Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Tuesday 03.27.2012
Gold and China:
Where the Bulls and Bears Square Off
By Frank Holmes - GoldSeek.com
To paraphrase the great Steve Martin, today's investors are very passionate people and passionate people tend to overreact at times. An overreaction is exactly what's happened in gold and global markets in recent weeks. While market bulls have been sniffing out data points to support their case, market bears have continued to take a glass-half-empty approach.
Gold and China are two areas that have been caught in the bear trap this week, but we believe the gold and China bulls still have room to run.
Tim Price And Don Coxe: "We Have Entered The Most Favourable Era
For Gold Prices In Our Lifetime"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
...."In our view, we have entered the most favourable era for gold prices in our lifetime, and the share prices of the great mining companies will eventually outperform bullion prices."
Gold remains one of the most widely misunderstood assets in the investible world. Indeed, it may be better to refer to it as a means of saving that does not expose the saver to counterparty or credit risk or to the depredations of the monetary authorities.
Presenting The US Economy's Coming Fiscal Cliff
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The size and scale of 'current law' expectations for spending in 2012 and 2013 are dramatic to say the least. As Morgan Stanley notes, these are huge economic and political challenges to any deficit reduction - which we discussed last week (courtesy of James Montier) is critical if we are to maintain corporate profit margins. Presenting, with little pomp and circumstance, the US economic fiscal cliff...
Bernanke – Additional Accommodation Is Entirely Possible
BY ASHA BANGALORE - FinancialSense.com
Chairman Bernanke presented an extensive assessment of the labor market this morning. Bernanke repeated his depiction of the labor market as "far from normal," which was his opinion at the February 29, 2012 semi-annual testimony to the Financial Services Committee of the House of Representatives. He listed positive developments in the labor market – the noticeable increase in payrolls in the three months ended February (+245,000, 3-month moving average), moderation in layoffs in the public sector, longer workweek, the drop in theunemployment rate from 9.0% in September 2011 to 8.3% in February 2012, and the declining trend of new jobless claims. On the negative side, he mentioned it is unclear if the recent gains in payrolls "will be sustained," and listed another set of indicators to watch – jobless rate, long-term unemployment, and the rate of net hiring. Bernanke spoke about, a much discussed issue, whether the current level of unemployment represents cyclical unemployment or structural unemployment. He concluded that both types of unemployment co-exist, but only "a modest portion" of unemployment is due to "persistent structural factors."
Bernanke Decrees: Gold Rips, VIX Slips, And Volume Dips
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Gold managed a 1.8% surge today (back above $1690 and its 200- and 100-DMAs and its largest jump in 2 months) from Friday's close thanks to the combination of the ECB on Friday and Merkel and Bernanke today assuring the world that anything more than a 2% dip in stocks will not be tolerated. While Silver outperformed Gold from Friday's close, based on its 2-3x beta of the last year this was a notable 'underperformance' as Gold outpaced everything (beta adjusted). Perhaps importantly, the S&P 500 when priced in gold met and rejected resistance at a key level today - even with its nominal 30pt rally off of Friday's S&P lows. Volumes were abysmal with stocks well below YTD average and the S&P futures 20% below average and among the lowest few days' volumes of the year.
Bernanke says U.S. needs faster growth
By Pedro da Costa and Jason Lange
(Reuters) - The U.S. economy needs to grow more quickly to bring the unemployment rate down further, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday, defending the central bank's policy of very low interest rates.
While he offered no indication the Fed is keen to embark on a third round of bond purchases, Bernanke also made clear the central bank is in no rush to reverse course after responding aggressively to a deep recession.
The jobless rate has dropped to 8.3 percent from 9.1 percent last summer, a move Bernanke said was "somewhat out of sync" with the rather modest pace of economic growth.
Will Bernanke Become 'Hurricane Ben'?
by Gary North - LewRockwell.com
This report will deal with quantitative easing (QE). To prepare you for this report, I ask you to watch a short video. It is under 3 minutes. This video is the best thing I have seen on quantitative easing. I wish Bernanke would be this forthright, but I suppose this will never happen.
I will assume from this point on that you have seen the video. If you deal with colleagues who have been confused about what QE really means, forward it to them.
Bernanke getting angry at the bond market Recent increase in bond yields unnerves Bernanke
By MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — There are lots of ways to interpret the Federal Reserve's continual talking down of the U.S. economy, but the comments from Ben Bernanke on Monday have a clear target: the bond market.
