Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Tues 09.01.2009
‘Gold lures investors globally, no matter the price’ . . . . This summer has seen a rise in the price of gold being traded on international markets. With concerns about inflation, as governments print more money to try and get the world out of recession, the gold markets show no signs of cooling unlike the currency markets which continue to fluctuate. Investors are rushing to Gold, the safest store of wealth.
The Move to $1,000 Things are looking good, dear gold bug. Characteristically gold hits its seasonal low in late summer, often in August, and then begins to rise as the month comes to an end. This late-August drift higher is a sign of the exhaustion of selling pressure and a precursor of the autumn rally (which in many years is quite powerful). This year is better than normal. Gold hit its seasonal low in early July. Its August low was some 25 points above the July low, and the late August lift was quite evident. Tomorrow is September. Gone are those (few) sharp one-day scares that had us all so worried. They were merely the results of a few news items causing some of your weak sisters to panic and sell out. But if you follow the weak sisters (rather than regarding their fear as an opportunity to buy), then you become a weak sister yourself.
Will Gold Reach $5000 Plus? Gold has been one of the most misportrayed mediums of wealth since the 1970's. Usually it has been marketed as the hedge against inflation during the good old days of the 1970's and 1980's. However, this has been a great misconception of the role gold truly plays. It is coming into its own and is still poised to rally to at least test the $3000 level if not much higher. But this portentious view harbors within a lot of correlations on a global scale that truly needs some in-depth understanding. Gold is not about to make such a rally without critical developments in government. Gold is not the hedge against "inflation" but against the "collapse in the confidence of government". Government holds power only for as long as the people allow it. People are complacent and will not tolerate much. During the 1970's and the days of OPEC, I will never forget a riot in Philadelphia of white middle class workers overturning cars and setting them on fire because people could not even get to work. There is a thin line between civilized conduct and a mob. When people can no longer function in a basic way, holy hell breaks loose.
Gold Looks to Close August with Monthly High Gold is currently trading at $954/oz after finishing higher last week which was important technically. Gold is looking to close the month of August with a monthly higher close (July 31st close $953.75/oz) but the shorts will as ever be attempting to paint the tape. Expectations for gold to break above resistance at $1,000/oz in the coming months are growing and any dips are expected to be bought. Overnight, the equity markets closed down with the Shanghai market leading the way with a 6.7% plunge. The Nikkei took little comfort from the sweeping success of the Democratic Party over the lengthy rule of the LDP and closed down 0.4%. This is a big week in terms of economic releases and Friday's nonfarm payrolls will be watched closely to see if the green shoots are being affected by an autumnal chill.
Glenn Beck: Is the USA Heading Towards Its Zimbabwe Hyperinflation Moment?
History Lesson September Is Best Month for Gold We’re heading into September next week, so it’s a good time to revisit the historic seasonality of gold and gold stocks. Over the past four decades, September has been the best time for gold in terms of its month-over-month price appreciation. You can see this on the chart below – in a typical year, the price of gold in September rises 2.5 percent above its August price. The gold price has risen in 16 of the 20 Septembers since 1989, by far the best success ratio of any month of the year.
GOLD THOUGHTS Investors should be taking some clues from the thinking of American voters. Their view, as documented by the respected Rasmusen polling organization, is rejection of the growth killing policies of the Obama Regime. Per Rasmusen, a mere 46% of voters approve of Obama Regime while 53% disapprove. The vote is in on the economic prospects for the U.S. due to policies of the failing and fading Obama Regime, and it is in the negative column.
There will be a rush to invest “cash” money (previously held in banks) into treasury bonds backed by the government as opposed to the FDIC
The gold price will explode upwards
The US Dollar will not move inversely to the gold price. More likely, it will also rise, albeit less violently as the “safest” and “most liquid” treasury markets are denominated in US$.
