Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

Monday 08.30.2010

Banks back switch to renminbi for trade
By Robert Cookson in Hong Kong - FT.com
A number of the world's biggest banks have launched international roadshows promoting the use of the renminbi to corporate customers instead of the dollar for trade deals with China.
HSBC, which recently moved its chief executive from London to Hong Kong, and Standard Chartered, are offering discounted transaction fees and other financial incentives to companies that choose to settle trade in the Chinese currency.
"We're now capable of doing renminbi settlement in many parts of the world," said Chris Lewis, HSBC's head of trade for greater China. "All the other major international banks are frantically trying to do the same thing."

In Toledo, the 'Glass City,' New Label: Made in China
By JAMES T. AREDDY - WSJ.com (free)
The Toledo Museum of Art's $30 million Glass Pavilion is a symbol of America's "Glass City," and reflects the legacy of its local glassmakers.
A smudge on the image: The pavilion glass was imported from China, the new global powerhouse of the glass industry.
No one in the U.S. had the capability to satisfy cutting-edge architectural specifications for the curving pavilion, even though the 2006 job involved techniques advanced decades ago by Toledo inventors: bending and laminating glass. The pavilion features 360 thick glass panels, each up to 13.5 feet tall, eight feet wide and weighing over 1,300 pounds.

Three Flashpoints to $220 Oil
By Byron King - dailyreckoning.com
08/27/10 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - With oil sitting comfortably at $73 a barrel this morning, we cast a nervous eye toward the Middle EastÉwhere three little-noted developments are setting the stage for a return to triple-digit prices. Maybe very soon.
1) On the surface, this looks like a pretty routine Iraq story: An ambush there yesterday killed six members of a Sunni militia known as the "Awakening Councils."
But the background the media didn't supply makes this much more interesting - and ominous. See, the Awakening Councils are Sunni Muslims the US government paid off in 2007 so they'd stop shooting at US troops.

The Fed Is Still Clueless About Bubbles and So Is the WSJ
cepr.net - Center for Economic and Policy Research
The economists and central bankers attending the annual meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming apparently have not noticed the collapse of the housing bubble and the wreckage it has caused. This is the only plausible explanation for a WSJ article that told readers about a paper on a new approach to fiscal policy that argues:
"fiscal policy could benefit from the more scientific approach taken by monetary policy over the past two decades."
The article continues:
"The former U.S. Federal Reserve economist [the person presenting the paper] noted how monetary policy has improved after central banks started to adopt goals such as inflation targeting and as central bankers started to articulate the 'science' in public speeches."

Full Text of Ben Bernanke's Fed speech
DAYTON BUSINESS JOURNAL
The following is the full text of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech at the annual Fed symposium in Wyoming:
The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy
The annual meeting at Jackson Hole always provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the economic and financial developments of the preceding year, and recently we have had a great deal on which to reflect. A year ago, in my remarks to this conference, I reviewed the response of the global policy community to the financial crisis.1 On the whole, when the eruption of the Panic of 2008 threatened the very foundations of the global economy, the world rose to the challenge, with a remarkable degree of international cooperation, despite very difficult conditions and compressed time frames. And when last we gathered here, there were strong indications that the sharp contraction of the global economy of late 2008 and early 2009 had ended. Most economies were growing again, and international trade was once again expanding.

Policy Solutions, Part Three of Four
By Bill Baker - dailyreckoning.com
08/29/10 Baltimore, Maryland - The printing of money used to replenish the financial system may cause inflation - whether or not this series of radical measures is adopted. It will monetize public and private debt, and the key to not letting the surge in inflation become embedded permanently will be the taking of a credible stance to redraw our system with reduced liability going forward. While we are printing money, our government should quietly (if possible) buy gold with which it would promise to redeem dollars beginning at some point when our economic recovery is certain. No doubt this would be at a price that might shock the world today: perhaps $5,000, $10,000, or higher. Let the market bracket the possibilities; perhaps gold ETFs or digital gold accounts such as those at goldmoney.com would be our new private currency, and we could get out of the money-printing business once and for all.

America's Top Military Chief: Debt is Main Threat to U.S. National Security ... Pentagon Must Cut Spending
Washington's Blog
In February 2009, the head of U.S. intelligence - Dennis Blair - said that the global financial crisis was the largest threat to America's national security. All of America's intelligence agencies apparently agreed.
The same month, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - Admiral Mullen - also agreed.
Now, Mullen is focusing on a specific economic threat. Specifically, Mullen is focusing on the debt:
The national debt is the single biggest threat to national security, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012, the chairman told students and local leaders in Detroit.