The well-worn axiom "don't fight the Fed" is well worn for a reason: it's a smart move. Stock-market investors who went long after the Fed cut interest rates to nearly zero in December 2008, or bought after the central bank's various bond-buying initiatives, have been well-rewarded.
Ben has commanded: "Thou shalt take risk." He also has commanded from Mount Jackson Hole, and other venues: "Bond rates shall stay low."
Fiscal Policy Pays for Itself, Stimulus was the Right Call Unusual Times Call for Unusual Measures -
Stimulus Should be Used Again Now
by Larry Summers and Brad DeLong,
Brookings Institution - Brookings.edu
With monetary policy out of ammunition, policymakers should aggressively turn to fiscal policy, which may do so much good for the economy that it virtually pays for itself, according to a new paper released today at the Spring 2012 Conference on the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) authored by Lawrence Summers of Harvard and J. Bradford DeLong of U.C. Berkeley.
In "Fiscal Policy in a Depressed Economy," Summers, who served as one of President Obama's top economic advisers and was Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, and DeLong argue that we are living in unusual economic times, which call for unusual measures. They say that "while the conventional wisdom rejecting discretionary fiscal policy is appropriate in normal times, discretionary fiscal policy where there is room to pursue it has a major role to play in the context of severe downturns that take place in the aftermath of financial crises." Abstract - PDF...
Chinese Business Media Cautions Japanese Bond Bubble Is Ready To Burst,
Anticipates 40% Yen Devaluation
Submitted by Tyler Durden -ZeroHedge.com
It is a fact that when it comes to the oddly resilient Japanese hyperlevered economic model, the bodies of those screaming for the end of the JGB bubble litter the sides of central planning's tungsten brick road. Yet in the aftermath of last month's stunning surge in the country's trade deficit, this, and much more may soon be finally ending. Because as Caixin's Andy Xie writes "The day of reckoning for the yen is not distant. Japanese companies are struggling with profitability. It only gets worse from here. When a major company goes bankrupt, this may change the prevailing psychology. A weak yen consensus will emerge then." As for the bubble pop, it will be a sudden pop, not the 30 year deflationary whimper Mrs. Watanabe has gotten so used to: "Yen devaluation is likely to unfold quickly. A financial bubble doesn't burst slowly. When it occurs, it just pops.
GREEK GOVERNMENT ROBBED PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS
TO COMPLETE BOND SWAP "But Lucas my dear, if you run out of poor people,
you can always steal from the sick"
Hat4UK.wordpress.com REVEALED: HOW VENIZELOS REGIME SECRETLY REMOVED 70% OF MAJOR HOSPITAL, UTILITY & UNIVERSITY BANK ACCOUNT FUNDS TO PAY BONDHOLDERS Bank of Greece complicit in broadscale embezzlement revealed by respectable Greek health site
The illegally denied default of Greece entered a dramatic new phase this afternoon with the revelation by mainstream Greek public health website Health News that, shortly before midnight on March 8th – the eve of Greece's psi completion on Friday March 9th – on average 70% of public utility funds in various large, interest-bearing accounts at the Bank of Greece were raided. These included most of the State's regional hospital budgets, various universities and (it is alleged) at least one utility company.
The U.K. Is Not O.K.
BY GRANT WILLIAMS - FinancialSense.com
Britain's 'austerity drive' really has been nothing of the sort when you look at the numbers (which we shall do in a moment), but somehow, in a brilliant piece of marketing, the coalition government have managed to talk tough whilst simultaneously bringing the UK's Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR) to a little over 60% ABOVE where it was when they took office in May 2010.
In his most recent piece of surgical brilliance, Greg Weldon (www.weldononline.com) laid out the numbers in simple fashion, revealing just how bad things have become in the Sceptered Isle:
A Fistful of Euros
By: Dr. Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman - GoldSeek.com
This week, my congressional committee will hold a hearing to examine how the Federal Reserve bails out European banks, propping up spendthrift European governments in the process. Unfortunately this bailout comes at the expense of American citizens, in the form of higher prices and diminished savings down the road.
