Archives

Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

Wednesday 06.30.2010

Hotbutton issue! Contact your elected congressmen for clarification on the 1099 tax reporting provision. We'll be adding more information today and beyond, as we try to sort out the facts.

Small Business owners will bear the brunt of legislation.

Health-Care Bill Surprise: 1099 Nightmare
By John Tozzi - BusinessWeek.com
A clause buried in the bill requires more tax forms—and small business will bear the brunt
Anyone who makes it to page 737 of the massive health-care bill approved by Congress in March will find a three-paragraph section that has nothing to do with hospitals, doctors, or drugs. The provision, inserted by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee to help offset the cost of the bill, requires companies to report to the IRS payments of more than $600 a year to any vendor. The intent is noble: to capture $2 billion or more a year in taxes on income that currently goes unreported by contractors and small businesses.

$600 Sale? Get Ready for Tax Form
By David L. Ganz, Numismatic News
A blizzard of paperwork could be about to hit numismatics.
Passage by Congress of the national health care legislation has had an unintended consequence to the nation's coin collectors, vest-pocket dealers who buy and sell coins, and larger dealers who are frequent buyers of coins that collectors periodically liquidate as they trade up their collections for better coins, or simply sell to take a small profit or loss.
What has happened is that effective Jan. 1, 2012, the whole system of giving and receiving Internal Revenue Service 1099 forms will be turned on its head and all persons (including corporations) who are in business will now have to give 1099 tax reporting forms for coins and other goods that they sell as well as buy.

The 2010 Health Care Reform Bill and what it Means for Small Businesses by SEAN - StartUpLoans.com
Tucked away in the health-care overhaul bill that became law this year was a provision that will require small-business owners to keep better records of what they buy. They'll also have to report some purchases to the government. This will apply to any trade or business.
What does it mean for a small business?
This new law requires small businesses to issue 1099 forms to people or companies that sell them more than $600 worth of goods or services. It takes the 1099 beyond its most common business use, which is to report money paid to independent contractors or freelancers.
The law doesn't take effect until Jan. 1, 2012, which means owners won't have to worry about the paperwork until early 2013, when they're compiling their 2012 returns. But owners whose books and finances are chaotic might want to get themselves organized in the meantime so keeping track of such payments and reporting them become routine.

Location in Internal Revenue Code
TITLE 26 - INTERNAL REVENUE CODE
Subtitle F - Procedure and Administration
CHAPTER 61 - INFORMATION AND RETURNS
Subchapter A - Returns and Records
PART III - INFORMATION RETURNS
Subpart B - Information Concerning Transactions With Other Persons

Statute
Sec. 6041. Information at source

(a) Payments of $600 or more
All persons engaged in a trade or business and making payment in
the course of such trade or business to another person, of rent,
salaries, wages, premiums, annuities, compensations, remunerations,
emoluments, or other fixed or determinable gains, profits, and
income (other than payments to which section 6042(a)(1),
6044(a)(1), 6047(e), 6049(a), or 6050N(a) applies, and other than
payments with respect to which a statement is required under the
authority of section 6042(a)(2), 6044(a)(2), or 6045), or $600 or
more in any taxable year, or, in the case of such payments made by
the United States, the officers or employees of the United States
having information as to such payments and required to make returns
in regard thereto by the regulations hereinafter provided for,
shall render a true and accurate return to the Secretary, under
such regulations and in such form and manner and to such extent as
may be prescribed by the Secretary, setting forth the amount of
such gains, profits, and income, and the name and address of the
recipient of such payment. . . . [read the rest of this section online]

Small businesses threatened with 1099 tax form tyranny provision in health care bill by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger - Editor
(NaturalNews) According to a recent report from CNNMoney.com, the massive U.S. health care system overhaul includes more than just a transition to government-run medicine. A small section hidden away in the 2,409-page bill requires all businesses to send 1099 tax forms to every company or individual from which they purchased more than $600 in services and goods throughout the tax year, beginning on January 1, 2012.
As you'll see below, this new law threatens to cause a wave of paperwork chaos across the entire U.S. economy, stifling the operations of small businesses and driving more jobs overseas.
Here's why...

Health care law's massive, hidden tax change
By Neil deMause, May 5, 2010 - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- An all-but-overlooked provision of the health reform law is threatening to swamp U.S. businesses with a flood of new tax paperwork.
Section 9006 of the health care bill -- just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document -- mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.
The stealth change radically alters the nature of 1099s and means businesses will have to issue millions of new tax documents each year.

Costly IRS Mandate Slipped into Health Bill
Posted by Chris Edwards - CATO INstitute
Most people know about the individual mandate in the new health care bill, but the bill contained another mandate that could be far more costly.
A few wording changes to the tax code's section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s every year. It appears to be a costly, anti-business nightmare. . . .

Basically, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year. For the $14 trillion U.S. economy, that's a hell of a lot of 1099s. When a business buys a $1,000 used car, it will have to gather information on the seller and mail 1099s to the seller and the IRS. When a small shop owner pays her rent, she will have to send a 1099 to the landlord and IRS. Recipients of the vast flood of these forms will have to match them with existing accounting records. There will be huge numbers of errors and mismatches, which will probably generate many costly battles with the IRS.

Gary Shilling: A Rough Ride Ahead for the Economy
By NIKHIL HUTHEESING - DailyFinance.com
The U.S. economy has been though the wringer over the past couple of years, and Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., says things aren't going to improve any time soon.
In a video interview here at DailyFinance, Shilling warns that we should brace for more punches from the commercial real estate market and a slowdown in the Chinese economy as well as Japan, which he calls a "slow-motion train wreck." He sees bad news ahead for unemployment, the housing market and GDP growth and says investors should be very cautious.

Recession Warning
John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
Based on evidence that has always and only been observed during or immediately prior to U.S. recessions, the U.S. economy appears headed into a second leg of an unusually challenging downturn.

Warning signals of a double-dip recession flash brightly across the world
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Global bond markets are flashing warning signals of a sharp slowdown in growth across the world and a possible slide toward a double-dip recession and outright deflation.
The yield on two-year US Treasuries has fallen to a record low of 0.61pc in a flight to safety, a level not seen during the depths of the Great Depression. Ten-year yields dropped below the ?psychologically sensitive level of 2.96pc.
Such levels are clearly incompatible with assumptions on Wall Street for 3pc growth in the second half of this year. "If the bond market is correct then this recovery could be dead in the water," said Jim Reid, credit strategist at Deutsche Bank. The credit markets tend to sniff out trouble first and have acted as an early warning alert at every stage of the financial crisis over the past three years.

U.S. Can't Continue As Engine That Drives the Global Economy, Obama and Geithner Say
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Citing the country's trade deficit, President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner each asserted last week that the United States cannot continue to lead the world economy.
"We said in Pittsburgh [at] the G20 that it was important for us to rebalance, in part because the U.S. economy for a long period of time was the engine of world economic growth; we were sucking in imports from all across the world financed by huge amounts of consumer debt," Obama said Thursday during a joint press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The Coming Hard Rain
BY ROBERT MORLEY - theTrumpet.com
A word to the wise: Great Depression survivors warn to batten down the hatches.
Most of your typical economic analysts have never lived through a really tough period of time. For the most part, excluding a couple of short recessions, they have only experienced the good times.
To them, a depression is outside their frame of reference. It has never happened in their lives, so it isn't imaginable. It is the same for most people.
Yet there are a few voices from the Depression era still alive, and they are shouting a warning at the top of their lungs, hoping that someone, anyone, will listen.
In short: The recession is just starting, the stock market is set up for the biggest bear market crash ever, the government is going to be shocked when foreign lenders abandon it, and the dollar could devalue suddenly and catastrophically.

U.S. double-dip recession is officially coming, analyst warns
By Jameson Berkow - FinancialPost.com
The ink is barely dry on the G20 Toronto communiqué, drafted with the specific goal of lowering deficits in hopes of staving off another worldwide recession.
It was widely heralded as a success for Canadian fiscal leadership. Though at least one market watcher believes the recovery efforts will not thwart a new recession from descending upon the United States.

Desperate and Blatant Manipulation
Dan Norcini - SilverBearCafe.com
Monday must now be the new "Friday" when it comes to gold. Those of you who have been watching the gold price action over the last decade know what I am referring to. For those of you who are a bit newer to the gold game, Fridays, particularly after a payrolls report, have typically been the day on which gold was taken down by the bullion bank crowd to mess with the weekly chart and the technical picture.
Last Monday saw gold put in a horrendous bearish downside reversal day which the bulls managed to negate the rest of the week by a sheer gritty determination not to run. Today (another Monday) we have an exact repeat of the same bullion bank tactic that they employed 7 days ago; to wit, a takedown after price took out last Friday's session high while gold mining stocks were also moving sharply higher. The result - an exact repeat of last Monday technically - another bearish outside reversal day on the daily chart. This coming on the heels of a brand new record high in Dollar terms at the London PM Fix ($1,261).

U.S. Economy: Consumer Confidence Sinks on Concern Over Jobs
By Timothy R. Homan
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Confidence among U.S. consumers sank in June more than forecast as Americans became distressed over the outlook for jobs and incomes.
The Conference Board's confidence index slumped to 52.9 this month, below the lowest forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, from a revised 62.7 in May, figures from the New York-based private research group showed today. Another report showed home prices climbed, propelled by a homebuyer credit.

Jim Rogers: Buy Silver - CNN Money

The Bad-Policy Spiral
BY STEVE SAVILLE - GreenFaucet.com
According to a recent article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is waging an epochal battle behind the scenes for control of US monetary policy, struggling to overcome resistance from regional Fed hawks for further possible stimulus to prevent a deflationary spiral." The article goes on to explain that with the economy rolling over the Fed should be prepared to quickly inject a massive amount of new money, and that pig-headed resistance to more monetary inflation by a few Fed governors poses a serious threat. However, nowhere in the article is there a logical explanation of how counterfeiting more money would benefit the economy. This could be because such an explanation doesn't exist.

G20 Meddlers At It Again
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com
Waterford, Ireland - Dow went nowhere yesterday. Gold fell $17.
"The doctrine of regulation and legislation by'master minds,' in whose judgment and will all the people may gladly and quietly acquiesce, has been too glaringly apparent at Washington during these last ten years. Were it possible to find 'master minds' so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatingly against their own personal interests or private prejudices, men almost godlike in their ability to hold the scales of justice with an even hand, such a government might be to the interests of the country; but there are none such on our political horizon, and we cannot expect a complete reversal of all the teachings of history."

Greeks Strike to Protest Pensions, Labor Law Overhaul
By Maria Petrakis and Natalie Weeks
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- More than 9,000 protesters marched through Athens today as Greek unions staged their fifth general strike of the year to challenge government plans to cut pension benefits and loosen labor laws.
The walkout halted state services including public transport and tax offices and disrupted some hospitals. The 24 - hour stoppage hit ferry lines at Piraeus, Greece's largest port, as the Panhellenic Union of Merchant Marine Engineers demanded changes to "anti-social measures."

Keiser Report 55:

Obama Says Economy Hitting 'Headwinds' From Europe
by Julianna Goldman
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said after meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke that the U.S. economy is strengthening even as it faces "headwinds" because of concerns about the European debt crisis.
"We have seen some very positive trends in a number of sectors, unfortunately because of the troubles we've seen in Europe we're now seeing some headwinds and skittishness and nervousness on the part of the markets," Obama said at the White House after a meeting with his economic advisers.

Europe's Fiscal Dystopia: the "New Austerity" Road
By MICHAEL HUDSON
Europe is committing fiscal suicide - and will have little trouble finding allies at this weekend's G-20 meetings in Toronto. Despite the deepening Great Recession threatening to bring on outright depression, European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet and prime ministers from Britain's David Cameron to Greece's George Papandreou (president of the Socialist International) and Canada's host, Conservative Premier Stephen Harper, are calling for cutbacks in public spending.
The United States is playing an ambiguous role. The Obama Administration is all for slashing Social Security and pensions, euphemized as "balancing the budget." Wall Street is demanding "realistic" write-downs of state and local pensions in keeping with the "ability to pay" (that is, to pay without taxing real estate, finance or the upper income brackets).

Global markets fall sharply on economic woes
By Nathaniel Popper, Walter Hamilton and Tom Petruno, LA Times
The Dow drops 268 points to close below the 10,000 mark as downbeat news from China, the U.S. and Europe intensifies worries about the global recovery
Reporting from New York and Los Angeles - Stocks tumbled around the world Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrials below the 10,000 mark, as downbeat economic news intensified fears that a stumbling global economy could send the U.S. back into recession.
The Dow closed down 268.22 points, or 2.6%, to 9,870.30 - its first close below 10,000 since June 9. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 3.1% and the Nasdaq composite index plunged 3.8%.

Time to shut down the US Federal Reserve?
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - SilverBearCafe.com
Like a mad aunt, the Fed is slowly losing its marbles.
Kartik Athreya, senior economist for the Richmond Fed, has written a paper condemning economic bloggers as chronically stupid and a threat to public order.
Matters of economic policy should be reserved to a priesthood with the correct post-doctoral credentials, which would of course have excluded David Hume, Adam Smith, and arguably John Maynard Keynes (a mathematics graduate, with a tripos foray in moral sciences).
"Writers who have not taken a year of PhD coursework in a decent economics department (and passed their PhD qualifying exams), cannot meaningfully advance the discussion on economic policy."

U.S. Banks Laundered Mexican Drug Money
By DAILYFINANCE STAFF - DailyFinance.com
In a meeting in Mexico last March, Obama administration officials acknowledged that Americans' insatiable appetite for illegal narcotics is at the core of Mexico's drug war. But it isn't only the habits of some U.S. consumers that are keeping Mexican drug cartels in business.
In April, Mexican soldiers searched a DC-9 jet that had landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. On the plane they found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million.

The Social Function of Credit-Default Swaps
Mises Daily: by Philipp Bagus
Whenever the government causes a mess, chances are high that it will accuse speculators of being responsible.[1] In the recent financial crisis, speculators and their financial instruments have been under attack again. Some famous investors have even supported governments' attacks on speculators. Warren Buffet has called derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction."
George Soros has argued in favor of a ban on naked credit-default swaps.

The Secrets of Liquidity
Bob Chapman - TheInternationalForecaster.com
Many investors wonder how are markets able to propel themselves back and forth as they do. How do corrections turn into rallies? The secret is liquidity and the question is where does it come from?
As you know the Fed up until 14 months ago increased what once was called M3 by 15% annually. Foreign major central banks did the same cutting back a couple of months sooner than the Fed. The Fed increased M3 for 5-1/2 years and the other central banks for about four years. Starting four years ago all currencies started falling versus gold. The US dollar started about ten years ago.

Santelli:
Go Read Some Austrian Economists Instead of the Funny Pages
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
Rick Santelli, who has already gained plenty of notoriety for rants on CNBC, takes it to a new level in the video below. In this instance, with a message worth repeating, he screams at least five other hosts "I want the government to stop spending, stop spending, stop spending, stop spending STOP spending! That's what we want, stop spending!"

'Stop Spending!': CNBC's Rick Santelli Warns Steve Liesman 'November 2nd Is The Day'

Radical Money Printing Just Like the Continental Congress
By Bill Baker - The DailyReckoning.com
06/29/10 Baltimore, Maryland - From within the Fed in the days that the policy of quantitative easing became official, Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser alerted us that "(recent economic statistics) prompted some commentators to suggest that the United States is facing a threat of sustained deflation, as we did in the Great Depression or as Japan faced for a decade.
"I do not believe this is a serious threat (but) the Fed must credibly commit to preventing sustained deflation from becoming widely anticipated, just as it must prevent sustained inflation from becoming widely anticipated."

Banks May Have 12 Years to Implement Volcker Rule
By HUGH COLLINS - DailyFinance.com
Banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. may have as long as 12 years to cut their stakes in private-equity units and hedge funds under the new financial reform bill, Bloomberg News reported.
The time-frame in the bill, combined with provisions that would allow banks to apply for extensions, make it unclear exactly how quickly banks would have to reduce their investments. Estimates cited by Bloomberg News range from seven years to 12 years.

State and Local Spending Transparency Efforts
Center for Fiscal Accoountability
Find out what is happening in the area of transparency in government spending in your state by clicking on the map below.

Fannie-Freddie Bailout Could Cost Taxpayers $1 Trillion
By: Reported by Steve Liesman, written by Michelle Lodge - CNBC.com
For American taxpayers, now on the hook for some $145 billion in housing losses connected to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, that amount could be just the tip of the iceberg.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the losses could balloon to $400 billion. And if housing prices fall further, some experts caution, the cost to the taxpayer could hit as much as $1 trillion.
Two things are clear: Taxpayers don't want to foot the bill, and Fannie and Freddie, taken over by the government in 2008 to stanch the financial bloodletting, need a major overhaul.

Whitney: Reform will hurt banks

Home Prices Could Drop 50% As The Great Recession Resumes
Richard Henry Suttmeier - Forbes
In my opinion the Recession that was time-stamped by the Economic Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to have begun in December 2007 has not ended and continues today. How can the NBER declare an end to this Recession with unemployment at 9.7% when the Recession began with unemployment at 4.6%?
The basic causes of the Great Recession began in the Housing Market and the community banks on Main Street. Those problems have been masked by numerous failed attempts at mortgage mitigations as house prices stabilized during the period when the government was offering tax credits for first time homebuyers as well as existing homebuyers who wanted to move. Those programs ended on April 30th for contracts and for closings effective this week by the end of June 30th.

Is Home Ownership an American Right?
By: Diana Olick - CNBC Real Estate Reporter
Today we begin a series on CNBC called The Housing Fix. To be honest, it grew out of our need to look at the biggest elephant in the home today: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Maybe the government doesn't want to deal with them just yet, but that doesn't mean we should all just ignore the fact that these two ticking time bombs continue to support more than half of the mortgages in this country and the bulk of new originations.

Fannie Mae: Walk Away and You Will Pay
By: Diana Olick - CNBC Real Estate Reporter
Dare I say it? "What took you so long??"
An announcement from government-owned mortgage giant Fannie Mae warns: "Defaulting borrowers who walk-away and had the capacity to pay or did not complete a workout alternative in good faith will be ineligible for a new Fannie Mae-backed mortgage loan for a period of seven years from the date of foreclosure."
I have to ask: Why only seven years? Up the ante!

Virtual pay for real work
By Joseph Galante, Bloomberg Businessweek
Amanda Dorsey has spent dozens of hours categorizing search results on eBay, verifying search-engine links and doing other online jobs for CrowdFlower Inc., a San Francisco employment agency.
Dorsey doesn't get paid in legal tender. She takes her wages in the form of virtual money, which she's used to buy a gray winter coat and a sexy yellow doctor's uniform for her avatar, or virtual self, on TinierMe.com, a chat and game site.
There's nothing odd about it, says Dorsey, a 28-year-old unemployed writer and editor in Florida. "Doing work for virtual currency is pretty much like any other form of putting forth an effort for a reward," she said.

How Far Underwater Do Borrowers Sink Before Walking Away?
By Nick Timiraos - WSJ.com
At what point do borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth decide to stop paying the mortgage?
A new study from economists at the Federal Reserve Board aims to answer that question. The research found that the median borrower who "strategically" defaults doesn't walk away from the mortgage until the amount owed exceeds the value of the home by 62%.
The study is bad news for the mortgage industry in that it backs up the idea that a growing share of borrowers are walking away from loans. Concerns are mounting among lenders and investors that some borrowers who owe far more than their homes are worth are now choosing not to pay mortgages that they can afford.
But the silver lining here is that it suggests a rather high threshold for borrowers to walk away.

Delinquent mortgage borrowers now get free cell phones
The Truth About Mortgage.com
Imagine receiving a cell phone in your mailbox, that once powered on, dialed your mortgage lender - and once connected, offered lower mortgage payments. Sounds like a dream right?
Well, First Guaranty Mortgage customers have reportedly received cell phones in the mail, programmed to dial the company's loss mitigation department.
The move was employed to offer at-risk customers, those it was unable to contact through traditional means, money-saving loan modifications.
A similar tactic, utilized by SunTrust Bank, cut their non-response rate in half - it had been as high as 50 percent two years ago.

How Goldman Trashed a Town
By Stephen Gandel - Time.com
Starting in July, Liza Kuzela of Cedar Rapids will pay $0.44 more a month to have her trash collected. The amount is trivial, but the reason is not. Two years ago, Cedar Rapids lost $2.6 million on an investment tied to a Goldman Sachs bond deal Abacus that the Securities and Exchange Commission claims was rigged to fail. When the bond went bust, hedge-fund manager and Goldman client John Paulson pocketed a billion dollars. Kuzela, her neighbors and others around the country with no ties to Wall Street are picking up the tab. The case of Cedar Rapids and Goldman illustrates how everyday Americans end up paying for Wall Street's big paydays.

Ron Paul on Freedom Watch

524 Guard Soldiers Headed to Arizona-Mexico Border
By Paul Davenport, Associated Press
Phoenix (AP) - Federal officials told Arizona's attorney general and a congresswoman on Monday that 524 of the 1,200 National Guard troops headed to the U.S. Mexican border will be deployed in the state by August or September.
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Attorney General Terry Goddard, both Democrats, met with Obama administration officials in Tucson along with dozens of law enforcement officials and community leaders. The federal officials included John Brennan, deputy national security adviser for homeland security.

Agencies confirm mass evacuation plans
Gulf state emergency preparedness agencies confirm mass evacuation plans
Wayne Madsen Report - Urban Prepper
A well-placed source in California told WMR that the California Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) has been briefed by its counterpart agencies in the Gulf coast states that there are plans to conduct a mass evacuation of millions of Gulf coast residents due to the catastrophic environmental and public health effects of the BP oil disaster.
CEMA officials have been briefed on the planned evacuations by counterparts in the Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

Oil Industry Reputation Hit by Gulf Oil Spill, Survey Shows
Written by Darrell Delamaide - OilPrice.com
The Gulf oil spill has hit the reputation not only of BP but of the entire oil industry, including among those who favor increased use of fossil fuels as the main source of energy.
Research firm Market Strategies International said its E2 Index, which measures consumer perceptions of the energy industry's economic contribution and environmental performance and credibility, showed the image of the industry has declined 25% in the past six months, from 40 in December to 30 in June.

CLEAR Water Tests Positive for Oil, Officials "Only Doing Visual Assessments", "What You Can't See May Be More Dangerous"
Washington's Blog
The Pensacola News Journal notes:
Dick Snyder, director of the Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation at the University of West Florida, began conducting water samples May 3 on Pensacola Beach every Tuesday and Thursday because beach and health officials were only doing visual assessments.
What you can't see in the water may be more dangerous than what you can see, he said.
"That's why we thought we had to start looking for dissolved oil," he said.

Cap the Spill, Don't 'Cap and Trade'

BP now a takeover target?
HOUSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Mary Ann Azevedo
BP Plc is now getting hit with takeover talk.
JP Morgan Cazenove analysts issued a research note Tuesday, noting that the London oil giant's steep decline in share price makes it a prime candidate for a buyout.
"The market has lost sight of the intrinsic value that is resident in an asset-rich company like BP. We very much doubt that keen-eyed industry players have lost sight of BP's value," JP Morgan Cazenove's Fred Lucas wrote in the report, according to Reuters.

Bob Chapman: Obama's Asset Holder 'Vanguard' Sold BP Stock Weeks before Gulf Oil Disaster! 1/4

Bob Chapman: Obama's Asset Holder 'Vanguard' Sold BP Stock Weeks before Gulf Oil Disaster! 2/4

Bob Chapman: Obama's Asset Holder 'Vanguard' Sold BP Stock Weeks before Gulf Oil Disaster! 3/4

Bob Chapman: Obama's Asset Holder 'Vanguard' Sold BP Stock Weeks before Gulf Oil Disaster! 4/4

Verizon Wireless Said to Get Apple iPhone in January
By Amy Thomson
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone company, will start selling Apple Inc.'s iPhone next year, ending AT&T Inc.'s exclusive hold on the smartphone in the U.S., two people familiar with the plans said.
The device will be available to customers in January, according to the people, who declined to be named because the information isn't public. Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, and Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, declined to comment.

More Russia sleepers walk U.S. streets
10 held part of a network
By Jerry Seper - WashingtonTimes.com
They posed as ordinary citizens, living daily, nondescript lives in communities from Arlington, Va., to Yonkers, N.Y. They were married couples with car payments, monthly rents, and telephone and medical bills. They bought computers, gave gifts and ate occasionally in restaurants.
But there was more.
The FBI says 10 people arrested up and down the East Coast on Sunday were part of a deep-cover, or sleeper network, of Russian intelligence agents operating inside the United States, where they sought to infiltrate "policy-making circles" in Washington, recruit government and business sources, and "search and develop" intelligence ties in the United States.
Worst of all, they may not be alone.

Russian intelligence found gold market info 'very valuable,' FBI says
By: Chris Powell, GATA
Russian spies in the United States whose arrest was announced Monday last year conveyed information about the gold market that the Russian security service considered "very valuable" and forwarded to the Russian finance ministry and ministry of economic development, according to the criminal complaint filed by the FBI with U.S. District Court in New York.
The gold angle in the story was highlighted in reporting Monday night by the Economic Policy Journal, based in Washington, D.C.
Perhaps most interesting for GATA's purposes, the FBI's criminal complaint suggests that the spies obtained the gold market information through "a prominent New York-based financier" who is a political fund raiser and a friend of a U.S. Cabinet member. Would a New York-based financier have valuable information about the gold market if the U.S. government wasn't using New York financial houses for gold market intervention purposes?

Petraeus Says Military May Ease Rules of Engagement
By Tony Capaccio
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- General David Petraeus today said he's concerned the U.S. military's rules of engagement in Afghanistan are too restrictive and putting American forces at risk.
General Stanley McChrystal, in an effort to curb civilian casualties, issued directives that sharply curtailed the use of lethal force. Civilian casualties are down, yet some troops have charged that the restrictions make them more vulnerable.
U.S. and allied soldiers in Afghanistan are dying at the fastest pace in the war, now nine years old and the longest in U.S. history.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tuesday 06.29.2010

The Banks Keep Stealing - Why Should You Keep Paying?
Dylan Ratigan - SilverBearCafe.com
The dire straits of the middle class of America has made it near impossible for our politicians to keep up the pretense that our current government truly works for the "people." Between the multiple overt and secretive bailouts, the massive bonuses and the circular use of our tax money to lobby for these continued handouts, you can no longer hide from the evidence.
When Senator Durbin said "The banks... frankly own this place," you realize it was not in jest.
Couple this with recent protections handed by the Supreme Court to corporations to directly influence elections and it can make things seem hopeless for those not on Wall Street or their chosen politicians. Favored CEOs and now even foreign countries get all the printed money they need, leaving us paying both our bills and theirs.

Dylan Ratigan On TYT: How Banks Rob Us

President Obama urges G-20 nations to spend;
they pledge to halve deficits
By Howard Schneider and Scott Wilson - Washington Post
TORONTO -- President Obama warned Sunday that the world economic recovery remains "fragile" and urged continued spending to support growth, an expansionist call at the end of a summit marked by an agreement among developed nations to halve their annual deficits within three years.
The president's remarks tempered the Group of 20's headline achievement at the summit, a deficit-reduction target that had been pushed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the host of the meeting and a fiscal conservative. Although there is broad agreement that government debt in the developed world needs to be reduced, there is concern that cutting too fast and too deeply will slow growth and possibly spark a new recession.

U.S. Treasury chief Geithner urges G-20 leaders to continue government spending
By Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
The Treasury secretary, speaking at the summit in Toronto, says the global recovery remains fragile and that ill-timed austerity measures could derail gains. Obama meets privately with other leaders.
Reporting from Toronto - They smiled for photos and announced agreement on everything from nuclear containment to development efforts in Africa on Saturday, but world leaders gathered in Toronto have a tougher challenge as they get down to brass tacks on the best way to keep the global economic recovery from stalling.
Going into Sunday's meetings with the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging nations, the Obama administration was pressing leaders to stay the course they set more than a year ago to promote growth through government investment in the economy.

Did the G-8 Push Us Closer to Gold Confiscation?
By: Julian DW Phillips - MarketOracle.co.uk
The global economic recovery is not looking good. The G-8 meeting this weekend saw divisions that could lead [as the I.M.F. put it] to losses of trillions of dollars and millions of jobs. Now it is reported that Mr. Bernanke and his close allies at the board in Washington are worried by signs that the U.S. recovery is running out of steam. The E.C.R.I. leading indicator published by the Economic Cycle Research Institute has collapsed to a 45-week low of -5.7 in the most precipitous slide for half a century. Such a reading typically portends contraction within three months or so.

Markets seek new direction after G20
ByJamie Chisholm - FT.com
Like an England centre-half pairing, markets were unsure which direction to take, with investors relieved by a benign G20 meeting but still harbouring lingering concerns about the strength of the US and European economic recoveries.
The FTSE All-World index was up 0.2 per cent, commodities are mixed, and though the dollar is higher, the currency complex is struggling to establish its previously clearly-defined risk-on or risk-off trend.
In addition, the S&P 500 on Wall Street has endured a volatile session and finished 0.2 per cent lower as traders warily eyed the falling US 10-year bond yield, whose 14-month low suggests many remain worried about economic prospects, and the tumbling euro, which has fallen below the $1.23 level.

Fed Looks to Hyperinflate
The Daily Bell - SilverBearCafe.com
Dominant Social Theme:
We'll dump as much money into the market as necessary - until it surrenders and does our bidding.
Free-Market Analysis:
This potential move gives the deflation versus inflation debate a new perspective. We have written in the past that we had questions about the Great Depression based on conflicting opinions of Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman et. al. Living through the "Great Recession" has begun to clear them up. It is a little like being a lab rat; it is painful, but the experience gives you an insider's look at the scientific method. Or in this case a fiat-money economy.

Why the recent gold price surge is definitely not a bubble
In another excerpt from the Erste Bank Special report on Gold, Ronald Stoeferle explains why gold is not another example of a price bubble ready to burst.
Author: Ronald Stoeferle - Mineweb.com
Many market participants and commentators are obviously having a hard time distinguishing between a bull market and a bubble. More and more articles are referring to the imminent burst of the "gold bubble" and to an alleged "crowded trade". But are the authors of these articles crying wolf?

Recession worries may drive gold price to $5,000
By Jon Nadler - CommodityOnline.com
World leaders took the "oath of the deficits" over the weekend and gave every indication that they intend to cut difficult to sustain budget imbalances in their home countries. Although the Toronto G-20 communiquŽ faces the scrutiny of the markets this morning and appears to have been met with less than a convinced attitude, its substance points to significant changes on the horizon for the nations that have signed on its dotted lines.

Gold, Silver, How High? When?
DeepCaster LLC - SilverBearCafe.com
Investors and Traders charged with deploying Assets to acquire Precious Monetary Metals are impelled to first Forecast the likely Future Course and Timing of the Price Moves of the Precious Metals, as they do with other prospective acquisitions. Then, they must actually Deploy Assets based on those Forecasts.
Therefore, it is important to make Educated Forecasts about Gold and Silver Prices. Specifically, one must forecast "How High?" (or "How low?") and "When?"

Silver Posting Best Streak Since Hunt Brothers
Nicholas Larkin and Pham-Duy Nguyen - SilverBearCafe.com
Silver, the precious metal most used in industry, is attracting investors betting on both faster and slower economic growth as prices extend the longest run of quarterly gains in three decades.
Doubling as a store of value for buyers concerned about the economy and as an industrial material for those bullish on growth, silver is outperforming metals from copper to zinc this year and keeping pace with gold. It will rise as much as 15 percent to $22 an ounce before December, from $19.145 today, according to Daniel Brebner, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG whose fourth-quarter outlook was accurate to within 0.7 percent.

Peter Schiff - GDP, Markets, Dollar, FinReg - June 25, 2010

Double Dip Economic Recession
This Chart Say's Its Guaranteed!
By: JD Rosendahl - MarketOracle.co.uk
With all the incessant analysis from economists, politicians, and bureaucrats of this nascent recovery sprouting wings, there is one great and simple chart that's screaming a "Double Dip" is guaranteed: See the weekly chart of the $BDI below.
The index had made classic bearish divergences on both the RSI and MACD. It has also made a bearish head and shoulders topping pattern. The technical analysis of the index is screaming economic collapse on the way.

US Double Dip Depression
Daily Bell - SilverBearCafe.com
. . . . What happens in a very bad recession - this one being called the Great Recession - is that many of the tools that mercantilist central banks use to manipulate the economy cease to work. This comes about because the central banks in question have printed too much money (electronically and otherwise) and flooded the economy with currency that has caused first a boom and then a bust.

US money supply plunges at 1930's pace
By Sol Palha
The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates and the biggest fiscal blitz in history. The M3 figures - which include broad range of bank accounts and are tracked by British and European monetarists for warning signals about the direction of the US economy a year or so in advance - began shrinking last summer. The pace has since quickened.

Dollar Faces Perfect Storm
By: Rick Ackerman - GoldSeek.com
For spin-free analysis of the global economy, the Australia-based The Privateer is one of our favorite reads. Amidst a cacophony of hubris and unwarranted optimism, its editor, William Buckler, provides a fact-filled perspective that reduces the mainstream media's reports of "recovery" to drivel. Buckler notes drily that "the signs that the party is indeed almost over are all around us and becoming very difficult to ignore." The same goes for the U.S. dollar. When Nixon cut off foreign holders from redeeming dollars for gold in 1971, says Buckler, the U.S. initiated a reckless global experiment with fiat paper. "Forty years later, the bill for this adventure has come due," he warns, "and there is nobody to pay for it."

Inside the United States How Bad is it?
William (Bill) Buckler - SilverBearCafe.com
It's pretty bad. All of a sudden, the recovery has almost officially become "fragile" in the US. The official version was stated in the Fed's press release following the FOMC meeting on June 22-23. "Financial conditions have become less supportive of economic growth on balance", they said. Indeed they have. A recent report from a department of the US Treasury shows just how bad they have become.

Deflation, Inflation and Why Paul Krugman Fears Austerity
By Addison Wiggin - DailyReckoning.com
06/28/10 Baltimore, Maryland - This is very disconcerting, fellow forecaster. Paul Krugman is making sense up to a point.
"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression," the Nobel laureate wrote in a NY Times Op-Ed yesterday, dipping his toes into a pool we've been sloshing around in for some time.
"It will probably look more like the Long Depression [of the late 1800s]," the Krug continues, "than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost - to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs - will nonetheless be immense."
We choke on our morning brew admitting it but Krugman is onto something.

Europe's banks are still on 'life support', BIS warns
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Europe's banks have yet to come clean over bad loans and may struggle to refinance short-term debt unless the region's bond crisis subsides soon, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has warned.
The BIS said in its annual report that banks on both sides of the Atlantic remain "highly leveraged and still appear to be on life support. The essential task of reducing leverage and repairing balance sheets is simply not finished. The Greek sovereign debt crisis shows just how fragile the financial system still is.

New general strike planned in Greece Tuesday
ATHENS (AP) - Greek public services will close down Tuesday and most transportation will be disrupted by a new general strike against proposed pension and labor reforms.
The debt-ridden country's two major private and public sector unions bitterly oppose draft legislation that will increase retirement ages and make it cheaper for companies to fire workers.

US expects yuan to keep rising
President Barack Obama said the US expects China's currency to appreciate as the Chinese government allows more flexibility and market forces take a bigger role in setting the value.
China's decision to lift a two-year-old policy of pegging the yuan to the US dollar and allow its currency to trade more freely was a first step and the US will monitor progress over the next ''several months,'' he said.

Welcoming the Failure of the Economic Recovery Team
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
06/28/10 Waterford, Ireland - The latest from the G20 meeting in Toronto. As you recall, the meeting was billed as a showdown between the Germans and the Americans that is, between the deficit cutters and the big spenders
That is, between the people without a hope and the people without a clue.
TORONTO (AP) - World leaders must work together to make sure the global recovery stays on track, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Saturday.

Gerald Celente: Wall Street Bill a Joke

States of Crisis for 46 Governments Facing Greek-Style Deficits
By Edward Robinson
June 25 (Bloomberg) -- Californians don't see much evidence that the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression is coming to an end.
Unemployment was 12.4 percent in May, 2.7 percentage points higher than the national rate. Lawmakers gridlocked over how to close a $19 billion budget gap are weighing the termination of the main welfare program for 1.3 million poor families or borrowing more than $9 billion in the bond market. California, tied with Illinois for the lowest credit rating of any state, is diverting a rising portion of tax revenue to service debt, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August issue.

Congress blasts Medicaid hole in states' budgets
By Tami Luhby,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Young children in Massachusetts will lose state-funded mental health services. Welfare recipients will see their employment and training programs slashed. And homeless families will lose nearly all their state assistance to move into more permanent housing.
Massachusetts lawmakers had to make these and other difficult cuts last week after discovering they had to slash another nearly $700 million out of the state budget. The Bay State had assumed Congress would pass $24 billion in additional Medicaid funding for states before their fiscal years start on July 1.

U.S. Credit Metrics Will Continue To Weaken
GoldSeek.com
The fiscal situation in Greece has brought new attention to the fiscal situations of countries around the world, including the United States. We have written several times that the U.S. budget deficit and overall debt load have passed the point of no return, whereby further borrowing to stimulate growth or cutting the budget deficit through austerity measures could threaten the U.S. credit standing in global markets. Recently, two noteworthy events have transpired which support our thesis. First, Alan Greenspan's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, titled "U.S. Debt and the Greece Analogy," reflects a growing concern that the United States' borrowing needs will lead to a dramatic rise in long-term interest rates. Second, the Senate voted against extended unemployment benefits, once considered a rubber-stamp process, which exemplifies voters' increasingly negative sentiment towards Government deficit spending.

Report Warns That Many Banks Still Vulnerable to Crises
By JACK EWING - NYTimes.com
BASEL, SWITZERLAND - An organization that brings together most of the world's major central banks said Monday that the easy money that has propped up the banking system during the financial crisis must soon be withdrawn - even as it warned that many banks are still in fragile health.
"Exceptional government and central bank support was needed to quell the enormous uncertainty and market disruption during the crisis," said Jaime Caruana, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, whose board includes the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and the European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet.

Treasury Yield Near 14-Month Low as Consumer Confidence May Ebb
By Wes Goodman
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury yields were near a 14-month low before a private report that economists said will show consumer confidence fell in June.
U.S. government securities returned 4.4 percent this quarter, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes, as investors sought the relative safety of debt on speculation global economic growth will slow. The MSCI World Index of shares declined almost 10 percent in the period as a debt crisis in Europe led investors to shun higher-yielding securities.

Corporate Anarchy: Wall Street and BP Criminals At Large
Danny Schechter - SilverBearCafe.com
In this era of corporate anarchy, legal, ethical and financial rules have all been rescinded in the pursuit of profit.
It seems clear that BP can't seem to fix the catastrophic gusher the press calls a "leak," and that President Obama can't fix the economy because its problems are structural and won't respond to soaring rhetoric emanating from his bully pulpit.
Meanwhile, most of the world's people really don't get the fix we are all in. I take that back; the million Americans who have just lost their benefits probably do. The deficit hawks voted that down without doing anything about the growing deficit of jobs.

Deepwater Horizon and Pandora's Box
by Cris Sheridan - FinancialSense.com
Today we are able to sustain billions of people due to genetically modified food products, fight wars without having to use actual soldiers, build twirling skyscrapers thousands of feet into the air, and drill miles down into the ocean floor while floating precariously above its surface. Every day technology takes us further and further into uncharted depths, pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Little, it seems, is beyond our reach. With all that we've accomplished, however, there's a feeling we've built a civilization - a way of life - that is unsustainable. That we've reached a point where we are no longer able to fully understand or control the consequences of our technology; and for each day the oil spews relentlessly in the deep, the effects of this reality become more profound, more troubling.

Oil spill: Is Gulf safe for swimming?
KIMBERLY BLAIR - Pensacola News Journal
EPA opening public "Decontamination Stations"; 400 people seek medical care after visiting Florida beach
The Escambia County Health Department lifted a health advisory on Pensacola Beach on Friday on the advice of a beach official and against the advice of a federal environmental official.
But the advisory was not lifted for Gulf Islands National Seashore's Fort Pickens beach, immediately west of Pensacola Beach or Johnson Beach on Perdido Key.
And hours after the Pensacola Beach advisory was lifted, the health department asked for state approval to issue an oil-impact advisory that leaves the decision to swim in the Gulf of Mexico up to the discretion of individual beachgoers.

The Coming Gulf Coast Firestorm: How the BP oil catastrophe could destroy a major U.S. city
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger - NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) It's hurricane season in the Atlantic, and that means Mother Nature could be whipping up fierce storms and sending them charging into the Gulf Coast any day now. In a normal hurricane season, that's bad enough all by itself... remember Katrina? But now there's something even more worrisome in the recipe: There's oil in the water.
So what happens when a Katrina-class hurricane comes along and picks up a few million gallons of oil, then drops that volatile liquid on a major U.S. city like Galveston or New Orleans?

162 cases of illness linked to oil spill reported in Louisiana
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Exposure to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in 162 cases of illnesses reported to the Louisiana state health department, according to a report released Monday. Of those cases, 128 involved workers on oil rigs or individuals involved in the oil spill cleanup efforts, the report said.
Among the most common reported symptoms were throat irritation, shortness of breath, cough, eye irritation, nausea and headaches, according to the department's oil spill surveillance report.

When wind, water and oil mix
TRAVIS GRIGGS- Pensacola News Journal
In 1993, as a powerful Atlantic storm approached, the tanker MV Braer ran aground on a Scottish island, spilling directly onto the rocky coastline twice as much oil as the Exxon Valdez..
Hurricane-force winds pounded the coast the following week, driving the spill ashore, whipping oily spray miles inland, contaminating crops, coating houses and smearing cars with crude oil.
With estimates between 69 million and 132 million gallons of oil currently in Gulf waters as a result of the Deepwater Horizon blowout on April 20, and with a good portion of that off the coast of Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key, chilling questions emerge:

BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales

Gulf Oil Spill - The Greatest Disaster Since The Flood?
MarketOracle.co.uk
Joshua S. Burnett writes: Most articles begin with a purpose statement revealing what the author desires to convince the reader of. This article is different. These few paragraphs begin with a plea for someone to tell me that I've got the evidence all wrong and that what I see and know is a smoke filled illusion void of reality. I want someone who knows differently to tell me. So as you read this article please understand that I'm not attempting to be a fear-mongerer. Please know I'm no prophet or guru, just a guy who looks at all the evidence he has and draws conclusions. And if you know I'm wrong and why, please write and tell me. First, let's review the facts:

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Should 'Unwind' Portfolios, Pimco Says
By Jody Shenn - BusinessWeek.com
June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing-finance companies supported by U.S. taxpayers, should take advantage of demand for government-backed mortgage debt and sell their holdings, according to Pacific Investment Management Co.
"Since the government's going to want to unwind them at some point anyway, why not do it at the best levels ever?" Scott Simon, the mortgage-bond head at Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, manager of the world's biggest fixed- income fund, said in a telephone interview. "It's good for taxpayers, good for stakeholders, good for everybody."

Nearly One in Five Mortgage Defaults Are 'Strategic'
By Nick Timiraos
A new report estimates that nearly one in five mortgage defaults through the first half of 2009 were "strategic," where borrowers who appeared to have the capacity to pay their mortgages stopped doing so.
The research follows on an earlier report by Experian and Oliver Wyman that first aimed to quantify the share of mortgage defaults that are "strategic." Strategic defaulters are defined as those who miss six straight mortgage payments without missing multiple payments on auto loans and other consumer debts for the six months after they first fell behind on mortgage payments.

Gary Shilling: Expect Housing Prices to Continue to Fall
By NIKHIL HUTHEESING - DailyFinance.com
DailyFinance recently met with Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co. to discuss China, the economy, housing prices, and to learn a little about Gary Shilling himself. In this video segment, Shilling focuses on the housing market.
Shilling explains that when an economy starts to recover, there are four cylinders that need to get fired up but so far, the economy is running on one: It's unwinding the inventory cycle so that production actually fulfills final sales instead of old inventory. But the other three cylinders -- employment growth, consumer spending, and housing -- are not yet working. Worse, there is no sign that any of these will improve.

The Next Crisis: Public Pension Funds
By ROGER LOWENSTEIN - NYTimes.com
Ever since the Wall Street crash, there has been a bull market in Google hits for "public pensions" and "crisis." Horror stories abound, like the one in Yonkers, where policemen in their 40s are retiring on $100,000 pensions (more than their top salaries), or in California, where payments to Calpers, the biggest state pension fund, have soared while financing for higher education has been cut. Then there is New York City, where annual pension contributions (up sixfold in a decade) would be enough to finance entire new police and fire departments.

Job blues for gray-haired workers
By Chris Isidore,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Companies are starting to hire again, but many are turning their backs on older job seekers.
Statistics from the Labor Department show the employment outlook is improving for most workers. The unemployment rate for those in the 25 to 54-year-old age group has fallen from a record high of 9.2% in October to 8.7% in May.
But the nationwide unemployment rate for older workers -- while lower than that of younger workers -- has barely moved since hitting a record high of 7.2% in December. It's currently 7.1%.
"All the gains we've seen from the peak last fall to now, they've gone to people less than 55 years old," said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

Oil Swings May Widen as Spare Capacity Shrinks
By Alexander Kwiatkowski
June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Swings in oil prices may widen over the next five years as OPEC's shrinking spare production capacity increases traders' concern about supply shortages.
Oil's 50-day historical volatility, a measure of how much crude fluctuates around its average price, was at 34 percent on June 25. The measure rose to a record 108 percent in January 2009 after OPEC's spare production capacity fell to its lowest in almost four years. The group's idled capacity may drop to 3.9 percent of world demand by 2015 from 6.8 percent this year, according to International Energy Agency estimates.

Illinois Borrowing $900 Million as Credit-Default Cost Doubles
By Allison Bennett and Brendan A. McGrail
June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Illinois plans to add $900 million in Build America Bonds to the $755 million in securities it sold in June as the cost of insuring the state's debt against default reached a record high.
The cost of an Illinois credit-default swap has more than doubled since April 5 to a record of 370 basis points, or $370,000 to protect $10 million of debt, according to CMA DataVision. The state rescheduled the Build America sale for mid-July, after originally planning it for as early as this week, Dow Jones reported, citing John Sinsheimer, Illinois's capital markets director.

White House Preparing National Online ID Plan
By Mathew J. Schwartz - InformationWeek
The proposed system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the web at the transactional level will require an identity ecosystem.
The Obama administration is set to propose a new system for authenticating people, organizations and infrastructure on the Web. The online authentication and identity management system would be targeted at the transactional level -- for example, when someone logs into their banking website or completes an online e-commerce purchase.

Authority overstepping bounds? . . . or all about CONTROL
EU to ban selling eggs by dozen
By Alastair Jamieson - Telegraph.co.uk
Shoppers will be banned from buying bread rolls or eggs priced by the dozen under new food labelling regulations proposed by the European parliament.
Under the draft legislation, to come into force as early as next year, the sale of groceries using the simple measurement of numbers will be replaced by an EU-wide system based on weight.
It would mean an end to packaging descriptions such as eggs by the dozen, four-packs of apples, six bread rolls or boxes of 12 fish fingers.

Supreme Court sides with gun advocates, extends gun rights nationwide
By: MARK SHERMAN, AP - WashingtonExaminer.com
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court held Monday that Americans have the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live, expanding the conservative court's embrace of gun rights since John Roberts became Chief Justice.
By a 5-4 vote, the justices cast doubt on handgun bans in the Chicago area, but signaled that some limitations on the Constitution's "right to keep and bear arms" could survive legal challenges.

Joe Biden, the vice-president who keeps putting his foot in it
By Ed Pilkington - The Guardian
Joe Biden has done it again: made a gaffe in full view of the cable TV news cameras. But it's nothing new for the vice-president
You would have thought Joe Biden would have learned by now. When in a public space surrounded by cameras, thou shalt speak nothing but inanities.
The US vice-president probably wishes he had followed that script on Saturday while glad-handing in Milwaukee. Things took a turn for the worse when he walked into a shop and asked, "Where's the ice-cream?", only to be told it traded in frozen custard.
Then it got really bad. Biden engaged the owner in conversation. "What do we owe you?" he asked, licking a cone. "Lower our taxes and we'll call it even," the owner replied.
Leave it there, Joe! Don't do it!
But no, Biden just had to answer back, for the benefit of the cable news channels. "Why don't you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time? Say something nice," he snorted.

EGYPT: Radar finds an ancient city in Nile Delta
LATimes.com
Beneath the flag-like fields of the Nile Delta, an ancient city lingers.
A team of Austrian archeologists using radar and satellite imaging has discovered what is believed to be an ancient city once controlled by the Hyksos, invaders from Asia who ruled Egypt from about 1664-1569 BC.

Turkey Closes Airspace to Some Israeli Flights
NYTimes.com
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey has closed its airspace to some Israeli military flights following a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Turkish prime minister and officials said Monday. An official said civilian commercial flights were not affected.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Toronto that Turkey imposed a ban on Israeli flights after the May 31 raid on a Turkish ship that was part of a six-vessel international aid flotilla, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency. The prime minister, who is in Canada to attend a summit of the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations, did not elaborate.

Kissinger warns on Afghan exit strategy
By Daniel Dombey in Washington - FT.com
Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, has warned that Washington's plan to begin handing over responsibility to national forces in Afghanistan in July next year "provides a mechanism for failure".
The people "must be prepared for a long struggle" in what is already the US's longest war, Mr Kissinger said in the wake of Barack Obama's decision to remove General Stanley McChrystal as commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Meet The KGB 2.0: Cold War Espionage Is Back, As Spies In The US Serve To Determine Russian Gold Policy, And Much More
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The KGB is back, and it's leaner and meaner than ever. In a dramatic bust, the FBI has arrested 10 Russian individuals for allegedly carrying out long-term, deep cover assignments in the United States on behalf of Russia. The 37 page indictment from the Southern District of New York reads like a John LeCarre-cum-Ian Flemming espionage thriller and has everything including conspiracies, brush passes, handlers, money exchanges, code words, flash memory cards, covert meetings in Central Park, cracked secret codes, infiltration of strategic US organizations, and last but not least, Russia's apparent interest "about prospects for the global gold market", whereby espionage conducted by one of the group of rounded-up spies served to at least partially determine Russian policy vis-a-vis gold.

'Gasland' documentary fuels debate over natural gas extraction
ANDREW MAYKUTH The Philadelphia Inquirer
John Hanger might think twice the next time a documentary filmmaker knocks on his door in the state capital.
In a documentary about natural gas development that premiered this week on HBO, Pennsylvania's secretary of the environment receives a decidedly unflattering portrayal at the hands of Josh Fox, who made the movie, "Gasland."
Fox portrays Hanger -- a liberal who spent years in the mainstream environmental movement -- as an equivocating tool of the natural gas industry. In one of the film's signature moments, Fox pulls out a bottle of water he says was polluted by a Marcellus Shale gas well and challenges the state's top environmental regulator to drink it.

This documentary really hits home. Americans need to pay attention to the message (watch on HBO; DVD out in Dec):

GASLAND Trailer 2010

GASLAND Q & A (part 1) @ 2010 Sundance Film Festival

GASLAND Q & A (part 2) @ 2010 Sundance Film Festival

GASLAND Q & A (part 3) @ 2010 Sundance Film Festival

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monday 06.28.2010

RBS tells clients to prepare for "monster" money printing by the Federal Reserve
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
As recovery starts to stall in the US and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve.
Entitled "Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn't Happen Here", it is a warfare manual for defeating economic slumps by use of extreme monetary stimulus once interest rates have dropped to zero, and implicitly once governments have spent themselves to near bankruptcy.
The speech is best known for its irreverent one-liner: "The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."

Regulators close banks in Fla., Ga., N.M.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Florida, Georgia and New Mexico, lifting to 86 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Peninsula Bank, based in Englewood, Fla., with $644.3 million in assets and $580.1 million in deposits. The agency also seized First National Bank in Savannah, Ga., with $252.5 million in assets and $231.9 million in deposits, and High Desert State Bank, based in Albuquerque, N.M., with $80.3 million in assets and $81 million in deposits.
Miami-based Premier American Bank agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Peninsula Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Premier American Bank agreed to share losses on $437.6 million of Peninsula Bank's assets.

Eagle Community Bank under increased oversight
BY Chris Newmarker - MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL BUSINESS JOURNAL
Eagle Community Bank is facing increased scrutiny from regulators, who announced Friday that they've placed the bank under a consent order.
The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Minnesota Department of Commerce are requiring Maple Grove-based Eagle Community to hire an outside consultant to analyze and assess the performance of the bank's six-member management and staff.
The consent, dated May 27, also requires Eagle Community to reduce troubled assets and concentrations of commercial real estate loans, and to establish policies for setting aside cash for troubled loans. It restricts additional loans to problem borrowers, the taking on of brokered deposits, and payment of dividends and management fees.

SW Colorado bank agrees with FDIC to address capital levels
DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
A southwest Colorado bank has signed an agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to address its capital levels and other issues.
The agreement was disclosed in the FDIC's monthly report of enforcement actions.
Pine River Valley Bank of Bayfield, which is in La Plata County near the Four Corners, signed the consent order on May 26. In it, the bank agrees to submit a written plan to achieve and maintain acceptable capital levels.

FDIC: Shoreline Bank 'significantly undercapitalized'
PUGET SOUND BUSINESS JOURNAL (SEATTLE)
Shoreline Bank is considered "significantly undercapitalized" by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and needs to immediately sell shares of stock or sell itself to another bank.
The FDIC warning said the Shoreline bank's management "has not demonstrated the ability to return the bank to a safe and sound condition." The agency is demanding that "prompt corrective action be taken immediately" because of the bank's "deteriorating condition and management's inability to return the bank to a safe and sound condition."

FDIC hands out C&D orders, fines in Ga.
ATLANTA BUSINESS CHRONICLE
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. put three Georgia banks under cease-and-desist orders and fined two banks for violating the Flood Disaster Protection Act.
The banks receiving "consent orders" are:

• Pineland State Bank in Metter
• Bank of Monticello
• Citizens Bank of Effingham in Springfield

By signing the consent order, banks neither admit nor deny the citations of unsafe and unsound banking practices listed.

FDIC issues order for Superior Bank
ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Kelsey Volkmann
Superior Bank in Hazelwood, Mo., must evaluate management, reduce bad loans and cut risk exposure, under an order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The north St. Louis County bank must also maintain certain capital ratios, review liquidity, develop a business and succession plan, suspend cash dividends, hire a consultant to analyze its performance and act on the consultant’s recommendations, according to a FDIC order dated May 26 but made public Friday.

Arrowhead is latest credit union seized as regulators step up reviews
Officials cite the 'declining financial condition' not-for-profit financial institution, one of the largest in the Inland Empire.
By W.J. Hennigan and E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times
The federal seizure of one of the Inland Empire's largest credit unions over the weekend was part of a stepped-up effort by regulators to shore up the financial institutions, which were battered along with banks by the mortgage meltdown and the real estate bust.
Regulators took over Arrowhead Credit Union on Saturday, citing its "declining financial condition." The action was part of a nationwide move to increase vigilance that has included the hiring of 107 new examiners and more frequent reviews of credit unions' financial health.

On Fannie's Escalating Threats Against "Strategic Defaulters"
This blog warned a few weeks ago of a coming campaign by the officialdom against so-called "strategic defaulters". It has arrived even sooner than we expected.
We warned that this development was the inevitable result of financial firms, taking an increasingly predatory posture toward their customers. Borrowers are responding in kind, by taking a cold-blooded and legalistic look at their agreements with lenders.
Now having said that, it is well nigh impossible to determine how frequently "strategic" or "ruthless" defaults are taking place. Even though it is in theory an appealing option for borrowers with severely underwater mortgages, it nevertheless comes with a lot of costs: moving and a trashed credit rating. And note that a bad credit report does not merely mean restricted access to borrowing, but it it is a big negative in the job market, now that many employers routinely pull credit reports. So I suspect the talk of strategic defaults greatly exceeds the reality.

Moral bankruptcy?
By Mary Ellen Podmolik, Chicago Tribune reporter
Financially struggling homeowners say they're just being shrewd when they file for Chapter 7 to escape a mortgage
Cash-strapped, jobless and denied a loan modification, Del Phillips faced the same straits as millions of homeowners who risk losing their homes to mortgage lenders.
Some have struggled unsuccessfully to keep their homes, and others have just walked away. Phillips decided he wanted revenge and was willing to ruin his credit record for it.
When a short sale didn't work out as planned, the 32-year-old Chicagoan opted for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation, a move that will leave Phillips with little except for the scant possessions in his one-bedroom condo. It also will leave his lender, Chase, with little except for, eventually, a condo that has lost value. Meanwhile, Phillips continues to live there, mortgage-free.

GOP Takes Hardline on Federal Deficit By Killing Unemployment Benefits Extension
BY DON MILLER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
Drawing a line in the sand over the federal deficit, Senate Republicans on Thursday killed a spending bill that included an extension of unemployment benefits and increased taxes on bonuses paid to executives at private equity firms.
The collapse of the comprehensive legislation spells the end of assistance for a total of 1.3 million unemployed Americans who were scheduled to lose their benefits at the end of last week. It also will leave a number of states with large budget holes they had expected to fill with federal cash to help with Medicaid.

Biden: "No possibility" of restoring lost jobs
by Mike Memoli - Chicago Tribune
The pool reporter covering Vice President Biden's remarks at a fundraiser in Wisconsin today noted near the beginning of his dispatch that the veep joked "he didn't rely much on a speech that was prepared for him." That's always good news for those looking for fodder from the loquacious former senator, in Milwaukee today to boost Sen. Russ Feingold's campaign warchest.
During 47 minutes of remarks, Biden defended the Obama administration's record on working to turn around the nation's economy, something that has become boilerplate for him at these party functions. The pool reporter -- Dan Walker of the Journal Sentinel -- did flag this particularly blunt assessment, though.
"There's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession," he told about 150 people at a $500-per-plate luncheon.

Unemployment benefits extension nixed for nearly 1 million
By Tami Luhby, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Nearly a million people have lost their unemployment benefits because the Senate failed for the third time Thursday to extend the deadline to file for this safety net.
Hoping to overcome deficit concerns, the Senate trimmed down the bill yet again on Wednesday night so that it would only increase the deficit by $33.3 billion over 10 years, instead of $55.1 billion. The main changes were to scale back additional Medicaid funding for the states and to reallocate some stimulus and Defense Department spending.

Obama's agenda: Overwhelm the system
Wayne Allyn Root - Las Vegas Review-Journal
Rahm Emanuel cynically said, "You never want a crisis to go to waste." It is now becoming clear that the crisis he was referring to is Barack Obama's presidency.
Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.
[see John Coleman's interview confirming this, below - video 2]

Bank reform passes - bank stocks soar
Kurt Brouwer - MarketWatch.com
I have to confess that the latest 'reform' legislation has aroused a bit of skepticism in me. The Senate just passed a 2,000 page bank reform bill that was positioned as a tough measure to reform big banks and Wall Street. The goal is to make sure events like the financial panic of 2008 never happen again. Who could argue with that? However, this statement from the chief architect of the legislation, Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), aroused my concerns.

Will new financial regulations prevent future meltdowns?
By Paul Davidson, Paul Wiseman and John Waggoner, USA TODAY
Congress, in a pointed response to a historic economic downturn, is expected to pass a massive overhaul of financial regulations that would touch nearly every layer of the nation's economy - from home buyers and merchants to giant investment banks.
Now for the $700 billion question: Will it prevent the next meltdown?
No one doubts its ambitions. The nearly 2,000-page measure, finalized late last week by a House-Senate committee, is a legislative Veg-o-matic. Among other things, it aims to better protect consumers, tighten the reins on financial institutions and stop rewarding executives for taking reckless risks to fatten their quarterly earnings and bonuses.

Lawmakers guide Dodd-Frank bill for Wall Street reform into homestretch
By David Cho, Jia Lynn Yang and Brady Dennis - WashingtonPost.com
Nearly two years after tremors on Wall Street set off a historic economic downturn, congressional leaders greenlighted a bill early Friday that would leave the financial industry largely intact but facing a more powerful network of regulators who could impose limits on risky activities.
The final bill took shape after a 20-hour marathon negotiation between House and Senate leaders seeking to reconcile their separate versions. The legislation puts a lot of faith in the watchful eye of regulators to prevent another financial crisis. New agencies would police consumer lending, the invention of financial products and the trading of exotic securities known as derivatives. Bank supervisors would have the power to seize large, troubled financial firms whose collapse could threaten the entire system. The bill calls for banks to hold more money in reserve to weather economic storms but leaves the details to regulators.

Celente: The US is run by Wall Street

Some See a Tough Law, Others Little Change
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Financial companies, analysts and politicians began sorting through the repercussions of the agreement that lawmakers reached early Friday to overhaul financial regulations.
"Much of this new law should help to restore and maintain confidence in U.S. financial markets, including several important provisions such as the establishment of a systemic risk regulator, resolution authority and a new federal fiduciary standard for retail investors,"the chief executive of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Tim Ryan, said in a statement. "But this is a tough law that will also have profound effects on the operations and cost structure of most financial services companies and financial markets."

Gold - the optimal investment in deflation and inflation
History shows that gold is an excellent performer in both inflationary and deflationary economic scenarios.
Author: Ronald Stoeferle - - MineWeb.co.za
VIENNA (ERSTE BANK) - The central question of whether the next few years will be dominated by inflation or deflation still remains unanswered. In periods of inflation, tangible assets are the preferred asset class, whereas in times of deflation, cash is king. Gold is liquid, divisible, indestructible, and can be easily transported. It has a worldwide market and there is no default risk associated with it, which means it is cash of the highest quality. Therefore gold is the optimal investment both in deflation and inflation.

Gold in the context of the financial crisis
In another article from the Erste Bank 2010 report on gold, Ronald Stoeferle looks at the metal in respect to the current financial crisis and draws parallels from history
Author: Ronald Stoeferle - MineWeb.co.za
VIENNA (ERSTE BANK) - The paradox is the trigger of the crisis, i.e. too cheap money, is now being treated as its medicine. This could be regarded as an absurdity of historical proportions. Three years ago probably nobody would have expected the Federal Reserve to take USD 1,250 worth of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) onto its balance sheet. This is certainly not a step that would be beneficial to building confidence in paper money- and neither are the countless desperate stimulus and bailout packages of the past few years. On the other hand this represents a clear argument in favour of gold and should thus ensure a positive environment for gold investment.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Obama's Impeachable Offenses Mount
Alex Jones Tv 1/3

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Obama's Impeachable Offenses Mount
Alex Jones Tv 2/3

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Obama's Impeachable Offenses Mount
Alex Jones Tv 3/3

From Card Fees to Mortgages, a New Day for Consumers
By RON LIEBER and TARA SIEGEL BERNARD
At last, it's settled.
After months of haggling, the terms of financial reform are set, so long as both houses of Congress vote to accept them in the coming days.
While elected officials spent much of their time working out the details of regulating complex derivatives and grappling with whether banks ought to make big bets with their own money, they also set a number of new rules that will directly affect consumers.

Arizona Gov: Most Illegal Immigrants Smuggling Drugs
By Paul Davenport, Associated Press - CNSNews.com
Phoenix (AP) - Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday most illegal immigrants entering Arizona are being used to transport drugs across the border. Brewer said the motivation of "a lot" of the illegal immigrants is to enter the United States to look for work, but that drug rings press them into duty as drug "mules."
"I believe today, under the circumstances that we're facing, that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in," Brewer said.

Group meets for SOS to Congress
PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL
A group of 700 people from the Valley's business and political community sent a message to Congress Sunday morning, asking them for comprehensive immigration reform.
The group, meeting in response to the ongoing backlash from the state's newly passed immigration law, met in the Heard Museum parking lot in Phoenix and spelled out "SOS Congress."

Many Legislators Aim to Copy Arizona Immigration Law
By John Miller, Associated Press - CNSNews.com
Boise, Idaho (AP) - Arizona's sweeping new immigration law doesn't even take effect until next month, but lawmakers in nearly 20 other states are already clamoring to follow in its footsteps.
Gubernatorial candidates in Florida and Minnesota are singing the law's praises, as are some lawmakers in other states far from the Mexico border such as Idaho and Nebraska. But states also are watching legal challenges to the new law, and whether boycotts over it will harm Arizona's economy.

Obama Internet kill switch plan approved by US Senate
By Grant Gross - TechWorld.com
President could get power to turn off Internet
A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.
Senator Joe Lieberman and other bill sponsors have refuted the charges that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the president an Internet "kill switch." Instead, the bill puts limits on the powers the president already has to cause "the closing of any facility or stations for wire communication" in a time of war, as described in the Communications Act of 1934, they said in a breakdown of the bill published on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee website.

