Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Tues 02.23.2010
David Walker Says U.S. on `Same Path' as Greece: Video David Walker, chief executive officer at Peter G. Peterson Foundation and a former U.S. comptroller general, talks with Bloomberg's Peter Cook about the U.S. budget deficit. Walker also discusses Greece's debt crisis and outlook for budget cuts.
Greece not alone in exploiting EU accounting flaws By Alex Chambers and Kirstin Ridley LONDON (Reuters) - Fury over Greece using derivatives that masked its debt conveniently ignores the fact that euro zone countries and EU bookkeepers have approved other deals worth billions of euros for over 10 years. Brussels has told Greece to provide details of a 2001 derivatives deal with U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS.N) that helped Athens dress up its public finances by deferring interest rate payments as it entered the euro. Goldman Sachs explained how the trades worked and that they were consistent with EU regulations in force at the time, in a statement made on its website on Sunday.
Falling Debt Dynamite Dominoes, The Coming Financial Catastrophe By: Andrew G Marshall - Market Oracle Understanding the Nature of the Global Economic Crisis - The people have been lulled into a false sense of safety under the rouse of a perceived “economic recovery.” Unfortunately, what the majority of people think does not make it so, especially when the people making the key decisions think and act to the contrary. The sovereign debt crises that have been unfolding in the past couple years and more recently in Greece, are canaries in the coal mine for the rest of Western “civilization.” The crisis threatens to spread to Spain, Portugal and Ireland; like dominoes, one country after another will collapse into a debt and currency crisis, all the way to America.
US Unemployment and the Technicolor Depression By Bill Bonner - The Daily Reckoning Worse than the Great Depression… Stocks ended Friday trading not much higher than where they began. Gold rose $3. Oil is trading over $80 a barrel this morning. And stocks in Asia are "recovering" from the Fed's discount rate increase of last week. If the market wanted to crash, it would have plenty of reasons to do so. China is tightening bank lending rules. Here in the US, there is the aforementioned Fed discount rate increase. In Europe, Greece is going back to the marketplace to raise more money. And in the Mideast, today's news tells us that many Kuwaiti could be wiped out by the latest downturn in their multi-billion dollar investment industry. Many things could go wrong; something will.
Bank Failure Friday Is Back As Feds Shut Down Four More Banks Last Week Mary Gordon - Business Week -- WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators shut four banks from California to Florida on Friday, boosting to 20 the number of U.S. bank failures this year following the 140 closures last year in the worst financial climate in decades. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over La Jolla Bank, FSB, in La Jolla, Calif. The bank had 10 branches and about $3.6 billion in assets and $2.8 billion in deposits.
Not So Fast for U.S. Economy, Inflation and therefore Fed Tightening By: Paul L Kasriel - Market Oracle Not so fast for the economy, for inflation and, therefore, for Fed tightening. The Commerce Department's first guess at Q4:2009 real GDP growth of 5.7% is likely to be the fastest quarterly annualized growth we see for some time. Rather, sequential annualized growth rates over the first three quarters of this year are going to be on the order of less than one-half that of the last year's fourth quarter. Although one month does not a trend make, consumer inflation in January already shows signs of abating a bit.
The euro will face bigger tests than Greece By George Soros - FT Otmar Issing, one of the fathers of the euro, correctly states the principle on which the single currency was founded. As he wrote in the FT last week, the euro was meant to be a monetary union but not a political one. Participating states established a common central bank but refused to surrender the right to tax their citizens to a common authority. This principle was enshrined in the Maastricht treaty and has since been rigorously interpreted by the German constitutional court. The euro was a unique and unusual construction whose viability is now being tested.
Pressures Rise Over Greece's Deficit Problem By MARCUS WALKER AND CHARLES FORELLE - WSJ A standoff between Greece and its euro-zone partners over the timing and terms of a potential rescue is nearing a crucial juncture as the cash-strapped country faces a key test of investor willingness to keep funding its ballooning deficit. Greece faces several important challenges in the coming days, including an expected bond auction, a planned general strike on Wednesday, and a visit from European Union officials that began Monday, aimed at pushing the country to take tougher steps to rein in its budget deficit.
