Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Friday 12.30.2011
Happy New Year, 2012!
BEST lecture of the year... take time to listen:
Lawrence Lessig:
Republic, Lost:
How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It
In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government-driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission-trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.
The End of Year Precious Metal Bullion Bear Raid -
Another Form of Window Dressing?
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Like many others who watch the markets I have wondered what might be prompting this obvious bear raid on the paper precious metals market over past four weeks.
It could be explained by any number of economic developments including the decline of the Euro, but that does not really explain the downward market action which has been sporadic and not associated with news, moreso than fundamental.
Budget Collapse: Too Much Free Money It's past time for Congress
to "tear up" the U.S. Treasury's credit cards.
By LEWIS E. LEHRMAN - The American Spectator.org
The super-committee of Congress is the latest group to confess abject defeat by the Treasury budget deficit. Who can be surprised by this total failure? During the past generation Congress has made as many as fifteen legislative attempts to control government spending -- aimed ultimately at a balanced budget. The most notable efforts were those sponsored by the all-time budget hawk, Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. But every administrative and legislative effort by the authorities, no matter how well-intentioned, has collapsed. Why is this so?
Financial Crises and Narcissism
BY JR NYQUIST - FinancialSense.com
As we approach the end of 2011 there is much to consider. The capitalist world is suffering a series of financial crises. Many nations are hopelessly in debt, including the United States; currencies are losing value; businesses are going under or struggling; the European financial system is crumbling before our eyes, and many experts think the worst is yet to come. The politicians in Europe and America have not faced up to the crisis. Current policies appear to resemble a series of delaying actions. Looking back on the first decade of the twentieth century we may ask ourselves whether these economic troubles are related to moral and cultural failings.
10 International Stories to Watch for in 2012 Democracy, war, and transition in what is likely to be another historic year in world affairs
By Max Fisher - TheAtlantic.com
After the world-shaking events of 2011, of which the Arab Spring was the dominant but far from lone history-making story, it's as impossible as it is irresistible to predict what 2012 might bring. Many of the Arab Spring movements are still ongoing, while their trajectories are far easier to predict than were the initial uprisings, many could still go in several directions. What could become nascent popular movements in Russia and possibly even China have the potential to shift how two of the world's largest countries govern. Europe is on the verge of either an historic step toward unification or a disastrous breakup. And uncertainty in Pakistan, North Korea, and elsewhere could, if they devolve, dominate much of the next year. Whatever happens, it will be interesting.
EGYPT'S STRUGGLING REVOLUTION
PUTIN RETURNS, IF RUSSIANS LET HIM
SYRIA FACES RISK OF CIVIL WAR
CHINESE DISSIDENCE ON THE RISE
NORTH KOREA IN FLUX
THE EUROPEAN EXPERIMENT
NEW ARAB DEMOCRACIES, OR NOT
AMERICA DEBATES FOREIGN POLICY
THE U.S.-PAKISTAN BREAKUP
AMERICAN IDEALISM VS REALISM
Trends 2012:
The End of the Euro, The End of the Investor
TheAutomaticEarth.com
Ilargi: Oh, sure, don't get me wrong, there may still be a Euro a year from now. And there’ll certainly be some investors left.
But the Euro, if it manages to survive, will have to do so in what can only be characterized as a radically different form and shape. At the same time, small mom and pop stock investors will be few and far between; there's no money in the "traditional" stock markets, as they've found out - once more - in 2011. Many will also need what money they still have in stocks to pay down various kinds of other obligations.
The 10 Biggest Business Stories of 2011
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
To review the most important business stories of 2011 is confront the sorry reality that good news is, broadly speaking, dead.
Or, if not dead, then dormant. Glimmers of hope from the job market were overshadowed Europe's slow decent into continental cataclysm. Oil spiked and fell (again), the Federal Reserve fended off critics from left and right (again), and what stimulus it provided was more than offset by congressional dithering (again). Throw in a British hacking scandal, a Libyan revolution, and an international protest against income inequality, and you've got the makings of yet another annus quasi-horribilis for business and economics.
Marc Faber Predictions for 2012.
China gold demand robust amid falling prices
CNTV.cn English
Well amid global volatility, investors the world over have been pouring their money into gold this year. And here in China, demand for the yellow metal is surging, on the back of rising incomes and inflation concerns. Figures from the World Gold Council show, China overtook India in the third quarter as the largest gold jewellery market. Yin Hang takes a look at how Chinese investors are getting their bling on.
Chinese shoppers jam into a long queue, waiting to ring up their purchases, and take their precious gold jewelry home. It’s a common scene, found in any of the gold jewelry stores in the capital city of Beijing.
One good reason why Gold may have bottomed out
By P. Radomski - CommodityOnline.com
Much has been written recently about gold's breakdown below the rising support line. But, is the technical picture for Goldreally bearish? No, it's not, and the chart below has been created to prove it. One of the reasons is described right on the chart - gold quite often consolidates in a way similar to what we've seen in the past months.
The key action that one should take before applying any trading technique is to check if it at least worked in the past. At this moment, you might want to take a few seconds and check the bearish gold analyses that you've read recently which include charts that cover the 10-year or at least a 5-year time frame.
Italian Bonds, European Banks, and Gold
BY RYAN PUPLAVA CMT - FinancialSense.com
Italian Bond Auction and Bullish Headlines
The market began to roll over at key resistance on Tuesday on concerns over Italian debt auctions, but those fears seem to have subsided on today’s auction results. While the market is up on the news, the results were rather mixed; U.S. economic releases today might explain the other half of the equation.
"There Will Be Violence, Mark My Words"
By Michael Thomas, Newsweek
....At the end of the day, the convulsion to come won't really be about Wall Street's derivatives malefactions, or its subprime fun and games, or rogue trading, or the folly of banks. It will be about this society's final opportunity to rip away the paralyzing shackles of corruption or else dwell forever in a neofeudal social order. You might say that 1384 has replaced 1984 as our worst-case scenario. I have lived what now, at 75, is starting to feel like a long life. If anyone asks me what has been the great American story of my lifetime, I have a ready answer. It is the corruption, money-based, that has settled like some all-enveloping excremental mist on the landscape of our hopes, that has permeated every nook of any institution or being that has real influence on the way we live now. Sixty years ago, if you had asked me, on the basis of all that I had been taught, whether I thought this condition of general rot was possible in this country, I would have told you that you were nuts. And I would have been very wrong. What has happened in this country has made a lie of my boyhood.
There should be more to America, Gore Vidal has written, than who pays tax to whom. It has been in Wall Street's interest to shrivel our sensibilities as a nation, to shove aside the verities of which General MacArthur spoke at West Point - duty, honor, country - in favor of grubby schemes and scams and "carried interest" calculations. Time, I think, to take the country back.
Marginal revolutionaries The crisis and the blogosphere have opened mainstream economics up to new attack
TheEconomist.com
POINT UDALL on St Croix, one of the US Virgin Islands, is a far-flung, wind-whipped spot. You cannot travel farther east without leaving the United States. Visitors can pose next to a stone sundial commemorating America’s first dawn of the third millennium. A couple named "Sigi + Ricky" have added a memento of their own, an arrowstruck heart scrawled on the perimeter wall in memory of "us".
Warren Mosler, an innovative carmaker, a successful bond-investor and an idiosyncratic economist, moved to St Croix in 2003 to take advantage of a hospitable tax code and clement weather. From his perch on America’s periphery, Mr Mosler champions a doctrine on the edge of economics: neo-chartalism, sometimes called "Modern Monetary Theory". The neo-chartalists believe that because paper currency is a creature of the state, governments enjoy more financial freedom than they recognise. The fiscal authorities are free to spend whatever is required to revive their economies and restore employment. They can spend without first collecting taxes; they can borrow without fear of default. Budget-makers need not cower before the bond-market vigilantes. In fact, they need not bother with bond markets at all.
Gerald Celente Predictions for 2012
Buying silver is better than buying gold
By Daniel Vundy - CommodityOnline.com
Silver can be purchased as easily as Gold can, but Silver is the better purchase. Both gold and silver are precious metals that have tangible value. The benefits of each metal have much in common, but there are also differences that must be understood before making an investment.
Both metals are a storehouse of value. Regardless of what happens in the world, a person who has a portion of their wealth invested in gold and silver will have a balance in their investment portfolio. If the world's stock markets and currencies drop significantly (which is very likely happen in the near future), gold and silver will hold their value and likely increase in value offsetting losses in other areas of investment. The more uncertain you feel about the future, the higher percentage of your wealth can be transferred to these precious metals.
Investor Meltdown
BY JULIAN PHILLIPS - FinancialSense.com
In 2011 investors saw gold perform outstandingly in the quiet season in July, August. $2,000 looked a certainty before the end of the year, but then unusual forces pummelled the gold price and all other global financial markets. Shades of the credit crunch hit the markets under the title of the Eurozone debt crisis. This had been going on for the last two years, but it entered a very dangerous stage in the final quarter of 2011.
Investors have been used to prices falling for fundamental or technical analysis reasons, but the phenomenon that we first saw in 2007/8 reared its ugly head again –Investor Meltdown as we called it.
Keiser Report: (E229)
Eurozone credit crunch fears on M3 money contraction Europe is at mounting risk of a fresh credit crunch after the eurozone money supply contracted for a second month in November and the volume of private loans began to shrink.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Data released by the European Central Bank shows that M3 money figures tracked by experts as a leading indicator for the economy have turned negative since August, signalling almost certain recession over coming months for the region as a whole.
"The message of these numbers is that the eurozone faces a bleak 2012, with inflation falling rapidly," said Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research. "There is a desperate need to restore growth to the banking system and boost the quantity of money."
Martin Feldstein:
French 'don’t get' problems at euro’s heart The French government should concentrate on its own financial problems rather than lashing out at Britain, according to leading US economist Martin Feldstein.
By Jonathan Russell - Telegraph.co.uk
The Harvard professor and former adviser to president Ronald Reagan, said the French "don’t get" the problems at the heart of the euro crisis.
In a scathing response to statements by French political leaders before Christmas, Prof Feldstein dismissed the idea the UK could default on its debt. He said the problem lay with the euro itself rather than the financial positions of individual countries.
Italian bond auction highlights eurozone nation's woes Signs that Italy faces a tough start to 2012 were evident on Thursday as the country's final bond sale of the year saw nervous investors demand close to 7pc to hold the ailing nation's 10-year debt.
By Szu Ping Chan - Telegraph.co.uk
The closely-watched auction saw Italy sell €2.5bn (£2.09bn) of 10-year bonds at an average rate of 6.98pc, down from euro-era highs of 7.56pc at an auction on November 29, but still at levels regarded as unsustainable. Demand outstripped supply by a ratio of 1.36 to one, compared with 1.34 at the last auction.
Italy raised a total of €7bn in four separate auctions after a successful short-term debt sale on Wednesday. The Treasury had planned to sell between €5bn and €8.5bn of bonds.
Bailing Out European Banks:
Bernanke and Fed Deceived Congress
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
Earlier this month, Federal Reserve boss Ben Bernanke told senators the cartel has no intention of bailing out European banks. Bernanke told lawmakers that "he doesn’t have the intention or the authority" to bail out countries or banks.
Now we learn that the Fed is indeed in the business of bailing out European banks. It is secretly using a "temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement" with the ECB and the central banks of Canada, England, Switzerland and Japan.
Fed Secretly Bailing Out Europe
Major Dubai companies 'may need bail-outs' Some of Dubai’s biggest companies will need state-funded bail-outs in 2012 if large-scale defaults are to be avoided, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has warned.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
The credit rating agency has said that five conglomerates, including Dubai’s financial services zone’s investment arm and the main electricity and water company, will "struggle" to service their vast debt piles by themselves.
In a note S&P said that the five Dubai government-related entities (GREs) it rates are "up against significant risks from the weakening global economic outlook, the Arab Spring, and the volatile equity and bond markets." The agency added: "These risks have raised concerns as GREs face large debt maturities and refinancing needs in 2012."
Treasury offers a memory lane trip
as savings bonds go electronic
By Jim Puzzanghera - LATimes.com Where will Mr. Ed stash his cash now?
As the Treasury Department prepares to pull the plug on the paper version of U.S. savings bonds at the end of the year, it's touting the 76-year history of the populist government investment that helped win World War II and jump-start the bank accounts of millions of youngsters.
Hollywood helped sell many of those bonds, with stars all along the entertainment evolutionary scale making public service pitches -- from Bing Crosby and John Wayne to Lassie and Mr. Ed, the 1960s TV talking horse.
Uncle Sam Speaks
Economic Downturn Took a Detour at Capitol Hill
By: Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times - CNBC.com
WASHINGTON — When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.
Today, Mr. Pastor, a miner’s son and a former high school teacher, is a member of a not-so-exclusive club: Capitol Hill millionaires. That group has grown in recent years to include nearly half of all members of Congress — 250 in all — and the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly, even as Congress debates unemployment benefits, possible cuts in food stamps and a "millionaire’s tax."
Student Debt Isn't Just For College Kids Anymore Student debt among middle-aged Americans grew by nearly half in the past three years. Thank the awful job market.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
We're all used to hearing horror stories about the knee-buckling student debt burden weighing down today's college graduates. The average student who takes out loans to finance their education leaves school$25,000 in the hole.
But, as Reuters reported yesterday, it turns out that student debt may not be rising fastest among the young. Instead, middle aged Americans are leading the surge. Per the news service:
No more paper savings bonds in 2012
By RONNIE CROCKER, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
The U.S. savings bond, lovingly stuffed into Christmas and birthday cards for generations of grandkids, is going digital-only.
As of Jan. 1, banks will no longer be able to order the formal-looking instruments that introduced millions of American youth to the value of thrift. In their stead, paperless bonds will be sold exclusively through the Internet as part of a plan to save the government $120 million in printing, mailing and administrative expenses over the next five years.
* * * * *
Guess who plans to spend $21,000 on tablets next year? Three out of four U.S. firms with fewer than 1,000 employees, that's who
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Tech.Fortune.CNN.com
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) have caught tablet fever, according to the results of an NPD survey fielded in September and released Thursday.
Among these SMBs (defined as firms with fewer than 1,000 employees), 73% plan to purchase tablets in 2012, up from 68% three months earlier. And over the next 12 months they plan to spend an average of $21,000 on the devices.
28 Signs That U.S. Public Schools
Are Rapidly Being Turned Into
Indoctrination Centers And Prison Camps
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
It has been said that children are our future, and right now the vast majority of our children are being "educated" in public schools that are rapidly being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps. Our children desperately need to focus on the basics such as reading, writing and math, but instead a whole host of politicians, "education officials" and teachers are constantly injecting as much propaganda as they possibly can into classroom instruction. Instead of learning how to think, our children are continually being told what to think. Not only that, our children are also being trained how to live as subservient slaves in a Big Brother police state. Today, nearly everything that children do in public schools is watched, monitored, recorded and tracked. Independent thought and free expression are greatly discouraged and are often cracked down upon harshly. If students get "out of line", instead of being sent to see the principal they are often handcuffed, arrested and taken to the police station. In addition, law enforcement authorities are using weapons such as pepper spray and tasers against young students in our public schools more than ever before. Children in U.S. public schools are not learning how to live as strong individuals in the "land of the free and the home of the brave". Rather, they are being trained how to serve a Big Brother police state where control freaks run their entire lives. If we continue to allow all of the liberty and freedom to be systematically drained out of our school children, then there is not going to be much hope for the future of this nation.
America's Best Kept Secret: Rising Suburban Poverty
By Michelle Hirsch, The Fiscal Times
For years, the food pantry in Crystal Lake, Ill., a bedroom community 50 miles west of Chicago, has catered to the suburban area’s poor, homeless and unemployed. But Cate Williams, the head of the pantry, has noticed a striking change in the makeup of the needy in the past year or two. Some families that once pulled down six-figure incomes and drove flashy cars are now turning to the pantry for help. A few of them donated food and money to the pantry before their luck soured, according to Williams.
"People will shyly say to me, ‘You know, I used to give money and food to you guys. Now I need your help,’" Williams told The Fiscal Times last week. "Most of the folks we see now are people who never took a handout before. They were comfortable, able to feed themselves, to keep gas in the car, and keep a nice roof over their head."
Gerald Celente -
Gary Null Show - 29 December 2011
Minimum wage increases for workers in eight states
By Blake Ellis @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- While some workers are worried about smaller paychecks next year, more than 1.4 million low-income earners will see their wages go up on New Year's Day.
Minimum wage rates in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington will rise between 28 and 37 cents per hour on Jan. 1, thanks to state laws requiring that minimum wage keeps pace with inflation.
Leaked memo details Verizon's $2 fee for paying your bill; autodraft or ACH the only way out
By Darren Murph - Engadget.com
A couple of years back, AT&T offered select customers a $25 prepaid MasterCard to switch their billing over to autodraft. Soon, Verizon Wireless will be following Sprint's footsteps and charging you for every month that you aren't using that very system. Tactical differences aside, the leaked memo shown above details what has to be one of the most consumer-unfriendly policy changes since the carrier boosted its early termination fee for "advanced devices." Effective January 15th, any customer that opts to pay their wireless bill online or over the phone will be charged an extra $2 each month, and the only way to sidestep it is to sign up for AutoPay or to pay by electronic check, where there's no credit card fee passed on to the carrier.
Verizon to charge $2 fee for online payments
By David Goldman @CNNMoneyTech
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Verizon Wireless will soon make some customers pay for the privilege of paying their bills.
The nation's largest wireless company is instituting a $2 "convenience charge" for those customers who make one-time bill payments using a debit or credit card, either online or by telephone. The fee will go into effect on Jan. 15.
Apple Patent Describes New Type of Face-Recognition Tech
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
Swipe to unlock could be a thing of the past for next-gen iOS devices. Like current Galaxy Nexus users, iOS users could soon be using facial recognition technology to lock or unlock their iDevices.
As described in a recently discovered patent, Apple’s method would sense when a user is approaching the device — for example, if it’s seated in a dock, and the user walks toward it. The device would then use its image processor to execute facial recognition to unlock the device, all with low battery penalties. If the device is used for business applications, higher security levels could even be set.
Apple’s method would use a "weighted difference" map instead of a computationally "expensive" method called correlation mapping, according to Patently Apple, which first reported on the patent.
Col. Craig Roberts:
FBI Confiscated OKC Bombing Footage,
Refuses To Turn it Over! 1/2
Col. Craig Roberts:
FBI Confiscated OKC Bombing Footage,
Refuses To Turn it Over! 1/2
Judging, Properly
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is famously liberal and frequently reversed. Recently, however, a unanimous three-judge panel of this court did something right when it held that bone marrow donors can be compensated. In effect, it revised a law, the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984, because of a medical technique developed since then.
Was this "judicial activism" -- judges acting as legislators, imposing social policies they prefer? Or was it proper judicial engagement -- performance of the judicial duty to ensure that the law is applied in conformity with the actual facts of the case? Herewith an example of a court's conscientious application of law in light of a pertinent change -- a technological change -- in a medical sphere the law regulates.
Get Money Out of Politics in 2012
By Michael Moore, Open Mike Blog
I have many things I'm planning to do in the New Year - walk three miles a day, use an eco-friendly laundry detergent, write fewer anonymous letters to Wolf Blitzer - but I want to declare, right here, that one of my top priorities in 2012 will be to spearhead a drive to remove ALL money from our electoral process, period. Nothing - and I mean NOTHING - we want to accomplish, from creating jobs to protecting the environment to preventing wars, will happen as long as those who hold the purse strings are the ones who own our Congress.
This destruction of our democracy can only be stopped if the majority of us make it clear that we will ONLY vote for those candidates who sign a pledge to make it their TOP legislative priority to push for a constitutional amendment prohibiting any person or entity from donating ANY money to a candidate's campaign (and that includes a millionaire candidate buying his own election). Plus, they must pledge to back a law banning elected officials from working as lobbyists after they leave office.
Civilian contractors playing key roles in U.S. drone operations Relying on contractors has brought companies that operate for profit into some of America's most sensitive military and intelligence operations. And using civilians makes some in the military uneasy.
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington—
After a U.S. airstrike mistakenly killed at least 15 Afghans in 2010, the Army officer investigating the accident was surprised to discover that an American civilian had played a central role: analyzing video feeds from a Predator drone keeping watch from above.
The contractor had overseen other analysts at Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field in Florida as the drone tracked suspected insurgents near a small unit of U.S. soldiers in rugged hills of central Afghanistan. Based partly on her analysis, an Army captain ordered an airstrike on a convoy that turned out to be carrying innocent men, women and children.
A Christmas Gift for the Pentagon Remember how it turned retired generals into media shills? Lax oversight means it could happen again.
By Bruce Ackerman - Slate.com
This is a time of good cheer at the Pentagon—its watchdog, the inspector general, has just ruled that its Bush-era campaign to manipulate the media was entirely acceptable under Defense Department regulations. The report, dated Nov. 11, was held back until Christmas Eve, when it was released at the happiest time of the year. But we should not allow it to slip into oblivion.
In response to Sept. 11, the Pentagon's publicity department organized at least 161 "outreach" meetings with retired military officers serving as television commentators on the war effort. The Pentagon provided this select group with high level briefings, showering them with talking points and otherwise equipping them to be media defenders of administration policy. The meetings were suspended in 2008 amid a first wave of reports alleging improprieties. The inspector general responded with a defense of the outreach program in 2009, but his initial report was so full of errors that he retracted it and went back to the drawing board.
TOP SECRET:
Your Briefing on the CIA's Cold-War Spy Satellite, 'Big Bird' The amazing story of how our supersecret, Cold-War spy satellites took photos of the Soviet empire and dropped them to Earth, all without the help of computers, bandwidth, or digital cameras.
By Alexis Madrigal -
Here's your mission, should you choose to accept it: build a camera that can take high-resolution photographs of the Earth from orbit and return them to the Central Intelligence Agency. There's only one catch: you don't get to use a computer or a single kilobyte of network bandwidth.
That's the task that the United States government gave to a group of engineers at the optical instruments company Perkin-Elmer in Danbury, Connecticut at the height of the Cold War. It was October 1966 and the new development of the new satellite system, Hexagon, was underway. The project was a follow-on to very successful Corona satellite program and a complement to the higher-resolution Gambit satellite.
Israel in the midst of the Arab winter
By Victor Kotsev - ATimes.com
With Egypt slowly descending into chaos and Syria in a state of a civil war, many analysts fear that the Arab Spring may be turning into a bitter Arab winter. It will likely take years to comprehend the full extent of the changes that are happening, and the basic status quo in the region stands to be transformed significantly. The two conflicts that currently loom over every other issue in the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Iran standoff, also stand to be transformed, whether by exploding into violence, by falling out of fashion, or in some other way.
Peak Oil & $225 Oil by 2012
Predicts CIBC Economist Jeff Rubin
N. Korea Tells World to Expect No Change
By Sangwon Yoon - Bloomberg.com
North Korea told "the world’s foolish politicians" to expect no change from the new regime headed by Kim Jong Un and threatened a "sea of fire" for South Korean President Lee Myung Bak’s administration.
Lee had provoked North Korea by raising security alerts and declining to send an official mission to pay condolences over the death of Kim Jong Il, the National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency today.
9-Foot-Tall Supersoldier Mourns Kim Jong Il
By J.J. Gould - TheAtlantic.com
At the Wire today, Dashiell Bennett highlights the North Korean state news agency's apparently random manipulation of an image from yesterday's funeral procession for Kim Jong Il -- a crude photoshop job done, Bennett notes, "in such a minor and pointless way that it underscores the paranoid insanity of totalitarian regimes." Meanwhile, over on Reddit, a user links to an Imagur upload of another photo containing a remarkable detail: what appears to be a member of the military in the back row of an orderly formation of mourners, as Kim's funeral procession passes near the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, standing at least nine feet tall.
The Coming Collapse of Yemen It's already in a state of civil war.
By AYMENN JAWAD AL-TAMIMI - TheAmerican Spectator.org
Recently, Tawakkol Karman -- a member of the Islah party in Yemen, a women's rights activist and a recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize -- warned that her country could be facing a civil war, unless the West begins taking financial and legal action against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is supposed to depart from office within the next three months following a resignation on paper negotiated by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Unfortunately, Karman's view of the situation in Yemen is oversimplified. Indeed, Saleh's own exercise of power and control is becoming increasingly marginal. Granted, he still has some loyal Republican Guard units that are fighting rebel army divisions -- particularly in the capital of Sana'a -- under the command of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who sided with protesters against Saleh's regime and has declared his support for the GCC-brokered deal. Yet this is hardly the only conflict currently playing out in Yemen.
Porter Stansberry: The Corruption of America 1/2
Porter Stansberry: The Corruption of America 1/2
US agrees sale of $30bn fighter jets to Saudi Arabia White House says delivery of 84 new jets will support 50,000 jobs and be worth $3.5bn a year to the US economy
Associated Press - Guardian.co.uk
The sale of $30bn worth of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia has been finalised, the Obama administration has announced, in a move that boosts the military strength of a key US ally in the Middle East.
Under the agreement, the US will send Saudi Arabia 84 new F-15SA fighter jets and upgrades for 70 more. Production of the aircrafts, which will be manufactured by Boeing, will support 50,000 jobs and have a $3.5bn annual economic impact in the US, the White House said.
Iran ends 2011 with a blaze of intelligence
By Mahan Abedin - ATimes.com
The appearance on Iranian state TV on Sunday of alleged Central Intelligence Agency spy Amir Hekmati is yet another twist in a string of apparent Iranian counter-intelligence successes at the expense of US espionage.
The 28-year old Arizona-born man of Iranian origin has been accused by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) of trying to feed disinformation to the ministry with a view to gaining a foothold on the outer reaches of the MOIS.
A former member of the United States Marines Corps, Hekmati was apparently detained in September. News of his detention was released just days ago.
Slip-Sliding to War with Iran
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
With the typical backdrop of alarmist propaganda in place, the stage is now set for a new war, this time with Iran. The slightest miscalculation (or provocation) by the United States, Israel or Iran could touch off a violent scenario that will have devastating consequences.
Indeed, even if they want to, the various sides might have trouble backing down enough to defuse today’s explosive situation. After all, the Iranians continue to insist they have no intention of building a nuclear bomb, as much as Israeli and American officials insist that they are.
Maybe that war with China isn't so far off
By Peter Lee - ATimes.com
The year 2011 has been a tough one for Sino-United States ties. And 2012 does not look like it's going to be a good year either, with a presidential election year in the United States. For both the Democratic and Republican parties, bashing the Chinese economic, military and freedom-averse menace will probably be a campaign-trail staple.
Lunch-pail issues - protectionism and the undervalued yuan - will focus disapproving US eyes.
Tensions will also be exacerbated by the Barack Obama administration's "return to Asia" - a return to proactive containment of China - and the temptation to apply dangerous and destabilizing new doctrine, preventive diplomacy, to China.
Rense & Rosa Koire - Agenda 21 Eco Terror War
Depopulation Agenda 21 Simplified
"Agenda 21"
The UN's diabolical plan
for the world
is explained on the "Glenn Beck Show"
U N Agenda 21
quote
There Will Be No Private Housing
Peter Schiff, John Stossel, Judge Napolitano
China, Japan Bypass U.S. Dollar in Pivotal Trade Agreement
BY JULIAN PHILLIPS - FinancialSense.com
The cutting out of the dollar in Japan / China trade may be a small start of only $345 billion in global trade, but it is a sea change decision in the global monetary system that markes the beginning of the end of the dollar's role as the sole global reserve currency. This move is irreversible and will lead to more and more currency exchange rate uncertainties. Gold will benefit!
Japan and China will promote direct trading of yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government said over the holiday weekend.
China-Japan Currency Deal
Points Way to a New World Monetary Order
By the Editors - Bloomberg.com
The agreement announced between China and Japan to strengthen financial ties and promote yuan-yen trade is a small, but notable, step toward a new global economy. Its immediate practical significance is limited, yet the deal signals that a deeper transformation is under way -- and one that the world should welcome.
The plan was a surprise: It marks a warming of relations that had been chilly of late. The accord still lacks a timetable for implementation, but once in force it will let Chinese and Japanese trading companies switch between yuan and yen without converting to dollars first. This will encourage commerce by reducing currency risk and trading costs.
US declines to cite China as currency manipulator
FOXNews.com
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Tuesday declined to label China a currency manipulator after seeing recent increases in the value of the yuan compared to the dollar.
The decision angered some manufacturing groups, which have accused Beijing of artificially holding down the value of its currency to gain trade advantages. A cheaper yuan makes Chinese goods less expensive when they are shipped to the United States. It also makes U.S. goods more expensive in China. Both could increase the U.S. trade deficit with China, which is on pace to hit a record high this year.
World's Second And Third Largest Economies
To Bypass Dollar, Engage In Direct Currency Trade
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
To all who still think that in the war of attrition between the USD and the EUR (because contrary to what some have "discovered" only recently, currency wars have been going on for a long, long time and will continue to do so, before morphing into trade and real wars), in which both currencies are doomed, and where the winner takes it all, if only for a few minutes, we bring to your attention the following most recent update out of the Pacific Rim (where incidentally the Shanghai Composite has resumed its relentless track lower with the obvious intention of closing 2011 at its 52 week low) in which we find i) that the dollar's hegemonic control over the world is ending, and ii) that the mercantilist relationship so long sustained between China and the US, may be shifting and reversing, and in its next metamorphosis will see Japan buying the bonds of... China (although probably not for long - see next post). As Bloomberg reports, "Japan and China will promote direct trading of yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for the exchange, to cut costs for companies, the Japanese government said.Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, the Japanese government said in a statement after a meeting between Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing yesterday."
China, Japan to Back Direct Trade of Currencies
By Toru Fujioka - Bloomberg.com
Japan and China will promote direct trading of the yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government said.
Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, allowing the investment of renminbi that leaves China during the transactions, the Japanese government said in a statement after a meeting between Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing yesterday. Encouraging direct yen- yuan settlement should reduce currency risks and trading costs, the Japanese and Chinese governments said.
China and Japan plan direct currency exchange agreement
BBC.co.uk
China and Japan have unveiled plans to promote direct exchange of their currencies in a bid to cut costs for companies and boost bilateral trade.
The deal will allow firms to convert the Chinese and Japanese currencies directly into each other.
Currently businesses in both countries need to buy US dollars before converting them into the desired currency, adding extra costs.
It is the latest step by China as it seeks a more global role for the yuan.
Japan — Land of the Rising Debt
BY PATER TENEBRARUM - FinancialSense.com Japan's Scary Budget
While all over Europe, governments are forced to face up to the fact that the markets have suddenly become alert to the dangers posed by the huge debt loads carried by modern-day welfare states, Japan's government just piles on more and more debt on its existing debtberg with seeming impunity.
In Italy, Mario Monti's 'honeymoon' is already over. He just passed a fairly strict 'austerity' budget (recently denounced by the Northern League as a 'recessionary budget' – and rightly so, as it leaves the bulk of spending untouched and mostly imposes new taxes), but Italian bond yields are already back on the rise. Note here as an aside that the current level of the yield on Italy's 10 year note is not directly comparable to the time when a similar level was first reached, as the benchmark bond used by data providers has in the meantime been changed to a higher-yielding one – alas, it is the direction in which yields are heading that is relevant. Monti's real fight meanwhile is still ahead – he will have to challenge powerful vested interests as he attempts to implement structural reform.
Iran warns of closing strategic Hormuz oil route
By Ali Akbar Dareini - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
TEHRAN (AP) — Iran’s naval chief warned Wednesday that his country easily can close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the passageway through which a sixth of the world’s oil flows.
It was the second such warning in two days. On Tuesday, Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi threatened to close the strait, cutting off oil exports, if the West imposes sanctions on Iran’s oil shipments.
Iran threatens oil artery shut-off if sanctioned
Iran unlikely to block oil shipments
through Strait of Hormuz, analysts say
By Thomas Erdbrink - WashingtonPost.com
TEHRAN — The latest in a series of Iranian threats to block the vital Strait of Hormuztriggered a sharp response Wednesday from the U.S. Navy, although there appeared to be little chance that Tehran would make good on its warnings.
Despite threats to close the narrow waterway if Western nations tighten sanctions on Iranby imposing an oil embargo, the Islamic republic needs the strait at least as much as its adversaries do, Iranian and foreign analysts said.
U.S. Fifth Fleet says won't allow Hormuz disruption
By Parisa Hafezi and Humeyra Pamuk - AF.Reuters.com
TEHRAN/DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.S. Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday it would not allow any disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran threatened to stop ships moving through the world's most important oil route.
"Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated," the Bahrain-based fleet said in an e-mail.
Iran, at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear programme, said on Tuesday it would stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports.
US Navy 'will not tolerate' Iran closing Strait of Hormuz The US military has warned that it will not tolerate any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea lane on which the world's oil supply depends.
By Raf Sanchez, Washington - Telegraph.co.uk
"The free flow of goods and services through the Strait of Hormuz is vital to regional and global prosperity," said a spokeswoman for the US Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet. "Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated."
The unusually blunt statement came in response to threats by Iran to shut the channel if the West pressed ahead with sanctions on the country's oil industry.
America warns Iran that blocking oil route will 'not be tolerated' Tensions mount between US and Iran as Fifth Fleet warns that any attempt to block Strait of Hormuz will elicit naval response
By Paul Harris in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Tensions between the United States and Iran have dangerously ratcheted up as naval officials with America's Fifth Fleet warned any attempt by Iran to close a strategically vital oil route through the Strait of Hormuz would "not be tolerated".
The news heightens a sense of growing crisis in the Persian Gulf after two days of threats by senior Iranian figures that they might shut down the important trade route in response to any future international sanctions against the country's oil exports.
Iran Promises to Close Down Oil Route If Sanctions Imposed
Oil price climbs amid Iranian threat
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
and Javier Blas in London - FT.com
Iran on Tuesday threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for a third of the world’s seaborne oil trade, if the west imposes oil sanctions on Tehran, causing a rise in oil prices.
The warning by Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Iran’s first vice-president, came days after Iran staged naval war exercises in the strait.
"If they [the West] impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then not even one drop of oil can flow through the Strait of Hormuz," he told the official Iranian news agency Irna. Iranian officials have in the past threatened to shut down oil traffic through the strait, but the comments by Mr Rahimi are the strongest yet.
Arab Spring: the revolution has only just begun The Middle East faces a long, bumpy and bloody ride as nations struggle to build a new order while battling internal factions and outside interference.
By Shashank Joshi - Telegraph.co.uk
This year, the certitudes of the old Middle East dissolved with unseemly haste. A regional order frozen in place since the death of Egypt’s Colonel Nasser 40 years ago finally thawed. It produced a torrent of uprisings, coups, standoffs, civil wars, and an orgy of state-sponsored bloodletting. This was the earthquake; in 2012, prepare for the aftershocks. But revolution is not, and has never been, an event. It is a project, and one whose gestation spans not months, or even years, but decades.
Bond sale puts Italy to the test Italy faces a crucial test tomorrow as the technocrat government of Mario Monti launches its first big auction of long-term bonds since a disastrous upset a month ago.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The outcome will set the tone for a string of debt sales through early 2012 that risk stretching the eurozone bond markets to breaking point.
The EU authorities are hoping commercial lenders will use last week’s flood of cheap liquidity from the European Central Bank to soak up southern European debt and bring yields back under control, starting with Italy’s €8.5bn (£7.1bn) sale of 10-year bonds today. The country must raise €440bn in debt in 2012, beyond the current fire-fighting power of Europe’s bail-out machinery.
Euro hits 11-month low
against the dollar as banks hoard ECB cash Single currency also at 10-year low against yen, but Italy brings festive cheer to markets as borrowing costs tumble
By John Hooper in Rome and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
The euro weakened about 1% percent against the dollar and the yen on Wednesday, the day before an important auction of long-dated Italian debt, while US stocks slid more than 1% on concerns about the economy in early 2012.
The European single currency hit a fresh 11-month low against the dollar of $1.291 and a 10-year low against the yen as data showed banks were hoarding the cash recently injected by the European Central Bank rather than lending it out – a bad omen for the European economy in 2012.
UK to close borders, evacuate expats if euro collapses
Euro crisis blocks the path to full economic recovery The year ahead looks gloomy, but quantative easing and inflation across Europe should prevent a full-blown depression.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
’Tis the season for economic and political punditry, the time of year when "opinion formers" across the globe, crystal balls at the ready, are expected to predict what’s going to happen over the next 12 months. We’ve already had Nick Clegg’s doom-laden prognosis. You can expect much more of the same "blood, toil, tears and sweat" predictions over the next few days.
Very little of this annual outpouring of forecasting, professional and otherwise, ever survives the anvil of events, so it came as a relief when Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, dared at a recent Inflation Report press conference to speak the truth. "Who knows," he said, "what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone next month?" It was perhaps the most candid and therefore insightful remark yet made by a senior policymaker about the ongoing economic and financial crisis.
MSM Pushing Turnaround for Economy
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
Over the last several days, I began hearing a new description of the economy by the mainstream media (MSM)—“turnaround.” I can’t tell you how many different ways this phrase was used, but it was enough to get my attention. I don’t know who comes up with this stuff or where it is hatched, but I think this phrase is the new “recovery” term. Remember when we started out with “green shoots”? That phrase turned yellow and died. Then, there was the “fragile recovery,” and that turned into just a “recovery.” After that, we hit a “soft patch” and that was just “transitory.” Now, we have moved on to the “turnaround.” Is the economy turning around? The data say no.
Why "Tax the Rich" Won't Solve our Deficit/Spending Crisis
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
If we look at tax revenues and income in a practical way, we find "tax the rich" will not close the widening $1.5 trillion gap between Federal revenues and spending.
Clearly, $1.5 trillion annual Federal deficits to fund the Status Quo—fully 10% of the nation's GDP—is unsustainable. Eventually, the ad hoc "solutions" currently being pushed by the Federal Reserve—zero interest rates to keep borrowing costs artificially low and money-printing operations that buy Treasury debt—will encounter political and/or market pressures which will limit the marginal effectiveness of these interventions, and the real cost of these historically unprecedented deficits will trigger a host of unintended consequences—all negative.
Tax bill set for increasingly rare conference committee Bipartisan talks used to be standard practice
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
Last week’s tax fight in Congress was about many things — Social Security taxes, unemployment benefits and an oil pipeline — but HouseRepublicans tried to make it into an even bigger fight over the institutional relevance of the House of Representatives itself.
In the end, they won a partial victory. HouseSpeaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, caved in to Senate demands and approved the upper chamber’s two-month tax-cut bill. In exchange, theSenate agreed to name negotiators for a conference committee to hash out a longer-term solution.
Morgan Stanley to slash more than 500 jobs in New York Financial services firm discloses that of 1,600 cuts announced earlier this month, 580 will come from four New York locations
AP - Guardian.co.uk
Of the 1,600 job cuts announced earlier this month by Morgan Stanley, 580 will be at its home base in New York.
The relentless tug of the dismal economy is hitting employees in the banking sector hard, and it's no surprise that many of the job cuts are hitting the epicenter of the financial industry. Citigroup, with its headquarters a seven-minute drive up Park Avenue from Morgan Stanley in Manhattan, said recently that it would eliminate 4,500 jobs – or about 1.5% of its global workforce of 267,000 – over the next few quarters.
To save middle class, create good jobs
By Paul Osterman - CNN.com
(CNN) -- Every politician in America declares concern for the economic crisis of the middle class. But to truly help the middle class, we must take on our nation's exploding economic inequality.
Consider two basic facts: Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1% of households captured almost 60% of all income growth in the U.S., yet median wage growth in the 2000s has been flat.
In his Kansas speech on the economy this month, President Obama described the growing inequality as the "defining issue of our time." He urged America to avoid a race to the bottom and instead to create good, well-paying jobs. The president laid out a series of important steps to restore fairness by repairing the tax and regulatory system, but these strategies are not enough. Nor is improving education; that's obviously important, but it will take many years to have an impact.
Did Bernanke protect the U.S. from the euromess?
Posted by Suzy Khimm - WashingtonPost.com
So far, American banks have largely managed to avoid catching the contagion of the Eurozone debt crisis. That’s partly because there’s little direct exposure to the banks in the most distressed countries. But there are other big reasons behind the U.S. banks’ relative health, as the Economist points out. First, in the wake of our own 2009 meltdown, U.S. banks have raised their capital holdings significantly.
Secondly, Ben Bernanke’s multiple attempts to inject liquidity into the U.S. economy has not only helped protect U.S .banks here, but also the U.S .subsidiaries of European banks, the Economist explains:
Pastor Lindsey Williams:
End of The Middle East and American Sovereignty 1/3
Pastor Lindsey Williams:
End of The Middle East and American Sovereignty 2/3
Pastor Lindsey Williams:
End of The Middle East and American Sovereignty 3/3
The following speech, from Nov 2002, is why Ben Bernanke was appointed to his current position as Federal Reserve Chairman and outlines his plan which has been followed to the letter.
Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke
Before the National Economists Club, Washington, D.C.
November 21, 2002 Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here
Since World War II, inflation--the apparently inexorable rise in the prices of goods and services--has been the bane of central bankers. Economists of various stripes have argued that inflation is the inevitable result of (pick your favorite) the abandonment of metallic monetary standards, a lack of fiscal discipline, shocks to the price of oil and other commodities, struggles over the distribution of income, excessive money creation, self-confirming inflation expectations, an "inflation bias" in the policies of central banks, and still others. Despite widespread "inflation pessimism," however, during the 1980s and 1990s most industrial-country central banks were able to cage, if not entirely tame, the inflation dragon. Although a number of factors converged to make this happy outcome possible, an essential element was the heightened understanding by central bankers and, equally as important, by political leaders and the public at large of the very high costs of allowing the economy to stray too far from price stability.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
Dr. Bernanke's Imaginarium
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
They bombed the thin markets early on, running the stop loss orders and forcing liquidation not only in the futures but in the related markets like the miners and the ETFs.
The first chart shows this fairly well.
This permits a liquidation of certain assets to occur, profits on related plays and short positions and of course the obtaining of key assets on the cheap for the next ride up.
I hate to be a spoil sport but position limits will not really solve this. It would cramp their style of course, but it takes something like an uptick rule and market vigilance against throwing large orders into thin markets to prevent it.
Gold Near-Term Outlook 2012
by Peter Grant - USAGold.com
Gold is consolidating below $1600 as we enter the last week of the year. The last London gold fix of 2010 was $1405, so barring any dramatic price changes in the last week of the year, the yellow metal is on-track for yet another double-digit gain of about 14%.
That's pretty impressive given the dramatic delveraging sell-off from the 1920.50 record high we saw in September, which prompted all manner of commentary proclaiming the end of gold's decade-long rally. More recently — amid another bout of deleveraging associated with rising uncertainty about the fate of European Union — the yellow metal retested the September low at 1534.06 along with important channel support. While much was made of the technical damage done by the recent move below the 200-day moving average, gold continues to display good resilience, underpinned by solid fundamentals.
* * * * *
Is It Too Late To Buy Gold and Silver?
Mike Maloney & The Elevation Group
Explanation of the greatest wealth transfer in history; inflation and deflation, recent history of money and what's NEXT for a global monetary system
MF Global chief missing $1.2B is financial adviser to EPA
By Jim McElhatton-The Washington Times
During two days of recent congressional hearings into how as much as $1.2 billion disappeared fromMF Global customer accounts, the chief operating officer of the imploding investment firm responded again and again that he did not know.
Yet as the House and Senate interrogated Bradley I. Abelow and other top executives at MF Global Holdings Ltd., lawmakers did not mention Mr. Abelow’s role as a financial adviser for theEnvironmental Protection Agency, which as of Tuesday listed him as the chairman of its financial advisory board.
Ann Barnhardt:
The Entire Futures/Options Market
Has Been Destroyed by the MF Global Collapse [PODCAST]
Transcript for Ann Barnhardt Interview Jim Puplava: Joining me as my special guest on the program today is Ann Barnhardt, formerly of Barnhardt Capital Management. And Ann, you were a commodity broker for eight years and then you formed your own independent brokerage for six years. A couple of weeks ago you made the painful decision to shut your doors because you felt your clients’ money and positions were no longer safe. What led you to draw those conclusions? Ann Barnhardt: Well, obviously, it was the MF global collapse and more specifically the fall out after the MF Global collapse and the reaction by the CFTC, the SEC and most especially by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange [the “Merc”]. The actions, specifically by the Merc after the MF Global collapse were unprecedented, unfathomable and completely and totally intolerable. The Merc itself basically did the equivalent of sticking a nine millimeter in their mouth and pulling the trigger by not stepping forward, backstopping the MF Global client accounts and at the very least, the Merc should have allowed the MF Global customers to liquidate their accounts and then transfer to other firms. What the Merc did was the worst possible thing—they froze those people out of their accounts and didn’t allow them to liquidate while the markets continued to trade. And I cannot over-emphasize the importance of that, the risk that those people were exposed to in the cattle business (and my forte is cattle. I am actually a cash cattle person. My brokerage business was geared almost exclusively towards livestock and grade. I have a lot of contacts in the cattle industry who didn’t necessarily do their futures business with me but were contacts of mine who did do business through brokers that cleared through MF) who lost tens of thousands of dollars on hedge positions that they wanted to get out of but could not get out of in the week and a half after the MF Global collapse.
Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street
By Felix Salmon - Wired.com
2.23.2009 - A year ago, it was hardly unthinkable that a math wizard like David X. Li might someday earn a Nobel Prize. After all, financial economists—even Wall Street quants—have received the Nobel in economics before, and Li's work on measuring risk has had more impact, more quickly, than previous Nobel Prize-winning contributions to the field. Today, though, as dazed bankers, politicians, regulators, and investors survey the wreckage of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, Li is probably thankful he still has a job in finance at all. Not that his achievement should be dismissed. He took a notoriously tough nut—determining correlation, or how seemingly disparate events are related—and cracked it wide open with a simple and elegant mathematical formula, one that would become ubiquitous in finance worldwide.
Fed seeks to curb repo market risk Task force looks at ways to reduce threat
By Michael Mackenzie and Henny Sender in New York - FT.com
An industry task force sponsored by the US Federal Reserve is working on a plan to scale back systemic risk in the funding market at the centre of the financial crisis and to reduce trader dependence on JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon .
The changes would be aimed at bringing greater automation to the $1.6tn tri-party repurchase, or repo, market but could increase financing costs for other banks.
In the repo market, banks pledge securities as collateral for short-term loans from money managers and other investors.
Clouded Title: The Gross Illegality of MERS
By Barry Ritholtz - Ritholtz.com
"What’s happened is that, almost overnight, we’ve switched from democracy in real-property recording to oligarchy in real-property recording. There was no court case behind this, no statute from Congress or the state legislatures. It was accomplished in a private corporate decision. The banks just did it."
-Christopher Peterson, a law professor at the University of Utah, on the “wholesale transfer of mortgages to a privatized database” and why it’s no coincidence more Americans are being foreclosed upon than any time since the Great Depression.
The quote above is from an article in the January 2012Harper’s. It’s ostensibly about the ongoing battle between Homeowners and Bankers.
Stop payment! A homeowners' revolt against the banks
By Christopher Ketcham - Harpers.com [PDF from Scribd.com]
State cuts to Medicaid affect patients, providers
FOXNews.com
ATLANTA – Just as Medicaid prepares for a vast expansion under the federal health care overhaul, the 47-year-old entitlement program for the poor is under increasing pressure as deficit-burdened states chip away at benefits and cut payments to doctors.
Nearly every state has proposed or implemented a plan in its current budget to rein in costs, and many are considering additional cuts in the year ahead.
For the tens of millions of poor and disabled who rely on the program — approaching nearly one in five Americans — the cuts translate into longer waits for doctors, restrictions on prescription drugs, a halt to vision and dental care, staff cuts at nursing homes and dwindling access to home health care.
Postal Service’s
closure review process was flawed, panel says
By Lisa Rein - WashingtonPost.com
The U.S. Postal Service relied on questionable data to identify more than 3,600 post offices and other retail operations to study for closure, an oversight panel has concluded.
In many cases the selection process ignored whether an alternate post office was nearby and which closures would reduce costs the most and lacked sufficient data and analysis to make the best decisions, the Postal Regulatory Commission said.
Hillary's comeback? My Political Prediction for 2012: It’s Obama-Clinton
By Robert Reich
My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.
So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.
Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.
Build-A-Bear recalls nearly 300,000 teddy bears
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- The Build-A-Bear Workshop company is recalling nearly 300,000 Colorful Hearts Teddy Bears sold in the United States and Canada due to risks of choking, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced.
The agency warned that while no injuries have been reported, the "teddy bear's eyes could loosen and fall out, posing a choking hazard to children," according to a statement.
"Consumers should immediately take the recalled teddy bear from children and return it to any Build-A-Bear store to receive a coupon for any available stuffed animal from Build-A-Bear," the statement said, advising buyers to contact the firm at 866-236-5683 with additional questions.
Mayo Clinic plans to sequence
patients' genomes to personalize care Project will give doctors the genetic information they need to choose drugs that work best and minimise side effects
By Ian Sample, science correspondent - The Guardian
Doctors have drawn up plans to sequence the full genetic code of thousands of people in a landmark project to personalise their medical care.
Volunteers will have all six billion letters of their genome read, stored and linked to their medical records to help doctors prescribe more effective drugs and other therapies.
The prestigious Mayo Clinic in the US will launch the pilot study early next year as part of an ambitious move towards an era of "proactive genomics" that puts modern genetics at the centre of patient care.
Being Christian is a death sentence America needs to give shelter
to persecuted believers from Muslim lands
The Washington Times - Editorial
Persecuted Christians are fleeing from the Middle East in increasing numbers. The United States should open its doors to them as a guaranteed safe haven.
America has long been a beacon of hope for the world’s refugees, and members of religious minorities in the Middle East are in increasing need of relief. They have never had things easy, facing both official and popular intolerance from the Muslim majorities among whom they live. But as the region becomes less stable, intolerance has turned to active persecution and violence.
Pentagon trimming ranks of generals, admirals
By Craig Whitlock - WashingtonPost.com
With the Iraq war over and troops in Afghanistan on their way home, the U.S. military is getting down to brass tacks: culling generals and admirals from its top-heavy ranks.
Pentagon officials said they have eliminated 27 jobs for generals and admirals since March, the first time the Defense Department has imposed such a reduction since the aftermath of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize.
Banker Who Fled Kim Jong Il
Says New Leader to Open N. Korea
Jiyeun Lee and Eunkyung Seo - WashingtonPost.com
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Kim Jong Un may relax state controls over North Korea’s economy and ease the isolation entrenched by his late father’s nuclear weapons program, according to a banker who fled the communist state after years working for the regime.
Kim’s Swiss education and his reported fondness for basketball -- a sign he’s a team player -- may make him more open to change than his late father, Choi Se Woong, former deputy governor of the North’s Korea Reunification Development Bank, said in an interview in Seoul this week.
Iran Threatens to Block Oil Shipments,
as U.S. Prepares Sanctions
By DAVID E. SANGER and ANNIE LOWREY - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — A senior Iranian official on Tuesday delivered a sharp threat in response to economic sanctions being readied by the United States, saying his country would retaliate against any crackdown by blocking all oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for transporting about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.
The declaration by Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, came as President Obama prepares to sign legislation that, if fully implemented, could substantially reduce Iran’s oil revenue in a bid to deter it from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
OIL JUMPS ON IRAN THREAT Oil jumps over 2% as Iran threatens supplies
By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoneyMarkets
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Oil prices jumped over 2% Tuesday, crossing the $100-barrel-mark after Iran threatened to choke off the flow of oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian threat came in response to a recent tightening of Western sanctions against Iran that attempt to limit the amount of oil that country can export.
"If Iran oil is banned, not a single drop of oil will pass through Hormuz Strait," Iran's 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said Tuesday, according to the Iran State News Agency.
Iran is also currently conducting Naval exercises in and around the Strait.
Iran Could Stop Oil Flow If Sanctions Are Imposed
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
Iran's first vice-president warned on Tuesday that the flow of crude will be stopped from the crucial Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if foreign sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, the country's official news agency reported.
"If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz," IRNA quoted Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.
When can I buy gold and silver?
Is it on the verge of a big move?
By Chris Vermeulen - CommodityOnline.com
"The question everyone keeps asking is: When can I buy Goldand silver? With what is unfolding across the pond and the bullish outlook for the U.S. dollar index, the next move is a coin toss. I do feel a large move brewing in the marketplace, so I am preparing for fireworks in the first quarter of 2012."
The past few months have been tough for those holding precious metals stocks, PM futures contracts or physical bullion. Silver is trading down 41%, precious metals stocks down 30% and gold 15%. It has people scratching their heads.
Peter Schiff predicts:
Higher oil, higher gold, falling dollar and QE3
CommodityOnline.com
Olivier Ludwig, managing editor IndexUniverse: On this side of the Atlantic, with the Fed, what's your outlook? Do you see a QE3?
Peter Schiff, president Euro Pacific Capital: I think QE3 is going to happen – if it's not already here in disguise. They will officially acknowledge it. The government just revised downward its estimate for third-quarter growth from 2.5% to 2%. I think we're relapsing into recession because we never really fixed our problems – we just added more debt and more government.
I think the Fed will be looking at oil prices, which will be well over $100 a barrel shortly. We'll be seeing record-highGasoline prices seasonally, and probably we'll see Heating Oilprices the highest they've ever been in the wintertime.
The Fed will unfortunately react to this thinking: "Oh no! We need cheaper money because higher energy prices are going to be a drag on the economy." But, of course, the higher energy prices result from all the cheap money.
Treasury Sees U.S. Debt Near Limit By End Of Friday
By Jeff Bater - WSJ.com
The U.S. debt will come within $100 billion of its ceiling on Friday, and the Treasury Department anticipates the Obama administration will begin steps to seek a $1.2 trillion increase in the limit.
A senior Treasury official on Tuesday told reporters the administration will need to let Congress know when the debt gets within $100 billion of the ceiling, expected to happen by the close of business Friday. Currently, the debt limit is $15.194 trillion, and it would be $16.394 trillion after an increase.
Obama seeks $1.2 trillion debt ceiling increase
By James O'Toole and Alex Mooney @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The year couldn't end without a final word about the nation's debt ceiling.
President Obama plans to ask Congress this week to raise the debt limitby $1.2 trillion, an increase that should get the government through most of next year, a Treasury department official said Tuesday.
Fortunately, though, the increase should come without the fireworks that accompanied this summer's debt battle, as it comes in line with the deal struck back then.
That deal, signed into law in August, authorized a phased increase of the debt ceiling by up to $2.4 trillion, with $400 billion of that kicking in immediately and another $500 billion coming in September.
Keiser Report: Parasites With Bailouts (E228)
Certain Prediction for 2012
By Cal Thomas - PatriotPost.us
According to the Mayan "long count" calendar, the final day on Earth is less than a year away, on Dec. 21, 2012.
While we wait to see if that apocalypse occurs, a more reliable prediction includes an end of a different sort. The economic stimulus pipeline from Washington to the states is about to run dry. This means many governors can be expected to ask their legislatures, or voters, to raise taxes for "essential" programs. To government, all programs are "essential."
According to the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), Washington state is planning to put a tax-increase proposal on its ballot in March, while California voters are likely to vote in November on raising taxes. California is a certifiably insolvent state. It is in deep debt because Democratic politicians won't stop spending, not because taxpayers aren't paying their "fair share."
A Run On The Global Banking System—How Close Are We?
By Gonzalo Lira
Nine weeks after its bankruptcy, the general public still hasn’t quite realized the implications of the MF Global scandal.
My own sense is, this is the first tremor of the earthquake that’s coming to the global financial system. And how the central banks and financial regulators treated the "Systemically Important Financial Institutions" that had exposure to MF Global—to the detriment of the ordinary, blameless customer who got royally ripped off in its bankruptcy — is both the template of how the next financial crisis will be handled, and an accelerator that will make the next crisis happen that much sooner.
Obama to Choose Powell, Stein for Fed Board
By Scott Lanman and Roger Runningen - Bloomberg.com
President Barack Obama said he will nominate two former U.S. Treasury Department officials for the Federal Reserve Board, including one who served in a Republican administration.
Jerome Powell, an attorney who was a Treasury undersecretary for former President George H.W. Bush, and Jeremy Stein, a Harvard University economist who has advised the current administration, are Obama’s picks.
If Our Debt Is So Dangerous,
Why Are People Begging for More? All year long, investors have been desperate to buy U.S. debt. We should let them before it's too late.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
In 2011, bond buyers fought tooth and nail to get their hands on U.S. government debt.
This morning, Bloomberg reported that investors' demand for Treasury bonds was the highest it's been since 1995. For taxpayers, the timing could not be better. The more banks, pension funds, and foreign countries clamor for Treasuries, the lower the interest rate our government has to pay. So in this age of gargantuan budget deficits, we're getting dirt-cheap loans to keep the lights on in Capitol Hill.
Washington’s year of drama leaves little done regarding debt
By Lori Montgomery - WashingtonPost.com
Reid Ribble, a Wisconsin roofing contractor-turned-Republican lawmaker, has helped change the way Washington talks about the national debt. That’s not to say he has done much about the debt itself.
Nearly a year ago, Ribble and other newly elected House Republicans came to Capitol Hill on a single-minded mission to shove the federal debt to the top of the congressional agenda. They succeeded. At every opportunity, they demanded cuts in spending, forcing a series ofwhite-knuckle showdowns that have kept the government in a state of perpetual crisis. Washington nudged close to a public conversation about the kind of government taxpayers want and what they are willing to pay for it.
China spared penalty on value of currency Trade group 'disappointed' by ruling
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
The Obama administration said Tuesday thatChina is making headway on its currency-valuation policies and should not be deemed a currency manipulator — fighting back against top SenateDemocrats who had demanded President Obama sanction the U.S.’s top economic competitor.
The Treasury Department said that while China’s currency is still undervalued, the "misalignment has narrowed over the course of the past 18 months."
Tokyo and Beijing Agree on Currency Pact
By LINGLING WEI and BOB DAVIS in Beijing
and TAKASHI NAKAMICHI in Tokyo - WSJ.com
BEIJING—A wide-ranging currency agreement between China and Japan is expected to give the Chinese yuan a more powerful role in international trade, but Beijing still must make substantial changes in how it manages its economy before the yuan becomes a currency powerhouse on the scale of the dollar or euro.
Economic woes in Europe and U.S. have undermined market confidence in the dollar and euro, but investors looking for a safe place to store their money have few other currency options. China, among other nations, has objected to the primacy of the dollar in international trade, and has suggested other ways to run the international monetary system, including giving a bigger role to the International Monetary Fund and a wider role for the yuan.
Economists React: China-Japan Currency Pact
China Realtime Report - WSJ.com
China and Japan announced a wide-ranging currency accord on Christmas day that is expected to give the yuan a more prominent role in international trade. Among the measures, the two countries agreed to promote direct yuan-yen trade, rather than converting their currencies first to dollars, and also for Japan to hold yuan in its foreign-exchange reserves What does a more muscular yuan mean for the global economy? Here are views of three prominent economists:
Barry Eichengreen, University of California at Berkeley:
I think the new accord is squarely in line with China’s strategy for internationalizing the yuan, which is to proceed in stages: first encourage its use in trade invoicing and settlement, then encourage its use in international investment, and lastly encourage its use as international reserves. They’ve been moving unilaterally to implement the strategy, most recently permitting offshore holders of yuan to invest in the Chinese stock market.
The Perfect Heist:
Why Government Theft Continues to Go Unnoticed
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
12/23/11 Baltimore, Maryland – Today, we doff our caps to the folks at the European Central Bank. They’ve pulled off the perfect heist.
The euro-feds have opened the valves…turned on the spigots…and let nearly a half trillion euros worth of liquidity flow directly into the very same banks that have proven they can’t be trusted with a penny.
But that’s how a zombie system works. The living give. The monsters get.
And since, at this stage of the credit cycle, the living don’t have much to give, the feds turn on the printing presses.
Then, from whom does the money come?
Gotta come from someone, no?
That’s right… When you borrow it, it comes from the people who lend it. When you tax it, it comes from the taxpayers. But whom does it come from when you just print it up?
Will the payroll tax conference committee
be ‘Supercommittee 2.0’?
By Felicia Sonmez
When Congress reconvenes in January, at the top of its agenda will be an effort by a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers to strike a deal that either finds savings in the federal budget or raises taxes -- or both.
Sound familiar?
The mandate of the 20 lawmakers tapped to serve on the payroll tax conference committee is somewhat similar to that of the bipartisan “supercommittee” that fell short in its effort to tame the debt this fall. But there are several key differences between the two panels.
Slowing Inflation Cheers Fed Falling Commodities,
Easing Price Rises Give Central Bank Room to Spur Growth
By JON HILSENRATH - WSJ.com
U.S. inflation is slowing after a surge early in the year.
This is good news for Americans, as it means the money in their pockets goes further. It also is welcome at the Federal Reserve, which has been counting on an inflation slowdown. It gives the Fed some maneuvering room in 2012 if central-bank officials want to take steps to bolster economic growth.
The slowdown has been apparent for months in some commodities. The price of copper is down 21% from a year earlier. Cotton is down 45%. Natural-gas prices continue to fall, and crude oil has retreated from peaks hit in April, though not as sharply as other commodities.
The Big Lie Wall Street has destroyed the wonder that was America.
By Michael Thomas - The Daily Beast/Newsweek
Imagine a vast field on which a terrible battle has recently been fought, the bare ground cratered by fusillade after fusillade of heavy artillery, trees reduced to blackened stumps, wisps of toxic gas hanging in the gray, and corpses everywhere.
A terrible scene, made worse by the sound of distant laughter, because somehow, on the heights commanding the dead zone, the officers’ club has made it through intact. From its balconies flutter bunting, and across the blasted landscape there comes a chorus of hearty male voices in counterpoint to the wheedling of cadres of wheel-greasers, the click of betting chips, the orotund declamations of a visiting congressional delegation: in sum, the celebratory hullabaloo of a class of people that has sent entire nations off to perish but whose only concern right now is whether the ’11 is ready to drink and who’ll see to tipping the servants. The notion that there might be someone or some force out there getting ready to slouch toward the buttonwood tree to exact retribution scarcely ruffles the celebrants’ joy.
pt 1/2 Gerald Celente on The Alex Jones
27 december 2011
pt 2/2 Gerald Celente on The Alex Jones
27 december 2011
Badly Written Bad Rules
WSJ.com
New studies show the quality of federal regulation is plummeting.
President Obama is leading his regulators in an anvil chorus unlike anything in modern U.S. history. So it is unsurprising but still instructive that independent students of regulation say the quality of the many rules they're putting out seems to be at all-time lows.
Regulatory quality isn't the same as content—though bad rules are usually badly written, as seems to be the case here. Rather, quality refers to a deliberative process: defining the problem; measuring costs, benefits and risks; weighing alternatives, making trade-offs, avoiding duplication; and giving the public opportunity to comment. If all goes well a quality rule will promote or at least not impair "economic growth, innovation, competitiveness and job creation," as Mr. Obama's January 2011 executive order on regulation had it.
U.S. Homes Lose $700 Billion in Value in 2011 --
and That's the Good News
By Sheryl Nance-Nash - DailyFinance.com
The year-end housing news is sobering -- U.S. homes are expected to lose more than $681 billion in value in 2011. But there's an upside -- that's 35% less than the $1.1 trillion lost in 2010, according to newresearchfromZillow (Z), a real estate information marketplace.
What else did the research show? Just nine out of 128 markets analyzed had gains in values in 2011. Bragging rights go to the New Orleans area, where the gains were greatest at $3.5 billion. Pittsburgh claimed the number two spot with a gain of $2.7 billion.
Firms Give U.S. Plans to Rent Seized Homes
By John Gittelsohn - Bloomberg.com
Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG) and Deutsche Bank AG (DB), whose executives played roles in the housing bubble, are among the hundreds of firms that responded to a U.S. government request for proposals to rent out foreclosed homes.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency asked for ideas as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies seized by the government in 2008, seek to reduce losses, stabilize neighborhoods and support housing values by turning into rentals a portion of the more than 180,000 repossessed homes in their inventory. The submissions were due by Sept. 15.
Direct Government Interference with Consumption
Mises Daily: by Ludwig von Mises
[Human Action (1949)]
In investigating the economic problems of interventionism we do not have to deal with those actions of the government whose aim it is to influence immediately the consumer's choice of consumers' goods. Every act of government interference with business must indirectly affect consumption. As the government's interference alters the market data, it must also alter the valuations and the conduct of the consumers. But if the aim of the government is merely to force the consumers directly to consume goods other than what they would have consumed in the absence of the government's decree, no special problems emerge to be scrutinized by economics. It is beyond doubt that a strong and ruthless police apparatus has the power to enforce such decrees.
America's farmlands
to be carpet-bombed with Vietnam-era
Agent Orange chemical if Dow petition approved
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger - NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) A key chemical of one of the most horrifying elements of the Vietnam War -- Agent Orange -- may soon be unleashed on America's farmlands. Considered by world nations to be a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" (WMD), Agent Orange was dropped in the millions of gallons on civilian populations during the Vietnam War in order to destroy foliage and poison North Vietnamese soldiers. The former president of the Vietnamese Red Cross, Professor Nhan, described it as, "...a massive violation of human rights of the civilian population, and a weapon of mass destruction."
A key chemical in that weapon --2,4-D-- is just months away from being dropped on agricultural land across the United States. Dow AgroSciences, which along with DuPont and Monsanto is heavily invested in genetically engineered crops, haspetitioned the U.S. governmentto deregulate a variety of GE corn that's resistant to 2,4-D, which comprises 50% of the recipe of Agent Orange.
You Won't Believe How Corrupt,
Lazy And Stinking Rich Our Congress Critters Have Become
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
If our founding fathers could see the cesspool that the U.S. Congress has become today, they would roll over in their graves. Most Americans don't realize this, but we already have a "part-time Congress". Members of Congress only "work" a little over a third of the days on the calendar. The rest of the time they have off. It is no wonder why so many members of Congress are involved in so much corruption - they have so much free time on their hands that they are bound to get into trouble. Many members of Congress also use their positions of power and the information they learn during the course of their duties to become fabulously wealthy. At a time when incomes nationally are actually declining, our Congress critters are becoming stinking rich at a staggering pace. Yes, politics in America has always been a game that is funded and played by wealthy individuals, but things have gotten so extreme that it is hard to argue that average Americans have any control over Congress at all at this point. Instead of a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", we now have a government "of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy". If you doubt this, just keep on reading.
Paul Craig Roberts:
We have a republican party that is a Gestapo party
"Full Faith and Credit"
of General Obligation Bonds
Comes to Critical Test in Alabama Bankruptcy
By Mike Shedlock - GlobalEconomicAnalysis.blogspot.com
General obligation bonds are thought to be perfectly safe because they are backed by the ability to tax, no matter what it takes to pay off the obligation. I have been waiting for a test of this theory and that time is at hand.
Jefferson County Alabama filed the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the US and has stopped paying interest on its general obligation bonds. For background details, please see Jefferson County Alabama Hires Bankruptcy Firm; Record Municipal Bankruptcy Coming; Death Spiral Swaps and JPMorgan Fraud Revisited.
Sears to shut up to 120 stores as woes deepen
Moves signal 'deepening problem'’ and 'desperation,' analyst says
By Andria Cheng and Robert Daniel, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — At a time when overall holiday season sales have turned out better than expected, Sears Holdings Corp. was an exception: It said Tuesday that it will close up to 120 Sears and Kmart stores after disappointing holiday sales.
Its stock, having already lost 37% of its value this year, tumbled 27% to $33.38, their lowest since December 2008 and the biggest percentage drop in at least 10 years. Sears also was the biggest decliner among S&P 500 component stocks.
Sears Will Not Close Enough Stores
247WallSt.com
The numbers do not add up. Sears Holdings has over 4,000 full-line and specialty stores. Same-store sales for the eight weeks which ended December 25 were down 5.2%. That figure represents a sharp acceleration of negative numbers from the earlier part of 2011. But, Sears Holdings only plans to close 100 to 120 Kmart and Sears Full-line stores.