--------- Privatization of municipal assets -----------

What Do Greece, California, Portugal and Illinois Have in Common?
Leonard Gilroy - Governing.com
Answer: They all made CMA's top-10 list of governments with the highest sovereign debt default risk. In order, the loser list (along with today's probability of default) is:

• #1 Greece (68.67%)
• #2 Venezuela (58.35%)
• #3 Argentina (48.39%)
• #4 Pakistan (38.85%)
• #5 Ukraine (35.54%)
• #6 Dubai/Emirate of (29.07%)
• #7 Iraq (28.91%)
• #8 California/State of (25.13%)
• #9 Portugal (25.03%)
• #10 Illinois/State of (24.63%)

US state budget crises threaten social fabric
By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles - FT.com
The small southern California city of Maywood has hit on a unique solution to its budget crisis. Crushed by the recession and falling tax revenues, the city is disbanding its police force and firing all public sector employees.
Maywood has opted for an extreme solution, by contracting out all public services, including the most basic, to save cash. But it is not alone.
States around the US are cutting costs wherever possible as they prepare budgets for the fiscal year that starts this week for most of them. Their combined deficit is projected to reach $112bn by June 2011.

Amid Fiscal Pressures, States Move to Privatize Workers Compensation Programs
POSTED BY LEONARD GILROY - Governing.com
Ongoing fiscal pressures are prompting policymakers to pursue a wide variety of government streamlining strategies to cut costs. One of the less visible -- but nonetheless intriguing -- subcurrents of this streamlining trend involves moves in several states to get government out of the workers compensation insurance business.
For example, last month, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Senate Bill 1045, which sets in motion the privatization of SCF Arizona, the state's workers compensation fund. The bill requires SCF Arizona to become a mutual insurance company, regulated by state insurance officials, by January 2013. SCF Arizona is the largest workers' compensation insurance carrier in the state, covering 40,000 state businesses and receiving $191.8 million in direct premiums written last year. SB 1045 passed with strong, bipartisan votes in each chamber (House 37-19, Senate 26-1).

The great sell-off: Chicago auctions city assets
By Mark Guarino - CSMonitor.com
The city is auctioning private assets to the highest bidder. But private ownership of parking meters stirs a backlash.
No city in America beats Chicago when it comes to selling public assets - garages, bridges, even parking meters - and contracting with private companies to supply traditional public services.Over the past five years, the Windy City under Mayor Richard M. Daley has sold or leased out public institutions such as the Chicago Skyway ($1.83 billion), underground garages beneath Grant and Millennium Parks ($563 million), and, more recently, city parking meters ($1.15 billion).
That's not exactly chump change, especially for a city still grappling with a $469 million budget shortfall from last year, not to mention an estimated $300 million deficit this year.

Will city sell or shelve closed library materials, real estate?
Books just the beginning of Aurora's decisions on idle assets
By BRANDON JOHANSSON - The Aurora Sentinel
AURORA | The closure of four Aurora libraries - shuttered early this year amid shrinking budgets and after voters rejected a tax hike to keep them open - has left the city's library officials with a daunting task.
What should come of the slew of books, movies, CDs and computers that once stocked the shelves at Iliff Square, Chambers Plaza, Mission Viejo and Hoffman Heights libraries?
"It's been just an immense project, it's taken more time than I thought," said Patti Bateman, the city's director of library and cultural services.
And the work won't end when the books are gone.

Senators Collins, Snowe Found the Money to Bail Out Wall Street
But They Can't Spare a Dime to Keep Cops, Teachers and Nurses Working in Maine? - AFSCME.org
$100,000 Effort from AFSCME, Americans United for Change Urges Maine's Senators to Get Their Priorities Straight and Pass the Jobs Bill
Washington D.C. - AFSCME and Americans United for Change unveiled a joint $100,000 TV ad campaign today calling on Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to get their priorities straight after voting to cut off struggling out-of-work Mainers from unemployment benefits and threatening the jobs of cops, firefighters, nurses and teachers across the state. See script below for "Priorities," which will begin airing on broadcast television Monday in Portland and Bangor.

San Diego Must End Delays and Implement Managed Competition Now
Adam Summers - Governing.com
The following are remarks delivered on June 14, 2010, at a press conference organized by San Diego Councilmember Carl DeMaio to promote a ballot initiative, The Competition and Transparency in City Contracting Initiative, that would force the City of San Diego to implement managed competition reforms to encourage the city to allow private-sector companies to compete for contracts to provide various city services more cheaply and efficiently. Voters overwhelmingly approved a managed competition measure in November 2006 but the city employees' labor unions, fearful of competition and losing contracts to more efficient service providers in the private sector, have effectively stonewalled the implementation of the program for over three and a half years. The press conference took place at the Rancho Bernardo Library, which has seen its hours slashed as the city has been unable to implement the managed competition program, and has resorted to service cuts to balance the budget.

Harrisburg finances: Selling assets is only viable option
Patriot-News Editorial Board - PennLive.com
We agree with Mayor Linda Thompson.
The best plan on the table to get Harrisburg out of its debt crisis is to re-negotiate the payment schedule with creditors and to sell assets.
It's the plan she spelled out at her State of the City address this month in front of several hundred business and community leaders to much applause.
As much as everyone likes to talk about considering 'all the options on the table,' the truth is Harrisburg does not have many options. The ones it has have been apparent for months, if not years.
It boils down to this: Declare bankruptcy and hope for the best in an uncertain legal terrain or sell enough assets to cover the debt.

Chief prepares to sell DWP assets
General Manager Austin Beutner hopes to sell L.A.'s share of a coal-fired generating station in Arizona and is weighing a sale and lease-back deal on the utility's landmark downtown building.
By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times
The top executive at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is laying the groundwork for a sale of some of the agency's biggest assets - including the utility's iconic downtown Los Angeles headquarters - as it seeks to cover rising costs without raising electricity rates.
DWP Interim General Manager Austin Beutner said Monday that he would not pursue any additional power rate increases for the remainder of the calendar year. But that decision would come with a series of tradeoffs, he said.

Taking State Parks off the State's Books
By Leonard Gilroy - BaconsRebellion.com
The Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring - established under executive order by Gov. Bob McDonnell - will soon begin the important work of identifying opportunities to streamline, consolidate, privatize or eliminate inefficient or unnecessary services, programs and authorities in Virginia state government. Virginia State Parks should be among the many state services and agencies the Commission ultimately puts under the microscope.

Taking State Parks off the State's Books, Part 2
Leonard Gilroy - Reason.org
Do we need a public sector monopoly on the operation of public lands?
My last column (see "Taking State Parks off the State's Books," 4/14) explored the concept of long-term concessions with private recreation management firms for the operation and maintenance of state parks, generating reader feedback ranging from supportive to skeptical. Such polarization is understandable given that the proposal represents a novel and emerging paradigm in public land management that's altogether different than the norm today, characterized by a public sector monopoly on the operation of public lands.

------- G8 - G20 Summit & global news -------

Obama, world leaders walk fiscal 'tightrope' in Toronto
USAToday.com
Last year in London, world leaders were perched on a dangerous precipice as they faced down a global recession of historic proportions.
Nearly 15 months later in Toronto, they're off the precipice -- and on a "tightrope."
That was the prognosis this morning from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as he gaveled leaders of the G-20 major and developing nations into session for a day full of talks focused largely on economics and financial regulation.

G20 summit:
Rifts in Toronto as US warns EU of double-dip recession risk
Patrick Wintour and Larry Elliott in Toronto - guardian.co.uk
Divisions add to financial market jitters, with David Cameron praised by Canadian counterpart for budget to slash deficit
Signs of deep rifts at the G8 and G20 summits in Toronto over how quickly governments should cut deficits added to financial market jitters today, with the Americans warning of the dangers of a double dip recession if all countries started to rein back spending at once.
The leading European economies, especially Germany, are putting a new emphasis on cutting back government spending, and there is a possibility that a G20 communique, due to be released on Sunday , will set out an indicative timetable of how far and fast countries should retrench spending.

Leaders at Summit Turn Attention to Deficit Cuts
By JACKIE CALMES and SEWELL CHAN - NYTimes.com
TORONTO - Despite President Obama's pitch at the summit meeting for developed nations here for continued stimulus measures to prevent another global economic downturn, the United States will go along with other leaders who are more concerned about rising debt and join in a commitment to cut their governments' deficits in half by 2013, administration officials said on Saturday.

Hundreds arrested after G20 protesters riot in Toronto
Mark Tran and agencies - guardian.co.uk
Police detain almost 500 people as masked anarchists break away from peaceful rally to smash storefronts and torch cars
Almost 500 people have been arrested after a group of anarchists torched police cars and smashed storefronts close to the G20 summit in Toronto.
The Toronto Star, citing security officials, reported that 480 people were detained after violence broke out when several hundred masked protesters broke away from a larger, peaceful demonstration yesterday.

George Butler:
Big Money Spent for G8-G20 Summit Security in Toronto

US-Israeli relations suffer 'tectonic rift'
By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem - Telegraph.co.uk
A senior Israeli diplomat has warned that the Jewish state's relationship with the United States has suffered a "tectonic rift".
The sobering assessment comes a week before Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, meets President Barack Obama at the White House.
There had been hope the two could lay to rest a row that erupted between the two allies in March but the new comments have raised fears of long-term damage.
Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, told foreign ministry colleagues at a private briefing in Jerusalem that they were facing a long and potentially irrevocable estrangement.
Sources said Mr Oren told the meeting: "There is no crisis in Israel-US relations because in a crisis there are ups and downs. [Instead] relations are in a state of tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart."

US, Russia fail to grip Kyrgyz helm
By M K Bhadrakumar - AsiaTimes
If the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan were to be the litmus test, the United States' "reset" of ties with Russia appears only selectively genuine. Kyrgyzstan is a perfect case for the two powers to agree to tactical cooperation, as there are significant common interests - and yet that is not happening.
The Kyrgyz statehood is dissolving and Sunday's referendum on constitutional reform may only aggravate the crisis and further splinter the ruling class. The Kyrgyz implosion impacts on regional stability, given the drug mafia and the militant Islamists waiting in the wings. Ethnic strife is opening the floodgates.

Dr. John Coleman:
Committee of 300 Staged Atrocities for World Government
Alex Jones Tv 1/4

Dr. John Coleman:
Committee of 300 Staged Atrocities for World Government
a GOAL of NWO - make people dependent upon government
Alex Jones Tv2/4

Dr. John Coleman:
Committee of 300 Staged Atrocities for World Government
Alex Jones Tv 3/4

Dr. John Coleman:
Committee of 300 Staged Atrocities for World Government
Alex Jones Tv 4/4

-------- Gulf Oil News -----------

Alex, first named Atlantic storm, heads for Gulf
PATRICK E. JONES - AP foreign - Guardian.co.uk
BELIZE CITY (AP) - Tropical Storm Alex weakened to a depression Sunday hours after making landfall in this popular tourist destination, but is expected to regain strength in the coming days as it moves out over warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
Although Alex could eventually become a hurricane, it is projected to touch down on the Mexican coastline later this week well away from the area where BP PLC is trying to stop a massive oil leak, the U.S. Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Don't ignore low-income spill victims, advocates urge BP
By Deborah Barfield Berry, Gannett Washington Bureau - USAToday.com
WASHINGTON - Vicky Townley is waiting to hear whether BP will compensate her for tip income she says she's lost because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
"Things are so slow we're basically living from paycheck to paycheck, which is not very much," said Townley, a bartender in Gulf Shores, Ala., who filed her lost-wages claim three weeks ago.
Before the spill, she said, she earned $60 a day in tips during the summer months, which helped in the long slog to rebound from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

How BP wants to start over in bid to contain Gulf oil spill
By Mark Sappenfield, CSMonitor.com
Even before tropical storm Alex came on the scene, BP wanted to revamp how it collects oil from the leaking well at the center of the Gulf oil spill. Those plans could take shape this week.
Tropical storm Alex comes just as the Coast Guard and BP are preparing to make the oil-collection system at the leaking well on the sea floor more hurricane-ready.
For now, it appears as if Alex will pass far west of the Gulf oil spill. But even before Alex developed, the end of June and the beginning of July was shaping up to be a crucial moment in BP's bid to collect all the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
During the next two to three weeks, BP will make major changes at and above the well. It will bring in a host of new ships to replace those currently on site and radically change the underwater architecture that has captured 15,000 to 25,000 barrels of oil (630,000 to 1 million gallons) daily during much of the past month.

Stuart Varney (on Neil Cavuto) with Ron Paul
setup of President's BP Commission by EO instead of by Congress

Alabama State Troopers Moonlighting as BP Security Guards
Written by Wayne Madsen - OilPrice.com
WMR's sources on the Gulf coast report that BP Security personnel are being augmented by off-duty Alabama state troopers and G4S Wackenhut private security guards. The BP Security personnel ensure that no observers are present on Gulf coast beaches during night time hours when BP contractors scour the beaches and pick up and covertly dispose of dead dolphins, turtles, birds, and other sea animals that wash ashore covered with oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

Panorama - BP - In Deep Water .2010

Cleanup Hiring Feeds Frustration in Fishing Town
By JOHN LELAND - NYTimes.com
BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. - Nine weeks into the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there is more money in this small, hardscrabble fishing town than there has been in decades, residents say. There are more high-paying workdays, more traffic accidents, more reports of domestic violence, more drug and alcohol use, more resentment, more rumors, more hunger, more worry.

Criminal Investigation of BP Staged Oil Spill Vital

Gulf oil spill: Could 'toxic storm' make beach towns uninhabitable?
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer - CSMonitor.com
Residents fear mass relocations should a hurricane kick the Gulf oil spill onto resort towns. 'Hazmat cards' are a hot commodity among residents, since they could be the key to return.
Orange Beach, Ala.
Ron Greve expects the worst is yet to come in the oil spill drama that is haranguing beach towns all along the US Gulf Coast. So, like a growing number of residents, the Pensacola Beach solar-cell salesman took a hazardous materials class and received a 'hazmat card' upon graduation.
Those cards, says Mr. Greve, could become critical in coming weeks and months. In the case of a hurricane hitting the 250-mile wide slick and pushing it over sand dunes and into beach towns, residents fear they'll face not only mass evacuations, but potential permanent relocation.

Lindsey Williams on The Oil Spill catastrophe
Jeffe Rense 23/06/2010

Coming Soon to a Food Supply Near You
By Nancy Matthis - AmericanDaughter
The toxic chemical dispersant Corexit 9500 was pumped into the Gulf to counter the oil spill. Now it appears to have gassified, entered the atmosphere, and rained down on inland farmers, damaging crops and killing songbirds:
One month ago, on May 24, The European Union Times wrote about a report prepared by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources for President Medvedev - Toxic Oil Spill Rains Warned Could Destroy North America:
A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources is warning that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with "total destruction".

Russian Scientists Warn Toxic Rain Could Destroy North America
Due to BP Chemical

Alex Gives His Full Report of The BP Gulf Oil Spill "False Flag" Event
Alex Jones Tv 5/5

----- On a lighter note! -----

Great Spoof on November Elections!
Clint Webb for Senate

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Friday 06.25.2010

Ben Bernanke needs fresh monetary blitz as US recovery falters
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is waging an epochal battle behind the scenes for control of US monetary policy, struggling to overcome resistance from regional Fed hawks for further possible stimulus to prevent a deflationary spiral.
Fed watchers say Mr Bernanke and his close allies at the Board in Washington are worried by signs that the US recovery is running out of steam. The ECRI leading indicator published by the Economic Cycle Research Institute has collapsed to a 45-week low of -5.7 in the most precipitous slide for half a century. Such a reading typically portends contraction within three months or so.
Key members of the five-man Board are quietly mulling a fresh burst of asset purchases, if necessary by pushing the Fed's balance sheet from $2.4 trillion (£1.6 trillion) to uncharted levels of $5 trillion. But they are certain to face intense scepticism from regional hardliners. The dispute has echoes of the early 1930s when the Chicago Fed stymied rescue efforts.

Democrats blink on sanctity of stimulus
By Stephen Dinan - WashingtonTimes.com
Failed bill aimed to redirect some funding
After repeatedly turning back the GOP's efforts to redirect stimulus money to other purposes, Senate Democrats did an about-face this week as they dipped into the Recovery Act funds to try to pay for their own tax breaks and job-spending priorities.
It's the first time Senate Democratic leaders have embraced undoing parts of last year's $862 billion stimulus - though Democrats insisted it wasn't a strategy change, but rather a last-ditch desperation move to try to entice Republicans to support another round of spending.

Big Banks May Have to Pay if Fannie and Freddie Go Bust
By CHARLES WALLACE - DailyFinance.com
Financial stocks took a beating at the opening of trading Thursday after a Republican congressman added language to the proposed financial regulation overhaul that would make big banks pay up if government-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) go bust.
"It would be unconscionable if we would not be dealing with the government enterprises now," Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, told a conference committee hearing Thursday, referring to Fannie and Freddie, which were seized by the government in September 2008 when they were on the verge if insolvency.

Rise Of The New Gold Rush
Giordano Bruno - SilverBearCafe.com
They called us "kooks" and "crackpots". They said our ideas were outdated and incompatible with modern finance. They said it wouldn't last. Oh yes, Gold, they said, was a silly investment with no inherent value, and soon, precious metals investors would be "wiped out" by the "inevitable implosion of the gold bubble" (gold bubble....?). Mainstream establishment economists and Keynesians have been yipping and snarling like overanxious Chihuahuas for the past two years against gold and silver, most specifically their use as a hedge against collapse in stocks and currencies.

Golden Times
The Aden Sisters - Kitco.com
Gold is amazing. It's been very strong, hitting record highs last week. Its bullish price action means investors and governments know it's time to be in safe assets. The result is, gold continues to benefit as the world's #1 safe haven.
GOLD IS MONEY
We're also seeing first hand gold's role in the monetary system. Few people understand gold's importance over other forms of wealth but if there was ever a doubt, it's been erased by gold's reaction to ongoing financial developments.
Gold is money. Most governments regard gold as a monetary instrument, and it has been the international currency for thousands of years.

While the Economy Fizzles - Gold Sizzles!
By Chris Blasi - Kitco.com
Those that could not see the disaster coming, and grossly underestimated its magnitude once underway, have been loudly proclaiming an economic rebound is underway. Such proclamations, spewing from establishment channels, are so blatantly short on truth that it reveals a disturbing level of desperation to raise confidence. Furthermore, the straight-faced dissemination of such transparently amateurish "official analysis" being served as a substitute for tangible economic growth clearly shows that the damage to the national economic infrastructure is so great that past practices employed by the Fed and Government to goose the economy to revival are now futile at best and most likely counterproductive.

If They Don't Own Gold, Don't Trust Their Opinion on Gold
Justice Litle, Editorial Director, Taipan Publishing Group
As an asset class, gold stirs the passions. Some folks love it, and others despise it. Be wary of those who will never own gold.
As I write this note to you on Friday, fingers flying over keys like the flickering quotes on my screens, Pink Floyd's "Learning to Fly" is playing on my speakers.
It's an appropriate tune, because gold is once again "learning to fly" now. After one or two scrapped take-off attempts, the yellow precious metal has broken out to fresh all-time highs. (Well... nominal highs at least. To break inflation-adjusted highs - which will happen sooner or later - gold will have to trade above $2,000 per ounce.)

SDR Strawman & Gold-Backed Euro
by Jim Willie, FinancialSense.com
The world faces challenges and uncertainty these days like perhaps never before in modern history. Broken insolvent banking systems match the insolvent homeowners living in despair but with newfound hope from simply not paying home mortgages in large numbers. Henry David Thoreau could actually run for the US Senate, as his platform of civil disobedience is more widely embraced with each passing month. Over a quarter million Bank of America home mortgage holders have not made a loan payment in a year, yet still occupy rent-free dwellings. The European sovereign debt has shaken the entire government financial structures, offering a preview of what comes to the sacrosanct Untied States and United Kingdom. In its wake, a fire is lit under gold as a recognized safe haven asset that has no debt attachment or counter-party risk. Government budgets read like Banana Republics throughout the Western world. The norm has become crime syndicates to control most Western Govts, matching the trend for local warlord criminal groups to control most Third World Govts. Mexico is now a failed state. Think evolution in reverse. Indeed, crisis has become the new norm.

The U.S. Dollar Falls by Fall
Greg Hunter - SilverBearCafe.com
Last week, three stories acted as signposts for the direction of the U.S. Dollar. The first is about a letter President Obama sent to members of the G20 (Group of 20 major industrial countries) in advance of next weekends meeting in Canada. The Presidents letter asked members to "reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong." The policy he is talking about is to print money and run monstrous deficits to keep the world economy afloat. The talk in Europe is just the opposite. The EU these days is all about austerity and budget cuts which are hardly pro-growth. The Associated Press reported the story this way: In the letter, Obama said that the June 25-27 summit should also focus on efforts to stabilize public deficits in the "medium term," a reference to the administrations position that governments need to run huge deficits currently to provide the stimulus needed to ensure a sustained recovery but then move in future years to deficit reduction efforts.

CFR Meeting: Zbigniew Brzezinski Fears The Global Awakening

Greece puts its islands up for sale to save economy
by Elena Moya - guardian.co.uk
Desperate attempt to repay debts also driven by inability to find funds to develop infrastructure on islands
There's little that shouts "seriously rich" as much as a little island in the sun to call your own. For Sir Richard Branson it is Neckar in the Caribbean, the billionaire Barclay brothers prefer Brecqhou in the Channel Islands, while Aristotle Onassis married Jackie Kennedy on Skorpios, his Greek hideway.
Now Greece is making it easier for the rich and famous to fulfill their dreams by preparing to sell, or offering long-term leases on, some of its 6,000 sunkissed islands in a desperate attempt to repay its mountainous debts.

Gary Shilling: China's Currency Move Means Tough Decisions Ahead
By NIKHIL HUTHEESING - DailyFinance.com
When the Chinese government recently said it was going to let its currency, the yuan, float, the knee-jerk reaction among U.S. investors was enthusiastic. A stronger yuan, they reasoned, meant that there would be fewer trade problems between China and the West, that it would be easier to tame inflation, and that it would help to rebalance that country's economy.
But Gary Shilling, the economist credited with predicting the subprime mortgage crisis and the subsequent slowdown of the U.S. economy, says not to believe the headlines. Shilling says that there is no way China's government will give the yuan complete free rein to trade against the dollar.

Wall Street reform hits Main Street
By THOMAS J. DONOHUE - Politico.com
The law of unintended consequences dictates that massive, complicated and sweeping bills passed by Congress can lead to unanticipated, often undesirable, outcomes.
As Congress prepares to pass a historic financial reform bill, what can be done to ensure that negative unintended consequences are kept to a minimum?
The Senate bill provision dealing with the derivatives market seems rife for unintended consequences. If left unchanged, it could restrict capital, undermine economic growth and job creation and increase the level of uncertainty for businesses and consumers.

Fed to reduce size, scope of Nashville branch
NASHVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Dan Hieb STAFF WRITER
The Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta will downsize its presence in Nashville by mid-2011, eliminating more than two-thirds of its local work force as it moves some of its processes from the Nashville branch to its office in Atlanta.
The Fed announced the changes today, which will reduce its local work force from 54 to about 15.
Among the changes: The Fed plans to turn the Nashville branch at 301 Rosa L. Parks Ave. into a "cash depot," eliminating the cash processing that currently takes place at the branch. Instead, armored carriers will transport the cash for processing in Atlanta.

The End of The Great Bailouts is Approaching
Bob Chapman - TheInternationalForecaster.com
Broke central banks, UK must monetize or collapse, 20 major countries on the edge of insolvency, No way but down for the Stock markets, defaulting on bailout payments, Fed audit going through Senate, shrinkage of high-end properties, VAT coming.
The devastating results of Keynesianism didn't take hold of the western world until after WWII. Cycles were created for the accumulation of wealth. A boom occurs and you get wealthy from investments on the way up and even wealthier on the way down, because the elitists are controlling the supply of money and credit and interest rates. That is the real underlying mission of the Fed, which is owned by banking and Wall Street. All the power to control markets and create inflation and deflation lies with the Federal Reserve. Politicians do not create monetary policy, the Fed does. The politicians do as they are told. They know from time to time there will be economic pain, but the payoffs are so good they learn to live with it.

Keiser Report 54

Why Municipal Bonds Aren't the Answer
By Dave Gonigam - DailyReckoning.com
06/24/10 Baltimore, Maryland - US households are piling into municipal bonds. The household sector accounts for 80% of all flows into munis over the last three quarters, according to the Federal Reserve's flow of funds report.
Of the $2.8 trillion in municipal debt currently outstanding, households hold $1 trillion. And that doesn't count what they hold indirectly through banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and so on.

Bank execs panic over proposed change to orderly liquidation authority -- Dodd unhappy with Brown -- Zero hour arrives as derivatives, 'Volcker rule' remain unresolved
By: BEN WHITE - Politico.com
DOUBLE SIREN EXCLUSIVE - Bank executives were panicking last night over a proposed fix to Title II of financial reform literally penciled in at the last minute. The fear is that that the proposed change to the orderly liquidation authority could leave banks on the hook for a possible wind-down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could cost as much as $400 billion. In the House counter-offer below, Fannie and Freddie are penciled in as falling under the definition of 'financial company,' meaning they could be resolved by the orderly liquidation process. This process is paid for by the sale of the failing company's assets and/or through assessments on other financial companies, possibly putting the Street in line to pay for the liquidation of the troubled housing giants.

We Cannot Afford to Double Dip
By Alex Daley - Kitco.com
Talk of a double-dip recession is seemingly increasing these days. Home sales have dropped like a brick since the end of the special tax breaks for buyers. Weekly job reports are showing much larger rises in unemployment claims than previously expected by whoever it is that decides what exactly is expected - 427,000 new filings in just the last weekly report.

Government 'too big to fail' and too big to succeed
By Jason Clemens and Julie Kaszton - WashingtonTimes.com
Washington has become a 'systemic risk'
These days, one is hard-pressed to read a newspaper or watch the news without encountering the phrase "too big to fail." The debate over TBTF, as it also is known, completely ignores the one institution that deserves attention when assessing the real risks of TBTF: government.
To get a sense of its size, consider government as a corporation. Sam Corp., as we will call it, will have revenues of $2.2 trillion this year against expenses of $3.6 trillion. As of the end of 2008, Sam Corp. employed more than 2.76 million people. The monthly payroll costs for Sam Corp. exceed $17 billion. Sam Corp. has affiliates in all 50 states, and each of these affiliates has subaffiliates at the county and city level.

Caveat Lector - The views and opinions represented in the articles and videos on this page do not necessarily reflect the opinions of PTG, but are included for your perusal. We attempt to bring timely information to the table for your consideration.

Webster Tarpley : US and the geopolitical situation in the World

A Plague Upon The World: The USA is a "Failed State"
by Paul Craig Roberts - ForeignPolicyJournal.com
Question: Dr. Roberts, the United States is regarded as the most successful state in the world today. What is responsible for American success?
Dr. Roberts: Propaganda. If truth be known, the U.S. is a failed state. More about that later. The U.S. owes its image of success to: (1) the vast lands and mineral resources that the U.S. "liberated" with violence from the native inhabitants, (2) Europe's, especially Great Britain's, self-destruction in World War I and World War II, and (3) the economic destruction of Russia and most of Asia by communism or socialism.
After World War II, the U.S. took the reserve currency role from Great Britain. This made the U.S. dollar the world money and permitted the U.S. to pay its import bills in its own currency. World War II's destruction of the other industrialized countries left the U.S. as the only country capable of supplying products to world markets. This historical happenstance created among Americans the impression that they were a favored people. Today the militarist neoconservatives speak of the United States as "the indispensable nation." In other words, Americans are above all others, except, of course, Israelis.

Central Banking in Crisis:
Some Twenty Countries on the Verge of Insolvency
Bob Chapman - SilverBearCafe.com
Market Volatility as the Debt Implosion Continues
Cycles were created for the accumulation of wealth. A boom occurs and you get wealthy from investments on the way up and even wealthier on the way down, because the elitists are controlling the supply of money and credit and interest rates. That is the real underlying mission of the Fed, which is owned by banking and Wall Street. All the power to control markets and create inflation and deflation lies with the Federal Reserve. Politicians do not create monetary policy, the Fed does. The politicians do as they are told. They know from time to time there will be economic pain, but the payoffs are so good they learn to live with it.

Making It McChrystal Clear
by Butler Shaffer - LewRockwell.com
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. ~ H.L. Mencken
The war system's response to Gen. McChrystal's Rolling Stone interview is instructive. It is a reminder that every Memorial Day should begin by honoring the first victim of every war: truth. But as all wars are grounded in lies - the bloodier the war the more enormous the falsity of its foundation - truth becomes not only a casualty, but the enemy itself.

Barack Obama's sacking of General McChrystal put his vanity above the national interest
By Gerald Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Barack Obama has handled the issue of General Stanley McChrystal as cack-handedly as his mismanagement of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. While it is true that generals owe a duty of respect to their commander-in-chief, the consensus among those who have read the offending interview in Rolling Stone magazine is that McChrystal did not overstep the mark as badly as had been rumoured, though his aides were certainly at fault. The President was within his rights to call in McChrystal for an explanation; but there were very special circumstances obtaining in this case.

Dozens from U.S. on list of targets as terrorists
By Eli Lake - WashingtonTimes.com
Threat called 'worrisome'
Dozens of Americans who have joined terrorist groups are targets of President Obama's war on al Qaeda, the president's most senior adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security said Thursday.
"There are, in my mind, dozens of U.S. persons who are in different parts of the world, and they are very concerning to us," said John O. Brennan, deputy White House national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism.

Stimulus, Austerity, and the Spiral of Decline
By Nathan Lewis - DailyReckoning.com
06/24/10 Binghamton, New York - In an economic decline, mediocre governments typically bounce back and forth between "stimulus" and "austerity." They are the ketchup and mustard of bad recession policy.
"Stimulus" - favored by the left-leaning politicians - rarely amounts to more than a form of welfare spending. This is appreciated in hard times, but it tends to be extremely expensive and does little for the economy as a whole. Deficit worries increase. Then comes the "austerity," often favored by conservative politicians.

Morgan Stanley to Pay $102m in Subprime Settlement with Massachusetts AG
by AUSTIN KILGORE - HousingWire.com
Morgan Stanley will pay $102m to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and more than 1,000 homeowners in a settlement that brings to a close an investigation into the investment firm's subprime mortgage securitization and financing practices, Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley's office announced Thursday.
According to the announcement, Morgan Stanley will pay $58m to more than 1,000 homeowners, $23m to the Massachusetts Pension Fund for investment losses and $19.5m to the commonwealth's general fund and $2m to Massachusetts non-profit groups to help distressed subprime borrowers avoid foreclosure.

A Closer Look at the Second Leg Down in Housing
By Barry Ritholtz - Ritholtz.com
. . . . Today, residential real estate confronts numerous headwinds: Credit, once given to anyone who could fog a mirror, is now tight. Hence, demand is far below what it was during the past decade. Home prices are still unwinding from artificially high levels, and remained over-priced. Inventory is elevated. Unemployment remains high. A huge supply of shadow inventory is out there: Speculators and flippers who overpaid but have held onto their properties await modestly higher prices to sell. Bank owned real estate (REOs) continues to increase. We are barely halfway through a decade long foreclosure surge.
This is known, or at least should be by those who have looked at the data. I cannot explain why some economists still have not figured this out.

Is America Destined to Starve?
by Phillip Parham - LewRockwell.com
Americans are no longer prepared to take care of their basic needs without the involvement of the federal government. The majority of Americans have relinquished the responsibility of their future survival to bureaucrats. How and when did we, as an intelligent and formerly self-reliant populace, decide to become wards of the state?

Mortgage rates fall to record lows
By Patrice Hill - WashingtonTimes.com
But buyers still hesitant
The rates on 30-year mortgages last week fell to 4.69 percent, the lowest level on record, mortgage company Freddie Mac reported Thursday. The previous record of 4.71 percent was set in December.
Mortgage rates closely track the rates on 10-year Treasury bonds, which have fallen steeply in recent weeks as the European debt crisis has driven investors into the safe haven of U.S. Treasury securities.

The Wrong Bankruptcy
Adam Lass, Senior Editor, WaveStrength Options Weekly - TaipanDaily
FedEX is NOT headed for bankruptcy - but you might be, if Wall Street gets its way.
In Middle English, a "bellwether" is a castrated ram with a bell placed around its neck so that it might lead the flock home in the evening. In the investing biz, bellwether can refer to most any leading indicator, really, but is most commonly applied to stocks that tend to predict their sectors' next move.
I have several such indicative stocks that I keep a steady an eye on, as their actions are always illuminating. For example, the chart for Monster Worldwide offers a window on hiring practices that updates every 10 seconds. Sure beats waiting for some weekly (and probably cooked) figures out Washington.

Calif. lawmakers begin push to boycott Arizona
By Michal Elseth - WashingtonTimes.com
Forty-five California legislators, headed by state Sen. Gil Cedillo, Los Angeles Democrat, have introduced a nonbinding resolution to boycott Arizona until that state's new immigration law is repealed.
Cities across the country, including Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles, have already begun boycotting Arizona, but California would be the first state to do so.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 113, which was introduced Wednesday evening, would urge the state's retirement systems to stop new investments in Arizona until that state's new law on illegal immigrants, SB1070, which goes into effect July 29, is repealed.

Treasury Watchdog Says 1,295 Prisoners Claimed Homebuyer Tax Credit
by AUSTIN KILGORE - HousingWire.com
First it was minors and resident aliens. Now the Treasury Department's independent watchdog is alleging that $9.1m in homebuyer tax credits went to 1,295 prisoners who were incarcerated at the time they allegedly purchased homes.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released its latest interim audit (download here) on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) efforts to identify and prevent fraudulent homebuyer tax credits.

US, Mexico Agree To Act on Illegal Immigration -- By Suing Arizona
Larry Elder - Townhall.com
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder questioned the constitutionality of Arizona's new immigration law -- before admitting he hadn't read it. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just confirmed that the feds plan to sue to stop the law. And Mexico, whose president said Arizona's law "opens a Pandora's box of the worst abuses in the history of humanity," recently filed a brief in U.S. federal court to side with the law's opponents.
Is Arizona's law, scheduled to go into effect next month, an unconstitutional assault on all things moral and decent? How else to describe the over-the-top reaction to -- and the often completely false description of -- the law by people who apparently neither read nor understood it?

G-20 leaders arrive in Toronto riven by national interests
By Howard Schneider and Scott Wilson Washington Post Staff Writer
TORONTO -- Leaders of the world's major economies began gathering here Thursday amid warnings that their failure to cooperate on core financial and economic issues could cost the world tens of millions of jobs.
After crafting a common response to the financial crisis in the fall of 2008 -- one that saw countries from communist-governed China to conservative Canada pull in the same direction -- members of the Group of 20 arrive this time rived by newly asserted national interests. Many are at odds over details such as how fast and far some countries should cut public spending, and how strict new capital requirements should be for the world's major banks.

Medvedev-Obama Q&A: WTO, G20 and Afghan war

A New Strategic Partnership Emerges
Brad MacDonald - TheTrumpet.com
The European Union, under German direction, is forging a new strategic relationship with Russia.
Before war there is often a fateful moment when conflict becomes inevitable. When this point is breached, no amount of negotiation or compromise can prevent the impending violence.
In the case of World War ii, that point occurred close to midnight on Aug. 21, 1939, when the music stopped playing on Berlin radio and the Reich government announced that it had "conclude[d] a pact of nonaggression" with the Soviet Union. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed two days later, officially making Russia a friend of Germany, and allaying Hitler's last remaining fear.
Eight days later, he began his slaughter.

The despised state of Israel cannot survive for long: Christopher Bollyn
by Kourosh Ziabari - ForeighPolicyJournal.com
Christopher Bollyn is an American journalist and researcher. He is widely known for his extensive research on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that cost the lives of 2,976 victims and left more than 6,000 injured. The U.S. government under former President George W. Bush blamed the terrorist group Al-Qaida as the main culprit of the attacks and adopted an aggressive policy towards Muslim nations. It also enacted the USA PATRIOT Act and issued an illegal order to search and investigate the telephone and email communications of the U.S. citizens under the pretext of discovering and mapping out possible threats to U.S. national security. Bollyn has written on U.S.-Israel relations comprehensively and believes that a powerful corporate cartel of Zionists control and mastermind large-scale U.S. foreign policy.

Germany - Coming Military Dictatorship
By Ron Fraser - TheTrumpet.com
Twin trends in Germany spell danger ahead.
To view Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg at work in parliament, on the hustings, being interviewed by the press, or just enjoying himself socializing is to see a consummate politician in action.
Bright, articulate in both his native German and in English, witty and sharp, Guttenberg is a politician for the moment given Germany's present political turmoil. Even as politicians around him see their careers in tatters, or, in other instances, their popularity on the wane, Guttenberg seems to thrive on the controversy swirling in the current melee of German politics and to come up shining through crisis upon crisis.

Senate passes Iran sanctions
By LAURA ROZEN - Politico.com
The Senate on Thursday passed Iran sanctions legislation that gives President Barack Obama only part of the flexibility he had sought to exempt some U.S. allies from its provisions.
The legislation, which passed 99-0, came in the form of a conference report reconciling different versions passed earlier by both the House and Senate. It now goes to the House, where it is expected to clear quickly for Obama's signature.

----------- Gulf Oil News ------------

Is BP burning sea turtles alive?
MyFoxTampaBay.com staff report
VENICE, La. - A boat captain working to rescue sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico says he has seen BP ships burning sea turtles and other wildlife alive.
Captain Mike Ellis said in an interview posted on You Tube that the boats are conducting controlled burns to get rid of the oil.
"They drag a boom between two shrimp boats and whatever gets caught between the two boats, they circle it up and catch it on fire. Once the turtles are in there, they can't get out," Ellis said.

The Well from Hell
Christian A. DeHaemer - SilverBearCafe.com
The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum... shadow and flame. - Saruman, The Lord of the Rings
There is something primordial about BP's quest for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It's an Icarus-like story of super-ambition; of reaching too far, delving too deep. I don't know if you've stopped to contemplate what BP was trying to do... The well itself started 5,000 feet below the surface. That's the depth of the Grand Canyon from the rim. And then the company attempted to drill more than 30,000 feet below that - Mt. Everest would give 972 feet to spare.Furthermore, the company sought oil in a dangerous area of the seabed. It was unstable and many think BP sought it out because seismic data showed huge pools of methane gas - the very gas that blew the top off Deepwater Horizon and killed 11 people.

Florida closes down oil-stained Pensacola beaches
Breitbart.com
Oil from the massive Gulf of Mexico spill reached the white sands of Pensacola in north-eastern Florida, forcing local authorities Thursday to close down area beaches to swimming at the height of summer.
"There's oil both in the water and in the sand," said Warren Bielenberg, an official with the Gulf Islands National Seashore, one of the areas affected by the spill.
"There's a double red flag, so it's not permitted to swim," he said.
A health advisory was issued for Escambia County and runs from Perdido Key to Santa Rosa Island and the east side of Pensacola Beach, Bielenberg said.
Santa Rosa Island is one of the biggest tourist attractions of the region.

Max Keiser Reveals "Put Options" Ties to BP's False Flag Oil Spill Event on Alex Jones Tv 4/5

Gulf Oil Spill Spells Disaster For President Obama
Todd M. Schoenberger, Managing Editor, Taipan's Tipping Point Alert
The news about the forced resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal pushed a likely headline story to the back pages yesterday as the Gulf oil spill disaster reached another level of anxiety for the country.
For most of Wednesday, the broken well pushed up to 104,000 gallons of crude oil per hour into the Gulf of Mexico with nothing in its way. The cap that had been collecting roughly 25% of the flowing crude oil was bumped and knocked off by a robotic submarine in a way an annoying person would tip the hat off your head.
Adding to this news was the fact that we're running out of the booms needed to help collect and prevent the oil from flowing to the marsh and beaches of the Gulf region. Evidently, there are only 3,000 feet remaining and nobody has come up with a solution to find more.

BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling Some Call Risky
By IAN URBINA - NYTimes.com
The future of BP's offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico has been thrown into doubt by the recent drilling disaster and court wrangling over a moratorium.
But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.
All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration's moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil's plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort.

Health Risks from Oil Spill:
"Some of the Most Toxic Chemicals that We Know"
Washington's Blog
"Every Place Can be Ground Zero", CDC Advises "Everyone" to Avoid Oil
An "epidemiologist" is a scientist who studies diseases among groups of people.
So the following quote from Bloomberg caught my eye:
Shira Kramer, an epidemiologist who has conducted research for the petroleum industry on the health consequences of exposure to petroleum, said she is concerned that the risks are being downplayed.
"It's completely scientifically dishonest to pooh-pooh the potential here when you are talking about some of the most toxic chemicals that we know," said Kramer....
"When you talk about community exposure, you are talking about exposures in unpredictable ways and to subpopulations that may be more highly susceptible than others, such as those of reproductive age, people who are immuno-compromised, children or fetuses.

Lord Christopher Monckton: The Global Warming Take Over Grid
- Alex Jones Tv 1/6

Lord Christopher Monckton: The Global Warming Take Over Grid
- Alex Jones Tv 2/6

Lord Christopher Monckton: The Global Warming Take Over Grid
- Alex Jones Tv 3/6

Lord Christopher Monckton: The Global Warming Take Over Grid
- Alex Jones Tv 4/6

Lord Christopher Monckton: The Global Warming Take Over Grid
- Alex Jones Tv 5/6

Lord Christopher Monckton: The Global Warming Take Over Grid
- Alex Jones Tv 6/6

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thursday 06.24.2010

California welfare cards can be used in many casino ATMs
By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times
Times review finds that in more than half of the state's casinos and gaming rooms, welfare recipients can get cash from state-issued EBT cards. Officials say they're moving to block such transactions.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who learned of the issue when asked to comment for this story, promised to take immediate action.
"We have instructed our vendors to prohibit these cards from being accepted at ATMs located in casinos and card rooms," Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said Wednesday. "It is reprehensible that anyone would use taxpayer money for anything other than its intended purpose."

Fannie Mae Will Deny New Loans to Homeowners Who Walk Away
By Lorraine Woellert
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae, the mortgage guarantor 80 percent owned by the U.S. government, will temporarily deny new loans to borrowers who deliberately default and walk away from their homes.
Borrowers who have the means to make mortgage payments and don't work with lenders to restructure loans will be banned from obtaining new mortgages backed by Fannie Mae for seven years from the date of foreclosure, the company said today in a statement. Washington-based Fannie Mae, along with McLean, Virginia-based rival Freddie Mac, own or guarantee more than half of the $10.7 trillion U.S. mortgage market.

Business leaders say Obama's economic policies stifle growth
By Lori Montgomery - Washington Post
The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama's closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation."
Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that Democrats in Washington are pursuing tax increases, policy changes and regulatory actions that together threaten to dampen economic growth and "harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S."

Mortgage crisis could damp consumer consumption for years to come
By Gail MarksJarvis - LATimes.coom
Borrowers who defaulted could have low credit scores for years, crimping their spending. And changes in scoring and how it's applied could dramatically affect all Americans' ability to borrow.
For countless Americans struggling to make their mortgage payments, the problems have just begun.
Although a loan modification or foreclosure might allow them to put their housing problems behind them, millions will be dogged for years by the aftermath - a credit score so tarnished by the housing debacle that lenders will avoid them. And if they are able to obtain loans, high interest rates are likely to strain their budgets.

Why analysts see Gold at $10,000
By Lorimer Wilson - CommodityOnline.com
My first reaction when I read an article on this site by Arnold Bock - articulating why gold would go to $10,000 - by 2012 no less - was amazement. Who in their right mind would suggest that gold would eventually reach $2,500, let alone $5,000 or even $10,000? Well, I did some investigation and, believe it or not, Bock is in lofty company. Many respected individuals, such as David Rosenberg, Peter Schiff, Harry Schultz, Rob McEwen and many others, have come to the same conclusion. Below is a partial list of such individuals with sound reasons to substantiate their views.

What The Economist Doesn't Know About Gold
By: Adrian Ash, - GoldSeek.com
Two things happen to cash savers (meaning pretty much everyone) when real interest rates get stuck below zero... HOW HAS GOLD reached and breached new all-time highs in the absence of strong 1970s-style inflation?
The Buttonwood column in last weekend's Economist is only the latest analysis to miss the point, and despite tripping right over it, too.
"Owning gold is traditionally seen as offering protection against inflation. And inflation is very bad news for owners of government bonds.

Fed Sees Recovery Weakening but Uses No New Economic Tools
By CHARLES WALLACE - DailyFinance.com
The Federal Reserve issued a somewhat downbeat assessment of the state of the economy Wednesday but didn't outline any new tools to help the country get back to work.
The Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement that it is leaving interest rates unchanged at between 0% and 0.25%. The FOMC, which is headed by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, said information gathered since the last meeting in April suggests that "the economic recovery is proceeding and that the labor market is improving gradually."
It said household spending is increasing but "remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth and tight credit."

Government Insiders: Get Ready for the Gulf "Dead Zone"
Written by Wayne Madsen - OilPrice.com
Bad news concerning the Gulf oil disaster continues to come from WMR's federal government sources in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers. Emergency planners are dealing with a prospective "dead zone" within a 200 mile radius from the Deepwater Horizon disaster datum in the Gulf.

BP: Now less popular than Goldman Sachs
BY ALEX PAREENE - Salon.com
Felix Salmon has been monitoring the BrandIndex scores of Toyota, BP and Goldman Sachs. BrandIndex polls people daily on whether what they've heard about a particular brand is negative or positive.
Exciting news: Goldman Sachs, which has been in the toilet, brand-wise, for a year, is finally more popular than another corporation. With a score of -47.6 in the latest BrandIndex poll, BP is now semi-scientifically the most reviled company in the United States.

General McChrystal and the militarization of US politics
by Simon Tisdall - guardian.co.uk
America has settled into being a nation perpetually at war. In this climate it's no surprise generals sometimes get out of control
Barack Obama has a problem with America's generals that is unlikely to be solved quickly or easily, whatever the outcome of the Stanley McChrystal affair. The disrespectful behaviour of the US commander in Afghanistan and his aides was symptomatic of a more deeply rooted, potentially dangerous malaise, analysts suggest. This week's events might thus be termed a very American coup.
One reason for Obama's difficulty lies in his own inexperience. As a greenhorn commander-in-chief and a Democrat to boot, Washington watchers say Obama has had scant opportunity to win the military's respect, let alone its affection. His unease with his violent inheritance in Afghanistan and Iraq is evident.

How McChrystal sabotaged counterinsurgency
BY MARK BENJAMIN - Salon.com
The man who co-wrote the bible on fighting insurgents says the general and "nincompoop" aides flouted its tenets
Throughout the Rolling Stone article that brought him down, Gen. Stanley McChrystal is described as "America's leading evangelist for counterinsurgency" -- a leader who surrounded himself with a crack team of "counterinsurgency experts" devoted to using that strategy to win the war in Afghanistan. But the man who co-wrote the military's 2006 counterinsurgency manual with Gen. David Petraeus says McChrystal didn't appear to understand or embrace that strategy's cornerstone: full military partnership with civilian government allies.
"If you look at Iraq, Petraeus and [former Iraq Ambassador Ryan] Crocker were joined at the hip and closely coordinated State Department and military activities," said Conrad Crane, the leading author of what has become the counterinsurgency bible. "From the reports, it appears that the close cooperation in Afghanistan was not there."

BP removes oil cap after submarine crash
PhysOrg.com
The containment system capturing oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill had to be removed Wednesday, leaving crude gushing unchecked, after a collision involving a robotic submarine, US officials said. "We had an incident earlier today, they noticed that there was some kind of a gas rising," said Admiral Thad Allen, pictured on June 17, the US official coordinating the response to the disaster.
Oil gushed unchecked Wednesday from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico after BP's containment system was removed for repairs following a submarine crash, US officials said.

G-20 unity fades along with global crisis
Leaders will spar over deficits, bank rules and global rebalancing
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Leaders of the biggest economies managed to put their differences aside at the height of the global financial panic, but the unity of 2008 and 2009 will be replaced by strong differences of opinion when the Group of 8 and the Group of 20 leaders meet this weekend in Canada.
The problems of the global economy haven't gone away, but the sense of urgency to act as one has faded.

Soros tells Germany to step up to its responsibilities, or leave EMU
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor - Telegraph.co.uk
Legendary investor George Soros has called on Germany to leave the euro unless it willing to embrace a growth strategy, describing Berlin's austerity doctrine as a threat to democracy and political stability in Europe.
"German policy is becoming a danger that could destroy the European Project. A collapse of the euro cannot be excluded," he told the German weekly Die Zeit.
"Unless Germany changes policy, its withdrawal from the currency union would be helpful for the rest of Europe. At the moment Germany is pushing its neighbours into deflation: this threatens a long phase of stagnation, leading to nationalism, social unrest, and zenophobia. It endangers democracy," he said.

Soros Warns That Germany's Austerity Policy Endangers Europe
By MELLY ALAZRAKI - DailyFinance.com
The business community has no shortage of people who love to cause a stir with their comments. From Alan Greenspan to Nouriel Roubini to Paul Krugman, these gurus say what's on their minds, often engendering no small amount of controversy. George Soros is one such prominent commenter, and his latest remarks that Germany's fiscal policy could cause the euro to fail and undermine the European Union have more than struck a nerve.
The billionaire investor made his fortune speculating on currencies, most famously betting against the British pound in 1992, a gamble that made him $1 billion and forced the Bank of England to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Over the past couple of years, as the world has undergone a financial crisis and economic recession, Soros has often been quoted in the media.

Shilling Says Yuan Policy Shift Timing May Be 'Terrible'

Beijing Keeps a Tight Rein on Currency's Rise
By BETTINA WASSENER - NYTimes.com
HONG KONG - The Chinese central bank set a reference rate for the renminbi on Wednesday at a level that signaled Beijing was engineering only a very gradual appreciation of the Chinese currency.
The daily reference rate for the renminbi has become a focus of attention in the financial markets since Beijing announced on Saturday that it would allow more currency flexibility. Analysts are trying to gauge how rapidly, and when, the government will allow the currency to gain in value against the dollar - a critical issue in relations between the United States and China.

DEFICIT TERRORISTS STRIKE IN THE UK - USA NEXT?
Ellen Brown - WebOfDebt.com
....Banks advance the principal but not the interest necessary to pay off their loans; and since bank loans are now virtually the only source of new money in the economy, the interest can only come from additional debt. For the banks, that means business continues to boom; while for the rest of the economy, it means cutbacks, belt-tightening and austerity. Since more must always be paid back than was advanced as credit, however, the system is inherently unstable. When the debt bubble becomes too large to be sustained, a recession or depression is precipitated, wiping out a major portion of the debt and allowing the whole process to begin again. This is called the Òbusiness cycle,Ó and it causes markets to vacillate wildly, allowing the monied interests that triggered the cycle to pick up real estate and other assets very cheaply on the down-swing.

Volcker Rule Attacked as Lawmakers Seek Fund Loophole
By Yalman Onaran
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Senate negotiators will probably offer changes today to the financial overhaul bill to soften the Volcker rule by allowing banks to sponsor hedge funds and invest their own money, within limits, alongside that of clients.
The compromise, designed to win the support of at least three Republican senators, comes as lawmakers struggle to reach agreement on financial reform this week. To appease Democrats in favor of stronger regulation, negotiators also plan to make it harder for regulators to undermine the rule, according to lobbyists and congressional aides involved in the discussions.

Lincoln Intervenes for Arkansas Bank
By DAMIAN PALETTA - WSJ.com
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, one of the chief architects of the financial-regulation overhaul nearing completion in Congress, is pushing for a change that would benefit a bank in her home state of Arkansas.
The bank, Arvest Bank Group Inc., of Bentonville, Ark., is predominantly owned by the Walton family, of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fame, perhaps the most influential family in the state and one of the richest in the U.S.

On Wall Street, So Much Cash, So Little Time
By JULIE CRESWELL - NYTimes.com
Only on Wall Street, in the rarefied realm of buyout moguls, could you actually have too much money.
Private equity firms, where corporate takeovers are planned and plotted, today sit atop an estimated $500 billion. But the deal makers are desperate to find deals worth doing, and the clock is ticking.

Dollar Falls to 6-Week Low Against Pound as Fed to Hold Rates
By Ron Harui
June 24 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell to a six-week low against the pound as traders increased bets the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero for longer in order to support a recovery in the world's largest economy.
The U.S. currency weakened versus 13 of its 16 most-active counterparts after Fed officials said in their statement that falling prices for energy and other commodities were undercutting inflation. The pound traded near a 19-month high against the euro after a report showed U.K. policy makers were split on whether to raise interest rates this month.

Pimco's Loss Is a Win for Wall Street Crooks
Commentary by Jonathan Weil
June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Crime didn't pay for Joseph Collins, a former corporate lawyer who received a seven-year prison sentence in January for securities fraud. It just has cost him a lot less money than it should have.
Collins, a former partner at the law firm Mayer Brown LLP, was the chief outside counsel for Refco Inc. when the futures- trading firm collapsed in October 2005, two months after its initial public offering. He was convicted last July on five felony counts for helping Refco executives fleece the company's investors and lenders of $2.4 billion. Yet Collins, 60, hasn't been forced to pay compensation to anyone who lost money when Refco went bust.

Gundlach Sees 10-Year Treasury Yield at 2.5% as Economy Slows
By Charles Stein
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Jeffrey Gundlach, the top-ranked bond manager and founder of DoubleLine Capital LLC, said the yield on the 10-year Treasury note may fall to 2.5 percent as the U.S. economy slows over the next year.
Growth will weaken as the impact of government stimulus programs wears off, Gundlach said in an interview posted on the website of Morningstar Inc., a Chicago-based firm that tracks the mutual-fund industry. He didn't give a forecast for U.S. gross domestic product.

Treasuries Gain on Fed's Statement, Plunge in New Home Sales
By Cordell Eddings and Susanne Walker
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries rose, pushing the two- year note's yield to the lowest level this year, as the Federal Reserve signaled that European indebtedness may harm America's growth and a report showed new home sales plunged.
U.S. debt advanced for a second straight day as the central bank reiterated its commitment to an "extended period" of low interest rates. Treasuries earlier pared gains as the government's $38 billion auction of five-year notes drew a higher yield than forecast.

Toshiba to build motors for Ford in Houston
HOUSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL
Toshiba Corp. announced on Tuesday plans to manufacture drive electrified motors for hybrid vehicles for Ford Motor Co. in Houston, marking the first time Toshiba has made such units outside of Japan.
Toshiba said it would produce the automotive propulsion units at an existing facility in the Bayou City. The production will be Toshiba's first overseas manufacturing base for automotive propulsion motors that are currently produced in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

5 states get mortgage help
By Tami Luhby, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Five states hit hard by the mortgage crisis will soon share $1.5 billion in federal funds to help the unemployed and the underwater who owe more than their homes are worth.
The Treasury Department on Wednesday approved proposals by Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada. The states will use the money primarily to subsidize homeowners' monthly mortgage payments and to reduce their principal. Some of the funds will also go to paying off second liens or facilitating short sales.

New home sales plunged 33 percent in May
By Alan Zibel AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sales of new homes collapsed in May, sinking 33 percent to the lowest level on record as potential buyers stopped shopping for homes once they could no longer receive government tax credits.
The bleak report from the Commerce Department is the first sign of how the expiration of federal tax credits could affect the nation's housing market.

Meredith Whitney

Obama accepts McChrystal's resignation
By Shaun Waterman - WashingtonTimes.com
President Obama said Wednesday he had accepted the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, bringing to an ignominious end the storied but sometimes controversial career of one of the country's top soldiers.
Mr. Obama, who angrily summoned Gen. McChrystal to Washington after the general and several aides disparaged senior members of the administration in a series of interviews with Rolling Stone magazine, said he had accepted the resignation "with considerable regret, but also with certainty that it is the right thing for our mission in Afghanistan, for our military and for our country.

Barack Obama to replace Gen McChrystal with Gen Petraeus over Rolling Stone comments
By Toby Harnden in Washington - Telegraph.co.uk
President Barack Obama has sacked Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, over comments made in a magazine interview.
In what could become a defining moment for his presidency, Mr Obama said he had accepted Gen McChrystal's resignation "with considerable regret but also with certainty that it is the right thing for our mission in Afghanistan, for our military and for the country".
Gen McChrystal was immediately replaced as commander by Gen David Petraeus, the architect of the successful Iraq surge in 2007.

Napolitano: State and local police may deploy to border
By Stephen Dinan - WashingtonTimes.com
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday the federal government will move to let state and local police in non-border states rotate down to the border to help local authorities go after smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico line.
In a major policy speech in which she took aim at what she called "bumper sticker" slogans and said the Obama administration has made huge strides on security, Miss Napolitano said the border can be made still more secure and said administration officials are in the middle of "surging" more boots on the ground.

Bond Defaults Stalk Michigan's Wealthiest as Home Prices Crash
By Darrell Preston and Jeff Green
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Michigan's auto-industry collapse, which led to the worst home-price drop among U.S. states, has forced some of its wealthiest and fastest-growing communities to seek state aid to prevent municipal bond defaults.
Detroit, slammed by the state's 74 percent housing-price decline, warned of bankruptcy when it borrowed in March to cover part of a $280 million deficit. Now, nearby communities in Livingston County such as Hartland Township and Howell Township may need legislation to help make bond payments.

Sales of U.S. New Homes Plunged in May to Record Low
By Shobhana Chandra and Timothy R. Homan
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Purchases of U.S. new homes fell in May to the lowest level on record after a tax credit expired, showing the market remains dependent on government support.
Sales collapsed an unprecedented 33 percent from April to an annual pace of 300,000, less than the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the fewest in data going back to 1963, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Demand in prior months was revised down.

Notorious Private Military Company Blackwater up for Sale
Written by Editorial Dept - OilPrice.com
Earlier this month, Xe Services, LLC, the latest re-branded name of the company that was once known as Blackwater Worldwide, announced that the company was up for sale. The announcement that Xe was seeking new ownership came somewhat as a surprise to industry insiders both in favor of and critical of the company, especially considering Blackwater's seemingly amazing ability to withstand the yearly toll of accidents, mishaps and misconduct that has since earned it a highly negative reputation throughout the world.

Magnitude-5.0 earthquake strikes Canada
AP - WashingtonTimes.com
TORONTO (AP) -- A magnitude-5.0 earthquake struck on the Ontario-Quebec border in Canada on Wednesday, shaking houses and businesses from Ottawa into the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
The midday quake was felt in Canada and in a number of U.S. states, including Michigan, Vermont, Ohio and parts of upstate New York.
The USGS said the quake occurred at a depth of about 12 miles. The agency initially said the quake had a 5.5 magnitude but later reduced it to a magnitude-5.0. The quake occurred at 1:41 p.m. EDT, the USGS said.

--------- Gulf Oil news ----------

Judges' hands tied by oil industry interests
By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times
Many presiding in gulf states are heavily invested in the oil and gas industries, creating the possibility of mass recusals in lawsuits and legal challenges stemming from the BP spill.
Federal judges in gulf states have been extensively invested in the oil and gas industries for decades, and those interests threaten to create a logjam for the 150-plus lawsuits and legal challenges prompted by the BP spill.
Seven of the 12 federal judges of the Eastern District of Louisiana already have cited potential conflicts of interest in bowing out of cases brought by fishermen, charter operators, tourist services and families of those killed in the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Reeves Sees 'Extremely Active' Atlantic Hurricane Season
Ken Reeves, director of forecasting operations at AccuWeather Inc., talks about the outlook for the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season.

Feinberg to Step Down as Pay Supervisor to Focus on BP Claims
By Ian Katz
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's special master on executive compensation, will step down from the post by the end of August, a Treasury Department spokesman said.
Feinberg will leave to focus on his job as government- appointed administrator of BP Plc's $20 billion fund to pay claims stemming from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said today.

BP Removed Cap on Leaking Gulf Well, Allen Says
By Jim Polson
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc removed a cap that's been sending oil from its leaking Gulf of Mexico well to one of two ships on the surface for inspection after an underwater remote- operated vehicle collided with it, U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said.
The ROV accidentally closed a vent on the cap, disrupting the system that funnels oil to the drillship Discoverer Enterprise, Allen, the government's national incident commander, said at a press conference today in Washington. Crude isn't spilling "unconstrained" because it continues to flow to a drilling rig that is burning it, he said.

More oil gushing into Gulf after cap problem
By Michael Kunzelman AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Tens of thousands of gallons more oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday after an undersea robot bumped a venting system, forcing BP to remove the cap that had been containing some of the crude.
It was yet another setback in the nine-week effort to stop the gusher, and it came as thick pools of oil washed up on Pensacola Beach in Florida and the Obama administration tried to figure out how to resurrect a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

More Oil Spewing Into Gulf After Accident at Well
Hugh Collins - AOLNews.com
(June 23) -- An underwater robot bumped into a venting system on the containment dome on the broken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, forcing the removal of the cap, the Coast Guard said today.
Adm. Thad Allen also announced the deaths of two people involved in the cleanup operation.
The accident came on the day BP's Bob Dudley took over from CEO Tony Hayward as the company's point man for the spill.

BP Puts Gulf Well Manager on Leave Pending Disaster Probes
By Joe Carroll
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- The BP Plc manager who oversaw the well that erupted in April has been placed on leave while at least four federal agencies probe the disaster that killed 11 workers and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Donald Vidrine, the well site leader aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded and sank nine weeks ago off the Louisiana coast, said in an interview today that he has been on administrative leave since the incident.

BP Executive Prepares to Take Over Spill Response
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and ANDREW E. KRAMER
HOUSTON - Faced with the continuing American furor over its gaffe-prone British chief executive, Tony Hayward, BP is putting a former Mississippi resident in charge of handling the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its aftermath.
Robert Dudley, who takes charge of BP's spill response on Wednesday, has plenty of experience dealing with a hostile government, unhappy partners and angry citizens.
The former head of BP's joint venture in Russia, TNK-BP, he was expelled from that country in 2008 after a nasty feud with the authorities and BP's business partners. In the end, BP was forced to turn over management control of the venture to the Russians, though it remains highly profitable for both sides.

Gulf oil spill flow increases after accident forces BP to remove cap
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent - guardian.co.uk,
'Top hat' damaged by robot vehicle shortly after US interior secretary had praised device
The gusher in the Gulf of Mexico returned to full force today after BP was forced to remove a cap that had been containing some of the oil spewing out of its ruptured wellhead.
Initial reports suggested a robot vehicle had accidently bumped into the "top hat" device and damaged one of the vents. Its failure represented a major setback to efforts to contain the spill, with underwater video showing crude and gas billowing from the ocean floor unchecked for the first time in three weeks.

BP Oil-Containment Effort Threatened
By SUSAN DAKER - WSJ.com
A key component of BP PLC's efforts to control the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill shut down Wednesday, threatening to derail the company's ambitious plan to nearly double the amount of oil it captures by next week.
An underwater robot collided with a cap placed atop the leaking deepwater well on Wednesday morning, forcing the company to halt the operation of the Discoverer Enterprise, the larger of two vessels currently capturing oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP oil flow increases after accident
By Rowena Mason, Telegraph.co.uk
Oil was gushing largely unchecked from BP's stricken Gulf of Mexico well on Wednesday night - after an accident dramatically increased the flow.
The oil giant had to remove a cap that was channelling 16,000 barrels per day to the surface, after a robot crashed into the capturing equipment. The collision raised fears that ice-crystals could have formed on the device.
BP is still piping some oil to the surface and burning it, but it could not confirm when it expects to replace the cap - its largest and most successful containment device to date. The latest blow to BP came as Ken Salazar, the US Interior Secretary, said all preliminary evidence pointed to "reckless conduct" in the run-up to the accident on April 20 that killed 11 men.

BP confirms Bob Dudley in key Gulf cleanup role
LONDON (AP) - BP PLC on Wednesday confirmed that Bob Dudley is now in charge of efforts to clean up the damage caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, replacing Chief Executive Tony Hayward, who has been heavily criticized for his handling of the incident.
Mr. Dudley, who had led BP's operations in the Americas and Asia, will head the Gulf Coast Restoration Organization, effective immediately, and report to Mr. Hayward.
Mr. Hayward had been overseeing the response to the spill but had been accused of an inept response in his public pronouncements.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wednesday 06.23.2010

Gassed in the Gulf (Parts I & ll): New Gulf War Syndrome
Deborah Dupré - SilverBearCafe.com
The petro-chemical-military-industrial complex is gassing Gulf Coast residents with poisonous Benzene and Corexit dispersant at dangerously high levels in the largest U.S. domestic military operation to date. The military and FEMA are engaged in Emergency Plans for 36 urban areas from Texas to Florida due to the unstoppable Gulf oil volcano the size of Mt. Everest, as WMR reports, indicating evacuations. Some people are advised to relocate now.
Satellite imagery that Obama's administration withheld shows "under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public," writes Wayne Madsen.

50 Statistics About the U.S. Economy That Are Almost Too Crazy to Believe
Most Americans know that the U.S. economy is in bad shape, but what most Americans don't know is how truly desperate the financial situation of the United States really is. The truth is that what we are experiencing is not simply a "downturn" or a "recession". What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end for the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. Our greed and our debt are literally eating our economy alive. Total government, corporate and personal debt has now reached 360 percent of GDP, which is far higher than it ever reached during the Great Depression era. We have nearly totally dismantled our once colossal manufacturing base, we have shipped millions upon millions of middle class jobs overseas, we have lived far beyond our means for decades and we have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world. A great day of financial reckoning is fast approaching, and the vast majority of Americans are totally oblivious.

