious that there is much more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
Billionaire financier George Soros’ fingerprints, for example, have been all over the anti-Wall Street campaign from the very beginning. And this week, the infamous hedge-fund boss publicly announced his sympathy for the protesters and their complaints about bailouts — despite the fact that he lobbied for even greater unconstitutional handouts to bankers in 2009.
“Actually I can understand their sentiment, frankly,” he told reporters while announcing a large donation to the United Nations. “I can sympathize with their grievances.”

But Soros’ support for the protesters goes far beyond his tepid public statements. In fact, the original call to “Occupy Wall Street” came from the magazine AdBusters, an “anti-consumerist” publication financed by, among other sources, the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.

Other Soros-backed outfits promoting big government — some with myriad ties to the Obama administration — are also publicly driving the occupation campaign. MoveOn.org, for instance, has received millions of dollars from the billionaire banker. And now, the group is urging its supporters to join the Occupy Wall Street movement as well.

“Over the last two weeks, an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country,” MoveOn said in a recent e-mail to supporters, praising the “brave” demonstrators. “On Wednesday, MoveOn members will join labor and community groups in New York City for a huge march down to the protest site — the biggest yet.”

On top of supplying activists to join the demonstrations, MoveOn is also staging what it calls a “massive ‘Virtual March on Wall Street’ online.” The Internet-based demonstrations are a collaborative effort with another radical and well-connected outfit tied to Soros called Rebuild the Dream.

Led by self-described communist and former Obama administration czar Van Jones, the “Dream” movement is a partnership between a host of Soros-financed “progressive” groups. Big Labor and even Planned Parenthood — the largest abortion provider in America, which receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars each year — are partners, too.

“Together, we'll add hundreds of thousands of voices of solidarity from the American Dream Movement for the protests across the country and show just how widespread outrage at the Wall Street banks really is,” MoveOn boasted in its e-mail.

Other groups working with Rebuild the Dream are also publicly hyping the demonstrations. And more than a few of them are on the Soros payroll as well. Some examples include People For The American Way, Planned Parenthood, Campaign For America's Future, Democracy For America, Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Common Cause, Public Campaign, and many more.

Soros, of course, has a long history of financing organizations targeting the American system of government. He has also served on the board of the immensely influential global-governance-promoting Council on Foreign Relations.

Just last year, Soros claimed that the brutal communist dictatorship ruling mainland China should lead what he calls the “New World Order.” The Chinese tyrants, meanwhile, have also been touting Occupy Wall Street through the regime’s propaganda organs.

But Soros does not love the despots in Beijing for their commitment to “equality” or “democracy.” AsThe New American reported, behind Soros and his tens of billions lies even more wealth and power: the unimaginably vast Rothschild banking empire. 

One of the richest men in the world today, Soros has been in legal trouble for corruption before — in France, for instance, he was fined more than $2 million for his illegal scheming. So, critics noted, it might seem ironic that the textbook example of a “corrupt financier” would finance a protest supposedly aimed at corrupt financiers. But the irony hardly ends there.   

Union bosses and others intimately linked to President Obama — whose top campaign contributors included Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and other big banks — are also playing a key role in the Wall Street protests. The protesters are even recycling administration talking points such as the old “the rich should be forced to pay their 'fair share'" — despite the fact that the “Buffett rule” tax proposal being advanced would almost exclusively soak what remains of the middle class.

But that might be the point. According to reports and analysts, the whole anti-Wall Street movement has been carefully orchestrated by the Obama-linked anti-capitalist union titans and tax-funded “community organizers.” A troubling plot to essentially finish off capitalism was exposed earlier this year, and at the time it was blasted as “economic terrorism.” Even more disturbing: It was uncannily similar to the growing Wall Street demonstrations.

Community organizer Stephen Lerner of the SEIU, a regular White House guest, was caught on video in March discussing the scheme to “bring down the stock market” and "destabilize" the nation — all with the stated goal of "redistributing wealth." And while the whole conspiracy was not revealed because Lerner suspected police were present, the strategies he mentioned included civil disobedience and mass anti-banker protests.

Another conspirator said to be pulling the strings, disgraced ACORN founder and union boss Wade Rathke, was advocating massive “Day of Rage” protests targeting bankers earlier this year. And he is also closely tied to Obama, who actually used to work for Rathke’s “community organizing” outfit.

ACORN, of course, was recently exposed engaging in widespread criminal activity while receiving millions of federal tax dollars. But after the organization filed for bankruptcy, its tentacles are taking over under new names — and still receiving government handouts.

Rathke is also a founding board member of the Soros-funded Tides Foundation, a key source of money for AdBusters magazine (which first called for the Wall Street occupation) and countless other anti-business groups. And he is directly tied to more than a few unions including the SEIU.

Beyond Big Labor and Soros “front groups,” as critics call them, is also a vast collection of socialist and Marxist organizations supporting the demonstrations. The Socialist Party USA, the Marxist-oriented Workers World Party, the International Committee of the Fourth International, and the Communist Party USA-affiliated People’s World are all publicly and openly backing the movement.

While the occupation movement purports to be “leaderless,” in reality, critics say its leaders and financiers are barely concealed. According to analysts, the protests — which are quickly spreading to cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe — actually represent a well-orchestrated operation being used by the very same elite “one percent” supposedly being protested against.

The “official” goals remain murky so far, almost certainly not by chance. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that liberty and honest money are not among the demands. Rather, bigger government, higher taxes, and an end to what remains of the free market system seem to be at the top of the list.

Related articles:

Police Brutality, Mass Arrests Draw Attention to “Occupy Wall Street”


Unions, Socialists Join Forces to "Occupy Wall Street"

“Day of Rage” Wall St. Occupation Sparks Fears

George Soros Funded by the House of Rothschild


George Soros Touts China as Leader of New World Order

Former SEIU Union Official Exposes Plot to Collapse U.S. Economy

Union Leader Describes Plan to Destroy Capitalism

Union Leader Proposes Economic Terrorism — Where Is the DOJ?

ACORN Keeps Members' Dues After Bankruptcy

Fed Manipulations in the Crosshairs
Photo: Protesters from Occupy Wall Stre