Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Thursday 03.31.2011
Stricken Portugal 'lacks the cash to meet debt payments' Portugal insisted it could cope with looming debt repayments, after analysts warned it does not have enough money to meet its obligations. -- By Emma Rowley - Telegraph.co.uk
The debt-laden nation faces around €9bn (£7.9bn) in bond redemptions by June, but currently has no more than €5bn in cash, analysts at Barclays Capital estimated.
"Portugal needs to find financing in the coming weeks in some way," they said, suggesting credit lines or some sort of bridge loan. "In our opinion, Portugal is likely to find financing, but it is not in a comfortable position."
Portugal denied that it could not afford to pay off its debt.
CIA Operatives Are Aiding Rebels
By ADAM ENTOUS - WSJ.com
The Central Intelligence Agency has placed covert operatives on the ground in parts of Libya, feeding intelligence on ground targets to the U.S. military and coalition forces for airstrikes and reaching out to rebels aligned against Col. Moammar Gadhafi, officials say.
Under a secret order signed earlier in the month by President Barack Obama, the CIA received broad authorization to find ways to help Libyan rebels in their fight against Col. Gadhafi.
Obama authorizes secret help for Libya rebels
By Mark Hosenball
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter.
Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that it will.
Webster Tarpley: Al Qaeda does US dirty work in Libya
CIA officers in Libya are aiding rebels, U.S. officials say CIA officers on the ground in rebel-held areas of Libya are coordinating with the opposition forces and sharing intelligence, U.S. officials say. The White House is still mulling whether to provide weapons to those trying to oust Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi. -- By Ken Dilanian - LATimes.com
WASHINGTON - CIA officers on the ground in Libya are coordinating with rebels and sharing intelligence, U.S. officials say, but the White House is still mulling whether to provide weapons to those trying to oust Moammar Kadafi.
"No decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any group in Libya," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. "We're not ruling it out or ruling it in."
In Libya, CIA is gathering intelligence on rebels
By Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller - WashingtonPost.com
The Obama administration has sent teams of CIA operatives into Libya in a rush to gather intelligence on the identities and capabilities of rebel forces opposed to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, according to U.S. officials.
The information has become more crucial as the administration and its coalition partners move closer to providing direct military aid or guidance to the disorganized and beleaguered rebel army.
Tarpley: US aiding racists in Libya
Obama signs secret order giving the CIA the green light
to give covert support to Libyan rebels
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Barack Obama has secretly sent the CIA in to Libya, it was revealed today.
The President has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The revelation comes as Obama and allies talked openly of arming the rebels who, despite the UN-backed no-fly zone, are on the verge of being overrun by Gaddafi's superior military force.
Gerald Celente:
First Great War of The 21st Century Has Begun
Alex Jones Tv 1/2
Gerald Celente:
First Great War of The 21st Century Has Begun
Alex Jones Tv 2/2
Arming Libya rebels not allowed by UN resolutions
legal experts warn US Washington questioned over its assertion that UN mandate permits supply of arms to anti-Gaddafi rebels
By Robert Booth - Guardian.co.uk
The US is likely to be in breach of the UN security council's arms embargo on Libya if it sends weapons to the rebels, experts in international law have warned.
After Hillary Clinton said it would be legal to send arms to support the uprising, lawyers analysing the terms of the UN's 26 February arms embargo said it would require a change in the terms for it not to breach international law.
Uranium bombs in Libya?
US, UK 'habit of deploying radioactive arms'
Qaddafi Forces Gain on Rebels as His Foreign Minister Quits
By Thomas Penny and Ola Gala - BusinessWeek.com
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Troops loyal to Muammar Qaddafi forced Libyan rebels to retreat as the U.S. and U.K. said they would consider arming opposition forces and Libya’s foreign minister resigned and flew to London.
Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa quit Qaddafi’s government, according to a statement from the U.K. foreign office. "He traveled here under his own free will. He has told us that he is resigning his post," the statement said.
END WAR: Farrakhan Cautions Against Drums Of War On Libya;
Regime Change Funding, US
Obama in 2002: Toppling Brutal Dictator a 'Dumb War'
By Matt Cover - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, as an Illinois state senator in 2002, said that using military force to topple a murderous dictator amounted to a "dumb war" and should be opposed.
The "dumb war" Obama was criticizing was the planned invasion of Iraq and the murderous dictator was its leader, Saddam Hussein. Obama,speaking at an anti-war rally in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2002 said that while Saddam was a brutal tyrant, that was not enough to justify using military force to remove him from power.
Israel fears the alternative if Syria's Assad falls Syria is one of Israel's strongest enemies, but it has been predictable and relatively stable.
By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Jerusalem - As popular unrest threatens to topple another Arab neighbor, Israel finds itself again quietly rooting for the survival of an autocratic yet predictable regime, rather than face an untested new government in its place.
Syrian President Bashar Assad's race to tamp down public unrest is stirring anxiety in Israel that is even higher than its hand-wringing over Egypt's recent regime change. Unlike Israel and Egypt, Israel and Syria have no peace agreement, and Syria, with a large arsenal of sophisticated weapons, is one of Israel's strongest enemies.
Syria's Assad offers no concessions, blames protests on 'big conspiracy'
By Edward Cody - WashingtonPost.com
CAIRO - Syria’s 12-day-old protest movement was hoping for major concessions from President Bashar al-Assad. What it got instead was a declaration that the protesters were dupes of unnamed enemies conspiring to divide and weaken the champion of Arab nationalism.
Assad, in an internationally televised speech, portrayed himself Wednesday as a reformer eager to respond to complaints from Syria's 23 million citizens. But the demonstrations that have broken out in Damascus, Daraa, Hama and other Syrian cities since March 18 represent "chaos," he said, and cannot be tolerated if the country is to remain strong in the struggle against Israeli occupation of Arab land.
Marc Faber - Implications of Libya on Gold
Gadhafi Push Tests the Coalition Strategy Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi's Forces Push Rebels Out of Ras Lanuf, as Nations Urge Leader's Ouster and Reach Out to Rebels
By SAM DAGHER in Tripoli, CHARLES LEVINSON in Benghazi - WSJ.com
Forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi continued to push rebels out of positions along coastal oil towns, further delaying the rebel drive on Tripoli and testing the limits of the coalition airstrikes at a time when the alliance is considering arming the rebels.
Rebels retreated Wednesday from the oil-refinery port of Ras Lanuf, and Col. Gadhafi's forces were shelling Brega, another oil port to the east, the Associated Press reported.
The latest setback for the rebels brought to the fore the rapidly changing fortunes of both sides on the front, and the challenges the coalition faces in assessing the most effective strategy to weaken Col. Gadhafi.
Obama calls for cut in US oil imports by a third President announces fuel efficiency goals – but Republicans push to stop administration from acting on climate change
By Suzanne Goldenberg - The Guardian
Barack Obama called for cutting US oil imports by a third on Wednesday, in a speech aimed at defending his energy agenda from Republican attacks.
President Obama also said the federal government would buy only advanced technology vehicles – such as electric plug-ins and hybrids – by 2015. In his second speech on oil in three weeks, Obama said America was long overdue to develop domestic sources of energy and reduce fuel consumption.
Obama fails 'Nixon to China' budget moment
By James Pethokoukis - Reuters.com
President Barack Obama should get in a New York state of mind. Over the weekend, Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic governor of the Empire State, struck a deal to balance the budget without major tax increases – and five days ahead of deadline. It’s the latest example of how left-of-center politicians, often considered profligate, are better sometimes placed than conservatives to cut spending. Obama is missing a “Nixon to China” moment on dealing with America’s dangerous budget deficit. Consider the following:
1) During the rare times when lawmakers attempt a measure of fiscal responsibility, liberals, generally speaking, prefer to close deficits by raising taxes while conservatives favor reducing spending. But when the spenders do the trimming, it can provide greater confidence to interest groups and voters that the cuts are rational and reasonable. And budget-minded liberal leaders can keep their free-spending legislative allies in check.
Massive Capital Wave Approaches Gold
By Neil Charnock - SilverBearCafe.com
Capital waves control the direction of markets; they are flows of money, the liquidity that dictates direction. There is nothing like a good gold rally because it is driven by fear. As I will explain this coming rally is shaping up with considerable force, the capital wave to hit this market sector will be a monumental event. You will want to be on this wave with as much capital as you dare to commit to precious metal mining stocks and gold (include silver).
Generally speaking the fundamental picture for gold, silver, gold & silver miners around the world has never looked better. Australia is a leading global gold producer and the quarry at the base of Asia so our prospects look better than excellent going forward. Many of our miners are making fantastic progress on plant upgrades and new projects. They have been exploring and working with new vigour over the past decade as conditions improved for the industry.
[Peter Schiff] Gold = Record Highs + Dollar = Record Lows = [March 2011] ... Gold headed for $5,000?
Chinese demand powers global gold market
CommodityOnline.com
Gold and, particularly, silver are higher in European trading, especially in Japanese yen, which has come under pressure again today. The initial 'repatriation funds' yen rally in the days after the natural and nuclear disaster has abated.
Gold is again close to record nominal highs in yen (119,000/oz) and other currencies. The outlook for the yen is not good due to massive fiscal and demographic challenges, zero percent interest rates and ongoing currency debasement - none of which will be helped by the nuclear disaster.
Gold, silver still influenced by Japan gloom
By Stephen Long - CommodityOnline.com
Japanese officials have said that the recent devastation from the earthquake and tsunami is the worst since World War II. From the pictures and videos it certainly appears to look more like war type destruction.
The radiation from the nuclear plants in the upcoming weeks will only add to the tragedy. Once any sense of normalcy begins, the question is who will pay for the rebuilding of the Japanese infrastructure?
When Gold Becomes Money Again
By Addison Wiggins - The DailyReckoning.com
03/30/11 Baltimore, Maryland – On the night our documentary I.O.U.S.A. made its nationwide premiere in August 2008, the film was followed up by a live panel discussion, broadcast via satellite. Our friend David Walker, the former US comptroller general and "star" of the film, took part... along with several other luminaries.
At one point, the question was asked: Might America’s trading partners one day sell off their US Treasury holdings?
Impossible, said Warren Buffett. In fact, he insisted, they couldn't... because they'd need to convert it into some other currency, which would be little better than the dollar. No one else chimed in to challenge the assertion.
The Inflation Knuckleball
By Michael Pento - SilverBearCafe.com
By its very definition, fiat money is something created out of thin air: the word "fiat" is Latin for "let it be done" (as in, by decree). But the convenience that such a currency system offers central bankers is paid at the expense of savers.
With nothing of real or lasting value on which to anchor, the value of fiat currencies can always blow away like ashes on a windy day.
For the past 40 years or so, every country on the planet has relied on fiat money
To a very large extent, this means that the national economies are far more exposed to the whims of their central bankers than they have been in the past. So, if central bankers go off their meds, the danger to the currency becomes profound. Unfortunately, at America's Federal Reserve, it seems the inmates are now running the asylum.
G-20 Criticism of Fed Easing May Be Muted at Meeting in China
March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese criticism of the Federal Reserve for flooding the world with money may get little traction among Group of 20 finance chiefs meeting in China as Europe’s debt crisis and Japan’s disaster take precedence.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will gather in Nanjing for a one-day seminar on the international monetary system tomorrow. A Chinese state economist called for an end to the dollar's dominance in a paper posted on a website yesterday, blaming the U.S. for fueling inflation.
Bill Gross Says Treasuries Have Little Value, Echoing Buffett
By Wes Goodman - Bloomberg.com
Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said Treasuries "have little value" because of the growing U.S. debt burden.
The U.S. has unrecorded debt of $75 trillion, or close to 500 percent of gross domestic product, counting what it owes on its bonds plus obligations for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Gross said in his monthly investment outlook. The U.S. will experience inflation, currency devaluation and low-to- negative interest rates after accounting for consumer-price gains if it doesn’t reform its entitlement programs, he wrote.
Fed drains $750 million of reserves via reverse repo
(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday drained $750 million of temporary reserves from the banking system via a reverse repurchase agreement, according to the New York Fed website.
Going Broke: Treasury Down to $58.6B in Cash
$130.5B Borrowing Authority
By Terence P. Jeffrey - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - Imagine that you had an average monthly income of about $170 balanced against average monthly expenses of about $940--and that you were more than $14,000 in debt.
Then imagine that as of today, you had only $58.60 in cash left in your bank account and $130.50 left on your line of credit.
Now multiply these numbers by 1 billion and you will have the up-to-date financial situation of the U.S. government.
Ohio Legislature approves bill limiting bargaining rights
of 350K unionized public employees
By ANN SANNER - AP - StarTribune
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Legislature voted Wednesday to severely limit the collective bargaining rights of 350,000 public workers, sending a bill that sparked weeks of pro-labor protests to Republican Gov. John Kasich, who is expected to sign it by the end of the week.
The full House had passed the measure on a 53-44 vote Wednesday after it cleared committee, and the Senate followed with a 17-16 vote of approval.
Ohio House passes collective bargaining bill
Dayton Business Journal - by By Jeff Bell, DBJ Contributor
The Ohio House of Representatives approved a bill Wednesday that limits collective bargaining rights of workers in public unions amid protests from union supporters.
It was mainly Republicans in the House who passed Senate Bill 5 late Wednesday afternoon, sending it to the Senate for approval of changes made to legislation aimed at limiting the collective bargaining rights of public workers. The bill is similar to one that passed in Wisconsin recently and has sparked a legal challenge in that state.
Wisconsin Anti-Union Law Faces New Hurdle
CBNNews.com
A Wisconsin judge has issued a court order blocking a law that strips most public employees of their collective bargaining power.
The decision came after GOP state lawmakers pushed the law through the legislature declaring it valid, thereby getting around an earlier court order that blocked it from taking effect.
A visibly annoyed Dane County circuit judge warned there would be consequences for violators of the new order.
Top 10 Dying Industries
By Phil Izzo - WSJ.com
The U.S. economy is recovering from a severe recession, but some industries are unlikely to ever fully bounce back.
A new analysis by research firm IBIS Worldlooks at 10 industries that appear to be dying. The list isn’t exactly shocking, but it represents a mix of sectors that are being left behind by technology or have been hurt by cheaper overseas competition.
The biggest industry profiled by IBISWorld is wired telecom carriers, largely being supplanted by cellphones and the Internet. The dominance of the Web and digital media also puts Newspaper publishers, record stores and video-rental companies on the list. Meanwhile, photofinishing also takes its place among the top 10 dying industries thanks to the growing influence of digital photography.
Fed to Name Banks That Sought Funding During Crisis
By Luca Di Leo - WSJ.com
The Federal Reserve is set to release a new trove of documents detailing which banks came to it hat-in-hand during and in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Fed officials have warned that naming the recipients of borrowers from its traditional discount window - which typically makes overnight loans to banks that are short of funds - could make firms more vulnerable in a crisis by making them reluctant to seek help when needed.
Big Banks Lose: Mortgage Risk Retention Doesn't Expire
By: Diana Olick - CNBC Real Estate Reporter
Yesterday morning I attended the FDIC's background press briefing before the vote on proposed risk retention rules.
While the rules covered a vast ground, I was of course most interested in those that focus on the "Qualified Residential Mortgage."
The QRM would be the exemption from risk retention, and therefore banks would want most borrowers to fall under the QRM standard.
MBA Expresses "Profound Concern" Over Risk Retention Proposals
BY JANN SWANSON - MortgageNewsDaily.com
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reacted quickly to the publication yesterday of proposed rules governing Qualified Residential Mortgages (QRMs), the mortgages which will be exempt from the risk retention requirement of the Dodd-Frank Act.
In a statement released by MBA yesterday afternoon, President and CEO John A. Courson said that it would take time for the Association to fully evaluate the complexity of the hundreds of pages of regulations, but its first reaction was a "profound concern" about its impact on residential mortgage financing and "the nation's economy today and for generations to come."
Lawmakers Resume Testy Budget Talks to Avert Shutdown
By Laura Litvan and Lisa Lerer - Bloomberg.com
Budget talks resumed to avert a U.S. government shutdown, with Vice President Joe Biden meeting tonight with Senate Democratic leaders who are working to craft a spending-cut package Republicans might accept.
Aides to Democratic and Republican lawmakers negotiating a deal are working toward cuts totaling about $33 billion, said a person familiar with the talks. The person cautioned, though, that no firm agreements have been reached.
Greenspan and Barofsky on Mending the Financial System
By Clive Crook - TheAtlantic.com
I don't know how much credibility Alan Greenspan still has when it comes to financial regulation, but the comments he makes in this FT column about the inadequacies of Dodd-Frank seem mostly right to me. It is true, and very important, that the act...
fails to capture the degree of global interconnectedness of recent decades which has not been substantially altered by the crisis of 2008.
The ridiculous complexity of the new regime--the US now has more regulators, not fewer--compounds this problem by making co-operation among regulators in different countries much more difficult. Unfortunately, though, the piece has little to say about remedies, beyond musing about a return to the "simpler banking practices of a half-century ago". (Simpler banks aren't going to help much if financial activity just shifts to shadow banks. They aren't going to reduce the apparently excessive share of financial activity in GDP either, for the same reason.)
Real Estate Crash Catches Up to U.S. Municipalities
as Property Taxes Drop
By William Selway and Henry Goldman - Bloomberg.com
The real-estate crash is catching up to U.S. municipalities.
Cities, counties and school districts had been sheltered from the full impact of the slump because of the lag between when realty prices fluctuate and values are reset by local tax assessors. That’s changing as property rolls are adjusted to the current market and residents push to have their taxes cut.
How Low Will Home Prices Go?
By: Diana Olick - CNBC Real Estate Reporter Did I say double dip? Well I'm not the only one.
Today's home price report from S&P Case Shiller proves the point. Remember, this report is based on the sale prices of transactions that closed in January, but it is also a three month running average. That means that at least two thirds of the price deals were struck in October and November, when mortgage rates were at historic lows, providing more purchasing power; they only began spiking in December.
Case-Shiller: Home Price Double-Dip Materializing
BY JANN SWANSON - MortgagenewsDaily.com
The January S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices, released by Standard & Poor's this morning, show further deceleration in the growth rates of home prices in most of the cities in the survey.
The indices, which are billed by S&P as the leading measure of U.S. home prices, are constructed to track the price path of typical single-family homes in a number of metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). The study uses matched price pairs of individual houses to construct a 20-City Composite Index and a 10-City Composite Index which are updated monthly. The indices have a base value of 100 which was set in January 2000. Thus a current index value of 150 indicates there has been a 50% appreciation since that date for a typical home in the subject market.
As Housing Recovery Lags, Rental Business Set to Boom
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
The severe and prolonged downturn in housing likely will have one notable beneficiary: Demand for multi-family dwellings is expected to rise as more owners switch to renting.
With foreclosures numbering more than 200,000 a month and lending regulations tightening, more homeowners will be pushed into renting, which in turn will see a demand for apartments and multi-family homes increasing.
Keiser Armed: Pirates of Digital Age (E133)
The New American Ghost Towns
By Douglas McIntyre - TheAtlantic.com
There are several counties in America, each with more than 10,000 homes, which have vacancy rates above 55%. The rate is above 60% in several.
Most people who follow unemployment and the housing crisis would expect high vacancy rates in hard-hit states including Nevada, Florida, and Arizona. They were among the fastest growing areas from 2000 to 2010. Disaster struck once economic growth ended.
Palm Coast, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Cape Coral, Florida were all among the former high fliers. Many large counties which have 20% or higher occupancy rates are in these same regions. Lee County, Florida; Yuma County, Arizona; Mohave County, Arizona; and Osceola, Florida each had a precipitous drop in home prices and increases in vacancy rates as home buyers disappeared when the economy collapsed.
A New Plan for Homeowners That Protects Taxpayers, Too
First-time home buyers often don't have tens of thousands of dollars sitting around to use as a down payment. Here's a plan to help them.
Daniel Indiviglio - TheAtlantic.com
Borrowers, lenders, and realtors have begun complaining about new requirements to encourage bigger down payments on homes. Meanwhile, some economists and housing analysts insist that bigger down payments help create a more stable mortgage market. Now that the housing policy discussion has begun, it might be time for some innovative thinking. Is there a way to make the mortgage market stable while providing the government with a way to make home ownership more practical and still limit the risk to taxpayers? Tax-free down payment savings accounts might be a great solution.
No Western Government Has Ever Claimed The Power To Do This,
Not even Hitler.
Microsoft’s Odd Couple It's 1975 and two college dropouts are racing to create software for a new line of "hobbyist" computers. The result? A company called "Micro-Soft" - now the fifth-most-valuable corporation on earth. In an adaptation from his memoir, the author tells the story of his partnership with high-school classmate Bill Gates, until its dramatic ending in 1983.
By Paul Allen - VanityFair.com
My high school in Seattle, Lakeside, seemed conservative on the surface, but it was educationally progressive. We had few rules and lots of opportunities, and all my schoolmates seemed passionate about something. But the school was also cliquish. There were golfers and tennis players, who carried their rackets wherever they went, and in the winter most everyone went skiing. I'd never done any of these things, and my friends were the boys who didn't fit into the established groups. Then, in the fall of my 10th-grade year, my passion found me.
Radiation Traces Found in U.S. Milk
By STEPHEN POWER - WSJ.com The U.S. government said Wednesday that traces of radiation have been found in milk in Washington state, but said the amounts are far too low to trigger any public-health concern.
The Environmental Protection Agency said a March 25 sample of milk produced in the Spokane, Wash., area contained a 0.8 pico curies per literlevel of iodine-131, which it said was less than one five-thousandth of the safety guideline set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The EPA said it increased monitoring after radiation leaked from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It expects more such findings in coming days, but in amounts "far below levels of public-health concern, including for infants and children."
Threats Claim Nuclear Bombs Hidden All Over U.S.
CBS Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS 2) – The threats came in the mail and to date, there have been 25 letters that warn of nuclear bombs destroying America.
People who got them called the FBI and CBS 2′s Kristyn Hartman learned, the Bureau's Chicago office is leading the investigation.
Attorney Tracy Rizzo was alarmed. A number of days ago, an envelope, with a Chicago postmark and a hand-written address to her private investigations firm, came in the mail.
The letter inside said, "The Al-Qaeda organization has planted 160 nuclear bombs throughout the U.S. in schools, stadiums, churches, stores, financial institutions and government buildings." It also said, "This is a suicide mission for us."
Japan Weighs Entombing Nuclear Plant on Chain Reaction Risk
By Sachiko Sakamaki and Jonathan Tirone - Bloomberg.com
Japan is considering pouring concrete into its crippled Fukushima atomic plant as the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog agency warned that a potential uncontrolled chain reaction could cause further radiation leaks.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano yesterday ruled out the possibility that the two undamaged reactors at Tokyo ElectricPower Co.’s six-unit Dai-Ichi plant would be salvaged. Units 1 through 4 suffered from explosions, presumed meltdowns and corrosion from seawater sprayed on radioactive fuel rods after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami cut power to cooling systems.
'Fukushima plutonium leak comparable to Chernobyl disaster'
Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebel
Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company. Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants. They sure do get a lot done. What a skilled bunch of rebels - they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever. If only the rest of us were so versatile! But isn't forming a central bank something that could be done afterthe civil war is over? According to Bloomberg, the Transitional National Council has "designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi." Apparently someone felt that it was very important to get pesky matters such as control of the banks and control of the money supply out of the way even before a new government is formed.
Obama Raises American Hypocrisy to Higher Level
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - CounterPunch.org What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.
Gadhafi has been a black hat for as long as I can remember. If we believe the adage that “where there is smoke there is fire,” Gadhafi is probably not a nice fellow. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that the current US president and the predecessor Bush/Cheney regime have murdered many times more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than Gadhafi has murdered in Libya.
The Libyan Folly
Greg Hunter - USAWatchDog.com
Today is the day the United States turned over the Libyan no-fly-zone mission to NATO. This idea sounds absurd to me because the U.S is the backbone of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said, this week, handing over command and control from the U.S. to NATO was "like handing over from the right hand to the left hand." What is most upsetting about the Libyan war is there is no clear plan or stated goals by the President. During his speech, it was almost as if the President was saying he didn’t have a plan, but he didn't have to because now the international community is taking over. Also, in his speech this week, he took great pains to tell how it took only "31 days" to build an international coalition to attack Libya. Why wasn’t this issue debated on the floor of Congress? After all, "We the people" are paying for this mess at a rate of $100 million a day. Gaddafi may not survive, but what kind of government will take his place if he is booted out? It has been widely reported that Al-Qaeda is supporting the rebels. I thought we were fighting a "war on terror" against them?
Amid Rebels, 'Flickers' of al Qaeda
By ADAM ENTOUS, KEITH JOHNSON and CHARLES LEVINSON WSJ.com
U.S. intelligence agencies believe ragtag rebel forces fighting Col. Moammar Gadhafi in eastern Libya include some Islamists with possible ties to al Qaeda, but the number of Islamist fighters is relatively small and their role in the opposition is limited, according to U.S. officials.
In a Senate hearing Tuesday, U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's supreme allied commander in Europe, said intelligence agencies had picked up "flickers" of an al Qaeda presence among Libyan opposition fighters. He also mentioned links to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based militant group.
'Freelance Jihadists' join Libyan rebels Ex-al Qaeda member speaks out
By Eli Lake-The Washington Times
A former leader of Libya's al Qaeda affiliate says he thinks "freelance jihadists" have joined the rebel forces, as NATO's commander toldCongress on Tuesday that intelligence indicates some al Qaeda andHezbollah terrorists are fighting Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
Former jihadist Noman Benotman, who renounced his al Qaedaaffiliation in 2000, said in an interview that he estimates 1,000 jihadists are in Libya.
On Capitol Hill, Adm. James Stavridis, the NATO commander, when asked about the presence of al Qaeda terrorists among the rebels, said the leadership of the opposition is made up of "responsible men and women.
Team Obama, world police Human rights used as an excuse to violate sovereignty
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
President Obama's Monday night speech on the "kinetic military activity" in Libya revealed that he has fully accepted the faddish "responsibility to protect" (R2P) rationale for military intervention abroad. Unfortunately, this action is not just a direct attack on Libya’s state sovereignty, but also on America's.
R2P - sounding a bit like a droid from Star Wars - is a school of thought that developed in response to the propensity of some regimes to commit crimes against their own people and the reticence of the international community to take decisive action. "Responsibility to protect," however, lacks the firm legal basis that would justify armed intervention in the internal affairs of another state without a declaration of war. This is specifically forbidden by Article 2, Section 7 of the United NationsCharter and by the December 1981 U.N. "Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States."
Gaddafi issues defiant challenge to Libya conference in London Libyan leader condemns 'crusader strategy' amid speculation that his foreign minister has defected
By Ian Black in Tripoli - Guardian.co.uk
Muammar Gaddafi told the London conference discussing Libya's future without him that there was no room for compromise with the Benghazi-based rebels, whom he described bluntly as al-Qaida terrorists supported by Nato and representing no one.
Far from showing any sign of bending to demands from Barack Obama, David Cameron and other world leaders that he step down, Gaddafi issued a characteristically defiant challenge to what he called a "new crusader strategy or imperialist plan".
Allies Intensify Call for Gadhafi to Step Down
By JAY SOLOMON - WSJ.com
LONDON - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the political leader of Libya's rebel movement Tuesday in a bid to further strengthen the coalition seeking to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Mrs. Clinton's Monday engagement with Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of Libya's economic planning office, marked their second meeting in a little more than a week.
A senior U.S. official who took part in the meeting said Mrs. Clinton is seeking to gain a "clearer picture" of Libya's opposition leadership and gain a sense of how a post-Gadhafi government might look.
Obama not ruling out Libya arms
BBC.co.uk
US President Barack Obama has said he does not rule out arming the rebels seeking to overthrow Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
He said in an interview that Col Gaddafi had been greatly weakened and would ultimately step down.
Pro-Gaddafi forces have driven the rebels back tens of kilometres over ground they took in recent days after coalition air strikes.
The rebels have now retreated eastwards past the town of Ras Lanuf.
Syrian president sacks cabinet in effort to quell protests Bashar al-Assad is expected to lift emergency laws and announce a crackdown on corruption in a speech
By Martin Chulov - Guardian.co.uk
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has sacked his cabinet and suggested significant reforms in his first public intervention in a 10-day-old nationwide uprising.
The authoritarian leader, whose silence so far has provoked anger among his people, is expected to deliver the most important speech of his career on Wednesday as he tries to win the trust of a rebellious Syrian people insisting on widespread reform and democratic freedoms. Assad is likely to lift emergency laws, which outlaw public gatherings, and introduce a corruption crackdown in a bid to stay ahead of the revolutionary current sweeping the Middle East.
Lindsey Williams -
Middle East Crisis 3 DVD Set - March 2011
The Middle East The Rest of The Story
Next U.S. Terror Attack Might Come From New Toys:
By Amity Shlaes - WashingtonPost.com
March 29 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. ended the Cold War the way a master pilot lands a fighter jet, in a sort of ecstasy of precision and the gradual reduction of force. Today that same jet is screeching around the runway, as our capacity for messy outcomes (Iraq, Libya, Egypt) expands before our eyes.
All of us have less faith in precision these days. Events such as Japan’s nuclear plant crisis or the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have proven that even in the private sector, technicians are far less masters of their situations than many believed.
One place where the potential for unparalleled damage has increased is the U.S. That’s because there are more tools available to terrorists, extremists or just plain kooks now than in 2001. As John Geis, director of the Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology has been saying, people looking to make trouble have a least four new technologies at their disposal.
Opec set for $1,000bn [One TRILLION dollars] in export revenues
By Sylvia Pfeifer, Javier Blas and David Blair in London - FT.com
Opec, the oil producers’ cartel, will reap $1,000bn in export revenues this year for the first time if crude prices remain above $100 a barrel, according to the International Energy Agency.
The cartel has been one of the main beneficiaries of high oil prices, which have soared in recent weeks amid the civil uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa.
Brent crude was trading at $115 a barrel on Tuesday.
Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA, said a new assessment by the rich nations' oil watchdog showed that the total number of barrels exported by Opec in 2011 would be slightly lower than in 2008, when cartel oil revenues reached $990bn. But if average prices remain around $100 a barrel, Opec’s oil revenues will still reach a record of $1,000bn this year.
Will Financial Problems In Portugal
Cause The European Debt Crisis To Spiral Out Of Control?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Most Americans have no idea just how bad the financial problems over in Europe are right now. The truth is that the entire European financial system is teetering on the brink of disaster. Ireland and Greece have already received bailouts and Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Belgium are all drowning in an ocean of unsustainable debt. Sovereign credit ratings all over Europe have being slashed in recent months. For example, a while back Moody’s Investors Service cut Ireland's bond rating by five levels. Up until now Europe has weathered all of this financial instability fairly well, but now huge new financial problems in Portugal threaten to send the European debt crisis spinning out of control.
How China Manipulates Its Currency
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Here is a snapshot, via Google Finance, of the value of the Chinese RMB against the U.S. dollar. For a time before 2006, the exchange resembled a flat line. Ditto between 2008 and 2010. This is what a fixed exchange rate looks like. [see chart]
But how does China accomplish this, exactly? Jim Fallows explained the "voyage of a dollar" in five easy steps in a 2008 Atlantic article. I've translated that passage into an infographic. Jim's original passage appears below. I've inserted numbers to help you follow the picture.
Long-Term Bearish on China and the US
BY STEVE SAVILLE
When it comes to their outlooks for China's economy, most analysts fall into one of two groups. The first group is outright bullish on China's prospects over all time frames, while the other is very optimistic on a long-term basis but is concerned about the potential for a painful short- and/or intermediate-term 'correction'. In other words, most analysts are long-term bullish.
As discussed in the past, we fall into neither of these groups. We also can't be counted amongst the naive souls who labour under the delusion that the US is still the "land of the free" and that China is still a Soviet-style basket case.
Republicans Don't Want the Deficit 'Crisis to Go to Waste'
By Daniel Indiviglio - TheAtlantic.com
Republicans hated the 2009 stimulus package. They claimed that it amounted to mostly wasteful spending. They criticized the effort, spearheaded by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), saying that it embraced the famous statement by former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, "You don't ever want a crisis to go to waste; it's an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid." But could Republicans be guilty of utilizing a similar strategy in their quest to cut the deficit?
First, let's better define the Republicans' complaint. As mentioned, they believe that Democrats used the economic crisis as an excuse to pay back every special interest group to which they owed a political debt. Republicans considered it a wish list bill that contained spending the left had been aching to do for years. Instead of a legitimate attempt to stimulate the economy, they believed that Democrats were essentially using the $787 billion bill for political gain.
Utah: Forget dollars. How about gold?
By Charles Riley
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Gather 'round, gold standard enthusiasts.
There is a new law in the state of Utah that might be of interest.
The Beehive State has a new measure on the books that eliminates state taxes on the exchange of gold and silver coins and directs the legislature to study an "alternative form of legal tender."
The law, signed by Gov. Gary Herbert last week, also recognizes gold and silver coins issued by the federal government as legal tender in the state.
Gold and silver consolidating at new highs
By Jeb Handwerger - CommodityOnline.com
Physical demand for gold and silver is strong as investors seek protection of wealth against uncertainty in the Middle East. It has already been reported that Col. Qaddafi has been a wise gold investor, preparing for this crisis by hoarding a large amount of the precious metal to fund his military and to hedge against economic sanctions.
Just like he's been hoarding precious metals, many throughout the Middle East are trying to sell their assets and seek out the shelter of safe havens. It is being reported by the International Monetary Fund that Qaddafi has amassed one of the largest gold positions in the world. Libya’s gold reserves are estimated to be worth over $6 billion, and the gold can be used to buy paid fighters. At a time when international sanctions have been increased, gold has been Qaddafi’s store of wealth; he appears to have been ready for this day because Libya’s holdings are much larger when compared to countries with similar demographics.
The Inflation Knuckleball
By Michael Pento - GoldSeek.com
By its very definition, fiat money is something created out of thin air: the word "fiat" is Latin for "let it be done" (as in, by decree). But the convenience that such a currency system offers central bankers is paid at the expense of savers. With nothing of real or lasting value on which to anchor, the value of fiat currencies can always blow away like ashes on a windy day.
For the past 40 years or so, every country on the planet has relied on fiat money. To a very large extent, this means that the national economies are far more exposed to the whims of their central bankers than they have been in the past. So, if central bankers go off their meds, the danger to the currency becomes profound. Unfortunately, at America's Federal Reserve, it seems the inmates are now running the asylum.
More on How Inflation Turns Us Into Con Artists
BY JOHN RUBINO - FinancialSense.com John Maynard Keynes once said of inflation: There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
Here’s one of the "hidden forces of economic law" to which Keynes referred, courtesy of yesterday’s New York Times: Food Inflation Kept Hidden in Smaller Bags
Chips are disappearing from bags, candy from boxes and vegetables from cans.
As an expected increase in the cost of raw materials looms for late summer, consumers are beginning to encounter shrinking food packages.
With unemployment still high, companies in recent months have tried to camouflage price increases by selling their products in tiny and tinier packages. So far, the changes are most visible at the grocery store, where shoppers are paying the same amount, but getting less.
Buffett Says Buy Businesses Over Long-Term Bond
as Dollar Value to Erode
By Pooja Thakur, Unni Krishnan and Andrew Frye - Bloomberg.com
Warren Buffett, the billionaire who urged Congress in 2009 to guard against inflation, said investors should avoid long-term fixed-income bets in U.S. dollars because the currency’s purchasing power will decline.
"I would recommend against buying long-term fixed-dollar investments," Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer ofBerkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said today in New Delhi. "If you ask me if the U.S. dollar is going to hold its purchasing power fully at the level of 2011, 5 years, 10 years or 20 years from now, I would tell you it will not."
Greenspan warns on Dodd-Frank reforms
By Tom Braithwaite in Washington - FT.com
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has attacked the Dodd-Frank financial reforms warning they could create the "largest regulatory-induced market distortion" in the US since the imposition of wage and price controls in 1971.
In an article in Wednesday's Financial Times that might encourage Republican attempts to unwind the law, Mr Greenspan says the reforms, passed by Congress last year, would be impossible to implement, distortive to markets and a possible threat to US living standards.
Criticism of Fed Easing 'So Yesterday' as G-20 Meets in Nanjing
By Bloomberg News
Group of 20 leaders may limit criticism of the Federal Reservefor flooding the world with money when they meet in China asEurope’s debt crisis and Japan's disaster take precedence.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will gather in Nanjing for a one-day seminar on the international monetary system tomorrow. China, Brazil and South Korea all previously slammed the Fed’s $600 billion program for driving down the dollar and fueling asset bubbles in emerging markets.
Dying Banks Kept Alive
Show Secrets Fed's Data Will Reveal for First Time
By Craig Torres and Bob Ivry - Bloomberg.com
U.S. regulators closed Chicago- based Park National Bank in October 2009 when it owed $345 million to one of the lowest-cost lenders in town: the Federal Reserve’s discount window. Park National had been a constant customer at the window for more than 18 months before it failed, records show.
That glimpse into the loan program, gleaned through the Freedom of Information Act, will be expanded this week with an unprecedented view of the secret lifelines the Fed extended to hundreds of banks. Officials plan to release documents that amount to more than 6,000 pages, according to court records. Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, and News Corp.'s Fox News Network LLC requested the records under FOIA, then sued after the central bank refused to release them.
Hedge Funds are About to Undress
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
The July 21 deadline for the hedge funds to register required by the one year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank bill is fast approaching, and the industry is roiling with turmoil. The net result for the rest of us could be shrinking market liquidity and falling asset prices as hundreds of funds shut down or move overseas rather than meet the new, onerous disclosure requirements and the vastly increased legal liabilities they imply.
World War II Did Not End the Great Depression
Mises Daily: by Art Carden
The current economic climate has a lot of people talking about the Great Depression. In particular, it has been said by people of divergent political views (George Will and Paul Krugman, for example) that World War II ended the decade-long economic nightmare. Examining this claim is worthwhile because it has implications for whether government intervention generally - and in connection with war specifically - are good for the economy. Further, this examination will help us understand how policy changes alter incentives. Finally, it will shed light on features of the New Deal era that have ominous parallels with what's happening today.
Wisconsin judge halts state from moving forward
on law stripping collective bargaining rights
By Associated Press - WashingtonPost.com
MADISON, Wis. - The showdown over Wisconsin’s explosive union bargaining law shifted from the Statehouse back to the courthouse on Tuesday, but it remained unclear when or even whether the measure would take effect.
Republican lawmakers pushed through passage of the law earlier this month despite massive protests that drew up to 85,000 people to the state Capitol and a boycott by Democratic state senators. Opponents immediately filed a series of lawsuits that resulted in further chaos that might not end until the state Supreme Court weighs in.
Roy Moore Runs for President
By Joshua Green - TheAtlantic.com Roy Moore, the "Ten Commandments Judge," is going to pursue the Republican presidential nomination. Apparently, the news broke last week. It's a measure of how far Moore has fallen since days as a controversial national figure that people (i.e., me) are only hearing about this now. Moore was, of course, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court--until, in the middle of the night, he installed a five-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments. Moore refused to remove it, and was ultimately removed from his job. He became a hero among a certain segment of the Christian right wing, ran for Alabama governor, and his national ambitions were enough of a threat to the Republican power structure that Karl Rove reportedly got involved.
Where Are Americans Most Miserable?
By Kathleen Madigan - WSJ.com
The lot of the U.S. consumer hasn't been a happy one. Weak labor markets, falling home values and, recently, soaring gas prices have gnawed away at confidence.
The economic angst was apparent Tuesday when the Conference Board reported its index fell to 63.4 this month, from 72.0 in February.
Even so, misery isn't blanketing the U.S. in equal measure. And gauging local gloom is possible using data collected at the city level. It turns out Boston is coping best. Clouds are darkest in sunny Phoenix.
How Can America Create Wealth If Our Industrial Base Is Destroyed?50,000 Manufacturing Jobs Have Been Lost Every Month Since 2001 -- TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Any economy that constantly consumes far more wealth than it produces is eventually going to be in for a very hard fall. Many point to relatively stable GDP numbers as evidence that the U.S. economy is doing okay, but the truth is that we have had to borrow increasingly massive amounts of money to keep GDP numbers up at that level. The U.S. government is going to run an all-time record deficit of about 1.65 trillion dollars this year and average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. But borrowing endless amounts of money and consuming massive amounts of wealth with that borrowed money is a road that leads to economic oblivion. The only way to have a healthy economy in the long run is to create wealth. But how can America create wealth if our industrial base is being absolutely destroyed? According to Forbes, the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobsper month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Hundreds of formerly thriving industries in the United States are being totally wiped out. China uses every trick in the book to win trade battles. They deeply subsidize their domestic industries, they openly steal technology, they blatantly manipulate currency rates and they allow their citizens to be paid slave labor wages. So yes, the products coming from China are cheaper, but in the process tens of thousands of factories in the U.S. are shutting down, millions of jobs are being lost and the ability of America to create wealth is being compromised.
Cash for Clunkers 2: The Return of Government Motors
By Kerry Picket - WashingtonTimes.com
Ready for another cash for clunkers program? It looks like General Motors is attempting to replace it's own consumer incentives with tax payer money. The car company, bailed out of bankruptcy in 2009 by the American tax payer, appears to be turning the government into an automatic rebate provider.
The Obama administration and their friends on Capitol Hill are floating around a proposal to change the $7500 tax credit for green vehicles. This change can be found not only in President Barack Obama's budget but also a bill proposed by Senator Debbie Stabenow, Michigan Democrat.
US consumers use savings to pay for basics Americans' savings rate dropped last month as new figures showed that consumers are using more of their disposable income to cope with the rising cost of food and petrol.
By Richard Blackden, US Business Editor - Telegraph.co.uk
The savings rate declined to 5.8pc in February from 6.1pc in January, as incomes rose a smaller-than-forecast 0.3pc on the month, the Commerce Department said.
In a blitz of data at the start of the week, a separate report showed that consumer spending climbed 0.7pc last month, a better number than forecast, which was welcomed by markets.
Sharp increases in the cost of food and petrol are tempering some of the optimism about a pick-up in growth that many on Wall Street began the year with.
Broke And Getting Broker:
22 Jaw Dropping Statistic
About The Financial Condition Of American Families
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Most American families are really struggling in this economy and they see most of the families around them really struggling, but they don't have any hard numbers to back up the feelings of economic despair that they are experiencing. Well, below you will find 22 statistics that prove that American families are broke and getting broker. Today, the financial condition of most middle class families is rapidly deteriorating. The number of good jobs is declining, incomes are down, debt loads are up and bankruptcies and foreclosures just continue to increase. If you step back and really examine the statistics, it becomes really hard to deny that American families are getting poorer. Well, the wealthiest 5 percent are still thriving, but everyone else is really having a tough time. The truth is that a large percentage of the U.S. middle class is slowly but surely going broke. Unfortunately, this is being caused by long-term economic trends that simply are not going to be fixed overnight.
Consumers jittery about inflation and income
By Ben Rooney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Americans are becoming less confident about spending their hard-earned money as inflation concerns rise and the outlook for personal income remains cloudy, according to a survey released Tuesday.
The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said its Consumer Confidence Index for March fell to 63.4 from 72 in February. That was the lowest reading since December, when the index also registered 63.4.
March LPS Mortgage Monitor Report:
30% of Loans in Foreclosure have not made a Payment
in Over 2 Years
By MikeShedlock
There is a bit of good news in the report. Delinquent and Non-Current Rates are improving. However, the rates are still exceptionally high historically. Also, some of the foreclosure data is skewed by moratoriums and reworked loans.
On the other hand, option ARM foreclosures have increased dramatically over the last six months and 30% of loans in foreclosure have not made a payment for at least two years. 47% of those in foreclosure have not made a payment for at least 18 months.
A Look at Case-Shiller, by Metro Area (March Update)
By Phil Izzo - WSJ.com
The S&P/Case-Shiller Composite 20-city home price index, a broad gauge of U.S. home prices, posted a 1% drop in January from a month earlier and fell 3.1% from a year earlier, as the housing market faced a new round of trouble.
Nineteen of 20 cities in the index posted month-to-month declines in November - just Washington, D.C. notched an increase. On a seasonally adjusted basis, which aims to take into account the slower winter selling season, eight cities - Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Washington - posted monthly increases.
11.4% of all U.S. homes are vacant
By Les Christie
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- There is a correction on this story.
High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.
The national vacancy rate at 11.4% according to a release Tuesday from the Census Bureau.
"Vacant homes equal more downward pressure on home prices," said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate information provider.
Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%).
Drop in home prices in January raises fear of double dip
By Elizabeth Razzi - WashingtonPost.com
Home prices dropped in nearly all major housing markets in the country in January, according to price index numbers released Tuesday. Analysts said the decrease might be a harbinger of a double-dip recession in the housing market.
According to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, only two markets in its survey of 20 cities bucked the trend and posted year-over-year price gains: Washington and San Diego.
The Washington area recorded 3.6 percent annual growth for prices in January. San Diego, the only other metro area to register an annual increase, saw a gain of just 0.1 percent. The Washington area was the only one where prices rose from the month before, with a scant 0.1 percent gain.
Home prices fall across US
By Shannon Bond in New York
US home prices fell further in January as weakness in the housing market carried over from last year, while consumer confidence weakened in March on concerns over jobs and income growth.
The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index showed prices of single-family homes in the 20 largest US cities fell 0.2 per cent from December to January on a seasonally adjusted basis. Economists had expected a 0.4 per cent decline.
Prices were 3.1 per cent lower than January 2010, in line with economists’ forecasts. It was the biggest yearly decline since December 2009, and left the index 31.8 per cent below its summer 2006 peak. Prices have recovered just 1.1 per cent since hitting a trough in April 2009.
Housing-bust damage spreads Washington only city with boost in prices of homes
By Janna Herron and Derek Kravitz - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW YORK | Damage from the housing bust is spreading to areas once thought to be immune.
In at least 14 major U.S. metro areas, prices have fallen to 2003 levels — when the housing bubble was just starting to inflate. Prices will likely drop further this year, making many people reluctant to buy or sell. That would push down sales and prices more.
The depressed housing industry is slowing an economy that has shown strength elsewhere. And it’s starting to hurt those who bought years before the housing boom began. In some cities, people who have paid their mortgages for a decade have little or no home equity.
US house prices continue dramatic fall
BBC.co.uk
US single-family home prices fell for the seventh month in a row in January, new statistics show.
Seasonally adjusted prices fell in 12 of the 20 metropolitan areas tracked by the S&P/Case-Shiller index.
In four cities, prices were at their lowest in 11 years, with the overall index down 0.2% in January from the previous month.
The average annual price fall across the 20 cities was 3.1%; only Washington DC saw a meaningful rise in prices.
House prices in the US capital city, which in general has fared better than the rest of the country during recent economic downturn, gained 3.6% over the year.
Home prices near a double dip
By Les Christie
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- January home prices fell for the sixth month in a row, edging closer to a double dip.
The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index covering 20 major markets fell 3.1% year-over-year, hovering near the market's bottom set in April 2009.
"January brings us weakening home prices with no real hope in sight for the near future," says David M. Blitzer, a spokesman for S&P.
The Unites States Possesses the Largest Energy Resources on Earth
Written by Al Fin - OilPrice.com
A new report from the Congressional Research Service points out that in terms of total hydrocarbon resource, the US possesses the largest inventory of any nation on Earth. But under the Obama regime, an unstated but unrelenting program of "energy starvation" is being carried out -- from the DOE to the Department of Interior to the EPA, even including the NRC. It is one thing to be energy-poor because you lack the resources. It is quite another to intentionally cripple your own economy using half-baked policies of carbon hysteria, nuclear fear, and faux environmental crisis fabrication.
At Plant, a Choice Between Bad, Worse Japan Vows to Keep Dousing Reactors,
at Risk of Spillover of Toxic Runoff; Flooded Pump Rooms
By ANDREW MORSE And MITSURU OBE - WSJ.com
TOKYO - Workers at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex positioned sandbags and concrete barriers around drains leading from the plant Tuesday, setting a last line of defense against highly radioactive water that has flooded reactor buildings and threatens to spill into the ocean.
At the same time, Japanese officials said Tuesday they would keep dousing the plant's stricken reactors with water - a course of action that could raise those water levels further.
Radiation, Japan and the Marshall Islands
By GLENN ALCALAY - CounterPunch.org
When the dangerous dust and gases settle and we discover just how much radiation escaped the damaged Fukushima reactors and spent fuel rods, we may never know how many people are being exposed to radiation from the burning fuel rods and reactor cores, and how much exposure they will receive over time. Minute and above-background traces of Iodine-131 are already showing up in Tokyo's water supply - 150 miles southwest of the leaking reactors - and in milk and spinach [with a dash of Cesium-137] from 75 miles away. The Japanese government has recently warned pregnant women and children to avoid drinking Tokyo tap water, and I-131 levels 1,200 times above background levels were recorded in seawater near the reactors.
Japan may have lost race to save nuclear reactor Fukushima meltdown fears rise after radioactive core melts through vessel – but 'no danger of Chernobyl-style catastrophe
By Ian Sample - Guardian.co.uk
The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site.
The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it.
Why The European Union Is Doomed
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
To understand the structural flaw which dooms the European Union, we need to start with the Union's fundamental financial characteristics.
The European Union established a single currency and trading zone for the classical Capitalist benefits this offered: a reduction in the cost of conducting business between the member nations and a freer flow of capital and labor across borders.
This "liberalization" of trade and capital flows is often referred to as Neoliberal Capitalism: short-hand for opening markets and enabling free enterprise to take on tasks formerly reserved for government (the Central State) or State-sanctioned corporations.
'A Serious Mistake of Historic Dimensions' Libya Crisis Leaves Berlin Isolated Criticism of Germany's absention from the Security Council vote on Libya continues to grow, as more and more members of the foreign policy community slam Berlin's decision to abandon its allies. Amid fears of lasting damage to Germany's international role, Merkel's administration now welcomes any bad news from Libya that suggests its partners were wrong to intervene.
By SPIEGEL Staff.
He has already told this story often enough, but it is so moving that he never gets tried of it.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the story once again on Friday, in the small German town of Horb am Neckar in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg. He recounted how he drove in a limousine onto Tahrir Square in Cairo and people ran up to him, wanted to hug him, and he felt nearly crushed in their embrace. He says that this enthusiasm was not directed at him personally as the German foreign minister, but rather at the entire country.
German Elections Put EU Solidarity at Stake
BY KEVIN BREKKE - FinancialSense.com
On Sunday, February 20, the first of 2011’s seven state parliament elections in Germany took place in Hamburg, an independent city-state and Chancellor Merkel’s hometown. The CDU, Merkel’s party, suffered a crushing defeat, winning just 21.9% of the vote against the 42.6% the party captured in 2008.
The Green Party forced the early election by walking out of a coalition with the CDU in November. They took 11.2% of the vote vs. 9.6% in ’08.
The defeat means Merkel’s CDU will lose three seats in the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament that represents the Germany states (similar to the U.S. Senate), and weakens her administration’s control over federal legislation.
Obama Seeks to Bolster Public Support Speech on Military Operations in Libya Designed to Highlight Both the Campaign's Limited Nature and Accomplishments
By LAURA MECKLER And ADAM ENTOUS - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama, in his first major address to the nation on the military operation in Libya, worked to shore up public support by assuring Americans that the campaign's central aims are being accomplished and that U.S. engagement will be limited in both scope and duration.
The president's remarks, delivered at the National Defense University in Washington, were his most extensive public comments on Libya since the bombing campaign began 10 days ago. They followed bipartisan criticism in Congress that he hasn't done enough to explain his rationale for committing U.S. forces to the campaign, and Mr. Obama laid out in detail his rationale for acting and the international support for the action.
Freedom Watch -
Missed Obama, But Here's Rand & Ron Paul 3/28/2011
Obama explains Libya incursion Says mission aims to shield civilians from Gadhafi’s wrath
By Kara Rowland-The Washington Times
President Obama said Monday that a U.S.-led coalition has staved off a humanitarian disaster at the hands of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, has stopped his troops' "deadly advance" toward rebel positions, and will turn over control this week to NATO, which is broadening its mission to include protecting civilians on the ground.
Speaking 10 days after the attack began and with confusion still reigning over the U.S. role and its objectives in the war-torn country, the president said that if he had waited "one more day," Libyan rebels could have suffered a "massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world."
Ron Paul believes Libya intervention an 'impeachable' offense
By Steven Nelson - The Daily Caller
Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul will be co-sponsoring an amendment announced Tuesday by Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich that would defund the American military intervention in Libya.
Kucinich suggested during a Saturday conference call with anti-war Democrats that he thought impeachment could also be considered for Obama's "unconstitutional" actions in Libya.
Paul's spokeswoman Rachel Mills confirmed to The Daily Caller via email that Paul shares Kucinich's point of view on the severity of the constitutional breach. "Yes, he thinks it is an impeachable offense," Mills wrote.
Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk 3/28/11:
Constitutional Problems with the Libyan War
Al Qaeda leader foresaw chance to capitalize on Arab uprisings
By: Sara A. Carter - Washington Examiner
A year before the Middle East uprisings that have shaken regimes across the region, a top al Qaeda operative from Libya was predicting that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq would destabilize governments in the Muslim world and he outlined ways in which al Qaeda could capitalize on the chaos.
Sheikh Abu-Yahya al-Libi, who is considered by experts the third-ranking operative in al Qaeda, focused much of his writing on the tiny country of Yemen, where the American-backed government of Ali Abdullah Saleh is struggling against violent protests. In a February 2010 report called "Yemeni Government to America: I Sacrifice Myself for Your Sake," he described with eerie accuracy the coming revolt.
Obama Arming Al Qaeda?
By The Prowler - The American Spectator.org
With President Barack Obama scheduled to speak to the nation tonight about the role the U.S. military is playing and will play in the military action in Libya, the White House national security and communications teams continue to scramble to get their stories straight.
For example, early last week it appeared that in the days running up to the announced NATO air strikes, White House national security briefers had initially informed ranking Republicans on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees that U.S. military personnel would have no active role in enforcing a "no fly zone" unless Congress was given advanced word, even though at that time U.S. military personnel were already engaged in the "no fly zone" effort.
Libyan rebels promise oil exports,
but Western traders still leery of lining up
By Steven Mufson - WashingtonPost.com
The Libyan rebel coalition in Benghazi said Monday that it was open for oil business, claiming that it had struck a marketing deal with Qatar and that it was eking out about 100,000 barrels a day of petroleum production from fields under its control.
But Western oil traders, analysts and companies said that no tanker had dared to go to pick up oil for two weeks, citing the allied blockade, sanctions, a lack of insurance and uncertainty about whether the rebel coalition could win international recognition as Libya's legitimate government.
Celente: Libya civil war none of US business
Syria: dozens more dead, US and France divided
By ANDREW RETTMAN
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Syrian President Bashir al-Assad's forces killed at least 20 more protesters over the weekend. But the US gave him credit for reforms and ruled out intervention, in contrast to hawkish French rhetoric.
Pro-Assad militias used sniper rifles, machine guns and swords against protesters in the northern town of Latakia on Saturday (26 March) killing at least 12 people and injuring over 150.
The violence came after clashes in the southern town of Sanamin and in the capital Damascus on Friday in which at least 10 lost their lives. Syrian officials put the death toll at around 30 since 18 March. But Amnesty International says the number is closer to 55, while Syrian activists say it is well over 100.
'Arab spring' drives wedge between US, Saudi Arabia
BY WARREN P. STROBEL - MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON -- The United States and Saudi Arabia - whose conflicted relationship has survived oil shocks, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq - are drifting apart faster than at any time in recent history, according to diplomats, analysts and former U.S. officials.
The breach, punctuated by a series of tense diplomatic incidents in the past two weeks, could have profound implications for the U.S. role in the Middle East, even as President Barack Obama juggles major Arab upheavals from Libya to Yemen.
Iranian Video Says Mahdi is 'Near'
Erick Stakelbeck - CBN News Terrorism Analyst
New evidence has emerged that the Iranian government sees the current unrest in the Middle East as a signal that the Mahdi--or Islamic messiah--is about to appear.
CBN News has obtained a never-before-seen video produced by the Iranian regime that says all the signs are moving into place -- and that Iran will soon help usher in the end times.
While the revolutionary movements gripping the Middle East have created uncertainty throughout the region, the video shows that the Iranian regime believes the chaos is divine proof that their ultimate victory is at hand.
Meanwhile, in Israel…
By James B. Brinton - The American Spectator.org
While the U.S. has been preoccupied with American and European involvement in Libya, Israel has come under fire yet again.
According to Thursday's Jerusalem Post, about a dozen rockets and half a dozen mortar rounds had landed in the southern part of the country. That was round one.
By Friday, defense minister Ehud Barak noted in the Jerusalem Postthat "some 100 rockets and mortars… reaching communities further [from the Strip] than usual" were fired, with targets including Be'er Sheva, Ashdod, Sderot, Ashkelon, and Gaza border-region communities.
Anti-cuts protests shut down central London
By LEIGH PHILLIPS
EUOBSERVER / LONDON - In the largest demonstration of public anger to hit the UK since protests against the Iraq War in 2003, hundreds of thousands marched through the British capital on Saturday (26 March) against cuts to public services.
According to various sources, between 250,000 and 500,000 snaked their way through central London during the event, which was organised by the country's Trade Union Congress, with 800 coaches from across the country arriving in London.
A handful of French trade unionists from the CGT union also made their way to the protest to highlight the opposition to austerity being imposed across Europe.
Will This Breakout In Gold Be Authentic?
BY JEB HANDWERGER - FinancialSense.com
Physical demand for gold and silver is strong as investors seek protection of wealth against uncertainty in the Middle East. It has already been reported that Col. Qaddafi has been a wise gold investor, preparing for this crisis by hoarding a large amount of the precious metal to fund his military and to hedge against economic sanctions. Just like he's been hoarding precious metals, many throughout the Middle East are trying to sell their assets and seek out the shelter of safe havens. It is being reported by the International Monetary Fund that Qaddafi has amassed one of the largest gold positions in the world. Libya’s gold reserves are estimated to be worth over $6 billion, and the gold can be used to buy paid fighters. At a time when international sanctions have been increased, gold has been Qaddafi's store of wealth; he appears to have been ready for this day because Libya’s holdings are much larger when compared to countries with similar demographics.
US Treasury's Geithner to visit China March 31
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit China next week, joining a group of G20 officials to discuss the global monetary system, the Treasury said Friday.
Geithner will attend finance ministers, central bankers and other officials from the Group of 20 in the eastern city of Nanjing, as debate rages about global economic imbalances, caused in part by China's rise.
The group will "discuss reforms to the international monetary system and the importance of the G20 maintaining its focus on supporting a sustainable global recovery," the Treasury said.
Bernanke to Speak Out More to Explain, Bolster Policies
By LUCA DI LEO - WSJ.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in April will start holding quarterly, televised news conferences, in the central bank's latest effort to better explain its actions.
Fed policies have drawn increasing fire in recent years from lawmakers, foreign policy makers and others. Issues include the central bank's interest-rate policies during the housing bubble, its reaction to the financial crisis and its current easy-money policies. Mr. Bernanke has responded by stepping up his public opportunities to counter the criticism.
Gerald Celente on the Lew Rockwell show 27 March 2011
Life as we know it in America is about to change
by ROBERT HAMBURGER
The writing is on the wall should we choose to pay attention. I can't predict what life in the United States will look like in the years to come, however I believe we're in for some big changes. I'm basing my beliefs on a number of assumptions. And I assume that I'm right on at least three of them.
Assumption #1. I have not seen change I can believe in. Obama policies are a continuation of Bush policies - recklessly printing (borrowing) of money, reckless increasing of deficits, warring all over the planet, spying on American citizens. It's amazing Republicans hate him so.
Disposable income falls as prices jump, data show U.S. PCE inflation up 0.4%, most since July 2008; spending up 0.3% -- By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Real disposable income declined in February as consumer prices jumped by the largest amount in 2 1/2 years, the Commerce Department reported Monday.
Economists said the data show that higher prices for gasoline is starting to take some of the steam out of the economy.
The personal consumption expenditure index, which Federal Reserve officials say is a more accurate gauge of inflation than the better-known consumer price index, increased 0.4% on the month, the largest monthly gain since July 2008. Read "Why spending data should hurt, not help, stocks."
FDIC's plan for 'skin-in-the-game' loans
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Federal regulators drafting tighter underwriting standards for mortgages are planning to exempt banks from a key rule if they sell loans to two seized mortgage-buying giants.
The long-awaited proposal is due to be publicly released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Tuesday, and the proposal was obtained ahead of that by MarketWatch. At issue is a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that requires banks to have "skin in the game" - namely, by retaining 5% of the risk of loans they package and sell.
An FDIC spokesman declined to comment ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.
Administration proposes banks spend $20 billion to fix botched foreclosures -- By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
Congressional Republicans are moving to shut down President Obama’s $30 billion program to help struggling homeowners pay their mortgages, but the White House appears to have already found a substitute plan.
The administration has proposed requiring the nation’s largest banks to spend $20 billion modifying loans of delinquent borrowers to make them more affordable as part of a deal settling charges that the banks botched the paperwork on thousands of foreclosures.
Stiglitz: Budget plan a 'near suicide pact'
By Charles Riley
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz issued a harsh indictment of the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction proposal Monday, arguing the plan would slow economic growth and lead to a weaker America.
If enacted, the plan would be "counterproductive" and "constitute a near-suicide pact," Stiglitz wrote in an op-ed published in Politico.
Just what does Stiglitz object to?
The plan put out in December by President Obama's debt commission, headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, would cut defense and domestic discretionary spending, end most tax breaks while lowering rates and reduce health care spending.
It would make Social Security solvent by raising the retirement age, lowering benefits on the upper end and raising taxes. It would also increase the gas tax.
Survey says U.S. financial house in state of disorder Ranks high in health, defense spending
By Tim Devaney-The Washington Times
A new study finds America to be one of the most fiscally irresponsible nations in the world, spending excessively on health care and defense while running up record government deficits.
The United States ranked 28th out of 34 industrial powers - just behindItaly - in the health of its national finances, according to the survey by the nonpartisan Comeback America Initiative, a Bridgeport, Conn., group that advocates reducing the nation’s red ink. Study authors said in a press briefing Wednesday that Washington has as little as two years - and no more than 16 years - to repair its finances or risk seeing the economy slip below the levels reached during the recent global recession.
Harry & David files for bankruptcy Oregon-based Harry & David, known for its pricey fruit baskets, plans to continue operating during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring. -- By Nathaniel Popper, Los Angeles Times
Crippled by debt piled upon it by its Wall Street owners, storied Oregon fruit company Harry & David has filed for bankruptcy protection.
The filing Monday in Delaware Bankruptcy Court had been widely expected after the troubled firm - known for its Moose Munch candied popcorn and pricey fruit baskets - missed a $7-million interest payment earlier this month.
Weak sales during the crucial holiday season hurt Harry & David, as consumers still smarting from the economic downturn shunned luxuries such as the company's famed pears, which retail for about $4 each. Increased competition from gourmet food stores and high-end supermarkets further cut into sales.
Unemployment’s Rising Toll on Families
By CATHERINE RAMPELL - NYTimes.com
Last year, nearly one in eight families included an unemployed person, the highest proportion since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1994.
Of all families, 12.4 percent included an unemployed person, up from 12 percent in 2009, the department observed in a recent report. (Since this data set goes back to only 1994, though, we can’t compare how this trend compares to the last major recession, in the early 1980s, when unemployment was generally more widespread throughout the population. As my colleague David Leonhardt has noted, other measures have shown unemployment in this recession to be unusually concentrated within a small group of workers.)
Who wants a union? Not Southern autoworkers, it seems Foreign automakers are placing their U.S. factories in the region because of generous incentives and a workforce famously resistant to unions. That's presenting a huge challenge to the once-formidable United Auto Workers.
By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times
Deric Golden has what he calls his dream job, fixing small flaws on the sedans being churned out at the Hyundai factory here.
So when two organizers from the United Auto Workers knocked on his apartment door one day, hoping to get him to sign a union card, he quickly sent them packing.
"I told them I didn't work at the plant," said Golden, 29. "I just wasn't interested."
It's the same story in town after town along the southern tier of Auto Alley, a corridor that runs north-south along interstates 75 and 65 from Lexington, Ky., to Montgomery.
The collapse of Detroit De-industrialization, racism, stagnation - is the Motor City our future? -- By Scott Martelle - LATimes.com
Imagine for a moment that every single person living in the city of San Jose, plus another 150,000 or so, just up and left. Vanished. Poof. Gone. Leaving their homes, business buildings and factories behind.
That is, in effect, what has happened to the city of Detroit, according to 2010 U.S. Census data released this week. The city that boasted 1.8 million residents in 1950, and was the nation's economic engine for most of the 20th century, now is home to 714,000 people, a population loss of some 1.1 million - with a 25% drop in the last decade alone.
Caterpillar CEO: Illinois budget hurts business
By Charles Riley - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Illinois recently passed a budget that ticked off a lot of business people because it raised taxes on companies and individuals.
You might count Caterpillar CEO Douglas Oberhelman as among the aggrieved.
In a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn, Oberhelman says he wants to talk about how to move the state toward real fiscal reform.
He's also kinda threatening to leave for greener pastures.
"I want to stay here," Oberhelman wrote. "But as the leader of this business, I have to do what's right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest."
Obamacare is crony-care Vocal reform supporters are now demanding waivers
By Ted Nugent-The Washington Times
The biggest problem President Obama has is a serious lack of trust among the American people.
From energy mismanagement to refusal to be fiscally accountable to blatant job-destroying policies, the president has gone off in a gung-ho leftist direction that leaves many Americans shaking their heads in confusion. A recent poll found that more than 60 percent of Americans believe the country is heading off a cliff.
Loudest Obamacare cheerleader wants out New York’s Rep. Anthony Weiner wants a 'get out of jail free' card
By Dr. Milton R. Wolf-The Washington Times
Becoming the most hypocritical politician in America is not an easy goal to achieve, but New York’s Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, is up to the task.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration began rewarding its union friends and others with an escape from the clutches of Obamacare. Now one of the most outspoken Obamacare supporters - the man who actually said, "I wrote the bill ... the bill and I are one" wants his own "get out of jail free" card from this abominable law.
Shrinking Medicaid funds pummel states
By Tami Luhby
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Strapped states are scrambling to address Medicaid's ballooning costs before the federal government cuts back a critical source of funding this week.
Medicaid is one of state's costliest burdens. And the weak economy swelled the rolls to record numbers. Nearly 49 million people -- or almost one in six Americans -- were covered by the safety net at the end of 2009, the latest figures available.
In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan
By JOE NOCERA - NYTimes.com
A few weeks ago, when the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide, Iwrote a column lamenting the fact that none of the big fish were likely to go to prison for their roles in the financial crisis.
Soon after that column ran, I received an e-mail from a man named Richard Engle, who informed me that I was wrong. There was, in fact, someone behind bars for what he’d supposedly done during the subprime bubble. It was his 48-year-old son, Charlie.
Donald Trump: I've got my birth certificate,
where President Barack Obama's?
By ANDY BARR - Politio.com
Donald Trump now sees himself as something of a patron saint for the birthers – and he's even released his own birth certificate as he steps up criticism of the president.
Seeking to pump more energy into the birther movement and quirky chase for the White House, Trump on Monday provided a copy of his birth certificate to the conservative website Newsmax – which has played a leading role in trumpeting birther mythology.
And in an interview on Fox News, Trump cast himself as something akin to the rebel leader of the birther movement.
Media Matters' war against Fox
By BEN SMITH - Politico.com
The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of "guerrilla warfare and sabotage" aimed at the Fox News Channel.
The group, launched as a more traditional media critic, has all but abandoned its monitoring of newspapers and other television networks and is narrowing its focus to Fox and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as political organizations and the "nerve center" of the conservative movement. The shift reflects the centrality of the cable channel to the contemporary conservative movement, as well as the loathing it inspires amongliberals - not least among the donors who fund Media Matters' staff of about 90, who are arrayed in neat rows in a giant war room above Massachusetts Avenue.
Is Media Matters breaking the law in its 'war' on Fox News?
By: Mark Tapscott - Washington Examiner
Media Matters, the George Soros-backed legion of liberal agit-prop shock troops based in the nation's capital, has declared war on Fox News, and in the process quite possibly stepped across the line of legality.
David Brock, MM's founder, was quoted Saturday by Politico promising that his organization is mounting "guerrila warfare and sabotage" against Fox News, which he said "is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public."
Virtual war a real threat The U.S. is vulnerable to a cyber attack, with its electrical grids, pipelines, chemical plants and other infrastructure designed without security in mind. Some say not enough is being done to protect the country.
By Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington - When a large Southern California water system wanted to probe the vulnerabilities of its computer networks, it hired Los Angeles-based hacker Marc Maiffret to test them. His team seized control of the equipment that added chemical treatments to drinking water - in one day.
The weak link: County employees had been logging into the network through their home computers, leaving a gaping security hole. Officials of the urban water system told Maiffret that with a few mouse clicks, he could have rendered the water undrinkable for millions of homes.
Who's looking in on you?
by ROBERT HAMBURGER
How many of us are under the watchful eye of our government? Could you be under surveillance? Could I? How would you feel knowing that you are being spied upon? What is the criterion by which we get chosen to be spied upon? Does anyone know? Who determines who warrants a second look?
The NSA looking in on the activities of American Citizens is well-documented. The story made headlines in 2006 and again in the weeks after George Bush left the White House. However stories of surveillance don't last long when it comes to the corporate-owned national media. To this day the Obama administration continues the practice, and we, the American People, are seemingly resigned to this ongoing crime.