Rising silver demand and how far prices can go . . . . In the long run, however, Mr. Morgan expects that once gold breaches the $1,000 level and remains there for several trading days, it will be time to look for the next level in silver. "I'm expecting to see around the $1,250, $1,300 level in gold," he said. "Silver may be lagging at that point - somewhere in the $15-$17 range - but once gold goes through it, it will have a magnet effect for silver. You'll see silver reach the $21 high it experienced last year and move upward."
As hybrid cars gobble rare metals, shortage loom The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods. That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells.
Is hyperinflation on the way? We’re spending like there’s no tomorrow. The government printing presses continue to pump out currency with the backing of the Federal Reserve and, as a result, a bottomless pit is being created for all of us. It is of the utmost folly to think that these spending programs by the politicians in Washington are of lasting benefit (think future tax increases) to the populace as a whole. Sure, the CARS program provided a temporary boost for a few — mainly dealers who sell vehicles bearing Japanese labels — but with no substantial gain for American label manufacturers. Reports indicate that sales prices were bumped up during this program and a large number of purchasers are having second thoughts about the added credit indebtedness they have taken on (think future repossessions).
Five Wall Street Banks Seek to Protect Lucrative OTC Derivatives Market This story about the Wall Street lobby was interesting, particularly since this morning Bill Dudley, friend of Wall Street, Goldman alumnus, and Chairman of the NY Fed, called for the continuing purchase of over a trillion dollars in bad mortgage debt from these banks at above market prices here.
Cautiously, Private Equity Looks for Exits Offerings Increase as Stock Markets Pick Up; Coming Up -- Ancestry.com, InfrastruX Group As private-equity firms test the IPO waters for a way to exit from their investments, one thing is clear: They are treading cautiously in the way they are structuring their deals. Private-equity-backed companies accounted for close to half the initial public offerings launched in busier years such as 2006 and 2007, but when the IPO market effectively closed down in the second half of 2008, all types of deals were shut out.
Wall Street Stealth Lobby Defends $35 Billion Derivatives Haul Wall Street is suiting up for a battle to protect one of its richest fiefdoms, the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market that is facing the biggest overhaul since its creation 30 years ago. Five U.S. commercial banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp., are on track to earn more than $35 billion this year trading unregulated derivatives contracts. At stake is how much of that business they and other dealers will be able to keep.
Shanghai loan fears hit global shares China market suffers biggest fall in a year Chinese stocks on Monday recorded their biggest fall in more than a year as investors fretted a slowdown in bank lending would stall the economic recovery in China and around the world. The 6.7 per cent slump was the worst since June 2008 and capped a dismal August for the Shanghai Composite index, which recorded its second biggest monthly loss for 15 years. The index fell 21.8 per cent last month, compared with a 4.1 per cent drop by Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index, a 3 per cent rise in the S&P 500 index and an 8.4 per cent gain in the FTSE 100 index over the same period.
Flight to Safety Appears Imminent In the past week, three pieces of information arrived my inbox, which led me to thinking about the integrity of the banking system:
The Swedish Central Bank is about to charge negative interest rates. i.e. Commercial banks who have reserves in excess of their requirements and who do not lend this money out will be penalized for not doing so.
Several articles appeared which “speculate” that up to 1,000 banks are in danger of failing and that the FDIC has insufficient reserves to cope with this.
Mathematical modeling, based on a formula developed by physicist Cesare Marchetti, when applied to bank failures, results in the following forecast:
Inflation Will Accelerate Next Decade, Economists Say The Federal Reserve will be unable to prevent the trillions of dollars in government stimulus pumped into the U.S. economy from stoking inflation over the next decade, a survey of business economists showed. The price gauge tracked by the central bank will rise 3 percent a year on average from 2014 through 2018, according to the median estimate in a poll taken by the National Association for Business Economics. The rate exceeds the 2 percent pace that the respondents said was the Fed’s unofficial target.