Concern about FDIC’s proposals By Aline van Duynin - FT Proposed new rules from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for banks seeking to raise funds in the securitised debt markets will create “substantial uncertainty” for investors and could further hamper efforts to revive this part of the capital markets, industry participants warned. In a letter to the FDIC, the US bank regulator which had requested comments on its so-called “safe harbour” rules to protect assets used as collateral for asset-backed securities when a bank fails, the American Securitization Forum, which represents investors, banks and issuers in this market, said it had “significant concerns”.
Glenn Beck Interview With David Walker on "Comeback America
How IMF is going to sell 191 tonnes of gold By Julian Phillips - Commodity Online When India announced its purchase of 200 tonnes of IMF gold in November, it added a statement that it might buy more of the International Monetary Fund's gold as well. This implied that it was limited by the IMF to the 200 tonnes it bought. But the IMF never said that. Rather it said it would announce the sale of any other portion of their gold to the public.
Holding on to $1500 forecast for gold, $25 silver By Jason Hamlin - Commodity Online Investors completely shrugged off news of the IMF gold sales as the price advanced $20 following the announcement. There are questions as to whether the IMF actually has physical gold to sell and there is historic correlation of gold going up after such announcements, not down as many would anticipate. GATA wrote about why the IMF sales don’t mean much and the market seemed to agree. The IMF announced their top priority was not to disrupt the gold markets, which is laughable in my opinion. Whether the gold will actually hit the open market still remains to be seen, but my take on the IMF sales is that it is much ado about nothing, other than the continued attempt to suppress the gold price.
Gold Gearing Up for a Big Move By: Howard Katz - Market Oracle There has been a sense in the gold market through the month of February that gold is going down, a sense of negativity and discouragement. Gold bugs are giving up and pulling out. The U.S. dollar index hit 81 on Friday. The Fed is tightening. “What more,” say the bears, “is there to say?” . . . . . . . . So here we face two giant forces causing higher prices: - the (second) upswing in the commodity pendulum, itself caused by the money created in the ‘80s and ‘90s; - the massive amount of money created by Helicopter Ben Bernanke in 2008-09 and still continuing.
Investing in Gold is a Move Toward Real Wealth By Bill Bonner -The Daily Reckoning Oil edged up towards $80 a barrel yesterday. And the latest numbers for producer prices showed more inflation than was expected. Meanwhile, jobless claims were up. And the Dow rose 86 points… What do investors see that we don’t? A mirage…the shimmering of hot money…money that comes from the feds. And they can’t believe it’s not real. But that’s the problem. No one can tell the difference between real money and the counterfeit stuff. Nor can they tell the difference between real prosperity and the phony variety. And who can really know whether the feds are doing some good…or just up to their usual tricks?
Economic Recovery and the Price of Gold By: Clif Droke - Market Oracle What a difference a month makes! It was only a month ago a leading financial publication came out with the story, "U.S. economy still hemorrhaging jobs despite stimulus." The press was all over the employment data and concluded that the stimulus had utterly failed. They were of course making the classic mistake of treating the employment numbers as coincident indicators, when in fact employment is the ultimate lagging indicator.
1001 Reasons to Own Gold By: Jeff Clark - Market Oracle The reason there are so many “reasons” is because gold is unlike any other asset. It...
responds to its own supply and demand
protects against short-sighted government actions and interventions
is a bellwether of market sentiment and economic outlook
protects against currency devaluation and inflation
is global
is one of the most beautiful metals ever found in the earth’s crust
is a store of value
is timeless
is money
How many assets can you say have all those characteristics? In spite of gold’s recent correction, the reasons haven’t decreased. In fact, the case for holding gold is stronger than ever. And over the past two weeks, a few “reasons” have surfaced that have fallen mostly under the radar. These, I believe, portend a higher gold price.