Duck And Cover
BY RYAN JORDAN - FinancialSense.com
As recently as the early 1980s students in San Clemente, CA took part in semiannual duck and cover drills replete with blaring sirens, in an attempt to prepare for an accident at the nearby San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. Don’t ask me why anyone thought that ducking and covering would come in handy when dealing with a nuclear leak. But at least someone was trying to remind people that disaster could strike their otherwise serene "Spanish Village By The Sea." Of course in the 1970s and 1980s, my hometown had seen plenty of other small scale reminders that Mother Nature can be a real witch. A brushfire from nearby Camp Pendleton destroyed dozens of homes in 1976 and several other houses not far from ours slid down the hill in 1980 (amazingly no one was killed). And every time the ground shook from an earthquake we all wondered when "the Big One" would finally cause California to break off into the ocean. So, at least in theory, most Californians have been warned to think about disasters - to have some canned food, water, or other essentials handy - and perhaps not to get too comfortable with the "good life." At least in theory.
Radiation levels at Japan nuclear plant reach new highs
By Chico Harlan and Brian Vastag - WashingtonPost.com
TOKYO - As radiation levels at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant reached a new high Sunday, workers contended with dark, steamy conditions in their efforts to repair the facility's cooling system and stave off a full-blown nuclear meltdown. Wearing respirators, face masks and bulky suits, they fought to reconnect cables and restore power to motor pumps the size of automobiles.
Leaked water sampled from one unit Sunday had 100,000 times the radioactivity of normal background levels, although the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, first calculated an even higher, erroneous, figure it didn't correct for hours.
New Aerial Video of Fukushima w/ Analysis 3/28/11
Plutonium detected in soil at Fukushima nuke plant
TOKYO, March 29, KyodoNews.jp
Plutonium has been detected in soil at five locations at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday, adding to woes over radiation contamination in the country's worst nuclear crisis.
The operator of the six-reactor complex said that the plutonium, the presence of which was confirmed for the first time in the ongoing nuclear emergency, could have been discharged from nuclear fuel at the plant hit by the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but does not pose a major risk to human health.
Radioactive rainwater recorded eastern US 'Drinking water supply ... is unaffected by this short-term, slight elevation in radiation,' official says
MSNBC.com staff and news service reports
BOSTON - Trace amounts of radioactive iodine linked to Japan's crippled nuclear power station have turned up in rainwater samples as far away as Massachusetts during the past week, state officials said Sunday.
The low level of radioiodine-131 detected in precipitation at a sample location in Massachusetts is comparable to findings in California, Washington state and Pennsylvania and poses no threat to drinking supplies, public health officials said.
Utilities in North and South Carolina also report trace amounts of radiation from the damaged nuclear reactor in Japan.
At Reactor, Toxic Pools Threaten to Spill Standing Water at Reactor No. 2 Is Highly Radioactive and Could Spill Into Sea, Tepco Says; Plutonium Found on Grounds
By ANDREW MORSE And MITSURU OBE - WSJ.com
TOKYO - Workers at Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant battled Monday to keep radioactive water that has flooded one reactor building from spilling over into the ocean, as readings of the contaminated pool offered the strongest sign yet that the reactor's core may have partially melted.
Also late Monday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said plutonium was detected in samples of soil taken from the nuclear plant's compounds. The company said the plutonium was found at low levels that pose no risk to human health and are unlikely to affect the repair work. But the discovery is expected to add to the urgency of the task to bring the reactors under control.
Damaged reactor may be leaking radioactive water, Japan says
By the CNN Wire Staff
Tokyo (CNN) -- The Japanese company trying to contain the release of radiation from its Fukushima nuclear plant must pour enough water to cool its damaged reactors without creating an overflow of contaminated water from the plant, a government official said Tuesday.
Yukio Edano, Japan's chief Cabinet secretary and the government's point man for the nation's nuclear crisis, said the effort to prevent the reactors from overheating "must be given priority."
But Edano acknowledge the danger posed by continuing to pour water into them.
"If we need to increase water injection, this is what we need to do. If we stop water injection, fuel rod temperatures may increase and that may result in overheating," Edano said. "But fundamentally we need to drain the water as soon as possible."
Japan government slams Tepco on radiation reading
By Hiroyuki Kachi
TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Japan's chief government spokesman said Monday said water with high levels of radiation inside the nuclear turbine of the Fukushima Daiichi No. 2 reactor was due to the flow of water coming into contact with nuclear fuel that was melting at one point.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said he considers the melting of the fuel temporary and not continuous.
Edano also denounced Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (9501.TO) erroneous readings of radiation levels at the quake-damaged plant, saying that they are "not acceptable."
How Dangerous Is Japan's Creeping Nuclear Disaster?
Spiegel.de
The destroyed reactors at Fukushima have been releasing radiation for weeks. According to model calculations, the stricken nuclear plant could already have released one-tenth of the amount of radiation unleashed in the Chernobyl disaster. How serious a risk does the disaster pose to humans?
The technicians had for days to restore electricity to the remains of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. But then it was ordinary rubber boots, of all things, that would come to symbolize their desperation, helplessness and defeat.
26th Bank Failure of 2011: The Bank of Commerce in Illinois
by Ken - DepositAccounts.com
There was just one bank failure today which brings the total number of bank failures in 2011 to 26. The pace of bank failures have gone down quite a bit in March. So far in March there have only been 3 bank failures. Since this is the last Friday in March, we probably won't see any more failures for this month. As a comparison to last year at this time, there had been 19 bank failures in March and 41 for the year.
The failed Illinois bank, The Bank of Commerce, was small with just one office. Advantage National Bank Group, the bank that acquired The Bank of Commerce, agreed to assume all deposits including brokered deposits.
LONDON The Battle of Trafalgar Square Police struggle to control hard-core anarchist rioters after 500,000-strong London march against government cuts ends in violence -- By DAILY MAIL REPORTER, IAN GALLAGHER and GEORGE ARBUTHNOTT - The DailyMail.co.uk
Hooded anarchists attack London landmarks linked to luxury and wealth
Extremists brought violent chaos to Central London yesterday after hijacking the much-heralded trade union protest against public spending cuts.
Trouble continued to flare late into the night as hundreds of people attempted to hijack yesterday's massive anti government cuts demonstration.
Riot police fought activists in Trafalgar Square as violent protesters threatened to overshadow the TUC rally in Hyde Park which had earlier passed off peacefully.
200 arrested as hardcore anarchists fight police long into night in Battle of Trafalgar Square after 500,000 march against the cut
By IAN GALLAGHER and GEORGE ARBUTHNOTT - The DailyMail.co.uk
Over 200 people were arrested as extremists brought violent chaos to central London yesterday after hijacking the much-heralded trade union protest against public spending cuts.
A massive clear-up operation was underway today after trouble continued to flare late into the night as hundreds of people clashed with officers in Trafalgar Square.
Police confirmed 201 people were in custody and there had been 84 reported injuries during the protests. At least 31 police were hurt with 11 of them requiring hospital treatment.
PORTUGAL Portugal cuts protest: anarchists go on the rampage in central London
Popular anger at measures aimed at averting a bailout has sent Portugal into an economic and financial tailspin, write Bruno Waterfield in Brussels and Alison Roberts in Lisbon.
By Bruno Waterfield, in Brussels and Alison Roberts in Lisbon - Telegraph.co.uk
On the face of it, Portugal’s Eurovision song contest entry is just another piece of euro-trash pop, a cheesy folk-disco number sung by a comedy moustachioed troupe that is, definitely, too camp to be taken seriously.
But first appearances can be deceptive – and the song by the band Homens da Luta (Men of Struggle) has become an ironic anthemfor thousands of Portuguese angry at the misery about to be imposed on them by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
That prospect loomed even greater last week when Portugal’s government lost a crucial parliamentary vote over its own austerity programme – approved by the EU – that included a deeply unpopular plan to tax pensions.
Will Financial Problems In Portugal Cause The European Debt Crisis To Spiral Out Of Control?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Most Americans have no idea just how bad the financial problems over in Europe are right now. The truth is that the entire European financial system is teetering on the brink of disaster. Ireland and Greece have already received bailouts and Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Belgium are all drowning in an ocean of unsustainable debt. Sovereign credit ratings all over Europe have being slashed in recent months. For example, a while back Moody’s Investors Service cut Ireland's bond rating by five levels. Up until now Europe has weathered all of this financial instability fairly well, but now huge new financial problems in Portugal threaten to send the European debt crisis spinning out of control.
No-Fly Zone to Boots on Ground?
NATO Takes Command of Libya Operation as Allies Step Up Attacks
By Ola Galal and Alaa Shahine - Bloomberg.com
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed yesterday to take command of all military operations related to enforcement of the United Nations mandate to ensure the safety of civilians in Libya against forces loyal to leader Muammar Qaddafi.
Within hours of that decision, allied warplanes began airstrikes on the capital, Tripoli, and on Sirte, Qaddafi’s birthplace, the Associated Press reported. The strikes on Sirte were the first of the military operation, which begun March 19.
LYBIA Desperate resident of rebel-held Misrata describe horror inflicted by Gaddafi troops A resident of Misrata, the rebel-held enclave under siege by Gaddafi troops for weeks, has painted a terrifying picture of life in the city and urged Nato to arm the rebels.
By Adam Lusher Telegraph.co.uk
Speaking by telephone from the town in western Libya, with artillery fire audible in the background, the 29-year-old housewife who lives half a mile from the city centre, described the situation as "desperate". She feared it was only a matter of time before the civilian population was massacred.
Clearly distressed, the mother of a young child said: "The windows are shaking here. The artillery fire is very heavy now. There are plumes of smoke in the sky. The regime forces are in Tripoli Street, the main street of the city. They have snipers on the high buildings.
Gadaffi's Curse Keeps Haunting Washington
by Eric Margolis - LewRockwell.com
The finest strategic thinker of the 20th century, Britain’s Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, wrote the object of war is achieving political goals, not military victory.
Politicians keep forgetting Fuller’s dictum. The last examples of wars without defined political objectives were Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Welcome a fourth: Libya.
US foreign policy is becoming permanently militarized. The Secretary of State and senior diplomats jet around the globe making speeches, but real state business is increasingly done by the defense secretary and the Pentagon’s senior generals.
Nigel Farage:
'Bombings, bailouts - what on earth are we doing?'
Nicolas Sarkozy reignites row over Nato military role Putting Nato in charge of strikes against Gaddafi ground forces would play into hands of Libyan leader, warns French president
By Ian Traynor in Brussels - Guardian.co.uk
Nicolas Sarkozy has belittled Nato's role in the military operations against Muammar Gaddafi, re-igniting the row over who replaces the Americans in charge of the campaign in Libya.
Senior Nato officials said the alliance would decide within days whether to take over the bombing campaign against Gaddafi's forces and David Cameron announced that Nato would "shortly be providing the command and control and the machinery" for the attacks on ground targets in Libya.
Libya: a make-or-break moment for Nato As the US military hands over responsibility, the European allies must set aside differences and prove Nato still works
By Nora Bensahel - Guardian.co.uk
European countries, led by France and the United Kingdom, urged theUnited Nations to authorise a no-fly zone to protect civilians in Libya. Yet now that the no-fly zone has been established, the hard work is just beginning – and will affect the future of Nato just as much as it affects the people of Libya.
The initial phase of the allied military operation to prevent mass killings of Libyan civilians by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces is rapidly ending. The overall decline in cruise missile strikes suggests that Libya's surface-to-air weapons have been suppressed and the immediate threat of a massacre in Benghazi has been alleviated for the time being. President Obama limited the US military's commitment to those missions where the American capabilities were required and pledged to transfer responsibility for the operation "in a matter of days and not a matter of weeks".
US hands command of Libya air strategy to senior female officer Major General Margaret Woodward becomes first American woman to been given such a senior combat role
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
The US air campaign in Libya is being run by Major General Margaret Woodward, the first American woman to been given such a senior combat role.
Woodward, who has been involved in wars in the Balkans, Iraq andAfghanistan and has clocked more than 3,800 hours as a pilot, is running the air operation from Germany, where the US Africa Command is based.
What Will the World’s Tyrants Learn from the Libyan War? Get Nukes!
Fabius Maximus - Roubibi.com
Summary: Events in Iraq and Libya show the two-tier nature of the 21st century geopolitical system. First tier nations are those with nuclear weapons, or are so large or powerful as to be almost immune from conventional attack. Everybody else must ally with a great power, or avoid angering them. As the march of technology makes nukes (and other WMDs) ever easier to use, we can look forward to the next Axis of Evil being far more dangerous. They’ll devote whatever resources necessary to retain their sovereignty.
YEMEN Risk of civil war looms as Yemen's soldiers defect from Saleh regime A week ago Bassam Ali Qa'id, 26, was loyal to Yemen's hated President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and part of a state security machine which has shot at, tear-gassed and beaten democracy protesters. -- By Jeb Boone, Sana'a - Telegraph.co.uk
But on Saturday he was a hero to the protesters who in recent weeks have threatened finally to bring to an end Mr Saleh's 32-year rule.
On Monday the general who commands him defected from the Saleh regime and threw in his lot with those campaigning for democratic reform. Now Private Qa'id is helping guard a protesters' camp against the risk of attack by the regime's hard core of security forces - the type of men who nine days ago massacred 52 protesters including an eight year-old boy.
"I could not move without being kissed," he said with a grin. "They gave us flowers and food. I'm eating better here than I ever did at the military camp."
Yemen’s Saleh Describes Nation as 'Time Bomb' Nearing Civil War
By Vivian Salama and Mohammed Hatem - Bloomberg.com
Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh said he would offer no more concessions to his opponents and warned that his nation faces growing chaos, as a senior military official and former ally of the embattled president called for him to step down.
"Yemen is a time bomb," Saleh said in an interview with Al Arabiya television, according to a transcript published by the state-run Saba news agency. "Everyone will side with his tribe, and we will then end up with a destructive civil war." Saleh said the country may split into four sections if the unrest doesn’t end.
SYRIA Syrian protesters vent their fury Anti-government protesters in Syria show their anger by defacing posters of the Syrian President and his late father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad.
Telegraph.co.uk
In the clip posted on YouTube on Friday, demonstrators can be seen tearing down a poster of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in Deraa. In Homs it is a poster of Assad's late father, and previous president, Hafez al-Assad that is torn down.
The act of iconoclasm is remarkable given the usual fear of speaking out against the government. Assad's regime in Syria is widely acknowledged as one the most repressive in the world.
Syria protests continue
amid increased international condemnation of regime The hardline government has been left reeling by fresh clashes on the streets and criticism from the UN and the US
By Katherine Marsh, Tom Finn and Martin Chulov - Guardian.co.uk
Syria's hardline regime was grappling to contain new flare-ups after an uprising that has sharply eroded its repressive rule and has so far led to the deaths of at least 55 protesters.
There were fresh clashes in the port city of Latakia, where two people were reported to have been shot dead, as well as in the southern towns of Tafa and Deraa. They came as burials took place across the country amid international condemnation at the uncompromising force shown by the Ba'athist government that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.
ISRAEL Israel to deploy 'Iron Dome' anti-rocket system
Telegraph.co.uk
Israel will deploy its "Iron Dome" multi-million-pound missile defence system in southern Israel for the first time next week in the wake of rocket attacks from Gaza, officials said on Friday.
"I authorised the army to deploy in the next few days the first battery of "Iron Dome" for an operational trial," Defence Minister Ehud Barak said as he toured the tense Gaza Strip border.
The order comes after a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants in recent days, some of them striking deep into Israel.
The deployment of the Iron Dome interceptor, designed to combat short-range rocket threats from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, has been delayed until now with officials saying operating crews needed more training and suggestions the system was prohibitively expensive.
Why The Euro Will Survive
BY JERRY ROBINSON - FinsncialSense.com
On January 1, 2002, the Euro currency hit the street. Several European countries, who had for decades been dependent upon their own central banks, currencies, and interestrate policies, voluntarily chose to hand over their economic sovereignty to a centralizedEuropean Union. From day one, analysts said that the Euro currency was nothing more than a grand experiment that was doomed to failure. The Euro’s critics claim that the currency was flawed from the beginning because it forces all of its member nations to submit to one interest rate regime, despite each nation’s unique economic problems. I agree with them on that point. In essence, the Euro monetary policy is dictated by Germany’s economic needs. In the end, the primary beneficiary of the Euro system is Germany and, to a lesser extent, France. But what works well for Germany and France does not always benefit the other smaller and more economically challenged Euro nations. Therefore, the critics automatically assume that the Euro, by necessity, must fail.
----- Business & US -----
US Dollar Under Acute Pressure
As World seeks an Alternative Reserve Currency
By: Bob Chapman - MarketOracle.co.uk
The days and years of manipulation, fraud and criminal behavior are fast coming to an end. New alliances are evolving, as are outspoken advocates of a new world reserve currency. As a result more and more foreigners are bypassing Treasury and Agency bonds, as well as other US dollar denominated investments. We watch as other major nations accumulate gold and cannot help but think that the new world reserve currency will be gold backed.
What's Really Driving the Gold Price?
BY JULIAN PHILLIPS - FinsncialSense.com
Rejection of Capitalism, or paper currencies, or the unreliability of man
Gold defeats the Technical picture
Gold has defied many sound technical analysts forecasts of late and it continues to do so rising to record levels in the dollar. It still has to rise to €1070 to beat the euro highs and if it does with the dollar falling heavily a rise to that price with the dollar at around $1.42 against the euro, you will see a dollar price of $1,519. It doesn’t seem far away does it? Why should it be rising so strongly? Communist Capitalism
We heard one commentator ask if this was the rejection of capitalism. Nothing so restricted, we say. It goes far deeper than that. A look at China shows a communist for of capitalism [if there is such a thing] and they are doing very well with it, yet they are buying gold, buying silver, buying gold, buying silver...
Accumulate Gold and Japanese Shares The Japanese Quake and the Mess in the Middle East
Marc Faber on their financial impacts on gold, oil, equities, more.
By Marc Faber - LewRockwell.com
Marc Faber the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor says a correction in assets prices has begun but the long-term outlook for gold remains favorable and recommends accumulating the precious metal on any weakness. He also recommends accumulating Japanese shares as reconstruction work will push money into equities.
Speaking to Fox Business Network on Thursday, Faber said: "What is happening in the Middle East is friendly for gold, friendly for oil, and other commodities".
People’s Bank of China Positive On Gold Due To ‘Value Preservation’; Concerned About Euro, Dollar And Paper Currencies
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Gold and silver remain supported by continuing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. Inflation, the European sovereign debt crisis, conflict in Libya and the wider Middle East and the nuclear disaster in Japan are all factors which will likely result in gold reaching new record nominal highs in all currencies sooner rather than later.
Gold and silver's record highs yesterday were barely reported in the non-financial press and media yesterday which is another sign of the lack of animal spirits and popular participation in the bullion markets and one of many strong indications that gold and silver remain far from the speculative bubbles suggested by some.
Gold And Silver Are Thriving While The U.S. Dollar Is Dying
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Have you heard the news? Gold hit another new record high on Thursday. It reached $1447.40 before settling back a bit. Most people responded to that news with a yawn. Why? Well, because it is happening so frequently these days. It seems like the price of gold is constantly setting a new record. Silver likewise is thriving. The price of an ounce of silver briefly hit $38.13 on Thursday. That was the highest price for silver in 31 years. But most people also responded to that news with a yawn. Why? Well, because the price of silver always seems to be going higher these days. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is struggling. The ICE Dollar Index fell to 75.340 earlier this week. That was the lowest it has been since December 2009. Even at a time when the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is flaring up again and there is tremendous instability all over the world the U.S. dollar still can't find much traction. In fact, many are convinced that the U.S. dollar is on the verge of another major fall. So what in the world is causing all of this?
J.P. Morgan Chase, HSBC May Have Gained Billions
from Influencing Silver Prices
By Tracey Greenstein - Forbes.com
For most, the Stock Market is a daunting and complex system of numbers and codes. The intricacies of each push, shove and nod toward an investment that is seemingly worthy of buying or selling may be intimidating. But in the case of silver, it’s black and white: when you own the market, you control the market.
Mega-banks J.P. Morgan Chase and HSBC have been under suspicion for manipulating the value of precious metals, particularly silver, since 2008. A recent article in the New York Times alleged the two companies have earned billions of dollars from what could be a gigantic, market manipulation. Allegations state that JP Morgan and HSBC spread a rumor that the value of silver would depress dramatically. Of course, the claims were artificial, but because they owned such a substantial cut of commercial net short silver futures, they were essentially the silver market makers. When the price of silver plummeted based on their continued bearish actions, JP Morgan and HSBC cashed in.
How Can America Create Wealth If Our Industrial Base Is Destroyed? 50,000 Manufacturing Jobs Have Been Lost Every Month Since 2001
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Any economy that constantly consumes far more wealth than it produces is eventually going to be in for a very hard fall. Many point to relatively stable GDP numbers as evidence that the U.S. economy is doing okay, but the truth is that we have had to borrow increasingly massive amounts of money to keep GDP numbers up at that level. The U.S. government is going to run an all-time record deficit of about 1.65 trillion dollars this year and average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. But borrowing endless amounts of money and consuming massive amounts of wealth with that borrowed money is a road that leads to economic oblivion. The only way to have a healthy economy in the long run is to create wealth. But how can America create wealth if our industrial base is being absolutely destroyed? According to Forbes, the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobsper month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Hundreds of formerly thriving industries in the United States are being totally wiped out. China uses every trick in the book to win trade battles. They deeply subsidize their domestic industries, they openly steal technology, they blatantly manipulate currency rates and they allow their citizens to be paid slave labor wages. So yes, the products coming from China are cheaper, but in the process tens of thousands of factories in the U.S. are shutting down, millions of jobs are being lost and the ability of America to create wealth is being compromised.
Temporary Unlimited Coverage for Noninterest-bearing Transaction Accounts -- FDIC.gov
From December 31, 2010 through December 31, 2012, all noninterest-bearing transaction accounts are fully insured, regardless of the balance of the account and the ownership capacity of the funds. This coverage is available to all depositors, including consumers, businesses, and government entities. The unlimited coverage is separate from, and in addition to, the insurance coverage provided for a depositor's other accounts held at an FDIC-insured bank.
Consumer Sentiment Sours, At Lowest Level in Over a Year
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
U.S. consumer sentiment in March fell to its lowest level in more than a year as gasoline and food prices rose, a survey released Friday showed.
The index was slightly lower than March's preliminary reading, while inflation expectations remained elevated. Even so, the latest consumer survey from Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan said there was no decline in buying plans.
Fed's Fisher Sees Signs of Excessive Liquidity
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
The United States is flush with liquidity and any further stimulus will not help and could even harm the U.S. economy, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said on Friday.
Fisher, regarded by economists as one of the most hawkish policymakers at the U.S. central bank, said the Federal Reserve's $600 billion bond-buying programme should end as planned in June, with no extension or replacement scheme.
Massachusetts job fair canceled because of lack of jobs
USAToday.com
TAUNTON, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts employment organization has canceled its annual job fair because not enough companies have come forward to offer jobs.
Richard Shafer, chairman of the Taunton Employment Task Force, says 20 to 25 employers are needed for the fair scheduled for April 6, but just 10 tables had been reserved. One table was reserved by a nonprofit that offers human services to job seekers, and three by temporary employment agencies.
FDIC Proposal: Pay Borrowers $20,000 To Walk Away US Banks in 'Cash for Keys' Foreclosure Talks
By: By Tom Braithwaite, Financial Times
The five biggest US mortgage servicers were told this week at a private meeting with regulators to consider paying delinquent borrowers up to $21,000 each as part of a broader settlement of the foreclosure crisis.
People who attended the meeting, chaired by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Monday, said the industry-wide "cash for keys" program would involve the biggest servicers, led by Bank of America, paying borrowers as an incentive to leave their homes.
Mortgage Servicers Resist But Cut Debts
By RUTH SIMON And NICK TIMIRAOS - WSJ.com
U.S. banks are resisting efforts by state attorneys general to force them to cut the amounts owed by some borrowers facing foreclosure. Yet mortgage companies already have reduced home-loan balances for more than 100,000 borrowers.
How much larger the number will grow is likely to be at the center of negotiations this week aimed at reaching a settlement to the nationwide investigation of mortgage-servicing practices.
Housing Market Cycle: Much Worse This Time
By Barry Ritholtz - Roubini.com
Floyd Norris gives us the no nonsense take on Housing: Yes, Housing remains moribund; No, this is not getting better any time soon. The charts at right should make that clear to anyone:
"As can be seen in the accompanying chart, during the 12 months through February, about 46 homes were sold for every 1,000 households in the country. At the peak of the housing boom, that figure rose above 75, but the current level is significantly higher than the lows reached during the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s.
Nevada's boom and bust leaves 167,000 empty houses
By Cristina Silva - AP - USAToday.com
LAS VEGAS - The promise of palm trees and low-priced real estate lured Alan and Katherine Ackerly across the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Nevada in 2004, where thousands of new houses beckoned brightly.
They came to buy their retirement home. But the real estate bust took its toll, with a flood of short sales and foreclosures in the market, and last month the Ackerly’s dream home was foreclosed on.
It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know
By NOAM COHEN - NYTimes.com
A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turned reporting these updates into a game.
But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts.
JAPAN Japan crisis:
nuclear workers exposed to 10,000 times more radiation than normal Concerns over the extent of radioactive contamination in Japan deepened after it emerged that three workers admitted to hospital this week were exposed to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than normal
By Peter Foster, Beijing - Telegraph.co.uk
The news raised fears that the steel and concrete containment around one of the reactors at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant could be leaking.
Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, made clear that the work to stabilise Fukushima remains on a knife-edge.
"The situation today at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is still very grave and serious. We must remain vigilant," he said in an evening address to the nation, "We are not in a position where we can be optimistic. We must treat every development with the utmost care."
*****
URGENT - USA / EU Radiation and Jetstream Forecast
UPDATE - March 26, 2011
Radiation forecasting links:WeatherOnline to check updates
If you live in the areas (west coast USA, Canada, Mexico, and also MIDWEST US)... pay close attention.. may not want to go outside during this time....
Fukushima crisis:
radiation fears grow for low-paid heroes battling disaster Safeguards at nuclear plant have failed emergency crews, and trust in the Japanese authorities is fading
By Suzanne Goldenberg - The Observer
The last time Tomotake Watanabe turned up for his shift at the No 1 reactor of the Fukushima nuclear plant, he was thrown to the ground byJapan's powerful earthquake and showered with broken glass and ceiling plaster.
Now he awaits a call to join a mission to regain control of the plant whose danger is terrifyingly evident. "I feel under pressure that I might be called back," he said. "I don't feel I need to volunteer, but I worry about what I will do when I get called."
Radioactive seawater surrounds stricken plant Radioactivity levels are soaring in seawater near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, two weeks after the nuclear power plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami.
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
Even as engineers tried to pump puddles of radioactive water from the power plant 150 miles north of Tokyo, the nuclear safety agency said tests on Friday showed radioactive iodine had spiked 1,250 times higher than normal in the seawater just offshore the plant.
Officials said iodine 131 levels in seawater 19 miles from the coastal nuclear complex were within acceptable limits established by regulations and the contamination posed little risk to aquatic life.
Why 95% of Japanese May Not Suffer from Radioactive Iodine Exposure
by Joseph Mercola - LewRockwell.com
The nuclear power disaster unfolding in Japan, following a 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami, has not only Japan, but also large portions of the US and even parts of Europe on edge. What could possibly be worse, however, is fear itself, according to some health experts.
Dr. David Brownstein on Iodine Part 1/3
Dr. David Brownstein on Iodine Part 2/3
Dr. David Brownstein on Iodine Part 3/3
Radioactive Cesium With A Half-Life Of Approximately 30 Year
Is Being Released At About 60 Percent Of Chernobyl Levels
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Why does it seem as though the nuclear crisis in Japan just keeps getting worse with each passing day? TEPCO has announced that extremely radioactive water is now leakingfrom reactors 1, 2, and 3 at their damaged nuclear complex. On Thursday, three workers stepped into water in reactor 3 that contained 10,000 times the normal amount of radiation. Two of the workers experienced significant radiation burns and all three were sent to the hospital. Authorities have also announced that it is very likely that the containment vessel in reactor 3 has been breached. That is extremely alarming because reactor 3 is the one that uses plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel ("MOX fuel"). So is plutonium being released into the surrounding environment? That would be absolutely catastrophic. But what we know is happening already is quite catastrophic. According to a recent NewScientist article, radioactive iodine-131 is being released at 73% of the level that it was being released at during the Chernobyl disaster. But iodine-131 only has a half-life of about 8 days. According to that same article, radioactive cesium-137 is being released at 60% of the level that it was being released at during the Chernobyl disaster. Cesium-137 has a half-life of approximately 30 years. That means that all of this cesium is going to be with us for a very, very long time.
Dr. Mercola and Ori Hofmekler Discuss Radiation Protection Part 1/2
Dr. Mercola and Ori Hofmekler Discuss Radiation Protection Part 2/2
Euro's Collapse Is Not 'Unthinkable': Warren Buffett
By: Mia Lamar - CNBC.com
Warren Buffett told CNBC Thursday that the collapse of the euro zone's single currency is far from "unthinkable."
"I know some people think it's unthinkable... I don't think it's unthinkable," Buffett said in an interview.
Still, Buffett said he believes there will be "huge efforts" put forth to preserve the euro. In the meantime, struggling peripheral countries like Portugal must find a way to resolve fiscal crises.
"You can't have three or four or five countries that are in effect free-riding on the other countries. That won't work over time - they have to get their fiscal houses in reasonable harmony," he said.
Protests against 'austerity summit' turn violent
LEIGH PHILLIPS - EUObserver.com
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Trade union protests outside an EU summit in Brussels against the austerity being imposed across the continent by the bloc turned violent on Thursday (24 March), as riot police battled rock-wielding demonstrators with water cannon and pepper spray.
Four separate marches across the European capital comprising some 20,000 workers, according to organisers, converged on the meeting of European premiers and presidents. Police put the figure closer to 12,000.
The unions are protesting the imposition of the deepest level of economic integration in the EU's history - the delivery of 'economic governance' in the union that will require wage restraint, hikes in retirement ages, public sector cutbacks and limits on government spending, amongst other stringent measures.
Socrates Exit to 'Complicate' Portugal Woes... White Says
EU diplomats ponder if Syria next to fall
By ANDREW RETTMAN
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU ambassadors in Damascus are preparing a report on the "million dollar question" of whether President Bashir al-Assad's regime will be next in line to fall in a popular uprising.
A diplomatic contact said the "deep, substantial analysis" of the situation inside the country and its meaning for EU-Syria relations is to be ready next week. The union is unlikely to do anything beyond urging restraint until the heads of mission report is sent.
One current view is that young Facebook-using protesters in Damascus are divorced from the tribal unrest in the south of the country. The line goes that al-Assad still has a window of opportunity to make reforms before the movements link up and a mass protest in the capital forces him to step aside or to go down the Gaddafi route of extreme violence.
Gaddafi resumes shelling despite strikes
By James Blitz in London, Charles Clover in Tripoli
and Daniel Dombey in Washington - FT.com
Colonel Muammer Gaddafi's forces resumed shelling of Misurata, Libya's third city, late on Wednesday night, defying an earlier wave of coalition air strikes which had been aimed at destroying some of the regime's tanks and artillery pieces on the ground.
Earlier on Wednesday, the coalition took a significant step in their campaign against Col Gaddafi's forces by attacking tanks and a local air base as they conducted an assault on Misurata.
But despite those efforts, pro-Gaddafi forces rolled back into the rebel-held city overnight and began shelling the area near the main hospital.
Who's in charge? Germans pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Deep divisions between allied forces currently bombing Libya worsened today as the German military announced it was pulling forces out of NATO over continued disagreement on who will lead the campaign.
A German military spokesman said it was recalling two frigates and AWACS surveillance plane crews from the Mediterranean, after fears they would be drawn into the conflict if NATO takes over control from the U.S.
The infighting comes as a heated meeting of NATO ambassadors yesterday failed to resolve whether the 28-nation alliance should run the operation to enforce a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone, diplomats said.
Nato states continue to squabble on Libya command
By VALENTINA POP
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A third attempt by Nato to agree who should be in charge of air strikes on Libya has ended inconclusively amid growing discontent from Turkey.
Nato ambassadors will re-convene in Brussels on Thursday (24 March) for a fourth day of attempts to bridge divisions inside the alliance. The subject is also set to come up at a dinner of EU leaders the same evening.
France, which has taken the political lead on the anti-Gaddafi war effort up to now, wants the body to play a supporting role to a new "contact group" composed of ministers from countries involved in the military campaign and regional players.
The World Is Coming Apart - Where Is America?
By Brad MacDonald - TheTrumpet.com
The U.S. has abdicated its global leadership.
Despite losing the majority of his air defense capabilities, multiple command and control bases, including the critical Bab Al Azizia compound in Tripoli, and a top military general, Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi has reason to be confident in his war against Western-backed rebel forces.
This week, while unloading thousands of pounds of ordnance on Qadhafi strongholds, allied leaders began debating a new command structure for the coalition. In addition to arguing about who should lead the campaign, dissension also arose over the strategic objective of Operation Odyssey. Some allies, such as Britain and France, believe removing Qadhafi is a paramount objective, while others, most notably the United States, argue that this does not fall within the UN mandate for Libya.
Obama, the Left, and Militarism
By JACK KERWICK - AmericanDailyHerald.com
Upon supplying a surge of 30,000 ground troops in Afghanistan, our "anti-war" president, the Great Appeaser himself, has just embarked his country upon another war in the Middle East. Only those who choose to give our military's invasion of Libya another name can deny that this is, for all intents and purposes, a war.
My point here is neither to endorse nor to denounce this latest exercise in America interventionism. Rather, it is for the lessons that this episode imparts that I draw attention to it.
Ron Paul on Freedom Watch:
Obama Believes In One World Government
Not National Sovereignty
Obama's Libyan Intervention Has Lowest Approval
of Any Military Op Polled by Gallup in 4 Decades
By Terence P. Jeffrey - CNSNews.com
President Barack Obama's intervention in Libya's civil war has not only failed to win the approval of a majority of the American people, according to a Gallup poll conducted Monday, it also earned the lowest public approval rating of any U.S. military operation polled by Gallup over the past four decades.
In fact, it was the only U.S. military intervention polled by Gallup that received less than majority approval from Americans.
"The 47% of Americans approving of the action against Libya is lower than what Gallup has found when asking about approval of other U.S. military campaigns in the past four decades," said Gallup's analysis of the poll.
Just War And The Jewish State: Their Home Is Their Castle
By AUDREY RUSSO - AmericanDailyHerald.com
Believe it or not, in a Blue State like NY, we actually have an article in the Penal Law that allows us to employ self-defense. Article 35 of the Penal Law specifies when an individual is justified in using force to defend life or property. (Proof that there's hope for NY.)
Many States in the union have adopted an American doctrine known as, The Castle Doctrine...
The Castle Doctrine, or the Defense of Habitation Law is a derived from English Common Law. The law defines one's home, or in some cases any place that you legally occupy, as a place where you have the liberty to be free from trespass. It also gives you the right to defend your life, or the life of another who legally occupies the "castle" with deadly force if the situation warrants it. In a legal proceeding your actions can be defended as justifiable under the Castle Doctrine.
Gold-Silver ratio set to fall lower
CommodityOnline.com
Gold is flat while silver has risen in all currencies again today. Sterling has fallen sharply again today and the euro, yen and sterling have fallen sharply versus gold and silver in recent days. Silver's surge to new 31 year highs at $37.87 is due to continuing strong industrial and investment demand and tight supply.
Many investors see silver as a cheaper 'safe haven' than gold right now. Silver looks set to target $40/oz and in the longer term, many investors see gains above the record highs of nearly $50/oz.
The Road of Inflation Will Only End in Tears
By Bob Chapman - TheInternationalForecaster.com
Cycles and booms and busts just don't happen. They are planned that way. In the late 1990s Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan commented on irrational exuberance and said he hoped the market would cool down. The amount of money and credit he had introduced into the system had a great deal to do with a forming of a bubble. He indicated that on the short-term there was little he could do about it, when all he had to do was raise margin requirements from 50% to 60% temporarily. We wrote about the solution as a coupe of other writers did, but no one really wanted to take away the dotcom punchbowl. In late March of 2000 the market began its collapse. We removed our subscribers out of the market in the first week of April, as did Joe Granville, a friend and one of the best market timers ever.
Fed and Inflation
By Ron Paul - AmericanDailyHerald.com
Last week, the subcommittee which I chair held a hearing on monetary policy and rising prices. Whether we consider food, gasoline, or clothing, the cost of living is increasing significantly. True inflation is defined as an increase in the money supply. All other things being equal, an increase in the money supply leads to a rise in prices. Inflation's destructive effects have ruined societies from the Roman Empire to Weimar Germany to modern-day Zimbabwe.
US Finances Rank Near Worst in the World
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com Staff Writer
The US ranks near the bottom of developed global economies in terms of financial stability and will stay there unless it addresses its burgeoning debt problems, a new study has found.
In the Sovereign Fiscal Responsibility Index, the Comeback America Initiative ranked 34 countries according to their ability to meet their financial challenges, and the US finished 28th, said David Walker, head of the organization and former US comptroller general.
"We think it is important for the American people to understand where the United States is as compared to other countries with regard to fiscal responsibility and sustainability," Walker said in a CNBC interview. "Americans are used to rankings and they're used to ranking very high, but frankly in this area we rank very low."
Investors See Web Boom, Not Bubble
By PUI-WING TAM - WSJ.com
Silicon Valley has been edging into what some people see as bubble territory, given the clamor by investors to pour money into fast-growing Web companies such as Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Zynga Inc., which has pushed up their valuations.
But Greylock Partners venture capitalists David Sze and Reid Hoffman, also a founder of LinkedIn Corp., argue that is far from the case. The investors, whose firm has backed Facebook and daily deals site Groupon Inc., among others, say Silicon Valley's latest crop of Web companies have real revenue and viable business models - unlike the dot-com companies that crashed after the 2000 tech bubble.
Bernanke says bank overhaul will help small banks The Federal Reserve chairman said most of the the new regulatory requirements for banks are aimed the country's biggest institutions, not small- to mid-sized banks.
Crain's NewYork.com
(AP) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a group of executives from smaller banks Wednesday that the financial overhaul will level the playing field for them with the industry's giants.
Mr. Bernanke said it would be important for the banks to adapt to the changing regulatory environment, in remarks to the annual convention in San Diego of small- and medium-sized banks. Mr. Bernanke acknowledged their concerns about the new law. But he said most of the requirements are aimed the country's biggest banks and not them.
Goldman Had 'Inkling' of Investigation Blankfein Says He Was Aware of Then-Director's Link to Trading Case; Bank Waited for Him to Quit
By SUSAN PULLIAM, LIZ RAPPAPORT and CHAD BRAY - WSJ.com
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. took no action against a high-profile board member for several months despite indications prosecutors were scrutinizing whether he had passed along inside information.
In testimony in the Galleon insider-trading trial, Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein said he had "an awareness of - I want to say inkling" - that the activities of the director, Rajat Gupta, were under scrutiny by prosecutors in March 2010, when Goldman announced he wouldn't stand for re-election. Mr. Gupta stepped down as a Goldman director in May 2010.
The Dark Underbelly of Finance
By Luigi Zingales - ProjectSyndicate.com
CHICAGO - If you thought that America's financial sector had gotten enough of bad publicity, think again. The insider-trading trial of Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, has now begun. It is likely to provide an especially lurid exposé of the corrupt underbelly of the financial world.
Rajaratnam's trial is remarkable in many ways. First, it is one of the few insider-trading cases ever to be brought against a professional hedge-fund manager. Historically, both state and federal attorney generals have preferred to prosecute "occasional" traders, who stick out like a sore thumb.
Commercial Real Estate on Borrowed Time?
BY JOHN RUBINO - FinancialSense.com
Back in 2009 it seemed obvious that the next shoe to fall - or bomb to go off - was commercial real estate. The thinking went something like this: homes go into foreclosure fast, when the mortgage holder loses a job, or the monthly payment adjusts to some ungodly number that dwarfs the hapless homeowner’s disposable income, or they simply realize that they can rent a similar house for half the money. Commercial properties take longer to fail because an office building or strip mall has multiple tenants with leases that renew at different times. So even in a deep recession a project might limp along for months or even years before the total number of tenant defections turns its cash flow negative.
Peter Schiff - Housing Market Will Fall For Many More Years
US Family Income Down 18% Post-Crisis: Fed
By: Mia Lamar - CNBC.com
American families have seen their incomes slide by almost a fifth since before the financial crisis, according to a study released by the Federal Reserve on Thursday.
The survey, which revisited almost 4,000 families who were also interviewed before the recent economic downturn, found that their median income fell by more than 18 percent since 2007.
More than 63 percent of the families interviewed saw their wealth decline from 2007-2009. At the same time, average total debt rose in the group, to $75,000 from $70,000.
States Pass Budget Pain to Cities
By MICHAEL COOPER - NYTimes.com
The state budget squeeze is fast becoming a city budget squeeze, as struggling states around the nation plan deep cuts in aid to cities and local governments that will almost certainly result in more service cuts, layoffs and local tax increases.
The cuts are widespread. Ohio plans to slash aid to Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and other cities and local governments by more than a half-billion dollars over the next two years under the budget proposed last week by its new Republican governor, John R. Kasich. Nebraska passed a law this month eliminating direct state aid to Omaha and other municipalities. The governors of Wisconsin and Michigan have called for sending less money to Milwaukee, Detroit and other local governments.
Protests, State Budgets and Collapsing Artificial Employment
BY DANIEL R AMERMAN CFA - FinancialSense.com
On the surface, the recent and well-publicized protests in the state of Wisconsin have been a no-holds barred struggle between public worker unions and a conservative governor, in a battle that has galvanized both the left and the right across the nation. There is truth to that viewpoint, but as is often the case, the much hyped political struggle between partisans of both sides is also a distraction that serves to mask a much more powerful and even more significant threat to the entire population, both left and right.
Hospital group proposes new taxes to save AHCCCS
Phoenix Business Journal - by Mike Sunnucks
Hospitals are pitching new plans to Gov. Jan Brewer this week that would ease cuts she is planning to the state's Medicaid system.
Proposals forwarded by the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association would impose a $360 million tax on hospitals, a $100 million tax on health plans and a $5 million tax on nursing homes that serve patients under the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. AHCCCS patients also could face new $10 to $15 co-payments for some visits to the doctor.
In California City, Layoffs for Nearly Half the Staff
By JENNIFER MEDINA - NYTimes.com
COSTA MESA, Calif. - To solve a looming pension crisis and budget gap, city officials said, they needed to take drastic action. Now everyone agrees on one thing: they did.
Nearly half of this city's workers were told late last week that, come September, they would probably be out of a job. Nearly every city department will be eliminated. More than a dozen tasks will be outsourced, including graffiti removal, firefighting, building maintenance and street cleaning.
Unlike the drama that played out over several months in Madison, Wis., the battle over public workers in this bustling suburb of upscale shopping malls in the heart of Orange County is happening at lightning speed.
Rural Oregon counties face bankruptcy without state help
By JEFF BARNARD AP - KVAL.com
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Rural counties desperate to keep their jails open and sheriff's patrols on the road if a federal timber-related subsidy goes away are hoping the Legislature will come to the rescue with a stopgap funding plan.
But lawmakers have no idea where the money would come from, given the state's budget crisis, and the best counties can expect may be loans instead of grants.
"With our budget situation, I guarantee you there isn't any money," said Rep. Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach, co-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Tech Companies Seek Out Entrepreneurial Students
By PUI-WING TAM - WSJ.com
As Silicon Valley technology companies ramp up hiring and some venture-capital firms boost their investing, many are actively wooing students, both as hires and potential entrepreneurs to back. Some of the most intense courtship is taking place among budding entrepreneurs at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.
Stanford's student-entrepreneur association, dubbed Bases, counts about 80 core members, while Berkeley's Haas Entrepreneurs Association has about 400 members. Both host speakers and events related to entrepreneurialism.
Gingrich, Toffler, and Gore: A Peculiar Trio
By Steve Farrell -TheMoralLiberal.com Democrats In Drag, Part 3
The most-heralded achievement and high water mark of Republican leadership since the revival of America's military superiority under Ronald Reagan is, without question, the coming forth of the "Contract With America" during the election of 1994.
Its 100-day surge through the House of Representatives, with its visionary agenda and its promise and delivery of lock-arm partisan voting, is a singular feat; such a one that ever since Republicans have looked back with fondness and longing for a revival of 'the good old days.'
Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima's uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium. -- By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
This passed unnoticed - except by a small of band of thorium enthusiasts - but it may mark the passage of strategic leadership in energy policy from an inert and status-quo West to a rising technological power willing to break the mould.
If China's dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia's industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West's entrenched consumption.
China's Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a "thorium-based molten salt reactor system". The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack 'Obama's "Sputnik moment", you could say.
Keiser Report: Build More Reactors, Not! (E131)
Plants Face New Worries Spread of Radiation in Japan Fuels Questions
About Evacuation Plans in U.S.
By DANIEL GILBERT
Dangerous levels of radiation found some 25 miles from Japan's damaged nuclear facility raise questions about U.S. emergency-response plans that call for evacuating residents only within a 10-mile radius of such a disaster here.
Just one of the U.S.'s 104 commercial nuclear reactors is within 10 miles of a densely populated city - the Three Mile Island facility near Harrisburg, Pa. But 29 are within 25 miles of such metropolitan areas. And almost half of the nuclear reactors in the U.S. are within 50 miles of a metropolitan area with more than 500,000 people.
Japan Nuclear Crisis Revives Long U.S. Fight on Spent Fuel
By MATTHEW L. WALD - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The threat of the release of highly radioactive spent fuel at a Japanese nuclear plant has revived a debate in the United States about how to manage such waste and has led to new recriminations over a derailed plan for a national repository in Nevada.
Pools holding spent fuel at nuclear plants in the United States are even more heavily loaded than those at the Japanese reactors, experts say, and are more vulnerable to some threats than the ones in Japan. However, utility companies have taken steps since the 9/11 terrorist attacks to make them safer.
The Insidious Effects of Japan's Disaster
BY JOHN BROWNE - FinancialSense.com
While the world's attention has been focused on the physical destruction wrought by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the desperate attempts to contain the fallout from the shattered Fukushima Daiichi plant, and the daunting problems that Japan faces in rebuilding its infrastructure, few have truly illustrated how long-lasting and widespread the radiation's effects may be. There has also been little mention of how large radiological events affect economies of countries outside the immediate fallout zone. In truth, the disaster could make as much of an impact on investors in New York, London, or Sao Paolo as it makes on an investor in Tokyo.
The fallout
The Economist.com
Some natural disasters change history. Japan's tsunami could be one
THAT "tsunami" is one of the few Japanese words in global use points to the country's familiarity with natural disaster. But even measured against Japan's painful history, its plight today is miserable. The magnitude-9 earthquake - the largest ever in the country's history, equivalent in power to 30,000 Hiroshimas - was followed by a wave which wiped out whole towns. With news dribbling out from stricken coastal communities, the scale of the horror is still sinking in. The surge of icy water shoved the debris of destroyed towns miles inland, killing most of those too old or too slow to scramble to higher ground (see article). The official death toll of 5,429 will certainly rise. In several towns over half the population has drowned or is missing.
Chernobyl-Style Yellow Rain Causes Panic In Japan
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
Radioactive yellow rain that fell in Tokyo and surrounding areas last night caused panic amongst Japanese citizens and prompted a flood of phone calls to Japan’s Meteorological Agency this morning, with people concerned that they were being fed the same lies as victims of Chernobyl, who were told that yellow rain which fell over Russia and surrounding countries after the 1986 disaster was merely pollen, the same explanation now being offered by Japanese authorities.
The "Fukushima Fifty"
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Whatever one thinks about the near-criminal strategy taking place behind the scenes as to how Japan is handling the bailout, one thing is certain: the 50 Tepco workers who are currently laboring at Fukushima, doing all they can to restore the plant back to life, even at the cost of their own lives, are doing a tremendous service to their fellow citizens (futile or otherwise), and deserve to be called heroes. The Mail has compiled what little information is available about these impromptu martyrs, of whom five are believed to have already died and 15 are injured while others have said they know the radiation will kill them, in a piece that everyone should read, especially those who are wondering just who it is that is doing everything in their power to offset Hitachi's criminal conduct in the construction of the power plant as disclosed earlier. "The darkness is broken only by the flashing torchlight of the heroes who stayed behind. These first images of inside the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant reveal the terrifying conditions under which the brave men work to save their nation from full nuclear meltdown. The Fukushima Fifty - an anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers - have battled around the clock to cool overheating reactors and spent fuel rods since the disaster on March 11."
Is there nuclear waste in your state? Interactive map shows 35 states store 145 million pounds of spent fuel rods, in tanks that were never meant as a permanent solution -- By Jim Axelrod - CBSNews.com
(CBS News) Taking the lead on a major problem for many states, South Carolina and Washington state went to court Tuesday demanding that the Nuclear Regulatory Committee provide a place to permanently store radioactive waste.
"I think the problem is demonstrated by the recent events in Japan in that storing it near communities is great while it works, but if something goes wrong, people are exposed to great risk," said Andrew Fitz, assistant Attorney General, Washington state.
Should Residents Of Tokyo Be Preparing For Massive Radiation Exposure? 12 Disturbing Facts To Consider
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Does anyone really know what is going on at the Fukushima nuclear complex? When problems at the facility first surfaced, authorities promised that no significant amounts of radiation would be released. Then we were told that only those living within 20 kilometers of the complex needed to take precautions. After that we were told that radiation was showing up in many different types of vegetables all over northern and central Japan but that it was not a major concern. Now we are being told that the tap water in Tokyo is unsafe for infants to drink. So what are they going to tell us next? Should residents of Tokyo be preparing for massive radiation exposure from this disaster? Tokyo is only 150 miles away from the Fukushima nuclear complex. If a worst case scenario plays out at Fukushima, exactly what would that mean for the over 30 million people that live in and around Tokyo?
First pictures emerge of the Fukushima Fifty as steam starts pouring from all four reactors at the stricken nuclear power plant
By MATT BLAKE and RICHARD SHEARS - DailyMail.co.uk
The darkness is broken only by the flashing torchlight of the heroes who stayed behind.
These first images of inside the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant reveal the terrifying conditions under which the brave men work to save their nation from full nuclear meltdown.
The Fukushima Fifty - an anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers - have battled around the clock to cool overheating reactors and spent fuel rods since the disaster on March 11.
Japan 24-03-2011:
Smoke steam rising from ALL 4 reactor units Workers evacuated
What They're Covering Up at Fukushima
By HIROSE TAKASHI
Introduced by Douglas Lummis - CounterPunch.org
Okinawa
Hirose Takashi has written a whole shelf full of books, mostly on the nuclear power industry and the military-industrial complex. Probably his best known book is Nuclear Power Plants for Tokyo in which he took the logic of the nuke promoters to its logical conclusion: if you are so sure that they're safe, why not build them in the center of the city, instead of hundreds of miles away where you lose half the electricity in the wires?
He did the TV interview that is partly translated below somewhat against his present impulses. I talked to him on the telephone today (March 22 , 2011) and he told me that while it made sense to oppose nuclear power back then, now that the disaster has begun he would just as soon remain silent, but the lies they are telling on the radio and TV are so gross that he cannot remain silent.
Jerusalem's fragile peace destroyed by suitcase bomb Woman killed and dozens injured in bus station blast that has damaged hopes for Middle East peace process
By Conal Urquhart and Phoebe Greenwood in Jerusalem - guardian.co.uk
A suitcase bomb exploded in one of the busiest parts of Jerusalem just before rush hour, destroying years of relative calm in the city and damaging hopes for a resumption of the Middle East peace process.
A 60-year-old woman was killed and dozens of people injured when the 1-2kg suitcase bomb detonated close to the main bus station and government ministries.
Most of the blast was absorbed by commuters waiting at a bus stop, leaving more than 20 wounded – at least three of them seriously. The blast also broke windows in two buses that were operating nearby.
Israel warns of 'aggressive' response to Jerusalem blast Tension high after first bomb explosion in six years in the holy city leaves one dead and dozens injured
By Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem and Ewen MacAskill in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has vowed to react "aggressively" after a suitcase bomb exploded in Jerusalem, killing a 60-year-old woman and injuring dozens of others.
The bombing, the first in the city for almost seven years, follows several days of rising tension along the Gaza border. The violence poses a serious threat to the prospects of reactivating peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Three people were seriously hurt and about three dozen suffered minor to moderate injuries in the attack.
Syrian regime launches crackdown by shooting 15 activists dead Some were killed when security forces opened fire on protesters surrounding the Omari mosque; others were shot at a funeral
By Katherine Marsh - The Guardian.co.uk
Violence escalated in the southern Syrian city of Deraa as protests entered a sixth day. At least 15 protesters are known to have been shot dead on Wednesday and scores more injured.
In a sign that the Syrian regime is using a brutal crackdown rather than concessions to quell protests, security forces opened fire on people in three separate incidents, according to human rights activists.
About the water; more precious than middle-east oil? Ancient Waters, Unique Landscapes
iaea.org - Nubian Aquifer Project
The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) is one of the largest and most important underground aquifers in the world. One reason is because it's the world's largest 'fossil' water aquifer system meaning that the water is ancient. Lying beneath the four African countries of Chad, Egypt, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Libya), and Sudan, it covers some two million square kilometres of land. The NSAS also has surprisingly rich landscapes and species such as barbary sheep, cheetah, and hook-billed blind snakes.
Under airstrikes and missiles, Gadhafi forces roll back;
rebels and NATO struggle to organize
By AP - WashingtonPost.com
BENGHAZI, Libya - NATO ships began patrolling off Libya’s coast Wednesday as airstrikes, missiles and energized rebels forced Moammar Gadhafi’s tanks to roll back from two key western cities, including one that was the hometown of army officers who tried to overthrow him in 1993.
Libya's opposition took haphazard steps to form a government in the east, as they and the U.S.-led force protecting them girded for prolonged and costly fighting. Despite disorganization among the rebels - and confusion over who would ultimately run the international operation - coalition airstrikes and missiles seemed to thwart Gadhafi’s efforts to rout his opponents, at least for now.
Gates says US could hand over control of Libya operation
as soon as Saturday
By AP - WashingtonPost.com
CAIRO - Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged Wednesday that there is no clear end to the international military enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya, and says no one was ever under any illusion that the assault would last just two or three weeks.
He added that the U.S. could turn over control of the operation as soon as Saturday, but could not say how the coalition operation might be resolved.
Nato to take control in Libya after US, UK and France reach agreement
By Nicholas Watt, Nick Hopkins and Ian Traynor in Brussels - The Guardian.co.uk
Britain, France and the US have agreed that Nato will take over the military command of the no-fly zone over Libya in a move that represents a setback for Nicolas Sarkozy, who had hoped to diminish the role of the alliance.
Barack Obama agreed in separate phone calls with Sarkozy and David Cameron that political oversight would be handed to a separate body made up of members of the coalition, including Arab countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are outside Nato.
Be Consistent - Invade Saudi Arabia
By Robert Scheer - Truthdig.com
It's the black gold that drives nations mad and inevitably raises the question of whether America and the former European colonial powers give a damn about human rights as the basis for military intervention. If Libya didn’t have more oil than any other nation in Africa, would the West be unleashing high-tech military mayhem to contain what is essentially a tribal-based civil war? Once again an American president summons the passions of a human rights crusade against a reprehensible ruler whose crimes, while considerable, are not significantly different from those of dictators the U.S. routinely protects.
No U.S. strategic interest in Libya
By Ted Nugent-The Washington Times
Africa isn’t called the Dark Continent for no reason. Africa has forever been a politi- cal nightmare full of overt corruption, tribal warfare, genocide, murderous regimes and brutal dictators.
There is no country in Africa that truly respects freedom or the rule of law. The majority of countries in Africa are in economic ruin because of political corruption and a history ugly with cruel despotism. That’s why starvation and disease are rampant. AIDS is projected to kill as much as half the populations of some countries. Genocide is a way of life. There is little light in Africa.
The evil Col. Moammar Gadhafi, the vicious dictator of Libya, is killing Libyans who want to string him up and replace him.
House speaker seeks clarification on mission’s goals from Obama
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
With some members of Congress already staging a minor rebellion against President Obama’s decision to attack Libya, House SpeakerJohn A. Boehner on Wednesday blasted the administration for "contradictory" statements and told the president to lay out concrete goals for U.S. action.
Some senior Senate Democrats tried to mount a defense of Mr. Obama’s efforts and said Congress is unlikely to tie the president's hands or end military action despite the growing discontent on Capitol Hill.
Libya conflict: Who's who in the international coalition
By Sam Sand - WashingtonPost.com
As the coalition military operation in Libya continues, the United States seems to be inching closer to taking a smaller role in the effort. The Post's Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung reported that the U.S. is close to "turning over command of the military operation in Libya, with key NATO countries tentatively agreeing that the alliance would take the leading role."
There are currently nine countries involved in the international effort to stop violence against civilians in Libya. The U.S. currently has 42 F-16s and other planes in the region, and France was the first country to launch air strikes in Libya last weekend. Here's a breakdown of who else is involved, with countries ranked by their level of involvement:
Portuguese President Prepares To Accept Jose Socrates' Resignation;
Government Collapse Imminent
By by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
From Market News: "Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva is prepared to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Socrates and is getting ready to call an election to choose a new government, Portuguese daily Jornal Publico reported on its website Wednesday evening.... The political instability that would ensue from a collapse of the government, combined with market tensions that have pushed Portuguese ten-year bond yields to a euro-era high above 8%, seem likely to increase the pressure on Lisbon to seek a financial aid package from the European Financial Stability Facility and the International Monetary fund." Look for Portuguese, Irish and all out toxic fallout (pardon the pun) to be bought with impunity by JC Trichet as the entire market goes bidless.
Fed's Court-Ordered Transparency Shows Americans
'Have a Right to Know'
By Bob Ivry and Craig Torres - Bloomberg.com
A Supreme Court order that forces unprecedented disclosures from the Federal Reserve ended a two- year legal battle that helped shape the public’s perceptions of the U.S. central bank.
The high court yesterday let stand a lower-court ruling compelling the Fed to reveal the names of banks that borrowed money at the so-called discount window during the credit crisis. The records were requested by Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. In July, Congress passed theDodd-Frank law, which mandated the release of other Fed bailout details.
Keiser Report: Mad Mob vs Midwest Mubaraks (E130)
Bull run in gold, silver to continue
LONDON (Commodity Online): The movements of gold and silver prices have remained unpredictable these days as investors go from one commodity to another in search of safe haven investment in the wake of the global crises like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami and the fighting in Libya.
According to a research report from FXCM, despite high volatility, gold and silver prices continue to be in a bullish phase.
Gold's Record Surge - A Rejection of Capitalism?
By: John Melloy - CNBC.com
The gold trade has been pretty clear-cut for the last 30 - even 1,000 - years. The yellow metal with a nice weight to it has been a store of value against inflation. But something changed 2½ years ago in the middle of the financial crisis.
From 1976 to November 2008, when the consumer price index went up, so did gold, according to analysis by Alan Newman, editor of the Corsscurrents newsletter. Since then, gold has gone up when the CPI has contracted (deflation) or expanded (inflation).
It begs the question, what does a purchase of gold represent?
For silver, selling pressure mark is $45
LONDON (Commodity Online): Silver can go a long way before it reaches a point where it meets selling pressure.
People began to trust precious metals such as silver and gold over governments in many emerging nations such as India and China, boosting prices.
Analysts also said that geo-political tensions, there is no shortage of it since 2011, and the subsequent global uncertainty can drive up the price of silver along with gold.
Some analysts set silver’s actual selling pressure point at $45 despite the fact that short sided moves in silver looks more volatile than in gold.
High commodity prices are here to stay
FLORIDA (Commodity Online): Investors need not look to Asia or other emerging markets for higher returns these days. Record price levels are being recorded daily in the commodity markets, and although most experts agree that current trends are unsustainable, the recent pullback in prices does not even qualify as a "correction" from most market perspectives. The simple fact is that there are not enough raw materials, whether hard or soft commodity by nature, to meet increasing global demand. Since major contract prices are tied to the value of the U.S. Dollar, a major portion of the recent run up can also be attributed to the weakening of our national currency.
Economic Indicators and Inflation Rise In Tandem
By Eric Fry - The DailyReckoning.com
03/22/11 Laguna Beach, California – Stocks soared and bond yields bounced yesterday. If we didn’t know better, we’d imagine that economic conditions were pretty darn good. But we do know better…
America’s economic recovery contains more cracks than Humpty Dumpty… after suffering his "great fall."
Somehow, all of Bernanke’s horses and men managed to slather enough monetary glue onto the fractured pieces of our economy to hold them all together. But the reconstructed economy does not look very much like the original one. Humpty Dumpty is now a Picasso.
The Dollar Has Reached A Point
Where Either Path Leads To A Stock Crash
By Charles Hugh Smith - BusinessInsider.com
The dollar has reached a point of double-bind for the Fed: push it down further or allow it to rise, it won't matter: either way, stocks will fall off a cliff.
I've got a funny feeling that all the ramp-and-camp, extend-and-pretend POMO games propping up stocks are about to stop working. That would of course trigger a long, deep slide in equities, because as we all know, it's the Federal Reserve's games which have goosed the market to its current lofty heights. The market's confidence in the Bernanke Put--that is, the belief that the Fed will never let stocks decline-- remains supremely undimmed.
A lot of very good technical analysts see sentiment reaching lows which usually mark market bottoms. I am not so sure about this interpretation, for the investors intelligence readings are still complacently bullish.
How to Pay Down the Federal Deficit: Sell America's Icons, Assets and Gold?
ByDOUGLAS MCINTYRE - DailyFinance.com
For most Americans, it is unimaginable that the U.S. could put its iconic properties on the market. But as the nation struggles to balance its balance sheet, should the federal government take a look at selling some of its most valuable assets?
It wouldn't be the first time that a large nation has pondered taking such drastic steps in recent years. Just two years ago, the Greeks and the British probably never would have thought that some of their famed assets would hit the auction block.
Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan
Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America
By Henry Blodget - BusinessInsider.com
A former official of one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to "destabilize" the country.
The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street's grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.
The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend.
Japan and the T-Bond: U.S. Treasury Implications
BY STEVE SAVILLE
The Japanese government is the third largest holder of US treasuries (behind the Chinese government and the US Federal Reserve). Should we therefore expect some downward pressure on T-Bonds stemming from the Japanese government's efforts to finance earthquake-related reconstruction? In other words, is the government of Japan likely to become a seller of T-Bonds in the near future due to its need to raise money for the re-building effort?
In a word: no. There are good reasons to be bearish on T-Bonds, but potential T-Bond liquidation by the government of Japan is definitely not one of them.
Unions at crossroads in states' budget wars Public employees are taking big hits
By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
Public employee unions, the last bastion of an American labor movement in decline, are facing the fight of their lives this year as strapped state and local governments seek to permanently downsize their pensions, pay, benefits and bargaining rights.
Powerful unions such as the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have been bruised in battles with Republican governors and legislators in Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana and other states that are grappling with record budget shortfalls and fighting to stave off insolvency.
Ohio's Governor Moves Against Unions The reform goes further than Wisconsin's.
By KARL ROVE - WSJ.com - $$
For weeks, the nation's attention has been drawn to the storm in Madison over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to limit the power of government unions. Yet 500 miles to the southeast, in Columbus, Ohio, Gov. John Kasich is on the verge of passing a more extensive reform.
Under the Ohio bill, government workers can only bargain for pay increases based on merit and performance, not years of service. Wisconsin's law allows workers to negotiate wage increases on seniority, but it limits increases to inflation. Anything more would require voter approval.
Ohio would limit bargaining on health insurance and reduce sick leave and holidays to what's allowed for nonunion government employees. Wisconsin has no similar provision.
*****
Forced Into Medicare
WSJ.com - $$
A federal judge tells seniors to take it or lose Social Security.
This week marks the first anniversary of ObamaCare, and if you are wondering where that coercive law is headed, we'd point to a case in federal court. That's where Judge Rosemary Collyer has ruled that Americans have a legal obligation to accept subpar government health benefits.
It remains a remarkable fact that America obliges most citizens over the age of 65 to take that rickety government health plan known as Medicare. Judging by today's growing number of health-savings options (HSAs, medical FSAs), some Americans would prefer to maintain private coverage upon retirement, rather than be compelled into second-rate Medicare. Yet the idea of patient choice offends many in government, and in 1993 the Clinton Administration promulgated so-called POMS rules that say seniors who withdraw from Medicare Part A (which covers hospital and outpatient services) must forfeit their Social Security benefits.
Money Trouble Ahead: 15 Indications That Bad Times Are About To Hit The U.S. Economy
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
2011 is shaping up to be a really bad year for the U.S. economy. There are all kinds of indications that big trouble is ahead. So far financial markets are weathering all of the chaos around the world fairly well, but just as there were huge flashing warning signs before the 2008 financial crisis there are also huge flashing warning signs now. The price of oil is soaring, the U.S. housing market is experiencing huge problems, the cost of living in America recently hit a new record high and each week the globe seems to become even more unstable. How much pounding can our fragile economic system take before it completely collapses? As the price of oil goes even higher, it is going to cause economic growth to slow down and it is going to cause the prices of the things that we all buy at the stores to go up at the same time. It is very likely that we are entering a period of "stagflation" similar to what we experienced in the 1970s. This is going to cause a huge amount of money trouble for millions of American families. Already there are vast numbers of American families that are barely making it every month. Tens of millions of Americans are already receiving government assistance. So what is going to happen when the next financial crash happens and we experience yet another major economic downturn?
New Mortgage Regulations Could Bruise Housing Market
ByCHARLES HUGH SMITH - DailyFinance.com
New regulations limiting mortgage brokers' compensation go into effect on April 1, and they might prove to be appropriate for an April Fools' Day. Though aimed at unscrupulous mortgage brokers, it seems the regulations will instead hit the nation's struggling housing market.
The Federal Reserve Board says that its regulatory goal is to "protect mortgage borrowers from unfair, abusive, or deceptive lending practicesthat can arise from loan originator compensation practices." The basic idea is to prevent loan officers from steering borrowers into riskier types of loans or a higher-than-average interest rate to make a higher commission.
Cleveland loses bid for damages in mortgage crisis Supreme Court tells Cleveland no to lawsuit
By Jim Scott and Sarah Buduson
CLEVELAND - The U.S. Supreme Court has said "no" to Cleveland's bid to hold banks and mortgage lenders responsible for extra expenses resulting from the mortgage crisis.
The city had sued 21 Wall Street firms involved in subprime lending and the foreclosure crisis in an attempt to hold the firms accountable for their practices. It was hoping to recoup some of the money spent to board up, maintain and demolish foreclosed homes that have been abandoned.
Underwriting mortgages to underwrite treasury
By Dr Jeffrey Lewis
In a little known program to which few have been paying attention, the US Treasury is attempting to unwind positions it inherited from a very expensive bailout of government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Treasury department has as much as $143 billion in securities to sell to investors, with the first sale starting at $10 billion in the month of March. These asset sales, though not for immediate digestion by the Federal Reserve, must be purchased with investment dollars from private investors. The Fed, after all, is still focused primarily on Treasury yields themselves and will remain steadfast in purchasing Treasuries before presumably beginning new talks about QE3.
Nearly one third say they are underwater on the mortgage
TheTruthAboutMortgage.com
A poll released today by Rasmussen Reports revealed that 31 percent of respondents said they were underwater on their mortgages, meaning they owed more than the homes were currently worth.
Since April 2009, this number has ranged from 28 percent to 36 percent, so the negative sentiment is below its peak.
Meanwhile, 53 percent of those polled said the the value of their home exceeds their current mortgage balance, up from 51 percent last month, which was the lowest reading since May 2009.
18 Reasons Why You Can Stick A Fork
In The New Home Construction Industry
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you make your living by building or selling new homes in the United States, you might want to consider taking up a different career for a while. New homes sales in the United States hit yet another new all-time record low in the month of February, and there are a whole lot of reasons why new home sales are going to stay extremely low for an extended period of time. The massive wave of foreclosures that we have seen has produced a giant glut of unsold homes in the marketplace, mortgage lenders are making it really hard to get approved for home loans, unemployment is still rampant and the global economy looks like it may soon plunge into another major recession. None of those things is good news for the new home construction industry. The truth is that we were supposed to have seen new home sales already bounce back by now. If you look at the historical numbers, new home sales in the U.S. always increased significantly after the end of every recession since World War 2. But that did not happen this time. Instead, new home sales have just continued to decline. This is absolutely unprecedented, and economists are puzzled. So what is going to happen if the U.S. economy suffers another major downturn?
New-Home Sales Plunge to Record Low
AP - DailyFinance.com
Buyers of new homes plunged in February to the fewest on records dating back nearly half a century, a dismal sign for an already-weak housing market.
New-home sales fell 16.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 homes, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It's the third straight monthly decline and far below the 700,000-a-year pace that economists view as healthy.
The median price of a new home dropped nearly 14 percent to $202,100, the lowest since December 2003. New home prices are now 30 percent higher than of those being resold.
LA Food Police Ban Burger Joints - Is Your City Next?
First Lady Michelle Obama hopes to curb childhood obesity by teaching children about nutrition and exercise. "There's no expert on this planet who says that the government telling people what to do actually does any good with this issue," she says.
But local government officials around the country have already adopted a more forceful tack, whether it's New York's salt assault, San Francisco's frown at Happy Meals or, most recently, South LA's all-outban on new fast-food restaurants.
LA Food Police Ban Burger Joints: Is Your City Next?
Halfway Home on the Health-Care Lawsuits
By Andrew Cohen - TheAtlantic.com
It's been exactly one year since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and what a year it has been for the Commerce Clause, the Tenth Amendment, and camelia-lovin' judges everywhere! The past 365 days have witnessed crowded trial court hearings, momentous federal rulings, timely notices of appeal, and absolutely no legal consensus whatsoever on whether the Act is constitutional.