Dudley Says Fed Can Avoid a ‘Bad Inflation Outcome’ New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley said the Fed has the tools to prevent inflation from accelerating and doesn’t need to begin trimming its balance sheet. “It’s a little bit premature to be so confident that you want to pull all these things back right now, because the economy still isn’t growing very fast and we do have a very high unemployment rate,” Dudley said today in an interview on CNBC.
Faber: Central Banks Blowing New Bubble One stimulus will lead to the next one, and then more money printing, and then the collapse. The US government will go bust, then it will go to war. Buy a farm and a gun.
Bond Market Eyeing 10% Jobless Rate Rejects Recovery The bond market isn’t buying all the optimism over the end of the global recession. While the International Monetary Fund said last week the economic recovery will be faster than it forecast in July, investors pushed yields on government debt to the lowest level since April, according to the Merrill Lynch & Co. Global Sovereign Broad Market Plus Index. The gauge, which tracks $15.4 trillion of bonds worldwide, gained 0.73 percent this month, the most since 1.02 percent in March.
The Fed’s Interesting Week By: Dr. Ron Paul It has been an interesting week indeed for the Federal Reserve. Early this week, it was announced that President Obama intends to reappoint Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term in January, signaling a vote of confidence in him. Bernanke seems to be popular with the administration and with Wall Street, and with good reason. His lending policies have left big banks flush with newly created cash that covers up old mistakes and allows for new ones. By buying up mountains of Treasury debt he has also enabled spending to soar to ridiculous levels that should startle any responsible economist, and scare any American concerned about the value of the dollar. However, these highly sensitive decisions about our money are not made by economists, they are made by politicians. Bernanke, like most of his predecessors, is the politician’s best friend. However, there is no reason to believe any other central planner would behave any differently, considering the immense political pressure on the Fed.
Ideas to cut the federal deficit could cost homeowners billions Options that lawmakers are likely to consider to raise revenue include slashing the maximum deduction for mortgage interest or replacing it with a flat 15% tax credit. Reporting from Washington - You might assume that during August, with the Senate and House on their summer break, nothing much happens on Capitol Hill. You know the old saw: Your money is safe when Congress is out of town. But that's not quite the way it works. Committee staffs, economists, tax lawyers and policy shapers never really leave town. For example, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this month delivered its latest revenue-raising options for Senate and House consideration as they write this fall's tax and budget legislation.
Treasury Default Not So Unthinkable Although we can be certain Americans and their government owe far more than they will ever be able to repay, the question of how this debt eventually will be discharged is the economic conundrum of the day. Some think hyperinflation is the only way out, since it would allowing debtors to repay all that they owe with worthless bank notes that would be in copious supply. However, this is hardly a solution, since those on the receiving end – i.e. the lenders -- would be ruined, as would the bond markets, banks and all other institutional conduits and agents of saving.
FDIC to Ratchet Up Scrutiny of Newly Chartered Banks They Are Overrepresented in Failures New banks will face tighter oversight under federal rules announced Friday, as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. looks to minimize the potential for payouts to depositors at troubled institutions. Newly created banks are historically more likely to fail than their more established competitors. So the agency said in a letter Friday that it will now put them under more intensive supervision and capital requirements for their first seven years of operation, instead of the current three years.
Driving a Fiat Currency into a Tree Floy Lilley at the Mises Institute, in her essay at LewRockwell.com, notes that the gold-standard dollar “provided us with nothing less than relative peace and prosperity over a span of 136 years” until that fateful year, 1913. So how does she quantify “relative peace and security”? Well, one good way is to look at the value of the dollar, which would be strong if the country was a good investment, which it was, and in fact, “It had not only retained one hundred percent of its value, it had gained eleven percent. That’s right. The dollar we started with in 1776 bought us eleven percent more after almost seven generations.”