Sears is in great enough trouble so that shuttering 3% of locations barely dents the problem. The Kmart and Sears store networks must have a larger portion of their outlets which underperform enough not to be profitable, or are only marginally so.
Many Sears, Kmart stores to close Retailers recorded soft holiday sales
By Michelle Chapman
and Anne D'Innocenzio - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW YORK — Sears Holdings Corp. plans to close between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores to raise cash after a weak holiday shopping season for the retailer.
The closings fueled speculation about whether the 125-year-old retailer can turn itself around.
The closings are the latest and most visible in a long series of moves to try to fix a company that has struggled with falling sales and shabby stores as rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. spruced up their looks and turned into one-stop shopping sources.
Up to 120 Sears, Kmart Stores to Close
U.S. Home Prices Fell More Than Forecast
By Timothy R. Homan - Bloomberg.com
Residential real estate prices dropped more than forecast in the year ended October, showing a broad-based decline that indicates the U.S. housing market continues to be weighed down by foreclosures.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities dropped 3.4 percent from October 2010 after decreasing 3.5 percent in the year ended September, the New York-based group said today. The median forecast of 27 economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected a 3.2 percent decrease.
U.S. home prices drop in October: Case-Shiller
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. home prices took a step backward for a second month in October, according to a key index released Tuesday.
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite index fell 1.2% in October to moves its 12-month drop to 3.4%. After five straight months of gains starting in April, prices have started to cool. The gauge isn’t seasonally adjusted, and there is generally greater interest in buying homes during the spring and summer.
Real House Prices and House Price-to-Rent
by CalculatedRisk
A monthly update: Case-Shiller, CoreLogic and others report nominal house prices. However it is also useful to look at house prices in real terms (adjusted for inflation) and as a price-to-rent ratio.
Below are three graphs showing nominal prices (as reported), real prices and a price-to-rent ratio. Real prices are back to 1999/2000 levels, and the price-to-rent ratio is also back to 2000 levels.
The Worst Time Of The Year?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
For a lot of Americans, this is the worst time of the year. If you don't have any money, it can be really hard to hear others go on and on about how good "Santa Claus" was to them this year. For many, there is simply not much to be cheerful about as the year ends. There are millions of people in this country that do not have a "happy family" to spend the holidays with, there are millions of people in this country that do not have any money to spend on gifts, and there are millions of people that are either already sleeping in the streets or that are in imminent danger of losing their homes. It can be really difficult to feel "holiday cheer" when you are freezing cold and you don't have any food in your stomach. The realization that you are not going to enjoy any of the good things that other people get to enjoy this time of the year is enough to push many people over the edge. Yes, for most of the country this time of the year is filled with food, family and fun but for millions of others this time of the year tends to magnify despair, depression and thoughts of suicide. If you are blessed as we get ready to enter 2012, please remember those out there that are really hurting. If someone does not help them, they might not make it to 2013.
Hospital is facing a bleak prognosis A Victorville hospital has agreed to deals with Prime Healthcare, which has a record of stripping out low-margin or unprofitable medical services.
By Michael Hiltzik - LATimes.com
Back in September, Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris killed the proposed takeover of a struggling Victorville hospital by a nonprofit arm of Prime Healthcare Corp., saying it was "not in the public interest."
Her ruling was anything but casual. Basing the decision on what she said was her own department's investigation, as well as testimony at a marathon public hearing in August, Harris indicated that the takeover would result in the reduced availability of healthcare in the High Desert.
How to Ace a Google Interview Brain teasers like the ones used for hiring by the Internet giant are spreading to other picky employers.
By WILLIAM POUNDSTONE - WSJ.com
Imagine a man named Jim. He's applying for a job at Google. Jim knows that the odds are stacked against him. Google receives a million job applications a year. It's estimated that only about 1 in 130 applications results in a job. By comparison, about 1 in 14 high-school students applying to Harvard gets accepted.
Jim's first interviewer is late and sweaty: He's biked to work. He starts with some polite questions about Jim's work history. Jim eagerly explains his short career. The interviewer doesn't look at him. He's tapping away at his laptop, taking notes. "The next question I'm going to ask," he says, "is a little unusual."
If Your Teeth Could Talk ... The Mouth Offers Clues to Disorders and Disease;
Dentists Could Play Larger Role in Patient Care
By MELINDA BECK - WSJ.com
The eyes may be the window to the soul, but the mouth provides an even better view of the body as a whole.
Some of the earliest signs of diabetes, cancer, pregnancy, immune disorders, hormone imbalances and drug issues show up in the gums, teeth and tongue — sometimes long before a patient knows anything is wrong.
There's also growing evidence that oral health problems, particularly gum disease, can harm a patient's general health as well, raising the risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, pneumonia and pregnancy complications.
Scientists make virus even more deadly Debate Persists on Deadly Flu Made Airborne
By DENISE GRADY and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. - NYTimes.com
The young scientist, normally calm and measured, seemed edgy when he stopped by his boss’s office.
"You are not going to believe this one," he told Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. "I think we have an airborne H5N1 virus."
The news, delivered one afternoon last July, was chilling. It meant that Dr. Fouchier’s research group had taken one of the most dangerous flu viruses ever known and made it even more dangerous — by tweaking it genetically to make it more contagious.
President Obama and the Spread of Security Theater During his tenure, the TSA has demeaned air travelers --
and if his administration gets its way, boat, train and truck passengers are next.
By Conor Friedersdorf - TheAtlantic.com
My colleague James Fallows, as indispensable on the air-travel beat as he is on all the others he covers, has a good post up recounting his interactions with the Transportation Security Administration during his holiday travels. On this subject he and I are of the same mind: that most of the demeaning inconveniences we face in airports are "security theater" that do little if anything to make us safer, and are worthy of small, symbolic protests by freedom-loving citizens. But I would urge him to reconsider a small part of his conclusion, where he writes the following:
Gold and Dow:
Prepare for extremes you have never seen in your life
By Hubert Moolman - CommodityOnline.com
I must admit that I do not prescribe to the 2012 end of the world or end of an era phenomenon; however, my recent analysis suggests that 2012 could indeed be a very significant year.
I have been following a fractal (pattern) on the Dow chart for the last couple of years. I have written about it before, in a previous article. Basically, the Dow chart is forming a similar pattern to that which was formed in the late 60s to early 70s.
If this pattern continues in a similar manner to that of the late 60s to early 70s pattern, the Dow could indeed have a horrible year. Below, is a long-term chart of the Dow:
Gold price set for hyperbolic increase
By Alasdair Macleod - CobdenCentre.org
I recently posted an article for GoldMoney showing how US True Money Supply (TMS) appeared to be growing at a hyperbolic rate, and that gold was also on a hyperbolic course. The difference between hyperbolic and exponential is a hyperbola’s rate of growth increases with time, while exponential growth does not. Hyperbolic growth in the quantity of money ends with hyperinflation, while exponential growth can go on for ever. Both TMS and the dollar price of gold are pointing to a hyperinflationary outcome. This article explains why this might be so.
There are five apocalyptic engines pushing the growth in US money supply: they are the government’s budget deficit, its debt trap, the financial condition of the banks, the delusion of Keynesian solutions, and lastly simple compounding arithmetic.
Philipp Bagus and Alasdair Macleod
on Europe, inflation, and gold
Gold hovers around $1,600; U.S. data, Europe eyed
By Rujun Shen
(Reuters) - Gold hovered around $1,600 an ounce on Tuesday, as investors stayed on the sidelines in the final week of the year with lingering concerns about the euro zone debt crisis.
Recent upbeat U.S. economic data spurred a rally in riskier assets including equities and industrial metals, and sent gold prices up about half a percent last week.
Why silver is real money!
By David Morgan - CommodityOnline.com
In days gone by Silver was not an investment it was money, in fact silver passed through more hands in everyday commerce than any other real money including gold. I state real money to distinguish silver money from modern paper money, which has flooded the world "money" supply the past three decades.
Silver held absolutely no value as an investment when it circulated as money, it served its function perfectly, unit of account, means of payment, and most importantly as a store of value. In 1993 the United States had been off the silver standard for almost thirty years and people forgot how an honest monetary system worked.
Jim Sinclair - "MF Global is A Piece of Dynamite
Sitting Underneath the Gold Price" 1/2
Jim Sinclair - "MF Global is A Piece of Dynamite
Sitting Underneath the Gold Price" 2/2
The Koch Brothers and MF Global - Friends to the End
By Daniel Dicker - HuffingtonPost.com
So much about the collapse of MF Global, the international commodity firm, has revisited the worst sins of the 2008 financial meltdown. There's been outsized betting with other people's money using Wall Street created derivative instruments. Ongoing investigations now show that leverage in these wagers had even eclipsed the worst of the Lehman failure. As in 2008, there's been the total lack of oversight from regulatory agencies, as customer funds were diverted and used as collateral for Corzine's wagers and 50,000 accounts are now being moved without the cash that they came in with.
But perhaps the most stunning piece of news we're getting in the wake of the MF Global collapse is in the clients of the firm who managed to get away scot-free, with no freezing of accounts or capital -- particularly the accounts of the mega-cap independent oil company Koch Industries, run by the politically active Koch brothers.
U.S. commodity markets shrink after MF Global failure
By Marcy Nicholson and Frank Tang
(Reuters) - U.S. commodity markets have shrunk almost 9 percent since MF Global's collapse as farmers, investors and traders close out positions, according to a Reuters analysis of data that suggests there may be lasting effects from the industry's most disruptive broker failure.
While several different factors likely figured into the decline - including the seasonal year-end closure of trading books - the study provides the first evidence to show that smaller-scale traders who were MF Global's core customers may have been effectively frozen out of the markets.
US Gold Eagle mint sales headed for a decline,
Silver Eagle targets 40Moz
CommodityOnline.com
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): The US Gold Eagle mint coin sales has hit 1 million ounces (Moz) in 2011 but is however headed to post the weakest sales figures over the last years. 2010 sales had hit 1.22 Moz while 2009 was at 1.435 Moz.
Contrary to the Gold Eagle, the Silver Eagle coins have shattered the 2010 record sales of 34,662,500 ounces. Current Silver Eagle sales stand at 39,868,500 ounces and is targeting the magical 40Moz figure with just a few days remaining in 2011.
The nightmare after Christmas
By Detlev Schlichter - CobdenCentre.org
The pathetic state of the global financial system was again on display this week. Stocks around the world go up when a major central bank pumps money into the financial system. They go down when the flow of money slows and when the intoxicating influence of the latest money injection wears off. Can anybody really take this seriously?
On Tuesday, the prospect of another gigantic cash infusion from the ECB’s printing press into Europe’s banking sector, which is in large part terminally ill but institutionally protected from dying, was enough to trigger the established Pavlovian reflexes among portfolio managers and traders.
U.S. stores hope "Mega Monday" led to brisk sales
By Jessica Wohl
(Reuters) - Shoppers found a mixed bag of bargains and so-so deals on Monday, as a day off for many Americans lured some out for what was likely to be the third-busiest shopping day of the holiday season.
Chains were also hoping that shoppers coming in to redeem the millions of gift cards given as presents might be willing to spend a bit more cash of their own.
Many retailers were still relying on bargains to entice shoppers on the day after Christmas.
WILL THE SHORTER BUSINESS CYCLE
LEAD TO RECESSION IN 2012?
By Cullen Roche, PragCap.com
History may not be on the side of those calling for recession currently. According to recent data from Deutsche Bank the current expansion is still on the shorter end of the historical average length.
Since 1854 the average expansion has lasted 40 months. Since the great depression the average expansion has lasted 58 months. The last 7 expansion, however, have lasted almost 70 months on average. At month 27 the current expansion would be short by historical standards. Of course, if you’re following my balance sheet recession theory this is a relatively moot point, but if we’re going to following the standard NBER data points on recessions then this casts doubt on the odds of a technical recession occurring in the coming 12 months.
A new banking crisis: You can bank on it Most bankers, thanks to bailouts and cheap money, watched their holdings rise even as average people lost savings.
by Danny Schechter - AlJazeera.com
You can bank on a banking crisis. You can bank on bankers who are primarily interested in their own portfolios.
You can bank on banks remaining key behind-the-scenes players in our politics and outspoken when they sense that regulators are moving in on their permanent party of payouts.
You can bank on their outrage when someone, anyone, suggests that they should pay their fair share or that their greed has to be checked or practices punished.
Bankers are circling their guilded wagons to fight off attacks on many fronts.
In the public arena, they are increasingly fed up with the "imbecilic" - stronger language to come - critics from the likes of Occupy Wall Street that they fear are inspiring public hostility to the lords of finance.
The IRS & DOJ Are Grabbing New Powers
In The Hunt For Revenue
By Bruce Krasting - BusinessInsider.com
Two headlines. Similar stories. The first from Switzerland:
US OFFERS SWISS BANKS A DEAL
The United States authorities have offered to lift the threat of legal action against 11 Swiss banks in exchange for information, a Swiss paper reported on Sunday.
This is part of a very long story. The US Justice Department has been doing everything it can to get the names of US citizens who have Swiss bank accounts. The DOJ damn near busted UBS over this a few years back. Now they are going after the other Swiss banks. The lawyers at the DOJ don’t kid around:
Biggest Risk for the U.S. Economy in 2012
Yuan hits all-time high
By Lu Jianxin and Kazunori Takada
(Reuters) - The yuan closed up against the dollar on Monday after hitting an all-time high in intraday trading, guided by a stronger mid-point by the People's Bank of China, and looks set for an over-4-percent appreciation for 2011, traders said.
The yuan is expected to remain stable or rise slightly in the last week of the year to close 2011 near 6.30 versus the dollar, in line with market expectations.
The currency is likely to continue to appreciate next year as China continues to post big trade surpluses despite a slowdown in exports and amid pressure from the United States to let the yuan rise to balance bilateral trade, traders said.
The First 12 Hours of a US Dollar Collapse
(fictious 2012 scenario)
World's Second And Third Largest Economies
To Bypass Dollar, Engage In Direct Currency Trade
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
To all who still think that in the war of attrition between the USD and the EUR (because contrary to what some have "discovered" only recently, currency wars have been going on for a long, long time and will continue to do so, before morphing into trade and real wars), in which both currencies are doomed, and where the winner takes it all, if only for a few minutes, we bring to your attention the following most recent update out of the Pacific Rim (where incidentally the Shanghai Composite has resumed its relentless track lower with the obvious intention of closing 2011 at its 52 week low) in which we find i) that the dollar's hegemonic control over the world is ending, and ii) that the mercantilist relationship so long sustained between China and the US, may be shifting and reversing, and in its next metamorphosis will see Japan buying the bonds of... China (although probably not for long - see next post). As Bloomberg reports, "Japan and China will promote direct trading of yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for the exchange, to cut costs for companies, the Japanese government said.
Keiser Report: Merry X-Max & Happy New GIABO! (E227)
Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 Address (precursor to WWII)
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Campaign Address at Madison Square Garden, New York City.
"We Have Only Just Begun to Fight."
October 31, 1936
Senator Wagner, Governor Lehman, ladies and gentlemen:
ON THE eve of a national election, it is well for us to stop for a moment and analyze calmly and without prejudice the effect on our Nation of a victory by either of the major political parties.
The problem of the electorate is far deeper, far more vital than the continuance in the Presidency of any individual. For the greater issue goes beyond units of humanity-it goes to humanity itself.
Gerald Celente - Lanigan & Malone
WMJI 22 December 2011
NLRB could be shut down in new year
By Chris Isidore @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The National Labor Relations Board -- a top target of Republicans and business critics of the Obama administration -- could be sidelined early next year.
The agency, which is supposed to be governed by a five-member board, is down to three active members because of Senate Republican opposition to Obama's nominees. And one of them, Craig Becker, will see his term end at the conclusion of the current session of Congress.
The GOP's Payroll Tax Debacle
By Charles Krauthammer - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- Now that Congress appears finally to have reached a compromise on what must be one of the worst pieces of legislation in years -- the temporary payroll tax holiday extension -- let's survey the damage.
To begin with, what even minimally rational government enacts payroll tax relief for just two months? As a matter of practicality alone, it makes no sense. The National Payroll Reporting Consortium, representing those who process paychecks, said of the two-month extension passed by the Senate just days before the new year: "There is insufficient lead time to accommodate the proposal," because "many payroll systems are not likely to be able to make such a substantial programming change before January or even February," thereby "creat(ing) substantial problems, confusion and costs."
Jim Rogers 2012 Outlook: Pessimism With Scattered Crises
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Typically limited to 90 second soundbite-gathering exercises on mainstream financial media, Australia's Finance News Network gives Jim Rogers the chance to discuss much more broadly his outlook not just for 2012 but beyond. Surprised by the false optimism he sees globally, he is not concerned that consensus is too bearish, and worries that the political pressure and central banker un-independence will inevitably lead to more and more money printing. We have discussed the kick-the-can thesis extensively but Rogers moves from the desire-to-print to the consequences while covering Ron Paul and the US election, the myth of government job creation, his potentially controversial view of the Euro (and separately the Euro-zone) - all the while reminding us that he expects at least another lost decade for the US and Europe as Japan ebbs ever lower. With a view to both his geographical location and his investments, the global commodity bull remains optimistic that a Chinese slowdown will not be the end of the Asian economy (as we see in Western economies) but is broadly short equities around the world while urging investors to own real assets. Summing up, Rogers notes "...the problems are going to continue to get worse until somebody solves the basic underlying problem of too much spending and too much debt... [governments and central bankers] are not going to do anything until there’s a serious crisis or semi-crisis."
Jim Rogers - Finance News Network Interview
December 22, 2011
Three Types of People to Fire Immediately Want a more innovative company?
Get rid of these folks. Today
By G. Michael Maddock
and Raphael Louis Vitón - BusinessWeek.com
"I wanted a happy culture. So I fired all the unhappy people."
—A very successful CEO (who asked not to be named)
We (your authors) teach our children to work hard and never, ever give up. We teach them to be grateful, to be full of wonder, to expect good things to happen, and to search for literal and figurative treasure on every beach, in every room, and in every person.
But some day, when the treasure hunt is over, we’ll also teach them to fire people. Why? After working with the most inventive people in the world for two decades, we’ve discovered the value of a certain item in the leadership toolbox: the pink slip.
Keiser Report: Capitalism Without Capital? (E226)
The Book of Jobs "A Banking System is Supposed to Serve Society,
Not the Other Way Around"
By Joseph E. Stiglitz - VanityFair.com
Forget monetary policy. Re-examining the cause of the Great Depression—the revolution in agriculture that threw millions out of work—the author argues that the U.S. is now facing and must manage a similar shift in the "real" economy, from industry to service, or risk a tragic replay of 80 years ago.
It has now been almost five years since the bursting of the housing bubble, and four years since the onset of the recession. There are 6.6 million fewer jobs in the United States than there were four years ago. Some 23 million Americans who would like to work full-time cannot get a job. Almost half of those who are unemployed have been unemployed long-term. Wages are falling—the real income of a typical American household is now below the level it was in 1997.
Harry Reid and the Mythical Millionaire Job-Creator
Big Brother Is Watching You Shop Retailers are linking security cameras
with software to track consumer behavior
By Ashley Lutz and Matt Townsend - BusinessWeek.com
On the Web, every click and jiggle of the mouse helps e-tailers customize sites and maximize the likelihood of a purchase. Brick-and-mortar stores have long wanted to track consumers in a similar fashion, but following atoms is a lot harder than following bits. For the most part, they’ve been forced to rely on consumer surveys, says Herb Sorensen, an adviser at market research firm TNS Retail & Shopper (WPPGY) in London. "The problem with survey research is the consumer can say one thing and do another."
Nevada Legalizes Online Poker
By Jacob Sullum - Reason.com
Yesterday the Nevada Gaming Commission unanimously approved regulations that will allow online poker and other forms of Internet gambling within the state's borders. The Wall Street Journal reports that "the new rules were designed to put the state in a position to move quickly to become the center of a lucrative new part of the gambling industry should Congress pass one of several laws overturning the ban on Internet wagering, making the state the de-facto national licensing body." In the meantime, poker sites with Nevada licenses, which could be operating by the end of next year, will be limited to players in Nevada. Licensees will have to satisfy regulators that they have a reliable system for excluding out-of-state customers. The Journal says it's not clear the Nevada market is big enough on its own to attract much interest:
Max Keiser takes offense to Goldman Sachs story pt1 of 2
Max Keiser takes offense to Goldman Sachs story pt2 of 2
Who Is Really Responsible for the Housing Crisis? Last month, The Atlantic published an interview with Rep. Barney Frank that set off a debate about the role Washington played (or didn't play) in the mortgage bust that triggered the Great Recession. In this, our latest installment, Rep. Frank defends his record on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Read Peter Wallison's opposing argument here.
By Rep. Barney Frank - TheAtlantic.com
Peter Wallison's recent article in The Atlantic, "Hey, Barney Frank: The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis," is part of his ongoing attempt to show that the private financial industry was the victim, not the cause, of the financial crisis.
Mr. Wallison protests my characterization of him in a recent interview in The Atlantic as "a real extremist." Yet his article again proves his extremism which is marked by his denial that a failure of regulation of reckless or imprudent practices in the private financial services industry played any significant role in the crisis, and his complete rejection of the regulatory reforms in the 2010 Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Hey, Barney Frank:
The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis A member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission responds to our interview with Barney Frank, arguing that without the government's intervention, there would be no housing crisis
By PETER WALLISON - TheAtlantic.com
On December 9, The Atlantic published online an interview with Congressman Barney Frank. In it, he called me a "real extremist." This name-calling was not only false but also inappropriate to the seriousness of the issue -- which is whether government housing policy, and not the banks or the private sector, caused the 2008 financial crisis. I decided to respond to both Congressman Frank's statements and the questions he was asked about government housing policy and the financial crisis.
We're hearing Republicans in the presidential primary blame the housing crisis on the Clinton-era push to lend more to poor people. In your view, what caused the mortgage crisis and subsequently the financial crash?
'Dysfunctional' Government Is a Feature, Not a Bug
By Jeff Jacoby PatriotPost.us
You don't need me to tell you that the chattering class is appalled by the partisan gridlock and political bickering that keeps Washington from dealing efficiently with the nation's problems. Last week Gallup measured Congress's job approval at 11 percent, a new low. Heading into Christmas week, you could hardly open a paper or turn on the radio without encountering a wave of dudgeon over the latest legislative squabble -- a standoff over extending a payroll tax cut that expires on Dec. 31. "Just when you thought the mess in Washington couldn't get any messier" was the way an exasperated Washington Post editorial began, while a columnist in The Examiner pronounced the wrangling on Capitol Hill "almost a parody of Washington dysfunction."
Paul builds campaign on doomsday scenarios
By Andy Sullivan
(Reuters) - The man who might win the Republican Party's first presidential nominating contest fears that the United Nations may take control of the U.S. money supply.
Campaigning for the January 3 Iowa caucuses, Ron Paul warns of eroding civil liberties, a Soviet Union-style economic collapse and violence in the streets.
The Texas congressman, author of "End the Fed," also wants to eliminate the central banking system that underpins the world's largest economy.
Constance Cumbey is on to something BIG regarding 2012 'karmageddon' 12.21.2012 - from the New Age movement that is now flourishing, once again.
The Spread of Occupy Wall Street
By Constance Cumbey
Merry Christmas to all. If the 12-21-2012 New Age / Occupy Wall Street contingent gets its way, including those calling for our respective "Karmageddons" (Shirley Maclaine, et al), future celebrations may become problematic. In the meantime, enjoy the season with your families and remember that Jesus is the reason for the season!
Here is a copy of the abstract of the academic paper shown on the Occupy Wall Street Movement spread -- at least its Facebook aspects. It would be interesting to see an update. There are 3,180,000 google hits on the "Occupy Movement" as of the time of this blogspot posting:
Abstract:
Since Occupy Wall Street began in New York City on September 17th, the movement has spread offline to hundreds of locations around the globe. Social networking sites have been critical for linking potential supporters and distributing information. In addition to Facebook pages on the Wall Street Occupation, more than 400 unique pages have been established in order to spread the movement across the US, including at least one page in each of the 50 states. These Facebook pages facilitate the creation of local encampments and the organization of protests and marches to oppose the existing economic and political system.
Occupy Movement -
How some New Agers view Moscow developments
By Constance Cumbey
I had inquiries in our forum ("comments") section about how whether I thought the recent Moscow mass demonstrations were connected in any way with the Occupy Movement (including but not limited to Occupy Wall Street). My answer was "yes." It is my firm belief that the Occupy Movement is tied to New Age expectations for their "Ascension" date of 12-21-2012 and our supposed "Karmageddon" (Shirley Maclaine et al). Here is one New Ager "Occupy" perspective on it. There are many others: [see screenshot of web site]
As you can see, this site is typical of the "witches' brew" that is the Occupy Movement: Mayan calendar expectations tied in with spiritualism and political changes (i.e. chaos) sought by those hoping this will help usher in their "New Age."
George Soros Funds Occupy Wall Street
by Matthew Vadum - HumanEvents.com
Radical anti-American billionaireGeorge Soros is a major backer of a left-wing group that is funneling money to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The nonprofit organization at the receiving end of Soros’ largesse, Alliance for Global Justice, is managing donations benefiting the communists, socialists, anarchists and hippies now occupying Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. As of Oct. 19, OWS had taken in a grand total of $435,000 from all sources, including donations made by individuals online and in person, according to reports.
The George Soros Connection to 'Occupy Wall Street'
EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Until now, I have held back on making the accusation that some others have that George Soros has been a major influence on Occupy Wall Street, but when something becomes obvious, it's time to state it.
It is well known that Occupy Wall Street was launched by the curious group, Adbusters. There is a possible tie between Adbusters and Soros.
According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009, Soros' Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to a murky San Francisco-based operation known as Tides Center. Tides then gave Adbusters grants totaling $185,000. Was Soros responsible for the grants to Adbusters? That's unclear. Tides provides cover for its donors in the sense that it makes the donations to outfits such as Adbusters and it becomes unclear who may have directed Tides to do so. Reuters tried to link the Adbusters donations to Soros, but was attacked bySlate because, you see, Tides made the donations, not Soros, and who knows, maybe it was another Tides donor that caused the grants to Adbuster. Very murky stuff. Soros apologists, because the grants came from Tides, can attack day after day on the fact that money hasn't come from Soros directly and can argue that there is no proof that the money came from Soros at all. What can be argued is that, if Soros wanted to hide the fact that he was funneling money to Adbusters, then using Tides as a cover is a perfect method of doing so. The Tides funding of Adbusters is a dangling clue. It hints of Soros, but because of the shell game played, you can't tie it down and as Reuters learned, their report is now off the internet, if you try to make the jump, gunslingers are going to come after you charging that you haven't completed the links, when the very use of Tides prevents completion of links. Cute.
NWO: Their "Master Plan" EXPOSED!
Denver Broncos Star
Tim Tebow's Scandalous Devotion to Christianity
by Gary Bauer - HumanEvents.com
Christmas this year has provoked the usual attacks from militant secularists intent on banning public recognition of Christ’s birth. But arguments over holiday trees and nativity scenes are only a small part of what constitutes one of the deepest divides in American life: between shallow spirituality and authentic conviction. There is nothing that offends many atheists and secularists more than deeply held Christian belief.
Consider Tim Tebow. The Denver Broncos quarterback is one of the most controversial players ever to play in the National Football League. That’s strange given the long list of felons and self-promoters who have played in the league.
Iraqi interpreters for U.S. military in dangerous limbo Thousands were promised spots first in line for special visas to the U.S., but the process has slowed to a crawl. Now the Iraqis, targeted for death because of their service to America, can only wait.
By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Baghdad— He rarely leaves his house. He's been shot at by gunmen in a passing car. He gets death threats over the phone.
"Traitor," the callers say. "American agent."
Tariq, 27, is a quick-witted, tech-savvy Iraqi who tosses off idiomatic American English phrases such as "I'm outta here" and "That's cool."
When he served as an interpreter for the U.S. military, Tariq lived on a secure base, safe from fellow Iraqis determined to kill him because of his service to America. But when the unit he served pulled out of Iraq on Oct. 13, he was dismissed and escorted off the base.
Reading the Persian Tea Leaves What's going on between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad?
By GEORGE H. WITTMAN - The American Spectator.org
It is always difficult to be an Iranian politician. One has to work so hard to make sure you are recognized as being against the right thing. Being properly negative -- and that also means being against the correct issue at the correct time -- requires considerable attention to the signs coming from the office of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This is not always easy. The leader's office is a form of combined national and international security staff. From this office reflects the consideration and movement of all key domestic and foreign policies. If you do not have access to this center, you are not "in the loop."
Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales
By Asjylyn Loder and David Evans - Bloomberg.com
In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.
"I uncovered the practices within a few days," Egorova- Farines says. "They were not hidden at all."
She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.
'Will nuclear army of 5 mln support new Korean leader?'
Rep. Paul says defense bill assures
‘descent into totalitarianism’
By Jonathan Easley - 12/26/11 09:25 AM ET
GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul warned that the National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by Congress this month, will accelerate the country’s “slip into tyranny” and virtually assures "our descent into totalitarianism."
"The founders wanted to set a high bar for the government to overcome in order to deprive an individual of life or liberty," Paul, the libertarian congressman, said Monday in a weekly phone message to supporters. "To lower that bar is to endanger everyone. When the bar is low enough to include political enemies, our descent into totalitarianism is virtually assured. The Patriot Act, as bad as its violations against the Fourth Amendment was, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act continues that slip into tyranny, and in fact, accelerates it significantly."
* * * * * LISTEN CAREFULLY! * * * * *
Former CIA Agent's Message to America
Lindsey Williams Middle East Crisis
3 DVD Set March 2011..
Iran navy starts 10-day wargame in Strait of Hormuz
(Reuters) - Iran began 10 days of naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, raising concern about a possible closure of the world's most strategic oil transit channel in the event of any outbreak of military conflict between Tehran and the West.
The military drill, dubbed "Velayat-e 90," comes as the tension between the West and Iran is escalating over the Islamic state's nuclear program.
Some analysts and diplomats believe the Islamic Republic could try to block the strait in the event of any war with the West over suspicions it is seeking atom bombs. Iran's arch-foes Israel and the United States have not ruled out military action if diplomacy and sanctions fail to rein in Iran's nuclear work.
"Full Faith and Credit"
of General Obligation Bonds
Comes to Critical Test in Alabama Bankruptcy
By Mike Shedlock
General obligation bonds are thought to be perfectly safe because they are backed by the ability to tax, no matter what it takes to pay off the obligation. I have been waiting for a test of this theory and that time is at hand.
Jefferson County Alabama filed the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the US and has stopped paying interest on its general obligation bonds. For background details, please see Jefferson County Alabama Hires Bankruptcy Firm; Record Municipal Bankruptcy Coming; Death Spiral Swaps and JPMorgan Fraud Revisited.
In the New World of Safe Investments,
U.S. Debt Stands (Nearly) Alone
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
When it comes to borrowing, the United States government gets a pretty sweet deal. The country has an elephantine national debt, which will only get bigger without serious spending cuts and tax hikes. We've had our credit rating downgraded, since nobody really trusts our Congress to act rationally. And yet, investors are so desperate for Treasuries that some would actually pay the government to take their money.
There's a simple reason. When it comes to rock-solid safe investments, Uncle Sam is pretty much the only game in town.
Florida Bankers Association:
More Bank Failures Could Be the Price of IRS Tax Rule
By: Lori Ann LaRocco - CNBC.com
Some banks in South Florida are hearing from foreign account holders concered about as a proposed IRS rule that would raise taxes on their accounts.
Right now, the interest collected non-resident U.S. bank and credit union accounts (called NRA’s for short) are not taxed. But the US Treasury is trying to change all that. In January of 2011, Obama’s IRS proposed a new rule that would require banks to report the interest paid to these accounts. The rule has not yet been officially adopted.
But its prospect has some NRA holders worried.
Why So Many Market Pros Made Bad Calls This Year
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
For anyone who makes money by making sense of financial markets, 2011 was a confounding year.
Whether it was Europe's seemingly intractable debt crisis, uprisings in the Middle East or the political bickering and growing debt burden that cost the United States its AAA credit rating, investors had to be more nimble than ever to stay ahead of swiftly changing sentiment.
No Christmas For Millions Of American Families This Year
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
For millions of American families, there will be no Christmas this year. The sad truth is that an increasing number of families simply do not have money for Christmas presents or any other luxuries right now. The number of Americans that fell into poverty set a new all-time record last year andextreme poverty is at the highest level ever measured in the United States. This Christmas, a lot of American families will be deciding whether to spend the little money that they do have on food, heat or medicine. All over America, the poor are getting poorer and each year the economic pain seems to get even worse. But there are also many American families that will have no Christmas this year for other reasons. Some are just sick and tired of all of the materialism that is involved in Christmas. Others are trying to be "politically correct" and don't want to offend anyone. There are even a growing number of Americans that are Christians but that believe that Christians should not celebrate Christmas for spiritual reasons. Once upon a time, Christmas was pretty much considered to be a nearly universal holiday in the United States, but that just is not the case anymore. There are millions upon millions of Americans that simply will not be celebrating Christmas at all this year.
A Very Scary Christmas
And An Incredibly Frightening New Year
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Can you hear that? It almost sounds like a little bit of peace and quiet. This year, the holiday season has been fairly uneventful, and for that we should be very grateful. But it isn't going to last long. 2012 is going to be a much more difficult year for the U.S. economy and the global financial system than 2011 has been. So if things are going well for you right now, enjoy this little bubble of peace and tranquility while you can. Because while things may look calm on the surface right now, the truth is that this is a very scary Christmas for financial professionals and world leaders. Most of them know how fragile the global financial system is at the moment. Most of them know that we are living in the greatest bubble of debt, leverage and financial risk that the world has ever seen. As I wrote about the other day, world leaders would not be throwing huge bailouts around like crazy if everything was going to be just fine. The truth is that we are rapidly approaching another financial crisis that may end up being even worse than the horrific crash of 2008.
How to buy Silver using your IRA account
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Jim Hitt, CEO of American IRA, is responding to a question that is growing in popularity--should people invest in silver? The decision as to whether to invest in Silver and Gold is as personal a decision as whether one prefers to wear silver or gold. The answer will vary depending on that persons personal preference.
Silver IRA
Jim Hitt says "These days, it seems like every other ad they hear on talk radio is pitching gold. It’s true that gold has historically been an important store of value, a unit of exchange, and the commodity that traditionally undergirds currencies. But gold is not the only commodity with those properties.
Think Your IRA Is Safe? Better Think Again...
TruthInGold.Blogspot.com
The MF Global bankruptcy is a blueprint for how the Government and wealthy bankers will begin to take everything that is kept within the confines of the financial system.
Ten years ago I tried to tell many friends and acquaintances that housing prices would collapse and this country was headed for disaster and that the only only way to protect themselves financially was to load up on gold and silver. Almost everyone looked at me like I needed my own floor in the mental health wing at Belleview Hospital in NYC. Of course, that was back when gold was around $300/oz. and housing prices were on average about 50% higher than they are now.
Gold hedging value increase in current scenario
By Giuseppe L. Borrelli - CommodityOnline.com
On the economic front we see that for the month of October personal income had gained 0.4% while spending had increased 0.1%. For November, economists polled by MarketWatch had expected personal income to gain 0.2%, and for spending to also rise 0.2%. Meanwhile, there was no growth in November for the price index for personal consumption expenditures, though this inflation gauge is up 2.5% from the prior year. The core inflation reading, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose 0.1% in November, matching economists’ expectations.
Why silver did not cross $50/oz?
CommodityOnline.com
In an open letter to silver producers at the end of November, Sprott Inc. Chairman Eric Sprott cited an overleveraged banking system, weakening dollar and increasing demand as reasons to hold profits in silver rather than selling all production and putting the proceeds in the bank. "Given the current environment, we see much greater risk holding cash in a bank than we do in holding precious metals," Sprott said.
Interviewed mid-December Sprott, who is a major investor in physical and silver equities, explained why he wrote his letter. "I have always liked silver because I look at the physical supply and demand metrics and they scream that silver should be higher. But the price is being kept down by paper silver traders who are abusing the market."
The Three E’s: Economy, Election and Europe Trade What You See:
Twilight Zone Market Where Shadows Linger
And Smoke And Mirrors Rule
BY JOE DUARTE - FinancialSense.com
Traders are starting to wonder if the stock market has factored in all of the possible bad news about Europe. If that's the case, then we should see higher stock prices over the next few weeks to months. Certainly this morning's action points to an upward bias, at least in the very short term.
Indeed, we are now at that point where either the market will finally move higher decisively or fail miserably starting a new down leg. And if you look at the charts, you have to be bearish, except for the fact that 1) the market is oversold, and 2) the market is incredibly treacherous these days. That means that as a trader, you have to consider all possibilities, recognize the potential for a significant move in any direction, and have a high index of suspicion for anything that happens. In other words, you have to trade what you see not what you think should happen.
European Debt Is 'Obviously Unserviceable'
BY CHRIS CIOVACCO - FinancialSense.com
Referencing Kyle Bass’ work in a December 18 video, we noted numerous countries have an unstable combination of debt and revenue relative to the size of their banking system. Another excellent source for debt sustainability analysis comes from Jeffery Gundlach, manager of the 2011 top-performing U.S. bond fund. Mr. Gundlach was recently interviewed by the Financial Times. He does not subscribe to the theory European leaders can "put a Band Aid on a system which didn’t break a week ago, or a month ago, or a year ago. It’s been in the process for years." His analysis came to the same conclusion as Mr. Bass’; default on unpayable obligations will occur. He also believes growing the way out of the problem is not an option since the debt is "obviously unserviceable". Mr. Gundlach summarized the gravity of the situation as follows (Financial Times, 12/21/2011):
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's Predictions for 2012:
China's growth model tests its limits China’s Communist Party is gambling that this year’s tap on the brakes has been just enough to curb the housing boom and stop inflation pushing up to danger levels, but not enough to tip the economy into a hard-landing.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The great hope is that Goldilocks growth can be kept on track to ensure an orderly transition of power in October 2012, when a new generation of leaders takes charge of the 1.3bn strong nation for the first time in a decade.
The front-runner for General Secretary appears to be Xi Jinping, China’s "Redder than Red" mystery man.
With public debt at just 15.4pc of GDP (IMF data), China has the fiscal firepower if needed to shore up growth if the downturn proves harder than expected. The central bank can open the monetary spigot, slashing the reserve asset requirement for banks and lifting the restrictions on the property market. That at least is the theory. The question is whether it will be so easy in practice to calibrate a soft-landing after the post-Lehman credit blitz.
China’s local governments are taking on a lot of debt
By Michael Forsythe and Henry Sanderson - Bloomberg - WashingtonPost.com
A copy of Manhattan, complete with Rockefeller and Lincoln centers and what passes for the Hudson River, is under construction an hour’s train ride from Beijing. And like New York City in the 1970s, it may need a bailout.
Debt accumulated by companies financing local governments such as Tianjin, home to the New York lookalike project, is rising, according to a survey of Chinese-language bond prospectuses. It also suggests the total owed by all such entities probably dwarfs the count by China’s national auditor and figures disclosed by banks.
Seeking to Circumvent Possible U.S. Trade Sanctions,
China Buys Hawaiian Solar Company
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
Chinese investment in the U.S. economy up to now has been primarily in the form of U.S. Treasury bills.
But, reading the U.S. press and conservative calls for punitive trade tariffs against China, Beijing’s investors have taken a leaf out of Tokyo’s 40 year-old playbook, when similar concerns were raised about Japanese imports. Four decades ago Japan cannily began not only to establish factories in the U.S. for its major U.S. exports, primarily automobiles, but began a cautious policy of investing in struggling U.S. companies, so if and when Congress got more xenophobic Japanese manufacturers could point out that trade barriers would harm American workers as well as Japanese ones.
ECB's €489bn will 'buy valuable time'
but is no eurozone debt bazooka The European Central Bank's (ECB) unprecedented provision of a €489bn (£407.5bn) in cheap loans will "buy valuable time" for eurozone banks but has not improved their credit outlook, a director of Standard & Poor's (S&P) has warned.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Amid a fresh raft of poor eurozone economic data, Scott Bugie, head of S&P's financial institutions division doused the key cause for pre-Christmas optimism. Although he agreed Wednesday's long-term refinancing operation was a "big deal", Mr Bugie told Reuters: "It is not solving the fundamental issues though... It's kicking the can a long way down the road rather than just a little bit, but in the end it is still kicking the big old can down the road."
He said the action did not "change the fundamental picture but it does buy valuable time". He added: "The move in itself will not lead to any improvement in (banks') credit ratings."
BofA Prepared for 'Turbulent Times'
By Hugh Son - Bloomberg.com
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan told employees in a year-end letter that he bolstered the firm against risk and will make more improvements in 2012.
"We greatly strengthened our risk culture in 2011, and that work has laid the foundation that will carry us through whatever turbulent times may lie ahead," Moynihan wrote in a letter posted yesterday to an internal employee website. A copy of the message was obtained by Bloomberg News.
If the S&P drops around 15%, printing presses will run hot
By Marc Faber
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): With the dismal shape of the financial markets , most investments may will lose about 50% of their value within 5 years, says Marc Faber, editor of the widely read Gloom Boom and Doom report.
In a Reuters Interview, Marc says that if the S&P drops 10%-15%, then the US and Europe are "going to print money", adding that "There is no doubt that QE3 will come in one form or the other, and in Europe also. They will monetize"
"I am convinced the whole derivatives market will cease to exit. Will become zero. And when it happens I don’t know: you can postpone the problems with monetary measures for a long time but you can’t solve them… Greece should have defaulted – it would have sent a message that not all derivatives are equal because it depends on the counterparty", he added.
The Four Companies
That Control the 147 Companies
That Own Everything
By Brendan Coffey - Forbes.com
There may be 147 companies in the world that own everything, as colleague Bruce Upbin points out and they are dominated by investment companies as Eric Savitz rightly points out. But it’s not you and I who really control those companies, even though much of our money is in them. Given the nature of how money is invested, there are four companies in the shadows that really control those companies that own everything.
Before I reveal them, some light math:
According to the 2011 annual factbook from the Investment Company Institute, there is $24.7 trillion in all the mutual funds in the world (a little less than half from the US). Based on data from the ICI, $1.24 trillion of this is directly invested in index funds, plus another $992 billion in assets beyond that $24.7 trillion in Exchange Traded Funds, which aren’t mutual funds but are index funds. That means the bulk of that money is in “active” managed funds or fund of funds.
Treasury naming housing finance adviser
(Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is building a team focused on the implementation of housing-finance policy in 2012, according to a Treasury official.
Michael Stegman, who has been director of policy and housing at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, will be joining the Department of the Treasury as a counselor to the secretary in January.
In his new role at Treasury, Stegman will help the administration navigate the development and implementation of housing policy and programs.
Net liabilities hit $14.8 trillion in FY11: Treasury
(Reuters) - The U.S. government fell deeper into the red in fiscal 2011 with net liabilities swelling more than $1 trillion as commitments on government debt and federal benefits rose, a U.S. Treasury report showed on Friday.
The Financial Report of the United States, which applies corporate-style accrual accounting methods to Washington, showed the government's liabilities exceeded assets by $14.785 trillion. That compared with a $13.473 trillion gap a year earlier.
Fitch again warns U.S. debt burden threatens AAA rating
By Daniel Bases
(Reuters) - Fitch Ratings on Wednesday warned again that the United States' rising debt burden was not consistent with maintaining the country's top AAA credit rating, but said there would likely be no decision on whether to cut the rating before 2013.
Last month, Fitch changed its U.S. credit rating outlook to negative from stable, citing the failure of a special congressional committee to agree on at least $1.2 trillion in deficit-reduction measures.
"Federal debt will rise in the absence of expenditure and tax reforms that would address the challenges of rising health and social security spending as the population ages," Fitch said in a statement.
Special Report: The watchdogs that didn't bark
By Scot Paltrow - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - Four years after the banking system nearly collapsed from reckless mortgage lending, federal prosecutors have stayed on the sidelines, even as judges around the country are pointing fingers at possible wrongdoing.
The federal government, as has been widely noted, has pressed few criminal cases against major lenders or senior executives for the events that led to the meltdown of 2007. Finding hard evidence has proved difficult, the Justice Department has said.
The government also hasn't brought any prosecutions for dubious foreclosure practices deployed since 2007 by big banks and other mortgage-servicing companies.
Justice to require sale before NYSE merger
AP - WashingtonTimes.com
The Justice Department announced Thursday that it will allow the creation of the world’s largest stock exchange operator after the German conglomerate that wants to buy the New York Stock Exchangesells its stake in a third, smaller American stock exchange operator.
Justice Department lawyers filed papers in U.S. District Court in Washington that would allow the merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse AG after the German company orders one of its subsidiaries to sell its 31.5 percent stake in Direct Edge Holdings LLC, which is the United States’ fourth-largest stock exchange operator. In addition to the sale of Direct Edge, the proposed settlement between Justice and the two companies prohibits them from participating in the business or running of Direct Edge.
Payroll tax cut may hurt housing market To pay for the two-month payroll tax cut, a small fee will be levied for a decade on all mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That also makes it harder to overhaul the housing finance system.
By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington— The new mortgage fee to fund the temporary extension of the payroll tax cut could damp the still-sluggish real estate market and complicate efforts to overhaul the nation's wounded housing finance system.
Even though the tax cut approved Friday extends for only two months, a small fee on loan amounts will be levied for a decade on all mortgages sold to housing finance giants Fannie Maeand Freddie Mac, which control about 60% of the nation's mortgage market.
Countrywide's Racist Lending Practices Were Fueled by Greed Countrywide Financial overcharged more than 200,000 black and Hispanic borrowers for their mortgages. The reason? The insatiable hunt for profit.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Economic racism is a slippery thing in 2011. It's not out in the open, like a "whites only" sign above a lunch counter. And it's not explicit, like the deed to a house barring its sale to blacks or Jews.
Instead, it's submerged. It lives in patterns of discrimination hidden within reams and reams of hard to analyze data. It's not necessarily driven by animus or hate. Sometimes it's just a product of garden-variety greed.
For proof, direct your attention to the record-setting settlement announced this week between the Justice Department and Bank of America over the mortgage lending practices of Countrywide Financial. The bank agreed to pay $335 million dollars to settle claims that, at the height of housing boom, Countrywide routinely discriminated against blacks and Hispanics by charging them higher interest rates and fees than equally qualified white customers.
The Death Certificate Of The Paper Dollar: Where To Next?
By Ralph Benko - Forbes.com
The world dollar standard’s death certificate arrives in the mail this week. The Bank of England — "the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" — one of the most staid, cautious, and dignified entities in the world of monetary policy — signals that the fiduciary currency standard ushered in on August 15, 1971 is, empirically measured, far inferior to the (dilute form of the) gold standard erected at Bretton Woods. Fellow Forbes.com columnist Charles Kadlec thoroughlyreprises and analyzes the facts submitted to a candid world by the Bank of England in a paper to be officially published December 20, 2011.
The Bank of England’s Financial Stability Paper No. 13, Reform of the International Monetary and Financial System, reported atBloomberg BusinessWeek and reviewed here, is being seen by many monetary policy observers around the world as the "coroner’s report" on the death of the world dollar standard.
Weak consumer spending hits US growth hopes Consumer spending in America rose by less than expected in November, casting fresh doubt on the country's economic recovery.
By Jamie Dunkley - Telegraph.co.uk
Spending rose by 0.1pc last month, according to data from the US Commerce Department, while incomes rose 0.1pc – the weakest showing since falling by 0.1pc in August.
Both the spending and income gains came in below expectations. Economists had predicted that solid increases in spending could boost economic growth in the final three months of what has been a difficult year for the US economy.
America's Most Depressing Employment Stat
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
There are any number of woeful statistics that you can cherry-pick to capture the awfulness of America's employment market. Long-term unemployment. Underemployment. Youth unemployment. They're all bad. If you want one number that captures the despair many of the jobless are experiencing, though, check out the workforce participation rate.
Yesterday, James Pethokoukis posted a chart that nicely illustrates what America's unemployment rate would be if so many discouraged workers hadn't simply given up on trying to find a job. Instead of 8.6%, where we're at now, we'd be hovering right about 11%.
Sorry Brick-and-Mortar Retailers:
Despite the Glitches,
Consumers Prefer the Online Channel
By Erika Morphy - Forbes.com
Best Buy dropped a bombshell on a few of its customers earlier this week, informing them that gifts they ordered to be delivered by Christmas were not going to make it on time.
Tom Nenon, a philosophy professor at the University of Memphis told Reuters that Best Buy tried to get him to accept an older model, at the same price, as a replacement for the 42″ Samsung TV, he originally ordered.
Not to single out Best Buy however: customers are reporting similar problems with Target, Wal-Mart and Barneys, Reuters says.
Holiday shopping falls short of hopes Consumer spending ticks up in Nov.,
but holiday shopping falls short of hopes
By Ylan Q. Mui - WashingtonPost.com
Consumer spending ticked higher in November, according to government data released Friday, marking the fifth consecutive month of gains but disappointing some economists who had hoped that momentum in holiday shopping would lead to a merrier month.
The holiday season is critical for the retail industry as well as the broader economy, with roughly two-thirds of the nation’s gross domestic product driven by consumer spending. Robust spending in the fall coupled with retailers’ reports of long lines and ringing cash registers on Black Friday, the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season, had fueled expectations for a brighter November. Analysts had expected a 0.3 percent increase in spending last month; consumers delivered a 0.1 percent blip.
And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
WASHINGTON -- This year, Christmas itself is a present. It is the gift of an absence, a respite from the Republican presidential clamors. The pitiless cacophony resumes tomorrow, so consider some gleanings from history before actual voters, those nuisances, intrude on the political conversation and actually make some history.
The current Republican front-runner, Newt Gingrich, has not held elective office since he was ousted as speaker by a mutiny in his own House caucus 14 years ago. Leave aside the five presidents who had never held elective office before entering the White House. (William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover had held Cabinet offices; Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant and Dwight Eisenhower had been Army generals.) Only two of the other presidents were elected after an electoral hiatus as long as Gingrich's:
Obama calls for payroll tax cut
to be extended 'without delay' as bill passes Short-term bill to extend tax cuts for 160m Americans makes it through Congress, handing president hard-fought victory
By Chris McGreal - Guardian.co.uk
President Barack Obama marked a rare political victory over Republican leaders in Congress – who bowed to White House demands on Friday for a short-term extension to tax reductions for working Americans – by calling for the measure to be applied to the rest of 2012 "without drama, without delay".
After defiantly refusing to approve the two-month extension to the employment tax break and unemployment benefits, Republican leaders backed down in the face of rising public frustration at the prospect of a sharp tax increase on 1 January.
Payroll tax fight leaves Hill Republicans divided and angry
By Rosalind S. Helderman - WashingtonPost.com
Congressional Republicans leave Washington for the holidays divided and embittered over the last round of December’s payroll-tax fight, and their lingering unhappiness could complicate negotiations starting in January on a deal for a full-year tax holiday.
Some House Republicans say they feel sold out by their counterparts in the Senate. For their part, Senate Republicans had worried that their House colleagues were harming the GOP’s chances of winning back their chamber by risking a tax increase if House members didn’t get concessions they wanted.
FDA Won’t Act Against Ag Antibiotic Use
By Maryn McKenna - Wired.com
With no notice other than a holiday-eve posting in the Federal Register, the US Food and Drug Administration has reneged on its long-stated intention to compel large-scale agriculture to curb over-use of agricultural antibiotics, which it had planned to do by reversing its approval for putting penicillin and tetracyclines in feed.
How long-stated? The FDA first announced its intention to withdraw those approvals in 1977.
From the official posting:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) is withdrawing two 1977 notices of opportunity for a hearing (NOOH), which proposed to withdraw certain approved uses of penicillin and tetracyclines intended for use in feeds for food-producing animals based in part on microbial food safety concerns.1 … (1FDA’s approval to withdraw the approved uses of the drugs was based on three statutory grounds: (1) The drugs are not shown to be safe (21 U.S.C. 360b(e)(1)(B)); (2) lack of substantial evidence of effectiveness (21 U.S.C. 360b(e)(1)(C)); and (3) failure to submit required reports (21 U.S.C. 360b(e)(2)(A)).)
Go Daddy pulls SOPA support
By Hayley Tsukayama, WashingtonPost.com
After backlash from customers, Go Daddy announced Friday that it is no longer supportingthe Stop Online Piracy Act.
In a company statement, the domain registrar said that it has removed previous postings about its position to "eliminate confusion."
"In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support the security and stability of the Internet," the company said in a statement. "In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support."
The company had been catching some heatfrom customers who disagreed with the company’s position on the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.
'Anonymous' hackers target U.S. security think tank
By Cassandra Vinograd and Ramit Plushnick-Masti - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
LONDON — The loose-knit hacking movement “Anonymous” claimed Sunday to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals’ accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.
Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor’s confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Inc. to the U.S. Air Force to theMiami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.
Iran says ready to expand military links with Iraq
Breitbart.com
Iran stands ready to expand its military and security ties with Iraq, its armed forces chief of staff said Sunday, a week after the exit of US forces from the neighbouring Arab country.
General Hassan Firouzabadi hailed the "forced departure" of the US and allied forces that he said "was due to the resistance and determination of the Iraqi people and government," the state Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The statements were made in messages Firouzabadi sent to his Iraqi counterpart, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, and to Iraq's acting defence minister, Saadun al-Dulaimi, IRNA said.
Russian anti-Putin protests
draw thousands to Moscow again Opposition activists claim 80,000 attend demonstration over vote-rigging claims, as Gorbachev calls on Putin to resign
By Miriam Elder and Tom Parfitt in Moscow - Guardian.co.uk
Tens of thousands have taken to the streets of Moscow to protestagainst allegedly fraudulent elections, as opposition leaders issued scathing personal attacks on Vladimir Putin in the hope of preventing his return to the presidency next year.
Mikhail Gorbachev has urged Putin to follow his own example and step down. Former leader Gorbachev said on Ekho Moskvy radio that if Putin stepped down now he would be remembered for the positive things he did during his 12 years in power.
Iraq Under Seige
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
A coordinated wave of bomb attacks has rocked the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. At least 69 people have been killed and more than 185 injured in a series of 14 explosions, consisting of four car-bombs and 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This is the worst violence to besiege Iraq in months, and it puts an exclamation point on the daunting reality that America may have prematurely left a nation whose government remains ruptured by sectarian divisions. Divisions that may ultimately undermine the enormous sacrifices made by American troops, and plunge the country into sectarian turmoil.
"For centuries men have kept an appointment with Christmas. Christmas means fellowship, feasting, giving and receiving, a time of good cheer, home." --W. J. Tucker
"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly". --Andy Rooney
"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph." -- Shirley Temple
'Christmas in Killarney'
sung by Major General Martin Dempsey
with the 1st Armored Division Band
12 Redneck Days of Christmas by Jeff Foxworthy
Oh Holy Night- Carrie Underwood
Maxine's 12 Days of Christmas
Lady Gaga - White Christmas
MARIAH CAREY - ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU
Michael Bublé - Baby, It's Cold Outside!
(with Anne Murray)
James Taylor - The Christmas Song
WHITE CHRISTMAS - Bing Crosby
Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
(Full Movie, 1991)
Eggnog Recipe for your Holiday Party
House signs off on Senate plan for tax-cut extension
By Dave Boyer-The Washington Times
In a very public retreat, House Republican leaders late Thursday agreed to a two-month extension of payroll tax cuts, a move that will prevent Social Security taxes from rising on millions of workers Jan. 1.
"Middle class families and small businesses are struggling and they’re making sacrifices," said House Speaker John A. Boehner, the Ohio Republican whose troops had been holding out for a one-year extension of the tax relief. "I think this agreement will help our economy."
The Worst Holidays Since the Great Depression
247WallSt.com
Retail sales this holiday season are expected to rise 3.8% to a record of $469.1 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. While the increase is less than last year, it is a significant improvement from the slow holiday seasons the last few years.
How does 2011 compare to other years? While probably not among the best, it’s also certainly not among the worst, according to 24/7 Wall St.’s analysis of the worst holidays since the Great Depression.
More bumps expected on economic path in 2012
By The Washington Times
As we sprint toward the end of December and with roughly six trading days left in the year, the temptation is to say "that’s a wrap" and coast in the coming days with the Christmas season in high gear and New Year's Eve right around the corner. While I can understand the temptation to do just that, recent warnings and misses from the likes of Oracle Corp., II-VI Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Emerson Electric Co. and others have me revisiting investment theses and double-checking data points on the one hand while looking at fresh ideas and companies.
Fragile and Unbalanced in 2012
By Nouriel Roubini - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – The outlook for the global economy in 2012 is clear, but it isn’t pretty: recession in Europe, anemic growth at best in the United States, and a sharp slowdown in China and in most emerging-market economies. Asian economies are exposed to China. Latin America is exposed to lower commodity prices (as both China and the advanced economies slow). Central and Eastern Europe are exposed to the eurozone. And turmoil in the Middle East is causing serious economic risks – both there and elsewhere – as geopolitical risk remains high and thus high oil prices will constrain global growth.
The Unfolding of a Global Economic Downturn
BY JOHN HUSSMAN PHD - FinancialSense.com
In the past few months, our own measures of economic risk have remained persistently unfavorable, as have the indications from the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI). It is worth emphasizing that we have no hope or interest in seeing an economic recession. Rather, that is a conclusion that the data - at least data that reliably associates with recession - forces on us. As I've previously noted, the typical lead time is in the range of 13-16 weeks. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule. Rather, you estimate the "lead-time" of any indicator by calculating the correlation between the indicator and subsequent data that is observed a varying number of weeks or months later, and then finding where that correlation reaches its peak. For our measures, the signals tend to lead the data by 13-16 weeks (3-4 months). It has been about 15 weeks since our main composites turned negative, so while every cycle is different, I suspect that we are on the cusp of observable economic deterioration.
The Financial Crisis on Trial The SEC fingers the government-backed mortgage buyers, not Wall Street greed.
By PETER J. WALLISON - WSJ.com
The Securities and Exchange Commission's lawsuits against six top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced last week, are a seminal event.
For the first time in a government report, the complaint has made it clear that the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) played a major role in creating the demand for low-quality mortgages before the 2008 financial crisis. More importantly, the SEC is saying that Fannie and Freddie — the largest buyers and securitizers of subprime and other low-quality mortgages — hid the size of their purchases from the market. Through these alleged acts of securities fraud, they did not just mislead investors; they deprived analysts, risk managers, rating agencies and even financial regulators of vital data about market risks that could have prevented the crisis.
American dissatisfaction
with nation's outlook near record highs
By Tiffany Hsu - LATimes.com
Americans in 2011 were more dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country than they’ve been in the past 30 years — with one exception.
That was 2008, during the recession, when just 15% of people polled by Gallup said they were happy with national conditions. This year, 17% of respondents on average were pleased with what they saw on the national landscape.
Most blamed high unemployment, the federal budget deficit, rising poverty or some other economic issue as the root of their malaise. Others pointed to evidence of moral decline, health-care woes and a government that they claim is not up to snuff.
Who Will Fix the US Economy?
By Henry Mintzberg - Project-Syndicate.org
MONTREAL – Much commentary about the American economy nowadays leaves the impression that economists should fix its problems. But Washington is teeming with smart economists, and the problems remain.
An economy is like a cloud: only when inside does one realize how diffuse it is – and that what matters are the particles of vapor that it comprises.
Likewise, an economy is an accumulation of transactions involving goods and services, mostly carried out by business enterprises. Their behaviors are what matters, and they cannot be adequately perceived from the distant perspective of economic models and statistics, but only on the ground – where an economy is built, where it breaks, and where it must be fixed.
It's Official: US Debt-To-GDP Passes 100%
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
With precisely one year left for the world and all of its inhabitants, at least according to the Mayans, not to mention on the day of the Winter Solstice, it is only fitting that US debt, net of all settlements for allalready completed bond auctions, is now at precisely $15,182,756,264,288.80. Why is this relevant? Because the latest annualized US GDP, according to the BEA, was $15,180,900,000.00. Which means that, as of today, total US debt to GDP is 100.012%.Congratulations America: you are now in the triple digit "debt to GDP" club! (naturally, this is using purely "on the books" data. If one adds the NPV of all US liabilities, and adjusts GDP for such things as today's housing contraction, then the magical triple digit threshold was breached long, long ago).
The Fed vs The ECB -
Presenting "The Correlation Of 2012"
And What It Means For Gold
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
If there is one cross asset correlation that defined 2011 (and the greater part of 2010), it was that of the Euro-Dollar (EURUSD) currency pair and the S&P 500, which have correlated with near unison nearly all of the time. And yet, the stability of this correlation may be getting unglued, because as Goldman insinuated in its market roundup note from yesterday, it is "reasonable to think that the ... reflexive relationship between EURUSD and SPX...will take some time to break, but this correlation should start to fray." Why? Because, "like the FED before them, the ECB is aggressively expanding their balance sheet." Which brings us to the point of this article: much to the dismay of the armies of disgruntled bankers and investors demanding that the ECB print right now, the ECB has in fact been printing, as shown the other day. Only it has not done so in the conventional sense where it assumes an "asset" on its balance sheet while expanding a monetary liability, but indirectly through shadow conduits, such as repo and other liquidity backstops, also as shown yesterday, where no new currency actually enters the system, yet whereby the balance sheet expands just as efficiently (and in doing so, dilutes the underlying currency). It is well known that it has been our contention that in this centrally planned world the only thing that matters is the global provisioning of liquidity by the monetary authority, as the ultimate marginal determinant of Risk On behavior (and inversely Risk Off), is how much ZIRPy cash do speculators (and more importantly Prime Brokers) have at their possession (for outright and (re)hypothecated purchasing purposes).
Gold: 2011 recap and what you should expect in 2012
Gold Core
With just a few trading days left in 2011, we can take stock of gold’s performance vis-à-vis other assets. Gold is 13.7% higher in USD, 12% higher in GBP and 14.4% higher in EUR. Gains were seen in all fiat currencies and even stronger performing fiat currencies such as the CNY (yuan) and JPY (+9% and +8.75% respectively).
Stock markets globally had a torrid year with the S&P500 down 1.3%, the FTSE down 8% and the CAC and DAX down 19% and 15% respectively. Asian stock markets also fell with the Nikkei down 17%, the Hang Seng 20% and the Shanghai SE down 22%.
The MSCI World Index fell 9%.
Banks on 2012 Gold Price?
Published by Ian R. Campbell - StockResearchPortalBlog.com
So, do you want to know what some big banks think the price of physical gold will be in 2012? Here are three views that all were expressed in yesterday’s early hours: (1) Barclays Capital – U.S.$2,000 average, (2) Goldman Sachs – U.S.$1,810 average, and (3) UBS – U.S.$2,050 average.
As you know if you read these e-mails, I believe that any forecast of the physical gold price is a forecast on the world macro-economic and political condition at a given point in time. Accordingly, as I reflect on the current gold price and these three 2012 price estimates – which for all intents and purposes are broadly in the same ‘ballpark’ – I have reached the following views with respect to them:
Currency Wars, Silver, and QE3
BY RUSS WINTER - FinancialSense.com
I’m sure some, or many of you have read or are aware of James Rickards’ Currency Wars. A recent interview with him can be heard here. I am pretty much in agreement that QE3 is on the way. It may be announced as soon as January or perhaps more likely February. Rickards says to key in on the euro-USD cross-rates, looking at below 1.30, perhaps with 1.27-1.28 as the trigger. As I have stated, the spec short in the euro is already very large. He also thinks China is going back to a soft peg, and that will be a factor. With the arrival of doves on the Fed, Rickards predicts notional GDP targeting, in effect giving up on inflation targets. This is all close to my view.
Greece’s Creditors Said to Resist Pressure
From IMF to Take On More Losses
By Christos Ziotis, Marcus Bensasson and Jesse Westbrook - Bloomberg.com
Greece’s creditors are resisting pressure from the International Monetary Fund to accept bigger losses on holdings of the indebted nation’s government bonds, said three people with direct knowledge of the discussions.
Lenders want the 70 billion euros ($91 billion) of new bonds the government will issue in return for existing securities to carry a coupon of about 5 percent, said the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are private.
"a repo is actually a temporary open market purchase" (Frederic Mishkin)
There is widespread belief that the purpose of the Long Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) is to encourage European banks to borrow money so they can purchase new issues of European debt. While this might be a welcomed outcome of the LTRO, it is not the program’s primary purpose. The surest way to grasp the LTRO is to compare the program to Quantitative Easing (QE). Consider a hypothetical balance sheet for Bank of America. On the asset side, Bank of America has $10 of reserves and a $100 mortgage backed security (MBS). The $10 of reserves supports $100 of deposits on the right side of the balance sheet. This leaves $10 of equity.
We’ve reached the end game for Central Bank intervention.
Submitted by Phoenix Capital Research - ZeroHedge.com
When confronted with excessive debt, you can either “take the hit” or you can try to inflate the debt away.
In 2008, the Central Banks, lead by the US Federal Reserve, decided not to "take the hit." They’ve since spent trillions of Dollars propping up the financial system. By doing this, they’ve essentially attempted to fight a debt problem by issuing more debt.
The end result is similar to what happens when you try to cure a heroine addict by giving him more heroine: each new "hit" has less and less effect.
Case in point, consider the Central Banks’ coordinated intervention to lower the cost of borrowing Dollars three weeks ago. Remember, this was a coordinated effort, not the Federal Reserve or European Central Bank acting alone.
Ann Barnhardt Discusses MF Global with Peter Schiff -
"There Is No Rule of Law Anymore"
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
There are some interesting facts brought out in this discussion. I do not necessarily agree with everything she says, and she is obviously outraged.
I do not believe in capital punishment except for the most extreme crimes against humanity, and I also think that boycotts and reforms must be targeted to be effective.
Peter Schiff is promoting his agenda, and this leads to a rather comical exchange between her and Peter towards the end regarding the proposed boycott of paper assets.
Peter Schiff interviews Ann Barnhardt Dec 21, 2011
What Fannie and Freddie Knew The SEC shows how the toxic twins turbocharged the housing bubble. -- WSJ.com
Democrats have spent years arguing that private lenders created the housing boom and bust, and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac merely came along for the ride. This was always a politically convenient fiction, and now thanks to the unlikely source of the Securities and Exchange Commission we have a trail of evidence showing how the failed mortgage giants turbocharged the crisis.
That's the story revealed Friday by the SEC's civil lawsuits against six former Fannie and Freddie executives, including a pair of CEOs. The SEC says the companies defrauded investors because they "knew and approved of misleading statements" about Fan and Fred's exposure to subprime loans, and it chronicles their push to expand the business.
An Unlikely Bulldog for Mortgage Investors
By RUTH SIMON - WSJ.com
Kathy Patrick has been a beauty queen, a Harvard law student and a singer with a Christian rock band. Lately she also is the secret weapon for big bond investors seeking to recover billions of dollars on faulty mortgage-backed securities.
This summer, Ms. Patrick, a Houston lawyer with a 33-person firm called Gibbs & Bruns, extracted an agreement fromBank of America Corp. to pay $8.5 billion to investors who bought flawed mortgage bonds issued before the housing market collapsed. On Friday, she announced her next target: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Cash-Strapped U.S. Postal Service
Turns To Deliveries After Dark Mail Carriers Nervous And Furious
That Service Will Keep It That Way
NEW YORK (CBS 2) — You may have noticed someone lurking around your street after normal business hours. No need for alarm. It’s just your postal carrier.
The U.S. Postal Service is delivering mail after dark as a way to cut down on its debt, reports CBS 2′s Maurice Dubois.
It’s something most people aren’t used to seeing, but it could soon be a common sight all over the area.
"The morale? Let’s see, I started in ’85 … The morale … the morale is the lowest I’ve ever seen it," one postal worker said.
These are hard times for the USPS and its carriers — like one who wanted to talk to CBS 2 about the changes but didn’t want to show his face because he is afraid of losing his job.