Redburn Partners On The Coming Gold War: "Gold Is Money And Nothing Else" by Tyler Durden - Zero Hedge A must read paper by Redburn Partners, "Gold War - Gold is money and nothing else", written in November 2007, which due to its extreme prescience on not only the shift of the economy following the bursting of the credit bubble, but being virtually spot on in its prediction on the price of gold, can serve as an sufficiently comprehensive introduction to anyone wishing to get up to speed with the primary forces determining the price of gold and its implications in a fiat-money world (and especially the prevailing current variant in which competitive devaluations galore).
Firm Dollar Fails To Spook Gold By: Rick Ackerma - GoldSeek The price of gold has corrected 15% since Comex futures hit an all-time high of $1229 per ounce in early December. How much more weakness will it take for gold to finish basing for the next big move -- a rally that we expect to carry into the mid-$1400s? A definitive answer could come this week, since the U.S. dollar, which has been in a bear rally since Thanksgiving, is close to some key Hidden Pivot resistance points. If the dollar were to blow past them it would be akin to the groundhog seeing his shadow – i.e., yet more weeks of winter for gold investors. However, there is evidence to suggest that it might be winter of the mildest sort, since gold has begun to show resilience whenever the dollar rallies.
Armed robbers steal 2000 ounces of gold from Troy Resources in Brazil APP - Perth, AU -- TROY Resources said today that armed robbers stole 2000 ounces of gold dore bars from its Andorinhas mine in Brazil after taking workers hostage. Troy said three workers were taken hostage but released unharmed after the theft on Monday and the loss is fully covered by the company's insurance. "A group of armed robbers took three site employees hostage on the road leaving the mine and returned to the Andorinhas site where approximately 2000 ounces of gold dore was taken," Troy said in a statement to the stock exchange on today. "The hostages were then released, unharmed."
Ron Paul: Suspend The Income Tax For 3-4 Years! (CNBC 1/2)
U.S. Dollar Entering Consolidation Phase By: David Petch - Market Oracle It appears that we are either just entering the consolidation phase of the US dollar index for the next 6 to 8 weeks or there is one final move to the upside before entering the consolidation phase. Every market around the globe is experiencing difficulty in one form or another which is associated with high debt levels. As much as other countries would like to totally switch out of US dollars to other currencies, this is about as realistic as the US and Canadian governments pulling oil out of gas stations and replacing it with natural gas…there are mechanisms in place that slowly can be dismantled but there is a lot of infrastructure changes involved, the markets having many internal layers of infrastructure. At some point in the future, the USD is going to get clipped, but as long as most debt still is in USD, this paper game will continue.
Dollar Falls Versus Euro on Bets Fed Will Keep Rates on Hold By Yoshiaki Nohara and Ron Harui - Business Week The dollar fell against the euro on prospects the Federal Reserve will hold its target interest rate near zero to sustain a recovery in the world’s biggest economy. The U.S. currency dropped against the yen for a third day on speculation Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will tell Congress tomorrow that last week’s increase in the discount rate isn’t intended to drive up borrowing costs. The euro was near an 11- month low versus the Swiss franc as the International Monetary Fund sent a staff member to Athens to provide assistance, adding to concern over the nation’s debt crisis. The yen rose against Brazil’s real and the South Korean won as Asian stocks fell.
Solution to the Credit Crisis? The Campaign for State-owned Banks By: Ellen Brown - Market Oracle While bank bailouts fatten Wall Street, states continue to battle the credit crisis. In the search for innovative solutions, some political candidates are proposing that states generate their own credit by setting up their own banks. State budgets for 2010 face the largest shortfalls on record, totaling $194 billion or 28 percent of state budgets; and 2011 is expected to be worse. Unemployment has already officially hit 10 percent, and many economists expect it to rise higher. Continued high unemployment will keep state income tax receipts at low levels and increase demand for Medicaid and other essential services states provide.
Banks Pressure Customers to Keep Fees Rolling In By ANDREW MARTIN and RON LIEBER - NY Times For many households trying to improve their finances, tossing out pitches from the bank has become almost automatic. But in recent weeks, Chase has been fanning special letters out to consumers with an offer that it urges them not to refuse. “Your debit card may not work the same way anymore, even if you just made a deposit. Unless we hear from you,” the message, emblazoned in large red type, warns. “If you don’t contact us, your everyday debit card transactions that overdraw your account will not be authorized after August 15, 2010 — even in an emergency,” with “even in an emergency” underlined for emphasis.