The Duplicity of Ben Bernanke President Barack Obama nominated Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve System. Barring a rejection by the Senate, Mr. Bernanke will retain his title as the fourteenth Fed chairman on February 1, 2010. Consider Mr. Bernanke's track record against his stated goals as Fed chairman. In opposition to his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, Bernanke said that he would communicate clearly and openly with the investment community. This, he said, would remove an element of uncertainty for investors.
Banana Ben Strikes Again Just when you thought it was safe to hold dollars, even for just a little while, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke once again climbed aboard his helicopter and spread some more confetti (US dollars) across the sky. Apparently having the world’s reserve currency drop 13% since March, even as measured against a basket of other flawed fiat currencies isn’t enough. And if you were to measure the dollar’s performance against hard assets like copper since March, the currency has lost 50%. Yet despite those facts, Fed head Bernanke thought it wise to increase the size of the monetary base by $86 billion just last week alone! That brought the base total to over $1.73 trillion, the highest level since May and just $37 billion off its all time record high.
Bernanke’s Victory Lap Despite vocal criticism of the Federal Reserve’s stewardship of the economy over the past decade, President Obama’s renomination of Ben Bernanke to a second term as Fed Chairman nevertheless served to reassure and boost financial markets. While it is true that markets tend to crave predictability from government, rewarding the continuation of horrible Bush-era policies is perhaps pushing the boundaries of nostalgia. More interestingly, President Obama, who campaigned for ‘change,’ has clearly come down once again on the side of continuity.
Commercial Mortgage Defaults Jump for U.S. Banks The default rate on commercial mortgages held by U.S. banks more than doubled in the second quarter from a year earlier amid falling rents and occupancies for malls, office buildings and warehouses. Loans that were 90 days or more past due climbed to 2.88 percent of outstanding balances in the second quarter, from 1.18 percent a year earlier, according to New York-based property research firm Real Estate Econometrics LLC. Defaults increased from 2.25 percent in the first quarter.
Somehow, Commercial Real Estate Is Still The "Next Shoe To Drop" So the next shoe to drop is commercial real estate. We know this because the Wall Street Journal said so today. Wait, why do we have the feeling we read that story a gazillion times? Ah, well, because we did. And we've been reading these for for quite some time now too. As Joe Weisenthal wrote back in May, addressing the “what is next shoe to drop” question:
Commercial Real Estate Lurks as Next Potential Mortgage Crisis Federal Reserve and Treasury officials are scrambling to prevent the commercial-real-estate sector from delivering a roundhouse punch to the U.S. economy just as it struggles to get up off the mat. Their efforts could be undermined by a surge in foreclosures of commercial property carrying mortgages that were packaged and sold by Wall Street as bonds. Similar mortgage-backed securities created out of home loans played a big role in undoing that sector and triggering the global economic recession. Now the $700 billion of commercial-mortgage-backed securities outstanding are being tested for the first time by a massive downturn, and the outcome so far hasn't been pretty.
Leverage Rising on Wall Street at Fastest Pace Since ‘07 Freeze Banks are increasing lending to buyers of high-yield company loans and mortgage bonds at what may be the fastest pace since the credit-market debacle began in 2007. Credit Suisse Group AG and Scotia Capital, a unit of Canada’s third-largest bank, said they’re offering credit to investors who want to purchase loans. SunTrust Banks Inc., which left the business last year, is “reaching out to clients” to provide financing, said Michael McCoy, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based bank. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are doing the same for loans and mortgage-backed securities, said people familiar with the situation.
Some warn of deflating asset bubble in China A month-long plunge in the main Chinese stock market is raising questions about the outlook for China's economy. The Shanghai composite index sank 6.7% Monday, worrying global investors and capping an August bear market that has stripped more than 23% from share prices. The nerve-jarring drop prompted some — including the head of China's $298 billion state-run investment fund and a former top Morgan Stanley economist — to warn of a deflating asset bubble. "Some of us were over-optimistic about the ability of China to become the engine of growth for the region and the global economy," said Joshua Aizenman, professor of economics at the University of California-Santa Cruz and a former consultant to the Chinese government.