Oil could hit a new record in 2012
Bloomberg - LATimes.com
Crude oil may rise for a fourth year to a record average price in 2012 as demand in emerging markets increases and the U.S. avoids a recession.
West Texas Intermediate oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange will reach an average of $100 a barrel in 2012, based on the median of 27 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg, topping the all-time high of $99.75 set in 2008. The U.S. benchmark is on course to average $95 a barrel this year.
Evidence that stimulus measures are reviving the U.S. economy while countries from India to Brazil keep expanding is raising the outlook for oil consumption next year. Global demand will climb 1.4 percent, with China accounting for more than a 10th of the amount used, according to theInternational Energy Agency. Crude in New York advanced 8% in the year through yesterday.
The Year in Review for the American Middle Class The biggest news in employment, education and foreign developments add up to a lost year for the middle
By David Rohde - TheAtlantic.com
By almost every measure, 2011 was a lost year for the American middle class. Who is to blame depends on your political view. What follows is an attempt to sum up the major developments and missed opportunities of the year gone by. For me, the following areas represent the most serious perils facing middle class Americans.
- Jobs: Economists generally agree that the single most effective way to revive the American middle class is to create more high-paying, stable private sector jobs. The unexpected emergence of 140,000 new private sector jobs in November helped drop the unemployment rate to a two-and-a-half-year low 8.6 percent, but the rosier figure was aided by 315,000 people who gave up and stopped looking for work last month. The most important factor of all -- the quality of the new jobs -- was unclear. Governments, meanwhile, slashed 20,000 public sector jobs across the country and deadlock in Washington blocked both Obama's $447 billion jobs plan and Republican job creation proposals.
New Bubble May Be Building in 30-Year Mortgages
By Edward Pinto - Bloomberg.com
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the most common way U.S. buyers finance a home purchase, isn’t the ideal instrument its supporters claim it to be.
First, its dominance requires permanent government subsidies. Second, it amortizes slowly, exposing homebuyers to years of unnecessary default risk. Third, it was responsible for two taxpayer bailouts in the last 20 years.
Most important, these mortgages may be behind a new bubble.
The combination of a federal funds rate of almost 0 percent since late 2008 and injections of money into the economy through quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve has kept borrowing rates artificially low. Federally insured banks, thrifts and credit unions hold $1.7 trillion in Fannie Mae-, Freddie Mac- and Ginnie Mae-guaranteed securities, while an additional $2.2 trillion are held by local, state and federal governments and agencies. Both categories have increased by about 30 percent since 2007. As a result the government, banks and other financial institutions backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. now hold 52 percent of outstanding agency securities. Most are backed by 30-year fixed-rate mortgages.
Americans continue to buy less gasoline
Bloomberg - LATimes.com
U.S. fuel demand in November dropped, pulled lower by a decline in gasoline consumption, theAmerican Petroleum Institute said.
Total deliveries of petroleum products, a measure of demand, declined 1.1% to 18.8 million barrels a day last month from a year earlier, the industry-funded group said today in a report. Year-to-date consumption has averaged 19 million barrels a day, down 0.7% from the same period in 2010.
Gasoline demand dropped 1.8% to 8.65 million barrels a day last month compared with the same month in 2010. It was the lowest level of November consumption for the motor fuel since 2000, according to the report.
The Classical Holiday Music You Should Be Hearing at CVS Instead of listening to shopping-mall versions of 'The Sugar Plum Fairy,' revisit the original, as well as these other, fantastic holiday classical works
By Heather Horn - TheAtlantic.com
For classical-music evangelists, there's something sad—a sense of missed opportunity—about this time of year. The Christmas season, more than any other, witnesses a cultural convergence: Diehard classical lovers haul out the Mariah Carey, while Top-40 enthusiasts smile when dealt out a digitized version of "Carol of the Bells." But the wealth of Christmas music in Western society, whatever your preferred genre, is immense. Only a fraction of the good stuff winds up getting played.
Personally, it's not that I resent "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," or even "All I Want for Christmas," having a place in the yearly playlists. And I recognize the merit in the time-honored and creatively crucial tradition of covers, variations, bastardizations, and re-arrangements in both classical and pop music.
The super rich just don't get it Wealthy financiers are trying to turn the Occupy movement into a rich vs. poor debate. What they still don't understand is that Americans don't hate the rich. They hate the rich in finance.
By Nin-Hai Tseng, writer-reporter - CNN.com
FORTUNE -- Don't hate me because I'm rich.
So says JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, the highest paid executive among the six biggest U.S. banks. At an investors' conference in New York, Bloomberg reported that Dimon grew mystified when someone in the audience asked him about hostility toward bankers.
"Acting like everyone who's been successful is bad and because you're rich you're bad, I don't understand it," said Dimon, whose 2010 compensation totaled $23 million.
A Christmas Message From America's Rich
By Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.
True, they’re doing it from behind the ropeline, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.
But while they haven’t yet deigned to talk to protesting America face to face, they are willing to scribble out some complaints on notes and send them downstairs on silver trays. Courtesy of a remarkable story by Max Abelson at Bloomberg, we now get to hear some of those choice comments.
Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, for instance, is not worried about OWS:
"Who gives a crap about some imbecile?" Marcus said. "Are you kidding me?"
Ft. Lauderdale To Offer Homeless Free Rides Out Of Town
FT. LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – Just in time for the holidays, the City of Ft. Lauderdale has come up with a way to help the homeless who have relatives in other parts of the country willing to take care of them.
On Tuesday, the city’s commission approved a $25,000 program which will buy them one-way bus tickets out of town. The program won’t cost taxpayers a dime. It’s being paid for by the Florida Law Enforcement Trust Fund, which is money confiscated from criminals.
Vice Mayor Bobby DuBose was the only commissioner to vote against the program. DuBose voiced his opinion that there were other ways the money could be used to help the homeless. He said he was also concerned that some homeless people may take advantage of the program and use it as a cheap vacation.
Fukushima Refugees Trapped By Uncertainty
By Cordula Meyer - Spiegel.de
For months, the 21,000 residents of Namie have lived in trailers and shelters across Japan. By abandoning their homes, they unwittingly fled directly into the path of Fukushima's radiation cloud. As worried and angry as they may be, most just want to return home.
Tamotsu Baba is mayor of a city that no longer exists, except in the copied maps that hang on the wall behind him. Nine months ago, Mayor Baba evacuated the 21,000 residents of the town of Namie, sending them away from the meltdowns occurring at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Baba was left to fend for himself, he says, with no catastrophe plans and no help from Tokyo or from TEPCO, the power plant's operator. To this day, he feels he's fighting a one-man battle.
EGYPT’S KRISTALLNACHT
BY JOHN HINDERAKER - PowerLineBlog.com
The persecution of Christians in Egypt is one of the mysteriously underreported stories of our time. At Big Peace, Charles Jacobs writes:
Gordon College is a Christian school between Salem and Rockport. A few weeks ago I spoke there at a commemoration of Kristallnacht, Germany’s night of broken glass, the first mass assault on Europe’s Jews and the harbinger of the Shoah. I told the Christian audience how good it was to feel Christian support for Jews in these times, and that even some of the most stubborn of my people were now appreciating Evangelical support for Israel. I also said that we felt this blessed support came from a spirit of Christian altruism. But given the news from the Middle East, concern for others is surely not the only reason Christians need to support Israel.
Iraq’s vice president accuses Iran
of being involved in his arrest warrant
By Ben Birnbaum - The Washington Times
Iraq’s vice president says that Iran is "definitely" behind Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s move to jail him on terror charges, saying it is “not a coincidence” that his arrest warrant was announced the day after the last U.S. troops leftIraq.
"Definitely Iran was involved," Tariq al-Hashemitold The Washington Times in an exclusive interview, speaking by phone late Wednesday from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq. "My dear friend, they have … staff now in the government and in the parliament. They are representing Iran."
Mr. al-Hashemi said he has been a consistent critic of the "intervention of Iran in every respect of my country."
North Korea Begins to Glorify Its New Chief Propaganda Department's Handiwork on Behalf of the Kim Dynasty Includes Story of a Pine-Cone Grenade
By JAEYEON WOO And ALASTAIR GALE - WSJ.com
SEOUL—Kim Ki Nam has one of the toughest jobs in North Korea.
The 82-year-old former professor heads the department in North Korea's ruling party responsible for filling North Koreans' minds with awe, devotion and unswerving respect for the dictatorial Kim dynasty.
His task now: rapidly elevate the country's youthful new leader Kim Jong Eun to the status of quasi-deity in the minds of the North Koreans, including the elite, to legitimize the succession and solidify Mr. Kim's rule.
The Propaganda and Agitation department led by Mr. Kim, who is no relation to the ruling patriarchy, has been working on the project since 2009, when Kim Jong Il selected his third son as his successor.
U.S. Jets Enter Iranian Airspace, Oil Depot Bombed
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
The Iranian news agency IRNA reported today that a U.S. missile hit an oil depot in the southwest village of Abadan on Wednesday. IRNA said British and American jets had entered Iranian airspace several times.
In addition to the oil depot attack, two rockets reportedly hit the village of Manyuhi near the border of Iraq’s al-Faw Peninsula near the Persian Gulf and the Iraqi city of Basra.
"In the border city of Arvand-Kenar, the invading American and British airplanes violated the airspace of the Islamic Republic of Iran three times," a commander told the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iran Announces Military Exercise
After Panetta Refuses to Rule Out Attack
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
Following Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s comments on Monday that Iran will have a nuclear weapon within a year and the U.S. will not rule out a military attack, Iran on Thursday announced it will hold a military exercise beyond the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The exercise may place Iranian navy vessels within proximity of U.S. warships in the area.
Dec 20, 2011 U.S. Defense Secretary
Iran could get nuclear bomb within a year
Iran invites IAEA to visit nuclear sites CCTV News
The Secret to a Merry Christmas?
Skip the Mall, Go to Church A study finds that families who focus on buying and receiving gifts report more stress and less satisfaction during the holiday season
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
To call Christmas "commercialized" today isn't a criticism so much as a statistical observation. One in every six dollars in retail spending is exchanged in the five weeks between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. Analysts now expect us to spend approximately $450 billion this month, or around $700 per family -- equal to a typical month's rent.
But according to a 2002 study we surfaced for our Santanomics series, spending money won't make your Christmas any merrier. In fact, putting too much focus on buying and receiving presents might be ruining our holidays.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
2012: The Year of Living Dangerously
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
There is nothing 'modern' at all in Modern Monetary Theory. It is the same old fish wrapped in slightly different paper. The godfathers of Modern Monetary Theory are John Law, G.F. Knapp, J.M. Keynes, and most lately Alan Greenspan. But its roots go back to any ruling group that ever debased a currency or seized private property by fraud.
It is in the nature of a Ponzi scheme. As long as its sphere of influence can keep expanding, and the force by which people are compelled to accept it is maintained, a fiat currency will 'work.' But as its expansion slows, as outlying regions begin to resist it, the currency begins a slow but deadly spiral of collapse that accelerates into a final reckoning and reissuance.
Reasons why silver, gold, platinum
looks bullish in 2012: BofAML
Commodity Online
Silver and Gold will likely suffer a setback this month but eventually prices may be hitting $34 and $2,000/oz respectively in 2012. Meanwhile, Platinum is likely to touch 1500/oz, said a report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML).
Given the deteriorating outlook for global growth, BofAML is cautious on adding commodity risk.
However, an upcoming recession in Europe has increased the likelihood of additional easing from the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan. It has also pushed back market expectations for the timing of the first interest rate hikes across Developed Markets central banks. In addition, Emerging Markets central banks are currently pursuing lower real interest rate paths in response to the recent risks emanating from Developed Markets.
Over 20 million oz of silver does not exist in SLV vaults,
trader reveals manipulation tactics
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): That Silver is the most manipulated commodity in the world is an argument few precious metals traders could honestly contradict. And SLV, the Ishares Silver Trust ETF, is in deep trouble for not backing up its shares with physical silver...one trader reveals.
A King World News interview of a London trader reveals that most SLV shareholders are just holding paper silver- there is no silver!
Will Kim Jong-Il's death hit Asian gold prices?
LONDON (Commodity Online): The news of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il did not affect Asian Gold prices notably, but if tensions rise, gold could eventually be a beneficiary, said HSBC in a research note.
The bank’s Asian economist says there is little near-term risk of an immediate rise of military tensions between North Korea and South Korea, which could be why gold didn’t react. If the North Korean power transition is more difficult than it was when Kim Jong-Il assumed power, then it could lend some modest support to gold, the bank said.
Let the Depression Burn Itself Out
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
12/21/11 Baltimore, Maryland – The year is winding down. The sun is low in the sky. There soon won’t be anything left of 2011.
The Dow put in a good performance yesterday — up more than 300 points when we last looked. Housing starts were at a 19-month high…which caused investors to think recovery is right around the corner.
Christmas is coming too.
But at least we know what we want for Christmas — a depression…a merry little depression.
Paul Krugman says we already have one:
"It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression."
We should be so lucky!
"We Own Wall Street" How small shareholders, pension funds, and mutual funds can stop corporate America’s worst behavior and ignite a political movement.
By Eliot Spitzer - Slate.com
As the year ends, American politics remains mired in the agenda of the right. The House is, at least momentarily, refusing to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits—two policies genuinely beneficial to the middle class. And the presidential campaign heading into the Iowa primaries is dominated by the libertarianism of Ron Paul and the astonishing, appalling ideas — eliminate child labor laws, for instance — of Newt Gingrich.
Yes, Occupy Wall Street changed the debate for a brief spell, and, yes, President Obama harkened back to the glory days of progressivism with his Kansas speech. But in general American politics has lost sight of the most important crisis of our generation: the shrinking middle class.
Peter Suderman Talks Debt Ceiling, Occupy Wall Street,
Fast and Furious, and more on Freedom Watch
The 10 Biggest Banking Trends
You Can Expect To See In 2012
By Mandi Woodruff - BusinessInsider.com
If you thought it was tough to be a bank customer in 2011, you better buckle up tight in the new year.
We picked the brains of NerdWallet marketing VP Anisha Sekar to find out what the whizzes behind the personal finance site predict banking will be like in 2012.
8 Banking Horror Stories That Will Outrage Consumers
By Dina Spector - BusinessInsider.com
There's no shortage of tales about banks slamming their customers with hidden charges or horrific treatment from customer service.
In fact, according to the latest report from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, the nation's big banks are losing out to smaller competitors in the face revenue challenges, increasing demands from regulators, and consumers' contempt for fees.
IBM Predicts Mind-Reading Machines
AFP - MyFOXNY.com
ARMONK, N.Y. - Century-old technology colossus IBM on Monday depicted a near future in which machines read minds and recognize who they are dealing with.
The " IBM 5 in 5 " predictions were based on societal trends and research which the New York State-based company expected to begin bearing fruit by the year 2017.
"From Houdini to Skywalker to X-Men, mind reading has merely been wishful thinking for science fiction fans for decades, but their wish may soon come true," IBM said in its annual assessment of innovations on the horizon.
IBM Next 5 in 5: 2011
Will the Europeans have to sell their gold? Pressure on gold is bullish in the long term
By Brett Arends, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — If the Italians can’t persuade the bond markets to keep them in business, they have another card up their sleeve.
Few people realize it, but Italy holds the world’s fourth biggest stockpile of gold, at 2,452 tonnes. That’s even more than France, and more than twice as much as China.
Only the U.S., Germany and the International Monetary Fund hold more.
The question here is whether some of the troubled European countries — such as Italy and France — are going to have to start selling off the national gold pile to meet their bills.
ECB lends $641 billion to European banks 523 bidders across Europe
seek 3-year loans from central bank
By Kim Hjelmgaard, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — The European Central Bank on Wednesday attempted to send a strong signal to financial markets by offering to loan $641 billion to 523 euro-area banks in a massive three-year funding operation.
The bank-funding move by the region’s central bank, known as a longer-term refinancing operation, or LTRO, is open to lenders across the euro zone. The figure came in well above a Reuters forecast for $408 billion. The loans run for three years.
The loans expand the central bank’s balance sheet by 20%, according to Louise Cooper, analyst at BCG Partners.
It Begins? Anti 'Money Power' Lawsuit Filed in Canada ... Dominant Social Theme:
The money system we have now is the best it can be.
by Staff Report - TheDailyBell.com Free-Market Analysis: Well, it is finally happening. A legal challenge to the power elite's money system has been launched in a Canadian Court "for the benefit of Canadians ... and to restore the use of the Bank of Canada for the benefit of Canadians. Here's some more from the press release mentioned above:
The action also constitutionally challenges the government's fallacious accounting methods in its tabling of the budget by not calculating nor revealing the true and total revenues of the nation before transferring back "tax credits" to corporations and other taxpayers. The Plaintiffs state that since 1974 there has been a gradual but sure slide into the reality that the Bank of Canada and Canada's monetary and financial policy are dictated by private foreign banks and financial interests contrary to the Bank of Canada Act.
Keiser Report: Victims of Banking Terrorists (E225)
How Central Banks Attempt to Prop Up the Economy
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
12/20/11 Laguna Beach, California – The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled about 100 points yesterday — probably not because anyone really wanted to sell stocks, but because no one could think of any really good reason to buy them. This morning, the Dow is soaring more than 300 points — probably not because anyone really wants to buy stocks, but because no one can think of any really good reason to sell them again.
In short, the financial markets are reflecting what our friend, John Mauldin, calls a "muddle through" economy.
Notwithstanding this morning’s buoyant stock market action, the euro zone is still in crisis, the finances of most governments in the Western world are still in shambles… and Bank of America’s share price is still hovering around five dollars — just like it was in March of 2009, when then-Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were busy patting each other on the back for "saving" the financial system.
ECB to Lend Greater-Than-Forecast
$645 Billion as Banks Line Up for Funds
By Gabi Thesing and Rainer Buergin - Bloomberg.com
The European Central Bank will lend euro-area banks a record amount for three years in its latest attempt to keep credit flowing to the economy during the sovereign debt crisis.
The Frankfurt-based ECB awarded 489 billion euros ($645 billion) in 1,134-day loans today, the most ever in a single operation and more than economists’ median estimate of 293 billion euros in a Bloomberg News survey. The ECB said 523 banks asked for the funds, which will be lent at the average of its benchmark interest rate -- currently 1 percent -- over the period of the loans. They start tomorrow.
If A Global Recession Is Not Looming,
Then Why Are Bailouts Flying Around
As If The End Of The World Is Coming?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
I have learned that watching what people do is much more important than listening to what they say. Back in 2008, financial authorities in the United States insisted that everything was gone to be okay. But we all know now that was a lie. Well, right now financial authorities in the U.S. and Europe are once again trying to assure us that everything is under control and that we are not headed for a global recession. Unfortunately, their actions are telling a very different story. All over the world, bailouts are flying around as if the end of the world is coming. Governments and central banks are stepping in with gigantic mountains of money to prop up bond yields, major banks and even stock markets. What we have seen over the past few months has been absolutely unprecedented. So why are such desperate measures being taken if everything is going to be just fine? Unfortunately, debt problems are never solved with more debt, so these bailouts really aren't solving anything. We are still headed for a massive amount of financial pain. It would just be nice if the authorities would quit lying to us and would actually admit how bad things really are.
U.K. Stores Brace for Most Insolvencies
Since 2008 as Sales Weaken: Retail
By Sarah Shannon - Bloomberg.com
U.K. retail insolvencies may reach the highest level in four years as weak Christmas sales leave chains struggling to meet rent payments due this month, according to restructuring firm Alix Partners LLP.
"We are likely to see a number of retail collapses early in the new year and it could include some much-loved names," Sanjay Bailur, managing director of the advisory firm's U.K. unit, said in an interview. The outlook is "worse than the last three or four years."
Bernanke Prods Savers to Become Consumers
By Rich Miller - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke finally may be catching a break: His easy-money policies are showing signs of speeding up the economic rebound three years after he cut interest rates to zero.
Housing may be nearing a bottom as record-low mortgage rates tempt more buyers into the market and confidence among homebuilders climbs to the highest since May 2010. Autos, another part of the economy sensitive to interest rates, are reviving, with carmakers reporting in November their highest sales pace in more than two years.
MF Global Client Attorney Explains In 1 Sentence
Why JP Morgan's Involvement In MF Global Is Suspicious
By Lisa Du - BusinessInsider.com
James Koutoulas, one of the founders of the Commodity Customer Coalition—which represents the interests of over 8,000 MF Global customers, was just on CNBC to talk about the recent blitz of news on the investigation into MF Global's missing customer money.
Koutoulas addressed a bank that's been popping up a lot in the investigation: JP Morgan. Reports this morning addressed emails that were sent between JP Morgan and MF Global in the brokerage firm's last days, and also the legality of a previously reported $200 million transfer from MF Global to JP Morgan.
MF Global's missing $700 million could be in UK
By Chris Isidore @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The bankruptcy court trustee in the MF Global case has identified $700 million in U.S. customer funds that were sent to the United Kingdom before the collapse of the commodities and futures trader.
But while the trustee said he would be trying to get the money back from the British authorities, he warned MF Global (MFGLQ) customers that getting that money will be a difficult and drawn-out process.
The Corruption of America
By Porter Stansberry - DailyReckoning.com
The numbers tell us America is in decline… if not outright collapse.
I say "the numbers tell us" because I've become very sensitive to the impact this kind of statement has on people. When I warned about the impending bankruptcy of General Motors in 2006 and 2007, readers actually blamed me for the company's problems — as if my warnings to the public were the real problem, rather than GM’s $400 billion in debt.
The claim was absurd. But the resentment my work engendered was real.
"What is Money?"
with Joseph T. Salerno --
Ron Paul Money Lecture Series, Pt 1/3
"What is Constitutional Money?"
with Edwin Vieira --
Ron Paul Money Lecture Series, Pt 2/3
"What About Money Causes Economic Crises?"
with Peter Schiff -
Ron Paul Money Lecture Series, Pt 3/3
Stolen Credit Cards Go for $3.50
at Amazon-like Online Bazaar
By Michael Riley - Bloomberg.com
In mid-September, a European hacker nicknamed Poxxie broke into the computer network of a U.S. company and, he said, grabbed 1,400credit-card numbers, the account holders’ names and addresses, and the security code that comes with each card.
With little trouble, he sold the numbers for $3.50 each on his own seller’s site, called CVV2s.in, to underworld buyers who have come to trust the quality of his goods, he said.
"The main thing in any business is honesty," Poxxie said, without any trace of irony.
Income inequality in the Roman Empire
by Tim De Chant - PerSquareMile.com
Over the last 30 years, wealth in the United States has been steadily concentrating in the upper economic echelons. Whereas the top 1 percent used to control a little over 30 percent of the wealth, they now control 40 percent. It’s a trend that was for decades brushed under the rug but is now on the tops of minds and at the tips of tongues.
Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updatesstatistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by almost 10 percent, making it more unequal than Russia, infamous for its powerful oligarchs. The U.S. is not faring well historically, either. Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution.
Unemployment benefits extension: What's at stake
By Tami Luhby @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The long-term unemployed are running out of time.
In 11 days, a provision will expire that could cause jobless Americans to lose a critical lifeline next year. The White House estimates that by Jan. 14, some 697,000 unemployed Americans could lose benefits. By March 3, the number of Americans poised to lose benefits will top 2.6 million.
"This is critical to millions of working families and critical to our economy and job growth as well," said White House director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling on Wednesday.
Peter Schiff - Inflation Taking its Toll
Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers Up to $250K Per Vehicle Analyst: 'This might be the most
government-supported car since the Trabant'
By TOM GANTERT - MichiganCapitolConfidential.com
Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently 26 percent owned by the federal government.
Obamacare Abominations
By John Stossel - PatriotPost.us
President Obama says his health care "reform" will be good for business.
Business has learned the truth.
Three successful businessmen explained to me how Obamacare is a reason that unemployment stays high. Its length and complexity make businessmen wary of expanding.
Mike Whalen, CEO of Heart of America Group, which runs hotels and restaurants, said that when he asked his company's health insurance experts to summarize the impact of Obamacare, "the three of them kind of looked at each other and said, 'We've gone to seminar after seminar, and, Mike, we can't tell you.' I think that just kind of sums up the uncertainty."
Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy, added that Obamacare makes it impossible to achieve even basic certainty about future personnel costs:
Hey, Washington:
We Don't Have to Overhaul Medicare to Save It Republicans and some Democrats claim that we have to radically change Medicare because we can't afford it. They're wrong on both counts.
By James Kwak - TheAtlantic.com
Medicare needs a structural overhaul in order to avoid bankrupting the federal government--or so Republicans and many Democrats would have you believe. The latest evidence of this consensus is the Paul Ryan-Ron Wyden proposal to change Medicare into a voucher system where traditional Medicare is one of the options, but there are artificial caps on the value of the vouchers.
There's only one problem with this consensus. It's wrong.
The push for Medicare reform comes from understandable concerns about health care. Rising medical costs are a serious problem. We spend more than people in other countries, we get less, our gains in life expectancy are mediocre, employers are struggling with increasing health care costs, and of course, 50 million people are uninsured.
Medicare doctors fed up with Washington
By Parija Kavilanz @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The payroll tax impasse in Congress has put Medicare doctors on edge over the likelihood that their pay could be slashed 27.4% in two weeks time.
Under current law, health care providers to the nation's 45 million Medicare beneficiaries -- including physicians, nurse practitioners, physical therapists and podiatrists -- face reduced government reimbursement payments on Jan. 1.
But the payroll tax cut bill also includes a "patch" that would have prevented the Medicare payment cuts from occurring in the New Year.
Americans Angry at Senate Sycophants
By Michael Reagan - PatriotPost.us
For the past three years the United States Senate, under the leadership of Obama toady Harry Reid, has been an embarrassment for the United States. Now the so-called "Upper Body" has merely kicked the can down the road for two months on an extension of the payroll tax cut, and the House has rightly rejected the Senate's maneuver.
Americans need to kick the Harry Reid Senate down the road not for a period of months, but for a lifetime. We have a clear message for Harry Reid and his utter failure to lead the Senate: The nation is angry and our anger is directed at a legislative body that under Reid's leadership can't do its job.
History Tells Us Not to Dismiss
a Democratic Challenge to Obama
By William Pfaff - Truthdig.com
A week ago, in the Providence Journal newspaper (in Rhode Island), the publisher of Harper’s Magazine, John R. MacArthur, wrote that President Barack Obama, through expedient political compromises, has lost the moral authority that an American president must command, and therefore has lost his right to a second presidential term. Mr. MacArthur quotes in support of his argument the veteran journalist Bill Moyers, who was a member of President Lyndon Johnson’s staff from 1965 to 1967, and since has become a prominent commentator on public television and in liberal and Democratic Party circles.
The New Republican Primary Rules
Make It Possible
For The Republican Establishment
To Steal The Nomination From A Candidate
They Don’t Like
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
New Republican primary rules are going to make it basically impossible for any candidate to wrap up the Republican nomination very early in 2012. In fact, the new Republican primary rules make a "brokered convention" much more likely and they also make it much more likely that the Republican establishment will attempt to steal the nomination away from a candidate that they do not like. How exactly they would do this will be discussed later in the article. The key is that most Republican primaries and caucuses will now allocate delegates using a proportional system rather than a "winner take all" system. Back in 2008, John McCain did very well in early "winner take all" primaries and wrapped up the Republican nomination very, very quickly. Nothing like that will happen in 2012. In fact, if the field remains crowded it is going to be very difficult for any candidate to accumulate more than 50 percent of the delegates by the time the Republican national convention rolls around. As will be discussed later on in this article, that would move the power into the hands of the Republican establishment.
What If He Wins?
Imagining a Ron Paul victory in Iowa.
By David Weigel - Slate.com
Jan. 3, 2012. The ballroom of the Des Moines hotel fills faster than anyone expected. Iowa Republicans are still caucusing, but fans of Ron Paul have driven in from Omaha, Rockford, Minneapolis, Topeka, and Pittsburgh, their cars festooned with "Legalize the Constitution" stickers. They hit the cash bars early.
At 8 p.m., the networks release the first scraps from "entrance polls." Lots of first-time caucusers. Lots and lots of anti-Washington sentiment. Lots and lots of Tea Partiers. The ballroom crowd boos when some cable-news Muppet explains that "some people are saying that a Ron Paul win would mark the end of the Iowa caucuses." Suddenly they realize why the anchor is saying that: He’s trying to explain why Paul is leading.
National Defense Authorization Act's Torture Provision
By John Pickerill - PatriotPost.us
Another disturbing revelation on the National Defense Authorization Act: Senators Lieberman and Ayotte successfully argued for reinstating "enhanced interrogation techniques" (i.e., torture). Combining this with its other provision that U.S. citizens can now be detained indefinitely without trial or cause, it is now possible for the federal government to torture its own citizens. So much for the 8th amendment ("Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.").
Countdown to the End
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
Today marks the official one year countdown to the end of the Mayan calendar. 365 days from today will be December 21, 2012. Some say it marks the end of the world, but others say it is really the end of an era. An Associated Press (AP) report, yesterday, about Mexican tourism said, "It’s selling the date, the Winter Solstice in the coming year, as a time of renewal." Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar. "The world will not end. It is an era," said Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun. "For us, it is a message of hope."
Putin Must Beat Own Economic Record
as Russian Golden Decade Comes to End
By Scott Rose and Agnes Lovasz - Bloomberg.com
Vladimir Putin may be his own toughest competition in next year’s presidential race.
Putin, now prime minister, is trying to persuade voters he can repeat the performance of his first two terms in the Kremlin, when the economy grew at an annual average of 7.1 percent from 2000 to 2008.
Gross domestic product in Russia, the world’s biggest supplier of energy, may rise 4.5 percent this year, according to government forecasts, even after a boost from record oil prices. Russia’s main export blend of the fuel has averaged $109 a barrel in 2011, more than the $46 a barrel in 2000-2008.
The Drone That Fell From the Sky
By Nick Turse, TomDispatch - Truthdig.com
The drone had been in the air for close to five hours before its mission crew realized that something was wrong. The oil temperature in the plane’s turbocharger, they noticed, had risen into the “cautionary” range. An hour later, it was worse, and it just kept rising as the minutes wore on. While the crew desperately ran through its “engine overheat” checklist trying to figure out the problem, the engine oil temperature, too, began skyrocketing.
By now, they had a full-blown in-flight emergency on their hands. “We still have control of the engine, but engine failure is imminent,” the pilot announced over the radio.
Almost two hours after the first signs of distress, the engine indeed failed. Traveling at 712 feet per minute, the drone clipped a fence before crashing.
'Medieval' Economy Is Kim Jong Il's Legacy
By Eunkyung Seo - Bloomberg.com
Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s anointed leader, inherits an economy that was outstripped by South Korea in the 1970s, shrank after the collapse of communism in Europe and now struggles under its stated policy of self-reliance.
Gross domestic product of 30 trillion won ($26.5 billion) in 2010 was one-fortieth of the size of South Korea's, according to estimates by the South’s central bank. The North's economy probably shrank in four of the past five years, the Bank of Korea says. North Korea doesn't release GDP data.
A Timely Passing
Kim Jong-il’s death should spur
the U.S. and China into a serious dialogue
about the future of North Korea.
By Christopher Hill - Slate.com
In one sense, the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il changes everything. It is by no means clear, for example, that Kim’s coddled youngest son, Kim Jong-un — now hailed as the "Great Successor," but singularly unprepared to lead — will ultimately succeed his father in anything but name.
Working in Kim Jong-un's favor is his striking resemblance to his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, who, strangely, held a certain charisma for North Koreans. Looks aside, Kim III will need a lot of help; in the meantime, we can expect further consolidation by the Korean People’s Army of its leadership of the country. Even more than in the past, we must expect the unexpected in North Korea. And above all, the West must work closely with China. In that sense, nothing has changed.
Commodities Run in Supercycles
BY PETER D SCHIFF - FinancialSense.com
Commodity prices can be very volatile, oftentimes more so than just about any other asset class. These large price swings, which have been particularly evident in recent years, have given commodities their reputation for high risk. Those investors who lack a large buffer of disposable risk capital are repeatedly advised to steer clear. But for those investors who can bear the risk, and who look to invest in commodities as an inflation hedge, there is some evidence to suggest that commodity prices move in long term "supercycles," which play out over years and even decades. By observing and understanding these movements, these investors may be able to be more strategic in their approach.
'Bargain' gold spurs buying spree in Dubai Dubai analyst says bull-run isn’t over – at least not yet
By Vicky Kapur - Emirates247.com
Physical gold buying saw a significant upsurge last week after prices slumped in the wake of global concerns. "I was resigned to the fact that the physical buying in our market (Dubai and UAE in the wider sense) had finished for the year, and then came Thursday, 15th December. We saw excellent buying from customers which reminded us very strongly of the heydays in August/September," Gerhard Schubert, Head of Precious Metals at Dubai-based Emirates NBD, said in his weekly precious metals report.
Now, investing in gold a better choice?
By Nancy Sylverstein - CommodityOnline.com
You've probably seen the signs by now, since they're pretty much everywhere you turn. People are buying Gold in record numbers and it really shows no sign of stopping. From television commercials to pawn shops, the number of buyers for gold has triggered a modern gold rush.
If investing in gold sounds like a good idea to you, that's because it is. Most investing experts recommend that your portfolio be made up of three to twenty percent gold investment. Gold affords you a kind of portfolio insurance and protects you against inflation or other national or global events. Simply put, investing in gold shouldn't be ignored.
2012 Gold price to be 28% more than current levels
CommodityOnline.com
Gold Core - Bullion banks remain positive on Gold for 2012 with major banks predicting an average gold price of between 13% and 28% above today’s spot at $1,595/oz. It will be interesting to see if these forecasts get as much international media coverage as the poll of 20 hedge fund managers has.
UBS have reiterated their bullish outlook for gold and believe gold will average $2,050/oz in 2012. This is 28% above today’s spot price of $1595/oz.
Goldman Sachs said overnight that gold will average $1,810/oz in 2012 – which is 13% above today’s spot price.
Barclays Capital have said this morning that gold will average $2,000/oz in 2012 – which is 25% above today’s spot price.
If you know this Gold-Euro connection,
you won't panic every time price falls
By Gonzalo Lira
For those of us watching the Gold markets—that is, those of us anticipating the collapse of the euro and the eventual collapse of the dollar—the last week has been a scary ride: Gold has fallen over 8.6%, from a high of $1,730 on December 7 to around $1,600 on December 20.
The fundamentals would point to gold being a safe haven play—it should not be falling: If anything, it ought to be rising. But a fall of 8.6%? In a week? The first thing that pops into my head is, Don’t Panic!!
The second thing that pops into my head is, this is to be expected—and is only a temporary pullback.
House rejects Senate’s two-month payroll-tax cut By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
The House officially voted Tuesday to start negotiations with the Senateon the payroll-tax fight — but Senate Democrats have said they won’t cancel their vacation to conduct the talks, leaving an impasse that could mean an average $1,000 tax increase on 160 million taxpayers in the new year.
Tuesday’s 229-193 vote essentially leaves the bill in limbo, and House Republicans said the only way to rescue it would be for Senate leaders to enter into negotiations.
Capitol impasse boosts chances of tax increase The Senate is gone for the holidays and the House is packed to leave after rejecting an extension of the payroll tax cut. No negotiations are in sight to avoid a higher tax on Jan. 1.
By Lisa Mascaro and Kathleen Hennessey, Washington Bureau - LATimes.com
holidays, the House packed up to leave, and as a result the chances that working Americans soon will see a tax increase jumped sharply.
The Capitol emptied to an eerie quiet on Tuesday, with no signs of negotiations toward a compromise that would save an expiring payroll tax break. As of Jan. 1, the tax cut that has been in place all year is scheduled to return to 6.2% from its current 4.2%, meaning that biweekly paychecks on average will be $40 smaller. Long-term unemployment benefits for some 3 million people also are poised to expire. Doctors face an estimated 20% cut in Medicare payments.
Boehner urges Obama
to drag Senate Dems back to payroll talks
By Russell Berman - TheHill.com
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) implored President Obama to bring Senate Democrats back to the table after the House rejected a Senate-passed two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits.
Boehner named Republican negotiators to the conference committee the House approved Tuesday, and he urged Democratic leaders to do the same in the hopes of renegotiating a compromise 11 days before a tax increase is set to hit 160 million Americans.
Rep. Jackson Lee:
Obama should use executive power to extend payroll tax cut
By Alicia M. Cohn - TheHill.com
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said Tuesday that President Obama "absolutely" should use his executive power to continue the unemployment benefits and payroll tax cut extension and said she hoped to discuss the option with the White House later in the day.
"It is extraordinary, don't get me wrong. But I'm feeling the pain of the constituents I left [at] home," Jackson Lee said, speaking on the progressive Ed Schultz's radio show. "I consider this a crisis. I consider leaving Americans without unemployment insurance for January and February a crime. I consider not extending the payroll tax cut ... a crime."
America is retreating from the world stage Costly invasions are a thing of the past, as the United States tries to wage a new kind of war.
By Con Coughlin - Telegraph.co.uk
With its last combat troops withdrawn safely over the Iraqi border, and thousands more shortly to abandon operations in Afghanistan, the American military has fully embraced the post September 11 era. Whatever challenges the future holds, the time when Washington lavished trillions of dollars on invading and overthrowing hostile regimes has, it seems, come to an end.
Euroland euphoria on Mario Draghi bank rescue Southern Europe's battered debt markets are basking in a glorious pre-Christmas rally as hedge funds and investors celebrate a blast of cheap liquidity from the European Central Bank.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,
and Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Yields on Spain's three-month notes plummeted to 1.74pc on Tuesday from 5.11pc last month, leading euphoric moves across the eurozone periphery. Spanish 10-year yields fell below 5pc for the first time in two months, with credit rallies in Italy, Belgium, and Ireland.
Exuberance lifted Germany's DAX index by 3pc, the French CAC by 2.7pc, and FTSE 100 by 1pc, with ripple effects through commodities and risky assets worldwide.
Draghi Says
'Substantial Downside Risks' to Economy Remain
By Scott Hamilton - Bloomberg.com
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi comments on the economic outlook and ECB policy.
He made the comments at the European Parliament in Brussels today.
On the ECB and the European treaty:
"I will remind all of us, the treaty specifies what our remit is -- to ensureprice stability. The treaty also forbids monetary financing. We want to act within the treaty."
"To undertake any other behavior would negatively affect the credibility of our institution. That’s what we have to keep in mind -- losing credibility, especially for your central bank, is not going to do any good."
Beware the Coming Bailouts of Europe
By: Ron Paul - SafeHaven.com
The economic establishment in this country has come to the conclusion that it is not a matter of "if" the United States must intervene in the bailout of the euro, but simply a question of "when" and "how". Newspaper articles and editorials are full of assertions that the breakup of the euro would result in a worldwide depression, and that economic assistance to Europe is the only way to stave off this calamity. These assertions are yet again more scare-mongering, just as we witnessed during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. After just a decade of the euro, people have forgotten that Europe functioned for centuries without a common currency.
Ultimate money magician in the Federal Reserve
and the art of shadow bailouts –
The continuing secretive bailout
of the $3.5 trillion commercial real estate market.
by MyBudget360,com
The Federal Reserve is the ultimate magician in concealing bad bets for the flawed banking system. Few in the history of theFederal Reserve have called them out on their shadow bailouts but people are starting to wakeup no thanks to the mainstream controlled media. Think about how insane it is to have a central bank that does not even report to the people of the country it serves and is able to destroy the currency by bailing out bosom buddy bankers at the expense of the population. How is that even possible? Since this is the architecture of the system it becomes possible to create mega shadow bailouts like that occurring in the commercial real estate market (CRE). The CRE bailout is largely a sign of what is wrong with our broken financial system. Sure, with residential real estate the argument can be made that this impacts most American families. Of course even in that arena it has been a failure for the public but the CRE market is strictly a big money and big banking issue. The market imploded from being valued at $6.5 trillion a few years ago down to $3.5 trillion today. Yet why is it the responsibility for average Americans to bailout banks for bad bets on luxury hotels and failed strip malls?
Stocks soar on Europe hopes, strong housing starts
AP - LATimes.com
The Dow Jones industrial average surged 337 points following encouraging signs out of Europe and a jump in apartment construction in the U.S. It was the best day for U.S. stocks this month.
The Spanish government pulled off a successful debt auction Tuesday and gauges of business and consumer confidence in Germany increased. Both helped ease worries about Europe's debt crisis.
Spanish Auction and Housing Drive Global Rally Today
BY RYAN PUPLAVA CMT - FinancialSense.com
The U.S. and European markets rallied today, although it’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason why. U.S. Housing starts came in very strong for November, up 9.3%. Spain had another strong bond auction and the ten-year yield continues to pair back since central banks around the world made their November 30th joint strike on currency liquidity. Looking at earnings, Jefferies Group (JEF) was up 20%+ after its earnings. The stock was up 5% for most of the morning until an interview with Egan-Jones’ Sean Egan in which he detailed cuts in risk levels during the quarter on CNBC. Financials were a big performer in the market due to optimism in Europe, housing, and earnings from Jefferies. The two negatives on the market were 1) earnings from Red Hat (RHT) and General Mills (GIS) and 2) the overhang from the S&P rating resolution announced December 5th; however, that didn’t seem to hold the market back with the S&P 500 rising above the 50-day moving average having the best advancing day since November 30th.
Britain's credit rating could be cut, Moody's warns Britain's credit rating could be cut if the euro crisis worsens, a major financial agency warned last night.
By Robert Winnett - Telegraph.co.uk
Moody’s, one of the world’s largest rating firms, said in its annual credit report that, although the AAA rating was currently secure, it was based on the economy not deteriorating further or the Government being forced to bail out the banks again.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, has repeatedly stressed the importance of retaining the rating, which determines the rate at which Britain can borrow money on the international financial markets.
Fed Bolsters Tools to Avert Collapse of Big Firms
By Cheyenne Hopkins and Phil Mattingly - Bloomberg.com
The Federal Reserve sought to curb the threat of financial turmoil by compelling the biggest banks to follow a tougher standard for risk management and demanding stricter oversight by companies’ boards of directors.
The proposed rules would set triggers for regulatory enforcement for weak firms and require boards of directors to oversee and approve plans for limiting liquidity risk. The Fed delayed releasing rules for supervision of foreign firms and for risk-based capital and leverage requirements.
Real Reasons Bankers Don’t Like Basel’s Rules
By Clive Crook - Bloomberg.com
The Federal Reserve, according to reports, has decided that big U.S. banks will have to comply with an emerging new global rule on capital. It’s a move the banks have fought, arguing that it will increase their costs and discourage lending.
If they are about to lose this argument, that’s good news. The new rule isn’t too demanding. It’s not demanding enough.
Business leader: Regulations stunt growth He blames Democrats in Senate
By Tim Devaney - The Washington Times
The U.S. business community is facing "an epidemic" of regulatory overreach from the Obama administration that is creating uncertainty for corporate leaders and holding back the economic recovery, a top business leader warned Tuesday.
"If you just put the regulatory umbrella up, unfortunately, that regulatory umbrella is blotting out the sun," Business Roundtable President John Engler said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times. "It’s so big."
John Williams: No Way Out! (originally aired 05/31/11) Hyperinflation is all but guaranteed
On Financial Sense Newshour, John Williams discusses with Jim Puplava America's day of reckoning and hyperinflation.
John Williams, Executive Editor of Shadow Government Statistics, received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar. During his career as a consulting economist, John has worked with individuals as well as Fortune 500 companies. Formally known as Walter J. Williams, his friends call him John. For nearly 30 years, John has been a private consulting economist and, out of necessity, had to become a specialist in government economic reporting.
IMF Loan Target Not Reached
By PATER TENEBRARUM - FinancialSense.com
Yesterday the leaders of the euro area were confronted with another predictable development: The UK is not going to pay up for its share of the bilateral IMF loan program that is supposed to add to the bailout funding for the euro area by providing 'monetization through the back door'. Maybe the ersatz Napoleon and Mrs. Merkel should after all have given David Cameron his opt-out from their planned decimation of financial markets via the useless and economically nonsensical Tobin tax?
It Ain’t Over 'Til It's Over?
BY BRIAN PRETTI CFA - FinancialSense.com
If there is one lesson to be learned from the Japanese experience with deleveraging over the past few decades it’s that deleveraging cycles have their own special rhythm of reflationary and deflationary interludes. Pretty simple stuff as balance sheet deleveraging by definition cannot be a short term process given the prior decades required to build up the leverage that has been accumulated in any economic/financial system. If it were a short term process, it would play out as a massive short term depression. And clearly any central bank would act to disallow such an outcome, exactly has been the case not only in Japan over the last few decades, but now also in the US and the Eurozone. We just need to remember that this is a dance. There is an ebb and flow to the greater (generational) cycle. Just as leveraging up was not a linear process, neither will the process of deleveraging be linear. Why bring this larger picture cycle rhythm up right now? The recent price volatility we’ve seen in assets that can be characterized as offering purchasing power protection within the context of a global central banking community debasing currencies as their preferred method of reflation for now, specifically the price volatility of gold.
Hedge-Fund Refuge
Sought by Traders as Banks Cut 233,000 Jobs
By Chanyaporn Chanjaroen and Lars Paulsson - Bloomberg.com
Damien Bombell left JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) a year ago after the largest and most profitable U.S. bank shut its group trading commodities for the company’s own account. Now chief investment officer of his own hedge fund, he's hiring four people before accepting money from investors next month.
"I can't say there’s anything I miss about banking," said Bombell, who turned 40 last week and plans to have at least $200 million under management at the Strand Global Macro Fund in Zug, Switzerland. "I have more freedom."
The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."
Evidence of market manipulation in the financial crisis
By Vedant Misra, Marco Lagi, Yaneer Bar-Yam - Cornell University Library
We provide direct evidence of market manipulation at the beginning of the financial crisis in November 2007. The type of manipulation, a "bear raid," would have been prevented by a regulation that was repealed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2007. The regulation, the uptick rule, was designed to prevent manipulation and promote stability and was in force from 1938 as a key part of the government response to the 1928 market crash and its aftermath. On November 1, 2007, Citigroup experienced an unusual increase in trading volume and decrease in price. Our analysis of financial industry data shows that this decline coincided with an anomalous increase in borrowed shares, the selling of which would be a large fraction of the total trading volume. The selling of borrowed shares cannot be explained by news events as there is no corresponding increase in selling by share owners. A similar number of shares were returned on a single day six days later. The magnitude and coincidence of borrowing and returning of shares is evidence of a concerted effort to drive down Citigroup's stock price and achieve a profit, i.e., a bear raid. Interpretations and analyses of financial markets should consider the possibility that the intentional actions of individual actors or coordinated groups can impact market behavior. Markets are not sufficiently transparent to reveal even major market manipulation events. Our results point to the need for regulations that prevent intentional actions that cause markets to deviate from equilibrium and contribute to crashes. Enforcement actions cannot reverse severe damage to the economic system. The current "alternative" uptick rule which is only in effect for stocks dropping by over 10% in a single day is insufficient. Prevention may be achieved through improved availability of market data and the original uptick rule or other transaction limitations.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
Sued by California Attorney General
By Joel Rosenblatt and Karen Gullo - Bloomberg.com
Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac were sued by California Attorney General Kamala Harris as part of a probe of mortgage lending and foreclosure practices.
Harris wants to know if drug dealing and prostitution occur in foreclosed homes owned by the companies, whether taxes are being paid on those houses, and whether military families have been illegally evicted by loan servicers, according to the two lawsuits filed today in state court in San Francisco.
Slapped Wrists at WaMu
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON - NYTimes.com
WHEN Washington Mutual collapsed in 2008, it was the largest bank failure in American history. So the $64.7 million settlement struck last week by federal banking regulators and three former WaMu executives seems like small potatoes indeed.
Worse, most of the money didn’t even come from the former executives’ pockets. Instead, it came from directors’ and officers’ liability insurance policies paid for by the bank.
Doctors 27% Medicare Pay Cut
Won’t be Unlinked From Tax Bill in U.S. House
By Drew Armstrong and Kathleen Hunter - Bloomberg.com
House Republicans have no plans to move a stand-alone bill to reverse a 27-percent cut in Medicare fees to doctors that’s set to go into effect Jan. 1, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner said.
Both the House and Senate have opted to address Medicare payments to doctors as part of the impasse over extending a payroll-tax cut set to expire at the end of the year. Congress is deadlocked over the tax, which has become the end-of-session vehicle for unrelated issues, including fees for Medicare, the U.S. insurer for those 65 and older and the disabled.
Will Ron Paul kill the caucuses?
By JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEXANDER BURNS - Politico.com
SIOUX CITY, IOWA –The alarms are sounding in Iowa.
Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
In spin rooms, bar rooms and online forums, the what-to-do-about-Paul conversation has become pervasive as polls show him at or near the top here just weeks before the January 3rd vote.
The Other 9 Percent:
People Who Approve of Congress It seems impossible that anyone would think well of the job our legislative branch is doing, yet some do. Who are these people?
By Terence Smith - TheAtlantic.com
Recent public opinion polls -- I am sure you've seen them -- suggest that 9 percent of the American public actually approves of Congress and the way it is doing its job. Of course, that was before this weekend's bi-partisan wrangling over the payroll tax cut extension.
Who exactly are these 9 percent?
Data for background checks may belong to someone else Unchecked information can lead to devastating results
By Jordan Robertson- AP - WashingtonTimes.com
SAN FRANCISCO | A clerical error landed Kathleen Casey on the streets.
Out of work two years, her unemployment benefits exhausted, in danger of losing her apartment, she applied for a job in the pharmacy of a Boston drugstore. She was offered $11 an hour. All she had to do was pass a background check.
It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.
There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged toKathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger.
T-Mobile to gain licenses to AT&T wireless spectrum
By Nathan Olivarez-Giles - LATimes.com
When AT&T gave up its $39-billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA on Monday, a $4-billion pre-tax break-up fee wasn't all the telecommunications giant lost.
Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile USA's German parent, will also receive licenses to AT&T-owned wireless spectrum -- known as AWS, or Advanced Wireless Solutions spectrum -- in major U.S. markets, and the ability to allow its customers to roam on parts of AT&T's wireless network.
Gadgets Under $300 Top Techie Gift List
By Rich Jaroslovsky - Bloomberg.com
Your favorite digerati should be easy to shop for. After all, a new must-have gadget comes out every other week. Somehow, though, many families -- my own among them -- disagree, arguing that with so many choices, finding the right gift can be a bewildering task, especially for non- techies.
So consider yourself lucky if Mom has her heart set on an iPad 2 or Sonny pines for an Xbox 360. But if you’re facing no such obvious option, here are 11 other suggestions for the holiday season.
Fearing Terrorism,
U.S. Asks Journals to Censor Articles on Virus
By DENISE GRADY and WILLIAM J. BROAD - NYTimes.com
For the first time ever, a government advisory board is asking scientific journals not to publish the details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear that the information could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses and touch off epidemics.
In the experiments, conducted in the United States and the Netherlands, scientists created a highly transmissible form of a deadly flu virus that does not normally spread from person to person. Easy transmission is all it takes to start a pandemic, in which the virus spreads all over the world. The work was done in ferrets, which are considered a good model for predicting what flu viruses will do in people.
Will The Newly Created "Killer Bird Flu"
Someday Be Used As A Bio-Terror Weapon
To Reduce The Population?
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Most people have no idea how close we are to a biological doomsday. All over the world, incredibly dangerous "superbugs" are being created by virologists and military researchers. This reckless tinkering with nature will eventually cost millions of lives because it is inevitable that some of these "superbugs" will eventually get released either on purpose or by accident. When the time comes, we will have absolutely no protection against them. But a lot of these scientists don't seem to care about the risks. In fact, a team led by Ron Fouchier at Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre has created a "killer bird flu" that could kill hundreds of millions of people and they want to publish how they did it. They don't seem to realize that this scientifically created "killer bird flu" could be easily replicated by those that would like to use it as a bio-terror weapon. In particular, a "super flu" would make a great weapon for those that would like to dramatically reduce the population of the world without getting "blood on their hands". Unfortunately, there are way too many people out there today (including many among the global elite) that actually believe that we need to get rid of most of humanity in order to save the earth.
Two Earth-Size Planets Are Discovered
By DENNIS OVERBYE - NYTimes.com
In what amounts to a kind of holiday gift to the cosmos, astronomers from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft announced Tuesday that they had discovered a pair of planets the size of Earth orbiting a distant star. The new planets, one about as big as Earth and the other slightly smaller than Venus, are the smallest yet found beyond the solar system.
Astronomers said the discovery showed that Kepler could indeed find planets as small as our own and was an encouraging sign that planet hunters would someday succeed in the goal of finding Earth-like abodes in the heavens.
Official: Israel unprepared for wartime
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The Israeli government's watchdog agency says the country is short on bomb shelters and is ill-prepared to protect its citizens in case of war.
The state comptroller's annual report, published in part on Tuesday, says Israel has not learned the lessons from the 2006 Lebanon war, when dozens of Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets.
Panetta: Iran will not be allowed nukes
By Scott Pelley
(CBS News) The U.S. Secretary of Defense said Monday night that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. In an interview, Leon Panetta, said despite the efforts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, the Iranians have reached a point where they can assemble a bomb in a year or potentially less.
Secretary Panetta spoke with us at the end of an overseas trip during which he reviewed strategy in Afghanistan and formally ended the war in Iraq.
China beefing up military presence in Indian Ocean
Breitbart.com
Little by little China is forming military links in Africa and in the Indian Ocean in order, experts say, to protect Beijing's economic interests in the region.
In the past three weeks Beijing has committed to supporting Ugandan forces operating in Somalia and to helping the Seychelles fight piracy.
"It is very clear that the Chinese leaders recognize that military force will play a bigger role to safeguard China's overseas interests," Jonathan Holslag, of theBrussels Institute of Chinese Contemporary Studies told AFP.
"There is a willingness, and even a consensus, in China, that this process will take place."
Syria conducts war games to deter attack Syrian state television broadcasts what it claims is footage of the nation's air force and navy holding live-fire exercises aimed at deterring any attack on the country.
By Alastair Good - Telegraph.co.uk
The Syrian military held live-fire exercises today to test the readiness of their armed forces in case of a war, according to state television.
The government has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the nine month long protest against president Bashar al-Assad.
Reports had suggested that Assad was going to implement a peace deal brokered by the Arab League and allow monitors into the country to ensure attacks on civilians were curtailed.
How Important Is North Korea’s Leadership Change?
BY JAMES PRESSLER - FinancialSense.com
This weekend, North Korean officials announced the passing of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il, supposedly from a heart attack. Not too surprisingly, the next day Pyongyang heralded Kim's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as the new head of state along with the title of "Great Successor." While it is widely known that the elder Kim was in poor health and rushing the grooming process for his son's succession, the Supreme Leader's sudden death leaves plenty of reasons to speculate as to just how the transition will impact North Korea and its relations with the world.
Even in a Best-Case Scenario,
North Korea Remains a Big Problem
By Megan McArdle - TheAtlantic.com
As we all sit here hoping that North Korea does not launch an invasion force across the DMZ, or let some crazy guy get his hands on their nuclear weapons, we should try to remember that there's also a best-case scenario. And that that best-case scenario is still really terrible:
Consider another, not wholly dissimilar case. In the late 1980s, just before reunification, it is estimated that per-capita gross domestic product in East Germany was approximately 30 percent lower than it was in West Germany. Joining the two countries together temporarily multiplied their disparities. Many of East Germany's inefficient and pollution-heavy factories were shut down, creating high levels of structural unemployment that were eased only by massive transfers and substantial migration from east to west. The problem was greatly helped by the fact that East Germany's five states contained only 20 percent of the population of the unified Germany. Nonetheless, by one estimate, the reunification of Germany cost about 1.6 trillion euros -- about $2.08 trillion.
North Korean successor inherits troubled land
Under Kim Jong Il, about 2 million people starved to death. With no Internet, experts in nearly every field are far behind. Kim's chosen successor has had little training. And a powerful uncle looms.
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Shenzhen, China— North Korean leader Kim Jong Il left the family business in terrible shape.
Under his leadership over the last 17 years, about 2 million people, almost 10% of his country's population, died of hunger. North Korea developed nuclear weapons, but its people sank ever deeper into poverty and isolation, even while patron and next-door neighbor China charged ahead with its economic miracle.
American Commander in Afghanistan
Says Post-2014 Military Presence Possible
By ALISSA J. RUBIN - NYTimes.com
KABUL, Afghanistan — The senior American commander in Afghanistan suggested Tuesday that American forces could remain in the country beyond 2014 despite President Obama’s pledge to withdraw them by then. The commander’s remarks amounted to the most emphatic signal to date that the United States military intended to secure a presence here, possibly for years.
In an interview with The New York Times, the commander, Gen. John R. Allen, avoided talking about troop levels as America begins to wind down its operations in the war on the Taliban insurgency, now 10 years old. But he said negotiations with the government of President Hamid Karzai on a strategic partnership agreement would "almost certainly" include "a discussion with Afghanistan of what a post-2014 force will look like."
Economic Predictions Are Usually Wrong—
Let's Make Some, Anyway! Help me come up with ten bold "Black Swan" predictions about the economy next year
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
The Atlantic has asked me to pull together an economic forecast for 2012 this week, which reminds me of our recent article: The Graph That Proves Economic Forecasters Are Almost Always Wrong. Uh oh.
To catch you up, that piece looked at the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index, which measures the difference between analyst's expectations of the economy and actual economic performance. In last three years, we've been way too optimistic or way too pessimistic about the economy almost all the time. We didn't foresee the plunge in 2008. We missed the bounce in 2009. We were slammed by the slowdown in 2011. And now the economy is fooling us all over again. Now presenting "the graph that proves economic forecasts are almost always wrong":
Spain grits teeth yet again as austerity deepens Spain's new premier Mariano Rajoy has launched a fresh blast of fiscal austerity at his inauguration, describing the national outlook as "desolate" and his task like that of a father feeding four hungry mouths with bread for two.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The conservative leader pledged to fight Spain's unemployment curse by shaking up the labour markets. The jobless rate has hit 22.8pc with 5.4m people out of work. The tally is certain to rise further as the economy falls back into recession.
Spain's 10-year bond yields dropped to 5.09pc, far below the 6.5pc stress peak seen last month, even though Mr Rajoy said the government will miss its budget deficit target of 6pc of GDP this year.
If Spain's banks collapse, UK may send in Navy to save ex-pats The Foreign Office says it will bring stranded ex-pats home using ships, planes and coaches
TheWeek.co.uk
THE GOVERNMENT is drawing up emergency plans to evacuate British ex-pats from Spain and Portugal in the event that the Iberian countries' banking systems collapse, raising the prospect of Royal Navy ships bearing down on the Costa del Sol to rescue well-tanned retirees.
Ships, planes and coaches could be sent to bring home Britons who find themselves unable to withdraw money to pay for basic needs or travel home because of a Spanish or Portuguese banking crisis, while diplomats scramble to get special treatment for ex-pats from local banks.
A financial Dunkirk: Britain draws up plans to rescue expats if Spain and Portugal are hit by financial oblivion
By WIL LONGBOTTOM - DailyMail.co.uk
Evacuation plans for British expats stranded in Spain and Portugal if their banking systems collapse are being drawn up by the Foreign Office.
The contingency plans are being put in place to help thousands of Britons if they were unable to get to their money in the event of a catastrophic banking collapse in two of the most vulnerable eurozone economies.
Around one million British expats live in Spain, particularly around Marbella and Malaga, and some 50,000 in Portugal.
Bob Chapman:
European Debt Crisis Becoming A Greater Problem 1/2
Bob Chapman:
European Debt Crisis Becoming A Greater Problem 2/2
Euro Trades Near 11-Month Low
Before Spain Debt Sale; Aussie Dollar Gains
By Candice Zachariahs and Masaki Kondo - Bloomberg.com
The euro traded 0.5 percent from an 11-month low before Spain sells securities and the release of a German report forecast to show deteriorating business confidence in Europe’s largest economy.
The dollar maintained yesterday’s advance against most major counterparts amid signs it will be difficult for the euro region to attract outside funds to address its sovereign debt crisis. Australia’s dollar rose after the Reserve Bank said in minutes of its Dec. 6 meeting that investment in the domestic economy and "solid growth" among the nation’s main trading partners had tempered the need for lower interest rates.
Draghi warns of new year contagion
• ECB chief signals danger from huge volume of debt to be rolled over in first quarter
• Latest IMF bailout fund falls €50bn short of target after UK refuses to contribute
By David Gow and Patrick Wintour - Guardian.co.uk
The eurozone debt crisis is set to spread and deepen next year, senior central bankers warned on Monday as Britain refused to contribute to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout fund for distressed states.
A proposal to lend €200bn (£168bn) to the IMF to enable it to bail out countries in trouble floundered after George Osborne told his fellow European finance ministers that Britain would not contribute its £25bn share.
ECB says eurozone leaders created 'cycle of risk' Protracted indecision among political leaders has created a "cycle of risk" with "systemic crisis proportions not witnessed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers", the European Central Bank (ECB) has warned.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
In a hard hitting Financial Stability Review, the ECB said the "risks to euro area financial stability increased considerably in the second half of 2011". It said "positive market responses" to European summit agreements had been "short-lived – indeed, a bumpy ratification process appears to have contributed to additional market uncertainties."
As European leaders – minus the UK – stumbled towards extending €150bn (£125bn) of extra credit lines to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the report demanded "bold and decisive action both within and outside the euro area." It said that "swift and effective implementation" of the December 9 Brussels agreement was "pivotal... to curtailing the cycle of risk intensification in the euro area that characterised the latter half of 2011."
Eurozone agrees €150bn
for IMF bail-out despite British refusal to contribute The 17-nation eurozone agreed Monday to lend €150bn to the International Monetary Fund for use in stabilising the euro currency area, a eurozone governmental source said.
By AFP - Telegraph.co.uk
"There is an agreement on a sum of 150 billion euros for the eurozone countries," the source told AFP.
The source said the aim was still to reach the 200 billion euros target set by EU leaders at a December 9 summit, despite a British refusal to stump up its roughly 30-billion-euro share based on IMF quotas.
Nicolas Sarkozy in fight for political life after dangerous rival enters French presidential election Dominique de Villepin, old adversary of Nicolas Sarkozy, launches 'declaration of war'.
By Kim Willsher in Paris - Telegraph.co.uk
French president Nicolas Sarkozy once threatened to hang his rival Dominique de Villepin from a butcher's hook after accusing him of trying to blacken his name in a smear campaign.
Mr de Villepin in turn harbours a ferocious hatred for his diminutive opponent, whom he privately calls "The Dwarf" or "The Bonsai", and whom he regards as an uncultured oaf.
Keiser Report: Exotic Pet Banking Fraudsters (E224)
Fed close to new financial buffers for banks
By Jennifer Liberto @CNNMoney
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- The Federal Reserve is expected this week to release a set of proposed rules detailing how much reserve capital big banks will need to keep on hand in the future.
Wall Street is watching the rulemaking closely. Higher capital cushions would directly impact banks' ability to lend, make financial bets and profit off those loans or bets.
Tougher capital cushions are also a key step toward making banks safer and possibly averting future taxpayer bailouts.
Supreme Court to hear health care suit in March
By Paige Winfield Cunningham - The Washington Times
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear challenges to the Affordable Care Act in late March - nailing down at least one absolute for the controversial health care overhaul that has been mired in a tug of war between critics looking to dismantle "Obamacare" and supporters fighting to protect the president’s signature legislative victory.
The court announced Monday morning the three-day hearing will take place March 26-28.
A few hours later and just down the street, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius unveiled 32 health care providers that have been selected to become Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) - the new models created under the law that are intended to cut costs and improve efficiencies.
Obama Passes 'Hot Potato' to States
By Alex Wayne - Bloomberg.com
The Obama administration avoided a potentially brutal lobbying battle over the medical benefits insurers must cover under the U.S. health-care overhaul when it decided last week to hand the decision off to states.
The Dec. 16 ruling, coming less than a year before the presidential elections, gives states the power to set coverage levels for the policies uninsured people will buy through regulated marketplaces, called exchanges, starting in 2014. Business groups will argue for a narrow set of benefits to save costs while consumer advocates push for more coverage.
Wall St. seeks dismissal of Ala. record bankruptcy
(AP) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Wall Street creditors asked a judge Thursday to throw out the record bankruptcy filed by Alabama's largest county over more than $4 billion in debt, arguing state law doesn't allow it.
Lenders claimed during a hearing and in court documents that Alabama law permits bankruptcy only for bond debt, and Jefferson County has a different type of debt called warrants. The county and creditors could be thrown back into out-of-court settlement talks if the judge agreed.
The county contends bankers are cherry-picking state law in hopes of getting the case dismissed, and that any government in the state can go bankrupt whether its debt is for bonds or warrants.
The Jefferson County Commission president, David Carrington, testified that municipal bankruptcy was the county's sole option after intense negotiations fell apart.
"We ran out of time," said Carrington.
Jefferson County Judge May Seek Bankruptcy Advice From Alabama High Court
By Steven Church - Bloomberg.com
The federal judge overseeing Jefferson County’s bankruptcy is considering asking the Alabama Supreme Court for advice on whether to dismiss the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas B. Bennett in Birmingham said he may ask the state’s highest court how to interpret a state law that creditors claim bans Alabama counties from entering bankruptcy unless they have issued "refunding or funding bonds."
US judge to determine
whether Jefferson County bankruptcy should proceed
By Russell Hubbard -- The Birmingham News
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Jefferson County's bankruptcy court hearing ended Thursday without a final ruling on the legality of the record-setting Chapter 9 filing last month.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Bennett said lawyers for the county and its creditors have until Dec. 28 to submit additional information to him. Bennett said all he will accept from the lawyers are suggested questions for him to ask the Alabama Supreme Court, should he chose to do so.
Creditors challenge Jefferson County bankruptcy
Dec 9 (Reuters) - Jefferson County, Alabama, has no legal grounds to be in municipal bankruptcy proceedings, the county's creditors argued in a court filing on Friday.
Bank of New York Mellon Corp, as the indenture trustee for the holders of county sewer warrants, asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Bennet to dismiss the bankruptcy case, claiming Jefferson County does not qualify for Chapter 9 relief under federal bankruptcy law.
The county must be authorized under Alabama state law to file for federal bankruptcy protection, and it fails to meet those eligibility requirements, the bank argued.
Gerald Celente
On the Edge with Max Keiser 17 December 2011
Why Social Security Is Still Falling Apart
By Chuck Saletta - DailyFinance.com
Social Security is in dire financial straits, but that's nothing new for this long-troubled program.
Social Security spent $49 billion more in 2010 than it took in as tax collections. By the time 2011 ends, it expects to outspend collections by another $46 billion. At this rate, the program's much-touted "Trust Fund" is expected to be depleted by 2036; without that fund, benefits are expected to fall to about three-quarters of current promised levels.
Industrial Property Delinquencies Reach 22-Year High, S&P Says
By Brian Louis - Bloomberg.com
Delinquencies on industrial-property loans that were packaged into commercial mortgage-backed securities rose to a 22-year high amid a decline in rental income from warehouses, Standard & Poor’s said.
The delinquency rate for U.S. industrial CMBS as of Sept. 30 was 12.05 percent, the New York-based rating company said today in a statement. Net operating income has fallen at 47 percent of properties used as collateral for industrial CMBS since the securities were issued, S&P said.
There Goes the Neighborhood
By Scott Pelley - CBS 60 Minutes
(CBS News) Across America, recession-fueled foreclosures and plummeting home values have left countless properties abandoned and vulnerable to looting. As Scott Pelley reports, the problem has gotten so bad in Cleveland, Ohio, that county officials have demolished more than 1,000 homes this year - and plan to demolish 20,000 more - rather than let the blight spread and render nearby homes worthless.
The following is a script of "There Goes The Neighborhood" which aired on Dec. 18, 2011. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Robert Anderson and Daniel Ruetenik, producers.