Debt, Depression, Default. America is in Deep Trouble
By Eileen F. Toplansky - AmericanThinker.com
Consumers are spending less. Small retailers are closing shop -- even cable television subscriptions are seeing a loss in revenue. Mike Shedlock of globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com cites reports by Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica, Mercedes Cardon of Finance Daily, and Jon Chavez of the Toledo Blade, highlighting America's economic woes with the following:

Everything is OK [satire / spoof]

Fed ready to take 'unconventional measures'
By Hibah Yousuf,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke bluntly acknowledged that the U.S. economic recovery has lost considerable steam, but said the central bank has the necessary policy tools to support continued growth.
"The issue at this stage is not whether we have the tools to help support economic activity and guard against inflation," Bernanke said at the Fed annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo. "We do."
Making his first public comments since the central bank announced it would buy additional long-term Treasurys to boost the recovery, Bernanke said that the pace of economic growth is "somewhat less vigorous" than expected, but remained optimistic for a pickup in 2011.

The All But Forgotten Self-Governing Economy
By Joel Bowman - dailyreckoning.com
08/28/10 Alexander City, Alabama -
GDP growth revised downward to an "anemic" 1.6%É
Jobless claims rise more than forecast ...
Home sales fall off a cliffÉworse than economists expectedÉ
Faced with a slew of deteriorating economic data points, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a speech on Friday designed to assure investors that he has the fate of the nation's economy under control.
The Fed, said he, "is prepared to provide additional monetary accommodation through unconventional measures if it proves necessary, especially if the outlook were to deteriorate significantly."
Come again, Mr. Bernanke? "Deteriorate significantly"? What happened to the recovery? What happened to the "substantial progress" you had so earnestly forecast at last year's annual Federal Reserve retreat?

Fed stands by to boost US growth
By Alan Rappeport in New York - FT.com
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, said on Friday that weaker-than-expected consumer spending growth and a "depressed" housing market had slowed the pace of the US recovery and promised that the central bank was ready to take "unconventional" steps to stimulate the economy if needed.
In a speech at a gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Mr Bernanke acknowledged that the pace of economic growth had been "less vigorous" than the Fed was expecting and that the pace of the labour market's recovery had been "painfully" slow.

Government at the heart of the crisis
The Economist.com
I'M FINDING the exchange on the financial crisis illuminating in a number of ways, but especially as it lays bare the ideological assumptions and motivations we each bring to these questions. In his latest assay, my esteemed colleague seeks to absolve government from any significant responsibility for the meltdown. (We seem to have moved beyond the question of inequality, which is fine by me.) Having concluded that "the CRA was largely irrelevant" and that "Fanny and Freddie were also-rans", he finds it "hard to understand how one could put government at the heart of the crisis." Let me try to help.

A Chat With Steve Forbes
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
I sat down with Forbes magazine publisher and perennial Republican presidential candidate, Steve Forbes, whose father, Malcolm, I knew from my journalism days in the seventies. He was there formally to promote his new book, Power Ambition Glory, but I couldn't help but sense his loftier goals.
He says that the crash was a failure of government. It was caused by the Fed, which pursued a weak dollar policy, kept interest rates too low for too long, and printed too much money. Our central bank should pursue a strong dollar policy which will bring a revival of the credit markets. We have the most hard left president and congress in history, and they are on the cusp of getting what they want. Lifting the rules on upticks and naked shorting threw gasoline on the fire

Citigroup Is Cooking the Books
By Charlie Gasparino - FOXBusiness
An all-out war has broken out between Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit and a prominent securities analyst who is saying that the big bank may be cooking the books by inflating its earnings through an accounting gimmick, FOX Business Network has learned.
The analyst, Mike Mayo, of the securities firm CLSA, has been telling investors that Citigroup (C: 3.72 ,+0.06 ,+1.78%) should take a writedown, or a loss on some $50 billion of "deferred-tax assets," or DTAs. That is a tax credit the firm has on its financial statement that Mayo says is inflating profits at the big bank by as much as $10 billion.

