Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Fri 01.01.2010
Happy New Year, 2010!!
The Top Business Stories of 2009 It was a year of historic change in business, economics, and finance. General Motors and Chrysler made whirlwind trips through the bankruptcy process, and the U.S. Senate narrowly voted in favor of health care reform in a dramatic vote on Christmas Eve morning, bringing President Obama just this close to achieving a top campaign priority. In other times, any one of these sagas might have been an obvious and easy selection as the business story of the year. Yet 2009 was so full of drama that health care reform will have to settle for a position on the short list, and Chrysler might not have made the list at all if it hadn't been paired with GM.
2010 could be a year that sparks unrest IF THE world appears to have escaped relatively unscathed by social unrest in 2009, despite suffering the worst recession since the 1930s, it might just prove the lull before the storm. Despite a tentative global recovery, for many people around the world economic and social conditions will continue to deteriorate in 2010. An estimated 60m people worldwide will lose their jobs. Poverty rates will continue to rise, with 200m people at risk of joining the ranks of those living on less than $2 a day. But poverty alone does not spark unrest-exaggerated income inequalities, poor governance, lack of social provision and ethnic tensions are all elements of the brew that foments unrest.
2010: Walking away will gain cachet Why bother? That’s the question more underwater Americans are asking themselves about their mortgage. Trapped in the abyss of negative equity, more will decide to quit paying. As they should. About a quarter of all mortgages in the United States are on houses that are worth less than the unpaid balance of the mortgage, according to real estate consultant First American CoreLogic. About half of that group, 5.3 million borrowers, are 20 percent or more underwater. For 2.2 million, the property is worth less than half the mortgage balance. Those folks are called “homeowners,” but “homeborrowers” would be more accurate. All they own is an obligation to whatever entity services their mortgage. They’re essentially renters paying above-market prices.
12/29/09 Gerald Celente on Fox Business: 2010 Market Trends
The Shape Shifters of 2009 Columnist Suzanne McGee looks beyond the headlines to find a baker's dozen of people who are shaping Wall Street. It's that time of year again-time to step back and try and assess the last 12 months and think ahead to what awaits us in 2010. In that spirit, the final StreetWise column of 2009 takes a look at a baker's dozen of Wall Street (or quasi-Wall Street) figures who represent some important trend or issue during the year. It's not a list of the most influential people on Wall Street, of those with the biggest bonuses or most awe-inspiring titles. Rather, they're involved in something interesting and potentially transformative. Perhaps they are running a new business or tackling a new job. Or they could, like Lloyd Blankfein, simply be trying to return as rapidly as possible to "business as usual." This isn't intended to be a definitive list, but rather a starting point for debate and discussion about the most significant themes of 2009 on Wall Street and what may lie ahead. Happy New Year!
December 30 2009: The Year for Plan B Ilargi: The major difference between Tim Geithner and me, apart from my obviously superior looks, is that he is willing to gamble double or nothing with your money and your lives, and I would not be. Or, as one might also put it, he thinks the risk of misery for millions of American people is less important than his own personal career. I do not. Other than that, when it comes to the way he defines his policy decisions, there are no differences that matter, not his experience in guiding the New York Fed, or his palliness with the likes of Bob Rubin and other self-ordained rulers of the realm, nor all the inside knowledge that comes with that. The reason none of it matters is that Geithner doesn't know what he's doing.
Keys to Next Year: Stimulus, Employment As the 2009 ledger is tallied and closed, investors, consumers, business owners and traders await the arrival of 2010 with a mix of trepidation and optimism. Just more than a year removed from the near collapse of the U.S. financial markets, economists say 2010 will bring more stability, but joblessness will remain a major obstacle to full recovery. With unemployment topping10% and little hiring on the horizon, Main Street will remain cautious “We think the unemployment rate is going to keep rising through next summer, peaking at 10.6%,” said Marisa DiNatale of Moody’s Economy.com. “We think the extent of unemployment is the greatest risk to recovery.”
The Great Recession: A Hidden Depression? The story of the Great Depression is often told in pictures: while few people recognize the names "Smoot-Hawley" or "Schechter Poultry," photographs of bank runs and bread lines continue to pack a punch, almost 80 years after they were first snapped. But the Great Depression's position as our absolute standard for economic disaster carries an unintended consequence: The power of its images seem to overwhelm -- and minimize -- the economic troubles of our own time. After all, if it doesn't look like a Depression, how tough could things be?
Economic Disasters Need Taxpayer Support It’s one of those days. Reading the financial press is a delight; the big challenge is deciding what to laugh at first. Take your choice. There’s Martin Wolf, writing in The Financial Times, with a claim that is so staggeringly conceited, the gods must have marked him for punishment before the ink was dry. He thinks economists should be thanked, not merely for saving the world economy…but for saving civilization itself. We will come back to this later…after we’ve had a chance to catch our breath.