Chances are the home you're in isn't worth what it used to be. You may not have indulged in the real estate bubble with its liar's loans and Wall Street greed, but you were stuck with the bill. Home values have dropped so far, so fast, that nearly 25 percent of mortgage holders today owe more than their house is worth.
Census Shows 1 in 2 People Are Poor or Low-Income
By The Associated Press - DailyFinance.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans - nearly 1 in 2 - have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.
The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.
The Future of Freedom in The United States
THE PLAIN TRUTH by Judge Napolitano 12/16/11
Is Nanotechnology the New GMO? Many food companies are using unregulated nanomaterials in agriculture, processing, and packaging, but this is not something that the public knows anything about at this point
By Marion Nestle - TheAtlantic.com
Food Navigator reports that U.K. experts are demanding public debate and regulation of nanomaterials in foods. Without that, they warn, nanotechnology risks "facing the same fate as genetically modified (GM) foods in consumer perceptions."
Nanotechnology is about manipulating materials on the scale of atoms or molecules, measured in nanometers (nm), one billionth, or 10−9, of a meter.
FCC official delivers warning on threat to 'Internet freedom'
By Tim Devaney-The Washington Times
The United States is unprepared for an international fight that’s brewing over whether the Internet will remain free from government regulations or fall increasingly under the control of emerging global powers, Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell warned Monday
"The proponents of Internet freedom and prosperity have been asleep at the switch," Mr. McDowell, the lone Republican serving at the FCC, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. "Or maybe I should say asleep at the router."
AT&T agrees to drop bid for T-Mobile
By Ryan Nakashima- AP - WashingtonTimes.com
LOS ANGELES — AT&T Inc. said Monday that it is ending its $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA after facing fierce government objections.
The cellphone giant said that the actions of the government to block the deal do not change the challenges of the wireless phone industry, which it says requires more airwaves, known as spectrum, to expand.
The deal would have solved that problem for a time, and without it, "customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled," AT&T said in a statement.
Swedish Automaker Saab Files For Bankruptcy
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - NPR.org
Saab Automobile filed for bankruptcy on Monday, giving up a desperate struggle to stay in business after previous owner General Motors Co. blocked takeover attempts by Chinese investors.
Saab CEO Victor Muller personally handed in the bankruptcy application to a court in southwestern Sweden, ending his two-year effort to revive the carmaker that over more than six decades has become known for its rounded sedans and quirky design features.
The Dutch entrepreneur told reporters he had to pull the plug after GM, which still owns some technology licenses for Saab, rejected a last-ditch financing plan involving a Chinese company.
Saab files for bankruptcy after GM veto Swedish carmaker's owner admits defeat after former parent General Motors blocked a rescue deal involving a Chinese firm
Reuters - Guardian.co.uk
Sweden's Saab faced an end to more than 60 years of carmaking on Monday after its Dutch owner abandoned repeated attempts to find financing and filed for its bankruptcy.
The end to months of efforts to keep the famed carmaker afloat came when General Motors at the weekend again vetoed a plan involving Chinese investor Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile. GM, Saab's former owner, still licences key technology to Saab and has a small shareholding.
Think Our Wild Horses Are Safe? Forty years after its passage, The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act is a shadow of its former self, undercut by amendments, the Bureau of Land Management, and the cattle industry
By Andrew Cohen - TheAtlantic.com
Forty years ago this Saturday, on December 17, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon was moved to quote Henry David Thoreau. "We need the tonic of wildness," the president announced in a statement released from Biscayne Bay, Florida, on the day he signed into law the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, the first federal law designed to protect and manage our wild horses. Nixon wrote that the new law was "an effort to guarantee [the] future" of the horses. and he credited grassroots public support for the political impetus behind the measure. The White House also offered this:
Wild horses and burros merit man's protection historically--for they are a living link with the days of the conquistadors, through the heroic times of the Western Indians and the pioneers, to our own day when the tonic of wildness seems all too scarce. More than that, they merit it as a matter of ecological right--as anyone knows who has ever stood awed at the indomitable spirit and sheer energy of a mustang running free.
How the Fall of the Soviet Union Changed the News Media American TV would never cover breaking news the same way again -- By Carolyn Deady - TheAtlantic.com
International media coverage of the historic events in Moscow on December 25, 1991, was a first for world broadcast news. Earlier in the year, Ted Turner's Cable News Network had a television news victory. A decade after its founding, CNN, surpassed the "Big Three" American networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- in ratings with its coverage from inside Iraq during the Gulf War. The 24-hour news network had come into its own. That Christmas Day, CNN got its next major scoop in Moscow.
First Amendment Under Attack:
18 Examples Of How They Are Coming For Our Free Speech
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
In the United States today, the First Amendment is under attack like never before. Technological innovations such as the Internet have made it possible for average Americans to communicate directly with one another in ways that completely bypass the mainstream media, and this is making the elite very uncomfortable. They have decided that they better come after our free speech before it is too late. Right now, free speech in America is being chipped away at it in thousands of different ways. On the one hand, you have the disciples of "political correctness" that want to make all forms of speech that are "offensive" to anyone against the law. On the other hand, you have those that are obsessed with "national security" that want to ban all speech that is critical of the U.S. government or the U.S. military. These twin forces are constantly seeking to push the First Amendment into a smaller and smaller box. If you say the wrong thing in America today, your website might be shut down, you could be suspended from school, you may find yourself out of a job and there is now even a possibility that you could be arrested and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay without a trial.
The Case Against Alleged WikiLeaks Supplier Bradley Manning Takes a Strange Turn
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
The military hearing that will determine whether Bradley Manning will receive a court martial for his alleged role in leaking documents to WikiLeaks took a strange turn. In a courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland, a prosecution witness testified that he found thousands of State Department cables on Manning's computer, but those cables did *not* match those released by WikiLeaks.
If the cables found on Manning's computer don't match the ones WikiLeaks has, the defense can argue that Julian Assange's outfit may have had a different source for the documents. Wired's Kim Zetter was in the courtroom and filed a report on this dramatic moment, which could become a lynchpin of the defense's case.
The Defining Issue:
Not Government’s Size, but Who It’s For
By Robert Reich
The defining political issue of 2012 won’t be the government’s size. It will be who government is for.
Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government.
But the surge of cynicism now engulfing America isn’t about government’s size. It’s the growing perception that government isn’t working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street, and the very rich instead.
Fake Withdrawal? 'US won't leave Iraq oil to Iran'
20,000 strong US Embassy... military power wearing plain clothes.
Despite the US's declared withdrawal of its military personnel and contractors out of Iraq, Washington has prepared to control the country's rich oil reserves in any case, shared Ranjit Singh Kalha, former India's ambassador to Iraq in the 1990s. Having spent $3 trillion in Iraq, a country with harsh weather conditions (+50 C most of the time) and absolutely nothing valuable but oil reserves, the Americans simply cannot give up the plentiful and very high quality oil they went there for. "It takes $1.50 to take out this oil that's just below the surface. Anybody who has access to this oil can be a game changer -- as far as the politics of oil is concerned," Ranjit Singh Kalha concluded.
The Pakistan problem... The Ally From Hell Pakistan lies. It hosted Osama bin Laden (knowingly or not). Its government is barely functional. It hates the democracy next door. It is home to both radical jihadists and a large and growing nuclear arsenal (which it fears the U.S. will seize). Its intelligence service sponsors terrorists who attack American troops. With a friend like this, who needs enemies?
By JEFFREY GOLDBERG and MARC AMBINDER - TheAtlantic.com
SHORTLY AFTER AMERICAN NAVY SEALs raided the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in May and killed Osama bin Laden, General Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistani chief of army staff, spoke with Khalid Kidwai, the retired lieutenant general in charge of securing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Kidwai, who commands a security apparatus called the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), had been expecting Kayani’s call.
North Korea:
The Most Bizarre Country On Earth
Is Now Even More Unstable
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
A new era has arrived for North Korea and nobody in the western world really knows exactly what is going to happen next. Kim Jong-Il is dead, and now control over the most bizarre country on earth has been handed over to 29-year-old Kim Jong-Un. Many believe that he is even younger than that. North Korea was already quite unstable while Kim Jong-Il was leading it, and now we have a young man that is going to be eager to "prove himself" to the North Korean hierarchy. Unfortunately, a lot of young men under the age of 30 don't handle fame and fortune too well, and a lot of them tend to be hot-headed. Hopefully Kim Jong-Un will turn out to be a reformer that will open up the doors of North Korea, but he could also end up being worse than his father. We just do not know at this point. We know that Kim Jong-Un was educated in Switzerland as a boy, we know that he speaks French, English and German, and we know that he is reportedly a fan of the NBA. Other than that, we just don't know a whole lot about him. What we do know is that Kim Jong-Un is a product of a totalitarian society that is absolutely obsessed with destroying the United States, and that is a very frightening thing.
North Korea conducts missile test
By Sam Kim - The Washington Times
SEOUL (AP) — North Korea conducted at least one short-range missiletest Monday, the same day it announced the death of leader Kim Jong-il, South Korea’sYonhap news agency reported.
Two South Korean military officials said they couldn’t immediately confirm the report, saying to do so would breach a policy of not commenting on intelligence matters.
Both said any firing would be part of a routine drill and have little relation to Kim Jong-il’s death. They both spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
White House monitoring North Korean situation
By Dave Boye - The Washington Times
The White House said Monday it has "no new concerns" about North Korea’s leadership after the death of dictator Kim Jong-il, but a spokesman for President Obama said he is "closely monitoring events."
"I don’t think we have any additional concerns," said presidential spokesman Jay Carney. "The issue here isn’t about personalities, it’s about the actions of the government. President Obama has been regularly briefed on the situation."
Mr. Carney also said it was too soon to tell whether Mr. Kim’s death will present the U.S. with an opportunity to reduce North Korea’s nuclear arsenal through six-nation talks.
North Korea on lockdown...
to control the brainwashed subservient masses Kim Jong-il dead: a dozen days of mourning for the leader born under a double rainbow
The first hint of news about the death of Kim Jong-il came at 10.26am on a frozen morning in Pyongyang.
By Malcolm Moore - Telegraph.co.uk
"An important notice will be released at noon," said the one-line report from the Korean Central News Agency, the mouthpiece of the world's most secretive state.
At that point, North Korea's borders had already been sealed for nine hours, and all army officers recalled from leave.
U.S. takes delicate approach to North Korean succession
By Guy Taylor-The Washington Times
U.S. officials treaded carefully Monday in responding to Kim Jong-il’s death amid concerns that the North Korean dictator’s demise could trigger a succession struggle that would deepen uncertainty over the communist nation’s nuclear arsenal.
North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles Monday just hours after announcing Mr. Kim’s death. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintonsaid the U.S. is "in close touch" with other powers in the region monitoring the situation.
Kim Jong-il dead:
China expresses sadness at losing 'close friend' A steady stream of flower bouquets were being handed in at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing on Monday as China expressed it sadness and sympathy to its "close friend" and neighbour Kim Jong-il.
By Peter Simpson in China - Telegraph.co.uk
With the North Korean flag flying at half mast, police sealed off the road around the large complex in the heart of the Chinese capital's diplomatic area.
Earlier on Monday, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ma Zhaoxue, praised Kim's leadership for developing North Korea's "socialist cause".
"We are shocked to learn that North Korea's top leader, comrade Kim Jong-il, has passed away. He was a great leader of North Korean people and a close and intimate friend of Chinese people.
What If Kim Jong Il's Successor Isn't Ready? The North Korean leader's 27-year-old son is next in line, but the military might not support him
By Max Fisher - TheAtlantic.com
Kim Jong Il probably knew he didn't have much time left when, 15 months ago, he held the first "Worker's Party Conference" -- a gathering of North Korea's political and military leaders -- in 30 years. There, he established his successor: Kim Jong Un, his heavy-set, Swiss-educated, and reportedly not very bright son, then 26 years old. Sure enough, North Korean state media, almost immediately after it announced Kim Jong Il's death, declared Kim Jong Un as the new leader.
50 fascinating facts: Kim Jong-il and North Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died following a stroke or heart attack. Here are 50 facts about the late dictator and his country.
Telegraph.co.uk
1 According to his biography, he first picked up a golf club in 1994, at North Korea's only golf course, and shot a 38-under par round that included no fewer than 11 holes in one. Satisfied with his performance, he reportedly immediately declared his retirement from the sport.
2 He was a near-obsessive film buff with a reported collection of 20,000 plus video tapes.
3 Kim, thought to be 5ft 2in (157cm) tall, is said to have worn lifts in his shoes and sported a bouffant hairstyle
Why gold seen extremely bullish in 2012: Twelve factors
By Commodity Online
Investors who bought Gold as a hedge against the crisis in Europe may be surprised that prices crashed on Wednesday. Is it just a beginning of price fall, or a repeat of 2008? Some people believe that gold's count down has begun. But Jeff Nichols still believes that gold prices will go above $2000/oz in 2012. He forecasts $2000 levels in the first half of 2012 and in the longer term, the yellow metal is expected to ride higher to $3000, $4000, $5000. Because of the following twelve factors, he still believes in a yellow metal rally in 2012.
About Gold: Don’t Panic!!! It’s momentary—and it’s because of the euro.
By Gonzalo Lira
For those of us watching the gold markets—that is, those of us anticipating the collapse of the euro and the eventual collapse of the dollar—the last week has been a scary ride: Gold has fallen over 8.6%, from a high of $1,730 on December 7 to $1,580 on December 14.
WTF???, I can practically hear everyone say. The fundamentals would point to gold being a safe haven play—it should not be falling: If anything, it ought to be rising.
But a fall of 8.6%? In a week?
The first thing that pops into my head is, Don’t Panic!!
The second thing that pops into my head is, This is to be expected—and is only a temporary pullback.
The single biggest gold buying opportunity
of the decade is here. Will you buy?
By Toby Connor - CommodityOnline.com
I know that during a correction of the magnitude we are seeing right now it seems more like the Gold bull is dead than on the verge of moving into what I expect will be one of the greatest parabolic moves in history.
However, all of the conditions necessary to launch the bubble phase are now in place. Gold is in the process of putting in an intermediate degree bottom. That bottom, which is only days away if it didn't already happen today, is going to be the single greatest buying opportunity, probably of the decade.
Bargain time for gold and silver investors
By Jeb Handwerger - CommodityOnline.com
This is one of those times that we have inveighed about so often. It is a typical "COM" week where markets are designed to confuse, obfuscate and misdirect the players. All thirty DOW stocks and commodities were down as Europe and Bernanke disappointed the markets with what they did not do. The markets were looking for a morsel of guidance, what they got was further silence and ambiguity.
The screens have been awash with a sea of red, protestors are taking to the streets in both the U.S. and Europe waving flags representing defiance. Green is hardly to be seen as many indices are near their lows of the year except the U.S. dollar (UUP) and long term treasuries(TLT). There are few places to park money where they are safe. The only havens are those by default. Thus the U.S. dollar and U.S. debt appear to smell like roses in a field of weeds. Hoarding dollars and U.S. debt is no way to promote a recovery.
Gold: How to invest safely in this financial crisis?
By G. Paul Avalos - CommodityOnline.com
Investors who prefer to own physical Gold that they can see and touch have multiple ways to achieve that comfort level. But when stacking up the choices, bullion appears to have the edge over coins for investors who also think about selling as much as acquiring.
"Everyone should keep a little physical at hand," said Adrian Ash, head of research with London-based BullionVault. "The problem with using coins or small bars for the bulk of your precious metals is threefold: cost, liquidity and security."
Either way, it's clear buyers who want physical gold have an array of purchase options to pick through. And these choices come at a time when buyers clamor for owning the real thing.
Bank Closures in Florida, Arizona Bring Total to 92
(NewsCore) - US regulators closed banks in Florida and Arizona on Friday, lifting the number of financial institutions shuttered in 2011 to 92.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) announced that the Premier Community Bank of the Emerald Coast in Crestview, Florida, was the 91st bank failure of the year, MarketWatch reported.
Soon afterwards, it announced that Phoenix's Western National Bank had also failed. It will be purchased by Seattle's Washington Federal Bank.
Southwestern U.S. braces for blizzard conditions
By Sean Morris, CNN Meteorologist
(CNN) -- Residents of the Southwest are bracing for a blizzard to kick off the holiday week with heavy snows, strong winds and icy roads that could make driving across the region dangerous.
The snow is forecast to start battering northeast New Mexico in the wee hours of Monday morning. State emergency personnel and transportation crews there are on call, officials say, ready to act if and when the storm hits hard.
Residents, meanwhile, have made their own preparations -- even on an otherwise picturesque day on Sunday, with sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s in some locales.
Financial Panic Sweeps Europe
As The Head Of The IMF Warns Of A “1930s Depression”
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Are we on the verge of another Great Depression? Christian Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said this week that if dramatic action is not taken immediately we could actually see conditions "reminiscent of the 1930s depression" and that no country on earth "will be immune to the crisis". Right now, financial panic is sweeping across Europe, but most Americans are not too concerned about it because they simply don't understand how important the EU is. The truth is that the EU has a much larger population than the United States does. The EU has an economy that is nearly as large as the economies of the United States and China combined. The EU has more Fortune 500 companies that the United States does, and the banking system of Europe is substantially larger than the banking system of the United States. Anyone out there that believes that a massive financial collapse in Europe would not dramatically affect the rest of the globe is being delusional. The European debt crisis is one of the biggest stories that we have seen in a long, long time and the coming financial meltdown is going to permanently change the global economy.
Money supply explosion will lead to accelerating inflation
GoldMoney.com
This is the time of year when City pundits produce their forecasts for the forthcoming year. Historically there has been little point to this exercise. Instead, here is the one chart which defines the background to all events in the coming years. It is the Mises Institute's True Money Supply (TMS) for the US dollar. TMS consists of cash, checking accounts and no-notice deposit accounts, as well as a few other minor cash balances. It represents the actual cash and electronic cash in the system that is instantly available for purchases of goods and services, and the chart goes back to 1959.
Markets are on alert as EU bosses face big decisions Traders are braced for a volatile day tomorrow ahead of European talks on fresh austerity measures, eurozone bail-out mechanisms and a looming deadline to approve $200bn (£167bn) of bilateral loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Jean Claude Juncker, the head of the Eurogroup, said all 27 European Union finance ministers, including George Osborne, would talk together tomorrow afternoon to approve or reject extending the funds to the IMF as agreed in Brussels by December 19. The loans would be used by the IMF to support struggling eurozone countries.
The finance ministers are also tasked with devising a voting system to govern the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) after the Brussels decision to replace unanimity sparked a revolt. The ministers are under pressure to have a deal ready for approval by EU leaders when they convene on Tuesday.
EU foreign policy must not become a casualty of the euro crisis
BY OPEN LETTER - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Dear EU leaders,
We are seriously concerned about the impact that the current eurozone debt crisis is having on the external relations of the Union.
The first casualty is the time available for foreign policy. We recognise and support your efforts to overcome the current crisis but it is important that our relations with third countries do not suffer as a consequence. Important summits have been postponed and there is less time to focus on priority issues such as supporting the transitions in North Africa.
A second problem is the resources available for foreign policy. The EU’s budget for external affairs is already small and any further cuts would seriously impact on the EU’s pretensions to play a global role.
Divisions in eurozone over ECB bond-buying The eurozone was facing fresh splits today after one of the European Central Bank’s most senior figures said the bank should not be used to fund national debts and that if it was forced to, it would mean the end of the single currency.
By Jonathan Russell - Telegraph.co.uk
Executive board member Juergen Stark, who announced his surprise resignation from the ECB earlier this year, said disagreements over the central bank’s bond-buying programme was behind his decision.
In an interview with German weekly WirtschaftsWoche to be published on Tuesday, Mr Stark said he did not agree with the way the euro crisis has been handled. He particularly criticised the use of monetary measures, or the wholesale purchase of sovereign bonds by the bank, to contain the crisis.
Workers of Europe unite, you've only euro chains to lose Europe's Left has suffered a calamitous six months. Socialist governments have met historic defeats in Portugal and Spain. Greece’s Pasok party was toppled by an EU technocrat Putsch. Ireland’s soft-Left Fianna Foil lost every seat in Dublin.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Almost 97pc of the European Union’s population is now governed by conservative or Right-leaning coalitions, or EU-imposed mandarins. All that is left to social democrats is Austria (8.4m), Denmark (5.5m), and Slovenia (2.1m).
The whole machinery of the European Union (EU) system is under the control of the Right, with variants of Rhenish corporatism in the Council, and pre-modern Hayekians at the European Central Bank (ECB). Whether you regard this Hegelian ascendancy as good or bad, it certainly has profound consequences.
New treaty in force when 9 countries have ratified
BY HONOR MAHONY - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - The first draft of a new treaty meant to tighten economic governance in eurozone countries was circulated Friday (16 December) with the aim to have the text finalised by January and coming into force once nine countries have ratified it.
The ratification threshold would allow the treaty to go into place even if some euro states - such as Ireland which may have to hold a referendum - are having problems getting domestic approval.
A euro country that rejected the treaty after it had already come into place will not be bound by it.
French credit downgrade could come 'within days' Standard & Poor's expected downgrade could create panic in the financial markets and make eurozone crisis even worse
By Richard Wachman, City editor,
Toby Helm and Kim Willsher - Guardian.co.uk
France could be stripped of its triple-A credit rating before Christmas, raising new doubts about the survival of the euro, analysts have predicted.
Standard & Poor's – one of the three top rating agencies – is expected to cut France's rating within days, in a move that would weaken its ability to raise funds on financial markets.
Why the euro turkey is well and truly stuffed The coming break-up of the single currency makes Britain’s veto seem a mere sideshow
By Jeff Randall - Telegraph.co.uk
As George Osborne prepares his response to the Vickers report on banking reform (the Chancellor is expected to make a Commons statement this afternoon), there’s a growing sense in the City that while Britain upgrades its sprinkler system, a fireball has already engulfed our neighbours. Much-needed changes to UK financial legislation, recommended by Vickers, will be enacted by the end of the current parliament, with the overhaul completed by 2019. Nothing wrong with long-term planning, except that with the eurozone in disarray and sovereign defaults looking all but certain, even getting to next Christmas without a fresh banking crisis may prove a wish too far for Santa.
China uncovers $45 million in slush funds
By Caixin Online - MarketWatch.com
BEIJING ( Caixin Online ) — More than 4,000 Communist Party members have received punishments this year for siphoning 2.846 billion yuan ($44.8 million) into illegal bank accounts, the Ministry of Finance reported Wednesday.
Known formally as "small treasuries" or xiaojinku, the off-the-books accounts are repositories for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and government agencies to hide illegal funds like bribes, kickbacks and unofficial taxes.
Government officials have been waging a public battle against small treasuries since the 1980s, uncovering at least 140.6 billion yuan in slush funds between 1998 and 2006, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
Backlash from Beijing raises fears
that China's economy is slowing down China is tightening trade policy and imposing punitive import taxes – a clear indication, say experts, that it fears an economic 'hard landing'
By Heather Stewart, The Observer - Guardian.co.uk
While Europe's leaders were wrestling with the problem of who will bail out whom last week, the world's other two major trading blocs, the US and China, were gearing up for a potentially damaging trade war.
As China slapped punitive import taxes on gas-guzzling American cars, and stepped up its rhetoric against the US, complaining about what it said were US subsidies, some Beijing-watchers read it as a sign that the government is so alarmed about a looming economic slowdown that it is casting around for someone to blame.
Did The Fed Quietly Bail Out A Bank On Tuesday?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Over the past month we have been closely documenting a major funding squeeze in the all important shadow economy - the "synthetic liquidity" conduit which far more than traditional sources of cash, has become all important for proper bank functioning over the past decade. Courtesy of adverse development in Europe, one by one various components of this unregulated funding scheme have become frozen necessitating the first of many central bank interventions on November 30 to provide liquidity to global banks, primarily to offset such shadow conduits as locked up commercial paper, repo and money markets. Logically, as noted over a week ago, European banks scrambled to obtain cheap dollars by borrowing over $50 billion from the Fed, and plug dollar shortfalls. Yet as all band aid measures designed to offset a broken liquidity equilibrium fail eventually, it was only a matter of time before we saw a direct bail out by the Fed of one or more banks in the aftermath of the November 30 global "bail out." Sure enough, we have our first clue that "something" happened in the week ending Wednesday December 14 that involved an upgrade of the Fed's indirect (and thus untargeted) bailout of global banks, to a focused, and very much targeted rescue of one (or more) banks. And with some additional diligence, it may be possible to narrow down the date of an actual bank bailout: Tuesday, December 13.
From The Comedy Store
By Argus Hamilton - PatriotPost.us
President Obama asked Iran to return the U.S. spy plane drone that crashed in Iran last weekend. Americans were confused. When news first broke that Iran was in possession of the American drone, we just assumed they had taken Al Gore hostage.
Iran revealed plans to sell to China the Pentagon's drone spy aircraft that crashed in Iran while spying on their nuclear reactors. We know how this ends. By next year we'll be able to buy the same spy plane from China for just one-fourth of what Boeing charges us.
Vladimir Putin slammed the U.S. government for noting how his United Russia Party stuffed ballot boxes and cheated to win. He misunderstood. When the U.S. president and the Secretary of State are both from Chicago there's a real chance it was a compliment.
Debt-Free United States Notes
Were Once Issued Under JFK
And The U.S. Government
Still Has The Power To Issue Debt-Free Money
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Most Americans have no idea that the U.S. government once issued debt-free money directly into circulation. America once thrived under a debt-free monetary system, and we can do it again. The truth is that the United States is a sovereign nation and it does not need to borrow money from anyone. Back in the days of JFK, Federal Reserve Notes were not the only currency in circulation. Under JFK (at at various other times), a limited number of debt-free United States Notes were issued by the U.S. Treasury and spent by the U.S. government without any new debt being created. In fact, each bill said "United States Note" right at the top. Unfortunately, United States Notes are not being issued today. If you stop right now and pull a dollar out of your wallet, what does it say right at the top? It says "Federal Reserve Note". Normally, the way our current system works is that whenever more Federal Reserve Notes are created more debt is also created. This debt-based monetary system is systematically destroying the wealth of this nation. But it does not have to be this way. The truth is that the U.S. government still has the power under the U.S. Constitution to issue debt-free money, and we need to educate the American people about this.
Trustee to Seize and Liquidate
Even the Stored Customer Gold and Silver Bullion
From MF Global
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
The bottom line is that apparently some warehouses and bullion dealers are not a safe place to store your gold and silver, even if you hold a specific warehouse receipt. In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation.
Although the details and the individual perpetrators are yet to be disclosed, what is now painfully clear is that the CFTC and CME regulated futures system is defaulting on its obligations. This did not even happen in the big failures like Lehman and Bear Sterns in which the customer accounts were kept whole and transferred before the liquidation process.
Testing the Waters of Economic Liberty
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- In 1927, seven years before the board game was created, Washington state decided to play monopoly. It gave a private interest the exclusive right to operate a ferry on 55-mile long Lake Chelan in the northern Cascade Mountains. The state apparently will defend this folly until Judgment Day, when state officials will get an earful from the Creator who -- we have Jefferson's word for this -- endowed everyone, including Jim and Cliff Courtney, with the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Where Is the Volcker Rule?
By SIMON JOHNSON - NYTimes.com
Three years ago, a financial crisis threatened to bring down the United States economy and to spread economic disaster around the world. How far have we come in preventing any kind of recurrence? And will the much-discussed Volcker Rule – attempting to limit the risks that big banks can take – play a positive role as we move forward?
Bad loans were the primary cause of the 2007-8 financial debacle. When the full extent of the problems with those loans became apparent, there was a sharp fall in the values of all securities that had been constructed based on the underlying mortgages – and a collapse in the value of related bets that had been made using derivatives.
Payroll tax cut extension in doubt
amid House Republican uproar
By Felicia Sonmez - WashingtonPost.com
The fate of a payroll tax cut extension backed by the White House and overwhelmingly passed by the Senate is uncertain after a restive House Republican conference expressed displeasure with the two-month deal.
Faced with the uprising on his right flank, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) retreated Sunday from his previous support for the package, saying the House does not expect to approve that plan on Monday night after it returns to Washington.
For the Last Time,
Fannie and Freddie Didn't Cause the Housing Crisis The housing bubble occurred during a period when Fannie and Freddie's market share of high-risk mortgages dropped.
By David Min - TheAtlantic.com
Two weeks ago, we published an interview with Rep. Barney Frank. Defending his role as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee at the start of the recession, the congressman took a swipe at Peter Wallison, the member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission most critical of government's role in the crisis. Wallison responded, on our site, that Congress was indeed at the heart of the mortgage meltdown. Here, David Min, the associate director for Financial Markets Policy at the Center for American Progress, responds:
The 60-Something Entrepreneur:
Can a Start-Up Pay For Retirement? Baby boomers who thought they were on the cusp of retirement have suffered more than any other group in America. Here's one way to fight back: Start a company.
By Darren Dahl - The Atlantic.com
It's rare for couples these days to stick together for as long as John and Patsy McArthur have. Both now 63, they met in high school in rural Red Springs, N.C., and never ventured far. In their 45 years together, they have run a farm and, since 1987, a contracting business. As recently as 2008, when the housing market was booming, annual revenues of their 60-employee McArthur Construction topped $14 million. This got the McArthurs thinking about selling their company and using the proceeds to ease into retirement, figuring to travel and spend more time with their grandchildren.
Oops. That was before the bottom fell out of the real-estate market. When it did, the McArthurs quickly sold some equipment, paid down debt, and scaled back their payroll by cutting the staff to 45. They closed their office in Charlotte, where the building boom had gone bust, and moved the business back near home, where rent and land cost less. "We kept bidding all the time on new projects, but we had to cut our profit margin to the bone," John Mc-Arthur said.
Seniors mind their business
These baby boomers and seniors take on and deftly handle entrepreneurship in the latter part of their lives.
Boomers vs. Millennials: The Fight of a Generation (or Two) When 20-somethings battle baby boomers over society's limited resources, expect the boomers to (gasp) retreat.
By Kirk Victor - TheAtlantic.com
GREAT FALLS, Va.--Economist and demographer Neil Howe sells himself as an expert on generations. He argues that when people are born determines the cultural and historical context in which they are reared and therefore their attitudes and values. His 1991 book, Generations, coauthored with the late William Strauss, proposed a cyclical view of U.S. history as a succession of idealistic or civic-minded--or reactive or adaptive--generations.
Not all scholars were impressed, but the authors' analysis offers a useful prism for making sense of the nation's economic plight. Howe foresees a clash between seniors and the Millennials--a term that he and Strauss coined--coming of age in this century. (Generation X was sandwiched between baby boomers and Millennials.) He also predicts a surprising victor: yes, the young 'uns.
Congress approves $10 million for Gulf War illness research
By Kelly Kennedy, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Congress has approved dedicating $10 million to research the mysterious Gulf War illness, ending concerns from veterans' groups that the money would disappear because of budget problems.
The spending bill passed by the Senate on Saturday and signed by President Obama includes the money for specific research into the series of ailments suffered by veterans of the Persian Gulf War. Originally, money for the research would have to come from a larger pot of money that could have been spent on other work besides studying Gulf War illness.
Congress Blocks Enforcement
of Incandescent Light Bulb’s Phaseout in U.S.
By Jim Snyder - Bloomberg.com
Congress spared the 100-watt incandescent light bulb from a government-enforced phaseout in a win for Tea Party activists over manufacturers who said they are already switching to more energy-efficient products.
Lawmakers cleared legislation today to fund the government through Sept. 30, with a provision barring the Energy Department from carrying out the elimination of the pear-shaped bulb. Groups backing small government urged Republican allies to block the requirement, calling it an example of regulatory overreach in keeping with the health-care overhaul and the Wall Street bailout.
Congress' bill may slow switch to efficient light bulbs
By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
Congress' move this weekend to save Thomas Edison's 131-year-old incandescent light bulb from a federally-required phaseout, slated to begin Jan. 1., may slow but not halt the nation's switch to more efficient lighting.
The Senate and House passed a massive spending bill, which President Obama is expected to sign this week, that includes a measure barring the Department of Energy from enforcing more efficient light bulb rules. Those rules, requiring bulbs use at least 25% less energy, do not ban all incandescents but phase out Edison's bulbs in favor of the more efficient halogen incandescent, the CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) or LED (light emitting diode.)
Watches that compute
are the next small thing in technology
By John Boudreau - LATimes.com
The watch may be making a comeback — and it will do much more than just tell time.
As people have become equipped with smartphones, laptops and other digital devices with clocks, the importance of the wristwatch has diminished. But a bevy of smartwatches — devices that aim to alert users to text messages and phone calls, and even monitor health — are being rolled out in coming months by entrepreneurs who hope to create a 21st century relevance for a centuries-old gadget, the timepiece.
How the iPod and Other Audio Devices
Are Destroying Your Ears Damage from music is not always permanent, but some audiologists have seen mp3-inflicted issues so strong that hearing aids were needed
By Sara J. Martinez - TheAtlantic.com
Portable music players may be contributing to permanent hearing loss among many casual listeners, gradually leading to the inability to discern speech. An iPod's maximum volume is more than 10 times as loud as the recommended listening setting, audiologists say, and the sensory damage caused by prolonged listening is irreversible.
Since the iPod was introduced in 2001, hearing loss has been an obvious problem among young patients of Brian Fligor, an audiologist at the Boston Children's Hospital.
'That's Our Job':
The Government Investigates Cellphone Wiretapping As the government begins an investigation into Carrier IQ's cell phone-tracking software, memories of its own wiretapping scandal resurface
By Wendy Kaminer - TheAtlantic.com
"Spy on unsuspecting Americans? That's our job," you can imagine federal officials indignantly declaring as they investigate cell-phone tracking by the mobile software company, Carrier IQ. The National Security Agency began secret, illegal surveillance of our phone calls and Internet activities in 2001, as we belatedly learned in 2005. Yes, 2005 is a long time ago these days, when yesterday seems like old news; but the NSA scandal deserves to be remembered, especially when the government presumes to be outraged by telecom spying.
Mobile Carriers Claim
Consumer Consent to Carrier IQ Spying
By David Kravets - Wired.com
Americans consented to secretly installed software on 150 million mobile phones that logs what apps they use and what websites they visit and who they communicate with, according to mobile-phone makers and carriers.
Sprint, AT&T, HTC and Samsung told Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) Thursday that their end-user licensing agreements — those pages of fine print you sign when you get a new cell phone — authorize them to use Carrier IQ software to monitor app deployment, battery life, phone CPU output and data and cell-site connectivity. The companies’ statements, released by Franken, are a good roadmap to how the companies will fight federal privacy lawsuits already brought by consumers over the secret software.
Price of Oil to Remain High
as OPEC Limits World Production
Written by Gail Tverberg - OilPrice.com
The results of OPEC’s latest meeting to set oil production quotas were on Thursday last week. Instead of production targets for individual countries, a group production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day was set. This amount is a bit less than OPEC produced in November 2011 (actual 30.367 mbd), according to its reckoning, and less than it would have produced most of 2011, if Libyan production had stayed on line, based on the amounts shown in its November Oil Market Report
No Great Game:
The Story of Post-Cold War Powers in Central Asia The U.S. has been increasingly active in these former Soviet satellites, but Russian influence is still a major force
By Joshua Foust - TheAtlantic.com
On December 16, 2011, Kazakhstan will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its independence from the Soviet Union. It was the last country to politically separate itself from Russia in 1991, the final nail in the coffin of the seven-decade Soviet experiment. The year saw a wave of Soviet states pulling away from the Soviet Union, like the skins of an onion, until only Russia was left in the center.
Central Asia, a part of the world that has long been the subject of speculation, romantic adventure fantasies, and misinformation, suddenly found itself in the global spotlight. Kazakhstan possessed the world's largest nuclear testing site in Semipalatinsk, dozens of nuclear weapons, a biological weapons research facility on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the dried-up Aral Sea, and huge reserves of oil and natural gas in the Caspian Sea. Turkmenistan, too, had some of the world's largest reserves of natural gas.
Vaclav Havel, Czech dissident,
playwright, politician dead at 75
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
CNN) -- Former Czech President Vaclav Havel, one of the leading anti-Communist dissidents of the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the age of 75, his spokeswoman announced Sunday.
"Vaclav Havel left us today," Sabina Tancevova said in a short statement on Havel's website.
Havel, a puckish, absurdist playwright turned political activist, spent four and a half years in prison for opposing Czechslovakia's Communist government before emerging as a leader of the Velvet Revolution that swept it aside in 1989.
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il, 69, Has Died
AP - ABCNews.com
Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial and enigmatic longtime leader, has died of heart failure. He was 69.
In a "special broadcast" Monday from the North Korean capital, state media said Kim died of a heart ailment on a train due to a "great mental and physical strain" on Dec. 17 during a "high intensity field inspection." It said an autopsy was done on Dec. 18 and "fully confirmed" the diagnosis.
Is America Waging a Covert War on Iran? We still don't know the truth about the lost U.S. spy drone.
By Sheldon Richman - Reason.com
The U.S. government lost a spy drone over Iran. Is it part of an ongoing covert war?
Either Iranian forces shot it down or it fell out of the sky. We may never know which, but now the Obama administration wants it back. Iran says no. It is apparently studying the craft’s advanced stealth and other technology—and perhaps attempting to reverse engineer it.
This is not analogous to playful kids who accidentally throw a baseball into a neighbor’s yard and ask for it back. The U.S. government has been making war sounds in Iran’s direction for years, and these belligerent noises have grown louder in recent months. While there are grounds for believing the U.S. military does not want to attack Iran, which is far larger and more populous than Iraq and would require a long, bloody involvement throughout the region, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insist that "all options are on the table."
U.S. troops leave Iraq after nearly nine years
By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The final convoy of U.S. troops left Iraq on Sunday, bringing an end to almost nine years of war in which tens of thouands of Iraqis and nearly 4,500 Americans died, media reports said.
The last column of roughly 100 mainly U.S. military MRAP armored vehicles holding 500 U.S. troops crossed the southern Iraqi desert from their last base during the night and daybreak toward the Kuwaiti border, Reuters reported.
America’s Iraq Experience: Invasi-Eradicavi-Turbavi
by Ben Tanosborn - ZeroHedge.com
Julius Caesar undoubtedly was showing off with his Veni-Vidi-Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) when referencing to his short war outside Zela (Zile) in Turkey over two millennia ago. Similarly, if we were to use a short catchy-comment for the almost nine years America has invested in its "Iraq Mission," we would be on target by condensing the US experience in also three Latin words, although not as melodic this time: Invasi-Eradicavi-Turbavi which sadly stand for, I invaded, I destroyed and I threw-into-chaos.
No matter what the Pentagon and White House tell us, the fiasco in Iraq likely stands as the most costly mistake in America’s history, a true Keystone Kops type of political dark comedy. And it wasn’t a bad or flawed decision by a singular moron or group of morons – Bush the Younger, Sadist Cheney and Loquacious Rumsfeld composing the original warpath triumvirate, together with two dozen equally deranged staff of their inner circles. Unfortunately, this time Congress, together with a brainwashed public, closed rank with an evil and criminal White House. So, whether the American citizenry likes it or not… the Iraq conflict wasn’t just Bush’s war, but “the peoples’ war,” a war with a dangerous aftermath yet to come, one we’ll likely be paying for in the future with additional blood and treasure.
Obama Concerned That Iran is on Verge
of Underground Nuclear Enrichment
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan - Bloomberg.com
The Obama administration is concerned Iran is on the verge of enriching uranium at a facility deep underground near the Muslim holy city of Qom, a move that may strengthen those advocating tougher action to stop Iran’s suspected atomic weapons program.
Iranian nuclear scientists at the Fordo facility appear to be within weeks of producing 20 percent enriched uranium, according to Iran analysts and nuclear specialists in close communication with U.S. officials and atomic inspectors. Enriched uranium is used to fuel power plants and reactors, and may be further processed into atomic weapons material.
Lawmakers Agree on Spending Bill, Avoiding Shutdown
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and ROBERT PEAR - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Retreating from their harsh partisan sniping, and perhaps fearing public rebuke, Congressional leaders said Thursday that they had agreed on a large-scale spending measure to keep the government running for the next nine months.
But an accord on extending a payroll tax holiday due to expire at the end of the month remained elusive, with Democrats weighing a possible short-term extension, setting the stage for another fight with Republicans over how to pay for it.
BlueCrest’s Platt Says
European Banks Insolvent as Bass Sees Possible Run
By Jesse Westbrook and Saijel Kishan - Bloomberg.com
Michael Platt, founder of the $30 billion hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management LLP, said most of the banks in Europe are insolvent and the situation will worsen in 2012 as the region’s debt crisis accelerates.
Kyle Bass, the Dallas-based hedge-fund manager who said in 2009 there would be sovereign defaults within three years, said Greek, Portuguese and Spanish depositors will withdraw money from banks in the coming months.
Ben's bazooka has a Euro hair-trigger... Bernanke Signals Europe Risk
Keeps Fed Ready to Ease Further
BusinessWeek.com
Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled he's concerned Europe's crisis will hobble a 2 1/2-year U.S. expansion that may need another boost from the central bank.
The Fed's policy-setting panel, which met in Washington yesterday, said the economy "has been expanding moderately," compared with the Nov. 2 assessment that growth "strengthened somewhat." At the same time, the central bank added a reference to "apparent slowing in global growth," and said that "strains in global financial markets continue to pose significant downside risks to the economic outlook."
IMF’s Lagarde: Europe Crisis 'Escalating'
By Nicole Gaouette - Bloomberg.com
The European debt crisis is growing to the point that it won’t be solved by one group of countries, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said today.
Lagarde said that if countries don't work together, the world will face a situation similar to the 1930s, before the world slid into World War II.
"There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super- advanced economies that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding, but escalating at a point where everybody would actually have to focus on what it can do," Lagarde said.
IMF chief warns over 1930s-style threats
By Hugh Carnegy in Paris, George Parker in London
and Peter Spiegel in Brussels - FT.com
The managing director of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the global economy faces the prospect of "economic retraction, rising protectionism, isolation and . . . what happened in the 30s [Depression]", as European tensions again flared over suggestions in Paris that the UK’s credit rating should be downgraded before France’s.
"There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super-advanced economies that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding but escalating," Christine Lagarde said in a speech at the US state department in Washington. "It is not a crisis that will be resolved by one group of countries taking action. It is going to be hopefully resolved by all countries, all regions, all categories of countries actually taking action.
Making Sense of the European Chaos
BY MONTY GUILD - FinancialSense.com
Developments in Europe have dominated the world’s economic headlines in recent days and have obscured some good news from China. In this week’s newsletter, we will cover the background of these important events and their meaning to global investors.
Making Sense Of The European Chaos
We have long believed that the European currency union will not survive in its current form and that some governments will never pay off their huge bond debts. Recent news about the European sovereign debt crisis has been negative and supports our bleak evaluation of the situation. However, reporters and commentators alike tend to miss the one critical point that is essential for the investing community: the banking system will be bailed out.
Dissolve the EU and let free market decide: Marc Faber
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Marc Faber has said that it may be better to let the European Union countries to disintegrate after which the free market can reprice their worth. Marc Faber is the editor of the widely read The Gloom, Boom and Doom report.
"I think the best thing to do is dissolve the EU. Let the markets sort this out. Let the countries default.. It's going to be painful, very painful. But rather than to intervene into something that is not going to work in the long run … (intervention) is the wrong medicine", Fox Business quoted Marc Faber.
Bank of America
sees deeper eurozone crisis before ECB rescue The European Central Bank will be forced to print money on a large scale but only after deep recession and months of drift have pushed the eurozone to the brink of disaster, Bank of America has warned.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The final trigger is most likely to be a bad debt auctions in Rome, pushing yields beyond the pain threshold. Italy must raise €48bn (£40bn) in late February. But Greek elections in February are a minefield, and Spain's new government may reveal that the budget deficit is up to 1.5pc of GDP higher than planned. A blizzard of sovereign downgrades loom.
"The Eurozone is like sky-diving without a parachute. We think the ECB will provide a parachute in the end, but not until things get a lot worse," said Athanasios Vamvakidis, the bank's currency chief.
Talk of 'nuclear default' sums up Left's anger at EU dictates Tempers are fraying in austerity-racked Portugal. A top socialist politician was taped at a party dinner calling for diplomatic warfare against the EU's northern powers and issuing threats of debt default.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"We have an atomic bomb that we can use in the face of the Germans and the French: this atomic bomb is simply that we won't pay," said Pedro Nuno Santos, vice-president of the Socialist Party in the parliament.
"Debt is our only weapon and we must use it to impose better conditions, because recession itself is what is stopping us complying with the (EU-IMF Troika) accord. We should make the legs of the German bankers tremble," he said.
Fitch downgrades world's top banks
From Hussein Saddique, CNN
New York (CNN) -- The ratings firm Fitch downgraded a cluster of the world's largest banks Thursday, pointing to trading challenges facing international markets.
The banks included Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, as well as Europe's Barclays, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas.
Germany's Deutsche Bank and Switerzland's Credit Suisse were also downgraded.
It was the third major credit rating agency to downgrade global financial institutions since September.
BofA, Goldman, Barclays Have Fitch Credit Ratings Cut
By Hugh Son - Bloomberg.com
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) andCitigroup Inc. (C) had their credit grades cut by Fitch Ratings as the impact of financial regulation and market turmoil (VIX) weighed on the industry.
The lenders’ long-term issuer default ratings were cut one level to A from A+, Fitch said yesterday in a statement. Barclays Plc (BARC), based in London, Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN), Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and BNP Paribas SA also had their grades lowered.
U.S. no longer a leader of fiscal rescue Europe to get aid elsewhere
By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
The U.S. has stayed uncharacteristically distant as European nations struggle with their long-running debt crisis, creating an opening for big emerging nations such as China and Brazil to move to center stage in world economic affairs.
U.S. leaders have steadfastly refused to contribute any funding to help debt-strapped European countries such as Greece and Italy, citing massive and unresolved debt problems of their own. But Brazil, Russiaand a few other emerging nations that are flush with cash are offering a helping hand.
BlackRock Says Euro Area
Headed for 'Full-Fledged' Recession Amid Cuts
By Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam - Bloomberg.com
BlackRock Inc. (BLK), the world’s biggest asset manager, said European nations including France and Germany are headed for a recession as the prolonged debt crisis has prompted companies to cut spending and stop hiring.
"We now believe that we're in for a full-fledged recession, including one in France and Germany, that could cut GDP by 1 percent to 2 percent," according to a note published today by New York-based BlackRock’s investment institute. "Short-term austerity measures could worsen the recession, defeating their very purpose of closing budget gaps."
Euro Set for Biggest Weekly Drop in 3 Months
By Monami Yui - Bloomberg.com
The euro headed for the steepest weekly decline in three months as European nations prepare for bill auctions next week amid concern policy makers are struggling to stem the region’s two-year debt crisis.
The 17-nation euro traded 0.5 percent from a 10-week low against the yen after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said yesterday there’s no "external savior" for indebted countries that don’t implement structural reforms and the central bank’s program of buying government bonds isn't limitless. The dollar fell versus most of its major peers as data suggested the U.S. economy is gaining momentum and Asian stocks rose, easing demand for haven assets.
UK Public 'the Worst Off'
of the developed G7 Countries
With 4.5% Negative Interest Rates
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Perhaps this is why the western Central Banks are so determined to prevent the price of gold from breaking out, and keep putting out disinformation from within a cloak of secrecy about their inflationary policies and money creation.
Negative real interest rates are very bullish for gold, and highly corrosive to the ordinary savings of those who lack the sophisticated financial instruments to otherwise protect themselves.
Yuan Strengthens Most
Since Dollar Peg Ended in July ’05 on Policy Outlook
By Kyoungwha Kim - Bloomberg.com
China’s yuan strengthened the most since a dollar peg ended in July 2005, supported by optimism policy makers will avoid a sharp slowdown in the world’s second- largest economy.
The currency gained 0.6 percent to 6.3351 per dollar as of 9:59 a.m. in Shanghai, according to China Foreign Exchange Trade System. The central bank raised its daily reference rate by 0.1 percent to 6.3352.
Gerald Celente - Yahoo Finance - 14 December 2011
The ABCs of Re-hypothecation
in Gold and Securities Markets:
What You Need to Know
By Kevin Brekke, Casey Research - silver-prices.net
A new polysyllabic term has entered the Wall Street lexicon and is sweeping through the investing world like a brush fire through a dry canyon: "hypothecation." With its connection to the MF Global bankruptcy and aftermath, it engenders the kind of fear a homeowner might feel while monitoring the approaching flames.
The rise of hypothecation as the lead suspect in the MF Global tragedy has caused a fair bit of confusion about what, exactly, it is – and is not. Proving the idiom that nature abhors a vacuum, the blogosphere has weighed in with all manner of explanations, many of which have been less than accurate.
'Gold’s price fall reflect dollar, global economic outlook'
LONDON (Commodity Online): Some gold-watchers may be perplexed and disappointed that Gold hasn’t acted like a safe haven asset despite the current economic crisis, but Ross Norman, chief executive officer of Sharps Pixley, said "gold has other relationships - equally strong - which it upholds, in particular is the one with the US dollar."
Looking Past Gold’s Poor Performance
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
....Without a doubt, gold has delivered a disappointing performance of late. But even after yesterday’s shellacking, gold is still up 9% over the last 12 months, compared to a loss for the S&P 500 Index. Likewise, gold has greatly outpaced the S&P over the last one, three, five, ten and fifteen years! (The 20-year mark is a "dead heat.")
Bottom line, gold has performed its job with meritorious distinction. But of course, that’s history. The future is what most of us care about. And we’d care to know if gold’s future will look anything like its illustrious past.
Gold and Money in Extremis… One Man’s Story
By Richard Rabkin - DailyReckoning.com
12/15/11 The fascinating story of Marion Szablicki, as reported in Marc Faber’s Gloom, Boom and Doom Report
My economics education was started as a child by my grandfather, Marion Szablicki, who was a living testimonial to the value of gold. Notably, toward the end of his life at 99 years of age in 2010, he felt there was simply too much debt, and that a long downward spiral was underway with difficult times ahead. He had lived through times of "extremis" and his account of fiat money, war, gold and survival should serve as a reminder to all people that those who choose to ignore history’s lessons do so at their own risk.
On September 17, 1939, Russia invaded Poland, and over the next year over 1.7 million Poles were deported to labor camps or sent into exile into Kazakhstan and Siberia. Their only crimes at the time were being Polish citizens. None of the land or homes taken by the Russians was ever returned to these Poles after the war, despite their release from the Gulag in 1941 to fight with distinction under the British army. Per the 1943 Tehran Declaration, post WWII, Eastern Poland remained a part of Russia. Winston Churchill said of Poland in 1946, "We who went to war on her behalf…watch with sorrow the strange outcome of our endeavors."
'Silver still to hit $75/oz by 2012 year end' The Gold Report: David, in August you predicted that the silver price could go as high as $75 an ounce (oz). It was recently at about $32/oz. Where is it along the path to $75/oz? David Morgan: I don't see the silver price going above the $50/oz level in 2011. In other words, the top is in for this year, and has been for some time. I still believes silver price will go above $50/oz in 2012. I forecast $65–75/oz silver by the end of 2012. I don't foresee a big rush into price appreciation for gold or silver in the first quarter of 2012 (Q112), which is seasonal. Typically, there is a very strong boost to the price of metals in the first quarter of every year. However, this year I'm suspect because of what's going on in the Eurozone and all the paper pushing between the central banks of the world. I'm reserved about what's going to happen over the next three months.
Corzine: MF Staff Said Fund Transfer Legal
By Silla Brush and Clea Benson - Bloomberg.com
Jon S. Corzine, former chairman and chief executive officer of MF Global Holdings Ltd., told lawmakers today that the firm’s back-office staff “explicitly” informed him that fund transfers made before the company filed for bankruptcy were legal.
Corzine, testifying today before U.S. lawmakers for the third time in a week, was responding to allegations made at a U.S. Senate hearing earlier this week when the executive chairman of Chicago-based CME Group Inc. (CME) told lawmakers Corzine had known of a $175 million loan using client money that was made before the Oct. 31 bankruptcy.
Minyanville Interview With Lee Adler:
What to Expect From Treasuries,
Central Banks, Politics in 2012
By Bears Chat at The Wall Street Examiner
Recently I was in New York and met with the staff of Minyanville at their offices. They invited me to sit for a video giving my opinions for 2012. Here’s the video and transcript of the interview. My thanks to Todd Harrison and all the Minyanville staffers for their hospitality!
Lee Adler is the editor and publisher of the Wall Street Examiner and the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition, a proprietary service for professional investors and sophisticated individual investors. A frequent contributor to Minyanville, he recently sat down with us to discuss his views on the treasury market for 2012, the election and the role of central banks on the market.
50 Economic Numbers From 2011
That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Even though most Americans have become very frustrated with this economy, the reality is that the vast majority of them still have no idea just how bad our economic decline has been or how much trouble we are going to be in if we don't make dramatic changes immediately. If we do not educate the American people about how deathly ill the U.S. economy has become, then they will just keep falling for the same old lies that our politicians keep telling them. Just "tweaking" things here and there is not going to fix this economy. We truly do need a fundamental change in direction. America is consuming far more wealth than it is producing and our debt is absolutely exploding. If we stay on this current path, an economic collapse is inevitable. Hopefully the crazy economic numbers from 2011 that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.
Keiser Report: Möbius Strip of Fraud (E223)
Global Demand for U.S. Assets
Climb $4.8 Billion Even as China Cuts Back
By Vincent Del Giudice and Cheyenne Hopkins - Bloomberg.com
Global demand for U.S. financial assets cooled in October amid optimism Europe would resolve its debt crisis, expectations that that have since diminished.
Net buying of long-term equities, notes and bonds totaled $4.8 billion during the month compared with net purchases of $68.3 billion in September, Treasury Department data showed today in Washington. Including short-term securities such as stock swaps, foreigners sold a net $48.8 billion compared with net buying of $65 billion the previous month.
What's Up in China:
Hint, It's Not War With the U.S.
By James Fallows - TheAtlantic.com
There is a lot of big news in and from China right now, and to touch on a few elements before signing off for a while:
1) The outright rebellion that has erupted in the southern coastal town of Wukan is a powerful illustration of the economic, political, environmental, and social tensions that have built up inside China during the recent boom decade -- and that, if anything, may intensify as the boom slows down. For one-stop Wukan updates, I direct you again to ChinaGeeks. Also WSJ and BBC, BBC being source of this picture today:
China Keeps Slapping America In The Face
And America Just Keeps Taking It
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
If you were playing a game against a dishonest opponent and you allowed that opponent to lie, cheat and steal as much as they wanted to, who do you think would win? Today, China is absolutely crushing the United States on the global economic stage, but they are hardly playing fair. They shower their own firms with huge government subsidies, they brazenly steal technology, they publicly violate intellectual property rights, they manipulate currency rates so that foreign firms cannot compete with Chinese prices and they slap ridiculously high tariffs on many classes of foreign goods. In short, they basically do everything that they can get away with to give themselves a trade advantage. This predatory behavior has caused an enormous transfer of wealth from the United States to China. It isn't as if it is just some sort of an "accident" that we now owe China about a trillion dollars. The truth is that China just keeps slapping America in the face and America just keeps taking it. We are like an abused spouse that just keeps coming back for more. It is disgraceful and it needs to stop.
Chinese Cut Back on London Luxury Home Buying
as Stock Market Losses Bite
By Chris Spillane - Bloomberg.com
Chinese investors’ share of prime London home purchases in the city’s most expensive neighborhoods fell by more than half in the third quarter as stock market declines hurt spending power, Hamptons International said.
Buyers from the world’s second-largest economy accounted for 4.9 percent of sales in Chelsea, Kensington, Knightsbridge and Belgravia in the three months through September, down from 12.6 percent in the previous quarter, said Adam Challis, head of residential research the London-based property broker. They represented 10.6 percent of the purchases in the three months through March.
China’s Manufacturing
May Contract a Second Month, Preliminary PMI Shows
By Bloomberg News
China’s manufacturing may contract for a second month in December as Europe’s debt crisis weighs on exports and home sales slide, preliminary results from a survey indicate.
The reading of 49 for a purchasing managers’ index reported by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics today compares with a final number of 47.7 for November. The dividing line between contraction and expansion is 50.
China Halts Project
as Protests Erupt Over Death of Villager, Land Sales
By Bloomberg News -
China’s Communist Party halted a real estate project and are investigating local officials in a village in Guangdong province where protests have led to it being cordoned off, state media reported.
Authorities in Wukan village will be questioned and the property construction plan will be stopped, China News Service said. Future land development will be undertaken only with the approval of a majority of villagers, the report said, citing Wu Zili, the mayor of Shanwei, which has jurisdiction over Wukan.
Morgan Stanley slashing 1,600 jobs
By Maureen Farrell @CNNMoneyMarkets
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Adding to Wall Street's job woes, Morgan Stanley announced Thursday that it plans to cut 1,600 positions in the first quarter.
The layoffs will impact "all job levels," said the company in a statement.
Thursday's announcement marks a sharp turnaround for the firm, which has been one of the few major Wall Street banks that had not announced any layoffs this year.
The Dark Side of America's Growing Social Safety Net A University of Chicago professor argues that help for the poor might be worsening unemployment
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
By now, we've all gotten used to the fights on Capitol Hill about extending unemployment benefits. Each time they're about to expire, Democrats line up to renew them. Meanwhile, at least a few Republicans rise up to object. Their argument: By writing checks to the jobless, we're making it less likely that they'll go out and find work.
This strikes many of us as ludicrous. Who, after all, would elect to stay unemployed? Who would rely on this dysfunctional government for a meal ticket? Still it's worth questioning assumptions. And a new working paper from University of Chicago economics professor Casey Mulligan is a good place to start.
When unemployment checks check employment
By Scott Walker - WashingtonTimes.com
My two sons are typical teenagers, so I asked them a simple question the other day: "Which would you prefer: an unemployment check from the government or a paycheck from a business?"
Their response was what I would expect from most people: They preferred the paycheck.
Sadly, many in government have lost sight of that common-sense instinct.
For some, the true measure of success for government is determining how many more people are on public assistance. In their world, unemployment-compensation checks are viewed as a form of economic development.
Wholesale Prices in U.S. Rose in November
By Bob Willis - Bloomberg.com
Prices paid to U.S. wholesalers excluding food and fuel rose less than forecast in November, indicating inflation will remain contained.
The so-called core measure increased 0.1 percent, less than the 0.2 percent gain projected by the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The producer price index climbed 0.3 percent, paced by a 1 percent advance in food expenses.
Coffee Market Braces for Espresso-Bean Jolt
By Bloomberg News - Bloomberg.com
Record robusta harvests in Vietnam and Brazil and potentially the biggest jump in Indonesian output in 16 years are boosting supplies of the coffee used in instant drinks and espressos as slowing economic growth threatens demand.
Production may climb for a fourth year, gaining 2.3 percent to 55.98 million bags (3.36 million metric tons) in 2011-2012, Rabobank International predicts. More supply will create the biggest glut in at least four years, according to Macquarie Group Ltd. Prices that already fell 9.9 percent this year will drop another 7.4 percent to $1,750 a ton by June 30, the lowest level since October 2010, the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 13 traders showed.
U.S. to fund 46 transportation projects
in 33 states, Puerto Rico
By Jim Barnett, CNN -USAToday.com
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- All 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., submitted applications to the Department of Transportation for grants to fund DOT projects, but -- in a sign of tough economic times coupled with a shortage of federal dollars -- not everyone is finding presents under the federal Christmas tree this year.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Thursday that 46 transportation projects in 33 states and Puerto Rico will receive $511 million in the latest round of Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants.
Coca-Cola moves top-secret formula
for 1st time since 1925
By Harry R. Weber, AP - USAToday.com
ATLANTA – The Coca-Cola Co. has made its secret formula the centerpiece of a new exhibit at its corporate museum, ditching the confines of the bank vault where the list of ingredients had been stored since 1925.
The world's largest beverage maker said Thursday a new vault containing the formula will be on display for visitors to its World of Coca-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta. However, the formula itself, which dates back to 1886, will remain hidden from view.
Tech Has Saved the Postal Service for 200 Years—
Today, It Won't
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
WASHINGTON -- The Postal Service is a giant delivery machine. It bridges the physical and digital using any combination of humans and robots that works. The USPS delivers half the world's mail -- that's 563 million pieces each and every day of 2010. To do so, it employs 574,000 people and 10,000 pieces of mail-sorting equipment. If the Postal Service were a company, it would have been number 29 on the 2010 Fortune 500 list and Benjamin Franklin would have been its first CEO.
Making Repression Our Business The Pentagon’s Secret Training Missions in the Middle East
By Nick Turse - Tom's Dispach
As the Arab Spring blossomed and President Obama hesitated about whether to speak out in favor of protesters seeking democratic change in the Greater Middle East, the Pentagon acted decisively. It forged ever deeper ties with some of the most repressive regimes in the region, building up military basesand brokering weapons sales and transfers to despots from Bahrain to Yemen.
As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to allied militaries there. During more than 40 such operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and information operations -- skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings.
So When Should You Default on Your Mortgage?
By Megan McArdle - TheAtlantic.com
I think the people that I am arguing with about "strategic mortgage default" are probably closer to my position than they think they are. Just to clarify a few things:
1. I do not want any change in the laws surrounding default; I think mortgage default is a necessary safety valve for the financially troubled.
2. The people I am talking about are people who can afford their mortgages, but would rather have taken out an exotic option to buy the house if it happened to go up in price, than the mortgage contract and promissory note that they actually signed.
"Can I afford this mortgage?" is, of course, a subjective question, one that only you can answer. But I think it's probably worth outlining the questions I would ask myself before I defaulted on my mortgage:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio:
'Don't ... use me as a whipping boy'
By Ashley Powers in Las Vegas
and Richard A. Serrano in Washington - LATimes.com
Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday he would cooperate “the best we can” with demands for changes to his Phoenix-based department, which federal prosecutors said had illegally arrested Latinos, abused them in the county jails and failed to properly investigate hundreds of reported sex crimes.
But Arpaio, whose national prominence is partly due to his pugnacious nature, added: "And if they are not happy, I guess they can carry out their threat and go to federal court."
Arpaio was responding to Justice Department findings released Thursday that found the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had engaged in a "widespread pattern or practice of law enforcement and jail activities that discriminate against Latinos," according to a letter of warning sent to Maricopa County officials.
Lew Rockwell on the Rise of Ron Paul
Obama’s Watergate Officials cover up culpability for gun smuggling and murder
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner-The Washington Times
A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to theWhite House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate.
There Goes the Republic
By Robert Scheer - Trurhdig.com
Once again the gods of war have united our Congress like nothing else. Unable to agree on the minimal spending necessary to save our economy, schools, medical system or infrastructure, the cowards who mislead us have retreated to the irrationalities of what George Washington in his farewell address condemned as "pretended patriotism."
The defense authorization bill that Congress passed and President Obama had threatened to veto will soon become law, a fact that should be met with public outrage. Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth, responding to Obama’s craven collapse on the bill’s most controversial provision, said, "By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in U.S. law." On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney claimed "the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country’s strength."
Hope Indefinite Detention Bill
Will Be Changed to Protect Americans
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
Not everyone in Congress thinks it is a good idea to pass a law that will allow indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. Senator Mike Lee and Representative Justin Amash think the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) needs major changes to preserve constitutional rights of all Americans. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed versions of this bill. The bill the Senate passed recently (S 1867) is where all the controversy comes from. Now, the two versions of the bill have to be reconciled by the House and Senate, and it looks like changes are going to be on the table. Congressman Amash wrote a letter to "House Conferees" about how the Senate version violates“Americans’ constitutional rights."
Senator Lee and Judge Napolitano Discuss NDAA
The Last Bill of Rights Day
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
Earlier today, I wrote a hopeful article about how the language in the "Indefinite Detention" bill (otherwise know as National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA) might be changed to not gut the Bill of Rights. I was way too optimistic. It appears to be over, and the reconciled bill is on its way to President Obama’s desk to sign into law. It also appears there is zero chance he will veto the bill. I think this effectively means America has had its last Bill of Rights Day. Our mainstream media is totally down playing the importance of this historic legislation, but the foreign press sees this for what it is. Russia Today reported,”Exactly 220 years to the date after the Bill of Rights was ratified, the US Senate today voted 86 to 13 in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, allowing the indefinite detention and torture of Americans.
National Defense Authorization Act Provision Update
What Occupiers and Tea Partiers Should Fear Most It's not taxes. It's the passage of a new bill that would allow people on both sides of the political divide to be detained without trial.
By Wendy Kaminer - TheAtlantic.com
Sixty-four percent of Americans consider big government the biggest threat to the country, according to Gallup, but who knows what they mean by big government? Do 64 percent of Americans oppose the biggest big government threat in our history -- the virtually omniscient, omnipotent national-security state?
I doubt it, and neither the president nor many members of Congress seem fearful of public opposition to post-9/11, big-government authoritarianism. Instead, they cringe at the prospect of seeming soft on terrorism and rush to enact the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA,) including provisions that would arguably allow the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens, seized on American soil.
Tech moguls to Congress:
Please don't break the Internet
Many Silicon Valley heavyweights have signed an open letter opposing an anti-piracy bill they say could wreak havoc on the Internet. The bill nevertheless seems likely to pass a committee vote today.
By Dan Mitchell - CNN.com
FORTUNE -- One of the problems with discussing SOPA and PROTECT IP, the wildly overreaching anti-piracy measures under debate in Congress, is that the proposed laws pit two industries against each other: media vs. tech. That makes it sound as if the whole thing is just businesses looking out for themselves and working Capitol Hill for their own interests.
Electromagnetic pulse a real threat
Time to correct U.S. vulnerability is now
By Ilan Berman-The Washington Times
Is electromagnetic pulse a real threat to American security? On the heels of recent Republican primary debates, the danger to U.S. electronics and infrastructure posed by a high-altitude nuclear blast suddenly has emerged as a campaign issue. So has concerted opposition to it, with both liberal and conservative skeptics ridiculing the idea as an overblown, even fabricated, distraction. Yet there is ample evidence that the danger is both clear and present. Far and away the most authoritative assessment in this regard is that of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States From Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, colloquially known as the EMP Commission. That blue-ribbon panel, convened by Congress a decade ago, outlined the nature of the challenge as follows:
Like Lazarus,
Republicans Attempt to Revive
Moribund Keystone XL Pipeline
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
There’s cynicism, and then there’s Congress.
In the latest example of dysfunctional Congressional gridlock, the Democratic-led Senate is certain to reject a House of Representatives-passed Republican bill, House Resolution 3630, the 369-page "Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011," to extend the payroll tax cut.
The sticking (sticky) point?
Iran, Besieged by Gasoline Sanctions,
Develops GTL to Extract Gasoline from Natural Gas
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
Over the past few weeks Iran, already beleaguered by a raft of existing U.N. and national sanctions, has seen the U.S. and the European Community adding further economic punishments.
Last week the U.S. Senate on a 100-0 vote passed legislation to penalize foreign banks that do business with Iran’s central bank, while this week the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on legislation to punish nations and companies that invest in Iran’s energy sector, furnish it with gasoline, or help it develop chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or advanced conventional arms.
A DAY LATE AND $3 TRILLION SHORT
KA - Trurhdig.com
The New York Times ran a storyWednesday, the day before U.S. and Iraqi leaders marked the official end of the Iraq War, about a shocking find in an Iraqi junkyard: secret interviews from U.S. soldiers talking about the 2005 massacre of civilians in Haditha.
But this kind of account, as The Washington Spectator’s Hamilton Fish noted Thursday, has been passed over by the mainstream press for years, and the human cost of this negligence has been unfathomable, even if we have some hazy ideas about the numbers involved. Worse, journalists like Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, in their 2008 book "Collateral Damage: America’s War on Iraqi Civilians," were on the case long before this latest report became news fit to print. So why now, and why the radio silence, so to speak, until this moment?