Maywood to lay off all city employees, dismantle Police Department
LATimes.com
The city of Maywood will lay off all city employees and begin contracting police services with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department effective July 1, officials said.
In addition to contracting with the Sheriff's Department, the Maywood City Council voted unanimously Monday night to lay off an estimated 100 employees and contract with neighboring Bell, which will handle other city services such as finance, records management, parks and recreation, street maintenance and others. Maywood will be billed about $50,833 monthly, which officials said will save $164,375 annually.
"We will become 100% a contracted city," said Angela Spaccia, Maywood's interim city manager.

Why China's Yuan Announcement Is Completely Meaningless
Robert Reich - BusinessInsider.com
The stock market is euphoric over China's apparent decision to allow its currency to rise against the dollar.
Watch your wallets.
China isn't really changing anything. It's only doing the minimum to prevent Congress from listing China as a currency manipulator, leading to a squeeze on Chinese imports.
Over time - and I'm talking about months if not years - China will raise its currency to where it was before the global meltdown in 2008. Big deal.

A Bankrupt BP - Worse For The Financial World Than Lehman Brothers?
Written by JSMineset - OilPrice.com
The BP crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has rightfully been analysed (mostly) from the ecological perspective. People’s lives and livelihoods are in grave danger. But that focus has equally masked something very serious from a financial perspective, in my opinion, that could lead to an acceleration of the crisis brought about by the Lehman implosion.

BP Spills Coffee

'Gold bull run to continue, target $1300-1500'
Gold prices have once again climbed to record levels of $1264 last week before correcting on profit taking thereby cementing the appeal of the yellow metal as a safe haven for investors. China announced its move toward a more flexible currency exchange rate mechanism which has improved the investor sentiments in general but the softening of the dollar has helped the recent surge in gold prices to record levels.

Gold futures rise as recovery doubts prevail
By Claudia Assis and Laura Mandaro , MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures found firmer footing Tuesday, turning positive with less than an hour from the end of floor trading and after swerving in and out of negative territory.
A declining dollar stoked some gold buying amid low volumes. Gold prices had made attempts to turn positive earlier Tuesday, but any substantial advances were swiftly clipped by investors cashing out after the recent record run.
Markets were also absorbing Monday's gyrations, when gold pushed close to $1,260 an ounce but ended up posting a 1.4% loss on the day.

Silver has better commodity value than gold
By Sam Mathid
Most watchers of the ratio of gold to silver have done so in the expectation that it will return to its historical average of around 15 to 16.
It is an interesting aside that this ratio is similar to the reserves in the ground. Gold at 0.004 parts per million of the Earth's crust, and silver at 0.07 parts per million, gives a ratio of 17.5.
In ancient times the ratio of gold to silver was about 10. In other words, gold was usually perceived to be around 10 times more valuable than silver.
By the middle ages this ratio had increased to around 15. In the 20th century the ratio was in the area of about 50.

Is Saudi Arabia Also Stocking Up On Silver As Well As Gold?
By: Peter J. Cooper
News that Saudi Arabia has secretly doubled its official gold reserves over the past few years should come as no surprise to readers of ArabianMoney. But then it was just speculation. Now this is fact. Will it be the same story for silver?
We can only draw on the evidence and gossip that comes to our attention in Dubai. There has certainly been a big jump in interest in silver on the arabianmoney.net website over the past six months.

Silver Leaving the Comex As Investors Want to Get Physical
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Dave from Denver reports that: "On Friday 516,522 ounces of silver were withdrawn from the Comex from Brinks.
Yesterday another 1.6 million ounces were withdrawn from Brink's and HSBC. It all came from the "eligible" category, which is the investor silver being kept at the Comex. This means it wasn't the banks and SLW playing a "shell game" with their "fractional" silver holdings. This was real stuff leaving and going into real hands off-Comex.
This is a lot of silver leaving the Comex and at least the silver leaving HSBC is motivated investors taking physical delivery.

Gartman: Euro is Completely Doomed Currency
Gold is a 'reserve' driven factor

Rally Over China's Yuan Move Fades as Quickly as It Began
By: CNBC.com With Reuters
The rally in global markets over China's decision to let its currency rise gradually appears to have faded after just one day.
Investors reassessed the impact of China's plan for more currency flexibility and grew skeptical about how much Beijing would allow the yuan to rise.
"People gave much more weight to the currency move than it deserved," said Koen De Leus, economist at KBC Securities.

How a Rising Chinese Yuan Complicates Life for U.S. Companies
By PETER COHAN - DailyFinance.com
Days before a key meeting of the world's 20 largest economies -- the G-20 Summit on June 26-27 in Toronto -- China has signaled a shift in currency policy. It will allow its currency, the yuan or renminbi, to float instead of pegging it to the U.S. dollar.
For the time being, China's move is meant to show good faith toward the G-20. But if it goes beyond a political gesture to a lasting economic policy shift, it will represent a huge change that will affect America in big ways.

Why China's Unpegging of Yuan Is a Sham
David White - SeekingAlpha.com
China has announced very vaguely so far that it will let the yuan float "somewhat" against a market basket of currencies. This likely means a market basket of the currencies of its biggest trading partners. Six that are virtually certain to be included are the USD, the euro, the yen, the won, the real, and the AUD. I'm sure there will be many more.
Is China going to one-off appreciate the yuan? They say no. Is China going to allow the yuan to free-float against this market basket of currencies (like a USD Index)? Again, they say no. This will be a controlled pegging of the yuan to a basket of currencies instead of just one. China says it will allow some floating of the yuan against this basket of currencies. In the next breath it says it will control such a float very carefully.

Asian millionaires overtake Europeans in rich list
By Ellen Kelleher in London - FT.com
The net wealth of Asian millionaires has eclipsed that of rich Europeans for the first time, largely because of the relative health of stock markets in Hong Kong, India and China last year, according to a new survey.
The annual Merrill Lynch Wealth Management /Capgemini analysis of investors with $1m or more in assets found that as of late last year, there were 3m millionaires in both the Asia-Pacific and Europe. The survey quantified the wealth held in Asia at $9,700bn, compared with $9,500bn in Europe.

FDIC to Delay Planned Bank-Premium Increase
By JESSICA HOLZER - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it would put off additional planned premium increases on banks as it held steady its projected losses for the government fund that covers bank deposits.
The FDIC staff on Tuesday advised the agency's five-member board to delay any changes in premiums beyond the increase of three one-hundredths of a percentage point scheduled for Jan. 1 because it expects bank failures to begin trailing off next year. The higher assessments will be put off until some unspecified date.

As Some Consumer Banking Fees Fall, Expect Others to Rise
By CHARLES WALLACE - DailyFinance.com
Thanks to a series of laws passed by Congress and rules imposed by the Federal Reserve, fees for using credit cards and bank accounts have begun to decline appreciably, which is a real boon to consumers. The key question is: Will banks find other ways to hit customers with new charges to make up for lost profits? Among the possibilities: Hefty increases in annual credit card fees or an end to free checking.

Subprime Lending Fueled by Campaign Cash
Make sure you're sitting down for this one: A new study finds that the mortgage industry boosted its campaign contributions to congressional districts that had a large share of subprime borrowers during the housing boom in order to influence government housing policy. (Hat tip to Felix Salmon).
The report, from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, concludes that campaign cash from the mortgage industry outpaced contributions from the rest of the financial industry from 2002 to 2006, and that donors targeted members from both parties that had more subprime borrowers in their districts.

Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?
By THOMAS SOWELL - Investors.com
When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.
Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.
"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.
Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

Architecture for a New World Financial System
Antal E. Fekete - GoldSeek.com
The Symposium was held at the historic town of Hall in Tirol, Austria, for a good reason. Hall in Tirol (just east of Innsbruck) had been the "monetary capital" of Europe for centuries.
It all started in 1477 with the moving of the Mint from Meran in South Tirol (now part of Italy) where it had been operating since 1271, to Burg Hasegg in Hall, by Archduke Sigismund of Austria (1427-1496). At the same time the Archduke instituted important monetary reforms. He opened the Mint to silver. As a result, silver mining was revived in the valleys of Tirol, and new mining methods and technology were developed. Ultimately, the much-debased coinage of Medieval Europe was replaced by sound currency that brought heretofore unprecedented prosperity to the people of Renaissance Europe. The currency reform of Archduke Sigismund has laid the foundations for the architecture of a new world financial system.

Public Employee Unions on the Defensive
by Peter Scheer - LewRockwell.com
For public employee unions - those representing police, firefighters, teachers, prison guards and agency workers of all kinds at the state and local levels - these are the worst of times.
Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public-sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold onto past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a "Saturday Night Live" skit, and the next day, a New York Times Magazine cover article proclaimed "The Teachers' Unions' Last Stand."

The Slumming of America
Alan Keyes - SilverBearCafe.com
Alan Keyes asks if 'inescapable subjection' will be unalterable future of U.S.
Slums are not born, they are made. When I was a child, my father (a career Army NCO) would use most of his annual leave during the summer. On several occasions, my parents, my next older brother and I bundled into the car and spent the time making the rounds of family who lived mainly in North Carolina (my mother's birthplace), Maryland (my father's) and New York (where both my parents were partly raised, living with near relations).

Obama's Home Affordable "HAMP" Program A Failure; Another Huge Wave Of Foreclosures Coming Mike "Mish" Shedlock - BusinessInsider.com
Over a third of HAMP participants have exited the program and another batch is coming up. Those leaving the program will likely end up in foreclosure. Moreover, 4 million delinquent borrowers are not even eligible for the program.
Please consider Borrowers exit troubled Obama mortgage program.
The Obama administration's flagship effort to help people in danger of losing their homes is falling flat.
More than a third of the 1.24 million borrowers who have enrolled in the $75 billion mortgage modification program have dropped out. That's more than the 27 percent who have managed to have their loan payments reduced to help them keep their homes.

Mortgage Delays Blamed in Home Sales Decline
By CHRISTINE HAUSER - NYTimes.com
Sales of existing homes fell in May, hurt by delays in mortgage applications and uncertainty over a federal flood insurance program, the National Association of Realtors said on Tuesday.
There were 5.66 million sales of existing homes last month, down from a revised 5.79 million in April, the association said. While the seasonally adjusted figure for May was weaker than the 6.12 million analysts had expected, it represented a 19 percent increase from the same month last year.

Homebuilder Levinson gets 4 years in prison
ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL
Edward Levinson, president of Levinson Homes, was sentenced to 51 months in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty last year to a bank fraud charge in connection with his construction business that prosecutors said resulted in more than $14 million in losses to banks, prospective homeowners and subcontractors.
Levinson, 51, of Chesterfield, was indicted last year on 10 felony counts of bank fraud and pleaded guilty to one felony count of bank fraud.

Housing Double-Dip to Slow Economic Recovery: Whitney
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com Staff Writer
The US economy faces a perilous second half as a new set of problems hits real estate and thwarts any chance for a strong recovery, banking analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC.
While stopping short of predicting a full-blown double dip in the broad economy, Whitney said one is certainly in store for the housing market.
"People doubt there's a double-dip in housing," she said. "It's amazing."

Gear up for another lost decade in real estate. Housing will remain stagnate from 2010 to 2020. Demographic shifts, higher mortgage rates, and shifting consumer taste in real estate.
The dynamics for housing moving forward point to a very bleak future and a potential lost decade yet again from 2010 to 2020. Housing has a treacherous path moving forward and deep down demographic shifts will keep a lid on any significant housing appreciation moving forward. The economy is in the process of deleveraging from a market highly dependent on real estate. Wall Street and the government are doing everything they can to bring back the economy of yesterday but have had little success. This recession has shrunk the middle class so those looking to buy homes have declined simply because many can no longer afford to purchase a home even at today's lower prices.

Social Security: Will Obama panel cripple it with "minor" tweaks?
By Michael Hiltzik - LATimes.com
Social Security's curse is that its amazing simplicity from the standpoint of its beneficiaries - those checks keep coming regardless of the state of the economy or the federal budget - masks the complexity of its inner workings.
This is what allows the program's antagonists to disguise their efforts to destroy it as merely minor tweaks - requiring from the rest of us never-ending vigilance. That's because some seemingly "minor" fixes can have consequences great enough to wreck the entire edifice, the way a tiny water leak can eat away a foundation and bring down a house.

5 Places to Retire On Social Security Alone
Kathleen Peddicord
One of the most compelling reasons to consider retiring to another country is the opportunity to reduce your cost of living, maybe dramatically.
As one American I know who retired to Boquete, Panama put it recently, "Back in Tucson, Arizona, where I'm from, my monthly Social Security check might cover the cost of my utilities. Here in Boquete, my income from Social Security is enough to buy me a very comfortable new life."
The average Social Security check is about $1,200. You can receive that payment while living anywhere in the world. In some countries, you can even have your Social Security check direct-deposited into your local bank account. Here are five places where you could retire on your Social Security income alone.

Fact Sheet: The Affordable Care Act's New Patient's Bill of Rights
HealthReform.gov
A major goal of the Affordable Care Act - the health insurance reform legislation President Obama signed into law on March 23 - is to put American consumers back in charge of their health coverage and care. Insurance companies often leave patients without coverage when they need it the most, causing them to put off needed care, compromising their health and driving up the cost of care when they get it. Too often, insurance companies put insurance company bureaucrats between you and your doctor. The Affordable Care Act cracks down on the some of the most egregious practices of the insurance industry while providing the stability and the flexibility that families and businesses need to make the choices that work best for them.

Is Gen. Stanley McChrystal someone the president can afford to fire?
By Greg Jaffe and Ernesto Londoño - Washington Post
Is Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal someone the president can afford to fire?
Even some of McChrystal's staunchest backers in Afghanistan said the derisive comments the general and his staff made about the Obama administration to a Rolling Stone reporter leave him open to dismissal.
"I say this as someone who admired and respects Stan McChrystal enormously. The country doesn't know how much good he's done. But this is a firing offense," said Eliot A. Cohen, who served as a counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the latter days of the Bush administration.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal ordered back to DC; White House on possible firing: 'all options on table'
BY RICHARD SISK - DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU - NYDailyNews.com
WASHINGTON -- Gen. Stanley McChrystal tripped over his own ego and risked turning his superstar career into toast with an eye-popping interview trashing President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others in the administration.
McChrystal immediately was ordered back to Washington by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to face an angry Obama at a White House meeting Wednesday on Afghanistan to explain his remarks.

Fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal? Not yet: Obama should wait -- then assess the Afghanistan surge
BY ANDREW J. BACEVICH - NYDailyNews.com
Has Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American four-star commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, committed a firing offense? A forthcoming article in Rolling Stone - its accuracy to this point unchallenged - quotes McChrystal and members of his staff expressing disdain, if not utter contempt, for civilian officials ranging from the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, the President's special envoy to the region, the White House national security adviser (a retired Marine general) and Vice President Biden to President Obama himself.
So should McChrystal be handed his walking papers?
No. At least, not yet.

Obama to meet with McChrystal before making 'any final decisions' on dismissal
By Michael D. Shear, Ernesto Londoño and Debbi Wilgoren - WashingtonPost.com
President Obama said he wants to meet directly with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan before making "any final decisions" about whether to fire him over inflammatory comments that have enraged the White House and threatened to undermine the administration's Afghan war effort.
In his first public remarks about a Rolling Stone article published Tuesday, Obama said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's comments showed "poor judgment." Obama quickly added that his "central focus" remains the fight against al-Qaeda and terrorists who would attack the U.S. and its allies.

McChrystal - writer Michael Hastings comments on Rolling Stones article
Christine Nyholm - Examiner.com
The story about comments made by the staff of General Stanley McChrystal, has caused controversy and have made President Barack Obama angry. Writer Michael Hastings talked to CNN reported Rick Sanchez in an exclusive interview. The video interview is attached to this article.
In his first interview about his in-depth article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal, writer Michael Hastings calls into Rick's List from Kandahar today to talk about the controversy his article generated as Gen. McChrystal is called back to Washington, DC.

Iranian Leaders Clampdown on Social Media
Written by Golnaz Esfandiari - OILPRICE.COM
One year ago, Iran's 'Twitter revolution' made headlines in the western media. Yet in Iran itself, no Twitter revolution was taking place at all.As several opposition members and bloggers tell RFE/RL, if any social networking innovations are to receive credit, they should be Facebook and YouTube.

Belarus to stop flow of gas to Europe in dispute with Russian gas company
By Courtney Weaver and Roman Olearchyk - WashingtonPost.com
MOSCOW -- Belarus announced Tuesday that it will cut off the flow of all gas through its territory to Europe as President Alexander Lukashenko warned that the dispute between his country and Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, has escalated into a full-scale "gas war."
Lukashenko's comments came hours after Russia increased the level of its gas cuts to Belarus from 15 to 30 percent. Gazprom has said it will cut up to 85 percent of supplies if Belarus does not pay the $192 million the state-controlled Russian company says it owes for gas deliveries.

An open letter to President Obama from Jon Voight

------- Gulf Oil situation --------

Judge Blocks Deep-Water Drilling Moratorium
By CHARLIE SAVAGE - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday blocked a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling projects that the Obama administration had imposed in response to the vast oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The White House swiftly said the administration would appeal the decision.
In a 22-page ruling, Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a May 28 order halting all floating offshore drilling projects in more than 500 feet of water and preventing the government from issuing new permits for such projects.

Oil Companies in Limbo as Judge Halts Deep-Water Drilling Ban
By Edward Klump and David Wethe
June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Oil companies and contractors that work in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico are likely to wait to restart drilling operations until there's more clarity on how a federal judge's decision to lift a U.S. ban will play out.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman today granted a preliminary injunction, halting a six-month moratorium that President Barack Obama put in place May 27 to cease issuing new deep-water drilling permits. The president also called for work to be stopped on 33 exploration wells.

Obama Administration Knew About Deepwater Horizon 35,000 Feet Well Bore Written by Wayne Madsen - OilPrice.com
President Obama and Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were informed that BP would drill an unprecedented 35,000 feet well bore at the Macondo site off the coast of Louisiana. In September 2009, the Deepwater Horizon successfully sunk a well bore at a depth of 35,055 below sea level at the Tiber Prospect in the Keathley Canyon block 102 in the Gulf of Mexico, southeast of Houston.

Oil Spill on Track to Reach Atlantic No Later Than October
Alexandra Witze - SilverBearCafe.com
BOULDER, Colorado - Oil gushing from the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico will reach the Atlantic Ocean within six months, says oceanographer Synte Peacock. Exactly when is all down to an eddy that broke off of the infamous Loop Current southwest of Florida on June 12.
Peacock, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, usually studies how the oceanâ's water absorbs atmospheric gases. But after the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded April 20, she realized her computer models could be used to follow where the oil gushing from the seafloor might end up.

BP CEO may be trying to get fired, really
Hayward's compensation pales against those of American oil execs
By Brett Arends , WSJ.com and MarketWatch
You might think so after his latest stunt. The hapless honcho, already slammed as "the most hated man in America," skipped out on the Gulf gusher over the weekend to participate a yacht race in England.
A yacht race? Are you kidding? Paging Thurston Howell III!
OK, maybe Hayward's critics are being hypocritical. After all, if his hour-by-hour presence in the Gulf of Mexico is absolutely essential, why was it appropriate to drag him away for that ridiculous circus up on Capitol Hill last week?

Barry Soetoro, Imposter in Chief, Implements CODEX ALIMENTARIUS by Executive Order in the U.S.!
by Barbara Peterson - SurvivingTheMiddleClassCrash
We knew that CODEX was right around the corner, and here it is, live and in color. Barry Soetoro, AKA Barack Hussein Obama, Imposter in Chief, on June 10, 2010, issued an Executive Order - Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council. In short, the CODEX council. The entire Executive Order is attached, but please read this part and understand just what it is saying:
"Section 6 (g) contains specific plans to ensure that all prevention programs outside the Department of Health and Human Services are based on the science-based guidelines developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under subsection (d) of this section."

Former Shell exec predicts blackouts, gas lines
Elizabeth Souder/Reporter - Texas Energy and Environment blog
Americans are on the path toward blackouts and gas lines, and the federal government's tools to prevent it are broken.
And John Hofmeister, the former Shell executive who made this prediction at a World Affairs Council breakfast on Friday, said he's an optimist. Some of his energy industry friends expect worse, he said.
"Within a decade I predict the energy abyss looks like brownouts, blackouts and gas lines," said Hofmeister. "Our federal government, when it comes to energy and the environment, is dysfunctional, it's broken, and it's unfixable in its current form."

Cracks Show BP Battled Well Two Months Before Blast
Congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
"Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost," said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. "It's been a doomed voyage from the beginning."

Is Obama's BP Shakedown an Impeachable Offense?
By Raymond Richman - AmericanThinker.com
As former counsel and trainer in political tactics for ACORN, President Obama used a well-known ACORN tactic, the shakedown, in getting BP to create the $20-billion escrow (slush!) fund without any law, legal controls, or binding rules to guide it on how and how much those injured materially by the oil spill (and whom among them) will be paid. Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, well-respected and well-known for heading the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, was appointed by the president to administer the escrow fund. BP will pay $5 billion into the fund for four years, starting in 2010.

BP Oil Disaster Costs U.S. State Pensions $1.4 Billion in Value
By Dunstan McNichol
June 22 (Bloomberg) -- The California Public Employees' Retirement System lost $284.6 million in value as the largest oil spill in U.S. history erased more than $1.4 billion from BP Plc shares held by 42 state retirement accounts, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
BP, the biggest producer of oil and gas in the U.S., has lost 47 percent of its value since a Gulf of Mexico well blew out April 20, destroying the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killing 11 of its crew and polluting beaches from Louisiana to Florida.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tuesday 06.22.2010

'Risks in fiat currencies pushes gold higher'
FLORIDA, USA (Commodity Online): The price of gold Thursday topped $1,252 before settling at a close of $1,245 on a combination of unpleasant economic news and a drop in the US dollar against every major currency save the Canadian dollar. Liberty International Financial Services director of research, J.M. Schuler, anticipates that the price of gold will continue to climb in the weeks ahead.

Gold at new record high after Saudi reserves double
By Javier Blas in London
Published: June 20 2010 21:06 | Last updated: June 21 2010 10:39
Gold prices hit on Monday a fresh record high of almost $1,265 a troy ounce following the revelation that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is sitting on more than twice as much gold as previously thought, according to new estimates.
The disclosure points to the revival of bullion as part of emerging economies' official reserves and comes as investors pour money into the yellow metal.

Rahm Emanuel expected to quit White House
By Alex Spillius in Washington - Telegraph.co.uk
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is expected to leave his job later this year after growing tired of the "idealism" of Barack Obama's inner circle.
Washington insiders say he will quit within six to eight months in frustration at their unwillingness to "bang heads together" to get policy pushed through.
Mr Emanuel, 50, enjoys a good working relationship with Mr Obama but they are understood to have reached an understanding that differences over style mean he will serve only half the full four-year term.

China 'steals U.S. thunder' ahead of G20
By Geoff Dyer, FT.com
(FT) -- China's announcement that it will introduce more flexibility into its exchange rate is a deft political move amid rising international criticism of Beijing, but the economic implications are much less certain.
Although Chinese officials insisted on Sunday that the decision was taken for domestic reasons, the announcement comes a week ahead of a G20 summit in Canada that was shaping up to be something of a showdown over the level of the Chinese currency.

Peter Schiff on the Yuan:
CNBC Fast Money Spotlight 21 june 2010

Yuan Strengthens Most Since 2005 After China Signals End to Peg
By Bloomberg News
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- The yuan rose the most since a July 2005 revaluation and forwards jumped after China's central bank ended a two-year peg before a Group of 20 summit this week.
The currency advanced 0.42 percent to 6.7976 per dollar as of 5:30 p.m. in Hong Kong, the biggest gain since July 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The 12-month non- deliverable yuan forward rose 1.1 percent to 6.6425, implying traders are betting on a 2.3 percent appreciation.

China retreats on revaluation of the yuan
by Katie Allen - guardian.co.uk,
Doubt cast over moves to strengthen currency
US critics say policy has hit exports and cost jobs
China faces a potential backlash from critics, led by the US, to its exchange rate policy after it appeared to retreat today on promises to allow its currency to revalue.
Beijing's hints on Saturday that it would end a two-year peg to the dollar were initially welcomed as a positive step to redress unfair trading terms and end an approach attacked by many as currency manipulation. Analysts said that the move might also head off a potentially damaging trade row between China and the US at a G20 summit this week.

Meredith Whitney on FinReg, China & the Markets

Chinese Yuan Bent But Not Bowed, Trade War Still On
By: Dian L Chu - MarketOracle.co.uk
The currency issue has been a constant tension in relations between the United States and China. Many analysts had expected the Chinese central bank to announce a one-off revaluation in the yuan to appease critics of the exchange rate policy.
However, on Sunday, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has ruled out the one-off revaluation that US politicians had sought. This was seen as a largely political move to deflect criticism of its fixed exchange rate ahead of the G20 meeting next week.

Niall Ferguson's Take on Yuan

Yuan Move Has U.S. Spenders, German Savers Tilting World GDP
By Simon Kennedy and Timothy R. Homan
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- China's biggest shift in currency policy in almost two years is just one step on the path toward recalibrating the forces needed to drive the world economy into a sustainable expansion.
"Even if China allows a significant appreciation in the exchange rate, this still isn't a panacea for imbalances," said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. The move is "far from completely solving the problem," he said in a phone interview yesterday.

Treasury trouble starts at home
Fortune.CNN.com
We have met the enemy of the U.S. Treasury market, and he is us.
China is letting its currency, the yuan, off the leash a bit. The move has reawakened fears that the voracious Chinese will eventually back away from U.S. government bonds, boosting interest rates for Americans already in hock up to their eyeballs.
But by now, what our top overseas creditors might do in a couple years is almost beside the point. If the United States can't bring itself to shore up its tattered balance sheet -- particularly by imposing a politically unpopular squeeze on costly entitlement programs -- a dollar crisis is inevitable, whatever the trigger.

Treasuries Drop Most in Week as Stocks Gain on End of Yuan Peg
By Susanne Walker and Matthew Brown
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries fell the most in a week as China said it will allow a more flexible yuan, encouraging confidence in the global economic recovery and triggering gains in stock markets.
Longer-maturity bonds led declines after the People's Bank of China indicated two days ago it's abandoning the 6.83 yuan peg to the dollar adopted during the global financial crisis to protect exporters. The U.S. will sell $108 billion in two-, five- and seven-year notes this week.

Global markets fear US Treasuries sell-off as China ends currency freeze
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Global markets are braced for a possible sell-off in US Treasury bonds after China said over the weekend that it will allow the yuan exchange rate to adjust against the dollar, ending a two-year currency freeze that has led to trade clashes with Washington and Brussels
China's Central Bank said the economic recovery had opened the way for a return to "flexibility" but ruled out an immediate one-off rise in the yuan. The currency will be allowed to fluctuate within a widened band of 0.5pc each day against a basket of currencies.
The yuan is now expected to rise slowly against the dollar, although it may fall if the euro weakens further. "There is at present no basis for major fluctuation or change in the exchange rate," said the bank.

Mideast funds line up behind Agricultural Bank of China
By Robert Cookson in Hong Kong and Simeon Kerr in Dubai - FT.com
Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds have emerged as the most prominent international backers of Agricultural Bank of China's planned $23bn-plus initial public offering.
The sovereign wealth funds of Qatar and Kuwait have agreed to invest $2.8bn and $800m, respectively, as cornerstone investors in what is expected to be the world's biggest IPO.

Ron Paul on the Lew Rockwell Show - June 18, 2010

Middle Class--Not the Rich or the Poor--Pay Majority of Federal Taxes, Says CBO Data
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - Middle-class Americans--not the rich or the poor--pay the majority of annual tax revenues taken in by the federal government, according to data released in a new Congressional Budget Office study. Households earning less than $34,300 per year, meanwhile, actually pay a negative average federal income tax rate.
Middle-class households that earned between $34,300 and $141,900 paid 50.5 percent of all federal tax revenues in 2007 (the most recent year analyzed), according to the CBO study released Thursday, and households that earned between $34,300 and $352,900 paid 66.7 percent of all federal taxes.

Price hikes hammer individual health coverage
By Julianne Pepitone, CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- When health insurance costs rise for individual buyers, they soar: The average premium rose 20% in its most recent increase, according to a report released Monday.
About 14 million Americans younger than 65 buy their own individual health plans, rather than purchasing coverage through their employers, said the report from the nonprofit group Kaiser Family Foundation. More than three-quarters of that contingent said they were recently hit with a price hike.

Housing Is On Shaky Ground
By ALAN R. ELLIOTT, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY The U.S. government launched its Home Affordable Modification Program early last year to slow the cascade of home foreclosures. While the program has fallen short of some hopes, it's had a surprising side effect: a way to compare how bank-owned loan servicing operations fare against independent rivals.
The federal program, which targets borrowers with mortgages more than 60 days delinquent, has about 1.2 million trial participants. As of April, about 25% of those mortgages had been converted - that is, permanently renegotiated - with a median cut in payments of 36%, or more than $500 per month.

Minorities hit hard by foreclosure crisis
By Renae Merle - Washington Post
Minority homeowners have been disproportionately affected by the foreclosure crisis and stand to lose homes at a faster pace than white borrowers in the future, according to a report released Friday by a nonprofit research group.
The study by the Center for Responsible Lending found that whites made up the majority of the 2.5 million foreclosures completed between 2007 and 2009 -- about 56 percent -- but that minority communities had significantly higher foreclosure rates.

Harrisburg, Pa., other cities overwhelmed by economic downturn and debt
By Michael A. Fletcher - Washington Post
HARRISBURG, PA. -- This city has a $68 million bill coming due before year's end, an impossible sum that is larger than its annual budget. It's a predicament caused by extravagant borrowing and spending, and now there are only unpleasant fixes: steep tax increases, severe layoffs and crippling service cuts, even bankruptcy.
It's a story that could be repeated across the country as cities and towns deal with the lingering consequences of the economic downturn and mounting debt.
The obligations of state and local governments have doubled in the past decade, to $2.4 trillion, according to a recent Federal Reserve report, a figure that excludes more than $1 trillion in unfunded pension and retiree health-care liabilities.

Gulf paymaster: People are in 'desperate' shape
By ASSOCIATED PRESS - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The man President Obama picked to run the $20 billion Gulf oil spill damage fund said Monday that many people are in "desperate financial straits" and need immediate relief.
"Do not underestimate the emotionalism and the frustration and the anger of people in the Gulf uncertain of their financial future," Kenneth Feinberg told interviewers. "It's very pronounced. I witnessed it firsthand last week."

The high price of homelessness
Sadhbh Walshe - guardian.co.uk
In New York and across the US, services for the homeless are being cut. But in the long term this makes no financial sense
I ran into a woman recently called Carmen Velez outside the Office for Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (Path) in the Bronx. She was dragging a shopping cart stuffed with pillows and other bedding and a wheely suitcase filled with personal effects.
Carmen, 60, who is disabled, had been evicted from her apartment the day before after losing her section eight subsidised housing voucher. She had checked into a homeless shelter the previous night but had to wait until 3am before she was awarded a bed. As she walked into the Path office, she asked me to pray that they would give her a bed for that night.

Gerald Celente on the Lew Rockwell show 06 14 10 pt 1
(GET READY FOR WW3 WITH IRAN SOON!)

Gerald Celente on the Lew Rockwell show 06 14 10 pt 2
(GET READY FOR WW3 WITH IRAN SOON!)

Troops 'weary' of Afghanistan fighting
By Rowan Scarborough
Doubts, frustration said rising in ranks
Within the U.S. military's rank and file, there are growing doubts about winning in Afghanistan, a mood that contradicts upbeat war reports delivered to Congress last week by the top commander and officials.
A senior military intelligence official who has served in Afghanistan and participates in daily briefings on the war told The Washington Times there is a "weariness" among officers as the war nears the nine-year mark in October.

Now Hiring: Fake Executives in China. No Experience Required.
By: Cindy Perman - CNBC.com
If you're a white guy in China and you own a suit - Congratulations! You're hired.
There's an odd trend brewing there, where companies hire fake executives from the U.S. and other Western nations to attend events, give speeches and generally just to give that appearance in the community and in the business world of that connection with the western world.
"I think it says a lot about the business culture here," said Mitch Moxley, a freelance writer living in Beijing who was hired to be a fake businessman for a high-tech company building a factory in Dongying, five hours south of Beijing. "Face is hugely important in China, and having foreigners in suits I guess gives some credibility to the companies. You'd be amazed how often this happens."

AZ Sen. Kyl at townhall meet
Obama not securing border on purpose

Iran to ban two nuclear inspectors
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- The head of Iran's atomic energy agency said Monday that the nation will ban two U.N. atomic watchdog inspectors from visiting nuclear facilities, the semi-official Iranian Student News Agency reported.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Tehran barred the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors "due to their presentation of false information and early disclosure of official data," according to the news agency.
The IAEA confirmed that Iran objected to two of its inspectors.
"The IAEA has full confidence in the professionalism and impartiality of the inspectors concerned," Greg Webb, an agency press officer, said in a statement.

Former Israeli top spy calls for strike on Iran
AFP - Breitbart.com
Israel should launch a pre-emptive strike to prevent arch-foe Iran from going nuclear, a former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency said on Monday.
"I am of the opinion that, since there is an ongoing war, since the threat is permanent, since the intention of the enemy in this case is to annihilate you, the right doctrine is one of pre-emption and not of retaliation," Shabtai Shavit told a conference.
Shavit, who served as chief of Israel's foreign spy agency from 1989 to 1996, was speaking at a conference held at the hawkish Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv.

***** Gulf Oil disaster *****

Obama, EPA to push for restoration of Superfund tax on oil, chemical companies
By Juliet Eilperin - Washington Post
There is no question that the Superfund program, first established 30 years ago to clean up sites around the country contaminated with hazardous waste, is facing a budget crunch.
For 15 years, the government imposed taxes on oil and chemical companies and certain other corporations. The money went into a cleanup trust fund, which reached its peak of $3.8 billion in 1996. But the taxes expired in 1995, and because Congress refused to renew them, the fund ran out of money.

Gulf oil spill puts mental health at risk, too
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
For humans, the psychological effects of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could be as devastating as the physical, say experts who will speak at an Institute of Medicine workshop today in New Orleans.
"There's a lot of social disruption. That's what technological disasters tend to do," says Lawrence Palinkas, a professor of social work at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He will be speaking on the spill's potential long-term effects.

Government sends BP third bill, for $51 million
By Julianne Pepitone,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- BP received a third bill from the government on Monday, to the tune of $51.4 million, for cleanup costs related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The Obama administration said BP "and other responsible parties" have paid the first two bills in full, for a total of $70.89 million. Monday's bill makes a total of $122.29 million billed to date.
But on Day 63 of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, where an an explosion occurred aboard the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, thousands of gallons of oil are still gushing from BP's (BP) well each day.

BP oil spill: A hurricane in the Gulf could be good for BP
By Garry White - Telegraph.co.uk
Oil industry executives always keep an eye on the weather forecast during the hurricane season. This year, those at BP's top table will be on the edge of their seats.
As oil keeps pumping into the Gulf, the future of BP itself has been called into question. BP has to stop the oil from flowing from the Deepwater Horizon well soon Ð or the financial costs could spiral into unknown territory.
A large hurricane in the area will certainly stop BP drilling its relief well Ð allowing more oil to spew into the environmentally sensitive Gulf. But there is a chance that it could help the situation Ð depending on which way the wind blows.

Hayward acts to stem BP identity crisis
By Carola Hoyos in London - FT.com
At BP's sprawling campus in suburban Sunbury-on-Thames and in the elegant halls of its headquarters in St James's Square, Mayfair, the realisation that the company was in deep trouble set in about a week ago, two months after the deadly explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
In spite of a barrage of news stories and internal e-mails from Tony Hayward, chief executive, who had decamped to Houston almost immediately, and town hall meetings led by the long-time chief financial officer, Byron Grote, employees from information technology to mergers and acquisitions felt relatively unaffected, 'like ostriches with their heads in the sand', as one person who works at BP described it.

BP oil spill: leak found in rig weeks before blast
Telegraph.co.uk
The Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded causing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, had suffered a leak in the weeks leading up to the blast, an employee has claimed.
Tyrone Benton told the BBC that he identified a leak in the rig's safety equipment weeks before the explosion.
He claimed that the leak was not fixed at the time. Instead, the faulty device was shut down, forcing the rig to rely on a second one.
"We saw a leak on the pod, so by seeing the leak we informed the company men," Mr Benton said. "They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don't have to stop production."
The pods control the blowout preventer, the most important piece of safety equipment on the rig, and contain both electronics and hydraulics. This is where Mr Benton said the problem was found.

BP oil spill: leak found in rig weeks before blast
Telegraph.co.uk
The Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded causing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, had suffered a leak in the weeks leading up to the blast, an employee has claimed.
Tyrone Benton told the BBC that he identified a leak in the rig's safety equipment weeks before the explosion.
He claimed that the leak was not fixed at the time. Instead, the faulty device was shut down, forcing the rig to rely on a second one.
"We saw a leak on the pod, so by seeing the leak we informed the company men," Mr Benton said. "They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don't have to stop production."
The pods control the blowout preventer, the most important piece of safety equipment on the rig, and contain both electronics and hydraulics. This is where Mr Benton said the problem was found.

Max Keiser on Oil Spill: Rewarding Eco-Terror

Gulf oil spill: BP accused of lying to Congress
Tim Webb in New Orleans and Ed Pilkington New York - guardian.co.uk
US congressman says company's worst-case assessment of leak was 20 times higher than public estimate
BP has been accused by a senior US politician of lying to Congress to reduce its liabilities, after an internal company document showed that the oil giant's own worst-case assessment of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was 20 times its public estimate.
In the document, BP attempts to put a figure on the rate of oil spewing into the ocean. It notes that if the condition of the well bore deteriorates to the extent that crucial parts fall off, the rate could reach 100,000 barrels a day.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill threatens oyster culture 'It's going to be gone forever' CLAIRE TAYLOR - The Advertiser.com
ABBEVILLE - The Pearl Reef Oyster Co. processing plant south of Abbeville should be abuzz with activity this time of year. Shuckers should be hammering on gnarled oyster shells to free the juicy meat inside. Packers should be filling jars and boxes. Truckers should be carrying the product to market.
But the plant was eerily silent Tuesday, so quiet you could hear birds squawking outside. No trucks were coming and going. No shuckers hammered noisily on shells. Oyster sacks and boxes sat in stacks, unused.

Vast amounts of methane in Gulf spill pose threat
By MATTHEW BROWN and RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI (AP) - 3 days ago
NEW ORLEANS - Vast amounts of natural gas contained in crude escaping from the blown Gulf of Mexico oil well could pose a serious threat to marine life by creating "dead zones" where oxygen is so depleted that nothing lives.
The danger presented by the methane has been largely overlooked, with early efforts to monitor the oil spill focusing on the more toxic components of oil. But scientists are increasingly worried about the gas that can suffocate sea creatures in high concentrations.

BP oil spill 2010: The politics behind the global disaster
Maryann Tobin - Examiner.com
Amid the comprehensive chaos that has blanketed the news cycle since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, there seems to be a scenario that makes sense, but has not been widely suggested.
What if BP and the US government know exactly whatÕs going on, but have too much to lose by disclosing it?
The scenario
It is possible that the Deepwater Horizon explosion was not as much of a surprise as BP would have the public think.
The 5,000 foot deep well was a rouge from the beginning, but the benefits of tapping the second largest oil and natural gas deposit in the world was well worth the gamble. The less it cost to get at the virtually bottomless pit of oil, the higher the profit margin. For many businesses, cutting corners with the hope that it will never be noticed is common practice.

BP Refuses E.P.A. Order to Use Less-Toxic Dispersan

Russian scientists predict toxic rain from BP Oil Dispersants
Edited by David Jones
A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with "total destruction".
Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP's use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.

Will North America be destroyed by Toxic Rain from Dispersal Chemicals?

North America faces years of toxic oil rain from BP oil spill chemical dispersants
Maryann Tobin - Examiner.com
When you pour more than a million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants on top of an oil spill, it doesnÕt just disappear. In this case, it moves to the atmosphere, where it will travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the site of the BP oil spill, in the form of toxic rain.
BPÕs oil spill-fighting dispersant of choice is Corexit 9500. It has been banned in Europe for good reason. Corexit 9500 is one of the most environmentally enduring, toxic chemical dispersants ever created to battle an oil spill. Add to that the millions of gallons of oil that have been burned, releasing even more toxins into the atmosphere, and you have a recipe for something much worse than acid rain.

Mystery Crop Damage Threatens Hundreds Of Acres and ORGANIC FARMERS

Toxic Oil Spill Rains Warned Could Destroy North America
Posted by Europe - EUTimes.net
A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with "total destruction".
Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP's use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.

Corexit Is Killing The Gulf (Part I)

Corexit Is Killing The Gulf (Part II)

BP's Dispersant Could Cause Toxic Rain All Over East Coast
....Many have focused their concerns about Corexit (the dispersant BP continues to use despite an EPA order to stop) on what it's doing under the water. But as we know, the oceans are part of a larger precipitation cycle, and scientists are worried that soon the consequences of using dispersants could be falling from the sky.
A report prepared for prepared for President Medvedev by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources warns that "a greater danger involving Corexit 9500...is that with its 2.61ppm toxicity level, and when combined with the heating Gulf of Mexico waters, its molecules will be able to "phase transition" from their present liquid to a gaseous state allowing them to be absorbed into clouds and allowing their release as "toxic rain" upon all of Eastern North America (European Union Times).

NASA: Solar storm to hit earth in 2013
NASA scientists predict a solar storm will hit the earth in 2013 mostly affecting electronic devices leading to a major catastrophe.
The once-in-a-generation storm, caused by extremely high levels magnetic energy released by solar flares, "will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic," says Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, quoted in a June 14 Daily Telegraph article.
"Large areas will be without electricity power," says Fisher who emphasizes that the emergence of the storm is certain, though its degree of severity cannot be accurately foretold.

VIETNAM WALL
A virtual wall of all those lost during the Vietnam war with the names, bio's and other information on our lost heroes.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monday 06.21.2010

Bank failure is 83rd in '10; pace more than double last year's
WASHINGTON (AP) - Regulators on Friday shut down a Nevada bank, raising to 83 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.
The 83 closures so far this year is more than double the pace set in all of 2009, which was itself a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 40 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development.

Feds close Nevada Security Bank, Silverado Bank
Sacramento Business Journal - by Mark Anderson Staff writer
Federal banking regulators closed Nevada Security Bank of Reno late Friday, the second bank in the region to fail. Umpqua Bank of Roseburg, Ore., acquired Nevada Security's accounts and deposits, including at the failed bank's Silverado Bank in Roseville.

Egypt turns down Israel's request to ban Gaza-bound Iranian ships from sailing through Suez Canal
RUVR.ru - June 19th
Egypt has turned down Israel's request to ban the passage of Gaza-bound Iranian ships with humanitarian aid by the Suez Canal.
This came in a report by the Al-Jazeera TV channel with reference to an unidentified source in the Egyptian security forces.
Cairo described the demand as unacceptable and took it as interference in Egypt's internal political affairs. Iran said earlier that it would send three ships with humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip population.

Armada of U.S. and Israeli Warships Head for Iran
Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
More than twelve U.S. and Israeli warships, including an aircraft carrier, passed through the Suez Canal on Friday and are headed for the Red Sea. "According to eyewitnesses, the U.S. battleships were the largest to have crossed the Canal in many years," reported the London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi on Saturday.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Egyptian opposition members criticized the government for cooperating with the U.S. and Israeli forces and allowing the passage of the ships through Egyptian territorial waters. The Red Sea is the most direct route to the Persian Gulf from the Mediterranean.

Gold reclaims its currency status as the global system unravels
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
We already know that the eurozone money markets seized up violently in early May as incipient bank runs spread from Greece to Portugal and Spain, threatening the first big sovereign default of our era. Jean-ClaudeTrichet, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), talked days later of "the most difficult situation since the Second World War, and perhaps the First".
The ECB's latest monthly bulletin gives us some startling details. It reveals that the bank's "systemic risk indicator" surged suddenly to an all-time high on May 7 as measured by EURIBOR derivatives and stress in the EONIA swaps market, exceeding the strains at the height of the Lehman Brothers crisis in September 2008. "The probability of a simultaneous default of two or more euro-area large and complex banking groups rose sharply," it said.

A Golden Response to Economic Declines
Bob Chapman - The InternationalForcaster.com
A plan for the euro, a response to declines is made with gold, pension benefits exposed, BP will default, Baltic Dry Index gets drier, oil deluge to flow for years, Fannie and Freddie to delist from exchanges, banks missing TARP payments.
Note how gold explodes whenever the euro takes a dive. Those of you who think that the euro is going much lower in the near future had better think again. The explosion of gold whenever the euro goes down will alone give the Illuminati powerful reasons to support the euro, as will the potential for a devastating trade imbalance that will aggravate the US debt problem from a balance of payments perspective.

Gold set to make new records
LONDON (Commodity Online): It was a week of rise and rise for gold as the precious metal scaled new heights by gaining strength from the safe haven buying.
And, it seems there is no end to the gold rally as the metal is expected to cross new barriers in the coming week.
According to data, gold set a new record of $1,260 an ounce on Friday as momentum triggered by buying of the metal as a haven from sovereign and financial risk pushed prices.

Official Gold Reserves As of June 10, 2010, and Truths Yet to be Told
It is important to remember that these are the 'official' numbers. And it does not show how the reserves are 'encumbered' by leases and loans.
For example, there is circumstantial evidence that the Reserve Bank of Australia loans up to 100% of its gold reserves to the bullion banks who subsequently sell it, and then 'owe' it to the Bank and the people of Australia. The trick of course is the significant counterparty risk in the event of a serious short squeeze.

'Gold is a classic hedge against inflation'
Commodity Online: In the current global economic crisis, which is primarily driven by European Union; what do you consider as the investment instrument for investors?
Ashok Mittal: Current European debt crisis is an off-shoot of the Economic Recession in 2008, which resulted in a broad market fall. Gold emerged out to be the king of such turbulent times and has risen over 12%, so far in this year. Equities failed to match up with the performance of gold, as investors stayed away from equities and higher riskier assets. The benchmark MSCI world index for stock dropped more than 5%, year-till-date. Markets saw a debasement in fiat currency in the recent past which induced gold's alternative investment demand with getting further support from safe haven buying amidst on-going debt crisis. Therefore, gold's value reached all-time high in many currencies such as; Euro, Pound, Indian rupee, Swiss Franc etc. Considering this I think Gold is the only investment instrument for investors for long term.

'It's time to focus on Silver'
By Jordan Roy-Byrne CMT
It is not exactly ground breaking analysis to say that what's good for Gold is generally good for Silver. As observers of the precious metals know, Silver tends to lag Gold but eventually catch up quickly.
In the long-term sense, Silver is still a year or two behind Gold as Gold has broken above all resistance levels. Technically speaking, we do favor Gold over the next few months, but ultimately, Silver is poised to catch up with vengeance.
Silver rebounded strongly from $15 earlier this year and is soon to attempt to break $20. A clean breakout and Silver should reach $25, which is its final long-term resistance.

Cost of Seizing Fannie and Freddie Surges for Taxpayers
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM - NYTimes.com
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation's largest landlords.

A Stronger Yuan Is Good for China, Little Help for U.S. Job Creation
By VISHESH KUMAR - DailyFinance.com
China finally caved in and relented to, well, serving China's best interests.
American politicians have been browbeating Beijing to let the value of its yuan currency appreciate for months. And on Saturday, Chinese authorities announced their intentions to move to a more flexible exchange rate in a tacit signal that the economic expansion there is robust.
Details remain sketchy, but China is likely to let the yuan appreciate gradually against the U.S. dollar. That's a good move for a rapidly growing Chinese economy facing inflation and pockets of labor unrest. A stronger currency will ease inflationary pressures and boost much-needed consumption by raising the purchasing power of Chinese consumers.

China Signals a Gradual Rise in Value of Its Currency
By KEITH BRADSHER - NYTImes.com
HONG KONG - China announced on Saturday evening that it would allow greater flexibility in the value of its currency, a move that could deflect growing international criticism of its economic policies and defuse one of the greatest sources of tension between Beijing and Washington.
The statement, by China's central bank, was the clearest sign yet that the country would allow its currency to appreciate gradually against the dollar. World leaders are due to meet next week in Canada for economic talks, and China's currency policies had appeared a certain source of conflict.

China Signals End to Yuan's Peg to Dollar Before G-20 Summit
By Bloomberg News
June 20 (Bloomberg) -- China said it will allow a more flexible yuan, signaling an end to the currency's two-year-old peg to the dollar a week before a Group of 20 summit.
The decision was made after the world's third-largest economy improved, the central bank said in a statement on its website yesterday, without indicating a timeframe for the change. It ruled out a one-time revaluation, saying there is no basis for "large-scale appreciation," and kept the yuan's 0.5 percent daily trading band unchanged.

Markets to scrutinize China exchange rate
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN (AP)
BEIJING - Currency markets will closely watch Chinese exchange rates Monday to see how far Beijing will allow the yuan to rise after announcing the end of its two-year-old peg to the dollar.
A stronger yuan would make Chinese exports more expensive and bring relief to foreign manufacturers that have been struggling to compete. But Beijing plans to disappoint them, saying Sunday there will be no dramatic rise.
Beijing has long refused to allow the yuan to float and denied accusations that it is unfairly undervalued.

Marc Faber on CNBC 17 June 2010

Marc Faber on CNBC 6/17/10 part 2 final

Elliott Wave Prediction: Is the Dow Heading for Another Plunge?
By NIKOLAY TSINTSADZE - DailyFinance.com
Think the market's bad enough now? If you believe the Elliott Wave Principle, a market-analysis theory that predicted the 2008 fall, you can expect it to get much worse.
Stock analyst Robert Prechter, who uses the principle in his financial forecasts at Elliott Wave International, predicts the market will suffer a cataclysmic collapse in the next six years. The firm's monthly Elliott Wave Theorist newsletter forecasts that the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI) will lose more than 90% of its value in that time, MarketWatch reported last week.

Goldman said to ask more time for lawsuit reply
The investment bank asks for an extension until July 19 to respond to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing the firm of defrauding investors while selling mortgage-linked securities, sources say.
(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. asked for more time to respond to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's April 16 lawsuit accusing the firm of defrauding investors while selling mortgage-linked securities, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The company submitted the request today to the judge overseeing the case, asking for an extension until July 19, the people said. The original deadline was June 21, court documents show. The SEC consented to the New York-based firm's proposed extension, according to one of the people.

Wall Street reform comes down to the wire
By Jennifer Liberto
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- With one week down and one week to go on negotiations melding the two Wall Street reform bills, lawmakers have a lot of tough decisions ahead.
House and Senate negotiators had set a goal to finish work on reconciling the bills - aimed at preventing the next financial crisis - before President Obama heads to Canada on Friday for two major summits of world leaders.

Congress Defends the Big Guys
NYTimes.com Editorial
In the first week of talks over a financial regulatory reform bill, Democratic lawmakers - in some cases with apparent White House backing - have been defeating or delaying reforms to protect individual investors. Instead, they are catering to corporate interests that prefer the status quo - and write big campaign checks.
At its most basic, this bill is supposed to restore stability and fairness to the markets and give Americans some confidence that their efforts to save and invest will not be undone - over and over again - by the destructive excesses of banks and corporations.
Those goals are being undermined by cynical maneuvers. Here is the damage assessment:

• COOKING THE BOOKS
• KEEPING CORPORATE BOARDS SAFE FOR CRONIES
• SHORTCHANGING THE S.E.C.

Money, Faith, Austerity, and a Failed System
Tim Iacono - SeekingAlpha.com
If the price of gold were not soaring, baffling the likes of Fed Chief Ben Bernanke who seems to think it is just an ordinary commodity and a monetary relic, it might be a little more difficult to explain to economists like Paul Krugman why there is a big move toward austerity now sweeping the globe. But, it is, so it's not.

Gerald Celente: The entire system is collapsing

Greenspan Says U.S. May Soon Reach Borrowing Limit
By Jacob Greber
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. may soon face higher borrowing costs on its swelling debt and called for a "tectonic shift" in fiscal policy to contain borrowing.
"Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading," and current long-term bond yields are masking America's debt challenge, Greenspan wrote in an opinion piece posted on the Wall Street Journal's website. "Long-term rate increases can emerge with unexpected suddenness," such as the 4 percentage point surge over four months in 1979-80, he said.

The Town That Loved Its Bank
By ANDREW MARTIN - NYTimes.com
LIKE many working-class towns in the Midwest, this Chicago suburb has been on the cusp of better times for decades.
Separated by a river and woods from its wealthier neighbors, Oak Park and River Forest, it shares some of their charms: imposing, century-old homes and stately elms and maples draping the streets. But Maywood is decidedly more blue-collar than its neighbors, and its residents are predominantly African-American. Most of its homes are modest bungalows and frame houses that were built for factory workers whose jobs disappeared long ago. Many storefronts are vacant, and there appear to be more churches than viable businesses.

New Jersey: Ding the Poor or Tax the Rich?
Cut services for poorer senior citizens and the disabled or tax the rich? That's the question that will be debated in the New Jersey legislature Monday as the state maneuvers to balance a budget deficit of close to $11 billion.
The tax, which was overwhelmingly opposed by Republicans last year, would re-impose a 10.75 percent levy on income over $1 million and affect a grand total of 16,000 people-many of whom are financial professionals working on Wall Street.

Peddling Relief, Firms Put Debtors in Deeper Hole
By PETER S. GOODMAN - NYTimes.com
PALM BEACH, Fla. - For the companies that promise relief to Americans confronting swelling credit card balances, these are days of lucrative opportunity.
So lucrative, that an industry trade association, the United States Organizations for Bankruptcy Alternatives, recently convened here, in the oceanfront confines of the Four Seasons Resort, to forge deals and plot strategy.
At a well-lubricated evening reception, a steel drum band played Bob Marley songs as hostesses in skimpy dresses draped leis around the necks of arriving entrepreneurs, some with deep tans.

Jim Rogers on The Gulf Oil Spill Crisis and The future of the Euro
CNBC 16 June 2010

ECB must buy 'hundred of billions' of bonds to tame Europe's debt crisis
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Fitch Ratings has warned that it may take massive asset purchases by the European Central Bank to prevent Europe's sovereign debt crisis escalating out of control.
Brian Coulton, the agency's head of sovereign ratings, said German members of the ECB appeared to be blocking the sort of muscular intervention in southern European bond markets needed to restore the shattered confidence of investors.
"There has been an unwillingness to follow through, and markets are going to want to see the ECB's money. It will require hundreds of billions in my opinion," he told a global banking conference.

As Oil Spills, BP Chief Attends Yacht Race

Oil spill: BP to sue partner in Gulf oil well
By Rowena Mason and Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
Legal action aims to share clean-up costs as Anadarko is accused of 'shirking' responsibilities over spill
BP is preparing to sue its main partner in the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil field for its share of clean-up costs after the company, Anadarko, said BP's behaviour revealed "gross negligence" and that the accident was preventable.
In a fundamental split between the two companies with lead responsibility for the well, a senor BP source told The Sunday Telegraph that Anadarko was "shirking its responsibilities", not accepting its liabilities and that legal action in the US was now likely to follow.
Anadarko, which has a 25pc stake in the well, signalled this weekend that it will refuse to pay up.

Anadarko slams BP for 'reckless decisions and actions'
HOUSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL
Anadarko Petroleum Corp.'s top executive Jim Hackett didn't mince words Friday in a statement blaming the Gulf of Mexico oil spill squarely on BP Plc.
In a prepared statement issued late Friday after a week of hearings on the disaster, Anadarko Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Hackett declared that the tragedy was a preventable one and "the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions."

BP Tells Cleanup Workers They'll Be Fired If They Wear Respirators
Washington's Blog
As I noted on May 19th, BP has been telling cleanup workers that they don't need to wear respirators or other protective gear.
As Jerrold Nadler, the New York congressman whose district includes the World Trade Center, said today:
We're repeating the same catastrophe in the Gulf. You see pictures of people wearing regular clothes who are wading in and scooping oil off the water. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people, are going to get sick unnecessarily.
More egregious still, sources on the ground say that BP is telling cleanup workers that they will be fired if they wear respirators:

Growing Health Crisis In Gulf Of Mexico
T.I.L.T. 'Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance'

Gulf oil spill worsens -- but what about the safety of gas fracking?
Imagine a siege of hydrocarbons spewing from deep below ground, polluting water and air, sickening animals and threatening the health of unsuspecting Americans. And no one knows how long it will last.
No, we're not talking about BP's gulf oil spill. We're talking about hydraulic fracturing of natural gas deposits. And if that phrase makes your eyes glaze over, start blinking them open. Fracking, as the practice is also known, may be coming to a drinking well or a water system near you. It involves blasting water, sand and chemicals, many of them toxic, into underground rock to extract oil or gas.

Sen. Nelson: 'I Don't Know That' Obama Had the Constitutional Authority
to Tell BP It Had to Surrender Stockholders' Money for Oil Spill Fund
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) told CNSNews.com he does "not know that" President Barack Obama had the constitutional authority to tell BP to surrender its stockholders' money into an escrow account outside the company's control that would be used to pay damages to victims of the Gulf oil spill. Moreover, Nelson said the constitutional question was "not going to get answered" because BP agreed to Obama's demand.

BP Chief Draws Outrage for Attending Yacht Race
By LIZ ROBBINS - NYTimes.com
BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world's largest races.
Two days after Mr. Hayward angered lawmakers on Capitol Hill with his refusal to provide details during testimony about the worst offshore oil spill in United States history, and one day after BP's chairman said the chief executive would not be as involved in daily operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Hayward sparked new controversy from afar.

BP: Hayward to Be Relieved of Day-to-Day Duties
By Staff, Associated Press via CNSNews.com
London (AP) - The chairman of BP says embattled chief executive Tony Hayward is being relieved of day-to-day responsibility for managing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a day after he angered U.S. lawmakers with his refusal to answer many of their questions.

BP Blocking Media Access? New Orleans interview

Oil Prices: Two Ways to Profit From 'Peak Oil'
BY PETER KRAUTH, Contributing Editor, Money Morning
If there's one thing U.S. investors need to know about the future, it's this: Oil prices are headed higher - much higher, in fact, and could well double to reach $150 a barrel.
U.S. oil prices fell for the first time in four days yesterday (Thursday) - ending a rally that had taken crude prices to a six-week high. Crude oil for July delivery now stands at roughly $77 a barrel, meaning oil prices would need to nearly double to hit my target of $150 a barrel. But I think that can happen - and here's why.

BP's U.S. Future Teeters as CEO, Lawmakers Clash
By Joe Carroll and Jessica Resnick-Ault
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward's failure to set safety standards to prevent the Gulf of Mexico oil spill may cost the company control over U.S. oil fields, refineries and pipelines that account for more than one- third of its sales, lawmakers and analysts said.
Less than 24 hours after Hayward met President Barack Obama's demand to set aside $20 billion to clean up and compensate victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, lawmakers yesterday accused the BP CEO of "stonewalling." Hayward appeared before a House committee probing the cause of the April 20 offshore rig explosion that killed 11 workers.

URGENT!! BP SPILL - VOLCANIC TSUNAMI AND POISON GAS ALERT!!

Richard C. Hoagland reports on BP oil spill gas bubble - Part 1 of 2

Richard C. Hoagland reports on BP oil spill gas bubble - Part 2 of 2

BP Ignored the Omens of Disaster
By JOE NOCERA - NYTimes.com
"We have to get the priorities right," the chief executive of BP said. "And Job 1 is to get to these things that have happened, get them fixed and get them sorted out. We don't just sort them out on the surface, we get them fixed deeply."
The executive was speaking to Matthew L. Wald of The New York Times, vowing to recommit his company to a culture of safety. The oil giant was adding $1 billion to the $6 billion it had already set aside to improve safety, the executive told Mr. Wald. It was setting up a safety advisory panel to make recommendations on how the company could improve. It was bringing in a new man to head its American operations - the source of most of the company's problems - who would make safety his top priority. And on, and on.

Crews drill deep into Gulf of Mexico to halt leak
ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) - Drilling crews are grinding ever deeper to build the relief wells that are the best hope of stopping the massive oil leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
The crew of Transocean Ltd.'s Development Driller II was on track to pour cement starting early Sunday to firm up a section of metal casing lining one of two relief wells.

Hazlitt's Battle with Bretton Woods
Mises Daily: by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.
"The Austrians were right" is a phrase we hear often now, and for good reason. The housing bubble and bust were called by the Austrians and, essentially, no one else. The Austrians were right about the dot com bubble and bust. The Austrians were right about the 1970s stagflation and the explosion in the price of gold after the gold window was closed.
You can tick through the issues and see that the Austrians have been right again and again throughout history: on price controls, on protectionism, on bailouts, on wars, on regulation, on prohibitions and civil liberties, and so on.

Dr. Coburn on Dylan Ratigan
discussing his amendment to the extenders bill & the oil spill

Senators Propose Granting President Emergency Internet Power
by Declan McCullagh - LewRockwell.com
A new U.S. Senate bill would grant the president far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet.
The legislation announced Thursday says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines, or software firms that the government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.

Justice Dept. Confirms Lawsuit Against Arizona
Ecuador Just Nods and Says 'We Know'
By Doug Powers - MichelleMalkin.com
By way of Right Scoop, now that Hillary Clinton got the diplomatic formality of notifying Ecuador out of the way, Arizona and the rest of America can be told that the Obama Justice Department will file suit against Arizona's immigration law:
Now a senior administration official tells CBS News that the federal government will indeed formally challenge the law when Justice Department lawyers are finished building the case. The official said Justice is still working on building the case.

Brewer 'outraged' over potential immigration suit
PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Mike Sunnucks
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday she was outraged by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telling a South American TV network the Obama administration would sue to stop Arizona's new immigration law. The law allows police greater authority to question those they suspect are illegal immigrants.
The Obama administration has been mulling a federal lawsuit against the state law arguing its a federal matter.
Here's Brewer statement on the Clinton declaration.
"Because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on Ecuadorean television on June 8th that the Obama Administration had decided to sue Arizona over its recently passed anti-illegal immigration law, SB1070, it will come as no surprise if recent media reports are accurate and if the president's policies now, in fact, include filing a lawsuit against the State of Arizona.
"Though not surprising, that decision is, nevertheless, outrageous.

In Budget Crisis, States Take Aim at Pension Costs
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH - NYTimes.com
Many states are acknowledging this year that they have promised pensions they cannot afford and are cutting once-sacrosanct benefits, to appease taxpayers and attack budget deficits.
Illinois raised its retirement age to 67, the highest of any state, and capped public pensions at $106,800 a year. Arizona, New York, Missouri and Mississippi will make people work more years to earn pensions. Virginia is requiring employees to pay into the state pension fund for the first time. New Jersey will not give anyone pension credit unless they work at least 32 hours a week.

Illinois Sells Build Americas as Premium to Treasuries Climbs
By Brendan A. McGrail and Allison Bennett
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Illinois sold $300 million of Build America Bonds at a yield premium over Treasuries about 40 percent higher than two months ago after lawmakers failed to close a $13 billion budget deficit for the year starting July 1.
The fifth most-populous U.S. state sold the taxable debt maturing in 2035 priced to yield 7.1 percent yesterday, or 297 basis points over the 2040 Treasury to which it was benchmarked, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Illinois offered Build Americas of similar maturity at spreads of 205 basis points and 210 basis points in two April issues, Bloomberg data show. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

'ACORN Youth Union' Chapters Were Funded by Justice Department, Says GAO By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Justice Department gave a group called the New York Agency for Community Affairs a grant of $135,130 in fiscal year 2005 to "provide youth leadership training to students at select New York City schools, form 'ACORN Youth Union' chapters, and coordinate student campaigns to address issues such as school funding, neighborhood safety, and school governance," according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week.

Israel could lose a major Muslim ally in Turkey
By Ashish Kumar Sen - WashingtonTimes.com
Relations tense after flotilla raid
Israel stands to lose its main Muslim ally in the Middle East - Turkey - over a recent raid on a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed by Israeli forces, according to two senior Turkish officials.
Ibrahim Kalin, chief adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Omer Celik, vice chairman of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), were in Washington last week to demand an independent, U.N.-backed inquiry into the flotilla incident and explain Turkey's June 9 vote at the U.N. Security Council against U.S.-backed sanctions on Iran.

Letter From Istanbul
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN - NYTimes.com
Turkey is a country that had me at hello. I like the people, the culture, the food and, most of all, the idea of modern Turkey - the idea of a country at the hinge of Europe and the Middle East that manages to be at once modern, secular, Muslim, democratic, and has good relations with the Arabs, Israel and the West. After 9/11, I was among those hailing the Turkish model as the antidote to "Bin Ladenism." Indeed, the last time I visited Turkey in 2005, my discussions with officials were all about Turkey's efforts to join the European Union. That is why it is quite shocking to come back today and find Turkey's Islamist government seemingly focused not on joining the European Union but the Arab League - no, scratch that, on joining the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran resistance front against Israel.