John Williams on the Revised GDP Number
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
John Williams' comments on the GDP number were short and to the point. I am still not on board with his hyperinflation forecast preferring to stick with a pernicious stagflation, although what he sees is certainly possible, as is a Japan style deflation. That is what 'fiat' is all about.
The correlation in stocks across the various indices today is remarkably uniform. Do you need to buy a vowel?
John Williams of ShadowStats
Economic Data Will Get Much Worse.
The kindest thing I can say about a stock market that rallies on the "stronger than expected" news that annualized growth in second-quarter GDP was revised from 2.4% to just 1.6%, instead of to the expected 1.4% (keep in mind those numbers are quarterly growth rates raised to the fourth power), or that gyrates over meaningless swings in seasonally-distorted weekly new unemployment claims, is that it is irrational, unstable and terribly dangerous.

Gerald Celente on Mitch Henck 26 Aug 2010
on the bailout bubble, unemployment, and equity crisis of 2010

Economist Shiller Sees Potential for 'Double Dip' Recession
By SIMON CONSTABLE - WSJ.com (free)
With the U.S. economic recovery losing steam, the chances of a second phase of a slowdown are increasing, according to a leading economist.
Speaking in The Wall Street Journal's The Big Interview show, Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University, said he thought the second dip down of a so-called double-dip recession "may be imminent."
Earlier this month, he told the Wall Street Journal he thought the chance of a double-dip recession, which he noted is a rare event, was greater than 50%.

How does double dip recession affect Gold?
By Julian D.W. Phillips - CommodityOnline.com
What is the likelihood of a Double-Dip Recession?
Nearly all the commentary we have heard on this question says the same. "Yes, the prospects of a Double-Dip recession have increased but it remains unlikely that it will happen". We feel that there may be just a hint of self-interest in these answers. The shockwaves that will reverberate should some say it is going to happen, or if the news confirmed that it had started would rattle the markets hugely. Despite the ability to disseminate news instantly, we have to wait a month before reliable figures are published to confirm one way or the other that this is or is not the case.

Why gold price is rising
By Dan Norcini - CommodityOnline.com
The equity bulls were salivating over the prospect of watching another episode of "let's take the shorts out and slaughter them all" as the world eagerly awaited the giving of the law from Mt. Jackson Hole. With claps of thunder in the background and with flashes of lightning interrupting his keen observations upon the state of the US economy, (some swear that they saw the angelic host), the prophet of Monetary religion sounded forth his prognostications and then looked upon his handiwork. He then saw that his work was good and sat down and rested on the seventh day.

Gold may hit new high in coming weeks
by B G Shirsa - Business-Standard.com
Gold is likely to hit a new high with gold futures for December delivery expected to breach the June 21 high of $1,266.50 an ounce in the next two to three weeks. The October futures traded on the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX) is expected to cross Rs 19,200 in the coming weeks. The Federal Reserve chairman's assessment of the US economy on Friday confirms the view of most gold traders that the metal is likely to continue working its way higher in the weeks ahead

Why hasn't gold hit $2,000/oz? Doug Silver blames U.S. dollar
If gold really is supposed to shine during tough economic times, former International Royalty Corp. founder Doug Silver wonders why gold prices haven't soared much higher by now.
Author: Dorothy Kosich - MineWeb.com
If gold does best during times of uncertainty and fear, Balfour Holdings Chief and private investor Doug Silver said it should be doing much better.
In his annual talk to the Geological Society of Nevada, Silver, the founder of International Royalty Corp. (IRC) and founder of Denver-based mining analysts Balfour Holdings, said, "If we ever wanted a time for gold prices to take off, we are there." Silver sold IRC to Royal Gold earlier this year in a Cdn$749 million cash-and-shares deal.
Silver told his audience of exploration geologists that he is "quite surprised that gold hasn't gone to $2,000/oz."

Silver To Make A Major Move On Breakout
Jeb Handwerger - SilverBearCafe.com
Silver had very powerful break out Wednesday as investors are seeking assets that are safe and will retain value during a debt crisis. Silver is seeing demand at these price levels as it is historically cheap relative to gold. If the ratio came down to the levels it was in 2006 it would be close to $27 an ounce. Silver is soaring because investors are realizing this is a hard asset, it is money and it is historically cheap compared to gold.