The Case for Deflation The most important investment decision you will have to make this year and possibly for years to come is whether to structure your portfolio for deflation or inflation. So which is it, inflation or deflation? I've analyzed this issue in numerous posts, but every day there are new arguments one way or the other from some very smart people. The biggest deflation bears are rather pessimistic:
David Rosenberg says that deflationary periods can last years before inflation kicks in
Renowned economist Dr. Lacy Hunt says that we may have 15-20 years of deflation
Gas prices going up when they should be going down
Automobile dealerships closed without regard to profitability
Health Care reform: The Kevorkian is out of jail early
What’s going on? Bush Sr. said our way of life wasn’t negotiable in 1992 but as of October 2008, it's all over but the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Glenn Beck: A Call to Action [1/2]
Glenn Beck: A Call to Action [2/2]
Glenn Beck: 2010 -- You're In or You're Out
Federal Government Will Borrow 40 Percent of the Money It Spends Next Year, Says White House Report According to the Obama administration’s mid-session budget update, the federal government will have to borrow nearly 40 percent of its total expenditures in 2010. The report, “Mid-Session Review, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010,” shows that 39.9 percent of all federal income will be borrowed, making borrowing the single largest share of revenue in 2010. The next largest component of federal revenue is the personal income tax, which accounts for only 27.3 percent of federal funds.
Wall Street ends August on losing note After giving the stock market solid gains during August, investors still worried about the economy backtracked a bit during the final day of the month. Stocks fell in light trading Monday after a plunge in China's main stock market sent a wave of selling around the world and added to concerns that stocks have rocketed too high, too fast. The Standard & Poor's 500 index, which is the basis for many mutual funds, ended August higher to post its sixth straight monthly gain. It is up 50.9 percent since early March, the best run since 1938.
Markets don't typically perform well in September September is the month when kids go back to school, leaves turn yellow and gold, and stock prices drop like ripe apples. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has fallen an average 0.9% in September since 1959, making it the worst month of the year for investors. (February is second, with an average 0.3% loss.)
History Continues To Repeat Many are now talking about how the markets appear to be managed these days, and these people are now taking conspiracy theories in this regard far more seriously. And without a doubt the Fed and Treasury are working overtime to keep the bubbles afloat, the bubbles in both equities and debt. The key in this regard for now is keeping interest rates low, however this will not be enough forever if revenues keep shrinking in the face of rising costs. Sooner or later, foreigners will see the US has no hope of honoring it’s debts short of hyperinflation and continued acceleration in monitization efforts (particularly in debt markets), and will begin pulling sufficient assets out of American markets to send market interest rates past the margin consumers can handle.
America - A Nation Dying in Her Sleep! . . . . There is a sleep from which some people never awaken. Some people die in their sleep, and this is also true in the spiritual sense. The United States of America is rapidly being destroyed, and people refuse to wake up and rise up to oppose the evil. Souls are being destroyed by mega-churches, televangelists, and religious organizations; and people sleep on while it happens. We must sound the alarm and bring people to the rude awakening of what is happening to them. It is almost over, and eternity is just ahead. The Apostle Paul wrote of this time we are now living in. In Romans 13:11-12 we read as follows: "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light."
Band-Aids for the Recession A recent poll shows that most economists now believe that the recession, which began in December 2007, will end in the third quarter of 2009. There's been an uptick in manufacturing and consumer confidence, and the decline in housing prices appears to be flattening out. Unfortunately, the return to positive GDP will likely be short-lived. The current surge in production is mainly the result of President Obama's fiscal stimulus and the rebuilding of inventories that were slashed after Lehman Bros defaulted in September, 2008. These factors should boost GDP for two or perhaps three quarters before the economy lapses back into recession.
The Health Care Debacle May Have Saved Bernanke’s Job Ben Bernanke’s reappointment is viewed by some in the political and financial establishment of our nation’s capital as a sign of political weakness for President Obama.