Peter Schiff With Charles Payne 1 Of 3 12_28_09
One Lie After Another Sometimes, you can overlook something that is right in front of you. That just happened with me. I'm talking about something I should have seen before now in silver and gold. A year and a half ago, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) published a 16 page public report denying there was any manipulation in the silver market, due to concentration by large short traders on the COMEX. The report, issued on May 13, 2008, by the agency's Division of Market Oversight (DMO) went into painstaking detail about how the short concentration in silver was no big deal. Certainly, the title, "Report on Large Short Trader Activity in the Silver Futures Market" is very straight forward. Here's the report - http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public
The Economy and 2010: What is your Resolution? With the recent unexpected drop in jobless claims, an uptick in consumer spending and New Year mirth, you might expect that recovery is truly in the wings. Saner voices still ring the bell of reality. The U.S. Government and many others focus on percentages, which don’t paint the real picture at all. Just look at the unemployment situation on a month-to-month basis in the U.S. and what this really means for Americans and you will begin to get a clearer picture of economic reality beyond having millions of Americans use their credit cards for a month to spur the illusion of economic growth. Nobel laureate economist, Joseph Stiglitz says that the U.S. economy will be permanently stunted if the government doesn't do much more to create jobs and to invest in the nation's potential.
Bubble-onomics: 10 Predictions for 2010 This analysis has got nothing to do with the much loved but now sometimes tarnished financial//economic theories that were so popular until mid-2008. Just some weird ideas for how market bubbles work; with roots somewhere between Entomology and International Valuation Standards. Some of the ideas were looked at by George Soros in his book on “Reflexivity” published in 1987 and in Bob Farrell’s “10 Market Laws” published in 1992. The first “hard” prediction that used this approach was made in January 2009 (“S&P 500 will turn at 675”), followed by one in February 2009 (“When it hits 675 Jump In!”), since then the approach has been used with varying degrees of success to predict the inflection points for oil, gold, treasuries, toxic assets, housing, and the Shanghai Index.
Can I sell gold at $5,000 in 2010? Happy New Year! 2009 will be remembered as an exceptional year for commodities. The commodities bull run this year has been fueled by gold, platinum, garlic and turmeric. Gold emerged as the singular driver that pushed the boom in commodities. Gold, gold, gold…everywhere we hear and read about the glistering yellow metal. As the year draws to a close, it is celebration time for gold scrap sellers as the yellow metal they bought for $700 per ounce an year back is worth $1100 now. That is a huge return that common people, investors and traders are lured to buy more and more gold.
Gold rallies as dollar eases, heads for 9th annual gain Gold rallied on Thursday, helped by a weaker U.S. dollar, a factor that has helped propel gold to a record high earlier this month and its ninth annual gain in as many years. The gain reversed a slide in bullion prices on Wednesday, when investors ditched gold as the dollar .DXY advanced on positive outlooks for U.S. business activity and housing. With gold looking to end the year up by around a quarter, investors will turn to the prospects for 2010, which are likely to largely hinge on how quickly the U.S. Federal Reserve moves to tighten monetary policy.
Gold Inches Higher, Ending Banner Year For the ninth straight year, the yellow metal will have increased in value as investors keep on buying, motivated by a widely held fear of impending inflation and a belief that the Federal Reserve, anxious to nurse a delicate economic recovery, will leave interest rates at historically low levels for as long as it can. In mild pre-holiday trading New Year's Eve, U.S. equities declined slightly, while the U.S. dollar index was slipping 0.04%. Gold, meanwhile, ended a two-day losing streak, bouncing $3.40 to $1,095.90 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gold stays positive as greenback pares early losses YEAR-END position squaring enabled gold futures to hold onto some of their gains yesterday even as the dollar recovered most of its early weakness. Lightly traded but nearby January gold rose $US3.70 to $US1095.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, while most-active February climbed $US3.70 to $US1096.20. Most-active March silver rose US4.3 cents to $US16.845. Gold opened the session higher with the ICE Futures US March dollar index on the defensive, hurt in part by a survey showing a rise in UK house prices last month. Investors often buy the metal as a hedge against US dollar weakness.
Gold Ends 2009 With 25 Pct Return Gold prices sealed their biggest absolute annual gain in three decades with a small advance on Thursday, rising for an unprecedented ninth year in a row after dollar-hedging traders and central banks joined investors who turned to gold for price performance and protection. Bullion rose slightly as the dollar ebbed and oil climbed as high as $80 a barrel. Palladium jumped sharply to notch a record 119 percent return this year, bolstered by improving industrial demand and anticipation of more investment with the launch of a new U.S. exchange traded fund next year.