U.S. to leave Iraqi airspace clear
for strategic Israeli route to Iran
By Rowan Scarborough-The Washington Times
The U.S. military’s fast-approaching Dec. 31 exit from Iraq, which has no way to defend its airspace, puts Israel in a better place strategically to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Iraq has yet to assemble a force of jet fighters, and since the shortest route for Israeli strike fighters to Iran is through Iraqi airspace, observers conclude that the U.S. exit makes the Jewish state’s mission planning a lot easier.
CHAOS IN WASHINGTON:
Obama Calls On Congress
To Pass Short Term Spending Bill As Negotiations Stall
By Zeke Miller - BusinessInsider.com
President Barack Obama's brinkmanship strategy over the payroll tax cut and a bill to fund the government after Friday appears to have fallen apart.
An email from White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer sent to reporters Wednesday night calls on congress to shelve the $1 trillion funding measure, saying Obama has "significant concerns" about the bill. Instead, Obama urged Congress to proceed with another short-term continuing resolution — without which, much of the federal government will shut down early Saturday morning.
Keiser Report: World Currency War I (E222)
The New China Syndrome
By ROGER ARNOLD - TheStreet.com
China has announced plans to create a $300 billion sovereign wealth fund to be capitalized from the $3.2 trillion in foreign reserves it currently manages. This is a very important issue for investors in all asset classes, and it is not well understood or clearly explained by most financial journalists. (It's also an extension of conclusions that I offered in last week's column, "Connecting the Dots.")
China has two primary economic concerns: keeping capital flowing into the country and goods flowing out. Everything else is secondary. Money flows into China through foreign direct investment (FDI), speculative capital (hot money), and in return for the sale of exported goods. China's foreign reserves are a pool of these three sources of capital. However, FDI and hot money are not owned by the Chinese, they are merely managing these sums for foreign investors. These sources represent one-third to one-half of the $3.2 trillion in foreign reserves China manages.
China's epic hangover begins China's credit bubble has finally popped. The property market is swinging wildly from boom to bust, the cautionary exhibit of a BRIC's dream that is at last coming down to earth with a thud.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
It is hard to obtain good data in China, but something is wrong when the country's Homelink property website can report that new home prices in Beijing fell 35pc in November from the month before. If this is remotely true, the calibrated soft-landing intended by Chinese authorities has gone badly wrong and risks spinning out of control.
The growth of the M2 money supply slumped to 12.7pc in November, the lowest in 10 years. New lending fell 5pc on a month-to-month basis. The central bank has begun to reverse its tightening policy as inflation subsides, cutting the reserve requirement for lenders for the first time since 2008 to ease liquidity strains.
China imposes tariff on US car imports Additional duties will be charged on larger-engined American cars with General Motors, Chrysler and BMW all affected
By Graeme Wearden - The Guardian
The tension between America and China over international tradeescalated on Wednesday when Beijing imposed additional duties on cars imported from the United States.
China's commerce ministry accused America's car industry of "dumping and subsidising", thereby causing substantial damage to China's domestic car industry. From Thursday, levies will be charged on larger-engined cars from several manufacturers, some being European firms with factories in the US.
China dispatches largest patrol ship to East China Sea China has sent its largest patrol ship to the East China Sea to guard the country's territorial rights, state media said Wednesday, in a move likely to fuel tensions over the disputed waters.
Telegraph.co.uk
China has repeatedly locked horns with its neighbours Japan and Taiwan over a group of uninhabited islands - called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese - which Beijing claims are in its territorial waters.
Japan and Taiwan also claim sovereignty over the area, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas.
The 3,000-tonne Haijian 50 began its maiden voyage on Tuesday, the Global Times reported, citing the head of the East China Sea branch of the country's marine law enforcement agency.
China considers Seychelles military base plan China is weighing up whether to open an Indian Ocean naval base in the Seychelles in a move which will heighten tensions with India amid fears of a regional arms race.
By Peter Simpson, Beijing
and Dean Nelson in New Delhi - Telegraph.co.uk
Beijing’s Defense Ministry confirmed it was considering an offer from the Seychelles government to establish a port to supply its anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden.
But the move was met with concern in India as it announced it was increasing its military spending to strengthen its long border with Chinaand check its growing strategic influence in the region.
China has checkered record in WTO Ten years of poor cooperation
By Tim Devaney-The Washington Times
China’s entry into the World Trade Organization - ratified 10 years ago this week - was supposed to make the world’s emerging economic superpower a better international corporate citizen, but Beijing has proven to be less than an ideal team player during the past decade, U.S. officials and trade experts say.
"China has engaged in a consistent pattern of avoiding, delaying and directly violating its WTO commitments," said Alan H. Price, partner and chairman of the international trade practice at Wiley Rein LLP, said at a congressional hearing this week looking at China’s post-WTO record.
Village Revolts Over Inequities of Chinese Life
By ANDREW JACOBS - NYTimes.com
BEIJING — A long-running dispute between farmers and local officials in southern China exploded into open rebellion this week after villagers chased away government leaders, set up roadblocks and began arming themselves with homemade weapons, residents said.
The conflict in Wukan, a coastal settlement of 20,000 people near the country’s industrial heartland in Guangdong Province, escalated Monday after residents learned that one of the representatives they had selected to negotiate with the local Communist Party had died in police custody. The authorities say a heart attack killed the 42-year-old man, but relatives say his body bore signs of torture.
The Collapse Of The Euro,
The Death Of The Euro And The End Of The Euro
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The euro was a doomed project from the start, and now we are starting to see the endgame play out. Today, the euro fell to an 11-month low against the U.S. dollar. As I write this, the EUR/USD is at 1.2983. Back in July, the EUR/USD was over 1.45. As panic has swept the financial markets, the euro has lost more than 3 percent over the past three days. But this is just the beginning. When the euro drops below 1.20, analysts will talk about the collapse of the euro. When the euro falls toward parity with the dollar, headlines around the world will scream about the death of the euro. But when the European financial system finally collapses, we may very well actually see the end of the euro. Yes, it actually could happen. The eurozone, as it is currently constructed, simply does not work. You just can't take 17 different nations that have 17 different fiscal policies, 17 different tax policies and 17 different economic agendas and cram them all into a single currency and expect the thing to work. The euro is a doomed currency, and if a big nation like Germany decides to walk away at some point the game is going to be over.
Eurozone crisis poses military risk,
warns defence chief General Sir David Richards Defense chiefs are drawing up plans to cope with the potential military fallout from the eurozone crisis, according to General Sir David Richards.
By James Kirkup - Telegraph.co.uk
It is understood that Armed Forces planners are looking at the possibility that a new global financial crash could undermine the defense forces of key British allies.
The head of the Armed Forces warned that economic issues pose a "strategic risk" to Britain.
Senior British commanders and officials are concerned that US plans to cut defence spending will be followed by other allies in Europe and elsewhere.
Reductions in allied military capabilities could put a greater burden on Britain’s stretched forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere, it is feared.
Markets and euro suffer
as investors lose patience with Europe's leaders Traders placed heavy bets against the euro on Wednesday in an alarming sign that patience with the glacial political process is running out.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
The euro plunged through the psychologically-important $1.30 level for the first time in almost a year, raising fears of another crisis less than a week after the last "make-or-break" European Union leaders' summit.
Equity, bond and commodity markets were rattled while the tensions were reflected at an Italian bond auction. Rome, where Mario Monti has already been forced to water down his "Save Italy" measures, had to offer 6.47pc yield to raise €3bn of five-year bonds - much higher than 6.29pc it paid two weeks ago.
Mega Fail:
17 Signs That The European Financial System
Is Heading For An Implosion Of Historic Proportions
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What happens when you attempt a cold shutdown of one of the biggest debt spirals that the world has ever seen? Well, we are about to find out. The politicians in Europe have decided that they are going to "take their medicine" and put strict limits on budget deficits. They have also decided that the European Central Bank is not going to engage in reckless money printing to "paper over" the debts of troubled nations. This may all sound wonderful to many of you, but the reality is that there is always a tremendous amount of pain whenever a massive debt spiral is interrupted. Just look at what happened to Greece. Greece was forced to raise taxes and implement brutal austerity measures. That caused the economy to slow down and tax revenues to decline and so government debt figures did not improve as much as anticipated. So Greece was forced to implement even more brutal austerity measures. Well, that caused the economy to slow down even more and tax revenues declined again. In Greece this cycle has been repeated several times and now Greece is experiencing a full-blown economic depression. 100,000 businesses have closed and a third of the population is living in poverty. But now Germany and France intend to impose the "Greek solution" on the rest of Europe. This is going to create the conditions needed for a "perfect storm" to develop and it means that the European financial system is heading for an implosion of historic proportions.
Bernanke worries Europe's woes will spill into U.S.
By Jennifer Liberto and Ted Barrett @CNNMoney
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke told Republican senators on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that he's concerned about European sovereign debt problems spilling over to the U.S. economy, according to senators.
The Senate Republican caucus invited the Fed chief to brief them on problems in Europe. Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Mike Johanns of Nebraska both said that Bernanke warned that the economic unraveling of Europe would have a negative impact on the U.S. economy.
David Cameron's Finest Hour Striking a Blow Against World Government
by Patrick J. Buchanan - LewRockwell.com
Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to veto Germany's demand for a new European fiscal union will define his premiership.
More than that, Cameron has raised a banner for patriots everywhere fighting to retain their national independence.
With his no vote on fiscal union, Cameron declared to the EU: "British surrenders of sovereignty come to an end here. And Britain will deny Brussels any oversight authority of any national budgets or any right to sanction EU members."
Our decade from hell will get worse in 2012 Market crash, political gridlock, revolution, new class wars
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Fasten your seat belts: 2011 was far worse than expected. Our earlier predictions for America’s Worst Decade just got worse.
As financial historian Niall Ferguson writes in Newsweek: "Double-Dip Depression … We forget that the Great Depression was like a soccer match, there were two halves." The 1929 crash kicked off the first half. But what "made the depression truly 'great' …began with the European banking crisis of 1931." Sound familiar?
Jeremy Grantham's 'Seven Lean Years' Hypothesis
Treasury sells 30-year bonds at a record-low yield
USAToday.com
NEW YORK (AP) – High demand for U.S. government debt pushed the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond down to a record low Wednesday.
Worsening concerns about Europe's latest efforts to contain its debt crisis are keeping demand brisk for Treasury securities. The Treasury Department sold $13 billion worth of 30-year bonds at a record low yield of 2.925%.
The Land of Anti-Gold Propaganda
Written by Jeff Nielson - ml-implode.com
When it comes to "realms of fantasy", the title to this commentary doesn’t flow nearly as smoothly from the lips as “The Land of Oz”. However, the two fantasy realms share so much in common that I felt somewhat compelled to use this allegory.
To begin with, in both realms we regularly witness the most fantastic events; events not even slightly constrained by the laws of science (or economics) or simple common sense. Illustrating this concept beautifully is another piece of gibberish churned out by the anti-gold propaganda mill.
Gold drops nearly 5%, breaks 200-day average
By Laura Mandaro and V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures skidded nearly 5% Wednesday, sinking below the $1,600 level for the first time in nearly three months, as a drop in the euro signaled a new level of anxiety about the region’s debt crisis and investors sought cash as the safest asset.
The decline blew the yellow metal past some long-held technical levels, which then exacerbated the selloff. Silver futures, which often shadow gold’s moves, closed down 7%, copper lost nearly 5% and palladium sank almost 7%.
Too Big to Stop:
Why Big Banks Keep Getting Away With Breaking the Law For the country's biggest financial institutions, it's still worth it to break the law, because the government has no way to make the banks pay for acting illegally
By James Kwak - TheAtlantic.com
Move along, nothing to see here.
That's been the Wall Street line on the financial crisis and the calamitous behavior that caused it, and that strategy has been spectacularly successful. Since Spring 2010, financial institutions' predatory practices have fallen off the front pages of newspapers, replaced by manufactured fears of over-regulation and -- thanks to an assist from the European continent -- an Orwellian belief that government debt lies at the root of our economic problems.
"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable...Our government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." -- Louis D. Brandeis
If the patience and trust of the American people was a checkbook, you could mark it 'Account Overdrawn.' This is something that the monied interests and their Beltway bandits just do not yet comprehend. Or perhaps they do, but do not have enough respect for the people to care.
JPMorgan Shares Fall
as MF Global Trustee Suggests Inquiry of Bank
BY MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED - NYTimes.com
After a couple of ups and downs, shares in JPMorgan Chase were trading in positive territory by Tuesday afternoon. And then they took a quick and sharp tumble.
That was after Bloomberg News highlighted a line from a court filing by the trustee liquidating MF Global’s brokerage unit that suggested that he might investigate the bank for its actions as the trading firm collapsed.
* * * * *
Max Keiser:
JPMorgan Ordered Corzine
to Pillage Personal Accounts at MF Global! 1/4
Max Keiser:
JPMorgan Ordered Corzine
to Pillage Personal Accounts at MF Global! 2/4
Max Keiser:
JPMorgan Ordered Corzine
to Pillage Personal Accounts at MF Global! 3/4
Max Keiser:
JPMorgan Ordered Corzine
to Pillage Personal Accounts at MF Global! 4/4
MF Global: What did Corzine know?
By James O'Toole @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- After hours of testimony from ex-MF Global CEO Jon Corzine on Capitol Hill Tuesday, the head of exchange operator CME Group "tossed a bomb," as one senator put it.
Terrence Duffy told the Senate Agriculture Committee that MF Global had illegally transferred money out of customer accounts, and that Corzine himself had been aware of at least some transfers. He didn't, though, go as far as to say explicitly that Corzine knew of any illegal transfers at the time they took place, an allegation that could raise the specter of perjury charges for the former New Jersey governor.
Gridlock to the Rescue?
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
Washington gridlock may turn out to be the salvation of the Obama administration.
Not only does gridlock allow the president to blame Republicans for not solving the financial crisis that his own runaway spending created, the inability to carry out as much government intervention in the economy as when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress means that the market can now recover on its own to some visible extent before the next election.
Such a recovery would of course be credited as a success of the Obama administration's policies. With this theme being echoed throughout the pro-Obama media, enough voters might be sufficiently impressed to give the president a second term.
Revealed:
huge increase in executive pay
for America's top bosses Exclusive survey shows America's CEOs enjoyed pay hikes of up to 40% last year – with one chief executive earning $145m
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Chief executive pay has roared back after two years of stagnation and decline. America's top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40% last year, according to the largest survey of US CEO pay. The dramatic bounceback comes as the latest government figures show wages for the majority of Americans are failing to keep up with inflation.
America's highest paid executive took home more than $145.2m, and as stock prices recovered across the board, the median value of bosses' profits on stock options rose 70% in 2010, from $950,400 to $1.3m. The news comes against the backdrop of an Occupy Wall Street movement that has focused Washington's attention on the pay packages of America's highest paid.
Millions set to lose jobless benefits —
"I'm very scared," one tells Yahoo News
By Zachary Roth - Yahoo.com
For Dawn Deane, the difference between just keeping her head above water and falling under is the unemployment insurance check she receives each week.
In June, Deane, who is 49, was laid off from her human-resources job at a Philadelphia nonprofit, where she made over $50,000 a year. Since then, jobless benefits have allowed her, barely, to keep up with her mortgage and car payments and her other bills--as well as to maintain some normalcy in her 9-year-old daughter's life. Without the benefits, Deane told Yahoo News in an interview, her home would likely fall into foreclosure, and she'd be forced to apply for welfare--which would mean a significant drop in her income, and would dramatically upend her and her daughter's lives.
House of Representatives passes $662bn defense bill Vote passes after White House drops threat of veto over provisions regarding handling of terror suspects
Associated Press - Guardian.co.uk
The House of Representatives has passed a $662bn defense bill after the White House dropped a veto threat over provisions regarding the handling of terror suspects.
The vote on Wednesday evening was 283 to 136. In a closed-door meeting, conservative Republicans had expressed some concerns over the provisions, fearing an expanded role for the military in domestic law enforcement.
Lawmakers Offer Bipartisan Plan to Overhaul Medicare
By ROBERT PEAR - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — A Democratic senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and a Republican member of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, unveiled a bipartisan plan on Wednesday to revamp Medicare and make a fixed federal contribution to the cost of coverage for each beneficiary.
The lawmakers aim to reshape the debate over the giant health insurance program by addressing concerns that have provoked fierce opposition to similar ideas in the past.
Senators Who Love the Government But Hate America
by Scott Lazarowitz - LewRockwell.com
Within days after my article on due process and presumption of innocence, the U.S. Senate voted to empower the U.S. military to apprehend and detain indefinitely anyone in America, based on the whim of the soldier or military commander, and it will probably eventually include any armed agent of governmentincluding local police. As Jacob Hornberger noted, this new provision will codify the U.S. as just another one of many dictatorships throughout world history.
"Minority Report" reality...
intrusive technology in the name of 'marketing' Your face is being tracked
Money.CNN.com
Across the Web and around the world, your face is being detected and recognized. Here are 6 of the more prominent examples.
Looking at digital advertisements has become commonplace in malls and bus stops around the world. A growing number of those signs are now looking back at you.
Intel's AIM Suite digital signs use facial detection cameras and software to determine a consumer's age and gender, and then tailors their ads. If an 23-year old woman walks by the sign, it might display an ad for a hair product. But if a 53-year old man strolls past, a BMW ad may be displayed.
Renault grandchildren take France to court Seven grandchildren of the founder of French carmaker Renault took the French state to court claiming it unfairly nationalised the family business at the end of Second World War due to his alleged collaboration with Nazis.
By Henry Samuel, Paris - Telegraph.co.uk
Louis Renault, an inventor and racing driver who founded the car company with his two brothers in 1898, died in custody awaiting trial for collaboration two months after the liberation of France in 1944.
The legal challenge was made possible thanks to a procedure introduced last year allowing individuals to challenge the constitutionality of French legislation.
Louis Renault's heirs claim the French state had no legal right to cut off the family after it confiscated the company following a decree by Charles de Gaulle on January 16, 1945.
Deal Or No Deal? The Climate Con Lives On In Durban
IBD Editorial - Investors.com
Global Warming: So an accord has been reached at the Durban climate conference after all. Or did envoys merely agree to make a real deal later, letting them continue with their corrupt enterprise?
The headlines say the representatives at the United Nations climate conference in South Africa reached an agreement. But the real story is that the meeting only produced an agreement to start more talks on a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol by 2015 with emissions limits that won't be in effect until 2020.
Despite the uncertainty of such a proposition, one official, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa's foreign minister, nevertheless had the nerve to claim "We have saved planet Earth for the future of our children and our great-grandchildren."
Rise Of The Beast System:
11 Ways That Amerika Is Becoming More Like North Korea
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Should we just get it over with and change the spelling of America to "Amerika"? Every single day, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea. In North Korea, the citizens are told that everything that they do needs to be monitored, tracked, recorded and very tightly controlled so that everyone can be kept safe. No dissent is allowed at all. If government officials in North Korea even suspect that you are thinking the wrong thing, your entire extended family can be shipped off to a prison camp. And you know what? North Korea is a pretty safe place. There is not much terrorism in North Korea. But why in the world would anyone ever want to live like that? America is supposed to be a bastion of liberty and freedom, but now we are falling for the same totalitarian lies that so many other societies have fallen for throughout human history. We are witnessing the rise of the beast system - a system of control more pervasive than anything that the world has ever seen. We are constantly being told that the emerging "Big Brother" control grid is being put into place for "our safety", but someday we are going to wake up in a dystopian nightmare where government tyrants have absolutely unlimited control over our lives.
Ex-Pentagon official: Captured spy plane seems fake
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
The unmanned spy plane recently captured by Iran appears to be a fake, according to a former Pentagon official.
The former official, who saw video footage of the drone on display in Iran, said not only is it the wrong color, but also the welds along the wing joints do not appear to conform to the stealth design that helps it avoid radar detection. The official requested anonymity because he is not authorized to release information on the drone matter.
Iran said it managed to gain control of the RQ-170 Sentinel electronically and guide it down as it flew over its airspace.
What America Can Learn From Kuwait About Dealing With Iran What a Kuwaiti perspective on regional politics can teach the West about what might work with Iran -- and what wouldn't
By Steven A. Cook - TheAtlantic.com
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait -- It is fair to say that Baghdad and Tehran combine to make for a certain amount of national neuroses in Kuwait. So it is fortuitous that I am in Kuwait as the last American combat forces depart Iraq and the "coming confrontation with Iran" discussion is heating up in Washington, Jerusalem, and no doubt capitals throughout the Middle East. The fact that Kuwaitis are worried about both countries is not news. The Kuwaitis remain concerned--as they should be--that post-Saddam Iraq may yet pose a threat to their security. According to Kuwaitis, there are enough Iraqis who believe that Kuwait is, indeed, the 19th province of Iraq to produce anxiety about what a Baghdad without the restraining power of American forces might do.
Ahmadinejad: Iran has 'been able to control' U.S. drone
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that his country has "been able to control" the U.S. drone that Iran claims it recently brought down, Venezuelan state TV reported.
"There are people here who have been able to control this spy plane," Ahmadinejad told VTV. "Those who have been in control of this spy plane surely will analyze the plane's system. Furthermore, the systems of Iran are so advanced also, like the system of this plane."
Iran Reiterates Threat To Close Strait of Hormuz If Attacked Closure of key oil choke point would send oil prices skyrocketing to $300-$500 a barrel, experts say
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
Following erroneous reports yesterday that Iran had closed the Strait of Hormuz, a rumor that caused a brief spike in oil prices, MP Parviz Sorouri today reiterated Iran’s threat to close the key oil choke point if the country’s nuclear facilities come under attack.
"The Strait of Hormuz is one of these options (for defending the country); if the strait is secure it should be secure for all, it can’t be secure for all except for Iran, if such a thing happens, naturally Iran can use this capacity to close the waterway within its territorial waters and within its borders in accordance with international rules and regulation," member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Parviz Sorouri told reporters on Wednesday.
Iran considers moving
uranium enrichment facilities to safer locations Iran may move its uranium enrichment facilities to safer locations if this becomes necessary, a senior military commander said on Wednesday, reflecting Iran's worries about a possible military strike against the sites.
Telegraph.co.uk
Both the US and Israel have not ruled out a military option against Iran's controversial nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at making atomic weapons.
Iran denies the charge, saying the program is geared toward generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes needed to treat cancer patients.
Gholam Reza Jalali, who commands an anti-sabotage unit in the powerful Revolutionary Guard, said the vulnerability of Iran's nuclear facilities from a possible strike is "already minimal" but that the move still may go through for their better protection.
Iran to transfer nuclear production
across series of secret facilities Iran is to transfer its nuclear production across a series of underground and bomb-proof secret facilities as it steps up efforts to thwart an apparent Western sabotage campaign.
By Damien McElroy - Telegraph.co.uk
The senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Force (IRGC) charged with combatting foreign infiltration told state media that the parts of the nuclear programme would shifted to safe locations impervious to outside attack.
The announcement compounds Western intelligence concerns reported by the Daily Telegraph this month that Iran's security forces had gone on a war footing. Intelligence officials said that the regime was moving its nuclear and ballistic assets to new locations to defend against foreign saboteurs and the theat of direct military action.
Iran Threatens to Send Oil to $200 a Barrel War in the Economic Jugular Vein of the World
By Steve Christ - WealthDaily.com
Are you ready for oil to skyrocket to $200 a barrel?
Iran is.
And they're prepared to play their trump card to send it there.
Faced with a rash of mysterious explosions, military drones caught flying overhead, and renewed promises to end their nuclear ambitions, the Iranians are threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz — otherwise known as "the economic jugular vein of the world" — again.
As Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sarvari said yesterday, "Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure."
Is western media preparing the public for a war with Iran?
A Simple Question-12-12-2011
Iran to hold war game on closure Hormuz Strait: MP
TehranTimes.com
TEHRAN – MP Parviz Sorouri of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has said that Iran plans to practice its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most strategically important chokepoints, which represents about 30% of the world’s seaborne oil shipments.
"Currently, the Middle East region supplies 70 percent of the world’s energy needs, (most of) which are transported through the Strait of Hormuz. We will hold an exercise to close the Strait of Hormuz in the near future. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure," ISNA quoted Sorouri as saying on Tuesday.
• IRAN MP SAYS MILITARY TO PRACTISE CLOSING STRAIT OF HORMUZ TO SHIPPING; IRANIAN MILITARY DECLINES TO COMMENT - RTRS
Iran army declines comment on Hormuz exercise
A member of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee said on Monday that the military was set to practise its ability to close the Gulf to shipping at the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world, but there was no official confirmation.
World War 3 Scenario Update: Dec. 13/2011
Oil jumps 2 percent on Iran jitters,
OPEC meeting eyed
By Robert Gibbons
(Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Tuesday as geopolitical jitters about Iran combined with threats to supply and key shipping lanes sent U.S. crude back above $100 a barrel.
Crude futures briefly surged nearly $4 a barrel after markets opened in New York in a furious burst of trading that traders attributed to renewed fears over Iran, expectations of further monetary easing and computer-driven dealing.
Confusion Caused by Military Drill Rattles Markets:
Alex Jones Tuesday Edition
U.S. probing alleged cyberattack plot by Venezuela, Iran
By Shaun Waterman-The Washington Times
U.S. officials are investigating reports that Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico were involved in planned cyberattacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.
Allegations about the cyberplot were aired last week in a documentary on the Spanish-language TV network Univision, which included secretly recorded footage of Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats being briefed on the planned attacks and promising to pass information to their governments.
Dennis Kucinich
US drone lost over Iran was on CIA operation
Iran demands Barack Obama apology for US drone
Iran rejects Washington's request to return its downed spy plane and demands an apology from US President Barack Obama for the violation of the country's air space.
President Obama should apologise for sending an unmanned 'drone' into Iranian territory rather than asking for it back, according to Iran'sForeign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast.
Tehran announced on Dec 4 that it had downed the spy plane in the eastern part of the country, close to the border with Afghanistan. The plane was promptly paraded on television as Iranian officials set about the process of 'reverse engineering' the drone's state-of-the-art technology.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
becomes latest victim of shoe-throwing attack Iran media reports say disgruntled, unemployed textile worker threw footwear at president, who managed to duck in time
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan - Guardian.co.uk
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become the latest leader to find himself on the receiving end of that popular Middle Eastern method of protest – the thrown shoe.
Like George W Bush before him, Ahmadinejad found himself staring down the sole of a gentleman's shoe when someone believed to be a recently laid-off textile worker decided to demonstrate his anger during an official ceremony in the north of the country.
Prepare for a European default: Kyle Bass
BNN.ca staff
A negative disposition on financial markets has made Kyle Bass a wealthy man.
He made millions betting on the collapse of the U.S. housing market. And as European policymakers scramble to solve their sovereign debt crisis and avert a breakup of the euro zone, the founder of Hayman Capital Management says investors should prepare for the worst when it comes to Europe.
Is The Euro Today
The Gold Standard Of The 1930s
For EU Economies?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As the IIF continues to believe it is negotiating with Greece on voluntary haircuts and Ireland follows the Greek playbook by threatening referenda and asking for bailout term adjustments, is it any wonder that the words of a supposedly united Europe ring hollow in the ears of investors who seem to expect a Euro breakup sooner rather than later. Deutsche Bank's credit team see two noteworthy similarities between the world today and where it was in the 1930s. First, they view the Euro today as creating the same problems for Europe as the Gold Standard did in the 1930s and secondly, the austerity now is perhaps equivalent to the tightening of fiscal and monetary conditions in the US in 1937.
Fed sees risks from Europe
By Mark Felsenthal and Pedro da Costa
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Tuesday pointed to turmoil in Europe as a big risk to the economy, leaving the door open to a further easing of monetary policy even as it noted some improvement in the labor market.
The central bank characterized the economy as expanding moderately despite an apparent slowing in global growth, and said that while there had been "some" improvement in the job market, unemployment remained elevated and housing depressed.
‘Mother of all bank runs’ has already begun in eurozone
FP Editors - FirstPost.com
Uncertainty over the future of the eurozone runs high, despite last week’s high-on-hot-air agreement on moving towards greater fiscal union. And that uncertainty is driving European banks into a severe liquidity crunch that could cause the region’s entire banking system to collapse, analysts fear.
The early warning signs of such a liquidity seizure are already showing up in the troubles that European banks face in raising short-term liquidity. French, Italian and Spanish banks have run out of collateral (typically US Treasures) that they put up to finance short-term loans, and have been forced to pledge their gold reserves in order to secure dollar funding, reports The Telegraph.
Greece is slipping on reforms, IMF warns
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
Greece’s international rescue program continues to slip as the nation’s leaders shirk promised changes, investors flee a beleaguered banking system and concern that Europe will fall into recession adds to the pressure, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday in its latest report on the country.
Even as European leaders cope with a broader set of financial and political problems within the region, the IMF report highlighted how issues at the epicenter of the crisis are unresolved more than 18 months into a Greek rescue program that by now was supposed to be making some headway.
Confusion over Britain's £30bn share of IMF rescue for Europe Concerns are mounting that Britain may have to contribute a further £30bn to eurozone rescue loans through the International Monetary Fund, matching the sorts of burdens shouldered by Germany, France and other EMU states.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The fund revealed in its official Survey Magazine that non-euro countries would put up a quarter of all new money under the EU summit deal.
"European leaders agreed to make bilateral loans to the IMF of as much as €200bn — with €150bn contributed by eurozone members and €50bn from other members of the EU," it said.
The report relied on a briefing by IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who was in the room with EU leaders during last Friday’s summit talks. Britain is the EU’s only large economy outside the euro.
Peter Schiff:
"All the Speculators, all the Bankers...
all the Financiers want Inflation"
FOMC statement from Dec 13 meeting
(Reuters) - Following is the full text of the statement from the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee issued on Tuesday following a one-day meeting on interest rate policy:
"Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in November suggests that the economy has been expanding moderately, notwithstanding some apparent slowing in global growth. While indicators point to some improvement in overall labor market conditions, the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending has continued to advance, but business fixed investment appears to be increasing less rapidly and the housing sector remains depressed. Inflation has moderated since earlier in the year, and longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.
Fed Looking to Unlock Liquidity, Economist Says
By: Bruno J. Navarro - CNBC.com
Although the Federal Reserve kept monetary policy unchanged Tuesday, it was looking to spur investment, said one economist.
"What was really interesting in the statement, if you want to find one thing, was the comment on investment because this is something the Fed is fixated on: Investments lower than they’d like, even though the economic outlook is looking a little brighter," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial.
CME's Duffy: MF Global Broke Rules,
Tapped Customer Funds
By Jacob Bunge, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Officials at MF Global Holdings Inc. (MFGLQ) illegally used customers' money for the firm's own benefit in its final days of life, according to the executive chairman of exchange operator CMEGroup Inc. (CME).
The now-bankrupt broker-dealer in the past year was also found to have violated some guidelines for investing customer money held on deposit, and was told to tighten up certain accounting practices following examinations by CME and other overseers, said Terry Duffy, CME's chairman, in prepared remarks Thursday.
Three Stooges Testify about Missing Money at MF Global
Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
I watched in amazement today at the Senate Hearing on the collapse of MF Global about 6 weeks ago. The three top executives testified about what they knew and when they knew it. CEO Jon Corzine, COO Bradley Abelow and CFO Henri Steenkamp all sat there and, essentially, said none of them knew where $1.2 billion of segregated customer money went. It might as well have been Moe, Larry and Curly testifying. As I watched these three, the basic theme was none of these guys knew what was going on in the company they were paid to run. I guess they have proof they didn’t know what they were doing because the company they were running went bankrupt. Corzine said repeatedly, “I never gave any instruction to anyone at MF Global to misuse customer funds.” If that is not a well-rehearsed legal answer, I don’t know what is.
Gerald Celente - RT America - 13 December 2011
'Factors that will influence silver and gold in 2012'
CommodityOnline.com
Casey Research Master of Metals Louis James in this exclusive interview discusses the factors to consider in 2012 for Gold and silver, mining stocks and some of his current year-end favourites. He believes Precious metals, particularly gold and silver, are not just industrial commodities. Silver has its industrial uses but gold and silver are monetary metals and have different dynamics. So, if you're thinking that the economy is looking worse in 2012, then you are probably not excited about base metals plays. Their prices may be down, but that doesn't make them bargains we want to load up on now. The bargains we see now are in precious metals stocks.
Silver Wars – Attack On The COMEX, SLV And MF Global
Video Rebel Blog
It will be a long and twisted path in the silver and gold fields from where we are to where the bankers want to take us for still another fleecing. Hopefully, we can avoid the snare traps the Bilderbergers set for us.
First I want to highlight the recent attack and counterattack on the New York based COMEX metals exchange. Jim Willie said he believes JP Morgan ordered Goldman Sachs and Jon Corzine to take down MF Global because they feared the COMEX would collapse due to a shortage of silver bullion. The MF Global bankruptcy receiver took money from segregated accounts at subsidiaries but gave 1.2 billion dollars to Morgan for unsecured loans. They took money away from the people who had cash and wanted to take delivery of silver and gold bullion.
Silver consolidation to continue
as investors rush to cash - Morgan David Morgan believes that while, longer term, silver prices will continue, we are currently facing a long consolidation phase for the metal.
Author: Geoff Candy - Mineweb.com
While the fundamentals for silver continue to get better and better, prices remain within a wide trading range and are likely to continue consolidating for some time to come before making an upward move.
This is the view of Resource-Investor.com founder, David Morgan, who told Mineweb.com's Metals Weekly podcast that the world is currently facing a liquidity squeeze which is forcing investors into cash.
Give silver bullion AAA Rating
By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com
The FinancialTimes reported early on Monday that Standard & Poor’s will announce a potential downgrade of five triple-A rated governments. As of writing time, no announcement has been made.
Investors see what the ratings agencies also see, but are too slow to call out – the financial condition of major governments is not nearly as attractive as it appears. In particular, Germany and France are handicapped by the weight of other EU nations struggling with high debt yields.
Chinese still buying gold big time -huge imports in October Chinese citizens continue to buy gold in record volumes
with October the fourth successive record month
for imports via Hong Kong
Author: Lawrence Williams - Mineweb.co.za
Chinese gold imports through Hong Kong, the main route for gold to reach mainland China, hit yet another new record in October according to Hong Kong government statistics. The October total was 85.7 tonnes - 50% up on the September figure which was itself a new record and a massive 40 times higher than imports via this route a year ago. Indeed the amount imported through Hong Kong amounted to over a quarter of estimated World demand for the yellow metal. Indeed it is the fourth successive month of record imports into China and overall imports through Hong Kong for the first 10 months of the year are around three times higher than a year ago..
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
Gold Breaks But No Silver Confirm - Did Jonny Lie?
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Stocks were rallying until the afternoon and the FOMC announcement which withheld the QE Christmas candy.
Stocks went down hard led by the banks. Gold was hit very hard by a bear raid sell off down to 1620, while silver maintained some strength.
The stock market rebounded into the close somewhat as did gold. Silver has not confirmed the breakdown by gold out of its symmetrical triangle.
The bulls have their work cut out for them.
The MF Global scandal continues to rot and sicken. After the bell the testimony from CME Chairman Duffy to the Senate indicated that Jon Corzine was perjuring himself when he said he had no knowledge of the customer money transfers. That does open up a 'he said, he said' situation, depending on who said what, and what they really know.
Fed must act now to boost economy, Evans says
By Ann Saphir
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve must take immediate action to inject new life into a moribund U.S. recovery or risk letting the nation settle into a permanently lower growth path, a top Fed official said on Monday.
"There is simply too much at stake for us to be excessively complacent while the economy is in such dire shape," Chicago Fed President Charles Evans told the Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research. "It is imperative to undertake action now."
Rense & Celente - Criminals Own The Government
Fed Takes No Action, Citing Signs of Moderate Growth
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that it was closing the books on 2011, maintaining its existing efforts to increase growth but adding no reinforcement amid evidence that the American economy was chugging back toward health.
The central bank will enter next year as it entered this one, in a stance of hopeful exhaustion, optimistic the economy is gaining strength, worried about setbacks and doubtful it can do much more to hasten recovery.
White House cutting production of presidential dollar coins;
will save taxpayers $50 million
By AP - WashingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — The presidential dollar coin has fallen victim to Washington’s cost cutting efforts.
The White House said Tuesday it is stopping nearly all production of the coins, which carry the likeness of every deceased president. The effort will save taxpayers $50 million a year in production and storage costs.
In 2005, Congress passed the Presidential $1 Coin Act, which mandated that the United States Mint issue four new coins each year from 2007 to 2016.
But as it turns out, there just wasn’t much demand.
Hey, Barney Frank:
The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis A member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission responds to our interview with Barney Frank, arguing that without the government's intervention, there would be no housing crisis
By PETER WALLISON - TheAtlantic.com
On December 9, The Atlantic published online an interview with Congressman Barney Frank. In it, he called me a "real extremist." This name-calling was not only false but also inappropriate to the seriousness of the issue -- which is whether government housing policy, and not the banks or the private sector, caused the 2008 financial crisis. I decided to respond to both Congressman Frank's statements and the questions he was asked about government housing policy and the financial crisis.
We're hearing Republicans in the presidential primary blame the housing crisis on the Clinton-era push to lend more to poor people. In your view, what caused the mortgage crisis and subsequently the financial crash?
Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five Years
Reuters via CNBC.com
Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought.
The National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once, and in some instances, new home sales were also captured.
U.S. Retail Sales Rose at Slower Pace in November
By Alex Kowalski - Washpost.Bloomberg.com
Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Retail sales rose in November at the slowest pace in five months, indicating American consumers were trying to live within their means heading into the holiday shopping season as wages dropped.
The 0.2 percent gain in purchases fell short of the 0.6 percent median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and followed increases in the prior two months that were larger than previously estimated, according to data from the Commerce Department today in Washington. Other reports showed inventories climbed in October and job openings fell.
Wisconsin faces lawsuit
as civil rights groups cry foul over new voting rules ACLU accuses state of trying to disenfranchise black people, the poor and elderly by requiring photo ID before they can vote
By Ed Pilkington - Guardian.co.uk
A tough new law in the state of Wisconsin requiring voters to carry a photo ID card before they can cast their vote is being challenged in a federal lawsuit that claims thousands of poor, black and elderly people could be disenfranchised.
The legal action, lodged in the federal court for the eastern district of Wisconsin, opens a new front in the battle over voter registration before next year's presidential election. Civil rights groups are warning that a wave of legislative restrictions introduced in more than 30 states amounts to a concerted attack on voting rights in America on a level not seen since the days of segregation.
House passes GOP payroll tax package
amid White House veto threat
By Felicia Sonmez - WashingtonPost.com
The House on Tuesday passed a bill combining an extension of the payroll tax cut with several GOP-favored provisions. It includes language to speed a decision on the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, setting up a showdown with the White House, which has threatened to veto the measure.
The measure passed late Tuesday on a 234-to-193 vote. Ten Democrats joined 224 Republicans in backing the measure, while 14 Republicans and 179 Democrats voted "no."
Obama veto vow
sets up year-end clash over taxes, oil pipeline
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
President Obama on Tuesday said he will veto House Republicans’ payroll tax extension unless the GOP ditches spending cuts and instead pairs the tax cut with a tax increase on the wealthy.
The threat, communicated by the White House in an official statement of policy, sets up a bruising year-end showdown that could even risk another government shutdown, since Democrats have signaled they won’t sign off on a massive spending bill to keep the government open unless the GOP agrees to their demands on the payroll tax cut.
Exposing the Bakken Boom The Epicenter of America's Industrial Rebirth
By Brian Hicks - WealthDaily.com
I met Jack Heinz at a hotel bar in DC's Dupont Circle about 10 years ago.
At the time, he was a law-student at George Washington University and I was a managing editor at Agora Financial.
A couple things struck me about Jack during that first encounter...
He just seemed a bit out of place for a by-the-book kind of town that DC was and is.
He had a thick beard and wore a suit and shirt that appeared to have been tailored to accentuate his bulging belly, making him look 40 even though he was only 28 years old when we had our first drink together.
Mostly, though, it was the lengths to which Jack went to hide his gruffness and lack of refinement: absolutely none.
He drank hard, swore hard, and tended to let people know exactly what he thought the moment he thought it... definitely my kind of guy.
Boeing Sees Biggest Order Ever From Southwest
Rueters via CNBC.com
Southwest Airlines, a loyal Boeing customer for 40 years, ordered 208 Boeing 737s worth $19 billion, including 150 of the upcoming 737 MAX.
In placing the MAX order, Southwest would be the first commercial operator for the upgraded, fuel-efficient narrowbody that is due to enter service in 2017.
Will China's trillion dollar infra loans
repeat 2008 US mortgage crisis?
By Deepak Rangan - CommodityOnline.com
China is getting worried. Its manufacturing activity is declining, exports are falling and its infrastructure sector, the driver of robust growth over the past years, is not only slowing but will also leave the country with trillion dollar debts!
China's GDP figures of late has been anything if disappointing. Q3 GDP, even though at 9.1% looks extremely good, is by China standards pretty low. In fact it was the slowest in almost 2 years! GDP growth estimates have also been revised down for 2012 and 2013.
Police to test laser that 'blinds rioters' A shoulder-mounted laser that emits a blinding wall of light capable of repelling rioters is to be trialled by police under preparations to prevent a repeat of this summer's looting and arson.
By Matthew Holehouse - Telegraph.co.uk
The technology, developed by a former Royal Marine commando, temporarily impairs the vision of anyone who looks towards the source.
It has impressed a division of the Home Office which is testing a new range of devices because of the growing number of violent situations facing the police.
The developer, British-based Photonic Security Systems, hopes to offer the device to shipping companies to deter pirates. Similar devices have been used by ISAF troops in Afghanistan to protect convoys from insurgents.
Obama to slash National Guard force on U.S.-Mexico border
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
Citing budget cuts, the Obama administration early next year will cut the number of National Guard troops patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border by at least half, according to a congressman who was briefed on the plan.
The National Guard said an announcement will be made by the White House "in the near future," but Rep. Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who has learned of the plans, said slashing the deployment in half is the minimum number, and he said it will mean reshuffling the remaining troops along the nearly 2,000-mile border.
Good for you, Canada... Way to go! Canada condemned at home and abroad
for pulling out of Kyoto treaty China calls Canada's decision 'preposterous', while Greenpeace says the country is protecting polluters instead of people
By Damian Carrington and Adam Vaughan - Guardian.co.uk
Canada has been condemned at home and abroad as "irresponsible" and "reckless" for pulling out of the Kyoto climate treaty, just a day after committing to a future legally binding deal at a major UN climate summit.
"I regret Canada's withdrawal and am surprised over its timing," said the UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. "Canada has a moral obligation to itself and future generations to lead in the global effort." China, which agreed for the first time to legal limits on its emissions at the summit in Durban, denounced Canada's decision as "preposterous" in its state media and called it "an excuse to shirk responsibility" in tackling global warming.
What does Canada's withdrawal from Kyoto protocol mean? Canada has shown that a legally binding deal does not guarantee countries won't walk away from their commitments
By Adam Vaughan - Guardian.co.uk
It's been four years in the offing, but Canada on Monday finally and formally withdrew from the world's only existing legal treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto protocol.
Despite criticism from environmentalists and the international community – China has called the move "irresponsible" through its state media – Canada is within its legal rights. The environment minister, Peter Kent, said: "We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto."
Syria crisis:
UN divisions deepen as death toll rises
by another 1,000 in just 10 days The death toll in Syria has risen by another 1,000 people in just 10 days, according to a report that served to deepen divisions within the United Nations over how to respond to the crisis.
By Richard Spencer - Telegraph.co.uk
On a day that activists and the Syrian government reported scores more deaths from fighting between troops and rebels, Navi Pillay, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, said that more than 5,000 people had been killed since the start of the uprising against the rule of President Bashir al-Assad in March.
This was up significantly from the beginning of the month, when the total stood at 4,000, and does not include any deaths from among Assad's security forces.
Ms Pillay said that 300 of those killed had been children and that 14,000 were in prison, many tortured, and 12,400 had fled the country.
Pro-Israel Lawyer Angry
At American College Professors
Accuses Them Of "Antisemitism"
Israeli military base
attacked by Jewish extremists in West Bank Attack came hours after settlers stormed monument as some say 'homegrown terrorism' is now greatest threat to security
By Phoebe Greenwood in Jerusalem - Guardian.co.uk
A gang of 50 Jewish settlers and rightwing activists have broken into an army base near the Israeli settlement of Kedumim in the West bank, setting fire to tyres and hurling rocks at both Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.
One settler forced open the door of a jeep carrying the Efraim Regional Brigade's commander, who was hit in the head with a rock and suffered minor injuries. Soldiers managed to force the group back outside the base after several minutes but by the time Israeli police arrived at the scene, most of the attackers had fled. Only two were arrested.
U.S. Economic Data is Surprising Forecasters
By Joshua Zumbrun - Bloomberg.com
U.S. economic data are outperforming expectations by the most in nine months, a trend Federal Reserve officials may incorporate into their policy statement tomorrow.
The Citigroup Economic Surprise Index, a daily measure of whether economic data is better or worse than economists’ projections, improved to 85.7 on Dec. 2, the highest since March 9, after the Labor Department reported an unexpected drop in the jobless rate. The index is calculated on a three-month rolling basis and weighted for the importance of the indicator.
Fed busy behind scenes on third year of zero rates No rate change expected but internal debate seen fierce
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The real activity at the Federal Reserve won’t be seen in the interest rate announcement due Tuesday but will show up next year as central bankers prepare for big decisions in the coming months.
"While the December [Federal Open Market Committee] meeting is likely to produce no explicit action…the elves in Chairman [Ben] Bernanke’s workshop are busy at work behind the scenes trying very hard to make the holiday season, and the outlook for 2012, a little brighter," said Julia Coronado, chief economist for North America for the French bank BNP Paribas, in a note to clients.
Asia markets fall as Europe optimism fades
By Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Asia markets tumbled on Tuesday, with exporters and technology firms weak, after ratings agencies weighed in on the latest plans to stem Europe’s debt crisis.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
Bear Raids and Perception Management
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
The lease rates indicate that someone dumped physical gold in a non-profit seeking manner into the gold-paper markets last week. I wonder who that could be. I suspect it helped fuel the bear raid on gold today.
Bloomberg TV was having an all day anti-gold festival, so I will surmise that something gold-friendly is coming up in the next few weeks.
Perverse logic perhaps. But it is what it is.
Gold is in a triangle and given that we have an FOMC day tomorrow I will not be surprised to see another determined bear raid.
Although Silver was hit, it seemed remarkably resilient compared to gold.
Gold: Bullish for medium term;
support at $1700, resistance at $1803/oz
LONDON (Commodity Online): Gold prices have been caught between soft physical demand, the relative strength of the dollar, and muted risk appetite. Physical demand responded to lower prices but has failed to provide a solid floor while investment demand has strengthened with ETP holdings close to record levels and central bank net buying continues. Indeed, the macro picture remains conducive for further price gains next year, given negative real interest rates and fears over inflationary pressures.
Commodities Fall to Two-Week Low, Led by Metals,
on Mounting European Woes
By Yi Tian - Bloomberg.com
Commodities fell to a two-week low on mounting concern that the European debt crisis will spread after Moody’s Investors Service said it will review ratings for countries in the region.
The Standard & Poor’s GSCI index of 24 raw materials declined 1.3 percent to close at 638.93 at 3:44 p.m. New York time, led by metals. Earlier, the gauge touched 636.8, the lowest since Nov. 25. The measure has dropped 16 percent from a 32-month high in April.
The Tim Tebow Comeback Story Continues
But There Will Be No Miracle Comebacks
For The U.S. Economy
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Never in the history of the NFL has there ever been anything like this. Today, Tim Tebow engineered yet another miraculous 4th quarter comeback. Almost everyone has been expecting this unprecedented string of comebacks to come to an end, yet Tebow just keeps pulling off miracle after miracle. It seems like nearly every week now we are talking about another unbelievable Tim Tebow comeback. It is truly a great story, and what is wonderful about Tebow is that he is not out to glorify himself. He is very humble, he always recognizes his teammates and he is a terrific role model for a generation of American youth that is in desperate need of one. Unfortunately, there is not going to be a similar comeback story for the U.S. economy. It is late in the 4th quarter, we have accumulated over 50 trillion dollars of total debt as a nation, and our economic guts are being ripped out at a rate that is almost impossible to believe. The game is essentially over and we are headed for an incredible amount of economic pain as a nation.
Signs of Disintegration
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Disintegration." That’s the word both billionaire George Soros and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have recently used to describe what’s going on with the European economic crisis. It is really a solvency crisis for the big banks there, and leaders are trying desperately to fix the problem. Last week, 26 European countries agreed to give up sovereignty and vote for new rules on tax and spending and tough sanctions to enforce them. One country, the United Kingdom, voted "no" in the form of a veto from Prime Minister David Cameron. Here’s how British newspaper The Sun reported the story, "The PM vetoed a new treaty and kept Britain out of a dodgy deal to save the euro. But his bulldog spirit left the nation facing an unknown future and risking an EU backlash. The PM defended his historic veto of an EU deal intended to save the euro — despite infuriating pro-Europeans." Cameron could not give up sovereignty over budgets in his country. I don’t blame him because, after all, the Brits still have the Pound Sterling and don't need the Euro to conduct business.
Dollar Reaches Two-Month High
Versus Euro on European Rating-Cut Concern
By Masaki Kondo and Monami Yui - Bloomberg.com
The dollar reached a two-month high against the euro before three European nations and the region’s bailout fund sell bills amid concernStandard & Poo's may cut sovereign credit ratings in the common currency area.
The greenback strengthened versus most of its 16 major counterparts after Fitch Ratings and Moody's Investors Service said yesterday that a European Union summit last week offered little help in ending the region’s debt crisis. The yen touched a two-week high against the euro before a German report today that may show investor confidence in Europe's largest economy slid to a three-year low, boosting demand for safer assets.
Stocks, euro and Italian bonds fall
as mood darkens over EU plan to fix debt crisis
By AP - WashingtonPost.com
PARIS — Stocks and the euro dropped sharply on Monday as investors worried that Europe’s new pact aimed at fixing the continent’s debt crisis would be insufficient.
Markets had rallied on Friday, when the European Union adopted a new fiscal pact meant to prevent a repeat of the financial fiasco that is now sweeping across countries that use the euro. But that optimism quickly dried up as traders sought more support for European financial markets in the short-term as well.
Europe’s debt summit fails to halt rise in borrowing costs
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
World investors pushed up borrowing costs for Italy and Spain on Monday, and the Moody’s ratings agency threatened a new downgrade of euro-zone governments as analysts digested the outcome of last week’s European summit.
The summit’s ambitious plan to tame government debt in the future provided little reassurance on a more short-term issue: whether Italy and Spain can finance themselves in the coming months and make good on the mountain of debt they have accumulated.
BRICS face problems, invest in five other emerging markets
By Martin Hutchinson - commodityonline.com
Don't let the headlines fool you, there's lots of money to be made in global investing in 2012.You're just going to have to be careful - more so than in years past - because right now the line drawn between successful markets and markets that are in danger of collapse is treacherously thin.
Take the fashionable growth markets, the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India and China - for example.
Dead weight
It's been 10 years since Chairman of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) Asset Management Jim O'Neill coined the BRIC acronym. His recommendation was certainly effective - one of the best of all time, even. But today, all four BRIC countries face problems, and their troubles illustrate the dangers of following investment fashions.
Sarkozy: We need Britain,
but there are now 'two Europes'
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE - Canada.com
PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted on Monday that the European Union was now a two-speed alliance but insisted that Britain would not be forced out of the bloc's single market.
Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel fell out with Prime Minister David Cameron at least week's EU summit, when London refused to sign up to a pact imposing closer economic coordination between member states.
"We did everything, the chancellor and I, to allow the British to take part in the agreement. But there are now clearly two Europes," Sarkozy said in an interview with the French daily Le Monde.
The man who predicted the European debt crisis
By Charles Lane - WashingtonPost.com
Europe’s financial crisis is rapidly metastasizing into a political one, and the coherence of the European Union is more doubtful than at any previous time in recent memory.
That’s the meaning of last week's European summit, in which 26 leaders either accepted aGerman-French plan for tight fiscal discipline or agreed to consider it — while British Prime Minister David Cameron said no, amid nationalistic finger-pointing across the continent.
China gets fresh chance to float the yuan Today’s crisis-environment opportunity must not be missed
By Caixin Online - MarketWatch.com
BEIJING ( Caixin Online ) — Economic gloom is deepening in China and abroad, forcing extraordinary measures. Responding to the euro zone’s debt crisis, for example, six central banks led by the U.S. Federal Reserve recently lowered the cost of emergency U.S. dollar funding for European banks. And at home, the People’s Bank of China cut the reserve requirement ratio for commercial lenders by 0.5 percentage points.
All eyes have now turned toward Beijing's annual Central Economic Work Conference, which convenes in December. The conference will set the nation’s policy direction for the year to come. Of critical importance, apart from adjusting fiscal and monetary policies as expected, the government should aim for the formation of a market-based mechanism for setting yuan foreign exchange rates.
Shocking Charts And Statistics
That Prove That America Is No Longer A Wealthy Nation
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
How do you decide whether you are wealthy or not? Do you determine that by how much money you spend at the stores? Of course not. You can tell if you are wealthy or not by comparing your assets (the money in your bank account, equity in your home, etc.) to your liabilities (your mortgage, credit card debt, student loan debt, etc.). Well, a lot of Americans seem to believe that just because a lot of money is circulating in our economy that it must mean that we are a wealthy nation. But that is simply not true. To tell whether or not America is a wealthy nation, you need to look at the balance sheet numbers. And when you look at the balance sheet numbers, a very sobering story emerges. Over the past three decades, government debt, business debt and household debt have absolutely exploded, but our assets have not. That means that we are getting poorer as a nation. Hopefully the shocking charts and statistics in this article will help a lot of Americans to wake up. Yes, we once were the wealthiest nation on earth, but today America is no longer a wealthy nation.
American privilege rots an empire from within Well-paid professionals
are contributing to U.S. economy'’s demise
By Andy Xie - MarketWatch.com
BEIJING ( Caixin Online ) — A rising empire rewards people who contribute to its growth and invest in its future. The empire’s decline begins when certain members of society are over-rewarded by means of privileges, and the empire’s money is wasted on outdated endeavors.
Today, America rewards the wrong people and spends disproportionately on projects of the past. Symptoms of the flawed incentive system in the U.S. economy include a massive fiscal budget deficit, high unemployment rate, crumbling infrastructure and a failing basic education system.
BERNANKE’S OBFUSCATION CONTINUES:
The Fed’s $29 Trillion Bail-out of Wall Street
Author: L. Randall Wray - Economonitor.com
Since the global financial crisis began in 2007, Chairman Bernanke has striven to save Wall Street’s biggest banks while concealing his actions from Congress by a thick veil of secrecy. It literally took an act of Congress plus a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Bloomberg to get him to finally release much of the information surrounding the Fed’s actions. Since that release, there have been several reports that tallied up the Fed’s largess. Most recently, Bloomberg provided an in-depth analysis of Fed lending to the biggest banks, reporting a sum of $7.77 trillion. On December 8, Bernanke struck back with a highly misleading and factually incorrect memo countering Bloomberg’s report. Bloomberg has—to my mind—completely vindicated its analysis;
HSBC Sues MF Global Over $850,000 of Gold
By Linda Sandler and Tiffany Kary - Bloomberg.com
An HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) unit sued the MF Global Inc. brokerage trustee to establish whether he or another person is the rightful owner of gold bars worth about $850,000 and silver bars underlying contracts between the brokerage and a client.
Five gold bars and 15 silver bars underlie eight Comex contracts between the brokerage and its client Jason Fane of Ithaca, New York, the unit of London-based HSBC said in a court filing yesterday. Both parties have asserted claims to the bars, creating difficulties for HSBC, which is storing them, the bank said. HSBC asked a judge to decide who the rightful owner is.
CME won't guarantee funds
that remain missing from MF Global CME COO Durkin says has responsibility to shareholders
Reuters - ChicagoTribune.com
CME Group Chief Operating Officer Bryan Durkin said on Monday the exchange will not guarantee the funds that remain missing from customer accounts at bankrupt brokerageMF Global after they are reimbursed by the bankruptcy trustee.
Such a move would be "unwise" and the CME has a "fiduciary responsibility" to its shareholders, he said at a National Grain and Feed Association conference on Monday.
FDIC reportedly settles with former WaMu execs
Puget Sound Business Journal
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has agreed to settle its lawsuit against three former Washington Mutual executives for a fraction of the $900 million the government agency sought, The Wall Street Journal reported online late today.
The Journal, citing unidentified sources, said the payout is expected to be less than $75 million, with the money coming from insurers and the failed bank’s estate.
Welcome to Freddie and Fannie’s Mortgage Shell Game Did you know that Fannie & Freddie had a policy
stating that they didn't want to receive "notes?" I didn’t.
By Shawn T. Newman, J.D. - mi-implode.com
Meet a reader of mine, attorney Shawn T. Newman of Olympia, Washington. An exceptional and highly experienced lawyer who fights for the rights of homeowners, among others. A professor at both undergrad and graduate levels, and an exceptionally nice person who is both very knowledgable and very easy to talk to. Washington State homeowners should know of him, as should the other foreclosure defense attorneys around the country. As he says, he’s not terribly well-connected, so I said I’d would certainly help connect him. Unquestionably, he’s one of "US."
Federal Reserve Owns USA!
By Babu G. Ranganathan - Pravda.ru
The U.S. government didn't rescue the banks. The Federal Reserve (FED) did. U.S. taxpayers did not pay for this rescue as is commonly believed. The Federal Reserve is overseen by the U.S. government, but it is a conglomeration of private banks that print America's money. The U.S. government pays interest on the money it asks the FED to print. It's unconstitutional because the U.S. Constitution says that only Congress can print money, but Congress never exercised that right and outsourced it to a national bank and then to the Federal Reserve in 1913. The U.S. government owes trillions of dollars to FED for printing its own money! Incredible! President John F. Kennedy wanted to bypass the FED and print money directly. Look what happened to him. The bankers of the FED rule the world politics and U.S. presidents including Obama.
The real unemployment rate is 11 percent
Posted by Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
Typically, I try to tie the beginning of Wonkbook to the news. But today, the most important sentence isn't a report on something that just happened, but a fresh look at something that's been happening for the last three years. In particular, it's this sentence by the Financial Times' Ed Luce, who writes, "According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent."
Remember that the unemployment rate is not "how many people don't have jobs?", but "how many people don't have jobs and are actively looking for them?" Let's say you've been looking fruitlessly for five months and realize you've exhausted every job listing in your area. Discouraged, you stop looking, at least for the moment. According to the government, you're no longer unemployed. Congratulations?
57% of O.C. escrows are distressed homes
by Jon Lansner - OCRegister.com
Steve Thomas of ReportsOnHousing.com publishes every two weeks a report on the supply of local homes for sale and the share of that inventory that’s distressed properties — foreclosures and short sales. His latest report — as of December 8 — says …
• 3,357 distressed Orange County properties were listed for sale — 38% of the 8,905 listed overall.
• 1,484 new escrows were opened to buy distressed Orange County properties in the past 30 days. That is 57% of the 2,589 new pending sales countywide.
• Thomas calculated "market time" — cross of supply and new escrows showing how long, theorhetically, it would take to sell inventory. Using that "market time" math, there's 2.26 months worth of distressed properties on the market vs. 5.02 months worth of non-distrssed homes. So, distressed homes currently sell 2.2 times faster than non-distressed homes.
Understanding debt obligations after foreclosure The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 generally lets you exclude from your income the debt that's left over after a foreclosure. The law applies for 2007 through 2012.
By Liz Weston, Money Talk - LATimes.com
Dear Liz: Several years ago, we were talked into getting what I believe was a predatory loan — a negatively amortizing mortgage for 100% of the purchase price of our home. The loan broker assured us we could refinance the following year to a more traditional mortgage.
We paid the minimum monthly payment required, which didn't cover all the interest owed, so that amount was added to our mortgage balance. Like others, we have experienced the nightmare of the current housing market, and with the negative amortization adding on even more debt, we are severely underwater.
What is the median household income in the US?
A crisis spanning multiple generations
and the taboo of household income.
MyBudget360.com
Household income is a taboo topic even though people have a visceral enjoyment of spending their hard earned money. As we go out and spend during this holiday season many people have absolutely no clue what other family members or neighbors make. Some would argue that household income is absolutely private and I would agree to a certain point. The mainstream media is focused on getting people to spend and part with their money. At this they are highly successful. Just take a look outside your window and I am certain you will see the artifacts of spending with brand new cars and other shiny lawn toys. Yet most Americans base the success of others by their purchasing knickknacks and have little clue as to what otherhouseholds pull in with their income. This taboo led us into this debt fueled crisis with Americans going into massive debt to keep up with neighbors that never had the income to support their conspicuous consumption. This article will try to paint a full picture of the income situation across the country.
Homeowners association
can't charge for finding documents Those requesting copies of homeowner association budgets and meeting minutes can be charged only for time involved in redacting the documents as well as copying and mailing them, up to certain limits.
By Stephen Glassman and Donie Vanitzian - LATimes.com Question: I requested copies of our budgets and minutes for several years back. The association's attorney wrote me: "The costs for copying and providing the pro forma operating budgets for 2008-11 and minutes of annual meetings of members and open board meetings for those years is twelve cents ($0.12) per page and $55 per hour to locate and copy the documents requested plus postage, unless you wish to pick up the documents at management. Management estimates copying charges of $40 and clerical charges of two hours or $110 to provide these documents." These costs sound steep. Are they correct? Answer: There is nothing in the statute about charging the homeowner for "locating and copying the documents." This appears to be an association tactic to deter owners from accessing documents.
Chinese homeowners are NOT patient... China's housing bubble is losing air Home prices and sales plunge after China's government intentionally slams on the brakes. Some recent buyers stage demonstrations, destroy real estate offices and demand refunds of up to 40%.
By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Beijing— Falling home values. Debt-strapped borrowers. Real estate woes dogging the economy. It's old news in the United States, but now the air has started to leak from another great housing bubble — in China.
Home prices nationwide declined in November for the third straight month, according to an index of values in 100 major cities compiled by the China Index Academy, an independent real estate firm. Average prices in the Shanghai area are down about 40% from their peak in mid-2009, to about $176,000 for a 1,000-square-foot home.
Is the Farm Boom About to Bust? Farmland prices have gone sky high even as crop prices are tumbling. Is a farm bubble about to pop?
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
This Sunday, Reuters published a frontline dispatch from the heart of America's latest real estate frenzy. Its dateline: Shelby County, Iowa, where signs of a farmland bubble are hard to miss.
These days, in Shelby and towns like it, there's about as much money trading hands as corn. Cropland prices in the plains states have risen a record 25% in the last year, as farmers have raced to outbid each other at auctions in town halls across the heartland. In Nebraska they've jumped 40%. Over the last decade, they're up nearly tenfold, driven by investors looking for a safe bet in a tumultuous economy and the globe's growing demand for food.
Occupy protests shut down 2 Portland terminals,
spread to Seattle
By Kim Murphy - LATimes.com
Occupy protests targeting ports in California spread up through the Pacific Northwest on Monday, shutting down two main shipping terminals at the Port of Portland before leading to a boisterous march on the Port of Seattle.
Portland's main container terminal, the largest and busiest shipping facility at the port, closed early in the day as about 200 protesters marched in at dawn, setting up a tent and portable toilets.
Goldman Sachs Major Target
of Occupy Protests at West Coast Port Blockades
By Alison Vekshin and James Nash - Bloomberg.com
Occupy Wall Street protests spread to U.S. West Coast ports as demonstrators tried to halt shipping operations and cut into profits atGoldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), which owns a stake in the largest cargo-terminal operator.
Protesters rallied in Oakland, California, and Seattle as workers attempting to move goods vented frustration. Seattle police pepper-sprayed demonstrators blocking one of the terminal entrances. The Oakland port was operating with "sporadic disruptions" by protesters blocking truckers, said Isaac Kos- Read, a port spokesman.
Americans' view of Congress at all-time low In a Gallup Poll, 76% in the U.S. say most representatives do not deserve to be reelected. But a slim majority would keep their own leaders in their House seats.
By Michael A. Memoli, Washington Bureau - LATimes.com
Reporting from Washington— Americans' hostility toward members of Congress is at a record high, a new Gallup Poll found.
Seventy-six percent of those surveyed said most representatives do not deserve to be reelected, the highest number in the 19 years Gallup has asked the question and six points higher than in August, just after the contentious debate over raising the debt ceiling.
Only 20% said most members should be reelected, a record low.
Price Check angers U.S. senator
at inopportune time for Amazon
Puget Sound Business Journal by Greg Lamm
We already know that retail groups are fuming over an Amazon promotion that lets customers get up to $5 off a purchase for using its new Price Check app to compare prices, saying it encourages consumers to use brick-and-mortar retailers as a "showroom."
But now the fallout from the app has reached Congress, where Amazon.com Inc. is already facing scrutiny over a proposed national online sales tax and questions about privacy that are dogging Amazon's hot-selling Kindle Fire tablet.
Epilepsy Foundation warning shows that television,
movies can reprogram brain neurology
by: Jonathan Benson - NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) Rapidly flashing lights and other fast-moving visual effects in movies, television, and video games can trigger sudden epileptic seizures and other neurological disorders in humans, and a recent warning by an epilepsy group confirms this. According to theBaltimore Sun, the Maryland-based Epilepsy Foundation recently issued a warning about the new, hit movieBreaking Dawn, which is part of theTwilightseries, that essentially proves popular media's ability to reprogram brain neurology.
North Dakota's Bakken Oil Fields go from Strength to Strength
Written by Mark J. Perry - OilPrice.com
The "Economic Miracle State" of North Dakota pumped another record amount of oil during the month of October, producing more than 15 million total barrels in a single month for the first time ever, at a daily rate of 488,068 barrels (see chart above, data here). Compared to October of last year, oil production in North Dakota is up 42%, and production has more than doubled over the last two years, from 240,000 barrels per day in October of 2009. North Dakota's rich Bakken oil fields produced almost 9% of America's domestic crude oil production for the month of October, up from less than 2% of the nation's oil in 2006 (data here).
How the World Failed to Address Climate Change—Again
By Michael A. Levi - TheAtlantic.com
The Durban climate talks are over, and many are celebrating. After repeatedly reaching the brink of collapse, the summit produced agreements on several counts. The Associated Press reported that it approved a "landmark deal" that was "meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change for the coming decades". Christina Figueres, head of the system that oversees the talks, heralded the arrival of a "remarkable new phase in [the] climate regime".
Nonsense.
Billionaire Prokhorov to Challenge Putin
By Ilya Khrennikov and Lyubov Pronina - Bloomberg.com
Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov plans to challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for the Russian presidency in March elections after the biggest anti-government demonstrations in a decade emboldened Russia’s opposition.
"This is the most important decision of my life," the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team told reporters in Moscow today.
Prokhorov, 46, Russia's third-richest man with a fortune Forbes magazine estimated at $18 billion, said that he’ll seek to build support from the grassroots level and that he opposes "revolution" and "populism." He quit as leader of the Right Cause party on Sept. 15, accusing President Dmitry Medvedev's administration of blocking the group's preparations for parliamentary elections in December.
China 'Interventionist Policies' Still a Concern: U.S.
By John Brinsley - Bloomberg.com
China’s trade restrictions and "interventionist policies" in areas such as intellectual property rights remain a concern for American companies doing business in the Asian nation, the U.S. said.
Is War in the South China Sea Inevitable?
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
If China is not actually preparing for conflict in the South China Sea over disputed archipelagos and islets and their rich offshore resources, from fish to hydrocarbons, then consider the comments made on 6 December by Chinese President Hu Jintao to the Central Military Commission, as reported by Xinhua. Hu said that China's navy should "make extended preparations for warfare," adding that the navy should "accelerate its transformation and modernization in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security. Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defense and military building."