Et Tu, Lefty? Allies Critical Of President Waffling on Health Care Riles His Loyal Pundits It is as inevitable in Washington as sweltering summers and steamy sex scandals. A president is going to be smacked around from the moment he takes office and the uplifting rhetoric of campaign rallies meets the gritty reality of governing. But the criticism of Barack Obama has turned strikingly personal as some of his liberal media allies have gone wobbly on him. After playing a cheerleading role during the campaign, some are bluntly questioning whether he's up to the job. If Obama is losing Paul Krugman, can the rest of the left be far behind?
Americans Agree: Throw the Bums Out! A new Rasmussen poll confirms it: A majority of Americans are tired of Congress. If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current batch of legislators. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again. That's not surprising, actually, given that Congressional approval ratings have been generally abysmal for a while. It suggests little about how people might actually vote, however, given that people tend to prefer their representative even while disliking Congress as a whole.
Sean Hannity & Dick Morris Discuss Barack Obama, ObamaCare & A Double Dip Recession
Feds steady housing market, perhaps permanently How long it will last is question Home sales are showing faint signs of life only after massive federal rescue efforts, raising questions about whether the government will ever be able to withdraw its support without prompting another collapse in the housing market. Some analysts say the government may be permanently in the mortgage business after taking control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a year ago and purchasing nearly half of their mortgage-backed securities in an effort to spur a revival in home sales by keeping the interest rates on 30-year mortgages near record lows. The result of these efforts is that the government now owns or guarantees a majority of mortgages in the United States.
Why Christmas Will Kill Retail Swine flu. C’mon people, all you technical players and bulls out there have put your money on the riskiest bets since the March 8 low. Bets like retail, home and commercial real estate. Get real. You’re probably already worried about your long positions. Technicals indicate we’re overbought. Optimism is the highest since 2003. Up volume is weak. Earnings multiples are too high during this ending (as some of you believe) recession. But swine flu will kill your portfolio. It is no black swan: billions of people will be exposed to a flu virus, not vaporized in a nuclear blast. But the virus is hospitalizing too many folks, too many of those affected are in the ICU, and the northern hemisphere is experiencing flu season way too early for investors to underplay swine flu.
Is Unemployment the Worst Since the Great Depression? Hidden behind the unemployment rate are some startling numbers The "Great Recession" is the name that has stuck for the economic decline that began in late 2007. But there's some reason to think that using the word recession is being kind. The U.S. gross domestic product has shrunk 3.9 percent in the past year, the worst drop since the Great Depression. Plenty of observers are willing to say that this recession is much deeper than anything we've seen since the 1930s—including the big dip in the early 1980s, generally accepted as the other candidate for the worst recession since the Great Depression. "I think it's way worse today," says Ridgely Evers of Tapit Partners, a longtime entrepreneur and venture capitalist who founded the software company Netbooks (now known as WorkingPoint). In the recession of 1981 and 1982, "people recognized it as a dip. [Today,] nobody thinks we are going to come back out in relatively short order." This recession seems to have dragged on longer. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the U.S. economy was in recession from July 1981 to November 1982—16 months. But the current recession started in December 2007, says the NBER, so it's already longer than the last big one.
Will Boeing move to Beijing? Boeing (BA) CEO Jim McNerney is eager to move the company to China. Whether moving Boeing to China means shifting its headquarters from Chicago to Beijing is up in the air. But Boeing already has $600 million in supplier partnerships with China -- such as a deal with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation to build an assembly for the 787's vertical fin. And Stan Sorscher, who spent 20 years at Boeing before taking a post at the Society of Professional Engineers in Aerospace (SPEEA) in 2000, told me that McNerney is hooked on the idea of shifting Boeing to China.