The Billionaire Right-Winger
By Joe Conason - Truthdig.com
Despite the kaleidoscopic proliferation of political media over the past decade, most of what Americans hear and read about the workings of our democracy can be politely termed superficial. Only very rarely does journalism fully penetrate the glittering illusions created by partisans on every side to reveal the grittier realities. When a reporter does blast through the usual scrim of deception, that is worth noting-as in the case of Jane Mayer's investigation in the current issue of The New Yorker of the Koch family and its malign influence.
For decades, the Koch brothers, billionaire heirs of one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, have covertly sought to promote their hard-right ideology through third parties, think tanks, foundations and front groups. Their late father, Fred, having earned a fortune assisting the nascent Soviet oil industry, eventually became a right-wing extremist and member of the John Birch Society. His sons, especially David Koch, have not only expanded the family business but infiltrated their father's political views into the mainstream.

They Go or Obama Goes
By Robert Scheer - Truthdig.com
Barack Obama and the Democrats he led to a stunning victory two years ago are going down hard in the face of an economic crisis that he did nothing to create but which he has failed to solve. That is somewhat unfair because the basic blame belongs to his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who let the bulls of Wall Street run wild in the streets where ordinary folks lived. And there was universal Republican support in Congress for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that produced this debacle.

Ninety Seven Percent of All Americans are Brain Dead
Economic Rant - SilverBearCafe.com
If you still think we have a two party system in this country please look at the chart below.
Carter (not on chart) far outspent all previous presidents and put us into hyperinflation. Pseudoconservative Reagan outspent all previous presidents. Bush Sr. outspent him. Clinton went nuts. Bush Jr. continued the insanity. Obama is now King of the Spenders. The National Debt will be paid in the form of the Much Greater Depression. Each man, woman and child in America owes $200,000. Every family of four (including infants) owes $800,000. It's hopeless folks. All debts get paid in the end, either by the buyer or the seller. Always.
TriOptima just reported there are $450 trillion in derivatives worldwide. Derivatives are basically a complex scam based on smoke and mirrors.

The Death of the First Amendment and
The Nazification of the United States
Paul Craig Roberts - SilverBearCafe.com
Chuck Norris is no pinko-liberal-commie, and Human Events is a very conservative publication. The two have come together to produce an important article, "Obama's US Assassination Program."
It seems only yesterday that Americans, or those interested in their civil liberties, were shocked that the Bush regime so flagrantly violated the FlSA law against spying on American citizens without a warrant. A federal judge serving on the FISA court even resigned in protest to the illegality of the spying.

On the Edge with Joern Berninger (1/2)

On the Edge with Joern Berninger - 27 August 2010 (2/2)

China's banking system shows disturbing, U.S.-style cracks
By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY
HONG KONG - Off-balance-sheet liabilities. Bad mortgage loans. Uncertain growth prospects.
These issues, which nearly toppled the U.S. banking industry and triggered the financial meltdown, are increasingly threatening the stability of Chinese banks.
Last week, a slew of Chinese banks - including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China - reported strong profits. ICBC, the country's largest, earned $12.4 billion in the first six months of the year, above analysts' expectations. But rather than providing reassurance about banks' health, the positive numbers are fanning fears of what's yet to come.

Blockbuster bankruptcy is imminent
THE BUSINESS JOURNAL OF MILWAUKEE - BY Dallas Business Journal
Blockbuster has plans to file for a pre-packaged bankruptcy in September, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.
The paper is quoting unidentified sources who claim executive management is going the route of a pre-packaged bankruptcy filing, which will allow the company to reorganize in court and shed its debt burden.
Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, said there's no reason not to believe the news report. He added that Blockbuster has no way of reorganizing out of court given its current debt load. "They have senior secured debt and unsecured debt," he said. "If you do anything out of bankruptcy to change the terms of the debt on one, it triggers a default on the other."

US stocks gain on stimulus hopes
By Hannah Kuchler in New York - FT.com
US shares regained ground on Friday and remained higher as investors digested Ben Bernanke's speech to central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Fed chief's pledge to take action, if necessary, to safeguard the economic recovery was viewed positively.
Stocks had originally rose as investors were cheered by a revised GDP figure which, though lower than the original number, was not quite as bad as they feared, before falling after news of a reduced forecast from Intel.

Small businesses hold off spending while waiting for aid
By Laura Petrecca, USA TODAY
Small businesses have put hiring, supply buying and real estate expansion on hold as they wait out the vote on a small-business-aid bill that stalled in the Senate earlier this summer.
The much-debated legislation offers tax breaks and waived loan fees. But it also comes with more divisive components, such as a $30 billion fund that would help community banks give loans to small businesses. Opponents say the fund would be a mini version of the often-criticized TARP large-bank bailout program.