Bullish outlook for silver and gold in 2012
LONDON (Commodity Online): A bullish outlook for gold next year, but nevertheless anticipates further strength in the U.S. dollar going into the New Year may be the next testfor the yellow metal. Unlike previous periods of risk aversion that occurred in 2009 and 2010, this time U.S. dollar strength is not being accompanied by strong inflows into physically backed gold ETFs, said Deutsche Bank in its final weekly commodities report of 2011.
You Can’t Print More Gold
By Frank Holmes - GoldSeek.com
What do you get when you mix negative real interest rates with stimulative money supply efforts by global central banks?
An exceptionally potent formula for higher gold prices that could send gold to the unimaginable level of $10,000 an ounce. Negative real interest rates and strong money supply growth are two key factors of what I refer to as the Fear Trade.
Gold buyers tempt Greeks facing hard times
By Eve Szeftel | AFP - Yahoo.com
Greece has seen an upsurge in small companies and shops offering to buy gold, driven by record prices and the need many people have to raise cash during hard times when jobs are uncertain and money scarce.
"Sell your gold," "We buy your jewels," the signs read in Ermou Street, a pedestrian precinct right in the heart of Athens thronged with people doing their Christmas shopping, as money changers and jewellers get in on the act too.
In recent months it has become common to have leaflets stuffed into your mailbox or handed out around the city, suggesting that Greeks might want to sell their old baptismal cross so they can afford their dream holiday.
Gold Shortages Are Real
GoldSeek.com
It was actuality a pretty quiet week all in all with no decisions on Europe, just meetings. Of course most all of Europe was put on watch by a prominent U.S. Ratings agency but in my eyes they are so far behind the curve that they nor their ratings matter and the markets largely reflected that view.
The major event was Jon Corzine testilying and as was expected he didn’t seem to know much or offer any real tidbits. He’ll likely get away with what he’s done and be allowed to continue to play dumb, but I assure you he’s anything but dumb and knew exactly what was transpiring as the company spiralled out of control and ultimately failed.
Are Central, Commercial Banks Lending or Selling Gold?
By: Julian D. W. Phillips - GoldSeek.com
The big feature of last week’s decline in the gold price has been the lending of gold into the market. Commercial banks could have been doing it, but there is evidence in the past that central banks have leased gold to cap the gold price and bring it down. The gold price declines were so rapid and extensive that some investors theorized that central banks, including the Federal Reserve, were actively selling gold. The talk is that Commercial banks were unable to get the dollar liquidity they needed, leasing gold under their wings to facilitate these loans at lower interest rates. After the massive swap arrangements made between the U.S. Fed and the E.C.B., many felt that the problems of dollar liquidity had been overcome; however, by the extensive leasing of gold, this does not appear true.
Keiser Report:
Gold-for-Bonds & Debts-for-What?! (E221)
Another Neo-Greenbacker Central Banking Scheme
By: Michael S. Rozeff - GoldSeek.com
State money is reform? Not one little bit. We will have reform only when the forms and supply of money are market-determined, not state-determined. In other words, we will have reform only when each person decides for himself what kind of money and how much of it he or she wishes to bid for or offer in a free market. There is no reform when these decisions are being made for each of us by a state, either in the present arrangement or in a greenbacker version of state money.
OECD warns of economic uphill struggle next year
Reporting by Stephen Mangan; Editing by Nick Macfie
(Reuters) - An OECD report due for release this month will say markets and governments face an uphill struggle to fund themselves next year amid extreme uncertainty over the euro zone and the global economy, the Financial Times said on Monday.
The report will say that financial stresses are likely to continue with the unpredictability of markets threatening the stability of many governments that need to refinance debt.
Banks are preparing for a Euro collapse, are you?
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): The central banks are preparing for life after the euro with countries studying printing national currencies in case the single monetary union collapses, as per reports by the Wall Street Journal. Given the real risk of a breakup of the currency as we know it today, that would seem like the logical and prudent thing to do.
Major multinational corporations are planning for the possibility of this scenario and recently British Chancellor George Osborne said his government had contingency planning in place in the event of the break-up of the euro.
Why Do Banks Fail Together In A Crisis?
By: John Carney, Senior Editor, CNBC.com
Watching Europe's banks teeter on the brink of disaster because of their exposures to sovereign debt has an eerily familiar feel to it.
It is very reminiscent of the near death experience of many of the largest US banks in 2008. Back then it was mortgage-related investments rather than government bonds that weighed down the balance sheets of the banks.
Moody's Downgrades Three French Banks
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
Ratings agency Moody's downgraded the debt of BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, and Credit Agricole on Friday, saying their creditworthiness was being hurt by the fragile operating environment for European banks.
Moody's cut its ratings on the long-term debt of BNP and Credit Agricole by one notch to Aa3, concluding reviews that began in June and were continued in September. Societe Generale's long-term debt was cut by one notch to A1.
Bill Gross — Wrong on Bonds Again?
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
Back in April, the world’s largest bond manager, PIMCO, made widespread news when it was announced that they were betting against US government debt (see article) by having a minus 3% of its $236B Total Return Fund in government securities. Bill Gross gave a few reasons why his bet against US government may be wrong and at the time I penned an article (Why Bill Gross is Wrong…In The Short Term) highlighting why I thought the risks to his bet were higher than they were predicting. My argument against shorting US government debt was chiefly based on the message of leading economic indicators (LEIs), which were signaling a slowdown in US growth, which would likely put pressure on equities and support for Treasury securities. Now, coming full circle, the message from the LEIs is that US growth is likely to accelerate into early 2012 which should lead to demand for stocks over Treasuries and now may be the time for Bill Gross to bet against US Debt.
Eurozone leaders deluded if they think this 'sticking plaster' treaty can solve the debt crisis So, now we know what the latest euro-crisis summit has to offer. The fifth comprehensive effort to stabilise the eurozone in nineteen months, this latest Brussels gab-fest produced a slew of headlines and initiatives. But what did it really achieve?
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk
The single currency remains just as incoherent as it was last weekend, just as vulnerable to systemic collapse. The region’s banks and governments are still very highly indebted.
Eurozone leaders are deluded if they think some diplomatic sticking plaster, and a lot of bluster, can hold together an inherently unstable structure.
What’s more, to use a combination of borrowed and printed money to bail-out cash-strapped governments, which are insolvent largely because they, in turn, are standing behind insolvent banks, is to treat the symptoms of the crisis, not the cause.
Euro crisis-On the Edge with Max Keiser-12-09-2011
The Swiss Government
Is Getting Ready For The Collapse Of The Euro Sarkozy: "The Risk That Europe Will Explode"
by Wolf Richter - TestosteronePit.com
The Swiss government is preparing for a collapse of the euro, according to Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf. She told parliament that a work group was studying the imposition of capital controls and negative interest rates to protect Switzerland from the capital flight that a euro collapse would engender (Handelsblatt). A tidal wave of euros would drive up the Swiss franc, devastate Switzerland’s export economy, and devalue its vast wealth invested in other countries. Already in August, the Swiss National Bank instituted a currency peg and swore to defend it by acquiring "unlimited" amounts of euros, a risky strategy if the euro were to collapse (for the debacle leading up to the peg, read... Swiss Franc Wreaks Havoc In Switzerland.
Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy
By Michael Hudson
The easiest way to understand Europe’s financial crisis is to look at the solutions being proposed to resolve it. They are a banker’s dream, a grab bag of giveaways that few voters would be likely to approve in a democratic referendum. Bank strategists learned not to risk submitting their plans to democratic vote after Icelanders twice refused in 2010-11 to approve their government’s capitulation to pay Britain and the Netherlands for losses run up by badly regulated Icelandic banks operating abroad. Lacking such a referendum, mass demonstrations were the only way for Greek voters to register their opposition to the €50 billion in privatization sell-offs demanded by the European Central Bank (ECB) in autumn 2011.
Future of eurozone looks bleak to some Investors fear default, breakup
By Patrice Hill - The Washington Times
It still seems unthinkable to most Europeans, but a growing number of outside analysts and investors believe the eurozone is headed toward a breakup as fast-moving market turmoil and a looming recession threaten to overwhelm the slow-motion response of European leaders.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European heads of government dismissed such dire scenarios as they headed to a much-hyped summit Thursday in Brussels that appeared likely yet again to dash market hopes for a grand solution that would stop the financial hemorrhaging on the Continent.
All Hail The United States Of Germany?
The Rest Of Europe Is Facing
Either German Domination Or Financial Collapse
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
It has now become very clear who dominates Europe. As European officials prepare to gather for one of the most important summits in EU history, it has become apparent that either the German plan for a new EU treaty is going to be adopted or there is not going to be a deal at all. Germany wants to impose strict new fiscal restraints on all of the eurozone nations. This would include a new 3 percent budget deficit rule with automatic sanctions on any violators. The European Court of Justice would be given power to decide whether or not an individual nation was complying with the 3 percent rule or not. A highly controversial new tax on all financial transactions is also being proposed, along with a number of other repressive new regulations that are designed to more tightly integrate Europe. Germany says that if all 27 EU nations are not willing to go along with a new treaty then it is prepared to strike an agreement with just the 17 nations that make up the eurozone. But not everyone is thrilled with what Germany is trying to do. Critics are saying that the German proposals (which are also being backed by the French) would mean a massive loss of sovereignty for most of the nations that make up the eurozone, and they would essentially turn the eurozone into "the United States of Germany".
Bob Chapman:
Economic Elites Strip Away European Sovereignty 1/3
Bob Chapman:
Economic Elites Strip Away European Sovereignty 2/3
Bob Chapman:
Economic Elites Strip Away European Sovereignty 3/3
Merkel caught between upsetting her voters or Europe
By Michael Birnbaum - WashingtonPost.com
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to a landmark euro summit in Brussels last week and didn’t blink, pushing her neighbors toward Germany’s tight-fisted spending model while giving up little in return.
Few in Europe believe that the summit ended the continent’s debt crisis. The high-firepower solutions that would quickly bring down troubled countries’ borrowing costs would cost Germany more than what Merkel has so far agreed to, and they would be deeply unpopular among German voters.
A treaty to save the Euro may split Europe German Vision Prevails as Leaders Agree on Fiscal Pact
By STEVEN ERLANGER and STEPHEN CASTLE - NYTimes.com
BRUSSELS — Europe’s worst financial crisis in generations is forging a new European Union, pushing Britain to the sidelines and creating a more integrated, fiscally disciplined core of nations under the auspices of a resurgent Germany.
Exactly 20 years to the day after European leaders signed the treaty that led to the creation of the European Union and the eurocurrency, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany persuaded every current member of the union except Britain to endorse a new agreement calling for tighter regional oversight of government spending.
Merkel's Teutonic summit enshrines Hooverism in EU treaty law Angela Merkel’s summit has sealed a 1930s outcome for Europe, further entrenching Germany’s misguided and contractionary policies without offering any viable way out of the crisis at hand.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
You could call it Hooverism written into EU treaty law, though that traduces Hoover. The harsher truth is that it replicates the "500 deflation decrees" of Pierre Laval, later shot by a Free French firing squad.
It is happening just as Europe’s banks slash their books to meet the EU’s core Tier I capital ratios of 9pc. The Basel-based Financial Stability Board - the collective voice of the world’s monetary authorities - fears the banks could inflict a €2.4 trillion crunch over "coming months", just as Euroland crashes back into recession. It is hard to imagine a more reckless recipe for social disorder than to combine these shocks at once.
Euro zone deal overlooks a major threat: lousy growth
By Steven C. Johnson
(Reuters) - Stricter budget discipline in the 17 countries that use the euro is all well and good, but investors fear it won't provide what the euro zoneneeds most of all: More economic growth.
Money managers say that means Friday's stock market rally and euro gains could be short-lived, particularly if credit ratings agencies decide to strip any of Europe's top-rated countries of their AAA status.
EU summit may not calm investors for long
By Annika Breidthardt
(Reuters) - Last week's EU summit went a long way towards forging the closer economic ties needed to prevent future debt crises but markets are likely to judge it as too little and too late to solve the current one, and as on previous occasions the measures are unlikely to calm investors for long.
European Union (EU) leaders ended the summit with a historic agreement to draft a new treaty for deeper integration in the euro zone, but analysts and policymakers remained sceptical such long-term steps could solve the crisis that has shaken Europe for two years.
Europe summit: 'The world is watching us'
By Ben Rooney @CNNMoneyMarkets
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Under pressure to deliver a decisive solution to the debt crisis, European leaders sat down Thursday evening in Brussels to begin rethinking the basic structure of the European Union.
The informal dinner kicks off the latest in a string of high-profile summits this year as EU leaders struggle to convince investors that the euro currency will not be brought down by government debts and weak banks.
All E.U. nations but U.K. open to joining new treaty
By Angela Charlton
and Gabriele Steinhauser - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s president said Friday that 26 of its 27 member countries are open to joining a new treaty tying their finances together to solve the euro crisis. Only Britain remains opposed, creating a deep rift in the union.
In marathon overnight talks, the 17 countries that use the euro gradually persuaded the others to consider joining the new treaty they would create. Some of those countries may face parliamentary opposition to the treaty, which would allow for unprecedented oversight of national budgets.
The day Europe lost patience with Britain
By Luke Baker and Julien Toyer
(Reuters) - It was billed as a summit to save the euro. It may be remembered as the day Europe lost patience with Britain, as most of the continent threw its lot in with EU founding members France and Germany and committed to binding their economies ever more tightly.
There was plenty of talk of history in the making in the week before the Dec 8/9 gathering of European Union leaders - the eighth this year. But it was all about the currency and whether it would survive the strains of a debt crisis that over the past two years has engulfed Greece, spread to Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy and now threatens France and even mighty Germany.
The Road Not Taken
By David Knox Barker - GoldSeek.com
The international political economy and global financial markets are deep in the woods. A long wave winter season is blowing cold, and getting colder. Decades of excess leverage in the banking system and sovereign states is coming to an end. Government and consumer spending are hitting a wall. A critical fork on this wintry road is coming up fast.
A transformational long wave crisis that spans the globe is under way. Tough decisions must be made to pull us out of the long wave winter crisis and into a new spring day on the other side. There are two different roads beckoning us out of this long wave wintry mess. Make no mistake; the choice leads to distinctly different destinations.
More Governmental Insights:
Insiders, Outsiders and the Question of Divinity
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
2/09/11 Baltimore, Maryland – You’ll recall that two days ago we introduced our new theory of government. Of course, we are not entirely serious. And not entirely unserious either.
But it hardly rises to the level of a theory. It is more like an insight:
Government is the natural phenomenon wherein the “insiders” take wealth, power and status from the “outsiders.” They may provide a useful, even necessary, function — such as keeping the peace. Or they may not. They sometimes redistribute wealth among the outsiders. Sometimes not. They sometimes claim to be acting in the name of the greater good…and often do not. Sometimes they claim their privilege from God; sometimes, they don’t bother. But they always take wealth, power and status from those who are not among the insiders.
Gerald Celente -
Trends in The News - A Black Friday - 2011 11 29
China's Hu Vows to Pursue More Balanced Trade
By: Kathrin Hille and Simon Rabinovitch in Beijing, FT.com via CNBC.com
China’s president, Hu Jintao, on Sunday pledged an "even more active" opening up of the country’s economy and a renewed commitment to free trade as he sought to respond to concerns over apparent reform fatigue in Beijing and a deteriorating global economy.
Addressing an audience of business leaders and senior trade officials in a speech to mark the 10th anniversary of China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, Mr Hu pledged to pursue more balanced foreign trade relations and to create a fair and transparent business environment.
MF Global: The Issue Is Fraud
and the Attempt to Cover Up a Wider Circle of Involvement
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Janet Tavakoli does her usual great job of cutting to the heart of the matter. Below is an excerpt of her Huffington Post piece on MF Global today.
I keep thinking that nothing will shock me anymore in this US financial fraud fest. But the coverup of the MF Global stealing of customer money in a cloud of legal doubletalk, supposedly the one pristine and untouchable principle on Wall Street, is almost too much.
Public Retirement Ages Come Under Greater Scrutiny
By: AP - CNBC.com
After nearly 40 years in public education, Patrick Godwin spends his retirement days running a horse farm east of Sacramento, Calif., with his daughter.
His departure from the workaday world is likely to be long and relatively free of financial concerns, after he retired last July at age 59 with a pension paying $174,308 a year for the rest of his life.
Such guaranteed pensions for relatively youthful government retirees — paid in similar fashion to millions nationwide — are contributing to nationwide friction with the public sector workers. They have access to attractive defined-benefit pensions and retiree health care coverage that most private sector workers no longer do.
Household wealth takes biggest hit since '08
By Chris Isidore @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Household wealth took its biggest hit since the height of the 2008 financial meltdown during the third quarter, weakened by a downturn in stocks, according to a report issued Thursday.
The Federal Reserve said the net worth of households fell by $2.2 trillion, or 4.1%, to end at $57.4 trillion. The decline comes to about $7,800 for every U.S. resident.
It's the biggest decline since the $5.6 trillion loss suffered in the fourth quarter of 2008.
What went wrong with foreclosure aid programs?
By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
Steven and Lisa Maultsby lost their Mississippi home to foreclosure this year.
At the time, they thought they were being reviewed for a loan modification through the U.S. government's foreclosure-prevention program.
A Realtor knocking on their door to tell them to vacate told them otherwise.
"I'm bitter," says Steven Maultsby, 51, who works with undersea robots in the oil industry. "We did everything they told us to do."
Stewart Rhodes:
Feds Demand Customer Lists
From Storable Food Facility 1/2
Stewart Rhodes:
Feds Demand Customer Lists
From Storable Food Facility 2/2
Time to Start Preoccupying Wall Street
By Lawrence Weschler - Truthdig.com
Tyrannies all over the world — and here I include the tyranny of the market that the proponents of unfettered capitalism (which is to say, by and large, the system’s increasingly concentrated winners and all those handsomely paid-off apologists and retainers they regularly choose to hide behind) — exist in the ironclad certainty that people are nothing more than meat on sticks. Anything that their subordinates, their inferiors, their underlings are or have beyond that exists at the sheerest whim of the regime. Indeed, the notion that human beings have absolute rights simply by virtue of their humanity — the right, for instance, not to be tortured, on the one hand; or to secure lodging, decent livelihoods, adequate health care and so forth, on the other — arises initially as a wild, untethered assertion in the face of eons of stark evidence to the contrary. But it is a magical assertion.
Labor board: Boeing case dropped, but more possible
By Tim Devaney - The Washington Times
The specific dispute between Boeing and the National Labor Relations Board may be over, but the issues it raised are not.
While the NLRB agreed Friday to drop the politically-charged case over the aerospace giant building a plant in right-to-work South Carolina, theboard’s top lawyer left the door open to file similar cases and seek similar remedies in the future.
"f we were ever faced with a similar pattern, we might well issue a complaint," NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon said in a conference call with reporters.
EPA sounds alarm on fracking in Wyoming
By James O'Toole @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Environmental Protection Agency said this week that chemicals from "fracking," a controversial method of extracting natural gas from the ground, have polluted groundwater in Wyoming.
The findings represent the first time in the heated debate over fracking that the agency has drawn such a connection, which has long been claimed by environmental activists.
In a statement released on Thursday, the EPA said a study had found that groundwater in an aquifer around Pavillion, Wyoming, contained "compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing."
Former strongman Noriega returns home a prisoner,
and to many Panamanians an irrelevant figure
By AP - WashingtonPost.com
PANAMA CITY, Panama — More than two decades after the U.S. forced him from power, Manuel Noriega returned to Panama on Sunday as a prisoner and, to many of those he once ruled with impunity, an irrelevant man.
Some Panamanians feel hatred for the former strongman and rejected American ally; a few others nostalgia. But as he returned to his native country for the first time since his ouster, it seemed like few people had any strong feelings at all.
Angry Russians aren't buying Medvedev's investigation Russians scoff at Medvedev election inquiry
By Kathy Lally - WashingtonPost.com
MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev used his Facebook page Sunday to disclose that he had ordered an investigation into reports of election fraud, a statement his audience greeted with derision.
The posting quickly went viral, and drew more than 8,000 mostly offended and even offensive comments in a little over six hours, revealing the depth of the disillusionment with Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and their government. Tens of thousands of Russians spoke up in demonstrations across the country Saturday, protesting the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections, and they apparently had no intention of returning to their former silence.
Russians turn to Internet for uncensored news
By Marc Bennetts, Special for USA TODAY
MOSCOW – Like most people in Russia, lawyer Tatiana Murzina knows better than to trust what she sees on television.
"Whenever I watch state-run television news, it seems to me that Vladimir Putin is really great and his policies are a success," she said. "But when I check out Internet websites and social networks and see what's really going on, it's an eye-opener — to say the least."
Iran won't return U.S. drone it claims to have
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Iran will not return an unmanned American stealth plane that it says it has, one of Iran's top generals said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday.
"No nation welcomes other countries' spy drones in its territory, and no one sends back the spying equipment and its information back to the country of origin," said Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the Armed Forces.
Syrian defectors regroup in Turkey, plot Assad's end
By Ibon Villelabeitia and Ece Toksabay
(Reuters) - Ayham Kurdi refused to open fire on unarmed protesters and is now an enemy of the Syrian state.
A captain in President Bashar al-Assad's army, Kurdi, 30, a soft-spoken man with a trimmed black moustache, deserted his post in June and fled to neighboring Turkey with his family.
He is now a member of the Free Syrian Army, a loose collection of deserters who are fighting to topple Assad.
Who does control gold price?
By Kayla McBride - CommodityOnline.com
For centuries, Gold has been looked as a commodity and a currency. When considering purchasing gold, it is important to make certain that you know what kind of purchase and investment you are making. Gold just like any commodity is subject to daily price fluctuations.
One of the first questions asked when considering purchasing gold is who controls the price? This question is often asked because gold is presented as being a stable and sound investment in a turbulent economic downturn. Despite its appeal, gold still operates on a market scale and abides by the supply and demand of the companies and organizations that produce it.
'Gold posts $246 premium over platinum for first time'
LONDON (Commodity Online): The price of a troy ounce of Gold now costs over $246 more than a troy ounce ofPlatinum for the first time, said Commerzbank in a research note.
According to Commerzbank, price difference between gold and platinum has been widening in favor of Gold since early September.
'Silver gold ratio to spike to 100:1 in this financial crisis'
CommodityOnline.com The Gold Report: Since the last time we chatted in July, Bob, a lot has happened. Congress raised the debt ceiling, as you predicted. Bob Moriarty: Right. TGR: Then the Super Committee failed to produce an agreement so we can look forward to the automatic debt reduction of $2.2 trillion. BM: The Super Committee was totally illegal and unconstitutional in the first place and it was totally ineffective. They couldn't reduce spending by $1.5 trillion over a 10-year period. Give me a break. TGR: Okay. Moving on. . . Unemployment remains at about 9%. BM: You say 9%? I don't think so. How about 23%?
Precious Metals Update: Focus on Silver
By DoctoRx - DailyCaptalist.com
As I take a break from the Corzine testimony before the House Agricultural Committee, I’d like to briefly comment on the prospects for the precious metals vis-a-vis the U.S.D.
The first thing I notice, as someone who always looks at charts to see if price action is in line with my view of the fundamentals, is that a closed-end fund that is half gold and half silver, Central Fund of Canada (CEF) has just tipped into a bear configuration, with the 50, 150 and 200 day simple moving averages aligned so that the shortest moving averages are weaker (lower) than the longer ones. Thus if one doesn’t want to differentiate between gold (still by those criteria in a bull market) and silver (clearly in a short- and intermediate-term bear configuration), and go “halvsies” by owning equal dollar amounts of each, the message of the market has begun to tilt against one.
Buy Silver…Now!
By Matt Badiali - DailyReckoning.com
12/08/11 Silver is an amazing metal…which is why it’s likely to soar over the coming years…
You see, silver has more than 10,000 uses. It’s one of the world’s best conductors of heat and electricity. Inventors filed more patents on silver uses than any other precious metal in the world. And when silver is used for most industrial and technological purposes, it is used up forever… It simply costs too much to try to recycle the tiny bit of silver from every cell phone or casino chip.
I’m not saying industry is going to use up all the world’s silver. That simply can’t happen. But scarcity is a real issue.
'Best way to convert junk silver into bullion'
By Kayla McBride - CommodityOnline.com
Junk Silver is a name given to any piece of silver based on its condition. The particular condition of the coin must be deemed fair or rough. Junk silver usually offers no real value to a collector of silver coins exceeding the bullion value. This is what makes old silver coins collectors convert the silver into bullion. Commonly collected forms of junk silver include mercury dimes and Roosevelt dimes. In general collectors and investors sell the silver coins via a coin dealer, through a site such as Craigslist or eBay, or through classifieds as this allows for them to reap the benefits from the silver coins.
Q3 Flow of Funds:
Household Net Worth declines $2.4 Trillion in Q3
by CalculatedRisk
The Federal Reserve released the Q3 2011 Flow of Funds report today: Flow of Funds.
The Fed estimated that household net worth declined $2.4 trillion in Q3. Household net worth peaked at $66.8 trillion in Q2 2007, and then net worth fell to $50.4 trillion in Q1 2009 (a loss of $16.4 trillion). Household net worth was at $57.4 trillion in Q3 2011 (up $7.0 trillion from the trough, but down $2.4 trillion in Q3).
The Fed estimated that the value of household real estate fell $98 billion to $16.1 trillion in Q3 2011. The value of household real estate has fallen $6.6 trillion from the peak - and is still falling in 2011.
The Worldwide Depression/Recession Of 2012
By Jeff Harding - DailyCapitalist.com
In case you haven't noticed, the rest of the world continues to slow down and the negative data is accelerating. The big powerhouses of the world, the eurozone including Germany, Japan, and China are leading this trend and there is no reason to believe that the U.S. will not follow.
I’ve been writing about this theme frequently lately because, while we are seeing some positive numbers here in the U.S., we are also seeing signs of weakness starting to show up, and since we live in a world of international trade, the world’s woes will hit us.
What Threats Will America Face in 2012? Surveying 300 national security experts on three tiers of challenges the U.S. is likely to face next year
By Micah Zenko - TheAtlantic.com
In February, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned West Point cadets, "When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements, since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right." Similarly, when commander of U.S. Central Command General James Mattis was asked what missions American ground forces might undertake ten years into the future, he responded, "As we look toward the future I've been a horrible prophet. I have never fought anywhere I expected to in all my years."
The EU Crisis Comes to a Head
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
As the European Union debt crisis moves towards an ostensible resolution on December 9th, complications arise. Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has warned that the failure to reach an agreement may result in an unprecedented downgrade of as many as 15 EU countries simultaneously. "Systemic stresses in the euro zone have risen in recent weeks to the extent that they now put downward pressure on the credit standing of the euro zone as a whole," S&P said in a statement. Cutting through the economic jargon, a "resolution" of the crisis comes down to a single choice: there will either be a European Union, or individual countries will retain some semblance of national sovereignty.
The Consequences of a Eurozone Breakup
By Clive Crook - TheAtlantic.com
It might have been better not to create the euro in the first place, but now that it exists its "unwinding" is neither desirable nor inevitable. There is no unwinding of this system without causing a much worse mess than the one we already have. If you think things are hard right now, see what happens if the eurozone comes apart.
Willem Buiter thinks through some of the possibilities in the FT: The terrible consequences of a eurozone collapse. His thinking on a voluntary exit by Germany, as opposed to coerced exits by the fiscally stressed (a more popular scenario), is especially interesting. That would be no better, he argues.
This EU summit will accelerate a euro break-up
not slow it down or save it Can of worms? Pandora's box?
Take your pick but that's what is being opened in Brussels.
By Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
Far from saving the euro, historians may come to see this summit as the moment it finally fell apart. They will have the benefit of knowing what comes to pass over the next few weeks as the political cloud from today's talks mushrooms over Europe.
Having ignored the views of the minority about the euro's flaws in the run up to its inception, the 17 members who eventually climbed aboard were happy to proceed during the debt inspired good times of the past decade.
David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy clash
as leaders wrangle over euro deal French accused of setting Britain up
as 'fall guy' in attempt to ringfence eurozone
By Nicholas Watt, Ian Traynor
and David Gow in Brussels - The Guardian
David Cameron is at the centre of a furious row with Nicolas Sarkozyafter Paris tried to isolate the prime minister at the EU summit by suggesting that Britain is seeking to exempt the City of London from all European regulations.
In a move dismissed by officials in Brussels as an attempt to set Britain up as the fall guy, senior French figures said Cameron wanted an opt out from EU financial services regulation.
Euro summit rocked by row over veto plan A rebellion by Finland, the Netherlands and Ireland is threatening to torpedo the Brussels summit plans – despite repeated warnings that today is the last chance to save the euro.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Hours before leaders arrived in Brussels , the Finnish parliament ruled that treaty changes proposed for the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) were "unconstitutional".
The summit was further put at risk with news that after failing stress tests, European banks need to raise €115bn (£98bn) in fresh capital to satisfy regulators.
Market rout as ECB dashes bond hopes The European Central Bank has dashed hopes for a blitz of bond purchases to stem the debt crisis in southern Europe, setting off a sharp fall on European stock markets and a flight from risk across the world.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, said the bank had not agreed to any sort of "Grand Bargain" with EU leaders to act as lender of last resort for sovereign states, insisting that it does not have a legal mandate to rescue sovereign states in trouble.
"We have a treaty and Article 123 prohibits financing of governments. It embodies the best tradition of the Bundesbank. We shouldn't try to circumvent the spirit of the treaty," he added, warning against the use of "legal tricks" to bend the bank’s mandate.
ECB cuts interest rates, loosens reins on loans
By Neil Irwin and Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
The European Central Bank took new measures Thursday to bolster the continent’s ailing economy while dampening expectations that it would escalate its efforts to help struggling European governments borrow money at affordable rates.
The ECB cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point and announced a program to make it easier and cheaper for cash-strapped banks to borrow money from the central bank. Both steps were widely anticipated.
Draghi: ECB to Offer Banks Unlimited Cash
By Gabi Thesing - Bloomberg.com
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the ECB will offer banks as much money as they need for three years and loosened collateral rules at refinancing operations as officials try to ease strains in credit markets.
The ECB also cut banks’ reserve ratios to 1 percent from 2 percent and will stop fine tuning operations at the end of each reserve maintenance period, Draghi said at a press conference in Frankfurttoday. The 36-month loans will be conducted as a fixed rate with full allotment, Draghi said.
EU weighs greater unity for euro, financial stability
By Gabriele Steinhauser
and Don Melvin - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
BRUSSELS — European leaders were wrestling Thursday over how much of their sovereignty they are willing to give up in a desperate attempt to save the ambitious project of continental unity that grew from the ashes of World War II.
At stake at the summit in Brussels is not only the future of the euro, but also the stability of the global financial system and the balance of power in Europe.
EU Seeks 'Compact' to Lure ECB Into Euro Fight
By James G. Neuger and Stephanie Bodoni - Bloomberg.com
European leaders battled into the night to halt two years of debt-driven turmoil in financial markets and dispel concerns that the 17-nation euro currency is on the brink of unraveling.
Leaders worked on a "fiscal compact" at a Brussels summit to restore bondholders’ confidence and make it possible for the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund to step up contributions to the rescue effort. No agreement has yet been reached, said two government officials familiar with the talks.
Will Europe recover better than ever? Has Europe Reached its Articles of Confederation Moment? America under the Articles of Confederation was a mess, not unlike Europe today. Could it lead to a stronger European Union?
By Heather Horn - TheAtlantic.com
Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of their desire to change the treaties currently holding the European Union together, and to push the countries towards a tighter, more integrated federation. "We want to make sure that the imbalances that led to the situation in the euro zone today cannot happen again," Sarkozy said.
This would be a worthy project, of course, but treaty change and Union restructuring are about as big a political and legal headache as one could possibly imagine. With Europe this fractured, could leaders really agree upon a new setup? Is the political will present in the right states? Will the markets wait for the deliberations?
Eurogeddon – fear not, it's under control Well that's a relief. According to Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, we can all stop worrying about the potentially catastrophic consequences of a euro break-up because it's not going to happen.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
So confident is he of this outcome that it would be "imprudent" to make contingency plans for anything else. His message is presumably aimed at the UK Treasury, Financial Services Authority, Bank of England, US Federal Reserve, People's Bank of China, Uncle Tom Cobley and everyone else who has recently admitted to just such planning. In any case, you'll be pleased to know that you can all stop right now. The "fiscal contract" under discussion at the latest "make or break" euro summit ought to be enough to do the trick.
Europe on a Chinese Shoestring
By Yao Yang - ProjectSyndicate.com
BEIJING – Will China help to rescue the euro, or not? In August, Premier Wen Jiabao said that China was ready to assist Europe in its hour of need. But, in December, at the Lanting Forum in Beijing, Deputy Foreign Minister Fu Ying declared that China could not. "The argument that China should rescue Europe does not stand, as reserves are not managed that way," she announced.
For months, European leaders and International Monetary Fund officials have been hoping that China would lend a hand to save the euro. But Wen proposed certain conditions, including the European Union's recognition of China as a market economy. Europe’s leaders, however, have not agreed to this or any other of Wen’s conditions. Hence, Fu’s insistence that China can do nothing to help.
IMF Says Hong Kong Needs Immediate Stimulus
Should European Crisis Deepen
By Sophie Leung and Kevin Hamlin - Bloomberg.com
Hong Kong may need to stand behind some banks and deposits should Europe's sovereign debt crisis worsen and cause the global economy to slump, said Nigel Chalk, the International Monetary Fund's China mission chief.
In a "very bad scenario" the government may have to "perhaps guarantee some of the deposits in the banking system as they did in 2008 in the wake of Lehman Brothers," Chalk said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Washington. The fund sees a low probability of such a situation, it indicated in a report released today.
EU Accord on Loans to IMF May Unlock Door
to Assistance From Brazil, China
By Sandrine Rastello - Bloomberg.com
An agreement by European Union leaders to boost the International Monetary Fund’s resources may open the door to similar loans by nations from South Korea to Brazil in a global effort to stem the European debt crisis.
European leaders meeting in Brussels may agree to make bilateral loans to the IMF of as much as 200 billion euros ($267 billion), an EU diplomat said yesterday. Such a move may draw aid from the Group of 20 nations, which held back last month because they said Europe wasn’t doing enough to help itself.
Under Hank Paulson, stock market was rigged Fix was in: Bloomberg mag seconds a scoop
By John Crudele - NYPost.com
So, now do you believe me? The stock market was rigged.
It has been a little lonely telling this story over the past few years.
But now that another news organization has finally gotten off its lazy butt, I'll tell it again: Under former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, confidential government information was regularly leaked to select people on Wall Street.
As I’ve explained many times before, The Post got hold of Paulson's telephone records back in 2009. And the phone logs show that Paulson, the former head of Goldman Sachs, regularly spoke with influential people on Wall Street with whom he shouldn’t have been communicating. These phone calls could have been — let’s use the word "enriching" — for the recipients.
Hank 'Baldface' Paulson : Keiser Report
Why The UK Trail Of The MF Global Collapse
May Have "Apocalyptic" Consequences
For The Eurozone, Canadian Banks,
Jefferies And Everyone Else Reposting by popular demand, and because everyone has to understand the embedded risks in this market, courtesy of the shadow banking system.
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
In an oddly prescient turn of events, yesterday we penned a post titled "Has The Imploding European Shadow Banking System Forced The Bundesbank To Prepare For Plan B?" in which we explained how it was not only the repo market, but the far broader and massively unregulated shadow banking system in Europe that was becoming thoroughly unhinged, and was manifesting itself in a complete "lock up in interbank liquidity" and which, we speculated, is pressuring the Bundesbank, which is well aware of what is going on behind the scenes, to slowly back away from what will soon be an "apocalyptic" event (not our words... read on). Why was this prescient? Because today, Reuters' Christopher Elias has written the logical follow up analysis to our post, in which he explains in layman's terms not only how but why the lock up has occurred and will get far more acute, but also why the MF Global bankruptcy, much more than merely a one-off instance of "repo-to-maturity" of sovereign bonds gone horribly wrong is a symptom of two things:
Jon Corzine says:
'I don't know where the MF Global money went' Former MF Global boss apologises at congressional hearing but dodges questions about what went wrong
By Dominic Rushe - Guardian.co.uk
Fallen financier and former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said he was "stunned" by the collapse of his firm MF Global but told a congressional panel that he had no idea where the missing $1.2bn (£780m) had gone.
Corzine faced hostile questioning after being subpoenaed to testify before the House of Representatives' agriculture committee on the bankruptcy of the financial firm and the missing money – some of which is owed to farmers who used the company to hedge crop investments.
Corzine blames predecessors for MF Global's fall
AP - LATimes.com
Jon Corzine told a congressional panel Thursday that he never intended to break rules requiring failed securities firm MF Global to safeguard client funds. He also said he doesn't know what happened to an estimated $1.2 billion that went missing.
Corzine is testifying before the House Agriculture Committee about the firm's bankruptcy, which followed disastrous bets on European debt that were made while Corzine was CEO.
Corzine deflected blame for the company's collapse. He argued that he inherited a firm already doomed by his predecessors' bad financial decisions.
He appeared strained and at times grasped for words. But Corzine responded to every question posed, choosing not to exercise his Fifth Amendment right.
"A good parson once said that where mystery begins, religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least,
of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends?"
-- Edmund Burke
Jill Sommers, the CFTC Commissioner who is leading the investigation into the MF Global bankruptcy gave some important testimony to the House today that has been overshadowed by the expected appearance of Jon Corzine.
If you have been following the case, you know that JP Morgan has taken the lead in attempting to file motions to subordinate the customer accounts to their own debts. There is also a motion being heard that the Trustee has a conflict of interest with their fiduciary responsibilities as Trustee and a long standing relationship with JPM.
U.S. wealth suffers biggest hit in 2 years
By Derek Kravitz and Dave Carpenter - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
Americans’ wealth last summer suffered its biggest quarterly loss in more than two years as stocks, pension funds and home values all lost value.
At the same time, corporations raised their cash stockpiles to record levels.
Household net worth fell 4 percent to $57.4 trillion in the July-September quarter, according to a Federal Reserve report released Thursday. It was the sharpest drop since the tumultuous period after the September 2008 bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers, as well as the second straight quarterly fall.
UBS’s Zeltner Says Private Banking Industry Is in 'Upheaval'
By Giles Broom - Bloomberg.com
UBS AG (UBSN)’s Juerg Zeltner, head of the firm’s wealth-management unit, said turbulent financial markets are creating "upheaval" for the private-banking industry.
"Those who wish to preserve or increase their wealth cannot count on rising markets," Zelter, chief executive officer of the Zurich-based wealth business, wrote today in Le Temps newspaper. Bankers must be "investment advisers," and monitor more frequently the health of customer portfolios, instead of acting as "classic relationship managers," he said.
Keiser Report: Economics is the New Rock'n'Roll (E220)
California officials vow
to crack down on underground economy Employers who pay their workers cash under the table to avoid payroll taxes, workers' compensation insurance and other government mandates are costing California about $7 billion annually in lost tax revenue and undercutting companies that play by the rules, state officials say.
By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Sacramento— A burgeoning underground economy is costing California about $7 billion annually in lost tax revenue and undercutting companies that play by the rules.
That has state officials vowing to crack down on employers who pay their workers cash under the table to avoid payroll taxes, workers' compensation insurance and other government mandates.
Agencies including the Employment Development Department and the Contractors State Licensing Board increasingly are coordinating efforts to target suspected scofflaws.
Reliance on Credit in Spending Rises in U.S.
By BLOOMBERG NEWS - NYTimes.com
Consumer borrowing in the United States rose in October to the highest level in two years, propelled by gains in nonrevolving debt like auto and student loans.
Credit increased by $7.65 billion, to $2.46 trillion, the most since October 2009, Federal Reserve figures released on Wednesday showed. The advance was in line with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News that projected a $7 billion gain.
US Credit Card Debt Rises 150% in Third Quarter
247WallSt.com
Americans have started using their credit cards again — and in a big way. Credit card debt jumped 154% in the third quarter of 2011 compared with the same period a year ago, according to the latest report from CardHub.com. Card issuers like Visa Inc. (NYSE: V), Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA), American Express Corp. (NYSE: AXP), and Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) must be smiling today.
According to the CardHub report, combined debt and charge-offs rose $16.82 billion in the quarter. The US Federal Reserve’s consumer credit report, which was issued yesterday, noted a drop in revolving credit outstanding of -2%. The Fed’s numbers, however, do not include charge-offs of $10.94 billion that are included in the CardHub numbers.
Foreclosures increasingly becoming rentals
BY SANDRA GUY - SunTimes.com
With more than one in 10 houses in Chicago vacant, and experts expecting the foreclosure crisis to continue to grow, nonprofits and the city are renting out more of those properties and offering incentives for those willing to buy.
Neighborhood Housing Services, a 35-year-old Chicago non-profit, this year will lend $18 million for single-family home purchases and re-financings of one- to four-unit buildings. The non-profit also is expanding its lending focus to help local residents and/or investors buy vacant foreclosed properties and rent them out, said Ed Jacob, executive director of the Neighborhood Housing Services.
North Dakota's Bakken Oil Fields
go from Strength to Strength
Written by Mark J. Perry - OilPrice.com
The "Economic Miracle State" of North Dakota pumped another record amount of oil during the month of October, producing more than 15 million total barrels in a single month for the first time ever, at a daily rate of 488,068 barrels (see chart above, data here). Compared to October of last year, oil production in North Dakota is up 42%, and production has more than doubled over the last two years, from 240,000 barrels per day in October of 2009. North Dakota's rich Bakken oil fields produced almost 9% of America's domestic crude oil production for the month of October, up from less than 2% of the nation's oil in 2006 (data here).
Our Energy Potential
By Edwin J. Feulner PatriotPost.us
Imagine a place where jobs are plentiful, and the housing market is thriving. A place where even low-playing service jobs come with signing bonuses and other benefits.
Sound too good to be true? No. It's real, and it's right here in the U.S.
The scenario described above can be found in Williston, N.D. The secret to their newfound prosperity: oil. The state is drilling at record pace, with oil production doubling from 2008 to 2010. And that's creating an economic boom in towns such as Williston. People are working, and businesses are hiring.
More on a New Theory of Government…
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
12/07/11 Baltimore, Maryland – You’ll remember from yesterday that we have some question as to the actual divinity of the Egyptian dynastic rulers. Certainly, either the Egyptians had some doubts themselves, or they were among the most impious people who ever lived. Pharaoh was supposed to be a god. He was supposed to be in charge of everything, even the annual flooding of the Nile, the weather… life, death, you name it. But that didn't stop him from getting the old heave-ho from time to time. Rival groups didn't wait for God to decide who would sit on the throne. Men fought it out.
Bill Gates to Build Nuclear Reactors in China?
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
Since the 11 March disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daichi nuclear power complex, when an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale was followed by a tsunami that destroyed the facility, the nuclear industry worldwide has been fighting back, arguing that new, improved reactor designs mean that nuclear power is still a valid option.
Surging economic incipient superpowers India and China remain committed to generating electricity with the atom as one of their best options to provide power to their populations’ surging demand.
Virginia Tech: 2 dead in shooting on campus
By Andrea Noble
and Meredith Somers - The Washington Times
Two people, one of them a campus police officer, were found fatally shot on the Virginia Tech campus Thursday, but authorities at an afternoon news conference stopped short of confirming reports that the second victim was the gunman.
The shooting occurred at about 12:15 p.m. after what university officials described as a routine traffic stop. Police said the shooter was not the person who was pulled over in the vehicle but a third party who approached the officer with a gun and opened fire.
Virginia Tech police officer, gunman killed
By Daniel de Vise - WashingtonPost.com
A routine traffic stop at Virginia Tech turned violent Thursday, leaving a police officer and his assailant dead and the campus on lockdown, a scenario reminiscent of the 2007 massacre that claimed 33 lives and redefined how universities respond to emergencies.
The mayhem began about 12:15 p.m., when a Virginia Tech patrol officer stopped a driver at the university’s coliseum parking lot. Someone — not the person who was pulled over — walked up to the officer and shot him. The shooter then ran.
Saudi Prince's plan to buy
Weapons of Mass Destruction to put the West in a spot
By Deepak Rangan - CommodityOnline.com
The prince of Saudi Arabia, Turki bin Faisal, has called for hisCrude Oil rich country to acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) so as to ensure that Iran and Israel's nuclear ambitions do not threaten his nation's security. Saudi Arabia is the worlds largest producer and exporter of crude oil in the world and as such, the latest statement is sure to put both Europe and the US in a tight spot.
"If our efforts and the efforts of the world community fail to bring about the dismantling of the Israeli arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and preventing Iran from acquiring the same, then why shouldn’t we at least study seriously all available options, including acquiring WMDs, so that our future generations will not blame us for neglecting any courses of action that will keep looming dangers away from us", the prince said in a conference.
Pakistani Editorial Says
Nuclear War with India "Inevitable"
as Water Dispute Continues
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
Every now and again, one reads an editorial that stops the reader in his tracks.
On 8 December, with the headline "War Inevitable To Tackle Indian Water Aggression," Pakistan’s Urdu-language Nawa-e Waqt, issued such a screed.
Nawa-e Waqt bluntly commented on India’s Kashmiri water polices and Islamabad’s failure up to now to stop New Delhi’s efforts to construct hydroelectric dams in Kashmir, "India should be forcibly prevented from constructing these dams. If it fails to constrain itself, we should not hesitate in launching nuclear war because there is no solution except this."
Authenticity of Iranian captured US drone questioned Military expert says drone put on show by Iran's Revolutionary Guard looks like parade float and too intact for downed aircraft
By Julian Borger - Guardian.co.uk
Iran's Revolutionary Guard have displayed an aircraft that they claimed was a US drone brought down over Iranian airspace. They said on Thursday it was downed by electronic means.
The US conceded it lost a drone based in western Afghanistan, which American newspaper reports said was part of a intensive surveillance campaign aimed at detecting a covert Iranian nuclear weapons programme. But weapons experts questioned the authenticity of the aircraft put on show by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Lindsey Williams: U.S./NATO to Insite Iranian War
by Sept/Oct of 2012 1/4
Lindsey Williams: U.S./NATO to Insite Iranian War
by Sept/Oct of 2012 2/4
Lindsey Williams: U.S./NATO to Insite Iranian War
by Sept/Oct of 2012 3/4
Lindsey Williams: U.S./NATO to Insite Iranian War
by Sept/Oct of 2012 4/4
It's Time to Think in Terms of Gold
By Jeff Clark, BIG GOLD - CaseyResearch.com
A young woman – let's call her Andrea – inherited some money from her father in late 1997. She was only nineteen at the time. Not knowing the first thing about investing, she kept the money in stocks and bonds as her father had, wanting to hold on to it until she really needed it. She played it "safe."
She got married last year and so began to withdraw the money. She was pleased to see a chart from the broker that showed her portfolio was up about 20%. While admittedly not a great return over 12 years, her account had nevertheless survived both the 2000 tech crash and the 2008 market meltdown. She knew not all investors could not say the same thing.
UBS on Gold: Prepare for explosive moves in 2012
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold prices will see some explosive moves in 2012, UBS reports even though the current nature of gold proves to be a difficult hurdle for short-term trade.
"Our recent meetings suggest clients would prefer for gold to move more convincingly back into the safe-haven camp as its current hybrid state makes it a difficult short-term trade", the bank report states while adding that gold may be basing itself for "potentially explosive moves" in 2012.
What you need to know about China and gold
By Shivom Seth
In Beijing, the Gold Price has exceeded 430 Yuan ($67.69) per gram, but consumer enthusiasm to buy the yellow metal is just as high as the price of the precious metal. Reports indicate that China and the Chinese government are keen to accumulate the yellow metal over the coming months.
Though the Chinese traditional lunar Year of the Dragon is still two months away, dragon related gold products have already started appearing in most shops across the country, enticing buyers.
Third currency war to take world back to gold standard?
By Anatoly Miranovsky - Pravda.ru
The issues of foreign exchange regulation and the future of the world financial system continue to occupy free minds. Investment banker James Rickards believes that the world lives in the situation of the Third Currency War. The U.S. is exporting inflation and tying to limit protective manipulations with exchange rate of other countries, Rickards says.
The author of the book "Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis" reminds us of a sharp rise in inflation in China during the implementation of quantitative easing programs instigated by the Fed.
Hugo Salinas-Price:
What Every Politician Needs to Know About Silver
By Ron Hera
Mr. Salinas-Price serves as President of the Asociación Cívica Mexicana Pro Plata A.C. (Mexican Civic Association for Silver), which promotes the use of silver as legal tender in México. Mr. Salinas-Price is an outspoken proponent of sound financial and monetary policies in the country of México.
Hera Research Newsletter (HRN): Thank you for joining us today. Would you tell our readers about your efforts to make silver coins legal tender in México?
Hugo Salinas-Price: México is the first and only country where we have a Congress that is conscious of an alternative to paper money and that is favorable to it. México is the only country where this type of reform is being contemplated at the national level. The rest of the world is stagnating completely in the morass of un-backed paper money without considering any alternative.
Marc Faber:
"I Have A Very Special Stock Tip For You.
The Symbol Is G-O-L-D"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
It has been a while since the Marc Faber graced Zero Hedge. It is time to remedy that. Providing his traditional dose of snark, tragedy and realism, the Gloom, Boom and Doom report author spoke to Bloomberg TV, and when asked what his outlook for the euro is, dispensed the following pearl: "I have a very special stock tip for you. The symbol is g-o-l-d. That is what I prefer to hold. Both the euro and the dollar are long-term undesirable currencies, especially given zero interest rates in the U.S. Equities to some extent become like cash because they become a store of value compared to cash at a zero interest-rates. Paintings become a store of value, stamps become a store of value." Needless to say, this is the kind of response that will get him banned from CNBC for life when Bartiromo breathlessly asks him, "ok, you think the world is ending, so what five stocks would you buy." As for his latest report, "It's actually quite gloomy but if you're very gloomy what do you invest in: Treasuries, Italian bonds or commodities or equities? I happen to think U.S. equities are not terribly expensive, so relatively speaking to other assets, they may for a while actually do quite well." Considering the ridiculousness of the market over the past two weeks when it has gone up on nothing but lies, Faber just may have a point.
ECB May Dig Deeper Into Crisis Toolbox
as Leaders Mark ‘Date With Destiny’
By Gabi Thesing and Jeff Black - bloomberg.com
The European Central Bank may delve deeper into its toolbox today to stimulate bank lending and fight off a recession as Europe’s leaders gather to lay the foundations for a fiscal union.
ECB policy makers meeting in Frankfurt will cut the benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 1 percent, according to 53 of 58 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. They may also loosen collateral criteria to give banks greater access to cheap cash and offer longer-term loans, said three euro-area officials with knowledge of the deliberations.
Geithner 'encouraged' by Europe's progress
By Aaron Smith @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday in France that he has faith in the ability of European leaders to solve their debt crisis.
"We're encouraged by the progress they're making, not just to put in place economic reforms across Europe to create the conditions for stronger growth in the future but to try to build a stronger architecture for fiscal union, a fiscal compact," said Geithner, after meeting with French finance minister Francois Baroin in Paris.
Sarkozy and Merkel unveil two-speed EU plan to shore up euro Proposals make eurozone centre of EU policy-and decision-making in the EU and complicate Cameron's balancing act
By Ian Traynor and David Gow in Brussels - Guardian.co.uk
Germany and France have unveiled radical and divisive new proposals to put the euro on a new footing and settle the EU's worst ever crisis. If agreed, the Franco-German pact will entrench a new era of two-speedEurope, making the eurozone the centre of policy-and decision-making in the EU and complicating David Cameron's balancing act on Europe.
Before a crucial two-day summit starting in Brussels on Thursday evening, billed as the last chance to save the euro, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, outlined their vision for European reform in a letter to Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council chairing the summit.
Possible Implications of an Iranian Oil Embargo
Written by The Oil Drum - OilPrice.com
Does Thursday's announcement that the EU is considering to ban oil imports from Iran epitomise the draining of power from west to east? The big winners here will be China and India, who do not fear rising Iranian influence and who will gladly soak up any additional oil exports they may have to offer. However, ending this small dependency upon Iranian oil imports in Europe (Figure 2) does clear the way for military action without the need to ponder the immediate consequences on oil imports.
All Hail The United States Of Germany?
The Rest Of Europe Is Facing
Either German Domination Or Financial Collapse
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
It has now become very clear who dominates Europe. As European officials prepare to gather for one of the most important summits in EU history, it has become apparent that either the German plan for a new EU treaty is going to be adopted or there is not going to be a deal at all. Germany wants to impose strict new fiscal restraints on all of the eurozone nations. This would include a new 3 percent budget deficit rule with automatic sanctions on any violators. The European Court of Justice would be given power to decide whether or not an individual nation was complying with the 3 percent rule or not. A highly controversial new tax on all financial transactions is also being proposed, along with a number of other repressive new regulations that are designed to more tightly integrate Europe. Germany says that if all 27 EU nations are not willing to go along with a new treaty then it is prepared to strike an agreement with just the 17 nations that make up the eurozone. But not everyone is thrilled with what Germany is trying to do. Critics are saying that the German proposals (which are also being backed by the French) would mean a massive loss of sovereignty for most of the nations that make up the eurozone, and they would essentially turn the eurozone into "the United States of Germany".
"We cannot afford another half-baked solution" A few excerpts from a Financial Times editorial: We cannot afford another half-baked solution
(ht Pat) CalculatedRiskBlog.com
... there are but hours to save the euro ... The world cannot afford another half-baked solution. ... What [Merkel and Sarkozy] laid out was little more than a stability plan on steroids, based on a misdiagnosis of the crisis that divides the eurozone into nations that are fiscally virtuous and those deemed to be profligate “sinners”.
A politically sustainable plan needs ... the hope of rebalancing within the eurozone, not just an endless vista of austerity.
In the short run, some fiscal agreements combined with ECB intervention will help. And it looks like the ECB will take more action tomorrow, from Bloomberg: ECB to Consider More Measures to Stimulate Bank Lending.
The Risk of Sovereign Debt
Mises Daily: by David Howden
With a 50 percent haircut recently given on the Greek sovereign-debt question, investors are increasingly asking what the real risk of sovereign debt is. It would appear that investors underpriced the risk inherent in sovereign debt, especially that of Europe's periphery. One might even go so far as to say that investors made foolish choices in the past and are now getting their just deserts.
Such statements require an assessment of what the specific risk is of holding sovereign debt, and how specific European institutions affected these risk factors.
Keiser Report: Hang Paulson! (E218)
MF Global Judge Tells Trustee
to Disclose More on Firm’s Work for JPMorgan
By Linda Sandler - Bloomberg.com
MF Global Inc. brokerage trustee James Giddens must disclose more details of his work for JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP before a judge determines whether he can handle the case disinterestedly.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn in a court order today told the trustee to say whether PwC or JPMorgan, agent for a $300 million loan to MF Global’s parent, or any of the company's other lenders are currently clients of Giddens's law firm, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, and if so, the fees billed or collected.
Corzine to testify before Congress about MF Global
By James O'Toole @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- After weeks of speculation about how more than a billion dollars in customer money went missing at MF Global, former CEO Jon Corzine will give his side of the story on Capitol Hill Thursday.
Corzine, also a former senator and governor of New Jersey, has been called to testify before the House Agriculture Committee as it investigates what went wrong at the brokerage firm, which went bankrupt in late October after disclosing bets on risky European debt that sparked a panic among investors.
The Entire Futures/Options Market
Has Been Destroyed by the MF Global Collapse
Ann Barnhardt interviewed by Jim Puplava - SilverBearCafe.com Jim Puplava: Joining me as my special guest on the program today is Ann Barnhardt, formerly of Barnhardt Capital Management. And Ann, you were a commodity broker for eight years and then you formed your own independent brokerage for six years. A couple of weeks ago you made the painful decision to shut your doors because you felt your clients' money and positions were no longer safe. What led you to draw those conclusions? Ann Barnhardt: Well, obviously, it was the MF global collapse and more specifically the fall out after the MF Global collapse and the reaction by the CFTC, the SEC and most especially by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange [the "Merc"]. The actions, specifically by the Merc after the MF Global collapse were unprecedented, unfathomable and completely and totally intolerable. The Merc itself basically did the equivalent of sticking a nine millimeter in their mouth and pulling the trigger by not stepping forward, backstopping the MF Global client accounts and at the very least, the Merc should have allowed the MF Global customers to liquidate their accounts and then transfer to other firms. What the Merc did was the worst possible thing - they froze those people out of their accounts and didn't allow them to liquidate while the markets continued to trade. And I cannot over-emphasize the importance of that, the risk that those people were exposed to in the cattle business (and my forte is cattle. I am actually a cash cattle person. My brokerage business was geared almost exclusively towards livestock and grade. I have a lot of contacts in the cattle industry who didn't necessarily do their futures business with me but were contacts of mine who did do business through brokers that cleared through MF) who lost tens of thousands of dollars on hedge positions that they wanted to get out of but could not get out of in the week and a half after the MF Global collapse.
Fed Faces New Scrutiny
for Trillions in Assistance to Banks After Crisis
PBS.org - Transcript JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, new questions about the money the Federal Reserve provided to banks in the wake of the financial crisis.
Bloomberg magazine published a report this week detailing loans made by the Fed in 2008 and 2009, loans that totaled more than a trillion dollars on a single day in December 2008, and more than $7 trillion in loans and other commitments to saving the financial system between 2007 and 2010.
The extent of the loans to specific banks wasn't revealed to Congress at the time. The article also says that banks earned billions of dollars of profits on these loans, and that a number of Wall Street firms borrowed money even as they publicly told investors that their financial position was strong.
Fed Faces New Scrutiny
for Trillions in Assistance to Banks After Crisis
Chinese Firms Tired of Wall Street Shift to H.K.
By Mark Lee - Bloomberg.com
Chinese technology companies that raised $7.8 billion from Wall Streetinvestors in initial public offerings during the past 12 years have at least one good reason to delist in New York and take their business toHong Kong.
Valuations appear to be significantly higher in Hong Kong. Perfect World Co. (PWRD), China’s fourth-biggest online games operator, trades at 3.9 times its estimated earnings in New York, while smaller rival NetDragon Websoft Inc. (777) is valued at 13 times in Hong Kong. Such disparities may push some technology companies to consider moving back east, said Victoria Mio, a senior portfolio manager at Robeco Group in Hong Kong.
Cuomo's Tax Increase on Wealthy New Yorkers
Wins Approval in State Senate
By Freeman Klopott - Bloomberg.com
The New York Senate approved Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to overhaul the state tax code by raising rates on the wealthiest residents and cutting them for millions of married couples earning less than $300,000 a year.
The Senate, where Republicans have a one-vote edge, passed the measure 55-0 in a special session. It now moves to the Assembly. The deal was announced yesterday in a joint statement by Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
The Biggest Corporate Layoffs of All Time
247WallSt.com
Eleven American companies have laid off a total of nearly 600,000 people in the past two decades. Each also fired a large number of employees at one time to earn it a place among the largest corporate layoffs in modern American history.
According to information 24/7 Wall St. has reviewed, large layoffs are almost exclusively the result of two conditions. They happen in industries near the end of their most successful periods, or because of difficult economic conditions.
California, Nevada form alliance
to crack down on foreclosure fraud
By Michael Martinez, CNN
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Saying their states are hardest hit by the nation's foreclosure and mortgage crises, the attorneys general of California and Nevada formalized Tuesday a joint investigation alliance to help homeowners victimized by fraud, officials said.
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris and Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said they are willing to partner with other states and provide support as California and Nevada investigate how pervasive is fraud in foreclosures and mortgages.
Weak Demand Factoring Into Nationwide Dip in Home Prices
NationalMortgageProfessional.com
CoreLogic has released its October Home Price Index (HPI) which shows that home prices decreased 1.3 percent on a month-over-month basis nationwide, the third consecutive monthly decline. According to the CoreLogic HPI, national home prices, including distressed sales, also declined by 3.9 percent on a year-over-year basis in October 2011 compared to October 2010. This follows a decline of 3.8 percent in September 2011 compared to September 2010. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by 0.5 percent in October 2011 compared to October 2010 and by 2.1 percent in September 2011 compared to September 2010. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate-owned (REO) transactions.
Occupy Our Homes shakes up mortgage giants
by: JOHN WOJCIK - PeoplesWorld.org
In 20 cities across America today hundreds of protesters disrupted foreclosure auctions, squatted in foreclosed homes and staged dramatic public showdowns against big banks and housing giants. The protests were all part of a National Day of Action to Occupy Our Homes.
Protesters say it was corrupt banking practices that created both the mortgage boom and then the prolonged economic crisis engulfing the 99 percent.
A new national organization committed to squatting in foreclosed homes known as Organizing for Occupation has teamed up with Occupy Wall Street, labor, religious and community groups to form the new group called Occupy Our Homes.
Occupy Big Business:
The Sharing Economy's Quiet Revolution In the shadow of the Great Recession and the Occupy Wall St. movement, ordinary people are re-negotiating their terms with big business. They want to spend less, do more, and solve problems together. They are the foundation of the new "sharing economy."
By Sara Horowitz - TheAtlantic.com
Big business is stumbling. Unemployment is still too damn high. And the middle class is increasingly just a memory. With all this bad news, where can we look for hope?
Kickstarter. Zipcar. Shareable. Etsy. Kiva. Prosper. Airbnb.
These and other "collective consumption" companies are part of the new economy arising out of necessity, as traditional businesses and government are increasingly unable to meet Americans' needs and provide basic supports.
The Occupiers – and their Great Depression Relatives
BoilingFrogsPost.com
Scorned by some, embraced by others, the Occupy movement is not going away
Originally inspired in part by the "Arab Spring," this movement has drawn strength from popular anger against economic conditions, and more fundamentally, concern that the playing field is stacked against the little guy. Like the Tea Party before it, the early success has attracted powerful special interest groups hoping to capitalize. Time will tell if corrupting forces like this end up undermining the Occupy impact.
IRS CDP "Hearing" – Nov 29, 2011
by Calvin - Marc Stevens.net
She opens up with a accusatory statement condemning Marc’s client to TAXPAYER status without reviewing the facts and verifying the validity of such legal status by saying; “My job as a settlement officer is to resolve tax controversies on a basis that is fair and impartial to both the government and the TAXPAYER.” For some strange reason she believes the government is based on principals of fairness and impartiality when it coercively steals every cent it spends to pay for the crimes they wish to commit under guise of a legitimate service/social necessity. Also, to what Marc was pointing out, the legal status of TAXPAYER is established using certain factual criteria. The only question that is really being asked here is what facts do you rely on that Mr. X is a TAXPAYER, do they exist? Not being able to answer such a simple and straight-forward question leaves one to think: why? The answer on the other side of that question is what “they” are so hopelessly cognitively-dissonant of.
FedEx Said to Plan Purchase
of Boeing Freighters Listed at $5.26 Billion
By Natalie Doss and Susanna Ray - Bloomberg.com
FedEx Corp. (FDX) plans to order about 30 Boeing Co. (BA) wide-body freighters to replace older, less fuel- efficient jets at the world’s largest cargo airline, three people familiar with the matter said.
The order may be announced as soon as next week, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the matter hasn't been made public. Talks have ended with Airbus SAS, a Boeing competitor, the person said.
Boeing Machinists head to polls;
contract keyed to 737 Max
Puget Sound Business Journal by Steve Wilhelm
Union members were unusually quiet early Wednesday evening, as they trickled into the Machinists 751 headquarters in Tukwila to vote on an unusual four-year contract extension with Boeing.
Near the end of the 6 p.m. cutoff, voting monitors counted off the seconds, and then closed the doors.
Voting simultaneously ceased at polling sites in Frederickson, Renton, Everett, and Auburn, and ballot boxes were loaded into vehicles for transport to the headquarters for counting.
Public knows 1% of what went on in Clinton administration Bob Woodward says sitting next to Al Gore is 'taxing, unpleasant’
By Judy Kurtz - TheHill.com
If you plan on throwing a dinner party full of VIPs, whatever you do, don't seat Bob Woodward next to Al Gore.
In a speech at the Organization for International Investment’s annual dinner at D.C.'s Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Thursday, the famed Washington Post journalist, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, disclosed that he doesn't enjoy the former vice president as a tablemate.
Does the Indefinite Detention Bill Foretell Future?
Greg Hunter - USAWatchdog.com
The recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (Senate Bill 1867), otherwise known as the "Indefinite Detention Bill," should scare the heck out of anyone who loves the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This bill effectively hands over control to the military to arrest, torture and even kill terrorists on American soil. It also allows the military to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely without a trial or due process. This applies to both non-citizens and citizens of the United States! With this bill, you are not innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty until proven innocent, and you may never get a trial to defend yourself. There is surprisingly little written in the mainstream media about this Senate bill that passed 93 to 7 at the end of November.
Government Activating FEMA Camps Across U.S.
Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones - Infowars.com
Infowars.com has received a document originating from Halliburton subsidiary KBR that provides details on a push to outfit FEMA and U.S. Army camps around the United States. Entitled “Project Overview and Anticipated Project Requirements,” the document describes services KBR is looking to farm out to subcontractors. The document was passed on to us by a state government employee who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
Police State 4: The Rise of FEMA Full Length
What Is The Best Country In The World
For Americans To Relocate To
In Order To Avoid The Coming Economic Collapse?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Millions of American citizens have already left the United States in search of a better life. As the economy continues to crumble and as our society slowly falls apart, millions of others are thinking about it. But moving to another country is not something to be done lightly. The reality is that there are a vast array of social, cultural, economic and safety issues to be considered. If you have never traveled outside of North America, then you have no idea how incredibly different life in other parts of the world can be. For those that are unfamiliar with international travel, it can be quite a shock to suddenly be immersed in a foreign culture. In fact, no matter how experienced you are, choosing to relocate to a new country is never easy. But things have gone downhill so dramatically in the United States that picking up and moving to a foreign nation is being increasingly viewed as a viable alternative by millions of Americans. A lot of people have decided that they simply do not want to be in the United States when the excrement hits the fan. So what is the best country in the world for Americans to relocate to in order to avoid the coming economic collapse?
Coming Soon to the Southwest: The Age of Thirst The western United States could soon face the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization.
By William deBuys - MotherJones.com
Consider it a taste of the future: The fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres); biggest fire ever in New Mexico (156,600 acres); all-time worst fire year in Texas history (3,697,000 acres).
The fires were a function of drought. As of summer's end, 2011 was the driest year in 117 years of record keeping for New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana, and the second driest for Oklahoma. Those fires also resulted from record heat. It was the hottest summer ever recorded for New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, as well as the hottest August ever for those states, plus Arizona and Colorado.
The arrogance of eurozone elites
could kill the European Union Disaster in the eurozone will lead to a democratic crisis
unless EU reforms have popular consent.
By Jack Straw - Telegraph.co.uk
In 1818, Castlereagh claimed that the Congress System of diplomacy – established to secure peace and stability across a war-ravaged Europe – amounted to “a new discovery in the European government… giving to the counsels of the Great Powers the efficiency and almost the simplicity of a single state”. While the style may have dated, the sense is extraordinarily contemporary. For the huge pressures built up within that system – and its ultimate collapse – remind us of the drum beat of European history, of the fact that few political institutions, supra-national ones included, are perpetual. The more entrenched they become, the greater the stake the elites have in them; but without refreshing their popular legitimacy, they can easily fail.
Globalisation has turned on its Western creators From the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements of the US to the rise of populist politics in Europe, the globalisation backlash is everywhere.
By Jeremy Warner - TheAtlantic.com
A number of years ago, a story went around that sprouts were being transported from across Britain to an East Anglian airport, from where they were sent to Poland for washing and packaging before being air-freighted back again for sale in supermarkets located but a few miles from where they were grown.
This is an extreme example of the sometimes insane supply-chain dynamics of modern-day globalisation, but it speaks loudly to widespread disillusionment with the once-unquestioned blessings of free trade. From the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements of the US to the renewed rise of populist politics in Europe, the backlash is everywhere to be seen.
