According to KATU-TV, Madison Root and her father were selling bags of the hand-cut, hand-wrapped Christmas favorite Saturday morning next to the Skidmore Fountain in downtown Portland, where the city holds a weekly market. Everything was going well until a security guard told her that she had to stop selling due to a city ordinance that bans such activity in a park "except as expressly permitted under the terms of a lease, concession or permit."

The guard then told Madison that she could sell her mistletoe outside the boundaries of the park where the fountain and the market are located, away from the crowds, or she could simply ask for donations to cover the cost of her braces.

"I don't want to beg! I would rather work for something than beg," Madison told KATU reporter Dan Cassuto. "It's crazy. People can get money for pot. But I can't get money for braces. I'm working for this! They're just sitting down on their butts all day asking for pot." A Portland Parks Bureau spokesman told the station that begging is a form of free speech and is protected by the First Amendment.

For his customers, Spitznagel's multi-billion-dollar fund acts as an insurance policy against the next meltdown in the financial system. When the market is doing well, they lose modest amounts of money. But they cash in as soon as prices take a nosedive, even when all other investments are going up in smoke. The hedge fund manager has made a lot of money in the past with his prognoses, and he is convinced that substantial turbulence is on the cards for the near future. "The setup is there for it," says Spitznagel.

Since the last crisis, central banks around the world have pumped trillions into the economic cycle, both by lowering interest rates and buying up securities in the markets. For central bankers like United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the aim of the policy was to stimulate the economy and rescue banks that could no longer raise capital elsewhere. But this "grand monetary experiment," as Spitznagel calls it, has side effects.

Because it makes borrowing cheaper than even before and saving all but pointless, it encourages investors to pursue reckless deals. Share prices are exploding on stock exchanges around the world, while real estate prices are rising at an alarmingly fast pace. And many US companies are now in as much debt as they were before the financial crisis.

To take Spitznagel's metaphor a step further, the flood of money coming from central bankers acts like a highly aggressive, artificial fertilizer. It generates enormous yields in the short term, but eventually leads to potential devastation. Other tech stocks are also doing extremely well, just as they were in the heyday of the New Economy. Amazon's share price has almost doubled in two years, while electric car manufacturer Tesla has gained 300 percent in market value in the same period.

"It is a complete joke," says hedge fund manager Spitznagel. He explains that the market is driven by investors' confidence that prices will continue to rise in the future. He says it is "a self-reinforcing process entirely disconnected from economic reality."

Which means that as of a few days ago, gold is now trading well below not only the cash cost, but is rapidly approaching the marginal cash cost of $1125… Of course, should the central banks of the world succeed in driving the price of gold to or below its costs of production (repressing yet another asset class into stocks) then we fear the repercussions will backfire from a combination of bankruptcies, unemployment, and as we have already seen in Africa – severe social unrest.

It is at that point where one must apply the New Normal supply and demand curve, when one can predict a $0 per ounce price for gold, as physical demand continues unabated, while actual physical, not paper, production has now started going offline.

Joking aside, not even Bernanke, Yellen, or all the paper Gold ETFs in the world will be able to do much to suppress gold prices from reaching their fair value when gold production hits a standstill, and when demand, especially by China, is still in the hundreds of tons each year.

He accused Eurocrats of trying to ‘subvert’ the position of nation states and said they have ‘lost touch’ with the people of Europe. Mr Grieve, usually a moderate voice who urges other ministers to be more positive about Brussels, said he was ‘frankly astonished’ at how EU institutions have attempted ‘to reduce the freedom of action of sovereign member states’.

Addressing a meeting of EU lawyers, judges and advocates in Brussels last night, Mr Grieve said: ‘Time and time again, we see cases where European institutions engage in “turf wars” – in some cases, quite flagrantly. To put it bluntly, the UK plays by the rules and we expect others to do so too. This is something we take very seriously. We have brought a number of legal challenges to protect our interests and we will not shy away from doing so in future.’

He also accused the European Commission of “arrogance or aloofness” in pressing for pay rises for its own officials. He spoke out after Supreme Court Judge Lord Sumption criticised the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for ‘straying beyond its remit into policy-making and issues that most people would regard as inherently political’.

‘I am going to Brussels to speak – partly in French – as a lawyer, to lawyers and spell out what lies at the base of Britain’s and other member states’ frustrations with the EU.’ The European Commission has declined to comment.

Each week, hundreds of Jews ascend the creaky wooden ramp built above the Western Wall and enter what is often called the most contested real estate on Earth. Many then embark upon a game of hide-and-seek with their police escorts — whispering forbidden prayers while pretending to talk into cellphones, and getting in quick but banned bows by dropping coins and then bending to pick them up.

Their proposals, long dismissed as extremist, are now being debated in the Israeli parliament and embraced by an expansionist wing in the ruling coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These political leaders, many in Netanyahu’s party, want Israel to assert more, not less, control over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Old City, including the place known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary.