China's 2010 Gold Rush THE COLLAPSE in India's gold demand during 2007-09 might seem good reason to question the fundamental strength of gold buying worldwide. After all, if the world's No.1 gold buyers can't keep up with record-high gold prices, who can...? But the plain fact, as BullionVault first forecast in spring 2009, is that China has overtaken India as the number one private gold buyer this year. The typical Chinese New Year gold rush has already begun (thanks in part to 3% discounts at major retailers), and robust demand looks likely to continue through 2010 if not beyond.
Gold Climbs, Capping Ninth Annual Gain, on Currency Outlook Gold futures rose, capping the ninth straight annual gain, on speculation that the dollar will extend a slump, spurring demand for the metal as an alternative investment. Silver had the biggest yearly increase since 1979. Gold advanced 24 percent this year as government spending aimed at reviving the U.S. economy sent the dollar down 4.2 percent against a basket of six major currencies. The metal rose to a record $1,227.50 an ounce on Dec. 3 and also reached all- time highs based in sterling and euros.
Peter Schiff With Charles Payne 2 Of 3 12_28_09
Jim Sinclair - A markets bear, but gold bull, crying in the wilderness Jim Sinclair can't find a markets bear anywhere and that rings warning bells! Jim Sinclair, a much respected and followed bull on the gold price, despairs of the analysts predicting a stock market boom in 2010. In a note yesterday Sinclair says "As we approach the New Year it seems the party has already begun, and the commentators are all full of spirits. I can't find a bear in the woods." "According to them the equity market is going up, the dollar is going up, commodities are going up, and even lip service is being paid to gold, but lip service only. The conviction being blasted out there is a line up of former pro-gold guys like Faber and Rogers. Today they rolled out Barton Biggs for his bullish equity-bullish dollar forecast. Soros and Buffett have already made their contribution to a dollar rally."
Gold prices will make history in 2010 With the gold price at $1,100 dollar per ounce in late 2009, gold investors are likely to increase purchases, creating a new cycle of price increase. The greenback is depreciating in the eyes of investors and the price of the dollar and gold always go in opposite directions. Central banks of the world have realized the need to diversify asset reserves in anticipation of the depreciation of the dollar and higher inflation, which will promote gold purchases by banks.
How China overtook India in gold consumption The collapse of Indian gold demand since the global financial crisis broke in 2007 might seem good reason to question the fundamental strength of gold buying worldwide today. After all, if the world's No.1 gold buyers can't keep up with record-high Gold Prices, who can...? But the plain fact, as BullionVault first forecast in spring 2009, is that China has overtaken India as the number one private gold buyer this year. The typical Chinese New Year gold rush has already begun (thanks in part to 3% discounts at major retailers), and robust demand looks likely to continue through 2010 if not beyond.
Will IMF part with its gold on George Soros plan? In 2009, what was the most interesting and valuable proposal from billionaire global investor George Soros? Soros made a passionate plea for clean tech sector, saying that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should part with its gold reserves to promote carbon cutting projects in the developing countries. George Soros' comments have invited criticism and applause. But will his suggestion that IMF should dispose of some $100 billion out of its gold reserves to spend on green loans in carbon-cutting projects to the developing countries come true in 2010?
Jim Rogers on gold, dollar, commodities in 2009 It is the time of the year, when you love to recollect what others said on things you like and dislike. And on commodities, what better voice to listen to than that of Jim Rogers, the global investing guru on commodities. Rogers' views on gold, silver, platinum, palladium, dollar, pound and agricultural commodities were the most resounding during the whole of 2009. Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, and a vocal critic of America and Britain, has been arguing all through 2009 that agricultural commodities are the best investment place to put your money.
Dollar Bulls Bushwhack Foreign Currencies The non-dollar currencies got bushwhacked yesterday by the dollar bulls around mid-day, and there’s been no recovery since. The Treasury is back at the auction table, with $32 billion in 7-year Treasuries for you to buy at the fantabulous yield of…. Drum roll please…. 2.60%! All that and more, so buckle yourself in, and make certain to keep your arms and legs inside the Pfennig at all times during the ride!
Camaraderie of the Damned There is not a lot of action in the markets. Most of the investment world is home for the holidays… At least, the investors are home. The pros – the bankers, for example – are celebrating the holidays in fancy resorts. They can afford it. It was a great year for the financial sector. After nearly going broke because of their reckless speculations, the bankers took money from the feds and went on to speculate some more…making huge profits. Bonuses for many of them were better than ever.