Business Pulse: A third are thinking of quitting their jobs
DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Mark Harden
A third of denverbusinessjournal.com readers who answered our latest Business Pulse question say they're thinking of quitting their jobs over the next year.
The results of our non-scientific survey echo national polling indicating that many workers who stuck out jobs they don't like through the recession -- along with pay cuts and boosted work hours -- are now beginning to think of finding something better.
A Rasmussen survey released Aug. 11 said 27 percent of U.S. adult workers are looking for a job outside their current company, the highest percentage in over a year.

US consumers split into two camps
By Greg Farrell and James Politi - FT.com
Consumer spending in the US has turned into a tale of two cities in 2010, with an entire segment of consumers splurging confidently on the finer things in life, while another segment, concerned about unemployment and with little or no discretionary income, spends only on bare necessities.
This bifurcation of the US consumer has become apparent across the spectrum, from restaurants and grocery stores to products such as coffee and beer.

Charlotte-area unemployment DIPS to 11.2%
CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL
Unemployment in the Charlotte metro area dropped to 11.2 percent in July from an adjusted 11.4 percent rate in June, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission.
The ESC says 95,788 residents were unemployed in July in the Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord area.
The Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton metro area had an unemployment rate of 12.7 percent, down from 13.1 percent in June. The ESC says 21,091 residents in that area were unemployed in July.
Mecklenburg County's jobless rate rose to 10.4 percent from 10.3 percent in June.

Commercial real estate failures are easier to spot
than residential woes
By SHERYL JEAN / The Dallas Morning News
Ann Strain walks Junebug, a Boston terrier, past a ghost town - hundreds of abandoned apartments with broken windows and weeds.
Neighbors think squatters have lived at times at the Signature Pointe apartments on Lovers Lane, just east of North Central Expressway. The Dallas police SWAT team trains there.
The apartments were emptied of tenants at least 2 ? years ago to make way for new rental units and retail, but that never happened. Now a bank owns the 13 acres.

Foreclosures of million-dollar-plus homes on the rise
By Lauren Beale, Los Angeles Times
The number of homes in the $1-million-and-up slice of the market that have become bank owned has tripled during the last three years in Los Angeles County, and the trend has shown little sign of slowing.
Foreclosure is blind.
After the mortgage meltdown and the plunge in home prices, record numbers of ordinary houses tumbled into foreclosure across Southern California as borrowers became unable or unwilling to pay their mortgages. But the rich aren't so different after all: Million-dollar-plus homes have reverted to lender ownership in increasing numbers - previous sales prices, prime locations and even celebrity pedigrees have provided no immunity.

Time to let home prices fall?
By Tom Petruno - Market Beat - LATimes.com
Many expect another wave of foreclosures to further deflate prices. The government could offer new incentives - or let market forces rule.
You can't force someone to buy a house.
But as a society we've long tried to make homeownership an offer you couldn't refuse.
And since the real estate mega-bubble burst three years ago, the government has tried even more tricks to get people to sign home purchase contracts.
Now, a grim reality has set in: Despite the still-rich basket of tax breaks for residential property owners, and the lowest mortgage rates in a generation, the pool of willing or able buyers is dwindling.

Housing's new nightmare
By Tami Luhby - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In another ominous sign for the economy, the number of people falling behind on their mortgages for the first time is on the rise.
This grim statistic is only the latest bad news for the reeling economy. Home sales are in free fall, initial jobless claims remain high and the gross domestic product slowed to a near halt in the second quarter, government reports issued this week showed.
The increase in short-term delinquencies is leaving some experts wondering whether a new round of foreclosures is on the horizon, even as the current wave begins to ebb.