Credit lines dry up for auto dealers To help ailing auto dealers, the Small Business Administration launched new loan offerings -- but so far, few banks are playing along. Most small businesses are having trouble finding loans and credit lines these days, but auto dealers are in their own special financing hell. Their inventory is expensive, their industry is in shambles, and their largest lenders are in tatters. Recognizing that dealers need help, the Small Business Administration began rolling out new programs tailored for them. Four months in, the new programs are drawing a tepid response from lenders. A pilot project launched in July to back inventory loans to auto dealers has so far approved just one loan, according to the SBA.
Debt consumes senior citizens in retirement Golden years in the red Retirement is no longer the debt-free zone it used to be. Rising health care and energy costs and the phasing out of traditional pensions have been making that widely sought goal tougher to reach for some time. Now the recession and market slide have compounded the challenge, taking giant chunks out of home values, stock portfolios and job opportunities for older workers. Zero debt is hardly a must. Some retirees are content paying off mortgages they have well under control. Others like using credit to buy investment real estate for a second home, or a houseboat, or charge a special trip.
Boomers Take a Step Back Down the Career Ladder Desperately in search of jobs, many laid-off workers lower their standards and accept entry-level jobs Ed Bankos, 61, of Charlotte, N.C., has applied for about 20 jobs online since he was laid off in May, but he hasn't gotten a single job interview. "You just E-mail them your résumé, and you sit back and you wait," says Bankos, who worked at a company that makes steel molds. Over the past three months, Bankos has steadily lowered his expectations for finding a new job. At the peak of his career, he made $70,000 annually. Now he's applying for jobs that pay $12 to $13 an hour. Bankos is one of a growing number of baby boomers considering stepping back down a rung or two on the career ladder. Here's how to cope with the new job-search reality.
THE REAL TEDDY KENNEDY: DEADLY LEGACY FOR AMERICA Teddy Kennedy died last week, but his history grows more deadly for future Americans. Instead of a rich legacy bequeathed upon the United States by forever U.S. Senator Teddy Kennedy, the oft-intoxicated, blubbery fourth brother of the Kennedy clan—four decades ago--drunkenly drove over a bridge that caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, left the scene and lied about what happened. The reality behind the façade of Edward Kennedy
Palin's Father Says Daughter Busy Writing Book The father of Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and vice presidential nominee, says his daughter is steering clear of the media spotlight to focus on writing a book of memoirs. Chuck Heath, in Idaho campaigning for a Republican congressional candidate, says Palin has been away from her Alaska home for more than a month.
A PRIMER ON “MARTIAL LAW” It is difficult these days not to come upon some pessimistic patriotic commentator expressing the fear that something called “martial law” may soon be imposed on this country, as the General Government’s response to a new “terrorist attack”, or to the economic and social chaos arising out of a collapse of the monetary and banking systems, or to some other dire event that frightens hapless Americans into trading a sure and certain loss of their liberties for a dollop of conjectural safety. An optimistic patriot might scoff at such fears. But both pessimists and optimists typically share the same implicit first premise: namely, that the form of “martial law” they have in mind is legitimate. Most of the time, this is a rather glaring and dangerous error.
Europe’s Ban on Old-Style Bulbs Begins Restrictions on the sale of incandescent bulbs begin going into effect across most of Europe on Tuesday in the continent’s latest effort to get people to save energy and combat global warming. But even advocates concede the change is proving problematic. Under the European Union rules, shops will no longer be allowed to buy or import most incandescent frosted glass bulbs starting Tuesday. Retailers can continue selling off their stock until they run out.
Dr Stan Monteith Radio Liberty 082509 1/4 - Catherin Austin Fitts -- Growing distrust of government; people are waking up.
Dr Stan Monteith Radio Liberty 082509 2/4 - Catherin Austin Fitts
Dr Stan Monteith Radio Liberty 082509 3/4 - Catherin Austin Fitts
Dr Stan Monteith Radio Liberty 082509 4/4 - Catherin Austin Fitts
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