Peter Schiff With Charles Payne 3 Of 3 12_28_09
Commodities Post Biggest Annual Gain in Four Decades on China Commodities posted the biggest annual gain in four decades, led by a doubling in copper, sugar and lead prices, as Chinese demand compensated for the longest slump in the global economy since World War II. In 2009, the S&P GSCI Index of 24 raw materials rose 50 percent, the most since at least 1971, and commodities drew record investment of $60 billion this year, Barclays Capital estimated. This year, the MSCI World Index of stocks in 23 developed nations climbed 27 percent, and U.S. Treasuries fell 3.5 percent, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes.
Why the Federal reserve wants to drain excess reserves I wrote a post yesterday (The Fed's exit strategy) to explain the mechanics surrounding Monday's Federal Reserve announcement that it is offering CD accounts to banks. The Federal Reserve does not control the demand for credit and therefore cannot increase aggregate demand by increasing bank reserves. This is an important point because it colors how you view the potential for inflation as a result of Fed action. I see little need for immediate inflation concerns because there is huge amounts of excess capacity.
Support grows for tackling nation's debt Senate action late last week that increased the limit on the government's credit card to a record $12.4 trillion gave a significant boost to a proposal to appoint a special commission to make the tough decisions that will be required to dig the nation out of debt. President Obama has voiced support for such a plan, and 35 Democratic and Republican senators have signed on to legislation that would create a bipartisan commission with broad power to force painful spending cuts and tax increases through Congress.
Money printing scheme is working, Bank of England says Lending to households and businesses continued to pick up in the final three months of last year and is expected to rise further in the coming months, the Bank of England said yesterday, boosting hopes that its scheme of quantitative easing is working. The Bank’s latest quarterly Credit Conditions Survey, which asks lenders about credit conditions over the past three months, showed that the availability of credit to businesses rose for the fourth consecutive quarter between October and December, while the availability of mortgages rose after falling in the third quarter.
Treasury makes the last bailouts, $29M to 10 banks The Treasury Department said Thursday it has pumped $29.3 million into 10 banks, the last to receive investments as part of the taxpayer-funded program to shore up the financial system. The aid comes from a $700 billion financial bailout program created last year during the height of the financial crisis. The investments in the 10 banks are the last under Treasury's so-called Capital Purchase Program, Treasury officials said. By law, the Treasury must report the transactions — which occurred on Tuesday — within two business days.
1/3 Gerald Celente top 10 Predictions for 2010! StopTheRobbery.com
Huffington to consumers: boycott big banks There can be few institutions more despised as 2010 begins than big U.S. banks, but what can the average person do about it? The answer, according to Huffington Post website founder Arianna Huffington and former Senate Banking Committee chief economist Rob Johnson: Withdraw your money. In a widely read blog post this week,Huffington and Johnson try to stir up a popular revolt by encouraging bank customers to yank their deposits from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase and Citibank and move them to community banks and credit unions.
Why Did They Close WaMu? Washington Mutual had enough money to survive. So why did regulators shut the thrift down in one of the biggest bank takeovers in history? On a sunny Sunday afternoon in late September, a year and two days after regulators closed Washington Mutual, the bank's former leaders gathered for an improbable, and tragic, reunion at a Seattle restaurant. Among those present: Lou Pepper, the CEO who guided WaMu through the 1980s, and Kerry Killinger, the CEO who presided over both its vast expansion in the 1990s and its later deep dive into risky mortgage lending.
FDIC plans to seek stakes in buyers of failed banks The agency hopes to recoup the costs of closing lenders by sharing in any profits from an increase in the buyer's stock after a takeover. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plans to seek stakes in the companies bidding for seized banks, aiming to gain when the shares rise and helping recoup the costs of closing lenders. The arrangement would let the agency share any profits from an increase in the buyer's stock after a takeover, said James Wigand, the FDIC's deputy director of resolutions and receiverships.
Mortgage Bond Rally May End, Rates Rise as Fed Stops Purchases Mortgage bonds are poised to slump after a record rally as the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented buying of $1.25 trillion of the securities ends as soon as March, driving up interest rates on new home loans. Analysts at BNP Paribas SA, Credit Suisse Group AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. say the extra yield over benchmark rates that investors demand to hold the securities will widen as much as half a percentage point as the Fed stops purchasing. The 11- month-old program has reduced yields, which guide lending rates, by about 1 percentage point, BNP estimates.
U.S. in fiscal peril with $12.1 trillion debt After $787 billion in stimulus spending and $700 billion in bank bailouts, 2010 is fast shaping up to be the year of the federal budget diet. Bipartisan support is growing in Congress for action to stabilize the nation's bulging debt, which is now $12.1 trillion. Influential experts from former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan to former comptroller general David Walker have joined the cause.