Mortgage-loan modification marathon starts today in West Palm Beach
Event is being held at Palm Beach County Convention Center
in West Palm Beach
By HARRIET JOHNSON BRACKEY
Sun-Sentinel Staff Writer
Today at 9 a.m., is the official opening for the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America major mortgage modification event in West Palm Beach.
When NACA was last in West Palm Beach, in February, its counselors worked on 24,000 loans and modified 16,097 of them.
The association held an event in Miami Beach in April, helping about 15,000 people get loan modifications.
People will be lined up overnight, waiting for the Save The Dream Tour to open. Things will probably start getting busy Thursday. At 1 p.m. West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel plans to hold a news conference with NACA Chief Executive Officer Bruce Marks to announce the event.

from April 2010 - a partial solution we haven't heard much about

The Right to Rent Plan
BY DEAN BAKER - CEPR
Millions of families face the loss of their homes over the next few years. While there is a long list of complicated and sometimes convoluted proposals to address the country's foreclosure crisis, there is a simple solution: Congress and the Obama Administration can give families facing foreclosure the right to rent their homes at the market rate for a substantial period of time.
This Right to Rent plan1 would prevent families from being thrown out of their homes as well as help reduce the neighborhood blight that is devastating communities with high levels of foreclosures.

This legislation is still in committee
H.R.5028
Title: Right to Rent Act of 2010
Sponsor: Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] (introduced 4/15/2010) Cosponsors (12)
Latest Major Action: 4/15/2010 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.

Could the Right to Rent Stop the Foreclosure Hurricane?
Greg Kaufmann - TheNation.com
When the foreclosure hurricane first hit, subprime borrowers absorbed the brunt of it. Homeowners who had been fooled with teaser rates suddenly faced balloon payments they couldn't afford. Others couldn't refinance because of prepayment penalties they hadn't been aware of. And some people had made bad decisions and were now paying for it with their homes.
The crisis has now morphed - it's hitting everyone with an equal-opportunity kind of vengeance - the prime, subprime, underwater and unemployed. And that makes passing the Right to Rent Act introduced by Democratic Representatives Raœl Grijalva and Marcy Kaptur, and cosponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers among others, all the more critical. It would give homeowners who would otherwise by kicked out of their homes the right to rent for five years.

Social Security: The Futile Fight For What's Been Promised
Bill Bonner - SilverBearCafe.com
No discussion of the upcoming collapse of the bond market would be complete without a mention of Social Security.
At least, after they've lost their money in stocks, real estate and bonds, Americans will at least have Social Security to live on, right? Wrong!
You know all that money you pay in Social Security taxes? Where do you think it goes? Into current expenses and US bonds!
That's right, the feds just use the money to finance whatever fool scheme they've got going at the moment...and give the Social Security Administration a bond in return. In theory, the SSA has assets. In practice, all they've got is the hope that the feds can squeeze enough money out of taxpayers to meet their obligations.

Obamacare Might Kill Off College Students' Health Plans
There's an easy fix: Repeal Obamacare, and replace it with real reform.
BY JEFFREY H. ANDERSON - The WeeklyStandard.com
According to President Obama, "If you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what." You can keep your plan, that is, if your employer doesn't decide to dump it in the wake of Obamacare's passage (as many major employers are already considering doing), if you aren't one of the estimated 51 percent of American workers (66 percent of workers in small businesses) - according to the administration's own figures - whose plans would have to be changed or dropped under Obamacare, and if you don't have a Medicare Advantage plan or a consumer-driven (high-deductible, low-premium) plan. Now it appears that another type of plan might well be on the chopping block: college students' health plans.

TOTAL TYRANNY is staring us in the face
News Stories from The Strange Stack - Alex Jones Tv
Listen to part about RFID chips (WalMart) and recycling in Celeveland, Ohio, eavesdropping by Google in your homes, And people loosing their homes for less than $100. fines.

The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves
By Adam Cohen - Time.com
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant.
It is a dangerous decision - one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

Environmental Protection Agency Reviewing Petition to Ban Lead Bullets
Will the EPA infuriate gun owners--
and seal the fate of Democrats on Nov 2nd?
BY JOHN MCCORMACK - The WeeklyStandard.com
Will Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson make a back door move to ban lead bullets the day before the November 2 elections?
Several environmentalist groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are petitioning the EPA to ban lead bullets and shot (as well as lead sinkers for fishing) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Although EPA is barred by statute from controlling ammunition, CBD is seeking to work farther back along the manufacturing chain and have EPA ban the use of lead in bullets and shot because non-lead alternatives are available. But here's the catch: the alternatives to lead bullets are more expensive. A ban on the sale of lead ammunition would force hunters and sport shooters to buy non-lead ammunition that is often double the cost of traditional lead ammunition. A box of deer hunting bullets in a popular caliber could be upwards of $55.