“We’re looking for it to be divided between Jews and Muslims,” said Aviad Visoli, chairman of the Temple Mount Organizations, which claims 27 groups under its umbrella. “Today, Jews realize the Western Wall is not enough. They want to go to the real thing.”

“This place belongs to the Muslim people, and no others have the right to pray here,” said Sheik Azzam al-Khatib, director of the Waqf, the Islamic trust that administers the site. Khatib said the mosque is a unifying symbol for the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. “If they try to take over the mosque, this will be the end of time,” Khatib warned. “This will create rage and anger not only in the West Bank but all over the Islamic world — and only God knows what will happen.”

The Labour peer and former security minister under Gordon Brown said Britain’s proud naval tradition was at risk from bureaucratic and political neglect. He told the House of Lords the three frigates planned by the Ministry of Defence were insufficient.

As Admiral Alan West, he was Chief of the Naval Staff from 2002 to 2006. Today, he asked Defence Minister Lord Astor of Hever: "Have we really decided that this great maritime nation of ours only needs 13 frigates? "Only four years ago, 18 was considered too risky. At the time of the Falklands we had 40."

Amid reading excerpts from a lengthy decision of more than 140 pages, United States Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes announced during Tuesday morning’s historic hearing that he approved of Detroit’s Chapter 9 filing, in turn authorizing the largest municipal bankruptcy ever in the US to proceed.

Detroit — once the automobile manufacturing capital of the world and an icon of Americana — has fallen heavily into debt during the last few decades, so much so that Governor Rick Snyder hired bankruptcy expert Kevin Orr to man the helm of the city in March and assume the role of emergency manager. Four months later, though, Orr’s attempt to salvage the city proved to be futile, and Detroit filed for Chapter 9 protection this past July.

In order to decide if Detroit could be awarded protection from creditors, Judge Rhodes was forced to find the city insolvent and agree that it was authorized to file for bankruptcy in the first place. Additionally, Rhodes had to find that city officials either negotiated with creditors in “good faith” or that those negotiations were impractical.

"The court finds that Detroit was and is insolvent,” Rhodes said around one hour into the hearing, Detroit Free Press journalist Nathan Bomey reported from the city’s Levin Courthouse. Moments later, according the Free Press’ Brent Snavely, Rhodes ruled that the court “finds that this case was filed in good faith and should not be dismissed,” allowing the city to begin restructuring plans immediately.

The Prime Minister said he would concentrate on the ‘facts and figures’ showing rapidly increasing Chinese investment in Britain, rather than the excoriating article in the Beijing-based Global Times. The piece accused Mr Cameron of acting provocatively in meeting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama last year, an encounter which plunged Sino-British relations into a deep freeze from which they are only now recovering. It also took Mr Cameron to task for comments backing expanded democracy in former British colony Hong Kong.

The Global Times, which is owned by the official Communist Party People’s Daily newspaper, said: ‘The Cameron administration should acknowledge that the UK is not a big power in the eyes of the Chinese.’ The timing of the attack was particularly awkward, with Mr Cameron in the country and Downing Street basking in Chinese president Xi Jinping’s description of the ‘indispensable relationship’ between his country and the UK.

The editorial added: ‘We’ve discovered that Britain is easily replaceable in China’s European foreign policy. Moreover, Britain is no longer any kind of “big country”, but merely a country of old Europe suitable for tourism and overseas study, with a few decent football teams.’ Its sneering conclusion said: ‘We wish Prime Minister Cameron and his delegation a pleasant visit to China.’

It was also the first time in almost 40 years that more than half of Americans have viewed their nation’s global standing in such a pessimistic way. Back in 2004 the figure was a mere 20 percent.

America is also less respected globally than it was in the past, say 70 percent of the people surveyed, which nearly matches the level of 71 percent reached in May 2007 in the late months of President George W Bush’s second term.

Accordingly, the US public’s support for meddling in foreign affairs is almost at a historic low, with 52 percent of Americans saying that the country should “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own,” as opposed to just 38 percent who disagree with the statement. The balance is the most lopsided in favor of the isolationistic world view in nearly 50 years, the Pew report says.

The Obama administration’s handling of foreign crises is viewed with criticism by 56 percent of those polled, while 34 percent said they approve of it more than disapprove. Terrorism is the only major issue where approval surpasses disapproval.

The deployment, planned before China last month established an air defense zone covering islands controlled by Japan and claimed by Beijing, includes six aircraft to be delivered to Kadena air base on Okinawa this month.

The first arrived on Sunday, a spokesman for the US Navy told Reuters. The mission in the waters west of Japan’s main islands will be the new aircraft’s first anywhere. The jet, built by Boeing Co based on its 737 passenger plane, has been built to replace the aging propeller-powered Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion patrol aircraft, which has been in service for 50 years. Packed with the latest radar equipment and armed with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, the P-8 is able to fly further and stay out on mission longer than the P-3.