Cybercrooks stalk small businesses that bank online A rising swarm of cyber-robberies targeting small firms, local governments, school districts, churches and non-profits has prompted an extraordinary warning. The American Bankers Association and the FBI are advising small and midsize businesses that conduct financial transactions over the Internet to dedicate a separate PC used exclusively for online banking. The reason: Cybergangs have inundated the Internet with "banking Trojans" — malicious programs that enable them to surreptitiously access and manipulate online accounts. A dedicated PC that's never used for e-mail or Web browsing is much less likely to encounter a banking Trojan.
Neel Kashkari’s Quiet Path to Pimco The financial crisis did not produce many stars. One of the few was Neel T. Kashkari, the former Bush administration bailout chief. A onetime investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Kashkari became an instant celebrity in October 2008 when he was tapped by Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the Treasury secretary, to run the Troubled Asset Relief Program for banks. He was christened “the $700 billion man” for overseeing such a huge amount of banking aid.
2/3 Gerald Celente top 10 Predictions for 2010! StopTheRobbery.com
Congress lets 50 tax breaks expire at end of ’09 Many likely to be revived sometime in 2010 — but it’s a pain for taxpayers When members of the U.S. Senate went home earlier this month, they left the future of 50 individual and business tax breaks in limbo. All expire at the end of 2009. Among the disappearing breaks are the research tax credit and an annual alternative minimum tax "patch," which keeps 23 million additional middle-income Americans from being forced into calculating and paying the dreaded AMT. (For 2009, with the patch in place, 4 million upper-middle- and high-income families will pay AMT.)
China Property Bubble May Lead to U.S.-Style Real Estate Slump Li Nan has real estate fever. A 27- year-old steel trader at China Minmetals, a state-owned commodities company, Li lives with his parents in a cramped 700- square-foot apartment in west Beijing. Li originally planned to buy his own place when he got married, but after watching Beijing real estate prices soar, he has been spending all his free time searching for an apartment. If he finds the right place -- preferably a two-bedroom in the historic Dongcheng quarter, near the city center -- he hopes to buy immediately. Act now, he figures, or live with Mom and Dad forever. In the last 12 months such apartments have doubled or tripled in price, to about $400 per square foot.
How Commercial Real Estate Could Trigger a Double-Dip Reports that commercial real estate (CRE) is suffering from a double whammy of soaring vacancies and declining valuations have been making news recently with sobering regularity. DailyFinance addressed the risks that CRE meltdowns pose to banks in early December. And in a stunning confirmation, just weeks later Morgan Stanley announced it was "walking away" from five San Francisco office towers, giving them back to the lenders. These accounts address the impacts on real estate investors, banks and hard-hit locales such as Southern California. But a bigger, often-overlooked, risk is the potential for CRE to remain a drag on the U.S. economy for years to come, or its potential to trigger a slide back into recession -- the so-called double dip that many fear.
3 reasons home prices are heading lower After four months of gains, home prices flattened in October. Worse yet, industry insiders think that they'll soon start to fall. Prices have risen more than 3% since May, according to S&P/Case-Shiller. But most forecasts predict price declines in 2010, with possible losses ranging from anywhere from 3% on up. Fiserv Lending Solutions, a financial analytics firm, forecasts that prices will fall in all but 39 of the 381 markets it covers, with an average drop of 11.3%.
False Hope in the Real Estate Comeback The Los Angeles Times tells us that mortgage defaults in the prime category rose in the 3rd quarter. If you are wondering what might happen to housing prices in the US…should the depression continue…you might want to keep an eye on the default rate. Housing prices are down about 30% nationwide. In some areas, they are down much more. But they had been going up for so long…this downswing still seems like an aberration. Hope has momentum…especially in the housing market. Housing prices rose along with inflation for 100 years. Then, they rose much faster than inflation over the last 10 years, ending in 2007. This leaves people with the impression – false – that housing always goes up over the long run. As we have pointed out many times in these Daily Reckonings, housing prices in the nicest neighborhood of Baltimore, where we have our offices, hit their highs, in real terms, in the 1920s. They’ve been going down ever since. Even after the big run up to 2007, they were still below their ’20s peaks. That’s a bear market in real estate prices that has lasted, so far, 80 years.
3/3 Gerald Celente top 10 Predictions for 2010! StopTheRobbery.com
Fannie mortgage holdings sink, delinquencies leap Fannie Mae's gross mortgage portfolio shrank sharply in November while the delinquency rate on single-family loans it guarantees leaped in October, the government-controlled U.S. home funding company said on Monday. The company said its mortgage investments fell at a 26.1 percent annual rate last month to $752.2 billion. Year-to-date, the portfolio has declined by an annual 4.9 percent from $787.3 billion at the end of last December. Fannie Mae also reported an ongoing jump in the rate of late payments on single-family loans it guarantees, a problem that has eaten into its capital and forced borrowing from the U.S. Treasury.