Glenn Beck Cult Holds Creepy Revival at Lincoln Memorial in DC
Andrew Steele - infowars.com
People gathered Saturday in DC at the Lincoln Memorial as part of an event that Glenn Beck was hosting. The rally was a hybrid neocon pep rally/religious revival, consisting of pictures on a giant TV screen of famous moments from American history, along with inspirational music, waving flags, and talk of destiny and God from a loudmouth Fox News preacher who hides the insincerity in his eyes behind a thick layer of glasses while weeping in breathy sobs to mask his laughter.

Beck Says Rally Showed Discontent With U.S. Direction
By Lisa Lerer and John McCormick
Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Fox News commentator Glenn Beck said the hundreds of thousands who attended his rally yesterday in Washington were expressing a deep dissatisfaction with the direction of the country under the Obama administration.
"People aren't happy about things," he said in an interview on the "Fox News Sunday" program. "A good number of people are not happy with the direction we're going."
The "Restoring Honor" rally was billed as a "nonpolitical" celebration of the military, patriotism and American heritage. Beck, 46, shied away from the partisan commentary that has made him famous during yesterday's rally, focusing instead on religious themes.

We Need A Revolution, Not A Movement
Chuck Baldwin - infowars.com
The elections of 2008 (and the early elections of 2010) produced two significant phenomena: the "Ron Paul Revolution," and the "Tea Party Movement." And, mark it down: both of them will have profound effects upon the upcoming November electionsÐand upon the 2012 elections as well. Call them what you want, however, America doesn't need another movement; it needs a genuine revolution.
The Tea Party movement, while still a force with which to be contended, has already been diluted and compromised. The primary elections plainly reveal the reality of this fact. The high spots so far are the defeats of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Bob Bennett in Utah. The low spots so far are the reelection of John McCain in Arizona and the election of Dan Coats in Indiana.

Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
If Barack Obama were to marshal America's vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years.
We could then stop arguing about wind mills, deepwater drilling, IPCC hockey sticks, or strategic reliance on the Kremlin. History will move on fast.
Muddling on with the status quo is not a grown-up policy. The International Energy Agency says the world must invest $26 trillion (£16.7 trillion) over the next 20 years to avert an energy shock. The scramble for scarce fuel is already leading to friction between China, India, and the West.

Corporate Media Dismisses Castro's Bin Laden Claim As Far-Fetched Conspiracy Theory
Paul Joseph Watson - PrisonPlanet.com
The corporate media wasted little time in seizing upon controversial Cuban leader Fidel Castro's comments about Osama bin Laden being a U.S. spy to deride the claim as a far-fetched conspiracy theory, and yet the fact that Bin Laden was once a CIA protŽgŽ and has been used time and again to the benefit of the U.S. governmentÕs geopolitical agenda is a documented fact.
It sounds like Fidel Castro has been reading Prison Planet.com, but the Guardian claims that the notorious revolutionary has "gone too far" in claiming Osama Bin Laden is a U.S. double agent.
The Cuban leader cites Wikileaks for his contention that Osama bin Laden is a CIA asset, but he went further in pointing out the fact that Bin Laden was routinely used by the Bush administration as a convenient boogeyman.

Cybersecurity Act of 2010 Passes Senate Committee
by Sharon Fisher - daniweb.com
S.3480 -- Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010
This year's version of the Cybersecurity Act was approved by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs after amending it to limit the president's authority in the event of a cyber emergency, reported The Hill.
The bill, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Tom Carper (D-Del.), is an update to a bill from last year that was also worked on by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). At that time, people were concerned about reports that it would give the President a "kill switch" to shut down the Internet, though the technical details of exactly how a single switch could shut down the Internet were not specified.
"Giving government, especially the president, unprecedented control over America's trunk line of information, over electronic free speech and over business activities simply invites suspicions about whether it would be used politically to frighten people at election time-as did the color-code alerts-and to trample on constitutional rights like the Patriot Act did," wrote the Idaho Mountain Express, noting that Lieberman said he had modeled that aspect of the bill on governmental rights in Communist China.

Mexican cop investigating murders of 72 migrants is dead
USAToday.com
The Mexican detective heading the investigation into the murders of 72 migrants has been found dead near the massacre site along with another officer, Britain's Guardian reports, citing local media.
Roberto Suarez has been missing since Wednesday. A local officer was with him. "I am almost certain my husband and the other man were kidnapped," his wife told the BBC.

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