Should you be Vegan

Vegans who breastfeed put their baby at risk

An 11 month old baby exclusively breastfed by a vegan mother has died and the parents are charged with neglect after an autopsy indicated the baby suffered from deficiencies in vitamin B12 and Vitamin A – both known to be critical to a child’s development.
Vegans have long been advised to take B12 supplements as long term veganism runs the huge risk of serious B12 deficiency as well as other nutrients only found in animal foods such as true Vitamin A.   Beta carotene is not true vitamin A nor does it easily convert to adequate amounts of Vitamin A in the body.
The parent of this baby got 5 years in prison.
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Health issues due to vegan diet

TV and film actress Ginnifer Goodwin was a zealous and dedicated vegan for 2 years. She revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live recently that she stopped eating vegan after experiencing some health issues which she did not disclose.
Goodwin stated: "I’m always learning and growing and changing and there were some boring health issues, and so I did actually have to work some animal products back into my diet."

The first animal food she ate after her stint as a vegan was a scrambled egg from a farm where the chickens run free.

Another popular celebrity that has dropped the vegan diet is Angelina Jolie.
Jolie stated she was a vegan for a long time and it nearly killed her. The fact is that some of the most critical nutrients for health, vitamins A, D, and B12 are simply not found in an exclusively plant based diet.


Get more health tips over at - The Healthy Home Economist website.


So the short answer to the question "Should you be Vegan?" is a no it seems.

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The Money War

[image from the wonderful works of Justine Smith]

Did you know that back in 2009 the Pentagon held its first ever financial war games?
This was a war game not about moving Carriers, Tanks, tactical strikes and aerial bombardments, the weapons were currencies, stocks, bonds, interest rates and derivatives.
The purpose of this game was to discover fatal weaknesses and how an enemy might exploit them.

Jim Rickards, a Wall Street banker, participated in these war games. In his book Currency Wars, he wrote that the pentagon was clumsy at financial warfare.

Financial war is not something that may be looming in the near future, this war has already begun and on a global scale.

In 2010, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega was the first public official to confirm what many already knew. He stated "We're in the midst of an international currency war" and went on to say "This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness..."

In the U.S. and many other governments, you hear the officials say "Strong Dollar" every once in a while, but what many of them are actually doing is actively and openly devaluing their currencies to gain an unfair short term economic advantages.

Face with very high unemployment and a very slow global economy, the leading economies are resorting to currency manipulation to steal a greater piece of the economic pie.

In 2012, Global central banks cut interest rates 75 times in an effort to weaken currencies.

When Shinzo Abe was elected prime minister of Japan back in December, he said Japan would implement a massive $1.4 trillion money printing plan to reduce the value of the yen. He also said the yen had risen too high but the truth is that the dollar, euro and yuan had fallen making it appear the yen had risen.  The Prime minister then strong armed Bank of Japan into doubling the inflation level.

This is just a few examples, China is a big player in the currency war and not only that the whole world is engaged and has an interest on some scale. It all could lead to a full blown trade war in the very near future.

So it really don't matter who is to blame or who really started it because it is really heating up and shows no sign of ending.

Thanks

[Source: The Philadelphia Trumpet]
[image from the wonderful works of Justine Smith]

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Germany Wants It's Gold From Fort Knox

Fort Knox

In January The Germany Central Bank made a announcement. It ask American and France to return it's gold. 743 tons of gold will be returned (Some already has) to the vaults in Frankfurt.

What's going on you ask?

Well it seems American and France have been holding Germany's gold for basically 3 reasons
1. - having it in American makes it easier to sell, pledge and easier to trade.
2. - Safety, it was safer to spread Germany's gold out during the cold war to protect it from the Soviets.

Now with the Cold war behind them it is no longer a concern. Germany feels safe enough to bring the gold home, this speaks loudly about Germany's changing relationship with Russia.

The 3rd reason
3. - After WWII Germany was forced to store it's gold overseas, this was an effort to ensure Germany would not disrupt world peace again.

America holds about 20 percent of Germany's gold or about 330 tons of it.

So what could this mean?
The first thing one can assume is that Germany will be somewhat more "bullish" towards France, See Germany is fighting for control of the European Central Bank against another group led by France. Germany has already started taking the gold from Paris vaults.

Why the change of mind about reason #3?
It seems now that American, Britain and France think they no longer need the insurance policy  to protect world peace. This could turn out to be a very big mistake.

Some things you might not know about Germany and the Mideast

Germany for years supported Turkey and Israel, conducting very few arms deals with Arab dictators but now that has really changed.
Germany have made some very large arms deals with many dictators in the middle east.
- Attack Submarines - 2 to Egypt
- Meko 200 Frigate - 2 to Algeria
- Eurofighter Typhoon - 72 to Saudi Arabia and 60 to United Arab Emirates
- Armored Carriers - 1,2000 to Algeria
- Leopard 2 tanks - 270 to Saudi Arabia (some say as many as 800) and 36 to Qatar

Germany Military Deployments -
4,400 Soldiers in Afghanistan
1,249 in Kosovo
2 patrol boats on Lebanese Coast
190 soldiers in Lebanon
2 Patriot Missile Batteries and up to 400 soldier in Turkey
plus more soldiers and personnel in Djibouti, Bosnia, Mali, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo, Somalis, Uzbekistan and several more areas.


So this might make one question the release of all this gold and maybe rightfully so.

Keep your eyes open.

Thanks


[Source: The Philadelphia Trumpet]

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