Stable in the Sense of Hanging by Your Fingernails
By Ilargi - TheAutomaticEarth.com
Eminent US physicist Michio Kaku says that the Japanese government may call the situation at Fukushima stable, but that it would be "stable in the sense of hanging by your fingernails" (which I in turn would suggest is a perfectly apt description of our entire global economy and various societies). Kaku indicates that the only "solution" he sees for Fukushima is for the Japanese army to start dropping massive amounts of sand, boric acid and concrete on the Fukushima 1 reactors. Two of which are presently producing clouds of smoke, the origin of which is unknown to either TEPCO or Tokyo. In other words, "stable" is hardly the first term that comes to mind. And Japan may well be heeding Kaku's words; just not admitting to it yet. Thomas H. Maugh II writes for the Los Angeles Times: Smoke seen at Fukushima reactors
The company has also brought in a large construction device normally used to pump a cement mixture. Officials initially said they were going to use it to pump the cement mixture and water into the spent fuel pool of reactor No. 4, which is thought to have boiled dry, allowing damage to have been done to the fuel rods there. Officials later said, however, that they intended to use the device only to pump water into the pool.
Radiation detected in Tokyo’s tap water; smoke prompts new evacuation of leaking nuclear plant
AP - WashingtonPost.com
TOKYO - Radiation leaking from Japan’s tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant has caused Tokyo’s tap water to exceed safety standards for infants to drink, officials said Wednesday, sending anxiety levels soaring over the nation’s food and water supply.
Residents cleared store shelves of bottled water after Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said levels of radioactive iodine in tap water were more than twice what is considered safe for babies. Officials begged those in the city to buy only what they needed, saying hoarding could hurt the thousands of people without any water in areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Nuclear Apocalypse in Japan
Keith Harmon Snow - SilverBearCafe.com
The U.S. nuke industry is blaming Japanese experts, distancing itself from the monster it created. Instead of sending nuclear or health experts to assist the Japanese people in their time of desperate need, US President Barack Obama first sent teams of intelligence agents and FEMA trained military grunts with special security clearances. The Pentagon floated a naval strike force led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan off the coast of Japan: advertised as a 'humanitarian' operation, the strike force was repositioned after it was partially irradiated. Can we trust officials and the corporate news media to tell us what is happening in an honest, timely, transparent manner? Are there precedents to the nuclear crisis in Japan? What is the U.S. defense establishment really concerned with here?
Extremely high radiation found in soil
NHKWorld.or.jp
Japanese authorities have detected a concentration of a radioactive substance 1,600 times higher than normal in soil at a village, 40 kilometers away from the troubled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
The disaster task force in Fukushima composed of the central and local governments surveyed radioactive substances in soil about 5 centimeters below the surface at 6 locations around the plant from last Friday through Tuesday
Obama Embraces 'Transnational' Law The Senate never approved Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention.
By DOUGLAS J. FEITH - WSJ.com $$ (Google: 'title' for free access)
This month, President Barack Obama declared he has a "legal obligation" to treat wartime detainees according to provisions of a treaty that the United States has never ratified. The maneuver raises a basic question: Who makes law for Americans?
The standard answer, drawing on the Constitution, is Congress. One of American democracy's quaint conceits, after all, is that laws should be made by the people American voters have elected.
But that old-school answer doesn't satisfy those in the progressive "transnational legal norms" movement. Frustrated that elected officials often refuse to enact the measures they favor, these reformers aim to persuade judges that progressive ideas on war crimes, arms control, the death penalty and other matters should be accepted as rights. They encourage judges to ground these rights not in local statutes produced by legislators, but in treaties, laws and court decisions of other countries, in academic writing, and in customary international law.
One World Government Obama
By Ben Stein - The American Spectator.com
Maybe I missed something, but wasn't that The Constitution of the United States of America that we just laid to rest this weekend?
It was buried in a private ceremony by Mr. Barack Obama of Chicago as he silently signed America on to the One World Government some of us have been worried about for decades.
Look at it this way: Where did Mr. Obama get the authority to commit United States forces to war in Libya? There was no declaration of war. There was no authorizing resolution by Congress allowing money to be spent on a war against Col. Gaddafi. As far as I know, there was no meeting of Mr. Obama and top leaders of Congress to discuss the subject in even rough form, let alone detail. There was no lengthy buildup in which the Congress was "allowed" to express the people's opinion on whether we want to be in a third concurrent war.
Gold key to financing Gaddafi struggle
By Jack Farchy and Roula Khalaf in London
Financial Times via CNN.com
(FT) -- The international community has hit Muammer Gaddafi with a raft of sanctions and asset freezes aimed at cutting off his funding. But the embattled Libyan leader is sitting on a pot of gold.
The Libyan central bank -- which is under Colonel Gaddafi's control -- holds 143.8 tonnes of gold, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund, although some suspect the true amount could be several tonnes higher.
Those reserves, among the top 25 in the world, are worth more than $6.5bn at current prices, enough to pay a small army of mercenaries for months or even years.
Decision to attack Libya leaves some in Congress feeling shut out It's a new military campaign but an old question:
Does the president need congressional approval
when embarking on a military campaign?
By James Oliphant, Washington Bureau - LATimes.com
Reporting from Washington - President Obama's sudden and aggressive move to launch a military strike against Libya has some in Congress feeling frozen out of the picture, complaining that the administration has run an end-around past their authority to declare war.
"For the Pentagon to deliberately circumvent congressional authority sets a new precedent for war powers authorization and sends the message to the world that American democracy is deeply dysfunctional," Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) complained Monday.
Obama's Pledge to Scale Back U.S. Military Role in Libya Opens Leadership 'Vacuum'
FOXNews.com
President Obama's pledge to scale back the U.S. military's role in Libya has opened up a leadership vacuum on the world stage, as international partners squabble over who should take the reins once the opening round of missile strikes is over.
The president and his top military officials have been decidedly vague in talking about who will take over for Americans forces currently leading the air assault, though Obama said a transition will occur "in a matter of days."
Obama faces growing criticism for Libya campaign Some U.S. lawmakers complain that President Obama failed to consult Congress before launching military action. The Arab League and Russia also criticize the U.S.-led airstrikes.
By Paul Richter and Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington -President Obama is facing growing criticism at home and abroad over whether the military campaign in Libya is the wrong policy - or the right policy at the wrong time.
Obama, on a five-day tour of Latin America, defended his administration's muscular approach in Libya, saying it was "very easy to square our military actions and our stated policies."
The First Casualty of War
By Robert Stacy McCain - The American Spectator.com
Shortly after the first U.S. cruise missiles hit their targets Saturday, the collateral damage became apparent -- not in Libya, but on the home front, where liberal credibility was shattered by President Obama's sudden resort to military action against Moammar Gaddafi's regime. Those who had hailed Obama's ascent as the dawn of a new age of peace, an end to the alleged "cowboy" belligerence of the Bush years, exploded with a mixture of outrage, confusion and chagrin as their hero flung the country into war in North Africa.
None was more indignant than Michael Moore. The left-wing filmmaker had spent George W. Bush's presidency in frothing rage at Republicans whom he accused, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, of practicing "the politics of hate." That same year Moore released Fahrenheit 9/11, a dubious "documentary" which portrayed Bush as a secret ally of Osama bin Laden. And in April 2008, on the eve of the crucial Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, Moore publicly endorsed Obama because, he said, "the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting.
U.S. aviators rescued; Gadhafi remains defiant
By the CNN Wire Staff
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- As Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi crowed, "I do not scare," the United States Tuesday got back two crew members whose F-15E fighter jet malfunctioned and said it will be able to hand over command of the coalition that has hammered loyalist military positions over four days.
Meanwhile, fighting raged in Misrata, east of the capital, where a witness claimed Gadhafi has placed snipers on the tops of buildings.
France Could Extend Libya Operations Beyond Benghazi
Reuters.com
France could extend its military operations over Libya beyond the Benghazi area from Wednesday, a spokesman for the French armed forces said on Tuesday.
"We shall see what the missions do tomorrow, but it is something that is effectively possible," Colonel Thierry Burkhard told a news briefing.
France has concentrated its air strikes in the area around the rebel stronghold of Benghazi since it spearheaded the coalition military intervention in the country on Saturday.
International Turmoil How the physical gold market is likely to be affected
BY PETER GRANT - FinancialSense.com
How the physical gold market is likely to be affected
The first quarter of the new year has been a tumultuous one, marked by geopolitical unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, major natural disasters in New Zealand and most recently in Japan, and of course ongoing economic turmoil throughout much of the industrialized world. This has resulted in rather extreme market volatility, amid fits of risk aversion associated with broad-based uncertainty about the likely impact of recent events.
Gold and Guns | by Douglas E. French
Gold: $2011 in 2011
John Ing - SilverBearCafe.com
The signs of rebellion are plain to see. Student demonstrations are getting bigger. Tens of thousands of workers protest. Libya, Yemen or Bahrain? No, Wisconsin, where fourteen Democrats fled the state to avoid a quorum vote in a showdown that saw legislators pass a bill restricting labour's bargaining powers. Protestors are calling for boycotts as dozens of cash strapped states look for ways to balance their books, changing the dynamics between the public sector and governments. Nor is it a good period for dictators with the retirement of Mubarak, arrest of Baby Doc and embattled Qaddafi.
China eager to buy silver at over $30 per ounce
CommodityOnline.com
Central banks and sovereign wealth funds with massive exposure to the dollar, such as the Russians and Chinese, are not going to shout from the roof tops their intentions to diversify into gold and silver bullion as this would lead to a surge in bullion prices and an even greater depreciation of their dollar holdings.
China imported 245.6 metric tons of silver in February. The figure is close to the 260.6 metric tons imported in February 2010 and suggests that the Chinese are more than willing to buy silver at over $30 per ounce. It also suggests that the record Chinese imports of 3,475,394 kilos seen in 2010 (a massive four fold increase from 2009) may be again attained in 2011.
Economic Indicators and Inflation Rise In Tandem
By Eric Fry - The DailyReckoning.com
03/22/11 Laguna Beach, California – Stocks soared and bond yields bounced yesterday. If we didn’t know better, we’d imagine that economic conditions were pretty darn good. But we do know better…
America's economic recovery contains more cracks than Humpty Dumpty…after suffering his "great fall."
Somehow, all of Bernanke’s horses and men managed to slather enough monetary glue onto the fractured pieces of our economy to hold them all together. But the reconstructed economy does not look very much like the original one. Humpty Dumpty is now a Picasso.
Bill Bonner on the Failing US Bond Market,
the Coming Hyperinflation
and the End of the Dollar Reserve System
The Daily Bell - SilverBearCafe.com Daily Bell: Let's get an update from one of our favorite hard-money mavens. Where is the world today? Recovering? Bill Bonner: No, there is no recovery possible or desirable. That is, the world is not going back to the naive bubble of the '05 - '07 years. And no one should or would want it to. It's moving on - to a new bubble. The US consumer sector is de-leveraging. Household debt is at its lowest level in 6 years - thanks largely to mortgage defaults.
But at the same time, the feds are desperately trying to releverage the whole economy. They're having success in two areas. Business loans are still down from 2009, but they're moving up. Corporations are able to borrow money merely in order to make payouts to shareholders. In other words, capital is changing hands ... from the fools to the knaves. Typically, private equity hotshots are borrowing money at low rates so they can pay themselves off. The underlying business is weakened with debt; but nobody seems to care.
Jim Rogers The FED creates problems it does not solve them
(March 21, 2011)
Firms in Mitigation Mode as Oil Prices Jack Up Costs
By DANA MATTIOLI - WSJ.com
Volatile oil prices have forced many businesses to walk a fine line between passing along costs to customers and finding other ways to mitigate fuel's impact on earnings.
Oil prices took big swings last week as violence in Bahrain and a bloody government assault on rebel forces in Libya drew the market's attention back to the Middle East, and away from the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Oil’s Piracy Premium
By Frank Holmes - The DailyReckoning.com
03/22/11 San Antonio, Texas – Hollywood pirates such as Jack Sparrow and Blackbeard are glorified characters among uncivilized peers, stealing from the rich and acquiring bounties of gold. While the adventures of these 19th century caricatures are entertaining, their 21st century descendants are a growing threat to a shipping industry responsible for nearly 80 percent of the world’s trade.
Pirate attacks are on pace to set a nine-year record in 2011, according to data from the International Chamber of Commerce, which tracks global pirate attacks.
Angry Over Oil Price? Demand a Change in Fed Policy
By Charles Kadlec - The DailyReckoning.com
03/22/11 The price of oil has shot up over $100 a barrel, and the price of gasoline is headed to $4 a gallon.
True to form, the call has gone out to "round up all the usual suspects." Channeling the orders of Captain Renault of Casablanca, the Congress and the press go after speculators, "greedy" oil companies and Arab sheiks, profligate American consumers, and the ever-handy Chinese.
Why is the price of oil going up – driving up the cost of gasoline, heating oil and many other products you rely on every day?
The immediate cause is fear of disruptions in the supply of oil due to unrest in the Middle East. The scramble to secure oil supplies now and into the future has contributed to the sharp increase in the price of oil on both the spot market and for future delivery.
Inflation Expectations One of the Keys to Change in Fed Policy
BY ASHA BANGALORE - FinancialSense.com
One of the Keys to Change in Fed Policy
The Fed's forecast, published last month, has inflation reaching the threshold of concern only in 2012/2013 (see Table 1) based on the personal consumption expenditure price index and a little later if the core personal consumption expenditure price index, which excludes food and energy, is the preferred price measure. The recent upward trend of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), both the all items index and the core CPI has raised the level of concern. The CPI has moved up 2.1% in February from a year ago and the 3-month annualized increase stands at 5.6%. The core CPI has advanced 1.1% from a year ago and 3-month annualized gain is 1.8%. The March 15 policy statement of the Fed sees the recent higher energy and commodity prices as problematic but the Fed views these effects as "transitory" and it is following closely the "evolution of inflation and inflation expectations."
Federal Reserve doesn't know where trillions of dollars went.
Full SCAM!
Rich vs Poor: 14 Funny Statistics And 14 Not So Funny Statistic
About This "Economic Recovery"
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Today there are two very different Americas. In one America, the stock market is soaring, huge bonuses are taken for granted, the good times are rolling and people are spending money as if they will be able to "live the dream" for the rest of their lives. In the other America, the one where most of the rest of us live, unemployment is rampant, a million families were kicked out of their homes last year and hordes of American families are drowning in debt. The gap between the rich and the poor is bigger today than it ever has been before. In fact, this article is not so much about "rich vs poor" as it is about "the rich vs the rest of us". Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke keep touting an "economic recovery", but the truth is that the only ones that seem to be benefiting from this recovery are those at the very top of the economic food chain.
Housing and Unemployment Continue to Weigh on Recovery
By Mike Meyer - The DailyReckoning.com
03/22/11 St. Louis, Missouri – While it felt more like the first days of summer instead of spring, the action on our trade desk rose as quickly as the temperature outside. It seemed like the trade of the day was the sale of Japanese yen (JPY) into Singapore dollars (SGD), but it was a busy day all around as many of the commodity currencies and metals kept the phones ringing off the hook. There’s a lot to talk about, so I’ll jump right in.
The housing figures released yesterday definitely disappointed as the sales of previously owned homes in February fell more than originally estimated and sent prices to the lowest levels in nine years. Purchases of homes fell 9.6% on the month from January to an annual figure of 4.88 million as sales fell in all regions. The median price also fell 5.2% from $164,600 to $156,100 as a continuous influx of distressed properties keeps flooding the market.
Insolvency Looms as States Drain U.S. Disability Fund
By DAMIAN PALETTA - WSJ.com
CAGUAS, Puerto Rico - This mountainside town is home to a picturesque cathedral, a tobacco museum and a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Another defining feature: Caguas's 00725 zip code has more people who receive a disability check than any other in the U.S.
Puerto Rico has emerged in recent years as one of the easiest places in the U.S. to get payments from the Social Security Disability Insurance program, created during the Eisenhower administration to help people who can't work because of a health problem. In 2010, 63% of applicants there won approval, four percentage points higher than New Jersey and Wyoming, the most-generous U.S. states. In fact, nine of the top 10 U.S. zip codes for disabled workers receiving benefits can be found on Puerto Rico.
Drowning In Debt
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
An ancient proverb that is oft-repeated even in our time is that you will always end up reaping what you sow. Well, the U.S. government has been sowing seeds of debt for decades and our politicians have endlessly attempted to assure us that everything is going to be just fine. Well, everything is not going to be just fine. The truth is that the U.S. government is literally drowning in debt. Right now, the total debt of the U.S. government is $14,223,730,274,180.80. It is a debt that is so large that it defies comprehension. It is also a debt that is absolutely impossible to pay off under our current financial system. Someday the weight of this debt will completely collapse our entire economy. The only thing that is keeping that from happening already is our ability to borrow even more money.
Federal Reserve Banksters and Congress Exposed
On The Dylan Ratigan Show
UAW Head Uses Ford CEO's $50 Million Payday to Rally Union for Talks
ByDAVID SCHEPP - DailyFinance.com
Ford Motor's (F) recent decision to award its star CEO, Alan Mulally, more than $50 million in compensation for last year's record $6.6 billion profit caused more than a few eyebrows to be raised around Detroit.
Among those reacting unhappily to the pay package were members of the United Auto Workers. The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker sought and received millions of dollars in contract modifications from unionized workers in 2009 to help the company weather the financial crisis.
Wisconsin Union Battle Could Set Stage
for National 'Right-to-Work' Debate
By Judson Berger - FOXNews.com
The standoff in Wisconsin over the benefits and rights of public employees could for the first time in decades spur changes across the country over so-called "right-to-work" laws -- or laws that prohibit unions from forcing workers to join.
For years, the country has been split practically 50-50 between states that allow employees to decide whether to join a union and states that allow unions to require membership. Most southern and central Midwestern states are right-to-work states, while the West Coast, New England and the northern Midwest comprise what critics call "forced-unionism" states.
Maria Bartiromo interviews Meredith Whitney
By Maria Bartiromo, USA TODAY
Meredith Whitney seems to be softening her concerns about a looming muni meltdown as politicians across the country address fiscal challenges more aggressively. Whitney, who now heads her own investment advisory firm, earned a following throughout Wall Street and the world during the financial crisis with her early and accurate calls about the shaky state of the banking industry. It’s no surprise, then, that her later predictions of defaults for states and municipalities fanned widespread concern about the health of the market for debt that governments use to fund their needs. Today she says defaults from local municipalities are still likely and home prices are poised to drop another 10%. But she says a new area of strength is emerging in one part of the country where debt was not an issue: the agricultural belt. Below is my interview with her, edited for clarity and length.
Fed makes record $79.3B payment to U.S. Treasury
By Martin Crutsinger, AP - USAToday.com
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve is paying a record $79.3 billion to U.S. Treasury after the central bank earned a record amount of money last year from programs aimed at boosting the economy.
The Fed says its payment to the Treasury Departmentfor 2010 is 67% higher than the $47.4 billion it paid in 2009, the previous record.
The central bank earned a record $81.7 billion last year from its massive holdings of securities, which were purchased to help stabilize the financial system and pull the economy out of the recession.
END FED: Judge Nap on Bernanke's Printing Press
Causing Riots in Tunisia and Cairo; Inflation
Judge suspends Calif.'s 'cap-and-trade' program
Associated Press - LATimes.com
A judge has temporarily halted the nation's most ambitious program to give power plants, utilities and other polluters financial incentives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled Friday that state air quality regulators failed to properly consider alternatives to their so-called cap-and-trade program, a key piece of California's landmark global warming law, AB 32.
Detroit suffers 25% loss, population lowest in 100 years
By John Wisely and Todd Spangler, USA TODAY
Detroit's population plunged 25% in the past decade to 713,777, the lowest count since 1910, four years before Henry Ford offered $5 a day to autoworkers, sparking a boom that quadrupled Detroit's size in the first half of the 20th Century.
2010 Census figures released Tuesday show the city lost, on average, one resident every 22 minutes between 2000 and 2010.
GOP Raises Fines in Indiana Battle
By KRIS MAHER And DOUGLAS BELKIN - WSJ.com
Indiana House Republicans on Monday ratcheted up pressure on Democratic counterparts who left the state last month, increasing fines on absent lawmakers and moving forward with bipartisan hearings in the Senate on the state's budget bill.
Democrats, holding one of the longest walkouts by a state legislature in U.S. history, left for Illinois on Feb. 22 to protest about a dozen Republican-backed bills. The legislation would eventually cut the pay and jobs of unionized teachers and construction workers, Democrats allege. One right-to-work measure would allow private-sector workers across the state to opt out of unions.
Judge Napolitano explains the origin of our rights
as Americans and human beings
A Very Bad Year And it'll only get worse,
unless ObamaCare is repealed or struck down.
By PETE DU PONT - WSJ.com
A year ago today President Obama signed into law the broadest, most expensive, most intrusive health-care bill in our history.
So we the people are subject to a 2,700-page law that will cost us nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and will put the federal government, in charge of everyone's medical care. The bill appropriates in advance some $100 billion from now until 2020, making it more difficult for future Congresses or Presidents to defund it. The bill creates some 159 new government agencies to administer health care. As of Jan. 1, 2014, unless it is repealed, health care will be run, controlled, and totally supervised by Washington.
ObamaCare’s Unequal Subsidies
Peter Suderman - Reason.com
ObamaCare’s middle class insurance subsidies are one of the law’s most popular features for obvious reasons. But the existence of the subsidies sets up a serious potential problem: What happens politicallywhen it’s discovered that between two families making roughly the same amount of money, only one has access to a subsidy?
Starting in 2014, that’s a distinct possibility under the new system: A family whose employer offers health coverage will get no subsidy. A family whose employer does not offer health coverage as part of their compensation package gets access to a subsidy worth several thousand dollars (the exact amount depends on the family’s exact income level, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates the average benefit per subsidized enrollee will be between $5,200-$6,000).
ObamaCare and Carey's Heart My daughter probably wouldn't have survived in a system where bureaucrats stifle innovation and ration care.
By RON JOHNSON
Today is the first anniversary of the greatest single assault on our freedom in my lifetime: the signing of ObamaCare. As we consider what this law may do to our country, I can't help but reflect on a medical miracle made possible by the American health-care system. It's one that holds special meaning for me.
Some years ago, a little girl was born with a serious heart defect: Her aorta and pulmonary artery were reversed. Without immediate intervention, she would not have survived.
U.S. Plans to Lease Wyoming Coal Lands
By RYAN TRACY And MATT WHITTAKER
The U.S. Interior Department said Tuesday it would open up to mining land in Wyoming estimated to contain 758 million tons of low sulfur coal, in a move praised by the coal industry and condemned by environmental groups.
The Obama administration is under pressure from Republicans and coal state Democrats because of what they say are policies hostile to the use of coal in power generation, including recently proposed Environmental Protection Agency curbs on mercury emissions from power plants, and an EPA move to block a large coal-mining project in Appalachia.
Oil Washing Up on Shores Came From Gulf
By RYAN DEZEMBER And JEFFREY BALL - WSJ.com
MORGAN CITY, La. - The oil that has washed onto nearby beaches in recent days is Louisiana sweet crude, which rules out refineries or tankers carrying foreign oil as culprits but leaves the spill's precise origins very much a mystery, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
"This is definitely crude from the Gulf of Mexico," said Capt. Jonathan Burton, who is based here and heads the U.S. Coast Guard's response to the spill.
Reactor damage worse than thought Power restored to Japanese reactor's control room
By the CNN Wire Staff
Tokyo (CNN) -- Technicians restored power to the control room of the No. 3 reactor at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the station's owner reported late Tuesday.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said it confirmed that the power was on by turning on the control room's lights. The next step, the company said, is to get air conditioning in the room so workers can enter and work there.
The No. 3 reactor has been a priority for authorities trying to contain damage to the plant and stave off a possible meltdown. Its fuel includes a small percentage of plutonium mixed with the uranium in its fuel rods, which experts say could cause more harm than regular uranium fuels in the event of a meltdown.
Power lines reconnected to Japan's quake-damaged nuclear plant Lights are turned on in the control room of reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima complex, but officials warn that equipment must be checked before the restored electricity can be used to operate cooling systems at the plant. Meanwhile, the death toll from the quake and tsunami rises to nearly 10,000, with more than 13,000 still missing.
By Don Lee, Victoria Kim and John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Tokyo, Los Angeles and Senmaya - Power cables have been reconnected to all six reactors in Japan's quake-crippled nuclear complex, the plant's operator said Tuesday, in what was hailed as possible turning point in the struggle to bring dangerous overheating under control and avert a large-scale release of radiation.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco, tempered that news with warnings that various pieces of equipment must be checked before the restored electricity can be used to operate cooling systems at the plant 150 miles north of Tokyo.
The 1st Great War of 21st Century Has Begun!
By Gerald Celente - The DailyReckoning.com
03/21/11 Kingston, New York – It is a bad science fiction movie written by mad political scientists.
Exactly eight years to the day that President George W. Bush took America and his "Coalition of the Willing" to war with Iraq, President Barack Obama has taken America and his "Broad Coalition" to war with Libya.
And just as the world was sold a "coalition of the willing" that was predominantly a fleeting alliance of the cajoled and the arm-twisted, the putatively "broad" Obama coalition consists primarily of America's two cronies-in-war, the UK and France.
Only in a mad political science fiction movie could a President engaged in perpetuating two unjust, immoral, interminable and expensive wars begun by his predecessor, take his nation into yet another unjust, immoral, expensive and, in all likelihood, interminable war ... and expect a happy ending!
OBAMA’S LIBYA WAR FLUNKS POWELL DOCTRINE TEST
By Dick Morris
General Colin Powell’s enduring contribution to American foreign policy is the Powell Doctrine, defining when and how American military power should be used. The Doctrine has three main precepts: Avoid mission creep, clearly define our goals, and plan an exit strategy before you go in. Obama’s Libya intervention flunks on all three counts.
Avoid mission creep? It’s too late. The mission has already crept. It was sold to us as a no-fly zone, designed to stop Gadaffi’s air force from pounding rebel positions, evening the odds in the conflict. Of course, there would be a need to neutralize Gadaffi’s air defenses to protect our planes as they patrolled the skies. But already it is clear that we are bombing everything in sight, crippling Gadaffi’s armor, forcing his withdrawal from key cities, and crippling his command and control structure. It is not a no-fly zone. It is full aerial warfare.
Arab Regimes Under Siege Generals Revolt in Yemen
By MARGARET COKER - WSJ.com
A contingent of Yemen's key military commanders defected to the political opposition Monday, the most significant challenge yet to the ability of the country's president, a U.S. ally against al Qaeda, to hold on to power.
The development followed a bloody weekend crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that left dozens dead, as other countries in the region tipped toward instability. In Syria, residents of a town south of the capital demonstrated against the government for a fourth straight day, undeterred by protester deaths and the authoritarian regime's threats of crackdown.
Gaza Strip: Israel launches air strikes
BBC.co.uk
At least 17 people have been injured by a series of Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics say.
There were reports of up to nine explosions in Gaza City, and in the north and south of the territory.
Witnesses say militant training camps operated by Hamas were targeted, as well as a workshop and cement factory.
On Saturday, Palestinian militants fired dozens of mortars into southern Israel in what was reportedly their heaviest such barrage in two years.
Israeli air strikes wound 19 in Gaza Seven Palestinian children among those hurt in raids retaliating against Hamas rocket attacks
By Ben Quinn and agencies - guardian.co.uk
At least 19 Palestinians were said to have been wounded in the Gaza strip as a result of air strikes launched by Israel on Monday after militants launched mortars and rockets into Israeli territory.
Among the wounded were seven children, two women and four militants, according to officials from Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.
Hamas has stepped up rocket fire at Israel after a lengthy hiatus since the war of two years ago, claiming responsibility for the firing of more than two dozen mortars and rockets at the weekend.
U.S. Reacts to Fear of Iran's Rising Clout White House Eyes Islamist State While Strategizing in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria; But Its Approach Could Backfire
By By JAY SOLOMON - WSJ.com $$
(copy & paste headline into Google or Bing & follow link for free access to any paid article - on WSJ.com, FT.com, and NYTimes.com)
WASHINGTON - White House concerns that Iran's hand is being strengthened by recent events in the Middle East is central to its response to the turmoil, say U.S., European, and Arab officials.
President Barack Obama's decision last week to use military force against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces was made in part by his administration's fear that Western inaction could further embolden Tehran, these officials say.
Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Iran's Shiite government are locked in a battle for regional influence.
Gadhafi Supporters Rally Amid Rubble At Tripoli Base
by DAVID GREENE - npr.com
With U.S. and allied forces using missiles and bombs to strike at the heart of Moammar Gadhafi's military defenses, the Libyan leader finds himself standing alone against the world once more. But in Libya's capital, where part of Gadhafi's compound was hit Sunday, his supporters celebrated his continued defiance.
From a roof in Tripoli on Sunday night, we saw a plume of smoke rise near Bab Al Azizia, the sprawling military base where Gadhafi has a home. A couple of hours later, the government opened the doors of the compound and invited foreign journalists in.
Medvedev, Putin clash over Libya in rare moment of public discord
IBTimes.com
The crisis in Libya has led to the revelation of a rare public disagreement between the two most powerful political leaders in Russia, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
The president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev criticized his boss, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, for comparing the air strikes by Western militaries on Libya to a "medieval crusade."
Medvedev lambasted the comment as "unacceptable," in the most public clash yet between the two Russian leaders,
Specifically, after the UN Security Council passed a resolution to establish a no-fly zone over Libya, Putin said the measures were "deficient and flawed" and "reminiscent of a medieval call for a crusade."
Medveded calls to stop Libya conflict
started by 'shameful' govt actions
West in "mediaeval crusade" on Gaddafi, Putin says
By Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy - Reuters.com
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday a U.N. resolution authorising military action in Libya resembled "mediaeval calls for crusades" after Western forces launched a second wave of air strikes.
As diplomatic tempers over the campaign flared, officials in Tripoli said a missile intended to kill Muammar Gaddafi had destroyed a building in his fortified compound, which was heavily bombed in 1986 by the Reagan administration.
"It was a barbaric bombing," said government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, showing pieces of shrapnel that he said came from the missile. "This contradicts American and Western (statements) ... that it is not their target to attack this place."
Drones' Suicidal Cousins Lead Libya Attack
By Noah Shachtman - Wired.com
When the U.S. military wanted to take out Moammar Gadhafi’s air defense systems, it unleashed a barrage of 122 Tomahawk cruise missiles. But these munitions aren’t like most others in the American arsenal.
Smart, maneuverable, able to see its surroundings and shift to new targets in mid-flight, the newest Tomahawks are closer to the unmanned planes flying over Afghanistan than to the weapons they fire. In some ways, the Tomahawk is the drone’s suicidal cousin: a robotic aircraft, packed with explosives, that has no intention of ever coming home.
Libyan operation hampered by confusion and dispute Lack of resolution over who will take control of military operation tests patience of US
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Nick Hopkins - guardian.co.uk
The US has showed signs of exasperation with its European partners amid confusion over who will take control of the Libyan operation from America.
President Barack Obama and his senior commanders are eager to hand over command to Europe in a matter of days, either to a Nato-led command or some Nato-style operation headed by France or Britain.
Gulf Arab States Defend Military Action in Libya
By NOUR MALAS - WSJ.com
ABU DHABI - The organization that represents the conservative Arab Gulf states Monday defended military action in Libya by the U.S. and its allies, saying it doesn't constitute "intervention."
"What is happening now is not intervention, it is protecting the people from bloodshed," said Abdel Rahman bin Hamad Al Attiyah, the secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. "These operations are to stop bloodshed in Libya," Mr. Al Attiyah added.
US in Operation Odyssey Dawn:
Iraq mistakes repeated in Libya?
US 'to tone down role in Libya'
BBC.co.uk
President Barack Obama has said the US will transfer its leading role on Libya "within days" to ensure the burden of enforcing a UN resolution against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is shared.
He said Nato would play a co-ordinating role but differences remain within the organisation, with France and Turkey opposed to Nato taking the lead.
The UN resolution was passed to protect civilians from Col Gaddafi's forces.
Fighting continues, with anti-aircraft fire heard in Tripoli late on Monday.
It followed large explosions, which some reports said had come from the direction of a Gaddafi compound that was hit the previous night. Libyan television reported "several new attacks".
The Cost of Striking Libya
By Megan Scully - TheAtlantic.com
With U.S. and coalition forces bombarding Libya leader Muammer al-Qaddafi's forces from the sea and air, the cost for the first day alone of the operation was well over $100 million with the total price tag expected to grow much higher the longer the strikes continue, analysts said.
Operation Odyssey Dawn appears to be focused on creating a limited no-fly zone mostly targeting Tripoli and other areas along the coast, which will require a wide range of military assets.
Squatters Take Over Qaddafi Mansion for 'Libyan People'
By Chris Spillane - Bloomberg.com
Abdulla Naas climbs out of the window of the 10 million-pound ($16 million) London house he's lived in for almost two weeks because he's never had the keys. Naas has a message for Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator's son that he and the police say is the owner.
"We want to return this house and other assets to the Libyan people," said Naas, a 22-year-old Libyan from the opposition stronghold of Benghazi. "They are the true owners. As soon as all the properties are returned to the Libyan people, I'm out of here."
Ron Paul: Libya and Unintended Consequences
Allies Press Libya Attacks Airstrikes Boost Rebel Forces
U.S. Lauds Efforts, but Some Partners Show Unease
By SAM DAGHER in Tripoli, YAROSLAV TROFIMOV in Benghazi, Libya, and NATHAN HODGE in Washington
The U.S. and its allies intensified air attacks against forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi on Sunday, keeping anti-Gadhafi rebels from being immediately overrun and bringing a reprieve to the increasingly desperate pro-democracy uprising.
Allied jets and missiles pounded Libyan military targets over the weekend, including one of Col. Gadhafi's armored columns seen charred on the road to Benghazi, the rebels' de facto capital. Rebels emboldened by the international support renewed fighting in Ajdabiya, a strategic city they had lost last week, witnesses said.
Libya, a Seventh-Tier Problem for America
By Jeffrey Goldberg -TheAtlantic.com
One of the things you notice in Washington is that even our government's most talented servants, like most of their fellow humans, have little ability to focus on more than one or two pressing issues at any given moment. Yes, they can speak on eight or ten issues at once, but granting sustained, deep attention to a hard problem is different than juggling questions at a press conference. I mention this because while Libya is a first-tier humanitarian problem, it is, at most, a seventh-tier national security challenge for the U.S. Here is a quick, back-of-the-envelope list of areas across the greater Middle East that demand more American attention than Libya:
Italy demands Europe share burden of N.Africa exodus
By James Mackenzie
ROME (Reuters) - Italy urged its European partners on Monday to take a greater share of the immigrants pouring across from North Africa as hundreds more people arrived in boats in the southern island of Lampedusa.
"We ask all the countries of the European Union to take their fair share of the burden," Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told a news conference after a cabinet meeting on Libya.
He said nearly 15,000 immigrants, most of them Tunisians, had entered Italy illegally since January 1 with numbers surging as the turmoil in North Africa swept away the barriers which regional governments kept in place previously to hold them back.
Ron Paul Grills Hillary Clinton on Middle East Meddling
March 1, 2011
The War in Libya and the Deficit at Home
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
The suggestion that wars are bad for the deficit sounds unfeeling. The benefits of liberal democracies in Africa and the Middle East cannot be captured in deficits and bond yields. But still, it cannot be said enough: Wars cost real money, too.
Unlike human liberty, dollars in an austere country are zero sum. A dollar we spend on a bomb in Tripoli is a dollar that didn't go to food stamps, or highway reconstruction, or tax credits to the middle class. The Tomahawk missiles falling on Libya, for example, cost about $700,000 each. The United States fired 110 of those missiles on Saturday, totaling $81 million. "That's about 33 times the amount of money National Public Radio receives in grants each year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the House of Representatives also wants to de-fund in the name of austerity measures," Abu Muqawama writes. The initial stages of the war could cost the U.S. between $400 million and $800 million, according to theCenter for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. That's almost half the controversial cuts to heating subsidies for low-income families.
Secret Iran Gold Holdings Leaked: Tehran Holds Same Amount Of Gold As United Kingdom,
And Is Buying More
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
While it will not come as a major surprise to most, according to senior BOE individuals and Wikileaks, Iran, as well as Qatar and Jordan have been actively purchasing gold well over the amount reported to and by the IMF, in an accelerated attempt to diversify their holdings away from the US dollar. "Iran has bought large amounts of gold in the international market, according to a senior Bank of England official, in a sign of how growing political pressure has driven Tehran to reduce its exposure to the US dollar. Andrew Bailey, head of banking at the Bank of England, told an American official that the central bank had observed "significant moves by Iran to purchase gold", according to a US diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks and seen by the Financial Times." The reason for Tehran's scramble into gold: "an attempt by Iran to protect its reserves from risk of seizure". The misrepresentation of Iran's holdings could be so vast that Iran could possibly be one of the largest holders of gold in the world. "Market observers believe Tehran has been one of the biggest buyers of bullion over the past decade after China, Russia and India, and is among the 20 largest holders of gold reserves... with an alleged 300 tons, big enough to challenge the UK at 310 tons, and more than Spain!"
Ron Paul: "We're going to march right off the cliff"
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LOGIC: BERNANKE IS A DOMESTIC TERRORIST
by SIMON BLACK - SovereignMan.com
The United States Department of Justice delivered a very clear and unfortunate message on Friday:
"Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism. While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country."
These remarks were released by the US Attorney’s office in the western district of North Carolina following the conviction of one Bernard von NotHaus, the creator of the ill-fated Liberty Dollar.
Pimco Buying Emerging Market 'Rising Stars' as Inflation Looms
By Shannon D. Harrington - Bloomberg.com
Pacific Investment Management Co. says investors should buy company debt in Russia, Brazil and other emerging markets where rising wages and relatively low public and private debt will help borrowers weather accelerating inflation.
The manager of the world's biggest bond fund is buying debt of "rising stars" linked to nations with expanding wealth because they will more easily be able to pass on higher materials costs, Mark Kiesel, Pimco's global head of corporate bond portfolio management, wrote in a report today on the firm's website. At the same time, he's avoiding companies dependent on growth in Europe, the U.S. and Japan that will struggle amid stagnant wages and debt-laden governments and consumers.
Marc Faber and Peter Schiff - We are in a Bond Bubble
Worldwide Inflation Is Hitting Home
By Jeff Harding - The DailyCapitalist.com
Whichever way you look at it, price inflation is climbing:
.... One need only look to the Fed’s efforts at quantitative easing to see that they have injected massive amounts of money into the economy by purchases of US Treasury debt and paper issued by GSE’s such as Fannie, Freddie, plus various privately issued mortgage backed securities. This has shown up in all indices of money supply measurement (M1, M2, and True (Austrian) Money Supply). For example this chart measures the CPI against the implementation of QE1 and QE2 (ongoing):
No Hope for a Consumer-Driven Economic Recovery
By Bill Bonner - dailyreckoning.com
03/21/11 Baltimore, Maryland – The Great Correction intensifies…
The Dow rose on Friday. The dollar fell. Gold is back over $1,400. And the euro – the world’s most despised currency – is back over $1.40.
A chart circulates, supposedly proving that GDP is now back to where it was in ’07, after falling only 4% in the downturn.
We don’t believe it; they’ve juked and jived the figures.
None of the key components of US GDP have recovered. Housing starts, for example, are running at a million less than they were before the crisis began. Employment is back to the levels it was at 10 years ago – with 7 million fewer jobs than in 2007! Retail sales are going up – but they are still not at the level they were in ’06 or ’07.
Invest in commodities to bypass monetary uncertainty
By Lioyd Moretto - CommodityOnline.com
With the national economy still in recovery mode, lots of investors who learned their lessons the hard way are now trying to knock monetary uncertainty by coming back to commodity investments, a traditional source of stability.
Investments in gold bullion, silver bars, coins, and important mining metals help ease widespread fears about unsteady markets, the specter of a double-dip recession, and inflationary practices by in-the-red governments. Investing in precious metals quickly appears as an effortless, proven, and secure path to financial security for three basic reasons:
Gold rallies on UN military action in Libya,
higher crude oil, weak US Dollar
By Jim Wyckoff - CommodityOnline.com
(Kitco News) - Comex gold futures prices are trading solidly higher Monday morning, on safe-haven demand following the heavy United Nations air and missile assault on Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhaffi's military. Crude oil prices have also rallied on the U.N. action, which is also bullish for the precious metals markets.
Meantime, the U.S. dollar index remains in a slump, further benefiting gold and silver prices. Comex April gold last traded up $14.40 an ounce at $1,430.50. Spot gold last traded up $10.50 at $1,430.75.
Treasury to Sell Mortgage-Backed Holdings
at Up to $10 Billion Per Month
By Rebecca Christie, Vincent Del Giudice and Jody Shenn - Bloomberg.com
The U.S. Treasury Department plans to wind down its $142 billion portfolio of mortgage bonds guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by selling as much as $10 billion per month.
Sales will start this month and be subject to market conditions, the department said today in a statement. When combined with principal repayments currently ranging between $3 billion and $5 billion a month, the sales may eliminate the portfolio in about one year, the Treasury said.
Freddie Mac Launches YouTube Channel on Foreclosure Myths
NationalMortgageProfessional.com
Freddie Mac has announced the launch of its own YouTube Channel featuring a series of 90- to 120-sec. videos that separate the facts from the fiction regarding foreclosure in the housing marketplace. It is based on content from the Freddie Mac Get the Facts on Homeownership education and outreach materials.
"Individuals are worried about scams and fraud, and don't know who to safely turn to for help," said Dwight Robinson, Freddie Mac senior vice president of corporate relations and housing outreach. "The videos provide information and resources that just might keep individuals from losing their home. This is another way we are trying to make a difference in communities across the nation."
The Freddie Mac YouTube Channel covers the following misconceptions about foreclosure:
Myth #1: Get the Facts on Foreclosure
Wisconsin Judge Blocks Union Law
By Nathan Koppel - WSJ.com
It's hard to recall a recent time when judges have locked horns with legislators on so many hot button issues: health care, gay marriage, and now unions.
A Wisconsin state judge today blocked the controversial recent law that limits the collective bargaining power of government employees. (Here's an AP report and one from WSJ.)
A Democratic district attorney in Wisconsin filed suit challenging the new law on the grounds that Republican legislators violated the state's open meeting laws when they moved the new law through committee last week.
America's breadbasket aquifer running dry;
massive agriculture collapse inevitable
Mike Adams - Natural News
It's the largest underground freshwater supply in the world, stretching from South Dakota all the way to Texas. It's underneath most of Nebraska's farmlands, and it provides crucial water resources for farming in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and even New Mexico. It's called the Ogallala Aquifer, and it is being pumped dry.
See the map of this aquifer HERE:
Without the Ogallala Aquifer, America's heartland food production collapses. No water means no irrigation for the corn, wheat, alfalfa and other crops grown across these states to feed people and animals. And each year, the Ogallala Aquifer drops another few inches as it is literally being sucked dry by the tens of thousands of agricultural wells that tap into it across the heartland of America.
Franklin Graham: World's Christians in Grave Danger
By Chris Gonsalves and Kathleen Walter - NewsMax.com
The Muslim Brotherhood, with the complicity of the Obama administration, has infiltrated the U.S. government at the highest levels and is influencing American policy that leaves the world's Christians in grave danger, warns internationally known evangelist Franklin Graham
"The Muslim Brotherhood is very strong and active here in our country," Graham tells Newsmax. "We have these people advising our military and State Department. We've brought in Muslims to tell us how to make policy toward Muslim countries.
"It's like a farmer asking a fox, 'How do I protect my hen house?'"
U.S. Coast Guard Investigating Oil Slick Reports in Gulf
By RYAN DEZEMBER - WSJ.com
HOUSTON -- The U.S. Coast Guard said late Saturday that it is investigating reports of a miles-long oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Coast Guard said in a news release that it received a report of a three-mile-long rainbow sheen off the Louisiana coast just before 9:30 a.m. local time on Saturday. Two subsequent sightings were relayed to the Coast Guard, the last of which reported a sheen that extended from about 6 miles south of Grand Isle, La. to 100 miles offshore.
Though the Coast Guard was able to confirm that there is a substance on the water's surface, it has not yet been able to determine if it is oil. Petty Officer Casey Ranel said that those that observed the sheen from a helicopter said they saw no sheen associated with the substance. That flight was diverted from the scene on a separate search and rescue mission, however, and could not continue their investigation, the Coast Guard said in the news release.
New Oil Spill in Gulf ... 100-Mile Slick
by George Washington
A new 100-mile slick has been spotted in the Gulf, only 30 miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon
The Coast Guard says that it is probably "silt" instead of oil. While definitive chemical tests have not yet been conducted, and so silt can't be ruled out, many witnesses said that the substance had an oily smell.
T-Mobile's Memo to Staff on the AT&T Deal
Philipp Humm, CEO & President, T-Mobile USA - IBTimes.com
Dear colleagues,
I write to you over the weekend with important news. Today we announced the beginning of a new journey for T-Mobile USA. AT&T and Deutsche Telekom have reached an agreement for AT&T to acquire T-Mobile USA, positioning the combined company to create a world-class platform for mobile broadband innovation and growth. Deutsche Telekom will become the largest shareholder of AT&T.
The sale of T-Mobile USA to AT&T is the best possible solution for our business and for our customers. The merger will ensure the deployment of a robust 4G network to 95% of the U.S. population, something neither company could achieve on its own. Also, because of our compatible networks and spectrum, the customers of T-Mobile USA and AT&T will experience improved voice and data service almost immediately after the networks are integrated.
The Truth Behind AT&T's Claims Fact-checking AT&T's merger claims
By David Goldman
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- If you're skeptical about AT&T's claims that itspurchase of T-Mobile will benefit consumers, you're not alone.
Analysts at an AT&T presentation on Monday asked pointed questions about exactly how the company plans to integrate T-Mobile in a way that keeps the wireless industry competitive.
The answers from AT&T executives were simple and clear-cut: There is "vibrant and increasing" competition in the industry, and wireless prices tend to fall when the field consolidates.
Paperback rider: The technology that enables a computer
to print off a full-working bicycle
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER - UK DailyMail.com
This bicycle is the first in the world to be created simply by printing it out on a computer, using groundbreaking new technology.
The fully-working cycle, which is made of nylon, is the result of an extraordinary project and is as strong as steel and aluminium but weighs 65 per cent less.
Scientists in Bristol designed the bike on a computer and sent it to a printer, which placed layers of melted nylon powder on top of each other to build-up the machine.
Individual components such as gears, pedals and wheels are usually made in different factories and assembled into a finished bike but the Airbike is a single, complete part.
The wheels, bearings and axle are incorporated into the 'growing' process, known as Additive Layer Manufacturing.
The Airbike can be built to the rider's own specification so requires no adjustment. It also requires no conventional maintenance or assembly.
Japanese fury at sensationalist foreign reporting of earthquake
IBTimes.com
Some Japanese are outraged by the alarmist tone and sensationalistic reporting of the earthquake-tsunami tragedy by foreign media. Some media sources have just plain printed factual errors.
This kind of fear-mongering adds to the international panic about the potential for radiation leaking into the atmosphere from the quake-stricken Fukushima nuclear complex in northeastern Japan.
For example, Fox News in the United States warned that if another severe earthquake were to hit the Tokyo area, residents should flee in the event of a meltdown at the "Shibuya Eggman nuclear reactor" – Shibuya Eggman is actually a concert hall in Tokyo.
U.S. military considering mandatory evacuations in Yokosuka
By Chris Lawrence
Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. military is considering the mandatory evacuation of thousands of American troops and their families in Japan out of concern over rising radiation levels, a senior defense official tells CNN.
The official, who did not want to be on the record talking about ongoing deliberations, says there are no discussions to evacuate all U.S. troops across the country. The talks have focused exclusively on U.S. troops in Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo, the official said. Yokosuka is home to America's largest naval base in Japan. The military is monitoring radiation levels on a constant basis.
Fukushima Nuke Safety Violations To Save Money Special Report: Fuel storage, safety issues vexed Japan plant
By Kevin Krolicki and Ross Kerber
TOKYO (Reuters)- When the massive tsunami smacked into Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power plant was stacked high with more uranium than it was originally designed to hold and had repeatedly missed mandatory safety checks over the past decade.
The Fukushima plant that has spun into partial meltdown and spewed out plumes of radiation had become a growing depot for spent fuel in a way the American engineers who designed the reactors 50 years earlier had never envisioned, according to company documents and outside experts.
Japan's Nuclear Mess Will Have Lasting Impact on Oil Prices
By Daniel Indiviglio TheAtlantic.com
There's some good news today about Japan's nuclear reactor crisis. The situation appears to be stabilizing,according to a top official at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Unfortunately, the problems experienced already are probably more than enough to set back the nuclear power industry several decades, even if the situation doesn't get anywhere near as bad as Chernobyl. This, in turn, is bad news for rising oil prices: they aren't going to get much relief from nuclear energy expansion in future years.
Rachel Nolan blogs for New York Times magazine that this accident isn't likely to approach anything near Chernobyl levels. In fact, she says, it's only about one one-hundredth as bad as the 1986 accident in Ukraine. It is, however, on the scale of the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.
Operations marred at Fukushima by smoke at crippled nuke reactors
Coalition air strikes see waning support from Arabs, China and Russia Arab League and China express regret as Moscow suggests US-led coalition is going beyond its mandate
By Ewen MacAskill, Ian Black and Nick Hopkins - Guardian.co.uk
Arab support for the US-led war in Libya showed signs of fraying today in reaction to the sheer destructive power of the initial attack, claims of civilian deaths and a warning by Muammar Gaddafi to prepare for "a long war".
The secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, appeared to wobble just over a week after his organisation, which represents 23 Arab states, voted in favour of a no-fly zone. Pictures of charred bodies led to not only the Arab League but Russia and China expressing regret over the violence. Moscow claimed the US-led coalition was going beyond its UN mandate to protect civilians and called for an end to the "indiscriminate use of force".
Libya declares new ceasefire as Gaddafi residence building destroyed
HeraldSun.au NewsCore, Wires AFP, AP, NewsCore, AAP
A BUILDING of Muammar Gaddafi's residence has been destroyed by a missile, as Libya announces a new ceasefire.
The missile demolished an administrative building of the Libyan leader's residence in Tripoli, an AFP journalist reported.
It was not immediately clear if troops loyal to longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi were abiding by the ceasefire order, which was due to begin at 6am AEDT.
Pentagon spokesman Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said, "I question anything Gaddafi calls for" and UN Chief Ban Ki-moon said only he hoped Libyan authorities would "keep their word".
If your country doesn't stop Gaddafi today he will kill all of us - and he will kill you too:How the savage assault on Benghazi proved 'ceasefire' was a lie -- By BARBARA JONES - Dailymail.co.uk
It had been another sleepless night in Benghazi. The city was waiting in both defiance and dread for Gaddafi to carry out his threat of an attack ‘without mercy or compassion’.
By dawn yesterday, the relentless rattle of gunfire was being overtaken by the unmistakeable booms of multiple rockets. Gaddafi’s war was now on the outskirts of the city.
No one here had believed his Friday night announcement of a ceasefire to comply with the UN’s no-fly zone over Libya, but what I saw next put the grotesque lie into its full murderous context.
Coalition attacks wreak havoc on ground troops Air strikes hit Gaddafi's forces hard, but revolutionary leaders appeal for more -- By Chris McGreal - Guardian.co.uk
The dozen or so men clustered behind the last smouldering tank looked as if they had died while they slept.
Their blankets bore no burn marks so perhaps it was the force of blasts – powerful enough to rip the turrets off the Russian-made tanks and toss them 20 metres or more across the open field near Benghazi – that killed Muammar Gaddafi's soldiers.
The air attack came at 4am , after the tanks pulled back from a day-long assault on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. The crews chose to rest in a field about 10 miles from the de facto capital of the anti-Gaddafi revolutionaries.
Gadhafi Defiant After Allied Attacks
By SAM DAGHER in Tripoli and ADAM ENTOUS
and NATHAN HODGE in Washington - WSJ.com
U.S. radar-jamming aircraft and combat jets flew sorties Sunday to strike Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's ground forces and air defenses, as coalition forces moved quickly to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.
In Tripoli, a defiant Col. Gadhafi said he would arm all Libyans and called on citizens, especially those in the eastern rebel bastion of Benghazi, to rise up against what he called a foreign aggression to occupy the country and steal its oil wealth.
Muammar Gaddafi calls on Libyans to resist 'colonialists' Defiant Libya leader promises to wage long war as officials in Tripoli say 64 people died in coalition air strikes
By Ian Black in Tripoli - Guardian.co.uk
Muammar Gaddafi has pledged to arm the Libyan people to resist what he called a "crusader colonialist" onslaught after UN-mandated forces used missiles and bombs to destroy the country's air defences and, according to Tripoli, killed up to 64 people it called "martyrs" to foreign aggression.
Gaddafi, defiant from the moment the attacks began on Saturday night, said Libyans had the patience to wage a "long war" against a coalition that includes Britain, France, the US, Italy and Arab states.
France Sends Military Flights Over Libya
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ELISABETH BUMILLER - NYTimes.com
TRIPOLI, Libya - French military jets have flown reconnaissance missions over Libya, the first sign of the largest military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq. President Nicolas Sarkozy said the jets had begin enforcing the no-fly zone over the eastern city of Benghazi, under heavy bombardment by forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Mr. Sarkozy spoke from Paris, where leaders from the United States, Europe and Arab countries met in Paris on Saturday to assemble the intervention.
Obama Takes Hard Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton
By HELENE COOPER and STEVEN LEE MYERS - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - In a Paris hotel room on Monday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself juggling the inconsistencies of American foreign policy in a turbulent Middle East. She criticized the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates for sending troops to quash protests in Bahrain even as she pressed him to send planes to intervene in Libya.
Only the day before, Mrs. Clinton - along with her boss, President Obama - was a skeptic on whether the United States should take military action in Libya. But that night, with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces turning back the rebellion that threatened his rule, Mrs. Clinton changed course, forming an unlikely alliance with a handful of top administration aides who had been arguing for intervention.
Libya crisis: Egypt shipping arms across border to aid rebels
Telegraph.co.uk
Egypt's military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington's knowledge, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Quoting US and Libyan rebel officials, the newspaper said the shipments were mostly of small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition.
It appeared to be the first case of an outside government arming the rebel fighters.
Rebels have been losing ground for days in the face of an advance by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
The rebels have, however, been buoyed by the United Nations Security Council's authorisation of air strikes to curb Col Gaddafi's forces.
Egyptian vote on constitution reveals deep divisions Critics say proposed amendments to constitution do not go far enough and leave revolution's youth movements out in the cold
By Jack Shenker - guardian.co.uk
Millions of Egyptians will vote on Saturday in the country's first democratic election since Hosni Mubarak was toppled as president after 18 days of street protests.
In a key test for the military authorities overseeing Egypt's transition to democracy, voters are being asked to support or reject a package of constitutional amendments drawn up by a special committee of legal experts.
After decades of elections that featured only a single candidate or were blatantly rigged, Saturday's referendum is the first ballot in modern Egyptian history in which the outcome is genuinely unknown. The landmark vote is also proving deeply divisive and comes at a critical juncture for the nation's revolution, with pro-change activists accusing the army of using brutality and torture in an attempt to shut down dissent, and the newly appointed prime minister warning that a counter revolution could destroy the state.
Saudi Arabian intervention in Bahrain
driven by visceral Sunni fear of Shias Despite an official stance that the Saudis were there to restore order, the real aim was to crush the rebels
By William Butler, The Observer via Guardian.co.uk
Saudi Arabia and the UAE between them sit on tens of billions of dollars worth of state-of-the-art military equipment. They have both backed calls for UN-sponsored "no-fly zones" over Libya.
Even if they are now willing to risk their expensive toys against the relatively meagre threat from Colonel Gaddafi's air defences, they will play a junior role to western forces.
It will be the second military intervention by the Gulf states in a few days, but the first was on a far more primitive level: teargas grenades fired at point-blank range into the faces of unarmed demonstrators; punishment beatings for injured protesters in their hospital beds; violence and intimidation against the wives and children of opposition activists in their village homes.
Yemen troops shoot protesters dead At least 35 killed and hundreds wounded in capital of Sana'a after government troops and loyalists open fire on marchers
By Tom Finn in Sana'a - guardian.co.uk
At least 35 people have been shot dead and hundreds wounded in Sana'a after soldiers and plain-clothed government loyalists opened fired on protesters trying to march through the Yemeni capital.
The death toll, which is expected to rise, is the highest seen in more than a month of violence in Yemen, with protesters demanding that President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.
The protest on Friday had started peacefully. Tens of thousands filled a mile-long stretch of road by Sana'a University for a prayer ceremony mourning the loss of seven protesters killed in similar violence last weekend.
Global revolution-On the Edge with Max Keiser-03-18-2011-(Part1)
Global revolution-On the Edge with Max Keiser-03-18-2011-(Part2)
Japan nuclear crisis: nuclear gravity climbs from 4 to 5 Japan's nuclear agency has hiked the accident level from four to five on the international 0-7 scale of gravity for atomic accidents.
The Telegraph.co.uk
Japan has said radiation levels from the plant, located 155 miles northeast of the capital, pose no health threat outside a 12 mile exclusion zone, despite slightly elevated levels in Tokyo earlier in the week.
The elevation of the accident level to 5 indicates "an accident with wider consequences", according to the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). The world's worst nuclear disaster, at Chernobyl in 1986, rated a 7.
Experts Fear Alarming Crack in Reactor Pool ENGINEERS MAY FACE UNPRECEDENTED NUCLEAR PROBLEM
By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff
(NEWSER) - The situation at Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex may be even more dire than realized, according to American nuclear experts. Authorities at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspect that a crack or hole has developed in the floor or wall of a spent fuel pool at the complex, which will thwart efforts to refill the pool with water and prevent dangerous levels of radiation from escaping. The Los Angeles Times explains that unlike the reactor itself, the reactor pool does not have a containment vessel, meaning radioactive gases and particles can more easily escape into the environment if the pool's 130 tons of uranium fuel start to burn.
Japan Reaches Out to U.S. for Help
By Joseph Woelfel - The Street
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Japan asked the U.S. for help in solving its nuclear crisis just as engineers conceded they may have to bury the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, media reports said.
Military trucks sprayed water on the troubled Fukushima Daa-ichi nuclear complex for a second day to prevent it from overheating and releasing dangerous levels of radiation, The Associated Press reported. Their focus was on the No. 3 reactor, the most critical of the plant's six reactors, Reuters reported.
Despite the G-7 Intervention, Japanese Banking Crisis is Inevitable
BY KEITH FITZ-GERALD, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning
The United States and Canada today (Friday) joined other Group of Seven (G-7) nations to intervene as a means of weakening the Japanese yen in an effort to help Japan deal with last week's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
This G-7 intervention is a substantial development, although there are precious few details, since none of the world's central bankers (a list that includes the U.S. Federal Reserve) have commented on exactly what "intervention" entails. Nor have they identified what currencies will be involved.
I believe the G-7 leaders are underestimating the implications of their actions. For starters, there will be Japanese banking failures - caused by the simple fact that huge numbers of people who lost everything and weren't insured (and whose places of employment may have been washed away, as well) won't be able to pay their mortgages, their credit card bills, or their car payments.
The G-7 Forex Intervention Is A Perfect Example
Of How Manipulated The Global Currency Market Really Is
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What do governments and central banks do when they don't like what is happening in the financial markets? They directly intervene and they manipulate the financial markets of course. On Friday, the central banks of the G-7 acted in concert to drive down the value of the surging yen. So why did they do this? Well, the fear was that a rising yen would hurt Japanese exports at a time when the economy of Japan needs all of the help that it can get. So, as central banks have been doing with increasing frequency, they directly intervened in the Forex market in order to bring about the result that they desired. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. The truth is that foreign governments, central banks and large financial institutions are constantly manipulating the Forex, precious metals and stock markets all over the globe. You see, in today's global economy the "stakes are so high" that the free market cannot be trusted.
Why Markets are Rebounding Despite Continued Crisis
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
03/17/11 Laguna Beach, California - During the last 24 hours, fear evaporated from the global financial markets as completely as water from a Fukushima reactor. The Nikkei recovered from a 5% plunge to end the day down about 1.4%. Most European markets have rebounded about 2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is busy attempting a similar feat.
Today's gains probably have more to do with mere "selling fatigue" than they do with a genuine conviction that stocks are a "buy." But, selectively, folks are trying to capitalize on what they perceive to be "oversold" situations. One group of astute investors known to your editor reached the following conclusions yesterday:
Preparing for the "Bang!"
BY CARL SWENLIN - FinanacialSense.com
.... "Confidence" has always been the keyword in financial markets. We get a daily diet of economic news with a determined spin about how the economy is gradually improving, but in the background the Fed and the politicians keep digging a deeper hole of debt. And the story is the same around the globe -- governments trying to exacerbate the threat of horrible levels of debt by piling on even more debt.
The real question is if the collapse really will be a "bang!" moment, of whether there will be some kind of advance warning upon which we can act. As a technical analyst I believe there will most likely be a gradual deterioration ahead of the "bang!", and we must assume that the deterioration has gone too far when the 20-EMA crosses down through the 50-EMA. To illustrate this point, let's look at two of the most catastrophic financial events in the last 100 years -- the 1929 Crash and the 1987 Crash.
Mega-Banks and the Next Financial Crisis Hedge-fund manager Paul Singer recognized the risks of subprime mortgages and bet against them. Now he warns that monetary policy could cripple American banks again.
By JAMES FREEMAN - WSJ.com
At the height of the housing bubble, hedge-fund manager Paul Singer was shorting subprime mortgages. By the spring of 2007, he was warning regulators on both sides of the Atlantic that the world was facing a major financial crisis.
They ignored him. Now the founder of Elliott Management says the biggest banks are headed for another credit meltdown. Among the likely triggers for the next crisis, Mr. Singer sees one leading candidate: Monetary policy "is extremely risky," he says, "the risk being massive inflation."
Keiser Report: Supermassive 30 Billion Black Hole (E129)
Debt Makes a Comeback: The New Bubble in the Financial Sector
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning,com
03/14/11 Baltimore, Maryland - As we signed off on Friday, the Saudis were suppressing a 'Day of Rage' in Arabia... Gaddafi was mopping up the resistance in Libya... And an earthquake and tsunami left thousands dead in Japan.
But that didn't stop the stock market. The Dow rose 59 points.
Now it is Monday. And in all the excitement we kinda lost track... But we gots to know... Is the Great Correction over?
We are coming up on the 4th anniversary. Countrywide - one of America's leading subprime lenders - went broke in 2007. That was when it began. After more than 6 decades of adding to its liabilities, America began to off-load debt.
NY Fed confirms intervention in currency markets
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The New York Federal Reserve Bank confirmed that it intervened in currency markets on Friday for the first time in more than a decade.
The disclosure came a day after the Group of Seven major industrialized nations pledged in a statement to join in a coordinated effort to weaken the Japanese yen. The yen has surged in the last week to post-war record levels following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Time for Gold to Shine? USD Breaks 3-year Trend Line
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinanacialSense.com
As Mark Twain said, “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” We may be having déjà vu all over again with the 1970s inflationary period which was characterized by surging commodity prices and a weak USD. Gold’s most spectacular returns during the 1970s came in the later stage of its secular bull market, and one of the tipping points that pushed gold into overdrive was a bearish break of a multi-year trend line for the USD Index. We just had a trend line break in the USD that looks uncannily similar to the 1970s break and if history is any guide we could see a pretty explosive move in gold to the upside if the USD bearish break picks up steam.
A Detailed Look at the Increasing Demand for Gold
Written by Ronald Stoeferle - OilPrice.com
For the first time in many years investor demand might exceed jewellery demand in 2010. In 2000, investment demand accounted for only about 4.8% of total demand, in 2009 for as much as 37%. We think that this marks a clear bullish trend reversal, setting a new phase of the bull market. In our opinion investors will be dominating the demand side from now on.
Mideast unrest to support gold prices
By Debbie Carlson - CommodityOnline.com
(Kitco News) - The unrest in the Mideast is flaring again, sharing the news spotlight with the tragedy in Japan, and that is expected to underpin gold prices going into next week.
Sterling J. Smith, commodity trading adviser and market analyst with Country Hedging, said after gold's break earlier this week on the devastation in Japan, the market is ready to rebound.
Gold did not act as a safe-haven during the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear worries. Prices fell during the early part of the week and analysts attributed the break to investors selling gold to raise cash in order to shore up positions in other markets that were falling after the news in Japan. By Friday, gold rebounded with other markets.
Silver can go only one way in 2011
LONDON (Commodity Online) : Silver can go only one way this year, that is towards north even though its glittering cousin, gold might find it difficult to catch up with the white metal.
The latest scenario provides both silver and gold, opportunities to scale new highs on their safe haven appeal, analysts said.
Silver gained nearly two percent and hovered near $35 an ounce ever since crisis crippled world's third largest economy, Japan.
Analysts said the white metal suddenly become a hot commodity purely on incidents happening on two corners of the world as traders and investors turned their attention to precious metals.
Debt Problem: Who In The World Is Going To Buy The Billions Of Dollars Of Debt The U.S. Government Is Constantly Pumping Out Now?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Is the U.S. government on the verge of a massive debt problem? For years, the U.S. government has been able to borrow all the money that it has wanted to at extremely low interest rates. But now many of the lending sources that the U.S. government has been depending on are drying up. Even before this recent crisis in Japan, a number of big players were moving away from U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. Federal Reserve was having to step in to pick up the slack. But now this debt crunch is about to get a whole lot worse. For years, many had feared that it would be China that would start dumping U.S. government debt, but now it turns out that Japan is going to be the real problem. Right now, Japan is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt. Japan currently holds about $882 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds and they are likely going to have to liquidate much of that in order to fund the rebuilding of their nation. So needless to say they won't be accumulating any more U.S. government debt. But the U.S. government still needs to borrow a trillion and a half dollars from someone every single year. So where in the world are they going to get it?
Bank of America cuts consumer banking jobs New rules that limit fees on credit cards and overdrafts have hurt bank's revenue
By Rick Rothacker - CharlotteObserver.com
Bank of America Corp. has cut jobs in its consumer and small business banking unit, the latest reduction as the Charlotte bank looks to trim costs.
A little more than 100 employees were affected by the move, bank spokeswoman Anne Pace said Monday. Where possible, employees were offered other roles in the company, she said. Others will receive severance.
The cuts were tied to a reorganization designed to better align the bank's business model around customer needs, Pace said.
What has economists most on edge: Oil prices
By Chris Isidore
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. economy faces numerous obstacles that threaten to derail the recovery. But economists are most fearful of one major headwind: oil prices.
More than two-thirds of the 23 economists surveyed by CNNMoney identified high oil prices as the most serious risk facing the economy.
As uprisings spread across the Middle East and North Africa, prices have soared about 15% in the past two months, pushing gas prices higher. And as the situation in Libya escalates, economists are growing more jittery about oil prices, even in the face of other threats to the economy, like the crisis in Japan, cuts in government spending and continued weakness in the housing sector.
Gas prices climb nearly 7 cents a gallon
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Gas prices have jumped nearly seven cents a gallon over the past two weeks, reaching a level more than 75 cents higher than they were a year ago, according to a survey published Sunday.
The average price for a gallon of self-serve regular is $3.57, the Lundberg Survey found. That's 6.65 cents higher than the price the same survey found two weeks earlier.
Housing Prices Still the Bane of Economic Recovery
By Bill Bonner - dailyreckoning.com
03/18/11 Baltimore, Maryland - Whoa... this looks bad too.
In the housing sector, the fed's ultra-low interest rates are supposed to make it easier to refinance... which is supposed to help firm up prices. But prices haven't firmed. They're still giving way.
The latest numbers show prices falling, hitting post-bubble lows in 11 cities. Of the 20 major cities in the survey, only two of them had positive price movements last year. No surprise, only one - Zombietown itself, Washington, DC, home of the feds - showed an increase of more than 2%.
Worst hit were the sunshine states - California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Along with Michigan, more than a third of homeowners in these states have negative equity in their houses... with 70% of them underwater in Nevada.
Hardest Hit may Avoid Foreclosure in Florida
by Wallace Manfrin - PersonalFinanceBulletin.com
Homeowners facing foreclosure are to be thrown a much needed lifeline when a new scheme gets underway this week. The Florida Housing Finance Corporation is to implement a $1 billion program geared toward preventing closure wherever possible for those facing the greatest degree of financial hardship. The aptly named ‘Hardest Hit’ program has been modified accordingly to offer the greatest scope for assistance across the state, potentially assisting with six-months of mortgage payments up to a total value of $12,000.
Struggling homeowners will be required to contributed 25% of their total monthly income, which must be a minimum of $70, toward the mortgage payments. Thecontribution is intended to act as a demonstration that those finding themselves in financial difficulty still have a proactive interest in maintaining their home and meeting repayments.
Nearly 20% of Florida homes are vacant
By Les Christie,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- It's not always easy to feel sorry for sunny Florida. But they just got hit with another blow.
On Thursday, the Census Bureau revealed that 18% -- or 1.6 million -- of the Sunshine State's homes are sitting vacant. That's a rise of more than 63% over the past 10 years.
Having this amount of oversupply on the market will keep home prices depressed and slow any recovery.
During the housing boom, Florida was among the hottest real estate markets in the nation. Homes were snapped up by the state's growing population as well as hordes of investors confident that prices would continue to soar.
Elizabeth Warren's Hit Squad Smearing journalists who disagree with them.
WSJ.com
Liberal conspiracy theories make life worth living, so we've been enjoying the latest Web sensation courtesy of the Huffington Post and Elizabeth Warren's gang at the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
These columns haven't joined the rest of the press in treating Ms. Warren's policy goals as gospel, and our criticism seems to have struck a nerve. Shortly after our latest editorial on the new bureau, Ms. Warren's minions collaborated with the Huffington Post on an ad hominem smear of our colleague and Journal editorial board member Mary Kissel. The scandalous news? Before she turned to a career in journalism, Ms. Kissel worked from 1999 to 2002 at . . . Goldman Sachs.