U.S. to Lose $400 Billion on Fannie, Freddie, Wallison Says Taxpayer losses from supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will top $400 billion, according to Peter Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The situation is they are losing gobs of money, up to $400 billion in mortgages,” Wallison said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Treasury Department recognized last week that losses will be more than $400 billion when it raised its limit on federal support for the two government-sponsored enterprises, he said.
The Ethics of Walking Away, Continued Tuesday, I asked Megan McArdle how much of one’s life’s savings should be given to the bank before they take one’s house. She answers, gratifyingly, that in the particular case I was writing about, “obviously he should have walked away immediately.” Good, we’re in agreement on that. If you’re going to lose your house, best just to lose your house, rather than to lose your house and your savings. But then, puzzlingly, Megan asks “what Felix thinks this has to do with people who decide to default on their mortgages so that they’ll have more money to spend on cruises and new furniture”.
Retirees Snared by Medicare As People Work Longer, They Risk Penalties for Missing Deadlines Rules for enrolling in Medicare are complex. But when people postpone retirement past age 65, as many people are doing these days, it's easy to get caught up in red tape. Older adults can't get into Medicare any time they want. The easiest time to sign up is when you turn 65, and, if you're already collecting Social Security, enrollment is automatic. But if you keep working beyond that age and opt instead to stay with your employer's group health plan, your options for getting Medicare can be sharply limited. It's important to pay attention to strict enrollment deadlines, or you may face a fine and risk going without coverage for months.
Mayo Clinic in Arizona to Stop Treating Some Medicare Patients The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little. More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.
Economist: Health Care Bill "Is Just Another Bailout Of The Financial System" It is obvious that many republicans oppose the proposed health care bill. But many liberals and progressives oppose it as well. For example, economist L. Randall Wray writes: Here's the opportunity, Wall Street's newest and bestest gamble: there is a huge untapped market of some 50 million people who are not paying insurance premiums-and the number grows every year because employers drop coverage and people can't afford premiums. Solution? Health insurance "reform" that requires everyone to turn over their pay to Wall Street. Can't afford the premiums? That is OK-Uncle Sam will kick in a few hundred billion to help out the insurers. Of course, do not expect more health care or better health outcomes because that has nothing to do with "reform" … Wall Street's insurers… see a missed opportunity. They'll collect the extra premiums and deny the claims. This is just another bailout of the financial system, because the tens of trillions of dollars already committed are not nearly enough. Wray points out that - with the repeal of Glass Steagall - the financial sector and the insurance businesses (the "f" and "i" in the "fire" sector) are somewhat merged.
Report: 13 States Threaten to Sue Over Health Care Deal Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska's political deal from the federal health care reform bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to The Associated Press Wednesday. "We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed," South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and the 12 other attorneys general wrote in the letter to be sent Wednesday night to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "As chief legal officers of our states we are contemplating a legal challenge to this provision and we ask you to take action to render this challenge unnecessary by striking that provision," they wrote.
Watch Small Business for Employment Trends. The Outlook Is Bleak The Discover Small Business Watch index is the most up-to-date poll on conditions in the sector which has accounted for the vast majority of employment growth in all the economic recoveries of the past thirty-five years. The DSBW Index collapsed in November, to 76.5 from 88 in October. December remains unchanged. But fewer small business owners expect the economy to improve.
Colorado's minimum wage becomes 1st in US to drop Colorado's minimum wage going down 3 cents in 2010, first drop in the nation since 1938 Colorado's minimum wage will drop slightly in the new year -- the first decrease in any state's minimum wage since the federal minimum was adopted in 1938. Colorado's wage is falling 3 cents an hour, from $7.28 to the federal level of $7.25. That's because Colorado is one of 10 states that tie the state minimum wage to inflation. The goal is to protect low-wage workers from having unchanged paychecks as the cost of living goes up. But Colorado's provision also allows wage declines, and the state's consumer price index fell 0.6 percent last year, so the minimum wage is going down.
20 million-plus collect unemployment checks in '09 A record 20 million-plus people collected unemployment benefits at some point in 2009, a year that ended with the jobless rate at 10 percent. As the pace of layoffs slows, the number of new applicants visiting unemployment offices has been on the decline in recent months. But limited hiring means the ranks of the long-term unemployed continues to grow, with more than 5.8 million people out of work for more than six months. The number of new claims for jobless benefits dropped last week to 432,000, the Labor Department said Thursday, down sharply from its late March peak of 674,000. The decline signals that the economy could begin adding a small number of jobs in January, several economists said.