Letter From Istanbul, Part 2
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN - NYTimes.com
I leave Istanbul with four questions that Turks asked me echoing in my head. Forget the answers, just these questions will tell you all you need to understand the situation here. The four questions, which were asked of me by different Turkish journalists, academics or businessmen, can be summarized as follows:
One: Do you think we are seeing the death of the West and the rise of new world powers in the East?

Military in Iran seen as taking control
Curb on nukes could result
By Bill Gertz - WashingtonTimes.com
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Sunday that Iran's government is becoming a military dictatorship, with religious leaders being sidelined and, as a result, new sanctions could pressure Tehran into curbing its illegal nuclear program.
"What we've seen is a change in the nature of the regime in Tehran over the past 18 months or so," Mr. Gates said on "Fox News Sunday."
"You have a much narrower-based government in Tehran now," he said. "Many of the religious figures are being set aside."

R.C. Hoagland - Oil spill Disaster & Hayabusa's Return part 1/3

R.C. Hoagland - Oil spill Disaster part 2/3

R.C. Hoagland - Oil spill Disaster part 3/3

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Friday 06.18.2010

Clinton says Ariz. to be sued over immigration law, but Justice Dept. won't confirm plan By Jerry Markon - Washington Post
The Obama administration has decided to sue Arizona over the state's controversial immigration law, according to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Justice Department declined Thursday to confirm such a plan.
In a June 8 interview with an Ecuadorean television station, Clinton said the department, under President Obama's direction, "will be bringing a lawsuit" over the measure. A video of the interview was distributed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union, which urged the administration to go to court.

Federal regulator orders Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to delist shares from NYSE By David Cho - Washington Post
The federal regulator overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ordered the mortgage finance giants on Wednesday to delist their shares from the New York Stock Exchange, dealing another blow to the battered companies.
Both firms' stock prices plunged by nearly 40 percent after the announcement. But several housing analysts said the deslisting was not shocking, given the companies' substantial troubles and uncertain future.

Delisted but Not Gone: What to Do About Fannie and Freddie?
By CHARLES WALLACE - DailyFinance.com
Even though U.S. taxpayers now own most of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), the fact that shares of the mortgage giants still traded on the New York Stock Exchange always provided a faint hope that one day they would pay back the billions of dollars they lost making bad bets on home loans.
But shares of Fannie Mae, which hit $89 less than a decade ago, fell below the required minimum of $1 a share this week, so both firms ended their listings on the exchange Wednesday. What's not ending is the huge mountain of unpaid bills that could saddle taxpayers with up to $1 trillion in bad debt.

More Than 90 Banks Miss TARP Payments
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program, signaling a rising number of lenders are struggling to meet their obligations.
The statistics, compiled by SNL Financial from U.S. Treasury data, showed 91 banks and thrifts skipped the May dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. It was the first missed payment for 23 of the banks; for the others, it was at least their second miss.

Italian economists slam austerity measures
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
A group of 100 Italian economists has written an open letter warning that the EU austerity policies being imposed on Southern Europe may tip the region into a downward spiral, risking the disintegration of the monetary union.
"The `politics of sacrifice' in Italy and in Europe run the risk of accentuating the crisis in the end, causing a faster rise in unemployment and company failures, and could at a certain point compel some countries to leave monetary union. We must have an immediate debate on the extremely grave errors in economic policies now being committed," the economists said.

Spain is About to Make Trouble for German and French Banks
NakedCapitalism.com
Ooh, this might get ugly.
The ECB rather firmly resisted the idea of releasing its recent stress test results on individual European banks. And with good reason: many observers suspect that some of the big German and French banks look less than robust. (And this is before we get to the obvious elephant in the room: since they were modeled on the too-bank-friendly US stress tests, even this measure is likely to be too permissive).
Desperate times are now producing desperate measures. Spanish firms are locked out of international credit markets. Its banks are getting funding from the ECB.
The Spanish authorities think this is all misguided prejudice (which is not entirely accurate, its savings bank, the cajas, which were not subject to the ECB stress tests, are a bit of a mess, to put it politely. The last few weeks has witnessed rescues and forced marriages among the cajas). So it has decided to defy the ECB and publish the results of the tests on specific Spanish banks.

'Serious Market Problems' in the Fall - Gold to Hit $2500
By: JeeYeon Park - CNBC.com
Stocks fell on Tuesday after reports that jobless claims jumped last week and the Philly Fed gauge of manufacturing activity tumbled. Christian Thwaites, president and chief executive of Sentinel Asset Management, and Paul Schatz, president of Heritage Capital, shared their views.
"Since we had the big May correction, the market has been dominated entirely by macro economic and political events," Thwaites told CNBC.
"When that happens, the market fundamentals tend to get pushed down."

Why Silver is a sizzling investment
By Jeff Clark - CommodityOnline.com
Silver has been sizzling and causing lots of buzz in the industry. Investors are excited.
Part of the hubbub is due to its current run. Since its February 8 low, silver has roared ahead 22.4% (through June 21) and has doubled from its November 2008 low.
This excitement has spilled over into greater investment demand - especially so for coins. The U.S. Mint sold more Silver Eagles in the first quarter of this year - just over nine million - than any prior quarter in its history. The Royal Canadian Mint produced 9.7 million silver maple leafs in 2009, also a record.
Take a look at the jump in U.S. Mint coin sales since 2007.

Gold consolidates on market uncertainty
SINGAPORE (Commodity online) : Gold prices consolidated positions in Asian trade Thursday on market uncertainty as equity markets and euro movements failed to give any directions for investors.
Analysts said the situation prompted safe haven buying and benefited the precious yellow metal.
Gold for immediate delivery was seen trading at $ 1231.84 an ounce at 11.30 a.m Singapore time while U.S. gold futures for August delivery was at $ 1235.06 an ounce.

Elliot Wave Predicts Triple-Digit Dow in 2016
by Peter Brimelow -
If you think things are bad now...
An investment letter that called the Crash of 2008 said that this would be a bad year - and it now says it will get worse.
A whole generation of investors think that Robert Prechter and his Elliott Wave Theory letters, Elliott Wave Financial Forecasts and Elliott Wave Theorist, are permabears. And they've certainly seemed that way for the last decade -- although it should be noted that the stock market is now roughly back where it started.

Stocks Party Like It's 2009, but Soros Sees Ghosts of the '30s
by Aaron Task - TechTicker
From April 26 through June 7, the Dow fell 12.4%
and the S&P dropped 13.7%, The Wall Street Journal reports, in a rapid-fire decline that scared many investors out of the market.
So, of course, stocks rallied at the end of last week and are starting Monday off with gains as the euro is rallying after France announced an austerity package and a report showed eurozone industrial output surged in April.
The "risk on" trade appears to be back in vogue for the moment -- commodities are also rallying early Monday, while "safe havens" such as the dollar, Treasuries and Japanese yen are in retreat. There's no telling how long this latest rally effort will last or how far it will take the major averages. But if the past 18 months are any indication, the move will probably go further and farther than most of us expect.

Gold tops closing record on shakier stocks, slow growth
By Claudia Assis , MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures traded above the past week's record, rising more than 1% on Thursday as investors grew more concerned about the U.S. economy and its proxy, the stock market.
Gold for August delivery, the most active contract, added $17.60 to $1,248 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold closed at a record $1,245.60 an ounce on June 8.

Central banks join gold rush
By Annalyn Censky
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Foreign governments have been getting in on the recent gold rush, driven by continued fears about Europe's debt crisis and the pace of the global economic recovery. Those concerns have been propelling the precious metal to record highs over the past 18 months. In fact, gold closed at a fresh record high of $1,248.70 an ounce Thursday.

Oil and Real Estate: Fannie Mae to the Rescue
By: Diana Olick - CNBC.com
As I continue my week here on the Gulf Coast of Florida, I hear more and more real and anecdotal stories of contract cancellations for new home purchases and second homeowners walking away. There is no question that while oil has barely brushed the beaches here in Pensacola, the place is awash in fear. Fear and real estate are like, well, oil and water; they don't mix well.

Phoenix lags other big cities in economic recovery
by Austen Sherman - The Arizona Republic
After a recession, the nation's Mountain West usually makes employment gains faster than the rest of the nation, analysts say. That's not the case this time. According to a new report, the region's slow economic recovery actually has weakened in some ways in the early months of 2010. Metro Phoenix, along with Las Vegas and Boise, Idaho, remain behind the nation in the economic recovery, according to a June study produced by Brookings Mountain West.

The FedEx Situation: What Happens When Peter Wants His Money Back?
Adam Lass - TaipanDaily
FedEx's unfunded pension problem gives us a clear look at the troubles lurking just around the corner for those who borrowed their way through the recession.
Is the recession truly over?
It may seem somewhat late to be asking that question. After all, haven't Washington and Wall Street already bragged as to how we have had an adequate number of consecutive months of GDP growth to sound the death knell for "The Great Recession of 2007-2010"? Heck, we've even been regaled by the Federal Reserve itself as to how American's "wealth" has increased for four straight quarters now.
As usual, the actual answer to that question is somewhat more complex - and substantially more disturbing - than our little propaganda makers would have you think.

Mortgage Fraud Probe Results in Almost 500 Arrests
By: AP with CNBC.com
The Justice Department says it has made nearly 500 arrests since March in a probe of mortgage fraud called Operation Stolen Dreams.
In prepared remarks Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder says the government will use every law enforcement tool available to prosecute those who prey on vulnerable homeowners.
The investigation involves 1,250 criminal defendants who are allegedly connected to losses amounting to $2.3 billion.

More families are homeless and on the streets
By Tami Luhby - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Great Recession drove more families into homeless shelters in 2009, a new federal report has found.
Some 170,000 families needed shelter last year, up from 159,000 in 2008, according to an annual survey from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There were 535,000 people in those families.

Housing Market Slows as Buyers Get Picky
By DAVID STREITFELD - NYTimes.com
Before the recession, people simply looked for a house to buy. Later they got squeamish just thinking about buying. Now they are on a quest for perfection at the perfect price.
Exacting buyers are upending the battered real estate market, agents and other experts say, leading to last-minute demands for multiple concessions, bruised feelings on all sides and many more collapsed deals than usual.

Gary Shilling: House Prices Will Fall Another 10%-20% And Won't Bottom Until 2013
A year ago, house prices finally stopped collapsing after two years of brutal declines. Over the following few quarters, moreover, they actually rose. This led many observers to conclude that the housing bottom had been reached and that we were headed for a v-shaped bounce.
Not Gary Shilling.

Former home of Mitt Romney torn down
AP - LATimes
A demolition crew in Detroit has torn down a 5,500-square-foot house that was lived in by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney when he was a child.
The dilapidated two-story home torn down Tuesday in the Palmer Woods area is one of 3,000 set for demolition this year under Mayor Dave Bing's plans to improve neighborhoods by getting rid of dangerous structures and eyesores.

Internet 'kill switch' proposed for US
By Declan McCullagh, CNET.com
A new US Senate Bill would grant the President far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of, or even shut down, portions of the internet.
The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.
That emergency authority would allow the Federal Government to "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people," Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday. Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who meets with the Democrats.

Afghanistan's $1 trillion mineral wealth is a problem for Britain and US, poised to withdraw
Gerald Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
With British fatalities in Afghanistan creeping remorselessly towards the 300 mark and Barack Obama making noises about beginning American troop withdrawals after the current offensive, the Nato powers have just been presented with a new dilemma. A report produced by the American military and the United States Geological Survey has revealed that Afghanistan is sitting on at least $1 trillion in mineral wealth. That staggering figure does not even present the full potential, since less than 70 per cent of the country was surveyed.

More on the Gulf disaster

Gulf oil full of methane, adding new concerns
By MATTHEW BROWN and RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI - WashingtonPost.com
NEW ORLEANS -- It is an overlooked danger in the oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico's fragile ecosystem.
The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.

Agency That Was Supposed To Be Regulating BP Admits Cracks Appeared In Well Last February
Gus Lubin - BusinessInsider.com
The pathetic Mining and Mineral Services agency has released documents to Bloomberg that show BP was dealing with major cracks in the Maconda well as early as February.
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.

Kinetics of convective crystal dissolution and melting, with applications to methane hydrate dissolution and dissociation in seawater
Youxue Zhang, Zhengjiu Xu - U of Mich - Dept of Geological Science
Is there a vast undersurface bubble of Methane?
". . . . Upon reaching inherent instability depth, hydrate would dissociate rapidly into methane gas and water in shallow water, producing a bubble plume, which might power a methane-driven oceanic eruption.
This would be an efficient way to transport a large amount of CH4 gas rapidly to the atmosphere."

Scientist Warns Impact of Methane Gas as Result of Oil Spill
Xinhua, Web Editor: Xu Leiying
A U.S. scientist has warned the impact of methane gas, erupted from undersea of the Gulf of Mexico, on the seawater and the earth's atmosphere.
"There are huge quantities of methane gas that are mixed in with oil spewing up from the seafloor," said John Kessler, assistant professor in the Department of Oceanography of Texas A&M University who specializes in ocean chemistry.
"The mixture coming up is now about 40 percent methane and 60 percent oil from undersea of the Gulf of Mexico," Kessler explained in an exclusive interview with Xinhua. "This means there are immense amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, being input into the Gulf."

Tony Hayward: "There Are Many Wells In The Gulf Of Mexico That Have The Same Casing Design" Gus Lubin - BusinessInsider.com
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) just asked Hayward if there are any other BP wells that were drilled with various controversial procedures. Turns out most BP wells are drilled like this: "There are many wells that have the same casing design. Many have been drilled with the same cement procedure," Hayward says.

BP oil spill: Tony Blair is the right man to be BP chairman
By Neil Collins, Reuters - Telegraph.co.uk
It's not a sinecure after all, being chairman of an international oil company. Nobody blames Carl-Henric Svanberg for taking the job at BP - it was an honour to be asked, and lack of experience in the oil business did not prevent his predecessor, Peter Sutherland, coping with his own crisis well enough.
Unfortunately, Svanberg's crisis is of a different order. The fall of chief executive John Browne when Sutherland was chairman was awkward for BP; the gusher in the gulf is potentially life-threatening.
Svanberg has failed to provide leadership and public support for his CEO, Tony Hayward. He will have to go. There seems little prospect of Hayward keeping his job, either.

Is BP the Next Lehman Brothers?
by Peter Gorenstein - TechTicker
Not only has the BP oil leak created the worst the environmental disaster in U.S. history, it also has the potential to trigger another financial crisis.
"In a finance-based, derivative-laced global economy, a pelican flapping his oil-soaked wings in the Gulf could have profound implications on the other side of our interconnected world," writes Minyanville CEO and founder Todd Harrison in a recent column.

The BP Blowout - Part 2
Written by Allen Gilmer - OilPrice.com
Below is the TransOcean rig data on the wellbore from two hours out until blowout.
This from what was filed with the US government investigators. So what does it say?
It says that the well wasn't drilling (no ROP (or Rate of Penetration), no Torque or RPM data which measures how smoothly and quickly the drill string turns).

OSHA Limits Don't Protect Gulf Coast Workers
Gina Solomon, Senior Scientist, NRDC - HuffingtonPost.com
BP is claiming that because the air concentrations of carcinogens such as benzene are below OSHA limits, the workers involved in cleaning up the Gulf oil spill are not at risk of health effects. BP is dismissing the fact that its own data have shown levels of hydrocarbons above BP's 'action level', and have shown levels of benzene and 2-butoxyethanol (the dispersant chemical) above the Recommended Exposure Limit set by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). See my prior blog for more details on this. The OSHA standards are the fig leaf that they are using to pretend that workers are safe.

Oil Spill Forces Animals To Flee To Shallow Water Off Coast, Scientists Warn Of 'Mass Die-Off'
JAY REEVES, JOHN FLESHER AND TAMARA LUSH - HuffingtonPost.com
GULF SHORES, Ala. - Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.
Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange phenomena.
Fish and other wildlife seem to be fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast in a trend that some researchers see as a potentially troubling sign.

Simmons Says Nuclear Device Only Option to Stop Oil Flow

The Nuclear Option: It may happen now.
By Gary Vey
It's so surreal... like a sci-fi movie. The earth is threatened by a huge hole in its crust, leaking crude oil like a highly pressurized volcano and threatening to kill all life in the oceans. The solution? The military detonate a nuclear bomb in an attempt to melt the cap rock and seal the leak.
But this is no science fiction. As reported back on May 14th, Barack Obama sends nuclear experts to tackle BP's Gulf of Mexico oil leak:
The US has sent a team of nuclear physicists to help BP plug the "catastrophic" flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from its leaking Deepwater Horizon well, as the Obama administration becomes frustrated with the oil giant's inability to control the situation.

Oil And Gas Leaks From Cracks In Seabed Confirmed
Videos Show Gulf Oil Spill Leaking From Seafloor
by Alexander Higgins
There have been several reports of oil and gas leaking on the cracks in the Gulf of Mexico seafloor which may cause problems with BP capping the gushing oil well.
Although BP denies that there is oil or gas leaking from the cracks in the sea floor many people watching the BP Oil leak cam have witnessed explosions and leaks from the seafloor.

ROV films oil leak coming from rock cracks on seafloor - June 13th
This video was recorded from the Viking Poseidon -- ROV 1 on June 13th, 2010 at 2:58 AM EST.

Location of the sea floor crack leaking:
N:10431633.05
E: 1202852.27

Senator confirms reports that wellbore is pierced; oil seeping from seabed in multiple places BY OILFLORIDA
Senator Bill Nelson was interviewed by Andrea Mitchell this morning on MSNBC and confirmed reports of oil seeping up from additional leak points on the seafloor.
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): Andrea we're looking into something new right now, that there's reports of oil that's seeping up from the seabed which would indicate, if that's true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we're facing.

Sen. Bill Nelson: Reports of oil seeping up from seabed, well casing may be pierced. June 7, 2010

Oil Spill Animations - Multimedia Gallery
UCAR (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research)

Ocean currents likely to carry oil to Atlantic

Gulf Gusher and the Price of Oil and Gasoline
by Jan Lundberg, oil industry analyst
Culture Change was asked about the impact from the Gulf oil gusher on the price of gasoline in 6 months, 12 months and 18 months from now:
It might be an interesting question for debate, with many possible opinions. There are too many variables to make forecasts with any certainty, so prognosticators would have to exclude all but one or two factors. There are these non-textbook questions: Will hurricanes wreak havoc? Will there be migration and refugees from the Gulf? Could a BP bankruptcy result, triggering broader corporate failures? The dismantling of BP or the massive downsizing and selling off of its assets are possible if criminal penalties plus anticipated fines prove as devastating for the corporation as its behavior has been for the Gulf of Mexico.

What the Spill Will Kill
by Sharon Begley - Newsweek
Giant plumes of crude oil mixed with methane are sweeping the ocean depths with devastating consequences. 'I'm not too worried about oil on the surface,' says one scientist. 'It's the things we don't see that worry me the most.'
It was in mid-May that independent scientists-not any of the officials or researchers working for any of the government agencies on scene at the Deepwater Horizon disaster, let alone BP-first detected the vast underwater plumes of crude oil spreading like Medusa's locks from the out-of-control gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. BP immediately dismissed the reports, and in late May CEO Tony Hayward flatly declared "there aren't any plumes," stopping just short of accusing the scientists of misconduct. Federal officials called the scientists' claim "misleading, premature and, in some cases, inaccurate." Moreover, continued a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, any oxygen depletion in the surrounding waters due to plumes is not "a source of concern at this time,"and critics blaming dispersants for the plumes had "no information" to stand on. NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco, a respected oceanographer when President Obama tapped her to lead the agency, insists there are no plumes, only "anomalies" - though last week she acknowledged the possibility of oil beneath the surface.

BP Death Clouds Already Onshore!
Benzene-3400ppb & Hyrdrogen Sulfide-1200ppb
TOXIC AIR ALERT

BP Coughs Up Another Drop of Air Quality Data: Not Reassuring
Gina Solomon, Senior Scientist, NRDC - HuffingtonPost.com
New BP air testing results were posted yesterday from April 27 - May 26 for benzene, total hydrocarbons, and 2-Butoxyethanol. There's still no information about other oil-related air toxic chemicals such as naphthalene or hydrogen sulfide, offshore.
The BP sampling plan focuses only on workers on the large ships, and appears to not include monitoring for the people on the approximately 1,500 small fishing boats helping to clean up the spill. These people are dismissed as of "Reduced Priority" on page 4 of the BP sampling plan.

New oil plume evidence uncovered
By John Couwels, CNN
St. Petersburg, Florida (CNN) -- As if the pictures of birds, fish and animals killed by floating oil in the Gulf of Mexico are not disturbing enough, scientists now say they have found evidence of another danger lurking underwater.
The University of South Florida recently discovered a second oil plume in the northeastern Gulf. The first plume was found by Mississippi universities in early May.
USF has concluded microscopic oil droplets are forming deep water oil plumes. After a weeklong analysis of water samples, USF scientists found more oil in deeper water.

Matt Simmons:
"Theres another leak, much bigger, 5 to 6 miles away"

Socialists Claim Gulf Oil Disaster:
A Trillion-Dollar Corporate Crime
beforeitsnews.com
The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a corporate crime whose magnitude almost defies comprehension. The eventual cost - combining damage to complex Gulf and coastal ecosystems, wiping out of the fishing and tourism industries, and long-term health consequences for the population of the region - is likely to total over $1 trillion.
The explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killed 11 workers and began the massive and continuing flow of oil was not an "accident," but the product of willful corporate cost-cutting and negligence. Further evidence of this fact was provided Monday in documents released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. One document was an email from a BP engineer, Brian Morel, on April 14, six days before the explosion, in which he described the rig as a "nightmare well which has everyone all over the place."

Peak Oil Stress Map
The map above is a first rough cut at where the stress of peak oil (or any oil shock) is likely to be greatest. It comes from taking county level data from the Census Quick Facts and extracting two variables: the average travel time to work (from the 2000 census), and the median household income (from 2008 data). The idea is that if average travel time is long, that probably indicates that people in that county need a lot of oil to run their cars. On the other hand, if income is low, they are probably going to have more trouble paying for that oil. So I divided the travel time by median income, and then rescaled that index by its own average and standard deviation to produce a map of where the problems are likely to be greatest.

THE SHORT FILM BP DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE.

The Nuclear Option: It may happen now.
By Gary Vey
It's so surreal... like a sci-fi movie. The earth is threatened by a huge hole in its crust, leaking crude oil like a highly pressurized volcano and threatening to kill all life in the oceans. The solution? The military detonate a nuclear bomb in an attempt to melt the cap rock and seal the leak.
But this is no science fiction. As reported back on May 14th, Barack Obama sends nuclear experts to tackle BP's Gulf of Mexico oil leak:
The US has sent a team of nuclear physicists to help BP plug the "catastrophic" flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from its leaking Deepwater Horizon well, as the Obama administration becomes frustrated with the oil giant's inability to control the situation.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
BP Death Clouds Already on Shore & Giant Wave 1/4
Lindsey Williams reports the latest developments concerning the situation in Gulf of Mexico. It seems BP Death Clouds are already on shore. They bring a poisonous and noxious mix of Benzine and God knows what more. Also the Mechanics of the Giant Wave (or Tsunami) this Oil Spill crisis may generate are explained.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
BP Death Clouds Already on Shore & Giant Wave 2/4

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
BP Death Clouds Already on Shore & Giant Wave 3/4

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
BP Death Clouds Already on Shore & Giant Wave 4/4

Kyrgyzstan killings are attempted genocide, say ethnic Uzbeks
Luke Harding in Osh - guardian.co.uk
Fractured demographics and economic success of minority underpinned volatile country, say those targeted by mobs
It was early afternoon when the mob surged down an alley of neat rose bushes and halted outside Zarifa's house. The Kyrgyz men broke into her courtyard and sat Zarifa down next to a cherry tree. They asked her a couple of questions. After confirming she was an ethnic Uzbek, they stripped her, raped her and cut off her fingers. After that they killed her and her small son, throwing their bodies into the street. They then moved on to the next house.

Saudi Arabia: We will not give Israel air corridor for Iran strike
By Haaretz Service
Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf refutes Times of London report saying Saudi Arabia practiced standing down its anti-aircraft systems to allow an Israeli bomb run.
Saudi Arabia would not allow Israeli bombers to pass through its airspace en route to a possible strike of Iran's nuclear facilities, a member of the Saudi royal family said Saturday, denying an earlier Times of London report.

U.S. announces new sanctions to curb Iran nuclear program
By News Agencies - Haaretz.com
U.S. Treasury imposes sanctions on a state-controlled bank, companies that are fronts for the state shipping line and the air force and missile commands of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday announced new sanctions on Iran to curb its nuclear program, including blacklisting a state-controlled bank, companies that are fronts for the state shipping line, and the air force and missile commands of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thursday 06.17.2010

Obama Gives Part of Arizona to Mexicans

Pinal County Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu says That Mexican Drug Cartels Are Gaining Control in Parts of Arizona and He Can't Stop Them Without Federal Help
People want to know how bad things really are in Arizona and what's the big deal with a few illegals sneaking in now and then, Ok, watch this news clip. Pinal County Sheriff, Paul Babeu comes out and says that there is a good sized chunk of Arizona that they are loosing control of to the Mexican drug cartels. Sheriff Babeu notes that the drug smugglers are better armed than his officers and won't hesitate to shoot them. One of his deputies was shot about five or six weeks ago while pursuing Mexican illegals smuggling drugs. Sheriff Babeu is saying that the Mexican drug cartels are gaining control in parts of Arizona and he can't stop them without federal help.

Sheriff: Mexican Drug Cartels Now Control Parts of Arizona

BP Admits That - If It Tries to Cap the Leak - the Whole Well May Blow
Washington's Blog
As I previously noted, oil industry expert Rob Cavner said that BP must "keep the well flowing to minimize oil and gas going out into the formation on the side": (see video)
This has just been confirmed by BP.
Specifically, BP's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told CNN last Thursday that BP's data indicates that BP can't cap the leaking oil, or it might cause the well casing to blow out: (see video)
Suttles denies that there is evidence that the well casing has already blown out beneath the sea floor.
But many experts - including experts working for BP - say that there is damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, Matt Simmons told Bloomberg today that America's top research vessel - the Thomas Jefferson - found that the well casing is gone, and can no longer even be seen on the sea floor, having been destroyed: (see video)

The Dangers and Difficulties of 'Bottom Kill'
By Philip Bethge - Spiegel.de
BP has only one arrow left in its quiver, a method known as 'bottom kill.' The idea is for relief wells to stop the gushing oil from below, but the technical challenges are formidable. Past experiences show that the oil may continue flowing into late autumn.
For the engineers, it was a blessing in disguise. They had drilled to a depth of up to 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) below the sea floor when gas and oil suddenly began shooting upward. But there was no explosion. The 69 workers at the site were evacuated and no one was killed.

Nightmare vision for Europe as EU chief warns 'democracy could disappear' in Greece, Spain and Portugal
By JASON GROVES - The DailyMail.co.uk
Democracy could 'collapse' in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned.
In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an 'apocalyptic' vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money.
The stark warning came as it emerged that EU chiefs have begun work on an emergency bailout package for Spain which is likely to run into hundreds of billions of pounds.

EU Flags The Risk Of Debt Snowballs In Southern Europe - Irony Or Tragedy?
By: Claus Vistesen - iStockAnalyst
As it seems that we are finally about to get something which resembles a stable summer here in Denmark it may seem strange to suddenly start talking about snowballs. Yet, the idea of debt snowball is very relevant in the current environment as it relates to the potentially unstoppable development in public/domestic debt levels despite a country's best efforts in the form of austerity measures. Specifically, the combination of a year long loss of competitiveness, excessive domestic debt levels (private as well as public) and being caught up in a fixed currency union means that as austerity measures enforced to rein in debt levels also push the economy into deflation and growth, by virtue of the loss of competitiveness, remains absent the debt problems essentially worsens despite efforts to the contrary. Recently, I penned a paper on, in part, this very subject and the following passage sums up the main learning point;

GERALD CELENTE:
Greece, World Wide Revolt & the Great War Part 1

GERALD CELENTE:
Greece, World Wide Revolt & the Great War Part 2

Spanish debt wilts amid €250bn rescue plan confusion
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
European debt markets remain under high stress on persistent reports that Spain is in secret talks with EU officials and the International Monetary Fund for a support package of up to €250bn (£208bn), the largest rescue in history.
The spreads on 10-year Spanish bonds jumped to a post-EMU high of 224 basis points above German Bunds as traders brace for a crucial auction by Madrid on Thursday. The relentless rise in bond yields replicates the pattern seen in Greece at the onset of crisis. Spain must raise €25bn of debt in a cluster of auctions in July.
"We're in a dangerous and stressful situation," said Gary Jenkins, a credit expert at Evolution Securities. "Spain is a big enough borrower to wipe out the EU's rescue fund."

Bank Run in Spain and Its Destabilizing Ramifications for the Entire EU
by Robert Wenzel - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Spanish banks are borrowing record amounts from the European Central Bank.
According to FT, Spanish banks borrowed €85.6bn ($105.7bn) from the ECB last month. This was double the amount lent to them before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and 16.5 per cent of net eurozone loans offered by the central bank.
"If the suspicion that funding markets are being closed down to Spanish banks and corporations is correct, then you can reasonably expect the share of ECB liquidity accounted for by the country to have risen further this month," said Nick Matthews, European economist at RBS.

'Circuit breakers' tripped for the first time
By Michael Mackenzie in New York - FT.com
The S&P 500 circuit breakers, which began operating this week, were triggered for the first time on Wednesday afternoon when shares in the Washington Post Company doubled in price inside the space of one second.
Shares in the publisher were trading at about $460 at 3.07pm yesterday when an order for 400 shares and 200 shares were both executed at $919.18, followed by 166 shares at $929.18.

Bernanke Says Fed Is Beefing up Bank Oversight
By JEANNINE AVERSA AP Economics Writer - ABCNews.com
Bernanke: Fed taking steps to beef up oversight to prevent replay of recent financial crisis
The Federal Reserve is working to beef up oversight of financial companies to better protect the nation from another financial crisis in the future, Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.
The Fed chairman's comments come as Congress moves closer to sending President Barack Obama a final legislative package that revamps the nation's financial structure to prevent a replay of the recent financial crisis.
Bernanke welcomed key parts of that package in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference in New York. At the same time, though, Bernanke emphasized that the Fed is moving ahead on its own reforms.

Retail data put double-dip recession back on table
by Irwin Kellner - MarketWatch.com
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) -- Where are the big spenders, now that we really need them?
The unexpected decline in May's retail sales has many economists questioning the strength and durability of the nascent recovery. This was the first month-to-month retreat for retail sales since last autumn. What is more, it was pretty much across the board - even if you exclude autos.

Lee Farkas, Ex-CEO of Bankrupt Mortgage Lender TBW, Indicted on TARP Fraud By MELLY ALAZRAKI - DailyFinance.com
Lee Farkas, the former CEO of the now bankrupt mortgage lending company Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, has been indicted for allegedly engaging in a fraud scheme to misappropriate $1 billion from the government's Troubled Assets Relief Program and other targets. He has been charged with 16 counts of conspiracy, bank fraud, wire fraud and securities fraud. The indictment loudly echoes public concerns that bailout money would be mishandled at best, and fraudulently obtained at worst.

US Dollar: The Mother of All Bubbles
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
A bubble is a significant increase in valuation supported by a set of artificial, inexplicable, and otherwise unsustainable conditions. True bubbles almost always involve some element of secrecy, some dispensation from received or common knowledge.
When the artificial conditions are removed the valuation of the bubble 'reverts to the mean, ' a more normal valuation based on the fundamentals, unadjusted and undistorted supply and demand. An asset bubble often involves a fraudulent design taking advantage of and even perpetuating a corresponding foolishness. In other words, the fraud is father to the folly.

US Mint Sells 310,000 Fractional 2010 Gold Eagle Bullion Coins in Five Days By Darrin Lee Unser - CoinNews.net
Debuting last Thursday, the 22-karat 2010 American Eagle Gold Bullion Fractional Coins are off to a brisk pace according to the most recent coin sales figures released by the United States Mint. An impressive 310,000 were sold during the first five days amounting to 48,500 ounces of gold. A look at the individual coins sales are shown below:
2010 Fractional Bullion Eagle Debuting Sales
2010 1/2 oz Gold Eagle - 28,000 coins for 14,000 ounces
2010 1/4 oz Gold Eagle - 42,000 coins for 10,500 ounces
2010 1/10 oz Gold Eagle - 240,000 coins or 24,000 ounces

Gold Futures Fluctuate Amid Speculation Euro Will Resume Slump
By Pham-Duy Nguyen
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Gold prices fluctuated on speculation that the euro will resume a slump, boosting the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative asset.
The euro may drop to the lowest level since 2003 on Europe's debt crisis, Sophia Drossos, the co-head of global currency strategy at Morgan Stanley, said today in an interview with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio. Before today, gold rose 13 percent this year, reaching a record $1,254.50 an ounce on June 8, as the euro tumbled 14 percent.

Pay czar and 9/11 arbiter takes on oil spill money
By KAREN MATTHEWS (AP)
NEW YORK - He was given the delicate task of putting a dollar figure on the life of each Sept. 11 victim and trimming paychecks at companies that got taxpayer bailouts.
Now the federal government has given Kenneth Feinberg a new job overseeing a fund to pay the victims of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that BP would set aside an initial $20 billion and that Feinberg would administer the fund to oil spill victims.

BP 'small people' comment causes anger along Gulf
By HOLBROOK MOHR, AP
VENICE, La. -The "small people" of the Gulf Coast have a humongous message for oil giant BP: They're tired of the company's big-time executives making insensitive comments.
On Wednesday, BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told reporters in Washington: "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people." He later apologized and said he spoke "clumsily."

Will Obama Force BP into Bankruptcy?
Written by Editorial Dept - OilPrice.com
BP is already down and out, but President Obama has the power to force the petroleum company into bankruptcy once and for all.
An article published in the New York Post this morning details the 'nuclear option' in which Obama could yank BP's oil rig leases which generate more than $55 billion in revenue for the company.

BP Agrees to Set Aside About $20 Billion for Spill Claims
By HELENE COOPER and JACKIE CALMES - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The White House and BP tentatively agreed that the oil giant will create a $20 billion fund to pay claims for the worst oil spill in American history, to be independently run by the mediator who oversaw the 9/11 victims compensation fund, Kenneth Feinberg, according to two people familiar with the deliberations.
The agreement was not final and was still being negotiated when President Obama and his top advisers met this morning with BP's top executives and lawyers. Its preliminary terms would give BP several years to deposit the full amount into the fund so it could better manage cash flow, maintain its financial viability and not scare off investors.

BP Cancels Dividend to Finance Obama's Spill Fund
By Brian Swint
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc, seen as a rising default risk by credit investors, scrapped dividends and pledged asset sales to meet President Barack Obama's demand for a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the U.S.'s worst oil spill.
BP's Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg visited the White House today and agreed on payments over four years to finance an independent body that will settle claims resulting from a damaged oil well that's spewing as much as 60,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

"We Brought In Dead Porpoises Today!"
(Is MSM Hiding Video Of Animals Killed By Oil Spill?)
May 23, 2010 CNN

Oil and Snake Oil
by Thomas Sowell - Townhall.com
The big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is bad enough in itself. But politics can make anything worse.
Let's stop and think. Either the government knows how to stop the oil spill or they don't. If they know how to stop it, then why have they let thousands of barrels of oil per day keep gushing out, for weeks on end? All they have to do is tell BP to step aside, while the government comes in to do it right.
If they don't know, then what is all this political grandstanding about keeping their boot on the neck of BP, the Attorney General of the United States going down to the Gulf to threaten lawsuits-- on what charges was unspecified-- and President Obama showing up in his shirt sleeves?

Matt Simmons Revises Leak Estimate To 120,000 Barrels Per Day, Believes Oil Covers 40% Of Gulf Beneath The Surface
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Matt Simmons was on Bloomberg earlier, adding some additional perspective to his original appearance on the station, in which he initially endorsed the nuclear option as the only viable way to resolve the oil spill. Simmons refutes even the latest oil spill estimate of 45,000-60,000 barrels per day, and in quoting research by the Thomas Jefferson research vessel which was compiled late on Sunday, quantifies the leak at 120,000 bpd. What is scarier is that according to the Jefferson the oil lake underneath the surface of the water could be covering up to 40% of the entire Gulf of Mexico.

With Criminal Charges for Oil Spill, Costs to BP Could Soar
By JOHN SCHWARTZ - NYTimes.com
As BP watches its bill rise quickly for the oil spill, including $20 billion it is setting aside for claims, it could find the tally growing much faster in coming months if the United States Department of Justice files criminal charges against the company.
Based on the latest estimates, for example, the daily civil fine for the escaping oil alone could be $280 million. But criminal penalties, if imposed, could cause the costs to balloon still further, said David M. Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan, who headed the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department from 2000 to 2007.

Underwater Oil Plumes In Gulf EXPOSED By ABC News
June 2, 2010

BP Hires Mercs to Block Oily Beaches (Updated)
By Adam Rawnsley - Wired.com
Last week, we all voted here on who should buy Blackwater now that it's up for sale. In addition to Steve Jobs and the Salvation Army, one of the top finalists was British Petroleum. "Somebody is gonna have to keep all those sunbathers away from the beach," one commenter noted.
Well, today we can tell you: Danger Room gets results. Kinda.
BP, in a move destined to go down as one of the bestest public relations moves ever, has apparently hired a private security company to help to keep pesky reporters from covering the unfolding catastrophe on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. The report comes via New Orleans' 6WDSU reporter Scott Walker, who last week ran into representatives of a "Talon Security" trying to block him from interviewing cleanup workers on a local beach. Just which of the various companies named "Talon Security" is storming the (public) beaches for BP, however, remains unclear.

9 Important Points about the BP Blowout - Part 1
Written by Allen Gilmer - OilPrice.com
Here is what a couple of offshore drilling engineers told me about the BP Blowout
However, everything is consistent with a well way over budget, company men taking heat from the home office to finish the job, and a series of decisions, none catastrophic by themselves, that eventually accumulated to cause this disaster.
I have worked with several majors in my career, and the BP/Amoco E&P guys were as good as they come. I can't comment first hand on their drilling engineering practices in general, because I don't know. Here are a few items on THIS well that are notable.

NOAA Chief: Oil Crisis Is a 'Serious Tragedy'
June 2, 2010

BP's Contracts In 'Deep' Trouble
By: Zacks Investment Research - iStockAnalyst.com
BP plc (BP) is running the risk of losing control on its U.S. oil and natural gas wells following the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) oil spill, according to a report by Bloomberg. Industry and regulatory analysts are of the opinion that the U.S. government should ban BP from operating in the GoM and other fragile regions since the company failed to take prerequisite actions to check the spill.

Grandson of Jacques Cousteau After Diving into BP Oil Spill
May 29, 2010

Florida Bankers: oil spill threatens industry
TAMPA BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL
The Florida Bankers Association is asking federal regulators to give banks in the state leeway on loans and investment efforts because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The spill, just miles from Florida's coastline, is the equivalent of a long lasting economic disaster that's impacting tourism and real estate, said Alex Sanchez, president and chief executive officer of the state banking trade group, in a letter to top regulators.
The loss of jobs and business will affect the banking industry when otherwise good customers stop paying their loans, Sanchez said.

BofA to limit duration of trades with BP
(Reuters) - Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) has ordered its traders not to enter into oil trades with BP Plc (BP.L) that extend beyond June 2011, a market source familiar with the directive told Reuters.
The order to the bank's traders came from a high-level executive and was made on Monday, according to a source familiar with it. It told traders not to engage in trade with BP for contracts beyond one year from this month.

Accelerating Jumbo Mortgage Delinquencies Will Bash High-End Property Values: Part 1 of 6 - Anecdotes on Inventory
Michael White - Implode-O-Meter blog
(Chicago) Look at unit sales over $1 million in Sarasota County Florida and all appears well. Twelve-month sales equaled 128 units at March 1 versus 151 units the previous year. The 15 percent fall in sales is real, but it isn't scary. If you want to sell your home there, you may not like the rest of the math as much.
Talk to Hannerle Moore, an agent at Michael Saunders & Co. She suggests a sobering strategy. Reduce prices at least 40 percent from 2005 highs.
"I tell them,'You could be the lady who has had her home on the market for 936 days, or you could sell,'" Moore told the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Citi Halts Some Foreclosures Near Gulf Spill
By MATTHIAS RIEKER - WSJ.com
NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. is halting certain foreclosures in the areas affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The bank announced a three-month suspension of foreclosure sales and notifications, as well as evictions on possessed properties for qualifying borrowers in the Gulf region with first mortgages held by CitiMortgage. The suspension is effective from Thursday through Sept. 17. Citi expects about 1,000 borrowers to participate initially, but that number might climb.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to delist from NYSE
By Chris Isidore, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were ordered by their federal regulator to no longer trade their shares on the New York Stock Exchange, the agency announced Wednesday. Both stocks plummeted on the news.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and its predecessor agency have overseen the operation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since September 2008, when they were both placed under conservatorship, a form of control similar to what is found in a bankruptcy process.

Home construction sinks, building permits down
By ALAN ZIBEL - AP via MSNBC.com
WASHINGTON - Home construction plunged last month and building permits also fell, the latest signs that the construction industry won't fuel the economic recovery.
Builders are scaling back now that government incentives have expired. The biggest evidence of that trend: single-family homes tumbled 17 percent, the largest monthly drop since January 1991. The struggle in the housing industry is a concern for the broader economy because fewer homes mean fewer jobs across various sectors.

What happens if your state government shuts down?
By Tami Luhby
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- State budgets are so squeezed that some governors are threatening to shut down state operations if lawmakers can't address massive spending shortfalls.
States are facing the threat of shutdowns because of the dismal condition of their finances. Governors and lawmakers have been reluctant to make deep and unappealing cuts, particularly to education, health and social services, but have also been loath to raise taxes.

In jail for being in debt
By CHRIS SERRES and GLENN HOWATT , StarTribune.com
As a sheriff's deputy dumped the contents of Joy Uhlmeyer's purse into a sealed bag, she begged to know why she had just been arrested while driving home to Richfield after an Easter visit with her elderly mother.
No one had an answer. Uhlmeyer spent a sleepless night in a frigid Anoka County holding cell, her hands tucked under her armpits for warmth. Then, handcuffed in a squad car, she was taken to downtown Minneapolis for booking. Finally, after 16 hours in limbo, jail officials fingerprinted Uhlmeyer and explained her offense -- missing a court hearing over an unpaid debt. "They have no right to do this to me," said the 57-year-old patient care advocate, her voice as soft as a whisper. "Not for a stupid credit card."
It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts.

Families in homeless shelters increased 7% in '09
By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY
The recession continued to take its toll as more families with children became homeless for the second straight year, a U.S. government report shows.
The number of families in homeless shelters increased 7% to 170,129 from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2009, a report released today by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found. At the same time, the overall number of homeless people in shelters fell 2% to 1.56 million.

U.S. prices could rise with Chinese workers' salaries
By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY
Rising wages in China are stoking concerns that U.S. consumers will ultimately pay more for Chinese-made products from iPads to Levi's.
For years, foreign companies have contracted with Chinese suppliers to make products, drawn by the low-cost labor. But as local Chinese governments raise minimum-wage requirements - and workers clamor for higher salaries - it's becoming more expensive to do business in the country.

Price increases fuel fears of food 'crises'
By Javier Blas in London - FT.com
Food commodity prices will increase more than previously expected in the next decade because of rising energy prices and developing countries' rapid growth, two leading organisations said on Tuesday, worsening the outlook for global food security.
"A return to higher global economic growth. . . together with continuing population gains, are expected to increase demand and trade and underpin prices," the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in their annual agricultural outlook.

Google Wi-Fi Data Collection Discussed by 30 Attorneys General
By Karen Freifeld and Joel Rosenblatt
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc.'s collection of data via Wi-Fi networks was the subject of a conference call among law enforcement officials from 30 U.S. states, according to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
"We're looking to establish where, when, why, for how long and for what purpose there was this collection of information on wireless networks," Blumenthal said yesterday in an interview. The call included representatives of the states' attorneys general.

Radio Journalist Slain in Philippines
By CARLOS H. CONDE - NYTimes.com
MANILA - A commentator known for scathing on-air attacks on corruption has been killed in the second fatal attack in 24 hours on a radio broadcaster in the Philippines, one of the world's most dangerous countriesfor journalists.
Joselito Agustin, 37, a broadcaster with DZJC Aksyon Radyo in Laoag City in the northern Philippines, died of gunshot wounds early Wednesday after two men on motorcycles ambushed him Tuesday night as he was riding a motorcycle home, according to the local police. Mr. Agustin's nephew, who was on the motorcycle with him, was shot in the leg, the police said.

The Israel-Turkey Rift: Is The Future of NATO At Risk?
Written by Claude Salhani - OilPrice.com
If anyone still harbored any doubts that there is an urgent need to resolve the Middle East crisis one needs only look at the events that unfolded two weeks ago off the coast of Gaza when Israeli commandos stormed a Turkish relief vessel heading for the besieged Palestinian territory.
The end result of that operation, one which turned out to be a monumental public relations fiasco for Israel, was that it raised the level of animosity between Israel and Turkey, a level which was already dipping well into the red zone - pushing it another notch deeper into the danger zone.

Tarpley: Geopolitical problems in Afghanistan

Iran says it will build more nuclear reactors
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI - AP via MSNBC.com
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran stepped up its nuclear defiance Wednesday by endorsing plans to boost its uranium enrichment and to build four new facilities for atomic medical research - less than a week after the latest U.N. sanctions.
The series of announcements and sharp comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - who said the West must come to Iran like a "polite child" in any possible nuclear talks - could encourage calls for more economic pressure against the Islamic Republic.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wednesday 06.16.2010

Obama's Speech Raises Question:
Where Does He Get the Authority to 'Inform' a Private Company That It Must Surrender Its Money?
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - In his first-ever address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama said he was going to "inform" the chairman of BP that he must surrender the company's money to an independent party that will distribute it to people and businesses determined to have been harmed by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The president's declaration raises a serious constitutional question about his authority: Where does the president get the lawful power to order any private-sector company - BP or any other - that it must surrender its money? Should not courts and normal legal proceedings determine who is responsible, who has been harmed, and who owes what to whom in regards to the Gulf oil spill?

The Three-Legged Stool Of The Economy Is Already Missing Two Legs
Peter Stock, Stock Investment Management Inc - BusinessInsider.com
Last year when the Euro was soaring and the dollar collapsing there was some frustration articulated by Euro zone policy makers that it was economically counterproductive for the Euro to be too strong. Well I guess, as we watch the Euro's recent slide, these Eurocrats should have been more careful of what they wished for. I doubt that any of them ever anticipated the balkanizing circumstances that would lead to a lower valuation for their once high and mighty currency. In fact the way things are working now with the abrupt change of direction for the Euro it could in fact hasten the further dissolution of the grand EU/EC/ECB experiment. How so?

EPA classifies milk as oil, forcing costly rules on farmers
Monica Scott - The Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS -- Having watched the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico, dairy farmer Frank Konkel has a hard time seeing how spilled milk can be labeled the same kind of environmental hazard.
But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is classifying milk as oil because it contains a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil.

US Treasury Rolls $284 Billion In Bills, $316 Billion In Total Debt In First 10 Days Of June, Cash Balance Down To $4 Billion
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The US Treasury is once again running on cash fumes, with total US Treasury cash down to $4.3 billion in the Treasury's Federal Reserve account. The reason: the US Treasury has now rolled $320 billion in total treasuries in the first ten days of the month, or over $11 trillion annualized. All those paying attention to interest paid on US debt are focusing on the wrong thing: the monthly scheduled amortization of principal are now by far a much greater threat to the US Treasury than a couple of percent increase in rates. The short-date sides of the curve is getting progressively larger, contrary to the UST's previously announced plan to extend the average duration of Treasury debt.

It's Official: Fed Governors Are Starting To Worry About A Double Dip
by Joe Weisenthal - BusinessInsider.com
According to WSJ, the debates have begun inside the Fed about what it should do in the event of a double dip.
With the market swooning, and Europe clearly having problems, with the potential to put a drag on the economy, not to mention nascent domestic issues, it's absurd to imagine the Fed isn't beginning to wargame the scenarios.

Barack Obama turns the oil spill into his poor man's 9/11 to revive Cap-and-Trade climate legislation
by Gerald Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's chief of staff, famously remarked. "And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." The extent to which his master has absorbed this maxim is demonstrated by Obama's exploitation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln's derivatives-spinoff plan gains support in Congress
By Brady Dennis - Washington Post
An effort to force some of the nation's biggest banks to spin off their lucrative derivatives-dealing operations appears to be gaining traction, as members of a House-Senate conference begin finalizing details of far-reaching new financial regulations.
The measure, championed by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), was included in the financial overhaul bill recently passed by the Senate. It had been opposed by Obama administration officials, some lawmakers in both parties, multiple banking regulators and Wall Street. Lincoln is seeking to restrict federal aid to banks that operate as major derivatives dealers.

Markets, Ron Paul, Rubini, BP

US Commission subpoenas Goldman Sachs
FinancialStandard.com.au
Goldman Sachs, which is currently under SEC investigation, has been issued a subpoena by the US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission this month. According to a press statement from the Commission, Goldman Sachs failed to comply with a request for documents and interviews in a timely manner. The Commission had previously warned it would use its subpoena power if there was a delay or lack of compliance during the investigation.

PIMCO Flip-Flops --
Stops Warning About Inflation And Starts Buying Treasuries
Vincent Fernando, CFA - BusinessInsider.com
Pimco has increased its holdings of U.S. treasuries to the highest level in five months according to the Wall Street Journal. Note this is something that David Rosenberg had insinuated was happening a few days ago.

Last Train for the Coast
Howard S. Katz - SilverBearCafe.com
All aboard, dear gold bugs. The train is slowly picking up speed and is leaving the station. It is your last chance to get aboard at a price reasonably close to $1,000/oz. Now you may not agree that $1,250 is reasonably close to $1,000, but when you see gold at $3,000, then you will agree. From the vantage of $3,000, then $1,000, $1,250 no big deal. The point is to be long of gold.

Gold Climbs Most in a Week on Demand for Currency Alternative
By Pham-Duy Nguyen
June 15 (Bloomberg) -- Gold prices rose the most in a week on demand for an alternative investment to currencies as the dollar slumped and concern mounted that Europe's sovereign-debt crisis will escalate.
The greenback dropped for a second straight day against a basket of six currencies. Debt levels in Spain and Portugal may "snowball" in coming years, and additional budget cuts are needed to meet deficit targets announced a month ago, according to a draft European Commission document.

Gold advances on safe haven buying
SINGAPORE (Commodity Online) : Gold showed signs of recovery in Asian trade as investors turned to safe haven buying on reports of Greek inability to repay its debts.
Gold for immediate delivery was seen trading at $1220.24 an ounce while US gold futures for August delivery was at $1222.5 an ounce on the Comex in New York.
A report by Moody's cast's doubts about Greece's ability to solve its debt problems reminded investors that the debt crisis in Europe was far from over.
The report sends Asian stocks lower Tuesday and also hit the European single currency.

AXA fears 'fatal flaw' will destroy eurozone
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Analysts at the French financial group AXA see a serious likelihood that the eurozone will break in half or disintegrate, dismissing Europe's €750bn (£623bn) rescue package for Club Med debtors as a stop-gap measure that misdiagnoses the problem
"The markets are very nervous because they can see that there is a fatal flaw in the system and no clear way out," said Theodora Zemek, head of global fixed income at AXA Investment Managers.
"We are in a very major crisis that has even broader implications than the credit crisis two years ago. The politicians have not yet twigged to this."

Spain plays high-stakes poker game with Germany as borrowing costs surge By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Spain has upped the ante in a high-stakes poker game with Germany, pushing for the release of EU stress test results for major banks in a move that risks precipitiating a dramatic escalation of Europe's financial crisis.
"We're not afraid of transparency," said the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), saying the full truth would put an end to rumours battering Spain's instutitions. El Pais reported that the government backs the initiative, putting it on a collision course with Germany which insists on secrecy.
Josef Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank, warned last week that it would be "very dangerous" to publish the results of each bank, fearing that it would trigger flight from weak lenders and set off a chain reaction.

China and other countries buy US Treasury debt
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER (AP) - Google News
WASHINGTON - China boosted its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt for the second straight month as total foreign holdings of U.S. government debt increased.
That development should help ease concerns that lagging foreign demand will force the U.S. government to pay higher interest rates to finance its debt.
China's holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose by $5 billion to $900.2 billion in April, the Treasury Department said Tuesday. Total foreign holdings rose by $72.8 billion to $3.96 trillion.

Keiser Report 51: Markets! Finance! Scandal!

The Smartest Guys in the Room Tomorrow Will be BP
By Chris Horner - The American Spectator.org
So President Obama is meeting in the White House tomorrow with BP's chairman. The focus of public discussion of this event has been on it taking until the 57th day or so since the Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire following a well explosion, precipitating the ongoing oil leak.
The more relevant figure is 4,700. If my quick calculation has it right, that's the number of days since the last time a BP CEO was in the Oval Office.

Lawmakers tell oil execs they're not prepared for major spills
By Frederic J. Frommer, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Members of Congress chastised the world's largest oil companies Tuesday, accusing them of being no better prepared than BP to avert an environmental catastrophe.
As top oil company executives waited to testify at a House hearing, Rep. Henry Waxman said the companies' oil spill response plans amounted to "paper exercises" that mirrored BP's failed plan. Their strategies to plug a spill deep beneath the sea are the same failed strategies that have stymied BP, the California Democrat said.

For BP, Toll Likely to Extend Past Cleanup
By JAD MOUAWAD and CLIFFORD KRAUSS - NYTimes.com
On the face of it, BP can easily afford to pay the short-term costs of the oil well that is leaking millions of gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. Last year, the company earned $17 billion, and it ended the year with more than $8 billion in cash.
But concerns about BP's ability to meet all its obligations over the long haul - or even survive the crisis intact - are rattling the government, Gulf Coast residents and investors.

Foreign registration of BP rig factored in explosion
by Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger - Chicago Tribune
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands -- a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.

Obama promises 'unprecedented response'
By Kara Rowland - WashingtonTimes.com
PENSACOLA, Fl. -- On the last leg of a two-day visit to three Gulf states, President Obama on Tuesday said his administration is going to do "whatever it takes for as long as it takes" to deal with the devastating oil spill that has ravaged the local economy and threatens pristine wetlands.
Speaking in a drafty warehouse decked out with flags from all 50 states, Mr. Obama told more than 3,000 members of the military at the Naval Air Station here that the spill is an "unprecedented environmental disaster," but he vowed to meet it with an "unprecedented response."

Ship fire halts oil capture from Gulf well
By Ray Henry AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A bolt of lightning struck the ship capturing oil from a blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, igniting a fire that halted containment efforts in another setback for the embattled company in its nearly two-month struggle to stop the spill, the company said.
The fire was extinguished quickly, and no one was injured. BP said it hopes to resume containment of oil from the well sometime Tuesday afternoon.

BP buys Google ads for search term "oil spill"
(Reuters) - BP Plc has bought terms such as "oil spill" from search engine providers including Google Inc to help direct Internet users to its website as it attempts to control the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
A spokesman said BP would pay fees so its own website would rank higher or even top in the list of advertisements that appear alongside search results when Internet users search on terms such as "oil spill," "volunteer" and "claims."
BP did not say how much it was paying for the service but U.S. President Barack Obama has criticized the company for spending $50 million on TV advertising to bolster its image during the crisis.
BP said it wanted to help people who were trying to access information on the BP website to find it more readily, rather than intending to draw away hits from other sites.

BP discouraging crews from using respirators
By David Edwards - The RawStory.com
BP's logic seems to be that if the oil cleanup doesn't look dangerous then it must not be. The oil company has told workers not to wear respirators because it's bad for public relations, according to one human rights group.
RFK Center President Kerry Kennedy traveled to the Gulf Coast to talk to cleanup workers and found that BP was trying to repress the use of safety equipment.

Air tests from the Louisiana coast reveal human health threats from the oil disaster
By Sue Sturgis on May 10, 2010 - SouthernStudies.org
The media coverage of the BP oil disaster to date has focused largely on the threats to wildlife, but the latest evaluation of air monitoring data shows a serious threat to human health from airborne chemicals emitted by the ongoing deepwater gusher.
Today the Louisiana Environmental Action Network released its analysis of air monitoring test results by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's air testing data comes from Venice, a coastal community 75 miles south of New Orleans in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish.
The findings show that levels of airborne chemicals have far exceeded state standards and what's considered safe for human exposure.

BP's Rating Cut by Fitch to Two Levels Above 'Junk'
By Brian Swint and John Glover
June 15 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc's credit rating was cut six levels to two above junk by Fitch Ratings on concern over the potential cost of cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and meeting future liabilities.
BP's long-term issuer default and senior unsecured ratings were lowered to BBB from AA, Fitch said in a statement today. That follows a reduction from AA+ on June 3.

Tony Hayward prepares to face his accusers
By James Quinn, US Business Editor - Telegraph.co.uk
When Tony Hayward enters the rather ordinary wood-panelled surroundings of committee room 2123 in the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning, it will be no ordinary day.
Exactly 59 days since the accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig 41 miles off the Louisiana coast which has consumed his life ever since, the chief executive of the once-proud British oil giant will sit alone, behind a giant oak table, facing his accusers.
Although not a courtroom, and there of his own free will, Mr Hayward's testimony before the House of Representative's energy and commerce sub-committee on oversight and investigations - and the heated questioning that will follow - is set to be the most intense few hours of his 28-year career to date, tantamount to a trial on his three-year leadership of BP.

Gibbs: Administration May Seize Claims Processing
By Erica Werner, Associated Press - CNSNews.com
Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama is poised to seize the handling of oil spill damage claims from BP, his chief spokesman said Tuesday, as Obama sought to reassure people he's up to the enormous challenge of helping them recover from the environmental disaster. He will outline his specific plans and expectations in a prime-time Oval Office speech.

Oil Executives Tell Committee That BP Spill Is an Aberration
By JOHN M. BRODER - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The chief executives of the world's largest oil companies faced a Congressional panel of inquisitors on Tuesday and tried to cast the BP spill as a rare event that their companies were not likely to repeat.
In their prepared remarks, the executives said that continued offshore exploration and drilling were essential to American oil and gas supplies and to the health of their industry.

Oil-spill flow rate estimate surges to 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day
By Joel Achenbach and David Fahrenthold - Washington Post
The official estimate of the flow rate from the leaking gulf oil well has surged again, with government officials announcing Tuesday that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels (1.47 million to 2.52 million gallons) of oil a day are now gushing from the reservoir deep beneath the gulf.
The dramatic increase in the estimated flow rate raises the question of whether BP and the government were fully prepared to cope with the hydrocarbons spewing up through the gulf floor.

BP Oil Spill: A Slippery Slope to FEMA Detention Camps?
Stephanie Mencimer
Is there a covert government plan to forcibly evacuate up to 50 million people from the Gulf Coast and move them into FEMA trailers somewhere in Missouri and elsewhere because of the oil spill? Some of the nation's survivalists are convinced that the Obama administration is plotting just such an operation. Last week, Greg Evensen, a former Kansas state trooper and a regular on the "Patriot" movement talk circuit, appeared on the Internet radio show "Shattering the Darkness" to warn listeners that government is moving to evacuate basically everyone from the coast of Texas to Cape Cod. Evensen says the move will come after these areas become uninhabitable due to an "oversaturation of benzene" from the chemical dispersants BP is using to try to clean up the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

Exxon Distances Itself From BP's 'Dramatic Departure' in Gulf
By Joe Carroll
June 15 (Bloomberg) -- Federal investigators must determine if BP Plc took risks "beyond industry norms" with the Gulf of Mexico well that exploded and caused the worst U.S. oil spill, Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson said.
The April 20 disaster that killed 11 workers and sank Transocean Ltd.'s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig "represents a dramatic departure" from the track record of deep-water oil explorers, Tillerson said in remarks prepared for a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel hearing today.

Freedom's Real Enemies
Chuck Baldwin - SilverBearCafe.com
Politicians in Washington, D.C., love to manufacture a crisis. The crisis generates fear within the citizenry, thereby allowing the federal government to centralize more and more power. During a crisis, the citizenry becomes much more forgiving of federal abuses and accommodating of federal encroachments than it otherwise would be without a crisis. Hence, we have a federal "war on drugs," and a "war on poverty," and a "war on terror," and an "oil crisis," and an "energy crisis," and a "domestic terrorism crisis," and an "education crisis," and a "border crisis," and an "economic crisis" - Blah! Blah! Blah!

The End of the Recession as We Know It
BY ROBERT MORLEY - theTrumpet.com
Next comes the depression - and I feel fine. Want to know why?
When you look at economic news, is it hard to tell what the reality is - what is real and what isn't?
Recovery, you say? What recovery? Two of my friends are out of work, Grandma is on food stamps, and my job is on a razor's edge.
But that's not what the "official" numbers reflect. The bailout saved us.
Faced with economic collapse, the feds did the only thing they knew how. They pulled out the checkbook and went to town doling out taxpayer dollars. It was perhaps the biggest gamble of all time - $12 trillion worth. But did it work?
The little ball is still bouncing from red to black. Where will it land?

Illinois Downgrade, Tax Decline Weigh on $500 Million Bond Sale
By Allison Bennett and Brendan A. McGrail - BusinessWeek.com
June 15 (Bloomberg) -- Illinois, whose projected deficit equals half its proposed $25.9 billion budget, plans to sell $496.7 million of debt backed by sales taxes today after two rating cuts and as consumers unexpectedly curbed buying in May.
The bonds, funded with the state's 80 percent portion of sales taxes, carry the top rating from Standard & Poor's and AA+ from Fitch Ratings, the second-highest. That's better than the state's grade on general-obligation debt, which is supported by overall revenue. Both Fitch and Moody's Investors Service cut the rankings on those securities one level this month as lawmakers failed to close a $13 billion revenue shortfall in the budget proposed for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Homebuilders less confident in housing market
By Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer
WASHINGTON - Homebuilders are losing confidence in the U.S. housing market now that government incentives that spurred home sales have ended.
The National Association of Home Builders said Tuesday its housing market index fell to 17 in June, sinking five points after two straight months of increases. It was the lowest level since March.
Builders had been more optimistic earlier in the year when buyers could take advantage of tax credits up to $8,000. Those incentives expired on April 30, although buyers with signed contracts have until June 30 to complete their purchases.

Fannie and Freddie Bail Out More Borrowers
By Alyssa Katz - HousingWatch.com
Are you one of the millions who didn't make the cut for the federal loan modification program, because you weren't in bad enough trouble? If your loan is held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, you may be in luck.
Worried that home prices will continue to decline, Fannie and Freddie are offering a hand to borrowers looking to shrink their mortgage payments. American Banker reports that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have begun offering loan modifications to borrowers who tried but couldn't qualify for the Home Affordable Modification Program because their housing costs are less than 31 percent of their income.

Weak economy threatens one of the nation's oldest inns
By Patrick Walters, Associated Press Writer
BRISTOL, Pa. - Local lore has it that Continental Army soldiers shot down the sign on the King George II Inn amid the Revolutionary War, prompting its owners to quickly change the name to the Fountain House.
The inn survived the war for Independence but the beleaguered U.S. economy has done what time and anti-monarch fervor could not: threatened its status as one of the oldest continuously operating inns in the U.S.

Homeownership Advantages Questioned by FDIC Chief
By Dalia Fahmy - HousingWatch.com
It's National Home Ownership Month, prompting lots of talk about the value of owning a home. The rhetoric isn't all bubbly.
Sheila Bair, the outspoken head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, recently questioned the government's role in promoting homeownership. The speech wasn't widely covered, but The New York Times' Joe Nocera drew attention to it in a column headlined "Wake-Up Time for a Dream."
"Sustainable home ownership is a worthy national goal," Bair told the Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers. "But it should not be pursued to excess when there are other, equally worthy solutions that help meet the needs of people for whom home ownership may not be the right answer."

Home Equity Loans Remain a Concern for Some US Banks
ResearchRecap.com
While exposure to home equity losses alone will not likely cause negative rating actions for U.S. banks, it remains a significant concern for several banks, according to Fitch Ratings.
Home equity loans and lines past due 30-89 days or more have declined for 12 of the 20 institutions highlighted in this report. The highest level of delinquent loans were at regionally concentrated institutions in depressed real estate markets, including Citizens Republic (CRBC) -Michigan- at 2.26% and BankAtlantic (BBX) -Florida- at 2.14%. Both institutions have experienced increasing delinquent loans over the past year.
The next highest grouping includes the national lenders JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC) at 2.03, 1.99, and 1.55%, respectively. These institutions have experienced a declining trend year over year.