AT&T to Buy T-Mobile USA
By SHAYNDI RAICE And ROGER CHENG - WSJ.com
AT&T Inc. agreed to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG for $39 billion in cash and stock, in a deal that would create the biggest U.S. wireless carrier by subscribers and fundamentally alter the industry's competitive landscape.
Under the deal, the companies said AT&T will pay $25 billion in cash and the balance in stock, giving T-Mobile's German parent an 8% stake in AT&T.
The deal comes as AT&T is looking for growth after losing its exclusive hold on Apple Inc.'s iPhone in the U.S. and as Deutsche Telekom was actively looking at alternatives for T-Mobile. Those options included recent discussions around a possible sale of the business to Sprint Nextel Corp. or an initial public offering.
Arizona, Bowing to Business, Softens Stand on Immigration
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. - NYTimes.com
Arizona established itself over the past year as the most aggressive state in cracking down on illegal immigrants, gaining so much momentum with its efforts that several other states vowed to follow suit. But now the harsh realities of economics appear to have intruded, and Arizona may be looking to shed the image of hard-line anti-immigration pioneer.
In an abrupt change of course, Arizona lawmakers rejected new anti-immigration measures on Thursday, in what was widely seen as capitulation to pressure from business executives and an admission that the state's tough stance had resulted in a chilling of the normally robust tourism and convention industry.
Saving Money? Not In This Economy 22 Facts That Prove Middle Class Familie
Are Being Savagely Crushed
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The 22 facts that you are about to read are all real, although admittedly they are hard to believe. The sad truth is that millions of middle class families in the United States today are being savagely crushed by this economy. Most American families would like to be saving money, paying the mortgage and living the American Dream, but with each passing month those things are becoming more difficult. Rapidly rising prices for basic necessities such as food and gas are absolutely crippling the finances of millions of middle class American families right now. How is a family even supposed to make a budget when the average price of gasoline goes up 42 cents a gallon in a single month? What are we all supposed to do when we walk into our supermarkets and find that the old "regular prices" have become the new "sale prices"? Should we all not be deeply concerned that the price of food in the United States went up at the fastest rate in 36 years last month? How are we all supposed to keep our families above the poverty line when the number of good paying jobs keeps shrinking? In America today, being a member of the middle class is like playing a game of musical chairs. You know that they are going to keep pulling chairs out of the game, and you just hope that it is not going to be your turn next.
Japan Confirms High Radiation in Spinach and Milk Near Nuclear Plant
By KEN BELSON and HIROKO TABUCHI - NYTimes.com
TOKYO - The government said Saturday that it had found higher than normal levels of radioactive materials in spinach and milk at farms near the ravaged nuclear power plants, the first confirmation by officials that the nuclear crisis unfolding at power plants nearby has affected the nation's food supply.
While officials downplayed the immediate risks to consumers, the findings are likely to further unsettle a nation worried about the long-term effects of the damaged nuclear power plants. The crisis, which has entered its second week, has caused alarm in some countries that fallout from Japan might reach their shores.
The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people
By DAVID DERBYSHIRE - Dailymail.co.uk
The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted that the disaster was a level 5, which is classified as a crisis causing 'several radiation deaths' by the UN International Atomic Energy.
Officials said the rating was raised after they realised the full extent of the radiation leaking from the plant. They also said that 3 per cent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down.
Link sent by a listener (pharmacist) who says the Lugols solution is something safer than the potassium iodide tablets; see article below for more information:
Taking Iodine Supplements to Improve Your Healt
and Reduce Your Risk of Getting Cancer?
Is That Crazy or What?
ThatCrazyPharmacist.com
Written by Steve on 23 August 2010
As I've cast around for ways to make my family member more resistant to cancer reoccurence I've run across a lot of crazy claims.
The majority of them have been looked at and discarded after careful consideration because there wasn't any real evidence to support the claims, and I simply couldn't figure out any way that they might be true or helpful.
However, the concept of iodine supplementation gains credibility with almost every enquiry I make.
We've talked about convergences between today's theories and data and Doctor Gerson's theories and practices in previous posts - and in one of those posts we briefly touched on the convergences of iodine supplementation.
Radioprotective Herbs
IngridNaiman.com
Before going into endless details, let me begin with a rough attempt to explain how an herb might be classified as radioprotective. Gruesome as this might be for some people, what is different about these studies and conventional attempts to assess merit is that studies are in vivo, not in petri dishes. Most of you do not really want to know how the studies are conducted, but if we start more or less at the beginning, we have to go to the sites of the A bomb blasts that occurred over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. As we know from our history, Japan surrendered on August 15th and studies of what happened began almost immediately. Though what was learned remains relevant, there are considerable differences between nuclear bombs and nuclear powers plants.
Iodine? Not Yet!
IngridNaiman.com
People have sent me absolutely countless emails about potassium iodide to prevent uptake of radioactive iodine. On the assumption that repetition may be useful, let me begin by saying that while this information is accurate, what was released from the Fukushima reactor was radioactive cesium. Trace amounts of radioactive iodine were found very close to the reactor itself but for the moment, the issue is cesium, not iodine.
So, we are not talking thyroid but muscles and the reproductive system and eventually the liver and kidneys and ultimately everywhere but the thyroid is not the primary focus of attention. Cesium is very different from iodine. It explodes on contact with moisture. So, the first preventative measure, in the event of fallout, is to stay indoors and the second is to wear a wet face mask when going out.
Gaddafi threatens retaliation in Mediterranean as UN passes resolution Gaddafi vows to 'get crazy' in event of foreign attack as UN security council in New York passes resolution
By Ian Black in Tripoli - The Guardian
Muammar Gaddafi has pledged to retake the rebel stronghold of Benghazi and warned that any foreign attack on Libya would endanger air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean area, as the UN security council voted for military intervention.
In a defiant and menacing radio address, the Libyan leader sought to pre-empt the UN. "No more fear, no more hesitation, the moment of truth has come," he declared. "There will be no mercy. Our troops will be coming to Benghazi tonight."
The defence ministry in Tripoli issued its threat of retaliation in the Mediterranean in the apparent hope of influencing deliberations in New York that approved an assault on Libya's air defences and ground forces.
U.S., Allies Get UN Approval for Military Action Against Qaddafi
By Ola Galal, Massoud A. Derhally and Bill Varner
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations Security Council authorized a no-fly zone and other military action to prevent Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi from making good on his threat to conquer the rebel capital, Benghazi, and "destroy" the opposition movement.
The council provided the legal basis for the U.S., France, the U.K. and several Arab nations to intervene in the Libyan conflict to avert a feared bloodbath if Qaddafi defeats the opposition. The embattled Libyan dictator said yesterday he would show "no mercy" to "traitors" who do not surrender.
The UN vote drew cheers and celebratory gunfire from hundreds of anti-Qaddafi Libyans gathered in Benghazi.
Germany won't send forces to Libya, foreign minister declares As security council meets to vote on no-fly zone, Guido Westerwelle rules out German military involvement
By Luke Harding in Berlin - guardian.co.uk
Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, has declared the country remains strongly opposed to air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces or any other military intervention in Libya.
Speaking to the Guardian, Westerwelle warned the results of western military intervention were "unpredictable" and could have consequences for freedom movements in the Arab world.
"Your own instinct is to say 'We have to do something.' But military intervention is to take part in a civil war that could go on for a long time.
"Germany has a strong friendship with our European partners. But we won't take part in any military operation and I will not send German troops to Libya."
Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels
By CHARLES LEVINSON And MATTHEW ROSENBERG - WSJ.com
CAIRO - Egypt's military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington's knowledge, U.S. and Libyan rebel officials said.
The shipments - mostly small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition - appear to be the first confirmed case of an outside government arming the rebel fighters. Those fighters have been losing ground for days in the face of a steady westward advance by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
The Egyptian shipments are the strongest indication to date that some Arab countries are heeding Western calls to take a lead in efforts to intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebels in their fight against Mr. Gadhafi in Libya. Washington and other Western countries have long voiced frustration with Arab states' unwillingness to help resolve crises in their own region, even as they criticized Western powers for attempting to do so.
Libya: UN approves no-fly zone as British troops prepare for action Western forces could launch bombing raids against the Libyan regime as early as Friday after the UN backed international military action.
By Robert Winnett,, Deputy Political Editor, Jon Swaine in New York and Richard Spencer in Tripoli - Telegraph.co.uk
The first raids, possibly conducted by unmanned drones, could happen within hours if Colonel Gaddafi acts on his threat to "show no mercy" to rebels in Benghazi.
The RAF could become involved in any operation by this evening, according to British sources. However, the raids may be spearheaded by an Arab nation such as Qatar or the UAE.
Last night, Col Gaddafi threatened to launch retaliation attacks against passenger aircraft in the Mediterranean if foreign countries launch air strikes against Libya.
Clinton Says Arab League Vote for No-Fly Zone Changed Minds
By Nicole Gaouette
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that since the Arab League backed a no-fly zone over Libya there has been a "sea change" in international opinion toward favoring the action.
"That has changed the thinking of a lot of people," Clinton said in an interview with CBS News, taped in Cairo. "As we consult in New York on the UN resolution" to pursue a no-fly zone "there is a much greater openness than there was a week ago."
She said that "we and others have made it clear that there must be Arab leadership and Arab participation. How that will be defined will depend in large measure on what the Security Council decides to call for."
Yen Drops on G-7 Intervention as UN Libya No-Fly Vote Spurs Oil
By Shiyin Chen
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The yen fell the most in six months against the dollar, the Nikkei 225 Stock Average pared its worst week since 2008 and U.S. index futures climbed after central banks intervened to weaken Japan's currency. Oil rallied.
The yen depreciated 3 percent to 81.32 per dollar as of 10:40 a.m. in Tokyo. Japanese government bonds slid, paring this week's advance. The Nikkei 225 jumped 2.3 percent, trimming its weekly slump to 11 percent, and the MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index added 1 percent. Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures climbed 0.7 percent. Oil gained 1.4 percent in New York after the United Nations Security Council voted to ground Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's air force.
'Iran opposes intervention in Mideast'
Iran's Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaei says the Islamic Republic is opposed to any military intervention against Middle Eastern countries facing uprisings.
Khazaei made the remark following consultations among the 15 Security Council members at the United Nations headquarters in New York, as France and Britain pushed the international body to authorize air strikes in Libya in a bid to force Muammar Gaddafi's regime to desist from violence, IRNA reported on Thursday.
"In one breath we are deeply worried about the plight of people in Libya, while in the same breath we are concerned by the [prospect of] military strike in the country," the Iranian envoy stated.
"Iran has showed that it is not interested in medling in any country's [internal affairs], nor wants military presence, and thus condemns any such actions," Khazaei emphasized.
Libya: Washington's U-turn the return of the 'World's Policeman' Washington's U-turn is as swift as the reversal in Col Gaddafi's fortunes.
By Richard Spencer, Tripoli - Telegraph.co.uk
Eighteen days ago, it seemed that the colonel's 42-year rule in Libya was close to collapse. When David Cameron then suggested a no-fly zone, it was to protect the Libyan people from a last, vengeful exercise of force. The full weight of the American military establishment dismissed the idea as premature.
Then, suddenly, the White House came down on the side of even tougher action than Mr Cameron proposed. But the Libyan army's swift advance on Benghazi means that the strategic purpose of a no-fly zone has changed dramatically. Even if Benghazi holds out longer than the other towns of the northern coast, the West and its allies will be coming to the aid of an enclave, not a population.
Libya finally forces Barack Obama's hand as he goes for broke After weeks pondering, prevaricating and posturing, the US wants Muammar Gaddafi's head. And it will fight to get it
By Simon Tisdall - guardian.co.uk
With a boldness that the world had begun to believe he lacked, Barack Obama has gone for broke. The US wants Muammar Gaddafi's head. It will not rest until he is deposed and there is regime change in Libya. And it will fight to get it.
Obama spent weeks pondering, prevaricating and posturing, infuriating Britain and France, arch advocates of military intervention. He used public appearances to prate professorially about plans, contingencies and downsides. He allowed senior administration officials such as Pentagon chief Robert Gates to give full vent to their doubts and misgivings about a possible Libyan quagmire.
Activist recounts torture in Bahrain
A political activist, who has been recently released from a jail in Bahrain and has travelled to Britain, has recounted the ordeal he faced in the Arab country.
Jafar al-Hisabi told Press TV in an interview that "Bahrain's ruthless regime" does not want any political activist, and that the only reason for his arrest was because he is a political activist.
He said that while in jail, he and other activists were "severely" tortured by various methods just like in the Middle Ages.
"They kept me in a basement, all alone in a cell, blind-folded. They left me standing for more than 20 days, beating me on my feet, hanging me between two poles and even tried to rape me," he added.
Why the Bahrain rebellion could prove calamitous for the West Saudi Arabia's support for the Gulf state risks drawing Iran into the conflict
By Con Coughlin - Telegraph.co.uk
The issue occupying diplomats at the UN yesterday was how best to respond to the Libyan crisis. But an even graver threat to our future prosperity and security is unfolding in the tiny Gulf state of Bahrain.
At first glance, the decision by Bahrain's Sunni royal family to call in the Saudis to help quell an anti-government revolt by Shia protesters might seem the logical outcome to a dispute that showed no sign of a peaceful resolution. Ever since the protesters made the Pearl roundabout the epicentre of their campaign in mid-February, the ruling family has made strenuous efforts to meet their demands. Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa, the Crown Prince, has repeatedly sought to open a dialogue with the demonstrators, with a view to addressing their concerns. But the more the royal family has attempted to reach out, the more intransigent the demands of the protest movement have become.
Several injured in Saudi Arabia protest
Several people have been injured after police fired rubber bullets at anti-government protesters in Saudi Arabia's eastern region of Qatif as Friday's million-man-march looms.
On Thursday, over 4,000 protesters thronged the stress in the eastern city of Qatif and clamoured for political reforms and the release of political prisoners, reports said.
According to witness accounts, police forces fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse the crowd, leaving several people injured , while more rallies were held in solidarity with the people of Bahrain in the city.
Demonstrators also called for an end to military incursion in Bahrain, after Riyadh d dispatched at least 1,000 troops to the Persian Gulf country to help quell political unrest there.
ME simmering with anti-Saudi sentiment
Thousands have turned out in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to protest the Saudi-led invasion of Bahrain and the brutal crackdown of anti-regime protesters there.
On March 14, Bahrain's fellow members of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar -- deployed hundreds of military forces to the Persian Gulf kingdom at Manama's request to quell protests against the Sunni-led regime.
Iran
On Thursday, hundreds of Iranian people held a rally outside the Bahraini Embassy in Tehran to condemn Saudi Arabia and the UAE's invasion of the Shia-majority Arab state.
The Iranian protesters carried placards with slogans against the military intervention and condemned the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters that seek a constitutional monarchy as well as political reforms in Bahrain.
I Think Today Is The Day The Dollar Breaks Down I could be wrong - hell, most of the time, I'm way wrong. But I do think that today is the day the dollar breaks down.
by Gonzalo Lira
Consider the evidence:
The Bank of Japan managed to keep the yen down following last Friday's Sendai quake. It was trading in an eerily placid 81-to-82 band on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - but then Thursday (Japan time), someone at the BoJ must've prematurely decided that it was all over, because they let go of the gas.
What happened? It all went south - huge. As I write this morning (8:12am EST), the yen is trading at 78.50 to the dollar.
FDIC's Tab For Failed U.S. Banks Nears $9 Billion
By ROBIN SIDEL - WSJ.com
U.S. banking regulators have paid out nearly $9 billion to cover losses on loans and other assets at 165 failed institutions that were sold to stronger companies during the financial crisis.
The payments were made under loss-sharing agreements struck by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that shield buyers from much of the risk associated with loans inherited from failed banks. The deals, covering everything from empty Las Vegas shopping centers to nearly worthless mortgages in Florida, are a reminder of the price tag attached to many government programs launched near the worst of the crisis.
G-7 Sells Yen in Its First Joint Intervention Since 2000
By Toru Fujioka and Mayumi Otsuma
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The Group of Seven will jointly intervene in the foreign exchange market for the first time in more than a decade after Japan's currency soared, threatening its recovery from the March 11 earthquake.
Japan began the effort, sending the currency down 3.1 percent against the dollar at 9:34 a.m. in Tokyo. Each of the G-7 members will sell yen as their markets open, Japan's Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters in Tokyo today. The G-7 said in a joint statement after a conference call of its finance ministers and central bank chiefs that it will "provide any needed cooperation" with Japan.
Pimco Hasn't Seen Fund Redemptions From Asia, El-Erian Says
By Cordell Eddings and Margaret Brennan
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Pacific Investment Management Co., the world's biggest manager of bond funds, hasn't seen redemptions from Asia investors following last week's earthquake in Japan, Chief Executive Officer Mohamed El-Erian said.
"It's too early," as the immediate effect is to worry about the human consequences first, El-Erian said on Bloomberg Television's "InBusiness" in an interview with Margaret Brennan. "There is a period of shock until people fully understand the enormity of what happened."
Japan risks credit crunch as yen thunders Japan is in imminent danger of a credit-crunch with global implications unless the authorities stabilise Tokyo's stockmarket and take overwhelming action to stop the yen exploding to record levels.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Akito Fukanaga from RBS warned of a "financial shock" as banks and insurers comes under strain, and investors focus on the nexus of structured products linked to the yen.
"Preventive measures on the financial front are urgently needed. Sentiment has declined severely and there are concerns over capital erosion at financial institutions. Lower stock prices and yen appreciation are on the verge of triggering a credit crunch," he said.
The yen's violent move late Wednesday to a record ´76 against the dollar - smashing historic lines of resistance - has gone far beyond levels that automatically set off secondary effects through derivative contracts.
Japanese Fallout May Hit Treasuries
BY JOHN BROWNE - FinancialSense.com
Japan is facing two meltdowns in the wake of its devastating earthquake. The first, and more critical, is the meltdown at the Fukushima I Nuclear Plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo. Surely, this is the greater near-term threat. But long-term, another threat looms, having to do with the Japanese government's response to the former.
As the fourth largest economy in the world, behind the EU, US, and China, any major setback in Japan likely will have widespread repercussions. Japan is also the third largest holder of US Treasuries, behind the United States and China. While it is too early even to assess the Japanese damage accurately - let alone to forecast the full implications - it is possible to see the potential for a meltdown of the US Treasury market and international monetary system.
Japan's economic crisis could be ours, too Major countries all face the triple blow of debt, an ageing population and energy insecurity
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Thirty years ago, people used to talk and write about Japan in much the same awestruck tones as they now do of China. It was seen as an unstoppable growth machine, with all the right responses to the ever onwards and upwards march of economic progress. It was only a matter of time, it was widely said, before Japan overtook the mighty US as the world's largest economy.
Ten years later, the Japanese economic miracle ground to an ignominious halt, and the country has struggled to show significant growth ever since. With economic malaise has come a growing perception, both internally and externally, of irrelevance. Japan was becoming a forgotten country.
Japan's Cataclysm Can Also Be an Opportunity
By William Pesek
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Japan has faced adversity before. This is different. But even amid radiation and rubble, it isn't hopeless.
At his first press conference, Prime Minister Naoto Kan called it a crisis, and for an hour or so that felt right. No nation is immune from tragedy, and the expectation is that slowly, with the help of friends, people of character dust themselves off and rebuild.
Then the videos began -- of waters rising with horrible speed to swallow entire towns. Of shipping containers rolled like toys. Of roads turned to tofu and nuclear plants wheezing radiation. As a sense of proportion settled in, crisis rapidly proved inadequate. What Japan suffered on Mar. 11 -- a 9.0 earthquake followed by a 20-foot tsunami followed by a nuclear threat that stirred excruciating historic echoes -- was three crises. A cataclysm unlike any it has faced before.
Military Balance report: China 'won't threaten US in Pacific for a decade' China's military budget is the fastest growing in the world but it will not pose a serious challenge to US dominance of the Pacific for a decade, the think tank IISS said in its annual report on the world's armies on Tuesday.
By Damien McElroy - Telegraph.co.uk
The respected International Institute for Strategic Studies said that despite the effects of the global financial crisis, the 7.5 per cent growth in the Chinese defence budget in 2010 was greater than most countries.
Such growth "continued to provoke concern", the London-based group said in its "Military Balance 2011" study.
Christian Le Miere, the IISS Naval expert said that Chinese missiles and naval forces would not be capable of denying US access to parts of the pacific with anti-ship missiles and assault forces for 10-20 years.
Workers to Resume Water Dousing at Fukushima Nuclear Plant
By Shigeru Sato and Tsuyoshi Inajima
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant workers plan today to resume dousing the damaged reactor structures with seawater from fire trucks, following progress overnight to prevent a nuclear meltdown.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it will finish reconnecting a power line to the cooling system of the No. 2 reactor this afternoon, where white smoke or steam was observed wafting above. Radiation levels there showed a consistent decline from the early hours of March 17 to today, Kyodo News reported, citing data compiled by Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
Three ways Japan's nuclear crisis could end
By Peter Eisler and Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Someday, the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant will end. But when? And how?
One end of the scenario spectrum is relatively benign: The plant is ruined, but major radiation releases are averted and public exposure is minimal.
The other is catastrophic: Reactors melt down, caches of used nuclear fuel catch fire and worst-case weather carries contamination over the homes of hundreds of thousands of people.
Japan Response Breeds Mistrust
By NATHAN HODGE, JONATHAN WEISMAN And YUKA HAYASHI - WSJ.com
The U.S. government, signaling distrust of reports from Japan about the nuclear crisis there, moved Thursday to evacuate U.S. citizens and set up its own channels of information - a step echoed by some American companies that laid plans to trim their operations in the stricken country.
In the latest sign of international skepticism about progress at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, the U.S. embassy in Tokyo said Thursday that the government would arrange to fly U.S. citizens out of Japan to safe havens elsewhere in Asia, using military aircraft if necessary. The U.S. also moved aggressively to assert control over information about the scope of the nuclear disaster by flying a military drone aircraft and a U2 spy plane over the plant to get a first-hand assessment of the damage.
Risks from radiation low in Japan but panic high
FOXNews.com
TOKYO - Risks from possible radiation exposure remain greatest for the workers scrambling to cool reactors at a Japanese nuclear power plant. Those who have been evacuated from the site are considered safe, as are the 39 million people who live in the greater Tokyo region.
But that hasn't stopped the panic: Supermarkets in Beijing and Shanghai ran out of salt this week, as Chinese stocked up on the mistaken belief that it protects against radiation. Russians rushed to buy seaweed, which contains iodine, and red wine, which Soviet authorities recommended in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.
THE LATEST FROM FUKUSHIMA
By Derek Lazzaro - TruthDig.com
Here are the latest headlines from Japan's nuclear disaster as of early Friday morning (Japan time), March 18.
Cable reaches Japan nuclear plant
Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports.
Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.
Workers at Fukushima have been battling to prevent fuel in the reactors from overheating since Friday's magnitude 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami.
The confirmed death toll from the disaster has risen above 5,600.
More than 9,500 people are missing and tens of thousands of people are living in temporary shelters.
France to send boric acid to Japan
The French Foreign Ministry say Paris will send 100 tons of boric acid to Japan to dampen radiation and help the country fight a nuclear crisis following a devastating quake.
"[France's nuclear manufacturer] Areva and Electricite de France (EDF) are flying a plane with almost 100 tons of boric acid and protective equipment, including 10,000 suits, 20,000 pairs of gloves and 3,000 masks," the foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Boric acid is a key material containing boron that goes into control rods used to halt or slow down fission reactions at nuclear reactors.
Spent Fuel's Toxic Legacy
By Eugene Robinson - TruthDig.com
The most urgent focus of Japan's worsening nuclear crisis is the threat from radioactive fuel that has already been used in the Fukushima Daiichi reactors and awaits disposal. In the United States, the nuclear industry has amassed about 70,000 tons of such potentially deadly waste material - and we have nowhere to put it.
U.S. officials' increasingly dire assessment of the situation in Japan stems largely from the fact that spent fuel rods - which were stored in pools of water to keep them cool - have apparently become uncovered. The material is "cool" only in the relative sense: Once exposed to air, the fuel rods rapidly heat up and release large amounts of radiation.
FDA warns of drug scams that play on radiation fear
By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY
Many of the ads for "anti-radiation" potassium iodide pills flooding the Internet may be scams run by hucksters seeking to profit from the Japan nuclear scare, the Food and Drug Administration warned Thursday.
Public health officials say that people in the USA shouldn't be taking the pills anyway, because no radiation from the Fukushima reactors in Japan has been detected in the United States. Potassium iodide is a form of iodine that saturates the thyroid gland and keeps it from absorbing radioactive iodine, a cancer-causing component of fallout.
The FDA has approved three potassium iodide preparations to protect the thyroid against radiation, but the agency's chief fraud enforcer says that the atmosphere of fear that this week sent consumers streaming into drugstores and onto the Web to buy the pills has proven to be fertile ground for companies hawking unapproved products.
Japan victim of 'US nuclear disaster'
The US knew about the faulty nuclear reactors now facing a catastrophic meltdown in Japan, yet still gave the green light to start energy production despite its consequences, a report says.
The US-based company General Electric was forewarned of the critical engineering flaws in its water-cooled nuclear reactors which are currently in danger of undergoing a catastrophic meltdown in Japan.
During the initial engineering of the nuclear reactor over 35 years ago, concerns were raised that the cooling system would not withstand a severe accident, following with the resignation of three GE employees, ABC News reported.
Japan plant crisis hits close to home for U.S. nuclear workers
By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
When he was a young worker at a nuclear power plant in Kansas, Raymond Rogers and his wife, Lori, planned for the worst.
If an accident happened at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant in Burlington, Lori was to take their two young children to a safer location and he would join them when he could.
Now, 26 years into the industry, with both children grown and gone, the topic of "what if" is so worn, "We don't even talk about it much in the house," says Rogers, 53. But his thinking is the same: If disaster struck and it was his job to stay, he would.
US inflation puts eating out back on the menu The surge in US food prices so far this year is making eating out an even more attractive option for many cash-strapped Americans, official figures have shown.
By Richard Blackden - Telgraph.co.uk
The Labor Department's index for food away from home edged up 0.2pc in February and is now 1.6pc higher over the past 12 months. By contrast, the food at home index rose 0.8pc last month and has climbed 2.8pc in the past year, as the cost of fruit, vegetables and meat climb.
The discrepancy between the two indices, say economists, is because, unlike consumers, restaurant chains can drive hard bargains with food producers and suppliers. "The consumer is just a price taker," said Brian Bethune, an economist at IHS Global Insight. "You can't bargain at the cash register."
Higher Food Prices Likely Here to Stay
By Ian Talley - WSJ.com
Higher food prices are likely here to stay and the rising cost is likely to affect core inflation for poorer nations, International Monetary Fund staffers said in a report Thursday.
"The world may need to get used to higher food prices," IMF research department staff Thomas Helbling and Shaun Roache wrote in a new IMF article. "Policymakers - particularly in emerging and developing economies - will likely have to continue confronting the challenges posed by food prices that are both higher and more volatile," they said.
Philadelphia-Area Manufacturing Expands by Most Since 1984
By Bob Willis
March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region expanded in March at the fastest pace since 1984 as factories received more orders.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's general economic index rose to 43.4, exceeding the highest estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists, from 35.9 the prior month. Readings greater than zero signal expansion in the area covering eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware.
US military spies on social media US spy operation that manipulates social media Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda
By Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain - guardian.co.uk
The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.
A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.
U.S. Sounds Alarm on Radiation
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU and REBECCA SMITH - WSJ.com
TOKYO - Fear about radiation dangers posed by Japan's nuclear crisis spiked as the U.S. instructed its troops and citizens to stay at least 50 miles away from the crippled reactors - establishing a "no-go" zone far wider than the buffer recommended by the Japanese government itself.
And in a vivid sign that Japan's leadership is trying to move decisively to take control of the deepening crisis, at 10 a.m. Thursday morning local time, helicopters from the Self Defense Forces, Japan's version of the military, began dumping water over the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power complex in hopes of taming its dangerously overheating nuclear facilities, according to government broadcaster NHK.
U.S. Calls Radiation 'Extremely High,'
Sees Japan Nuclear Crisis Worsening
by David E. Sanger, Matthew L. Wald, Hiroko Tabuchi. - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a far bleaker appraisal on Wednesday of the threat posed by Japan's nuclear crisis than the Japanese government had offered. He said American officials believed that the damage to at least one crippled reactor was much more serious than Tokyo had acknowledged, and he advised Americans to stay much farther away from the plant than the perimeter established by Japanese authorities.
The announcement opened a new and ominous chapter in the five-day-long effort by Japanese engineers to bring the six side-by-side reactors under control after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and a tsunami last Friday. It also suggested a serious split between Washington and its closest Asian ally at an especially delicate moment.
***** Excellent Interview *****
Yoichi Shimatsu - Complete Overview And Update
Hong Kong journalist - Interview with Jeff Rense - MP3 Heed WARNINGS against taking Potassium Iodide unless an approaching radioactive spike has been confirmed. It can be dangerous.
U.S. radiation experts try to decipher reports from Japan
By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY
The Japanese government's radiation report for the country's 47 prefectures Wednesday had a notable omission: Fukushima, ground zero in Japan's nuclear crisis. Measurements from Ibaraki, just south of Fukushima, were also blanked out.
Radiation experts in the USA say that the lack of information about radioactivity released from the smoldering reactors makes it impossible to gauge the current danger, project how bad a potential meltdown might be or calculate how much fallout might reach the USA.
Tokyo Lifts Reins From Its Utility In Crisis
By ANDREW MORSE - WSJ.com
TOKYO - The Japanese government stepped up its direct control of efforts to contain the nation's unfolding nuclear crisis, amid growing tensions with the Fujishima Daiichi plant's embattled operator.
On Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said 20 government officials had moved into the company's offices here as part of a joint headquarters formed to handle the crisis. Prime Minister Naoto Kan heads the new team.
On Thursday morning, government officials ordered Japan's Self Defense Force to send in helicopters to start dumping water on the site.
Japan nuclear plant: Just 48 hours to avoid 'another Chernobyl' Japan has 48 hours to bring its rapidly escalating nuclear crisis under control before it faces a catastrophe "worse than Chernobyl", it was claimed last night.
Gordon Rayner and Martin Evans 10:52PM GMT 16 Mar 2011 - Telegraph.co.uk
Nuclear safety officials in France said they were "pessimistic" about whether engineers could prevent a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant after a pool containing spent fuel rods overheated and boiled dry.
Last night radiation levels were "extremely high" in the stricken building, which was breached by an earlier explosion, meaning that radiation could now escape into the atmosphere. Tokyo Electric, the owners of the plant, said five workers had been killed at the site, two were missing and 21 had been injured.
Japan earthquake: concern spreads to reactor number 4 The nuclear emergency at the stricken Japanese power plant took an unexpected turn on Wednesday night as the focus switched to a reactor previously declared stable.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent, and Martin Evans 9:30PM GMT 16 Mar 2011 - Telegraph.co.uk
Attention had been concentrated on Fukushima's three working reactors and it was believed that the site's other three offline generators were safe. But, following a fresh explosion and fire, officials have now admitted that the problem has spread to reactor number four.
The new threat lies not from the actual core of the reactor - which at the time of the quake was being refurbished - but in its adjacent cooling pond where its spent fuel had been placed in storage. Engineers say that the 45-feet-deep pool has been heating up and that there is a danger it could boil dry exposing the still highly reactive fuel to the atmosphere. One assessment, from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, actually said there was no water left in the spent fuel pool.
Underground information on what's happening at Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan - a dirty bomb waiting to go off
Mike Adams - NaturalNews via InfoWars.com
(NaturalNews) NaturalNews has received information directly from an American who happened to be in Tokyo at the time of the nuclear incident and who also happens to have a background in atomic energy and nuclear reactors. He has sent us some extremely disturbing information that seems to indicate the situation with the reactors in Japan is far, far worse than what the conventional media is describing. We are not releasing this individual's name for obvious reasons (he's still in Tokyo and virtually unreachable), but he is an individual who is known to me personally and with whom I have spent a considerable number of hours over a period of two years. He is a very high-integrity individual and someone who is also extremely well connected in the world of advanced medicine.
In an email sent from Tokyo, this individual explains:
"...nuclear reactors use bundles of enriched uranium packed into stainless steel fuel rods in order to generate the heat that drives the turbines. You need to keep these bundles of pins cool otherwise they melt or burst.
Fukushima power plant a 'dirty bomb' waiting to happen
HAARP & Earthquakes
Japan earthquake: Emperor Akihito's exceptional speech Minutes before Emperor Akihito made his first-ever television address to his people, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK instructed its editors to cut into the speech if important news on the unfolding nuclear crisis broke.
By Praveen Swami, Diplomatic Editor 3:03PM GMT 16 Mar 2011 - Telegraph.co.uk
In a country where the Emperor is treated with a reverence verging on the worshipful, both the public speech and the orders to show discourtesy to it if need be illustrate just how deep the cultural impact of Japan's earthquake and tsunami has been.
Dressed in a dark suit, and seated against a backdrop designed to evoke the appearance of a traditional paper screens, Emperor Akihito spoke in mannered but modern Japanese - not the formal courtly language which is incomprehensible to many of the country's residents.
He expressed hope that the nuclear crisis would be resolved, and that lives could be saved. "I hope things will take a turn for the better," Japan's monarch said.
Fukushima Coverup, 40 Years of Spent Nuclear Rods Blown Sky High
Paul Joseph Watson and Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
Infowars analysis: In addition to under reporting the fires at Fukushima, the Japanese government has not told the people about the ominous fact that the nuclear plant site is a hellish repository where a staggering number of spent fuel rods have accumulated for 40 years.
A contributor to the Occupational and Environmental Medicine list who once worked on nuclear waste issues provided additional information about Fukushima's spent fuel rod assemblies, according to a post on the FDL website.
Japan begins air drop on stricken reactor
By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI - AP - WTOP.com
ZAO, Japan (AP) - Japanese military helicopters dumped loads of seawater onto a stricken nuclear reactor Thursday, trying to avoid full meltdowns as plant operators said they were close to finishing a new power line that could restore cooling systems and ease the crisis.
U.S. officials in Washington, meanwhile, warned that the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in northeastern Japan may be on the verge of spewing more radioactive material because water was gone from a storage pool that keeps spent nuclear fuel rods from overheating.
Nuclear Crisis: NRC Says Spent Fuel Pool at Unit Four Lost Massive Amounts of Water; Japan Disputes Claims Japan Says the Condition at Unit Four is Stable
BY DAVID MUIR, JESSICA HOPPER, LEEZEL TANGLAO AND BEN FORER - ABCNews.com
America's top nuclear official told Congress today that the pool cooling spent fuel rods at the crippled Japanese nuclear complex had lost most of its water or all of its water, a potentially catastrophic situation.
The Japanese quickly challenged that statement, but gave few details saying only that the situation at the holding pool was "stable."
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said that the fuel pool at unit 4 at the the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had lost massive amounts of water.
Japan earthquake: the Fukushima 50 fight to stave off disaster They work sweating in airtight suits, fighting disaster in a plant collapsing at their feet. They brave explosions and fires that have already killed five of them and may have blasted the others with life-changing radiation. They are the "Fukushima 50", the handful of people who are all that now stands between Japan and the world's second-worst nuclear accident.
By Andrew Gilligan, Tokyo 9:00PM GMT 16 Mar 2011 - Telegraph.co.uk
In a country already brimming with stoic courage, this skeleton crew is surely the bravest of the lot. From fragments of information, we can build a picture of their desperate struggle to save their countrymen, and themselves.
They are not just technicians, but also soldiers and firefighters. They are middle-class control room and health personnel and working-class technicians. There are fifty or so at any one time, but the total, with shifts and rotations, may be as many as 180. The odds against them are great, and growing.
"It doesn't look good at all," says Matt Tuck, a 22-year veteran of the British nuclear industry who is now business director of Matom, a consultancy specialising in nuclear plant operation and emergency management. "Fifty is a very small number, given that there are six reactors. They are at pretty serious risk."
Is Taiwan next? Underwater volcanoes pose risk to Taiwan's nuclear plant, activists say The earthquake that hit Japan on Friday last week has provided additional ammunition to environmental activists who are worried that one of Taiwan's nuclear power plants lies within an area known for its underwater volcanoes.
Lee Chao-shing, a professor of applied geosciences at National Taiwan Ocean University, said last year that as many as 70 underwater volcanoes are located within an 80km radius of the soon-to-be-operational Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District, New Taipei City. Up to 11 of those volcanoes are active, Lee said.
Although atomic regulatory officials dismissed the risks, activists said the authorities should take another look in light of the nuclear incidents in Japan. The volcanoes, which have the highest concentration near a nuclear plant in the world, could lead to "a serious disaster" in the event of an earthquake or tsunami on the scale of that that struck Japan last week, Lee said.
Radiation and the Pacific Jet Stream
UnsilentGeneration.com
Will radiation released from Japan's damaged nuclear plants affect people living in the United States, in Hawaii or on the West Coast? I asked that question of Dr. Ivan Oelrich, a retired nuclear physicist who worked during the last decade with the Federation of American Scientists, toured Japanese reactor sites last August. In an interview this morning he said that detectable radiation around the world may rise, but not "significantly." When the North Koreans set off a nuclear device, for example, radiation showed up at the monitoring station at Yellowknife, Canada - the spot where radiation levels from Japan probably will be first detected on the mainland - but the amounts remained small.
The cantankerous effects from Japan's radiation
REUTERS/Asahi Shimbun Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, president of Environmental Health Trust, is an award-winning scientist and writer on environmental health issues, author of "The Secret History of the War on Cancer," and "Disconnect" who served as the founding director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 1983-93. The opinions expressed are her own.
The discovery of ionizing radiation at the turn of the nineteenth century revolutionized science and society. Within two weeks of their being created at the end of 1895, the stunning x-ray images of his wife's bejeweled hand that physics professor Wilhelm Conrad Ršntgen had taken appeared in major newspapers around the world. From Paris, to London and Tokyo, scientists and celebrities engaged in a world-wide medical vogue with fashionable x-ray parties featuring popular demonstrations of moving skeletons.
This extraordinary discovery in fact came with extraordinary risks. The same technology that could light up lurking solid tumors of the lung and stomach and save lives on the battle field also damaged the ability of bone to make healthy red blood cells and induced an array of crippling deformities. Girls who worked hand-painting clock dials with luminescent radioactive paint and wet their brushes with their tongues to craft fine lines lost their jawbones years later. Men who chipped uranium out of the earth eventually grew pale as their blood became swamped with white blood cells and bereft of iron by aplastic anemia and leukemia.
Humanitarian crisis deepens in quake-hit Japan
By Yoko Kubota - RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan
(Reuters) - A widening cloud of radiation on Tuesday added to the misery of millions of people in Japan's devastated northeast, already short of water and food and trying to keep warm in near-freezing temperatures.
As bodies washed up on the coast from Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami, injured survivors, children and elderly crammed into makeshift shelters, often without medicine. By Monday, 550,000 people had been evacuated after the earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 10,000.
Panic swept Tokyo after a rise in radioactive levels around an earthquake-hit nuclear power plant north of the city, causing some to leave the capital and others to stock up on food and supplies.
Nuclear fears ripple in Japan as rescuers search for survivors
Japan's Black Swan The earthquake changed everything. What will Tokyo do next?
BY ROBERT MADSEN, RICHARD J. SAMUELS - ForeignPolicy.com
Observers of world affairs often speak of "unimaginable" events, developments which like the end of the Cold War, the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, or the recent Arab revolutions prove stunning not so much because they are illogical but rather because they fall outside the normal range of experience and prediction. The surprise, in other words, arises from a failure of human imagination. Japan's recent disaster fits this pattern. In hindsight there was only a single "black swan" anomaly: the 9.0 earthquake. That such an event, once it had happened, would trigger an enormous tsunami was surely predictable, as was the impact on nuclear facilities that were designed to withstand only more limited shocks and the sickening human and social devastation that would ensue. The political, economic, and strategic implications of the continuing disaster are likewise more foreseeable than was the disaster itself.
Helicopters dump water on nuclear plant in Japan
By the CNN Wire Staff
Tokyo (CNN) -- Helicopters dumped water Thursday on and near the Nos. 3 and 4 units at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in the latest attempt to halt the nuclear accident that appeared to be spinning out of control. The helicopters belong to the nation's self-defense forces, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Initially, just a few drops were carried out before the operation was suspended. An NHK commentator said about 100 would be needed for the operation to succeed.
During the afternoon, engineers were planning to begin the process of restoring power to the stricken nuclear complex, a government official said. The complex lost its power Friday, when a 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami hammered northeastern Japan.
Radiation Fears Spark Japan Exodus Lufthansa, KLM Cancel Flights to Tokyo's Narita Airport
BY RUSSELL GOLDMAN - ABCNews.com
Panicked passengers hoping to flee Japan waited for hours at the country's largest international airport today as concerns about radioactive fallout heightened.
The international and domestic terminals at Narita International Airport were crammed with passengers leaving the capital after a small spike in radiation levels were detected in Tokyo following a reactor fire that has raged for two days at a troubled nuclear plant 150 miles north of the city. Four of the plant's six reactors were damaged in last Friday's earthquake. People living in a 30 kilometer radius of the plant were evacuated, but those further away are no less nervous.
Feds deploy more radiation monitors in western US
by Bea Karnes - Colorado Springs / Pueblo - NewsFirst5.com
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Federal environmental regulators say they are adding more radiation monitors in the western United States and Pacific territories as concerns rise over exposure from damaged nuclear plants in Japan.
The Environmental Protection Agency already monitors radiation throughout the area as part of its RadNet system, which measures levels in air, drinking water, milk and rain.
The additional monitors are in response to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, where emergency workers are attempting to cool overheated reactors damaged by last week's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission say they do not expect harmful radiation levels to reach the U.S. from Japan.
Japan catastrophe could make U.S. debt costlier
By Agnes T. Crane - Reuters.com
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
The U.S. Treasury market could feel financial aftershocks from Japan's tragic earthquake. Offloading some of the Asian giant's $1 trillion of foreign reserves could raise cash to help rebuild after Friday's disaster. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is due to end its Treasury bond-buying program in June. If Japan, the second-biggest foreign holder, starts selling that's another support gone - with the potential to make borrowing more expensive for the U.S. government.
It's too early to estimate the cost the Japanese government and private sectors will have to shoulder for reconstruction efforts. But bond investors can't any longer take for granted that Japan will leave its ample reserves intact as it has, broadly speaking, for the past several years. For the government, cashing in could be more palatable than yet more borrowing. Japan's debt already amounted to more than 200 percent of GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund, before last week's events.
Yen Hits Record High After U.S. Warning on Reactor
By BETTINA WASSENER - NYTimes.com
HONG KONG - The yen surged to a record high against the U.S. dollar and the Japanese stock market sank again Thursday morning after a U.S. nuclear official warned that the situation at a damaged reactor was more serious than Tokyo has acknowledged.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index dropped sharply at the open and was 2.1 lower by the midday break in Tokyo, wiping out some of a rebound staged during the previous day and returning toward the lows plumbed during a massive, panicky sell-off on Tuesday. The broader Topix sagged 1.8 percent.
The yen was trading at 78.50 per U.S. dollar by late morning in Tokyo, fueling expectations that the Japanese central bank may intervene in the foreign exchange markets to help weaken the yen.
Dollar hits all-time low against yen
By Charles Riley - CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The dollar hit an all-time low against a strengthening Japanese yen on Wednesday, as global uncertainty and the prospect of more cash flowing into Japan pushed its currency higher.
The dollar fell as low as 76.54 against the yen in late trading Wednesday, dipping under the previous all-time low of 79.75 set in April 1995.
Despite the nation's turmoil, the yen has long been a haven for risk-averse investors. Japanese corporations are also expected to repatriate vast amounts of capital. Those funds are currently tied up in foreign markets but will be needed to facilitate rebuilding.
Why the Current Strength of US Bonds Will Be Short-Lived
By Joel Bowman - dailyreckoning.com
03/16/11 Salta, Argentina - Stocks down gold down bond yields flattened... world markets roiled...
And yet, all this pales in comparison to the very real world horror going on right now in a small group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Tens of thousands of people in one of the world's most developed economies are without access to clean drinking water tonight and without power in sub zero temperatures. Families huddle together, not knowing if or when the next disaster might be visited upon them.
Millions more around the world watch on with sorrow, horror, perhaps even guilt, at what they see unfolding across Japan. Some will point to the failings of man... others to the mystery of a god... and others still will simply sit and scratch their heads...
"What's the reason?"... "What does it mean?"... "Why there and why now?"
How a Reactor Shuts Down and What Happens in a Meltdown - [interactive presentation]
By MATTHEW ERICSON, XAQUêN G.V., DYLAN McCLAIN, TOMOEH MURAKAMI-TSE, GRAHAM ROBERTS, ARCHIE TSE and JOE WARD | NYTimes.com
Sources: Nuclear Energy Institute; Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Tokyo Electric Power; satellite image by Digital Globe
The operating reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power station automatically shut down during the earthquake.
But after subsequent cooling failures, two of them went into partial meltdown.
Major Ring of Fire Events Yet To Come
Includes the entire west coast of North and South America
While the horseshoe shaped belt of seismic and volcanic activity that rings the Pacific ocean has always been a focal point for earthquakes, the past 13 months have seen three high profile seismic events.
In February of 2010 an 8.8 magnitude earthquake - and resultant tsunami (generally less than 2.5 meters) - struck offshore of Chile, leaving roughly 500 people dead and several hundred thousand homes damaged.
In September of 2010, a 7.1 quake struck the Christchurch, New Zealand region causing serious damage, but little loss of life. Nearly 6 months later, a shallow 6.3 magnitude aftershock struck even closer to Christchurch, causing far more damage, and claiming a significant loss of life.
Surviving a Societal Breakdown
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com
03/16/11 Baltimore, Maryland – "....little electricity or gasoline... " reports an eyewitness from The Washington Post, visiting Sendai, Japan. "Nearly all restaurants and shops are closed…roads blocked…supplies depleted…the devastation is catastrophic."
"Fuel almost non-existent... survivors will spend a fourth night in near freezing temperatures without food or water..."
We were elaborating on the benefits of having a family stronghold…a retreat...a bolthole somewhere. When the going gets tough, you need a tough place to go to.
Oh yes…dear reader... the world is a dangerous place. Just so far this year, we've seen two big blow-ups – one in the Arab countries... the other in Japan.
Neither was expected. What’s next?
Obviously, we don’t know. If it'’s a big, nasty surprise, we hope we'’re not here in Bethesda, Maryland, when it comes.
When the elites get ready to bail; fallout shelters... ? Sinister Sites - The Denver International Airport
By VC | November 27th, 2008 - VigilantCitizen.com
An apocalyptic horse with glowing red eyes welcoming visitors? Check.
Nightmarish murals? Check.
Strange words and symbols embedded in the floor? Check.
Gargoyles sitting in suitcases? Check.
Runways shaped like a Nazi swastika? Check.
OK, this place is evil.
But seriously, there are so many irregularities surrounding the DIA, that a voluminous book could be written on the subject. The facilities and the art displayed lead many observers to believe that the DIA is much more than an airport: it is literally a New-Age cathedral, full of occult symbolism and references to secret societies. The art at the DIA is NOT an aggregation of odd choices made by people with poor taste, like many people think. It is a cohesive collection of symbolic pieces that reflect the philosphy, the beliefs and the goals of the global elite. The DIA is the largest airport in America and it has cost over 4.8 billion dollars. Everything regarding this airport has been meticulously planned and everything is there for a reason.
The Airport
The airport facilities themselves raised a ton of questions regarding the true purpose of the mega-structure. Numerous "creative" theories are floating around the DIA regarding underground military bases, aliens and/or reptilian creatures. While I'm aware that anything is possible, we will stick to the documented facts.
World energy crunch as nuclear and oil both go wrong The existential crisis for the world's nuclear industry could hardly have come at a worse moment. The epicentre of the world's oil supply is disturbingly close to its own systemic crisis as the Gulf erupts in conflict.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Libya's civil war has cut global crude supply by 1.1m barrels per day (bpd), eroding Opec's spare capacity to a wafer-thin margin of 2m bpd, if Goldman Sachs is correct.
Now events in the Gulf have turned dangerous after Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain to help the Sunni monarchy crush largely Shi'ite dissent, risking a showdown with Iran.
Russia's finance minister Alexei Kudrin warned on Wednesday that the confluence of events in Japan and the Mid-East could push oil to $200 a barrel in a "short-lived" spike, which would snuff out global recovery.
Surgeon general clarifies position on potassium iodide as protection against nuclear radiation
LATimes.com
A spokeswoman for the U.S. surgeon general has clarified her position on whether people should stock up on potassium iodide as protection against nuclear radiation from Japan.
Potassium iodide, or KI, can prevent the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
During a visit Tuesday to California, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin appeared to contradict the message from other public health officials that the pills are unnecessary and may have harmful side effects.
"It's a precaution," Benjamin told a Bay Area NBC reporter during a tour of a local hospital.
Benjamin, who rebuilt her Gulf Coast clinic after Hurricane Katrina, framed her comment within the broad context of disaster preparedness.
GJ gets radiation ready by buying out potassium iodide Concern over radiation spreading across the Pacific and across the U.S. is causing a particular pill to fly off the shelves.
Reporter: Kelly Asmuth - nbc11news.com
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Concern over radiation spreading across the Pacific and across the U.S. is causing a particular pill to fly off the shelves. Potassium iodide is known to help block radiation in the body.
"Our shelves actually ran out probably the second day after Japan started having nuclear problems," says nutritionist Darlene Story at Grand Junction's Vitamin Cottage.
As the world anxiously waits for Japan's nuclear crisis to cool down, thousands are preparing for the worst by stocking up on potassium iodide pills.
"It's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it," says Judy Pfaus, who bought a bottle of kelp vitamins, which contain iodine. The store is not directing shoppers to natural supplements, like kelp or other sea vegetables.
Potassium Iodide (KI)
CDC Radiation Emergencies What is Potassium Iodide (KI)?
Potassium iodide (also called KI) is a salt of stable (not radioactive) iodine. Stable iodine is an important chemical needed by the body to make thyroid hormones. Most of the stable iodine in our bodies comes from the food we eat. KI is stable iodine in a medicine form. This fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gives you some basic information about KI. It explains what you should think about before you or a family member takes KI. What does KI do?
Following a radiological or nuclear event, radioactive iodine may be released into the air and then be breathed into the lungs. Radioactive iodine may also contaminate the local food supply and get into the body through food or through drink. When radioactive materials get into the body through breathing, eating, or drinking, we say that "internal contamination" has occurred. In the case of internal contamination with radioactive iodine, the thyroid gland quickly absorbs this chemical. Radioactive iodine absorbed by the thyroid can then injure the gland. Because non-radioactive KI acts to block radioactive iodine from being taken into the thyroid gland, it can help protect this gland from injury. What KI cannot do
Knowing what KI cannot do is also important. KI cannot prevent radioactive iodine from entering the body. KI canprotect only the thyroid from radioactive iodine, not other parts of the body. KI cannot reverse the health effects caused by radioactive iodine once damage to the thyroid has occurred. KI cannotprotect the body from radioactive elements other than radioactive iodine - if radioactive iodine is not present, taking KI is not protective.
Libya Is a Problem from Hell Why isn't Obama listening to Samantha Power's advice when it comes to intervention in Libya?
BY JAMIE M. FLY - ForeignPolicy.com
As Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces advance toward Benghazi, Barack Obama's administration continues to dither in its response to Libya's crisis. Although the U.S. president insists that all options are on the table, his administration has failed to outline a plan that could conceivably help the Libyan rebels oust Qaddafi and end the bloodshed. The weak American response pales in comparison with countries such as France -- which has recognized Libya's revolutionary council as the country's legitimate government and has contemplated airstrikes -- and even the Arab League, which endorsed a no-fly zone over the weekend.
G-8 Ministers Fail to Agree on Libya No-Flight Zone
By STEVEN ERLANGER - NYTimes.com
PARIS - The eight most powerful industrialized nations failed to agree Tuesday on a no-flight zone or any other military operation to help the Libyan opposition, instead passing the problem to the United Nations Security Council by urging an undefined increase of pressure on the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
France and Britain pressed for agreement on a no-flight zone, while Germany and Russia opposed the measure and the United States was cautious, officials said, speaking anonymously following diplomatic protocol.
Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, read a statement after talks among foreign ministers of the Group of 8 nations concluded here on Tuesday, saying that they called on Colonel Qaddafi "to respect the legitimate claim of the Libyan people to fundamental rights, freedom of expression and a representative form of government."
An Anonymous Attack on the "Global Banking Cartel"
By Addison Wiggin - dailyreckoning.com
03/14/11 Baltimore, Maryland - On one front after another, the Federal Reserve is coming under siege.
On Saturday, to begin, the hacker group calling itself "Anonymous" issued a video manifesto calling for "a relentless campaign of nonviolent, peaceful civil disobedience."
"We aim to break up the global banking cartel centered at the Federal Reserve, International Monetary Fund, Bank of International Settlements [sic] and World Bank," Anonymous says.
The group has been around for years, but made its biggest impact last fall, when WikiLeaks began releasing its stash of State Department cables. As Amazon, PayPal, Visa and MasterCard all cut off their business ties with WikiLeaks, Anonymous launched "distributed denial of service" attacks - basically slamming their websites with so much traffic until they were forced to shut down.
A99 Operation Empire State Rebellion - Communication #1
Should We Intervene in Libya? Pressures for a no-fly zone are mounting, but we have no business going in unless we've thought through exactly what we mean to do.
By Victor Davis Hanson - National Review
There are plenty of good arguments for imposing a no-fly zone in Libya. Without Libyan-government air strikes, the rebels might have a better chance of carving out permanent zones of resistance. Qaddafi has a long record of supporting anti-American terrorism, whether in the form of killing Americans in Europe during the Reagan administration or masterminding the Lockerbie bombing that took down a Pan Am 747 jumbo jet, killing 270 in the air and on the ground. In humanitarian terms, Libyans have been living an ungodly nightmare since Qaddafi's coup in 1969, and it would be a fine and noble thing to lend them a hand to end their four-decade-long misery. The world would be a better and safer place without Qaddafi and his odious clan in power.
Qaddafi Under Siege A political psychologist assesses Libya's mercurial leader.
BY JERROLD M. POST - ForeignPolicy.com
The rambling statements of Muammar al-Qaddafi since the uprising in Libya began on Feb. 17 have led many to characterize the idiosyncratic Libyan leader as a madman, psychotic, out of touch with reality. Among the statements made by Qaddafi that have led observers to question his sanity are his characterization of the rebels as "drug-crazed youth" whose Nescafé the United States plied with hallucinogenic drugs. He also accused al Qaeda of being behind the rebellion, only to then again accuse the United States. In his first media interview on Feb. 28 since the uprising began, with BBC, ABC, and the Sunday Times, when asked about his countrymen rising against him, Qaddafi denied it:
"There are no demonstrations at all in the streets. Did you see the demonstrations? Where? They are supporting us. They are not against us. There is no one against us. Against me for what? Because I am not president. They love me. All my people are with me. They love me all. They will die to protect me, my people."
Egypt's revolution: leaders must obey new rules, but protesters still impatient for elections and change A month ago, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was forced from power by an uprising against his 30-year rule. But many Egyptians believe there is still much to be done.
By Colin Freeman, Cairo - Telegraph.co.uk
For Ahmed Shafiq, Egypt's newly-appointed prime minister, it was a lesson in the perils of live television that few of his predecessors in the old regime ever had to worry about. Pitched into a studio debate with guests who actually dared to criticise and answer back, he did the one thing that rarely looks statesmanlike on screen: he lost his temper.
"You don't understand anything!" he snarled, as novelist Alaa al-Aswani, a prominent supporter of last month's pro-democracy uprising, accused him of being a stooge of Hosni Mubarak, the ousted president. "I'm more of a patriot than you are!"
"I am an Egyptian citizen," retorted Mr Al Aswani. "I have the right to ask you these questions."
Bahrain faces 'war of annihilation' Security forces sent in tanks to crush protests in Bahrain's capital, to retake Pearl Square, with five killed and hundreds injured in what was described as a "war of annihilation".
By Praveen Swami - Telegraph.co.uk
At least three protesters were killed after police, backed by tanks and helicopters, used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to clear crowds from the symbolic square in Manama, while the government said two police officers were also killed in the melee.
Abdel Jalil Khalil, the head of the Shi'a opposition bloc Wefaq, said: "This is a war of annihilation. This does not happen even in wars and this is not acceptable.
"I saw them fire live rounds in front of my own eyes."
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said the crackdown showed Gulf states were on the "wrong track." David Cameron, the prime minister, had also made an unsuccessful appeal for restraint to King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa hours before the crackdown.
police brutality in Bahrain
50 tons of weapons seized by Israel Some 50 tons of weapons have been seized by Israel on a ship bound for Egypt as it launched retaliatory airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. -- By Mark Weiss in Jerusalem - Telegraph.co.uk
Amongst the items unloaded from the Victoria, which was intercepted by Israeli naval commandos on Tuesday sailing from Turkey to Egypt, were six Chinese-manufactured missiles with a range of 21.7 miles.
Israeli officials said the weapons were destined for Gaza and would have put Israeli ships in danger, "altering the military balance."
Also unloaded from the Victoria, after it was escorted to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod , were two British-manufactured radar systems, 2,500 mortar shells, 2 missile launchers and almost 70,000 bullets.
"Made in Britain" labels were attached to all of the crates, in an attempt to deceive whoever opened them.
Large, dynamic solidarity protest in DC outside Wisconsin GOP fundraiser
by Chris Bowers for Daily Koss
The days when Democrats faced an enthusiasm gap are gone. The Republican tea party mojo of 2009-2010 has disappeared, replaced by a new protest movement of union members, students, and progressive activists of all stripes. We've seen it in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and in solidarity protests around the country. Today, it was out in force in DC, too.
The occasion for the protest in DC was the arrival of the Wisconsin Republican state Senators facing recall. They were in town for a $1,000-per-head fundraiser, hosted at the offices of corporate lobbyists. They must have felt right at home, given what was happening both inside and outside the building.
Slouching Towards Argentina Is America now headed down this same road?
By Peter Ferrara - The American Spectator.org
Argentina enjoyed the world's fourth highest per capita GDP in 1929, on par with America at the time. But then the nation lost its way with a union dominated government taking control of the economy, and imposing wildly irresponsible taxes, spending, deficits and debt. After World War II, the hugely popular Juan Peron came to power in alliance with the unions, which effectively became part of the government. It has been all downhill for Argentina ever since.
The nation's currency lost 70% of its value in 2 years, and inflation roared to 50% in 1951, amidst out of control spending, deficits and debt, which the nation's monetary authorities accommodated through the "quantitative easing" of the time. The economy has never really recovered, as union dominated government only expanded and solidified control of the economy.
Thousands rally against Gov. Rick Snyder's budget in Lansing
BY KATHLEEN GRAY AND DAWSON BELL
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
LANSING -- Thousands of people gathered at the Capitol in Lansing today for a union-sponsored rally against Gov. Rick SnyderÕs budget proposal.
Josh Windy, 31, of the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 85 of Saginaw was beginning to grill about 10,000 hot dogs this morning for the hungry crowd, estimated to be between 3,000 and 4,000 strong.
"This is not about unions. It's about working people," he said. "He's giving money to businesses and taking money from working people."
Corrine Carey thinks all public employees from the governor on down to building janitors should take cuts in wages and benefits from 3-5% to help deal with the budget crisis.
Protesting Governor Rick Snyder at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing
1,000-plus seniors rally at Capitol to protest Snyder's plan to tax pensions
By CHRIS CHRISTOFF - DETROIT FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF
LANSING - More than 1,000 seniors and retirees packed the front of the state Capitol today to protest Gov. Rick Snyder's budget-balancing plan that would tax pensions like ordinary income.
Chanting, "It's not fair," and, "Recall Rick," the crowd -- 400 were bused in by AARP Michigan -- heard speakers denounce Snyder's fiscal plan as an unfair tax shift from businesses to retirees and the middle class that would hurt funding for schools, universities and basic city services.
Elizabeth Warren on hot seat Goes toe-to-toe with GOP
By Jennifer Liberto
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- House Republicans got their first chance Wednesday to grill White House adviser Elizabeth Warren about the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), taking a first step in a campaign aimed at gutting, curbing or controlling the new agency.
Appearing at her first public hearing on behalf of the bureau, Warren explained how the bureau is being established and how its top goal is making financial products easier to understand.
"We firmly believe in the importance of making prices clearer, making risks more obvious, and cutting back on the fine print and legalese that can make it impossible for families to compare a mortgage or credit card with two or three others," Warren said in her prepared testimony.
The Brackets of Leadership
By Fred Thompson - NationalReview.com
As Mark Steyn noted, President Obama is getting out in front on the NCAA Men's National Basketball Tournament.
Don't get me wrong, I like putting together an NCAA basketball tournament bracket just as much as the next guy. And let's acknowledge that NCAA hoops brackets and things like fantasy football pools can be productivity drains in many offices across the country. But the difference between President Obama and the rest of us is that we aren't calling a meeting of the White House communications staff to rehearse our bracket unveils for a national TV audience while ducking national-security issues, budget negotiations, Social Security reform meetings ... you get the idea. And certainly most of us are not picking our brackets with the help of the DNC and an eye toward swing-state votes in our bracket-buster picks.
Ben Fuchs: How Much Potassium Iodine Should I Take?
Alex Jones 2011-03-16 Wed. Part 1/16
Red Alert: Alex talks about nuclear radiation reaching Alaska and the threat the U.S. faces from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. He also talks with New York Times-bestselling author and journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Greg Palast. He is also a former lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations and wrote recently about how Obama administration wants Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, will also be in-studio. Alex also takes your calls and covers other important news.
'Radiation plume threatens Tokyo'
PressTV.ir
A US scientists group says the radiation plume from a nuclear power plant damaged by Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami could reach the Japanese capital, Tokyo.
Nuclear power and safety experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists said they were "very concerned" that ongoing activities at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant would become more challenging, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Radiation levels at reactor number-four of the plant are so high that workers cannot perform their duties.
Tokyo Electric Says 2 Nuclear Reactor Cores May Be Damaged
By Tsuyoshi Inajima and Shigeru Sato
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- A fire and aftershocks struck the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant today, as officials battling to prevent a nuclear meltdown said fuel rods at two reactors may have been damaged.
Clouds of white smoke or steam started rising from reactor buildings at 10 a.m. and moving westward inland. Japan Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation levels at the plant rose at that time but have since fallen. About 70 percent of the uranium-plutonium fuel rods at the plant's No. 1 reactor and a third of the No. 2 reactor's fuel may have been impaired, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
Setback in Reactor Fight
By YUKA HAYASHI And ANDREW MORSE - WSJ.com
TOKYO - Japan faced new setbacks in its struggle to tame a quake-ravaged nuclear complex as a fresh fire broke out there early Wednesday, workers were temporarily moved to safer locations, and new threats emerged in previously unaffected parts of the plant.
Radiation levels began rising sharply around 10 a.m. local time, according to a government spokesman, forcing outdoor workers at the power plant to move indoors, away from the most radioactive areas. But by 11:30 a.m. the workers were back on the job, the government's nuclear safety agency said.
Japan nuclear crisis:
Workers halt desperate struggle to stop meltdown at Fukushima plant
BY HELEN KENNEDY - DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Workers abandoned Japan's quake-stricken nuclear plant on the verge of meltdown Tuesday when increasing radiation levels made it too dangerous to remain.
Inside the evacuated Fukushima plant about 50 workers had been struggling to keep pumping seawater into the reactors to avert a meltdown of the nuclear core that could spread large-scale contamination.
But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the work was disrupted by the need to withdraw.
"So the workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now," Edano said. "Because of the radiation risk, we are on standby."
'Worst Case' Nuclear Disaster Hangs on Unlikely Events
By Mehul Srivastava and Adi Narayan
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- For Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s stricken nuclear reactors to release catastrophic amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, a rare chain of events needs to happen.
Averting a full-scale meltdown depends on cooling the fuel rods at Fukushima Dai-Ichi's Reactor No. 2, said S.K. Malhotra, a scientist at India's Department of Atomic Energy in Mumbai. A worst-case outcome, which scientists say isn't likely, may occur if overheating in the reactor culminates in the rupture of the steel lining protecting radioactive material.
"In the worst scenario, an explosion could occur inside the steel pressure vessel, fuel bundles melt down and the radioactivity is exposed," Malhotra said in a phone interview. "I would say there is a 10 percent probability still."
Is Seawater a Last Resort to Cooling Japan's Nuclear Reactors? Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant normally relied on purified water to whisk away heat from its reactors, until the destruction wrought by the March 11 tsunami called for extreme measures
By Larry Greenemeier - ScientificAmerican.com
As the situation at Japan's 40-year-old Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant goes from bad to worse - four of the plant's six boiling-water reactors have been damaged by explosions or fire, and radiation has begun leaking into the atmosphere - officials there continue to pump seawater into the reactors in a desperate attempt to cool down fuel rods and avoid a complete meltdown that could release radioactive fallout across much of the country and beyond. The move by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates Daiichi, to use seawater doped with neutron-absorbing boron in the reactors' pressure vessels all but ensures that they will never function properly again, permanently damaging one of the world's 25 largest nuclear power stations.
27 Signs That The Nuclear Crisis In Japan
Is Much Worse Than Either The Mainstream Medi
Or The Japanese Government Have Been Telling Us
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
How much of a threat is the nuclear crisis in Japan? That question is on the minds of millions of people around the globe tonight. Unfortunately, the Japanese government and the mainstream media have both been doing their best to downplay this crisis. Even though there have been massive explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, authorities in Japan have still been very stingy with information and they keep insisting that the situation is under control. But the situation is not under control. In fact, it just seems to get worse with each passing day. Radiation levels are now incredibly high at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex and the radiation cloud is starting to spread. Radiation levels in Tokyo are already 10 times above normal levels, and there are reports in the international media that some people have begun to flee the city. It is imperative that the Japanese government tell the truth about what is going on because this could potentially affect the health of millions of people. There are over 12 million people in the city of Tokyo alone. If this nuclear crisis continues to get worse it could potentially end up killing more Japanese than the tsunami just did.
Nuclear crisis highlights history of 'cover-ups'
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
A documentary filmmaker who has spent much of his career focusing on the Japanese nuclear industry says it has a long history of cover-ups.
All eyes are on the industry after Friday's deadly earthquake and tsunami affected the cooling systems of several Japanese reactors, with two explosions at one plant in Fukushima.
Tony Barrell told PM while it appears authorities are being transparent in this latest crisis, their record is tarnished.
"It's not been good. This recent occasion is an example of the new regime if you like, of actually telling people in a blow-by-blow way of what's going on," he said.
The Future of Nukes, and of Japan When all is said and done, nuclear power plants will not top Japan's list of worries.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. WSJ.com
You can't beat for drama the struggle of Japanese operators to manage the emergency cool-down of nuclear reactors in the tsunami zone. For the things that matter most, though - life and safety - the nuclear battle has been a sideshow. Hundreds were feared dead when entire trains went missing. Whole villages were wiped out with the loss of thousands of inhabitants. So far one worker at one nuclear plant is known to have died in a hydrogen explosion and several others have exhibited symptoms of radiation poisoning.
As for environmental degradation, video testifies to the brown murk that the tsunami waters became when they crossed into land. An infinity of contaminants - sewage, fuels, lubricants, cleaning solvents - have been scattered across the Earth and into aquifers. Radiation releases, meanwhile, haven't been a serious threat to anyone but the plant's brave workers.
Could Nuclear Radiation From A Meltdown Of The Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Reactors In Japan Reach The United States?
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The possibility of a full-blown nuclear meltdown of one or more of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors seems to increase by the hour. Millions of weary Japanese citizens are desperately hoping that the worst case scenario does not play out. A major nuclear disaster is the last thing that they need at this point. So could radiation from a meltdown of one or more of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors reach the United States? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Right now authorities in Japan are hoping to avert a full-blown meltdown and keep the radiation that is escaping to minimal levels, but at this point it appears that they are fighting a losing battle. Yesterday, yet another of the reactors exploded. The explosion at Fukushima Dai-ichi unit 2 was the third major explosion in four days. Previously there had also been huge explosions at unit 3 and at unit 1. Japanese authorities are feverishly trying to pump sea water into all of the reactors in the complex in an attempt to cool them down. At this point authorities in Japan have admitted that the levels of radiation in the areas immediately surrounding the reactors "can impact human health", and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is saying that the risk that further radioactive material will be released is "very high". Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano has told the media that fuel rods in three of the reactors appear to be melting and that he cannot rule out the possibility of a full-blown meltdown in all three of the problem reactors. Right now, the Japanese government is advising all people living within a 30 kilometer radius of the reactors to stay indoors.
New fire breaks out at Fukushima plant
Another fire has broken out at a reactor at Japan's Fukushima power plant, as the country is struggling to contain the nuclear catastrophe, operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) says.
An employee has confirmed that smoke was rising from reactor number four in the early hours of Wednesday, AFP reported.
Following the devastating quake and tsunami, all attention has been directed to the Fukushima nuclear plant, where several explosions have caused the release of radioactivity into the atmosphere.
On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan warned that everyone within 20 kilometers of the plant should remain calm but evacuate, while those within 30 kilometers should stay indoors. He said efforts were being made to control the situation.
Fire at Japan nuclear reactor heightens radiation threat
By Shinichi Saoshiro and Chisa Fujioka
(Reuters) - Another fire broke out on Wednesday at an earthquake-crippled Japanese nuclear plant that has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo and triggered international alarm, suggesting that the crisis may be slipping out of control.
Academics and nuclear experts agree that the solutions being proposed to contain damage to the Daiichi reactors at Fukushima, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, are last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
While public broadcaster NHK said flames were no longer visible at the building housing the No.4 reactor of the plant, Japanese TV pictures showed smoke rising from the facility at mid-morning (1000 local, 0100 GMT).