Secret AIG Document Shows Goldman Sachs Minted Most Toxic CDOs By Richard Teitelbaum Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- When a congressional panel convened a hearing on the government rescue of American International Group Inc. in January, the public scolding of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner got the most attention. Lawmakers said the former head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank had presided over a backdoor bailout of Wall Street firms and a coverup. Geithner countered that he had acted properly to avert the collapse of the financial system.
Government Sachs By Bill Bonner - Daily Reckoning Last week, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou slipped. He said not what he should have said, nor what he wanted to say. Unwittingly, he said something that was true: his country's budget was "out of control." He begged for more time to straighten it out. "We're trying to change the course of the Titanic," he said. The EU ministers gave him a month. Mr. Papaconstantinou was speaking of Greece. But he described much of Europe, Britain, Japan and the US. And, in his fortunate metaphor, he prophesied. The big ships can't be turned around. They're going to sink.
Goldman Sachs Says Greek Swaps Not ‘Inappropriate’ By Gavin Finch and Andrew MacAskill Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. did “nothing inappropriate” when it arranged currency swaps for Greece that reduced the nation’s national debt by 2.37 billion euros ($3.2 billion), a top executive said. “They did produce a rather small, but nevertheless not insignificant reduction, in Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio,” Gerald Corrigan, chairman of Goldman Sachs’s regulated bank subsidiary, told a panel of U.K. lawmakers today. The swaps were “in conformity with existing rules and procedures.”
Wall Street's Bailout Hustle Matt Taibbi - Silver Bear Cafe Goldman Sachs and other big banks aren't just pocketing the trillions we gave them to rescue the economy - they're re-creating the conditions for another crash On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America's pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman's role in precipitating the global financial crisis.
Fed's Yellen: U.S. economy still needs ultra-low rates By Ann Saphir SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The U.S. economy still needs extraordinarily low interest rates, as inflation is "undesirably low" and growth will likely be sluggish for several years, a top Federal Reserve official said Monday. San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen told the University of San Diego's business school that the U.S. economy will likely grow at a pace of about 3.5 percent this year and 4.5 percent next year. "Even though the recession appears to be over, it does not mean that we are where we want to be. Even with my moderate growth forecast, the economy will be operating well below its potential for several years," Yellen said, according to prepared remarks.
Don’t Kid Yourself. Interest Rates are Going Up. by madhedgefundtrader - Zero Hedge Make no mistake. The shot has been fired across the bow, the chink has appeared in the armor, and the crack has opened up in the dike. The Fed’s move to raise the discount rate on Thursday from 0.5% to 0.75% may have been technical, widely telegraphed by the Fed minutes, and an unwind of an artificial spike down in rates the economy no longer needs. Sure there was only $15 billion in loans outstanding at the Fed window, against $1 trillion in excess bank reserves. But it was definitely an UP move for rates. The liquidity tide that has been floating all asset boats has reversed and is starting to recede. We’re about to find out who has been swimming without a swimming suit. The train is leaving the station.
Economic Recovery to Hurt US Treasuries By Addison Wiggin - The Daily Reckoning Most economists now “expect the recovery to remain firmly on track.” That’s the word today from the National Association of Business Economics (NABE), the group officially tasked with deciding if the economy is growing or receding. The NABE forecast 3.1% GDP growth this year, largely in line with their last broadcast back in November. That “firm recovery” will also move the unemployment rate down one tenth of a point this year, the group forecast, from 9.7% now to 9.6% in December. That’s good, right? C’mon… We never trust good news!