Obama Administration Breaking Its Promises on Health Care, Republicans Say
By Susan Jones, Senior Editor
(CNSNews.com) - The Obama administration on Monday issued a new regulation intended to discourage existing health care plans from reducing benefits or increasing costs to consumers.
The regulation makes good on President Obama's promise that Americans who like their existing health plans can keep them, the Health and Human Services Department said.
But Republican critics say the regulation will force a majority of the nation's employers - small businesses - to make changes, despite President Obama's promise to the contrary:

Authoritarianism is Bad for Your Health
Ron Paul
The administration's terrible healthcare reform bill is now law, but the debate over how-- and whether-- the federal government should be involved in providing healthcare services is not over. It is not too late for America to correct its course and stop the march toward a government run, "single payer" healthcare system.
Polls show that a large majority of Americans don't want Obamacare. Congress should seize the opportunity to repeal the very worst aspect of this new legislation, namely the mandate that forces every American either to purchase health insurance or face an IRS penalty. This mandate represents nothing more than an unconstitutional, historically unprecedented gift to the insurance industry. I introduced the "End the Mandate Act" (HR 4995) expressly to prevent the administration from ever putting this provision into effect.

Health care premiums likely to see double-digit increases
SACRAMENTO BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Kathy Robertson
Employers can expect health care premiums to increase an average of 9 percent nationwide in 2011, down slightly from a 9.5 percent average rate increase in 2010, according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
But local brokers are skeptical that local businesses will see rate increases that low. The norm appears to be anywhere from 11 percent to 14 - and some employers with expensive health benefit claims in 2010 face renewals as high as 60 percent.

Saudi Arabia's First Car: Gazal-1 Scheduled to go into Production
Motor Trend Magazine
Until recently, Saudi Arabia has only been a consumer of cars, rather than a producer. The oil-rich country's first car, the Gazal-1, has been given the green light for production by King Abdullah himself.
The Gazal-1 first appeared as a concept at the Geneva Motor Show in March and will soon become Saudi Arabia's first home-built car. The concept was designed by students in King Saud University's automotive engineering program and built around a Mercedes-Benz G-Class. The students worked with Magna Steyr and StudioTorino.

Financial Scandals
The Hidden Wealth of the Catholic Church
By Anna Catherin Loll and Peter Wensierski -Spiegel Online
The Catholic Church in Germany, already struggling to cope with the sex abuse scandal, has been hit by revelations of theft, opaque accounting and extravagance. While the grassroots faithful are being forced to make cutbacks, some bishops enjoy the trappings of the church's considerable hidden wealth.
Shortly before Pentecost, Pastor S. received an unexpected early morning visit, not from the Holy Ghost, but from the police.
For the authorities, the words of the Gospel of Luke came true on that morning: He who seeks finds. More than €131,000 ($158,000) were hidden in various places in the rooms of the Catholic priest, tucked in between his laundry or attached to the bottom of drawers. The reverend was arrested on the spot. After several weeks in custody, Hans S., 76, is now back at the monastery, waiting for his trial.

Could Piers Morgan be the new Larry King?
By Ian Burrell, Media Editor - The Independent
CNN, the US news network that styles itself "The Worldwide Leader in News", has reportedly offered Piers Morgan, the Britain's Got Talent panellist, a £10m contract to replace Larry King as the host of its flagship interview show.
For the former editor of the Daily Mirror, such an appointment would signify redemption, and a riposte to critics who said his reputation was in ruins, after he was fired from the newspaper in 2004 for publishing doctored photographs purporting to show the torture of Iraqi prisoners by British troops.

How the West Is Losing Turkey
By Bernhard Zand -Spiegel Online
A frustrated Ankara is turning away from the West and looking east toward Hamas and Iran. For decades, the Turkish people served as a strong ally of the Jewish state and pursued membership in the European Union as chief foreign policy goal. Now, Turkey is economically strong, enjoys considerable regional power and can call its own shots. Will this be the end of Ataturk's legacy?
At the summit of the European Union in Copenhagen in December 2002, then German Chancellor Gerhard Schršder and French President Jacques Chirac were sitting in a room with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a newcomer in Europe.

China and Taiwan set to sign landmark free trade deal
Telegraph.co.uk
China and Taiwan are set to sign a landmark free trade deal expected to lift annual trade between the long-time political foes to about £70 billion after a breakthrough during talks over the weekend.
Negotiators for the two sides that once stood at the brink of war unravelled the knottiest parts of the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) during talks in Beijing on Sunday, clearing the way for a deal signing as early as this month, officials and local media reports said.
Taiwan stock and currency markets rose on reports of the Sunday breakthrough following weeks of doubt that the biggest ever pact between the two sides was stuck on disputes over how far Beijing was willing to cut import tariffs.

Israel Security Chief Says Lifting the Gaza Blockade Is Risky
By Amy Teibel, Associated Press - CNSNews.com
Jerusalem (AP) - A top security official warned Tuesday that Israel would open itself to grave danger by lifting its three-year naval blockade of Gaza but did not oppose easing the embargo to allow more goods in through Israeli-controlled land crossings.
Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency, also told parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee that Gaza militants possess 5,000 rockets, Israel's most specific estimate yet. Diskin's testimony was reported by a meeting participant who spoke on condition of anonymity because the session was closed.

Netanyahu warns: Dark days ahead
Attila Somfalvi - Israel News
Prime minister says committee probing flotilla raid is Israel's best possible option as it 'strengthens our ability to fight in the international political arena', but also warns against 'surprises', even from allies
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted rough waters ahead for Israel on Monday. "Be prepared for difficult days," he told a Likud faction meeting, in which he also announced the establishment of an inquiry committee to probe the IDF flotilla raid.
"Dark forces from the Middle Ages are raging against us. I have received calls from concerned officials in the Balkans and Eastern Europe who are very worried about these developments."

Russia prepares to move in to stop Kyrgyzstan violence spreading
By Damien McElroy, Richard Orange and Andrew Osborn in Moscow - Telegraph.co.uk
Russia was last night preparing to intervene to stop ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan spreading across the border into neighbouring Central Asian countries.
Moscow said it was looking at sending rapid reaction forces to intervene as it rallied regional support from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a grouping of post-soviet states.
It said that members would send helicopters, trucks and other supplies to the Kyrgyz security forces to strengthen their capacity to handle the unrest. Russia has already sent at least 150 paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan to protect its Kant airbase.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tuesday 06.15.2010

Elizabeth Warren Introduces COP's June Report

In this video, Chair Elizabeth Warren of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel introduces the COP June report, "Congressional Oversight Panel Examines AIG Rescue and Its Impact on Markets.
The full report is available online.

U.S. Economy Heading For the Rocks?
By: Gerard Jackson - MarketOracle.co.uk
If you read Reuters, Associated Press and the rest of the phony news outlets the US economy is on the mend and it's only a matter of time before happy days are here again. If you are one of the unemployed or underemployed things are indeed gloomy. And no wonder. The Wall Street Journal reports that in the first quarter not one venture-backed company went public. This hasn't happened since 1980. Adding to the economy's woes we find that of the 431,000 non-farm jobs created last month a mere 41,000 was in the private sector, less than 10 per cent. To top it off, manufacturing also started to slow.

War in the Middle East: Will Iran’s Nuclear Program Lead to Conflict with Israel
Written by Paul Rogers- OilPrice.com
Iran is at the centre of a global storm: targeted by new sanctions, suspected by Washington, defended by Brazil and Turkey. But the complex diplomacy around its nuclear programme could be ended by decisions made not in the United States but in Israel.

Did Turkey Declare War on Israel...and the West?
Written by Gregory R. Copley - OilPrice.com
Few could dispute that the Turkish Government has consciously, with great forethought through 2009 and 2010, chosen to push its relationships with Israel, the US, and - essentially - the West as a whole to a breaking point. At the very least, Ankara was seeking to assert a watershed in which a new Turkish regional dominance and a new Turkish strategic agenda would have to be accepted by the West.

Make Bernanke understand gold movements
By Andrew Mickey- CommodityOnline.com
“I don’t fully understand movements in the gold price…”
That’s what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted this week. But if he were to look at what’s actually going on and every move he has made since 2008, he would understand the price of gold and see where it’s going next.
The Next Move for Gold
There’s no doubt the financial world is facing a lot of uncertainty. The failure of the Euro experiment, ballooning government debts and deficits, and a general economic malaise have all sent investors running into the perceived safety of corporate and government bonds (they seem safe now, but rising interest rates will destroy their value).

Gold: Ultimate overdraft protection
By Bill Fleckenstein - MSN Money
With uncertainty, volatility and money printing the orders of the day, one asset is the clear winner when it comes to protecting wealth.
A bit of economic sense emerged recently -- out of Hungary, of all places. During a three-day summit on the Hungarian economy, the idea of a 16% flat tax was apparently floated as a trial balloon. Longtime readers will recall that a flat tax is one plank in my "platform," along with tort reform, term limits and abolishment of the Federal Reserve. It will be interesting to see how long this idea can remain aloft.

Gold Bugs All Aboard the Last Train For The Coast
By: Howard Katz - MarketOracle.co.uk
All aboard, dear gold bugs. The train is slowly picking up speed and is leaving the station. It is your last chance to get aboard at a price reasonably close to $1,000/oz. Now you may not agree that $1,250 is reasonably close to $1,000, but when you see gold at $3,000, then you will agree. From the vantage of $3,000, then $1,000, $1,250 no big deal. The point is to be long of gold. You have undoubtedly heard the expression, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Well people, (some of) you ought to be ashamed. The paper aristocracy has fooled you again and again and again and is fooling you in the exact same way today.

By 2012 Gold to be parabolic top of $10,000
By Arnold Bock
No wishful thinking here! As I see it gold is going to a parabolic top of $10,000 by 2012 for very good reasons - sovereign debt defaults, bankruptcies of "too big to fail" banks and other financial entities, currency inflation and devaluations - which will all contribute to rampant price inflation.
Not surprisingly, I have company in that view: Money manager, Peter Schiff, told Business Week recently that, "Gold could reach $5,000 to $10,000 per ounce in the next 5 to 10 years" and highly respected economist David Rosenberg is of the opinion that "There is no doubt that gold can easily double from here."

Gold price pattern emerging - support and resistance both getting higher
Author: Lawrence Williams - MineWeb.net
Even though gold is finding it tough to maintain breaks through new highs, its resistance levels to which it falls back seem to be getting ever higher.
LONDON - If one looks at the gold price pattern in recent months it is apparent the metal price has been advancing in a stair step sequence. Successive upswings get higher before resistance and profit taking drives the price back down to a support level, but on each occasion that support level also seems to be advancing . The net result is that the gold price trend continues to be upwards, although if this pattern can survive the traditional northern hemisphere summer doldrums remains to be seen. There is certainly so far little sign of any breakout to significantly higher levels in sight, although a string of more bad financial news could alter that.

Where are precious metal prices going: big bank forecasts
While expected to remain broadly supported for the rest of the year, big banks do differ in their outlooks for gold, platinum and silver
LONDON (REUTERS) - MineWeb.net
Gold prices are expected to remain broadly supported in 2010 by ongoing concerns over elevated sovereign debt levels, with the low interest rate environment also seen as beneficial to the precious metal. Platinum and palladium are expected to rise steadily after correcting sharply in May, with industrial demand for the autocatalyst materials seen rising as the broader economic environment improves.

Dr. Marc Faber on Goldseek Radio June 12, 2010

Dollar pares losses after Greece downgrade
Mostly lower as investors embrace risk; Korean won soars
By Deborah Levine & William L. Watts, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The dollar dropped Monday by the most in three weeks against the euro as renewed investor appetite for equities and other assets undercut safe-haven demand for the greenback. The euro held the bulk of its gains after Moody's Investors Service downgraded Greece's debt ratings, having headed up following upbeat industrial data for the region.

Greece Cut Four Steps to Junk by Moody's on 'Risks'
By Ben Martin and Maria Petrakis
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Greece's credit rating was cut four steps to non-investment grade, or junk, by Moody's Investors Service, which warned of the rising economic cost of the debt- strapped country's budget cuts.
The rating was lowered to Ba1 from A3, Moody's said in a statement today in London, citing "substantial" risks to economic growth from the austerity measures tied to a 110 billion-euro ($134.5 billion) aid package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The lower rating "incorporates a greater, albeit, low risk of default," Moody's said. The outlook is stable, it said.

Europe's Banks Face Second Funding Squeeze on Sovereign Crisis
by Gavin Finch and John Glover
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- European banks at risk of writedowns from the sovereign debt crisis face a funding squeeze that may depress earnings, curb lending and imperil economic recovery in the region.
Investors are shunning bank securities on concern Greek, Portuguese and Spanish bonds held by the lenders will plunge in value. Bank bond sales slowed in May to the lowest since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s failure in 2008 as the extra yield buyers demand to hold the securities over government debt soared to the highest this year. Firms are wary of lending to each other, depositing record funds with the European Central Bank.

The Fractional-Reserve Banking Question
Mises Daily: by Robert P. Murphy
Austrian economics is superior to Marxism in every respect, and this includes internal, sectarian squabbles. When we Austrians feel the time is ripe for another bloodletting - it keeps us strong by thinning the herd once in a while - we argue over fractional-reserve banking.
If you have never had the pleasure of watching such fireworks, I point you to Joe Salerno's recent blog post; it has enough links to bring you up to speed. In the present article, I want to walk through a simple example to make sure everyone understands exactly why some of us think fractional-reserve banking is just plain weird.

WaMu files new reorganization plan
By RANDALL CHASE (AP)
WILMINGTON, Del. - Washington Mutual Inc. has again revised its proposed bankruptcy reorganization plan. The new plan filed Monday tweaks the allocation of tax refunds to be shared by WMI and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in a proposed settlement of lawsuits filed after the FDIC seized WMI's flagship bank in 2008 and sold it to JPMorgan for $1.9 billion.

Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case
By Lorraine Woellert and John Gittelsohn
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.
Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.

US finds mineral riches in Afghanistan
By Michael Wesp - Online Editor - KETKnbc.com
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. geologists have discovered vast mineral wealth in Afghanistan, possibly amounting to $1 trillion, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said Monday.
Waheed Omar told reporters the findings were made by the U.S. Geological Survey under contract to the Afghan government.
"The result of the survey ... has shown that Afghanistan has mineral resources worth $1 trillion," Omar said. "This is not an overall survey of all minerals in Afghanistan. Whatever has been found in this survey is worth $1 trillion."

China, Not U.S., Likely to Benefit from Afghanistan's Mineral Riches
By CHARLES WALLACE - DailyFinance.com
Although the U.S. government has spent more than $940 billion on the conflict in Afghanistan since 2001, a treasure trove of mineral deposits, including vast quantities of industrial metals such as lithium, gold, cobalt, copper and iron, are likely to wind up going to Russia and China instead of American firms.
The New York Times reported Monday that U.S. officials and American geologists have found an estimated $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits that have yet to be exploited in the country. The paper said a Pentagon report called Afghanistan potentially "the Saudi Arabia of lithium," a key component in batteries for cellphones, laptop computers and eventually, a plug-in fleet of electric cars.

Obama urges tourism to aid Gulf
A lot of beaches 'not yet affected
By Kara Rowland - WashingtonTimes.com
THEODORE, Ala. | With oil still spewing from a broken well in the Gulf, President Obama made his fourth trip to the region Monday, imploring Americans to support the local economy by visiting here and vowing to help the area rebound from the disaster.
On the sweltering first day of a two-day trip to affected areas in the three states east of Louisiana, Mr. Obama met with local officials and business owners in Gulfport, Miss., and then toured a massive staging facility in Alabama, where bright orange cargo containers filled with booms to help curb the oil slick await deployment.
Miles away, black sludge is slowly creeping toward the pristine Mobile Bay wetlands.

Sadness in Gulf: Reality Hits Home
Matt Gutman is in the Gulf as people come to grips with the size of the spill.

Foreign flagging of offshore rigs skirts U.S. safety rules
By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, Tribune Washington Bureau - LATimes.com
The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands - a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.
And the Marshall Islands, a maze of tiny atolls, many smaller than the ill-fated oil rig, outsourced many of its responsibilities to private companies.

BP 'Carelessness' Increased Risks, Lawmakers Say
By Jeff Plungis
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc's efforts to speed work and cut costs at a well in the Gulf of Mexico added to the danger of a disaster before the explosion that caused the biggest U.S. oil spill, two House Democrats said today.
"Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense," Representatives Henry Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan said in a letter to BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward. "If this is what happened, BP's carelessness and complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf, its inhabitants, and the workers on the rig."

Lawmakers accuse BP of 'shortcuts'
By Steven Mufson and Anne E. Kornblut - Washington Post
To save time and drilling costs, BP took "shortcuts" that may have led to the oil rig explosion and the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a letter released Monday by two House Democrats leading an investigation of the disaster.
The letter, sent in advance of congressional hearings with senior oil executives this week, paints a damning picture of five decisions the lawmakers said the oil firm took "to speed finishing the well," which was running "significantly behind schedule." Marshaling e-mails, interviews and documents, the lawmakers said: "In effect, it appears that BP repeatedly chose risky procedures in order to reduce costs and save time, and made minimal efforts to contain the added risk."

Natural Gas Drilling May Not Be Healthy
Many children and adults who live near gas drilling have health concerns.
ABC Video

Obama Said Set to Name Overseer for Offshore Drilling
By Hans Nichols and Roger Runningen
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama likely will name a new chief to oversee federal management of offshore oil and gas exploration tomorrow after returning from a two-day visit to the region hit by the BP Plc oil spill, an administration official said.
Obama arrived this morning in Mississippi for a briefing and meetings with gulf coast residents as he is pushing BP to boost work on containing the oil gushing from a damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico and to set up a multibillion-dollar escrow account to pay for damage caused by the spill.

BP LAYS OUT LATEST OIL-RECOVERY SCHEME
TruthDog.com
So, British Petroleum rolled out a new and ambitious oil-recovery plan on Monday, claiming it will increase its capturing capacity to at least 40,000 barrels a day by month's end. This is just too little, too late for all those oiled-up pelicans, however. -KA
The Wall Street Journal:
BP, which said further enhancements will increase the collection capacity to as high as 80,000 barrels a day by mid-July, submitted its latest plan after Mr. Watson, the federal government's second-in-command for the spill response, told the company Friday its previous plan was insufficient and gave BP a 48-hour deadline to come up with a revised approach.

BP moves up schedule, handling capacity for spill
Slick effort focuses on coastal Alabama; semisubmersible rig ready to go By Steve Gelsi & Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- A damaged BP PLC oil well continues to leak about 20,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico, with the environmental crisis approaching its eighth week and related costs so far nearing $2 billion, ahead of a showdown between President Barack Obama and Carl-Henric Svanberg, the company's chairman.
While a containment cap is drawing about 15,000 barrels a day from the riser pipe on the seabed off the coast of Louisiana, BP now plans to add up to 10,000 barrels a day of spill-capture capacity as early as Tuesday, but even that won't contain all the gushing oil seen on subsea video.

Obama Returns to Gulf Amid Criticism
Following Visits to Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, President Is Expected to Address Nation on Crisis From Oval Office
By JONATHAN WEISMAN And MIKE ESTERL
THEODORE, Ala. - President Barack Obama traveled to the Gulf of Mexico region Monday to launch a critical week for an administration buffeted by one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. With his visits to Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, Mr. Obama was trying to blunt criticism of his administration's efforts to guard those states from the environmental and economic damage already done to Louisiana.

Dem Richard Goodstein On Fox Compares BP Oil Spill To OKC Bombing

BP Submits Capture Plan, Obama Seeks Escrow Account
By Mark Chediak
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc sent a revised oil-capture plan for its leaking Gulf of Mexico well to the Obama administration as the government demanded an escrow account for damage claims related to the biggest petroleum spill in the nation's history.
BP said 53,000 barrels of oil a day can be captured by the end of June, two weeks sooner than previously proposed, according to a copy of the plan provided by the administration. BP also proposed to raise capacity to 80,000 barrels by mid-July as a safeguard against breakdowns. The London-based company has been collecting about 15,000 barrels a day for the past week.

134-year-old oyster company stops shucking
By Catherine Clifford
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- P&J Oyster Company, a 134-year old operation in the heart of New Orleans' French Quarter, has stopped shucking.
The company processes and distributes oysters. A big part of its business was shucking oysters out of their shells, but that has been killed off by the BP oil spill. Fewer oysters are being farmed in the oil-stained waters of the Gulf of Mexico. So P&J Oyster has no oysters to shuck.

Arizona immigration bill may increase foreclosures
The highly criticized (and praised) immigration bill set to take effect in Arizona in six weeks could boost foreclosures and wreak havoc on housing in the state, according to a report from Azcentral.com. Apparently there are "thousands if not tens of thousands" of illegal immigrants who purchased homes in Arizona during the housing boom, thanks to the widespread availability of mortgage products like no documentation loans. And many real estate professionals and mortgage lenders simply looked the other way when it came to immigration status - if they did "check," it wasn't difficult to produce false documentation.

Economy in U.S. Slows as States Lose Federal Stimulus Funds
By Rich Miller and Anthony Feld
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Spending cuts by state and local governments from New York to California may act as a drag on the economy into 2011, only the second time in more than a half century that such reductions have restricted growth for three consecutive years.
States face a cumulative budget gap of $127.4 billion as 46 prepare for the start of their fiscal year on July 1, according to a report this month by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers. They will have to fill that hole largely on their own, as aid from the federal government under programs including President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package starts to wind down.

Tardy States' Credit Ratings at Risk as Budget Deadlines Near
By Dunstan McNichol
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Eight U.S. states, including California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois, risk lower credit ratings because they lack completed budgets less than three weeks before the start of their new fiscal years.
A ninth, New York, has operated without one since its year started April 1. All are gripped by political stalemates over how to cope with a collapse in tax revenue that included a $67 billion decline in the 12 months ended June 30, 2009, according to the Census Bureau. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government called that the biggest on record.

Feds Move In On Queens N.Y Under Eminent Domain

Top Execs Leave Bankrupt Subprime Mortgage Lender Fremont
by DIANA GOLOBAY - HousingWire.com
Bankrupt subprime lender and servicer Fremont General saw its top executives resign, effective July 5, after a bankruptcy reorganization plan called for a scaling back of their responsibilities, according to a regulatory filing.
Richard Sanchez resigned on June 4 as interim president and CEO of Fremont and Fremont Reorganizing Corp. (FRC) after experiencing a "material demotion" when his duties were slashed as of the confirmation date of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan dated May 11, 2010.

HOPE Mortgage Company Ordered to Cease and Desist
by Kentucky RealEstateRama
FRANKFORT, KY - June 14, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) - The Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) today issued a cease and desist order against a mortgage company called Home Ownership Possibilities for Everyone LLC (HOPE) in Louisville, Ky.
The order prohibits HOPE from engaging in the mortgage business in Kentucky. The order states the company operated as a mortgage loan broker, but was not licensed or exempt from licensure; charged illegal upfront fees; and made misrepresentations, concealed facts or engaged in business that has tended to work as a fraud.

Foreclosures skyrocket, State tries to help
By Amy Cherry - wdel.com
Foreclosures skyrocket here in Delaware over the past 12 months, and now, state officials are meeting at a foreclosure summit to come up with ways to combat the challenge.
The seed was planted with the subprime mortgage crisis, and the problem has gotten worse. Foreclosure filings in Delaware tripled over the last year to 6,500.

Loveland, Colo.: Baby Boomers welcome, but inventory's tight
By Christine Dugas, USA TODAY
One of the biggest problems facing the real estate market in Loveland, Colo., is a shortage of low-price homes.
In the city, which is south of Fort Collins, there are few homes below $150,000. "I have numerous buyers, but there is no inventory to put them into," says Renae Hupp, president of the Loveland-Berthoud Association of Realtors.

Walking away from homes sign of times
Once foreclosure was the "f" word that no one wanted to say, let alone experience. Now, it's become an everyday reality. Besides the many people caught in the subprime mortgage crisis, increasingly there are homeowners in dire straits who choose to go into foreclosure. And remarkably, many stay in their homes long after they stop paying their mortgage.

Fed up with the economy and white-collar drudgery, college grads turn to trades
By Carol Morello - Washington Post
Armed with a bachelor's degree in theology from Notre Dame, Adam Osielski was pondering a route well traveled: law school.
He watched his friends work long hours as paralegals while studying law and weighed the all-encompassing commitment. That was five years ago. Today, Osielski, 29, is a journeyman electrician rather than a law firm associate. Or, as Osielski might say with his minor in French, an électricien.

Employers to see 9% jump in 2011 medical costs
By Tom Murphy, AP Business Writer - USAToday.com
INDIANAPOLIS — Companies that offer employee health insurance expect another steep jump in medical costs next year, and more will ask workers to share a bigger chunk of the expense, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report.
For the first time, most of the American workforce is expected to have health insurance deductibles of $400 or more, the consulting firm said in a report.

Enjoy low gas prices while they last
Falling costs may have ended, expect rise
By Mark Williams AP - MSNBC.com
It looks like the nearly six-week run in lower gasoline prices is just about over.
Gasoline prices have dropped about 8 percent since hitting $2.93 per gallon on May 6 on the back of lower oil prices. Pump prices fell 0.3 cent to a national average of $2.698 a gallon Monday, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
Prices are now about the same as the 2009 peak.

Unions Shielded From New ObamaCare Coverage Requirements
By Philip Klein - The American Spectator.org
Last Friday, I noted how new regulations stemming from the national health care law could force a majority of workers to change their health care plans -- breaking President Obama's pledge that he would allow Americans who liked their plans to keep them.
But digging deeper into the regulations, David Hogberg and Sean Higgins of Investors Business Daily find that Obama's big labor allies were granted a special exemption that would sheild their plans from new requirements:

Freedom Watch - The Judge, Ron Paul And Sarah Palin

The Tea Party and the Looming Financial Cataclysm
By: Gary North - MarketOracle.co.uk
The phrase "Tea Party" is synonymous these days with the politics of spending cuts. The big one is the compulsory health insurance law. Tea Party people want it repealed. Yet in the grand scheme of things fiscal, that law is a drop in the tea cup.
In my previous report, "A $600+ Billion Spending Cut," I suggested a sure-fire way to cut a big chunk of spending out of government budgets: local, state, and federal. Stop funding all education. The typical voter reads this and thinks: "But that would end all progress." There is no constituency for such an across-the-board spending cut. The Tea Party has not recommended it.
There are other cuts possible - much larger cuts: end both Social Security and Medicare. Same response, only louder.

OUTRAGE
Oregon Firearms Federeation
Imagine your telephone ringing in the middle of the night. The caller informs you that he is a police officer. He wants to "get you the help and appropriate resources you need." But wait, you have not asked for any help, don't need any help, and certainly don't want this "help" in the middle of the night.
But this offer of "help" and "appropriate resources" is an offer you can't refuse. You see, your home is surrounded by SWAT teams from multiple jurisdictions. There are men in helmets with machine guns everywhere. Snipers are aiming at your home. You are told to come outside. You are promised you won't be arrested, handcuffed or removed from your property. You are told your possessions will not be confiscated. The friendly paramilitary troops outside your house just want to chat with you.

Resource Starved China Looking to Capital Starved Russia
Written by David Caploe PhD - OilPrice.com
The Kimkan open pit mine in Siberia is a muddy square mile surrounded by birch and cedar forests so vast they seem to stretch to the ends of the earth.
As with many places in Siberia, it is nearly impossible to drive here. Yet just under the surface, Russian geologists say, lies enough iron ore to build hundreds of millions of cars.

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan struggle to stop ethnic violence
By Philip P. Pan - Washington Post
MOSCOW -- Witnesses reported intermittent shooting and fresh fires in southern Kyrgyzstan on Monday as authorities struggled to stop the nation's worst ethnic violence in two decades and as many as 150,000 people sought refuge at the border with Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz government said the death toll climbed to 124 on Monday, with more than 1,600 wounded. But local officials and aid workers said the actual number of casualties may be much higher because bodies remain uncollected and people are too scared to go to hospitals. Uzbek community leaders told local news agencies that as many as 700 ethnic Uzbeks had been killed.

S. Korean president calls for higher military readiness
By Hyung-jin Kim ASSOCIATED PRESS - WashingtonTimes.com
Top general retires over ship sinking
SEOUL (AP) -- South Korea's president called Monday for greater military readiness and a stern response to North Korea over the sinking of a warship or risk a repeat attack, as his top military officer stood down over the deadly incident. South Korea has taken a slew of punitive measures against North Korea, including resuming propaganda operations, after blaming Pyongyang for torpedoing the South Korean warship Cheonan in March. Forty-six South Korean sailors died.

Gerald Celente:
U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 - 1/7

Gerald Celente:
U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 - 2/7

Gerald Celente:
U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 - 3/7

Gerald Celente:
U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 - 4/7

Gerald Celente:
U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 - 5/7

Gerald Celente:
U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 - 6/7

Gerald Celente:
U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 - 7/7

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monday 06.14.2010

Washington First International Bank, Seattle, Washington
Bank Implode-O-Meter
Washington First International Bank, Seattle, Washington, became the 82nd ailing bank to be closed by the FDIC this year. The agency estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $158.4 million.
Washington First International Bank, Seattle, Washington, was closed today by the Washington Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with East West Bank, Pasadena, California, to assume all of the deposits of Washington First International Bank.

I Guess Nobody Wants to Read Bad News:
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's Testimony to Congress
Mandelman Matters
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke testified to Congress this past week on the topic: "Economic and financial conditions and the federal budget." I had hoped to watch it, but as it turned out I didn't have the time that day, so later that evening I went online to find a transcript of Bernanke's testimony. It wasn't the least bit hard to find, the Federal Reserve posted it on its site, federalreserve.gov.

It wasn't particularly long, so I read it right away, and it was chilling. Finally, I thought, Bernanke has said it in no uncertain terms: We're in deep, deep trouble; the answers are going to mean widespread pain, and the impact essentially permanent. Based on what the Fed Chief said, our economic crisis is not something we can expect to follow the course of past recessions, to the contrary, what's ahead for this country is not the same America as the one we've known over the last 30 years.
Like I said, it was chilling.

Currency Collapse May Stimulate Economic Expansion, BIS Says
By Matthew Brown
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Currency collapses tend to spur a resumption of economic growth rather than fueling a decline in gross domestic product, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
Currency collapses are associated with permanent output losses of about 6 percent of GDP, on average, though the drop tends to appear beforehand, the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS said in its quarterly review yesterday.

Investors are betting on a Black Monday-style collapse, BoE warns
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor - Telegraph.co.uk
Investors are placing bets on a Black Monday-style crash in the British stock market at the fastest rate since the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in 2008, the Bank of England has warned.
In a survey of markets, the Bank warned that widespread fear over the possible collapse of a sovereign debtor, including Greece and Portugal, had sparked a mass of bets on a 20 per cent fall in the FTSE 100. The warning coincides with calculations from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) showing that Britain has major exposure to the Irish and Spanish banking systems, which many fear could be at risk in the next round of the financial crisis.

I got your "recovery" right here
Vox Popoli
The Federal Reserve Z1 report came out on Friday and the only surprise was that the decline in Household debt has not kept pace with the decline in Financial debt. However, the pattern to which I alerted you in RGD has continued; Federal debt has grown an astounding 48% since Q2 2008 while overall debt has fallen by 0.6%. Since G (government spending) is a primary component of GDP, this proves that there is no private economic growth, there is only a massive amount of government borrowing and spending being used to temporarily prop up the economy.

Market uncertainty turning people to Gold
Tucson - (Kitco News) - The chairman of the 34th edition of the International Precious Metals Institute Conference (IPMI) says the industry needs to embrace change and capitalize on gold's current momentum.
The IPMI conference is taking place in Tucson, Arizona, June 12 to 15 and is a members-only event that attracts some of the biggest movers and shakers in the field. The conference is entitled, "Crisis? What Crisis? Precious Metals in a World Beyond its Tipping Point," and was inspired by a Supertramp song says Bodo Albrecht, who is the chair.

Uncertainty Restores Glitter to an Old Refuge, Gold
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ - NYTimes.com
It is the resurgent passion of the doomsday crowd, a bet that everything will go wrong. No matter what has you worried, they say, the answer is gold. Inflation, deflation, government borrowing or the plunging euro - you name it - the specter of these concerns has set off a dash to gold, driving the precious metal to new highs and illustrating how fears of economic turmoil have moved from the fringe to the mainstream.

Gold, silver markets stabilize
By Jon Nadler
Overnight gold markets stabilized and bounced back a tad as some bargain hunters emerged in the $1215-$1220 range and halted further declines in the metal. The trade is seen awaiting the release of the retails sales and consumer confidence numbers later this morning. One thing players did not have to wait for was Chinese inflation figures. They showed a stronger-than-anticipated gain of 3.1% in May, once again raising apprehensions that the country is overheating even before summer officially begins.

Why Marc Faber and Jim Rogers hold on to gold
CommodityOnline.com
Confusion over the daily fluctuation of the markets based on little snippets and tidbits of news can drive even the most astute trader or speculator batty, but in the case of gold, investors and pundits like Marc Faber and Jim Rogers aren't confused at all, and they both say they have no intention of selling their gold, and are always on the lookout for dips so they can acquire more.
Without getting into too much detail, the reasons these guys continue to do this is there overall understanding of the macro-economic circumstances.

Why China did not grab IMF gold
By Jon Nadler
Calmer conditions returned to the markets overnight as several factors conspired to divert investors from the panicky behavior they exhibited earlier in the week. The euro strengthened a tad, rising above the 1.20 mark once again, the US dollar declined a little, the Nikkei index eked out a 103 point gain, and thus profit-takers regained the upper hand in bullion markets as Thursday's action got underway overseas.
Risk appetite appeared to turn healthier in most markets, but in the case of gold that meant a decline in purchasing appetite, and the realization that scrap flows are eclipsing physical offtake once again just as the 'summer doldrums' are upon us.

Geithner Says China's Yuan Peg Hurts Global Recovery
By Ian Katz
June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said China's exchange-rate policy prevents a balanced global recovery and urged a stronger yuan to help contain inflation in the world's third-largest economy.
"The distortions caused by China's exchange rate spread far beyond China's borders and are an impediment to the global rebalancing we need," Geithner said in testimony to the Senate Finance Committee. China's commerce ministry said hours later that the yuan's peg to the dollar remains unchanged and the country's policy was made clear to the U.S. in talks last month.

U.S. Presses China Over Trade, Yuan
By IAN TALLEY And TOM BARKLEY - WSJ.com
New data Thursday showed the U.S. trade deficit widened in April as the government stepped up pressure on China to implement changes aimed at narrowing the trade gap. The Commerce Department said the U.S. deficit in international trade of goods and services increased 0.6% to $40.29 billion from a revised $40.05 billion the month before. Exports fell by $813 million, while higher oil prices helped to drive imports up by $1.61 billion.

S.E.C. Approves Circuit Breaker; Urges New Rules
NYTimes.com
Last month's market volatility and concerns over unfair trading may require new controls on electronic trading systems, Mary L. Schapiro, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said on Thursday, even as the agency approved circuit breakers for the exchanges.
Speaking at an international meeting of securities regulators, Ms. Shapiro suggested that the growth of new forms of electronic trading, particularly computer systems that turn over thousands of a shares a second, may be creating a false sense of market liquidity and putting many investors at a disadvantage, Ian Austen reports in The New York Times.

FDIC Tries New Twists To Sell Assets
By ANUSHA SHRIVASTAVA - WSJ.com
Just as they did two decades ago, U.S. banking regulators are holding a mountain of assets seized from failed banks. This time, though, the government is leaning harder on the private sector to hold and sell more of the $600 billion in dud loans, foreclosed buildings and other assets.
After the savings-and-loan crisis, the Resolution Trust Corp. sold 89% of the $453 billion in assets it got from 747 failed financial institutions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In comparison, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is selling just 11% of the assets inherited from 246 banks and savings institutions that collapsed amid the industry's current woes.

Pento Says U.S. Double-Dip Recession 'Virtually Assured'
Randy - Economicrot blog
Two interviews with Michael Pento, senior market strategist at Delta Global Advisors. Pento, speaking from New York, doesn't hold any punches as he discusses his gloomy outlook for markets and our global economy.

THEY JUST DON'T GET IT!
MICHAEL PENTO PREDICTS DOUBLE DIP 6-9-2010

Gulf oil spill: Government tells BP to come up with speedier containment plans within 48 hours
LATimes.com
The federal government has given BP until the end of the weekend to find ways to speed up efforts to contain huge amounts of oil gushing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a letter released Saturday.
Coast Guard Rear Adm. James A. Watson sent a letter to BP officials on Friday expressing frustration with the overall pace of the effort and ordered the company to identify ways to expedite the process in the coming days. "Recognizing the complexity of this challenge, every effort must be expended to speed up the process," Watson wrote in the letter, sent to Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer.

U.S. Fury at BP Stirs Backlash Among British
Spewing oil and alienating Americans with its chief executive's impolitic remarks, BP may be Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States. But in Britain, where the company is a mainstay of the stock market and a favorite of pension funds, investors and politicians are becoming increasingly angry at the blistering attacks from across the Atlantic, The New York Times's Sarah Lyall and Julia Werdigier write.
BP's share price, even after recovering some ground in New York trading on Thursday, has fallen more than 40 percent since the environmental catastrophe in April, and some analysts say the crisis could lead to the takeover or even the bankruptcy of one of Britain's most valuable and iconic companies.

Obama to address nation on oil disaster Tuesday night
By the CNN Wire Staff
Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama will visit the Gulf states affected by the oil spill on Monday and Tuesday and then address the nation on Tuesday night from the White House on the next steps in responding to the environmental catastrophe, his senior adviser said Sunday.
On his fourth visit to the Gulf region since the disaster began on April 20, Obama will make stops in Theodore, Alabama; Gulfport, Mississippi, and Pensacola, Florida, according to senior administration officials.

Gulf oil spill: Senate Democrats call on BP to set aside $20 billion to pay for cleanup and economic damages
LATimes.com
majority of the Senate called on BP to set up a $20-billion account, administered by an independent trustee, to pay for cleanup and economic damages from the massive gulf oil spill, calling it an important step toward "ensuring that there will be no delay in payments or attempt to evade responsibility for damages."
The request came in a letter signed by 54 senators, or nearly the entire Democratic caucus. "The damages caused by your company are far reaching," the legislators wrote to BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward.

Long After the BP Oil Spill, Business and Markets Will Suffer
By VISHESH KUMAR - DailyFinance.com
The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets, the old axiom goes. But for shares of BP (BP), the time to buy might be as oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico.
Liabilities for the company continue to mount, along with gargantuan damage to the Gulf Coast. On Sunday, reports that President Obama will push to have the company put aside set aside large amounts of cash, to compensate businesses and persons affected by the oil spill, added to the tensions already brewing about whether the company should suspend paying dividends to shareholders.

Winners and Losers from The Gulf Oil Spill
Written by Robert Bryce - OilPrice.com
The oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico provides a near-perfect onshore platform for political demagoguery.
That demagoguery was evident last week during just a few minutes of channel surfing. Rachel Maddow was on MSNBC denouncing BP and all things oil while Laura Ingraham was on Fox laying waste to all things Obama and the president’s inability to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama declared that he was trying to figure out “whose ass to kick” for the blowout.

Gulf oil spill: Save accident evidence, congressional investigators say
Two congressmen leading investigations into the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion asked Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen to "secure the chain of custody of the blowout preventer from the moment it is lifted from the well until it reaches port and can be turned over to federal investigators as evidence."
The congressmen, Reps. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) and James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), said: "Questions have arisen related to the inspection, operation, and maintenance of the failed blowout preventer system."

Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Was - Until Last Year - Also Chairman of BP
Washington's Blog
Janine Wedel has written extensively on how the "shadow elite" rule the world and about the "flexians" - the movers and shakers of the shadow elite who glide across borders, and structure overlapping (and not fully revealed) roles in government, business, media, and think tanks to serve their own agendas.
Wedel says that flexians wear many hats both within and outside of government, and use their networks of contacts to influence policy - are warping our democracy and the rule of law.
Peter Sutherland is the quintessential flexian.

Obama Administration Rejected Help with Oil Spill Cleanup
BY JAMAL WASHINGTON - FortLiberty.org
I have been trying not to be too hard on the Obama Administration regarding their bungling of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. After all, this is Obama's first real job and he's a lawyer, not an engineer. It turns out that my forbearance in criticizing the Obama administration over this issue was largely unearned.
Three days after the explosion, the Dutch government offered to assist the United States by sending ships equipped with oil-skimming booms. It also provided a plan for creating sand barriers to protect the sensitive marshlands of the Gulf coast.

The Numbers Get Worse With Each Look at Oil Flow
By Seth Borenstein and Harry R. Weber, Associated Press
Houston (AP) - With each new look by scientists, the oil spill just keeps looking worse.
New figures for the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico show the amount of oil spewing may have been up to twice as much as previously thought, according to scientists consulting with the federal government.
That could mean 42 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have already fouled the Gulf's fragile waters, affecting people who live, work and play along the coast from Louisiana to Florida -- and perhaps beyond.

Oil Now Flowing Into Loop Current
by The Tampa Tribune
Published: Fri, May 07, 2010
GULF OF MEXICO - Oil from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico has gotten sucked into the Loop Current, the conveyor belt of water that could send some of the mess to the Florida Keys and up the East Coast.
That's the opinion of Hans Graber, a professor at the University of Miami, who has been watching the progression of the oil based on satellite images.

'Small portion' of slick in Loop Current
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
NOAA unsure of path; offshore oil agency being split into 3 groups
WASHINGTON - The latest satellite and overflight data shows a "small portion" of the BP oil slick has reached the Loop Current "in the form of light to very light sheens," the federal government said Wednesday.
But the update also cautioned that "in the time it would take for oil to travel to the vicinity of the Florida Straits, any oil would be highly weathered and both the natural process of evaporation and the application of chemical dispersants would reduce the oil volume significantly."

US oil spill 'enters Loop Current' with Florida at risk
BBCNews.co.uk - 19 May 2010 23:09 UK
The first oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill has entered an ocean current that could take it to Florida and up the east coast of the US, scientists say.
A "small portion" of oil sheen is in the Loop Current, which circulates in the Gulf, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
Diluted oil could appear in isolated parts of Florida if persistent winds pushed the current that way, it added. European scientists warn the spill could reach Florida within six days.

Senator Nelson: The BP Well May Have Lost Structural Integrity Beneath the Sea Floor
Washington's Blog
On May 31st, the Washington Post noted:
Sources at two companies involved with the well said that BP also discovered new damage inside the well below the seafloor and that, as a result, some of the drilling mud that was successfully forced into the well was going off to the side into rock formations.
"We discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface," said a BP official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said that mud was making it "out to the side, into the formation."
On June 2nd, Bloomberg pointed out:
Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

Is BP Stopping Journalists from Observing the Oil Slick?
The FAA denies it.
BY MICHAEL WARREN - WeeklyStandard.com
Two weeks ago, Newsweek's Matthew Phillips reported that some photographers and other journalists were being "blockaded" from reporting on the oil spill by the government and BP: The latest instance of denied press access comes from Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc., which was scheduled to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer for a flyover on Tuesday afternoon, and says it was denied permission once BP officials learned that a member of the press would be on board.

First the Spill, Then the Lawsuits
By JOHN SCHWARTZ - NYTimes.com
"Oil spill damages? You May Be Entitled to Compensation," reads a billboard in LaFourche Parish, Louisiana. It is just one of the tactics lawyers are using to sign up clients to sue BP, along with running advertisements on Gulf Coast television stations, buying Internet addresses like GulfOilSpillLawFirm.com, and holding informational seminars - with free food and drinks - for those who feel the oil company owes them something.

Self-Destruction in Illinois
Democrats melt down in Obama's home state.
BY FRED BARNES - WeeklyStandard.com
Chicago - Obamaland is crumbling. Democrats have firmly controlled Illinois, the president's home state, for nearly a decade, turning it into what one Republican called "a deep blue state." But this has changed almost overnight. In the midterm elections on November 2, Democrats stand to lose the governorship, Obama's old Senate seat, two to four House seats, and any number of state legislative seats and down-ticket statewide offices.

Illinois suffers new credit rating blow
By Nicole Bullock in New York and Hal Weitzman in Chicago - FT.com
Illinois' unwillingness to tackle its budget woes prompted Fitch on Friday to become the second agency in a week to downgrade the cash-strapped state, which is likely to push up the stateÕs borrowing costs as it prepares to issue new debt.
Fitch lowered the rating on Illinois' general obligation bonds from "A+" to "A" and assigned them a negative outlook, signalling it could downgrade the state further. The move came a week after Moody's moved the stateÕs general obligation rating to A1 from Aa3. Standard & PoorÕs rates Illinois"A+".

Economists consider tearing down homes to protect housing market
By Elizabeth Razzi - WashingtonPost.om
Douglas Duncan, vice president and chief economist for Fannie Mae, raised a provocative idea at a recent meeting of real estate journalists in Austin: Some of the misconceived housing developments built during the boom years might have to be torn down because they don't make financial sense.
Duncan agreed with Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com, who warned that a "tremendous shadow inventory" of homes is poised to come on the market.

Bill would extend home buyers' deadline for tax credit
By Dina ElBoghdady - Washington Post
Home buyers hoping to take advantage of a lucrative federal tax credit would get three extra months to complete their purchases under a proposal introduced in the Senate on Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) co-authored a proposal that would allow those eligible for the tax credit to close on a home by Sept. 30 to give lenders more time to process a crush of applications.

The Long Road Back to an Asset-Based Economy
Tim Iacono - SeekingAlpha.com
It looks like it's going to be a long road back to the asset-based economic prosperity that we once knew in the U.S., the Federal Reserve's latest Z1 Flow of Funds Report showing that they really need to get on the ball at the central bank and get something inflated fast.

Obama makes plea for state aid
By JEFF BATER - WSJ.com
President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to approve more measures to aid state and local governments hit by the economic downturn, but concern over the U.S.'s mounting debt could snarl passage.
Mr. Obama on Saturday sent a letter to lawmakers calling for swift action to help U.S. small businesses and state and local governments facing budget cuts, as the country continues to grapple with the after-effects of the global financial crisis.

Economy in U.S. Slows as States Lose Federal Stimulus Funds
By Rich Miller and Anthony Feld
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Spending cuts by state and local governments from New York to California may act as a drag on the economy into 2011, only the second time in more than a half century that such reductions have restricted growth for three consecutive years.
States face a cumulative budget gap of $127.4 billion as 46 prepare for the start of their fiscal year on July 1, according to a report this month by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers. They will have to fill that hole largely on their own, as aid from the federal government under programs including President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package starts to wind down.

Mortgage Applications Hit 13yr Low
BY WILL.SPENCE - FortLiberty.org
The MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) reports weekly data on mortgage applications. Despite artificially low interest rates and the lowest real estate prices we've seen in years, mortgage applications on new loans are at a 13yr low.
In the words of David Rosenberg, Chief Economist for Gluskin-Sheff, "Despite near record-high affordability, people would clearly prefer to rent or to stay doubled-up in their existing residence with the cousins, in-laws and Ma and Pa. Homeownership is clearly no longer up there with other motherhood items like baseball, hot dogs or apple pie."

House bill puts squeeze on FHA buyers
By York Van Nixon III - Charlotte Examiner
Who said Congress never get anything done? When it comes to sticking fingers in taxpayers' pockets, sometimes both sides of the aisle come together and turn their constituents upside down to see if anything falls to the floor. On Thursday, in a near unanimous vote of 406 to 4, the House of Representative passed the FHA Reform Act (H.R. 5072). This new bill, on its way to the Senate, will enable the Federal Housing Agency (FHA) to restructure its current mortgage insurance premium program by tripling borrower's annual premium cap. The current rate of 0.55 percent could increase to as high as 1.50 percent.

Mortgage Debt Falls, Property Values Stabilize
Tim Iacono - SeekingAlpha.com
Here's another chart derived from the Federal Reserve's latest Z1 Flow of Funds Report showing an improving situation for homeowners - home prices having now stabilized a bit with outstanding mortgage debt on the decline, partly due to losses being taken by banks.

The Massachusetts health care mess is coming soon to the rest of America
By: Sally C. Pipes - Washington Examiner
Devotees of big government, like Archimedes, believe that if they have a long lever and a place to stand, they can move the world. In 2006, a bipartisan band of such politicians in Massachusetts immersed themselves in wishful thinking, ignored both hard facts and proven theory, and used their political muscle to build bureaucracy, increase taxes, and aggregated power to remake health care in the Bay State.

New Hips Gone Awry Expose U.S. Kickbacks in Doctors' Conflicts
By David Armstrong
June 11 (Bloomberg) -- A stabbing pain in the hip forced Mark Hirschbeck to abandon his post at third base during an April 2003 game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies.
He was 42, among the best umpires in professional baseball and unwilling to quit a job that paid more than $350,000 a year. Dr. John Keggi offered a hip replacement that could get him back on the field by 2004, Hirschbeck says. That didn't happen. The ceramic joint made by Wright Medical Group Inc. shattered, leading to an infection and four more surgeries that left Hirschbeck permanently sidelined.

China Inflation Rises to a 19-Month High
By BETTINA WASSENER - NYTimes.com
New data from China on Friday cemented the view that the country's giant economy powered ahead in May - though a marked rise in inflation also raised the pressure on Beijing to slow the booming pace of growth.

Obama Administration Aiding Hamas
BY JOE ROCK - FortLiberty.org
Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group which currently controls the small region of land known as the Gaza Strip, wants to kill Mosab Hassan Yousef. Mr. Yousef is the best selling author of Son of Hamas, a revealing but not flattering look into the seedy world of Islamic extremism in Palestine.
Mosab was born into Ramallah in the West Bank. His father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, is a founding leader of Hamas. Mobab was an active member of Hamas from an early age and served prison time in Israeli jails for his activities.

Obama Administration to Support Anti-Israel Resolution at UN Next Week
BY WILLIAM KRISTOL - WeeklyStandard.com
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that senior Obama administration officials have been telling foreign governments that the administration intends to support an effort next week at the United Nations to set up an independent commission, under UN auspices, to investigate Israel's behavior in the Gaza flotilla incident. The White House has apparently shrugged off concerns from elsewhere in the U.S. government that a) this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations; b) that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas; and c) that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror.

Taliban Murders 7 Year Old Boy to Punish Grandfather
BY ARNOLD VINTNER - FortLiberty.org
Abdul Woodod Alokozai, a tribal elder in the Afghan village of Heratiyan, recently spoke out against the Taliban and make positive statements regarding the government of Hamid Karzai. In response, local Taliban militants grabbed Abdul's seven year old grandson from the garden where he was playing and hanged him from a nearby tree.

PayPal.com Targets Conservative Blog as 'Hate' Site
By Robert Stacy McCain - The American Spectator.org
Conservative blogger Pamela Geller says she has been threatened with discontinuation of her online payment account by PayPal, the most widely used service of its kind. On her popular Web site, Atlas Shrugs, Geller posted the text of an e-mail notice she received Saturday morning from PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy Department.

"I AM A MUSLIM,"
OBAMA TELLS EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTER GHEIT
ISLAMIC COUP ON THE WHITE HOUSE
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he had a one-on-one meeting with Obama, in which President Obama told him that he was still a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father, the stepson of Muslim stepfather, that his half brothers in Kenya are Muslims, and that he was sympathetic towards the Muslim agenda.

A Turkey of a Policy
Obama makes the Middle East an even more dangerous place.
BY ELLIOTT ABRAMS - WeeklyStandard.com
The Gaza flotilla incident is not over. American demands for some "international role" in investigating Israel's conduct (but not, it seems, Turkey's) and for a new system of getting humanitarian aid to Gaza will be imposed on Israel one way or another before the episode will be behind us. But however they play out, this incident clarified several major trends in the region - all of which are dangerous for the United States and for our allies in the Middle East.

Violent clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks leave 49 dead and hundreds of wounded
AsiaNews.it
Gangs of young Kyrgyz have come to Osh, former President Bakiyev's stronghold, armed with firearms, metal bars and sticks to clash with ethnic Uzbeks and police. Cars and homes are set on fire. Thousands of people are fleeing towards the border with Uzbekistan. Kyrgyz government asks Russia to send in troops to quell unrest.

A year later, Green wave rippling no more
Arrests, torture, raids, summary trials and executions have crushed Iran's protest movement, a cause without a real leader. An Ahmadinejad aide prepares to run in the next presidential elections.
Tehran (AsiaNews) - The contrast could not be any greater. A year ago, millions of Iranians had taken to the streets across the country, putting their lives at risk, to protest against rigged elections won by outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Tomorrow, a year after what was the greatest challenge to Iran's 30-year-old theocratic regime, no one is likely to wear green, the colour that came to embody the pro-democracy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Friday 06.11.2010

Debt Spreading 'Like a Cancer': Black Swan Author
By: Barbara Stcherbatcheff - CNBC.com
The economic situation today is drastically worse than a couple years ago, and the euro is doomed as a concept, Nassim Taleb, professor and author of the bestselling book "The Black Swan," told CNBC on Thursday. "We had less debt cumulatively (two years ago), and more people employed. Today, we have more risk in the system, and a smaller tax base," Taleb said. "Banks balance sheets are just as bad as they were" two years ago when the crisis began and "the quality of the risks hasn't improved," he added.

Bearish Schultz says hyperinflation may happen suddenly
Crash-predicting letter says recovery might not come
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Stocks continue to flounder. A remarkable veteran editor says get used to it.
Harry Schultz' International Harry Schultz Letter was one of 2009Õs top 10 performers because it ran with the rally. And I named it Letter of the Year for 2008 because it undeniably did predict the crash, although by Hulbert Financial Digest count it didnÕt benefit, for various technical reasons.
Despite 2008, IHSL's longer-term record remains strong. Over the past five years, the letter has achieved an 11.39% annualized gain, vs. 1.02% annualized for the dividend-reinvested Wilshire 5000 Total Stock Market Index. Over the past 10 years, it has achieved a 6.12% annualized gain, vs. 0.22% annualized for the total return Wilshire.

Soros: Collapse of Financial System "Real" and "Far From Over"
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
06/10/10 Stockholm, Sweden – Billionaire investor George Soros, who earned his fame in the ’90s when he made $1 billion betting against the pound, has just leveled criticism against the entire financial system. Today, at a conference in Vienna, he vividly described the global economy going down, driven by vast government deficits.
According to Bloomberg:
"The collapse of the financial system as we know it is real, and the crisis is far from over,’ Soros said today at a conference in Vienna. 'Indeed, we have just entered Act II of the drama.' Soros, 79, said the current situation in the world economy is "eerily" reminiscent of the 1930s with governments under pressure to narrow their budget deficits at a time when the economic recovery is weak.

Push for BP to Halt Dividends Hits Resistance in Britain
By JULIA WERDIGIER - NYTimes.com
LONDON - British investors in BP are growing increasingly frustrated with the White House's involvement and comments about the company's efforts to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and partly blame politicians for the sharp drop in the share price. BP's shares, which are widely held by pension funds here, dropped 7 percent in London on Thursday because of concerns about the costs for the oil cleanup. The shares have fallen more than 40 percent since the fatal explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April, wiping more than £50 billion, or $73 billion, from the company's market value.

'Follow the Islamic way to save the world,' Prince Charles urges environmentalists By REBECCA ENGLISH - DailyMail.co.uk
Prince Charles yesterday urged the world to follow Islamic 'spiritual principles' in order to protect the environment. In an hour-long speech, the heir to the throne argued that man's destruction of the world was contrary to the scriptures of all religions - but particularly those of Islam. He said the current 'division' between man and nature had been caused not just by industrialisation, but also by our attitude to the environment - which goes against the grain of 'sacred traditions'.

Feds Give BP Deadline on Contingency Plans
Posted By - CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal authorities have given BP a 72-hour deadline to provide contingency plans for the collection of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a letter -- dated Tuesday -- sent to the company. The development comes as oil disaster hearings continue Wednesday on Capitol Hill, with the House and Senate tackling issues ranging from safety and cleanup to liability. Three committees and two subcommittees will discuss matters related to the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico and the oil industry. The hearings come as President Obama announced that he will make a fourth trip to the Gulf region next week and as environmental groups plan to hold a vigil later in June protesting offshore oil drilling.

The Gulf Coast oil spill's Dr. Doom
by Nin-Hai Tsen - CNNMoney.com
FORTUNE -- As an oil and gas industry insider, Matt Simmons speaks with a bold voice and makes even bolder predictions. His 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which argued that Saudi Arabia's oil supplies are way more limited than most people think, raised his profile as an authority on the industry.
For more than 35 years, Simmons has run a Texas-based boutique investment bank, Simmons & Co., which specializes in the energy industry. At times, with his somewhat doom-and -loom-like take on things, there's a hint of conspiracy theorist in his tone. But it's hard to ignore that Simmons is deeply connected and has been pretty much right on in the past: When oil was $58 a barrel the year Twilight was released, Simmons predicted prices would be at or above $100 within a few years. By 2008, when Fortune profiled Simmons, the price of crude had hit $147 a barrel.

Gulf oil spill figures may be double earlier estimates
Richard Simon, Betina Boxall and Margot Roosevelt - LATimes.com
Government scientists say as many as 40,000 barrels of oil per day have been gushing into the gulf. BP has said the blown-out well will not be plugged before August. Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles - Government scientists said Thursday that as many as 40,000 barrels of oil have been flowing daily from the blown-out BP well, doubling earlier estimates and greatly expanding the scope of what is already the largest spill in U.S. history. The new figures could mean 42 million to 84 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on the night of April 20 - with the lowest estimate nearly four times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

Reminder: caveat lector - draw you OWN conclusion from any news links posted on this web site.

Military Op & Media Blackout in Grand Isle, LA
Daily Paul Liberty Forum
From an email: This comes from what a documentary filmmaker, James Fox, is observing from his current location in Grand Isle, LA. The link to an audio interview

Massive Media Blackout in Gulf Oil Spill
Infowars.com - openUReyes blog reports:
According to documentary film maker, James Fox, reporting from Louisiana, there is a massive media black out being perpetrated in the Gulf of Mexico BP Oil spill. While that much may have seemed obvious to many, James says that people with cameras are being threatened with arrest, and locals are seriously afraid to talk. The place is swarming with both government officials and corporate officials, and by the sounds of this interview it's a pretty scary situation.
James Fox is a filmmaker that specializes in UFO documentaries. One of his films aired last fall on the History Channel.

URGENT!! BP SPILL -
MEDIA BLACKOUT AND POSSIBLE MARTIAL LAW 1/2

URGENT!! BP SPILL -
MEDIA BLACKOUT AND POSSIBLE MARTIAL LAW 2/2

Red Alert! "Rumor Possible" Troops 'Invade' Grand Isle Louisiana -
First Step In Coastal Evacuation?
June 6, 2010 - BeforeItsNews.com
Shepard Ambells - Grand Isle, Louisiana - While this report has been confirmed by our on scene guerrilla reporters who are in the process of getting us actual visual proof, there have been no reports of visible oil in the area. All Coast Guard critical response teams recently packed up and vacated the town, with the government covering their hotel tabs.
As of 12:00 PM CST, Possibly Battle-hardened National Guard troops in full battle gear with body armor and M-16 rifles have been seen moving into the area. Fully armored HUMVEES with 50-Caliber active gun turrets have been seen arriving on scene as well. All troops and vehicles are in woodland camouflage patterns.

Scientist Awed By Size, Density Of Undersea Oil Plume In Gulf
By PAUL QUINLAN AND JOSH VOORHEES of GreenwireGreenwire via NYTimes.com
Vast underwater concentrations of oil sprawling for miles in the Gulf of Mexico from the damaged, crude-belching BP PLC well are unprecedented in "human history" and threaten to wreak havoc on marine life, a team of scientists said today, a finding confirmed for the first time by federal officials. Researchers aboard the F.G. Walton Smith vessel briefed reporters on a two-week cruise in which they traced an underwater oil plum 15 miles wide, 3 miles long and about 600 feet thick. The plume's core is 1,100 to 1,300 meters below the surface, they said.

VATICAN OFFICIAL TIED TO BP, GOLDMAN-SACHS, AND MEDIA CENSORSHIP IN THE OIL FIASCO INCREASING EVIDENCE OF FOUL PLAY By Sherri Kane & Leonard G. Horowitz
News unfolding from the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has linked media censorship to investment bankers at Goldman Sachs (GS) stewarding the Vatican's wealth, and increasing evidence that the explosion was intended.
A near total news blackout from independent sources, and arrests of anyone caught photographing and filming the devastation, show the Halliburton-British Petrolium (BP) oil crisis is being criminally controlled, implicating some of Wall Street's heaviest hitters.

GULF SPILL: Federal funding cuts leave oceanographers, spill responders in dark (Greenwire, 06/03/2010) Paul Voosen, E&E reporter
Gulf Coast oceanographers have been forced to operate in dim conditions.
Five years ago, before the money dried up, oceanographer Robert Weisberg had 14 buoys bobbing up and down off the West Florida coast. The buoys were vital scientific instruments, recording salinity, temperature and current speed. They granted real-time insight into the unruly stew of the Gulf of Mexico's shifting flows. Ocean models were tested, and improved.
Those good times are over. Today, Weisberg has only four floats deployed, and earlier this year, he had to pull several buoys out of the water -- tools that would have been a boon in tracking the Gulf's unfolding oil disaster. But the money ran out, and the collective blind spot of the region's scientists grew, just as their insight became invaluable.

Oil spill: Oyster shuckers fear for livelihood
By KEVIN McGILL , AP
NEW ORLEANS --The pre-dawn shucking of small mountains of oysters that is an age-old workaday ritual in New Orleans is coming to an end at the 134-year-old P&J Oyster Co., thanks to the oil spilling ominously offshore.
Barring an unforeseen reopening of the oyster beds that supply P&J, Thursday was to be the final day of shucking at the family owned business in the city's French Quarter.
"I'm going to try and buy a few shucked oysters from some people in Alabama that are still processing oysters and once they stop, I'm done," said Al Sunseri, who along with his brother Sal has run the business that opened in 1876.

Lindsey Williams Exposes BP's Gulf Oil Spill Disaster
from Insiders & Mr. X on Alex Jones Tv 1/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 2/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 3/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 4/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jone
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 5/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 6/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 7/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 8/9

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones
About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 9/9

Scientists hike estimates on flow rate of BP spill
By Jim Jelter, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Scientists studying how much crude BP PLC's blown oil well has poured into the Gulf of Mexico offered startlingly higher estimates Thursday than those noted earlier, perhaps topping 40,000 barrels a day. Dr. Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey and head of the investigation, told reporters preliminary analyses by several federal and university teams working independently of each other put the well's flow rate in a range of 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day before BP cut and capped the well's mangled riser. "Our scientific analysis is still a work in progress. In coming days we'll be refining our estimates further," McNutt said.

2 teams say much more oil may have flowed from well; 1 dissents
By Joel Achenbach, Juliet Eilperin and David Fahrenthold - Washington Post
The Deepwater Horizon well is most likely spewing at least 25,000 barrels of oil a day, and may be producing 40,000 or even 50,000 barrels a day, according to preliminary research from two teams of scientists appointed by the federal government to study the flow from the dark geyser at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
Another scientific team, however, using a different methodology, estimates a somewhat more modest flow of 12,600 to 21,500 barrels.
The numbers are all over the place, acknowledged U.S. Geological Survey director Marcia McNutt in a news conference Thursday announcing the findings. Several other teams are preparing their own figures in what has been a protracted and often frustrating effort to get a handle on exactly how much oil is surging from the Macondo reservoir three and a half miles below the surface of the gulf.

Red Tape Vexes Gulf Residents Seeking BP Payments
By Brian Skoloff and Ray Henry, AP via CNSNews.com
Grand Isle, La. (AP) - The reefs that David Walter makes for anglers to drop into the Gulf of Mexico are fake, but his frustration as he tries to win compensation from BP for lost income is real.
State regulators stopped issuing permits for the reefs on May 4 because of the oil spill, effectively killing off $350,000 in Walter's expected business. It sent him into a labyrinth of archived invoices and documents lost by BP. Finally, an offer came: $5,000.
"I said that's not fair because if you say that, then I have to go out of business and I lose everything," said Walter, whose company is based in Alabama.

Florida wants $2.5 billion from BP in escrow
By Catherine Clifford - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Attorney General of Florida sent a letter to BP asking that the company deposit no less than $2.5 billion into an escrow account to cover future claims to citizens and businesses that have been hit by the oil spill.
"Based on recent estimates from an economist, Florida could ultimately see losses as great as $2.2 billion, as well as a sharp decline in employment in the industries directly impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill," wrote Attorney General McCollum in the letter to BP.

Decades ago, oil spilled in Atlantic
By Molly Murray - The News Journal
Hundreds of tankers were among the thousands of ships that sank during WWII
Broad daylight, 11:15 a.m., no provocation, no warning.
This once-secret dispatch was sent to Navy headquarters in Washington, D.C., in February 1942.
The China Arrow, an oil tanker loaded with 81,773 barrels of fuel oil, sank southeast of the Delaware coast -- a victim of German U-Boat 103.
The first torpedo hit at 11:15 a.m. The explosion blew fuel oil 125 feet into the air and sent burning oil cascading over the side. A second torpedo hit and released more oil, split the tanker in two and sent it to the bottom.
Thousands of gallons spilled from this tanker and hundreds more ships that were torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats from January through August 1942. An estimated 3,002 ships, 452 of them oil tankers, were sunk in the North Atlantic during World War II.

U.S. Faces 'Severe' AIG Losses, Says Panel
By SERENA NG - WSJ.com
A watchdog panel reviewing the bailout of American International Group Inc. said U.S. taxpayers "remain at risk for severe losses" and that the government didn't act aggressively enough to protect U.S. taxpayers during the 2008 rescue.
In a lengthy report, the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel concluded that the U.S. government, which owns nearly 80% of the insurance giant, is likely to "remain a significant shareholder in AIG through 2012" and it is unclear if taxpayers "will ever be repaid in full."