Wind to blow towards Pacific from quake-hit Japan plant
(Reuters) - The wind near a quake-damaged nuclear complex in northeast Japan, which has released radiation into the atmosphere, will blow from the northwest and out into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, a weather official said.
The wind speed will get stronger in the afternoon, blowing as fast as at 12 meters (39.4 ft) per second, said the official at the Japan Meteorological Agency in Fukushima prefecture where the plant is based.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), is about 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo on the country's northeast coast.
Japan reminds strapped officials they need buffer
By James Pethokoukis - (opinion)
WASHINGTON - When your credit card is nearly maxed out, dealing with emergencies can be tricky. A massive rebuilding effort may stretch Japan to its financial limits. Politicians in Washington and other overspending capitals should take note of the warning.
Trying to calculate a country's available "fiscal space" - the additional amount they can borrow before markets demand a sharply higher premium - is guesswork. The global financial crisis took the public debt of advanced economies to 75 percent of GDP in 2009 from 60 percent in late 2007. And by 2015, the International Monetary Fund reckons, the average ratio may hit 85 percent. That's perilously close to the 90 percent level where debt seems to really hamper growth, according to economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.
Chernobyl clean-up expert slams Japan, IAEA
By Michael Shields
(Reuters) - Greed in the nuclear industry and corporate influence over the U.N. watchdog for atomic energy may doom Japan to a spreading nuclear disaster, one of the men brought in to clean up Chernobyl said on Tuesday.
Slamming the Japanese response at Fukushima, Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev accused corporations and the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of willfully ignoring lessons from the world's worst nuclear accident 25 years ago to protect the industry's expansion.
"After Chernobyl all the force of the nuclear industry was directed to hide this event, for not creating damage to their reputation. The Chernobyl experience was not studied properly because who has money for studying? Only industry.
Fukushima:
Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest Damaged Japanese Nuclear Plant Has Five Mark 1 Reactors
BY MATTHEW MOSK - ABCNews.com
Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.
Questions persisted for decades about the ability of the Mark 1 to handle the immense pressures that would result if the reactor lost cooling power, and today that design is being put to the ultimate test in Japan. Five of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has been wracked since Friday's earthquake with explosions and radiation leaks, are Mark 1s.
Japan Is a Humanitarian Disaster, Not a Global Economic Crisis
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
This morning, the stock market collapsed 300 points within minutes of the bell, sparking a panic among investors who worried that the Japanese earthquake could slow the steady performance of US companies and consumer spending.
They should stop panicking. Indeed, many already have. The Dow has recovered 150 points of its initial fall. The fires and floods in northern Japan are a humanitarian tragedy, but there is no reason to think they mark the beginning of global slowdown. Here are three reasons why.
Likely Economic Effects of the Japanese Earthquake
By Gonzalo Lira
Living in Chile, I experienced the February 2010 earthquake. That puppy measured 8.8 on the Richter scale at its epicenter. In Santiago, the earthquake registered about an 8.2 - and I was on a 15th floor when it happened. Believe me, it was quite the experience. I wrote a first person account of the earthquake here.
I bring this up in relation to the Sendai earthquake that rocked Japan this past Friday: It was an 8.9 (Richter), and wrought tremendous devastation. As I write, there is as yet no clear accounting as to lives lost, though it is likely in the tens of thousands. At least two nuclear reactor sites have been severely damaged; the Fukushima reactor #1 is close to melting down, and #3 isn't in much better shape. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from the area, and further tens of thousands of people are homeless, following the tsunami. And millions of people are without electricity or running water.
Crisis Adds New Risk to Global Recovery
By PATRICK BARTA And MARK WHITEHOUSE - WSJ.com
Mounting worries about Japan's ability to contain and recover quickly from a nuclear disaster jolted the world's financial markets and economy Tuesday, underscoring a sharp shift in recent weeks in the risks facing the global recovery.
International companies from BMW AG to Boeing Co. girded for possible disruptions to supply chains, as the world's third-largest economy faced worry about radioactive contamination and was imposing rolling power outages to cope with the crippling blow the quake has dealt to its electricity grid.
In global markets Tuesday, stocks and commodities fell and currencies gyrated, amid the Japanese uncertainties as well as escalating tensions in the Middle East.
"The world is rapidly becoming a scarier place," said Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. "Investors' reaction can certainly amplify the impact on the recovery."
China can't afford to abandon nuclear power
By Wei Gu - Reuters.com
Fears of a nuclear disaster after Japan's earthquake will harden minds against nuclear power. That could affect China most. The country, already the world's biggest energy consumer, plans to expand nuclear capacity by seven-fold by 2020. Whatever the risks, it has little choice, if it hopes to cut emissions without sacrificing growth.
China badly needs to cut its reliance on fossil fuels. Coal and oil each supplied 71 percent and 19 percent of its total energy consumption in 2008, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. At current levels of production, China's proven reserves of coal will be depleted in 50 years, according to BP.
Earthquakes: Finding fault with nature Here's a look at why such tremors happen and where the next one might strike.
Earthquake risk in North America -- MNN.com
Within minutes of any major earthquake - from the recent disaster in Japan to the tremors that rocked Haiti a year earlier - shockwaves can twist the landscape, flatten buildings and wipe out entire neighborhoods. And every time, people around the planet get a tragic reminder: There's a world of danger lurking under our feet.
Japan's Giant Shock Rattles Ideas about Earthquake Behavior Few experts thought the seismic zone off Sendai, Japan, was capable of such violence.
By Richard Monastersky - ScientificAmerican.com
"This earthquake is a lesson in humility," says Emile Okal, a geophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who studies great earthquakes and tsunamis. Few experts had thought that the seismic zone near Sendai, Japan, was capable of producing earthquakes anywhere near as powerful as the magnitude-9.0 shock on 11 March, the largest on record in Japan. Okal and his colleagues want to understand why the event was so much stronger than many people expected -- and what it means for seismic risks in Japan and elsewhere around the globe.
The quake happened along a seam in the planet's surface where the Pacific Ocean floor is diving beneath the tectonic plate carrying northern Japan (see 'Collision zone'). That process of subduction triggers the largest earthquakes in the world, such as the magnitude-9.5 Chilean quake in 1960 and the magnitude-9.1 Sumatran quake in 2004. But geophysicists had thought that great subduction-zone earthquakes happened only where younger oceanic crust scrapes its way into the mantle. Older crust, which is cooler and denser, was thought to slide much more readily downward, triggering smaller quakes. And the ocean crust off the northeast part of Japan, having formed about 140 million years ago, is about as old as it can get.
Half of U.S. nuclear reactors over 30 years old
By Steve Hargreaves
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Half of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors are over 30 years old, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Most of the remaining reactors are at least 20 years old.
Originally granted licenses to operate for 40 years, most of the country's reactors have applied for a 20-year extension. Sixty-two extensions have been granted so far, and 20 are still pending, according to the industry group the Nuclear Energy Institute.
From the perspective of the utilities that run them, the reactors -- most of which are paid off -- provide massive amounts of cheap power with no greenhouse gas emissions. The United States gets about 20% of its electricity from nuclear power plants.
Reactors in U.S. Quake Zones May Be Key to Nuclear Plans
By Jeremy van Loon and Mark Chediak
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- The future of President Barack Obama's plans to redesign the U.S. energy system with low- emission nuclear plants may hinge on reactors across the Pacific Ocean as Japan's nuclear disaster renews a debate about the safety of plants.
Engineers are battling to prevent a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power station crippled last week by a tsunami and the 9.0 magnitude temblor off Japan's coast. U.S. regulators may first closely scrutinize San Francisco-based PG&E Corp.'s Diablo Canyon seaside nuclear plant in earthquake-prone California, Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein & Co. wrote in a note to clients yesterday.
Nuclear power and earthquake zones overlap in the U.S. Earthquake in Japan raises concerns about what could happen in the U.S. - MNN.com
Nuclear power is under the microscope as much of the world watches the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and the resulting tsunamis.
Fires near Japanese nuclear power plants are forcing evacuations and concerns for all the obvious reasons. Those concerns have traveled across the Pacific to California, where nuclear power plants are being shut down.
Let's take a look at which nuclear power plants sit in the seismically active areas of the United States.
Generally, this concern is focused on the West Coast of the United States, because that's where most of our large earthquakes have occurred. There are no nuclear power plants in Hawaii or Alaska, but there are four nuclear reactor sites along the West Coast - one nuclear reactor site in Washington, two in California and one in Arizona. Here's a link to an interesting site, nukepills.com, where you can see the location of all nuclear power plants as well as the theoretical fallout zones.
What Can The Japanese Tsunami Teach Us About Prepping For Disasters And Emergencies?
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The Japanese tsunami is a crystal clear example of just how unpredictable disasters and emergencies can be. Nobody ever dreamed that a tsunami in Japan could wash cars, homes and people up to 6 miles inland. But that is exactly what happened. So while it is great to make elaborate preparations for potential disasters and emergencies, it is also absolutely essential to have backup plans. After all, what good is all of that emergency food that you have stored up going to do if a massive tsunami comes along and rips your house off the foundation and deposits it into the sea? Not that all of us shouldn't be busy prepping. Of course we should be. All over Japan right now the supermarkets are being stripped bare. Don't you think that many of those people are wishing that they had stored up some food? It is those that prepare that have the best chance of surviving disasters and emergencies. No plan is foolproof, but having a plan is much better than not having a plan.
MORE UPDATES from a Japanese Listener, with first-hand information
How Radiation Threatens Health As worries grow over radiation leaks at Fukushima, how can we gauge the immediate and lasting health effects of radiation exposure? We take a look at the science behind radiation sickness and the realistic health threats facing Japan
By Nina Bai - ScientificAmerican.com
The developing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami has raised concerns over the health effects of radiation exposure: What is a "dangerous" level of radiation? How does radiation damage health? What are the consequences of acute and long-term low-dose radiation?
Though radioactive steam has been released to reduce pressure within the plant's reactors and there has been additional radiation leakage from the three explosions at the plants, the resulting spikes in radiation levels have not been sustained. The highest radiation level reported thus far was a pulse of 400 millisieverts at reactor 3, measured at 10:22 am local time March 15. The level of radiation decreases dramatically as distance from the site increases. Radiation levels in Tokyo, about 220 kilometers to the southwest, have been reported to be only slightly above normal.
Radiation and Health
EPA.gov How does radiation cause health effects?
Radioactive materials that decay spontaneously produce ionizing radiation, which has sufficient energy to strip away electrons from atoms (creating two charged ions) or to break some chemical bonds. Any living tissue in the human body can be damaged by ionizing radiation in a unique manner. The body attempts to repair the damage, but sometimes the damage is of a nature that cannot be repaired or it is too severe or widespread to be repaired. Also mistakes made in the natural repair process can lead to cancerous cells. The most common forms of ionizing radiation are alpha and beta particles, or gamma and X-rays.
Health Effects
Main Page
Exposure Pathways
Calculate Your Dose
Estimating Risk
Radiation Doses in Perspective
Health effects are the central focus of EPA's Radiation Protection Programs. Below is information that explains the topics that we consider as we prepare regulations and guidance on protective limits.
Radiation, how much is considered safe for humans?
M.I.T.
Astronauts: 25,000 Millirems
The highest recommended limit for radiation exposures is for astronauts-25,000 millirems per Space Shuttle mission, principally from cosmic rays. This amount is beyond the average 300+ millirems of natural sources of radiation and any medical radiation a person has received.
25,000 millirems per year level was the federal occupational limit during World War II and until about 1950 for radiation workers and soldiers exposed to radiation. The occupational limit became 15,000 millirems per year around 1950. In 1957, the occupational limit was lowered to a maximum of 5,000 millirems per year.
A version of this article appeared in the January 5, 1994 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 38, Number 18).
FAQ ABOUT RADIOACTIVITY What is radiation?
Radiation is one of the by products of radioactive decay of unstable atomic nuclei.
All atoms consist of a nucleus surrounded by a number of electrons. The nucleus consists of protons and neutrons, with the number of neutrons being slightly larger than the number of protons for most nuclei. The number of protons in the nucleus defines the element to which the atom belongs. Atoms for which the nuclei have equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes. Thus, strictly speaking, all isotopes belong to the same atom, since the number of protons remains the same. In neutral atoms, the number of protons and the number of electrons are equal.
Dr. Mark Sircus and Dr. David Brownstein
Iodine Treatments for Radiation Exposure (part 2)
Iowa State University series of articles on radiation; start with the first "Introduction" article and click the 'arrows' to find all the articles:
Introduction to Radiation Safety
Iowa State University
Radiography is an important tool in nondestructive evaluation. The method offers a number of advantages over other NDE methods, but one of its disadvantages is the health risk associated with the radiation. Health effects can occur due to either long-term low level exposure or short-term high level exposure.
The primary risk from occupational radiation exposure is an increased risk of cancer. The amount of risk depends on the amount of radiation dose received, the time over which the dose is received, and the body parts exposed. Although scientists assume low-level radiation exposure increases one's risk of cancer, medical studies have not demonstrated adverse health effects in individuals exposed to small chronic radiation doses (i.e., up to 10,000 mrem above background). The increased risk of cancer from occupational radiation exposure is small when compared to the normal cancer rate in today's society. The current lifetime risk of dying from all types of cancer in the United States is approximately 20 percent (see Figure). If a person received a radiation dose of 10 rem to the entire body (above background), his or her risk of dying from cancer would increase by one percent.
Background Information on Thyroid Cancer and Radiation Risk
NIH - National Institute of Health
Scientists do not know what causes most cases of thyroid cancer. One known risk factor is exposure to radiation during childhood. Children who received x-ray treatments for noncancerous conditions such as enlarged tonsils, enlarged thymus gland, and possibly acne and ringworm of the scalp have a higher-than-average risk of developing thyroid cancer many years later.
Children exposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions in the 1950s may also be at risk; however, scientists do not yet have a reliable way to estimate the risk of thyroid cancer from radioactive fallout. Thus far, studies of exposure to radioactive iodine (I-131) for medical purposes or from fallout in areas close to the site of atomic bomb tests during the 1950s have produced no conclusive evidence that such exposure to I-131 is linked to cancer . However, the possibility that I-131 may be related to thyroid cancer continues to be studied. Of particular importance will be information obtained from studies of children and adults exposed to varying levels of fallout from the Chernobyl accident, where an increase in thyroid cancer is apparently related to exposure to high doses of I-131.
Canadian Radiological Monitoring Network
Welcome to Health Canada's "Canadian Radiological Monitoring Network" (CRMN) website. Here you will find a range of information on environmental radioactivity measurements across Canada.
Japan Atomic Energy Agency - real time data
In order to monitor whether there are any effects due to radiation from its activities, a continuously measuring the amount of radiation in the environment using monitoring posts are installed to several sites.
This environmental radiation which ORDC measures is the airborne radiation in units of uGy/h (micrograys per hour). The airborne radiation level around ORDC is generally measured to be (3 - 4) x 10-2uGy/h. However, rainfall and other influences can change the level up to two-fold.
Researching sites
Tokai
O-arai - (monitoring currently offline)
Tsuruga
Ningyo-toge
U.S. Government Blocking Americans From Obtaining Potassium Iodide? Doctor refuses to prescribe drug after "conversation" with CDC; Amazon.com imposes one month waiting period as supplies sell out on back of panic buying
Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com
U.S. health authorities could be blocking Americans from obtaining the radiation-fighting drug potassium iodide, even as the threat of a radioactive cloud from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant affecting the United States prompts panic buying, which has led to stocks of the drug running out across the country.
High strength potassium iodide is a once-a-day-pill than protects the thyroid gland from radiation and cancer caused by radioactive iodine. There are also weaker liquid forms of the drug that provide less protection, but supplies of these are also running low.
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The Return Of Precious Metals And Sound Money
By Giordano Bruno - Neithercorp Press - 3/15/2011
Well, those devious gold bugs and sound money advocates are at it again! They had the audacity to produce economic analysis that consistently outshines and embarrasses mainstream Keynesian pundits. They had the nerve to expose the seedy underpinnings of the private Federal Reserve. They even had the gall to bring the long established short manipulations of metals markets by global banks like JP Morgan and HSBC into the light of day, where anyone whose head was not buried in the dark recesses of their own colon could see and say "My god! There really is an organized cabal against gold and silver!" But if you thought all that was outrageous, these people, who promote the insane notion that our currency should actually be backed by tangible wealth and should be under the control of the voting public instead of some unaccountable parasitic corporate central bank, have now brought state legislators into the mix! The return to sound money has begun...
Utah forwards the silver, gold currency bill to Governor
UTAH (Commodity Online): The State of Utah took another step forward in bringing around its own additional currency by forwarding the silver and gold coin bill (Substitute Currency Amendments bill (H.B. 317) 16-7) to Gov. Gary Herbert for his signature.
Last week the senate had passed a law to allow silver and gold coins as a legal tender within the state's borders.
The Utah legislation is touted as a rejection of fiat money and an opposition against tax code that encourages consumption.
Adens, Schultz, batten down hatches
Newletter editors are preparing for trouble
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - I wrote recently that Pamela and Mary Anne Aden are women for all seasons. Current season: they're battening down the hatches - and so is their distinguished passenger.
I named the Aden Forecast 2010 Letter of the Year because of its strong short and longer-term record and also because of its powerfully articulated strategic vision. See Dec. 30, 2010 column.
On its record, let's just say this: Over past 12 months through February, the letter is up 39.27% by Hulbert Financial Digest count vs. 24.18% for the dividend-reinvested Wilshire 5000 Total Stock Market Index.
Over the past ten years, the letter is up a remarkable annualized 11% vs. 3.72% annualized for the total return Wilshire 5000.
The End of Sound Money and the Triumph of Crony Capitalism
Mises Daily: by David Stockman
The triumph of crony capitalism occurred on October 3rd, 2008. The event was the enactment of TARP - the single greatest economic-policy abomination since the 1930s, or perhaps ever.
Like most other quantum leaps in statist intervention, the Wall Street bailout was justified as a last-resort exercise in breaking the rules to save the system. In the immortal words of George W. Bush, our most economically befuddled President since FDR, "I've abandoned free market principles in order to save the free market system."
Japan's Earthquake Sends a Shockwave Through the Luxury Goods Business -- By CHARLES WALLACE - DailyFinance.com
Nearly half of all Japanese women over the age of 20 own a Louis Vuitton handbag, according to equity analysts MF Global. So if you're LVMH, the French parent of the trendy handbag maker, you have to be worrying about the effect of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami on your bottom line.
Luxury brands like Coach and Tiffany in the U.S., and Richemont, Swiss owner of such posh brands as Cartier and Montblanc, have taken huge hits to their stock prices as investors digest the consequences of a prolonged consumer drought in their biggest market.
How Long Can the Fed Continue to Downplay Inflation?
By CHARLES WALLACE - DailyFinance.com
When the Federal Reserve's interest-rate-setting committee meets on Tuesday to consider whether to change its monetary policy, it will likely be forced to alter the way it views the economy. It will probably rewrite its dismal assessment of unemployment, which has fallen, and acknowledge that the economy seems to be picking up. But will it also admit that the whiff of inflation is much stronger?
Prices for food and gasoline have lept in recent months, but they are not part of the key measure known as "core inflation," so the Fed tends to play down their impact. In his recent Congressional testimony, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said "the recent rise in commodity prices will lead to, at most, a temporary and relatively modest increase in U.S. consumer price inflation."
Alan Greenspan: Stimulus hurt recovery
By Jennifer Liberto
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- Massive government intervention to save the economy is to blame for the lagging recovery, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday.
Greenspan argued for less government intervention to get the recovery rolling and businesses investing in equipment and plants.
"What we need to do now is to calm down; let things move by themselves," he said at a forum at the Council of Foreign Relations. "And indeed the rate of activism has decreased significantly and the ratio of capital flow has inched back up."
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Martial law declared in Bahrain Interview with Ralph Schoenman, author and political commentator, Berkeley - PressTV.ir
Following the deployment of armed mercenaries, confirmed use of nerve gas, and the compliance by al-Khalifa to allow Saudi and GCC troops and tanks to enter Bahrain in order to supposedly restore order, the Bahraini government has declared Martial law.
Press TV talks with Ralph Schoenman, author and political analyst, Berkeley who encapsulates events and al-Khalifa's war crime atrocities leading up to the Arab invasion of Bahrain and the most recent response to this by the people of Bahrain. Press TV: Can you share with us your understanding of the most recent developments in Bahrain? Ralph Shoenman: The peaceful demonstrators for democracy in Bahrain have continuously been assaulted by armed forces by live gunfire and in the mobilization in Refa the Royal court and in Manama where not only were they assaulted by over 100,000 mercenaries using posts, knives, clubs, swords and hatchets attacking people at random, but neurotoxins and nerve gas were confirmed and resulted in the paralysis and death of numerous people.
'Bahrain unrest threatens US interests' US interests could be threatened by the unrest in Bahrain, according to some Western media outlets.
The Associated Press has reported that the uprisings in the Arab world have not harmed US interests in the Middle East, but if the unrest continues in Bahrain, the US will be in serious trouble.
The Los Angeles Times said that the collapse of the monarchy in Bahrain could change the strategic balance in the Middle East because Bahrain is the base of the US Fifth Fleet.
After the invasion of Kuwait by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1990, Washington used Bahrain as a base to backup its jets.
Bahrain and the United States signed a joint military agreement in 1971 that provides the US access to a 40-square-kilometer area of land.
'US had advance knowledge of invasion' Interview with Bahraini opposition leader Saeed al-Shahabi PressTV.ir
The United States had advance knowledge about the plan to invade Bahrain, Bahraini opposition leader Saeed al-Shahabi says.
He made the remarks in an interview with Press TV in which he also said that the US is defending the action by refusing to call it an invasion.
Following is the transcript of the interview: Press TV: What are your views about human rights violations, with regards to the fact that Saudi Arabia has sent 1,000 troops to Bahrain, plus Kuwait and the UAE, with the US saying it is not an invasion? Saeed al-Shahabi: It is now becoming more clear that the US knew about the invasion before it took place. Of course, if they have designed it, they will not call it an invasion. They would probably call it a goodwill gesture from the Saudis, and then when they start killing our people they will say it's a merciful act towards the Bahrainis.
'US fears Libya intervention outcome' Interview with Gareth Porter, an investigative journalist in Washington -- PressTV.ir
Libyan revolutionaries have gained control of some strategic towns in the North African country, but have been unable to topple longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi, who remains in power thanks to his loyalists.
In an interview with Press TV, Gareth Porter, an investigative journalist in Washington, commented on the status of the revolution that has put Libya in a state of turmoil since mid-February.
The following is a rush transcript of the interview. Press TV: Do you think the revolution in Libya will eventually put an end to the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, considering the fact that things are changing by the minute, both sides claiming different things? Porter: I am not in a position to make that sort of judgment; but I can say that in Washington the intelligence community of the United States has clearly picked up signals in the past several days that Gaddafi is in a stronger position than he was previously, and the view at this stage is that Gaddafi is more likely to prevail in the end than the revolutionaries. I think that is a judgment that has been reached over the past week or so.
The target range for the federal funds rate remains at 0 to 1/4 percent
The policy of reinvestment of principal payments remains
no change to the plan to purchase an additional $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of June 2011.
the key sentence "likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period" remains
From the Federal Reserve:
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January suggests that the economic recovery is on a firmer footing, and overall conditions in the labor market appear to be improving gradually. Household spending and business investment in equipment and software continue to expand. However, investment in nonresidential structures is still weak, and the housing sector continues to be depressed. Commodity prices have risen significantly since the summer, and concerns about global supplies of crude oil have contributed to a sharp run-up in oil prices in recent weeks. Nonetheless, longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable, and measures of underlying inflation have been subdued.
Fed Makes No Mention of Japan
By Michael S. Derby - WSJ.com
Federal Reserve policy statements are supposed to outline the forces that will drive monetary policy over coming months, so while it wasn't unexpected, it's nevertheless puzzling central bankers omitted the biggest risk of all: Japan.
It is true economists are still trying to come to terms with the fluid and very unpredictable course of events coming out of Japan in the wake of last week's earthquake and tsunami, which has turned into a humanitarian catastrophe and metastasizing nuclear disaster. No forecasters can say with any reliability what impact Japan will have on the world economy, or on the U.S. economy.
Geithner's Gamble
By Simon Johnson - Project-Syndicate.org
LOS ANGELES - In a recent interview, United States Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner laid out his view of the nature of world economic growth and the role of the US financial sector. It is a deeply disturbing vision, one that amounts to a huge, uninformed gamble with the future of the American economy - and that suggests that Geithner remains the senior public official worldwide who is most in thrall to the self-serving ideology of big banks.
Geithner argues that the world will now experience a major "financial deepening," owing to growing demand in emerging markets for financial products and services. He is thinking, of course, of "middle-income" countries like India, China, and Brazil. And he is right to emphasize that all have made terrific progress and now offer great opportunities for the rising middle class, which wants to accumulate savings, borrow more easily (for productive investment, home purchases, education, etc), and, more generally, smooth out consumption.
Rules for Wisconsin Radicals Hint: Lose the whole '60s thing.
By William McGurn - WSJ.com $$
Just before the package of labor reforms favored by Gov. Scott Walker made it through the Wisconsin legislature, students demonstrating inside the Capitol mobilized to show their resistance. On the floor of the rotunda, they linked their bodies to offer a little protest art for the photographers: a human peace sign.
Two days later, upwards of 100,000 people, some bussed in from elsewhere, converged on Madison to say that this is only the beginning. The idea, of course, is that the Republican governor and his Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature have thwarted democracy. By "overreaching," they are said to have done for Democrats what ObamaCare did for the Republicans: galvanize a demoralized base.
Illinois Pension Crisis Eludes Easy Solutions
By MICHAEL CORKERY - WSJ.com
Lawmakers in Illinois say they may try to fix the state's ailing pension system by asking current workers to pay more into the plan, though the approach faces substantial legal and political obstacles.
The lawmakers are also entertaining the politically difficult idea of applying broader pension changes made this year for newly hired employees to current workers. Those include raising the retirement age and scaling back on annual cost-of-living raises.
Whatever approach is embraced, it remains unclear whether such strategies would fix the Illinois system, which is 45% funded. That makes it the most under-funded state plan in the U.S., according to Moody's Investor's Service.
Ohio Governor Poses Steep Cuts to Trim Deficit
By AMY MERRICK And KRIS MAHER - WSJ.com
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, mirroring the moves of other newly elected Republicans, proposed a two-year budget Tuesday that would close an $8 billion gap by selling prisons, reshaping Medicaid and sharply cutting aid to cities.
Mr. Kasich said his proposal would help local governments offset their loss of state contributions by making it easier for them to share services and by erasing a requirement that they pay prevailing union wages on construction projects.
Food Stamps Surge in West Sharp Rise Since Bottom Fell Out of Region's Boom Clashes With Go-It-Alone Ethos -- By JIM CARLTON - WSJ.com
BOISE, Idaho - Before the recession hit, Idaho, Nevada and Utah had some of the lowest rates of food stamp use in the nation. It was a boom time in a region that has always prided itself on self-reliance and a disdain for government handouts.
But since the recession began, these three states have the fastest growth rates in the nation of participation in the federal program, recently released figures show. Utah saw a nearly 34% jump in food-stamp participation in December from the same month a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nevada had the second fastest growth rate at 25%, followed by Idaho at 24%.
Imagining a New Mediterranean World
By Mustapha Tlili - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK - Mediterranean countries are experiencing turbulence unseen since the era of decolonization and independence. Popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have swept away entrenched autocracies. Libya's Muammar el-Qaddafi is holding on by the skin of his teeth, and political leaders in Algeria and Morocco are scrambling to maintain authority.
Can a Mediterranean space nurtured by shared democratic values, interests, and hopes emerge from this maelstrom?
The Mediterranean countries are home to 475 million people - 272 million Europeans, including 20 million Muslims, and 200 million non-European Arabs and Jews. It now seems possible that the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), the mechanism that French President Nicolas Sarkozy set up in 2008 to increase regional cooperation, may actually step up to the challenge of reclaiming the region's past as the cradle of reason, tolerance, and humanism. The UfM could offer a model for coexistence to a world injured by dictatorship and fear of Islamic fundamentalism.
Is Syria the Next Domino?
By Ribal Al- Assad - Project-Syndicate.org
LONDON - With the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes gone and street protests roiling cities from Algiers to Tehran, many people are now wondering which domino might fall next. Syria, whose secular, militarized dictatorship most closely resembles the fallen regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, may not be next in line, but appears nonetheless to be approaching a tipping point.
Of course, the old "domino theory" in international relations was only a crude way of emphasizing that different parts of any region are linked to each other. For today's Arab world, a better metaphor might be a chessboard, from which the removal of even a pawn inevitably alters the relationships among all the other pieces.
Coast To Coast AM - 14.3.2011 - 1/12 - Heaven/Earth Discussing situation in Japan - from 3.14.2011
Spent fuel pools in (offline) unit compromised - 25 cores in that pool (25 x Chernoble)
Some precautions regarding Iodine, and Potassium Idoide
From PMH in Japan... "It is too late and it's a history."
Radiation Levels Hit 5,000 near Tokyo
Radiation Amount Data: As of 9:00 and 14:00 on 15th March.
One year ago, the amount of radiation was approximately around 40, only two digits, but now the amount is around 2000 in four digit. Around noon, the government told us the contaminated atmosphere (radio-active cloud) passed through 5:30 in early morning. It is too late and it's a history. The peak level was more than 5000.
Radiation levels up; fire at 4th reactor Anxiety in Japan grows as rescue workers find more bodies
By the CNN Wire Staff
Sendai, Japan (CNN) -- Rescue workers scoured tangled and displaced piles of debris Tuesday, searching for survivors, as crews struggled to keep control at a damaged nuclear plant on the fifth day of the developing disaster in Japan.
Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami killed thousands, based on official and Japanese media reports, but an exact accounting of the disaster remains hidden beneath widespread damage that rescuers are only beginning to unearth.
Nuke engineer: Fuel rod fire at Fukushima reactor
"would be like Chernobyl on steroids"
By: Kirk James Murphy, M.D.
The Fukushima reactor building that exploded March 12 is one of a series of identical General Electric reactors constructed in Japan and the US. In this reactor design, the used nuclear fuel rods are stored in pools of water at the top of the reactor building. These "spent" rods are still highly radioactive: the radioactivity is so great the rods must be stored in water so they do not combust. The explosion at Fukushima Daiichi reactor unit 1 apparently destroyed at least one wall and the roof of the building: some reports stated the roof had collapsed into the building.
Two days later, the nearby building containing the plutonium-uranium (MOX) fueled Fuksuhima Daichii reactor unit 3 exploded. So why bother about the rubble of reactor No 1 The WaPo quotes a nuclear engineer who knows the answer:
Although Tokyo Electric said it also continued to deal with cooling system failures and high pressures at half a dozen of its 10 reactors in the two Fukushima complexes, fears mounted about the threat posed by the pools of water where years of spent fuel rods are stored.
New Explosion At Reactor #2 Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant
containment is leaking - molten mass - meltdown; cooling water is boiling off; another hydrogen explosion possible
Nuclear scare grows with an orange flash and a violent blast Health concerns as hydrogen explosion at Fukushima 1 nuclear power station injures 11 and destroys containment building
By Ian Sample, science correspondent - The Guardian
Japanese engineers fought to save three reactors from meltdown at the stricken Fukushima 1 power station as they battled a series of frustrating setbacks that saw workers struggle to pump seawater into the reactors in a desperate attempt to cool the overheating nuclear cores and make them safe.
The day began with an orange flash and a violent blast that destroyed most of the containment building around reactor 3, causing debris to fall back inside and on to the structure housing the reactor. The blast was caused by a build up of hydrogen that was produced when superheated steam in the core reacted with zirconium alloy cladding that surrounds the reactor's fuel rods.
Japan races to contain meltdowns after two blasts;
third reactor loses cooling capacity
By Chico Harlan and Steven Mufson - WashingtonPost.com
TOKYO - A second explosion rocked Japan's seaside Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex Monday, this time destroying an outer building at unit 3. A Japanese government official separately said that a third reactor at the six-reactor facility had lost its cooling capacity, adding to the complications facing the engineers who try to limit the damage of a partial meltdown.
The explosion at unit 3 did not damage the core containment structure, and Japanese authorities asserted that there would be little increase in radiation levels around the plant. But the explosion -- a result of hydrogen build-up -- prompted Japan's nuclear agency to warn those within 12 miles to stay indoors and keep air conditioners off.
Cover Up Of Fukushima Chain Reaction Underway
By Paul Joseph Watson & Steve Watson - Infowars.com
All the nuclear reactors at the earthquake stricken Fukushima nuclear plant are under threat of melting down and exploding in a chain reaction that will signify the world's worst ever nuclear disaster and send clouds of radioactive particles hurtling towards the United States - that's the scale of the crisis facing Japan as officials admit for the first time that three nuclear reactors are already in a meltdown.
While the mainstream media continues to argue over the definition of a "meltdown" while unquestionably regurgitating the dubious claim of Japanese officials that the two massive explosions witnessed at the plant were caused by pressurized hydrogen, radioactive isotopes cesium-137 and iodine-121 have been detected by helicopters flying 160km (100 miles) away from the nuclear plant, which can only mean one thing, according to the Seattle Times: "One or more of the reactor cores is badly damaged and at least partially melted down."
Fuel Rods Exposed at Japan Nuke Plant
Japan Earthquake:
Radiation Leaking After Fukushima Nuclear Plant Explodes
Japanese PM Expands Evacuation Zone, Tells Others to Remain Indoors
BY DAVID MUIR, JESSICA HOPPER AND DEAN SCHABNER - ABCNews.com
Radiation has spread from damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant following an explosion at one unit and a fire at another, Japanese government officials said early Tuesday.
A spokesman for the government said radiation levels at areas around the plant are high enough to pose a health risk.
The explosion at unit 2 and the fire at unit 4 of the plant, where units 1 and 3 also have exploded since the powerful earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on Friday, have Japanese officials "freaked out," a senior U.S. official said.
"The level seems very high, and there is still a very high risk of more radiation coming out," Prime Minsiter Naoto Kan said.
Japan suspects nuclear reactor container damaged
By: Associated Press - NewNet5.com
TOKYO - UPDATE: A Japanese spokesman says the fourth reactor at damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is on fire and more radiation has been released.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said an explosion Tuesday at an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant may have damaged a reactor's containment vessel and that a radiation leak is feared.
The nuclear core of Unit 2 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan was undamaged, said a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Shigekazu Omukai.
Third explosion rocks Japanese nuclear power plant
Officials in Japan acknowledge that the radioactive fuel inside one of the damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima power plant is in jeopardy of melting down. Meanwhile, the death toll rises.
By Ralph Vartabedian, Laura King and Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Tokyo Japan's nuclear crisis reached new heights as a third explosion rocked the crippled Fukushima power plant and officials acknowledged that the radioactive fuel inside one of the damaged reactors was in jeopardy of melting down.
The reactor, about 150 miles north of Tokyo, "is not necessarily in a stable condition," Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said at a news conference Tuesday. Prime Minister Naoto Kan called the situation "worrisome."
Japanese Government Cover-up
Foreshadows Mega-disaster - Alex Jones Tv 1/3
7 days for any radiation to reach US (AcuWeather)
Japanese Government Cover-up
Foreshadows Mega-disaster - Alex Jones Tv 2/3
Japanese Government Cover-up
Foreshadows Mega-disaster - Alex Jones Tv 3/3
Japan rocked by fresh blast at Fukushima nuclear plant
By Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Tania Branigan in Beijing and Ian Sample - The Guardian.co.uk
The nuclear crisis in Japan escalated as a third explosion in four days rocked the struggling power plant in the country's stricken north-east, according to its nuclear safety watchdog. Tokyo had already called in international help to tackle the escalating crisis.
Non-essential personnel pulled back from reactor 2 at the Fukushima No 1 power plant as radiation levels rose following the blast at 6.10am Japanese time. The blast appears to be the most serious yet, with Kyodo news agency reporting possible damage to the suppression pool of the containment vessel - increasing the risk of a significant release of radioactive material. The news agency said the safety agency feared radiation was leaking.
Tepco Reactor Chamber May Be Damaged, Radiation Leak Possible
By Michio Nakayama, Shigeru Sato and Tsuyoshi Inajima
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- The containment chamber of the No 2 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant may be damaged after today's blast and radiation leakage is possible, company spokesman Kaoru Yoshida said.
"So far, as far as we have been monitoring, the radiation levels have not risen to the level immediately harmful to the human body," Deputy Cabinet Secretary for Public Relations Noriyuki Shikata said on Bloomberg Television. He said some workers have been evacuated from the site and the government is "very closely watching" the situation, which is "evolving."
Japan's nuclear crisis: regulators warned of reactor risks
In 1972, the first warning was issued about the vulnerability of the sort of General Electric reactors used in Fukushima in Japan
By Suzanne Goldenberg -guardian.co.uk
Government regulators knew of a heightened risk of explosion in the type of nuclear reactors used at the Fukushima plant in Japan from the moment they went into operation.
Safety inspectors at America's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) warned as early as 1972 that the General Electric reactors, which did away with the traditional large containment domes, were more vulnerable to explosion and more vulnerable to the release of radiation if a meltdown occurred.
Michael Mariotte, director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said: "The concern has been there all along that this containment building was not strong enough and the pressure containment system was not robust enough to prevent an explosion."
**** warning in 2004 about dangers *****
Sunday, May 23, 2004 Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette
By LEUREN MORET - Special to The Japan Times
Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list.
The Japanese archipelago is located on the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire, a large active volcanic and tectonic zone ringing North and South America, Asia and island arcs in Southeast Asia. The major earthquakes and active volcanoes occurring there are caused by the westward movement of the Pacific tectonic plate and other plates leading to subduction under Asia.
Japan sits on top of four tectonic plates, at the edge of the subduction zone, and is in one of the most tectonically active regions of the world. It was extreme pressures and temperatures, resulting from the violent plate movements beneath the seafloor, that created the beautiful islands and volcanoes of Japan.
A-Bomb Scientists to Study Health Risks From Reactor Explosion
By Kanoko Matsuyama
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- A Japanese research center that has studied atomic bomb survivors for 35 years will send scientists to investigate the health effects of yesterday's explosion at a Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear reactor.
Two doctors from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation may leave this week for the Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant in northeastern Japan, said Evan Douple, the center's associate chief of research. Additional people may follow to help measure radiation levels and work with local health officials to better understand the effects of exposure, he said.
Piers Corbyn All Reactors are Nuclear Bombs
Tokyo streets and shops empty - and the air is heavy with fear After the earthquake, nerves are beginning to fray in Japan's capital following the tsunami and nuclear crisis
By Justin McCurry - guardian.co.uk
The dimmed lights in the normally effervescent neighbourhood of Tokyo were eerily appropriate given the mood on Monday, three days into the greatest test of Japan's resilience as a nation since the second world war.
Darkened streets, petrol rationing, a crippled public transport system and empty supermarket shelves are uncharted territory for a city usually teeming with people accustomed to convenience and abundance. While rescue teams in the Tohoku region uncover hundreds of bodies and officials struggle to cool down a third malfunctioning nuclear reactor 150 miles to the north, all the capital can do is sit tight.
Fukushima Nuclear Accident - a simple and accurate explanation
by Barry Brook - BraveNewClimate
Along with reliable sources such as the IAEA and WNN updates, there is an incredible amount of misinformation and hyperbole flying around the internet and media right now about the Fukushima nuclear reactor situation. In the BNC post Discussion Thread - Japanese nuclear reactors and the 11 March 2011 earthquake (and in the many comments that attend the top post), a lot of technical detail is provided, as well as regular updates. But what about a layman-s summary? How do most people get a grasp on what is happening, why, and what the consequences will be?
Below I reproduce a summary on the situation prepared by Dr Josef Oehmen, a research scientist at MIT, in Boston. He is a PhD Scientist, whose father has extensive experience in Germany's nuclear industry. This was first posted by Jason Morgan earlier this evening, and he has kindly allowed me to reproduce it here. I think it is very important that this information be widely understood.
Radiation Network - Map of USA
Welcome to RadiationNetwork.com, home of the National Radiation Map, depicting environmental radiation levels across the USA, updated in real time every 3 minutes. This is the first web site where the average citizen (or anyone in the world) can see what radiation levels are anywhere in the USA at any time (see Disclaimer below).
Radiation Network - Map of Japan
Here is a Map of Japan showing the Nuclear Sites around the country, most of which are Nuclear Power Plants, including the ones that are in danger of meltdown and radiation release.
Jet Stream Map - live animation
from the California Regional Weather Server
The Top 100 Items to Disappear First
You could also call this "The Top 100 Things You should start stocking up on." Even if you don't need more than 2 (you should always have 2 of everything) each item on this list will be great for bartering. This list was discussed and chosen by the members of SurvivalistBoards.com. No Particular Order.
RADTriageª 2.0 Radiation Detector
[product link does not constitute endorsement by PTG]
A U.S. Military-grade personal dosimeter that instantly detects radiation exposure in the event of a dirty bomb, nuclear reactor accident and other sources of radiation. This always-on wallet card/badge radiation detector does not require batteries or calibration. The sensor bar instantly changes color when it detects harmful levels of radiation. The darker the sensor bar turns, the higher the radiation dose.
Frequently Asked Questions on Potassium Iodide (KI)
FDA.gov
In December 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final Guidance on Potassium Iodide as a Thyroid Blocking Agent in Radiation Emergencies. The objective of the document is to provide guidance to other Federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and to state and local governments regarding the safe and effective use of potassium iodide (KI) as an adjunct to other public health protective measures in the event that radioactive iodine is released into the environment. The adoption and implementation of the recommendations are at the discretion of the state and local governments responsible for developing regional emergency-response plans related to radiation emergencies. The recommendations in the guidance address KI dosage and the projected radiation exposure at which the drug should be used. This guidance updates FDA's 1982 recommendations.
Consideration of Potassium Iodide in Emergency Planning
NRC.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has revised a section of its emergency preparedness regulations. The revised rule requires that States* with a population within the 10-mile emergency planning zone (EPZ) of commercial nuclear power plants consider including potassium iodide as a protective measure for the general public to supplement sheltering and evacuation in the unlikely event of a severe nuclear power plant accident.
Desperate Attempts to Save 3 Fukushima Reactors From Meltdown
By PETER BEHR of ClimateWire - NYTimes.com
Tokyo Electric Co. crews prepared Monday to pump seawater into a third reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in order to prevent or halt a meltdown of its fuel assemblies, hours after a second explosion of leaked hydrogen gas rocked another reactor building at the site on Japan's northeast coast.
Experts called the injection of seawater and neutron-absorbing boron into the site's three crippled reactors units a desperation move never attempted before in the industry. It amounted to sacrificing the reactors in an attempt to maintain the structural integrity of the reactor and its encasing concrete containment structure and prevent a potential uncontrolled major radiological release. Three other Fukushima Daiichi reactors had been shut down for planned work before Friday's 8.9 earthquake and were not part of the crisis.
Fukushima risks
LLRC.org
Potential health consequences of the explosion at the Fukushima reactor in Japan
Below we offer basic advice for people living downwind of the releases of radioactivity.
On BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend, 13th March, Dr. Chris Busby spoke about the potential health effects of the Fukushima explosion. Listen here
Dr. Busby said the reassurances being issued now by official sources and by apologists for the nuclear industry are exactly the same as those issued 25 years ago, at the time of Chernobyl. Risks were understated, as show by subsequent epidemiological studies.
Statements about allegedly low health risks are based on rates of gamma radiation measured at the site perimeter. These take no account of radiation from alpha-emitting radionuclides such as Uranium and Plutonium. It is of particular concern that the number 3 reactor at Fukushima which is now in a problematic condition is fuelled with Mixed-Oxide fuel containing Plutonium.
Exposed fuel rods, explosion raise threat of meltdown in Japanese nuclear plant
By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI , Associated Press - StarTribune.com
SOMA, Japan - Water levels dropped precipitously Monday inside a stricken Japanese nuclear reactor, twice leaving the uranium fuel rods completely exposed and raising the threat of a meltdown, hours after a hydrogen explosion tore through the building housing a different reactor.
Water levels were restored after the first decrease but the rods remained exposed late Monday night after the second episode, increasing the risk of the spread of radiation and the potential for an eventual meltdown.
The cascading troubles in the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant compounded the immense challenges faced by the Tokyo government, already struggling to send relief to hundreds of thousands of people along the country's quake- and tsunami-ravaged coast where at least 10,000 people are believed to have died.
Alex Jones Show - Gerald Celente - Japan Nuke - 2011 03 14
USS Ronald Reagan Dodges Japanese Fallout
Posted by Mark Thompson - Time.com
More than 65 years ago, Japanese fled U.S. nuclear radiation in the wake of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On Sunday, U.S. warships aiding Japan following Friday's horrific earthquake fled radiation leaking from a damaged Japanese nuclear power plant.
Ships from the U.S. 7th Fleet have sailed away from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant after detecting low-level radiation coming from it. U.S. officials said the maximum potential dose anyone might get was less than he or she would receive from a month's exposure to the natural radiation given off by rocks, soil and the sun.
The Coming Nuclear Meltdown
By Ron Fraser - theTrumpet.com
While world attention is centered on the danger of a meltdown at two reactors in Japan, most remain oblivious to an imminent and far greater global nuclear catastrophe!
The video footage has been riveting. From the time that the first pictures emerged showing the extent of the devastation following Friday's earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the world has watched the human drama unfold. This, most especially, as tensions have since arisen over the prospect of meltdowns at two of its nuclear power plants.
Since the proliferation of nuclear power following the unleashing of its terrible potential at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of World War ii, man has lived with the prospect of a nuclear disaster.
Officials Stall Reports on Reactors, Chinese Team Tackles Meltdown
By Yoichi Shimatsu - NewAmericanMedia.com
.... The radiation leak at the Fukushima plant is now officially designated as a "4" on the international nuclear-events scale of 1 to 7. This is the same criticality rating garnered by a minor accident at Tokaimura plant in Ibaraki in 1999 that left two dead. But technically, there is no comparison. Tokaimura did not experience a partial meltdown. Enough of the Good News
One mayor in Fukushima Province isn't buying Tokyo's weak explanation and demanded the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to conduct a serious all-points investigation immediately.
A specialist medical team from the National Radiology Health Institute, flown by helicopter from Chiba to a field center five kilometers (About three miles) from the No.1 Nuclear Plant, found radiation illness in three residents out of a sample group of 90. Overnight that number of civilian-nuclear "hibakusha" shot up to 160. The evacuation zone has been further widened from 10 km to 20 km (12.4 miles).
Tokyo Electric Pumps Seawater in Reactor to Avert Meltdown
By Stuart Biggs, Tsuyoshi Inajima and Akiko Nishimae
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it has resumed efforts to inject seawater into a nuclear reactor damaged by Japan's biggest earthquake after the failure of the cooling system heightened the risk of a meltdown.
Water levels at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant's No. 2 reactor aren't rising enough and fuel rods were exposed, company officials told reporters this morning in a briefing. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano later said the cooling function is working, though it isn't stable.
Rush to Fix Quake-Damaged Undersea Cables
By OWEN FLETCHER And JURO OSAWA - WSJ.com
BEIJING - Asia's major telecom operators scrambled Monday to eliminate the impact on their operations from damage to several submarine cables following the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Many operators were reporting some disruptions in Internet access, though the partial restoration of service was accomplished by rerouting traffic over undamaged cables and via satellites.
About half of the existing cables running across the Pacific are damaged and "a lot of people are feeling a little bit of slowing down of Internet traffic going to the United States," said Bill Barney, chief executive of Hong Kong-based cable-network operator Pacnet. He declined to name the damaged cables operated by other companies, but said Pacnet's cable system connecting Japan to the U.S. isn't damaged so far.
Electricity Outages Amplify the Anger
By ATSUKO FUKASE - WSJ.com
TOKYO - Anger in Japan is mounting at Tokyo Electric Power Co., the country's leading utility, not just over the precarious nuclear situation but also over its mismanagement of a series of planned blackouts that caused mass confusion and delays in the commute for many Japanese heading back to work on Monday.
Critics say the power provider was ill-prepared for the rolling blackouts, didn't disseminate information swiftly enough and constantly changed its plans. The train lines into Tokyo Monday morning were severely delayed, stranding thousands of commuters already rattled and worn out by the quake's ordeal.
Earthquake Disrupts Hong Kong's Internet
By Alice Truong - WSJ.com
Internet users in Hong Kong may continue to experience slow Internet speeds for several weeks when visiting U.S.-based websites, after Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan affected several submarine cables, a government telecommunications spokeswoman said Monday.
Cynthia Chan, spokeswoman for the Office of the Telecommunications Authority, said a "small portion" of Hong Kong Internet users experienced slow speeds loading web pages this past weekend due to the earthquake. Service is being rerouted to other cable systems and users should not notice any difference loading Hong Kong-based sites, she said.
Rescuers Scramble as Death Toll Surges Northern Communities Suffer Food and Water Shortages, While Markets, Economy Reel; U.S. Forces Step Up Assistance
By PHRED DVORAK and ATSUKO FUKASE in Tokyo and ERIC BELLMAN in Sendai - WSJ.com
Rescue workers struggled to get food and water to Japan's ravaged northern communities Monday as the impact of Friday's quake continued to ripple throughout the nation, raising new fears about its nuclear facilities, shaking its financial markets and bringing big chunks of its economy to a halt.
The official death toll continued to climb, reaching above 1,800 by Monday afternoon. The total was expected to rise by hundreds if not thousands as reports from the most stricken areas trickled in. National broadcaster NHK reported that more than 450,000 people had moved to temporary shelters in the affected areas.
Two Dogs Defy the Wave
By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI And ERIC BELLMAN - WSJ.com
ARAHAMA, Miyagi Prefecture - When the tsunami warnings sounded after the massive earthquake that struck Japan on Friday, Masaki Kikuchi sprinted upstairs to grab his sleeping 12-year-old daughter before racing away to escape the rushing waters.
In the backyard tied to a small shed, Mr. Kikuchi left behind two dogs: Towa, a two-year-old Sheltie and Melody, a one-year-old Golden Retriever. Mr. Kikuchi assumed the giant tsunami that flattened his neighbors' homes and whisked away their cars probably killed Towa and Melody too.
Koya Kikuchi, the 20-year-old daughter of Mr. Kikuchi, was riding the bus home from her job at a local restaurant. When the earthquake struck, a power line fell in front of the bus and passengers started filing out.
Japan's investors may bring their money home U.S. Treasuries could take slide as major player moves money into rebuilding
By Burton Frierson, Reuters - MSNBC.com
NEW YORK - Shaken by the prospect of nuclear meltdown after a devastating earthquake and tsunami, Japanese investors will dump overseas assets on Monday and bring their money home to help finance reconstruction.
Positioning for this could send the dollar plummeting versus the yen on Monday and lead to a sharp slide in Treasuries since U.S. government bonds are a favorite asset of Japanese investors, market analysts said.
Stocks also are likely to come under pressure.
Japanese insurers will probably sell some of their most liquid foreign assets such as U.S. Treasuries so they can respond to the worst disaster since World War Two.
Yen Weakens on BOJ Fund Injections, Third Blast at Nuclear Plant
By Candice Zachariahs and Yoshiaki Nohara
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- The yen fell against the dollar, ending a two-day gain, as the Bank of Japan pumped more money into financial markets after the nation's biggest earthquake, damping demand for its assets.
Japan's currency declined against 14 its 16 most-traded counterparts after Tokyo Electric Power Co. confirmed a third explosion occurred at a nuclear plant damaged in the temblor. The dollar rose versus most of its peers before reports this week forecast to show an expansion in industrial production. The euro gained for a second day against the yen amid speculation demand for the region's debt will increase after European Union leaders agreed on a retooled bailout plan.
Bank of Japan pumps billions into financial markets
By Graeme Wearden - guardian.co.uk
The Bank of Japan pumped $183bn (£114bn) into the Japanese financial markets on Monday as part of an unprecedented attempt to shore up confidence following Friday's earthquake and tsunami.
The BoJ pledged to prevent investors losing faith in the world's third-largest economy by offering huge amounts of liquidity to the markets as well as an asset purchase programme.
Masaaki Shirakawa, BoJ governor, said it was "necessary to boost monetary easing further".
But the measures did not prevent shares falling sharply in Tokyo.
Roubini Earthquake Gloom Meets 'Shock Doctrine'
By William Pesek - Bloomberg.com
It always struck me as odd that Japanese bookstores have not just earthquake sections, but entire aisles of titles devoted to tectonic upheavals. After Friday's big one, I'm now a believer in quake-ology.
Temblors have a complicated place in the Japanese psyche. There's a widely held belief, a local mythology, that tectonic- plate shifts can coincide with big ones above the ground, too.
An 1855 earthquake that destroyed much of modern-day Tokyo bookmarked the twilight of the Tokugawa period, during which Japan was isolated for two centuries. Rebuilding efforts after the devastation of 1923 coincided with the rise of Japanese militarism. Kobe's 1995 tragedy dovetailed with the end of Japan's postwar industrial boom and the advent of deflation.
Banks have £1.6 trillion exposure to ailing quartet of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain The total exposure of foreign banks to the struggling quartet of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain tops $2.5 trillion (£1.6 trillion) once all forms or risk are included, according to the latest data from the Bank for International Settlements
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
On an "ultimate risk" basis that includes the potential loss on derivatives and credit guarantees of different kinds, the figure rises to $2.51trillion as of September 2010, well above the headline figure of $1.76 trillion in cross-border loans. The sheer scale highlights the systemic dangers if the EU fails to stabilize the debt crisis.
Eurozone leaders agreed to boost the lending power of the EU bail-out fund on Friday, but Germany vetoed proposals for a debt buy-back scheme or an activist policy of bond purchases.
Gold is safe haven as Japan grapples with catastrophe
CommodityOnline.com
The world is still coming to terms with the terrible tragedy in Japan. A second explosion at the Fukushima nuclear reactor overnight and Pentagon reports of radiation being detected 60 miles away from the reactor suggest widening nuclear contamination leading to concerns of a nuclear catastrophe.
Gold ticked lower momentarily to $1,417.63/oz on the open in Asia prior to rising to over $1,432/oz where determined sellers sold aggressively, sending gold back down to near Friday's closing price on the London AM Fix (see chart). Silver also rose initially prior to determined selling.
The Rule of Gold after the Financial Collapse
Totalitarian Collectivism "You can own silver and gold but never any fiat currency issued by someone else" -- Peter Cajander
In a secular world, the operative "Golden Rule" is "He Who Has the Gold Makes the Rules". The condition of the global financial banking system is untenable. The aggregate amount of debt worldwide is anyone's guess. The introduction of derivatives and counter claims pushes the chain of obligations into the unknown. All that is left is for central banks to create mountains of uninterrupted counterfeit money to roll over and delay the inevitable. The IMF chart of World Currency Reserve is a skyrocket line to oblivion. It does not reflect a healthy stockpile of treasure, but certainly manifests a new debt machine running to infinity. The Bullion Vault explains this reality in the following manner.
"Sure, the Fed can create money. But it can't create credit (from the Latin credere, "to trust, have faith"). And it sure as hell can't let America's outstanding debts - both private and public - simply get written off now, neither at home nor abroad. Not after all that crashing and banging in ER from 2007-09.
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Saudi Arabian forces prepare to enter Bahrain after day of clashes Crown Prince of Bahrain expected to invite Saudi support following anti-government demonstrations in capital
By Ben Quinn - The Guardian
Saudi forces are preparing to intervene in neighbouring Bahrain, after a day of clashes between police and protesters who mounted the most serious challenge to the island's royal family since demonstrations began a month ago.
The Crown Prince of Bahrain is expected to formally invite security forces from Saudi Arabia into his country today, as part of a request for support from other members of the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council.
Foreign troops enter Bahrain as protests continue
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Foreign troops arrived Monday in the strategically and financially important Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain after a month of citizen protests, the Bahraini government said.
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain's giant neighbor to the west, appears to have provided at least some of the troops, who arrived under the banner of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In a statement, the government described the troops as "coalition forces" but did not say what countries were represented. Their mission was equally vague: "The GCC Peninsula Shield coalition forces arrived in the Kingdom of Bahrain today following recent events, to help protect the safety of citizens, residents and critical infrastructure," it said.
Saudi troops bolster Bahrain regime against protesters Bahrain royal family welcomes Saudi troops to face down violent protests. Opposition group says deployment of Saudi troops amounts to declaration of war
By Simon Tisdall - guardian.co.uk,
Saudi Arabia has moved decisively to bolster Bahrain's embattled royal family, sending military forces across the causeway linking the two kingdoms after violent weekend pro-democracy protests by Shia demonstrators all but overwhelmed police.
Although the deployment on Monday was at Bahrain's request and came under the guise of the Gulf Co-operation Council, whose other members also sent troops, it marked another stage in Saudi Arabia's reluctant emergence as the key regional policeman, at a time when the Arab world faces unprecedented turmoil.
JMP Live: Pastor Lindsey Williams - 11 March 2011
Libya's Outgunned Rebels Urge No-Fly Zone to Help Beat Qaddafi
By Ola Galal
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- When Fairouz Naas returned to her hometown of Benghazi last month to join the uprising against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, anti-regime protesters were unarmed and spent their time dodging teargas and bullets.
Three weeks into the revolt, Qaddafi's forces are reinforcing their campaign with airstrikes on territory held by rebels who took up Kalashnikovs and hand-made grenades. Libyans such as Naas are escalating their calls for a no-fly zone over the North African country as the only way of ousting Qaddafi.
Libyan rebels urge west to assassinate Gaddafi
as his forces near Benghazi Appeal to be made as G8 foreign ministers consider whether to back French and British calls for a no-fly zone over Libya
By Chris McGreal in Benghazi - guardian.co.uk
Libya's revolutionary leadership is pressing western powers to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi and launch military strikes against his forces to protect rebel-held cities from the threat of bloody assault.
Mustafa Gheriani, spokesman for the revolutionary national council in its stronghold of Benghazi, said the appeal was to be made by a delegation meeting the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in Paris on Monday, as G8 foreign ministers gathered there to consider whether to back French and British calls for a no-fly zone over Libya.
Qaddafi's Advance Puts Forces 100 Miles from Rebels' Capital
By Ola Galal, Massoud A. Derhally and Alaa Shahine
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Muammar Qaddafi's warplanes attacked rebels in the town of Ajdabiya, as opposition officials asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for airstrikes on Qaddafi's airfields and military equipment.
Ajdabiya, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Benghazi, the rebel capital, came under bombardment yesterday as insurgents prepared to defend it, a resident said. Rebel troops fled Brega, an oil port to the southwest, though fighting continued around the town, the Associated Press reported. Libyan state television showed footage of what it said was Brega "purged of armed terrorist gangs."
Libya 'point of decision' nears as Cameron aims to secure UN resolution David Cameron warns that 'time is of the essence', with fresh attempt to isolate Gaddafi to include threat of no-fly zone
By Nicholas Watt - guardian.co.uk
Britain is to join forces with France and Lebanon in a fresh attempt to isolate Muammar Gaddafi by drawing up a new United Nations security council resolution that would include a threat to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and a toughening of measures against the use of mercenaries.
William Hague declared that the "point of decision" on military intervention in Libya is approaching, as the prime minister warned that "time is of the essence" as the Gaddafi regime tightens its grip. In a statement to MPs, David Cameron said the world would send a "dreadful signal" if the Libyan protesters were crushed.
US eyes Libyan opposition, allies call for action
AP foreign, Guardian.co.uk
PARIS (AP) - Under pressure from allies and growing calls for military intervention in Libya, the Obama administration on Monday held its first high-level talks with the Libyan opposition and introduced a liaison to deal full time with their ranks. But it remained undecided about exactly how much support to lend a group it still knows little about while turmoil and uncertainty increase across the Arab world.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held a late-night, 45-minute meeting with a senior Libyan opposition figure after discussing the widening crisis with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy, along with British Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, stepped up calls for world powers to isolate Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi with a no-fly zone, amid diplomatic differences over how much backing to give rebels.
U.S. Criticizes Israel Construction Plan
By AP / AMY TEIBEL - Time.com
(JERUSALEM) - The U.S. Embassy said Monday it was "deeply concerned" by Israel's plans to build hundreds of new homes in the West Bank following a deadly attack on a settler family, calling Israeli settlements "illegitimate" and an obstacle to peacemaking.
In a rare interview to the Israeli media, the Palestinian president reached out to the Israeli public, decrying the weekend attack in the settlement of Itamar as "despicable, immoral and inhuman." But he rejected the Israeli suggestion that his government was indirectly to blame.
Sudan talks break down as south accuses Khartoum of arming rebels Bashir regime accused of funding and training militias to destabilise south before country's division after referendum
By Xan Rice in Nairobi - guardian.co.uk
Southern Sudan has suspended talks with the northern government after accusing President Omar al-Bashir's regime of arming rebel groups before the country's split in July.
The move comes amid a sharp increase in tensions in recent weeks, with hundreds of people killed in clashes in the south, and along the north-south border. In the latest fighting, up to 42 people were killed after militiamen attacked Malakal, a state capital, on Saturday.
Announcing their withdrawal from key negotiations on Sunday, southern officials accused Bashir of using proxy forces to weaken the south and to try to topple its government before secession.
China's premier rejects comparisons with Middle East Wen Jiabao promises to tackle rising prices as Arab-style protests fail to materialise
Associated Press - guardian.co.uk
China's premier has rejected any comparison between his country and the Middle East and north African nations where popular uprisings have toppled long-serving autocrats.
In a wide-ranging news conference at the close of the annual legislative session, Wen Jiabao also said the country would tackle rising prices, but was trying to find the right mix between creating jobs and fighting inflation.
Handling politically volatile price rises is crucial to maintaining stability in China, where millions spend half their salary or more on food and a yawning gap between rich and poor underscores endemic corruption.
WTO Sides With Chinese State Capitalism Against the U.S.
By Ian Fletcher - ActivistPost.com
The World Trade Organization has a long history of anti-American actions. They've just handed us another one, and in the process handed a big freebie to Chinese state capitalism.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, huge sections of our nation's trade policy aren't set in this country anymore. They are set by panels of WTO judges in Switzerland, to whom we have signed over the right to rule on the legitimacy of our policies.
At issue in a WTO ruling handed down last Friday is how much scope the U.S. is entitled to in trying to level the playing field for American companies competing against companies subsidized under China's system of state capitalism.
----------------
Wisconsin Librarians' March Merges with Tractorcade
By Sharon McQueen - LibraryJournal.com
A third librarians' march took place on March 12 during what has been a month of daily protests at Wisconsin's State Capitol. Library staff and supporters gathered at Madison Public Library's Central Library and marched to Capitol Square singing Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," followed by chants of "Librarians! United! Will never be divided!"
Once at the Capitol, they merged with the Farmer Labor Tractorcade and paraded around the square while thousands cheered from the sidewalk. Thousands more continued to stream to the Capitol as the parade progressed, and before the librarians' march had made one complete circuit, the parade and the crowd had become one large mass.
Wisconsin Union Law to Take Effect on March 26
Associated Press - WSJ.com
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin's secretary of state said a bill taking away public workers' collective-bargaining rights will take effect on March 26, the latest day possible.
Secretary of State Doug La Follette said Monday that he decided to publish the law, the final step needed for it to take effect, on March 25 so that schools and local governments have time to pass contract extensions between now and then.
Gov. Scott Walker signed the bill on Friday and had asked Mr. La Follette to publish the law Monday, but Mr. La Follette said he saw no emergency that would make it necessary for him to do so.
Is A Farmland Bubble About To Burst?
HousingDoom.com
(Reuters) The steep rise in U.S. farmland prices creates the potential for agricultural credit problems if there is a sharp downturn in the sector, a leading U.S. financial regulator said on Thursday.
Farmland values doubled in the past decade, reaching a national average of $2,140 an acre in 2010. Record-high crop prices and low interest rates make farmland an attractive investment, analysts say.
Federal Reserve officials said recently they were watching to see if the land market is becoming overheated, or if a price bubble is forming.
Chairman Sheila Bair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said at an FDIC forum "while we don't see a credit problem in agriculture at this time, the steep rise in farmland prices we have seen in recent years creates the potential for an agricultural credit problem sometime down the road."
Michigan Passes Bill To Impose "Financial Martial Law"
By Kate Conway - politicalcorrection.org
Under new laws currently headed for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's (R) desk, state-appointed emergency financial managers (EFMs) will be able to dismantle local control over cities and school districts by ousting locally elected leaders, nullifying union contracts, and laying off employees, all without input from the public.
Though Gov. Rick Snyder says he is not interested in hurting unions, yesterday's Senate approval of a package that gives Emergency Managers complete power over financially troubled towns and school districts means he will soon be asked to sign off on measures that are expected to eliminate union jobs across the state.
What was impact of federal stimulus on R.I.?
By Philip Marcelo - Rhode Island News
PROVIDENCE - In the two years since President Obama signed into law the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more than $1.9 billion in federal stimulus money has flowed into Rhode Island.
The amount, which is higher than the $1.1 billion the state initially anticipated, has paid for hybrid buses, harbor cranes, bridge repairs and home-improvement projects -- not to mention helping the state cover massive budget gaps.
It has also brought nearly $62 million in research financing to the state's colleges and hospitals, including Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital.
*****
E Pluribus Tucson: Uprising in Arizona Liberals in Pima County, Disgusted With Their State
Prepare to Start a Better One
By TAMARA AUDI
TUCSON, Ariz. - On the patio of a downtown bar here last Wednesday night, a handful of people gathered over pitchers of beer to plot the creation of America's 51st state.
With copies of the Arizona constitution before them, they debated how to turn Pima County - a liberal southern swatch of Arizona that borders Mexico and includes Tucson - into "Baja Arizona."
"What's the objective?" one member asked the group, Start Our State.
"Becoming our own state and making our own decisions," said organizer Paul Eckerstrom.
Baja Arizona (the working title) will almost certainly remain a dream, but it suggests the growing chasm between the state's Republican leaders and its frustrated liberal minority.
Explosion At Fukushima (Plutonium Fueled)
Reactor Number 3 [14.03.11]
Full Core Meltdown In Japan Will Send Radiation
Over United States
Japan Earthquake Nuclear Meltdown Heading for USA.. PREPARE
180,000 flee as Japan's nuclear crisis intensifies Officials say they believe a hydrogen explosion has occurred at Fukushima Daiichi plant
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
TOKYO- The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding six workers. It was not immediately clear how much - if any - radiation had been released.
The explosion at the plant's Unit 3, which authorities have been frantically trying to cool following a system failure in the wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami, triggered an order for hundreds of people to stay indoors, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.
Mancke: Japan's situation could be 'radioactive volcano'
By JOHN MONK - thestate.com
Famed South Carolina naturalist and Chernobyl expert Rudy Mancke said Sunday that Japan's nuclear situation could become a historic catastrophe if early reports of meltdowns turn out to be true - depending on the severity of the meltdowns.
"If they are melting down and being released into the air, they are going to become a radioactive volcano," said Mancke, 65, the University of South Carolina's naturalist in residence who has studied animal and plant life around Chernobyl for more than two decades.
Mancke is one of several S.C. experts featured on an upcoming three-part ETV series on the 25-year aftermath of Chernobyl, whose April 1986 meltdown up until now was regarded as history's greatest nuclear reactor disaster.
Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant faces new reactor problem
(Reuters) - A quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant reeling from an explosion at one of its reactors has also lost its emergency cooling system at another reactor, Japan's nuclear power safety agency said on Sunday.
The emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the No.3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, requiring the facility to urgently secure a means to supply water to the reactor, an official of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference.
Fukushima
Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 3 explosion - March 14, 2011
JAPAN HOPELESS -
GONOB ADVISES CADMIUM RODS BE DUMPED INTO REACTORS
Volcano in southern Japan erupts The Shinmoedake volcano on Japan's Kyushu island, after lying dormant for a couple of weeks, resumes activity in a blast heard miles away. It was unclear if the eruption was linked to Friday's massive earthquake in the north.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske - Los Angeles Times
The Japanese weather agency has reported that a volcano in southern Japan began spewing ash and rock even as the country struggled to recover Sunday from the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
Japan's Meteorological Agency issued a warning Sunday that the Shinmoedake volcano resumed activity after lying dormant for a couple of weeks.
The volcano is on Kyushu island, about 950 miles from the epicenter of Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which devastated much of the country's northeastern coast.
Quake Moves Japan Closer to U.S. and Alters Earth's Spin
By KENNETH CHANG - NYTimes.com
The magnitude-8.9 earthquake that struck northern Japan on Friday not only violently shook the ground and generated a devastating tsunami, it also moved the coastline and changed the balance of the planet.
Global positioning stations closest to the epicenter jumped eastward by up to 13 feet.
Japan is "wider than it was before," said Ross Stein, a geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey.
Meanwhile, NASA scientists calculated that the redistribution of mass by the earthquake might have shortened the day by a couple of millionths of a second and tilted the Earth's axis slightly.
Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet, shifted Earth's axis
By Kevin Voigt, CNN
The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.
"At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Military Crew Said to Be Exposed to Radiation,
but Officials Call Risk in U.S. Slight
By WILLIAM J. BROAD - NYTimes.com
The Pentagon was expected to announce that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, causing crew members on deck to receive a month's worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials said Sunday.
The officials added that American helicopters flying missions about 60 miles north of the damaged reactors became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off.
Japan's nuclear crisis widens As a second blast shakes nuclear plant, officials say the death toll from the earthquake and tsunami could reach tens of thousands. Power is rationed and rescue teams pour in.
By Mark Magnier, Barbara Demick and Laura King, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Sendai, Japan, and Tokyo A fresh explosion rocked a crippled nuclear complex as rescuers from around the world converged on Japan's devastated earthquake zone, searching for survivors and ministering to the sick and hungry. With the death toll from the largest quake in Japan's recorded history expected to ultimately reach the tens of thousands, more than a half-million people have been displaced by growing radiation fears and the massive swath of destruction.