Mikhail Gorbachev calls for Russian elections to be annulled Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet Union leader, has called for Russia's elections be rerun due to fraud.
Telegraph.co.uk
Riot police in helmets roughly dragged more than 550 protesters into detention vans Tuesday evening in central Moscow but the opposition warned they would stage a major protest organised via the internet at the weekend. Protesters were planning more demonstrations today.
Amid growing international alarm, Mr Gorbachev said the results of Sunday's poll should be annulled and new elections held due to "numerous falsifications and rigging."
"The results do not reflect the will of the people," Mr Gorbachev, president when the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago, told the Interfax news agency.
Russia's anti-Putin protests grow Tens of thousands say they are prepared to take to the streets in the biggest challenge yet to the country's government
By Miriam Elder in Moscow - Guardian.co.uk
Russia's anti-government protest movement gathered momentum has as tens of thousands of people said they were prepared to take to the streets this weekend in the biggest challenge to Vladimir Putin's rule.
With concern inside the Kremlin growing, Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, met their security council, including the interior and defence ministers, the head of the federal security service (FSB) and the country's foreign intelligence chief, to discuss the situation.
U.S. Closely Monitoring Syria's Chemical Weapons Stockpile Some officials fear Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could use the weapons against protesters. What happens if he does?
By Rachel Oswald - TheAtlantic.com
WASHINGTON--The United States is quietly but closely monitoring the status of Syria's large chemical-weapons stockpile amid fears that the regime of autocratic ruler Bashar al-Assad could use the warfare agents to quell continued political protests or divert the materials to extremist groups that operate in the region.
U.S. government officials declined to discuss specifics of the monitoring operation or what intelligence resources were involved, citing the need to maintain secrecy about operational tactics. They acknowledged, though, that there is a great deal of concern in Washington over Syria's chemical arsenal.
Is Saudi Arabia Heading for a Downfall?
Written by Gail Tverberg - OilPrice.com
Saudi Arabia recently announced that it had halted a $100 billion oil production expansion plan to raise capacity to 15 million barrels a day by 2020. At this point, the country claims to have capacity of 12 million barrels a day. What does this mean for its future? Let’s take a look behind the figures. [see chart]
The figure shows that Saudi Arabia has not been increasing its production for many years. At the same time, the country’s own oil consumption has been rising rapidly. The combination means that oil exports have already started declining.
Saudi Prince Calls for Kingdom to Acquire WMDs
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
So much for peace in the Middle East.
On 5 December Prince bin Turki al Faisal, speaking at the “The Gulf and the Globe” conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh urged the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to become a powerful regional bloc by establishing a unified armed force and defense structure.
While bin Turki’s call for the GCC to pool its military resources is nothing new, his idea of supporting Gulf countries acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) if Israel and Iran do not constrain their nuclear programs represents the edge of a precipitously slippery slope.
Michael Klare, A New Cold War in Asia?
Posted by Michael Klare - TomDispatch.com
Last Friday, the U.S. military formally handed over its largest base in Iraq, the ill-named "Camp Victory," to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The next morning,Washington Post columnist David Ignatius officially declared counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East dead in -- if you don’t mind an inapt word -- the water. (He is personally in mourning.) He quoted one unnamed official describing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s planning for the new Pentagon budget in this fashion: "It’s not going to be likely that we will deploy 150,000 troops to an area the way we did in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Gold: Five reasons why 2012
will be golden year for investors
By Amine Bouchentouf - CommodityOnline.com
The outlook for Gold is bullish for 2012. The European debt crisis, which dominated 2011, will continue to hang over markets in 2012. I’m extremely bearish on Europe. The political and financial systems are inadequate to deal with the serious fiscal and sovereign-debt problems the old continent faces.
Europe and Gold
The risk of contagion is large and the safety mechanism is convoluted (too many countries with too many conflicting interests). Europeans don’t have a handle on the situation; some banks and countries are already insolvent. The situation is extremely precarious.
"Major Buyers Are Finding It's Hard To Get Physical Gold"
By Tekoa Da Silva - BullMarketThinking.com
I had the great pleasure this week to speak with Mark Cutifani, CEO of $16B AngloGold Ashanti, and it was an incredibly fun interview to say the least. Mark has been in the commodities business for decades, and was COO at CVRD Inco., before it became "Vale", now valued at $119B. Given Mark's global commodities background & network depth, his insights into the commodities & precious metals markets are razor sharp, and quite telling of the global picture.
WGC: Gold as a strategic asset for European investors
LONDON (Commodity Online): New research by New Frontier Advisors confirms gold’s unique role as a diversifier and foundation asset in the portfolios of euro-based investors, especially at a time of heightened currency and investment risk.
The report, 'Gold as a strategic asset for European investors', commissioned by the World Gold Council, explores gold as a strategic asset across five sets of asset allocation studies, including four using historical data spanning 1986 to 2010, and one using the 1999 to 2010 time frame.
Why silver is extremely bullish: Six factors
By Jim Otis - CommodityOnline.com
With Silver trading over 35% down from its May highs of near $50/oz, silver is looking extremely bullish for a number of reasons and many traders are expecting prices to double or even tripe over the next 6 months. Here are six factors would drive the price of silver higher.
--There are more (probably much more) than five Billion ounces of Gold bullion collecting dust in vaults around the world, and more is added to the vaults everyday because more is mined than is used as jewelry or industry or investment products.
Gold standard supporters
are lunatics and hacks: Nouriel Roubini
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Goldbugs who call for a return to the Gold standard as a means to solve the financial crisis are lunatics, global economist Nouriel Roubini said.
"One of the major causes of the Great Depression was the existence of the gold standard", Roubini argues. "They restrained the ability of Central Banks to provide lender-of-last-resort support to their banks, created tight money — it created bank runs, and Lead eventually to the Great Depression", he said in a Yahoo interview.
Geithner Presses Europe for Debt Solution
[Google title for free article pass]
Treasury Secretary Meets With Germany's Finance Minister, Central Bank Officials as EU Leaders' Summit Approaches
By SUDEEP REDDY - WSJ.com $$
BERLIN—Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, boosting pressure on European nations ahead of a critical summit, appealed to euro-zone officials on Tuesday for stronger action to calm the Continent's deepening debt turmoil.
Mr. Geithner, dispatched by President Barack Obama on a three-day trip to Europe, said the currency bloc will need "a sustained commitment of political will" to resolve its troubles.
Geithner Backs Merkel’s Crisis Plan With 'Stronger Firewall'
Ian Katz and Cheyenne Hopkins - WashingtonPost.com
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner backed a German-French push for closer economic cooperation in Europe, urging policy makers to work with central banks to erect a “stronger firewall” to end the debt crisis.
Geithner, speaking in Berlin today after talks with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, praised the commitment to reform programs put in place by new governments in Spain, Italy and Greece, saying that he is "very encouraged" by recent efforts to buttress the euro area. He welcomed "progress toward a fiscal compact for the euro zone," echoing language used last week by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.
U.S. officials quietly cajole European leaders on debt crisis
By Zachary A. Goldfarb and Neil Irwin - WashingtonPost.com
Senior U.S. officials are playing a behind-the-scenes role in efforts to contain the European debt crisis, cajoling the region’s leaders to take more steps to calm markets and trying to mediate among European governments with competing interests.
U.S. officials have served at times as a quiet intermediary between European political leaders and the powerful European Central Bank, which tries to stay out of the political fray. In particular, according to U.S. officials, Americans have passed along information about how much money European governments might be willing to contribute to a rescue fund, a crucial question for the central bank as it considers its actions.
Tremors from a euro collapse would be global,
with U.S. recession likely
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
To get a sense of how vulnerable the U.S. economy could be if the euro currency union cracks apart, start with the volume of U.S. exports to the euro zone — $153 billion in the first six months of the year. Add several hundred billion dollars in investments by U.S. banks in the euro zone and several trillion dollars’ worth of other financial contracts between the two economies.
As European leaders meet later this week to try to resolve their spreading debt crisis and prevent the breakup of the 17-nation euro zone, U.S. politicians, corporate leaders and financial analysts are watching anxiously for a breakthrough.
S&P has no choice:
Euroland risks bankruptcy on current policies
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Very quickly, Standard & Poor’s is of course right.
The immediate eurozone crisis cannot be solved by punishment measures alone. There needs to be some form of joint debt issuance and a lender of last resort to halt "systemic stress".
It was well-timed to drop this bombshell on Monday night after the Merkozy fudge (though S&P made the decision earlier), since the duumvirate yet again failed to offer any meaningful way out of the impasse.
"Policymakers appear to have acted only in response to mounting market pressures, rather than pro-actively leading market expectations in a way that might have better supported and strengthened investor confidence. We take the view that the defensive and piecemeal nature of this response has helped expand the crisis of confidence in the eurozone."
Eurozone debt crisis:
safeguard the City or I’ll veto new EU treaty,
warns David Cameron
David Cameron has threatened to veto a far-reaching deal to save the euro unless he wins safeguards for the City of London and the European single market.
By James Kirkup, and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels - Telegraph.co.uk
The Prime Minister raised the stakes on signing a new European Union treaty as the scale of the planned "fiscal union" became clear: it includes proposals for the EU to have "intrusive control" of national budgets.
Germany and France have drawn up the plans for more centralised control of eurozone members’ tax and spending decisions, which will be debated at a Brussels summit this week.
Bank of France debts jump tenfold on capital flight The Bank of France faces surging debts to Germany's Bundesbank and fellow central banks in the EMU system as foreign investors pull large sums out of French accounts.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
French lenders lost €100bn (£86bn) in short-term deposits in September alone, mostly due to precautionary moves by US money market funds and Asian investors afraid of France's exposure to Italy. "There were huge net capital outflows," said Eric Dor from the IESEG School of Management in Lille.
The effects of this capital flight are surfacing on the Bank of France's books under the European Central Bank's so-called "Target2" scheme, an ECB payment network that lets funds move automatically where needed.
Greek coalition government passes tough austerity budget Greece's new coalition government has secured enough votes to pass an austerity budget setting tough deficit goals.
Telegraph.co.uk staff and agencies
Led by caretaker Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the Greek parliament approved the budget late on Tuesday which commits to unpopular cutbacks demanded by EU partners in return for fresh loans.
The budget is designed to cut the deficit from a projected 9pc of GDP this year to 5.4pc in 2012.
Mr Papademos had earlier urged lawmakers to vote for the economic blueprint, which he said would begin to reverse disastrous policies that had saddled each Greek with a debt of over €30,000 (£25,780).
Central Bank Band-Aid
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in coordination with five of the world's largest central banks, initiated a plan that will make it cheaper for European banks to borrow U.S. dollars. The central banks of the United States, Europe, Japan, Canada, United Kingdom and Switzerland agreed to cut the costs of reciprocal currency arrangements by 50 basis points, or 0.5 percent. The money will be lent to the European Central Bank (ECB), which will in turn lend it to the EU's commercial financial institutions. Unsurprisingly, the stock market rose nearly 500 points. Equally unsurprisingly, excess cheap dollars will raise prices for American consumers. Bottom line? This is nothing more than the latest effort to kick the EU debt-bomb can further down the road.
Fed disputes report of secret help to big banks
By Neil Irwin - WashingonPost.com
The Federal Reserve has launched an unusual public rebuttal of media claims that the central bank massively subsidized big Wall Street banks during the financial crisis.
Bloomberg News reported last week that emergency lending programs by the Fed gave major banks about $13 billion in extra profit by handing them money at below-market rates. The Washington Post, which has a content partnership with Bloomberg, published ashortened version of the article.
James Rickards:
"Ben Bernanke a Greater Threat to US Dollar
Than Communist China"
By Tekoa Da Silva - BullMarketThinking.com
I had the fantastic opportunity yesterday to connect with James Rickards, Senior Managing Director of Tangent Capital Partners, and author of the recent New York Times Bestseller, "Currency Wars." It was an outstanding interview, and in my opinion, James will be known as one of the great financial visionaries of our time.
During the interview, we talked about James' fascinating experiences working with the Pentagon’s first ever "global financial war" simulation game, in which participants fought using financial market instruments and political posturing. On risks to national security via the financial markets, James commented, "The likelihood of a collapse[US Dollar, Bond & Financial Markets] is higher than a lot of analysts assume…..therefore we are in very dangerous territory."
Fed to hold off on easing, finalize policy framework
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve looks set to hold off on easing monetary policy for a second meeting in a row as it gauges the impact of Europe's crisis on the U.S. economy and ponders additional transparency steps.
The central bank has signaled it is close to wrapping up a months-long effort to revamp or beef up its communications strategy.
It appears to be closing in on a decision to use its quarterly economic forecasts as a way to tell markets what they see as the likely paths of inflation, unemployment and even interest rates themselves.
Kiss the MF Global Money Goodbye, Sources Say
Written By Charlie Gasparino - FOXBusiness.com
Investigators looking into the disappearance of customer funds during the implosion of MF Global last month are coming to the conclusion that the money is likely gone for good, sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell the FOX Business Network.
What they don’t know is just how much money is missing.
That is likely to change as early as Friday, when bankruptcy trustee James Giddens provides an updated tally on the missing money, one of the focal points of civil and criminal investigations into the firm’s bankruptcy and a likely topic of conversation when the first of three Congressional hearings takes place this week.
Jim Willie:
"The Public Will Not Wake Up
Until At Least One Million Private Accounts Are Stolen"
By Tekoa Da Silva - BullMarketThinking.com
According to Jim, US & European investors are at incredible risk. "The entire financial system of the Western world is imploding," said Jim. "There is exponentially rising risks for individuals and their money…the risk right now–is people losing their entire life savings. I cannot seem to get people to understand this"
As we began discussing the MF Global collapse, Jim articulated his belief in a financial slight-of hand originating from “notice to deliver” requests for gold and silver submitted through MF before the collapse, which had the potential to cause a Comex delivery default. "Comex was ready to default on gold and silver in November, and rather than honor the notices for delivery, JP Morgan stole the funds in the accounts that were calling for delivery…notices for delivery were replaced by stolen accounts." The evidence of this according to Jim is that, "JPM increased the amount of silver in their registered vaults by precisely the amount that was suppose to be delivered… JPM effectively averted both a Comex default and a European Sovereign Debt implosion."
Big Business and the Market
Mises Daily: by Peter G. Klein and Art Carden
Studying economics usually makes one enthusiastic about business and skeptical of politics. Cooperation under commercial institutions is voluntary and wealth creating, while cooperation under political institutions is coercive and wealth reducing. Historically, however, the business firm and the state have been closely linked. Businesses, large and small, are affected by the state: they lobby the state, they are often harmed by the state, and sometimes they benefit from the state. "Big business," in particular, has a long, complex, and often troubled relationship with politicians and bureaucrats. Ayn Rand called big business "America's most persecuted minority," while Murray Rothbard countered that
in the contemporary world of total neo-mercantilism and what is essentially a neo-fascist "corporate state" … Big Business most likely got that way through an intricate and decisive network of subsidies, privileges, and direct and indirect grants of monopoly protection.
Retailers: Ready or Not for Mobile Commerce?
by Teresa Novellino - Portfolio.com
Agrowing number of consumers are using tablets to shop, but are retailers prepared with all of the appropriate bells and whistles? Some new data shows they might not be.
A story by Tech Crunch cites data from research company Compuware that says its data proves the popularity of iPads as gadgets for shopping, but notes that retailers seem to be caught napping when it comes to "couch commerce," a nickname for mobile commerce since tablets are easy to use while lying on the couch.
Confused by Economic Forecasts?
There's a Good Reason
By Jonathan Berr, The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
With all the varied estimations of the chances that the U.S. is headed into a new recession, someone must have gotten it right ... right? But whom?
Is it the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which recently publisheda research paperestimating that the odds were "greater than 50-50" that the U.S. will experience a recession sometime in 2012? That view was backed up by Pacific Investment Management CEO Mohamed A. El-Erian, whorecently told Bloomberg TVthat he found the economic conditions in the U.S. "terrifying" and placed the odds of the country entering a new recession as high as 50%.
Keiser Report: 'Feckless parents' vs Reckless banks (E219)
Citi Cuts 4,500 Jobs, Will Take $400M
Reuters - FOXBusiness.com
Citigroup Inc is cutting 4,500 jobs worldwide, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Tuesday, becoming the latest large bank to trim staff.
Pandit, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference, said the bank would record a $400 million charge in the quarter for severance and other expenses related to the layoffs.
The cuts are equal to about 2 percent of Citi's workforce of 267,000 employees at the end of third quarter 2011.
We're Not Ready: More Bad News About Retirement
By Eamon Murphy - DailyFinance.com
The idea of retirement in America is becoming increasingly far removed from the idyllic notion of our "golden years." For many, it's now just another source of worry, despair and resignation.
Last month, Ameriprise Financial (AMP) and Wells Fargo (WFC) each separately released ominous retirement surveys. The first reported that respondents aged 40 to 75 in the nation's largest cities were significantly less confident this year than last about their ability to retire; increased feelings of retirement-related anxiety and depression were also reported.
Facing bankruptcy, US Postal Service
plans unprecedented cuts
to first-class mail next spring
By AP - WashingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — Already mocked by some as “snail mail,” first-class U.S. mail will slow even more by next spring under plans by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service to eliminate more than 250 processing centers. Nearly 30,000 workers would be laid off, too, as the post office struggles to respond to a shift to online communication and bill payments.
The cuts are part of $3 billion in reductions aimed at helping the agency avert bankruptcy next year. They would virtually eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day, a change in first-class delivery standards that have been in place since 1971.
How the Postal Service Cuts Will Affect You
By Barbara Thau - DailyFinance.com
The impending changes to the U.S. Postal Service are about to give new meaning to the term "snail mail."
When the post office makescuts to mail service come springto stem billions of dollars in losses, it will not only slow mail delivery, but eliminate the possibility of first-class letters and other mailings being delivered to nearby areas in one day. Currently, around 42% of first-class mail travels from mailbox to destination in a single day.
One of Health Care Reform's Biggest Foes
May Soon Be a Customer
By Bruce Watson - DailyFinance.com
Recently, supporters of President Obama's health care law got a major boost when one of the program's prominent opponents, Mary Brown of Florida, lost her business. According toThe Wall Street Journal, Brown, whose standing to sue is integral to the case against Obama's health care reforms that was headed to the Supreme Court, may be forced to abandon her legal challenge.
The health care reform program, known in some circles as Obamacare, comprises both the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Among other things, those laws will extend health insurance to 30 million uninsured citizens, making it the largest single expansion of the social safety net since Medicare was created in 1965. It is also one of the most controversial: Currently, 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business have a case challenging the program heading to the Supreme Court. Two private citizens -- Brown and Washington state resident Kaj Ahlburg -- are also key participants in the suit.
Wall Street protesters to occupy foreclosed homes As encampment crackdowns continue nationwide, movement joins activist group to refurbish houses for homeless familes
By Adam Gabbatt and Ryan Devereux - Guardian.co.uk
Thousands of Occupy protesters across the US will occupy foreclosed homes today, in what organisers are describing as a "new frontier" for the movement.
In New York, Occupy Wall Street has teamed up with local activist groups to secretly occupy an empty home, and plan to hand the property over to a homeless family. Similar action is scheduled in more than 20 other cities.
The Single Tax: Economic and Moral Implications
Mises Daily: by Murray N. Rothbard
Seventy-five years ago, Henry George spelled out his "single tax" program Progress and Poverty, one of the best-selling economic works of all time. According to E.R. Pease, socialist historian and long-time secretary of the Fabian Society, this volume "beyond all question had more to do with the socialist revival of that period in England than any other book."
Most present-day economists ignore the land question and Henry George altogether. Land is treated as simply capital, with no special features or problems. Yet there is a land question, and ignoring it does not lay the matter to rest. The Georgists have raised, and continue to raise, questions that need answering. A point-by-point examination of single-tax theory is long overdue.
10 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions
By Kiplinger - DailyFinance.com
Years ago, the fellow who was running the IRS at the time toldKiplinger's Personal Finance magazine that he figured millions of taxpayers overpaid their taxes every year by overlooking just one of the money-savers listed here.
Don't be one of those millions: Cut your tax bill to the bone by claiming all the breaks you deserve -- including some you may have forgotten or never even knew about.
Google and Verizon Battle Over Mobile Payments
By Mike Isaac - Wired.com
It always gets ugly when there's money involved.
Just days before Google’s next flagship smartphone launch, Google and Verizon are locked in a public battle over mobile payments, with both companies vying for a foothold in the fledgling mobile e-commerce arena.
The issue in question: Whether Google's e-commerce app — dubbed Google Wallet — should appear on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the biggest Android smartphone launch of 2011. Google says Verizon doesn't want Wallet on the phone.
"Verizon asked us not to include this functionality in the product," a Google spokesman told Wired in an e-mail late Monday evening.
Android Vulnerability Allows Access to Mic, Camera, Data By Charlie Sorrel - Wired.com
Researchers from North Carolina State University have determined that skinned versions of Android may expose private data to any app that makes a request — and all without asking for user permission.
The research team tested handsets from HTC, Motorola and Samsung, along with the vanilla, non-skinned Nexus handsets from Google, and found that the skinned versions of Android introduce vulnerabilities. Depending on the handset, installed apps were able to access location data, make phone calls, use the camera, delete packages, reboot the phone, send text messages and record audio.
Obama speech declares
'make-or-break moment for the middle class' Barack Obama portrays himself as champion of middle class in Kansas address harking back 100 years to Theodore Roosevelt
Reuters - Guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama blasted his Republican foes and Wall Street as he portrayed himself as a champion of the middle class and laid out in the starkest terms yet the populist themes of his 2012 re-election bid.
In a speech meant to echo a historic address given by the former US president Theodore Roosevelt in the same Kansas town more than 100 years ago, Obama railed against "gaping" economic inequality and pressed the case for policies he insisted would help ordinary Americans get through hard times.
Gerald Celente:
'IT'S FASCIST. CAN'T YOU SEE IT?" - Part ONE
Gerald Celente:
'IT'S FASCIST. CAN'T YOU SEE IT?" - Part TWO
20 Signs That The Culture
Of Government Dependence
Has Gotten Completely And Totally Out Of Control
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
More Americans are financially dependent on the government than ever before. For a variety of reasons, there are now tens of millions of Americans that would not be able to survive without government assistance. As I wrote about the other day, the insane economic policies of our "representatives" in Washington D.C. have created a situation where there are not nearly enough decent jobs for everyone. So the job market has become a giant game of "musical chairs" and a lot of American families have been left out in the cold when the music has stopped. Of course we are not going to let them starve in the streets. There are also some Americans that simply do not have the capacity to take care of themselves. It is certainly the compassionate thing to do to give them a helping hand. However, with all of that said, we also have to face the fact that we have created a "culture of dependence" in this country. Americans that are now in their prime working years have been taught all of their lives that the government is going to take care of them from the cradle to the grave. This culture of government dependence has gotten completely and totally out of control, and now nearly half of all American households receive some form of government benefits. As a result, our debt is absolutely exploding, everyone looks to the government to solve our problems and very few Americans seem to possess a very strong work ethic any longer.
The Orwellian American Left
By David Limbaugh - PatriotPost.us
As I heard Barack Obama and his propaganda minister, Jay Carney, endorsing tax cuts as a vehicle for economic growth, I was reminded, again, of George Orwell's "1984" and the striking similarities between his Oceania and the American left's vision for America.
Oceania's Big Brother regime had "four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided," the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty. Each department was dedicated to the opposite principle suggested by its title. "Truth" disseminated lies. "Peace" promoted war. "Love" enforced uniformity of thought. And "Plenty" manipulated the economy to impoverish the people while enriching the ruling class. God was expelled and absolute truth abolished, while "doublespeak" was promoted.
Koch brothers are wolves in sheep’s clothing
By Ishton W. Morton, Cincinnati Public Policy Examiner
Communications from NAACP President & CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said; "The Koch brothers just don't want to take away your right to vote. They want to trick you into believing they are voting rights supporters."
According to the communication, the Koch brothers are perfect examples of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Apparently, these oil billionaires bankroll the Tea Party and now they are channeling their vast fortune to limit the right to vote in 38 states and counting.
George Soros: Global Financial System
In 'Self-Reinforcing Process Of Disintegration'
By Bonnie Kavoussi - The Huffington Post
Billionaire investor George Soros says that the global financial system is on the brink of collapse.
Developed countries are falling into a "deflationary debt trap," in which consumer spending falls, products become more expensive, tax revenues drop, and sovereign debt grows, Soros said last week, according to the Wall Street Journal. As a result, he said, the global financial system is in a "self-reinforcing process of disintegration."
"The consequences could be quite disastrous,"Soros, who was born in Hungary, said at the tenth anniversary of the International Senior Lawyers Project.
Is There Room for Compromise with Socialism?
Mises Daily: by Ludwig von Mises
Private ownership of the means of production (market economy or capitalism) and public ownership of the means of production (socialism or communism or "planning") can be neatly distinguished. Each of these two systems of society's economic organization is open to a precise and unambiguous description and definition. They can never be confounded with one another; they cannot be mixed or combined; no gradual transition leads from one of them to the other; their obversion is contradictory. With regard to the same factors of production, there can only exist private control or public control.
'US poker, Iran chess: Lies vs strategy'
Iran's Growing Latin American Ties Raise US Terror Fears
FOXNews.com
An alleged plot by Iran to hire a hit man from a Mexican cartel shed light on Iran's growing presence in Latin America and the difficulties that poses for Washington.
Long before October, when two officers from an elite Iranian military branch, the Quds Force, were indicted for allegedly plotting to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US in a Washington restaurant, Iran has been building a higher profile in the region.
Tehran has cultivated close ties with several leaders who share Iran's anti-American sentiment, including Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, both of whom have called Iran a "strategic ally." Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has visited Venezuela four times and Bolivia three times, as well as President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former Brazilian leader.
BUILD UP TO WW3 - Iran Has One Card Left To Play
War drums are beating for Iran.
But who's playing them?
Just like the taxpayers of medieval Italian cities, we're having our money siphoned off to pay for a a greedy military machine
By Terry Jones - Guardian.co.uk
In the 14th century there were two pandemics. One was the Black Death, the other was the commercialisation of warfare. Mercenaries had always existed, but under Edward III they became the mainstay of the English army for the first 20 years of what became the Hundred Years war. Then, when Edward signed the treaty of Brétigny in 1360 and told his soldiers to stop fighting and go home, many of them didn't have any homes to go to. They were used to fighting, and that's how they made their money. So they simply formed themselves into freelance armies, aptly called "free companies", that proceeded around France pillaging, killing and raping.
China’s Future Up in the Air
By Eugene Robinson - Truthdig.com
HONG KONG—China has to find a way to continue its rapid growth without choking to death. Literally.
When I landed in Beijing last week, the sky was a brownish miasma through which distant landmarks were only faintly visible. The moment I stepped outside the city’s vast international airport, I noticed an acrid hint of burning coal in the all-too-palpable air. The next day, when I went to see the Great Wall, China’s most famous cultural treasure was wreathed in a gauzy shroud of pollution.
Chanos Crash: Timing China’s Financial Meltdown
by Janet Tavakoli - TavakoliStructuredFinance.com
At an October seminar of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA), carnival economist Niall Ferguson promoted his new book, Civilization: The West and the Rest. He revealed the blindingly obvious as if it were a divine revelation: the U.S. has serious problems. He preached that the U.S. corrupted its six Ferguson-defined "killer apps": competition, science, rule of law, medicine, the consumer society, and a strong work ethic.
Ferguson claims India and China have downloaded these killer apps and compares the West with a virus infected PC and the East with a fast Mac. Never mind that competition, science, medicine, trade, and industrious workers have been in evidence in India and China for centuries. The West didn't invent these ideas, so perhaps there’s more to the story than Ferguson’s pat explanation. As for rule of law, that killer app seems as corrupted in the East as it is in the West. Ferguson’s crowd-pleasing presentation didn’t mention other "killer" apps that are prevalent in China: fraud, high debt levels, and privatizing gains while socializing risks and losses.
Ten solid reasons to buy gold bullion coins
By Kayla McBride - CommodityOnline.com
Buying Gold can be one of the most lucrative and sound investments that you can ever make. There are many different options of gold that you can buy. Depending on what you hope to attain, gold bullion coins may be the most profitable asset you can invest in. Here is a wide range of the reasons why buying gold bullion coins is the way to go in your gold investment.
Why The Gold Trade Is Far From Dead
By Bryan McCormick - SeekingAlpha.com
There has been a fair amount of conversation recently about gold yet again being a dead asset class, the theory this time being that there is no reason to own the precious metal if Eurozone sovereign debt pressures continue to abate.
It is true that the price of gold and related assets have moved very little lately, but it isn't dead yet. There are two indicators we can use to help confirm that.
O.U.R. Federal Credit Union Imploded
BankImplode.com
O.U.R. Federal Credit Union in Eugene, Oregon, was liquidated by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).
The NCUA said Friday night that it had liquidated the $4.25 million O.U.R. Federal Credit Union in Eugene, Ore., and sold “certain … assets and member shares” to the $675 million Northwest Community CU in Springfield, Ore.
The liquidation of the 1,379-member O.U.R. FCU followed its going into conservatorship in June. It was founded in 1969 and served the residents of Lane County, Ore., participating within the past 12 months in programs of the Lane County Department of Community Health and Social Services, the NCUA said.
Economic Armageddon: 2012 or 2013?
By: Clif Droke - GoldSeek.com
In his latest report, Samuel Kress of SineScope reviewed the 120-year cycle and broke it down into its constituent cycles. For the sake of our long time readers, I’m providing my own breakdown of the 120-year cycle and its effects on the past, present and future of the financial market and economy.
The 120-year Mega Cycle first began in the mid 1770s after a prolonged depression and the Revolutionary War, from which our nation was born. Mr. Kress has historically referred to the 120-year cycle as the Revolutionary Cycle since it always portends a revolution of either government or the nation’s way of life. The current 120-year cycle is scheduled to bottom in late 2014, yet already we’re witnessing preliminary signs of this revolutionary unrest in the form of protests and occupation movements across the U.S. and around the world.
Gerald Celente - The Lew Rockwell show - 29 November 2011
Super Rich vs. 99%: Class war will explode But these 10 tricks will backfire with occupiers
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Forget politics. The 99%, the Occupy Wall Street movement, is not about politics. But politicians don't get it yet. The Dems sure don’t. And while Bill O’Reilly says the movement is already dead, insider Frank Luntz thinks OWS is not only very alive, but getting dangerously bigger. In fact, he’s very "scared" for his clients.
Warning: Will somebody please tell Luntz Occupy Wall Street is not about politics? This is class warfare, a revolution about economic inequality, not about political parties, political policies and political solutions … and it’s not going away any time soon.
Deflation Is Coming
GoldSeek.com
The Gold Report: In the Nov. 4 edition of Hotline, you note that America's ratio of debt to gross domestic product (GDP) is north of 350%. Our total debt as a society is somewhere around $57 trillion (T). That's worse than Greece. Is deflation America's biggest economic threat?
Jay Taylor: I believe it is, however, most of my goldbug friends wouldn't agree. It is important to realize that the U.S. is not a third-world country. It still has the world's reserve currency. The central bank, the Federal Reserve, doesn't put money into the hands of the masses. It puts money in banks. It's all about credit extension. That is very difficult to do now. With the debt-to-GDP ratio as it is, it's unsustainable. The markets are telling us that—not only in the U.S., but clearly in Europe as well. We are undergoing one of the largest debt-deleveraging periods in a long time, which may be much larger than what we went through in the 1930s.
Euro Crisis Destabilizing the Dollar
By: Dr. Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman
In response to pressure from Wall Street, the White House and central banks in Europe, the Federal Reserve last week drastically cut interest rates for currency swaps to benefit troubled European banks. This will flood world markets with more dollars and will soon mean rising prices for every American at the grocery store. This extra liquidity will temporarily ease the cash crunch for irresponsible bankers, but in the long run it will make the situation much worse for consumers all over the world. Equities markets registered big gains at the news, but only for a day. Make no mistake - this is not capitalism, and this is not how a free market operates. In a free market, bankruptcies happen, even to large banks. We must remember, free markets are the true and best regulators of financial mismanagement.
How the Euro Crisis Could Destroy the U.S. Economy Europe is closer than you think to bringing down the American--and, therefore, the global--economy.
By Jim Tankersley - TheAtlantic.com
This is the worst-case scenario from Europe, and it just might come true: Italy defaults on its debts. Every major Italian bank collapses. Recession grips the eurozone. Sovereign defaults and bank failures ripple across the Continent. Saddled with bad loans to nations and lenders in Europe, American banks hemorrhage cash. Credit freezes in the United States. Multinational companies, unable to raise money, curb U.S. investment and hiring. Wall Street demands, but fails to get, new bailouts. The entire developed world plummets into recession and, quite possibly, depression.
Dollar's fate in hands of Europe The Fed Makes Sure U.S. Dollar Collapses With The Eurozone
By Avery Goodman - SeekingAlpha.com
On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank announced coordinated actions to shore up international banks. The purpose is to ease pressure on European mega banks which are in increasing danger of insolvency due to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, are heavily short the dollar, via various mechanisms, and must now incur big interest costs in funding dollar-denominated assets.
Debt crisis:
all 17 eurozone countries face losing AAA credit status European leaders have been threatened with a downgrade in their credit ratings if a Franco-German plan to resolve the eurozone debt crisis does not soon show progress.
By James Kirkup, Bruno Waterfield in Brussels - Telegraph.co.uk
Standard and Poor’s, a credit-rating agency, said all 17 eurozone members, including France and even Germany, could lose their AAA ratings without speedy action to resolve the crisis.
A downgrade would effectively scupper the euro rescue because the EUbail-out fund would no longer be able to raise money on bond markets.
S+P has told eurozone countries including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, and Luxembourg that they could be downgraded because of the failure of leaders to resolve the debt crisis.
China Signals Reluctance to Rescue E.U.
By KEITH BRADSHER - NYTimes.com
HONG KONG — The Chinese government over the weekend sought to tamp down international expectations that Beijing might use its large financial reserves to help ease the European debt crisis.
The two government agencies that control the reserves face heavy restrictions on their use, Chinese government officials and economists said.
"The argument that China should rescue Europe does not stand, as reserves are not managed that way," China’s vice minister for foreign affairs, Fu Ying, said in comments prominently reported by the state news media over the weekend.
Jim Rogers - China Money Podcast 25 Nov 2011
Merkel, Sarkozy want new treaty to rescue euro
By Greg Keller and Sarah DiLorenzo - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
PARIS (AP) — The leaders of France and Germany called forcefully Monday for a new European Union treaty that automatically would punish countries that use the euro if they violate existing limits on overspending.
Stocks and the euro rose while European government bond yields dropped sharply as investors viewed the proposal for a closer fiscal union among the 17 countries as an important step to save the euro.
Heroic Ireland can do no more, it is up to Europe now Europe has staked its crisis credibility on Ireland. If any of EMU’s beleaguered debtor states can vindicate the EU strategy of shock therapy and wage deflation, it is surely the Celtic Tiger.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"We used to be the poster child for globalisation: now we are the poster child for austerity," said David Begg, head of the Irish Confederation of Trade Unions.
More than any other EMU country on debtors’ row, Ireland has the mix of vibrant exports, a high trade gearing (over 100pc of GDP), and wage flexibility together needed to pull off an "internal devaluation", the EU’s hairshirt policy of clawing back viablity once it is impossible to devalue.
FTSE 100 'could fall to 4,700' Mounting hopes that European leaders are nearing a resolution to the eurozone debt crisis has sparked a spike in shattered markets, but Goldman Sachs strategists warned that a tough few months could lie ahead for the FTSE 100.
By Rachel Cooper - Telegraph.co.uk
The benchmark index clinched its biggest weekly rise in almost three years on Friday, but the broker said that it expected equities to fall over the next three months and recover "at some point" in the second half of next year.
Within three months, Goldman believes that the blue-chips could sink to 4,700 before climbing back to 5,400 within six months' time and rallying to 5,800 by the end of 2012.
EU crisis explained: Paul Craig Roberts
The Worst In The World –
The U.S. Balance Of Trade Is Mind-Blowingly Bad
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Did you know that we buy about a half a trillion dollars more stuff from the rest of the world than they buy from us? The U.S. balance of trade is not only mind-blowingly bad - it is the worst in the world. It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be558.2 billion dollars. That would be an increase of more than 11 percent from last year. As I have written about previously, the United States is the worst in the world at a lot of things, but as far as the economic well-being of our nation is concerned, our balance of trade is particularly important. Every single month, far more money goes out of this country than comes into it. Tax revenues are significantly reduced as all of this money gets sucked out of our communities. The federal government, state governments and local governments borrow gigantic piles of money to try to make up the difference, but all of this borrowing just makes our debt problems a whole lot worse. In the end, no amount of government debt is going to be able to cover over the fact that our national economic pie is shrinking. We are continually consuming far more wealth than we produce, and that is a recipe for economic disaster.
The Great Western Crackup
By Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
From World War II until very recently, the West - specifically Europe and the United States - was on a course for greater centralization, greater integration, and greater economic intervention. But this consensus is breaking down. In Europe, the euro has gone from steadily adding new members to now facing the prospect of having its weaker members quit. In America, the US Congressional Supercommittee has now officially failed in its mandate to bring even meager cuts to the bleeding US deficit.
The Difference Between Eurodollars and M3 Eurodollars
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
My friend Bart at Nowandfutures.com and I have discovered the cause of the discrepancy between his, and presumably John Williams' estimate of Eurodollars for their M3 estimates, and the BIS reports of Eurodollars.
The Fed's estimate seems to be limited to foreign branches of US banks only.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve discontinued the Weekly Report of Eurodollar Liabilities Held bySelected U.S. Addressees at Foreign Offices of U.S. Banks (FR 2050; OMB No. 7100-0068) in March 2006. In November 2005, the Federal Reserve decided to cease collecting, constructing, and publishing the M3 monetary aggregate, effective in March 2006. As a result of the Federal Reserve's decision to cease constructing the M3 monetary aggregate, data collected on the FR 2050 are no longer needed.
Fed Conducting Fiscal Policy
Could Undermine Monetary Policy, Plosser Says
By Joshua Zumbrun - Blooomberg.com
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said the central bank has undertaken actions that should be conducted by the U.S. Treasury and risk fueling public expectations that inflation will accelerate.
"Unfortunately, from my perspective, the Fed and other central banks have already embarked on a path that has blurred the distinction between monetary policy and fiscal policy," Plosser said today in a speech in Philadelphia.
The Pressing Weight of Compounding Debt
BY RICHARD RUSSELL - FinancialSense.com
The world's major central banks launched a joint action to provide chief emergency US dollar loans to banks in Europe and elsewhere.
In a desperate effort to raise stocks the central banks of the world coordinated by forcing more money into the world system. The obvious result was a surge in stock prices with the Dow rising almost 500 points. This is exciting for now but it will result in inflation within 6 months to a year. Along with rising inflation will be its cousin, higher interest rates. This will impact everything from commodity prices to the rising cost of financing the federal debt. Right now the federal debt is being rolled over at extremely low interest rates, but as rates climb, compounding will occur and the cost of rolling over the federal debt will become a critical problem.
Claim: Clinton Collected $50K Per Month From MF Global Former president's new firm Teneo Strategy
was hired to boost Corzine.
by Neil W. McCabe - HumanEvents.com
A former MF Global employee accused former president William J. Clinton of collecting $50,000 per month through his Teneo advisory firm in the months before the brokerage careened towards its Halloween filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Teneo was hired by MF Global’s former CEO Jon S. Corzine to improve his image and to enhance his connections with Clinton’s political family, said the employee, who asked that his name be withheld because he feared retribution.
How Goldman played key role in Solyndra's rise
By Yuliya Chernova - MarketWatch.com
While government officials and venture investors who supported Solyndra LLC are being put through the wringer by House Republicans, a powerful force on Wall Street that brought these players together has largely stayed out of the spotlight.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which Solyndra hired in 2008, helped propel the solar panel maker from Silicon Valley start-up to White House showcase. It solicited investors for the company with rosy valuation projections and helped Solyndra win a $535 million Department of Energy loan guarantee. And it positioned itself to earn underwriting fees if the company held an initial public offering.
Tax Cuts Seen Undermining Social Security
By Brian Faler - Bloomberg.com
Some Democratic lawmakers say that, while President Barack Obama’s plan to cut payroll taxes may strengthen the U.S. economy, it may have some unintended fallout: weakening Social Security.
The lawmakers and advocacy groups say they are concerned the tax cuts may undermine political support for the retirement program, which provides benefits to almost 55 million Americans and is funded by the payroll levies.
Rich-Poor Divide Widens In Developed World
By Mark Deen - Bloomberg.com
The gap between rich and poor is widening across most developed economies as skilled workers reap more rewards and top executives and bankers benefit from a global job market, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.
The average income of the richest tenth of the population is now about nine times that of the poorest tenth, the Paris- based OECD said today in a report. The gap has increased about 10 percent since the mid 1980s.
Federal rewrite of labor laws causing a flap down on the farm
By Andrea Billups-The Washington Times
LANSING, Mich. — Sparking outrage across the country's rural heartland, the Obama administration is proposing rules to curb the ability of children on farms to engage in "corn sex" for pay.
Farmers call it corn detasseling, a time-honored but physically demanding chore designed to promote cross-pollination in the field. For decades it has been a way for teens to earn extra spending money — and forge some good-natured field hand camaraderie — for a few weeks each summer.
The new big U.S. export
By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The United States is awash in gasoline. So much so, in fact, that the country is exporting a record amount of it.
The country exported 430,000 more barrels of gasoline a day than it imported in September, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is about twice the amount at the start of the year, and experts and industry insiders say the trend is here to stay.
The United States began exporting gas in late 2008. For decades prior, starting in 1960, the country used all the gas it produced here plus had to import gas from places in Europe.
Fast Food's Dirty Little Secret:
It's the Middle Class Buying Burgers The assumption has always been that the drive-through is a place where people go to feed their families on a budget, but that's not the case
By Jane Black - TheAtlantic.com
For years the conventional wisdom has been that fast food is poor people's food; that, thanks to government subsidies that ensure cheap calories, the drive-through is where people who can't afford the "good" stuff -- organic, grass-fed, etc. -- go to feed their families on a budget. Why else would anyone eat that stuff?
But a new study to be published in the Journal for Population Health Management reveals the dirty little secret of the American middle class: It's not cash-strapped Americans who are devouring the most Big Macs and Whoppers, it's us! According to the study, a household earning $60,000 a year eats the most fast food, and one bringing in $80,000 is actually more likely to have it their way than one with $30,000. Suddenly, last year's news from the Centers for Disease Control makes sense: Nearly half of obese adults in this country are not poor but middle-class, earning at least $77,000 for a family of four.
Who Killed the Postal Service? USPS is slashing first-class delivery, cutting billions of dollars, and looking to cut thousands of workers. How did it get this bad?
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep your postman from delivering that Mad Men DVD you've been waiting for. But legacy labor costs and the disruptive force of the Internet? Yeah, that'll do it.
Today, the Postal Service announced roughly $3 billion in service cuts that will slow down the delivery of first-class mail for the first time in 40 years. Starting in April, it plans to shutter more than half of its 461 mail processing centers, stretching out the time it would take to ship everything from Netflix DVDs to magazines. One-day delivery of stamped envelopes would all but certainly become a thing of the past
Postal plan: Slower delivery, 28,000 jobs lost
By Jennifer Liberto @CNNMoney
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. Postal Service on Monday announced a $2.1 billion cost savings proposal that would result in the end of next-day service for regular mail and the loss of about 28,000 postal worker jobs.
The financially troubled agency officially proposed the change to its regulator, changing its national standard for regular first-class mail -- mail that requires a 44-cent stamp for the first ounce -- to two to five days from the current one to three..
Snail Mail Gets Slower Time runs out for first-class mail
by John Hayward - HumanEvents.com
The U.S. Postal Service has been obliged to do some belt-tightening, and that means snail mail is about to get slower, as Fox News reports:
The U.S. Postal Service, having lost 29 percent of its first-class mail volume in the last decade, will slow its delivery service beginning next spring -- the first time in 40 years -- in an effort to eliminate nearly $3 billion in costs for the cash-strapped agency.
"We have to do this in order for the Postal Service to become financially viable," said David E. Williams, vice president of network operations for USPS, who noted Monday that the organization expects to have a $14 billion debt this year.
Email in the enterprise: entering its twilight at 40?
By Miguel Valdes Faura - CNNMoney.com
Earlier this year, European IT services giant Atos Origin declared its intentions to completely phase email out of their internal operations within the next three years. This perhaps the most compelling case to date that suggests the declining necessity of email in the enterprise. While it’s certainly premature to declare email — which turned 40 years old in 2011 — "dead" as a technology, it’s fair to acknowledge that a new generation of communication tools is gaining traction as a more effective means of communication for the enterprise.
"Corporate America
Is Using Our Police Departments
As Hired Thugs" Ret Police Captain Ray Lewis
Indefinite Military Detention of U.S. Citizens
Not Blocked By The Senate For The Second Time
By Michael McAuliff - HuffingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday blocked a second attempt to spare U.S. citizens from potential indefinite military detentions and was set to vote on a third effort to do the same later in the day.
Under a provision of the mammoth defense authorization bill, the military would be granted the authority to detain and hold anyone indefinitely if that individual is suspected of having ties to al Qaeda, including any American arrested in the United States.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered an amendment to curb the measure by specifying that it applied to suspects captured "abroad." The amendment failed on a vote of 45 to 55. Feinstein was expected to get a vote later in the day onanother amendment that would explicitly exclude U.S. citizens from military detention.
Occupy Wall Street takes on the housing crisis
By Les Christie @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Occupy Wall Street and other housing activists are heading to neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosure Tuesday to protest the mistreatment of homeowners by mortgage lenders.
Occupy Our Homes said it has scheduled a day of protests for Dec. 6, with events scheduled in 25 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities.
Among the actions expected to occur is so-called foreclosure defense, where protestors try to stop police from evicting residents of homes that are being foreclosed upon. Protestors also plan to occupy homes that have already been foreclosed on and currently lie vacant.
9 Examples Of Elderly Americans Being Strip-Searched Or Sexually Molested By TSA Agents At U.S. Airports
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
What in the world has happened to America? This week two elderly women that are more than 80 years old have come forward with claims that they were strip-searched at JFK Airport in New York. But sadly, this is nothing new. The truth is that there has been a whole string of incidents involving elderly Americans being strip-searched or sexually molested by TSA agents at U.S. airports. When they told us ten years ago that they were going to "beef up" national security, did you think that it would ever come to this? One of the ways that a society is judged is by how it treats the most vulnerable members. Well, instead of honoring our senior citizens, we are treating them like animals. Is this how we are repaying the debt that we owe them for bringing us into this world and raising us? The rest of the world is laughing at us. America is rapidly turning into a totalitarian police state and we have become a global joke. You won't find any other country on earth where senior citizens are being strip-searched and sexually molested before they are allowed to get on to their flights. Not even North Korea does that. This has got to end, because right now the name of America is being dragged through the mud in front of the whole world.
The Senate's Terrifying Vision of the Constitution
THE PLAIN TRUTH by Judge Napolitano 11/29//11
Is the World Spinning Out of Control?
Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
More Europe bailout news. Last week, the world was elated with news that the Federal Reserve and five other central banks got together to prop up Eurozone banks drowning on sour sovereign debt, but the crisis is far from over. The latest scheme is for countries to trade sovereignty over their budgets in return for more bailout money. The Sunday Times is reporting the ECB is putting together €1 trillion that will be used for a "colossal" intervention in European bond markets. The paper goes on to say, "The cash injection will only be carried out if leaders can agree on handing over more fiscal control to the EU and for strict controls to be imposed on nations struggling to control their debts." (Click here for more.) Ann Barnhardt, an outspoken commodities brokerage owner who shot to notoriety because she closed her doors in the wake of the MF Global bankruptcy, says it will take much more than €1 trillion. Barnhardt thinks the MF Global implosion and coordinated action by central banks is an early sign of systemic failure approaching. In an interview last week, she said, "Europe is done. Europe is mathematically impossible. It cannot be saved. You even want to make a start at trying to bail out Europe, we're talking $25 trillion JUST TO START…we're in excess of $100 trillion to bail out Europe."
Clinton to meet in Geneva with Syrian opposition figures
By AP - WashingtonPost.com
VILNIUS, Lithuania — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is using a European trip to hold a rare meeting with Syrian opposition figures.
Clinton plans to sit down with seven Syrian-born opponents of the Bashar Assad regime during a visit to Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday. A State Department official says it’s only the second time she has held such a session since the U.S. decided this summer that Assad would never allow reforms and must leave office.
The Status of the Middle East
Has a War With Iran Already Begun? Violent incidents between Iran and the West have been increasing
By Michael Hirsh - TheAtlantic.com
Two incidents that occurred on Sunday--Iran's claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain--may have been unrelated. But they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever.
Asked whether the United States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against Iran's nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently retired U.S. official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it.
* * * * *
Warning from a Chinese Professor
BY JR NYQUIST - FinancialSense.com
China’s Major Gen. Zhang Zhaozhong has reportedly said that China must be prepared to fight World War III if Iran is attacked by the United States. According to Zhang’s logic, China’s security is tied to Iran’s security. Zhang further suggested that China may need to fight such a war for domestic political reasons; namely, that as China’s economy cools so will the population’s enthusiasm for the ruling Communist Party. In bad economic times, a global war would redirect popular discontent against a foreign enemy.
Drone belonged to CIA, officials say
By Greg Miller - WashingtonPost.com
The unmanned surveillance plane lost by the United States in Iran was a stealth aircraft being used for secret missions by the CIA, U.S. officials said Monday.
The officials said Iran’s military appears to be in possession of one of the more sensitive surveillance platforms in the CIA’s fleet, an aircraft that was shaped and designed to evade enemy defenses.
The mission of the downed drone remains unclear. Iran, a longtime adversary of the United States, is believed by U.S. intelligence agencies to be pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon and is also accused of providing support to anti-coalition elements in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
North Korea making missile able to hit U.S. Republicans press Pentagon for long-range interceptors
By Bill Gertz-The Washington Times
New intelligence indicates that North Korea is moving ahead with building its first road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, an easily hidden weapon capable of hitting the United States, according to Obama administration officials.
The intelligence was revealed in a classified Capitol Hill briefing last month. Its existence was made public in a letter to Defense SecretaryLeon E. Panetta from five House Republicans.
U.S. Powerless Against Nuclear Proliferation in Asia
by John C. Wohlstetter - HumanEvents.com
Much has been made of nuclear proliferation dangers in the Mideast, where a nuclear-armed Iran would set off a regional nuclear arms race.
But we should be so lucky as to have only one regional nuclear crisis to worry about. There are several others. Much has been made of the possibility of an India-Pakistan regional nuclear conflict. In her memoir, former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that only the timely intervention of the Bush administration in late 2001 prevented an Indo-Pak nuclear exchange then. A staple of our assessment of Pakistan is whether Islamists will gain control over its nuclear arsenal, either by winning an election or by coup, or by raiding Pakistan’s nuclear sites, which are estimated to contain at least 100 nuclear weapons. At the recent GOP foreign policy debate, Michele Bachmann noted that there at 15 Pakistani nuclear sites, of which six have been attacked already. Reports are that the U.S. has contingency plans to seize the arsenal in the event Islamists take over the country, while Pakistan, to forestall such a prospect, moves its arsenal in lightly protected convoys, to fool surveillance.
Constitutional Scholar Bruce Fein:
American Empire Before The Fall 1/3
Constitutional Scholar Bruce Fein:
American Empire Before The Fall 2/3
Constitutional Scholar Bruce Fein:
American Empire Before The Fall 3/3
Gold and US Official Debt Instruments
Held by Central Banks
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
If the Eurodollars chart wasn't enough heartburn for the paper-huggers, here is a chart from Ed Yardeni showing the correlation between the price of gold and the amount of US Treasury and Agency Debt held by Central Banks.
Personally I like to track the Eurodollars and the real interest rates, but this works about the same as I had suggested. Central banks are not profit-seeking organizations and are notorious for mispricing risk when it suits them.
Saving Gold Old reliable stands tall in crisis atmosphere
By Michael J. Kosares - GodlSeek.com
The United States has become a nation of savers. Where once the money management mantra was "invest it and retire wealthy," it is now "save it or lose it" -- a healthy reaction to the chaos, greed and notable lack of safety in traditional investments including those sponsored by Wall Street's financial firms. Retirement plans and pensions are in trouble. The fear is that individual savings could disappear overnight in a general financial system meltdown. Overriding all is a sense that things are going to get worse before they get better and that the time has come to take matters into one's own hands.
The Long View
By Ted Butler - SilverBearCafe.com
With more financial uncertainty in the world than in memory and with price volatility going through the roof, it’s hard to think about the long term. The only problem is that our lives are still measured in the long term. In financial terms, starting families, raising and educating children, preparing for retirement and preserving hard-earned wealth are not day to day considerations; we are forced to look ahead. In looking and planning ahead, there is no crystal ball; no guarantee that things will turn out as we expect. All we can do is to make assumptions based upon what we now know and then try to position ourselves for what may come.
Gold and Stocks Possibly on the Brink of Going Up
By P. Radomski - GoldSeek.com
There is palpable fear in the world and the urgency could be felt in the new strategy unveiled Wednesday morning by the world’s major central banks to bolster the financial system by increasing liquidity in the financial markets. In response, stock markets surged with joy with the S&P up 4.3 per cent. The move dragged down the dollar, bolstered the euro and pushed gold prices 2 per cent higher to finish November with a 1.9 per cent rise.
In effect, the Fed will be handing money to other global central banks at a lower rate than in the past and those central banks, in turn, will be able to lend the dollars to banks in their own countries. The hope behind this move is that it will prevent Europe’s financial woes from undermining the stability of the global banking system.
Gerald Celente: We're going into an economic 9/11
The Latest Rumor:
Fed To Fund IMF,
Bypassing Congressional Refusal Of European Bailout
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
While we have long been mocking any rumors representing formal attempts to get the IMF's funding to higher level, due to the need for a congressional approval over and beyond what is currently permitted which means any such plan is DOA, one loophole always has been the private bank known as the Federal Reserve, which may, as permitted by its charter since its charter allows it to do pretty much anything even buy Greek and EFSF, not to mention Italian, bonds, lend to the IMF at will. And just as last week demonstrated, when push comes to shove the Fed will always bail out Europe, so tonight German paper Die Welt (which has about the same success rate as Thomas Stolper at predicting the future) had put two and two together and come up with the latest rumor, namely that Ben Bernanke is about to directly bail out Europe using the IMF as an intermediary.
Ten days of secret planning to rescue markets
By David Milliken and Marc Jones
(Reuters) - Britain orchestrated this week's bold move by central banks to stave off a cash crunch in global markets, helping drive a plan that began to take shape around 10 days ago.
For months, central bankers have tracked with growing concern how the deleveraging among European banks, hurt by the tumbling value of euro-zone debt, was hurting global funding as banks sold off assets and brought cash back home.
Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks?
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What you are about to read should absolutely astound you. During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret. Do you remember the TARP bailout? The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the "too big to fail" banks. Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did. As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free money to the "too big to fail" banks between 2007 and 2010. So have you heard about this on the nightly news? Probably not. Lately Bloomberg has been reporting on some of this, but even they are not giving people the whole picture. The American people need to be told about this 16 trillion dollar bailout, because it is a perfect example of why the Federal Reserve needs to be shut down. The Federal Reserve has been actively picking "winners" and "losers" in the financial system, and it turns out that the "friends" of the Fed always get bailed out and always end up among the "winners". This is not how a free market system is supposed to work.
Portugal raids pension funds to meet deficit targets
Portugal has raided €5.6bn (£4.8bn) of pension fund assets in a controversial scramble to meet its deficit targets.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
The cabinet agreed to transfer the assets from four of Portugal’s biggest banks to the state balance sheet.
The assets will be used to bridge a gap needed to meet the fiscal deficit target of 5.9pc of GDP set by the terms of the country’s €78bn bail-out from around 10pc in 2010.
"This measure is more than sufficient to meet the budget deficit goal in 2011," said Helder Rosalino, secretary of state for central administration, on Friday.
Taking Advantage of the Fed’s All-You-Can-Spend Buffet
By Jim Nelson - DailyReckoning.com
12/02/11 Baltimore, Maryland – The big discussion this week — and the reason we’ve seen such a stellar week for stocks — was the decisions of the world’s Central Banks to give free money to Europe. And why not? They’ve been giving free money to US banks for the past few years. And just look how well that’s been working out! Clearly these wise monetary sages know precisely what they’re doing.
But while there’s little doubt the politically-well connected stand to make out like bandits (again), the real concern here is how their reckless moves will impact the little guy…the individual investor. Put simply, it won’t be pretty.
Eurozone crisis: the US has to ride to the rescue once again Meanwhile, the politicians of Europe seem determined to make themselves irrelevant.
By Janet Daley - Telegraph.co.uk
So, once again, the United States has intervened to save Europe from itself. And there we were thinking that the old 20th-century pattern had been eradicated. The Federal Reserve Bank made floods of cheap dollars available last week, having come to the blood-curdling conclusion that the global banking system could only be saved from catastrophic collapse by sending in the American cavalry – Europe’s own governing class being apparently incapable of effective action.
Obama 'very engaged' in eurozone rescue talks
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - US President Barack Obama is "very engaged" in talks with EU leaders on the eurozone rescue, but is keeping his advice behind closed doors rather than adding to the "cacophony" of solutions floated publicly, Washington's envoy to Brussels William Kennard told reporters on Friday (2 December).
With the experience of the 2009 financial crisis, the US administration "can offer a lot of advice, but we made a point in not discussing it publicly," Kennard said.
Germany: a reason why
fiscal union and ECB funny money won't happen Angela Merkel "vows to build fiscal union," we were told on Friday, after the German Chancellor's speech to the Bundestag. I just don't buy it.
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk
Market denizens are desperate for "fiscal union" before the end of the year. The phrase is code for the mighty Germany agreeing to stand behind the liabilities of the more profligate single currency members – something that frazzled debt markets crave.
In addition, Berlin will only allow the European Central Bank to let rip, the argument goes, firing up the "virtual" printing press such as the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, if Germany exerts more control over the spending of other eurozone governments.
German finance minister details debt fund plan before EU summit
By Madeline Chambers - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - Germany's Finance Minister spelled out details on Saturday of his proposal for national redemption funds for excess sovereign debt which he intends to present at a crunch summit of EU leaders next week aimed at restoring confidence in the euro.
Wolfgang Schaeuble outlined his plans under which states would effectively siphon off a chunk of their debt to a special national fund and pay it off over about 20 years while committing to reforms to keep debt levels on target.
Germany Would Move 500 Billion Euros of Debt Into Fund
By Alex Webb - BusinessWeek.com
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Germany would transfer about 500 billion euros ($670 billion) of its debt into a redemption fund amid a proposal by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Passauer Neue Presse reported, citing an interview with him.
Schaeuble this week proposed that each euro-area country set up a national fund to pay down its debt to boost market confidence in the joint currency. The plan would allow member countries of the euro region to reduce their debt to 60 percent of gross domestic product over a span of 20 years, he said.
Merkel faces growing criticism for euro approach
By Michael Birnbaum - WashingtonPost.com
BERLIN – Every phrase that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy utter on Monday as they unveil proposals to reform the euro zone will be dissected for hints of what many want to hear most: quick plans to intervene on a massive scale to stop Europe’s financial crisis. But few inside Germany expect them to come.
Merkel, widely seen as the woman in charge of Europe’s future, has repeatedly ruled out speedy fixes. But if the French-German proposals do not produce a breakthrough, they could disappoint investors who have been banking on a solution. Many officials have said that whatever European leaders agree on at a summit at the end of the week will make or break the continent’s finances.
Italian cabinet prepares to adopt austerity measures
Emergency budget, worth a reported €24bn, is aimed at restoring the credibility of the eurozone's biggest debtor nation
By John Hooper in Rome - Guardian.co.uk
Italy's new "technocratic" cabinet was meeting on Sunday to approve a stiff package of tax rises and spending cuts that prompted anguished protests from an unlikely assortment of trade union leaders and free-market economists.
The emergency budget, worth a reported €24bn (£20.5bn), is the latest of several passed this year aimed at restoring the credibility of the eurozone's biggest debtor nation. The government, headed by the former European commissioner Mario Monti, is hoping to rush the measures through parliament before the EU summit begins on Thursday.
Eurozone leaders in make-or-break rescue talks Make or break talks between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy will keep investors on tenterhooks on Monday as European leaders scramble to finalise a coherent rescue package for the eurozone.
By Helia Ebrahimi - Telegraph.co.uk
The talks between the leaders of Germany and France are hoped to tie together a financial rescue package of up to €2 trillion (£1.3 trillion), via the European Central Bank, the IMF and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), ahead of a final summit of all European leaders on Friday.
Monday's Paris "work lunch" between Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy is intended to settle differences between the two core members of the single currency about how a fiscal union might work.
Euro program at IMF could spread rescue risk worldwide
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
The Obama administration has been adamant that Europe can afford to resolve its financial crisis on its own, and that U.S. taxpayers and others outside the region should not foot the bill for any expanded bailout effort.
But a developing plan for Europe to funnel rescue funds through a series of loans to the International Monetary Fund could leave the United States and other IMF members holding the bag.
Merkel: eurozone crisis will take 'years' to solve
BY HONOR MAHONY - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dismissed talk that next week's summit will bring about a definitive solution to the eurozone crisis, saying it will take years to overcome the single currency's problems.
Assuming her now familiar role of dampener-in-chief of expectations, Merkel said "there are no simple or quick solutions nor is there the alleged final shot that some talk about before each summit. That is not how I speak or think [about the issue]."
Fiskalunion is worst of all worlds for Europe Be careful of the German term 'Fiskalunion', the next phase of Europe’s misadventure. What Chancellor Angela Merkel means is increased powers to police the budgets of EMU sinner states.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
She means prior vetting of fiscal plans. She means automatic fines, cuts in EU development funds, and loss of EU voting rights for alleged violators, all justiciable before the European Court.
The correct term is 'Stability Union', as the Chancellor calls it at home. It certainly entails unprecedented intrusion into the internal affairs of sovereign states, but in one direction only: discipline, without transforming help.
U.S. Bonds Fall as Italy’s Austerity Plan
Saps Demand for Safer Securities
By Wes Goodman - Bloomberg.com
Treasuries fell, extending losses from last week, after an Italian plan to cut the euro-region’s second-biggest debt and prevent a breakup of the currency damped demand for the relative safety of U.S. bonds.
Investors in a weekly survey by Ried Thunberg ICAP, a unit of ICAP Plc, the world’s largest inter-dealer broker, stuck to their bearish stance on Treasuries, the company said. Ried’s index on the outlook on the market through June was 44 for the seven days ended Dec. 2, versus 42 the week before. A figure less than 50 shows investors expect rates to increase. A report today is forecast to show service industries in the U.S. expanded at the fastest pace in six months.
Max Keiser : Time to Get The Hell Out!!! 1/3
Max Keiser : Time to Get The Hell Out!!! 2/3
Max Keiser : Time to Get The Hell Out!!! 3/3
Bailout Bandits:
The Biggest Borrowers From the U.S. Federal Reserve
Money Morning staff reports
The Eurozone debt crisis has replaced the U.S. financial crisis as the disaster du jour. But make no mistake: U.S. taxpayers will be paying the tab for the U.S. crisis for years.
That's evidently not true of the banking sector, however, whose massive financial-crisis windfall is just now coming to light.
In its January issue, Bloomberg Markets magazine reveals that - at the March 9, 2009 nadir of the financial crisis - the U.S. Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to rescuing the American financial system. That total was more than half the value of all that was produced in the U.S. economy for that entire year.
More Free Money!
By Joel Bowman - DailyReckoning.com
12/03/11 Buenos Aires, Argentina – In a highly competitive field, the story of the past week was surely the announcement by a half dozen of the world’s largest central banks to engage in, what The Daily Reckoning’s Eric Fry described as, “institutionalized money-laundering.”
The Dow leapt nearly 500 points on Wednesday following the news, its largest daily advance since…well…since who cares? It went up a long way, and in a short period of time. Measures in Europe, especially, and around the world, generally, were similarly ebullient. For a day, that is. By Thursday, the enthusiasm had fizzled somewhat. Friday, markets were more or less flat.
Secrets of the Bailout, Now Told
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON - NYTimes.com
A FRESH account emerged last week about the magnitude of financial aid that the Federal Reserve bestowed on big banks during the 2008-09 credit crisis. The report came from Bloomberg News, which had to mount a lengthy legal fight to wrest documents from the Fed that detailed its rescue efforts.
It is dispiriting, of course, that we are still learning about the billions provided to various financial firms during the crisis. Another sad element to this mess is that getting the truth requires the legal firepower of an organization as rich as Bloomberg.
Hank Paulson's Crony Capitalism
By Tim Dickinson - rollingstone.com
Crony capitalism isn't usually this bald. But then again, this is Hank Paulson we're talking about.
This week, Bloomberg reported that in the summer of 2008, while serving as Treasury secretary under president George W. Bush, Paulson gave a gathering of Wall Street titans detailed, inside information about the government's plans for the troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It was July 2008, and Paulson had been insisting in public that Fannie and Freddie would remain privately owned. In private, Paulson gave his former colleagues in the investment banking world a preview of his true intentions: The government would be taking both Freddie and Fannie into conservatorship, largely wiping out stockholders.
Hank Paulson’s inside jobs
By Felix Salmon - Reuters.com
What on earth did Hank Paulson think his job was in the summer of 2008? As far as most of us were concerned, he was secretary of the US Treasury, answerable to the US people and to the president. But at the same time, in secret meetings, Paulson was hanging out with his old Goldman Sachs buddies, giving them invaluable information about what he was thinking in his new job.
The first news of this behavior came in October 2009, when Andrew Ross Sorkin revealed that Paulson had met with the entire board of Goldman Sachs in a Moscow hotel suite for an hour at the end of June 2008. He told them his views of the US and global economies, he previewed a market-moving speech he was about to give, and he even talked about the possibility that Lehman Brothers might blow up. Maybe it’s not so surprising that Goldman Sachs turned out to be so well positioned when Lehman did indeed do just that a few months later.
Fed’s Stress Tests Won’t Fix a Flawed Financial System
By the Editors - Bloomberg.com
Regulators are making a valiant effort to ensure that big U.S. banks can survive the kind of shock the deepening European sovereign-debt crisis could deliver. If only the same were true for the broader U.S. financial system.
In a bid to restore crumbling confidence in the banking sector, and in compliance with the new Dodd-Frank financial legislation, the Federal Reserve is building an improved version of one of its most effective tools: stress tests designed to assess banks’ ability to withstand a market rout and a punishing recession.
Senate’s Reid Will Offer Plan Tomorrow
for Extending Tax Cuts, Conrad Says
By Lorraine Woellert - Bloomberg.com
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will offer a new plan to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits set to expire this month, the Senate Budget Committee chairman said.
Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota said today on “Fox News Sunday” that fellow Democrat Reid told him a compromise package will be released tomorrow in an effort to break a political deadlock on the measures.
House G.O.P. Is Split on Extension of Payroll Tax Cut
By ROBERT PEAR - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Deep rifts among House Republicans over a payroll tax break became evident Friday as rank-and-file members of the caucus told their leaders that they did not want to extend the cut in Social Security taxes for another year, as demanded by President Obama.
Given the effort Democrats are making to capitalize on the issue, Speaker John A. Boehner warned Republicans they would run political risks and could be accused of allowing a tax increase if they blocked the continuation of payroll tax relief set to expire at the end of the year. Lawmakers coming out of the caucus meeting Friday said they had had a spirited debate.
* * * * *
Will taxpayers bail out the pension guarantor? Government pension agency
braces for American Airlines bankruptcy
By Peter Whoriskey - WashingtonPost.com
The bankruptcy filing by American Airlines could saddle the obscure federal agency that insures company pensions with a $9 billion loss, officials say, raising the financial pressures on the debt-laden government fund and the possibility it could need a taxpayer bailout.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is already facing a $26 billion deficit, the largest in its 37-year history, after being staggered by company failures across the country during the recession.