Max Keiser - Economic Apocalypse Is Upon Us

Mass Web attack hits Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post
By Robert McMillan - Computerworld.com
IDG News Service - Internet users have been hit by a widespread Web attack that has compromised thousands of Web sites, including Web pages belonging to the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post.
Estimates of the total number of compromised Web sites vary between 7,000 and 114,000, according to security experts. Other compromised sites include Servicewomen.org and Intljobs.org.
Cisco Systems' Web-tracking subsidiary, ScanSafe, started following the incident two days ago, said Mary Landesman, a senior security researcher with Cisco. Somehow, the hackers have posted malicious HTML code on the affected Web sites that redirects victims to a malicious Web server. This server tries to install software on Web visitors' computers. If it's successful, the software gives the criminals a way to remotely control their victims' PCs.

Weatherford Bank being sold
DALLAS BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Chad Eric Watt
One of the weakest banks in North Texas is being acquired by a Weatherford family with a history in banking that community.
Called simply "The Bank," the Weatherford-based institution is set to be acquired by Texas Banc Financial Corp., according to Federal Reserve documents. Texas Banc Financial is a newly created bank company affiliated with the family that founded the former Fort Worth institution Texas Bank, said Jim Gardner, chairman of Commerce Street Capital investment bank in Dallas.

Jim Rogers World Wide Depression

Banks seizing more foreclosed homes
By Tami Luhby - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Banks are seizing more foreclosed homes even as the number of people falling behind on their mortgages is declining.
Bank repossessions hit a record monthly high in May, according to RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed properties. Lenders took back 93,777 properties, up 1% from the previous month's record and 44% from the same period a year earlier. Foreclosure filings, meanwhile, fell by 3% from a month earlier and edged up less than 1% from May 2009. One in every 400 homes received a foreclosure notice last month.

New York warns it may have to pay bills with IOUs
Once again, the Empire State finds itself looking to copy Golden State style.
California embarrassed itself last summer by resorting to IOUs to pay tax refunds, vendor bills and other expenses as cash ran low while the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fought over how to balance the budget.
This year, Republicans and Democrats in Sacramento remain far apart on a budget for the new fiscal year, and Schwarzenegger is once again talking tough. But Controller John Chiang, who made the decision to issue IOUs last summer, said last week that he expected to have enough cash on hand to pay the bills this summer, avoiding the need for another round of IOUs.
So for now, they're all yours, New York.

Chaos, Anarchy To Reign If Paterson Shuts Down NY
Monday Could Be Doomsday If Budget Deal Can't Be Reached
Shutdown Would Mean Closing Of State Parks, DMV, Courts, N.Y. Lottery
ALBANY (CBS)
Chaos and anarchy. That's what New York Gov. David Paterson is warning if he's forced to shut down the government in a few days. The clowns in the state Legislature, now deadlocked for 71 days on the budget, are ready to take down the "big tent" and bring state government to a standstill. At least that's what Paterson thinks. "No one knows the full ramifications of a government shutdown," said Paterson. "It would create unimaginable chaos around the state and the greater metropolitan areas." Such chaos includes closing all state parks, motor vehicles offices, courts, and even the lottery. Public assistance payments would not be made and unemployment payments might also be held up.

Government Workers Cost More to Employ
By Sara Murray - WSJ.com
It costs about $12 more per hour to employ a state or local government worker versus a private sector employee, the Labor Department said Wednesday.
Employers spent $39.81 per hour worked for state and local government workers in the first quarter compared to $27.73 per hour for those with private industry jobs. The numbers are part of the Labor Department's quarterly series on employer costs for employee compensation and they wrap in wages and salaries as well as health benefits such as health insurance and retirement packages.

Markets, Bernanke, Rule of Law

'Critically important' that China move on currency: Geithner
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
Treasury chief says he shares Congress' ire over dollar peg
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner took a strong stand on the issue of China's currency policy, telling Congress that reform of China's exchange rate remains "critically important" to the Obama administration.
Geithner said Beijing's fixed exchange rate "is causing distortions far beyond China's borders" and called it an "impediment" to sustainable global growth. Geithner's comments came Thursday in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee. Geithner said the Obama administration and Congress only "have different ideas" on how to get China to allow its currency, known as the yuan, to strengthen.

Bernanke Puzzled by Gold Rally
By Jon Hilsenrath - WSJ.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says he's a bit puzzled by surging gold prices. The 30% rally from a year ago, on top of gains in previous years, might be interpreted as a loud signal from markets that big inflation pressures are building in the U.S. Gold is seen by many investors as a hedge against inflation risk.
In this case, it might instead be a risk against risk broadly. Mr. Bernanke notes that the inflation signal isn't confirmed by movements in other asset classes. Yields on Treasury bonds tend to rise when investors worry about inflation, but those yields have been falling recently. Inflation expectations as measured in Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) markets remain low. And other commodity prices are falling. Gold is breaking records, but copper prices are down 17% so far this year.

Marc Faber on Bloomberg 25/5/10 P1

Marc Faber on Bloomberg 25/5/10 P2

AT&T sparks user backlash with end to unlimited plans
By Hugo Miller and Olga Kharif - DenverPost.com
AT&T Inc.'s decision to scrap unlimited data plans for new customers has prompted a backlash from bloggers and consumers such as Danette Collins.
"As soon as I can get out of the AT&T plan, I'll switch to Verizon," said Collins, a finance and operations manager in Portland, Ore., who has AT&T service for her iPhone. "They've just shot themselves in the foot."
AT&T, the second-largest U.S. wireless company, is battling network congestion as it tries to manage soaring demand for data-hungry devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone. The carrier said last week that it will cut wireless data-plan prices for most users and stop offering unlimited data plans.

May foreclosure rate steadies as banks hold back
By ALAN ZIBEL AP - The DenverPost
WASHINGTON-The foreclosure crisis appears to be leveling off.
The number of people facing foreclosure is nearly flat from a year ago, according to the latest report from a private foreclosure listing service. A third fewer people are receiving legal warnings that they could lose their homes. And foreclosures are receding in some of the hardest-hit cities.
Still, the number of foreclosures remains extraordinarily high. Experts caution that a big reason for the stabilization is that banks are letting delinquent borrowers stay longer in their homes rather than adding to the glut of foreclosed properties on the market. New consumer protection laws, which vary by state, have also meant borrowers can spend more time in their homes.

'Brute force' script snatched iPad e-mail addresses
By Gregg Keizer - Computerworld.com
'No hack, no infiltration, no breach,' say security experts, just sloppy AT&T software
Computerworld - The harvesting of over 100,000 iPad 3G owners' e-mail addresses was not a hack or a classic data breach, but a brute-force attack of a minor feature AT&T offered to Apple customers, experts said Wednesday. According to New York-based Praetorian Security Group, which obtained a copy of the PHP script used to scrape e-mail addresses from AT&T's servers, the attack succeeded because the mobile carrier used poorly designed software. A nine-person hacking group known as Goatse Security claimed responsibility for the script, which amassed 114,000 e-mail addresses.

America's Predicament
Vasko Kohlmayer - SilverBearCafe.com
America's public debt recently exceeded 13 trillion. This is more than 90 percent of the country's GDP. Public debts of more than 60 percent of GDP are considered unhealthy. Public debts above 90 percent of GDP cause severe disruptions in the country's financial framework and the economy at large. According to the Obama administration, America's public debt will exceed 100 percent of GDP in the next fiscal year. History shows that most countries whose debt exceeds this mark are rarely able to control it. This level of indebtedness usually leads to currency debasement.

Flashpoints For Global War
Giordano Bruno - SilverBearCafe.com
As the economic collapse progresses through 2010 and its fiscal consequences become more certain, the field of view reaching towards our social and political future has become more vague and unclear. Every analyst or researcher of the New World Order and the global elite now seems to have a different insight into how our situation will develop once the financial implosion peaks, and people actually start to react to the obviously severe circumstances.
While having a microphone in the middle of the annual Bilderberg conference in would surely clarify the details of exactly how the globalists plan to conduct themselves over the coming year, this is unfortunately not an option, and reports leaked from Bilderberg cannot always be taken at face value. One element nearly all of us can agree on, though, is the distinct possibility of expanded wars in the near term, used as a diversion by the elites to pull the focus of the masses away from their dire economic atmosphere, away from the bankers that created the meltdown, and towards an overseas adversary.

Lindsey Williams speaks about BP Oil Catastrophe Part 1 of 4

Lindsey Williams speaks about BP Oil Catastrophe Part 2 of 4

Lindsey Williams speaks about BP Oil Catastrophe Part 3 of 4

Lindsey Williams speaks about BP Oil Catastrophe Part 4 of 4

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thursday 06.10.2010

Q. If BP goes BK, who pays for cleanup?

A. The American TAXPAYERS (?)

BP hit by doubts over ability to pay for costs of oil spill
By Steve Gelsi & Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- BP PLC shares slumped Wednesday, leaving its market value halved in fewer than seven weeks, while the oil giant's bonds were crushed as questions mounted over whether it can afford to clean up the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Oil-industry insider Matt Simmons, head of the Texas-based, energy-focused investment bank Simmons & Co., told Fortune magazine Wednesday that BP will run out of cash from lawsuits, cleanup costs and other expenses.
"They have about a month before they declare Chapter 11" bankruptcy, Simmons said.

BP: Bankrupt Petroleum?
Colin Barr - Fortune.CNN
The fear that the gulf oil spill will force BP into bankruptcy swept the markets Wednesday afternoon.
BP (BP) shares plunged 16% in frenetic trading -- nine times the oil company's average daily volume -- amid speculation that a bankruptcy filing is at hand.
The cost of insuring against a default on BP debt surged 48% to a new high, CMA said. It now costs $382,000 annually to insure $10 million worth of BP debt against a default for five years. That's more than triple the going rate last month.
One oft-cited driver of Wednesday's action was an interview by Fortune's Nin-Hai Tseng of oil guru Matt Simmons, who said he believed the company would be bankrupt in a month as it faces mounting cleanup costs and legal exposure.

Big Risk: $1.2 Quadrillion Derivatives Market Dwarfs World GDP
By PETER COHAN - DailyFinance.com
One of the biggest risks to the world's financial health is the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market. It's complex, it's unregulated, and it ought to be of concern to world leaders that its notional value is 20 times the size of the world economy. But traders rule the roost -- and as much as risk managers and regulators might want to limit that risk, they lack the power or knowledge to do so.
A quadrillion is a big number: 1,000 times a trillion. Yet according to one of the world's leading derivatives experts, Paul Wilmott, who holds a doctorate in applied mathematics from Oxford University (and whose speaking voice sounds eerily like John Lennon's), $1.2 quadrillion is the so-called notional value of the worldwide derivatives market. To put that in perspective, the world's annual gross domestic product is between $50 trillion and $60 trillion.

Only a fraction of those in need file for bankruptcy
By Christine Dugas, USA TODAY
Bankruptcy filings are nearing the record 2 million of 2005, when a new law took effect that was aimed at curbing abuse of the system. Filings could reach 1.7 million this year, says law professor Robert Lawless, but few experts believe that debtors are now gaming the system.
Instead, concern exists about a growing number of Americans who need bankruptcy protection but cannot get any benefit from it or simply cannot afford to file. As their financial problems worsen, that hurts everyone because it can hinder the economic turnaround.

We're approaching a dead end
The Automatic Earth
It's starting to be time for the next move down. The fall of the Euro is stalling a little, gold is reaching new highs. So is denial that the promised recovery has failed to materialize. On that last point, one quick glance at global stock markets should be enough.
But it isn't. President Obama, as we've seen, said in face of Friday's job numbers that "the economy is getting stronger by the day." He said that based on data that indicate the vast majority of allegedly added jobs, as reported by his own government, are jobs in that same government, while without the, again, same, government's birth/death model, the numbers would have shown an employment loss of 200.000 or more. Plus half a million people dropped out of the work force. The real numbers are devastating, which makes the president's words all the more remarkable.

Regulation Era - The '60s Return
Written by Llewellyn King - OilPrice.com
The decade of the 1960s stood orthodoxy on its head. It was a time when alternative everything got a hearing. Expertise came into doubt; the phrase "some decisions are too important to be left to the experts" was heard everywhere. . . .
Besides the lost jobs, diminished 401(k) savings, recriminations over troop levels and tactics in two wars, and mounting national debt, there is now the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf - a crowning failure, if you will. Taken together they wipe out confidence and bring opprobrium on big institutions.
Big is bad. Big is out. Big cannot be trusted. Big has no civic conscience, whether it is banks paying themselves too well in a time of shortage or oil companies failing to take care when punching holes in the ocean floor. Big screws up big time.

Bernanke Says the Federal Debt Is 'Unsustainable'
By SEWELL CHAN - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Wednesday that "the federal budget appears to be on an unsustainable path," but also recognized that the "exceptional increase" in the deficit had been necessary to ease the recession.
Mr. Bernanke's comments before a hearing of the House Budget Committee, reiterated his view that the economic recovery would likely be slow and painful for many Americans. The Fed projects gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, to rise about 3.5 percent this year - a pace barely above that needed to keep pace with the growth in the labor force.

Billboard Puts Obama on $100,000,000,000,000 Bill, Asks:
'But Who Will Pay the Piper?'
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - Thanks to an advertiser who wishes to remain anonymous, cars and trucks on Arizona Highway 260 in East Central Arizona are driving by a billboard advertisement that recently went up, bearing President Obama’s face on a mock U.S. $100,000,000,000,000 (One-Hundred Trillion Dollar) bill. The billboard's caption: "But Who Will Pay the Piper?" Chuck Perrine of Jones Outdoor advertising in Tucson, Ariz., confirmed to CNSNews.com that his company created the 10 ft- by-40 ft. billboard, which he said “went up within the last month."

House of Cards
Aubie Baltin CFA, CTA, CFP, PhD. - SilverBearCafe.com
"You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." - Adrian Rogers
The most recent largest single day decline was 780.87 points on October 15th, 2008, as part of a multi-week stock market crash; that is the key. This crash that I have been warning you about is far from over. With the aid of the Government's PLUNGE PROTECTION Team, we could easily have a one to three day rally, but any rally from this point on should be used for selling and shorting.

Gold Crucifies Doubters
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
Gold (GLD) blasted through to an all time high last night, doubters and naysayers carping all the way up that it was overpriced.
The white metals of silver (SLV), platinum (PPLT), and palladium (PALL) were firm, but were clearly being held back by flagging industrial demand in front of a potential double dip scenario for the economy.
Sales of one ounce American eagle gold coins has roared to an 11 year high, and there is a risk than the US Mint will run out of blanks.

Investors seeking refuge push gold to record highs
By Tom Petruno, Los Angeles Times
Gold surges again to close at $1,244 an ounce after climbing as high as $1,252. Set the init-param debug_mode to "true" to see the complete exception message. Gold traded at record highs Tuesday as some investors and traders continued to see the metal as the best refuge from turmoil elsewhere in financial markets.

Gold is set to surge to $1500-$1700
By Stewart Thomson - CommodityOnline.com
. . . . This is not just a gold bull market. It is the Gold Era. Juniors stocks should be the focus now, with no time table for demanded profits. Simply respond to price and ALL else will look after itself. Some of you are moving back to bullion for the immediate gratification. Wrong decision. Gold stocks will maul bullion and everything else on the planet, with impatience getting the worst beating of all.

Gold future prices to soar to $5,000-$8,000/oz
By Jon Nadler - CommodityOnline.com
Record prices have a way of engendering profit-taking, and this time was no different. Whether the temptation to skim some chips off a profit-rich gaming table remains the order of the day(s) as we head towards the weekend remains to be seen. The proposal to institute an EU-wide ban on short-selling lifted equities in Europe and pulled the euro up to just over 1.20 - a to-be-watched pivot point- this morning.

Gold stays high on Europe concerns
SINGAPORE (Commodity Online): Gold prices continued its northern journey in Asian trade Wednesday as concerns over European debt crisis escalated. Gold for immediate delivery was seen trading at $ 1237.43 an ounce at 11.00 a.m Singapore time while U.S. gold futures for August delivery eased after hitting an all-time record overnight. The contract was seen trading at $1236.59 an ounce at 11.00 a.m Singapore time on the comex division of Nymex. Silver for immediate delivery rose 0.2 per cent to $18.3150 an ounce, palladium added 0.9 per cent to $446.50 an ounce, while platinum slid 0.3 per cent to $1523.35 an ounce.

Gold vs. Fiat Money: Even Babies Can Tell The Difference

Gold to be at $2,000 roughly two years from today
Charles Oliver - CommodityOnline.com
The big problem that's going on is that there's too much leverage, too much debt, and people spending beyond their means. We had the financial crisis in 2008; the banks were bailed out by the governments, and now we see that the governments are in trouble because they've been spending too much and not living within their means. I really don't like the idea of bailing out everybody who breaks the rules.

Who are the key drivers of gold market?
By Julian D.W. Phillips - CommodityOnline.com
When gold price are slammed down in one day, as they were on Friday by more than $20 it is certain that some sort of concerted action was taken to push the price down. Fingers point at the leading U.S. banks. But then later on Friday, before its close, there came a huge surge in buying that took the gold price up to $1,220 from $1,192. This pressure equaled or bettered the downward pressures seen in that day. This bodes well this week for pressures between these two blocs to continue or even heighten until the gold price breaks one way or the other. It's time to look at who is controlling the gold market?

Gold Running in Short Supply
By Eric Jackson - The Street
.... Central governments were selling gold 10 years ago. This put a burden on a very small market. Today, central governments are buying, the miners are unhedged, you have big gold ETFs, you have coin sales going crazy. Some central banks are even telling their people to buy gold.
I've got to believe that a physical shortage will manifest itself somewhere soon. There's only 162,000 tons of it out there -- and I don't know anyone selling it. Someone's going to try to buy a bar of gold sometime and it won't be there.

The Alien in the White House
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.
The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.
There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president - single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival - was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice - and for good reason.

BP shares plunge as estimate of leaking oil grows
By Jane Wardell and Mark Williams, Associated Press
Investors dumped shares of BP Wednesday, as estimates of the amount of oil flowing from its blown-out well grew, along with concerns about its ability to pay for the spill in the Gulf.
The stock dropped more that 15% Wednesday and shares have now lost half their value since the April 20 rig explosion off the Louisiana coast.

BP plans to bring tanker to Gulf
Oil-burning device on way
NEW ORLEANS (AP) | BP plans to bring in an oil-burning device and a tanker from the North Sea as it tries to contain the crude spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, a disaster creating headaches for people who make money off the sea and those processing their claims of financial loss.
The current containment system is catching 630,000 gallons of oil daily, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said at a news briefing in Washington. Officials previously cited that figure as the system's general capacity, but Adm. Allen said officials now think it can handle 756,000 gallons.

Future losses from BP oil spill worry Gulf Coast businesses
By Paul Wiseman and Tim Watson, USA TODAY
John Tesvich worries that he'll have to close his Franklin, La., oyster-processing plant by the end of the month, putting his 60 workers on the street. He can't get enough oysters from the oil-contaminated Gulf of Mexico to keep his plant running.
Fisherman George Barisich of St. Bernard Parish, La., reckons he's already lost about $80,000 in business because the BP oil spill kept his boats out of the water nearly 40 days. George Pelaez's Biloxi, Miss., charter boat, Joka's Wild, is reeling from $112,000 worth of cancellations.

Gulf businesses fight for BP payments
By Catherine Clifford, Craig Guillot and Ben Rooney - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK/NEW ORLEANS (CNNMoney.com) -- Small businesses are skeptical -- at best -- of BP's promise that it will pay for all lost income and wages as a result of the oil spill.
So far, BP doesn't seem to be able to keep up.
Of the checks that have been cut, 90% have gone to individual fishermen, and only about 10% have been paid out to small businesses.
Small businesses are getting left out partly because BP (BP) is still trying to figure out how to fairly assess what it owes to whom. An individual worker with a single W2 form or recent sales records can clearly document lost income due to the oil disaster. For real estate agencies, restaurants and retail shops, it is a lot harder.

BP shares slump as US presses oil firm to pay laid off workers
Andrew Clark in New York - The Guardian
The political and financial pressure on BP escalated sharply yesterday as the US government demanded compensation for thousands of oil industry workers laid off as a result of a freeze on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The demand sent the company's shares plummeting on Wall Street amid worries over long-term survival prospects.
In an unexpected addition to BP's already huge liabilities from America's worst ever oil spill, the White House said it would press the company to pay the salaries of staff laid off as a result of a six-month moratorium imposed by the Obama administration on exploration activity in the Gulf. The freeze means a halt to work on 33 existing oil rigs, affecting thousands of jobs.

The Similarities Between Deepwater Horizon and Global Financial Meltdown Written by Charles Hugh Smith - OilPrice.com
The explosion of Deepwater Horizon and the collapse of Lehman Brothers share similar characteristics of risk, denial and coverup.
My good friend G.F.B. recently observed that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe uncannily mirrors the global financial meltdown that was triggered by the September, 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers.
G.F.B. suggested that the Deepwater Horizon fiasco mirrored the global financial meltdown, almost as if it were a physical manifestation of the same hubris, denial of risk, manipulation and misinformation which collapsed the global financial house of cards.

Oil Spill: Biologist maintains catshark for posterity
VIRGINIA, USA (Commodity Online): Sweet Briar College marine biologist John Morrissey sees an upside to the ongoing Gulf catastrophe even as he knows a generation of animals he is deeply invested in as a researcher are dying where the oil flows.
"There are embryonic sharks littering the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico near the spill that are trapped, are doomed, have nowhere to go and are being bathed in this oil spill as it percolates out of the rupture," he said.

How will hurricane's impact Gulf oil spill?
WASHINGTON (Commodity Online): As millions along the coast prepare for what is predicted to be an extremely active hurricane season, they are also faced with reality of a growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While the oil slick is not likely to have a significant impact on a hurricane's actual development, it is important to understand how the two may affect each other.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), most hurricanes span 200-300 miles, which is far wider than the current size of the spill. If the slick remains small in comparison to a typical hurricane's general environment and size, the anticipated impact on the hurricane would be minimal.

Obama's crude rhetoric targets BP, hits state pensions
Populist attacks ignore inconvenient truth
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- President Obama's ramped up rhetoric over the BP oil spill is beginning to have an effect.
Analysts Wednesday began to show concern for the oil giant's dividend, with Societe Generale putting the chance of a skip of the current quarter's payout at 50-50. And company insiders and shareholders are apparently contemplating whether Chief Executive Tony Hayward or Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg should be offered up as a corporate sacrifice.

US Official: Gulf Oil Drilling Now Temporarily Paused But Not Banned
AP - The Tonka Report
WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is reassuring Congress that the Obama administration has pressed what he described as the "pause button, not the stop button," on all offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.
Salazar, testifying Wednesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, described the recent moratorium that President Barack Obama put in place for offshore deepwater drilling, along with new requirements for shallow water oil drilling.

Oil making Gulf spill workers sick?
Gulf spill workers complaining of flulike symptoms
MATTHEW BROWN and NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press Writers
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - For days now, Dr. Damon Dietrich has seen patients come through his emergency room at West Jefferson Medical Center with similar symptoms: respiratory problems, headaches and nausea.
In the past week, 11 workers who have been out on the water cleaning up oil from BP's blown-out well have been treated for what Dietrich calls "a pattern of symptoms" that could have been caused by the burning of crude oil, noxious fumes from the oil or the dispersants dumped in the Gulf to break it up. All workers were treated and released.

Troops Deployed To Evacuate 50 Million Residents In Gulf Region?
Kurt Nimmo / Infowars.com
Mississippi's governor Haley Barbour is not about to let oil washing up on the state's beaches ruin the tourism industry. "The truth is we have had virtually no oil," Barbour told Fox News Sunday. "We've had a few tar balls but we have a few every year" because of natural seepage in the Gulf of Mexico. It's all the fault of the damn media, Barbour insists. "The biggest negative impact for us has been the news coverage," he grumbled.
On June 1, however, the media reported that oil from the BP gusher had indeed washed up on Mississippi's beaches. "Oil from the BP Gulf of Mexico gusher hit beaches in Alabama and Mississippi for the first time Tuesday. It's definitely not the kind of news the states wanted to deliver with the start of the summer beach season newly underway," NPR reported last week.

Ben Fulford: Gulf Evacuation Plans Are On The Table
Greg Evensen, former Kansas state patrolman did an interview on May 27, 2010 sharing information about a pending Gulf coast evacuation that he has received from his law enforcement contacts. The number of people they are preparing to evacuate is mind boggling!

June 15-20th - Gulf coast states; July 1st begins eastern seaboard from tip of Florida to Cape Cod. 40 - 50 million people if it happens.

Important interview (long):

Greg's interview about evacuation plans from May 27th - which he wishes to be made public

Greg's info is supported by Ben Fulford:

Emergency evacuations plans have been drawn up for entire Gulf of Mexico region as secret financial negotiations head to climax
"The Pentagon and US government have drawn up emergency plans to evacuate much of the population surrounding the Gulf of Mexico in anticipation of toxic rain and severe environmental damage, a military intelligence source says. The extreme environmental destruction and the deliberate failure to put an end to the oil leaks are all part of the dark cabal's bargaining strategy since all they have left to bargain with now is the threat of mayhem. At the same time, a senior oil industry source has approached the White Dragon Society with an offer of $60 billion a month to be spent on saving the planet so long as the money goes through the Vatican, the BIS and the Federal Reserve Board."

So You Still Think FEMA Detention Camps Don't Exist?
Posted by David Kramer on March 26, 2010
In a previous post, I wrote about the SPLC referring to people who believe that the government agency FEMA has built political detention centers around the country as just another "hate" group. An LRC reader sent me this video in which Oliver North is testifying before Congress (:50 on the video). Though the specific subject of FEMA detention camps does not come up, I think you'll understand why I posted this.

Oliver North Questioned - Rex 84 Exposed During Iran Contra

Goodbye BRIC, Hello N-11
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
Jim O'Neill, the clever Goldman Sachs analyst who came up with the term "BRIC" a decade ago, has cooked up a new, catchy investment theme. Get ready for the "N-11", shorthand for the "New 11", a gaggle of early stage emerging markets who will become the inheritors of the BRIC's high growth rates.
The basic idea is to surf a global wave of coming GDP and per capita income rises. The N-11 breaks down into four sub categories:

• High Income: South Korea
• Upper Middle Income: Mexico, Turkey
• Lower Middle Income: Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines
• Low Income: Bangladesh, Vietnam

Bernanke: Recovery on Pace but Unemployment to Stay High
By DAILYFINANCE STAFF - DailyFinance.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Wednesday that the economy continues to heal slowly but unemployment is expected to remain elevated for a "significant amount of time."
The economy should grow in the neighborhood of 3.5% in 2010 and at a somewhat faster pace next year, but this "pace of growth, were it to be realized, would probably be associated with only a slow reduction in the unemployment rate over time," said Bernanke in testimony before the House Budget Committee.

The Banksters: Lloyd Blankfein, John Mack, Vikram Pandit, Jamie Dimon, Brian Moynihan, Et Al. Have we forgotten what lying is?
Those names should ring some bells by now, but in case you can't place them all, they are the names of the CEOs of Goldman, Morgan, Citi, JPM Chase, and the new guy at BofA who replaced Kenny Lewis at the beginning of this year.
Now, there are all sorts of reasons that I could go after these guys for being beyond offensive. I mean, just the fact that any of these CEOs still has her job is nothing short of astonishing. Traditionally, as far as I can remember, CEOs that captain their corporate ships only to go fatally crashing into the cliffs of insanity get canned, right? Not only did these guys keep their jobs after, at the very least, spectacularly failing, but they also picked up very nice bonuses to boot. So, I'd have to say, very well done there.

Bank of America Employees Say Bank Stole $100 Million from Paychecks
MandelmanMatters
You know, it really must be true what they say. It must begin innocently enough.
First, perhaps it's a small charge for a car rental discount plan the customer already canceled. Then, maybe it's an overdraft fee here and there. After that you just boost the APR a point higher on a credit cardÉ after all, who's going to know.
Then, why not deduct a few hundred each in management fees from the IRAs or 529 plans. How about extra fees hidden in the small print of business checking accounts? Heck, even if someone catches it, it's too hard to move a business account anyway. And junk fees on mortgages? Sure, load 'em up ... why not?

BofA CEO a regular at White House
By Rick Rothacker - CharlotteObserver.com
Brian Moynihan talked with administration officials Tuesday about the economy and health care. Three weeks after being invited to a state dinner, Bank of America Corp. chief executive Brian Moynihan was back at the White House Tuesday meeting with officials about the economy and healthcare.
Moynihan talked with Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, about the bank's view on the economy and its plans to expand health insurance coverage ahead of a new government requirement, an administration official said. Moynihan also met with National Economic Council director Larry Summers and stopped by the office of chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, the official said.

The 16 Stages of Job Loss

1. Disbelief
2. Intoxication
3. Acceptance
4. Optimism
5. Compulsive Resume Writing
6. Optimism
7. Daytime Television
8. Resume Revision
9. Optimism
10. Disbelief
11. Intoxication
12. Desperate Resume Revision
13. Weight Gain
14. Facial Hair
15. Cartoons
16. Blogging

What Whitman, Fiorina and McMahon Can Learn from Corzine
By JONATHAN BERR - DailyFinance.com
Come November, voters will have the unique opportunity to elect to high office three women who are former chief executive officers at major companies. For Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman and Linda McMahon, their business backgrounds may prove to be more liability than asset.
The wealthy Fiorina and McMahon are running for the U.S. Senate and don't need the job's $174,000 annual salary. Whitman, a billionaire, would earn $175,000 at her dream job, the governorship of California. Nonetheless, all three women are spending tens of millions of dollars of their own money to get elected, an investment with a potentially horrible return. It's tough to appeal to populists, after all, with that kind of cash on hand.

Can CEOs find same success in politics?
By David J. Lynch, USA TODAY
Top companies such as Goldman Sachs, BP and Toyota all are enduring worst-in-their-history crises. Yet, this backdrop of multi-industry failure didn't prevent a pair of former chief executives-turned-California politicians from emerging Wednesday as the latest signs of a voter backlash against politics as usual.
Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who wants to be California's governor, and ex-Hewlett-Packard boss Carly Fiorina, chosen to contest a U.S. Senate seat, both won their Republican primaries late Tuesday. They became the latest candidates hoping to parlay corner-office savvy into political success.

Pennsylvania investigates health insurance rate hikes
PITTSBURGH BUSINESS TIMES - BY By Kris B. Mamula
Gov. Ed Rendell said Wednesday that Pennsylvania is investigating nine health insurers for recent big rate hikes, two days after the federal government announced a $250 million grant program for states that strengthen oversight of insurance rate increases.
Rendell said the nine biggest insurers were being investigated to determine the "reasons behind a pattern of controversial rate increases" and their relationship to "questionable" health profiling tools, according to a news release issued by the state Insurance Department. Commercial insurers use questionnaires about members' health history to set rates, a practice called medical underwriting.

Amish Farming Draws Rare Government Scrutiny
By SINDYA N. BHANOO - LATimes.com
LANCASTER, Pa. - With simplicity as their credo, Amish farmers consume so little that some might consider them model environmental citizens. "We are supposed to be stewards of the land," said Matthew Stoltzfus, a 34-year-old dairy farmer and father of seven whose family, like many other Amish, shuns cars in favor of horse and buggy and lives without electricity. "It is our Christian duty."
But farmers like Mr. Stoltzfus are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive. Their cows generate heaps of manure that easily washes into streams and flows onward into the Chesapeake Bay.

Saving Chevrolet Means Sending 'Chevy' to Dump
By RICHARD S. CHANG - NYTimes.com
Bye-bye, indeed, Miss American Pie. If General Motors has its way, you won't be driving your Chevy to the levee ever again. On Tuesday, G.M. sent a memo to Chevrolet employees at its Detroit headquarters, promoting the importance of "consistency" for the brand, which was the nation's best-selling line of cars and trucks for more than half a century after World War II. And one way to present a consistent brand message, the memo suggested, is to stop saying "Chevy," though the word is one of the world's best-known, longest-lived product nicknames.

Entrepreneur turns pennies into million-dollar business
Deborah L. Cohen
(Reuters) - Weronika Cybulska never intended to stray from the corporate path. But when the recession hit and she lost her marketing job with a New York jewelry manufacturer, the recent MBA graduate set her sights on entrepreneurship, replicating an online auction site she saw thriving in her native Poland.
SMALL BUSINESS
The 28-year-old émigré and her husband Krystian, a computer programer with expertise in financial services, invested six months of sweat equity to develop BidRodeo, an auction site that offers popular items such as iPads, electronic games, appliances - even gold - to the highest bidder.
"I think Americans are really big bargain hunters," said Cybulska, who runs BidRodeo out of her Jersey City, New Jersey apartment. "So we decided to give it a shot."

QuiBids.com Saves Consumers up to 95% off Retail
Penny auctions are a new auction model that are rapidly becoming very popular in the US and Europe. Penny auctions allow individuals to do just what it implies, win popular products for pennies on the dollar.

AT&T fixes major iPad 3G security hole
By Ben Rooney - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- AT&T said late Wednesday that it has fixed a security hole that may have allowed hackers to access the e-mail addresses of more than 100,000 iPad 3G owners.
The announcement came shortly after tech and gossip blog Gawker posted an expose of the breach. A hacker group used a vulnerability on AT&T's website to harvest the e-mail addresses iPad buyers provided to activate their devices, which went on sale barely more than a month ago.

Tension as Mexican, 15, killed by US border patrol
Jo Tuckman in Mexico City and Ed Pilkington in New York - guardian.co.uk
The US authorities said the boy was among a group of would-be illegal migrants who threw rocks at border agents
Tension is mounting at the US-Mexican border over the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy by a US patrol, which is being seen in Mexico as the crudest example yet of growing hostility towards its citizens. Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca was killed in the city of Ciudad Ju‡rez on the frontier line that runs along the Rio Bravo, which - at that point - is little more than a 10-metre stretch of mud between concrete banks. He was shot once in the head, near an eye, and reportedly died on the spot. The US authorities said the boy was among a group of would-be illegal migrants who threw rocks at border agents as they tried to arrest others in the group.

Barack Obama announces $400m aid package to Gaza
Harriet Sherwood - guardian.co.uk,
UK has promised increase in aid to troubled area as well
President Barack Obama said today the US would send $400m of aid to the Palestinian territories following 10 days of international focus on Gaza, which Israel has blockaded for more than three years.
The announcement came as Obama met the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Washington to discuss the progress of proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as the dire situation in Gaza. Most US aid currently goes to the West Bank. The international community has largely focused on building up Abbas's authority over recent years, and Gaza, whose de facto Hamas government is not recognised by the US or the UK, has been marginalised.

Gates: Progress in Afghan war must come this year
By Anne Gearan AP - WashingtonTimes.com
LONDON | Public support for the war in Afghanistan will evaporate unless the nations leading the fight against insurgents can show by the end of this year that the eight-year war is not locked in stalemate, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday.
"All of us, for our publics, are going to have to show by the end of the year that our strategy is on the track, making some headway," Mr. Gates said ahead of meetings with NATO allies long weary of the war.

Afghan president 'has lost faith in US ability to defeat Taliban'
Jon Boone in Kabul - guardian.co.uk,
Afghanistan's former head of intelligence says President Hamid Karzai is increasingly looking to Pakistan to end insurgency
President Hamid Karzai has lost faith in the US strategy in Afghanistan and is increasingly looking to Pakistan to end the insurgency, according to those close to Afghanistan's former head of intelligence services.
Amrullah Saleh, who resigned last weekend, believes the president lost confidence some time ago in the ability of Nato forces to defeat the Taliban.
As head of the National Directorate of Security, Saleh was highly regarded in western circles. He has said little about why he quit, other than that the Taliban attack on last week's peace jirga or assembly in Kabul was for him the "tipping point"; the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, also quit, and their resignations were accepted by Karza

Will the West Back the Jihad or Israel?
by P. David Hornik - FrontPAgeMag.com
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet this week that "the world is beginning to become aware" of what really happened in the "flotilla incident" in which nine of the "activists" trying to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza were killed. Namely, that the "activists" on the Mavi Marmara - actually "martyrdom"-seeking jihadists tied to the terror-linked IHH organization with some sort of backing from the Turkish government - fell upon inadequately-armed Israeli soldiers with knives, clubs, iron bars, and guns and forced them to fight for their lives.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wednesday 06.09.2010

BP Takes Heat From Two Sides on Dividend
By JAMES HERRON - WSJ.com
As BP PLC Chief Executive Tony Hayward weighs maintaining his company's dividend payment against the backdrop of a disastrous oil spill, he finds himself viced between angry shareholders and angry politicians.
If Mr. Hayward continues with plans to pay more than $10 billion to shareholders this year, industry observers say his company will face the wrath of U.S. authorities who are already mulling whether to exclude it from future oil and gas licenses and federal contracts.

Hard Times in Central Falls, R.I.
Debt-Ridden City Appoints Receiver; Muni Market Effect?
By ROMY VARGHESE
Central Falls, a small and deeply troubled Rhode Island city, has handed control of its finances to a receiver, a rare step that many in the $2.8 trillion municipal-bond market are watching to see how stressed municipalities may deal with deepening fiscal problems. The city of about 19,000 people, a third of whom live in poverty, is struggling with growing budget deficits and the need to pay interest on about $17 million in general obligation debt.

Peter Schiff on Fox Business
Connecticut Downgrade and U.S. Debt

Pimco's Crescenzi Sees 'Endpoint' in Devaluations
By Wes Goodman and Garfield Reynolds
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Nations have reached a "Keynesian endpoint" as exhausted balance sheets leave policy makers with few options to bolster economic growth, according to Anthony Crescenzi, an investor at Pacific Investment Management Co., the world's largest bond-fund manager.
"Time, devaluations, and debt restructurings might be the only way out for many nations," Crescenzi wrote in an e-mailed note titled "Keynesian Endpoint" that referenced the Great Depression era economist John Maynard Keynes. Debt-fueled spending programs aimed at combating the global financial crisis of 2008 are among policy tools now "being seen as a magic elixir that has morphed into poison."

U.S. debt to rise to $19.6 trillion by 2015
(Reuters) - The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress.
The report that was sent to lawmakers Friday night with no fanfare said the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product would rise to 102 percent by 2015 from 93 percent this year.
"The president's economic experts say a 1 percent increase in GDP can create almost 1 million jobs, and that 1 percent is what experts think we are losing because of the debt's massive drag on our economy," said Republican Representative Dave Camp, who publicized the report.
He was referring to recent testimony by University of Maryland Professor Carmen Reinhart to the bipartisan fiscal commission, which was created by President Barack Obama to recommend ways to reduce the deficit, which said debt topping 90 percent of GDP could slow economic growth.

REMEMBER: In 1930, They Didn't Know It Was "The Great Depression" Yet by Henry Blodget - Tech Ticker
In the past year, we've written a lot about the similarity between the rally of early 1930 and the one we had through April of this year.
The early 1930 rally came after the market had fallen nearly 50% in the fall of 1929. The spring 1930 rally took the market up nearly 50% again, to a level that was only about 20% below the previous peak.
That rally, of course, was also the biggest sucker's rally in history. After the market peaked in April 1930, it crashed again, eventually ending up down 89% from the 1929 high and more than 80% from the 1930 high. The market did not reach the 1930 high again for another quarter of a century.

Goldman Sachs stonewalling, federal panel says
By Nathaniel Popper and Tom Petruno, Los Angeles Times
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission subpoenas the firm, demanding information about its role during the mortgage meltdown and credit crunch.
Reporting from New York and Los Angeles - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., already under fire for its actions leading up to the financial crisis, came under attack from a federal commission that accused it of refusing to divulge information, including documents detailing its controversial bets on the mortgage market.
Saying it had been stonewalled, the federal commission investigating the financial crisis on Monday took the unusual step of issuing a subpoena to Goldman that demanded information about the investment bank's role before and during the mortgage meltdown and credit crunch.

Goldman Subpoenaed After FCIC Says Firm Slowed Probe
By Jesse Westbrook
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was subpoenaed by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission after panel members said the most profitable firm in Wall Street history engaged in a document "dump" to hinder a probe.
Goldman Sachs sent more than a billion pages of documents, FCIC Vice Chairman Bill Thomas said on a conference call with reporters today. Not all of the information is what the panel requested, and Goldman Sachs didn't cooperate with requests to interview Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn and Chief Financial Officer David Viniar, FCIC Chairman Phil Angelides said.

Goldman Sachs Revives an Old Tactic: Keeping Quiet
By: John Carney - Senior Editor, CNBC.com
Goldman Sachs has decided to keep a low profile in response to harsh criticism and a subpoena fired at the company by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission yesterday. On a conference call with reporters following the announcement of the subpoena, the chairman of the commission, Phil Angelides, angrily accused Goldman of "deliberately and disruptively" trying to thwart the commission's investigation by dumping billions of pages of documents in response to requests for information.

Banks in 'Downward Spiral' Buying Capital in CDOs
By Yalman Onaran and Jody Shenn
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. banks are fighting to preserve the use of securities that help them appear better capitalized, even as their investments in each others' notes perpetuate what one regulator calls a "downward spiral" of losses.
The cross-ownership, largely unnoticed by bank supervisors who generally discourage the practice, was made possible by a Wall Street innovation like the ones that allowed subprime mortgages to flourish. Small lenders, such as Riverside National Bank of Florida, were able to sell trust-preferred securities, known as TruPS, because investment bankers packaged them with those issued by dozens of other financial institutions.

Gold May Jump to $1,300 on Double Dip, GFMS's Walker Forecasts
By Aya Takada and Yasumasa Song
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Gold, which gained to a record today, may extend its advance as investors seek a haven for their wealth, including protection from a possible double-dip recession in the global economy, according to GFMS Ltd.
The metal is expected to trade between $1,050 and $1,300 an ounce for the rest of the year, and may climb to as much as $2,000 should the sovereign-debt crisis spread beyond Europe, possibly to the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Paul Walker said in an interview. Gold may also surpass platinum prices, he said.

Comex Gold at record high on bull market run
By Jim Wyckoff - CommodityOnline.com
Comex gold futures notched another fresh all-time record high early Tuesday, as investors continue to seek out the precious yellow metal as a safe-haven asset amid heightened financial, economic and geopolitical uncertainty. August Comex gold last traded up $6.50 an ounce at $1,247.30 after hitting a new high of $1,254.50 in early trading.
A main bullish feature for gold continues to be traders purchasing the metal with European currencies as a hedge, or even as a speculative play, against further weakening of those European currencies. Bullish technicals are also driving new speculative buying interest in gold. The new all-time high scored Tuesday only added to bullish upside technical momentum.

Gold Is a Great Safety Net if Things Go Wrong
by Tom Stevenson - LewRockwell.com
In these uncertain times, strong cases can be made for and against most investments. Against this backdrop, my thoughts keep coming back to the one investment that has always acted as a safe haven at moments of crisis. It is hard to argue against anyone holding at least some gold in their portfolio as an insurance policy against things going badly wrong.
Gold is hovering close to its all-time nominal high just above $1,200 an ounce, having risen around five-fold from a low of $250 an ounce 10 years ago. That steep rise might give investors pause for thought, especially when you compare it to the lost decade for equity investors over the same period, but I think there are several reasons why the yellow metal could have further to go.

Why Governments Hate Gold
By: Ron Paul - SafeHaven.com
This past week several emerging and ongoing crises took attention away from the ongoing sovereign debt problems in Greece. The bailouts are merely kicking the can down the road and making things worse for taxpaying citizens, here and abroad. Greece is unfortunately not unique in its irresponsible spending habits. Greek-style debt explosions are quickly spreading to other nations one by one, and yes, the United States is one of the dominoes on down the line.

Gold Prices Break $1,250, Now What?
By Alix Steel - The Street
NEW YORK (TheStreet ) -- Gold prices set a record high Tuesday as investors scrambled to buy the precious metal and risk appetite diminished. Gold for August delivery was adding $4.90 to $1,245.70 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange after reaching an all-time high of $1,254.50. The gold price today has also traded as low as $1,238.50. The U.S. dollar index was slipping slightly to $88.26 while the euro rallied 0.23% to $1.19 vs. the dollar. The spot gold price Tuesday was rising $3, according to Kitco's gold index.

Keiser Report 49:

Gold will rise as inflation rate exceeds interest rate
Frank Holmes - CommodityOnline.com
Now, the last factor that is important in that triangle of factors that have a big impact is money supply. Gold hasn't gone to $2,000 yet, which a lot of gold fanatics had speculated because the growth in money supply has been anemic in the U.S., and in fact has contracted in Europe. The perfect storm where gold takes off is when money supply and deficit spending grow while real interest rates fall below zero - that is, when the rate of inflation exceeds the nominal interest rate. Gold will rise dramatically when those factors come together.

Gold's Value and Government Balance Sheets
By: Michael Rozeff - Safehaven.com
Sometimes people ask me about valuing gold by taking into account the assets that a government owns, like land, bridges, and highways. Maybe they are thinking of the suggestion that Greece sell some of its islands in order to pay down its debt. That would indeed improve its cash flow position.
The thought of Land is what people usually think of first when they bring this approach up, and that's what gets us into this analysis; but we'll hardly even consider Land. It's really taxes, income growth, and liabilities that matter far more.

Who Controls the Gold Market?
By: Julian D. W. Phillips - Safehaven.com
When gold price are slammed down in one day, as they were on Friday by more than $20 it is certain that some sort of concerted action was taken to push the price down. Fingers point at the leading U.S. banks. But then later on Friday, before its close, there came a huge surge in buying that took the gold price up to $1,220 from $1,192. This pressure equaled or bettered the downward pressures seen in that day. This bodes well this week for pressures between these two blocs to continue or even heighten until the gold price breaks one way or the other. It's time to look at who is controlling the gold market?

Government Desperate. Gold Tax Imminent?
By: Richard Daughty - GoldSeek.com
The thrust is that, as Mr. Steer says, "Adrian floats the disturbing possibility that governments, looking around for easy sources of revenue, may decide to tax the private ownership of gold."
Well, I am happy to be the "go-to guy" when it comes to questions like this, and I am happy that I can put Adrian's fears to rest.
He can rest assured that the government will tax the private ownership of gold, and everything else, too, highly reminiscent of the phrase in the Declaration of Independence that reads that the government "has erected a multitude of new offices, and send hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance" which, at this point in time since 1789, is 1 out of 5 workers who are paid from the collection of taxes, and a large system of governments which spends more than half of all income, and spends up to two-thirds of all income if the cost of compliance with government regulations is included!

Gold Country: Millions of ounces of gold in Idaho
By Bob Moriarty - CommodityOnline.com
I suppose I have done a couple of hundred of property tours over the last ten years. I've seen a lot of projects and a lot of companies. It is a great pleasure to see those companies who get it Exactly Right. They are few and far between.
Newsletter writers and geologists serve as sort of free consultants to the companies who invite them on tours though obviously the companies are most interested in free promotion. I've been on tours with most of the guys who do tours and everyone has something to offer. There is a lot of give and take and often a lot of criticism of what a company is or isn't doing. You can't really fool guys who have seen dozens of projects.

Gulf oil leak may be bigger than BP says
By RAY HENRY, HARRY R. WEBER and SETH BORENSTEIN
Associated Press Writers
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- While BP is capturing more oil from its blown-out well with every passing day, scientists on a team analyzing the flow said Tuesday that the amount of crude still escaping into the Gulf of Mexico may be considerably greater than what the government and the company have claimed.
Their assertions - combined with BP's rush to build a bigger cap and its apparent difficulty in immediately processing all the oil being collected - have only added to the impression that the company is still floundering in dealing with the catastrophe.
The cap that was put on the ruptured well last week collected about 620,000 gallons of oil on Monday and another 330,000 from midnight to noon on Tuesday and funneled it to a ship at the surface, said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the crisis. That would mean the cap is capturing better than half of the oil, based on the government's estimate that around 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons a day are leaking from the bottom of the sea.

Matthew Simmons: BP Won't Last The Summer, And There's Another Big Hole 7 Miles Away by Joe Weisenthal - BusinessInsider.com
Matthew Simmons is sticking by his story that there's another giant leak in the Gulf of Mexico blowing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. On CNBC's Fast Money, he says he'd be surprised if BP lasted this summer, saying this is disaster is entirely BP's fault.
Simmons has been all over cable news lately -- yesterday he described to Dylan Ratigan how the next nightmare will be when a Hurricane picks up the oil and paints the Gulf Coast region black.

Oil Guru: The Real Nightmare Will Be When A Hurricane Picks Up The Oil And Paints The Gulf Coast Black

File your claims! Or BP won't pay
By Ben Rooney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In response to a growing perception that filing a claim for compensation from BP is more trouble than it's worth, officials in Alabama announced a program Tuesday to help workers affected by the oil spill get the money they're entitled to.
The current process, overseen by claims adjusters contracted by BP, has been criticized for being cumbersome and inefficient. But it has also been hampered by a lack of participation by workers who think there is nothing to gain from it, according to Alabama governor Bob Riley.

BP's Gulf Coast oil spill - a legal primer
Is BP really protected by a $75 million cap on damages?
Probably not. In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, known as OPA (pronounced like 'Oprah' without the 'r'). For leaks from offshore oil rigs like this one, OPA limits the liability of the responsible party -- BP in this instance -- to $75 million in economic damages, but there are several mammoth exceptions. To begin with, the limitation does not apply to any of BP's liability for state and federal cleanup costs, for which BP (BP) is 100% responsible. As of early June, these costs had already come to about $990 million, according to BP, and the company seems to be just getting started. (BP has also committed to spending another $360 million to fund the building of barrier islands off the coast of Louisiana.)

Imagining the Worst in BP's Future
By: Andrew Ross Sorkin -NYTimes via CNBC.com
It seems unthinkable, even now, that the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could bring down the mighty BP. But investment bankers get paid to think the unthinkable - and that is just what they are doing. The idea that BP might one day file for bankruptcy, particularly as part of a merger that would enable it to cordon off its liabilities from the spill, is starting to percolate on Wall Street. Bankers and lawyers are already sizing up potential deals (and counting their potential fees).

Key senators call for lifting of oil liability caps
By the CNN Wire Staff
Washington (CNN) -- Top Senate Democrats called Tuesday for a sweeping overhaul of the nation's corporate liability laws in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, arguing that companies currently have little incentive to make safety and environmental concerns a top priority.
Specifically, the senators blasted a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cut the amount of punitive damages a jury awarded to victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill by $2 billion. They also criticized the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, which would potentially limit BP's liability for economic damages incurred by the Gulf spill to $75 million. Critics note that the amount is a small fraction of the cost a major oil spill like the Gulf disaster will inflict on communities.

Gulf Oil Spill Could Spread to Atlantic Coast
Betsy Mason - SilverBearCafe.com
Oil from BP's Gulf of Mexico spill could reach the Atlantic coast in the coming months, according to a new computer simulation.
The model indicates that oil at the surface is likely to be picked up by a fast-moving stream of water in the Gulf known as the Loop Current, which feeds into the Gulf Stream current that carries water northward along the Atlantic coastline.
"I've had a lot of people ask me, 'Will the oil reach Florida?'" Synte Peacock, who worked on the model at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in a press release today. "Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood."

Plumes of Oil Deep in Gulf Are Spreading Far, Tests Find
By JUSTIN GILLIS - NYTimes.com
The government and university researchers confirmed Tuesday that plumes of dispersed oil were spreading far below the ocean surface from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, raising fresh concern about the potential impact of the spill on sea life.
The tests, the first detailed chemical analyses of water from the deep sea, show that some of the most toxic components of the oil are not necessarily rising to the surface where they can evaporate, as would be expected in a shallow oil leak. Instead, they are drifting through deep water in plumes or layers that stretch as far as 50 miles from the leaking well.

Killer Undersea Oil Plumes Lurk in Gulf of Mexico
By Jessica Resnick-Ault
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Undersea clouds of oil that can kill off marine life have spread for miles in the Gulf of Mexico from BP Plc's leaking Macondo well, according to preliminary data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today.
Water samples collected by the R/V Weatherbird II vessel have confirmed biodegraded crude oil in two undersea layers as far as 40 nautical miles northeast of BP's seabed leak, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said at a press briefing. The vessel's samples show oil as deep as 3,300 feet in the water, Lubchenco said.

Obama predicts long recovery
By Kara Rowland - WashingtonTimes.com
President criticizes BP as government grapples with oil disaster
President Obama on Monday warned of a long road to recovery for the Gulf Coast as it continues to grapple with the worst oil spill in the nation's history, mixing criticism of BP with a dose of optimism about the region's ability to "bounce back" from the disaster.
Echoing the sentiments of Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the crisis, Mr. Obama sought to set public expectations for a long and arduous cleanup.
"No matter how successful we are over the next few weeks on some of the containment efforts, the damages are still going to be there," Mr. Obama said after meeting with his Cabinet to discuss coordinating the ongoing response, including monitoring workers for any adverse health effects.

Oil Industry Veteran Matthew Simmons "Nuking BP Oil Leak Is The Only Thing We Can Do"

Obama Says He Seeks 'Ass to Kick' on BP Oil Spill
By Nicholas Johnston
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, citing possible safety shortcomings before the nation's worst environmental disaster, said he is looking for "whose ass to kick" in response to the BP Plc spill.
In an interview broadcast today on NBC's "Today" show, Obama said there may have been "some corner cutting" on safety on the doomed oil rig and promised a full investigation.
The president said the three trips he has taken to the Gulf Coast to speak with people affected by the spill have helped him understand who needs to be held responsible, "so I know whose ass to kick," he told "Today" host Matt Lauer, according to excerpts released by NBC.

BP will pay 'many billions of dollars in fines' for oil spill
Mail & Guardian Online - MG.co.za
The White House has warned BP that it faces "many billions of dollars" in fines for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, easily dwarfing the clean-up cost, which has already topped the billion dollar mark. The steady escalation in costs for BP was seen as further evidence today that the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico continues to exceed the administration's and BP's worst-case scenarios for an oil spill. "We are adapting to an enemy that changes," Thad Allen, the coast guard commander overseeing the response told a White House briefing. "We are no longer dealing with a monolithic spill."

Countrywide's Foreclosure Scam:
It's Not the Only Lender Ripping Off Homeowners
By Alain Sherter - BNet Blog
Bank of America's (BAC) move to settle federal charges that its Countrywide unit gouged homeowners facing foreclosure should mark the beginning, not the end, of a full-blown government crackdown on mortgage lenders. That's because the practices Countrywide is accused of - which range from raising the cost of property inspections, to lying to borrowers about how much they owed, to charging $300 to mow the lawn - are endemic among loan servicers.

Western Capitalism in Decline
By Peter Morici, Senior Contributor
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Democratic capitalism is in eclipse.
From Berlin to Tokyo, governments struggle to instigate enough growth to pay their bills and gainfully employ workers, meanwhile, China enjoys breakneck progress.
Democratic capitalism is not flawed. Rather, government policy-makers are destroying a system that took mankind from dark feudal superstitions to cracking the secrets of life with deceptions, delusions and abuse.
From Athens to Sacramento, politicians have deceived voters by telling them pension systems can be constructed allowing retirement at ages 55 or 60. Whether funded by savings and investments or taxes, no solvent pension system is possible that permits educated professionals, unionized workers and government employees, who get most of the income and benefits, to work only 30 or 35 years and retire for another 20 or 25 years.

Investment Banker: It's Going To Get Nasty - Buy Land, Barbed Wire And Guns
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
A top investment banker has warned that the economic fallout of the sovereign debt crisis could get so nasty over the next five years that people would be wise to abandon the markets and instead buy land, barbed wire and guns.
With gold smashing through its all time record high this morning on the back of fears over a double dip recession, analysts are turning increasingly bearish on the markets. Anthony Fry, senior managing director at Evercore Partners, told CNBC that the bond markets could turn nasty over the next few months and said that the current problems created by the European debt crisis could be with us for at least five years.

Homeowners Who Refuse to Pay Mortgages May Be First Genuine Heroes of the Recession By: Jessica Pressler - NYMag.com
We felt a little at war with ourselves when reading today's Times story about homeowners who have decided to stop paying their mortgages and let their homes go into foreclosure because screw 'em - in the words of Wendy Pemberton, who along with her son who lives down the road stopped paying her mortgage after the recession affected her business and brought down the value of her home, "They're all crooks." The neocon inside of us wanted to shake our fist at these people for being leeches, and point out that they're the ones who signed up for a mortgage they couldn't pay for. The liberal New Yorker in us was repelled by the mention of Scott Pemberton's "gas-guzzling airboat" and his patronage of Outback Steakhouse, and also faintly jealous that he probably has a dishwasher and garbage disposal. And yet ... overall, we felt like there was something pure and oddly right about what the Times calls their act of "passive resistance."
For instance, we can't help but admire the logic of Jim Tsiogas.

Black Flight Hits Detroit
By ALEX P. KELLOGG - WSJ.com
DETROIT—This shrinking city needs to hang on to people like Johnette Barham: taxpaying, middle-class professionals who invest in local real estate, work and play downtown, and make their home here.
Ms. Barham just left. And she's not coming back.
In seven years as a homeowner in Detroit, she endured more than 10 burglaries and break-ins at her house and a nearby rental property she owned. Still, she defied friends' pleas to leave as she fortified her home with locks, bars, alarms and a dog.

Gerald Celente on Financial Sense Newshour

Austerity Fascism Is Coming And It Will Be Brutal
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
Welcome to the age of rage - riots and revolutions will be the reaction to the next stage of the new world order
Top historians, social and financial analysts are warning that the draconian austerity measures currently being prepared by governments in the west will cause riots and even revolutions as people react with fury in response to their jobs, savings, basic public services, pensions and welfare money being seized by the financial terrorists who caused the economic collapse in the first place.

Stimulus Talk Yields to Calls to Cut Deficits
By DAVID E. SANGER and SEWELL CHAN - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - At a moment when many economists warn that the American economic recovery is likely to be imperiled by prolonged high unemployment and slow growth, President Obama is discovering that the tools available to him last year - a big economic stimulus and action by the Federal Reserve - are both now politically untenable.
The mood in both parties of Congress has turned decidedly anti-deficit, meaning that the job-creation programs once favored by the White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have been cut back, then cut again. It is a measure of the mood that Mr. Obama on Tuesday hailed an initiative by his administration to cut the budgets of most major government agencies by 5 percent, at a time when conventional theory would call for more government spending to lift the economy.

Tea Party Activists Are Out-Lobbying Liberals, Liberal Leader Says
By Nick Dean - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - Although Democrats control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, the head of ProgressiveCongress.com said the liberal movement is not doing enough to further its political agenda and is, in fact, being out-lobbied by tea party activists and people on the political right.
"I have spent the last 14 months in Washington, and we are not advocating for our side the way that the right is advocating for theirs," said Darcy Burner, executive director of ProgressiveCongress.com at a discussion sponsored by the liberal Campaign for America's Future on Monday.

Vulture investors buy up distressed mortgages
Carolyn Said, SAn Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Want a read on the housing market's future?
Ask a vulture investor.
So-called vultures - also known as distressed-asset investors - make money by buying distressed assets, such as soured mortgage loans, and predicting which way the wind will blow to decide when to liquidate.
That means Jon Daurio's economic calculations provide as good a guide as any.
As CEO of Kondaur Capital Corp., which buys thousands of distressed mortgages at a discount and rehabilitates them for resale, Daurio tries to flip those mortgages as quickly as possible.
He has no desire to buy and hold, because he thinks homes are worth less and less as time goes by.

Bernanke Says Unemployment Unlikely to Fall Quickly
By Scott Lanman and Joshua Zumbrun
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the U.S. recovery probably won't quickly bring down the unemployment rate, which is likely to stay "high for a while."
Given the depth of the recession, the recovery is "moderate paced," Bernanke said last night in a question-and- answer session with Sam Donaldson, the ABC News journalist, in Washington. In Europe, policy makers "are committed to avoiding default in Greece" and elsewhere, he said.
While the Fed will raise interest rates from a record low before the economy returns to "full employment," Bernanke said officials don't know when that process will start. The banking system isn't fully healthy and lenders are "cautious" in providing credit, he said.

Medicaid: States' $24 billion black hole
By Tami Luhby - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Governors and state lawmakers are anxiously waiting to see whether Congress will send them another $24 billion to help cover their ever-expanding Medicaid rolls. Only a few months ago, the money seemed like such a sure thing that about 30 governors included it in their fiscal 2011 budgets, which start on July 1. This assumption spared them from cutting even deeper into social services, education and public payrolls.

Obama Renews Campaign to Pitch Health Care Bill to Elderly
By Erica Werner, Associated Press - CNSNews.com
Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama is turning his attention back to his signature health care bill and trying to win over the most skeptical constituency: seniors.
Obama was set to pitch the bill at a senior center in Wheaton, Md., on Tuesday. The event will be broadcast live and seniors will be able to listen by phone and ask questions at dozens of gatherings around the country.
The timing coincides with the release later this week of the first batch of $250 checks to seniors who fall into Medicare's prescription drug coverage gap, known as the "doughnut hole." The checks will be the first tangible benefits most of them will be seeing from the law Obama signed in March. Some 4 million elderly and disabled people will get checks this year, and the first batch of 80,000 is supposed to go out Thursday.

Census pay may have lured workers from taking other jobs
By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
Last week's disappointing report on the job market may not be as dreary as it appears.
Some economists say the addition of 411,000 temporary Census workers in May didn't just mask a poor showing by the more critical private sector - it could have been a big reason for the bleak numbers.
Many unemployed workers who otherwise would have taken permanent jobs at private firms instead likely opted for higher-paying temporary Census jobs, economists say. That could have left fewer good candidates for private-sector jobs and prompted employers to put off hiring, says Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist for Federated Investors, an investment firm.
In fact, a similar dynamic was at work in each of the previous four censuses, Deutsche Bank said in a report.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania tax amnesty
Philadelphia Business Journal - by Athena D. Merritt
Philadelphia's tax amnesty program has brought in more than $7 million in back taxes to date. When the program ends in 18 days, the city will aggressively pursue tax delinquents that did not participate, Mayor Michael Nutter said Tuesday.
Since the program's launch on May 3, the city has received 9,400 applications from tax delinquents. The city is anticipating a net $30 million from the tax amnesty program, which could impact the budget positively or negatively depending on whether it exceeds expectations or falls short, city Finance Director Rob Dubow said last week.

Bob Chapman's Friday 6/04/2010 on Alex Jones Tv 1/2

Bob Chapman's Friday 6/04/2010 on Alex Jones Tv 2/2

British military insider:
World War III is being staged; starting with Israel and Iran
February 18, LA County Nonpartisan Examiner - Carl Herman
US "leadership" and their corporate media minions are pushing juvenile-level propaganda for war with Iran; lies that anyone can verify with a few moments' attention. If you haven't already confirmed the Orwellian-level disinformation, stop and read the above two links now.
Many people hypothesize the confirmed lies for wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, and a final war with Iran, is to control oil. Connected is the theory that US political and economic "masters" are so confident in their propaganda, and so correct in their conclusion that the critical mass of humanity is too feeble to stop them, that they brazenly move forward for global hegemony.
This article provides a different explanation of the facts; with heightened urgency to prevent war with Iran, as it is a planned step to begin a Third World War.

Russia, Turkey and Iran Meet, Posing Test for U.S. Diplomacy
By SABRINA TAVERNISE - NYTimes.com
ISTANBUL - Leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran convened at a security summit meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday in a display of regional power that appeared to be calculated to test the United States just days before a scheduled American-backed debate in the United Nations Security Council on imposing tighter sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. In remarks at the gathering of regional leaders, the third of its kind dedicated to increasing cooperation and security in Asia, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said a nuclear agreement brokered by Turkey and Brazil last month was a one-time opportunity and other countries had called to express their support for it.

Iran says will not swap U.S. detainees for scientist
(Reuters) - Iran will not propose to Washington the release of three U.S. detainees in return for an Iranian nuclear scientist it says was kidnapped by the CIA, the foreign minister's spokesman said on Tuesday.
In the latest twist in the disappearance one year ago of scientist Shahram Amiri, Iranian television broadcast a video on Monday of a man who said he was Amiri and had been drugged, abducted and tortured by U.S. intelligence.
Amiri, a university researcher working for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. In March, ABC News said he had defected and was helping the CIA. U.S. intelligence has declined to comment.

China vows to keep blocking online content
By Scott McDonald AP - WashingtonTimes.com
BEIJING (AP) - China vowed Tuesday to keep a tight grip on the Internet, saying it would continue to block anything considered subversive or threatening to "national unity."
The "white paper" statement of government policy was released three months after a public dispute over censorship prompted Google Inc. to shut its mainland-based search engine.
It said there were 384 million Internet users in China at the end of 2009, about 29 percent of the population. The government aims to boost that to 45 percent in the next five years by pushing into rural areas where the white paper said there was a "digital gap."