Officials Struggle to Prevent Meltdown at Two Reactors
By YUKA HAYASHI - WSJ.com
TOKYO - Japanese officials battled into early Monday to prevent meltdowns at two damaged nuclear reactors, saying their fuel rods may have been critically damaged by overheating.
Officials stressed, however, that containment vessels housing the reactors remained intact and that there were no signs of the radiation leakage that would accompany a major meltdown.
Power shortages exacerbated by the troubles at the nuclear plants led the government's chief spokesman to appear on national television about 5 a.m. Monday. He urged citizens to stay home if possible. Public transportation services have suffered significant disruption after the government ordered a controlled rolling power cut to avoid a total blackout, as the nation struggled for a third day with the aftermath of Friday's mammoth earthquake and tsunami.
China Syndrom in Japan as reactors explode and meltdown likely underway.
by ariellalight
There is a strong possibility that the rods are melting down. This means meltdown. I think the question is containment and how out of control will this get. Apparently Japan is reporting the explosion at reactor 1, but tight lipped when it comes to reactor 2 as reactor 2 is not as reinforced. For Japan to say the rods are likely melting, this leads me to believe that it is worse than they are announcing and that they could soon be reporting a full meltdown in progress. Lets just hope they can contain it and in the very least inform the world of the exact realities being face. They know the rods are melting and this is a major deal, we must all prepare at this point, it no longer becomes just a Japan issue, but a world issue. We can only hope that they give their people and the world warning before its too late.
Nuclear Plant Designer Says Japanese Government Suppressing Scale Of Crisis
BBC News via InfoWars.com
A former nuclear power plant designer has said Japan is facing an extremely grave crisis and called on the government to release more information, which he said was being suppressed. Masashi Goto told a news conference in Tokyo that one of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant was "highly unstable", and that if there was a meltdown the "consequences would be tremendous". He said such an event might be very likely indeed. So far, the government has said a meltdown would not lead to a sizeable leak of radioactive materials.
US experts fear 'Chernobyl-like' crisis for Japan
ChannelNewsAsia.com
WASHINGTON - US nuclear experts warned Saturday that pumping sea water to cool a quake-hit Japanese nuclear reactor was an "act of desperation" that may foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster.
Several experts, in a conference call with reporters, also predicted that regardless of the outcome at the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant crisis, the accident will seriously damage the nuclear power renaissance.
"The situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don't have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it, and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water," said Robert Alvarez, who works on nuclear disarmament at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Japan tries to avoid meltdown at nuke plant Risky move ends with hydrogen explosion
By Mari Yamaguchi and Jeff Don - AP - Washingtontimes.com
TOKYO | Inside the troubled nuclear power plant, officials knew the risks were high when they decided to vent radioactive steam from a severely overheated reactor vessel. They knew a hydrogen explosion could occur, and it did.
The decision still trumped the worst-case alternative - total nuclear meltdown, at least for the time being.
The chain of events started Friday, when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami severed electricity to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex 170 miles northeast of Tokyo, crippling its cooling system. Then, backup power failed to kick in properly at one of its units.
Partial Meltdowns Presumed at Crippled Reactors
By HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW L. WALD - NYTimes.com
TOKYO - Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a quickly escalating nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors, and that they were bracing for a second explosion, even as problems were reported at two more nuclear plants.
That brings the total number of troubled plants to four, including one that is about 75 miles north of Tokyo.
The emergency at the hardest hit plant, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, appeared to be the worst involving a nuclear plant since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago, and at least 22 residents near the plant showed signs of radiation exposure, according to local officials. The crisis at that plant, which is much further from Tokyo, continued late Sunday.
How Black is the Japanese Nuclear Swan?
By Ilargi - TheAutomaticEarth.com
You may not be have been aware of it until now, but The Automatic Earth has an in-house full-blown nuclear safety expert.
The subject of Stoneleigh's master thesis at the law faculty of Warwick University in Coventry, England, where she studied International Law in Development, was nuclear safety research.
After graduating in 1997, she became a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where her research field was power systems, with a specific focus on nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.
Atomic Nightmares Japan's nuclear mishap risks world energy balance
By Christopher Swann
Nuclear: Even if Japan brings the steaming Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor under control fallout from the earthquake-caused accident threatens the world's energy balance. America's nuclear industry has never really recovered from the relatively harmless Three Mile Island mishap in 1979. The price of a decline in Japan's ardor for nuclear power would be higher coal and natural gas prices. Public confidence in nukes always hangs by a delicate thread. The industry can ill afford even the smallest mishap. Even though the prospect of a full-scale meltdown at Japan's malfunctioning nuclear plant now looks remote plenty of damage may already have been done. And Japan is one of the giants of the world nuclear industry producing almost 30 percent of its electricity from the source. Ambitions to boost this to 50 percent by 2030 may now be called into question. the implications would be truly global. The growing world hunger for energy is already likely to strain supplies over coming decades.
General Electric-designed reactors in Fukushima have 23 sisters in U.S.
By Bill Dedman - Investigative Reporter, msnbc.com
The General Electric-designed nuclear reactors involved in the Japanese emergency are very similar to 23 reactors in use in the United States, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission records.
The NRC database of nuclear power plants shows that 23 of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. are GE boiling-water reactors with GE's Mark I systems for containing radioactivity, the same containment system used by the reactors in trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The U.S. reactors are in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
In addition, 12 reactors in the U.S. have the later Mark II or Mark III containment system from GE. These 12 are in Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington state. See the full list below.
Can U.S. Nuclear Plants Handle a Major Natural Disaster?
by John Sullivan, Special to ProPublica.org
As engineers in Japan struggle to bring quake-damaged reactors under control, attention is turning to U.S. nuclear plants and their ability to withstand natural disasters.
Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has spent years pushing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission toward stricter enforcement of its safety rules, has called for a reassessment. Several U.S. reactors lie on or near fault lines, and Markey wants to beef up standards for new and existing plants.
U.S. West Coast in Path of Fallout
"If There Were a Reactor Meltdown or Major Leak at Fukushima, the Radioactive Cloud Would Likely be Blown Out Towards the US West Coast" -- Washington's Blog via PrisonPlanet.com
Map of U.S. Jet Stream
Agence-France Presse notes:
California is closely monitoring efforts to contain leaks from a quake-damaged Japanese nuclear plant, a spokesman said Saturday, as experts said radiation could be blown out across the Pacific.
"At present there is no danger to California. However we are monitoring the situation closely in conjunction with our federal partners," Michael Sicilia, spokesman for California Department of Public Health, told AFP.
"California does have radioactivity monitoring systems in place for air, water and the food supply and can enhance that monitoring if a danger exists," he added.
Frequently Asked Questions on Potassium Iodide (KI)
FDA.gov
In December 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final Guidance on Potassium Iodide as a Thyroid Blocking Agent in Radiation Emergencies. The objective of the document is to provide guidance to other Federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and to state and local governments regarding the safe and effective use of potassium iodide (KI) as an adjunct to other public health protective measures in the event that radioactive iodine is released into the environment. The adoption and implementation of the recommendations are at the discretion of the state and local governments responsible for developing regional emergency-response plans related to radiation emergencies. The recommendations in the guidance address KI dosage and the projected radiation exposure at which the drug should be used. This guidance updates FDA's 1982 recommendations.
Potassium Iodate vs Potassium Iodide Which one should you trust for radiation protection?
Several internet-based companies have been marketing potassium iodate (KIO3) for radiation protection in place of potassium iodide (KI).Ê Though the names are similar, the products are very different, and the US Food and Drug Administration has expressed serious concerns about the safety and effectiveness of iodate, and the fact that its manufacturers are not in conformity with FDA rules to assure safety, quality and purity of the product. Although the FDA has been successful at removing most iodate products from store shelves, iodate can still be found on the internet and is falsely claimed to be FDA approved on the Wikipedia website. Wikipedia unwittingly allows dosage charts and other false claims concerning this unapproved drug to be posted by sellers of iodate who edit the page.
Quake Halts Output Across Japan
By HIROYUKI KACHI And YOSHIO TAKAHASHI
TOKYO - Much Japanese manufacturing slowed to a halt following Friday's earthquake and tsunami as auto, steel, electronics and other companies suspended operations.
Major power outages, in part because of damaged nuclear reactors, and disruptions in supply networks contributed to the paralysis. Japanese authorities said coordinated power outages would begin Monday and last at least several weeks in an effort to deal with power-supply shortages. The disruption could be aggravated further if problems at nuclear reactors in Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan got worse.
With earthquake, Japan faces toughest crisis since WWII, prime minister says Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's call for unity comes as rescue teams struggle to reach the battered northeast and new fears emerge over a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear complex.
By Barbara Demick and David Pierson, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Sendai, Japan, and Beijing -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan told reporters that his country was facing its most difficult challenge since World War II and called on his people to unite in the face of a devastating earthquake and tsunami and potential nuclear crisis.
''This is the toughest crisis in Japan's 65 years of postwar history,'' Kan said during a televised news conference late Sunday. ''I'm convinced that we can overcome the crisis.''
The prime minister's remarks came on a day when the head of police in Miyagi prefecture estimated that the death toll in his prefecture alone would exceed 10,000.
Emergency Japan Earthquake Update: Economic Outlook Now Appears Dire
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
I just got off the phone with several frightened, somewhat dazed survivors of the Japanese earthquake who work in the financial markets, and I thought it important to immediately pass on what they said. Some were clearly terrified.
Japan’s economic outlook now appears far more dire than I anticipated only a day ago. It looks like GDP growth rate is going to instantly flip from +2% to -3%, a swing of -5%, similar to what we saw after the Kobe earthquake in 1995. We have just had a "V" shaped economy dumped in our laps, and we have just embarked on a precipitous down leg. Two very weak quarters will be followed by two strong ones. The initial damage estimate is $60-$120 billion, and that will certainly rise.
Rescuers Dig for Survivors, But Thousands Feared Dead
By WILLIAM SPOSATO in Tokyo, ERIC BELLMAN in Tamura City and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI in Sendai - WSJ.com
Some of the hardest hit areas of northern Japan remained unreachable Monday morning and damage to nuclear-power facilities wasn't yet contained - leaving the full extent of the catastrophe, in human lives, physical destruction and economic impact still untold.
As rescuers dug for survivors of the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged northern Japan Friday, the official death toll neared 1,600. The number of dead was expected to soar; about 10,000 people were unaccounted for in the port town of Minamisanriku alone, public broadcaster NHK reported.
20,000 missing in 2 towns /
Magnitude of Friday's quake revised upward to 9.0
The Yomiuri Shimbun
About 20,000 people were unaccounted for as of Sunday afternoon in two coastal towns devastated by tsunami after the Tohoku Pacific Offshore Earthquake.
About 10,000 residents each of Minami-Sanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture, and Otsuchicho, Iwate Prefecture, were missing, authorities said. Otsuchicho Mayor Koki Kato is among those unaccounted for.
The head of the Miyagi prefectural police reportedly told a prefectural disaster headquarters Sunday afternoon that the number of deaths from the earthquake would "no doubt be tens of thousands" in the prefecture.
Japan earthquake: race to prevent a humanitarian disaster Japan was in a race to prevent a humanitarian disaster as rescuers struggled to reach tens of thousands of people left homeless by the tsunami.
By Gordon Rayner and Harry Wallop - Telegraph.co.uk
The worldÕs third richest country was forced to send out an urgent international appeal for tents, blankets and other life-saving supplies to prevent the death toll rising beyond the current estimate of 10,000.
With night-time temperatures dropping below zero in some of the isolated towns and villages worst-affected by the disaster, charities warned that further lives could be lost if survivors were not given food and shelter quickly.
Last night 590,000 people, many of whom have lost their homes, were living in temporary shelters, including 210,000 people evacuated from the area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered an explosion in a reactor building at the weekend.
Quake plunges Japan into fear, hardship Fires, cratered highways and power outages leave people stunned nationwide. The death toll tops 1,000, and worries mount as two nuclear power plants cope with damage.
By Mark Magnier, Barbara Demick and Carol J. Williams - LATimes.com
Reporting from Tokyo and Los Angeles Japan's most punishing earthquake on record and the devastating tsunami it triggered plunged the heart of the densely populated island nation into an apocalyptic scene of blazing buildings, cratered highways, waterborne rubble and frenzied efforts to avert radiation leaks at damaged nuclear power plants.
Japan Broadcasting Corp. said more than 1,000 people had died, mostly in the northeastern part of the country.
Japan shuts down as economic fears grow Japan's giant car industry has announced a major shutdown as fears grow over the economic impact of Friday's devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami which has crippled much of the north-east of the country.
By James Quinn and Jamie Dunkley - Telegraph.co.uk
The three largest motor manufacturers - Toyota, Honda and Nissan - said they would stop production at almost all of their domestic assembly plants. The safety of the workforce and deaths were cited as reasons behind the decision. The electronics giant Sony also said it would be shutting down production.
Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered, warned of possible temporary price stagflation and an initial downward move for the country's economy.
"The timing of the disaster could not have been much worse," admitted analysts at Capital Economics, pointing to Japan's economic contraction in the last three months of 2010.
In Japanese Quake Disaster, a Chinese Opportunity Could Beijing's navy, long contained by a U.S.-led coalition, use humanitarian intervention to expand its regional influence?
By Max Fisher - TheAtlantic.com
Last August, a senior official in the Japanese Defense Ministry declared of a joint military exercise with the U.S. Seventh Fleet, "We'll show China that Japan has the will and the capability to defend the Nansei Islands. This will serve as a deterrent." Officially, the exercises between two of the world's largest blue-water navies had nothing to do with China. But the Japanese official's brash comment reflected the growing, U.S.-led efforts to contain China's rising naval power. A few weeks after the exercises, the friction between Chinese expansion and Japanese containment sparked, with Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing trawler that had wandered into disputed territory spiraling into one of the tense, threat-laden diplomatic stand-offs that have become increasingly common in Japanese-Chinese relations.
Japan's Auto Plants Closed as Companies Take Stock
By NICK BUNKLEY - NYTimes.com
Most Japanese auto assembly plants will remain closed Monday, even though the factories are outside the hardest-hit regions and did not experience significant damage.
Automakers scrambled on Sunday to determine whether they will be able to build and export cars in light of the rolling power blackouts to conserve electricity and the damage to Japan's infrastructure from the earthquake and tsunami.
"There is no way to get our products out, even if we make them, with the roads and distribution system damaged," a Honda Motor spokeswoman, Natsuno Asanuma, told The Associated Press.
Hidden energy crisis in the Middle East
By Victor Kotsev - ATimes.com
TEL AVIV - While most of the world is preoccupied with the impact of instability in the Middle East on oil prices and the world economy, a different kind of energy crisis is unfolding practically unnoticed. An ongoing reshuffle in natural gas supplies has left at least two countries - Israel and Jordan - without much of the gas they need.
In general, the politics of Middle Eastern gas will probably be just as dramatically affected by the upheaval as those of oil, but will follow a separate trajectory. Their effect will, at least initially, be more local in nature, and will vary for each country. However, the energy status quo in the region is slated to change dramatically.
Libya: as Colonel Gaddafi's tanks roll eastwards,
rebels are defiant but fear a bloody revenge Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's planes, tanks and artillery are gradually taking their toll on the rebels. They are defiant, but fear a bloody revenge if the West does not intervene.
By Nick Meo, in Benghazi and Richard Spencer in Tripoli - Telegraph.co.uk
As Muammar Gaddafi's tanks threatened to roll up the coast road towards Benghazi and a dire warning was issued that the dictator would prevail in Libya's civil war, Hassan Hamada was preparing to pick up his gun and fight.
"I am ready to die," he said. "I would fight with our brave teenagers in the streets and so would every other man in this city if Gaddafi comes back here - and so would the women and children as well."
Libya: Arab League calls for United Nations no-fly zone The Arab League called on the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone on Libya, increasing pressure on Europe and the US to embark on limited military action against the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
By Colin Freeman in Cairo, Nick Meo in Benghazi and Patrick Hennessy in London - Telegraph.co.uk
As Colonel Gaddafi's jets and tanks continued to gain ground against rebels in the east of the country, ministers from the 22-nation League agreed to call for action after emergency talks in Cairo. Officials said the body had already been in touch with the rebels about the situation on the ground.
Before the meeting, Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League and one of its most influential diplomats, had thrown his weight behind the air exclusion zone, saying it was the only way to protect Libyans from Gaddafi's "disdainful" regime.
Is China Next? Will the protests that have swept the Middle East inspire a similar movement in China, or is that country's middle class more interested in the material than the political?
By FRANCIS FUKUYAMA - WSJ.com
Over the course of three short months, popular uprisings have toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, sparked a civil war in Libya and created unrest in other parts of the Middle East. They also have raised a question in many people's minds: Are all authoritarian regimes now threatened by this new democratic wave? In particular, is China, a rising superpower, vulnerable to these forces?
The Communist government in Beijing is clearly worried. It has limited news coverage of the recent uprisings and has clamped down on democratic activists and foreign reporters, acting pre-emptively against anonymous calls on the Internet for China to have its own "Jasmine Revolution." A recent front-page editorial in the Beijing Daily, an organ of the city's party committee, declared that most people in the Middle East were unhappy with the protests in their countries, which were a "self-delusional ruckus" orchestrated by a small minority. For his part, President Hu Jintao has urged the strengthening of what has been dubbed the "Great Firewall" - the sophisticated apparatus of censorship and surveillance that the regime uses to control access to the Internet.
A final goodbye to Superpower America?
By Bernd Debusmann
Sombre analyses of America's decline come in waves and the latest seems to be gathering strength. "AMERICAN DECLINE. This Time It's Real" proclaims a recent magazine cover. "Yes, America is in Decline," echoes another. Time to prepare obituaries for the world's remaining superpower?
How long will it take for the U.S. to follow the example of the Roman Empire and end up as Italy? That's a question the prognosticators of America's waning power and influence (also known as declinists) tend to sidestep, perhaps because so many past predictions of doom have been so wrong.
Legacy Bank, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Bank Implode-O-Meter
Legacy Bank, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was the 25th ailing bank shuttered and sold for scrap today by the FDIC. The agency estimates that the cost to it's Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $43.5 million.
Legacy Bank, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was closed today by the Wisconsin 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 Seaway Bank and Trust Company, Chicago, Illinois, to assume all of the deposits of Legacy Bank.
The First National Bank of Davis, Davis, Oklahoma
Bank Implode-O-Meter
The First National Bank of Davis, Davis, Oklahoma, was slammed shut today making it the 24th FDIC take over of 2011. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $26.5 million.
The First National Bank of Davis, Davis, Oklahoma, 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 Pauls Valley National Bank, Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, to assume all of the deposits of The First National Bank of Davis.
Are The Prophets Of Doom Right About Major War, $200 Oil, $2000 Gold And Dow 5000 By The End Of 2012?
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Are the "prophets of doom" right? Is a major war going to erupt in the Middle East? Is the price of oil going to $200 a barrel? Is the price of gold going to hit $2000 at some point over the next two years? Is the Dow going to drop to 5000 by the end of 2012? Right now there are some very respected financial experts that are making some absolutely stunning predictions. Charles Nenner, Gerald Celente and Lindsey Williams are all frequent guests on popular television and radio shows and they are all forecasting very difficult economic times over the next couple of years. So are they right?
Massive Price Discrepancies between Paper Gold and Physical Gold
Written by Ronald Stoeferle - OilPrice.com
There are massive discrepancies between the contracts based on gold price quotations at the COMEX and the price of physical gold. At the moment physical gold commands a premium of up to 20%. According to Paul Mylchreest the London OTC market trades 2,134 tonnes of gold every day. This is 346 times the daily production and close to the global annual production.
According to Jeff Christian, founder of CPM Group, the trade on the LBMA is based on a leverage factor of 100:1 . This means that physical gold is traded at a factor of 100. If a number of market participants were to demand physical delivery at the same time, the contracts could never be settled. Normally only a small percentage is actually delivered in physical terms, but physical delivery remains the core clause of the contract. This is some cause for concern given that gold is often bought as a safe haven.
The Silver Door Is Closing
Chris Duane - SilverBearCafe.com
I have a little theory that I've been kicking around for a couple of years. The theory is that there will come a time that you will not be able to buy silver at any price. It will not be because there is not any silver around to be purchased or that silver will not have any value. I think that we won't be able to buy silver at any price because there will be a very sudden and a very dramatic shift in the perception of silver's value. A time will come when the value of silver is so strong and the value of the dollar so weak, that only a fool would ever trade silver for the dollar.
I have stated in many previous articles that silver is the Achilles Heal of the Global Power structure
Up to 100,000 protest Wisconsin law curbing unions
By James B. Kelleher - MADISON, Wisconsin
(Reuters) - Up to 100,000 people protested at the Wisconsin state Capitol on Saturday against a new law curbing the union rights of public workers that is seen as one of the biggest challenges in decades facing U.S. organized labor.
Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain estimated the crowd at 85,000 to 100,000 people, which would top the size of protests in Madison during the Vietnam War.
The demonstration, capping three weeks of public protests, came a day after Republican Governor Scott Walker signed into law a bill to eliminate most bargaining rights for many state government workers.
Wisconsin union fight not over
By Scott Williams and Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
MADISON, Wis. - Opponents of Republican Gov. Scott Walker were back at work Sunday on recall efforts targeting Republican state senators who supported the new governor's overhaul of public employee union rights
Volunteers worked the phones in an office a block from the Capitol, where a day before, about 100,000 people protested a law signed by Walker to curtail collective-bargaining rights for 175,000 public employees statewide.
Republicans say the move is necessary to rein in government spending; foes say it is an effort to break organized labor's back and dilute its impact on elections.
Unions show no class in Wisconsin 'war' Labor thugs threaten murder to preserve payola
By Robert Knight - The Washington Times
"I'm not going to lie to you, this is going to get ugly." So predicts "Goldfish," a Daily Kos blogger who boasts of spending two weekends in Madison, Wisc., "on the Front Lines of the Class War." Now, "Goldfish" is predicting a general strike, like the ones in Greece whenever the bankrupt government tries to cut ruinous spending.
A bigger fish, film director Michael Moore, announced on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Wednesday that, "This is war. This is class war," and that a national walkout of government school students would happen Friday. Jesse Jackson told Fox News that public unions will retain collective bargaining or "you're going to have it through the streets. People here will fight back because they think their cause is moral."
Anger brews over government workers' benefits
By Geoff Mulvihill - Associated Press
When Erin McFarlane, 36, looks at public workers, she sees lucrative pension benefits she doesn't ever expect to get. And it makes her angry.
"I don't think that a federal employee or government employee is worth any more than anybody else who does their job and does it well," said the Slinger, Wis., woman. She's been working a couple of bartending jobs since January, when she was laid off from her job at a Harley-Davidson plant after almost a decade.
She's not alone in seeing public servants as public enemies in some ways.
It's a case of pension envy. And it's the center of some of the biggest political battles playing out in state capitals across the country as governors say their states can no longer afford the benefits that public employees have been promised.
Lawmakers confident on short-term budget deal
By John Whitesides
(Reuters) - Senior lawmakers in both parties said on Sunday that Congress will pass a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown this week, but warned there are still big obstacles to long-term deals on the budget and debt.
Leaders in both parties backed a plan by U.S. House of Representatives Republicans for a temporary three-week spending bill to keep the federal government operating through April 8 while they try to find a broader compromise.
"I don't think we ought to let the government shut down," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on "Fox News Sunday," predicting the Senate would approve the House Republican plan.
Home is where the working and middle class lose their money
$6.3 trillion lost in household real estate values. Top 1 percent control $13 trillion in financial assets while bottom 80 percent control $2 trillion.
MyBudget360.com
When people talk about the American Dream it usually implies owning a home. Owning a home has been part of our collective psychology for generations and is hard to shake out even after such a disastrous and financially painful bubble that will linger with us for many years going forward. After World War II, owning a home merely required one blue collar income and a desire to work hard (at times even a modest effort at work was enough). After the 1970s it meant two working adults to pull off the middle class dream. By the late 1990s stagnant income growth meant American households needed two working professionals, mortgages with mythology like leverage, and then finally access to the American potential of homeownership was feasible. But really what has occurred over these last few decades is the erosion of the middle class lifestyle and a financialization vacuum that has sucked real wealth straight up to the top.
Government Vows to Curb Banks' Foreclosure Practices,
But Enforcement Still a Question Mark
by Paul Kiel - ProPublica.org
Hosts of federal agencies and regulators, along with the 50 state attorneys general, are hard at work on laying out new rules for banks and mortgage servicers. Those rules will likely require servicers to transform their approach to handling homeowners facing foreclosure.
Are you a homeowner who's struggling to pay your mortgage? Are you seeking a loan modification through the government program? We want to hear from you.
But this wouldn't be the first time the government tried to lay down the law. The administration's mortgage modification program has a 170-page handbook of servicer guidelines. What's been missing is enforcement. Servicers have broken the rules without fear of any penalties.
Will things be different this time?
A Red Flag On Reverse Mortgages
By RON LIEBER - NYTimes.com
It is the saddest of paradoxes: a government-backed financial maneuver intended to free up extra money for struggling older people turns out to have left some widows and widowers on the brink of foreclosure.
This week, AARP sued the Housing and Urban Development Department over a handful of reverse mortgages gone awry. Lenders, following the letter of one of HUD's rules, are requiring newly widowed people who want to stay in their homes to pay off the balance of their loans quickly, even if it is much more than the value of the home. Because they can't (or won't), the lenders are foreclosing.
Bank of America says nearly half its mortgages are 'bad'
Washington Business Journal
Bank of America Corp. is segregating almost half its 13.9 million mortgages into a "bad" bank comprised of its riskiest and worst-performing "legacy" loans, Bloomberg News reported, citing Terry Laughlin, who is running the new unit.
"We are creating a classic good bank, bad bank structure," Laughlin told investors at a meeting in New York Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. He was promoted last month to manage the costs of resolving disputes stemming from the company's 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. "We're going to get after this, we're going to do it the right way and we're going to put it to bed in the next 36 months," he said.
The Burden of Pensions on States
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH - NYTimes.com
For public workers in Wisconsin, there's more bad news.
Having lost the battle on collective bargaining, they may soon be asked to make more financial sacrifices.
The state's workers offered to start picking up part of the cost of their pensions and health insurance early in their showdown this year with Gov. Scott Walker. That change will provide immediate relief for struggling towns, school districts and state agencies, and help them balance their budgets.
But new pension cost estimates, ordered before Governor Walker was elected, are coming as soon as next week. They are expected to show that the current contribution levels to the state pension system are too meager. More money, from employers and employees in some combination, will be needed, and perhaps much more in coming years.
Give Up Familiar Light Bulb? Not Without Fight, Some Say
By EDWARD WYATT - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - American protests against the encroachment of government have been spurred by many causes - tea, of course, and guns, frequently. The latest catalyst: light bulbs.
A 2007 bill, passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush, will make the familiar incandescent bulb subject to strict efficiency standards next year.
The effect will be to make current 100-watt bulbs obsolete - and that has sent conservative lawmakers, libertarians, some environmental activists and owners of Easy-Bake Ovens into a frenzy of activity to get the law repealed or, at least, to stockpile the bulbs before they disappear from store shelves.
Federal Bureaucrats: Get Your Dirty Hands Off Of Our Light Bulbs
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
In the United States today, thousands upon thousands of ridiculous federal regulations tightly control almost every area of our lives. One example of this is that starting on January 1st, we are no longer going to be able to buy certain kinds of light bulbs in the United States. Back in 2007, President George W. Bush signed a law that mandates the following: "Manufacturers will no longer be able to make the 100-watt Thomas Edison bulb after Jan. 1, 2012, followed by the 75-watt version in Jan. 2013, and the the 60- and 40-watt bulbs in Jan. 2014." Yes, you read that correctly. Federal bureaucrats are running wild and the nanny state has decided that you are simply not going to have the choice to buy traditional light bulbs anymore. So why the change? Incandescent light bulbs have not been proven to be unsafe and consumers still want to buy them. The new CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) light bulbs are more expensive and are actually worse for the environment. So why was this law passed? The feds passed it because they decided that existing light bulbs use too much energy and have too large of a "carbon footprint". Instead of giving us choices and attempting to persuade us to change, the federal government is ramming their will down our throats. Well, it is about time that we told the federal bureaucrats that are trying to take our freedoms away that we want them to get their dirty hands off of our light bulbs.
Obama Seeks a Course of Pragmatism in the Middle East Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China.
By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - In the Middle East crisis, as on other issues, there are two Barack Obamas: the transformative historical figure and the pragmatic American president. Three months after a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself aflame and ignited a political firestorm across the Arab world, the president is trumping the trailblazer.
With the spread of antigovernment protests from North Africa to the strategic, oil-rich Persian Gulf, President Obama has adopted a policy of restraint. He has concluded that his administration must shape its response country by country, aides say, recognizing a stark reality that American national security interests weigh as heavily as idealistic impulses. That explains why Mr. Obama has dialed down the vocal support he gave demonstrators in Cairo to a more modulated call for peaceful protest and respect for universal rights elsewhere.
Total German triumph as EU minnows subjugated The Iron Chancellor of Germany could not have been clearer. "Whoever wants credit must fulfill our conditions".
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
These conditions are capitulation by three vulnerable states on core policies, and partial loss of sovereignty for the rest of the eurozone.
For Greece, the terms are a fire-sale of €50bn (£43.2bn) of national assets within four years, a tenfold increase from the original €5bn that premier George Papandreou thought he signed up to a year ago.
When the IMF first mooted this sum last month he told the inspectors not to "meddle in the internal matters of the country."
More on Japan earthquake, volcano, and reactor meltdowns...
Daylight Savings US time change SATURDAY night -
Spring FORWARD (except for Arizona!) Radio Show Times on Monday 3/14/2011:
9am (PST & Arizona), 10am (MST), 11am (CST), 12pm (EST).
Saturday update:
excellent explanation of explosion in nuclear plant... and summary of the overall situation - no panic in Japan; minimal radiation danger
Nuclear Emergency: All eyes on Fukushima
Japan Earthquake:
Helicopter aerial view video of giant tsunami waves
CrossTalk: Arab Awakening
On this edition of Peter Lavelle's CrossTalk: Will the US adjust to the changing environment in the Middle East? Has its reaction produced any results so far? Who has the right to stop the bloodshed in Libya? Is the UN of any help? And can the Arab League find itself promoting democracy in the region? CrossTalking with Abdallah Schleifer, Rich Galen and Ziad Majed.
Breaking news Friday am... (check back throughout the weekend for more updates)
8.9 quake kills hundreds in Japan The quake triggers a tsunami that threatens much of the Pacific. Up to 300 bodies are found in the city of Sendai in northeastern Japan, an area believed to have been hit hardest by the massive waves.
By Barbara Demick, David Pierson and Kenji Hall, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Beijing and Tokyo — Hundreds are dead after the worst earthquake in generations struck off the northeast coast of Japan on Friday, setting off a devastating tsunami that swallowed swaths of coastal territory and fanned out across the Pacific Ocean, threatening everything in its path.
The 8.9-magnitude earthquake -- the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the biggest in Japan in 140 years -- struck at 2:46 p.m. local time, shaking buildings violently in Tokyo for several minutes and sending millions fleeing for higher ground.
Nearby islands are bracing for the tsunami and warnings have been issued for 53 countries including ones as far as Colombia and Peru.
Japan earthquake and tsunami: (live coverage)
Hundreds of bodies found after huge 8.9 earthquake triggers 30ft tsunami and causes nuclear reactor emergency. Follow our live coverage here.
Japan hit by vast 8.9 magnitude 'superquake', 30ft tsunami
137 confirmed dead, 'several hundred' missing, toll to rise
Up to 300 more bodies found on coast
'State of emergency' after nuclear plant's cooling system fails
Death toll climbs after Japan tsunami
By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo and Rahul Jacob in Hong Kong - FT.com
Japan is reeling from an 8.9 magnitude earthquake - the most powerful in its history - that struck off its north-eastern coast on Friday, creating a vast tsunami along much of its Pacific seaboard and causing a "state of emergency" at a nuclear plant.
The tsunami unleashed by the earthquake hit Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Hawaii, although the waves were much smaller than those that battered the north-east coast of Japan and no damage had been recorded late on Friday. The Pacific coast of North and South America - including parts of Alaska, Oregon, California and Chile - remain under a tsunami advisory warning as the surge heads east.
Will the New Madrid Fault region be the next earthquake area of Biblical proportions?
Are Arkansas Earthquakes Related to Fracking?
By Zachary Shahan - cleantechnica.com
Arkansas has been hit with a ton of earthquakes lately (as well as mass fish and bird deaths), and a large number of the earthquakes haven't even been in the New Madrid Fault region. A number of people have been drawing a connection between the earthquakes and hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking), and two gas disposal sites have actually been suspended from use of injection wells (the prime suspect) now.
"The two drilling operations are Chesapeake Energy and Clarita Operating," Shellee Tyler of Planetsave writes. "They have ceased operation of the wells near Greenbrier and Guy pending a panel meeting on the matter on March 29."
Whether or not the earthquakes are related to the fracking is still far from conclusive, but a number of experts have expressed the belief that there is a relationship.
Oil falls after Japan earthquake, Saudi crackdown Oil fell on Friday after a major earthquake struck Japan and Saudi Arabia launched a massive security operation in a menacing show of force to deter protesters from a planned a "Day of Rage".
Agencies - Telegraph.co.uk
Brent crude in London was down $3 at $112.39 at midday while in New York crude oil fell back under $100 per barrel as traders bet that a massive earthquake in Japan would slash the country's crude imports.
"The demand for oil [in Japan] could be lower, at least temporarily, because of the earthquake," said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.
"After China and the US, Japan is the world's third biggest consumer of commodities and is dependent on imports for virtually all commodities."
Oil markets brace for Saudi 'rage' as global spare capacity wears thin Those exhorting OPEC to boost output should be careful what they wish for. The cartel card can be played once only, and it risks exposing the fragility of the global energy system if the Gulf powers are seen struggling to deliver.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Goldman Sachs suspects that OPEC has been pumping far above its agreed quota since November and therefore cannot easily raise output much without cutting deep into global spare capacity.
Jeff Currie, the bank's oil guru, said Saudi output had quietly crept up by 700,000 barrels a day (bpd) even before the Libyan supply shock.
Assumptions that OPEC has added 1.9m bpd over the last two years are wishful thinking. These new fields have been "largely offset" by attrition in old fields.
What will Saudi Arabia do?
Written by James Hamilton - OilPrice.com
One key question in determining the impact of instability in Libya and elsewhere on world oil markets is how much other countries can and will increase production to offset the shortfall. Here I review the critical role of Saudi Arabia in past disruptions and discuss the current situation.
Prior to the First Persian Gulf War in 1990, Iraq and Kuwait between them accounted for almost 9% of world oil production, which was essentially completely knocked out by the military conflict (see the black line in Figure 1). Fortunately, Saudi Arabia had substantial excess capacity, and their increased production amounted to almost 5% of global supplies at the time (blue line). This was a significant factor in limiting the size and duration of the spike in oil prices, and helped mitigate the severity of the 1990-91 economic recession.
Saudi security forces break up protest in eastern city Witnesses say percussion grenades and rubber bullets were used against Shiite protesters. It could be a preview of how the government will handle nationwide protests called for Friday
By Neela Banerjee, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Saudi security forces on Thursday dispersed a protest by Shiite Muslims in restive Eastern province with percussion grenades and rubber bullets, wounding five people, witnesses in the city of Qatif said. The crackdown heightened fear that nationwide demonstrations scheduled in Saudi Arabia for Friday could turn violent.
The Shiite minority has long complained about religious and employment discrimination in the Sunni Muslim-dominated kingdom. They have been holding more frequent protests in the last few weeks, demanding equal treatment and the freeing of political prisoners.
Pimco stirs up debate over US Treasury bonds
By Michael Mackenzie and Dan McCrum in New York - FT.com
Who will buy Treasuries when the Federal Reserve stops? Pimco's Bill Gross thinks he knows the answer. The manager of the world's biggest bond fund has cut its holdings of US government-related debt, including Treasuries, to zero.
The reason for this is Mr Gross's belief that Treasury prices will fall when the Fed ends its huge bond-buying programme, known as quantitative easing and designed to avoid a deflationary trap.
Not illogically, Pimco is betting that, with the Fed out of the picture, yields on Treasury bonds will rise - hitting the prices of bonds which move in the opposite direction. Investors loaded with debt will see the value of their holdings fall.
Wisconsin Governor Rescinds Layoff Notices
By MONICA DAVEY and A. G. SULZBERGER - NYTimes.com
MADISON, Wis. - Gov. Scott Walker announced on Friday that he was rescinding layoff notices for 1,500 state workers after Wisconsin lawmakers approved his plan to cut collective bargaining rights and benefits for public employees. The approval, after nearly a month of angry demonstrations and procedural maneuvering, will create enough budget savings, Mr. Walker said, that layoffs will not be needed now.
"While tough budget choices certainly still lie ahead, both state and local units of government will not have to do any mass layoffs or direct service reductions because of the reforms contained in the budget repair bill," Mr. Walker said in a statement Friday morning. "Moving forward, the hardworking, professional public sector employees who show up to work every day and do an excellent job will help ensure Wisconsin has a business climate that allows the private sector to create 250,000 new jobs."
Utah allows gold, silver coin to be used as legal tender
UTAH (Commodity Online) : Utah in Western United States has passed a legislation that would allow gold and silver coins to be used as a legal tender in the State; a move to hedge them from the value erosion that the US Dollar is undergoing,.
Analysts and think tanks have supported the move. But there is opposition too. As one of the law makers joked, Utah should make salt a legal tender owing to its surplus in the State.
The Utah legislation is touted as a rejection of fiat money and an opposition against tax code that encourages consumption.
The new wave is not restricted to Utah, as a dozen states have proposed such a bill.
Partnering for a New Age "New World Religion"?
Eye-Witness Account: Global Peace Forum at Saddleback with Rick Warren and Tony Blair Raises Serious Questions About Global Peace Plan
A SPECIAL REPORT BY LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH AND ROGER OAKLAND
On March 7, 2011, Roger Oakland, founder of Understand the Times, International, and two other members from his ministry attended the Peace in a Globalized Society forum at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, which featured Rick Warren and special guest, former UK prime minister Tony Blair. Roger Oakland and his co-workers obtained eye-witness seats at the event that included well over 2000 people in attendance. Although cameras and recorders were not allowed in the main sanctuary where the interview took place, the UTT team took notes.
------- end Fri updates -------
The great daylight saving scam This weekend's clock ritual costs more than it saves
By John Merline - The Washington Times
Four years ago, Congress in its infinite wisdom extended daylight saving time (DST) by a month, with the goal of saving energy. Lots of energy.
The bill's champion, Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, said it would save consumers a generous $4.4 billion over 15 years.
Of course, Mr. Markey was just repeating what has long been an established truism among policymakers: Setting the clocks forward in the spring saves energy because people don't have to turn their lights on as much as at night.
Will March 11th Bring "Day Of Rage" In Saudi Arabia?
By Larry Doyle - DailyMarkets.com
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya. What nation is next on the hit parade of social unrest in the Middle East? Could it be the oil exporting nation of Saudi Arabia? What would civil unrest in that nation mean to the price of oil and oil-related products worldwide? How high might the price of gas rise in our nation?
The uncertainty in our equity markets recently is clearly heavily influenced by the turmoil in Libya, but we should keep our eyes focused squarely on Saudi Arabia. Friday March 11th has been designated a "Day of Rage" in the nation where social protests are outlawed. What might happen? What is driving the unsettledness in Saudi Arabia? For a detailed backdrop on what is troubling the people of Saudi Arabia, let's review a recent Bloomberg interview with Mai Yamani,...
Krauthammer warns 'all hell is breaking loose' if major unrest occurs in Saudi Arabia on March 11
By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller
Here's something Americans should certainly keep their eyes on - the potential for unrest in Saudi Arabia, which the United States imports more oil from than any other country outside of North America.
Fox News Channel contributor Charles Krauthammer warned of that potential on Wednesday night's "Special Report Online," aired on FoxNews.com, but said that a plot to overthrow the Saudi government could be foiled by the Saudis' intelligence apparatus.
Krauthammer - March 11th
'Gaddafi will prevail', says Barack Obama's intelligence chief Colonel Muammar Gaddafi will defeat the rebels in Libya, Barack Obama's intelligence chief said on Thursday.
By Alex Spillius, Washington - Telegraph.co.uk
James Clapper, the director of US national intelligence, told the Senate armed services committee "the regime will prevail", forcing the White House into an embarrassing damage control exercise.
"With respect to the rebels in Libya, and whether or not they will succeed or not, I think frankly they're in for a tough row," he said, adding the momentum had shifted to Col Gaddafi.
"I don't think he has any intention of leaving. From all evidence that we have ... he appears to be hunkering down for the duration."
His remarks came as the Dow Jones index fell 228 points on concerns over the effects of the Libyan conflict on oil supplies, slipping back under the psychological barrier that it passed in late January.
China deemed biggest threat to U.S.
Russia second, DNI chief says
By Eli Lake - The Washington Times
China's nuclear arsenal poses the most serious "mortal threat" to the United States among nation states, Director of National IntelligenceJames Clapper told the Senate on Thursday.
In candid testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Clapper said he considered China the most significant threat among nation states, with Russia posing the second-greatest threat. He later clarified the comments by saying he did not assess that China or Russia had the intention to launch an attack on the United States.
The testimony contrasts with statements by Obama administration officials who have sought to highlight the dangers of Iran and North Korea while paying less attention to China and Russia.
Threat of Trial Keeps Gadhafi Fighting
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV - WSJ.com
CAIRO - When Nigeria delivered exiled Liberian leader Charles Taylor to an international court in 2006, Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi, whose regime had armed and funded Mr. Taylor, called it an "immoral act" and warned that "every head of state could meet a similar fate."
Now that the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into Col. Gadhafi himself, such fears may well be a reason why the Libyan leader has chosen to battle his own people instead of seeking exile like Mr. Taylor or Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the former Tunisian president now residing in Saudi Arabia.
Col. Gadhafi's behavior illustrates a thorny moral dilemma: An international drive to ensure ousted dictators answer for their crimes may, perversely, end up prolonging their rule - and extract a heavy toll in human lives.
'They Just Kept Bombing and Bombing'
By CHARLES LEVINSON in Benghazi, Libya and SAM DAGHER and MARGARET COKER in Tripoli - WSJ.com
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi pounded a rebel-held oil-refinery city Thursday from the ground and air, in what appeared to be an escalation of the government offensive against opposition fighters in the east.
"They bombed us with tanks, airplanes, missiles coming from every direction," said Mahmoud Abdel Hamid, a 25-year-old fighter, who lay in the hospital with multiple fractures in his right arm and shrapnel embedded in his face.
He and other rebel fighters said they were forced to retreat form the strategic oil city. They said they saw around 50 tanks on the town's outskirts before as they left early Thursday evening.
Saudi police open fire during protest
By SARAH EL DEEB - AP - WashingtonPost.com
CAIRO -- Saudi police opened fire Thursday to disperse a protest in the section where minority Shiites live, leaving at least one man injured, as the government toughened its efforts to prevent a wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world from reaching the kingdom.
The rare violence raised concern about a crackdown ahead of planned protests after Friday prayers in different cities throughout the oil-rich kingdom. Violence there could reverberate through the world's markets because of the importance of Saudi oil exports.
France, U.S. Reach Out to Rebels Libya Suffers Diplomatic Blow as Paris Recognizes Opposition;
Cautious Steps Toward Military Action
By DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS in Paris, ADAM ENTOUS in Washington and CHARLES LEVINSON in Benghazi, Libya - WSJ.com
The U.S. and France dealt new diplomatic blows to Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government Thursday, but the international community stepped only gingerly toward taking military action against the Libyan strongman.
France formally recognized Libya's main opposition group, the first country to do so. The U.S. said it was suspending relations with the Libyan Embassy in Washington, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would meet with members of Libyan rebel groups next week.
Signs of dissent becoming more visible among Saudi Arabian youths
By Janine Zacharia - Washington Post
JIDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - It is 9 p.m. on a Monday, and the Jasur bookstore cafe in Jiddah's chic Hamra district is hopping. Upstairs, Saudi men and women pack a poetry reading, while downstairs a book club discusses Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller, "Blink." Nearby, a team of young comic writers is hashing out the latest in a series of YouTube episodes that satirize Saudi politics and society.
"Don't get me wrong," Hasan Eid, the editor of a poetry anthology, reads from a new collection. "I love my country to death. But what I see every day makes me sigh under my breath."
A Handy Guide to the Revolts in the Middle East
And Their Likely Effects On Us
By GonzaloLira.com
In 1848, protests and revolutions swept through Europe. The specific causes were different in each country, but the underlying cause was the same everywhere: The middle and upper middle classes - politically powerless in these absolutist monarchies - wanted more control over their lives. We are having an 1848 moment in the Middle East: Autocratic governments in two of these countries have been overthrown outright (Tunisia and Egypt), one is sliding into civil war (Libya), and a host of others are teetering. A few other undemocratic governments beyond the Middle East are very worried that their restive populations might get ideas - China, I'm looking at you.
Keiser Report: Messy Democracies (E128)
Egypt's leaders seek police force's speedy return to duty
By Richard Leiby - Washington Post
CAIRO - Responding to public alarm over escalating lawlessness and sectarian violence, Egyptian political leaders urged police Thursday to return to the streets as soon as possible, saying their absence threatens to undermine the country's fledgling democracy.
Often associated with corruption and abuse, the police force - with the exception of traffic police - has been largely out of sight since late January. Some officers have voiced fears of public retaliation for the killings of hundreds of demonstrators during Egypt's recent uprising. Others are being prosecuted, and others are simply staying home.
U.S. funding tech firms that help Mideast dissidents
evade government censors
By Ian Shapira - Washington Post
The Obama administration may not be lending arms to dissidents in the Middle East, but it is offering aid in another critical way: helping them surf the Web anonymously as they seek to overthrow their governments.
Federal agencies - such as the State Department, the Defense Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors - have been funding a handful of technology firms that allow people to get online without being tracked or to visit news or social media sites that governments have blocked. Many of these little-known organizations - such as the Tor Project and UltraReach- are unabashedly supportive of the activists in the Middle East.
Arab revolts spread to Europe Croatians demand relief from EU-engrossed kleptocracy
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner - The Washington Times
The Arab freedom wave has now hit the shores of Europe and in the most unlikely of places: the Balkans. Croatia, an Adriatic nation that straddles the civilizational fault line between Central Europe and the Balkans, has been seething with public unrest and protests.
For weeks, thousands of demonstrators have been assembling almost daily in the capital, Zagreb, and across other cities in this country of 4.4 million. They are demanding that the government step down and call snap elections. The situation is volatile - and could turn violent.
Europe's Turn Again
BY JOHN RUBINO - FinancialSense.com
Europe has been pretty quiet lately. But apparently that was an illusion. The Eurozone's slide down the slippery slope continues, but because the current stage involves colorless bureaucrats debating the terms of debt swaps rather than street riots and air strikes, it has been overshadowed by the chaos in the Middle East.
That's about to change, as the flaws in the design of the common currency system really start to bite. As Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports:
EU paralysis drives fresh bond rout
Portugal edged closer to the brink yesterday, having to pay almost 6pc to raise two-year debt. The yield on 10-year bonds briefly surged to 7.8pc after the Chinese rating agency Dagong downgraded the country's debt to BBB+.
Spain downgrade sparks storm over rating agencies Moody's has reignited the storm of controversy over the power of rating agencies after it downgraded Spain, and warned that the bank clean-up will cost vastly more that claimed.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The move comes a day before a crucial summit of EMU leaders to thrash out a "grand deal" intended to create workable machinery for the euro and end the debt crisis once and for all.
Moody's cut Spain's credit by one notch to Aa1 and said Madrid's estimates of €20bn (£17.2bn) of fresh capital needed to rebuild the banks and cajas is too low. "The overall cost is likely to be nearer €40bn to €50bn," rising to as much as €120bn in a "stressed scenario".
Moody's report raises fresh doubts over Spain's ability to fend off contagion as the bond spreads on Greek, Irish, and Portuguese debt reach post-EMU highs.
Keiser Report from Cairo: US Gaddafies (E127)
Utah Legislature goes for gold, silver as currency options
Seen as hedge against dollar slide
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
The Utah Legislature on Thursday passed a bill allowing gold and silver coins to be used as legal tender in the state - and for the value of their precious metal, not just the face value of the coins.
State backers said they hope the move will help insulate Utah from a potential monetary slide as countries question the value of the dollar. Others, casting their eye nationwide, said it could spur a broader move by Congress or states to readopt a gold standard.
Gold: In like a Lion, out like a Bull
By Renisha Chainani - CommodityOnline.com
Will Commodities continue to steamroll into new highs making considerable gains or will the struggling dollar reaching record lows make a showdown, putting a ceiling on the price rise?
Dollar: No longer safe heaven asset in 2011
Investors are jumping into precious metals as a safe haven, causing record breakouts. The dollar on the other hand has shown no interest from safe-haven buyers. The dollar, which proved to be a safe haven during 2008, has not been showing similar characteristics in 2011. Many investors are concerned about a repeat of 2008, where commodities and precious metals suffered a severe decline along with the markets. It is my belief that 2011 is different as evidenced by the recent decoupling of gold and the dollar as a safe haven.
Gold slides as Dollar, Chinese data prompt profit-taking
By Allen Sykora
(Kitco News) - Even though gold tumbled to its lowest level in nearly two weeks Thursday on profit-taking triggered by U.S. dollar strength, disappointing Chinese trade data and lower crude oil, analysts say gold's setback still appears to be a correction rather than something more ominous.
At settlement, April gold was down by $17.10 to $1,412.50 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract bottomed at $1,403, its weakest level since Feb. 25.
Several analysts linked the move to the dollar recovering some of its recent weakness on renewed sovereign-debt issues in the euro zone. Moody's Investors Service cut Spain's government bond rating by one notch to Aa2, undermining the euro. Moody's also gave the new rating a negative outlook, meaning potential for yet another cut.
The Coming Global Commodities Crisis
By: Clif Droke -GoldSeek.com
The last few weeks has seen a startling rise in fuel and food prices. This has been a key contributor to the political and economic instability overseas; it's also paving the way for an even bigger crisis for the U.S. and the world economy by 2012.
Indeed, the oil price has been on a rip-and-tear largely owing to the Middle East crisis. The fear and uncertainty overhanging North Africa and the Middle East has also benefited the gold price. Our favorite gold proxy for instance, the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD), recently made a new high and is still above its key immediate-term trend line.
Freedom Watch - Just Another Shakedown 3/7/2011
Save, Invest, Speculate, Trade or Gamble?
BY DOUG CASEY - FinancialSense.com
For some time I've been saying that the economy is in the "eye of the storm" and that when it emerged, the weather would be far rougher than in 2008. The trillions of currency units created since the Greater Depression began in 2007 have papered over the situation, but only temporarily.
In some ways, the immediate and direct effects of this money creation appear beneficial. For instance, by averting a sharp and complete collapse of financial markets and the banking system - or by allowing a return to some approximation of normalcy in the daily lives of most people.
QE: Hyper-Inflation to Oblivion
By: Jim Willie - GoldSeek.com
USFed Chairman Bernanke and the Quantitative Easing programs are caught in a negative feedback loop, the instruments at risk being the USDollar and the USTreasury Bond. The former suffers from lost integrity and direct inflation effect. The latter suffers from direct intervention and market ruin. The next QE round is guaranteed by the failure of the previous program in an endless cycle to be recognized later this year. Leaders are confused why the recovery does not take root. It is because the entire system is insolvent, and the 0% rate assures total capital destruction, not to mention the big US banks are sacred, never to be liquidated, a primary condition for recovery. Liquidation is tantamount to abdication of power of the Purse and control of the Printing Pre$$, never to happen. The greatest hidden damage is psychological, where the USDollar and its erstwhile trusted USTreasury Bond are no longer viewed as the safe haven. Capital destruction is the main byproduct of monetary inflation, a concept totally foreign to the inflation engineers at the USFed and its satellite central banks. They are agents of magnificent systemic devastation. In the wake of each QE round are discouraged creditors who turn away in disgust. The damage and inflation feeds upon itself in stages of intense wreckage. The motive, need, and desperation for QE3 is being formed here and now, to be announced by late summer probably. Prepare for QE to infinity, endless hyper-inflation, a process that cannot be stopped, as the urgent needs grows. Any attempt to halt the process results in almost immediate total annihilation. So continuation of QE rounds serves to manage the deterioration process and guide the financial structures gradually and orderly into oblivion.
Portfolio Preparation for Hyperinflation 3 Assets for Protection & Profit
BY DEEPCASTER - FinancialSense.com
"Happy days are here again! Stock markets are strong, company profits are up, bankers are making record profits and bonuses, unemployment is declining, and inflation is non-existent. Obama and Bernanke are the dream team making the US into the Superpower it once was.
Yes, it is amazing the castles in the air that can be built with paper money and deceitful manipulation of all economic data. And Madame Bernanke de Pompadour will do anything to keep King Louis XV Obama happy, including flooding markets with unlimited amounts of printed money. They both know that, in their holy alliance, they are committing a cardinal sin. But clinging to power is more important than the good of the country. An economic and social disaster is imminent for the US and a major part of the world and Bernanke de Pompadour and Louis XV Obama are praying that it won't happen during their reign: 'Après nous le déluge'...
The Inflationary Bust Scenario
BY RUSS WINTER - FinancialSense.com
On our podcast (Part I is gratis) we got into more Wizard of Oz debating about whether the Fed would act to counter inflation or wind down QE2. Not sure if anybody picked up my points clearly, but here it is in writing. My response: It's too late for the Fed and any action, short of a Volcker-like stratagem (zero possibility), will be spitting into the wind. Speculators and shadow banks are all in on crack-up boom trades, including oil. Ultimately, these positions will be liquidated, but the question is when. Even if the Fed let QEs finish up in June, I believe the riskloves will pile drive into these inflation trades, especially energy, as the risk is too tempting for them because they love gambling with other people's money, especially the taxpayers. This is irresistible with free money provided by Oz. The Fed is unlikely to crack this inflation, but an inflationary bust will. Inflation, like cancer, will end up killing its host. I see all this playing out over the next two or three months.
The secret group setting the price of oil: Us.
By Leah McGrath Goodman - CNNMoney.com
It was dawn when I received my first of many after-hours phone calls from Mark Bradley Fisher, otherwise known as the Fish. A self-made millionaire with a Napoleonic sense of his own destiny, Fisher prided himself on his work ethic, his intellectual prowess, and his ability to rise early in the morning and toil late into the night. As a result, he had a habit of calling me almost exclusively at inconvenient times.
It was February 2005, the year Wall Street began to realize something was wrong with the oil market. Fisher, however, was not particularly disturbed. After all, he was one of the wealthiest and most powerful energy traders in the world.
Fumbling in the darkness, I nearly fell out of bed trying to find my cell phone. As I flipped it open, Fisher sounded none too pleased at the five-ring wait.
Aaron Dykes Special Report:
History of The Carbon Tax and Ken Lay's Roll 1/2
Aaron Dykes Special Report:
History of The Carbon Tax and Ken Lay's Roll 2/2
Increase in oil revenue amid unrest in Arab world
gives Russia some breathing room
By Will Englund - Washington Post
MOSCOW - With the price of oil climbing to more than $100 a barrel, Russia has a little more weight to throw around on the world stage, and it is doing just that.
The stepped-up flow of petrodollars into the government's coffers relieves what had been a worrisome budget deficit and lessens the urgency of reform. Good relations with the West - and especially the "reset" with Washington - are not quite so pressing when the economy here is in good shape.
U.S. trade deficit widens sharply
By Annalyn Censky
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. trade deficit widened to a five-month high in January, as imports surged across a variety of sectors, far outpacing exports.
The trade balance, which measures the difference between the nation's imports and exports, grew to a $46.3 billion deficit in January, up from $40.3 billion in December, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
That number was much larger than economists' estimates for a $41.5 billion deficit, as imports grew more than expected.
Exports totaled $167.74 billion in January, a rise of $4.4 billion from the month before. But imports totaled $214.08 billion, or $10.5 billion more than in December.
China swings to shock $7.3bn trade deficit China swung to a surprise trade deficit in February of $7.3bn (£4.5bn), its largest in seven years, as the Lunar New Year holiday dealt a sharper blow to export activity than had been expected. -- By Reuters via Telegraph.co.uk
It was China's first trade deficit since March last year and its biggest since February 2004. Economists, who had forecast a small surplus of $4.95bn, said the sudden drop was likely to prove temporary.
"We did expect exports to slow last month, but I think nobody had expected such a weak outcome," said Nie Wen, an analyst at Hwabao Trust in Shanghai.
"There is little chance that China will have a trade deficit again, and the monthly trade surplus may pick up in the second half of this year," he added.
US trade deficit and unemployment figures worsen The US trade deficit widened far more than expected in January as surging imports of oil, capital goods and cars overpowered record exports in a signal of strengthening demand.
By Philip Aldrick - Telegraph.co.uk
The widening in the deficit, from $40.3bn to $46.3bn, came as new figures showed that unemployment claims rose, though not by enough to suggest the jobs recovery is stalling.
Applications for first-time unemployment benefits increased by 26,000 to 397,000 last week, according to Labour Department figures. The data follows last week's figures that showed employers added 192,000 jobs in February - the most in nine months.
Economists said it is unlikely to change perceptions of an acceleration in the pace of job creation and the broader economic recovery.
Wis. governor's bill to limit unions' power Legislature defies mob of protesters to pass measure
By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times
Against a backdrop of protesters and police, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was set to sign landmark legislation Thursday reining in the power of public-employee unions after a pitched battle over collective bargaining that shows no signs of abating.
The state Assembly approved the bill in a 53-42 vote Thursday, marking the end of a bitter three-week struggle at the Capitol in Madison that pitted the budget-cutting Republican governor and Legislature against Democratic lawmakers and union demonstrators who framed the debate as a battle for the survival of the labor movement.
Public-sector unions claim outsized share of U.S. pension assets
By Patrice Hill - The Washington Times
More than a third of the nation's $9.3 trillion in pension assets belong to state and local government employees, even though they make up only 15 percent of the U.S. work force, a study shows.
Research by the Spectrum investment group found that public-sector employees, primarily through powerful unions, have accumulated by far the most generous retirement programs in the country. Meanwhile, many private-sector workers have had their retirement plans cut back and have had to delay retirement.
Unions: Losing friends all around
By Nina Easton
FORTUNE -- As Barack Obama stood on that frigid inaugural stage in 2009, labor leaders could envisage the glorious future awaiting them. Here, at last, was a President determined to help unions rebuild their sagging ranks by supporting a "card check" bill that would change the way unions are allowed to organize workers. Here was a President who openly criticized fellow Democrat Bill Clinton for signing the North American Free Trade Agreement. And here was a President who would put government health care for the uninsured at the center of his agenda.
Two years later card check is dead, Obama is out promoting free-trade deals, and his health care reform plan -- passed without a government option -- faces an uncertain future in the courts. And now a costly new front has opened in labor's struggles: the states, where budget-cutting governors are targeting union salaries, benefits, and even collective-bargaining rights.
Us vs. them unions
Wisconsin standoff brings attention to the Democrats' dirty bargain
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Editorial
Republicans in the Wisconsin statehouse had enough of Democratic Party antics designed to insulate its union supporter base from the pains of the economic malaise affecting the rest of us. The state Senate voted Wednesday to ban public-sector employees from entering into collective bargaining arrangements. Union thugs encircling the capitol building made a spectacle of themselves as the Assembly turned to consider the bill yesterday. Meanwhile in Washington, congressional Democrats continue to hold out against the most milquetoast of spending-reduction proposals, despite the dire circumstances of the nation's finances.
In Wisconsin, Taxpayers Finally Win a Round
By: Rick Ackerman - GoldSeek.com
No one thought it would be easy for state and local governments to get their budgets under control. However, by eliminating collective bargaining for most public employees, it appears that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker may have paved the way for other states to succeed at it. One good thing to notice is that Wisconsin turned out not to be France. Try to imagine what would happen if a synateur were to propose raising the retirement age by a year or two, or shortening the French worker's god-given two months of vacation by a week. You'd have a torch mob marching on Paris within hours, and the lawmaker's effigy would be hanging from lampposts from Paris to Marseille. Windows would be smashed and cars set aflame. Not in Wisconsin, though. Labor turned out tens of thousands of angry, if peaceful demonstrators, but in the end that wasn't enough to carry the day. There wasn't a Democrat in the chamber when the final vote came yesterday, but the result was clear enough: only police and firefighters, who put their lives on the line every day, will retain collective bargaining rights.
Wisconsin Curbs Unions GOP Governor to Quickly Sign Limits on Bargaining Rights as Democrats Fume
By KRIS MAHER And ILAN BRAT - WSJ.com
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin lawmakers sent a bill eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for the state's public-employee unions to Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday, setting a precedent other states could follow in the broadest move in decades to curb union rights.
The bill's passage by the state's Republican-controlled Assembly in a 53-42 vote ended a three-week stalemate that saw the state's 14 Senate Democrats flee to Illinois in a bid to stymie the measure and tens of thousands of people protest at the Capitol.
Mr. Walker, a Republican, said he would sign the bill as soon as he legally could, but controversy continued to swirl. Democratic senators were challenging the legality of a committee meeting that cleared the way for Wednesday night's Senate passage, saying it violated the state's open-meetings laws. Unions were planning large rallies and supporting campaigns to recall eight Republican senators across the state. Six Democrats are also targeted for recall.
Administration accused of bypassing Congress
in negotiating deal with banks
By Dina ElBoghdady - Washington Post
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday accused the Obama administration of trying to make an end run around Congress as it negotiates a large settlement with banks involved in shoddy foreclosure practices.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, Republicans criticized the scope of a 27-page draft term sheet that was recently submitted to five of the nation's largest banks by state attorneys general and a handful of federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Banks balk at draft Housing plan DOA
By MARK DeCAMBRE - NYPost.com
A sweeping settlement to end the foreclosure fiasco plaguing the US housing market can't even get its toe in the door.
The deal proposed by federal regulators and state attorneys general in a 27-page draft settlement distributed to the nation's five largest mortgage lenders last week is a "non-starter," sources told The Post.
One bank official said that the draft, if implemented in its current form, would force many of the nation's banks to stop underwriting mortgages altogether because they wouldn't be able to manage the new costs of servicing home loans under the proposed agreement.
How To End the Federal Reserve System
by Gary North - LewRockwell.com
Things are not always as complicated as they seem. With respect to the Federal Reserve System, it is a deliberate mystery. It was deliberately designed in 1910 to deceive the public, who were opposed the idea of a central bank. The conspirators who met on Jekyll Island in November 1910 knew this. They did good work from their point of view. They concealed the beast.
The general public today knows little about the FED. Prior to Ron Paul's Presidential run in 2007-8, far fewer people understood it.
I have been asked: "How could we get rid of the Federal Reserve? What will replace it?" The answer: either the free market or Congress.
FED BACKS THE BANKS Fed Report Finds No Wrongful Foreclosures By Banks, Consumer Advocates Slam Methodology
By Shahien Nasiripour - HuffingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A months-long investigation into abusive mortgage practices by the Federal Reserve found no wrongful foreclosures, members of the Fed's Consumer Advisory Council said Thursday.
During a public meeting attended by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and other regulators, consumer advocates on the panel criticized federal bank regulators for narrowly defining what constitutes a "wrongful foreclosure." At least one member of the panel voiced concerns that the public would not take the Fed's findings of improper practices seriously, since the wide-ranging review did not find a single homeowner who was wrongfully foreclosed upon.
Foreclosure activity declines as lenders review legal procedures
BY KATHLEEN LYNN - NorthJersey.com
Foreclosure activity has dropped to its lowest level in three years, as mortgage servicers continue to work on problems with their legal procedures, RealtyTrac reported Wednesday.
"The industry is in the midst of a major overhaul that has severely restricted its capacity to process foreclosures," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, a California company that tracks the foreclosure market. "We expect to see the numbers bounce back, but that will likely take several months."
69,000 NY home loans at risk of foreclosure
The Business Review - by Michael DeMasi
Nearly 69,000 home loans in New York are at imminent risk of foreclosure, a situation that an advocacy group said today could lead to a "tsunami" of foreclosures over the next year or two.
The study by the Empire Justice Center in Albany is based on data provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The data cover about 55 percent of all mortgages in the state.
The study compares the number of homes currently in foreclosure in the state, nearly 80,000, with the number of mortgages at least 30 days delinquent as of last September, the group said.
Federal jobs fast becoming an endangered species Federal agencies are imposing hiring freezes, eliminating openings, and preparing for severe budget cuts, dashing the hopes and prospects of many upcoming graduates and other jobseekers.
By Elizabeth G. Olson - CNNMoney.com
Only months ago, getting a job as a federal government worker was a reasonably safe bet. Private sector hiring was sputtering. Baby boomers at federal agencies were retiring in droves, replaced by newly recruited college graduates.
But before the class of 2011 could don their graduation caps, the federal job market has turned dramatically weaker. Agencies are imposing hiring freezes on new employees or filling vacant positions, as they wait under the raised hammer of a government shutdown at worst and severe budget cutbacks at best.
AOL will shed 900 jobs worldwide
By Peter Svensson, AP - USAToday.com
NEW YORK - AOL said Thursday that it will slash 900 jobs worldwide, or nearly 20% of its workforce, partly to eliminate overlap from its recent purchase of The Huffington Post.
About 200 of the cuts are from AOL's content and technology departments in the U.S. The remaining 700 are at AOL offices in India, which mainly provide back-office support to the U.S. But AOL spokesman Graham James said 300 of those will move to other companies that are taking over support functions.
Thursday's cuts leave AOL with 3,500 employees in the U.S. and about 500 overseas. The total work force is a fifth of what the company had at its peak in 2004, when its staff numbered more than 20,000.
Health care coverage: Big changes in 2012
By Parija Kavilanz
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Come 2012, millions of Americans who get health care coverage through their employer should brace for some big changes.
Charging higher contributions for dependent coverage and dropping retiree accounts, are among the steps companies are considering as they fight rising medical costs and new expenses tied to health reform, according to a new report Thursday from human resources consulting firm Towers Watson.
Here are some important findings:
Your retiree health plans may be dropped:
You will pay more per dependent:
Get ready for spouse penalties:
Getting serious about good health:
Big change in drug costs for seniors
Pick your doctor carefully:
Falling optimism about providing health coverage:
Obamacare vital signs starting to fade Court puts law on the fast track to judgment day
By Dr. Milton R. Wolf - The Washington Times
Obamacare is living on borrowed time, and even its most ardent supporters are beginning to realize it. That's why they're racing to implement - and entrench - as much of the plan as possible before the laws of economics and the laws of the land and voters catch up. They're like a deadbeat renter starting a remodeling project after being evicted but before the police escort them from the premises in hopes that it gives them squatter's rights. Meanwhile, two unrelated but devastating events have caused the ground to shake beneath the feet of Obamacare supporters.
U.S. takes over three Tylenol plants
By Parija Kavilanz
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The government is taking over three Tylenol plants following a blizzard of drug recalls and a Food and Drug Administration criminal investigation into safety issues at the factories.
The FDA and the Justice Department on Thursday took action against McNeil PPC and two of its executives -- its vice president of quality and its vice president of operations for over-the-counter products -- for failing to comply with federally-mandated manufacturing practice.
McNeil, a division of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Fortune 500), said it had agreed to put its plants -- one in Las Piedras, Puerto Rico, one in Fort Washington, Pa. and one in Lancaster, Pa., under FDA supervision.
Health Care Benefit Cuts Being Mapped Out By House Republicans
By ANDREW TAYLOR - HuffingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON - House Republicans will "lead with our chin" and offer politically explosive cost curbs this spring on programs like Medicare, Medicaid and perhaps Social Security, the party's point man for curbing crippling budget deficits said Thursday.
Even then, Rep. Paul Ryan acknowledged, the government's budget still won't balance for quite some time.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, the Wisconsin lawmaker and chairman of the House Budget Committee said the House Republicans' budget proposal for the 2012 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 will propose fundamental changes to Medicare and Medicaid, the giant health care programs that cover 100 million Americans and whose combined costs rival the defense budget.
Krauthammer: Sebelius accidentally speaks the truth
Light bulb law faces challenge in Congress
By Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - Amid battles over health care, the federal budget and the soaring deficit, another fight is brewing on Capitol Hill this week - over light bulbs.
Some House and Senate Republicans want to repeal a 2007 law that phases out traditional incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient options. The Senate's energy panel has a hearing Thursday on the repeal bill proposed by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. Texas Rep. Joe Barton is pushing companion legislation in the House.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., last week introduced a similar bill that also calls for a study into whether new bulbs pose a health risk. "The government has no business telling an individual what kind of light bulb to buy," she said in a statement.
*** IMPORTANT INFORMATION ***
shocking overreach by DHS and ICE
Newly Obtained Homeland Security Document
Reveal Radical Shift In Internet Policy
by DavidSegal - DailyKos.com
Until a few weeks ago, Brian McCarthy ran a website, channelsurfing.net, that linked to various sites where you could watch online streams of TV shows and sports networks. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized his domain name in late January. All you'll find there now is a "This domain has been seized" warning, complete with a screeching eagle dive-bombing your face as he clutches a banner that reads "Protection is our trademark."
Then, in an unprecedented move, on Friday they arrested McCarthy and charged him with criminal copyright infringement -- punishable by five years in prison.
Demand Progress just obtained a copy of the complaint that DHS and ICE made against him: they do not even allege that he made a copy of anything. Just that he ran what they call a "linking website" which linked to various sites with infringing material.
Judge Napolitano - Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
Obama and Holder taking on Arizona's SB1070
*** Excellent Interview w/ head for FOX News ***
Interview with Roger Ailes president of Fox News Channel
Day Of Rage: Saudi Arabia In Veiled Threat To US
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
As the world braces itself for Saudi Arabia's "day of rage" on Friday, which many fear could be the spark that sends oil prices soaring to beyond the $200 a barrel mark, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal issued a veiled threat to the United States, warning that the Kingdom was prepared to "cut foreign fingers" in the event of any outside interference.