Hammurabi Knew Better Debt Slavery – Why It Destroyed Rome,
Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It’s Stopped
by MICHAEL HUDSON - CounterPunch.org
Book V of Aristotle’s Politics describes the eternal transition of oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families decide to “take the multitude into their camp” and usher in democracy, within which an oligarchy emerges once again, followed by aristocracy, democracy, and so on throughout history.
Debt has been the main dynamic driving these shifts – always with new twists and turns. It polarizes wealth to create a creditor class, whose oligarchic rule is ended as new leaders (“tyrants” to Aristotle) win popular support by cancelling the debts and redistributing property or taking its usufruct for the state.
Keiser Report: Überdebten (E217)
Economy Avoiding 'Death Spiral'
Boosts Bullish Fund Wagers: Commodities
By Whitney McFerron - Bloomberg.com
Hedge funds boosted wagers on higher commodity prices for the first time in three weeks as the outlook for the U.S. economy improved.
Money managers increased combined bullish positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 0.7 percent to 566,494 contracts in the week ended Nov. 29, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Investors trimmed their bearish holdings in copper for the first time in four weeks, and pared bets on lower wheat and soybean prices.
MF Global mixed funds, transferred abroad
By Christopher Doering
(Reuters) - Regulators investigating the collapse of MF Global have determined that the firm combined money between securities and futures accounts owned by customers, and transferred funds outside the country to at least one entity, a source said on Friday.
"The further we get into (the investigation) the more complex it is ... but we're making progress," the source said, adding that the commingling and transferring of money is making it harder for regulators to determine what money belongs where.
A Hedge Fund Insider Explains Why
Retail Investors Should Flee The Stock Market
By Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Regular readers know that ever since 2009, well before the confidence destroying flash crash of May 2010, Zero Hedge had been advocating that regular retail investors shun the equity market in its entirety as it is anything but "fair and efficient" in which frontrunning for a select few is legal, in which insider trading is permitted for politicians and is masked as "expert networks" for others, in which the government itself leaks information to a hand-picked elite of the wealthiest investors, in which investment banks send out their "huddle" top picks to "whale" accounts before everyone else gets access, in which hedge funds form "clubs" and collude in moving the market, in which millisecond algorithms make instantaneous decisions which regular investors can never hope to beat, in which daily record volatility triggers sell limits virtually assuring daytrading losses, and where the bid/ask spreads for all but the choicest few make the prospect of breaking even, let alone winning, quite daunting. In short: a rigged casino.
As Wages Rise, Tough Choices
By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN - WSJ.com
Small businesses, already on a tight budget, are looking for new ways to cut costs as they brace for minimum wage increases in several U.S. states next month.
Strategies range from cutting back workers' hours, to replacing waiters with an automated ordering system.
Eight states including Arizona, Florida and Washington will require employers to pay non-salaried workers a minimum of 32 cents more per hour, on average, starting Jan. 1. While occasional increases to the minimum wage—which currently stands at $7.25 an hour nationally, but varies by state—are nothing new, the planned 2012 adjustments will hit many businesses at a time when profits are razor thin.
The Dylan Ratigan Show -
As The Unemployment Rate Falls,
Have The Unemployed Given Up?
Cargill to cut 2,000 jobs globally
(Reuters) - U.S. agribusiness giant Cargill Inc CARG.UL said it would let go of 2,000 of its employees globally, citing a continued weak global economy.
Minneapolis-based Cargill, one of the world's largest privately held corporations, said the job cuts affect 1.5 percent of its workforce of 138,000 employees located in 63 countries and will take place over the next six months.
"At this time, we do not have any breakdowns. We do know they will not be concentrated in any one city, country or region," Lisa Clemens, a Cargill spokeswoman based in Minneapolis, told Reuters.
Choking on Obamacare
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
LOS ANGELES -- In 1941, Carl Karcher was a 24-year-old truck driver for a bakery. Impressed by the large numbers of buns he was delivering, he scrounged up $326 to buy a hot dog cart across from a Goodyear plant. And the war came.
So did millions of defense industry workers and their cars. And, soon, Southern California's contribution to American cuisine -- fast food. Including, eventually, hundreds of Carl's Jr. restaurants. Karcher died in 2008 but his legacy, CKE Restaurants, survives. It would thrive, says CEO Andy Puzder, but for government's comprehensive campaign against job creation.
Hurdle for Health-Law Suit Shop's Closing, Owner's Bankruptcy Complicate Argument Against Overhaul
By EMILY MALTBY, VANESSA O'CONNELL and JESS BRAVIN - WSJ.com
The woman chosen to represent the legal challenge to the Obama administration's health-care overhaul filed for bankruptcy in September after her business failed, a move that could pose problems for the high-profile lawsuit.
The suit, brought by 26 states and joined by the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business lobby group, is set to be heard by the Supreme Court next year. It relies in part on the story of Mary Brown, an auto-repair-shop owner who argued in court filings she would have had to divert funds from her business to comply with the law's requirement that, beginning in 2014, most Americans obtain coverage or pay a penalty.
As recession took hold, families sought cash help
By Lisa Lambert
(Reuters) - The number of families collecting cash welfare benefits rose during the longest and deepest economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression, the U.S. Census said on Thursday.
Caseloads in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program had fallen in the 1990s and leveled off in the early part of the 2000s.
Then the recession hit in 2007 and officially ended in 2009. The participation rate in the program rose to 4.8 percent of families with children under the age of 18 in 2009 from 3.8 percent in 2006. The number of benefit recipients rose to 1.7 million from 1.4 million.
Sales-Tax Measures 'to Cost Us Big' Proposed Rules Get Amazon's Backing
By ANGUS LOTEN - WSJ.com
Amazon.com wants to bring order to the way online retailers collect state and local taxes. And that has Web entrepreneur Stacy Strawn feeling anxious.
Under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, online retailers including her aren't required to collect sales tax for purchases made in states where they do not have a physical presence.
How To Cartelize and Kill Web Commerce
Jeffrey Tucker - SilverBearCafe.com
Let's say you are a farmer and most of your animals are dead from disease. But there are a handful of chickens still making it, and a couple of cows too. So you decided to kill them too.
Now, why would you do that? I want to ask the same question of those who are pushing new taxes on online purchases.
Web commerce has been largely exempt for many years (more on this), and this is one reason that the Internet is a bright spot of burgeoning commerce in a darkening world. The same month that global manufacturing took at turn for the worse, Internet retailers recorded record profits.
Fed up federal workers to feast on free food
By Ed O'Keefe - WashingtonPost.com
Federal employees fearful of a third year of pay freezes and steeling themselves for deeper budget cuts have a chance next week to eat away their sorrows.
GovLoop, a social media network often referred to as "The Facebook for Feds," is hosting a "Free Food Trucks for Feds" event next Thursday in the Federal Triangle neighborhood near the offices of about a dozen federal agencies.
"Ninety-nine percent of government workers never hear 'thank you' and GovLoop is staging a public protest that could very well rival Occupy D.C.," the site said in a cheeky message announcing the party. "Public servants have been working hard to do more with less and that deserves our appreciation...and, in this case, a warm meal."
John Kennedy Schlossberg
Defends JFK's Legacy in the 'New York Times' The fallen president's grandson writes an earnest letter to the editor, and possibly launches his own political career
By Andrew Cohen - TheAtlantic.com
The earnest words of John F. Kennedy's grandson and namesake, John Kennedy Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's 18-year-old son, were published in Friday's New York Times. As a "Letter To the Editor" on Page A22. Here is the text:
As a young man inspired by politics and history who has spent time studying the Kennedy administration, I take issue with Ross Douthat's Nov. 27 column, "The Enduring Cult of Kennedy," about President John F. Kennedy, my grandfather.
Mr. Douthat suggests that President Kennedy was a "near disaster." He criticizes Kennedy on civil rights; Kennedy was the first president to deem civil rights "a moral issue," and applied federal authority to force desegregation.
Occupy DC protesters arrested
after building wooden structure in park Park police in Washington remove protesters and break up building in one of several local moves against US Occupy camps
Associated Press - Guardian.co.uk
US park police have arrested Occupy DC protesters who refused to dismantle an unfinished wooden structure erected in a local park overnight.
Protesters began constructing the wooden building on Saturday, but on Sunday police told them they needed a permit for such a structure and gave them an hour to disassemble it.
When Governments Go Rogue
By Brandon Smith - SilverBearCafe.com
There are those today who would claim that the lifeblood of a nation is dependent upon the graces of its government. That government is the focal point of cultural growth, and that we as citizens should respect it as such. I would be more inclined to agree if the public did not so easily confuse the ideals of leadership with the actions of criminals. That is to say, regardless of what we wish our government to be, bureaucracies rarely, if ever, embody the spirit of the common man (a necessity for any system that purports to defend the citizenry). Instead, bureaucracies almost inevitably deteriorate into vehicles for the perpetuation of tyranny driven by the very worst of all stewards; elitist minorities with delusions of godhood.
Pentagon Papers still causing controversy 40 years on (in China)
By Barbara Demick - LATimes.com
REPORTING FROM BEIJING -- A play about the struggle between a free press and government is one thing. A discussion about that play is yet another order of magnitude, as the producers of L.A. Theatre Works' "Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers" discovered this weekend in Beijing.
Midway through a performance Friday night at the prestigious Peking University, producer Alison Friedman received a text message informing her that a talk after the performance would be canceled for fear of "unforeseen consequences."
Syrian government reportedly bans use of Apple iPhone
By Nathan Olivarez-Giles - LATimes.com
The Syrian government has reportedly banned the use of the Apple iPhone in an effort to prevent activists from documenting the ongoing uprising in that country and government violence against protesters.
Activists in Beirut were notified of the iPhone ban in a letter from the Syrian Finance Ministry that reads "the authorities warn anyone against using the iPhone in Syria," according to reports from theHaaretz newspaper in Israel and the U.S. website the Next Web (which quoted the Lebanese site El Nashara).
Vladimir Putin set to lose majority
amid complaints of electoral violations Opposition leader condemns 'theft of votes' after reports of pre-filled ballots, invisible ink and multiple visits to polling booths
By Miriam Elder in Moscow - Guardian.co.uk
After more than a decade of unwavering popularity, Vladimir Putin's United Russia party was on Sunday nightpredicted to lose its majority in parliament, as voters used a national election to register concern at authoritarianism and corruption.
Early exit polls showed United Russia would lose its majority in the Duma, or lower house, and fail to win an absolute majority of votes as in the past. VTsIOM gave it 48.5%, and the Public Opinion Foundation gave it 46%, when polls closed in Russia's westernmost region of Kaliningrad. These numbers are liable to change, not least because they were accompanied by widespread reports of polling irregularities.
Putin Party May Be Forced
to Seek Partners After Parliamentary Elections
By Ilya Arkhipov and Henry Meyer - Bloomberg.com
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party may win a reduced majority inRussia’s parliament, partial election results show, forcing it to work with other political groups.
United Russia’s backing fell to 50.1 percent from 64 percent in 2007, the Moscow-based Central Election Commission said on its website after 87.5 percent of votes were counted. The party’s results at yesterday’s election had been estimated at 45.5 percent and 48.5 percent by two exit polls.
Iran threatens US... Iran claims to have shot down U.S. spy drone Tehran warns of spike in oil prices if crude exports blocked
By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) – Iran has shot down an American drone aircraft in eastern Iran, the country’s state television said Sunday, citing a military source, according to media reports.
Iran’s military response to the U.S. "spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders," the military source reportedly said.
Iran shoots down US drone Iranian military official quoted as warning of crushing response after unmanned spy plane is shot down
Agencies - Guardian.co.uk
Iran's armed forces have shot down an unmanned US spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along its eastern border.
An unidentified military official quoted by the official Irna news agency on Sunday warned of a crushing response to any violations of Iranian airspace by US drone aircraft.
"An advanced RQ170 unmanned American spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces. It suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran's armed forces," Irna quoted the official as saying.
Iran says oil would go over $250 if exports banned
By Ramin Mostafavi and Robin Pomeroy
(Reuters) - Iran warned the West on Sunday any move to block its oil exports would more than double crude prices with devastating consequences on a fragile global economy.
"As soon as such an issue is raised seriously the oil price would soar to above $250 a barrel," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a newspaper interview.
The comments come as Iran strives to contain international reaction to the storming of the British embassy last week, a move which drew immediate condemnation from around the world and may galvanize support for tougher action against Tehran.
Dr. Bill Deagle MD w/ Jeff Rense - Fukushima Report 1/3
Dr. Bill Deagle MD w/ Jeff Rense - Fukushima Report 2/3
Dr. Bill Deagle MD w/ Jeff Rense - Fukushima Report 3/3
Only ten days to save the Euro?
By Ben Traynor - CommodityOnline.com
The signs are growing that the European Central Bank may be preparing to take drastic action within the next fortnight. It is now being widely reported that there 'only ten days left to save the Euro'. Even Metro – the free newspaper found discarded by commuters on British trains and buses each morning – made it their front page splash today.
The FT's Wolfgang Munchau was pushing this meme earlier in the week – but it was European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs Olli Rehn that really got it going with these comments yesterday:
"We are now entering the critical period of ten days to complete and conclude the crisis response of the European Union...There is no one single Silver bullet that will get us out of this crisis."
The Fed’s European "Rescue":
Another back-door US Bank / Goldman bailout?
By Nomi Prins, author, journalist
In the wake of chopping its Central Bank swap rates today, the Fed has been called a bunch of names: a hero for slugging the big bailout bat in the ninth inning, and a villain for printing money to help Europe at the expense of the US. Neither depiction is right.
The Fed is merely continuing its unfettered brand of bailout-economics, promoted with heightened intensity recently by President Obama and Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner in the wake of Germany not playing bailout-ball. Recall, a couple years ago, it was a uniquely American brand of BIG bailouts that the Fed adopted in creating $7.7 trillion of bank subsidies that ran the gamut from back-door AIG bailouts (some of which went to US / some to European banks that deal with those same US banks), to the purchasing of mortgage-backed–securities, to near zero-rate loans (for banks).
Central Bank Chief Hints at Stepping Up Euro Support
By JACK EWING - NYTimes.com
FRANKFURT — Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, laid the groundwork for a more aggressive response to the debt crisis Thursday, suggesting that the bank could increase its support for the European economy if political leaders took more radical steps to enforce spending discipline among members.
In the run-up to a meeting of European leaders late next week, Mr. Draghi’s remarks seemed to be part of a larger effort by the bank and the region’s biggest economic powers — Germany and France — to lay the foundation for a broader rescue without seeming to compromise their principles.
European Central Bank head
hints at more action if euro countries curb spending
By Anthony Faiola - WashingtonPost.com
LONDON — The head of the European Central Bank signaled Thursday that the institution might be willing to take more-aggressive steps to stem the region’s debt crisis, but only if the17 nations that share the euro unite behind a plan that could tame years of runaway spending.
While falling well short of a pledge to attack Europe’s debt turbulence with the same rigor the Federal Reserve used against the U.S. financial crisis three years ago, the statements Thursday open the door for a potentially critical shift in policy that could provide a long-elusive fix to the region’s fiscal woes.
Lagarde Says
IMF May Get G-20 Help to Counter Europe Crisis
By Sandrine Rastello and Raymond Colitt - WashingtonPost.com
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said Group of 20 nations are prepared to boost the fund’s resources as the European debt crisis threatens the global recovery.
"If circumstances require, the G-20 will commit the resources that are necessary for the IMF to play its systemic role," she said during a joint press conference with Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega in Brasilia today. "That gives you a range that is almost without a cap, without a limitation."
Euro Crisis and the Transformation of European Democracy As non-democratic market forces overtake popular will, the continent may have to fundamentally alter how it governs
By Heather Horn - TheAtlantic.com
With the financial crisis, the debt crisis, and the worldwide coverage of Occupy Wall Street, capitalism has been under fire publicly for quite some time in Europe. Since the debt crisis started to show real potential for damaging the euro zone, both the euro and the European Union have had their futures dissected as well. The question has been this: can the European federal project survive the debt crisis? But now, that question is being repeated with a more melodramatic substitution: can democracy survive the debt crisis?
At first across-the-pond glance, this public hand-wringing seems to suggest that the continent should be sedated until it can pull itself together. Why is "democracy" -- the entire concept and practice -- being brought into this?
Uncoordinated Coordinated Action
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
12/01/11 Laguna Beach, California – "I don’t care what the other kids are doing," my mother used to say, "you’re not doing it!… If the other kids jumped off a cliff, would you?"
Until yesterday, I always thought her question was rhetorical. But now I realize the correct answer should have been "Yes"
All the major central banks of the world jumped off a cliff yesterday…and the European Central Bank (ECB) jumped right after them.
Almost everyone watching the event unfold hailed this "coordinated central bank intervention" as a powerful and courageous step toward "ending the crisis."
But central bank intervention never ends a crisis; it merely pretends to. When the world’s major central banks jumped off a cliff yesterday into "Hyperinflation Gulch," they did not begin soaring toward resolution; they began plummeting toward demolition.
Wall Street Pushed Federal Reserve for Europe Action
[Google title for free article pass]
By SUSAN PULLIAM - WSJ.com $$
Wall Street executives, in a private meeting with a top Federal Reserve official in late September, recommended a coordinated effort by central banks to remedy the European financial crisis, according to Fed documents received in an open-records request.
The meeting, led by Louis Bacon, founder of hedge fund Moore Capital Management, preceded a joint action Wednesday by the world's major central banks, which banded together to provide liquidity to the markets through cheap U.S. dollar loans.
Ben Bernanke Beats Deflationists
Into Submission With His Money Stick
BY JEFF BERWICK - FinancialSense.com
We've got a new slogan for deflationists. Deflationists: Wrong Since the Advent of Fiat Currency.
It's been the never-ending, battle royale of the economic world ever since the looming end to this financial system became starkly clear in 2008. Will the western governments, almost all completely incapable of paying the gargantuan debts enabled by democracy, central banking and fiat currency, allow the system to collapse (deflation) or worm their way out of it via inflation, until we live in a hyperinflationary apocalypse?
The Corruption Continues…
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
12/01/11 Baltimore, Maryland – Is the Great Correction still underway? Yes it is! The Wall Street Journal reports:
Consumers continued to cut debt levels in the third quarter, largely as they pulled back from the housing market again, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Monday.
For the most recent quarter, overall debt loads for households fell 0.6% from the prior quarter, for a drop of around $60 billion to $11.66 trillion. The bank said mortgage balances recorded on consumer credit reports fell by 1.3%, or $114 billion, while home equity lines increase by 2.3%. The retreat in mortgage borrowings was the primary driver of the overall drop in consumer borrowing.
Stocks Get by With a Little Help From Our Fed
By Lawrence Kudlow - PatriotPost.us
It's often said that help comes to those who help themselves. But Europe can't seem to help itself. So on Wednesday, the U.S. Fed came to the rescue. And that rescue triggered a global stock market rally, including a near 500-point gain in the United States.
Basically, the Fed is making it cheaper for Europe to borrow dollars. And this dollar backstop symbolically shows that the Fed, the European Central Bank and other big central banks are not going to permit a 2008-type credit freeze and financial meltdown.
Senate panel weighs congressional insider-trading ban
By Kimberly Kindy - WashingtonPost.com
Senators said at a hearing Thursday that Congress should quickly pass a bill that clearly prohibits its members and their staffs from trading stock based on nonpublic information they gather on Capitol Hill.
In a two-hour hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, members and witnesses said swift action was necessary because the public’s faith in Congress is at "an all-time low."
Banks Act, Stocks Surge and Skeptics See a Pattern
By CHRISTINE HAUSER - NYTimes.com
A move announced by central bankers on Wednesday to contain theEuropean debt crisis resulted in euphoria in global stock markets, but it also prompted skeptics to wonder: will this time be different?
As the crisis has worsened over the last 18 months, pronouncements of plans to fix the euro zone debt problems have led to more than a half-dozen rallies that just as quickly withered as the proposals fell short of hopes.
Wednesday’s rally was among the biggest yet, with the three main indexes on Wall Street rising 4 percent or more, and the Dow Jones industrial average rising 490.05 points, its largest gain since March 23, 2009. Still, some analysts warned that the central banks’ action addressed only some symptoms of the euro financial crisis, so this rally, too, could evaporate.
Bank Funds Won’t Cover MF Global Shortfall, Trustee Says
By Silla Brush and Robert Schmidt - Bloomberg.com
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- MF Global Inc., the futures brokerage that collapsed on Oct. 31, will have a shortfall in customer funds even if all the money in customer accounts at U.S. depository institutions is recovered, the trustee overseeing the firm’s bankruptcy said.
James W. Giddens, the trustee, has said there may be as much as $1.2 billion in missing funds. MF Global Inc. was a subsidiary of MF Global Holdings Ltd., the New York-based firm run by Jon S. Corzine that failed after making $6.3 billion in wrong-way bets on European sovereign debt.
More charges coming in insider trading probe
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Katya Wachtel
(Reuters) - A year after four hedge funds were raided as part of a sweeping probe into insider trading, agents are ready to arrest as many as three people who worked at the raided funds, sources familiar with the investigation said.
These arrests are expected to take place in the coming weeks, and some of the people will plead guilty to charges of insider trading, the sources said.
The sources declined to be named because the impending arrests have not yet been made public.
Congressional Insider Trading:
Will Someone Please Guard the Damn Guardians?
By Megan McArdle - TheAtlantic.com
Presumably thanks to the 60 Minutes story that ran a few weeks ago, Congress is finally looking at passing a bill aimed at Congressional insider trading.
Unfortunately, insider trading expert and first-class blogger Professor Bainbridge says that the version they've taken up is, to quote him "bizarre and toothless":
Read literally, the bill prohibits insider trading by members of Congress only if the member not only personally trades on the basis of such information but also tips the information to "another person" with intent to aid that other person to use the information to trade for personal profit.
The Y-T-D Performance of Various Assets:
Gold, Silver, US Stocks, Bonds, and AAPL
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
And the winner is gold, at least for now with one month left in the year.
I included AAPL because it is the poster child for the stock rally and is often touted by shills for Wall Street and the hedge funds as a superior investment amongst stocks on chat boards and 'news programs.'
It should be noted that recently the US 30 Year Bond has greatly outperformed the US 10 Year Note because of the Fed's 'Operation Twist.' It has still underperformed gold in the short term at about 19% unless you wish to compare some derivative of the bond like zero coupons or a fund rather than the bond plus accrued interest. The discrepancy there between the bond and the derivatives is most likely an indication of speculation based on the Fed's actions.
What 50 years of market experience speaks of gold
CommodityOnline.com
The Gold Report: Ian, you have been involved in the markets for 50 years. How much of today's market is a repeat of a cycle you've seen before and how much is unique?
Ian McAvity: Cyclical and secular trends haven't really changed, but each one has slightly different characteristics. From 1982 to 2000, there was a powerful secular uptrend in the S&P 500. Since 2000, there's been a secular bear trend, sideways or downtrend not dissimilar to 1966–1982 or 1932–1949 that may run through 2016 or 2018
Putting a Gleam in Your IRA
By Terry Coxon, Casey Research - GoldSeek.com
You likely have seen invitations to open a "Gold IRA" or something with a similar name. Perhaps you should, but before you do, think about why an Individual Retirement Account might or might not be a good place to hold gold. That may tell you something about the best way to introduce gold into your IRA.
Gold isn't the only investment that raises the "Does it belong in an IRA?" question. Every investment does. And for every investment, the answer is, "It depends." It depends on the nature of the other assets in your overall portfolio. It depends on how big the IRA is compared to your total holdings. And it depends on your judgment as to which investments are likely to be the most profitable..
Iran identifies fresh gold reserves worth $3.6 billion Amidst continuing political standoffs with the West, Iran said it identified gold reserves of nearly sixty tons lying across the nation.
TEHRAN (BullionStreet): Amidst continuing political standoffs with the West, Iran said it identified gold reserves of nearly sixty tons lying across the nation.
According to Geological Survey of Iran (GSI), Sixty tons of gold reserves, valued at around $3.6 billion, have been explored at different points across the country.
The GSI said the total proven and probable gold reserves of Iran stand currently at 320 tons.
Venezuela deploys troop to safeguard repatriated gold Venezuela deployed troops to safeguard the first batch of repatriated gold, now sits in country's central bank vaults here.
CARACAS (BullionStreet): Venezuela deployed troops to safeguard the first batch of repatriated gold, now kept in central bank vaults here.
According to central bank spokesman the ecurity operation involving 500 men, armored vehicles and aircraft.
He said 500 heavily armed men, as well as aircraft, armored vehicles and tanks, were involved in safeguarding the shipment.
Each box of gold weighs 500 kilograms and is worth about $30 million, spokesman said adding that the nation will bring the rest back little by little.
'Silver, still a safe place to retain our value'
By Vitaly Indinko - CommodityOnline.com
Today's investing horizon can seem like a sea of roiling turmoil. Not too long ago, many of us were considering how we'd spend our early retirement. The boom times of the middle of the decade seemed prosperous for all. Recently however we're more concerned with just staying above the dangerous waters that seem to be rising around us. In this kind of environment, many of us are considering the merits of investments like Silver bullion.
As a commodity, silver bullion has some very appealing qualities for a period of uncertainty like this. For those of us concerned about inflation, commodities can provide a level of protection that cash cannot. If we're worried about inflation devouring our net worth, a precious metal like silver can provide a safe place to retain our value. This safety is one of the key reasons precious metals are so popular right now.
Mass. AG hits big banks with foreclosure lawsuit
By Tim McLaughlin and Aruna Viswanatha
(Reuters) - The Massachusetts attorney general has filed a lawsuit against five large U.S. banks accusing them of deceptive foreclosure practices, a signal of ebbing confidence that a multi-state agreement can be worked out.
Attorney General Martha Coakley said on Thursday she filed the lawsuit partly because it has been taking too long to hammer out a nationwide settlement.
For more than a year, state and federal officials have been negotiating a deal in which banks would pay billions of dollars in fines - to go toward housing relief - in exchange for legal protection against future suits.
Anticipating a Correction in the Global Monetary System
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
12/01/11 Baltimore, Maryland – Whoa! The Dow rose almost 500 points yesterday. Whoopee! Hallelujah!
It was like the Second Coming on Wall Street. As if He walked across the East River…and announced it Himself:
"The fix is in."
But it was not the sacred that spoke yesterday. It was the profane. The world’s central banks, to be precise. They got together. More like a meeting of mobsters than a gathering of the gods. They made it clear.
You want money? You want cash? You want something you can take to the bank? Well, you’ve got it!
"A move by the world’s central banks to lower the cost of borrowing exhilarated investors Wednesday," the Associated Press reports, "sending the Dow Jones industrial average soaring 490 points and easing fears of a global credit crisis similar to the one that followed the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers."
A Call to Abolish the FEC The federal commission has failed at the task of enforcing campaign finance rules and should be replaced
by Adam Skaggs - TheAtlantic.com
The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are as far apart on the political spectrum as possible, but both cry foulat the capture of government by special interests. Left and right alike agree that elected officials shouldn't finance their campaigns with contributions from the industries they regulate.
But even stanching the flow of favor-seeking dollars to our representatives won't address the potential corruption that flows from soft money spent by supposedly "independent" groups. To safeguard our democracy, we need strong rules that will bring transparency and accountability to this outside spending -- and an oversight agency that can, and will, enforce them.
Eliot Spitzer:
"In retrospect, I wish we had put more people in handcuffs."
DylanRatigan.com
Eliot Spitzer was a law enforcement official so tough on corporate malfeasance that the US Chamber of Commerce helped coin a new term "Spitzerism" to describe what he was doing. As New York Attorney General, Spitzer pioneered a strategy of using state resources to enforce laws that were typically within Federal jurisdiction. He pursued standard consumer rights cases that most state attorneys general find as their bread and butter, but he also went after white collar crimes and Wall Street conflicts of interest that came to light after the bursting of the internet bubble.
Since a scandalous fall from grace as New York Governor, Spitzer has picked up his aggressive law enforcement chops as a writer and spokesman for law and order. He has become one of the most outspoken opponents of the Federal Reserve and the generally lax Federal regulatory environment. He was on our show yesterday, talking about the power of the banks, the Fed’s secret loans, MF Global, and Citigroup.
Detroit gambles on lottery to avoid bankruptcy Lawmakers Hope To Make Money With Detroit-Only Lottery
CBS Detroit
DETROIT (WWJ) - Would a city-run lottery in Detroit solve the city’s financial problems? One state lawmaker thinks so.
WWJ’s Vickie Thomas reports that state Rep. Dr. Jimmy Womack, D-Detroit, is drafting legislation to start a "Detroit only" lottery. He plans to meet with the state lottery commission next week.
The idea is the brainchild of Councilman Kwame Kenyatta, and it comes in the midst of a Detroit financial crisis that has created the threat of massive layoffs, service cuts, and even potential insolvency.
Unemployment aid applications up for 2nd straight week
By Christopher S. Rugaber - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people applying forunemployment benefits rose for the second straight week, a sign the hiring market is recovering at a slow and uneven pace.
Weekly applications for unemployment benefits rose 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 402,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Applications had been below 400,000 for three straight weeks.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, was mostly unchanged at slightly below 400,000.
The average fell to a seven-month low two weeks ago. Weekly applications had been declining for two months.
18 Crazy Facts Which Show
That No Nation On Earth Is More Doped Up
On Prescription Drugs Than America Is
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Anyone that comes to visit America may notice that most of us walk around like a bunch of zombies. Well, the truth is that this is because about half of us are completely doped up on prescription drugs. In America, we don't just take pills if we are sick. In this day and age, the pharmaceutical companies have come up with a pill for just about everything. If we are feeling a little sad, we are told to just pop a pill. If we are feeling a little bit of pain, we are told to just pop a pill. If our children like to run around and play, we are told that giving them the right pills will settle them down. Every single year, prescription drug use in America increases, and there are dozens of different pharmaceutical companies that are making billions of dollars off of our "legal" addiction to drugs. The funny thing is that many of these "legal" drugs are only just the slightest bit different from many of the "illegal" drugs that are being sold out on the streets. But because they have "government approval", the big pharmaceutical companies can relentlessly peddle them to the American public. Many of these drugs are very damaging to our health, many of them are very damaging to our ability to think and many of them are extremely addictive.
Diabetes breakthrough stalled in safety debate
By Julie Steenhuysen
(Reuters) - It's a dream of medical science that looks tantalizingly within reach: the artificial pancreas, a potential breakthrough treatment for the scourge of type 1 diabetes.
Meant to mimic the function of a real pancreas, the artificial version is a complex device that combines a pager-sized continuous glucose monitor and sensor that tracks blood sugar with a pump that automatically delivers the correct dose of insulin at just the right time.
That technology could make a major difference to the three million Americans with the disease who must vigilantly monitor their blood sugar, even at night, and risk deadly consequences if they are slow to notice a dangerous change.
Sebelius: Health a national security issue
By Bruce Smith - AP - TheSunNews.com
CHARLESTON -- Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday that America’s health is a matter of national security and that she’s optimistic the Supreme Court will uphold the nation’s health care reform law.
During a visit to the South Carolina coast, Sebelius spoke with a black nurses group and then was to attend a conference on improving access to health care.
The nation’s health "really is an issue of national security," she told the nurses group, adding that a healthy, productive work force "is an essential part of our prosperity."
Social Security teeters over tax cut plan Obama stimulus ploy would hasten day when system dodders
By Donald Lambro and Donald Lambro - The Washington Times
Congress is working on extending the employee Social Security payroll tax cut for one more year and possibly cut it for employers, too. But no one’s talking about how much revenue this will drain from a fund that’s already turned "cash negative."
President Obama was campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, bashing Republicans for opposing all of his tax increases, and pointing out that if the temporary payroll tax cut is killed, it would mean a 2 percent tax hike for tens of millions of workers. In fact, Republicans have signaled they have every intention of extending the tax cut, although they want to offset its substantial deficit costs with budget cuts elsewhere in the government.
How Google Doodles Are Made
By DINO GRANDONI1 - TheAtlantic.com
Google Doodles have become the best success story of corporate branding in recent years: they're addictingly fun, go viral instantly, and create some positive press for a company that otherwise gets criticized for its privacy shenanigans. Which is probably why The Daily today decided to take a look at the lucky four Doodlers employed by Google to rebrand its six-letter logo again and again. Like many Googlers, Doodle artist Jennifer Hom is the obsessive type. "We’re constantly coming up with new ideas for doodles," she says. “I dream about Doodles in my sleep." (The latest Doodle she dreamt up was of the fence-painting scene in Tom Sawyer, pictured above, up today for Mark Twain's birthday.) And while the Doodles themselves are all fun and games (sometimes literally), making them isn't:
Is the NLRB Going to Drop Its Case Against Boeing?
Damon W. Root - Reason.com
The Associated Press reports that Boeing is close to striking a new four-year collective bargaining agreement with its unionized employees in Washington state that will likely put a stop to the National Labor Relations Board’s controversial prosecution of the company for opening a new production facility in right-to-work South Carolina. As the AP story notes:
If the deal is finalized, it would appear to leave in place the work at a new $750 million Boeing plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state where the company opened a new production line for its 787 airplane....
The new agreement guarantees that a different aircraft — the 737 Max — would be assembled at union facilities in Renton, Wash., said Tom Wroblewski, president of Machinists Union District 751.
Boeing pact sidesteps NLRB suit Relocation rights fight to go unsettled?
By Tim Devaney - The Washington Times
Boeing’s abrupt labor deal with its leading union sidesteps any resolution that may have come from a court battle over the powers of the National Labor Relations Board.
While happy that the case is winding down, business groups are disappointed that the NLRB’s lawsuit against the aerospace giant could fizzle and leave the door open for the agency to continue the practice of relocating companies that it thinks violate labor laws.
Boeing, union reach tentative deal to end labor dispute
By Michael A. Fletcher - WashingtonPost.com
The union representing Boeing workers has agreed to a tentative deal that would effectively end the politically charged dispute between the giant airline manufacturer and the National Labor Relations Board.
The agreement, reached Wednesday, would extend the union’s labor contract by four years. The deal offers wage and pension increases to workers, while guaranteeing a period of labor peace long sought by Boeing.
The deal also includes a Boeing commitment to assemble the new 737 MAX in a union shop in Renton, Wash., guaranteeing the kind of job security sought by the union.
Obama Administration Sends Weapons Contract
to Foreign Company with Ties to Iran What the heck? It's only our national security.
Posted by Ben Howe - RedState.com
Late Thursday night, American company Hawker Beechcraft was informed by the U.S. Air Force that they were not going to be allowed to compete for an American military aircraft contract.
The Air Force has notified Hawker Beechcraft Corp. that its Beechcraft AT-6 has been excluded from competition to build a light attack aircraft, a contract worth nearly $1 billion, the company said.
The company had been working with the Air Force for two years and spent over $100 million to ensure compliance with the requirements for the plane and says the craft (Beechcraft AT-6) met all requirements as shown through a demonstration actually led by the Air National Guard.
Senate OKs sanctions on Iran’s central bank
Terrorism deal sets up Obama showdown
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
Saying they were fed up with Chinese and Russian stalling on sanctions, senators on Thursday voted to punish both Iran’s central bank and foreign institutions that do business with it — moving further than the Obama administration has been willing to go.
Minutes earlier, senators also struck a last-minute deal that guarantees habeas-corpus rights to American citizens held as terrorism suspects, though it preserved new language giving the military first crack at detaining them if they are suspected of being part of al Qaeda.
China's Superior Economic Model The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history.
By ANDY STERN - WSJ OPINION
Andy Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel, provocatively wrote in Businessweek last year that, "Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated from a conviction based on observation to an unquestioned truism, is that the free market is the best of all economic systems—the freer the better. Our generation has seen the decisive victory of free-market principles over planned economies. So we stick with this belief largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better."
The past few weeks have proven Mr. Grove's point, as our relations with China, and that country's impact on America's future, came to the forefront of American politics. Our inert Senate, while preparing for the super committee to fail, crossed the normally insurmountable political divide to pass legislation to address China's currency manipulation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama all weighed in with their views—ranging from warnings that China must "end unfair discrimination" (Mrs. Clinton) to complaints that the U.S. has "been played like a fiddle" (Mr. Romney) and that China needs to stop "gaming" the international system (Mr. Obama).
Familiarity with Putin breeding contempt
By Marc Bennetts - Special to The Washington Times
MOSCOW — Popular support for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putinand his ruling party is falling as voters prepare for Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
"Opposition to Putin is huge, and it’s growing rapidly," said Moscow-based journalist Alexei Korolyov.
"Every day, there are more and more people asking themselves, 'Why did I go for this guy 10 years ago?' And you hear people say this everywhere, not only in Moscow or St. Petersburg."
The Real Reasons Why Canada is Withdrawing from Kyoto
Written by James Burgess - OilPrice.com
The Kyoto Protocol was drawn up at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with the aim of fighting global warming. It was first adopted in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan and has since earned 191 state signatures. All who sign it legally agree to reduce, before 2012, their carbon emission by 6% from their 1990 emission level. It is currently the only legally binding accord that forces countries to reduce their carbon gas emissions, but it isn’t perfect. In fact many of the largest polluting countries such as the US, India, China and Brazil aren’t included in the agreement.
Canada are now using this excuse to justify their own withdrawal from the treaty as Environment Minister Peter Kent has stated that "their (the other countries) exclusion is part of the reason Canada is looking to withdraw from the accord."
NATO attack threatens war on militants: Pakistan
By Chris Allbritton and Zeeshan Haider
(Reuters) - Pakistan, enraged by a NATO cross-border attack that killed 24 soldiers, could end support for the U.S.-led war on militancy if its sovereignty is violated again, the foreign minister said, warning that "enough is enough."
The South Asian nation has already shown its anger over the weekend strike by pulling out of an international conference in Germany next week on Afghanistan, depriving the talks of a central player in efforts to bring peace to its neighbor.
"Enough is enough. The government will not tolerate any incident of spilling even a single drop of any civilian or soldier's blood," The News newspaper on Thursday quoted Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar as telling a Senate committee on foreign affairs.
Al-Qaeda holding American hostage in Pakistan Al-Qaeda says it kidnapped Warren Weinstein in Pakistan
BBC.co.uk
Al-Qaeda says it has 70-year-old US aid expert Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped by armed men in the Pakistani city of Lahore nearly four months ago.
In a video, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said he would be freed if the US stopped air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other demands.
Mr Weinstein is a former USAID worker who has lived in Pakistan for five years.
US officials have not said publicly who they believed was holding him.
Fed saves Europe's banks as ECB stands pat Stripped to essentials, America is once again having to rescue Europe from itself.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The interwoven banking and sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone has become so dangerous for the world that the US Federal Reserve has been forced to take emergency action, acting as global lender of last resort to shore up Europe's banking system.
That it should have to do so as Germany and the European Central Bank hold back for legal reasons and refuse to commit decisive power adds a strange diplomatic twist.
The move came once it was clear that Europe's prostrate banks would struggle to roll over $2 trillion (£1.3 trillion) of debts denominated in dollars. Data from ratings agency Fitch shows that US money markets have slashed funding for French banks by 69pc and German banks by 50pc.
"I think the major monetization is already occurring in the Eurodollar markets, and an ongoing stealth bailout of European debt, in order to save the big money center banks at home and broaden the reach of the Dollar.
And this is why the Fed stopped reporting on Eurodollars some years ago, as a component of M3. It was to pave the way for the monetary equivalent of a financial neo-con, to addict European governance to the US dollar and pave the way for a stronger position for the dollar as a one world currency."
Fed Has Tools Beyond Swaps
for Countering Europe’s Sovereign-Debt Crisis
By Steve Matthews and Scott Lanman - Bloomberg.com
The Federal Reserve has tools available for easing Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis beyond its coordinated effort to reduce borrowing costs announced today, including cutting the U.S. discount lending rate.
Six central banks led by the Fed lowered the cost of emergency dollar funding for financial companies, reducing the premium banks pay to borrow dollars overnight from central banks by half a percentage point to 50 basis points.
Central bank deal
should remind eurozone leaders of looming disaster So much for moral hazard. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has decided he can't wait any longer for dithering eurozone politicians to sort out their problems.
By Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
The warning signs of an impending European banking collapse, which would have global implications, cannot be ignored any longer.
Eurozone money supply has been contracting recently in an eerie echo of the events contributing to the 1930s Depression. American money market funds, a crucial source of liquidity, have been fleeing back home and leaving European banks without access to dollars to refinance their liabilities. Investors have been getting so nervous of collapse that they have sent bond yields on short-dated German bonds negative, paying Berlin to hold their cash.
Central Banks to the Rescue:
Should We Be Encouraged or Terrified? Strong action by the world's stewards of monetary policy was necessary -- for now. Hardly anyone believes that the central banks' actions are more than scotch tape over a shattered EU.
By Jim Tankersley - TheAtlantic.com
Central bankers around the world are very, very worried about Europe, and they're starting to do something about it. This is equal parts terrifying and encouraging.
That's the critical takeaway from the liquidity injection - a fancy way of saying, turning up the spigot on global lending - embarked upon on Wednesday by the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and four other central banks from around the globe. The coordinated effort will make it cheaper for foreign banks to borrow U.S. dollars from their central banks, which is important, because those banks have found it increasingly expensive to borrow dollars elsewhere to maintain cash flows.
The central bank deal: Five things to know
Posted by Sarah Kliff
As my colleague Neil Irwin reports this morning, major central banks announced a new strategy this morning to halt Europe’s financial woes from undermining the global economy. Here are five things to know about what happened this morning:
1. The big ticket item: swaps to increase liquidity. One key challenge facing banks right now, particularly those in Europe, is liquidity: Making sure they have enough credit to meet their lending obligations. That’s exactly the issue that the Federal Reserve, along with five other central banks, is tackling today. They’re lowering the costs of moving money from the Federal Reserve to other central banks through what are called "liquidity swap lines." "In effect," Irwin explains, "the Fed is handing over money to other global central banks—now at a lower rate than in the past—and those central banks, in turn, lend the dollars to banks in their countries that are facing difficulties funding themselves."
Goldman Urges Bet Against Euro Junk Debt
By John Detrixhe - Bloomberg.com
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., after this year’s losing endorsement of U.S. bank stocks, recommends as its top trade for 2012 a bet against European high-yield corporate debt and forecasts a "deeper recession" for the region.
The fifth-biggest U.S. bank in terms of assets recommended in a research note that investors speculate on the rising cost of insuring against the default of European junk bonds by using the Markit iTraxx Crossover Index of 50 companies with mostly high-yield credit ratings. The gauge of derivatives will climb to 950 basis points, or 9.5 percentage points, from 770 basis points, according to Goldman Sachs, which urges investors to exit the trade if the index falls to 680 basis points.
Holding the EU together by Money Printing and Force
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
The European Union is frantically trying to come up with a plan to fix the debt crisis that is threatening to cause a worldwide financial calamity. It seems every day there’s a new idea to save the union. The latest is some sort of backdoor bailout through the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Why doesn’t the European Central Bank (ECB) just take care of the bailout by itself? It legally can't according to the treaty that formed the European Union. That hasn’t stopped the central bank from bailing out countries anyway. But now, debt levels are reaching a critical stage as in a possible default, and the biggest problem is Italy. Todayonline.com is reporting, "If Italy defaults on its debt of 1.9 trillion euros, the fallout could spell ruin for the euro zone and send shockwaves throughout the rest of the world. Yesterday, Italy’s borrowing rates skyrocketed to record highs in a 7.5 billion euro bond auction. The yield on its 3-year bonds surged to 7.89 per cent, 2.96 percentage points higher than last month, while yields on 10-year bonds spiked to 7.56 per cent, up 1.5 percentage points."
Nigel Farage: This is How Dictatorship Begins
Debt Crisis: US rescue act is a sign of the mess we’re in For the eurozone, it was another humiliating turn of events. Faced with Europe’s abject failure to sort out its own mess, the US Federal Reserve has been forced to come riding to the rescue instead.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
It wasn’t quite D-Day – Europe is going to require much bigger solutions than the quite limited band aid offered yesterday by the world’s most powerful central bank – but it was the first bit of positive news the single currency has had for some time.
What’s essentially happened is that the Federal Reserve has agreed to step in and provide the cut-price dollar funding to eurozone banks which markets, fearing the worst about the future of the euro, have been refusing.
European ministers to seek more IMF backing European finance ministers said they will bid for more support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as their plans for a "big bazooka" stalled and their agreements to recapitalise the banks threatened to unravel.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
After a two-day summit in Brussels, the finance ministers agreed to "explore" the possibility of the IMF backing the enfeebled European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), perhaps through the European Central Bank (ECB).
German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said Germany would back more IMF involvement. "We are prepared to increase the resources of the IMF through bilateral loans," he said. "Naturally the details would have to be discussed."
Markets soar after central banks act to ease credit crisis Stockmarkets soared as six of the world's richest central banks announced a co-ordinated effort to outflank European political deadlock and unlock the financial markets themselves.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
The US Federal Reserve led a synchronised wave of announcements from the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the central banks of Canada, Switzerland and Japan that were designed to pump liquidity into the markets.
The six banks said they were cutting the cost of dollar swap lines, effectively halving the price of banks borrowing dollars to fund themselves from 100bps to 50bps above a base rate. They aimed to unblock the flow of money which, compounded by a severe loss of confidence, is threatening to freeze the financial system again. The banks attempted co-ordinated action in September, but on a far smaller scale.
Businesses plan for possible end of euro
By Tony Barber and Daniel Dombey, FT.com via CNN.com
(CNN) -- International companies are preparing contingency plans for a possible break-up of the eurozone, according to interviews with dozens of multinational executives.
Concerned that Europe's political leaders are failing to control the spreading sovereign debt crisis, business executives say they feel compelled to protect their companies against a crash that can no longer be wished away. When German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy raised the prospect of a Greek exit from the eurozone earlier this month, it marked the first time that senior European officials had dared to question the permanence of their 13-year-old experiment with monetary union.
Keiser Report: Kleptocrats Go for Gold (E216)
Ten days to solve the euro – but how?
London (CNN) – The U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and other central banks Wednesday took co-ordinated action to oil the wheels of the world's financial system.
The move came as Olli Rehn, Europe's Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, warned the eurozone was entering a critical phrase to solve its debt crisis, which has deepened since Greece took its first bailout in May 2010. Rehn said the region has "10 days to complete and conclude the crisis response of the European Union."
The same could happen here... Europe's Two Endgames
by Gary North - LewRockwell.com
On November 22, the New York Times published an interactive chart on which governments owe how much money to which foreign nation's banks.The chart reveals the fault lines in Europe's economy. The debts are owed above all to French banks. The biggest debtor is Italy. If Italy defaults, France's largest banks go down. Overnight.
On Monday, November 28, there was a Financial Times article speculating that the Eurozone has less than two weeks to survive. The headline: "The Eurozone really has only days to avoid a collapse." It was written by an associate editor of the publication.
The Other One Percent:
Corporate Psychopaths and the Global Financial Crisis
Abstract By Clive R. Boddy - JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Anyone who has ever worked in a large corporation has seen the empty suits that seem to inexplicably rise to positions of power. They talk a great game, possessing extraordinary verbal acuity and an amazing ability to rise without accomplishments to positions of great personal power, often using it ruthlessly.
And anyone who has been on the inside of the national political process knows this is certainly nothing exclusive to the corporate world.
Here is a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics that hypothesizes along these lines. It is only a preliminary paper, lacking in scholarship and peer review. Abstract - full text
2 million Brits walk out over pension cuts Strikes over public sector pensions hit services across UK as 2 million walk out David Cameron and Ed Miliband trade blows as 60% of schools in England are closed and 6,000 NHS operations cancelled
By Dan Milmo, Caroline Davies, Polly Curtis and Hélène Mulholland - Guardian.co.uk
Trade unions and the government have traded blows over the impact of the biggest outbreak of industrial unrest in three decades, as up to 2 million public sector workers went on strike, forcing the closure of 62% of state schools in England and the cancellation of 6,000 hospital operations.
Heathrow airport reported minimal disruption as the mass rebooking of passengers helped reduce queues at border control, but the cabinet secretary, Francis Maude, acknowledged that the strikes over pension reforms had disrupted services. The impact includes:
Asian Stocks Jump as China Cuts Reserve Ratio,
Central Banks Act on Crisis
By Kana Nishizawa and Masaaki Iwamoto - Bloomberg.com
Asian stocks jumped, with the regional index set for its biggest gain since September, after six central banks cut the cost of emergency dollar funding for European banks and China reduced curbs on lending.
Developers Agile Property Holdings Ltd. (3383) and Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd. (3333) gained at least 14 percent, leading a gauge of Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong to its largest jump since 2008.Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., a Japanese manufacturer that depends on China for about a quarter of sales, jumped 7.8 percent. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s biggest mining company, gained 4.4 percent in Sydney after commodity prices rose.
China is importing inflation as long as it is tied to the dollar
Commodity Online
Is the world nearing the end of the Dollar standard? If so, what will that do to the Dollar Gold Price – and the purchasing power of currency?
These are all questions pondered by ShadowStats.com editor John Williams in this interview with The Gold Report (TGR) TGR:You've repeatedly said that the global economic crisis is not Europe's fault but part of a pending systemic collapse that started with the manipulation of the US financial markets — the moves you've been talking about. What countries or sectors will suffer the most if the crisis continues? John Williams: The more closely they're tied to the Dollar, the greater the inflation impact will be in other areas, but the runaway inflation I'm talking about will be largely in the US and for people living in a US Dollar-denominated world.
That's from an inflation standpoint. Yet, it also will have an extremely negative impact on the US economy, and problems in the US economy indeed will have a global impact. The US economy is still the largest in the world, and you can't push it deeper into a depression without having negative economic consequences outside the US.
Paul Craig Roberts:
Germany's Failed Bond Auction was Orchestrated by the Banks
Need for Brazil Debt Kills US Defense Company
Political Calculations - Townhall.com
How dependent has the United States government under President Barack Obama become upon borrowing money from foreign sources to support its spending?
Would you believe the answer is: "enough to exclude a long-time U.S. manufacturer from consideration for a defense contract in favor of a foreign-based manufacturer, despite the U.S. manufacturer having invested considerable time and profits earned from their other products to develop a product that specifically satisfies the government's needs?"
Treasuries Rise for First Time in Five Days
on Speculation Fed to Cut Rate
By Wes Goodman and Monami Yui - Bloomberg.com
Treasuries rose for the first time in five days on speculation the Federal Reserve will lower borrowing costs to maintain economic growth, while Italy and Greece struggle with a debt crisis.
Benchmark 10-year yields declined from a two-week high after Jan Hatzius, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said the Fed will probably arrange a third round of bond purchases known as quantitative easing, or QE3, next year. The Fed and five other central banks announced plans yesterday to cut the cost of emergency dollar loans.
Gold Producers Poised
Like 'Coiled Spring' to Rally: Commodities
By Thomas Biesheuvel - Bloomberg.com
Gold mining stocks are trading at their cheapest level in at least nine years even as the industry’s profits are estimated to almost double this year and bullion trades close to its historic high.
The benchmark NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index (HUI) that includesBarrick Gold Corp. (ABX), Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) andAngloGold Ashanti Ltd. ended last week at 17 times earnings, the lowest since at least November 2002 and below a five-year average of 37 times
Two reasons why Silver looks extremely bullish
By Deepak Rangan
With Silver trading over 35% down from its May highs of near $50/oz, silver is looking extremely bullish for a number of reasons and many traders are expecting prices to double or even tripe over the next 6 months. Here are two reasons why silver is looking extremely bullish.
-Many Traders expect the US fed to unleash the next round of Quantitative Easing, QE3. On both previous occasions, silver prices have risen after the announcement of QE. In late 2008, when QE1 was announced, silver rose from around $10 levels to rise to near $20 levels when the QE2 was announced. Silver rose near $50 after the QE2 announcement..
The Man Who Busted the 'Banksters'
By: Gilbert King - SmithsonianMag.com
Three years removed from the stock market crash of 1929, America was in the throes of the Great Depression, with no recovery on the horizon. As President Herbert Hoover reluctantly campaigned for a second term, his motorcades and trains were pelted with rotten vegetables and eggs as he toured a hostile land where shanty towns erected by the homeless had sprung up. They were called "Hoovervilles," creating the shameful images that would define his presidency. Millions of Americans had lost their jobs, and one in four Americans lost their life savings. Farmers were in ruin, 40 percent of the country’s banks had failed, and industrial stocks had lost 80 percent of their value.
Goodnight, Solyndra:
$1/2 Billion Swindle Delivered $1,015.25 Entertainment
By Tim Cavanaugh - Reason.com
Energy Secretary Steven Chuwhiffed in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, but he apparently hit arecord number of foul balls in one at-bat, so the crowd lost interest.
E&C Committee staff director Gary Andres has been outed as a vice chairman at Solyndra lobbying firm Dutko Worldwide, further depleting the will of House Republicans who are themselvesindentured to the green pork superstructure.
Mitt Romney adviser Ron Kaufman is a top adviser at Dutko, rendering it improbable that the rock-ribbed small government conservative will make much of a campaign issue of Solyndra.
29 Amazing Stats
Which Prove That The Rich Are Getting Richer
And The Poor Are Getting Poorer
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
In the United States today, there is one group of people that is actually living the American Dream. The ultra-wealthy have seen their incomes absolutely explode over the past three decades. Meanwhile, the U.S. middle class has been steadily declining and the ranks of the poor have been swelling. But this is what always happens when an economy becomes highly centralized. Today, gigantic corporations and "too big to fail" banks totally dominate our economic system. The whole game is rigged. Our system is now designed to funnel wealth away from the bottom 90 percent of the population and into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy. When you allow a handful of giant entities to run everything, it is going to inevitably create a situation where there are a small number of very big winners and a massive amount of losers. In America today, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Yes, there will always be poor people. Yes, those that work really hard and produce something of great value for society should be greatly rewarded. The way that our system should work is that it should empower individuals and small businesses to come up with new ideas, start companies, create jobs and produce massive amounts of new wealth. But instead, the number of small businesses in America is rapidly declining. The giant banks and the giant corporations that run everything are constantly running around stomping all of the "little guys" out of existence. This has created an environment where the rich are constantly getting richer and the poor are constantly getting poorer.
Tens Of Millions Of American Families
Are Living On The Edge Of Desperation –
And The Economy Is About To Get A Whole Lot Worse
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Have you ever been so poor that you had to live in your car? Have you ever been so low on funds that the only place you could afford to live was a rat-infested motel? Have you ever spent a night living in a tent city or sleeping in the streets? If not, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. As the recent Black Friday madnessdemonstrated, there are still lots of Americans that are doing well enough to go on wild shopping sprees, but the reality is that there are also millions of American families that are falling through the "safety net" to a place of total desperation. In a previous article I talked about the fact that the U.S. Census Bureau recently announced that a higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty than has ever been measured before. Not only that, 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty last year. That was also a new all-time record. As you read this, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one our of every four U.S. children is on food stamps. Tens of millions of American families are living on the edge of desperation. In many communities across the United States, there is so much despair in the air that it is almost tangible. When you look into the eyes of many Americans these days, it almost seems as if all the hope has been sucked right out of their hearts. Economic despair is at epidemic levels, and unfortunately the economy is about to get a whole lot worse.
Care for a horseburgerfor lunch?... will homeless PEOPLE or convicted prisoners, or even old people be next? The government bean counters will surely find that 'eating' them, instead of 'feeding' them is more cost effective, in this unscruplous day and age of devaluing human life to statistics and cold analysis within the death management system soon to be implemented with health care reform. Bizarre things are happening and it will wax worse... YOU don't object, do you? Congress Lifts Horse Butchering Ban for the Good of Horses
By ALEXANDER ABAD-SANTOS - TheAtlanticWire.com
Congress has lifted a five-year-old ban on butchering and funding horse meat, proving our love of money, jobs, and yes, horses are the very reasons they could soon be what's for dinner. As gross, taboo, and as cruel as horse-meat sashimi may seem, it may actually be a good thing. If it's any solace, the bill and ban-lifting actually wasn't an outright decision--it more or less snuck in--as theStar Tribune noted that the ban was attached to last week's must-pass federal spending bill which averted a government shutdown. Because of the ban, the United States had been sending horses to Mexico and Canada to get slaughtered, and The New York Times reports that it's expensive to euthanize and send the horses abroad--which we did to about 138,000 horses last year. As one, mildly xenophobic horse-slaughter expert told The Times, "The Mexicans are getting rich off us ...They’re buying these horses cheap because they can. We have no other options." The AP notesthat our hatred of outsourcing our love of job creation is what garnered Congress' support of the bill: "Sen. Max Baucus said the poor economy has resulted in 'sad cases' of horse abandonment and neglect and lifting the ban will give Americans a shot at regaining lost jobs and making sure sick horses aren't abandoned or mistreated." Baucus's slaughter-statement actually echoes what's driving the support of butchering from some surprising (vets and breeders) horse advocates. "A coalition of horse breeders, slaughterhouses, large animal veterinarians and exporters say lifting the ban will create jobs ... and, moreover, cut down on the number of horses abandoned or starved by owners who can no longer afford the upkeep," notes the Star Tribune. So sorry horses, this butchering thing is totally for our your own good.
Lessons of History?
By Thomas Sowell (Archive) - PatriotPost.us
It used to be common for people to urge us to learn "the lessons of history." But history gets much less attention these days and, if there are any lessons that we are offered, they are more likely to be the lessons from current polls or the lessons of political correctness.
Even among those who still invoke the lessons of history, some read those lessons very differently from others.
Talk show host Michael Medved, for example, apparently thinks the Republicans need a centrist presidential candidate in 2012. He said, "Most political battles are won by seizing the center." Moreover, he added: "Anyone who believes otherwise ignores the electoral experience of the last 50 years."
Thomas Jefferson's Free-Market Economics
Mises Daily: by Murray N. Rothbard
The leadership of the French Smithians was quickly gained by Jean-Baptiste Say, when the first edition of his great Traité d'Économie Politique was published in 1803. Say was born in Lyons to a Huguenot family of textile merchants, and he spent most of his early life in Geneva, and then in London, where he became a commercial apprentice. Finally, he returned to Paris as an employee of a life insurance company, and the young Say quickly became a leader of the laissez-faire group ofphilosophes in France. In 1794, Say became the first editor of the major journal of this group, La Décade Philosophique. A champion not only of laissez-faire but also of the burgeoning industrielisme of the Industrial Revolution, Say was hostile to the absurdly proagricultural physiocracy.
What if the Constitution No Longer Applied?
by Andrew P. Napolitano - LewRockwell.com
What if the whole purpose of the Constitution was to limit the government? What if Congress' enumerated powers in the Constitution no longer limited Congress, but were actually used as justification to extend Congress' authority over every realm of human life? What if the president, meant to be an equal to Congress, has become a democratically elected, term-limited monarch? What if the president assumed everything he did was legal, just because he's the president? What if he could interrupt your regularly scheduled radio and TV programming for a special message from him? What if he could declare war on his own? What if he could read your emails and texts without a search warrant? What if he could kill you without warning?
Abracadabra!
Bankrupt Cities are Suddenly Un-Bankrupt! (Or Not)
ByRich Smith, The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
Last month, the capital city of Pennsylvania filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Harrisburg had taken out a $317 million loan to fund a municipal incinerator, but it didn't have the money to pay even interest on the loan, much less the principal.
So the Harrisburg City Council did what any debtor, backed into a corner and seeing no way out, would do. Itfiled for bankruptcy protection.
Court Calls "Backsies"
That was a big black eye for Harrisburg, for the state that surrounds it, and, crucially, for the mayor who allowed things to deteriorate so badly. So the mayor challenged the council's bankruptcy petition, and according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Mary France, Harrisburg was indeed legally required to get the mayor's sign-off before filing for Chapter 9.
Inspector general says housing regulator failed to stop Fannie, Freddie mortgage issues
By Associated Press - WashingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — A government watchdog said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac improperly foreclosed on homeowners and cost the government billions of dollars by not holding major banks to strict underwriting requirements.
The report released Tuesday also said the Federal Housing Finance Agency gave “undue deference” to Fannie and Freddie officials and didn’t scrutinize more than $35 million in bonuses and compensation to Fannie and Freddie executives.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Serious Delinquency Rates mostly unchanged in October
by CalculatedRisk
Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family Serious Delinquency rate was unchanged at 4.00% in October. This is down from 4.52% in October of 2010. The Fannie Mae serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 5.59%.
Freddie Mac reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate increased to 3.54% in October, up from 3.51% in September. This is down from 3.82% in October 2010. Freddie's serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 4.20%.
Recession Cut Nearly Six Million Jobs
By Kent Bernhard Jr. - Portfolio.com
Nearly six million private-sector jobs evaporated in the depth of the 2008-2009 recession, a new analysis by American City Business Journals shows.
Scott Thomas’ analysis of U.S. Census Bureau information published Tuesday shows that the number of private-sector jobs in the nation’s metropolitan and smaller "micro-politan" areas shrank to 107.45 million in 2009 from 113.4 million in 2008.
Young Americans Age 18-29 Are Less Critical of Government, More Open to Entitlement Reform, and More Socially Liberal
By Emily Ekins - Reason.com
According to a recent Reason-Rupe survey, young Americans ages 18-29 are less critical of government, more open to change, more trusting overall, and more socially liberal.
Young Americans are the only age group in which a majority approves of President Obama’s job performance (52 percent approve, 42 disapprove). More young Americans approve of Congress’ job performance compared to all other age groups. Nevertheless, congressional approval remains extraordinarily low, even for young Americans at 23 percent.
The "No Hire Until Obama Is Gone" Case
by J. Jennings Moss - Portfolio.com
A Georgia small-business owner's pledge not to hire any new employees until President Barack Obama leaves office has led to a passionate online debate about Obama's job and health care policies. Read on and offer your take.
In October, we ran a post from Kent Hoover about a Tea Party activist who wanted small-business owners to stop hiring until President Barack Obama left office (which, in her calculation, would be after a Republican defeated him in 2012). That item caused a few readers and one contributor to question why we were giving space over to a such a fringe opinion.
But a not-very-funny-thing happened on the way to late November: This notion that small businesses avoid hiring seems to be picking up steam, if the response to one Georgia business owner's story has any real legs.
The Explosive Story That Could Burn Electric Cars The government is investigating the Chevy Volt for being a fire risk. That's bad news for GM and fans of green cars.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Few phrases give car-makers nightmares like the words "fire hazard."
The reasons are fairly obvious. Nobody wants to drive their family around in a rolling tinder box. And the image of a burning vehicle can cause lasting damage to a company's brand. More than 30 years after it was taken off the road, the famously combustable Ford Pinto is still shorthand for everything that can go wrong with a car design.
So executives at General Motors are probably are losing sleep now that auto-safety officials are investigating whether the company's prized Chevy Volt poses a fire risk after a crash.
Amazon Has a Very Good Reason
to Now Support an Internet Sales Tax
By REBECCA GREENFIELD - TheAtlanticWire.com
Now that the legislation favors Amazon, in a total turnaround from earlier this year, today Amazon came out and said it "strongly supports" the Internet sales tax. A few months ago, Amazon was acting all baby, filing law-suits and refusing to collect the fees but today it has no problem with it at all. Yet, while Amazon lauds the legislation, eBay contines the fight, reports CNET's Declan McCullagh. What gives? Well, Amazon has had this epiphany that other Internet companies haven't because things are now working in its favor.
NRA News: UN Doomsday Treaty With Ginny Simone
NRA News' investigative reporter Ginny Simone takes a look at the global gun control goals of the United Nations. By pushing for a binding international treaty aimed at superseding the U.S. Constitution, the United Nations is committed to rendering Americans' Second Amendment rights to own a firearm meaningless. Simone interviews past and current U.N. officials and politicians and examines the debates at the United Nations Small Arms Summit to expose the international anti-gun agenda.
Tweet With Caution: The Government Is Watching You Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's reaction to a teenage girl's tweet seems trivial, but it is representative of our ever more closely surveilled, pro-snitching society
By Wendy Kaminer - TheAtlantic.com
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has been rightly ridiculed for informing on a teenager who had the nerve to ridicule him on Twitter. (All she needed to say after his office turned her in to school authorities for tweeting "he sucked" was "I rest my case.") But the spectacle of an adult male governor (or his staff) monitoring social media for disrespectful comments and whining about a teenage girl's tweet was as disturbing as it was laughable. Brownback has apologized for what he characterized as a staff overreaction, but, all things considered, this fracas over a high school girl's tweet was not anomalous. It exemplified several troubling, anti-libertarian trends.
Furious at Latest U.S. Attack, Pakistan Shuts Down Resupply Routes to Afghanistan Permanently
Written by John Daly - OilPrice.com
NATO recently literally shot itself in the foot, imperiling the resupply of International Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan by shooting up two Pakistani border posts in a "hot pursuit" raid.
Given that roughly 100 fuel tanker trucks along with 200 other trucks loaded with NATO supplies cross into Afghanistan each day from Pakistan, Pakistan’s closure of the border has ominous long-term consequences for the logistical resupply of ISAF forces, even as Pentagon officials downplay the issue and scramble for alternative resupply routes.
A Shift from the Middle East to the Pacific
By Christopher Hill - Project-Syndicate.org
DENVER – For two years, President Barack Obama’s administration has tried to convey a narrative in which it is winding up wars in Southwest Asia and turning America’s attention to its longer-term – and arguably more important – relationships in East Asia and the Pacific. In recent months, that narrative has gained the virtue of actually being true.
Now, the task will be to balance the need for responsible military drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan with a responsible buildup of activities in East Asia. And that means putting to rest fears that the United States is gearing up for confrontation with China.
Russia sent military ships to base in Syria
Pravda.ru
Russian warships were sent to the military base in Syria. The fleet is led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. Included also are a patrol vessel and other vessels.
The Russian government announced Tuesday that from December, a flotilla of warships will be sent to the naval base that it has in Syria. The authorities affirmed that the fleet will be led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and also have a patrol vessel, an anti-submarine ship, and other vessels.
U.S. Hunting for Chinese Telecom Spyware
By Michael Riley - Bloomberg.com
The U.S. is invoking Cold War-era national-security powers to force telecommunication companies including AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) to divulge confidential information about their networks in a hunt for Chinese cyber-spying.
In a survey distributed in April, the U.S. Commerce Department asked for a detailed accounting of foreign-made hardware and software on the companies’ networks. It also asked about security-related incidents such as the discovery of "unauthorized electronic hardware" or suspicious equipment that can duplicate or redirect data, according to a copy of the survey reviewed by Bloomberg News.
China PMI Falls for First Time Since 2009
By Bloomberg News - Bloomberg.com
China’s manufacturing contracted for the first time since February 2009 as the property market cooled and Europe’s crisis cut export demand, a survey showed.
The Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 49.0 in November from 50.4 in October, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said in a statement today. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 18 economists was 49.8. A level above 50 indicates expansion.
Barack Obama urged to change US stance at UN climate summit Environmental groups and officials warn US will derail progress at Durban by blocking moves toward climate change fund
By Suzanne Goldenberg - Guardian.co.uk
Environmental groups and elected officials have warned Barack Obamathat America was emerging as the spoiler of the UN climate summit in Durban, unless there is a big shift in its negotiating stance.
In two separate, but strongly worded rebukes, Obama heard from some of his closest allies that his administration was not living up to his election promises on climate action.
Wonder what's about to go down in 4 days??
Britain expels Iranian diplomats and closes Tehran embassy William Hague says diplomats must leave UK within 48 hours, saying storming of British embassy in Iran had backing of regime
By Julian Borger and Saeed Kamali Dehghan - Guardian.co.uk
The foreign secretary, William Hague, has ordered the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from the UK and announced that the UK is closing its embassy in Tehran, saying that the storming of the mission on Tuesday had the backing of the regime.
Hague said Iranian diplomats would have to leave Britain within 48 hours, and that all British embassy staff in Tehran had now left Iran.
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