4 Chinese Nationals Shot at North Korea Border
By EDWARD WONG - NYTimes.com
SHANGHAI - The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that a North Korean border guard shot dead three Chinese nationals and wounded one last week in an incident in northeast China, prompting the Chinese government to file a formal complaint.
The shootings took place last Friday at the China-North Korea border by the Chinese city of Dandong, in Liaoning Province, said Qin Gang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, at a regularly scheduled news conference in Beijing. The four shot Chinese were residents of Dandong and were believed by the guard to be engaged in illegal trade across the border, Mr. Qin added, according to a report by the Chinese-language edition of Global Times, an official newspaper.

China gambles backing North Korea
By Ashish Kumar Sen - WashingtonTimes.com
Stalinist state kills 3 Chinese
China's reluctance to support international efforts to censure its communist ally North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship is taking a toll on its reputation on the world stage, according to former U.S. officials and analysts.
Wary of instability on the Korean Peninsula and a disruption of its vital imports of natural resources from North Korea, Beijing has doggedly pursued a policy of supporting Pyongyang's actions, regardless of the consequences.
The North's actions directly affected China on Friday, when North Korean border guards shot four Chinese nationals suspected of crossing the Chinese border. Three of the Chinese were killed and one was injured.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tuesday 06.08.2010

Bilderberg Wants Americans Disarmed And Dependent On Government
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
Globalists celebrate Obama's support for small arms ban that many fear could be used for mass gun grab as part of elite agenda to "Europeanize" the United States
As part of Bilderberg's agenda to "Europeanize" America and turn it into a socialist welfare state wherein its citizens are completely dependent on the government, the elite are celebrating President Obama's support for a UN small arms treaty, which many fear could be used to impinge on the right to keep and bear arms.
According to Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker, elitists were celebrating one of their scant victories at the annual meeting this year, namely the fact that President Obama has promised to support a United Nations small arms treaty that could represent an end run around the second amendment.

Goldman Sachs May Explain PPT’s Vanishing Act
by Caroline Baum - Bloomberg's BusinessWeek.com
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Where are they? What’s keeping them? Stock markets across the globe are getting hammered, and there's no sign of the Plunge Protection Team.
Sure, there were some sightings of the bond vigilantes in places like Greece over the past month. But a worldwide equity meltdown is a job for real men, for the PPT.
Otherwise known as the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, the PPT was established after the 1987 stock- market crash to ensure the financial markets have adequate liquidity to function. Members include the U.S. Treasury secretary, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Banking System Collapse: Wake Up America Your Banks Are Dying
U.S. banks are being shut down by federal regulators at a staggering pace this year, and yet most Americans seem completely oblivious to it. In fact, federal officials have already shut down 81 U.S. banks this year, which is about double the number that were shut down at this time last year. So why aren't more people upset about this? Well, part of the reason is because the FDIC is doing it very, very quietly. The bank closings for each week are announced every Friday, which means that they pass through the news cycle over the weekend almost unnoticed. For example, banks in Nebraska, Mississippi and Illinois with total deposits of almost $2.3 billion were shut down by federal regulators on Friday. So did you hear about it before now? If not, why not? Shouldn't the fact that we are experiencing a banking system collapse be headline news? But most Americans are more than happy to remain blissfully ignorant of what is going on. In fact, most Americans seem far more interested in what is happening on American Idol or Dancing With The Stars. But when the American Dream starts dying for tens of millions of Americans as the economy collapses perhaps more people will start to care.

Banks Seized by Regulators in Nebraska, Mississippi, Illinois
By Dan Reichl
June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Three banks with total deposits of almost $2.3 billion were seized by regulators amid losses stemming from soured real-estate loans, raising to 81 the number of U.S. lenders that have collapsed this year. Banks in Nebraska, Mississippi and Illinois were shut yesterday, according to statements on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s website. The failures drained $313.6 million from the FDIC's deposit-insurance fund.

A Phantom Recovery
Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
In recent months, GDP numbers have rebounded - primarily as a result of record low interest rates reliquifying the credit market and government stimulus jolting consumer spending. Although the "positive growth" has delighted Obama's economic brain trust, it has done little to boost the fortunes of Main Street. As I have said many times, GDP largely measures spending, and spending is not growth.

Goldman Sachs Subpoenaed by FCIC
By: CNBC.com with wires
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has filed a subpoena seeking documents from Goldman Sachs after the investment bank did not provide documents and interviews in a timely manner, officials from the FCIC said Monday. Chairman Phil Angelides and Vice Chairman Bill Thomas announced the subpoena in a press release Monday, but the press release did not mention specifically what the FCIC was looking for.

Goldman Subpoenaed After FCIC Says Firm Slowed Probe
By Jesse Westbrook
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was subpoenaed by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission after panel members said the most profitable firm in Wall Street history engaged in a document "dump" to hinder a probe.
Goldman Sachs sent more than a billion pages of documents, FCIC Vice Chairman Bill Thomas said on a conference call with reporters today. Not all of the information is what the panel requested, and Goldman Sachs didn't cooperate with requests to interview Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn and Chief Financial Officer David Viniar, FCIC Chairman Phil Angelides said.

Goldman Deserves Regulatory Probe in Bloomberg Poll
By Christine Harper and Robert Schmidt
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is being "legitimately scrutinized" by regulators who sued the firm for fraud based on conduct that many in the industry consider to be common practice, according to a Bloomberg survey.
The most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history has suffered the worst reputational decline among its largest competitors, according to the global quarterly poll of 1,001 investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers. Eighty- three percent of respondents said Goldman Sachs's stature diminished in the past six months; the next closest were UBS AG, with 27 percent, and Citigroup Inc., at 26 percent.

Goldman Sachs spent months dodging questions, FCIC says
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
NEW YORK - Goldman Sachs tried to hide potentially embarrassing information and sidetrack a bipartisan congressional investigation into the causes of the worst recession since the 1930s, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission said Monday.
The 10-member commission subpoenaed Goldman on Friday. The FCIC said Goldman wasted months failing to arrange times for the commission to interview senior executives. In addition, the financial services giant allegedly buried responses to specific information requests in millions of pages of unneeded documents.

Goldman Accused of Stalling by Panel
By JOHN D. MCKINNON And SUSANNE CRAIG - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON - A commission probing the financial crisis denounced Goldman Sachs Group Inc., saying the firm first dragged its feet over requests for information then dumped hundreds of millions of pages of documents on the panel. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued a subpoena to Goldman, demanding that the firm provide a key for identifying customer names and a way of matching up specific documents to the commission's requests for information. The subpoena also demanded documents concerning Goldman's mortgage-backed derivative securities, which are central in current federal probes of the firm.

Goldman Accused of Thwarting Financial Crisis Panel
By: John Carney - Senior Editor, CNBC.com
The heads of the panel investigating the causes behind the financial crisis lambasted Goldman Sachs today, accusing the company of "deliberately and disruptively" refusing to cooperate with their investigation. Phil Angelides, the chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, said that while the overwhelming number of financial firms from which the FCIC has sought documents or information have complied, Goldman has not. Instead, Goldman has been "dumping" an overwhelming volume of documents on the FCIC, which has a staff of just over 50 people.

Goldman Sachs accused of disrupting FCIC's probe into financial crisis
By James Quinn - Telegraph.co.uk
Goldman Sachs has been accused of "deliberately and disruptively" refusing to work with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) after employing delaying tactics and attempting to inundate the panel with millions of pages of documents.
The investment bank, which has now been subpoenaed to appear before the FCIC as a result of its alleged actions, has also been accused of "mischief-making" with regards to its conduct towards the commission after sending it 20m separate documents. The FCIC has a staff of 50.
The accusations came from Phil Angelides, chairman of the FCIC, which is charged by the US Congress with finding the root causes of the crisis and outlining steps to ensure it does not happen again.

Goldman stung by backlash in China
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing - FT.com via CNBC.com
Public criticism of Goldman Sachs has come to China, where the investment bank has been lambasted in articles in state-controlled media. Parts of the media, apparently emboldened by congressional inquiries and public anger in the west, have openly slated Goldman, arguably the most successful foreign investment bank in China. "Many people believe Goldman Sachs, which goes around the Chinese market slurping gold and sucking silver, may have, using all kinds of deals, created even bigger losses for Chinese companies and investors than it did with its fraudulent actions in the US," read the opening lines of an article in the China Youth Daily, a state-owned daily newspaper, last week.

Reasons to have Gold/Silver as financial back-up
By Dr. Atif Khan, Ph.D - CommodityOnline.com
The dynamics of international trade and finance are undergoing vigorous transformation. Most particularly in the wake of the recent meltdown, the movement of precious metals against the pitfalls of various currencies and stocks have led many to believe that future world order will be highly dependent on the state of precious metals; their demand, supply and price will be the major determinant of global economic scenario.
Failing in substantial recovery has further led to a widespread debate as to whether the argument forecasted long before bears any resemblance to portray Gold & Silver as the future of money. The nature of both the precious metals though cater distinct purposes and therefore the route that each will adopt to the top will also vary inadvertently.

Gold May Surge to Record $1,300 on Double Dip, GFMS Forecasts
By Aya Takada and Yasumasa Song - BusinessWeek.com
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Gold, trading within 1.5 percent of a record, may rally to an all-time high as investors seek a haven for their wealth, including protection from a possible double- dip recession in the global economy, according to GFMS Ltd.
The metal is expected to trade between $1,050 and $1,300 an ounce for the rest of the year, and may rally to as much as $2,000 should the sovereign-debt crisis spread beyond Europe, possibly to the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Paul Walker said in an interview. Gold may also surpass platinum prices, he said.

Gold's 'Real Move' to $7,000 Coming
By: CNBC.com
The "real move" in gold is to come, predicted Egon von Gruyerz, founder of precious metals investment and storage company GoldSwitzerland.com, on Monday. He told CNBC he sees the inflation-adjusted price of gold "easily" rising to six times its current price ($1,210) to around $7,000 an ounce in the future on "normal" inflation. "Adjusted for real inflation (as per shadowstats.com) the 1980 gold peak in today's prices corresponds to around $7,200 today. So gold could easily go up 6 times from the current price of $1,220 and still be within normal parameters," von Gruyerz's latest report for GoldSwitzerland.com said.

Gold $7,000!
By Chris Mayer - The DailyReckoning.com
06/07/10 Gaithersburg, Maryland - During a week when almost everything went wrong, the gold market went very right. In fact, gold has been going very right for more than a decade. The gold price has more than quadrupled during the last 10 years. So is it too late to buy the stuff?
My short answer is, "No."
Admittedly, gold is not like any other investment. It is not merely a financial asset; it is the ultimate form of money. But that doesn't mean it is always a good investment. Many investors make a case for gold laden with ideological fury over the government's printing press. These investors are always saying buy gold. Their arguments are timeless, but not always timely.

Gold Attempting To Break Out to New Highs
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Gold is attempting to break out and confirm its cup and handle formation. It moved sharply higher on increasing volume right after the PM fix ($1,215) at the LBMA in London. If it can surmount resistance just above it may do a breakaway gap higher some evening and keep going. I will be a little surprised if it can break out quickly and in one move. Backing and filling the breakout is more likely, unless there is some sort of default in progress, or a heightened risk of a failure in the paper markets somewhere. I thought it was interesting that the rally was triggered off the PM fix in London, the 'fractional reserve' bullion market.
Some accuse me of being too conservative in my gold forecasts. Or at least they do when it rallies. Others think I am far too optimistic, but from economic theory most appropriately described as faith-based, but profanely so.

Why Governments Hate Gold
Texas Straight Talk by Ron Paul - FinancialSense.com
This past week several emerging and ongoing crises took attention away from the ongoing sovereign debt problems in Greece. The bailouts are merely kicking the can down the road and making things worse for taxpaying citizens, here and abroad. Greece is unfortunately not unique in its irresponsible spending habits. Greek-style debt explosions are quickly spreading to other nations one by one, and yes, the United States is one of the dominoes on down the line.

Articles Point to a Higher Gold Price
BY STEVE SAVILLE - GreenFaucet
Here are two articles in the 31st May edition of Barrons magazine that point to a much higher gold price over the years ahead. The first of these articles is an interview with Ray Dalio entitled "Set Aside Fears of Inflation -- Just For Now".
Ray Dalio is the chief investment officer for Bridgwater Associates, a firm that manages about $75B on behalf of governments, central banks, pension funds and endowments, so his opinions carry some weight. His views are decidedly gold-bullish, not because he is bullish on gold but because he unequivocally concurs with the Keynesian (read: wrongheaded) policies implemented by governments and central banks in response to the financial crisis. Specifically, coming through loud and clear in the article is Dalio's belief that central banks can help the economy by creating money out of nothing (counterfeiting). For example, he says:

Who Controls the Gold Market?
by Julian D.W. Phillip - FinancialSense.com
When gold price are slammed down in one day, as they were on Friday by more than $20 it is certain that some sort of concerted action was taken to push the price down. Fingers point at the leading U.S. banks. But then later on Friday, before its close, there came a huge surge in buying that took the gold price up to $1,220 from $1,192. This pressure equaled or bettered the downward pressures seen in that day. This bodes well this week for pressures between these two blocs to continue or even heighten until the gold price breaks one way or the other. It's time to look at who is controlling the gold market?

Now Rising in Tandem, Are Gold and the Dollar Forging a New Link?
By CHARLES HUGH SMITH - DailyFinance.com
For years, a clearly see-saw correlation existed between gold and the U.S. dollar: When the dollar dropped in value, the price of gold rose. It made a certain kind of sense because investors fleeing the risks of paper money tend to plunk some of their capital in precious metals.
Conversely, when expectations of a growing economy, low inflation and rising corporate profits take hold, the dollar assets look attractive compared to gold, which doesn't earn any dividend.

On The Edge With Max Keiser-06-04-2010 (Part1)
Interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

On The Edge With Max Keiser-06-04-2010 (Part2)

On The Edge With Max Keiser-06-04-2010 (Part3)

Bond king Gross: U.S. headed for spiraling "debt super cycle"
President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation's annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a "debt super cycle."
The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government's total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world's largest economy to expand at a slower pace than the 3.2 percent average during the past five decades.
"Over the long term, interest rates on government debt will likely have to rise to attract investors," said Hiroki Shimazu, a market economist in Tokyo at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., a unit of Japan's third-largest publicly traded bank. "That will be a big burden on the government and the people."

The Great Recession
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Employment figures clearly show that this is much more than a cyclical recession. It is the breaking of an historic credit bubble, made worse by the Fed's policy responses and recommendations on banking regulation since 1994.
If you look closely at the chart below, you will see that if you subtract the temporary government hiring for the Census, there is no recovery in employment. It is flat. With all the trillions spent so far, why is there such a weak response?
You cannot kick start something with a quick blast of stimulus if it is still broken. So any stimulus to the economy or subsidies to the banks that are being applied are essentially wasted, until the system is significantly reformed and restructured. That is the problem.

Easy Money to Stick Around
By JON HILSENRATH - WSJ.com
Fed Unlikely to Raise Rates as Euro-Zone Crisis Keeps Pressure on Economy; Risk of a 'Tail Event'
Investors spent much of early 2010 wondering when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would start to tighten financial conditions to rein in the substantial support to the U.S. economy. Instead, Europe is doing the job for him. Worries about the 16-nation euro zone's financial turmoil has pushed U.S. stocks lower and the dollar higher, made risky debt in the U.S. costlier compared with less-risky debt, inflated interest rates for the short-term loans that banks make to one another and helped slow down the issuance of commercial paper.

Increasingly hawkish Fed ponders raising rates
Pedro Nicolaci da Costa - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - Three top Federal Reserve officials said on Thursday it may soon be time to begin raising interest rates as the economic recovery in the United States gathers momentum, despite persistently high unemployment.
Thomas Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Fed, argued the U.S. central bank should raise benchmark borrowing costs from near zero to 1 percent by the end of summer.
The head of the Atlanta Fed, Dennis Lockhart, said policymakers should soon begin thinking about tightening monetary policy, though he stopped short of calling for an imminent move.
And Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said that while economic conditions do not call for tightening, "we need to be ready and we need to be ready to move fairly quickly."

BP chief Tony Hayward sold shares weeks before oil spill
By Jon Swaine and Robert Winnett - Telegraph.co.uk
The chief executive of BP sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused its value to collapse.
Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.
Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family's mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2 million.
There is no suggestion that he acted improperly or had prior knowledge that the company was to face the biggest setback in its history.
His decision, however, means he avoided losing more than £423,000 when BP's share price plunged after the oil spill began six weeks ago.

Rate of Oil Leak, Still Not Clear, Puts Doubt on BP
By JUSTIN GILLIS and HENRY FOUNTAIN - NYTimes.com
Staring day after day at images of oil billowing from an undersea well in the Gulf of Mexico, many Americans are struggling to make sense of the numbers. On Monday, BP said a cap was capturing 11,000 barrels of oil a day from the well. The official government estimate of the flow rate is 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, which means the new device should be capturing the bulk of the oil.
But is it? With no consensus among experts on how much oil is pouring from the wellhead, it is difficult - if not impossible - to assess the containment cap's effectiveness. BP has stopped trying to calculate a flow rate on its own, referring all questions on that subject to the government. The company's liability will ultimately be determined in part by how many barrels of oil are spilled.

Oil cleanup could take years
Jeff Mason and Anna Driver - Reuters.com
U.S. says BP aims to double the oil captured in Gulf
Louisiana (Reuters) - Energy giant BP Plc seeks to double the amount of oil it captures from its ruptured Gulf of Mexico well, while the U.S. Gulf Coast will be struggling with the environmental mess from the huge spill for years, the Coast Guard said on Monday.
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who leads the government's relief effort, said London-based BP hoped to collect 20,000 barrels (840,000 gallons/3.18 million liters) per day in its latest effort to contain the worst spill in U.S. history, which has now affected 120 miles of coastline.
BP said it had collected 7,541 barrels of oil in the first 12 hours of Monday. If it collects the same amount the rest of the day, the total will be more than 15,000 barrels for Monday, about 35 percent higher than the amount collected on Sunday.

Imagining the Worst in BP's Future
By Andrew Ross Sorkin - NYTimes.com
Wall Street Is Getting Ready For BP To Go Bust
It seems unthinkable, even now, that the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could bring down the mighty BP. But investment bankers get paid to think the unthinkable - and that is just what they are doing.
The idea that BP might one day file for bankruptcy, particularly as part of a merger that would enable it to cordon off its liabilities from the spill, is starting to percolate on Wall Street. Bankers and lawyers are already sizing up potential deals (and counting their potential fees).

BP Spill Shows a Profit Buying 2018 Oil, Selling Spot
By Alexander Kwiatkowski and Margot Habiby
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- The oil market is signaling that prices have nowhere to go but up as the biggest spill in U.S. history curbs drilling and makes it more expensive to develop new fields.
Crude's premium for delivery in eight years rose 86 percent since the April 20 explosion at the BP Plc-leased Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, based on June 4 prices. Oil for December 2018 was $22 a barrel more than for next month, compared with $11 before the disaster. More regulation may add $5 to the long-term contracts, according to Deutsche Bank AG.

Reports at BP over years find history of problems
By Abrahm Lustgarten and Ryan Knutson - WashingtonPost.com
A series of internal investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the oil company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways.
The confidential inquiries, which have not previously been made public, focused on a rash of problems at BP's Alaska oil-drilling operations. They described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems and cut short or delayed inspections to reduce production costs.

Gerald Celente in Fox Business and Russian TV

Countrywide customers to be repaid $108 million for overcharges
By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times
Bank of America agrees to create a fund to reimburse homeowners who were assessed improper fees, the FTC announces.
Reporting from Washington - People struggling to keep their homes as the housing market collapsed faced additional hurdles if their mortgages were serviced by Countrywide Financial Corp. - inflated fees for property inspections, appraisals, and even lawn mowing, the Federal Trade Commission said. Now Bank of America, which bought the Calabasas lender in 2008, has agreed to refund those overcharges - in some cases amounting to thousands of dollars - as part of a $108-million settlement announced Monday.

Obama Gives States $250 Million to Review Premiums
By Alex Nussbaum
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Insurers led by UnitedHealth Group Inc. and WellPoint Inc. risk losing access to as many as 24 million customers a year under a plan announced by the White House today that expands funding for states to scrutinize "unreasonable" rate increases.
The U.S. will give states $250 million in grants over five years to strengthen their ability to review premiums, starting with $51 million this year, said Kathleen Sebelius, the federal health secretary, in a statement today. UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna Inc., the largest U.S. insurers, urged regulators in letters delivered last month to limit the new rate-review plans or risk driving insurers out of some markets.

Ahead of Midterm Election, Congress Becomes Deficit-Wary
Monday, June 07, 2010
By Laurie Kellman, AP via CNSNews.com
Washington (AP) - The prospect of the 2010 elections have changed the direction of government only half way through the primary season, with voter anger and economic jitters causing lawmakers to balk at their most basic duties as well as key elements of President Barack Obama's agenda.
After betting their political future on a government-mandated expansion of health care to include millions more Americans, Democrats appear to have little appetite for more legislative showdowns, given voter rebellion against government spending amid trillion dollar-plus annual deficits.

Why The Ongoing Push To Inflate The Debt Overhang By The Fed Is Suicidal by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
One of the once again widely accepted market certainties is that the economy has now openly reentered a deflationary phase. Nothing surprising here, and it is consistent with huge demand for UST paper, as every incremental auction demonstrates, an outcome that will eventually confirm yet again that credit is leaps and bounds ahead of stocks (today's most recent record of gold priced in Euros is not an indication of inflation or deflation, but merely of mistrust in paper - a totally separate dynamic). Yet, as always, the market is not efficient, and does not exist in its own vacuum - every analysis about market trends has to include at the very top, an assessment of what the Fed will and will not do. And the Fed is fully determined to inflate the economy by any means necessary:

Changes in China Could Raise Prices Worldwide
By: David Barboza - NYTimes.com via CNBC.com
The cost of doing business in China is going up.
Coastal factories are raising salaries, local governments are hiking minimum wage standards and if China allows its currency, the renminbi, to appreciate against the U.S. dollar later this year, as many economists are predicting, the cost of manufacturing in China will almost certainly rise. Although the salaries of factory workers in China are still low compared to those in the United States and Europe (the minimum wage in southern China is close to $125 a month), economists say the changes will eventually ripple through the global economy, driving up the prices of everything from T-shirts and sneakers to computer servers and smart phones.

U.S. Will be Like Greece in 'Seven to 10 Years,' Say Congressmen, Experts By Jane McGrath - CNSNews.com
(CNSNEws.com) - Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), along with other members of Congress and leading financial experts, is warning that the United States is in danger of being in the same dire situation as Greece - national bankruptcy -- in seven to 10 years unless the federal government radically curtails spending.
Last month, Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said the United States will "essentially be where Greece is in about seven years."

New bonds to help cash-strapped states also benefiting Wall Street
By Dan Eggen - Washington Post
New federally subsidized bonds that have proven wildly popular in helping cash-strapped state and local governments fund roads, schools and other construction projects also offer a windfall to a less obvious beneficiary: Wall Street banks.
Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and other firms that dominate the U.S. underwriting market stand to earn millions, if not billions, of dollars under a planned expansion of the Build America Bonds program, which provides tax credits to local and state governments seeking to finance capital projects. Major banks lobbied heavily for the program's expansion under a jobs bill recently passed by the House and under consideration in the Senate.

As federal stimulus fades, private hiring falters
By John W. Schoen - MSNBC.com
Surge in Census jobs in May masks underlying employment weakness
Friday's employment report underscores the critical transition now underway in the U.S. economy. As the impact of government stimulus fades, job creation will have to come from growth in the private sector. The latest data on the job market weren't encouraging. A wave of hiring by the government brought a surge in employment; some 431,000 jobs were added for the month. But almost all of them were temporary Census Department jobs that will last for only a few weeks or months. Private sector employers added just 41,000 net new workers to their payrolls in May. Payroll gains were revised downward for March and April by a combined 22,000.

In Brutal Job Market, More Than a Million Quit Looking
By: Jeff Cox, CNBC.com Staff Writer - CNBC.com
If you think the jobs situation has become pretty hopeless, you're not alone. Roughly 1.1 million workers have given up hope of finding employment. The staggering level of "discouraged workers" as the government calls them has swelled to historic proportions in 2010, past the million barrier for the first time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking the number.

America's jobless picture is alarmingly bleak
By Mort Zuckerman - FT.com
We are drifting. We take comfort in bits of good news, but we are in dangerous waters; the Great Recession is being starkly revealed as a global crisis with the US, the traditional engine of recovery, sputtering on every cylinder. The US government responded with dramatic financial support by transferring money to the household sector. But outside of these transfers the personal income of Americans is still declining; the residential market remains stagnant at best; consumer growth is nominal. The only real energy in the economy has come from the cessation of inventory liquidation, which is now the main factor in rising industrial output and any modest improvement in the economy.

Real estate developers forced to file personal bankruptcy as loan guarantees on failed projects hit home
By: Thomas A. Corfman and Eddie Baeb - Chicago Business
The unfolding crisis in commercial real estate is opening a new chapter as a growing number of developers seek refuge in personal bankruptcy. A parade of Chapter 7 filers includes Bruce Kaplan, the president of Northern Realty Group Ltd., who sought protection from creditors earlier this year after Bank of America Corp. won a nearly $20-million judgment against him and three other principals in the defunct firm. Hotel developer Peter Dumon filed last month, listing unsecured debts of $165 million, including loan guarantees, compared with assets of no more than $10 million.

More sellers cut home prices in May: Zillow
(Reuters) - The percentage of U.S. home sellers who cut their asking price rose in May, but price reductions were smaller, real estate website Zillow.com said in a report.
Prices of nearly one in four homes, or 23.6 percent, listed for sale on the Zillow website had been cut at least once as of the end of May, up from 23.2 percent in April, Zillow said in the report, which was obtained by Reuters on Thursday. May marked the second month in a row that the percentage of home sellers who reduced their asking price increased from the previous month. Price reductions peaked last September, when nearly one-third, or 32.6 percent, of listings on Zillow had at least one price cut.

IS HOUSING ALREADY DOUBLE DIPPING?
Pragmatic Capitalism
The market was ecstatic on Wednesday in anticipation of Friday's big job's report. But while the market rallied 2.5%+ there was a potentially far more important story than the census driven job's report: the real estate data. While the data came in "better than expected", primarily due to the end of the home buyers tax credit, there was an underlying red flag. As the end of Spring buying season coincided with the tax credit the buyers have literally become non-existent in the housing market. This was clear in the most recent mortgage applications data also released on Wednesday. Diana Olick at CNBC has done a fantastic job covering the housing market.

Bernard Madoff: 'I carried my victims for 20 years'
By James Quinn, Telegraph.co.uk
Bernard Madoff has mocked the investors he swindled out of $65bn (£45bn), reportedly saying that he "carried them" for 20 years and that he took money from "greedy" rich people who wanted more.
The convicted fraudster, sentenced to 150 years in jail for running his 'Ponzi" scheme, allegedly said " ---- my victims" when a fellow inmate condemned him for his crimes. The revelations come from an extended piece in New York Magazine, in which fellow inmates discussed Madoff's behaviour and actions during his time at New York's Metropolitan Correctional Centre (MCC) and the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, where he is serving his sentence.

Businesses can expect to tell IRS about suppliers
BY SUSAN TOMPOR - Detroit Free Press
Overshadowed by all the other provisions in the health care reform legislation passed by Congress this year was a new Internal Revenue Service reporting requirement for businesses that's supposed to help close what the IRS calls the tax gap -- money lost when taxpayers manage to game the system.
"You're going to have to gear up for this thing," advises James Jenkins, president of Jenkins & Co., a tax firm in Southfield. "It's a lot of bookkeeping; it's a lot of tracking."

Steve Jobs Delivers a Surprise with iPhone 4 -- Videoconferencing
By DAWN KAWAMOTO - DailyFinance.com
Apple CEO Steve Jobs displayed his showmanship Monday, unveiling the iPhone 4 as expected, but with a kicker ending -- videoconferencing capabilities.
The FaceTime video conferencing feature took attendees at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco by surprise, given the level of leaks regarding the next-generation iPhone. And while a number of the new iPhone features amounted to improvements of varying degrees over the current iPhone and its operating system, the videoconferencing capability is the one particular feature that is likely to move the needle far beyond the early adopter techno heads that tend to snap up the latest, shiny gadgets.

Two-Thirds of Americans Want Stricter Enforcement of Immigration Laws, Quinnipiac Poll Finds By Nick Dean - CNSNews.com
(CNSnews.com) - Two-thirds of Americans - 66 percent -- would rather see stricter enforcement of immigration laws than offering illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
The poll asked voters: "Do you think immigration reform should primarily move in the direction of integrating illegal immigrants into American society or in the direction of stricter enforcement of laws against illegal immigration?"
Only 26 percent of Americans said they prefer the integration of illegal immigrants, while 66 percent want the laws to be more heavily enforced.

Afghan War Now Country's Longest
By THOMAS NAGORSKI, ABC News Managing Editor
Afghan War Now Marks Another Grim Milestone
The Afghan war was enormously popular when it began on a fall Sunday eight and a half years ago. Less than a month had passed since the September 11 attacks, and President Bush could draw on deep wells of support when he ordered air strikes against Kabul , Jalalabad and the Taliban stronghold at Kandahar.

Israeli Navy Kills Four Palestinian Militants Off Gaza on Monday
Monday, June 07, 2010
By Aron Heller, AP via CNSNews.com
Jerusalem (AP) - Israel's navy killed four Palestinian militants in diver suits off the coast of Gaza early Monday in the first violence at sea since a deadly raid against an international flotilla last week killed nine pro-Palestinian activists and set off an international storm of criticism against Israel.
In Istanbul, a 20-member Asian security group kicked off a summit with Turkey seeking to condemn Israel for last Monday's raid.
Israel, along with Egypt, has been enforcing a blockade of Gaza since 2007, when the Islamic militant Hamas seized the territory. Israel hoped it would weaken Hamas, prevent the entry of weapons and press for the release of an Israeli soldier captured in 2006, but the objectives have not been achieved.

Israeli Navy says slain Palestinian divers were terrorists
By Janine Zacharia - Washington Post
JERUSALEM -- The Israeli Navy on Monday fatally shot four Palestinian divers who, military officials alleged, were off the coast of the Gaza Strip en route to execute an attack in Israel. Two others divers were reported to have survived the attack, and a fifth was reported missing.
The divers were members of a violent affiliate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party known as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a spokesman for one of the brigade's divisions said. The spokesman for the group's Palestine division said the divers were on a training mission, unarmed and operating in shallow waters only 250 meters from the Gaza coast line.

Arab Israeli lawmaker could lose parliamentary privileges for being aboard Gaza flotilla
As Israel continues to assess the May 31 flotilla raid and its diplomatic backlash in public and behind closed government doors, its parliament continues to deal with one of its own -- Haneen Zoabi, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset who was aboard the Mavi Marmara that led the flotilla of ships to Gaza.
Zoabi may have gotten off the ship physically unharmed, but her stormy voyage through public fury and rage in parliament were just beginning. Last week, a stormy session in parliament nearly turned into an unsightly brawl when lawmakers tried to remove her from the podium and others called her a traitor.

Flotilla raid sparks calls in Iran and Lebanon to break Israel's Gaza siege
All aboard for Gaza!
Spurred by the momentum of last week's deadly flotilla disaster, groups from Lebanon and Iran have announced plans to send at least three more ships to the besieged strip in the coming weeks. Many worry another violent face-off could have serious repercussions for the region as a spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced that the elite military force was prepared to send military escorts to accompany two Red Crescent ships carrying supplies and emergency services personnel to Gaza. "Enemies should be met head-on through a spontaneous international movement, and we should foil their evil plots," Revolutionary Guard spokesman Ali Shirazi was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency on Sunday.

U.S. Postal Service Expands Construction Of Secret Rooms
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
Military source fears "criminal investigative units" will be used as black sites for detainment of Americans in the event of a national emergency and a declaration of martial law
We have received documents from a military source indicating that U.S. Postal Service facilities across the country are expanding the construction of secretive criminal investigation rooms, which some fear will be used to detain American citizens in the event of a national emergency, bioterror attack or pandemic.
The documents (PDF) show architectural floor plans for criminal investigation rooms that would be housed within existing U.S. Postal Service buildings. The blueprints show "secret rooms" within post offices where, the source claims, "families will be separated" in the event of martial law being declared.

Steve Quayle & Alex Report of 'Postal Service' Building Secret Rooms on Alex Jones Tv 1/4

Steve Quayle & Alex Jones 2/4

Steve Quayle & Alex Jones 3/4

Steve Quayle & Alex Jones - talk of WWIII 4/4

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monday 06.07.2010

Bank failures grow to 80 for the year.
On Friday, Federal and State regulators closed 2 small banks, one located in Mississippi and the other in Illinois. Assets of the two failed banks totaled $77.4 million, and at a cost to the FDIC's DIF of $15.8 million. In May, the number of bank failures total 14, with assets totaling $6.25 billion and at a cost to the FDIC of $838.4 million, compared to April when there were 23 bank failures, with assets totaling $39.0 billion and at a cost to the FDIC of $9.42 billion.

First National Bank, Rosedale, Mississippi, is 79th on the FDIC hit list for 2010 at an estimated cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) of $12.6 million.
First National Bank, Rosedale, Mississippi, was closed today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with The Jefferson Bank, Fayette, Mississippi, to assume all of the deposits of First National Bank.

Great Western Bank, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Assumes All of the Deposits of TierOne Bank, Lincoln, Nebraska
TierOne Bank, Lincoln, Nebraska, was closed today by the Office of Thrift Supervision, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Great Western Bank, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to assume all of the deposits of TierOne Bank.

FDIC Approves the Payout of the Insured Deposits of Arcola Homestead Savings Bank, Arcola, Illinois
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) approved the payout of the insured deposits of Arcola Homestead Savings Bank, Arcola, Illinois. The bank was closed today by the Illinois Department of Financial Professional Regulation - Division of Banking, which appointed the FDIC as receiver.

Federal debt tops $13 trillion mark
By Stephen Dinan - WashingtonTimes.com
GOP sounds 'alarm' on red ink
The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday, marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt and putting a sharp point on the spending debate on Capitol Hill.
Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of Tuesday, leaping nearly $60 billion since Friday, the previous day for which figures were released.
At $13 trillion, that figure has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion a day. That's almost three times the daily average of $1.7 billion under the previous administration, and led Republicans on Wednesday to place blame squarely at the feet of Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats.

US Total Government Debt Reaches 130% of GDP
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Here's a postcard from off-balance-sheet country. This includes only current debt and not future unfunded obligations. I like to call this US debt chart "The Last Bubble," but it could equally apply to a chart showing the representation of this debt - the US bonds, notes, bills and of course dollars, which are really nothing more than Federal Reserve Notes of zero duration in the modern fiatopia. It all adds up, eventually, and must be reconciled. It easier to do it when you own the world's reserve currency, and for a while it might even flourish as the international savers flee ahead of the economic hitmen, from country to country, and crisis to crisis.

'The Time We Have Is Growing Short'
by Paul Volcker
Some five years ago, at a conference of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, I lamented that "the growing imbalances, disequilibria, risks" were giving rise to "circumstances as dangerous and intractable" as any I could recall-intractable not just because of the combination of complicated issues, but because there seemed to be "so little willingness or capacity to do much about it." Part of the story is familiar. In the United States, savings practically disappeared as consumption rose far above past relationships to national production. That consumption was satisfied by rapidly growing imports from China and elsewhere in Asia at remarkably cheap prices, helping to keep inflation well subdued. The resulting seemingly inexorable increase in our current account deficit was easily financed by an equally large flow of short-term funds from abroad at exceptionally low interest rates. In fact, money was so easily available that it supported what became a bubble in housing, with rising home prices reinforcing a sense of prosperity and high consumption.

Key Indicators of a New Depression
by Neeraj Chaudhary - LewRockwell.com
This Great Depression Will Be Far Worse Than the Last
With the mainstream media focusing on the country's leveling unemployment rate, improving retail sales, and nascent housing recovery, one might think that the US government has successfully navigated the economy through recession and growth has returned. But I will argue that a look under the proverbial hood reveals a very different picture. I believe the data shows that the US economy is badly damaged, and a modern-day depression has begun. In fact, just as World War I was originally called The Great War (and was retroactively renamed after World War II), Peter Schiff has said that one day the world will refer to the 1929-41 era as Great Depression I, and the current period as Great Depression II.

On the beach: bedraggled, oil-caked Barack Obama's presidency is all washed-up By Gerald Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
The iconic image of every oil-spill disaster is of some distressed creature coated in slime and squawking in bewilderment while well-wishers desperately attempt to save it by removing the contamination. The latest bedraggled victim reclaimed from a Louisiana beach in front of millions of American television viewers is Barack Obama, whose survival is now increasingly problematic. The detergent has not been invented that can decontaminate Obama from the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. President Pantywaist is in deep doo-doo.

BP Increased Oil-Capture Rate to 10,500 Barrels a Day
By Edward Klump
June 6 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc said it increased the amount of oil being captured from its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico to 10,500 barrels a day from 6,077 barrels in the previous 24-hour period ending at midnight June 4. The well is estimated by government scientists to be gushing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day into the Gulf. The spill is the worst oil spill in U.S. history. A "cap" over the well is capturing "probably the vast majority" of the leaking oil, Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward told the Broadcasting Corp. today in a live interview in London. BP has "a further containment system to implement this week," he said, adding that a permanent and hurricane-proof mechanism will be in place by the end of the month.

Hungary Is Playing Political Games on Debt
By LANDON THOMAS Jr. - NYTimes.com
By the numbers, Hungary is not Greece.
Its budget deficit is about one-half that of Greece. It does not use the euro and so could, if pressed, lift exports by devaluing its own currency, the forint. And it is in the middle of an economic overhaul program with the International Monetary Fund and can call upon an additional $2 billion if needed. But that did not prevent the politically charged comments made last week by senior Hungarian officials from sending world markets into a tailspin on Friday.

Hungary Tries To Calm Markets;
Mike Shedlock -
Europe Headed Back in Recession, US Will Not Decouple
Hungarian officials are attempting to distance themselves from Friday's economic statements regarding the "Very Grave Situation" in Hungary.
Hungary's government on Saturday tried to calm investors and distanced itself from earlier comments by officials claiming that the country was close to defaulting on its debts. State Secretary Mihaly Varga, a former finance minister, described talk of a default ''exaggerated ... and unfortunate,'' adding that the new, center-right government of the Fidesz party was committed to the 2010 budget deficit of 3.8 percent of GDP set by the previous administration even if ''immediate and urgent'' steps were needed to achieve it.

Hungary warning heightens sovereign-debt fear
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Default concern rises as new government says predecessor lied about finances
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Hungary's new government added to sovereign-debt fears Friday, shaking global financial markets after a spokesman for Prime Minister Viktor Orban was quoted as warning that the economy had been left in a "grave situation" and that talk of a default wasn't "an exaggeration."
The remarks put added pressure on European banks with exposure to Hungary, while serving to undercut overall risk sentiment, analysts said, weighing on European stocks and exacerbating a weak tone on Wall Street. Read more about single-country and currency ETFs' reactions.

Clinton warns of Iran "stunt" ahead of Latam visit
by Andrew Quinn
(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on Sunday of Iran "stunts" ahead of a visit to Latin America where regional powerhouse Brazil opposes the U.S. drive for new U.N. sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.
Clinton said she fully expected Iran to "pull some stunt" in the coming days to try to divert pressure for sanctions, but predicted this would fail. "I think we'll see something coming up in the next 24 to 48 hours," Clinton told reporters aboard her plane before departing. "I don't think anybody should be surprised if they try to divert attention once again from the unity within the Security Council ... but we have the votes," she said.

Gold Sales to Europe Jump on Crisis, Perth Mint Says
By Jason Scott
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Gold sales to Europe from the Perth Mint surged in May as the Greek sovereign-debt crisis triggered a flight to haven investments, draining stockpiles at the producer of 6 percent of the world's bullion.
Buyers from the continent accounted for 69 percent of gold- coin purchases last month compared with 51 percent a year ago, said Ron Currie, sales and marketing director. Individual German investors also bought silver, seeking to protect their wealth with "poor man's gold," Currie said from Western Australia.

What will happen to Gold Supply if Demand is very high?
By: Julian D. W. Phillips - GoldSeek.com
Investment demand for gold has never been so high and it is likely to rise still further. Normally when a commodity is in high demand supply is accelerated and holders of that commodity often take profits, thereby increasing supply. Economic history tells us the same, "rising prices and high demand should result in rising supply. When it comes to gold all rules have to be re-written. That's because gold is only part commodity.
Newly Mined Gold

'Gold bull to run for long with $1,450 /oz by year end'
Weiss Research Natural Resources Analyst Sean Brodrick expects the bull market for precious metals to run for "quite some time," with gold hitting $1,450 /oz. by year-end and silver at $25 not long after. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Sean sees silver reasserting itself as a monetary, investment and industrial metal. South of the border, some of the Mexican miners have an "embarrassment of riches" - which have largely escaped the attention of Wall Street.

The New California Gold Rush
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
The gold rush is back on in California.
On my way back from Lake Tahoe recently, I saw that every bend of the American river was dotted with hopeful amateur miners, looking to make a windfall fortune. Weekend hobbyists were there panning away from the banks, while the hardcore pros stood in hip waders balancing portable pumps on truck inner tubes, pouring sand into sluice boxes. A sharp-eyed veteran can take in $2,000 worth of gold dust a day.

Credit Expansion vs. Simple Inflation
Mises Daily: by Ludwig von Mises
In dealing with the consequences of credit expansion we assumed that the total amount of additional fiduciary media enters the market system via the loan market as advances to business. All that has been predicated with regard to the effects of credit expansion refers to this condition.
There are, however, instances in which the legal and technical methods of credit expansion are used for a procedure catallactically utterly different from genuine credit expansion. Political and institutional convenience sometimes makes it expedient for a government to take advantage of the facilities of banking as a substitute for issuing government fiat money.

Interview: Jim Rogers on Currencies and Inflation
By Ron Hera - Hera Research Newsletter (HRN):
Thank you for speaking with us today. Let's start with the world reserve currency. What do you think about the International Monetary Fund (IMF) replacing the US dollar as the world reserve currency with Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)?
Jim Rogers: The world didn't have an IMF for a few thousand years. The IMF was founded after the Second World War to take care of any short-term currency needs that countries might have. It turned out pretty quickly that they didn't have very many as the world recovered from the war, so the IMF found other things to do. They now have thousands of employees and have manufactured jobs for themselves. They've not had much success, if you look back over the past 60 years. Nearly everything they've done was wrong. Why do we need the IMF? It's not 1945 anymore.

World needs to replace US dollar: Jim Rogers
The Hera Research Newsletter (HRN) is pleased to present the following exclusive interview with legendary international investor, best selling author, adventurer and family man Jim Rogers, Chairman of Rogers Holdings and founder of the Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI). Jim Rogers' commentaries on economics and finance have been featured in Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Barron's, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and other major publications, and he appears regularly on television networks around the world.

Euro 'will be dead in five years'
By Edmund Conway - Telegraph.co.uk
The euro will have broken up before the end of this Parliamentary term, according to the bulk of economists taking part in a wide-ranging economic survey for The Sunday Telegraph.
The single currency is in its death throes and may not survive in its current membership for a week, let alone the next five years, according to a selection of responses to the survey – the first major wide-ranging litmus test of economic opinion in the City since the election. The findings underline suspicions that the new Chancellor, George Osborne, will have to firefight a full-blown crisis in Britain's biggest trading partner in his first years in office.

Government Spending Is No Longer A Boost To Confidence
GoldSeek.com
Government stimulus during economic contractions is intended to offset the decline in private spending that occurs during downturns. Government stimulus directly increases GDP while it indirectly boosts consumer and business confidence. As confidence increases, the economy stabilizes as would-be layoffs are postponed while inventory depletion turns to replenishment.

There Is No Money
By: Gary North - GoldSeek.com
On May 17, David Laws, the new British government's Chief Secretary to the Treasury, walked into his office. There on the desk was a note from the previous holder of this high office, Liam Byrne, who had departed along with Gordon Brown's Labour Party cabinet. The note was brief.
"Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards - and good luck! Liam."

Fury at BP Turns Into Protests and Vandalism
By: Joseph Pisani - CNBC News Associate
Anger over the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is spilling into streets as protests are organized at BP's offices and gas stations around the country. A multi-group protest made up of environmental groups is planned for Friday in Washington D.C., for example, while a week of demonstrations in several cities was kicked off yesterday by a new campaign, Seize BP. Besides the organized demonstrations, anti-BP Facebook accounts have popped up online. And in New York City, some one or several people have splattered what looks like brown paint on the logo of three different BP gas stations.

BP's Mr. Sunshine
By Eugene Robinson
How is it possible that BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward hasn't been fired? At this point, how can anyone believe a word the man says? If he told me my mother loves me, I'd want a second source. Hayward has apologized for his one lapse of candor - the now-famous whine last Sunday that "I'd like my life back." It must be a nice life indeed: According to Forbes, Hayward's total compensation from BP in 2009 was about $4.6 million. The Louisiana fishermen who've been put out of work by the oil spill are accustomed to getting by on considerably less. In a Facebook posting, Hayward said his callous words "don't represent how I feel about this tragedy, and certainly don't represent the hearts of the people of BP."

Obama to use Oil Spill Disaster to renew push for Cap & Trade
By Sher Zieve - CapitalHillCoffeeHouse.com
Almost as if it had been created for him, it seems that the BP oil spill couldn't have come at a better time for Obama. Just when The Obama was cogitating over how to reintroduce the Energy Cap & Tax bill--which will skyrocket energy rates so that many of us will not be able to afford basic electricity--the BP oil spill occurred. This was most convenient for Obama and his plans to continue gutting the USA and its citizens.

Will a Tactical Nuclear Weapon be Used to stop the Gulf Oil Spill?
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
I have never been able to use my talents both as a securities analyst and a nuclear weapons designer simultaneously, but British Petroleum (BP) has at last enabled me to rise to the call.
Back before personal computers, the Internet, and hedge funds were invented, most mathematicians, like myself, ended up working for the Defense Department in some form or another.

We're falling into a double-dip recession.
By Robert Reich
We need a new New Deal that will bolster America's floundering middle class.
The Labor Department reports this morning that the private sector added a measly 41,000 net new jobs in May. (The vast bulk of new jobs in May were temporary government Census workers.) But at least 100,000 new jobs are needed every month just to keep up with population growth. In other words, the labor market continues to deteriorate. The average length of unemployment continues to rise - now up to 34.4 weeks (up from 33 weeks in April). That's another record. More Americans are too discouraged to look for a job than last year at this time (1.1 million in May, an increase of 291,000 from a year earlier.) Of the small number of jobs created by the private sector in May, many came from temporary help services. Which is one reason why the median wage continues to drop.

'Green New Deal' is a raw deal for the U.S.
By Holger Krahmer - WashingtonTimes.com
Europe's path deeply inhuman, economically destructive
The financial crisis and subsequent recession in the United States have prompted some to begin calling for a completely new kind of economy. This new economy would be based on environmental values, a so-called "Green New Deal" to be ushered in by President Obama and leaders in Europe. The plan includes cap-and-trade legislation, new spending on "green" jobs, subsidies for favored firms and technologies, and trade restrictions against out-of-favor products and industries.

California Senate Passes Foreclosure Legislation
by JON PRIOR - HousingWire.com
The California State Senate passed legislation this week in an effort to prevent avoidable foreclosures. Senate Bill (SB) 1275 requires mortgage servicers to notify borrowers of a right to seek options that would avoid foreclosure and attach an application for a loan modification or other alternatives before issuing a notice of default (NOD). Also before filing an NOD, servicers must evaluate a borrower who submits a written request for a loan modification. For those denied one, a separate letter must be mailed to the borrower informing them of the denial and reasons why.

Arizona leaders lament as state's image takes beating with new immigration law
By Peter Slevin - Washington Post
PHOENIX -- When state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) travels outside Arizona, she hears the same question over and over: "What's wrong with your state?" She notes Arizona's new immigration law, its ban on ethnic studies classes and its prohibition on creating animal-human hybrids.
The other day, Sinema sent a note to her Twitter followers that might as well have been accompanied by a heavy sigh. "Just one day," she tweeted, "I'd like Arizona to be in the news for something good."

Why Banks Try to Make Borrowers Feel Like Sinners When They Can't Pay off Their Mortgages
By Zach Carter - AlterNet.com
Crazy views about homeownership are helping the very bankers who screwed us in the first place.
More than three years into one of the worst housing crashes in economic history, Americans remain wedded to a dysfunctional ideology that leaves citizens perpetually at the mercy of predatory bankers. Even after witnessing a gigantic wave of abusive lending drown the life savings of millions, most citizens still believe that borrowers, not bankers, are to blame for unaffordable loans, while a staggering majority believes it is morally wrong for troubled borrowers to walk away from their mortgages - even amid conditions of financial distress.

More than Half a Million Job Losses Coming
by John Lounsbury - CreditWritedowns.com
In the next four months more than 500,000 job losses are baked in the cake. The reason? The temporary Census workers hired so far this year will be largely ending their assignments during the third quarter and will be looking for employment elsewhere. This may be increased to an even larger number because a few more Census workers could be added in June. In addition, state and local governments are still trying to react to decreased tax revenues and more layoffs are likely there.

Job growth weakens in May despite surge in census hiring
By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
The unemployment rate fell to 9.7% last month from 9.9% in April, due mainly to new, but temporary, census jobs, the Labor Department reports. Obama sounds an optimistic note but warns there will be more 'ups and downs.'
Reporting from Washington
A burst of hiring of temporary census workers helped push down the unemployment rate in May, but the nation's private-sector employers added a mere 41,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The jobless rate edged down to 9.7% in May from 9.9% in April, but that was because the federal government added 411,000 jobs for the decade population count. Those jobs were expected and will disappear quickly over the summer.

Universities Are Offering Doctorates but Few Jobs
by Alana Semuels - LewRockwell.com
No Job, Lost Years, Heavy Debt
As they walk in hooded robes to the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance," many students getting their doctorates this spring dream of heading to another university to begin their careers as tenure-track professors.
But when Elena Stover finished her doctorate in September, she headed to the poker tables. Frustrated with the limited opportunities and grueling lifestyle of academia, Stover, 29, decided to eschew a career in cognitive neuroscience for one playing online poker. She got the idea from a UCLA career counselor, who was trying to help her find employment.

Hurricane Season 2010: Property Owners and Insurers Brace for the Worst By CARRIE COOLIDGE - DailyFinance.com
The 2010 hurricane season officially started on June 1, and homeowners, businesses and insurers alike are bracing for what could be enormous losses. The reason for rising concern, apart from it being that time of year again: Weather Services International predicts that this season, which runs to Nov. 30, will be the most active since 2005's record-breaker.
That's when $62 billion in insured catastrophe loses occurred, including $41 billion related to Hurricane Katrina and $10 billion from Hurricane Wilma, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Last year's damages were relatively light, with total insured catastrophe losses totaling only $10.6 billion, largely because no hurricanes made a landfall.

As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather
NASA.gov
June 4, 2010: Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th. Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:
"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

US ports under pressure in near team due to uneven recovery, competition
LATimes.com
NEW YORK (AP) - Moody's Investors Service said Thursday that U.S. ports are operating in challenging conditions that could result in lower credit ratings over the next 12 to 18 months.
"While economic conditions are stabilizing, negative credit pressures will continue in the sector due to the slow, fragile, and uneven recovery in cargo movement, which is not expected to return to its historic highs until 2012," Moody's Analyst Baye Larsen said in a report.
Larsen expects competition for limited trade activity will accelerate, especially since customers remain financially constrained and are looking for rate deals.

Dissent crushed: CO Dem Sen. candidate fires Pat Caddell for speaking truth By Michelle Malkin * February 17, 2010

These intolerant bigots "believe in the power of persuasion, and if that doesn't work they believe in the persuasion of power". They are dangerous and have more that just a foothold on America.
Here's what Democrat tolerance looks like: Via Politico, "progressive" Democrat Senatorial candidate Andrew Romanoff in Colorado has axed veteran political consultant Pat Caddell for calling out the radicalism and brutishness of Big Labor and Big Greens (hat tip: PPC): Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff's Senate campaign severed ties with strategist Pat Caddell Tuesday after video surfaced of the longtime Democratic adviser blasting environmentalists and labor, both critical constituencies in Colorado politics.

David Horowitz and Pat Caddell on Soros´ Shadow Cabinet and the Green Communists

Israel intercepts Gaza protest vessel again, this time peacefully
By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
With world condemnation still echoing after Israel's violent intercept of a Turkish ship, the latest encounter is uneventful. Israel says aid supplies on board will be forwarded to Gaza, although its rules about which goods are permissible are criticized as arbitrary.
Reporting from Jerusalem -- Learning hard lessons from Monday's deadly raid of a pro-Palestinian aid flotilla, Israel's navy on Saturday peacefully seized a second protest vessel trying to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip. But even as Israel succeeded in preventing the boats from reaching their destination, it was struggling in the larger battle of defending its controversial Gaza blockade to the outside world.

Gaza blockade: Iran offers escort to next aid convoy
Ian Black, Middle East editor - Guardian.co.uk
Iran has warned that it could send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort humanitarian aid convoys seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza – a move that would certainly be challenged by Israel.
Any such Iranian involvement, raised today by an aide to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would constitute a serious escalation of already high tensions with Israel, which accuses Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon and of backing Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza.

Dublin at forefront of EU-Israel tension, as lone Irish ship sails for Gaza
LEIGH PHILLIPS - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - As an Irish ship carrying humanitarian aid continues to sail for Gaza, Ireland has found itself hurled to the forefront of tensions between Israel and the European Union. On Wednesday (2 June), the Irish government warned Israel for a second time to let the boat, whose passengers count among their number five Irish nationals, including a former UN deputy secretary general and a Northern Irish Nobel peace prize laureate, carry on to its destination and deliver its cargo without hindrance.

Turkey's foreign policy moves raise concern in West and at home
By Mary Beth Sheridan - WashingtonPost.com
ISTANBUL -- The women wore veils. The men donned green Hamas headbands with swirling Arabic script. They gathered by the thousands in a sunny, working-class plaza in Istanbul, bellowing: "Damn Israel!"
The Saturday demonstration seemed incongruous with the image Turkey has long had in the West as a secular friend of Israel and the United States.
But in recent days, public anger has flared over Israel's bloody seizure of a Turkish-flagged aid ship headed to the Gaza Strip, which is under an Israeli blockade. The incident occurred as Turkey has been strengthening ties with Muslim governments in the region -- becoming more vocally pro-Palestinian and trying to head off new U.N. sanctions on Iran.

U.S. rift with Brazil and Turkey on Iran deepens
by Andrew Quinn and Brian Ellsworth
(Reuters) - The United States clashed with Brazil and Turkey on Friday over the next steps on Iran, with U.S. officials saying a proposed atomic fuel deal for Tehran must not derail the U.N. drive to impose new sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.
In signs of the deep rift between the United States and two influential nonpermanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Turkey and Brazil stepped up to defend their proposal as the right thing to do to reduce tensions over the Iranian nuclear impasse. "We know we did the right thing," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told a news conference, flanked by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Another War Will Be Required to Burn $13 Trillion of USA's National Debt
Pravda.ru
The national debt of the United States reached the record level of $13 trillion, which means that every US citizen owes the world $42,000. It seems that the US administration does not seem to care much about the fact. Barack Obama believes that it is the fault of the previous government. Obama stated during his speech at Pittsburg that his administration was not guilty of the enormous national debt. He said that he took office during the time of the crisis, when the economic recession in the country resulted in the creation of a huge hole of $3 trillion in the budget of the country.

Bilderberg Agenda Revealed: Globalists In Crisis, Supportive Of Attack On Iran
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
Global government, carbon tax agenda failing, but majority of elitists in favor of air strikes on Iran
The 2010 Bilderberg agenda has been revealed by veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker and it paints a picture of crisis for the globalists, who are furious at the increased exposure their gatherings have received in recent years, as well as being dismayed at their failure to rescue both the euro and the failing carbon tax agenda, but more alarmingly according to Tucker, the majority of Bilderberg members are now in favor of military air strikes on Iran. American Free Press muckraker Tucker has proven routinely accurate with the information he obtains from sources inside Bilderberg, which makes this year's revelations all the more intriguing.

Bilderberg 2010: Plutocracy with palm trees
Charlie Skelton - Guardian.co.uk June 2nd - part 1
The shadowy global elite is meeting in Sitges - and Charlie Skelton is there, hoping for a new spirit of CamCleggian openness
Another year, another Bilderberg. The first "participants" (as the delegates are known) won't be arriving until Thursday, but already the Hotel Dolce in Sitges is buzzing with anticipation. This Catalan seaside town hasn't hosted an event as large and politically sensitive as Bilderberg since the legendary 2008 Foam Party at the Mr Gay Sitges awards night. Last year, Bilderberg was held in Vouliagmeni, on the coast just south of Athens. The Greek minister of finance attended, the minister of foreign affairs, and the governor of the National Bank of Greece. A few months later, Greece was bankrupt and Athens was in flames. So É good luck, Madrid!

Bilderberg 2010: The security lockdown begins
Charlie Skelton - Guardian.co.uk June 3rd - part 2
It's midday at the Bilderberg conference hotel - and that means helicopters, riot police and angry staff
This is the second dispatch from Charlie Skelton's Bilderblog.
"Congratulations!" grinned the man in charge of this year's Bilderberg conference, mustering as much sarcasm as a Dutchman could muster. "You are the last guests here! You should have a banner!" he whooped, punching the air, wanting us gone. It's true - we had been dragging our heels as we left the Hotel Dolce Sitges. The folding tables were already being set up in the courtyard for participant lanyards and orientation packs. It was well past the midday "lockdown" of the hotel.

Bilderberg 2010: Why the protesters are your very best friends
Charlie Skelton - Guardian.co.uk June 4th - part 3
The people who are being detained, searched and questioned are not playing some game. They are deadly serious, and they are worried to death
Ivan was alone on the roundabout. He had been left in charge of the banners while everyone else ate breakfast. He slipped an empty bottle of red wine into a binliner and stretched. At his feet was a chalk-drawn pyramid showing the structure of society, the word "pueblo" at the bottom, and the tip pointing up the hill towards Bilderberg. It's a short pyramid today, maybe half a heavily-armed mile from Rockefeller down to Ivan. Ivan's bed last night - is it had been the night before - was the scrub by the roadside. "It's not so cold in my bag," he said. "A lot of times I travel in the mountains - in the mountains, you can sleep anywhere."

Let's talk about EU, Where Europe Ends

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Friday 06.04.2010

US Deficit to Reach 100 Percent of GDP?
By Chuck Butler - The DailyReckoning.com
06/03/10 St. Louis, Missouri - The Japanese have a new Prime Minister (Kan), and the currency markets don't like it! The once so-called "safe haven" of yen (JPY), is getting sand kicked in its face, and rightly so, as the new PM has previously stated his goal of a weaker yen.
The euro (EUR) has moved up slightly overnight, nothing to write home about. However, the Aussie dollar (AUD) is the star performer overnight, alongside its kissin' cousin across the Tasman, New Zealand dollars (kiwi) The April trade balance printed better than expected, registering a surplus of A$134 million After getting socked in the gut earlier in the week, because the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) had left rates unchanged, the Aussie dollar has come back with purpose!

Gold, The World's True Reserve Currency
By Michael Pento - IBTimesFx
The U.S. dollar has been viewed since The Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 as the undisputed world's reserve currency. Unfortunately, however, investors the world over are now asking themselves if that should continue to be the case. They are instead on an ever increasing basis seeking to rely on a more stable form of money (gold) in which to park their global savings.

Gold May Rise on Demand for Currency Alternative, Survey Shows
By Claudia Carpenter
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Gold may advance on speculation investors will buy the precious metal as an alternative to currencies, a survey showed. Fourteen of 20 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 70 percent, said bullion would rise next week. Four forecast lower prices and two were neutral. Gold for delivery in August was up 0.2 percent for this week at $1,217.40 an ounce at 10:18 a.m. in New York yesterday.

Discuss the possibility of $7000 per ounce gold!
By Ahmad Hassam - CommodityOnline.com
If you are a stock investor, you might have been taking a look at what's happening in the gold market. On May 7th, gold prices again breached the historical barrier of $1,200 per troy ounce for the second time after December 2009. Now when you invest in a junior gold mining stock company, the chances are that you can get all the benefits of the increase in the prices of gold while at the same time taking advantage of the value driven analysis of a typical small cap.

Give unto Caesar - What to Pay When You're Selling
By: Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey's Gold & Resource Report
Proper planning with your finances is incomplete until you consider the endgame consequences of your investment decisions today. So, what are the tax consequences of selling gold, gold ETFs, and gold stocks?
There's lots of conflicting and inaccurate tax information on the Internet about this. We know of one site that claims the sale of silver Eagles is exempt from capital gains tax due to some obscure law (not true). So, let's nail down the current tax rules for selling gold in the U.S.
[The following information pertains to U.S. taxpayers only and is not intended as nor should be considered personal tax advice. Always consult a financial planner and/or tax professional before investing.]
The IRS considers gold a "collectible" and will tax your capital gains at a 28% rate. This designation includes all forms of gold (other than jewelry), such as...

• All denominations of gold bullion coins and numismatic/rare coins, gold bars, and gold wafers
• ETFs like GLD, SLV, etc. (closed-end funds have different rules; see below)
• Any electronic form of gold like GoldMoney and Bullion Vault
• Any "paper" or certificate forms of gold, such as Perth Mint Certificates and EverBank accounts
• All forms of pool gold, rounds, and commemorative coins

And the same designation and rules apply to silver, platinum, and palladium.

Into the Abyss: The Cycle of Debt Deflation
Ron Hera - SeekingAlpha.com
One of the most famous quotations of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises is that "There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later, as a final and total catastrophe of the currency involved." In fact, the US economy is in a downward spiral of debt deflation, despite the bold actions of the federal government and of the US Federal Reserve taken in response to the financial crisis that began in 2008 and the associated recession. Although the vicious circle of debt deflation is not widely recognized, precisely what von Mises described is happening before our eyes.

***** Reality Check - take time to listen *****

Gerald Celente on The Gary Null Show - 06/02/10

'Meat Grinder' Market Could Last 8 Years: Rosenberg
By: Jeff Cox, CNBC.com Staff Writer
Global debt issues and investor fear have the US mired in a "meat grinder" stock market that likely will last another six to eight years, economist David Rosenberg said Thursday. Debt-cleansing cycles generally last six to seven years and the current run is in about its second year. Global economies are trying to shed debt, with varying levels of success as several European countries run risk of defaults and uncertainty grows over the effect debt will have on the US.

Buying Stocks at the End of the World
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com
06/03/10 Baltimore, Maryland - Well, they don't make it easy for you.
Yesterday, the Dow rose 225 points. Enough to keep people guessing. Enough to keep people in the market. Enough to give the 'recovery' spotters something to look at and investors something to hope for. Is the market really headed downÉor not? Most likely, yesÉit's a real bear market. And it will probably continue for years. And even if it isn't, it's probably best to think it is. Why? Because most stocks have still not hit their ultimate lows. If you can't see the bear market's final lows in your rear view mirror, they must be ahead of you. Remember, the broad pattern of the stock market is from an epic high to an epic lowÉwith years of up and down movement in between.

Why U.S. debt matters to you
By Jeanne Sahadi - CNNMoney.com
Forget the grandkids, U.S. debt could hurt you
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Letting U.S. debt grow unabated is often framed as an unforgivable burden to heap on one's grandchildren. But there are plenty of reasons today's parents might be concerned for themselves and their kids. If Congress doesn't craft a plan to address long-term fiscal shortfalls after the economy recovers, potential problems could arise sooner rather than later, debt experts say.

Ben and the Bankers' Big Bubble
Robert Bonomo - SeekingAlpha.com
You know that screeching sound a balloon makes as it's about to burst? The world economy is the balloon and the slew of trillion dollar bailouts over the last two years were the last bursts of air from a set of exhausted, dollar denominated lungs.
BUBBLES
When did this bubble begin? Some would reach back to the founding of the Fed, the end of the Gold Standard, or the beginning of the 1980s and Ronald Reagan's wild spending spree. This particular bubble began shortly after the last one blew up in our faces.
Robert Schiller may be considered the ultimate expert in bubbles; he called both the Internet bubble and the housing bubble.

Europe's Debt Crisis Is More Than a Fiscal Problem
Headlines label the Euro crisis as one caused by sovereign debt. Unfortunately, the problems in the most affected countries - Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain (GIIPS) and other smaller economies pegged to the euro, such as Latvia-are much more severe than just fiscal profligacy.
At its heart, the crisis was created by a misallocation of resources among and within countries and a loss of competitiveness that resulted from - and was in many cases concealed by - the economic boom associated with the adoption of the euro a decade ago. Today's fiscal problems are in large part the consequence, rather than the cause, of these changes, a fact that policy makers must recognize in order to successfully resolve the crisis.

Keiser Report 48: Markets! Finance! Scandal!

Euro-zone Credit Crunch and Shanghai Shakeout
By: Gary Dorsch - SafeHaven.com
Until mid-April, few traders knew much about the credit default swap (CDS) markets. They're traded on an unregulated, over-the-counter market, and far from the public's view. Yet nowadays, the CDS market has become a major battleground between high-stakes speculators and Euro-zone politicians, with the fate of the Euro currency hanging in the balance. In turn, the violent swings in the CDS markets are having a profound impact on the global bond, commodity, currency, and stock markets.