The "day of rage" was been organized by Saudi youths using a Facebook page that has attracted over 17,000 members. A message posted on the page also called for a "Saudi Revolution" demanding democratic and political reform on March 20.
48 hours ahead of the first protest, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal issued a stern message to outsiders who saw the demonstrations as an opportunity to advance geopolitical plans against the oil-rich country.
Libya no-fly zone would take only days-US general
Af.Reuters.com
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. military would be able to establish a "no-fly" zone over Libya within a couple of days if the international community decided that such a move was needed, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday.
"We can react very quickly to all this if we have to. We're prepared to do that. I believe within a couple days, we would probably be able to implement a no-fly zone," said Raymond Odierno, commanding general of the United States' Joint Forces Command.
Libya's rebel leadership has called on the international community to impose a no-fly zone that would ground Muammar Gaddafi's warplanes, preventing the leader from using them to attack civilians or rebels.
Rebel leader calls for 'immediate action' on no-fly zone
By the CNN Wire Staff
Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- The head of the interim government in eastern Libya pleaded Wednesday for the international community to move quickly to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, declaring that any delay would result in more casualties.
"It has to be immediate action," Mustafa Abdul-Jalil told CNN in an exclusive interview in this eastern opposition stronghold. "The longer the situation carries on, the more blood is shed. That's the message that we want to send to the international community. They have to live up to their responsibility with regards to this."
Libyan strife exposes China's risks in global quest for oil The evacuation of Chinese workers in Libya highlights Beijing's vulnerabilities as it partners with oil-rich regimes. Upheaval in Africa and the Middle East could force China to weigh political risks more carefully.
By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Beijing The Chinese construction workers and their families huddled inside their company's living compound in northeastern Libya, hiding from bands of rioters who were smashing cars and looting offices.
When the chaos subsided, the group of 930 migrants made a break for the open desert, starting a seven-day journey to the port of Benghazi, where a ship arranged by the Chinese government waited to take them home. As news of the exodus spread online, Chinese bloggers bestowed the nickname "Chinese Moses" on the plucky company manager who led the ragged group to safety.
Fierce fighting across Libya as government sends envoy
By Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy
TRIPOLI, March 9 (Reuters) - A Libyan insurgent said rebels had retaken the heart of the closest city to the capital from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday evening in some of the fiercest fighting in almost three weeks of clashes.
Zawiya appeared to change hands twice during the day as Gaddafi tried to crush the uprising against him by bombarding the western town and the frontlines of the rebel-held east of the country.
"Thanks to Allah we are sitting in the square now," the fighter, who gave his name as Ibrahim, said by telephone after earlier reporting his forces had pulled back from the square.
Libya's Rebels Fear Infiltration by Qaddafi Loyalists Is it paranoia, or could pro-regime elements remain in the ranks of military defectors?
By Clare Morgana Gillis - TheAtlantic.com
RAJMA, Libya -- The arms depot next to the village of Rajma sits on a plot of land that is 50 square kilometers, a hill ringed with green fields and sparse forests. Near the site of the still-unexplained explosion that devastated the depot on Friday, trees laid flat against the earth, their roots still fresh and alive. Giant craters marked the ground. Hundreds of anti-aircraft arms still remained under the twisted steel girders that had collapsed from the heat of the fire.
At night, the wrecked depot was truly ghostly. Pieces of sheet metal, which had once formed the walls of the airplane hangar, dangled from what little remained of the structure, waving back and forth and creaking in the high winds. A few stray dogs barked into the desolate landscape, where at least 40 had been killed by the blast and fire.
White House defends Libya stance, debates options
By Ross Colvin and Andrew Quinn
WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday strongly defended its response to the turmoil in Libya, insisting it has taken "dramatic action" and rebutting criticism that its consensus-based approach is too cautious.
As President Barack Obama's top advisers met to debate what to do next, Muammar Gaddafi's forces halted a rebel advance in the east of the oil-producing North African country and opposition forces suffered setbacks in the west.
Gaddafi escalates war on his own people as air strikes put rebels on defensive Libya's Gaddafi regime escalated its ferocious military campaign across the country on Wednesday, forcing rebels onto the defensive on three fronts.
By Adrian Blomfield, Ras Lanuf
and Richard Spencer in Tripoli - Telegraph.co.uk
For the first time since the uprising began three weeks ago, Libya's key oil infrastructure Ð much of it under rebel control - came under aerial attack. Flames leapt hundreds of feet into the sky after a fighter jet struck at one of the country's most important oil terminals in Ras Lanuf, a port town on the front line of rebel-held eastern Libya that has seen heavy fighting for the past 10 days.
Meanwhile forces loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi were still unable in the west to bring the isolated but strategically important oil town of Zawiya under control. Officials announced it was in government hands and organised a victory tour for western journalists in Tripoli, but called off the visit without explanation.
On the Side of the Big Battalions
By Hal G.P. Colebatch - The American Spectator.org
Well, we have had our euphoria over the revolts in the Arab world. Whether anything has changed much as a result of them is a moot point. The unlovely Egyptian and other regimes, whose departure was shaking the world a week ago, at present still seem in place. Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other Moslem countries continue to wipe out the last of their Christians.
And, as far as Libya is concerned, it may be that the gone-to-seed flower children of the U.S. and Britain (to say nothing of the unfortunate people of Libya itself) may be about to have their collective nose rubbed in the truth of a very old saw: God is on the side of the big battalions.
In a do-or-die situation, where would Gadhafi go?
By Moni Basu, CNN
(CNN) -- Conflicting reports hit the international media this week about whether Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was negotiating a deal with the opposition for a guaranteed safe exit if he relinquished power.
Speculation percolated again Wednesday after few details were available about a private Libyan aircraft that landed in Cairo, Egypt.
But two questions remain: Will Gadhafi ever step down, and if he did, where would he go?
Gadhafi is sure not to go down easily. He has defiantly vowed to die a martyr on Libyan soil and declared on state television, "I am Libya."
At the moment, he has leverage, said David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
When America Left Arab Rebels to the Slaughter
By Barry Lando - Truthdig.com
As the standoff in Libya takes on the potential of a bloody civil war, President Barack Obama is forced to consider possible U.S. intervention - at the very least, the enforcement of a no-fly zone. He has ordered his staff to examine how his predecessors handled such situations. One of the most frequently mentioned: how George H.W. Bush dealt with the Shiite and Kurd uprisings in Iraq in 1991, after U.S. forces drove Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait.
13 killed in clashes between Copts and Muslims in Egypt The bloodshed - on the edge of a Cairo slum - renews worry about the government's willingness to protect minority Christians. The army intervened only after Muslims set fire to homes and businesses.
By Garrett Therolf and Doha Al Zohairy, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Cairo Egypt suffered the deadliest unrest since President Hosni Mubarak's ouster when clashes Wednesday between Muslims and Coptic Christians left 13 dead and 140 injured.
The bloodshed, on the edge of a Cairo slum, renewed concern about the government's willingness to protect the Christian minority. Army units intervened only after Muslims set fire to homes and businesses.
"The people attacked us and the army was helping them. The army was among those who shot at us," said Massoud Younan Abde Mach, a 47-year-old Christian who works as a garbage collector.
If we truly are Israel's friend, then now is the time to show it
By Benedict Brogan - the Daily Telegraph
His belief in Israel, David Cameron announced last week, is indestructible. This statement of bomb-proof support was made at the annual dinner of the Community Security Trust, a group that tracks anti-semitism in Britain and provides security for organisations considered at risk of attack.
The CST's most recent report found that 2010 was another year for marked aggression against Judaism in Britain. Most Jewish schools, it is depressing to note, now require round-the-clock security. "I will always be a strong defender of the Jewish people. I will always be an advocate for the state of Israel," the Prime Minister said.
Will China's 'Have-Nots' Be Next to Rebel?
By CHARLES HUGH SMITH - DailyFinance.com
China, the planet's most populous country and home to one of its most dynamic economies, is in most respects a world away from the smaller, less influential, oil-dominated nations in the Mideast currently boiling with anti-government unrest.
But beneath the obvious differences, China faces some similar issues: rapidly rising inflation in food and other essentials, and a troubling gap between the financial and political "haves" and the far more numerous "have-nots."
EU paralysis drives fresh bond rout Political paralysis in Brussels and monetary tightening by the European Central Bank has set off a fresh spasm of the eurozone bond crisis, pushing spreads on Portuguese, Irish and Greek bonds to post-EMU records.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Portugal edged closer to the brink yesterday, having to pay almost 6pc to raise two-year debt. The yield on 10-year bonds briefly surged to 7.8pc after the Chinese rating agency Dagong downgraded the country's debt to BBB+.
"These levels of interest rates are not sustainable over time," said Carlos Costa Pina, secretary of the Portuguese Treasury, blaming the latest upset on the lack of a coherent EU debt strategy rather any failing by Portugal to deliver on austerity.
Global Currency War Flash Points in the Middle East 'Age of Rage'
By By: Gordon T Long - MarketOracle.co.uk
The conflict in North Africa was a predictable outcome of the US Monetary Policy of Quantitative Easing. It is not plausible that the US Federal Reserve, as the manager of the world's Reserve Currency, did not fully recognize the global ramifications of such monetary inflation actions well in advance. Quantitative Easing like the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) of the cold war era has had the same devastating pre-emptive impact on Libya.
There can also be little doubt that the bi-monthly meetings of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) board of directors, which specifically meet to discuss coordinated monetary policy outcomes, did not consider this eventuality. The board of directors of this global power center includes all G7 Central Banks chiefs, with the conspicuous absence of a single member of the Arab League not receiving US military financial aid.
Strapped Greece Taps U.S. Diaspora
By MATT PHILLIPS and JONATHAN CHENG - WSJ.com
When Athens calls, Ioannis Arvanitis will be ready with $10,000. Dennis Valerios has no money and no job, but he is willing to pony up $500. Nicos Constantinou says national pride dictates he will probably chip in a few bucks.
Greece is about to take them up on the offer. The country's finance ministry this week put a plan in motion to sell $3 billion of bonds to expatriate Greeks living in heavily Hellenic swaths of the U.S. including the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York, home to Messrs. Arvanitis, Valerios and Constantinou.
"I will do what I can do - I run a business, but I'm not rich," Mr. Arvanitis, 58 years old, said on Wednesday as he served up baklava and espresso to customers at his new cafe Omonia Next Door (a sister to the store next door named Omonia). Mr. Arvanitis, who immigrated in 1974, said he would be willing to buy about $10,000 of the bonds, after getting his wife's approval.
Revolutionary Shadows
Norman Manea - ProjectSyndicate.org
VIENNA Ð What happens after the euphoria of revolution fades? Today's Eastern Europe, some two decades after the revolutions of 1989, may offer a salutary warning for today's defiant and jubilant Arab youth that they must remain vigilant.
Ever since I left Romania for exile in 1986, my returns have been rare and tense. Although the schedule for my most recent trip was overwhelming, and offered little real contact with ordinary people, I could still grasp - from daily newspapers, TV programs, and conversations with friends - the profound economic, political, and moral crisis engulfing the country. Mistrust and anger toward a corrupt and inefficient political class, coupled with skepticism about democracy - even nostalgia for communism - is to be found nowadays not only in Romania, but also in some other parts of Eastern Europe.
China Central-Bank Adviser Urges Yuan Reform
By BOB DAVIS - WSJ.com
BEIJING - Xia Bin, a member of the Chinese central bank's monetary advisory committee, said China should aim for full yuan convertibility over the next 10 years.
Such a move is important, Mr. Xia said, for a "rising power" like China. "Our longer-term goal must be integrating into the floating exchange rates of the international system," he said. But he wouldn't comment on whether the current pace of yuan appreciation versus the dollar is moving rapidly enough to fulfill that goal.
"Hiking the exchange rate is definitely beneficial for curbing inflation," said Mr. Xia said. "But we can adopt many other ways to achieve that goal. [Boosting the exchange rate] isn't the only measure we could take."
Will China use its $3 trillion foreign exchange reserves to buy more gold?
CommodityOnline.com
Renewed fears over eurozone debt have seen the euro fall against most currencies and precious metals today. The yield on Greek 10-year bonds is approaching an alarming 13% after jumping to a new record high of 12.89% today (see bond charts below). The Portuguese 10-year rose to a new record high of 7.7% ahead of today's auction where they borrowed 1 billion euros in order to avoid a "bailout".
The risk of contagion in the eurozone has clearly not gone away and this is another primary factor supporting gold above the $1,400/oz and the €1,000/oz level. The charts contradict those who simplistically call gold a bubble with gold having seen a period of correction and consolidation since November last year and looking like it is ready to break out and challenge new highs above $1,500/oz and EUR1,100/oz in the coming weeks.
Gold prices still far away from peaks
By Jeffrey Nichols
As unrest and regime change threatens a swath of countries across North Africa and the Middle East, gold is reverting to its historic role as the preeminent safe haven - but it's price is just beginning to reflect the rise in political and economic uncertainty in the region and around the world.
Frankly, given the political prospects for a number of strategic countries across the region, the possibility of long-term uncertainties, and the threat to oil supplies, I'm surprised gold has not performed better, especially in light of its own bullish market fundamentals.
Saudis, Soros and Other Billionaires We Finance
By John Ransom - Townhall.com
News comes today that George Soros is upset with talk the US is trying to cut the federal budget. According to Reuters, Soros was addressing "a think-tank breakfast in Paris" <insert croissant joke here> and said that he was less upbeat about the US economy because of the proposed cuts.
"While currently the U.S. economy is improving, that is going to be a serious brake on that in terms of employment and effective demand," he said.
"So I am a little bit less optimistic for the U.S. economy than most people are currently."
Soros must have a HUGE short position in US dollars.
Q.E. Money Printing Negative Feed Back Loop to Hyper-Inflation Oblivion
By: Jim Willie CB - MarketOracle.co.uk
USFed Chairman Bernanke and the Quantitative Easing programs are caught in a negative feedback loop, the instruments at risk being the USDollar and the USTreasury Bond. The former suffers from lost integrity and direct inflation effect. The latter suffers from direct intervention and market ruin. The next QE round is guaranteed by the failure of the previous program in an endless cycle to be recognized later this year. Leaders are confused why the recovery does not take root. It is because the entire system is insolvent, and the 0% rate assures total capital destruction, not to mention the big US banks are sacred, never to be liquidated, a primary condition for recovery. Liquidation is tantamount to abdication of power of the Purse and control of the Printing Pre$$, never to happen. The greatest hidden damage is psychological, where the USDollar and its erstwhile trusted USTreasury Bond are no longer viewed as the safe haven.
Alex Jones & Lord Monckton: "Economic Savage Warfare" 1/2
Alex Jones & Lord Monckton: "Economic Savage Warfare" 2/2
PIMCO's Gross Asks: 'Who Will Buy Treasuries When the Fed Doesn't?'
By Daniel Indiviglio - TheAtlantic.com
The world's biggest bond fund has dumped over $28 billion in U.S. Treasury securities since January. Pacific Investment Management Co.'s (PIMCO) Bill Gross, founder and co-chief investment officer, defends this move in his March investment outlook. He firm's flagship Total Return Fund has reportedly shed its entire stash of Treasuries from 12% of assets to zero. In his outlook Gross explains that he does not believe the Federal Reserve will continue purchasing Treasuries aggressively with a third round of quantitative easing, after its second round of purchases ends in June. He wonders, "Who will buy Treasuries when the Fed doesn't?"
PIMCO Total Return dumps U.S. government-related debt
By Jennifer Ablan - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - The world's largest bond fund has gone ultra bearish on the United States, dumping all of its U.S. government-related debt holdings.
The move by Bill Gross's $236.9 billion PIMCO Total Return fund completed last month comes in the wake of a vicious Treasury market sell-off and just days after he questioned who will buy Treasuries once the Federal Reserve halts its latest round of bond purchases in June.
Gross, who also helps oversee a $1.1 trillion investment portfolio as PIMCO's co-chief investment officer, has repeatedly warned against U.S. deficit spending and its inflationary impact, which undermine the value of government debt and push up yields as investors demand more compensation for risk.
UK - Million-strong strike planned over pensions Schools, universities, courts and job centres could all be shut down in June in response to review's recommendations
By Polly Curtis, Whitehall correspondent - The Guardian
Trade unions representing a million state employees are drawing up plans for strikes that could bring Britain's schools, universities, courts and Whitehall to a standstill as early as June in protest over government plans to end so-called "gold-plated" public sector pensions, the Guardian has learned.
Lord Hutton, the Labour former work and pensions secretary charged by the coalition with reviewing public sector pensions, will publish his final report on Thursday, and it now looks likely to act as a starting gun for extended industrial action against the government's austerity programme.
Is the U.S. Becoming a Welfare State?
By Daniel Indiviglio -TheAtlantic.com
Uncle Sam has been aggressively increasing Americans' allowance recently. Government entitlement programs have grown to account for 35% of wages, according to a new analysis by Madeline Schnapp, director of macroeconomic research at investment research firm TrimTabs. The magnitude of government assistance has increased in large part due to high unemployment. But she argues that even when unemployment declines, we aren't like to see this percentage drop much.
Here's the key chart from Schnapp, which shows the percentage of social welfare benefits, from programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance, as a percentage of total wages and salaries (based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis):
Anger Brews Over Government Workers' Benefits
AP - CNBC.com
When Erin McFarlane looks at public workers, she sees lucrative pension benefits she doesn't ever expect to get. And it makes her mad.
"I don't think that a federal employee or government employee is worth any more than anybody else who does their job and does it well," said the Slinger, Wis., woman. She's been working a couple of bartending jobs since January, when she was laid off from her job at a Harley Davidson plant after almost a decade.
She's not alone in seeing public servants as public enemies in some ways.
Six-Figure Bus Drivers and Other Working-Class Heroes
By Ann Coulter - Townhall.com
Can we stop acting as if people who work for the government are the heroes of working people?
Fine, we understand that Wisconsin public sector employees like the system that pays them an average of $76,500 per year, with splendiferous benefits, and are fighting like wildcats against any proposed reforms to that system. But it's madness to keep treating people who are promoting their own self-interest as if they are James Meredith walking into the University of Mississippi.
This isn't how we usually view people fighting for their own economic interests.
states killing their pensions 16 States Where Pensions Are Under Attack
By Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter, and Ashley C. Allen - TheAtlantic.com
For decades, public employees have had pension plans identical to those provided by most large American companies. These are defined benefit pension plans that pay workers a fixed amount of money each year after they have retired based on the amount of years they have worked and their salaries at the time of retirement. The trouble this causes for governments is that these funds often do not grow as quickly as the obligations they have to pay out, which creates a budgetary crisis.
Scott Walker, America's Thatcher
James Pethokoukis -Reuters.com "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope."- Margaret Thatcher, May 4, 1979.
Reducing the power of government unions has several major benefits: 1) It will begin to make it easier to rework pension and healthcare obligations; 2) it will begin to make it easier to restructure government so that it is more efficient and less expensive; 3) it will begin to end a system where a major political party often acts as a wholly owned subsidiary of a special interest; and 4) it will begin help save the U.S. education system where teachers unions are preventing children from being taught by competent teachers. The very good news from Wisconsin:
Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate passed the most controversial portions of Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill late on Wednesday, stripping out the sections that required the presence of their 14 absent Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber.
Wisconsin GOP Ends Union Stalemate Republicans Maneuver Bill Curbing Bargaining Rights Through Senate
By DOUGLAS BELKIN And KRIS MAHER - WSJ.com
Republican senators in Wisconsin Wednesday night maneuvered around Democrats to pass legislation stripping public employees' unions of collective-bargaining rights, setting the stage for other states to pursue similar steps in one of the broadest challenges to organized labor in decades.
A vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's "budget-repair" bill had been stymied since Feb. 17 when 14 Democratic senators left the state, kicking off a rancorous, three-week political drama. Without the Democrats, the senate lacked a quorum to vote on certain fiscal items in the bill.
GOP rams anti-union bill through Wis. Senate
End run around Democratic senators who left state to prevent passage
MSNBC.com
MADISON, Wis.- Republicans pushed a provision stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights through the state Senate Wednesday evening after finding a way to bypass the chamber's missing Democrats.
Republican senators separated the provision from Gov. Scott Walker's controversial budget bill, removing the requirement that 20 senators be present for a vote on the anti-union measure.
The vote in the Senate was 18-1. Sen. Dale Schultz was the sole no vote. No Democrats were present.
Spectators in the gallery screamed at the Republicans on the floor, "You are cowards."
What the Unions Fear
By Peter Hannaford - The American Spectator.org
Demonstrators at the Wisconsin capitol, union representatives and absent Democratic state senators concede in interviews that they don't object to a bill requiring teachers and other public employees to pay 12.5 percent of their health insurance (up from five percent), or up to half of their pension deposits. It is the curbing of collective bargaining that has brought on near hysteria and a fierce campaign to discredit Governor Scott Walker's legislation.
For the union leaders the consequences of passage of the legislation could be devastating to their sinecures. Amid all the shouting, placards and banging on pots and pans in the capitol, two elements of the bill have received only passing attention. One would stop state collection of union dues. The other would require the unions to be recertified, by vote of all members, every year.
Idaho passes Republican bill to curb union rights
Rueters - CNBC.com
CHICAGO - The Idaho state legislature approved a bill on Tuesday to strip public school teachers of many of their collective bargaining rights while protesters in five states rallied against Republican efforts to curb union power.
The Idaho bill, which excludes issues like class size and workloads from negotiations for the state's 12,000 unionized teachers, was given final approval by the Republican-led House and is expected to be signed by Republican Governor Butch Otter.
The bill also eliminates teacher tenure, limits the duration of teacher labor contracts to one year and removes seniority as a factor in determining the order of layoffs.
As oil muddies outlook, Fed policy less certain
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
(Reuters) - Surging oil prices are deepening a split inside the Federal Reserve, blurring the likely direction of monetary policy and making next week's policy meeting all the more contentious.
The sharp rise in energy costs, precipitated by a wave of pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world, could affect the economy in different ways, by retarding growth, boosting inflation or, in the worst case, both.
This complicates the terrain for policymakers, hardening long-held positions ahead of the Fed's March 15 gathering.
"The meeting has definitely gotten more interesting for the participants than they'd like," said Mitch Stapley, chief fixed-income officer at Fifth Third Asset Management.
Takes Two to Contango
By Reid Collins - The American Spectator.org
Takes two and then some to contango -- that is, to make the futures price higher than the current spot price of a commodity. But what the heck, what we care about is the tango thrust upon all who stop at the pump these days to fill 'er up. With gasoline in the high three fifties and headed for what some see as five dollars a gallon, even the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister had a word about that yesterday. "There is no shortage of oil," he declared. The high price, he went on to say, is due to speculators. In fact, hidden in the script of those on TV who decry the pump price is usually a line remarking that there is no shortage of oil. But this is no fun when enumerating the various station pump prices and the line is usually buried in the shrieking headlines.
Dr. Jerome Corsi:
Soros & Obama Creating Artificial Scarcity in Oil, Coal
and the NAU 1/2
Dr. Jerome Corsi:
Soros & Obama Creating Artificial Scarcity in Oil, Coal
and the NAU 2/2
Oil industry reassured on Middle East stability
By Steve Hargreaves
HOUSTON (CNNMoney) -- A longtime American diplomat to the Middle East provided some reassuring words to the oil industry Wednesday: The situation in Libya and Egypt may remain tumultuous for some time, but the major oil producing countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Iraq will likely stay stable.
"The traditional regimes are going to come through this pretty well," Retired Ambassador Ryan Crocker told a crowd of energy industry executives at IHS CERA's annual conference. "They are very sensitive to their populations, and have made numerous changes."
Billions of barrels of untapped U.S. oil
By Steve Hargreaves
HOUSTON (CNNMoney) -- In the grasslands of western North Dakota, one of the country's richest oil men is using a controversial gas drilling technology to develop what could be the biggest domestic oil discovery in the last 40 years.
The oil lies underground in a shale rock formation stretching across western North Dakota, northeast Montana, and into Canada's Saskatchewan Province known as the Bakken.
Thanks to hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" and high oil prices, oil production in the Bakken has exploded.
It went from a mere 3,000 barrels a day in 2005 to 225,000 in 2010, according to the government's Energy Information Administration.
Rising gas prices hit Mississippi the hardest
By Annalyn Censky
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hey California, stop whining about $4 gas. As gas prices have surged 13% over the last month, Mississippi is feeling the worst pain at the pump.
Sure, Californians pay some of the highest gas prices in the nation at $3.92 per gallon. But for economic reasons, the Magnolia State has it much worse, even with prices at $3.42.
Families in Mississippi are the lowest paid in the country, and yet they spend the highest portion of their income on gas, according to new data from the Oil Price Information Service.
Underwater mortgages rise as home prices fall
AP - USAToday.com
WASHINGTON - The number of Americans who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth rose at the end of last year, preventing many people from selling their homes in an already weak housing market.
CoreLogic said Tuesday that about 11.1 million households, or 23% of mortgaged homes, were underwater in the October-December quarter. That's up from 22.5%, or 10.8 million households, in the July-September quarter.
The number of underwater mortgages had fallen in the previous three quarters. But that was mostly because more homes went into foreclosure.
Obama Administration Appeals Healthcare Ruling
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
The Obama administration on Tuesday appealed a U.S. judge's ruling in Florida that struck down the landmark healthcare overhaul law as unconstitutional because it required Americans to buy healthcare insurance or face a penalty.
President Barack Obama's Justice Department filed its notice of appeal and the case will go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta. The fight over the law is expected to reach the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama's Justice Department filed its notice of appeal and the case will go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta. The fight over the law is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
Erin Brockovich again takes up the cause of Hinkley's tainted water
Noaki Schwartz, Associated Press - LATimes.com
At the end of "Erin Brockovich," a housewife sick from toxic chromium weeps with joy as she's handed her portion of a historic $333-million settlement between residents of this small desert town and the utility that poisoned their drinking water.
In real life, that woman is Roberta Walker. She still lives in Hinkley, Calif., using her share to buy a new home at what she thought would be a safe four-mile distance from the toxic plume of chromium.
Earlier this year, she and other residents learned that the pollution, which Pacific Gas & Electric was required to clean up, was once again moving and had seeped into their groundwater.
Now, Brockovich has returned to the town that made her famous and is again rallying residents and sampling the water. At a water board meeting Wednesday, her associate was expected to announce that the contamination may be worse than the utility says.
Ahmadinejad calls for new world order
PressTV.ir
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran and India need to help spread justice in the world as the duo share humane perspectives on international affairs.
"Currently, the formation of a new world order is of prime importance and it is upon the independent countries to prevent the same old oppressive order from insinuating itself into a new form," the website of the Iranian president's office quoted him as saying in a meeting with India's National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon in Tehran on Monday.
Ahmadinejad underlined the role of Iran's and India's cultural background and said the issue of culture will significantly contribute to the new world order.
Uncovering the roots of Islamic radicalization King hearings should probe imams whose teachings threaten Americans -- By Andrew G. Bostom - The Washington Times
Despite opposition from the usual Muslim Brotherhood offshoot "advocacy" groups in the United States, Rep. Peter King is forging ahead with hearings Thursday on what he terms domestic "Muslim radicalization."
Mr. King, New York Republican, has cited eminently reasonable concerns as justification for the hearings:
"Federal and local law enforcement officials throughout the country told me they received little or - in most cases - no cooperation from Muslim leaders and imams.... I also know of imams instructing members of their mosques not to cooperate with law enforcement officials investigating the recruiting of young men in their mosques as suicide bombers. We need to find the reasons for this alienation."
Fighting rages for control of Libyan cities
By the CNN Wire Staff
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Fierce battles raged Tuesday for control of key Libyan cities in the east and west as Libya entered its fourth week of fighting and continued its descent into civil war.
In the eastern oil city of Ras Lanuf, rebels fired antiaircraft guns after Libya's air force carried out fresh raids.
Video shot by Sky News showed that fighting was continuing in Zawiya, despite government assertions that forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi controlled the oil-refining city. Hundreds of anti-government demonstrators could be seen marching in the street, many of them pumping their fists in the air. As the crackle of gunfire could be heard, the demonstrators ran toward the camera. Four men could be seen carrying a fifth, then putting him into an ambulance.
David Cameron and Barack Obama plan 'full spectrum'
of action on Libya David Cameron and President Barack Obama have announced a "full spectrum" of action on Libya as Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces pounded two oil towns in an effort to bring the rebellion against the regime under control.
By Richard Spencer, Tripoli, Adrian Blomfield in Brega and James Kirkup, Political Correspondent - Telegraph.co.uk
A joint British and US statement said a plan for a no-fly zone, as requested by many of the rebels, was among the ideas being discussed. Action would also include surveillance and enforcement of the arms embargo against Libya.
The two men spoke as residents of the town of Zawiyah to the west of Tripoli took to the rooftops with loudhailers to appeal to their fellow-citizens not to give up the fight as scores of tanks streamed into the central square.
Iran slams US military option in Libya
PressTV.ir
Amid the growing likelihood of a US military intervention in Libya, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has denounced as "unacceptable" any foreign military move in the North African country.
Iran strongly condemns the killings of innocent people and military options in any country and calls for an immediate end to such efforts, Mehmanparast told reporters at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
He added that certain countries, particularly the United States which has always backed dictators, have used "defending the rights of Libyan people" as a pretext for their "military intervention, occupation of the region and establishment of military bases."
Libya: UK and French no-fly zone plan gathers pace
BBC.co.uk
Plans for a possible no-fly zone over Libya are moving closer in response to air strikes against rebel-held areas by Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.
The UK and France are drafting a UN resolution for an air exclusion zone, which is due to be debated by Nato defence ministers on Thursday.
Gulf Arab states have already backed the idea.
But the BBC's Barbara Plett at the UN says the international community is divided over the issue.
Libyan rebels call for 'surgical airstrikes'
Want Gadhafi's power bases hit
By Ashish Kumar Sen - The Washington Times
Libyans facing daily bombardments by Col. Moammar Gadhafis forces are calling for foreign airstrikes against his strongholds as the United States and its allies continue debating about imposing a no-fly zone over Libya.
The National Transitional Council, the provisional government in rebel-held eastern Libya, favors "surgical airstrikes," Mohamed Benrasali, a member of the provisional committee in Misurata, told The Washington Times in a phone interview Tuesday.
"We will entertain the idea of specific surgical airstrikes on the power bases of the dictator and his mercenaries," he said.
Gaddafi deploys tanks and hundreds of troops in all-out effort to take Zawiyah Witnesses tell of women and children being killed in huge assault on refinery town held by rebels for past two weeks
By Peter Beaumont in Tripoli - Guardian.co.uk
The regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has launched a devastating assault on the opposition-held town of Zawiyah, deploying up to 50 tanks and scores of pickup trucks carrying troops.
Emerging accounts told of massive damage inflicted on the refinery town, which rose up against the Gaddafi regime two weeks ago.
The latest and heaviest assault in Zawiyah came as the rebel leadership said that if Gaddafi stepped down within 72 hours, it would not seek to bring him to justice.
Violence against sub-Saharan Africans reported in Libya
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- The United Nations refugee agency reported disturbing accounts of violence and persecution of sub-Saharan Africans within Libya Tuesday, urging a recognition of their particular vulnerability in the midst of civil war.
A group of Sudanese who arrived in Egypt from eastern Libya told representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that armed Libyans were going to door to door, forcing people from sub-Saharan countries to leave.
They also reported the rape of a 12-year-old Sudanese girl and said many of their documents had been confiscated or destroyed.
Gaddafi's billions 'will never be found'
Channel4News.com
The man who tried to teach Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif, economics tells Channel 4 News the government's moves to seize the dictator's assets are little more than posturing.
The economist once charged with the hopeless task of educating Colonel Gaddafi's "thick" son has accused the Government of being "deliberately disingenuous'" over its efforts to seize the dictator's assets.
Oil markets brace for Saudi 'rage' as global spare capacity wears thin Those exhorting OPEC to boost output should be careful what they wish for. The cartel card can be played once only, and it risks exposing the fragility of the global energy system if the Gulf powers are seen struggling to deliver.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Goldman Sachs suspects that OPEC has been pumping far above its agreed quota since November and therefore cannot easily raise output much without cutting deep into global spare capacity.
Jeff Currie, the bank's oil guru, said Saudi output had quietly crept up by 700,000 barrels a day (bpd) even before the Libyan supply shock.
Assumptions that OPEC has added 1.9m bpd over the last two years are wishful thinking. These new fields have been "largely offset" by attrition in old fields.
Gerald Celente on CJSS with John Bolton March 1, 2011
OPEC rushes to raise oil output
By Javier Blas, FT.com via CNN.com
(FT) -- Influential members of Opec, the oil cartel, are joining Saudi Arabia in raising output to cool soaring prices and allay fears of a supply crunch in the west.
The behind-the-scenes move by Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria reflects growing unease among Opec members over the threat to the global economic recovery from crude's runaway rise amid the worsening crisis in Libya.
Saudi Arabia urged to permit peaceful protests
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Amnesty International is urging Saudi Arabia to stop the "outrageous restriction" of peaceful protests, a call that comes after a crackdown last week on protesters in the country's Shiite region.
About 24 protesters were detained in the eastern city of Qatif last week as they denounced "the prolonged detention" of nine Shiite prisoners held without trial for more than 14 years, the human rights group said.
Police kicked and used batons to beat three protesters in what was an apparent peaceful demonstration, Amnesty said in a statement dated Monday.
IRAN: Tehran residents speak up about protests and opposition movement -- LATimes.com
What do Iranians think about the confrontation between pro- and anti-government forces that continues to dominate the country's political discourse?
Babylon & Beyond spoke to people on the streets and in the mosques of Tehran to canvas opinion about recent protests in the Iranian capital, the opposition movement and its leaders.
Those interviewed also were asked whether they thought protests might escalate or were losing momentum.
Unrest in the Middle East and Africa -- country by country [see map]
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Demonstrations have spread across parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Here is the latest from each country and the roots of the unrest.
Tuesday developments:
LIBYA
Libyan opposition members denied Tuesday that they have been negotiating an exit deal with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, rejecting an assertion by an opposition official earlier in the day.
Members of the Libyan National Transitional Council said there have been no such talks. Council spokesman Abdel Hafez Ghoga also denied reports that the opposition would promise not to pursue Gadhafi for crimes if he steps down within the next three days.
Why Middle East Monarchies Might Hold On
In countries such as Jordan and Bahrain, kings may survive the region-wide turmoil that has toppled two presidents
By Shadi Hamid - The Atlantic.com
Arab monarchies were long thought to be more favorable to democratization than republics. Monarchs who enjoyed popular legitimacy and political security are on balance more willing to take risks, the argument went, gradually letting go of power and embarking on potentially destabilizing reforms. Since kings do not depend on elections to maintain power, they have less to fear from holding them. But the region's uprisings seem to demonstrate that republics are the most promising candidates for systemic change. Egypt and Tunisia, both led by unpopular presidents, were the first to go. The other likely candidates for revolutions -- Libya, Yemen, and possibly Algeria -- are all republics.
Israeli intel analyst wary of Mideast revolutions
By Eli Lake - The Washington Times
One of Israel's top intelligence analysts says it is too soon to say whether the wave of uprisings in the Middle East will bring more democratic societies or empower political Islam.
"Is this a democratization and modernization revolution? Or is it an Islamic/nationalistic revolution?" said Yossi Kuperwasser, director general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs.
"The Americans say this is the democratic modernization revolution; in Israel, we would want just that. Israel does not want to be the only democratic country in the Middle East," he said in an interview with The Washington Times. "The Iranians say they want to say, 'We won because those against us lost.' As if this is a zero-sum game."
Wisconsin governor offers concessions on budget bill
By David Ariosto, CNN
(CNN) -- An e-mail exchange released by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's office on Tuesday has revealed a series of potential Republican concessions to a three-week standoff over a budget bill that would restrict the collective bargaining rights of most public workers.
The e-mails show a discussion between Walker's deputy chief of staff, Eric Schutt, and Democratic state Sens. Tim Cullen and Bob Jauch in a correspondence that reveals offers and counter-offers between two sides who have remained at an impasse since mid-February.
Wis. Dems File Ethics Complaint Against Walker
CBS Minnesota
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has filed an ethics complaint against Gov. Scott Walker for statements made during a recorded prank phone call.
The complaint that's been filed with the Government Accountability Board claims Walker violated ethics regulations, including those prohibiting use of state offices for political purposes.
Monday's complaint says Walker's statements asking campaign contributors for support constituted "illegal third-party coordination" in violation of campaign finance regulations.
Michigan workers jam Capitol to protest union plan
(Reuters) - In a scene reminiscent of Wisconsin, hundreds of pro-union protesters jammed the Michigan state Capitol on Tuesday to oppose a bill that would give emergency managers authority to break labor deals to revive failing schools and cities.
About 1,000 pro-union demonstrators gathered on the Capitol steps in Lansing, Michigan, then 400 entered the building to occupy the rotunda and floors overlooking as the Republican state Senate moved the bill toward a final vote expected Wednesday.
Public Unions Get Too 'Friendly' They resemble 'On the Waterfront' more than 'Norma Rae.'
By Peggy Noonan - WSJ.com
When you step back and try to get a sense of the larger picture in the battle between the states and their public-employee unions, two elements emerge. One seems small but could prove decisive, and the other is big and, if I'm seeing it right, carries significant implications.
The seemingly small thing is that the battles in the states, while summoning emotions from all sides, are not at their heart emotional. Yes, a lot of people are waving placards, but it's also true that suddenly everyone's talking about numbers; the numbers are being reported in the press and dissected on talk radio. This state has a $5 billion deficit; that state has projected deficits in the tens of millions. One estimate of New Jersey's bill for health and pension benefits for state workers over the next 30 years is an astounding $100 billion - money the state literally does not have and cannot get. The very force of the math has the heartening effect of squeezing ideology right out of the story. It doesn't matter if you're a liberal or a conservative, it's all about the numbers, and numbers are sobering things.
The Driver for Gold You're Not Watching
By Jeff Clark - GoldSeek.com
You already know the basic reasons for owning gold - currency protection, inflation hedge, store of value, calamity insurance - many of which are becoming clichés even in mainstream articles. Throw in the supply and demand imbalance, and you've got the basic arguments for why one should hold gold for the foreseeable future.
All of these factors remain very bullish, in spite of gold's 450% rise over the past 10 years. No, it's not too late to buy, especially if you don't own a meaningful amount; and yes, I'm convinced the price is headed much higher, regardless of the corrections we'll inevitably see. Each of the aforementioned catalysts will force gold's price higher and higher in the years ahead, especially the currency issues.
Value of gold, silver trading turnover hits record
By Allen Sykora
(Kitco News) - Global gold and silver trading posted record turnover in 2010 of $25.1 trillion and $3.2 trillion, respectively, said a report from Tuesday from TheCityUK.
Meanwhile, over-the-counter markets in London generated about two-thirds of the gold trading and around 40% of the silver trading, the organization said. TheCityUK is an independent membership body promoting the U.K. financial and related professional services industry.
The data on metals were included in a report detailing the amount of global trading for all commodities and the portion that occurs on London-based exchanges.
Next Stop $50 for Silver
Written by Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
Last week, I saw silver rise $1 in one day. I remember when the white metal's total cost was $1!
Investment demand is overwhelming industrial demand by a large margin. The world produces about 1 billion ounces of silver a year to meet 1 billion ounces a demand for jewelry and industrial process. But over the past year, an additional 300 million ounces of investment demand has piled on top of that, creating the parabolic moves in prices that we have seen this year. The total demand for silver today is the same as it was in 1980, when a corning operation by the Hunt brothers drove it to $50/ounce.
Silver price to hit $80:
By Louise Yamada
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): As commodities prices continue their upward movement, these are times for technical analysts and research specialists to predict where the prices of hot commodities like gold, silver and crude oil are headed.
While various predictions are doing the rounds on precious metals and crude oil, the focus these days is on where silver price is heading towards.
Precious metals expert Louise Yamada forecasts that silver price is going to certainly touch $80 in the months to come.
Rare Earth Prices Soaring: Will Miners Play Catch Up?
BY JEB HANDWERGER - FinancialSense.com
The Middle East Turmoil has created a sell off in equities and a run to the safe haven assets of precious metals and oil. Even though rare earth prices are soaring, many investors have overlooked a key sector which has pulled back providing a bargain opportunity before the rare earth crisis intensifies.
U.S. House Rep Mike Coffman from Colorado, joined by 28 Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative, demanding he file a complaint with the World Trade Organization against China's export reduction policies of rare earths.
CURRENCY WARS: Flash Points in the 'Age of Rage'
By Gordon T Long - GoldSeek.com
The conflict in North Africa was a predictable outcome of the US Monetary Policy of Quantitative Easing. It is not plausible that the US Federal Reserve, as the manager of the world's Reserve Currency, did not fully recognize the global ramifications of such monetary inflation actions well in advance. Quantitative Easing like the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) of the cold war era has had the same devastating pre-emptive impact on Libya.
There can also be little doubt that the bi-monthly meetings of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) board of directors, which specifically meet to discuss coordinated monetary policy outcomes, did not consider this eventuality. The board of directors of this global power center includes all G7 Central Banks chiefs, with the conspicuous absence of a single member of the Arab League not receiving US military financial aid.
Keiser Report: Middle Class Misery
Inflation... It's What's For Dinner
By Gary Tanashian - GoldSeek.com
While NFTRH was highlighting risk leading into the initial phase of inflationary blow-ups - and surely Egypt, Libya and other strained global situations are symptomatic of chronic and disenfranchising inflation - it is important to understand that headline events do not move markets, beyond the very short term. Indeed, I saw enough last week to nudge the very short-term risk profile toward neutral; and in an age of inflation onDemand one should question a net bearish stance more often than not. Inflation ran the 2003-2007 bull market quite well until ultimately, the soufflé pancaked in 2008.
Bloomberg's top two headlines at the end of the week: "China's Wen Targets Inflation as Top Priority to Cut Risk of Social Unrest" and "US Stocks Rise as Economic Optimism Overshadows Increase in Oil Prices".
Inflation-Related Thoughts
By: Steve Saville - GoldSeek.com
Don't fight the Fed?
"Don't fight the Fed" is an adage that's always worth remembering; however, this adage shouldn't be applied to all of the Fed's endeavours because the Fed is powerful in some areas and impotent in others. For example, the Fed can ALWAYS depreciate the US dollar -- that is, it can always cause dollar-denominated prices to rise -- if it chooses to do so, but it can't create real economic growth or sustainable employment (despite the fact that achieving "full employment" is part of the Fed's official mandate). Furthermore, although the Fed can always bring about a rise in prices by inflating the currency supply, it can't control which prices rise the most in response to its monetary inflation. In fact, the price-related effects of the Fed's inflation will often be the opposite of what the Fed intends.
21 Signs Of Impending Doom For The 2011 Economy
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
If you are not aware of how rapidly the global economic situation is unraveling you need to snap out of it and start paying attention. The world economy was relatively stable in 2010, but here in 2011 things are deteriorating very quickly. Right now there is major civil unrest in at least a dozen different nations in Africa and the Middle East. The civil war going on in Libya has sent the price of oil skyrocketing and the protests that are scheduled to begin in Saudi Arabia later this month could send oil prices even higher. Meanwhile, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe just seems to get worse by the day. Several nations in Europe are suddenly finding that it has become extremely expensive to finance more debt. It appears that it will only be a matter of time before more bailouts are needed. Meanwhile, the United States is also covered in a sea of red ink and the economic situation in the largest economy on earth continues to deteriorate rapidly. It is as if the entire world financial system has caught a virus that it just can't shake, and now it looks like another massive wave of financial disaster could be about to strike. Does the global economy have enough strength to weather a major oil crisis in 2011? How much debt can the largest nations in North America and Europe take on before the entire system collapses under the weight? Will 2011 be a repeat of 2008 or are we going to be able to get through the rest of the year okay? Only time will tell.
A Deep Freeze Hits Muni-Bond Market
By KELLY NOLAN - WSJ.com
Municipal-bond issuance is on pace for its lowest quarter in at least 11 years following a rush of borrowing late last year and as government borrowers struggle to get their budgets in order.
Through March 4, issuers have sold about $31.5 billion in debt, according to Thomson Reuters. The last time so little in bonds was sold by this point in the calendar was 11 years ago.
Depending on how much debt is sold this month - a figure hard to gauge since issuance calendars typically look only a week ahead - muni-bond sales in the first quarter may be the smallest amount since at least the same three-month period in 2000, which came in at $39.1 billion, according to Thomson.
The Coming Rout Prepare for Fed-induced turbulence in the markets
BY CHRIS MARTENSON PHD - FinancialSense.com
Prepare for Fed-induced turbulence in the markets
There's a scenario that could play out between May and September in which commodities (including my beloved silver) and the stock and bond markets could all sell off between 20% and 40%. The trigger will be the cessation of QE II and a multi-month pause before QE III.
This is a reversal in my thinking from the outright inflationary 'buy with both hands' bent that I have held for the past two years. Even though it's quite a speculative analysis at this early stage, it is a possibility that we must consider.
Governments are about to lose control of the markets
FinanceAndEconomics.Org
The low interest rate honeymoon is coming to an end, and we can now expect rates to rise and continue to rise for the foreseeable future. For Western economies and their banking systems it is the worst possible time for this to happen. The reason interest rates will go up is because inflation, not deflation, now presents the greatest danger and a policy response is required.
Agricultural commodity prices have been rising for some time, and the central banks have dismissed them as being due to special factors and too small a part of the CPI to worry about. To this inconvenience can now be added the political revolutions in the Middle East and their effect on energy prices. It is perhaps this development that forced Jean-Claude Trichet to break ranks last week and admit that the ECB will have to consider an interest rate rise.
U.S. sets $223B deficit record
Dwarfs Hill's cutting goals
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
The federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February, a $223 billion shortfall that put a sharp point on the current fight on Capitol Hill about how deeply to cut this year's spending.
That one-month figure, which came in a preliminary report from the Congressional Budget Office, dwarfs even the most robust cuts being talked about on the Hill, and underscores just how much work lawmakers have to do to get the government's finances in balance again.
Disproving the notion of a Social Security trust fund 'lockbox' The $2.5-trillion trust fund can't be walled off from the rest of the economy, nor should it be.
By Michael Hiltzik - LATimes.com
The "lockbox" is back.
The "lockbox," you may recall, was the concept presidential candidate Al Gore used during the 2000 election to signify his devotion to the security of Social Security. The principle supposedly was to sequester the program's annual surplus, which was then running about $150 billion a year, so that it couldn't be frittered away on irresponsible government spending.
After the election, the lockbox disappeared from public discourse. But the idea that the government is squandering Social Security assets, leaving nothing to pay benefits, has never faded.
Realtors: 43% of 'short sales' fail to close
By Jonathan Lansner and Jeff Collins - Orange County Register
California real estate agents say that lenders are unresponsive to efforts to sell under-water homes, killing four out of every 10 "short sale" transactions that go under contract, a state survey shows.
The California Association of Realtors released survey results today, showing that 67 percent of respondents said they are not satisfied with the process of approving sales at prices below what's owed on the mortgage, known as "short sales."
CoreLogic: 11.1 Million U.S. Properties with Negative Equity in Q4
by CalculatedRisk
CoreLogic released the Q4 2010 negative equity report today.
CoreLogic ... today released negative equity data showing that 11.1 million, or 23.1 percent, of all residential properties with a mortgage were in negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter of 2010, up from 10.8 million, or 22.5 percent, in the third quarter. The small increase reflects the price declines that occurred during the fourth quarter and led to lower values. An additional 2.4 million borrowers had less than five percent equity, referred to as near-negative equity, in the fourth quarter. Together, negative equity and near-negative equity mortgages accounted for 27.9 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide....
The Myth Of The Underwater Mortgage
247WallStreetcom
Just over 11 million homes had underwater mortgages at the end of the final quarter of 2010. The precise figure is 11.1 million which represents 23.1% of all properties with a mortgage. The value of this homeowner "negative equity" totals $750 billion nationwide according to Corelogic which compiles the numbers.
The actual figure for the percent of mortgages which are underwater and the total value of the equity involved is impossible to calculate, so Corelogic makes an educated guess which is taken by most of the press as gospel.
Corelogic only reviews 48 million mortgages which is 85% of all home loans.
One Year After ObamaCare, Health Insurance Premiums Are Still Rising
By Peter Suderman - Reason.com
As the one year anniversary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act nears, The New York Times notices that health insurance premiums still haven't gone down. Just the opposite, in fact:
The new federal health care law may eventually "bend the cost curve" downward, as proponents argue. But for now, at many workplaces here, the rising cost of health care is prompting insurance premiums to skyrocket while coverage is shrinking.
As Congress continues to debate the new health care law, health insurance costs are still rising, particularly for small businesses. Republicans are seizing on the trend as evidence that the new law includes expensive features that are driving up premiums. But the insurance industry says premiums are rising primarily because of the underlying cost of care and a growing demand for it.
Across the country, premiums have more than doubled in the last decade, with smaller companies particularly hard hit in recent years, federal officials say.
Struggling Homeowners $751 Billion Underwater in 4th Quarter
By Daniel Indiviglio - The Atlantic.com
Declining home prices in the latter part of 2010 drove more borrowers underwater on their mortgages, according to business service analytics firm CoreLogic. The portion of residential mortgages in negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter was 23.1%, up from 22.5% in the third quarter. That means nearly one-quarter of Americans with mortgages have balances that exceed the value of their home. The report provides a grim status update on the housing market.
Caterpillar's Problem With Peoria Why an American icon is looking beyond Illinois for its future.
By WILLIAM MCGURN - WSJ.com via LuxLibertas.com
Just over 100 ago, the company we know as Caterpillar began building track-type tractors at a plant on the banks of the Illinois River. From these humble origins in East Peoria - the factory had 12 employees when it started - this icon of the American Midwest has grown into one of the world's most competitive manufacturers, recently forecasting record profits for 2011.
The question is, how come its home state of Illinois has so little to show for it?
Part of the answer has to do with the unvirtuous circle created when organized labor - public as well as private - forgets it has an interest in a growth-friendly environment. We saw some of this in Madison this weekend, when filmmaker Michael Moore showed up on cue, urging protesting government workers to show a "little bit of Egypt" in their confrontation with Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
Airbus claims US helped Boeing deal
By Pilita Clark in London and
Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington - FT.com
Airbus lost a large Chinese passenger jet order to US rival Boeing, prompting a senior executive of the European aircraft maker to claim that Washington brought political influence to bear in the deal.
"We understand there was a lot of political pressure from Washington on that transaction," said John Leahy, Airbus chief operating officer for customers.
"Even Obama and Hu Jintao were talking about it during the visit to the US," he added, referring to the Chinese president's state visit in January.
The BLM's big "fire sale" of our land
By Debbie Coffey - PPJ Gazette
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is selling YOUR land right out from under you. Concurrently, the BLM is blitzing the media with PR spin to justify removing all of our publicly owned wild horses off of our public lands. If you want to see what has really been happening to our wild horses at recent roundups, go to http://blog.grassrootshorse.com
Do you know how many acres of your public lands are being sold off in each state? This is a policy being pushed by your President, your Congress, Ken Salazar (Secretary of the Dept. of the Interior) and Bob Abbey (BLM Director). Your state and local governments have their hands out to receive part of the profits. Your "public agencies" (like the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management) are actually corporations and their priority is to make money.
Intruder calls 911, afraid homeowner may have gun
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- This time it was the intruder who called 911.
A man who broke into a house in Portland, Oregon, called police -- afraid the homeowner may have a gun.
The suspect, Timothy James Chapek, was in the bathroom taking a shower when the homeowner returned to the house Monday night, Portland police said in a statement.
Accompanied by two German shepherds, the homeowner asked Chapek what he was doing in the house.
Chapek locked himself in the bathroom and made an emergency call, police said. He said he had broken into the house, the owner had come home, and that he was concerned the owner might have a gun.
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2/3 STEVE QUAYLE! AND GREG EVENSEN Intel Hub MAR 7
3/3 STEVE QUAYLE! AND GREG EVENSEN Intel Hub MAR 7
North Korea's Digital Underground To smuggle facts into or out of North Korea is to risk imprisonment and even execution. Yet today, aided by a half-dozen stealthy media organizations outside the country, citizen-journalists are using technologies new and old to break the regime's iron grip on information. Will the truth set a nation free?
By ROBERT S. BOYNTON - The Atlantic.com
THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S Republic of Korea is the very archetype of a "closed society." It ranks dead last - 196th out of 196 countries - in Freedom House's Freedom of the Press index. Unlike the citizens of, say, Tunisia or Egypt, to name two countries whose populations recently tapped the power of social media to help upend the existing political order, few North Koreans have access to Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. In fact, except for a tiny elite, the DPRK's 25 million inhabitants are not connected to the Internet. Televisions are set to receive only government stations. International radio signals are routinely jammed, and electricity is unreliable. Freestanding radios are illegal. But every North Korean household and business is outfitted with a government-controlled radio hardwired to a central station. The speaker comes with a volume control, but no off switch. In a new media age awash in universally shared information - an age of planet-wide instant messaging and texted manifestos - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea remains a stubborn holdout, a regime almost totally in control of its national narrative.
Gadhafi's Circle Debates Regime's End
By MARGARET COKER and SAM DAGHER in Tripoli and JULIAN E. BARNES in Washington - WSJ.com
Col. Moammar Gadhafi's inner circle is debating whether the man in charge of Libya since 1969 should remain in power or relinquish his role, as his government invited rebels and tribal leaders to negotiate a political solution and Western nations took steps to prepare for a possible military intervention.
The rebel-led governing council, based in Benghazi, in eastern Libya, rejected the invitation and said it wasn't sincere.
As forces loyal to Col. Gadhafi launched airstrikes to check the opposition's advance west toward his hometown of Sirte, his second stronghold outside the capital, President Barack Obama said the U.S. was discussing military options with allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
West Shuns Libyan Crude Oil Price Spike Continues as Energy Giants,
Banks Stop Trading With Gadhafi
By GUY CHAZAN And CAROLYN CUI - WSJ.com
Big oil companies and Wall Street banks have stopped trading crude with Libya in response to sanctions against the country, threatening a near-shutdown of exports from the North African country and driving oil prices even higher.
Morgan Stanley, which buys Libyan oil for its clients, has stopped buying because of sanctions announced last month, according to a person familiar with the matter. ConocoPhillips Co. said it isn't exporting any of the 46,000 barrels a day of oil it normally produces in Libya. Exxon Mobil Corp. also said it is complying with the sanctions against Libya. A person familiar with BP PLC said the company wasn't currently doing any new trading deals in Libya.
Loyalist Libyan forces make gains as civil war looms
By OREN KESSLERÊAND REUTERS - JPost.com
Insurgents pushed out of key foothold near leader's hometown; "Gaddafi's cut us to pieces," says one rebel; Gaddafi troops, backed by tanks, artillery, warplanes, helicopters attack towns of Zawiyah, Misrata.
Libyan forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi waged counter-offensives against rebel-held towns on Sunday as the popular uprising threatened to devolve into a full-fledged, protracted civil war.
Gaddafi's troops, backed by tanks, artillery, warplanes and helicopters attacked the towns of Zawiyah and Misrata, to the immediate west and east of Tripoli, and positions near the oil port city of Ras Lanuf, 660 km (410 miles) east of the capital.
Ivory Coast: Clashes and looting amid political crisis
BBC.co.uk
Youths in Ivory Coast have ransacked homes in Abidjan of allies of political leader Alassane Ouattara, while new clashes have broken out in the west.
An armed group supporting Mr Ouattara against his presidential rival, Laurent Gbagbo, captured the town of Toulepleu.
Ivory Coast has been in crisis since Mr Gbagbo refused to cede power to Mr Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of November's vote.
Flat-Earth European Central Bank misreads oil spike again,
and kicks Spain in the teeth The European Central Bank has once again risen to the bait. Faced with an oil supply shock that deflates incomes, it plans to tighten the vice yet further with a knee-jerk rate rise in April.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The demarche is reckless, politically-motivated, and risks causing yet another spasm of the EMU debt crisis. If recovery proves to be more fragile than it looks - vulnerable to a fiscal squeeze in the West and a credit squeeze in the East - this ECB error will have global ramifications.
The ECB's governors might usefully study Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effects of Oil Price Shocks, a seminal work in 1997 by a Professor Ben Bernanke of Princeton.
The reason why such shocks often lead to slumps is because policymakers make a hash of it. "The majority of the impact of an oil price shock on the real economy is attributable to the central bank's response, not the inflationary pressures engendered by the shock," wrote Bernanke.
Greece slams rating agencies after Moody's cut
By PAN PYLAS - AP - DailyFinance.com
LONDON -Greece launched a tirade against U.S. credit ratings agencies Monday after Moody's downgraded its debt grade further below junk status, warning the bailed-out euro country might have to default on its massive borrowings.
The agency slashed its rating by three notches to B1 from Ba1 and warned it may cut again if the government's commitment to austerity wanes or international creditors become less willing to support it = Greece was saved from bankruptcy last May after accepting a euro110 billion ($154 billion) bailout from the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
The Greek government's response was quick and critical. It said Moody's downgrade was "completely unjustified" and "does not reflect an objective and balanced assessment" of Greece's actual economic prospects.
Guest Post: Short Squeeze! Here Comes 50-dollar Silver
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Silver is performing exceptionally, outstripping a vast array of commodities and stocks. Even unrest in the Middle East has not stopped the price increasing, whereas during similar circumstances in the past, silver would have taken some serious blows.
As far as silver is concerned, we are living in exceptional times. Supply shortages have existed since the Fifties, but this deficit was traditionally eliminated with the (once strategic) reserves of central banks and other financial institutions, who wanted to get rid of their silver due to its lack of monetary use. Consequently, bank supplies have fallen rapidly. Today, the shortage on the silver market is mainly supplemented by recycling used silver, aka 'scrap'.
Silver leads commodities rally
(Kitco News) - CommodityOnline.com
April gold futures surged to a fresh all-time high Monday morning, but have reversed course and plunged into negative territory. From a scalping perspective, the intraday technical trend has turned negative for the gold market. A potential "bearish reversal" day formation is setting up on the daily chart, but would need a weaker settlement to confirm.
Shorter-term traders do need to use caution in their current outlook. The pop to a new all-time high could be a technical "bull trap." Bull traps occur when markets rally through key resistance zones, but then quickly reverse, "trapping" all the new longs that joined the rally. Since November 2010, the gold market had carved out a strong ceiling of "triple top" resistance on the daily chart from the November 9 high at $1428, the December 7 high at $1434 and the January 3 high at $1426. That resistance zone held firm until early March.
Gold 1,500? The World Is Changing!
By: David N. Vaughn - GoldSeek.com
Yes, the world is changing all right.
Our world and personal way of life is changing. Our standard of living is taking a steeper and steeper dive south by the hour. Problem is the change began a long time ago. That change being the gradual destruction of the United States. And now as momentum has built that destruction will only grow and grow.
Stop looking for bottoms and bargains. Pay what it costs to accumulate while the opportunities are there. Silver is the new gold, buy silver now regardless of price. 90% silver quarters and dimes are a good buy.
Why gold bullion coins are hot in America
By Richard Mills - CommodityOnline.com
Current Federal Reserve System chairman Ben Bernanke believes a simple recession was turned into the Great Depression by the Federal Reserve of the day not doing enough while the money supply contracted 31 percent between 1929 and 1933.
This reduction in the money supply was caused by no less than three bank runs between late 1930 and March 1933.
Bank deposits formed 92 percent of the money in circulation at the time and 10,000 banks failed with the loss of $2 billion in deposits.
Using the Gold to Silver Ratio to Determine Precious Metals' Outlook
Irfan Chaudhry - SilverBearCafe.com
The gold silver ratio shows the dramatic fashion in which silver has been outperforming gold since last August. The gold silver ratio is calculated by dividing the price of gold by the price of silver. The declining gold silver ratio indicates that silver has been outperforming gold. The gold silver ratio has declined from 65 last summer to a current level of 40. Since August 2010 gold has moved up 22% from the $1,175 level while silver has soared 92% from the $18 range.
Gold to $57,000, Silver Even More?
Interview of Adrian Douglas of GATA - 1/2
Gold to $57,000, Silver Even More?
Interview of Adrian Douglas of GATA - 2/2
A Curious Divergence
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
03/05/11 Waterford, Ireland - This could be important: the dollar has NOT gained from the unrest in the Arab nations. People no longer seem to see the dollar as a haven of safety. Instead, they turn to gold...
Watch this space. Because now, both good news and bad news send gold higher.
Smart central banks are buying gold. Smart investors are buying gold. Smart businesses and hedge fund managers are buying gold.
The smart money is buying gold. But the dumb money - which is most of it - is still against gold. It doesn't understand that monetary systems are temporary... that they ALL fall apart eventually... and that, when they do, people turn back to real money - gold.
Jim Rogers: Bull market in commodities to stay for several years
LONDON (Commodity Online): Global commodities investment guru Jim Rogers says he is very bullish on commodities, especially in all the agricultural commodities, crude oil and precious metals like gold and silver.
In an interview to Bloomberg, Rogers, who is a bull in commodities market, said that crude oil prices will continue to rise for the simple reason that the world is running out of all the known reserves of oil.
"Saudi Arabia has been lying about their (oil) reserves for decades," said Rogers. "The reason oil is going up is the world is running out of known reserves of oil," he pointed out.
Jim Rogers on CNN - oil price & commodities
The Dollar, and The Next Ten Days
By Gonzalo Lira - March 2, 2011
I've never been much of a fan of technical analysis. It's always struck me as something akin to reading tea leaves - and just as batty. But on the other hand, I've seen enough technical analysis deliver accurate predictions that I can't really dismiss it completely.
Right now, the world is going through a pre-crisis mode - you can practically feel it in the air. The limitless deficit spending by the U.S. Federal government, which has instituted systemic +10% of GDP deficits year after year; the insane Federal Reserve policy of Quantitative Easing 2, which is nothing more than debt monetization as I wrote here, enabling the Federal government's addiction to deficit spending; the popular uprisings sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa, affecting - wouldn't you just know it - oil producing countries one after the other; the steadily rising food inflation, which in fact triggered those uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and which are beginning to affect the entire globe; the inevitability of a collapse of the euro - the other major world currency - because of the systemic tensions affecting the European continent, between the strong economies of the north, and the weak economies of the peripheries.
The Largest Risk to the US Economy Today is an Oil Shock
Awareness of this Risk is Minimal
Written by Gail Tverberg - OilPrice.com
Steve Kopits, Managing Director of Douglas-Westood consulting firm, made a presentation called "Oil, the Economy, and Policy" to the US House of Representatives Energy Subcommittee recently that I thought was interesting. I this post, I explain the presentation a bit and give my views related to it.
I was impressed that Steve was able to make a presentation to this group. (Steve later clarified that his presentation was really the subcommittee staffers - but they are very important too. They are often the hands-ons people in drafting legislation.) He sent me the presentation by e-mail; I am not aware that the presentation is available online. Steve recently wrote a post called An Oil Shock in 2012? (published by ASPO-USA) that covers part this material, if readers would like more of his explanation.
Obama Attempting to Talk Down High Oil Prices
by Editorial Dept - OilPrice.com
Civil war in Libya. A regime change in Egypt. Growing unrest in Bahrain and Yemen. Protests in Iran. And growing anxiety over the contagion of civil uprising in places like Saudi Arabia (which saw protests on Thursday and more are scheduled for March 11th) have all pushed oil prices to their highest levels since September 2008.
Oil prices - defined as U.S. light, sweet crude for April delivery, priced on the New York Mercantile Exchange - settled at $104.42 on Friday, up $2.51 or +2.46%. This was the highest close since September 26, 2008. And for the week, Nymex crude gained an impressive $6.54 or +6.7% (this after the gain of +13.5% seen the week prior).
Why commodity investing is still the best option
By Arnold Bock
Back in 2005 I commented in an article that "my investment portfolio is almost exclusively invested in a basket of commodities (gold, silver, potash, uranium and crude oil) of which the bulk is precious metals.
A third of my investments are in gold and silver bullion and a range of individual commodity-related stocks, from the very large producers to the very early stage small junior exploration companies, or their long-term warrants where they exist. Two thirds are in precious metals ETFs."
There's Always a Plan B
By Rebekah Rast - NetRightDaily.com
A "Plan B" is put in place as a backup, a form of insurance in case "Plan A" doesn't work out.
A Plan B is valuable when taking a cross-country road trip and you happen to hit road construction and can't get through. A Plan B is handy when trying a new recipe for the first time where you'll be serving guests - just in case the meal doesn't turn out as planned.
But a Plan B in case the dollar continues to weaken or collapse? That's exactly what 13 states are working on, and their idea is not original to America's past.
In fact, the state of Utah is taking implementation of this Plan B very seriously. What is the plan? It would recognize gold and silver coins issued by the federal government as legal currency in the state. The Utah bill passed the House March 4 and now waits to be voted on by the Senate.
Egon von Greyerz: "A Hyperinflationary Deluge Is Imminent", And Why, Therefore, Bernanke's Motto Is "Après Nous Le Déluge"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
.... Although food and fuel inflation is rampant worldwide already, we are only seeing the very beginning. Massive oil price rises are likely to continue as a result of the geopolitical situation as well as peak-oil. The Middle East is a time bomb waiting to go off. Israel is in an extremely precarious position and the involvement or non-involvement of the US in this conflict would both have dire consequences for Israel and peace in the world. Food prices will continue to rise dramatically. Major parts of the world are living below the poverty line today and this will increase exponentially.
The lethal concoction of rising food and fuel prices is already affecting the Western world. The Continuous Commodity Index - CCI, (60% food, 17% energy and 23% metals) has almost doubled since the low in early 2009 and has gone up 42% in the last 12 months. The almost vertical rise of the CCI is one of the best indicators of hyperinflation being imminent. A catastrophe of astronomical proportions is looming. This will hit the world at a time when there is no capacity whatsoever to take any real measures that could alleviate the problems.
Four time bombs that will blow up Wall Street Too late to jail bank CEOs; only revolution will succeed
Paul B. Farrell - SilverBearCafe.com
Put Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in jail for six months, and all this will stop, all over Wall Street and America, a former congressional aide tells Matt Taibbi in his latest Rolling Stone attack, "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? Financial crooks brought down the world's economy - but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them."
Taibbi's right, everyone knows Wall Street's run by a bunch of dictators who are doing more damage to democracy and capitalism than North Africa's dictators. But jail the CEOs of Goldman, Citi, B. of A. or my old firm Morgan Stanley? Too late.
Bernanke's Unstoppable, Self Reinforcing, Negative-Feedback-Loop Our economic death spiral into the Second Great Depression
By Davos Sherman Okst - SilverBearCafe.com
Wracked up by both parties over many decades our debt has evolved into a yearly deficit that can no longer be serviced with tax revenue and borrowing.
To avoid default Ben Bernanke chose to monetize the un-payable portion of our deficit. Each month about 100 billion dollars are created out of thin air to cover our government's bills.
This has set forth an unstoppable, self reinforcing, negative-feedback-loop whereby:
A Little Understanding Goes a Long Way
Peter Schiff - SilverBearCafe.com
As the world confronts one of the most critical periods of economic upheaval that it has ever seen, it is clear that our most influential economic stewards have absolutely no idea what they are doing. But, like kids with a new chemistry set, they are nevertheless unwilling to let that stand in the way of their experimental fun. As they pour an ever-growing number of volatile ingredients into their test tubes, we can either hope that they magically stumble on the secret formula to cure the world's ills, or more pragmatically, we can try to prepare for the explosion that is likely to result.
Recent comments from current and former Federal Reserve Chairmen, and from the leaders of the European Central Bank, have starkly illustrated this stunning lack of understanding. In an extended interview on CNBC today, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, once considered the sagest of all economic gurus, admitted that he had no idea whether the Fed's current quantitative easing program will help or hurt the economy. The Maestro simply said that we must wait and see, and if positive economic indicators come, then we may begin considering the policy to be a success. That's some serious insight.
Now, Governments Are Shifting Pension Burdens Onto Workers
By DAVID SCHEPP - By DailyFinance.com
As states look for ways to trim massive deficits, the battle over public employees' pay and benefits continues to heat up. Wisconsin, long a champion for workers' rights, has been in the news much lately as state workers and their supporters continue to protest cuts to state employees' compensation that Gov. Scott Walker says are necessary to plug a multimillion dollar hole in the state's budget.
One way some states are addressing their fiscal woes is by slowly changing public-sector employees' retirement plans to mirror those of the private sector. During the past three decades, businesses of all sizes have shifted away from traditional defined-benefit plans, which guarantee retirees a specified payment each month, to defined-contribution plans, also known as 401(k)s, to which employers contribute a portion of the workers' retirement funds.
End Game - Would US Police/Troops Fire Upon US Citizens?
Cognitive Dissonance - SilverBearCafe.com
This is the first in an occasional series examining the end of the American Empire and the global shock waves it will produce. Contrary to popular belief I suspect the unraveling will take place over many years, decades even, with sudden plunges and slow partial recoveries aka dead cat bounces. I call this series of examinations "End Game".
I would wager that the vast majority of people reading this essay have already come to their own conclusion regarding the answer to the title's query. Certainly you may have several qualifiers and stipulations with which you framed your answer and maybe even a few facts and proofs ready for quick rebuttal if challenged. But my own experience with explosive questions such as this is that there are few who have not already formed an opinion on the matter. If you have not you would be the exception to the rule.
Judge Napolitano March To Totalitarianisim
Niall Ferguson: why the West is now in decline For 500 years Western civilisation was full of self-belief, but now, historian Niall Ferguson argues in his new Channel 4 series, its dominance is coming to an end.
By Niall Ferguson - Telegraph.co.uk
There was a time when we believed in Western civilisation. By "we", I mean Europeans and their cousins in the colonies of European settlement, above all the United States.