Gridlock Is Good for Bernanke Dollar in Fight Over Rate Audits By Scott Lanman and Mike Dorning -- Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may be in favor of a do-nothing Congress when it comes to his fight over audits of monetary policy. Opposition in the Senate to a measure that would allow the Government Accountability Office to examine Fed interest-rate decisions is likely to doom the populist cause after it passed in the House Dec. 11, according to Gregory R. Valliere, a chief strategist at Potomac Research Group in Washington. Its defeat would remove a threat that might weaken the dollar while giving Bernanke, who testifies before Congress this week, a freer hand to raise rates as he seeks to unwind a $1 trillion expansion of credit, investors said.
Ron Paul: America Is With Me On Foreign Policy (CNBC 2/2)
Civilization's Wrecking Crew J. R. Nyquist - Silver Bear Cafe Joseph Schumpeter once explained that many Marxists and Keynesians never read a line of Marx or Keynes. According to Thomas Sowell, "They have gotten their ideas second- or third-hand from the intelligentsia." One might say that Marxism and Keynesianism bear a resemblance to disease. If Bubonic plague is carried by flea-infested rats, Marxism and Keynesianism are carried by intellectuals. In the first instance, we are dealing with dangerous bacteria; in the second instance, we are dealing with dangerous ideas.
World of debate rages over stimulus fallout By David M. Dickson - Washington Times Trillions buy an uneven recovery Now that the patient seems to have survived, the world's economic doctors are trying to determine what the treatment — trillions and trillions of dollars in government stimulus spending — did to the long-term health of the global economy. The longest, deepest global recession since the Great Depression ended last summer. For the final quarter of 2009, China and India reported strong growth and the United States said gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 5.7 percent.
Commercial Real Estate Apocalypse in 2011-2012 Mike Shedlock - Global Economic Trend Analysis Inquiring minds are digging deep into a 190 page PDF by the Congressional Oversight Panel regarding Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability. Executive Summary Over the next few years, a wave of commercial real estate loan failures could threaten America’s already-weakened financial system. The Congressional Oversight Panel is deeply concerned that commercial loan losses could jeopardize the stability of many banks, particularly the nation’s mid-size and smaller banks, and that as the damage spreads beyond individual banks that it will contribute to prolonged weakness throughout the economy.
Congressional Oversight Panel FEBRUARY OVERSIGHT REPORT Commercial Real Estate Losses and the Risk to Financial Stability
Elizabeth Warren: Why Washington Is Not Reforming the Financial System JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN -- Elizabeth Warren Discussing the Lack of Bank Reform on the Bill Maher Show. "The problems could not be more obvious, and quite frankly, the solutions are just about that obvious, but we just can't seem to get the two together...The reason that we are not changing things right now is because the banks have lobbyists in Washington in numbers I have never seen...People who just want to advocate for American families, people who want some changes to level the playing field do not have that kind of lobbying power. And so what we are really watching here is a David and Goliath story."
Gasoline heading above $3 a gallon by this summer; oil hits $80 a barrel By Chris Kahn, AP USA Today NEW YORK — Retail gas prices likely bottomed out last week, and they're again headed to above $3 a gallon this summer, experts said Monday. Pump prices typically rise this time of year as refineries switch to a more expensive grade of gas. But this year, prices are increasing after millions of Americans received pink slips and kept their cars in the driveway.
As Obama Unveils New Health Care Plan, Old Politics Await By JOSEPH LAZZARO - Daily Finance President Barack Obama unveiled a revised proposal to reform the health care system Monday. While it may attract new public support, it's likely to encounter the same old resistance: partisan opposition in Congress. Among other changes, the president has proposed the creation of a new Health Insurance Rate Authority to review changes in state-level health insurance premiums. The panel would "help States determine how rate review will be enforced and monitor insurance market behavior," the administration's proposal says. Controversial changes such as Anthem Blue Cross of California's recently announced 39% increase in premiums would presumably come under its review.
Obama Renews Health Push By LAURA MECKLER - WSJ Retooled $950 Billion Plan Aims to Get Legislation Through Over Republican Objections WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is upping the ante on health care. In a last-ditch effort to salvage his overhaul of the sector, the president unveiled a $950 billion plan that lays the groundwork for his party to try pushing its legislation through Congress without Republican support. Instead of paring his ambitions, as some in the White House had recommended, the president proposed a new plan based on what the Senate passed in December, adding more spending, more subsidies and a revised mix of taxes.