Fiscal and monetary tightening to crash global stock markets?
By Peter Cooper - The DailyReckoning.com
06/02/10 Dubai, UAE - Those who decided to 'Sell in May and go away' have been well rewarded in the worst May for the Dow since 1940. The Dow Jones Index fell by 7.9 per cent in May and the more broadly based S&P 500 by 9.9 per cent, its worst May performance since 1962.
Is this a red light flashing danger ahead, or should investors buy on this dip? Investment gurus are all over the place. Is this a falter on the 'Road to Recovery' or the end of a long bear market rally?
ArabianMoney thinks fiscal and monetary tightening suggest a far bigger stock market decline is in prospect, and these things tend to happen rather suddenly, although the warning signs are always pretty clear if you care to look.

Increasingly hawkish Fed ponders raising rates
Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
(Reuters) - Two top Federal Reserve officials said on Thursday it may soon be time to begin raising interest rates as the U.S. economic recovery gathers momentum, despite persistent unemployment. Thomas Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Fed, argued the U.S. central bank should raise benchmark borrowing costs, currently near zero, to 1 percent by the end of summer. The head of the Atlanta Fed, Dennis Lockhart, said policy makers should soon begin thinking about tightening monetary policy, though he stopped short of calling for an imminent move.

Fed governor calls for summer rate hike
Deficit hawk Tom Hoenig says the time to raise short-term interest rates is now. Hoenig (right), president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, said in a speech Thursday that the Fed should be prepared to raise its fed funds overnight interest rate target to 1% from near zero "by the end of the summer." Hoenig has warned repeatedly this year of the danger of near-zero rates, including at April's Fed policy meeting, to no apparent avail. Undaunted, he publicly made the case for a summer rate rise for the first time Thursday in a speech in Bartlesville, Okla.

How Oil Breaks Down in Water
BY CASSIE RODENBERG - PopularMechanics.com
Nature has its own chemical processes to minimize oil's impact in seawater-can human dispersant efforts measure up?
Initiatives to scrub the Gulf of oil are moving forward. One method includes spraying chemicals to break up and sink globs of oil before the slick spreads to the shorelines-but using chemicals to clean up the ocean is controversial because the environmental consequences are unknown. The sea has its own way of handling the problem, but researchers worry that the water's processes won't act fast enough to save coastal shores from damage. Of course, science informs the debate. Here's what happens on a molecular level when oil hits ocean water.

BP robots steer cap to spewing well
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Robot submarines steered a new cap to BP's ruptured undersea well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday in the company's latest attempt to rein in the largest oil spill in U.S. history. The cap was placed atop the pipe before 10 p.m., but oil and gas continued to spew as engineers attempted to adjust it. BP CEO Tony Hayward announced that the company had crossed a "milestone" earlier in the day by cutting away the remains of the well's damaged riser pipe. That cleared the way for the dome to be lowered down to the well, 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf, but Hayward said the operation would need several more hours to complete.

BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Lessons Learned and Needed Actions
Dr Stephen A Rinehart writes: Background: The following comments are based in part on my 45+ years experience in structural dynamics/mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech and extensive design/project management experience including offshore oil platforms, oil pipelines, conventional/nuclear DOD weapons effects and combat weapons designs, and environmental fate and transport of chemical/oil plumes.

Michael Savage - Conspiracy Theories On Oil Spill
4-30-2010 - Part 1/2

Michael Savage - Conspiracy Theories On Oil Spill
4-30-2010 - Part 2/2

Florida Panhandle braces for oil spill
SOUTH FLORIDA BUSINESS JOURNAL - Florida's Panhandle is bracing for the effects of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Areas of tarballs, tar patties and oil sheen have been spotted about six miles from Navarre Beach, a barrier island in the Gulf, according to the most recent advisory from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The primary oil plume is about 30 miles from Pensacola and it's expected to come ashore as early as Saturday.

22-mile underwater oil plume discovered in Gulf, could poison rich waters off Florida
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A thick, 22-mile plume of oil discovered by researchers off the BP spill site was nearing an underwater canyon, where it could poison the foodchain for sealife in the waters off Florida. The discovery by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science's Weatherbird II vessel is the second significant undersea plume reported since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20. The plume is more than 6 miles wide and its presence was reported Thursday.

Is a Housing Double-Dip on the Way?
Tim Iacono - SeekingAlpha.com
That's funny. We were out and about yesterday morning when they were talking about the surge in April pending home sales on CNBC, a result of buyers racing to get their sales contracts signed before the tax credit expired, and we heard nary a word on the XM radio feed about a housing double-dip, CNBC anchors fawning instead over rising stock prices. Diana Olick's commentary from yesterday provides a very different view of things: Everybody take a nice long look at today's Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors, because it's just about the last positive picture we're going to see for a while. Yes, the index rose even more than expected, as buyers rushed in to take advantage of the home buyer tax credit.

4.7 million Americans out of work for a year or more
The job market is improving, but one statistic presents a stark reminder of the challenges that remain: Nearly half of the unemployed - 45.9% - have been out of work longer than six months, more than at any time since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1948. Even in the worst months of the early 1980s, when the jobless rate topped 10% for months on end, only about one in four of the unemployed was out of work for more than six months. Overall, seven million Americans have been looking for work for 27 weeks or more, and most of them - 4.7 million - have been out of work for a year or more.

Are Government Workers Taking Taxpayers to the Cleaners?
By: Larry Kudlow - CNBC Anchor
Here's a great new mini-documentary from my old friend, Dan Mitchell. According to Dan, the U.S. has way too many bureaucrats, making way too much money. He uses government data to show how federal, state, and local governments are all in fiscal trouble in part because of excessive pay for a bloated civil service.

There Are too Many Bureaucrats and They Are Paid too Much

NY Nearly Goes Broke Again, Delays Paying Bills
By: Reuters
New York state delayed paying $2.5 billion of bills as a short-term way of staying solvent but its cash crunch could get even worse in August and September, Budget Director Robert Megna said on Tuesday. "Had we not done that, I think we would have been close to broke," Megna told reporters in Albany. This is the third time since December the cash-poor state has withheld funds. This time, the state's general fund, which counts everything but federal aid and some specific revenues, ran in the red by about $500 million to $600 million, Megna told reporters.

Illinois Newspaper Forced To Disclose Names
Of Anonymous Commenters (POLL)
A downstate Illinois newspaper must reveal the identity of an anonymous online commenter, according to a new appellate court ruling that could have wide-ranging implications for internet privacy. The decision, a 2-1 margin in the Third District Appellate Court, says that the libelous nature of the comment kept it from being protected as free speech. But the dissenting judge argued that no defamation had been proven, and that "no reasonable person" would consider the comments fact and not opinion.

Arizona AG's Office sues mortgage modification companies
PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Chris Casacchia
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Discount Mortgage Relief and Mortgage Relief LLC in Scottsdale, alleging its principals engaged in deceptive loan modification services that may have duped thousands of victims. The Attorney General's Office also secured a temporary restraining order to prevent the Scottsdale companies that do business under both names from charging or receiving money for loan modification services or advertising their services. The lawsuit alleges that, at least since July 2009, the mortgage companies have deceived consumers into paying thousands of dollars for mortgage loan modification services by misrepresenting their ability to help those consumers obtain mortgage relief and save their homes, a violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act.

Arizona governor, Obama face off
By Stephen Dinan - WashingtonTimes.com
Scant progress on immigration
Inside the Oval Office on Thursday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer went head-to-head with President Obama as she demanded he take more steps to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, and they failed to make headway on the state's tough new immigration law. Several hundred yards away, outside the White House gates, dozens of immigration rights protesters denounced Arizona's new immigration law and chanted, "Jan Brewer, shame on you."

America and the Jungle of Serpants
Written by Paul Rogers - OilPrice.com
An official directive that grants the US army expanded counterinsurgency powers reveals Washington's imprisonment in an exhausted vision of security.
An early decision of Bill Clinton after he became president in January 1993 was the appointment of R James Woolsey as director of the CIA. At his Senate confirmation hearings, Woolsey was asked how he would to characterise the current era, following the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He replied that the United States had slain a "large dragon" (the Soviet threat) only to find itself living "in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes".

Mexico opens California office to provide ID for illegals
By: Sara A. Carter - WashingtonExaminer.com
The Mexican government is opening a satellite consular office on Catalina Island -- a small resort off the California coast with a history of drug smuggling and human trafficking -- to provide the island's illegal Mexican immigrants with identification cards, The Washington Examiner has learned. The Mexican consular office in Los Angeles issued a flier, a copy of which was obtained by The Examiner, listing the Catalina Island Country Club as the location of its satellite office. It invites Mexicans to visit the office to obtain the identification, called matricular cards, by appointment.

North Korean envoy warns war could erupt soon
Stephanie Nebehay
(Reuters) - A North Korean envoy said on Thursday that war could erupt at any time on the divided Korean peninsula because of tension with Seoul over the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. "The present situation of the Korean peninsula is so grave that a war may break out any moment," Ri Jang Gon, North Korea's deputy ambassador in Geneva, told the United Nations-sponsored Conference on Disarmament. North Korea's troops were on "full alert and readiness to promptly react to any retaliation," including the scenario of all-out war, he told the forum.

Power Struggles in North Korea
Written by Graham Ong-Webb - OilPrice.com
While dramatic, the torpedoing of a Republic of Korea navy corvette in late March was not unexpected and it may have signalled the rise of Kim Jong-Il's youngest son,
Earlier this year, South Korea's military intelligence warned of the threat of human-torpedo attacks from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). They conjectured that Pyongyang was planning to avenge its defeat in a skirmish between the North and South Korean navies along the disputed maritime border, known as the Northern Limit Line, in November last year.

Taiwan president faces hurdles in key China deal
By DEBBY WU - Forbes.com
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is facing domestic and Chinese hurdles in his pursuit of a key China trade pact that could bring about the closest relations between the longtime rivals since their split amid civil war in 1949.
Recent public polls have suggested Taiwanese people are divided about the pact, which could dramatically alter Taiwan's future. Earlier this week Beijing appeared to slap down Ma's argument the agreement will remove Chinese resistance to Taiwan's efforts to seek similar arrangements with other trade partners.

Georgia and Moldova Shocked at the Prospect of New EU Plan
Written by Marina Vashakmadze - OilPrice.com
Officials in Moldova and Georgia are reacting with concern to speculation that the EU is poised to remove special representatives appointed to their regions.
If confirmed, the change would signal a major downgrading in the EU's strategic interest in both Chisinau and the countries of the South Caucasus.
EU foreign policy officials gave no hint of change on the horizon when they met with the six post-Soviet countries that make up its Eastern Partnership community last week.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thursday 06.03.2010

Goldman Sachs sold $250 million of BP stock before spill

By John Byrne - TheRawStory.com
Firm's stock sale nearly twice as large as any other institution; Represented 44 percent of total BP investment
The brokerage firm that's faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.
According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman's sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP's stock during the quarter.

BP Ownership - MSN Money
GS sold approx 77% of its shares of BP.

Who's Worse: BP or Goldman Sachs?
By Matt Koppenheffer - The Motley Fool.com
It's been a tumultuous few years for U.S. investors and the U.S. economy as a whole. We've had a nasty financial crisis, a housing meltdown, and the unemployment rate now sits just under 10%. On top of all of that, we're now dealing with one of, if not the, worst U.S. environmental disasters in recorded history.

BP's Continued Existence Seen Coming Under Threat as Gulf Oil Spill Continues
Written by Darrell Delamaide - OilPrice.com
Robert Reich wants the US to nationalize BP
The continued failure of BP's efforts to stop the Gulf oil spill and mounting political pressure are putting the very future of the British-based oil giant in question.
BP shares plunged again on Tuesday, wiping $17 billion off the market capitalization of the company. Premiums on credit default swaps to insure the company's debt soared 75% to $178,000 for $10 million as analysts began to question whether the company can survive the financial and reputational costs of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

Robert Reich to Obama: Nationalize BP!
By Michelle Malkin
Snort. Robert Reich argues that the only way the American public can be kept informed about the BP oil spill is to have the transparency-challenged Obama administration take over the company — through a "temporary receivership."
Banking. Auto manufacturing. Health care. Now oil. There's no such thing as a "temporary" government power grab, let alone a "temporary receivership" in the hands of Team Obama control freaks:

Maxine Waters threatens to nationalize U.S. oil industries

Groups want FCC to police hate speech on talk radio, cable news networks
By Gautham Nagesh - theHill.com
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being urged to monitor "hate speech" on talk radio and cable broadcast networks.
A coalition of more than 30 organizations argue in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news.
The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs "masquerading as news" use hate as a profit model.
"As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve," the organizations wrote to the FCC. "In this same atmosphere hate speech thrives, as hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television program masquerading as 'news.'"

Iran To Dump 45 Billion Euros For Gold Bullion & Dollars
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
Gulf states also begin to flee from collapsing single currency
The Central Bank of Iran is set to dump a whopping 45 billion euros in exchange for gold bullion and dollars as Gulf states also prepare to flee from the ailing single currency amidst debt turmoil in Europe that threatens to disintegrate the entire region.
According to the Iranian state website Press TV, Iran's central bank has already begun converting its euro reserves into gold and dollars as a response to the "downward spiral" of the euro, in the first of a three phase movement to flee from the currency.
The report also claims that Gulf states are also beginning to switch their euro reserves into dollars and gold as some forecast the single currency could sink to parity with the U.S. dollar by next year.

The New Wild West Economy
by Charles Glass - Tali's Magazine
The financial geniuses who caused, yet failed to predict, the world's financial collapse are not doing much yet to avoid another crash. Given that I didn't predict it either, I am as qualified as they are to propose "the way out." Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and many other bankers brought us to this pass, so they may not be the ones to take us out again. Maybe I'm not either, but at least my finger prints are not all over the corpse of the world's economy. So, here goes.
Let's try two economies. We can call one the Wild West and the other The Club.

Our Leaders Are Responsible for Europe's Crisis
A Commentary by Hans-Jürgen Schlamp in Brussels - Spiegel.de
It was neither tax evaders in Greece nor hedge funds that caused Europe's existential crisis -- political leaders in the euro zone share a great deal of the responsibility. They have been either unwilling or incapable of doing their jobs.
When the financial institutions of the Western capitalist world began to wobble in the autumn of 2008 -- with some collapsing and taking others with them -- fear swept through the corridors of power. What could be done to stop an economic meltdown? Finance ministers and world leaders gathered at hectically planned crisis summits, where they applied Band-Aids to a severely wounded financial sector using billions of dollars and euros of taxpayers' money and promised to stabilize the fragile system for all eternity.

U.S. Inflation to Approach Zimbabwe Level, Faber Says
By Chen Shiyin and Bernard Lo
May 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy will enter "hyperinflation" approaching the levels in Zimbabwe because the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates, investor Marc Faber said. Prices may increase at rates "close to" Zimbabwe's gains, Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. Zimbabwe's inflation rate reached 231 million percent in July, the last annual rate published by the statistics office. "I am 100 percent sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation," Faber said. "The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time will come and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be very reluctant to do so and so inflation will start to accelerate."

'These people want empire'
By Bob Unruh © 2010 WorldNetDaily
Lawmakers finally get earful about global government
The goal of the Bilderbergers, the powerful elite invited annually to a private and protected meeting from which world events are steered, is power, plain and simple, according to an author who spoke on the subject today before the European Parliament.
But Daniel Estulin, author of the hot-selling book "The True Story of the Bilderberg Group," said in the text of his remarks he believes the very efforts by the power-hungry to manipulate the world economy is awakening the masses, who now have an opportunity to change history and give mankind back its future.

Bilderberg 2010: Globalists Panic Over Euro Collapse
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
Elite to seek reassurances from Spanish leaders that ultimate agenda for global currency will not be derailed
The presence of Spain's heavyweight political and financial leaders at this year's Bilderberg conference is not just because the secretive annual confab is taking place just outside Barcelona - it's because the Bilderberg elitists are panic stricken at the possibility that their embryonic global currency - the euro - could be heading for total collapse.

Dow Theorist Richard Russell: Sell Everything, You Won't Recognize America By The End Of The Year
Joe Weisenthal May 18, 2010 - BusinessInsider.com
WHOA! Richard Russell, the famous writer of the Dow Theory Letters, has a chilling line in today's note: Do your friends a favor. Tell them to "batten down the hatches" because there's a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to get out of debt and sell anything they can sell (and don't need) in order to get liquid. Tell them that Richard Russell says that by the end of this year they won't recognize the country. They'll retort, "How the dickens does Russell know -- who told him?" Tell them the stock market told him.

Deflationary Depression and Purging To Come
Bob Chapman - The International Forecaster
What now that stimulus packages are ending, money set to plunge, market control by insiders has to end, Fed doesn't need a monopoly, bond sales down, still high expectations for gold.
We believe an inflationary depression began in February of 2009, and little has changed. Since then factory output has increased, as have inventories and other outward signs, such as retail sales. We believe that one-year spurt is ending, unless a new stimulus program is put in place. This past week we saw a $78 billion addition to unemployment benefits and Larry Summers has said they need an additional $200 billion. In order to keep the economy going sideways a total of another $800 billion will be needed.

Latest Effort to Stop Oil Flow Hits a Snag
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and JOSEPH BERGER - NYTimes.com
HOUMA, La. - The latest attempt to contain the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico hit a snag Wednesday when a diamond-tipped saw operated by an underwater robot got stuck in the riser pipe it was intended to slice off, federal officials said. The snared saw set back efforts to seal the stricken well that, since a drilling rig explosion on April 20, has been spewing thousands of gallons of oil into the gulf and fouling beaches, shellfish and birds on the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

BP's latest effort to contain Gulf disaster stalls as oil slick spreads
By Erika Niedowski and Jordan Fabian - TheHill.com
The Obama administration's point man on the Gulf oil spill said Wednesday that BP's latest effort to contain the gusher had stalled, as the oil slick drifted closer to the Florida coast and made landfall in parts of Alabama and Mississippi.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told reporters that a saw trying to cut through a riser pipe became stuck and robots were attempting to dislodge it. Once the pipe is severed - the cleaner the cut, the better - BP intends to lower a containment dome over the top of it as a temporary fix designed to capture much, but not all, of the leaking oil.

Premiums on gold bullion coins surge
LONDON (Commodity Online): Despite the rising prices of gold, physical demand for the yellow metal continues to surge. Physical demand for gold is robust and premiums on gold bullion coins continue to rise in key bullion markets like London, Dubai, Mumbai, New York and Beijing.
According to an analysis from GoldCore, premiums on British gold sovereigns have increased from 3% to over 7% in just one month on British sovereigns as British investors buy the coins as they do not attract CGT. Recent buying has seen supply issues develop in the gold sovereign market which could see a further rise in premiums in the coming weeks.

The wrong way to buy gold

Why gold bears are disappointed by gold price
By Jim Sinclair - CommodityOnline.com
The hedgies and dirty tricksters are back.
Frustration goes both ways. The price of gold has been a disappointment to the gold bears. The action in the HUI (AMEX Gold Bug Index) has posed a threat to the short on gold share hedgies and dirty tricksters.
This morning's pop up on the euro was accepted by this mangy group as the forth entry of emergency money into the currency market in the form of intervention. That message was taken by this group as confirmation to hold the euro at $1.2150 Gold's failure to hold the highs of this morning has been taken by the discouraged gold and gold share shorts as courage to try one more time.

Real estate, CDs not comparable to gold: NIA
CommodityOnline.com
NEW JERSEY, USA (Commodity Online): Investments in certificates of deposit (CDs) and real estate are not comparable to gold which is the most stable asset the world has ever seen, according to National Inflation Association of USA (NIA).
Responding to investment advice by Dave Ramsey and others in mainstream media on the advantages of investing in CDs and real estate, NIA said that while on the surface, U.S. dollars appear to be 'safe haven' because they have a number on them that always stays the same. U.S. dollars are actually the riskiest asset you can possibly own when you have a Federal Reserve that has expanded its monetary base by 135% since September of 2008. What volatility in gold prices actually show you is just how unstable the U.S. dollar is, NIA said.

The Euro Is Washed Up - But the Dollar Is No Better
by Claus Vogt - Money and Markets
Greece has made it obvious: The euro is doomed. This fact had been obvious to all the euro critics from the very beginning. All the arguments against the possibility of a common currency for very disparate countries had been raised, but brushed away by overzealous politicians. They'll learn their monetary lesson the hard way in the coming years. Unfortunately the current discussion about Greece, Spain and all the other PIIGS countries is very superficial ... Greece is everywhere! In fact, the whole western world and Japan are over indebted

Why America Can't Plug That Leak
Joel Hilliker - theTrumpet.com
The unstoppable mess in the Gulf is exposing the powerlessness of America's leadership-and the weakness of what was once "the indispensable nation."
This monster from the deep grows more horrifying by the day.
All efforts to plug the leak in the Gulf of Mexico have failed. Scientists realize their official estimate of 5,000 barrels of oil per day billowing into the waters was far too low; last week they revised it to somewhere between 12,000 and 19,000. That's as much as a million more gallons of silent, spreading, inky blackness penetrating, permeating and polluting the sea every 30 hours. Independent scientists have put the figure much higher.

Who Runs America's Response to the Oil Blowout?
By William Pfaff - TruthDig.com
PARIS - The conduct of Barack Obama in the BP affair, and all that preceded it, has become to this writer all but incomprehensible. Possibly it is that I do not live in Washington; but surely, in that city above all, the priorities of national interest and the self-preservative instincts of presidents and presidential administrations cannot have fundamentally changed.
On Sunday, I watched the president on international television as he walked on a Louisiana beach, accompanied by two or three others, including, I would imagine, a U.S. Coast Guard officer, and obviously - off-scene - by hundreds if not thousands of newsmen, broadcasters and cameramen.

Adm. Allen: At the center of the spill
by Jim Tankersley - TheSwamp
Response Day 37 began at 6 a.m. with a weather report, then an accounting of boats, burns and recon flights. Inside a drab conference room filled to capacity, a projector flashed maps showing tendrils of oil advancing on the Louisiana coast. Finally, all eyes turned to the man in the mustache and green flight suit at the head of a horseshoe of tables. The government and private response workers in the audience had watched cable news belittle their battle against the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Now, the commander in that fight, the man in the mustache, warned his troops that the scrutiny was about to intensify. He welcomed it.

Oil nears Florida as BP tries risky cap move
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
BP's bid to stem spill stalls with stuck saw
Meantime, oil drifts to within 7 miles of Pensacola beaches
PORT FOURCHON, La. - As the crude crept closer to Florida, the risky effort to contain the nation's worst oil spill hit a snag Wednesday when a diamond-edged saw became stuck in a thick pipe on a blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the goal was to free the saw and finish the cut later in the day. This is the latest attempt to contain - not plug - the gusher. The best chance at stopping the leak is a relief well, which is at least two months from completion. "I don't think the issue is whether or not we can make the second cut. It's about how fine we can make it, how smooth we can make it," Allen said.

Obama: End dependence on fossil fuels
By JULIE PACE
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Seizing on a disastrous oil spill to advance a cause, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to roll back billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil and pass a clean-energy bill that he says would help the nation end its dependence on fossil fuels. Obama predicted that he would find the political support for legislation that would dramatically alter the way Americans fuel their homes and cars, including placing a price on carbon pollution, even though such legislation is politically divisive and remains bogged in the Senate.

32 States Have Borrowed from the Federal Government to Make Unemployment Payments; California Has Borrowed $7 Billion
EconomicPolicyJournal.com has learned that 32 states have run out funds to make unemployment benefit payments and that the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their payments to the unemployed. In some cases, states have borrowed billions. As of May 20, the total balance outstanding by 32 states (and the Virgin Islands) is $37.8 billion.

California may bar city bankruptcies
By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A bill that clamps down on municipal bankruptcy filings is headed for Gov. Schwarzenegger's desk, which is bad news for Los Angeles and other cash-strapped California cities.
It the governor signs Assembly Bill 155, it would place a hurdle in the path of filing for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy. The bill stipulates that a city may only file for bankruptcy with the approval of the California Debt Investment Advisory Commission, which provides information on debt to public agencies.

8th state to feds: Step away from our guns
By Bob Unruh © 2010 WorldNetDaily
Alaska governor signs Firearms Freedom Act into law
Alaska has become the eighth state to declare that firearms made, sold and owned in the state are beyond the reach of the federal bureaucrats along the Potomac, with Gov. Sean Parnell's signature on the plan today.
"The Alaska Firearms Freedom Act frees Alaskans from overly bureaucratic and restrictive federal firearm regulation, and allows our state to assume the responsibility for regulation," said Rep. Mike Kelly, the lead sponsor on the plan endorsed by lawmakers in the recently closed session of the Alaska Legislature.
"The Interstate Commerce Clause is used by the federal government to regulate firearms that cross state borders. The Alaska Firearms Freedom Act makes it clear that Alaskans will be responsible for firearms that are made in Alaska, for use in Alaska, and have 'Made in Alaska' stamped on them.

Put Patients and Doctors Back in Control of Healthcare
Ron Paul
Most everyone agrees that health care in the United States has major problems, the biggest problems relating to skyrocketing costs. No one doubts the system is in need of reform. However, too many in Washington see tighter government controls as the solution. In fact, the problems are rooted in past government controls that created more problems than they solved. Ironically, laws and policies in the 1970's promoting Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) resulted from desperate attempts to control spiraling costs. However, instead of promoting an efficient health care system, HMOs took far too much control away from patients and physicians and gave it to the insurers. This excessive reliance on third-party payers instead removed incentives for insured patients to economize on health care costs, and allowed the problem to snowball. Furthermore, the third-party payer system created a two-tier health care system where people whose employers could afford to offer "Cadillac" plans have access to top quality health care, while others face financial obstacles in obtaining quality health care.

DOCTOR'S ORDERS
Lawsuit to feds: Constitution says, 'No you can't'
By Bob Unruh © 2010 WorldNetDaily
'Case is about power of government, which is to be limited'
The newest legal brief in a court challenge to "Obamacare," the president's nationalization of health care, says the Constitution simply doesn't allow the federal government to demand a payment for not doing something.

HEALTHCARE ILLEGAL ! :: Judge Napolitano RULES

Michigan Considers Law to Register Journalists
By Jana Winter - FoxNews.com
A Michigan lawmaker wants to register reporters to ensure they're credible and have "good moral character."
State Sen. Bruce Patterson is introducing legislation that will regulate reporters much as the state regulates hairdressers, auto mechanics and plumbers. Patterson, who also practices constitutional law, says the general public is being overwhelmed by an increasing number of media outlets -- traditional, online and citizen generated -- and an even greater amount of misinformation.

New Law Will Require a License to be a Journalist
What good is a government if they can't regulate every aspect of your life? From the same lawmakers that brought us the Detroit economic calamity comes a new bill, aimed at controlling the flow of information to the unsuspecting public even more than the mainstream does now. A Michigan lawmaker wants to register reporters to ensure they're credible and have "good moral character." State Sen. Bruce Patterson is introducing legislation that will regulate reporters much as the state regulates hairdressers, auto mechanics and plumbers.

BofA: Mortgage Walkaways Have Huge Incentive
By: Diana Olick - CNBC.com
This morning executives at Bank of America rolled out their new "Principal Reduction Enhancement" program, which is an earned principal forgiveness plan for borrowers behind on their mortgages and whose loans are at least 20 percent underwater in value.
The plan is in conjunction with the government's Home Affordable Modification Program, but the government's principal reduction plan isn't in place yet.
What makes BofA's plan so proactive is that it employs, "a principal reduction as the first step toward reaching HAMP's affordable payment target of 31 percent of household income when modifying certain NHRP - eligible mortgages - ahead of lowering the interest rate and extending the term."

Original Hershey's factory may close
By Marc Levy - AP via MSNBC.com
Company proposing to cut 600 jobs, modernize newer plant
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The Hershey Co. said Tuesday that it is proposing to slash up to 600 jobs in a move to modernize and expand the newer of its two hometown plants while shutting down production in the original plant built by founder Milton Hershey. The plan is part of a tentative agreement with union negotiators and must be approved by a majority of the approximately 1,600 unionized workers at the two Hershey chocolate plants. Hershey spokesman Kirk Saville said the move is necessary to remain competitive in an ever-changing marketplace.

Sources say Ford to scrap the Mercury brand
By Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin - AP via MSNBC.com
Sales of 72-year-old brand peaked in 1978 at more than 580,000 vehicles
DETROIT - People briefed on the matter say Ford Motor Co. will announce Wednesday that it will phase out its Mercury brand.
Ford has scheduled a conference call with dealers and a press conference for late Wednesday afternoon. The people say Ford plans to boost the Lincoln product lineup to give dealers more models to sell. The people did not want to be identified because the official announcement had not been made.

Long-Term Unemployment at Highest Recorded Rate
By ANNIE LOWREY - The WashingtonIndependent.com
This morning, another round of jobless benefits expired, with Congress away and hope of the approval of a new tier diminishing. And Sara Murray of The Wall Street Journal highlights one of the worst facets of the unemployment crisis: Nearly half of the unemployed - 45.9 percent, or 7 million people - have been out of work for more than six months, the highest proportion since the Labor Department started tracking the statistic in 1948.

Employers and Workers Lose Out Under Project Labor Agreements
By Kevin Mooney - The American Spectator.org
Labor bosses who have failed to secure pension obligations for their membership have successfully schemed with the Obama White House to coerce non-union workers into underfunded plans.
On May 13, an unheralded executive order that would pressure federal agencies into accepting Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on construction projects that exceed $25 million officially went into effect at the expense of private industry and U.S. taxpayers.

Phoenix among 291 areas showing higher unemployment
PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL
Unemployment rates were higher in April than a year earlier in 291 of the 372 metropolitan areas, including Phoenix.
April's unemployment rate for the state was 9.1 percent, up from 8.4 percent a year ago, according to a report released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Phoenix area fared somewhat better at 8.4 percent in April up from 7.9. For Arizona that amounts to 24,000 additional people who were unemployed. However, statewide unemployment in April was down from March's 9.4 percent.

Ireland's unemployment rate hits 16-year high
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
DUBLIN (AP) - Ireland's unemployment rate has reached a 16-year high and the total number of welfare claimants has climbed to a new record high, government statisticians reported Wednesday in the latest sign that the country remains in the grip of recession. The Central Statistics Office said unemployment rose in May to 13.7 percent from the previous rate of 13.4 percent, a level that had held firm through the first four months of the year. Economists had voiced hope that the unemployment rate would remain stable before slowly reversing later this year, but now appears likely to crack 14 percent, a level last reached in 1994.

The Flip Side of China's Economic Miracle
By Wieland Wagner - Spiegel.de
German businessman Mohammad-Reza Mouazzen wanted to expand his heavy equipment company into China. But it didn't take long before he realized that the country's economic miracle has a dark underbelly.
Expo 2010 is underway in Shanghai, and the luxury bars along the Huangpu River are filled with the delegations of Western companies drinking toasts to the new partnerships they have just formed with Chinese companies. In March, this was also where the Chinese adventure of M.C.M., a construction machinery dealer from the southwestern German city of Mannheim, got its start. But now, despite initial high hopes for the deal, the company is struggling to stay afloat.

With a Friend Like Turkey...
By Philip Klein - The American Spectator.org
One of the most bizarre pieces of misinformation being spread in the wake of the flotilla incident is this idea that by taking the action it did, Israel has alienated a key ally and friend in the region. It's disappointing to see that even Megan McArdle, whose work on domestic issues I usually agree with, has bought into this spin, writing that, "Israel royally pissed off their one ally in the region by illegally boarding Turkish-flagged ship, forcing Turkey to abandon its basically friendly stance."

Israel points finger at Turkish activists
ByDelphine Strauss in Ankara - FT.com
Turkish activists who survived Israel's raid on their convoy to Gaza could expect a hero's welcome on their return home on Wednesday, but the aid agency that channelled millions of dollars into the boats and their cargoes is attracting controversy.
The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief - known by its Turkish acronym IHH, draws on widespread sympathy for the Palestinian cause in Turkish society.
But its ethos is more Islamist than is typical in secular Turkey. Founded in the 1990s, the IHH's early work was directed at aiding Muslims in Bosnia. It came under scrutiny from a Turkish government fearful of fundamentalism, and was excluded by the army from official efforts to help victims of the 1999 earthquake.

Turkey taunts Israel - Muslims spoiling for a fight
Turkish navy 'to back next convoy' following Gaza flotilla raid
By DAVID WILLIAMS - dailymail.co.uk
Israel is facing another potentially explosive confrontation at sea as pro-Palestinian activists sent two more boats to challenge its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Turkey - one of Israel's closest Muslim allies until Monday's clash left several of citizens dead - was last night reported to be considering sending a naval escort for the boats. This would arrive in the region at the end of the week, creating a potential flashpoint for a major clash between the nations.

Gaza flotilla debacle is another sign that neo-Ottoman, Asiatic, Islamist Turkey must not join the EU
Gerald Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
The encouragement given by Turkey to the ill-starred Gaza flotilla is just another symptom of the transformation in that nation's character that has been taking place in recent years. The phenomenon of neo-Ottoman geopolitics has motivated Turkey to seek a hegemonial role in all the lands that formerly constituted the empire of the Sultans. This has brought about a new emphasis on its Islamic identity and provides even stronger evidence, if any were needed, that it must never be admitted to membership of the European Union.

Ties with Israel may outlast Turkish anger at raid
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, SUZAN FRASER - AP via MSNBC.com
ANKARA, Turkey - Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship has ignited unprecedented anger in Turkey and driven the Jewish state's relations with its most important Muslim ally to their lowest point in six decades. There are signs, however, that the countries' long-term strategic alliance and military ties will endure. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan furiously told parliament Tuesday that the "bloody massacre" of at least four Turkish activists among nine passengers slain by Israeli naval commandos was a turning point in the long-standing alliance.

Deplores lack of access to holy places
Vatican calls Israel occupation 'injustice'
VATICAN CITY (AFP)
A Vatican document leaked Tuesday calls the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories a "political injustice," Italy's ANSA news agency reported. The occupation is a "political injustice imposed on the Palestinians," the Vatican says, according to extracts quoted by ANSA. "The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories makes daily life difficult for freedom of movement, the economy and social and religious life," the text says. The Instrumentum Laboris, a working document on an upcoming synod of bishops on the Middle East, was embargoed for release until Sunday, when Pope Benedict XVI was to present it during a visit to Cyprus.

Gaza flotilla attack: Israeli ambassador compares raid to Second World War
By Alastair Jamieson - Telegraph.co.uk
Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has compared the Gaza flotilla attack with America's fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
In an interview with Fox News, he described the operation, in which nine people died, as "perfectly legal, perfectly humane - and very responsible". He defending the attack in open waters, saying: "Israel acted in accord with international law. Any state has the right to protect itself, certainly from a terrorist threat such as Hamas, including on the open seas. "The US acted under similar international law when it fought the Germans and the Japanese in World War Two." His comments came as Israel began deporting hundreds of activists seized from the flotilla, including more than 120 activists from Muslim countries who were taken to the border with Jordan early this morning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wednesday 06.02.2010

Warning Signs Of Full Spectrum Collapse Are Everywhere
By Giordano Bruno - NeitherCorp Press
The sovereign debt crisis in Greece and many other European nations has, at least for the moment, opened a gap in the wash of financial disinformation that has prevailed in the mainstream media for the past year. The average American is now more aware of the terrible costs of living in an artificially driven and widely manipulated "global economy", and has also been exposed (at least for the moment) to the very real frailties in our own markets, which have been hidden or downplayed by the government as well as disingenuous establishment economists. Events in the EU, however, are only a glimpse of the greater and more imminent threats we face in the near future. In this article we will look at some of the latest and most disturbing moves by governments and financial institutions, as well as tell-tale signs in our own local cities, which signal that a full-spectrum collapse of world markets and possibly our own currency is not only in progress, but nearing completion.

Israel had no choice over Gaza flotilla
Seth Freedman - guardian.co.uk,
Flotilla activists had ample opportunity to defuse the situation before the IDF arrived - instead they decided on violence
The tragic events of Monday morning are, rightly, sending shockwaves around the world - but blaming the IDF alone for the carnage flies in the face of the facts. Video footage from an on-board news agency clearly shows a premeditated attack on Israeli soldiers, with activists using iron bars and other weapons to assault the troops and giving the IDF carte blanche to respond with force against them.

Israeli Nuclear Missile Boats Off Iranian Coast
June 1, 2010: Israel is stationing three of its five Dolphin class submarines in the Red Sea, and will keep one of them operating off the Iranian coast at all times. These subs will be armed with cruise missiles (equipped with nuclear warheads).
Last year, Israel has received two more German built Dolphin class submarines, giving it a total of five (the others were received 9-10 years ago). The older boats have since been upgraded to include larger fuel capacity, converting more torpedo tubes to the larger 650mm size, and installing new electronics. The fuel and torpedo tube mods appear to have something to do with stationing the subs off the coast of Iran. Larger torpedo tubes allow the subs to carry longer range missiles. The larger fuel capacity makes it easier to move Dolphins from the Mediterranean to the Indian ocean. Although Israel has a naval base on the Red Sea, Egypt had, until recently, had not allowed Israeli subs to use the Suez canal. So the Dolphins were modified to go around Africa, if they had to. But now the Egyptians, who are also feuding with Iran, regularly allow Israeli subs to use the canal.

Forbidden Aircraft Flock To Iran
May 31, 2010: A British aircraft broker (Balli Aviation Ltd.) was recently fined $17 million dollars, and put on probation for five years, for illegally exporting three Boeing 747s to Iran two years ago. The broker pled guilty and cooperated with the investigation. Iran has eight Boeing 747s, and they cannot be exported to Iran without a U.S. government permit. The U.S. refuses to provide these permits, so Iran obtains these aircraft via fraud and companies that are willing to risk prosecution. The Boeing and AirBus aircraft obtained this way have to be maintained by Iran, using smuggled parts. As a result, some of these airliners are sidelined for years at a time for lack of spare parts.

U.N. panel condemns Israelis' ship raid
By Ashish Kumar Sen - WashingtonTimes.com
Gaza activists weigh sending new shipment to challenge blockade
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday condemned a deadly Israeli raid on a so-called aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip even as pro-Palestinian activists planned to send another ship in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade. The Security Council also urged Israel to release all six ships and 680 activists detained in Monday's incident. Israel responded late Tuesday by deporting all the activists. "It was agreed that the detainees would be deported immediately," Nir Hefez, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement to reporters, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

Comex Gold up as risk aversion increases
By Jim Wyckoff of Kitco News- CommodityOnline.com
Comex gold futures are trading higher and have hit a fresh two-week high early Tuesday, as risk aversion has picked up amid ongoing concern about the European Union's debt crisis and fresh worries about China's economy. August Comex gold last traded up $10.70 an ounce at $1,225.70. Gold did push above 1,000 Euros overnight.
News reports overnight said China's manufacturing sector slowed in May. Also, the European Central Bank said Tuesday that Euro zone banks might have to write off 195 billion Euros worth of bad loans in the next two years. On Friday, Spain's credit rating was downgraded. France's budget minister also said over the weekend his country might have trouble keeping is present credit rating. The U.S. dollar rallied and the Euro currency sunk to a fresh 14-month low on the overnight and weekend developments. Israel's botched military assault on a ship trying to deliver food to the Gaza region only added to heightened risk aversion.

Gold Well Positioned To Move Higher
By: Adrian Ash - MarketOracle.co.uk
THE PRICE OF GOLD in wholesale dealing rose against all major currencies early Tuesday, hitting two-week highs against the Dollar above $1224 an ounce as world stock markets slumped almost 2%. The Euro dropped nearly 2¢, hitting a new four-year low on the currency markets, after the European Central Bank warned that Eurozone banks face €195 billion in bad debts. Gold priced in Euros rose within 0.4% of mid-May's all-time record highs, trading back above €32000 per kilo. "Gold's uptrend still look intact despite being over-bought short-term," reckons one Hong Kong dealer in a note. "The fear factor is still in the marketplace...which makes gold investment a reasonable alternative to equities," says a Swiss commodity analyst, speaking to Bloomberg.

With Economic Turmoil and Inflation on the Horizon,
Higher Gold Prices Lie Ahead
BY LARRY D. SPEARS, Contributing Writer, Money Morning
The gold bull is unstoppable. Gold prices are up fourfold since 2001 and hit a new record high near $1,250 an ounce on May 14. But they're still nowhere close to finished. In fact, another four-fold increase could be in the cards. "It sounds like a gold bug's dream," Money Morning Contributing Editor, Martin O. Hutchinson said in a May 13 Reuters BreakingViews column. "But looking back to the last inflation-adjusted peak price in 1980, it's far from impossible that the gold price could soon go above $5,000."

Gold hits two-week high on renewed euro debt fears
Carole Vaporean
(Reuters) - Gold rose toward $1,230 an ounce on Tuesday as investors bought the metal as a haven from debt problems in the euro zone, after the European Central Bank warned the region's banks may face a fresh wave of losses. Spot gold was bid at $1,224.55 an ounce at 15:25 p.m. EDT, up from $1,214.20 late in New York on Friday. U.S. gold futures for August delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange closed $11.90 higher at $1,226.90 an ounce. Earlier in the session, both gold bullion and COMEX gold futures reached their highest levels since May 18 despite dollar gains against the euro.

U.S. Mint's May gold coin sales reach most since 1999
(Reuters) - The U.S. mint sold 190,000 1-ounce American Eagle gold coins in May, the largest number since January 1999, and the most in any month so far in 2010, according to a spokesman for the U.S. agency. In January 1999, the U.S. mint sold 208,500 gold 1-ounce coins, with only five other months exceeding May's gold coin sales since the program was launched in 1986, the Mint's spokesman told Reuters. While in 2010 the U.S. Mint has sold only 1-ounce gold coins, in past years it has sold other coin sizes as well. Comparing only American Eagle gold 1-ounce coins, the biggest monthly sale occurred in October 1986 with 609,500 coins sold, the Mint said.

Mainstream Media Incompetent About U.S. Inflation
National Inflation Association
NIA finds it disturbing that mainstream media outlets continue to give credibility to imbeciles like Dave Ramsey. Ramsey recently described gold as being "dumb", "speculative", "volatile", and one of the "weirdest" investments. Ramsey compared investing into gold to investing into diamonds and called its value an "illusion". He said that Real Estate is a much better hedge against inflation.
Ramsey recommends to his viewers that they purchase certificates of deposit (CDs) and tells them that once they save up enough money they should buy rental properties because, "People always need housing." It's a shame that prominent figures in the mainstream media today are giving such dangerous investment advice that will cause their viewers to see the purchasing power of their savings wiped out. The mainstream media needs to catch up with the times and realize the devastating effects inflation has had and will continue to have on our economy.

Gerald Celente - Clash of the Economists
on abc6.com May 21, 2010

Austerity and a High Joblessness Weigh on Madrid
By RAPHAEL MINDER and LANDON THOMAS Jr. - NYTimes.com
MADRID - Caught between a recession-weary populace resistant to more austerity and investors demanding searing budget cuts and more flexible labor markets, the Spanish government - like some others in Europe - is finding it increasingly difficult to keep a grip on power. Last week, the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero narrowly won approval for an extra €15 billion, or $18.4 billion, in spending cuts. With labor unions and business leaders at loggerheads, Mr. Zapatero is also expected to present his own plan for loosening labor rules.

Spain's Dropout Generation
Mises Daily: by Jaime Levy Moreno
In the last two decades in Mediterranean Europe, and especially in Spain, a new social group has emerged, called jovenes (youngsters). Members of this group exhibit several specific characteristics. First, jovenes are usually male, aged 25-35, although some members are in their 40s. Second, they are in a perpetual state between graduation and their first job. Third, they usually live with their parents to save money, allowing them to go out at least three times a week. Fourth, they occasionally work a part-time job - if only due to the pressure imposed by their parents. Last, and most important, they receive unemployment benefit credits and renew their membership on the "unemployment list" from time to time, so that the state subsidies don't run out during their "temporary" hibernation.

As China Moves Up, the U.S. Needs a New Game Plan
By SAM GUSTIN - DailyFinance.com
When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner visited China last week, one of their top priorities was to press the Chinese government to create a more level playing filed for Western firms, which operate at a disadvantage to Chinese state-owned companies. "For trade to work in any economy and for it to produce the benefits we know it can, there must be a level playing field where domestic and international companies can compete freely and openly," Clinton said.

War Over Bank Capital Heating Up
By Damian Paletta - WSJ.com
The global war over new bank capital requirements for banks is intensifying, with a clash between powerful U.S. regulators drawing widespread international attention. The latest salvo comes from Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, who penned a sharply worded May 21 letter ( Read the letter) in defense of a controversial amendment to the financial overhaul bill that would limit the Federal Reserve's ability to lower capital requirements.

Citigroup to close 330 branches in consumer finance reorganization
NEW YORK (AP) - Citigroup (C) is closing 330 branches of its U.S. consumer finance business as part of a restructuring aimed at finding a buyer for the unit, the bank said Tuesday. The branch closures at CitiFinancial will result in about 500 to 600 job cuts across 48 U.S. states, the bank said. The U.S. business of CitiFinancial will also be split into two parts, one offering personal, home equity and refinancing loans and the other handling loan modifications and restructuring, Citigroup said. CitiFinancial will be renamed after the reorganization is complete.

Bank Contagion Spreads to Northwest
By ROBIN SIDEL And PETER LATTMAN - WSJ.com
The symptoms are familiar: too many construction loans made when money was plentiful and real-estate values defied gravity. And now the disease that has killed more than 200 banks is spreading to another part of the U.S.
Six banks in Washington state have failed this year, while about one-fourth of the banks and savings institutions based there are operating under toughened regulatory scrutiny known as "cease-and-desist" orders, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Keiser Report on Toxic Twins: Oil Spill & Cash Crisis

Richard Koo Says If Banks Marked Commercial Real Estate To Market,
It Would "Trigger A Chain Of Bankruptcies"
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Richard Koo's latest observations on the US economy are as always, a must read. The critical observation from the Nomura economist explains why the realists and the naive idealists are at greater odds than ever before: the government continues to perpetuate, endorse and legalize accounting fraud in the hope that covering everything up under the rug will rekindle animal spirits. The truth, as Koo points out, is that were the FASB to show the real sad state of affairs, the two core industries in the US - finance and real estate, would be bankrupt. "If US authorities were to require banks to mark their commercial real estate loans to market today, lending to this sector would be extinguished, triggering a chain of bankruptcies as borrowers became unable to roll over their debt." In other news Citi, Bank of America, and Wells just reported fantastic earnings beats on the heels of reduced credit loss provisions. Nothing on the conference call mentioned the fact that all would be bankrupt if there was an ounce of integrity left in financial reporting, and that every firm is committing FASB-complicit 10(b)-5 fraud. One day, just like Goldman's mortgage follies, all this will be the subject of epic lawsuits. But not yet. There is some more money to be stolen from the middle class first, by these very firms.

The Union Pension Bailout
A scheme for taxpayers to cover mismanaged multi-employer plans.
WSJ.com - Feeling tapped out after stimulus, ObamaCare and everything else? Senator Bob Casey has one more deal for you. If the Pennsylvania Democrat gets his way, U.S. taxpayers will also pick up the astonishing tab for poorly managed union pension plans.
Mr. Casey is gathering support for his curiously named "Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act," a bailout for union-run retirement plans. Similar to House legislation from North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy and Ohio Republican Patrick Tiberi, the bill would transfer tens of billions of dollars worth of retiree liabilities to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, i.e., to taxpayers.

Half a Dozen States Delay Tax Refunds
By MICHAEL COOPER - NYTimes.com
Procrastination is no longer just for the taxpayers who wait until the last moment to file their tax returns: Thanks to the economic downturn, at least half a dozen cash-poor states are now delaying their tax refund checks.
Hawaii initially planned to delay all tax refunds until July, when its new fiscal year begins, but decided two weeks ago that its coffers were healthy enough to begin sending checks to people whose tax returns were processed back in January. New York briefly postponed sending out half a billion dollars worth of refunds until its new fiscal year began in April. Rhode Island extended its tax filing deadline until May 11 to help taxpayers who were still reeling from severe floods; now the state is delaying refunds to make sure it has enough money left to pay debts coming due in June.

Humor
Experts Propose Plugging Oil Leak With BP Executives
Fake news by Andy Borowitz - TruthDig.com
WASHINGTON - At a conference of oil leak experts in Washington today, attendees proposed plugging the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico with executives of BP, the company responsible for the catastrophic spill.
"We've tried containment domes, rubber tires and even golf balls," said William Cathermeyer of the National Oil Leakage Institute, a leading consultancy in the field of oil leaks. "Now it's time to shove some BP executives down there and hope for the best."
Submerging the oil company executives thousands of feet below the ocean's surface could be a "win-win" situation, Cathermeyer said. "Best-case scenario, they plug the leak," he said. "And at the very least, they'll shut the f**** up."

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation. A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil. Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

FAQ's about Bakken Formation

U.S. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into Gulf Oil Spill
By HELENE COOPER and ROBBIE BROWN - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that federal authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the worst oil spill in U.S. history. "We will closely examine the actions of those involved in the spill," Mr. Holder said after a meeting with state attorneys general in New Orleans. "If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be extremely forceful in our response." Mr. Holder would not say which parties specifically are under investigation.

Guest Says BP Should Cooperate Fully in Spill Probe

Robots succeed, cut well pipe; oil gushes into Gulf
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- A new flow of oil emerged from BP's damaged undersea well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday evening after a remote-controlled submarine successfully cut into the well's riser pipe.
BP used robots in its latest attempt to curtail the flow of crude from the largest spill in U.S. history, which spread to barrier islands off Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday.
When the robot submarines cut into the undersea well's riser pipe, a fresh spew of oil temporarily obscured the view of the mechanical arm. The cut was a first step toward placing a cap over the well that has spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day since late April.

BP Tries Again to Divert Oil Leak With Dome
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS - NYTimes.com
HOUSTON - Unable for six weeks to plug the gushing oil well beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP turned its attention Tuesday to trying to use a dome to funnel some of the leaking crude to a tanker on the surface. A similar attempt failed three weeks ago, but officials said they had resolved some of the technical problems that forced them to abort last time.
If successful - and after the string of failures so far, there is no guarantee it will be - the containment dome may be able to capture most of the oil, but it would not plug the leak. Its failure would mean continued environmental and economic damage to the gulf region, as well as greater public pressure on BP and the Obama administration, with few options remaining for trying to contain the spill any time soon.

U.S. Housing, Real Estate, Credit Bubble Deflation, 5 More Years of Financial Hell
By: Steve Moyer - MarketOracle.co.uk
"...and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." ~William Orville Douglas
First of all, please allow me to apologize for the infrequency of my Safehaven posts, as obviously I have become a fellow more inclined to write at market turns than one who chimes in on an ongoing basis. I appreciate to no end the number of emails I receive requesting updates, but my fingers are in a few more pies now (including the penning of a second screenplay with writing partner Tim Wells and the pursuit of my investment advisory representative license).

Most over valued region in San Francisco gets a taste of the commercial real estate bust.
$3 trillion in loans starting to implode at a faster rate. Why commercial real estate will plunge FDIC insured banks into closure. Bought for $415,000 per apartment unit.
The commercial real estate bust is in full swing. This $3 trillion mortgage market is standing to push hundreds of banks into failure and adding additional strain to the embattled FDIC. Commercial real estate (CRE) is a good indicator of where things are heading economically because it is a reflection of what revenues are being brought in by certain properties. For example, a strip mall owner will lease out space to clients that ideally will earn more money each month to cover their rents. That is typically how CRE deals went down. But for the past decade people invested in CRE with the implied notion that they could always sell the underlying CRE for a higher price irrespective of the actual revenue stream the real estate could produce. For CRE this is sin number one.

Second Home Delinquencies On the Rise
By Paul Muolo - National Mortgage News
Mortgage lenders that finance vacation homes on the Jersey Shore of the Garden State may have more to worry about this year than just the negative image of beach towns caused by the MTV reality series of the same name. Delinquency rates on second homes and investor properties are on the rise nationwide with certain New Jersey ZIP codes suffering more than others. According to figures compiled for National Mortgage News by CoreLogic, the national delinquency rate on all investor properties is near an all-time high of 10%. The figure, however, reflects loans that are 90 days or more past due. A year ago, the rate was 7.83% and 12 months prior was at a very benign 4.7%.

H-P to invest $1 billion in automation, cut 9,000 jobs
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday said it will invest $1 billion to automate its data centers in a move that will lead to the elimination of 9,000 jobs over a "multiyear" period.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based technology giant (HPQ 46.24, +0.23, +0.50%) said annual savings would range from $500 million to $700 million once the transformation is complete. Data centers are used to house computerized information of businesses, government agencies and other organizations.

Say goodbye to full-time jobs with benefits
By Chris Isidore, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Jobs may be coming back, but they aren't the same ones workers were used to. Many of the jobs employers are adding are temporary or contract positions, rather than traditional full-time jobs with benefits. With unemployment remaining near 10%, employers have their pick of workers willing to accept less secure positions. In 2005, the government estimated that 31% of U.S. workers were already so-called contingent workers. Experts say that number could increase to 40% or more in the next 10 years.

Obamacare breaks the bank
By Grace-Marie Turner - WashingtonTimes.com
Promises of savings already history
Americans consistently said controlling health costs was their top priority for health reform. But Washington didn't listen, and independent experts now say the new health law actually will drive up the cost of health care and insurance premiums. Federal and state governments, as well as businesses, consumers and taxpayers, are finding they cannot afford this massive and unpopular health overhaul law.

Appointments of federal watchdogs suggest more tough scrutiny for insurers
By Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News - WashingtonPost.com
Pounded by the Obama administration for raising premiums, health insurers now must reckon with a foursome of longtime industry watchdogs who are helping steer the federal government's effort to overhaul the private insurance market. The four have top spots in the newly minted Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, whose work will be key to the success -- or failure -- of the new health-care law, which vastly expands federal authority over health insurance, traditionally a state-regulated industry.

*****

Ron Paul: Introducing the Private Option Health Care Act

West Poised for Worst Grasshopper Outbreak in 30 Years
By Brett Israel, LiveScience Staff Writer
The worst grasshopper outbreak in decades may envelop the western states this summer, scientists warn.
A dramatic rise in the number of grasshoppers was found during a survey of the western states conducted last year, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). And while that may seem bad enough on its own, it's really the grasshoppers' kids that are the threat.
If last summer's adults were successful during mating season, then the worst grasshopper infestation in 30 years could strike ranches and agricultural land in the Great Plains states between late July and early August, said Roeland Elliston of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Fort Collins, Colo., who worked on the survey.

Venting Online, Consumers Can Find Themselves in Court
By DAN FROSCH - NYTimes.com
After a towing company hauled Justin Kurtz's car from his apartment complex parking lot, despite his permit to park there, Mr. Kurtz, 21, a college student in Kalamazoo, Mich., went to the Internet for revenge. Outraged at having to pay $118 to get his car back, Mr. Kurtz created a Facebook page called "Kalamazoo Residents against T&J Towing." Within two days, 800 people had joined the group, some posting comments about their own maddening experiences with the company. T&J filed a defamation suit against Mr. Kurtz, claiming the site was hurting business and seeking $750,000 in damages.

Prophetic visions . . .

NUCLEAR ATTACK on AMERICA
A. A. Allen vision regarding the fall of America, received on July 4, 1954
Allen's Vision of poisonous gas, nuclear attack, Christians hidden in Cleft of THE ROCK.
June 2010
In April 2010 an oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico. It sunk, causing a 'volcano' of oil to gush out into the Gulf. They have not plugged it, it is reaching the shores. The chemicals they are spraying on the waters are more toxic than the oil which nature would take care of. I keep thinking of this vision. I always thought it odd Allen moved Liberty to the Gulf of Mexico.
WHY?

Pelosi Says She Has a Duty to Pursue Policies in Keeping With The Values of Jesus, 'The Word Made Flesh'
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter
(CNSNews.com) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says she believes she must pursue public policies "in keeping with the values" of Jesus Christ, "The Word made Flesh."
Pelosi, who is a Catholic and who favors legalized abortion, voted against the ban on partial-birth abortion that was enacted into law in 2003.
At a May 6 Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill, the speaker said: "They ask me all the time, 'What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?' And one time,'What is your favorite word?' And I said, 'My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word."

San Andreas-like fault found in eastern U.S.
By Larry O'Hanlon, DiscoveryNews via MSNBC.com
Fault, from New York to Alabama, may be 500 million years old
For 30 years geologists have been puzzled by a remarkably straight magnetic line that runs between New York and Alabama along the Appalachians.
A more recent aerial magnetic survey of the Alabama end of the line suggests that it's probably a 500-million-year-old San Andreas-style fault that appears to have slipped 137 miles to the right in the distant past.
If so, it's no surprise that the most dangerous part of the eastern Tennessee seismic zone is right next to part of this magnetic line and has the second-highest earthquake frequency in the eastern United States.

Tropical Storm Agatha blows a hole in Guatemala City
Peter Walker - The Guardian
Hundreds dead as torrential rain sweeps Central America. Sinkhole in Guatemala swallows three-story building Tropical Storm Agatha swept across Central America yesterday, bringing torrential rain that killed more than 100 people and opened a 60m-deep sinkhole in Guatemala City which reportedly swallowed up a three-storey building. The first named storm of the 2010 Pacific season dumped more than a metre of rain in parts of Guatemala, also hitting El Salvador and Honduras. At least 113 people were reported killed, with around 50 missing in Guatemala alone as rescue workers searched through the rubble.

Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatomaya says he's resigning
PACIFIC BUSINESS NEW
Japan's prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, told his nation in a televised address Wednesday that he plans to resign.
Although his announcement comes as his approval ratings have dipped below 20 percent since he reneged on his promise to move a U.S. Marine air base off the island of Okinawa, he instead blamed the corroding influence of money on politics.
"The relationship with politics and money was what I wanted to say farewell to in Democratic Party politics," Hatoyama said, according to a live translation of his address by Japan's NHK television. "Because of this I myself will have to resign the post as prime minister."

Tensions Between Israel and Turkey at Breaking Point
Written by Robert Tait - OilPrice.com
Once the Mideast's key strategic relationship, a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship has tensions between them at the breaking point. Strategic relationship? What strategic relationship? "I don't think we can use that word anymore," one Turkish official grimly opined, describing the diplomatic aftermath of Israel's deadly commando raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip with Ankara's blessing. With that terse assessment, an intimate bilateral partnership that spawned not only burgeoning trade and arms ties, but a mutual trust prompting intensive diplomatic efforts by Turkey to mediate between Israel and its Arab adversaries, finally bit the dust.

NWO Busted:
Man who exposed Bilderberg reveals conspiracy secrets to EU

Theater To Die For
May 31, 2010: Although Hezbollah makes a lot of noise about their growing military power and how they will defeat Israel if there is another fight, the Hezbollah leadership operate according to another reality. The senior Hezbollah officials are in hiding most of the time, and move carefully, apparently fearful of Israeli surveillance and attack.
In Gaza, months of Egyptian controls on smuggling cash into Gaza, and Hamas use of the banking system, have cut Hamas income. Only partial salaries have been paid to 30,000 people on their payroll (mostly armed men, to keep the population under control) in the last three months. Hamas needs about $16 million a month to operate, with most of that money coming from Iran and wealthy Arabs. Only about ten percent comes from taxes in Gaza, and raising those taxes has made Hamas even more unpopular. But Hamas has established a police state, and has thousands of armed Islamic radicals who are willing to kill, and die, for the cause of Hamas controlling Gaza.

Armed Activists Attacked Our Troops, Says Israel Amid World Outrage
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor
(CNSNews.com) - Facing the world's wrath over the deadly clash at sea between its troops and pro-Palestinian activists, the Israeli Defense Forces released video footage Monday showing groups of activists using what appear to be clubs or bars to attack Israeli soldiers the moment they landed on deck.
The footage, along with an array of weapons found onboard the Turkish-flagged ship Mavi Marmara - now docked in the Israeli port of Ashdod - presents a picture at odds with accounts given by pro-Palestinian groups of a massive, disproportionate assault on peaceful civilians.

Activists send new boat to challenge Gaza blockade
By AMY TEIBEL
JERUSALEM (AP) - Pro-Palestinian activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a botched raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists.
The raid provoked ferocious international condemnation of Israel, raised questions at home, and appeared likely to increase pressure to end the blockade that has deepened the poverty of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the strip. Turkey, which unofficially supported the flotilla, has led the criticism, calling the Israeli raid a "bloody massacre."

Allies turn on Israel after raid
Associated Press
The Norman Transcript
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel and called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council as condemnations erupted across Europe and the Arab world Monday over Israel's deadly commando raid on ships taking humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. Israel said the activists attacked its commandos as they boarded the six ships taking tons of supplies to Gaza, while the flotilla's organizers said the Israeli forces opened fire first.

Obama administration seeks a fine line after Israel's raid of Gaza flotilla turns deadly LATimes.com
President Obama had planned to spend part of Tuesday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a effort to push Mideast peace talks forward. Instead, his administration is struggling to deal with an Islamic world angered by what some see as an overly cautious response to the Israeli attack on ships carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
Throughout the crisis that began over the Memorial Day weekend, the Obama administration has tried to walk a fine line in a part of the world where there is usually little political or physical space for any compromise. It is also an area where the U.S. hopes to play an important role in making peace despite the canceled meeting between Obama and Netanyahu.

Turkey withdraws ambassador to Israel over deaths
AP foreign - The Guardian.co.uk
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel and canceled three joint military drills on Monday after Israeli commandos killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens aboard a Palestinian aid convoy unofficially sponsored by Turkey.
Furious Turkish protesters tried to storm Israel's Consulate in Istanbul then marched toward the city's main square denouncing Israel over the deaths, which drew condemnation from around the world. Arab countries expressed outrage and European nations with passengers aboard the ships summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their countries and called for an investigation.

Israel flotilla attack: Egypt opens border with Gaza
Matthew Weaver and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
Thousands of Palestinians cross border as Turkey calls for Israel to be punished for attack
Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip today amid mounting criticism of Israel's violent raid on a flotilla of aid ships attempting to break the three-year blockade of the enclave. Thousands of Palestinians crossed the border at Rafah as Turkey called for Israel to be punished for the attack, which left at least nine people dead. Volatility in the area was further underlined by reports that five members of Islamic Jihad were killed in Gaza in two separate attacks

North Korea 'is exporting nuclear technology'
Justin McCurry and agencies in Seoul - guardian.co.uk
Leaked UN report says Pyongyang is using front companies to export nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Syria and Burma
International efforts to avert a full-blown crisis on the Korean peninsula were given greater urgency today after a leaked UN report claimed that North Korea is defying UN sanctions and using front companies to export nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Syria and Burma.
The report, by a panel that monitors sanctions imposed after Pyongyang conducted nuclear weapons tests in 2006 and 2009, said the regime was using shell companies and overseas criminal networks to export the technology.
The revelations came just hours before the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, arrived in South Korea for a three-day visit certain to be dominated by mounting tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang.

Sheeple: Signs That You Might Be Part Of The Herd
By Giordano Bruno - Neithercorp Press - 05/03/2010
Millions of people from countries across the world have begun to wake up to the very real threat of repressive and engineered Globalism, or what the financial elite and the politicians who work for them often refer to as "The New World Order". The movement against this centralization of economic and social power has gained traction in nearly every sphere, to the point where even the mainstream media has been forced on occasion to acknowledge its existence and prevalence. Those of us who have been working more than a few years in this activist organization, what many of us call the "Patriot Movement", or the "Liberty Movement", have seen incredible leaps and bounds in the fight against disinformation and the spread of unadulterated truth. Our work has gone viral, and our membership has skyrocketed, however, the task of diluting ignorance in the overall populace is far from over.

Gerald Celente on The Bruce Collins Show 05/29/10

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tuesday 06.01.2010

3 Fla. banks, 1 each in Nev., Calif. shut down
USAToday.com
WASHINGTON (AP) Ñ Regulators on Friday shut down three banks in Florida and one each in Nevada and California, bringing the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 78. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the Florida banks, all owned by holding company Bank of Florida Corp. They are Bank of Florida-Southeast, based in Fort Lauderdale, with $595.3 million in assets; Bank of Florida-Southwest, based in Naples, with $640.9 million in assets; and Bank of Florida-Tampa Bay, based in Tampa, with $245.2 million in assets. The FDIC also seized Las Vegas-based Sun West Bank, with $360.7 million in assets, and Granite Community Bank, located in Granite Bay, Calif., with $102.9 million in assets.

A worldwide financial crisis couldn't happen again. Could it?
Katie Allen and Elena Moya - The Observer,
Optimists see economies shaking off recession and corporate results improving. But pessimists see a growing debt crisis and a new slump that the world would be powerless to halt
Is this Global Meltdown part II? Unsurprisingly, most economists say no: stop that alarmist talk, ignore fresh signs of trouble in Spain, and look at the improving data. But with Britain and other countries barely back on their feet after the deepest downturn in decades, the doomsayers see double-dip recession, contagion, market mayhem and no easy way out.
They warn that shares will plummet as investors take stock of the unprecedented scale of a swathe of