You can chart the rise of that self-belief if you go to Google's latest gizmo, Google labs, which allows you to search the huge number of books Google has scanned to date to see how frequently a word occurs in them.
In English, "civilisation" (from the French) was a term scarcely used until the later 18th century. Thereafter - not coincidentally, as European empires spread to rule more than half the world - the C word's popularity with authors grew steadily, reaching a peak in the middle of the 20th century.
Financial dismantling of the American middle class in 8 charts Peak debt, credit card addiction withdrawal, banks hoarding cash, financial sector dominance in pay, Federal debt will never be paid off, and struggles of the middle class.
by mybudget360.com
The American economy runs on high octane debt. Debt has been welcomed by many with open arms and things seemed to be going well until people realized they actually had to pay the debt back. Average Americans trying to keep up with the picket white fence image of Leave it to Beaver were largely relying on debt to keep up with this lifestyle that was unsustainable with current incomes. Paradigm shifts in economies the size of the United States happen gradually over time. They occur slowly and systematically with the patience of a person watching grass grow. The Federal Reserve has made a conscious effort to bailout the banks and use the crisis as an excuse to lower the standard of living of most Americans to pay for the bailouts. Federal debt is so large that only someone with blind optimism would have any hope that it would ever be paid off. When an average person cannot pay their mortgage they lose their home in foreclosure. If someone can't pay their car they get it repossessed. When banks need bailouts they simply print away and devalue the currency of the domestic country shifting the burden to society. Have we in the United States reached a peak debt scenario? Is the Fed willing to sacrifice the middle class to keep the banking system intact? Let us look at 8 charts showing shifts in our economy that put the middle class at risk.
The Sinking Ship that Is the US Economy
By Joel Bowman - DailyReckoning.com
03/05/11 Buenos Aires, Argentina - Poor Mr. Obama. The man who ran on a campaign promise of "change," is striving to achieve his stated goal by implementing a slew of conspicuously "same" policies, one after the other.
Admittedly, your editor doesn't know much about drafting empty campaign promises, but he suspects that two sames don't make a change. We'll see.
When Captain Obama first took over at the helm of The Republic, there were plenty of leaks assailing his once-formidable ship. There was an Iraq-sized hole on the starboard side, an Afghanistan-sized breach port side. Both were taking on water... fast. Up on the quarterdeck weighed a budget deficit that seemed to grow larger every time the vessel sank beneath the wavelengths. And on the main deck, unfunded liabilities piled up, reaching higher even than the poop. Needless to say, it doesn't take a sailor to know what that means.
Fewer Americans Get Employer Health Insurance
By DANNY KING - DailyFinance.com
Amid high unemployment rates and rising health-care costs, a smaller proportion of Americans are getting health insurance from their employers, according to a recent Gallup survey.
The percentage of Americans with health-insurance coverage from their employers has fallen steadily over the past three years to less than 45% in February, down from 50% in January 2008, the survey found.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans insured through government-backed health coverage, such as Medicare, Medicaid and military benefits, has risen about 3 percentage points to more than one in four adults, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index released Friday. And the percentage of uninsured people has stayed steady at about 16% over the past two years.
Labor force, Greenspan, National Debt
GIC's Chief: Americans Too Gloomy on Economy
By DENNIS K. BERMAN - WSJ.com
NEW YORK - The head of Government of Singapore Investment Corp., one of the world's most active sovereign-wealth funds, said Americans are being too hard on themselves and have failed to recognize the resilience of the U.S. economy.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, GIC Executive Director Tony Tan Keng Yam said negative sentiment is a "problem when I talk to Americans. They don't see the potential in their own economy, which is one of the most innovative, open economies in the world. Foreigners seem more optimistic."
Obama budget-On the edge with Max Keiser 1/2
Obama budget-On the edge with Max Keiser 2/2
The Death of the 30-Year Mortgage?
By Daniel Indiviglio - The Atlantic.com
Is the 30-year, fixed rate mortgage -- so beloved by Americans -- in danger of extinction? That's what banks, investors, and realtors would have you believe. They have been warning that if the government steps back from insuring the mortgage market, the product will vanish. Their deafening chorus has grown so difficult to ignore that a front page article in the New York Times today focused on the potential death of the 30-year, fixed rate mortgage. Is it really in jeopardy, or is this fear mongering by the financial industry?
First of all, why might the 30 year, fixed rate mortgage be in danger? Currently, Washington is considering different ways to reform government housing finance policy. If you don't think it needs to be fixed, then you haven't been paying attention. The poor practices of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused their collapse. Facing a catastrophic economic event if they failed, the government stepped in and rescued these firms, resulting in a loss of $150 billion and counting for taxpayers.
Foreclosure Settlement Terms Sent to Banks by U.S., States
By David McLaughlin
March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Federal agencies and state attorneys general submitted to banks a proposal for resolving an investigation of foreclosure practices and mortgage servicing while continuing to talk about monetary penalties they will seek.
The 27-page document given March 3 to mortgage-servicers seeks "a binding legal requirement" for how they service loans and conduct home foreclosures, Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Sustained Unemployment Confirms The Failure of QE-2
By Gonzalo Lira
So today, two bits of news came out: Unemployment declined to 8.9% last February, as the U.S. economy added 192,000 jobs; and the Federal Reserve signalled that it is definitely-definitely-definitely ending Quantitative Easing 2 (QE-2) in June, as originally scheduled, on the assumption that the economy is improving, and therefore no further extension of QE-2 will be necessary.
On its face, this would seem to be . . . not good news, but at the least encouraging news: The economy seems to be improving, albeit an¾mically.
But is it?
Utah immigration plan could stir legal storm
By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
The Utah Legislature passed a pair of immigration bills aimed at striking a balance between people who want to deport all illegal immigrants and those who want to integrate them into American society.
Much like Arizona discovered after passing an immigration enforcement law last year, Utah's road toward immigration changes will probably go through the courts.
Advocates on both sides of the debate indicated Monday that lawsuits could soon be on the way to halt both bills.
"I think things are going to go crazy on this," Republican state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, who sponsored the enforcement bill, said of possible legal challenges.
US farmers fear the return of the Dust Bowl For years the Ogallala Aquifer, the world's largest underground body of fresh water, has irrigated thousands of square miles of American farmland. Now it is running dry
By Charles Laurence - Telegraph.co.uk
There is not much to be happy about these days in Happy, Texas. Main Street is shuttered but for the Happy National Bank, slowly but inexorably disappearing into a High Plains wind that turns all to dust. The old Picture House, the cinema, has closed. Tumbleweed rolls into the still corners behind the grain elevators, soaring prairie cathedrals that spoke of prosperity before they were abandoned for lack of business.
Number of healthcare reform law waivers climbs above 1,000
By Jason Millman - TheHill.com
The number of temporary healthcare reform waivers granted by the Obama administration to organizations climbed to more than 1,000, according to new numbers disclosed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS posted 126 new waivers on Friday, bringing the total to 1,040 organizations that have been granted a one-year exemption from a new coverage requirement included in the healthcare reform law enacted almost a year ago. Waivers have become a hot-button issue for Republicans, eager to expose any vulnerabilities in the reform law.
Google Takes Heat Over App Security
By SPENCER E. ANTE And AMIR EFRATI - WSJ.com
A major software attack on mobile phones has put pressure on Google Inc. to do more to secure its market for smartphone applications.
The company behind the now ubiquitous Android operating system came under fire after computer-security experts last week uncovered more than 50 malicious applications that were uploaded to and distributed from Google's Android Market.
Some security experts said the incident shows Google, which doesn't inspect Android apps before they are published, needs to do more to try to ensure the apps are safe before they are offered to smartphone users.
US Coin dealers anxious for resolution of new Form 1099 rules
By Allen Sykora - CommodityOnline.com
(Kitco News) - Coin dealers and other types of businesses are anxious for the U.S. Congress to repeal controversial new Form 1099 reporting requirements sooner rather than later, so they know whether to start preparing for the increased record-keeping costs they otherwise would incur next year.
For months, both political parties have favored repeal. As a result, there is an expectation that it will happen. However, the issue has been held up by disagreement over how to offset any lost tax revenues and, some say, political posturing. Thus, expectations are the issue could drag out for a while yet despite approval by the House of Representatives on Thursday...
.... The Republican-controlled House Thursday passed H.R. 4, the Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011 to repeal the 1099 rules. Last month, the Democratic Senate passed an amendment that would do the same. However, the two chambers had different ideas on how to offset purportedly lost tax revenues that were estimated at $19 billion to $20 billion over 10 years.
Contact Elected Officials Contact information for state and federal elected officials.
-President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden
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Politicians DO respond to public pressure...
DHS feeling the heat... postpones REAL ID deadline
On March 4, 2011, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano extended by 20 months (to January 15, 2013) the May 10, 2011 deadline for states to be in full compliance with the Real ID.
Under the REAL ID state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards have to meet federal standards or they will not be accepted for federal purposes--boarding commercial aircraft, gain access to federal facilities or enter nuclear power plants.
Homeland Security bows to Real ID outcry
Posted by Declan McCullagh - CBS.com
Americans will be able to use their driver's licenses after May 11 to travel by air after all.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today postponed the effective date of the Real ID Act until January 15, 2013, a move that avoided causing tremendous disruptions to air travel.
The reason that Homeland Security granted the delay is that, apart from some Republican stalwarts in Congress, this law creating a digital nationalized ID is hardly popular, with critics calling it a national ID card. A chart (PDF) updated last month by the National Conference of State Legislatures lists 16 states with laws forbidding them to comply with Real ID and eight states including Colorado, Hawaii, and Illinois that have enacted resolutions effectively boycotting it.
Counting Down to Nuclear War
By RICHARD RHODES - NYTimes.com
Every thousand years a doomsday threatens. Early Christians believed the day of judgment was nigh. Medieval millenarians expected the world to end in 1000 A.D. These fatal termini would have required supernatural intervention; in the old days humans lacked sufficient means to destroy themselves. The discovery, in 1938, of how to release nuclear energy changed all that. Humankind acquired the means of its own destruction. Even were we to succeed in eliminating our weapons of doomsday - one subject of "How the End Begins" - we would still know how to build them. From our contemporary double millennium forward, the essential challenge confronting our species will remain how to avoid destroying the human world.
U.S. Wavers on 'Regime Change'
By ADAM ENTOUS And JULIAN E. BARNES - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON - After weeks of internal debate on how to respond to uprisings in the Arab world, the Obama administration is settling on a Middle East strategy: help keep longtime allies who are willing to reform in power, even if that means the full democratic demands of their newly emboldened citizens might have to wait.
Instead of pushing for immediate regime change - as it did to varying degrees in Egypt and now Libya - the U.S. is urging protesters from Bahrain to Morocco to work with existing rulers toward what some officials and diplomats are now calling "regime alteration."
Obama's Libyan Abdication Will the U.S. let Gadhafi slaughter his way back to power? Will the U.S. let Gadhafi slaughter his way back to power?
WSJ.com
The battle for Libya has reached a bloody impasse. Moammar Gadhafi continues to hold Tripoli, but his sons and mercenaries have been unable to break the uprising or retake the country's east. Having loudly declared that Gadhafi "needs to step down from power and leave," President Obama now seems to have retreated into a bizarre but all too typical passivity.
We say bizarre because the U.S. has already announced its preferred outcome, yet it is doing little to achieve this end. The greatest danger now to U.S. interests - and to Mr. Obama's political standing - would be for Gadhafi to regain control. A Libya in part or whole under the Gadhafi clan would be a failed, isolated and dangerous place ruled by a vengeful tyrant and a likely abettor of terrorists. We presume that's what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meant the other day when she said that "one of our biggest concerns is Libya . . . becoming a giant Somalia."
America's secret plan to arm Libya's rebels Obama asks Saudis to airlift weapons into Benghazi
By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent - The Independent.co.uk
Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi. The Saudi Kingdom, already facing a "day of rage" from its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community on Friday, with a ban on all demonstrations, has so far failed to respond to Washington's highly classified request, although King Abdullah personally loathes the Libyan leader, who tried to assassinate him just over a year ago.
Washington's request is in line with other US military co-operation with the Saudis. The royal family in Jeddah, which was deeply involved in the Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, gave immediate support to American efforts to arm guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980 and later - to America's chagrin Ð also funded and armed the Taliban.
Saudis mobilise thousands of troops to quell growing revolt
By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent - The Independent.co.uk
Saudi Arabia was yesterday drafting up to 10,000 security personnel into its north-eastern Shia Muslim provinces, clogging the highways into Dammam and other cities with busloads of troops in fear of next week's "day of rage" by what is now called the "Hunayn Revolution".
Saudi Arabia's worst nightmare - the arrival of the new Arab awakening of rebellion and insurrection in the kingdom - is now casting its long shadow over the House of Saud. Provoked by the Shia majority uprising in the neighbouring Sunni-dominated island of Bahrain, where protesters are calling for the overthrow of the ruling al-Khalifa family, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is widely reported to have told the Bahraini authorities that if they do not crush their Shia revolt, his own forces will.
Saudi Arabia bans all marches as mass protest is planned for Friday Extra troops are sent to north-east to quash any Shia protest as King Abdullah's regime gets jittery and oil prices soar in response to the region's continued unrest
By David Randall - The Independent.co.uk
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer and the regional domino whose fall the West fears most, yesterday announced that it would ban all protests and marches. The move - the stick to match the carrot of benefits worth $37bn (£23bn) recently offered citizens in an effort to stave off the unrest that has overtaken nearby states - comes before a "day of rage" threatened for this Friday by opponents of the regime.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said the kingdom has banned all demonstrations because they contradict Islamic laws and social values. The ministry said some people have tried to get around the law to "achieve illegitimate aims" and it warned that security forces were authorised to act against violators. By way of emphasis, a statement broadcast on Saudi television said the authorities would "use all measures" to prevent any attempt to disrupt public order.
Saudi Arabia won't tolerate protests Saudi Arabia imposes ban on 'un-Islamic' protests
By OREN KESSLER AND REUTERS - JPost.com
Following demonstrations by Shi'ite minority in oil-producing east, gov't warns that security forces will stop all attempts to disrupt public order.
Saudi Arabia warned potential protesters on Saturday that a ban on marches would be enforced, signaling that small protests by the Shi'ite minority in the oil-producing east would no longer be tolerated.
"The kingdom's regulations totally ban all sorts of demonstrations, marches, sit-ins," the Interior Ministry said in a statement - adding that security forces would stop all attempts to disrupt public order.
The ministry said demonstrations violated Islamic law and the kingdom's traditions, according to a statement carried by state news agency SPA.
Saudi Arabia bans protest rallies Interior ministry vows to use all steps "to prevent attempts to disrupt public order" following recent Shia protests.
AlJazeera
Saudi Arabia has banned all protests and marches following recent anti-government protests in the kingdom's east, reports say.
State television on Saturday quoted the interior ministry as saying that security forces would use all measures to prevent any attempt to disrupt public order.
The ban on public demonstrations comes amid media reports of a huge mobilisation of Saudi troops in Shia-dominated provinces in order to quell any possible uprising.
According to The Independent, a British newspaper, 10,000 security personnel are being sent to the region by road, clogging highways into Dammam and other cities.
Gaddafi seeks UN probe into unrest Libyan leader says UN or AU should launch an investigation into unrest rocking his country.
AlJazeera
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has called for an international investigation into the unrest rocking his country, as forces loyal to him fight hard to hold on to their territory.
In an interview released on Sunday with the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Gaddafi said he wants the United Nations or the African Union to investigate the violence.
"First of all I would like that an investigatory commission of the UnitedÊ Nations or the African Union comes here to Libya," he said. "We will let this panel work unhampered."
Russia Nervously Watching Events in the Middle East
by Robert Coalson - OilPrice.com
Authoritarian regimes across the Middle East and North Africa are falling apart one by one. Even oil-rich states like Libya, Bahrain, and Oman are not immune to the unrest.
But what about Russia?
The ruling United Russia party, which has controlled all institutions and levels of government since the beginning of the Vladimir Putin era a decade ago, is confident in the country's stability.
United Russia Duma Deputy Andrei Isayev said this week: "There will be no revolution in Russia. There are no grounds for that, no reasons." He added that the Russian people have seen that the so-called colored revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan "didn't bring anything positive."
Qaddafi Escalates War Against Rebels as Libyan Conflict Deepens
By Ola Galal and Alaa Shahine
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Libyan troops loyal to Muammar Qaddafi used artillery and helicopter gunships in their effort to block the rebels' advance west from the oil hub of Ras Lanuf toward the leader's hometown of Sirte.
Rebel fighters battled reinforced pro-Qaddafi troops yesterday around Bin Jawad, 110 miles (160 kilometers) east of Sirte, as ambulances rushed the wounded to the hospital in rebel-controlled Ras Lanuf, according to an Associated Press reporter on the scene. At least six people were killed in the fighting, and a French journalist for France 24 TV was among 60 wounded, AP said.
Libyan Air Force Could Be Gadhafi's Trump Card
By Ulrike Putz in Beirut - Spiegel.de
Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has always paid special attention to his air force, staffing it with his most loyal followers and supplying it with the best training and equipment. The recent bombing raids in Brega might just be a small foretaste of the overwhelming punch his air power can deliver.
Although a large part of Libya's army has defected and joined the rebel forces, its air force appears to have remained almost completely loyal to Moammar Gadhafi. Indeed, it is one of the main factors still propping up the regime and the most serious threat to the insurgents who control the eastern part of the country.
In Libya, Both Sides Gird for Long War as Civilian Toll Mounts
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and KAREEM FAHIM - NYTimes.com
TRIPOLI, Libya Each side of the conflict in Libya pushed forward on Saturday as militia forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi launched a second day of attacks on the rebel-held city of Zawiyah, just 30 miles west of the capital, and a ragtag rebel army moving from the east won its first ground battle to take the oil port of Ras Lanuf, about midway down the Mediterranean coast.
Both sides were girding for a confrontation in the coming days at the port of Surt, the town where Colonel Qaddafi was born and which blocks the rebels' progress toward the capital, Tripoli, where extremely heavy gunfire could be heard in the center of the city before dawn Sunday.
14 Potential Justifications For An Invasion Of Libya By The U.S. MilitaryThat Are Currently Being Floated In The Mainstream Media
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Over the past couple of days, top government officials from both the United States and the EU have been openly discussing the possibility of military intervention in Libya. In fact, it has seemed like there has been a full court press in the mainstream media to sway public opinion toward supporting a potential invasion. We are being told that we simply cannot stand by as Libyan civilians die. We are being told that this would be a "humanitarian" mission. We are being told that this would not be like Iraq or Afghanistan. Even now, the U.S. military is moving the USS Enterprise and other warships closer to Libya in case they are "needed". Other nations are also sending warships into the Mediterranean and are preparing for military action. It really does appear that authorities in the United States and Europe really are serious about potentially going into Libya. But is there really any way that the United States can really justify getting involved in another war in the Middle East? Will the American people ever be convinced that an invasion of Libya by the U.S. military is a good idea?
Egypt: Protesters raid on Cairo state security HQ
BBC.co.uk
Egyptian protesters have stormed the headquarters of the secret police in Cairo, demanding that the organisation be dismantled.
It followed rumours that officials were destroying documents that could be used in court to prove human rights abuses.
On Friday, some 200 protesters stormed the agency's offices in Alexandria after police fired on protesters.
The abolition of the force has been a demand of protesters who ousted Hosni Mubarak as president in February.
Muslim Brotherhood's New Campaign:
Seize Control of Egypt's Islamic Institutions
By Barry Rubin - Gloria-Center.org
This is of gigantic importance (see if anyone else covers it). MEMRI has pointed out the opening of a Muslim Brotherhood campaign to replace Egypt's current clerical hierarchy with its own people. If that happens...you can imagine. Once Islamists are in place making the "official" decisions on what constitutes proper Islam, an Islamist state cannot be far away.
Let me explain the background briefly. Knowing that control over Islam was vital to maintaining control of the country, the Egyptian regime (like nationalist regimes elsewhere) set out to build a systematic structure for doing so. The head of the al-Azhar Islamic university, the chief qadi, the clerics of different mosques, are government-appointed. Sermons are government-approved. A ministry in charge of awqaf (religious foundations) and religion supervises all of this and hands out the money. And the government also decides which clerics appear on television and radio, or even have their own programs.
Egypt's Revolution and Israeli Interests: A Strategic Assessment
By Barry Rubin - Gloria-Center.org
What does the Egyptian revolution mean for Israel? A great deal and, unfortunately, none of it is particularly good, though Israel will have to adjust to these new circumstances.
People who don't know very much predict some great chance for peace in a rosy democratic dawn. I've even heard moderate Egyptians claim that the only reason people there hated Israel was because it was associated in their minds with the Mubarak regime and now there's no reason for friction. But this kind of argument has nothing to do with reality.
The implications for Israel should be divided into two categories: those that relate to Egypt directly and those arising from the event's fall-out on the regional situation.
Even if one assumes a best-case outcome in Egypt-a stable, moderate Egyptian democracy-it presents Israel with some difficult problems. The simplest way to put it is that certainty has been replaced by doubt.
Is Syria the next domino? With autocratic regimes tumbling around the region, well-educated young Syrians want - and deserve - a taste of freedom.
By Ribal al-Assad - AlJazeera
With the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes gone and street protests roiling cities from Algiers to Tehran, many people are now wondering which domino might fall next. Syria, whose secular, militarised dictatorship most closely resembles the fallen regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, may not be next in line - but appears nonetheless to be approaching a tipping point.
Of course, the old "domino theory" of international relations was merely a crude way of emphasising that different parts of any region are linked to each other. For today's Arab world, a better metaphor might be a chessboard, from which the removal of even a pawn inevitably alters the relationships among all other pieces.
IRAN: Warships reportedly complete mission in the Mediterranean, return to Red Sea
By Alexandra Sandels in Beirut - LATimes.com
The two Iranian warships that entered the Mediterranean last month -- a move that sparked angry protests from Israel -- have wrapped up their mission and returned to the Red Sea, Iranian state media reported on Saturday.
"The flotilla ... has completed its mission successfully in the Mediterranean Sea and has returned to the Red Sea transiting through the Suez Canal," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted naval commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari as saying.
A Middle East without borders? The nation state is ripe for change and people power offers new opportunities for mapping the future of the region.
Mohammed Khan - AlJazeera
The modern geography of the Middle East was carved out by British and French colonialists whose sole interest was in sharing the spoils of war between themselves and in maintaining their supremacy over the region in the early part of the 20th century.
The contours of the region, with its immaculately straight lines (see maps of Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Sudan) are much the same today as when they were first drawn up, despite decades of cross-border encroachment and conflict.
Never has an imported concept been so jealously guarded by ruling families and political elites in the Middle East as that of the nation state, together with the holy grail of international relations theory, state sovereignty.
Divide And Conquer: The Union Protests In Wisconsin And Ohio Are Increasing The Hate Between The Left And The Right
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
What is the perfect way to get the eyes of the American people off of the real economic problems that this country is facing? Get them fighting with each other of course. And what is one issue that is sure to get the left and the right screaming at each other like cats and dogs? Unions. The battle over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin has been making headlines around the world for weeks and there are no signs that it is going to end any time soon. In fact, Mordecai Lee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says that it is "a battle to the death". The Democrats that have gone AWOL appear to be absolutely determined to stay away. The protesters seem equally determined to keep on fighting. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker does not look like he plans to back down either. Meanwhile, both sides are calling each other the most horrible names. "Hitler", "Stalin", "Nazi" and "fascist" are just a few of the terms that are being thrown around by both sides. What has been going on in Wisconsin has captured the imagination of the entire nation and it is creating even more hate between the left and the right in this country. Unfortunately, as the economic pie in this nation continues to shrink, economic battles such as the one in Wisconsin are going to become quite common.
Democrats to End Union Standoff
By KRIS MAHER And AMY MERRICK - WSJ.com
Playing a game of political chicken, Democratic senators who fled Wisconsin to stymie restrictions on public-employee unions said Sunday they planned to come back from exile soon, betting that even though their return will allow the bill to pass, the curbs are so unpopular they'll taint the state's Republican governor and legislators.
The Wisconsin standoff, which drew thousands of demonstrators to occupy the capitol in Madison for days at a time, has come to highlight efforts in other states to address budget problems in part by limiting the powers and benefits accorded public-sector unions.
Doug Casey on Labor Unions
By: Casey Research Interviewed by Louis James - MarketOracle.co.uk
Louis: Doug, we recently talked about turmoil arising from the clash between labor unions clinging to wages from the fat years and bankrupt governments facing lean-year budgets. You saw that as a sign of more imminent chaos - a warning worth giving - but we didn't really get into the subject of labor unions themselves. Knowing your philosophical bent, I'd bet your views on them might surprise many people...
Doug: My take is that there's nothing inherently wrong with unions, as long as they are voluntary associations of people - they're just associations working in certain trades or in certain places. It's natural. Sure, why not?
But there are problems with the way unions exist in reality today, particularly when membership is made mandatory. That's a violation of the human right to work. When you can't work unless you join the union, and union membership is limited - often to people with political connections or family relations with union officials - it's clear that the union is not a defender of the little guy, but a kind of protection racket. It's a fraud.
Ohio Senate votes to bar state workers from striking, negotiating benefits
By Michael Winter, USA TODAY
The Ohio Senate has narrowly approved legislation barring public employees from striking and from bargaining over health care, sick time and pension benefits.
The measure, which would apply to about 360,000 state, university and local government workers, creates a new contract-dispute process that involves elected officials, Cincinnati.com says. The legislation passed, 17-16, with six GOP lawmakers joining all 10 Democrats in voting no.
[Utah] House demands title to federal lands
SaltLakeTribune
The House endorsed a not-so-modest proposal on Wednesday: It called for Congress to give Utah the right, title and jurisdiction over the 22.6 million acres in its boundaries that are now overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
That is about two times more than the 11.5 million acres of private land in the state.
Fed Unlikely to Remove Its Economic Stimulus Just Yet
By JON HILSENRATH - WSJ.com
Federal Reserve officials have grown more confident that a self-sustaining economic recovery is taking root in the U.S., but they want to see more evidence before they seriously consider how and when to pull back the enormous amounts of stimulus they pumped into the financial system.
So when officials gather for their next policy meeting March 15, they are likely to decide to continue a $600 billion Treasury securities purchasing program. They are also likely to maintain a commitment to keep short-term interest rates near zero for an "extended period."
Is inflation wolf at the door? As oil and other commodities surge, some investors fear a spiral. Bernanke insists the Fed has it under control.
By Tom Petruno - LATimes.com
Veteran Wall Street trader Victor Sperandeo had a chilling forecast for the audience at an investor gathering last month in Century City.
Hyperinflation, he warned, had become a serious possibility for the U.S. given the unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus supporting the economy.
That could translate into the consumer price index eventually rising at a rate of 50% or more per month, said the man known as Trader Vic.
The Fed's Promise of Inflation Means More Unemployment...
By: Bob Chapman - MarketOracle.co.uk
The Federal Reserve tells us we need inflation to overcome the overhang created by debt and its inflationary aspects. The inflation does not create jobs - it just distorts prices upward. We are told by the head of the Fed, Mr. Bernanke, that he can end inflation when he thinks it is necessary. That is not true, because if inflation ends deflation takes command and the economy collapses. There is no finely honed instrument for turning these two opposite effects on and off; thus, inflationary instruments have to be blunt and overused. That means more often than not that inflation is over implemented. This is the opposite of the Fed's mandate of promoting price stability, full employment and in fact is used to prop up the banking system.
Home prices: The double-dip is near
By Les Christie
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- That big sucking sound you heard last week? That was the air being taken out of the housing market by a slew of bad reports followed by some dire predictions by an industry bubble-spotter.
On Tuesday, we found out that home prices were near their post-bust lows. Two days later the government reported that January saw a double-digit dip in the number of new homes sold.
Then Robert Shiller, the Yale economist and co-founder of the S&P/Case-Shiller home price indexes, dropped this bomb: "There's a substantial risk of home prices falling another 15%, 20% or 25%," he said.
Romney Slams President Obama's Health Care Law
FOXNews.com
BARTLETT, N.H. -- Call it an attempt to address an obvious political vulnerability.
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Saturday derided President Barack Obama's health care law -- modeled in some ways after one the ex-governor signed in Massachusetts -- as a misguided and egregious effort to seize more power for Washington.
"Obamacare is bad law, bad policy, and it is bad for America's families," Romney declared. "And that's the reason why President Obama will be a one-term president." He vowed to repeal it if he were ever in a position to do so, and drew hearty cheers from his Republican Party audience.
Highest U.S. Underemployment Rates: Illinois, California and Michigan
By DANNY KING - DailyFinance.com
U.S. unemployment rates have been slipping, hitting a two-year low last month, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. But what about the rate of underemployment, or the number of workers employed part time who are seeking full-time work?
According to a Gallup poll published Friday, the national underemployment average was 19% in 2010. Illinois, California and Michigan had the highest percentages of underemployed workers in the country last year, leading a group of nine states that had an underemployment rate of between 21% and 25%. The other states included Hawaii, North Carolina, Oregon, Florida, Mississippi and Nevada.
Gas prices top $3.50
(CNN) -- U.S. gasoline prices increased nearly 33 cents in a two-week period, the second-biggest price jump in the history of the gasoline market, according to a survey of filling stations.
The latest Lundberg Survey of cities in the continental United States was conducted Friday. It showed the national average for a price of self-serve unleaded gasoline at $3.51, an increase of 32.7 cents from the last survey two weeks earlier, survey publisher Trilby Lundberg said.
The jump was the biggest since a 38-cent hike between August and September of 2005. At the time, the price increase was driven by damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Williston Basin (Bakken Formation) Oil Might Be An Election Changer Why isn't this information concerning the Bakken Formation on front page news?
by John Laumer, Philadelphia - TreeHugger.com
With oil prices going up faster than the cheers in Tahrir Square and the 2012 US election campaign underway, I was sure we'd soon hear Republicans pushing their usual ANWR and deepwater Gulf drilling shticks. (Rinse spill and repeat.) Scratch that nonsense. North Dakota and a corner of Montana are where the oil action will be.
China to boost military spending: Gunning for the US?
By Jijo Jacob - IBTimes.com
China is ramping up its military spending at a time its financial firepower is increasingly in focus after it unseated Japan as the second biggest economy in the world.
A Chinese official said on Friday the country will increase military spending 12.7 percent this year after a drop in spending last year owing to the financial crisis.
An analysis of comparative military capabilities of the world's leading nations will reveal that if China is going ballistic in efforts to bolster its military, it's certainly gunning for the United States.
U.S. Postal Service Set to Default on Its Federal Debts
By DANNY KING - DailyFinance.com
The U.S. Postal Service has warned that it will fall $6.8 billion short on payments it owes the federal government this fiscal year. In a presentation to a House of Representatives subcommittee on Wednesday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the postal service won't be able to pay its retirement and workers' compensation obligations unless the government steps in.
The Postal Service is set to miss its expected September payment of $5.5 billion to fund medical benefits for future retirees, as well as a $1.3 billion payment -- due in November -- for workers' compensation costs, Donahue said.
The service will continue to deliver the mail, but won't have the cash to fund these obligations, he added. The Postal Service last month said that it may close as many as 2,000 post offices this year after an oversight board in September unanimously rejected its request to raise the price of a first-class stamp to 46 cents from 44 cents.
Broke Town, U.S.A.
By ROGER LOWENSTEIN - NYTimes.com
Vallejo, a city about 25 miles north of San Francisco, offers a sneak preview of what could be the latest version of economic disaster. When the foreclosure wave hit, local tax revenue evaporated. The city managers couldn't make their budget and eliminated financing for the local museum, the symphony and the senior center. The city begged the public-employee unions for pay cuts - all to no avail. In May 2008, Vallejo filed for bankruptcy. The filing drew little national attention; most people were too busy watching banks fail to worry about cities. But while the banks have largely recovered, Vallejo is still in bankruptcy. The police force has shrunk from 153 officers to 92. Calls for any but the most serious crimes go unanswered. Residents who complain about prostitutes or vandals are told to fill out a form. Three of the city's firehouses were closed. Last summer, a fire ravaged a house in one of the city's better neighborhoods; one of the fire trucks came from another town, 15 miles away. Is this America's future?
The Looming Muni-Bond Meltdown:
Profit From the Collapse - And Then Again From the Rebound
BY SHAH GILANI, Contributing Editor, Money Morning
Hedge funds are stalking the $2.9 trillion municipal-bond market like an alley cat stalks a mouse.
In their public statements, Wall Street shills continue to dismiss warnings about "deadbeat states" - and the horrific impact that budgetary shortfalls at the state and local level are going to have on this stodgy slice of the debt market. Anyone who tries to buck this Wall Street view is ridiculed and dismissed as a financial Cassandra.
Behind the so-called "velvet rope," however, some hedge funds not only believe that financial catastrophe looms in the muni-bond market - they're positioning themselves for the kill ... and for the obscene profits they'll reap when this inevitable disaster strikes.
US municipalities could default on $100bn,
warns Nouriel Roubini thinktank Buyers of bonds issued by US states and local authorities are being 'Pollyannaish' in ignoring the state of their finances
By Dominic Rushe in New York - guardian.co.uk
US states and local governments could default on $100bn (£60bn) of their debts over the next five years, according to a report from the consulting firm founded by economist Nouriel Roubini.
The report follows dire predictions of a wide-scale collapse in the US's $2.7tn municipal bonds market by Meredith Whitney, the analyst who was among the first to warn of the 2008 banking crisis.
Roubini Global Economics' forecast is less gloomy than Whitney's, but it warns that investors are being "Pollyannaish" in dismissing the serious problems in the market.
Muni-bond market looking brighter, Bernanke says
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said late Wednesday that while state and local governments will face budget challenges for some time to come, the outlook in the municipal-bond market has grown a bit brighter.
If the economy strengthens around the 4% annual rate forecast by the Fed, states and localities "may start to get a little breathing space," Bernanke said in a speech at an awards banquet in New York City.
"But it will take "some time" before state and local fiscal conditions return to normal," he said.
Max Keiser from Cairo Egypt:
Revolutions Work - What in The Hell is America Waiting For! 1/2
Max Keiser from Cairo Egypt:
Revolutions Work - What in The Hell is America Waiting For! 2/2
Obama Says Gadhafi Must Quit, Sends Aircraft for Refugees
By SAM DAGHER in Zawiya, Libya, CHARLES LEVINSON in Brega, Libya and JARED A. FAVOLE in Washington
President Barack Obama said Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi must give up power and said he was positioning U.S. military assets near Libya to ensure he had the "full capacity to act" if the situation in Libya deteriorates further.
Mr. Obama said he had authorized sending military aircraft to the Libya-Tunisia border to help transport Egyptian refugees home, as forces loyal to Col. Gadhafi continued to battle rebel forces for control of key territory around oil installations.
Mr. Obama said Col. Gadhafi should "step down from power and leave," and said he was directing humanitarian assistance to the Libyan borders.
14 Potential Justifications For An Invasion Of Libya By The U.S. Military That Are Currently Being Floated In The Mainstream Media
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Over the past couple of days, top government officials from both the United States and the EU have been openly discussing the possibility of military intervention in Libya. In fact, it has seemed like there has been a full court press in the mainstream media to sway public opinion toward supporting a potential invasion. We are being told that we simply cannot stand by as Libyan civilians die. We are being told that this would be a "humanitarian" mission. We are being told that this would not be like Iraq or Afghanistan. Even now, the U.S. military is moving the USS Enterprise and other warships closer to Libya in case they are "needed". Other nations are also sending warships into the Mediterranean and are preparing for military action. It really does appear that authorities in the United States and Europe really are serious about potentially going into Libya. But is there really any way that the United States can really justify getting involved in another war in the Middle East? Will the American people ever be convinced that an invasion of Libya by the U.S. military is a good idea?
US Naval Update: It's A Mediterranean Party And The Enterprise Is Invited - Libyan Endgame Expected Within 5-7 Days
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As we speculated last week, the LHD 3 Kearsarge deftly left the treacherous waters of the Red Sea a few days ago, and after crossing the Suez is now well on its way to the shores of Tripoli (where it is set to meet Canadian, Korean and Dutch warships). Yet to those who argue that the US military is a well-oiled machine, look no further than the schizophrenic moves the CVN 65 Enterprise has had to endure in the past two weeks: after it was just off the coast of Libya as recently as February 9, and rushing into the Red Sea in direction Straits of Hormuz two weeks ago, the storied aircraft carrier was halted dead in its tracks en route, and ordered to do a 180. It is now hot on the heels of the Kearsarge and we believe will also cross the Suez within 48 hours as it moves in to provide air support to Libya by the weekend. And with air coverage, the no fly zone will likely be instituted by Monday of next week, which, as Robert Gates telegraphed earlier, is the codeword for a "NATO" invasion. Which means this weekend will likely be do or die in terms of game theory defection choices for the Gaddafi family: will he defect peacefully and spend the rest of his days with his friend Robert Mugabe, the world's second best performing stock market after the NYSE Borse, and a few hundred pounds of gold, or will he set fire to the Libyan oil infrastructure as he leaves the scene kicking and screaming.
Libya: Materiel and personnel in place Preparations for military intervention in full swing
By Julie Hyland - OpinionMaker.org
The United States, Britain and the European powers are deepening their preparations for intervention in Libya, including military action. They hope to exploit the popular revolt against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi to take control of Libya's oil fields and establish a crucial base for further operations in the region under conditions where dictatorships on which they have relied for years are under siege.
In testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned, "The entire region is changing and a strong and strategic American response will be essential."
Egyptian special forces secretly storm Libya
by Chris Hughes, Daily Mirror
CRACK special forces troops have been secretly pouring into Libya to back the rebellion against Colonel Gaddafi.
The elite troops moved in as the defiant tyrant vowed to "fight to the last man and woman" - and warned that "thousands will die" if the West intervenes.
But the Mirror can reveal his Tripoli stronghold is now under threat from a growing army of special forces preparing to quell civil war.
Intelligence sources have told us that post-Mubarak Egyptian troops have been allowed into Libya by Tunisian soldiers - showing increasing Arab-backing for the anti-Gaddafi revolt.
The move came as a ferocious battle raged yesterday for control of the key oil port town of Brega after loyalists launched their first counter-offensive in the eastern desert in an attempt to reclaim "Free Libya".
Fear Stalks the Streets of Gadhafi's Capital
By MARGARET COKER
TRIPOLI, Libya - The residents of Libya's capital, subject to a clampdown as Col. Moammar Gadhafi loses much of the rest of his country to opponents, are gripped by fear and paranoia.
Pro-Gadhafi security forces, visiting homes at night, have made scores of arrests. Families of some anti-government activists have gone into hiding after receiving threats from officials. Doctors say patients with gunshot wounds - a sign the injured person may have been at a street demonstration - have been arrested and taken from hospitals.
Some residents of Tripoli, home to 2 million of Libya's 6 million people, on Thursday described these and other incidents that form what they say is a tapestry of terror in the capital. As Col. Gadhafi has rallied his base, these people say, reprisals have escalated against those who protest his rule. Political uncertainty has warped the fabric of once-quiet neighborhoods, residents say, with some saying they are afraid to speak to longtime neighbors.
Egypt Replaces Prime Minister as Region's Protesters Show Tenacity
By DAVID LUHNOW and MATT BRADLEY in Cairo
and JOE PARKINSON in Manama, Bahrain - WSJ.com
Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq resigned Thursday and was succeeded by a U.S.-educated engineer, underscoring how protesters in Egypt and across the region aren't letting up their press for systemic changes that reach beyond the ouster of unpopular rulers.
The resignation of Mr. Shafiq, appointed by ex-President Hosni Mubarak in the dying days of his regime, marks a bid by Egypt's interim military rulers to placate protesters who have sustained demands for sweeping governmental changes in the wake of Mr. Mubarak's exit. The move came days after protests in Tunisia forced the resignation of interim Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, a longtime member of the government of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the president toppled by protesters in January.
Ron Paul @ Judge Napolitano:
Fall of the Empire (March 3, 2011)
For Governors: Responsibility Equals Invisibility
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Truthdig.com
If you want to get national attention as a governor these days, don't try to be innovative about solving the problems you were elected to deal with-in education, transportation and health care. No, if you want ink and television time, just cut and cut and cut some more.
Almost no one in the national media is noticing governors who say the reasonable thing: that state budget deficits, caused largely by drops in revenue in the economic downturn, can't be solved by cuts or tax increases alone.
There is nothing courageous about an ideological governor hacking away at programs that partisans of his philosophy, including campaign contributors, want eliminated. That's staying in your comfort zone.
Divide And Conquer: The Union Protests In Wisconsin And Ohio Are Increasing The Hate Between The Left And The Right
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
What is the perfect way to get the eyes of the American people off of the real economic problems that this country is facing? Get them fighting with each other of course. And what is one issue that is sure to get the left and the right screaming at each other like cats and dogs? Unions. The battle over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin has been making headlines around the world for weeks and there are no signs that it is going to end any time soon. In fact, Mordecai Lee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says that it is "a battle to the death". The Democrats that have gone AWOL appear to be absolutely determined to stay away. The protesters seem equally determined to keep on fighting. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker does not look like he plans to back down either. Meanwhile, both sides are calling each other the most horrible names. "Hitler", "Stalin", "Nazi" and "fascist" are just a few of the terms that are being thrown around by both sides. What has been going on in Wisconsin has captured the imagination of the entire nation and it is creating even more hate between the left and the right in this country. Unfortunately, as the economic pie in this nation continues to shrink, economic battles such as the one in Wisconsin are going to become quite common.
Wisconsin Senate approves use of force to arrest absent Democrats
By David Edwards - TheRawStory.com
The Wisconsin Senate passed a resolution Thursday allowing for the arrest of 14 Democratic senators that left the state to prevent Republican Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting bill to pass.
Republican senators approved the measure by a 19-0 vote.
The Democrats must return to the chamber by 4 pm Central Time or Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) will declare them in contempt of the Senate, according to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
Under the new resolution, Fitzgerald could order Senate Sergeant at Arms Ted Blazel to "take any and all necessary steps, with or without force, and with or without the assistance of law enforcement officers, by warrant or other legal process, as he may deem necessary in order to bring that senator to the Senate chambers so that the Senate may convene with a quorum of no less than 20 senators."
State senate passes resolution
to compel missing Democrats to return to Capitol Senate Democrats given until 4 p.m. Thursday to return
MADISON (AP) - FOX6Now.com
Wisconsin's Senate Republicans voted Thursday to find their AWOL Democratic colleagues guilty of contempt and disorderly conduct, and order police to bring them back to work by force, if the missing senators did not return by late afternoon.
The 14 Democratic senators escaped to Illinois two weeks ago to avoid voting on Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most state workers. Their absence has blocked passage of the bill because at least one of them must be present to have a quorum.
Judge orders protesters out of Wisconsin Capitol
CNBC.com
MADISON, Wis. - A Wisconsin judge has ordered pro-union protesters to be removed from the state Capitol.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Albert ruled Thursday night that protesters remaining in the building should be immediately removed - along with any unauthorized materials such as sleeping bags and signs taped to the Capitol walls.
The judge also ruled that the state violated constitutional protections for free speech and assembly by restricting access to the building. He ordered the administration to re-open the building to the general public by 8 a.m. Monday, allowing for a permitting process limiting the times and places where rallies can be held.
Layoff notices will be sent to 1,500 state workers Friday Layoff notices could be delayed if budget repair bill passes
MADISON (AP) - FOX6Now.com
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Thursday that he will issue layoff notices to 1,500 state workers on Friday if his proposal forcing them to pay more for benefits and taking away nearly all their collective bargaining rights isn't passed by then.
Walker also said in an interview with The Associated Press that he is negotiating with Democrats who stymied passage of the bill by leaving the state for changes to the proposal that would get them to return. Walker said he won't compromise on the collective bargaining issue or anything that saves the state money.
"I can't take any of that off the table," he said.
Secret e-mails set off firestorm of reaction in Madison Controversial e-mails were dated February 15th
By Bryan Polcyn - FOX6 Investigator - WITI-TV, MADISON
Secret e-mails uncovered by the FOX6 Investigators set off a firestorm of reaction, especially from conservative groups like Citizens for Responsible Government.
The e-mails are dated February 15th, back when it appears the budget repair bill was on a fast track to passage.
In one e-mail, the Chief of Staff for Mayor Dave Ciesliewicz writes, "(The mayor) spoke with Doug LaFollette this morning and it doesn't look like he'll hold up the bill for publicantion more than a day or two at the maximum."
Union Bill Speeding Through Ohio Legislature
By Ann Sanner, Associated Press - CNSNews.com
Columbus, Ohio (AP) - While much of the nation's attention remains focused on a stalled proposal in Wisconsin to restrict collective bargaining rights for public workers, an Ohio measure that in some ways is tougher and broader is speeding toward reality.
A Senate panel and then the full chamber approved the Ohio measure Wednesday amid jeers from onlookers. The bill would restrict the collective bargaining rights of roughly 350,000 teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees, while Wisconsin's would affect about 175,000 workers and exempt police and firefighters.
Marc Faber 'We Are in the End Game' Part 1
Marc Faber 'We Are in the End Game' Part 2
Why Warren Buffet Hates Gold
by Mad Hedge Fund Trader Why Warren Buffet Hates Gold. The "Oracle of Omaha" expounded at length today on why he despises the barbarous relic. The sage doesn't really care if the yellow metal hit an all-time high today of $1,440. He sees it primarily as a bet on fear. If investors are more afraid in a year than they are today, then you make money. If they aren't, then you lose money. If you took all the gold in the world, it would form a cube 67 feet on a side, worth $7 trillion. For that same amount of money, you could own other assets with far greater productive power, including:
All the farmland in the US, about 1 billion acres, which is worth $2.5 trillion.
Seven Exxon Mobil's (XOM), the largest capitalized company in the US.
You would still have $1 trillion in walking around money left over.
Instead of producing any income or dividends, gold just sits there and shines, letting you feel like you are King Midas.
What is gold telling us?
Gold's gains may have meaning beyond the market
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Gold reaches a record high. Is it telling us something?
Gold closed $1437.70 on Wednesday, using the CME April contract as the measure, up $28.40 so far this week and breaking through significant technical barriers.
Over the weekend, Australia's The Privateer had growled: "Just as it has since early November 2010, the area between $1,400 and $1,425 is proving a firm 'ceiling' for gold."
The Gartman Letter was more direct on Tuesday: "Someone ... or something ... has kept a virtual lid on the gold market at or near $1,414-$1,416 for the past many months and has certainly been at work for the past two weeks making certain that gold does not push upward through that level."
Egypt Bans Export of Gold in All Forms
The Saudi Gazette - goldreport.com
Egypt announced a ban on gold exports "in light of the exceptional circumstances the country is passing through. . .to preserve the country's wealth until the situation stabilizes," according to the country's official news agency MENA reported Monday. The country's gold export ban is aimed at preventing former government officials and other industry leaders who acquired capital illegally from transferring it abroad.
Minister of Trade and Industry Samir Sayyad said Sunday that the ban will remain in effect from Feb. 27 - June 30.
Since the start of the January 25 uprising, fears have risen that individuals suspected of corruption or wanted for investigation have been smuggling money abroad in the form of gold.
Gold and Silver Breaking New Highs As U.S. Dollar loses appeal as safe haven
BY JEB HANDWERGER - FinancialSense.com
As U.S. Dollar loses appeal as safe haven
The gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) meteor keeps soaring in the skies over Wall Street as the US dollar (UUP) is parachuting into new lows. The spot price of silver this week broke $34.40, zooming into a record high area unseen since 1980. On March 1, gold followed its poorer brother by breaking out at $1425. The US dollar is challenging all-time lows. It does not take a PhD from Princeton to realize that there may be a problem here. Maybe the recent radical central bank actions should be reconsidered? True, 401(k)'s look good, but it has come at the expense of significant dollar debasement.
The million dollar question: Stampede or showdown? Will gold and silver continue to stampede into new highs making considerable gains or will the struggling dollar reaching record lows make a showdown, putting a ceiling on the precious metals rise?
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Emperor Nakedly Monetizing, Desperately Seeking Stability
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
The Fed is monetizing debt, colloquially known as 'printing money.'
At this point you either understand this or you do not, and if not it is probably because you will not.
But it is the reality, and presents fairly volatile conditions for the world financial system. And the limits to the monetization are the value of the US bonds, and the American dollar which are notes of zero duration.
The monetization cannot revitalize the economy because most of the problems that led to the financial crisis remain as they were. The government of both parties is caught in a credibility trap, and under obligations to the monied interests for campaign funds and compromised by past favors granted.
How Long Does the USD Have?
Written by Christopher Laird - OilPrice.com
As the US enters deflation, and gold rockets up, it's time to ask what happens when the USD loses its haven status. The leading candidates to compete with the USD are supposedly the Euro and the Yuan.
Well, one thing that will confuse this situation is that the US enters deflation, while China enters inflation. The US has deflationary pressures due to the exploding US fiscal debt and the continuing housing crash, which has not slowed down.
Currency bill backers want alternative to 'paper dollar'
BY LADD BRUBAKER - The Salt Lake Tribune
A bill that recognizes U.S. gold and silver coins as legal tender and exempts their sale from the state capital gains tax passed the Utah House Government Operations Committee Wednesday.
Supporters say HB317, introduced by Rep. Brad Galvez, R-West Haven, is a first step to creating an "inflation-proof" alternative to the "paper dollar."
Larry Hilton, a local attorney and supporter of the "sound money movement," said that "un-backed money" created by the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy, is "hanging over us like the sword of Damocles waiting to just come down in an avalanche and destroy the value of our currency."
Utah Considers Return to Gold, Silver Coins
By Stephen Clark - FOXNews.com
It's been nearly 80 years since the U.S. stopped using gold coins as legal currency, and nearly 40 since the world abandoned the gold standard, but the precious metal could be making a comeback in the United States -- beginning in Utah.
The Utah House was to vote as early as Thursday on legislation that would recognize gold and silver coins issued by the federal government as legal currency in the state. The coins would not replace the current paper currency but would be used and accepted voluntarily as an alternative.
Will Euro Failure Usher in World Currency?
by Staff Report - TheDailyBell.com
Free-Market Analysis: The Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has published one of his usual insightful analyses on the upcoming difficulties the Irish will face in renegotiating debt payments to prop up failing Irish banks (see article excerpt above). Irish bank bonds are held by German and French banks, among others, and there has been overwhelming pressure placed on Ireland's government to borrow money, raise taxes and cut expenses so as to ensure the ailing banks do not founder entirely.
The stresses placed on the Irish economy and Irish taxpayers in particular are tremendous. Iceland chose not to support its insolvent banks and as a result the Icelandic economy has show some improvement; the Irish economy still lags badly and there is no expectation that it will much improve; in fact it is likely to end in a kind of national bankruptcy or popular rebellion.
China "Attacks The Dollar" -
Moves To Further Cement Renminbi Reserve Currency Status
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
In a surprising turn of events, today's biggest piece of news received a mere two paragraph blurb on Reuters, and was thoroughly ignored by the broader media. An announcement appeared shortly after midnight on the website of the People's Bank of China.
The statement, google translated as "Pragmatic and pioneering spirit to promote cross-border renminbi business cum on monitoring and analysis to a new level" is presented below:
12 Countries Most Likely to go Belly Up
by Dian L. Chu - AdvisorAnalyst.com
Risk analysis firm Maplecroft just released its new fiscal risk index ranking of 163 countries. Europe trumps all other regions with 11 out of twelve countries rated as "extreme risk." However, quite surprisingly, only one PIIGS country - Italy which takes the top spot -is in the top 12. The others include many big economies in Europe - Belgium (2), France (3), Sweden (4), Germany (5), Hungary (6), Denmark (7), Austria (8), United Kingdom (10), Finland (11) and Greece (12). Japan at No. 9 is the only other country not in Europe within the highest risk category (See map below). Aging Demographics
While high national debt and public spending are two common denominators, the study finds it is the aging demographics that puts these countries at extreme fiscal risk. An aging population will place increasing pressure on public expenditure such as pension and health care, while a shrinking working-age population means less productivity and less tax revenues to support public spending and debt payments.
Inflation and the Value of Gold Explained
BY ROD ROJAS - FinancialSense.com
As the story goes, someone asked an economist how his wife was doing, and the economist answered "compared to what?"
Joking aside, this is one of the most important questions one can ask when dealing with many economic problems.
In recent times, with gold reaching all-time highs, we have seen people question the valuation of assets in dollars. Basically, the yardstick used to measure your assets - your house, car, or stock portfolio - is a steadily shrinking one. This makes you wonder whether your savings are really growing in value. In other words, if the value of your savings has doubled, but the price of milk and everything else has roughly doubled, you are not getting ahead. If anything, you will likely have to pay taxes on your supposed "gain," which is no gain at all.
Fed's Inflation Denial Threatens Banking System
By Lee Adler
As the Fed willfully denies the importance of inflation in the cost of the necessities of life, that strategy threatens the banking system with total collapse. Join The Wall Street Examiner's Lee Adler, Russ Winter of Winter Watch, and Aaron Krowne of the Mortgage Lender Implode-o-meter, as they discuss this critical issue in Part 1 of this podcast free to all visitors (36 minutes), also available on iTunes. Also in Part 1, Aaron leads discussions of the outlook for gold and silver, while Russ opines that commodities are in a bubble. We look at the meaning of the Treasury's huge upward revision in the estimate of Chinese holdings of US Treasury securities, the long term impact of unrest in the Arab world and elsewhere, and the threat that tens of thousands of lawsuits pose to the banks.
Paul Craig Roberts:
The Perfidy of Government - Evidence v. Denial 1/2
Paul Craig Roberts:
The Perfidy of Government - Evidence v. Denial 2/2
Deflation Confusion: Money Is Not Credit
Mises Daily: by Robert Blumen
The end is near. The end, that is, of the current monetary system. But inflation or deflation? Dow 1,000 or wheelbarrow money? While the arguments on the deflation side are not entirely without merit, they rely on conceptual errors that result in exaggerating the magnitude of a possible deflation.
The primary error of the deflation camp is the conflation of money and credit. There are plenty of examples, but Robert Prechter is typical.
When the volume of money and credit rises relative to the volume of goods available, the relative value of each unit of money falls, making prices for goods generally rise. When the volume of money and credit falls relative to the volume of goods available, the relative value of each unit of money rises, making prices of goods generally fall.
Fed's Lacker Sees Inflation 'Trending Up'
By Jon Hilsenrath - WSJ.com Has your forecast changed in the last six weeks? LACKER: My forecast hasn't changed in the last six weeks. But in the last six months it's picked up notably. We saw the consumer pick up confidence on the whole in the fourth quarter, consumers on average that is, and I think we've seen a real pickup in momentum in the business sector as well. Our contacts are telling us about expansion plans with much greater frequency than in the middle of last year and that is confirmed in a wide array of statistics. The economy has got distinctly more momentum than it did last summer. And that caused me in the second half of last year to mark up my forecast for this year. I'm still thinking 4% is a good estimate of what GDP growth is going to be this year overall for the fourth quarter-over-fourth quarter. In 2012 we'll see something a little bit stronger than that. We'lll gain momentum gradually as we go forward.
When Even John Taylor Says Bernanke's Interpretation Of The Taylor Rule Is Wrong
by ZeroHedge.com - AdvisorAnalyst.com
Something funny transpired over the the past two years in the Fed's interpretation of the critical Taylor rule, which Bernanke refers to in every testimony before Congress or the Senate: John Taylor, the creator of the rule, and Zero Hedge's nomination for Fed chairman (inasmuch as we need a Federal Reserve) said Bernanke is wrong in his interpretation of the rule, and if he had a proper interpretation the Fed Chairman should already be hiking rate. Yet leave it to Bernanke to believe he knows better what the rule is supposed to mean.... than even its creator. From the WSJ: "Stanford University professor John Taylor, an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve in recent years, has a new complaint: He says Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is misrepresenting Mr. Taylor's eponymous rule on interest rates." A brief reminder on the Taylor rule, which has been presented numerous times on Zero Hedge before: "The Taylor Rule offers a simple formula that economists often use as a guide for the appropriate level of the federal funds rate. The formula provides changes in interest rates depending on the level of inflation and the output gap, which is the difference between actual gross domestic product and the economy's potential output.
$130 Oil Could Be Just the Beginning as Libya Crisis Intensifies
BY DAVID ZEILER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
With rising violence in Libya looking increasingly like a war, the head of Libya's national oil company said yesterday (Wednesday) that crude prices could reach $130 a barrel within a month.
But that may be just the beginning, as other analysts have raised fears of oil prices topping $200 and even $300 a barrel.
"The oil market is very sensitive," Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation, told Reuters. "Speculation is very important for the market. When you see that production in an important country went down you are afraid it will go down even more."
Keiser Report: Taste of Freedom
This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report from Beirut on oil prices, a sectarian regime, the geo-politics of Saudi oil and the Benghazi dance. In the second half of the show, Max talks to two time Pulitzer prize winner, Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, about the revolutions sweeping the Arab world.
U.S. Getting Closer to $14.29 Trillion Debt Ceiling
By Damian Paletta - WSJ.com
As the debate over a bill to continue funding the federal government draws most of the attention on Capitol Hill, the U.S. federal debt continues to near the ceiling allowed by current law.
As of Monday, the U.S. had $14.14 trillion in debt subject to the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling, according to the government's Bureau of Public Debt. This is up from $14.0 trillion Jan. 28.
The Treasury Department has said the government could hit the ceiling as soon as early April, and it has urged Congress to raise the ceiling so the U.S. doesn't default on its obligations.
How the US Government Deals With Debt in the Post-Bubble Era
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
03/02/11 Waterford, Ireland - "What went wrong?" we asked the cab driver.
"Well, they give you all kinds of nonsense reasons. But it's pretty simple. People spent a lot more money than they should. Now, they don't have any money left.
"They put up houses all over the place. But there was no one with the money to buy them. And then the developers went broke. And then the banks that lent them money went broke. And then the government went broke. And now we're all broke."
Booms go bust. Wealth disappears. Debt does not. Someone, somewhere, sometime has to pay it. If not the borrower... someone else.
The story of the bubble years was the build up of debt throughout the world.
Bernanke sees 200,000 hit to jobs from budget cuts
By Mark Felsenthal
(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday a Republican spending cut plan would not cause a big dent to U.S. economic growth, but could cost around 200,000 jobs over two years.
That estimate is at odds with losses of as much as 700,000 cited by Democrats but also clashes with forecasts of job gains Republicans have pointed to.
Bernanke said that a $60 billion cut along the lines being pursued by Republicans in the House of Representatives would likely trim growth by around two-tenths of a percentage point in the first year and one-tenth in the next year.
"That would translate into a couple of hundred thousand jobs. So it's not trivial," he said in response to questions from members of the House Financial Services Committee.
Making the Chicken Run
BY DOUG CASEY - FinancialSense.com
"Making the chicken run" is what Rhodesians used to say about neighbors who packed up and got out during the '60s and '70s, before the place became Zimbabwe. It was considered "unpatriotic" to leave Rhodesia. But it was genuinely idiotic not to.
I've written many times about the importance of internationalizing your assets, your mode of living, and your way of thinking. I suspect most readers have treated those articles as they might a travelogue to some distant and exotic land: interesting fodder for cocktail party chatter, but basically academic and of little immediate personal relevance.
I'm directing these comments towards the U.S., mainly because that's where the problem is most acute, but they're applicable to most countries.
Are Banks Abandoning Foreclosures in Florida?
By ABIGAIL FIELD - DailyFinance.com
If you sue someone in Florida but then stop pursuing your case for a year, the court can clear its case load by dismissing your suit for "failure to prosecute." Across Florida, courts are starting to clear their overwhelmed dockets by dismissing foreclosure cases the banks have failed to prosecute. In one division of one of Florida's 20 judicial districts, perhaps as many as 2,700 cases have been set for dismissal in one week.
When Allison Albert of the Jacksonville area Legal Aid went to foreclosure court in Duval County, part of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, on Tuesday, hundreds of "failure to prosecute" cases were on the docket. While waiting for her client's case to be called, she heard the court's staff talking about how the court had sent out notices, scheduling hearings for about 2,700 foreclosure actions -- and noting that if the bank didn't take action within 60 days of the notice, the case could be dismissed at the hearing for failure to prosecute. All of the cases were scheduled to be heard over the next eight court days.
Massachusetts Teachers Must Give Back $1.2 Million in Overpayments
By Staff, Associated Press -CNSNews.com
Springfield, Mass. (AP) - More than 1,400 public school teachers in Springfield, Mass., have been overpaid by a combined $1.2 million since the beginning of the school year and will have to pay the money back.
Superintendent Alan Ingram said Wednesday the "unacceptable" error lies with the system's payroll department and he will discuss repayment plans that are "humane and appropriate" at Thursday's school committee meeting.
Missouri welfare benefits being spent in Hawaii
by Chris Nagus - KMOV.com
(KMOV) -- A News 4 Investigation reveals Missouri residents receiving food stamps and welfare payments are spending them in places like Hawaii, California, and Florida.
News 4 requested public information regarding these expenses through the Missouri Department of Social Services. The agency provided a state by state break down of where Missouri benefits are being spent, click here to see the list.
In January Missouri EBT cards were used to withdraw $362,682 in cash outside the state. During that same time period Missouri EBT cards purchased $3,521,974 worth of food outside Missouri. Those card users racked up $752 worth of ATM fees, they were also paid by taxpayers.
Many Va. Households Lack Financial Security Univ. of Va. study says nearly 25 percent of families in state can't cover basic expenses - ABCNews.go.com
A significant number of households across the state lack enough income and assets to cover basic needs and unplanned expenses, and the federal poverty level inadequately measures how much it costs to be economically self-sufficient, according to a University of Virginia study.
The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service report said the average two-adult, two-child family in Virginia needs about $44,000, or twice the federal poverty level, to pay for their monthly living expenses. The study shows that 24.2 percent of Virginia's families earn below $44,000.
*****
A National ID Card For American Citizens? Get Ready The Real ID Act Goes Into Effect On May 11
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
For a moment, imagine a future where you are not able to drive a car, get on a plane, get on a train, vote, enter a federal building, open a bank account or get a job without a national ID card. You don't think that could ever happen in America? Well, you might want to brush up on the Real ID Act because it is going to go into effect on May 11, 2011 unless something is done to stop it. When I first learned this, I was absolutely stunned. After all, wasn't the Real ID Act supposed to be "dead"? A few years ago state legislatures across the nation were in an uproar over this law. The Department of Homeland Security was forced to delay implementation of it several times. But now it is back. You see, this is what the federal government often does. They will try to push something very unpopular through, and if they meet resistance they will "play dead" until the uproar has died down and then they will come right back and implement it anyway. This is what is happening with the Real ID Act.
Food Prices are Highest on Record as Oil Prices Rise
By DANNY KING - DailyFinance.com
Global food prices are the highest in more than 20 years, a United Nations agency said in a report released Thursday -- as rising oil prices stemming from civil unrest in the Middle East have caused the cost of items like cereal, dairy products and meat to increase.
Worldwide food prices increased 2.2% in February from January and have advanced for eight straight months, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Cereal and diary prices were each up about 4% in February while meat prices increased 2%.
Yes, You Can Survive The Coming Economic Nightmare One Family In California Grows 6,000 Pounds Of Produce
On Just 1/10th Of An Acre
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
If you work hard and get prepared, you can survive the economic nightmare that is coming. All over the United States and around the world there are millions of people that are learning how to become more self-sufficient. For example, there is one family that is actually producing 6000 pounds of produce on just 1/10th of an acre right in the middle of Pasadena, California. In fact, they grow so much food that they are able to sell much of it to restaurants in the area. Video of this incredible "urban homestead" is posted below. The key is to start with what you have. The family in the video below would like to have a large acreage, but for now they have turned what they do have into an absolute miracle. Yes, a horrific economic nightmare is coming to this country, but you don't have to be afraid. One of the main reasons why so many of us are trying to warn people about what is coming is so that they will wake up and take massive action to become self-sufficient like the people in the video below have.
HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION - Radical Change Taking Root
Seed Savers Exchange
Since 1975, Seed Savers Exchange members have passed on approximately one million samples of rare garden seeds to other gardeners. We are a non-profit organization of gardeners dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds.
Boeing Boondoggle: Pork Can Fly
By Robert Scheer
"The gift that keeps on giving" should have been the headline on the Pentagon's decision to award the Boeing Co. a $35 billion defense contract. Defense of the nation, of course, had nothing to do with it, since the end of the Cold War also ended the need for midair refueling of the nuclear-armed bombers intended to retaliate after a Soviet first strike, a scenario brought to the public eye in the 1964 movie "Dr. Strangelove." Indeed, at a time when drones seem to be bypassing the need for manned military bombers and fighters of any kind, and when schoolteachers and firefighters are being terminated across the country, the awarding of this long-delayed and always questionable military-industrial-complex scam is simply perverse.
Arizona Beheading Tied to Mexican Drug Cartel, Police Say
By Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press - CNSNews.com
Chandler, Ariz. (AP) - A man who stole drugs from a Mexican cartel was bludgeoned, stabbed and then decapitated in a suburban Phoenix apartment -- a gruesome killing that police say was meant to send a message that anyone who betrays the traffickers will get the same treatment.
The horrific display of drug violence spilling over the border is believed to be the only beheading by a Mexican cartel in the United States.
The body of Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy, 38, was found lying in a pool of blood Oct. 10 in a Chandler apartment, his severed head a couple of feet away.
China Adds New Limits on Foreigners
By SHARON LaFRANIERE - NYTimes.com
BEIJING - Apparently unnerved by an anonymous Internet campaign urging Chinese citizens to emulate protests that have rocked the Middle East, the authorities this week have launched a forceful and carefully targeted clampdown on activities by foreigners that the government deems threatening to political stability.
Public security officials have summoned dozens of foreign journalists in Beijing and Shanghai to be dressed down on videotape, warning them that they had broken reporting regulations by visiting locations that had been marked as protest sites in Internet postings. Journalists were bluntly warned that they faced the loss of their visas and possible arrest if they did not abide by newly declared limitations on their ability to interview and photographs Chinese citizens, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said in a statement.
The world should NOT take military action against Gaddafi, says top Russian diplomat as he undermines Cameron's plan for no-fly zone
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Russia's top diplomat has today dismissed plans to create a no-fly zone over Libya as embattled leader Moammar Gaddafi unleashed bombing raids, special forces and army troops in a desperate bid to retain power.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the idea of imposing limits on Libyan air space as 'superfluous' and said world powers must instead focus on fully using the sanctions that the UN Security Council approved over the weekend.
David Cameron and his counterparts in the U.S. and Australia had hoped that the military tactic - used successfully for years in northern Iraq - would prevent Gaddafi from bombing his own people.
Libya no-fly zone would require bombing raids: US
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya would first require bombing the north African nation's air defense systems, top US commander General James Mattis warned Tuesday.
A no-fly zone would require removing "the air defense capability first," Mattis, the head of Central Command, told a Senate hearing.
"It would be a military operation," the general said.
China could veto no-fly zone proposal in favor of diplomacy
By Ann M. Simmons - LATimes.com
Similar to Russia, China has signaled that it might oppose the imposition of an internationally backed no-fly zone over Libya if fighting continued between protesters and forces loyal to leader Moammar Kadafi, Bloomberg news agency reported Wednesday.
Li Baodong, China's ambassador to the United Nations, emphasized the need for diplomacy to resolve the crisis, and respect for Libya's territorial integrity, Bloomberg reported.
"We believe that this political crisis should be resolved through peaceful means such as dialogue," Li told reporters at the U.N. in New York, according to Bloomberg. "We respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Libya."
US clueless...
U.S. wants to know who's in charge of Libyan revolution
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington -
Efforts to identify the uprising's leaders and their long-term goals provide no clear answers. But at a time when international support is an urgent issue, the U.S. needs to figure out who speaks for the Libyan public.
The Obama administration has emphatically called for Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi to step down and has pledged assistance to the rebels seeking to overthrow him.
Yet the U.S. has far less clarity on a key issue: Who's in charge of the Libyan revolution?
Lindsey Williams -
Predicted NWO Controled Revolution in the Middle East
U.S. mulling military options in Libya
From Elise Labott, CNN
Washington (CNN) -- The United States is weighing a possible military role to help the Libyan revolt against leader Moammar Gadhafi, but top U.S. officials warn that the issue is controversial.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Senate panel Wednesday that "there may well be a role for military assets to get equipment and supplies into areas that have a need for them" and in areas where the United States is welcome.
But she noted the Arab League statement issued Wednesday that rejected "any foreign interference within Libya on behalf of the opposition, even though they have called for Gadhafi to leave."
US warships enter Suez Canal on way to Libyan waters Two US warships were passing through the Suez Canal on their way to waters off Libya on Wednesday as Western nations exerted diplomatic and military pressure on Muammar Gaddafi to step down.
Telegraph.co.uk
The United States said Libya could sink into civil war unless the Libyan leader ends his four-decade rule amid fears that the uprising, the bloodiest yet against long-serving rulers in the Middle East, could cause a humanitarian crisis.
Gaddafi is defiant and his son, Saif al-Islam, has warned the West against launching military action. He said the veteran ruler would not relinquish power or be driven into exile.
Across Libya, tribal leaders, officials, military officers and army units have defected to the rebel cause and say they are becoming more organised. Tripoli is a stronghold for Gaddafi in this oil-producing north African state.
Obama Encircles US War Machine Around Libya
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
President Barack Obama has instructed the Pentagon to reposition U.S. military forces around Libya as the administration prepares to exploit a humanitarian crisis to seize de facto control over the largest oil producing country in the continent of Africa, following the advice of top neo-cons who have urged Obama to use U.S. forces to topple the Gaddafi regime.
"We have planners working and various contingency plans and I think it's safe to say as part of that we're repositioning forces to be able to provide for that flexibility once decisions are made ... to be able to provide options and flexibility," Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said today.
Gaddafi threatens bloodbath if West intervenes Col Muammar Gaddafi offered an amnesty to Libyan rebels but threatened a bloodbath if the West tried to intervene as the next steps in his fight to stay in power.
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