How Obama wants to pay for health reform By Jeanne Saha - CNNMoney President Obama unveiled a $950 billion proposal for reforming health care Monday, and promised that the plan is fully paid for and would even reduce the deficit over 10 years by $100 billion. The new plan is a compromise of the House and Senate bills passed last year. The White House cost estimates were based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates of Congress' bills. The CBO, however, will not be doing a separate analysis of the president's proposal, at least not unless it is formally introduced as a bill at some point.
Premiums jump 14% on Medicare private plans By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP USA Today WASHINGTON — Millions of seniors who signed up for popular private health plans through Medicare are facing sharp premium increases this year — another sign that spiraling costs are a problem even for those with solid insurance. A study to be released Friday by a major consulting firm found that premiums for Medicare Advantage plans offering medical and prescription drug coverage jumped 14.2% on average in 2010, after an increase of only 5.2% the previous year. Some 8.5 million elderly and disabled Americans are in the plans, which provide more comprehensive coverage than traditional Medicare.
ObamaCare, the Upgrade Peter Suderman - Reason.com In preparation for Thursday's almost-certain-to-feature-no-bipartisanship bipartisan health care summit, President Obama released a detailed upgrade to his health care reform plan this morning. The proposal, along with the summit, represent a last-ditch, last-chance, last-hurrah, end-of-the-road, double-overtime final showdown in which the White House puts it all on the line, goes for the gold, and takes it to the limit for the American people, or something. Whatever your cliche of choice, what matters is that even some of reform's most ardent supporters seem to recognize that this is it for health care reform; if it doesn't pass now, then the only thing left will be to write R.I.P. columns and fight over the book deals about How It Failed and Why The System Is Broken.
Obama Endorses Medicare Tax, More Drugmaker Fees By Ryan J. Donmoyer and Nicole Gaouette Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, seeking to break an impasse over health-care legislation, proposed a plan that includes the first Medicare tax on capital gains and higher fees on companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. to help cover millions of uninsured Americans. The measure, which also scales back a tax on high-end health benefits that was opposed by organized labor, marks a reversal from months of leaving the legislation’s details largely up to congressional Democrats, who have failed to agree on a plan. Obama relied mostly on a Senate bill passed in December, with elements of a House version passed in November.
Medicine for Diabetes Responsible for More Than 83,000 Deaths by Sara Sanz Pinto - Pravda.ru -- American authorities guarantee that the GlaxoSmithKline knew that the Avandia could provoke heart attacks Avandia, a drug often prescribed to patients with diabetes, may have caused millions of heart attacks around the world. This is the conclusion of a 334-page report submitted by the U.S. Senate on Saturday. According to the American authorities, the GlaxoSmith-Kline (GSK), pharmaceutical company that produces the drug, knew the risks to which patients were exposed, but always kept them hidden from the public. "GSK executives tried to intimidate independent researchers, using strategies to minimize or hide the findings that Avandia could increase cardiovascular risks and hid studies that were developing competing drugs with reduced risk," says the report.
Plastic bags: To pay or not to pay? By Melissa Eddy AP - Washington Times For decades the standard question at U.S. grocery store checkout counters has been "paper or plastic?" But since January, consumers in Washington have faced a different question: "Will you pay 5 cents for a bag?" Europeans long have accepted the idea of providing their own baskets, bags or nets to carry their purchases, or paying for bags. But in the United States, where retailers go out of their way to cater to customers' needs, being given a free paper or plastic bag to carry purchases is largely taken for granted. So not all Washingtonians are pleased.
Ford’s Jobless Recovery Means No Hiring in Retooling By Keith Naughton Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co.’s $1.6 billion U.S. investment plan will retool plants to build fuel-efficient autos to compete with Toyota Motor Corp. models. Hiring workers paid on par with Toyota’s will have to wait. After cutting 47 percent of its North American workforce since 2006, Ford isn’t ready to resume adding employees even as it upgrades factories and grabs a larger share of U.S. sales, Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said in an interview. One analyst estimates Ford may not hire for two years.