Rick Warren's Saddleback Church In Desperate Fundraising Appeal After Collection Plates Run Dry Rick Warren is the conservative evangelical minister who somehow has become a trusted friend to both Republicans and Democrats. Obama came to his Saddleback Church during the campaign, and then Warren spoke at his inauguration. But the bad economy is taking its toll on his empire, and yesterday he sent out an emergency fundraising appeal to the church's members.
FCC Urges Fox, Time Warner to Settle Dispute The nation's top telecommunications regulator waded into the ongoing programming negotiations between News Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc., urging the companies to reach a temporary agreement and prevent subscribers from losing some Fox channels. "I have urged Fox and Time Warner Cable to agree to a temporary extension of carriage if they do not come to terms on a new carriage agreement today, in order to prevent disruption to their viewers," said Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, in a written statement Thursday. "Companies shouldn't force cable-watching football fans to scramble for other means of TV delivery on New Year's weekend."
Scripps Networks Warns Cablevision Viewers of Blackout over Fees Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. began warning Cablevision Systems Corp. subscribers Thursday that its Food Network and HGTV channels may be "dropped from your TV lineup," as another contentious negotiation over programming fees spilled into public view. Cablevision's agreement to carry the Scripps channels expires at midnight Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cablevision provides TV service to approximately 3.1 million people largely in the New York area.
Delta, Northwest can work as single carrier US gov't authorizes Delta, Northwest to operate as single carrier Delta Air Lines Inc. has received government permission to operate its namesake service and its Northwest Airlines subsidiary as a single carrier, a Delta executive said Thursday. The single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration allows Delta to put its code on Northwest flights and phase out the Northwest name. That process will be complete in the first quarter of 2010. For now, travelers won't notice anything different. Delta, based in Atlanta, acquired Northwest for $2.8 billion in stock in October 2008 to become the world's biggest airline.
Mailman to deliver aid in case of anthrax attack President Obama puts the Postal Service in charge of dispensing drugs If the nation ever faces a large-scale attack by a biological weapon like anthrax, the U.S. Postal Service will be in charge of delivering whatever drugs and other medical aid Americans would need to survive. In an executive order released Wednesday, President Barack Obama put the Postal Service in charge of dispensing "medical countermeasures" to biological weapons because of its "capacity for rapid residential delivery."
Special update on Schiff for Senate
North Korea bans foreign currencies North Korea has banned the use of foreign currency, another sign its hard-line communist government is intent on reasserting control over the country's nascent market economy. Reports say the decree warns of severe punishment for anyone using U.S. dollars, euros, yuan and other non-North Korean currencies. Foreign currencies previously were accepted in some shops, restaurants and other outlets, particularly those catering to foreigners. The order, issued by North Korea's state security bureau and going into effect Jan. 1, aims to "forbid the circulation of foreign currency," China's state-run CCTV television said in a brief report late Wednesday.
Snowstorm squelches climate change protest A downtown protest of the climate change talks in Copenhagen became a victim of Wednesday's snowstorm. "Not many people showed up because of the blizzard conditions," said organizer Clea Major, an international studies student at the University of Utah. It didn't take long for the six friends to pack up a bullhorn and posters they'd planned to use for their "scream-in," an outlet for their frustration about the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks earlier this month to curb the pollution blamed for climate change.
Yes, Yemen Has Oil The Middle Eastern nation - in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Red Sea - has been exporting a couple of billion dollars worth of crude oil per year. But it's oil supplies are shrinking rapidly, and may be totally depleted within 10 years. As the Yemen Observer notes: Yemeni crude oil exports decreased to $1.5 billion during the fiscal period from January -October of 2009, compared with $4.2 billion during the same period of 2008, a decrease of $2.7 billion, the Central Bank of Yemen reported.
Yemen oil revenue decreases by 2 million barrels Yemeni crude oil experts decreased to $1.5 billion during the fiscal period from January -October of 2009, compared with $4.2 billion during the same period of 2008, a decrease of $2.7 billion, the Central Bank of Yemen reported. The statement revealed that the record decline in oil returns was accompanied by the government's ebbing share of total oil exports during this period, from 38.8 million barrels to 24.5 million barrels. A report issued by CBY attribute the decline to the decrease of Yemen oil production in conjunction with the decrease of oil prices globally.
Nigerian Terrorist Patsy Yet Another CIA Ploy in US-backed Buildup of al Qaeda in Yemen Civil War Tarpley tells RT that the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is not a matter of unconnected dots, but rather that of a protected patsy or puppet deliberately used by the US intelligence community for a Christmas Day provocation designed to facilitate US meddling in the civil war in Yemen, which is where Umar Farouk allegedly trained and was given his PETN device. Banker's son Umar Farouk had been denied an entrance visa to Great Britain , and had been denounced to the US Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria as a possible terrorist by his own father in mid-November. His one-way ticket to Detroit was bought in Ghana for cash, and he reportedly entered Nigeria illegally. In Amsterdam , he was assisted at the Northwest Airlines gate by a "well-dressed Indian" who explained that Umar Farouk had no passport. He did have PETN, the same substance supposedly used by the mentally impaired shoe bomber Richard Reid in his abortive attack of eight years ago. In spite of all this, Umar Farouk's US entry visa was never revoked, he never made it onto the no-fly list, and he was never thoroughly searched.