While taking no position on the sovereignty of the islands known to the Japanese as the Senkakus and to the Chinese as the Daioyu, it does recognize Japanese control and therefore part of territory it would defend under a security pact with Japan.

Germany on Tuesday made a fresh attempt to outlaw the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany as the country's 16 regional governments filed a motion with the Federal Constitutional Court. But doubts persist whether the court will rule in their favor, and whether a ban would significantly curb right-wing extremism in Germany. The states argue that the NPD espouses a racist, violent ideology similar to that of Hitler's Nazi party and that it wants to overthrow the democratic order through militant action.

"The ideology and the whole NPD party is xenophobic, inhuman, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic," said the interior minister of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Roger Lewentz of the center-left Social Democrats. The motion cites an NPD brochure for party officials which states: "An African, Asian or Oriental can never be a German, because handing out printed documents … doesn't change their biological heritage. Members of other races will therefore … always remain foreign bodies regardless of how long they live in Germany."

The party also indirectly glorifies Nazi leaders including Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess, and trivializes Nazi crimes, say the backers of the motion. The NPD refers to Allied bombing raids on Nazi Germany as the "Bomben-Holocaust," or the bombing Holocaust. Its leader, Holger Apfel, is on record saying the Holocaust memorial in Berlin should be razed to the ground.

Hajo Funke, a leading analyst of the far-right scene, said the NPD is even more radical than the fledgling Nazi party when it comes to repatriating immigrants. "It is a neo-Nazi party, it's racist, it's oriented towards violence, it needs civil war to get to the Fourth Reich," Funke told Spiegel Online.

He said that the precedent set by Obama could eventually lead to an armed revolt against the federal government. On Tuesday, Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, testified before a congressional committee about the dangers of the president’s legal behavior.

“There is one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restrains that the constitution places on the government,” Cannon said. “Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it.”

“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate,” he continued. “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”

“That is a very dangerous sort of thing for the president to do, to wantonly ignore the laws,” Cannon concluded, “to try to impose obligation upon people that the legislature did not approve.”

The Obama administration has drawn a dubious distinction between whistleblowing that reveals bureaucratic waste or fraud, and leaks to the news media about unexamined secret government policies and activities; it punishes the latter as espionage.

Every disclosure to the press of classified information now triggers a leak investigation, said Washington Post national news editor Cameron Barr. “Investigations can be done electronically. They don’t need to compel journalists to reveal sources.” The Post’s Justice Department reporter, Sari Horwitz, said a Justice official told her that “access to e-mail, phone records and cellphones make it easier to do now.”

After the New York Times published a 2012 story by David E Sanger about covert cyberattacks by the United States and Israel against Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, federal prosecutors and the FBI questioned scores of officials throughout the government who were identified in computer analyses of phone, text and e-mail records as having contact with Sanger.

“A memo went out from the chief of staff a year ago to White House employees and the intelligence agencies that told people to freeze and retain any e-mail, and presumably phone logs, of communications with me,” Sanger said. As a result, longtime sources no longer talk to him. “They tell me: ‘David, I love you, but don’t e-mail me. Let’s don’t chat until this blows over.”

Sanger, who has worked for the Times in Washington for two decades, said, “This is the most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.”

But you don't have to be a Nobel Prize winner to see what is happening. It should be glaringly apparent to anyone with half a brain. The financial markets have been soaring while the overall economy has been stagnating. Reckless injections of liquidity into the financial system by the Federal Reserve have pumped up stock prices to ridiculous extremes, and people are becoming concerned.

In fact, Google searches for the term "stock bubble" are now at the highest level that we have seen since November 2007. Despite assurances from the mainstream media and the Federal Reserve that everything is just fine, many Americans are beginning to realize that we have seen this movie before. We saw it during the dotcom bubble, and we saw it during the lead up to the horrible financial crisis of 2008. So precisely when will the bubble burst this time?

Nobody knows for sure, but without a doubt this irrational financial bubble will burst at some point. Remember, a bubble is always the biggest right before it bursts.

Since being at the bottom of the market in 2009, the Dow has jumped 143 percent, the S&P 500 is up 165 percent and the Nasdaq has risen an astounding 213 percent. This does not reflect economic reality in any way, shape or form.

“Let's be honest with ourselves,” Hayden told Fox News Sunday. “We have accepted Iranian uranium enrichment. There's no question about that. That's a different red line than we used to have.”

“It says in the agreement that we will come to an agreement with regard to their right to enrich, which is very different from the UN Security Council resolutions to date, which say that they do not have a right to enrich.”

“At the end of the day, Iran's going to be a nuclear threshold state,” he told host Chris Wallace. “What we have to do is push that threshold back as far as possible. That would... define whether this was a good idea or a bad idea.”

“Right now, the Iranians are far too close to a nuclear weapon,” he said. “We have hit the pause button. Now we've got to negotiate hitting the delete button with them.”