US senate moves ahead on $15bn jobs bill By Alan Rappeport - FT The US Senate on Monday voted to move forward on a $15bn jobs bill proposed by Harry Reid, leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate. The 62-30 vote in favour of ending “cloture” prevents a Republican filibuster and came as an exception to the months of gridlock in Congress. It will pave the way for a jobs bill to clear the Senate, just as other critical employment benefits are set to expire.
The 'Stimulus' Actually Raised Unemployment By ALAN REYNOLDS - Investors.com President Obama seized on the one-year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) as an opportunity to take credit for the belated and tenuous economic recovery. But the economy always recovered from recessions, long before anyone imagined that government borrowing could "create jobs." And we didn't used to have to wait nearly two years for signs of recovery, as we did this time.
The Decline: The Geography of a Recession by LaToya Egwuekwe According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are nearly 30 million people currently unemployed -- that's including those involuntarily working parttime and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one. In the face of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression, millions of Americans are hurting. "The Decline: The Geography of a Recession," as created by labor writer LaToya Egwuekwe, serves as a vivid representation of just how much. Watch the deteriorating transformation of the U.S. economy from January 2007 -- approximately one year before the start of the recession -- to the most recent unemployment data available today
The Jobs Aren't Coming Back: By PETER COHAN - Daily Finance Outdated Ideas Fuel Economists' Unrealistic Optimism Economists are forecasting a recovering U.S. economy. It's great that they're optimistic, but are they right? It could be that they're applying old forecasting models to an economy that has changed in fundamental ways. After all, since the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s, businesses have found that they can meet demand with fewer workers. Outsourcing to cheaper labor markets has also become standard business practice. And that could mean a permanent class of millions of former workers who never get reemployed.
Americans Who Know Their Rights Are The Real Target Of Napolitano’s “Domestic Terror” Warning Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com Homeland Security chief says Muslim extremists at home are the main threat, but state and federal documents tell a different story Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano cited examples of Muslim extremists in her warning Sunday that domestic terrorists were now as much a focus as international terrorism, but actual training manuals being used by state and federal authorities across America reveal that the primary target of the anti-terror apparatus hits a lot closer to home. “Americans who turn to terrorism and plot against the U.S. are now as big a concern as international terrorists, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday,” reports the Associated Press. “In the last year, Napolitano said, she’s witnessed a movement from international extremism to domestic extremism – cases in which Americans radicalized and decided to plot attacks against the country.”
Napolitano Secretly Hosts Terrorist Groups In D.C. Corruption Chronicles - A Judicial Watch Blog In the Obama Administration’s latest effort to befriend radical Muslims, the cabinet official in charge of protecting the country’s safety covertly met with a group of extremist Arab, Muslim and Sikh organizations to discuss national security matters. Briefing radical Islamists who want to murder Americans about homeland security measures may seem like a bizarre tactic to counter terrorism, but it’s the center of Obama’s famous change rhetoric. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, most concerned about a wave of anti-Muslim backlash after the Ft. Hood massacre, and her senior staff privately met in Washington D.C. with the groups. Among them was the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, which is a sort of parent organization of Hamas and Al Qaeda.
Huckabee's blast exposes rift on the right By Ralph Z. Hallow - Washington Times Conservatives' conference 'less Republican' In a sign of lingering divisions on the right, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee blasted last week's Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest meeting of conservatives in the nation, saying it was unrepresentative of the Republican Party as a whole. "CPAC has become increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years - one of the reasons I didn't go this year," said the former Southern Baptist minister, who enjoys a devoted following among Christian conservative voters and who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008.
Iran to 'hide nuclear plants inside mountains' AFP - Breitbart Iran said on Monday it is considering plans to build two new uranium enrichment plants concealed inside mountains to avert air strikes, drawing condemnation from the United States. The announcement from Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi came soon after top US General David Petraeus warned that Washington would now pursue a "pressure track" against Iran to thwart its galloping nuclear programme.
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