Detroit terror attack: United States 'plans retaliatory attacks on Yemeni soil' The United States is planning to attack al Qaeda militants in Yemen in retaliation for the attempt to bring down an aeroplane over Detroit on Christmas Day, it has been reported. Intelligence efforts are said to be focused on finding those involved in the plot to get Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the Northwest Airlines plane with explosives in his underwear. Security officials are also likely to identify other "high value" al Qaeda targets who could be the target of strikes.
Eyewitnesses: 2 arrested in Christmas flight terror 'How stupid do you think the American public is?' Several passengers aboard the Christmas Day flight to Detroit where a Nigerian man attempted to blow up the airplane say a second passenger was arrested after the foiled terrorist attack – and they suggested other men may have played roles as well. Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., and his wife, Lori, claim they were aboard Flight 253 as they returned from a safari in Uganda, seated only a few rows behind suspected attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a man who admitted to affiliation with the terrorist group al-Qaida. Haskill presented a boarding pass to Michigan Live to show that he had been a passenger on the plane.
Northwest Bomb Plot 'Oddities' In 2008, the ACLU estimated the US 'No Fly List' to have grown to over 1,000,000 names -- heck, even Cat Stevens and the late Senator Ted Kennedy were on it -- and it continues to expand. But, suspected terrorist Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was curiously able to obtain military-grade high explosives --80 grams of PETN (Gee, where'd he get that?) -- managed to escape airport security and detonate his underwear bomb! In April 2009, American authorities reportedly refused an Air France flight from Paris to Mexico entry into US airspace because a left-wing journalist writing a book on the CIA was on board. Hernando Calvo Ospina, who works for Le Monde Diplomatique and has written on revolutionary movements in Cuba and Colombia, figured on the US authorities' 'no-fly list.' Air France said the April 18 flight was forced to divert to the French Caribbean island of Martinique before continuing its journey .
Webster Tarpley: 'Detroit jet terrorist attack was staged'
Officials Claim Second Man Unrelated To Christmas Attack Bomber's accomplice being protected? Multiple eyewitness accounts contradicted Having first denied the very existence of a possible accomplice in the Christmas Day bombing attempt, officials are now denying that a second man detained in the aftermath of the Flight 253 incident had anything to do with the attack, completely contradicting multiple eyewitness accounts. Authorities have attempted to downplay the significance of other men seen involved in the plot, including an Indian man that helped bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board the plane, another man witnessed filming the entire flight including the bombing attempt, as well as an Indian man handcuffed by the FBI after sniffer dogs detected something suspicious in his luggage.
Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan doubles in 2009 The year's tally was 318, compared with 155 in 2008, due mostly to the crude but ever larger and deadlier roadside bombs employed by the Taliban. And Western military fatalities are expected to spike. Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - American military fatalities in Afghanistan doubled in 2009 compared with the previous year, and U.S. officials and analysts acknowledge that the new year is likely to prove even more lethal.
Dennis Kucinich "This War Is A Threat To Our National Security!
President makes Top 10 list of corrupt politicians Believes he 'can violate privacy rights of Americans' without legal consequence President Obama has been named to a "Top 10" list he'd likely be grateful to avoid: Judicial Watch's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians," for 2009. "The Obama White House believes," said the report from the organization that monitors government for corruption, and sues when it chooses, "it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability." The report released yesterday said Obama joined the likes of Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Attorney General Eric Holder; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on the list.
Social Engineering behind leader worship
***** Important . . . if your kids are watching
About avatars: Caveat emptor! Even before the buzz began building for James Cameron's sci fi blockbuster Avatar, today's "millennial generation," the film's biggest fans, knew what the word meant. Few knew the classical definition of "avatar" as "the incarnation of a Hindu deity" that people my age learned in the 1960s taking comparative religion courses or reading Hermann Hesse. To current-day collegians, the word is the self-definition of a hi-tech kid who manipulates an image of himself projected in a computer game. . . . . . . . . YET WHAT could seem further apart than Hitler the Aryan white supremacist and Cameron's hero, Jake, who loves the wronged Navi enough to be reborn as one? Unfortunately, youthful members of the rightist underground who avidly read reprints of Devi's deification of the Fuhrer don't look at Hitler with Cameron's loathing - and they may view Avatar as quite compatible with their own extremist faith.
RSS
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/quotes_7a.gif)