A good analysis of the Fed's "swap" scheme first appeared in the Wall Street Journal back in December, in an article by Gerald O'Driscoll entitled, "The Federal Reserve's Covert Bailout of Europe." Essentially, beginning late last year the Fed provided U.S. dollars to the European Central Bank in exchange for Euros-- sometimes as much as $100 billion at a time. The ECB then funneled those dollars to European banks to provide liquidity and prevent crises from bank insolvencies. Since the currency swap was not technically a loan, the Fed did not have to embarrass itself by openly showing foreign bank debt on its balance sheet. The ECB meanwhile did not have to print new Euros and expose the true fragility of big European banks.
More Bad News for the Dollar
Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com
Buying gasoline these days has turned into a horror show. I filled up my car and handed the attendant a $50 bill to turn the pump on. I had a little more than a quarter of a tank. So, I thought that would do the trick and peg the needle past full with change to spare. I was wrong. I stood in shock as the pump rolled right past $40 and up to $50. The car (which is a Buick Lacrosse) was still not quite full. I thought, $50 is not enough to fill up a standard size car with already more than a quarter of a tank? You could say fuel has gotten expensive, but in reality, the dollar is losing its buying power. Money printing and monster deficits in America are the big problems for the buck. The more dollars we produce, the less each one is worth. The rest of the world has been noticing and moving away from the dollar.
The Fed Is Losing The "Race To Debase"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As we pointed out about a month ago, in "While You Were Sleeping, Central Banks Flooded The World In Liquidity" as the world was focused on headlines whether or not the Fed would step up as it always does when the market is sliding, and unleash the monetary floodgates, it was not Ben Bernanke, buteveyrone else that hit CTRL+P and took the place of the Fed, of note the primary central banking peers among the Final Four - the ECB, the BOE and the BOJ. And why not: after all the hope was that since electronic money is electronic money, and can be moved from point A to point B at the push of a button, it would be used primarily to reflate stocks around the world, but mostly where the path has least resistance - the US. What was not accounted for was that money would also be used to inflate commodities such as oil - a key factor when delaying further US-based easing in an election year.
15 Fundamental Problems with Fiat Currencies
BY RON HERA - FinancialSense.com Value Subjectivism and Monetary Instability
Subjectivism is the philosophy that reality is what we perceive to be real and that no underlying, true reality exists independent of human perception. In other words, the nature of reality for an individual person is dependent on that individual's own consciousness. It follows that each person experiences their own reality that is not shared with others. What is true and what seems moral to one person may not be true or moral for another person, i.e., truth and morality are relative. In contrast, objectivism is the philosophy that reality exists independent of human consciousness; that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception; and that objective knowledge of reality can be obtained through perception, evidence and logic, e.g., through scientific methods.
Is the US Dollar Headed for a Major Fall?
By: Julian D. W. Phillips - GoldSeek.com
One of the facts of life over the last 40 years has been that the U.S. dollar is the world's sole global reserve currency. This is despite the fundamental factors underlying the U.S. balance of payments, which has been awful over that entire time. Nevertheless, the dollar ruled the global monetary system through these four decades and appears to be doing so still. But is that coming to an end? Next week there is a meeting of the BRIC nation over the use by the U.S. of the SWIFT system to block Iran from selling its oil. The BRIC nations are buyers of that oil. Their views on Iran's nuclear policies do not go as far as refusing to buy their oil. The SWIFT system is the system used to make international payments and covers most acceptable currencies.
This use of the international monetary system as a war machinehas surprised and angered these nations who are meeting next week to discuss this and, no doubt, to work out ways to prevent the U.S. from exercising such power. If they succeed, they will have formulated a way to bypass the U.S. dollar as the dominant currency with which to pay for oil. Once this hold has been broken, we may see a steady move away from the U.S. dollar as the sole global reserve currency.
Can Bernanke Break the Dollar Rally?
By Toby Connor, GoldScents - GoldSeek.com
In response to a bursting real estate and credit bubble in 2007 Bernanke's solution was to crank up the printing press and flood the world with dollar bills. Unfortunately it didn't solve our problems, it only made them worse. The real estate and credit bubbles stayed busted, but that liquidity had to land somewhere. In 2008 it went straight into the energy and agricultural markets spiking the price of crude, gasoline and food. This in turn collapsed a fragile global economy that was already reeling from the real estate implosion. The end result was the exact opposite of what Benjamin intended. Instead of halting the real estate collapse he just magnified the severity of the recession.
Bernanke Just Admitted the Fed Failed...
Not That More QE Is Coming
Submitted by Phoenix Capital Research - ZeroHedge.com
So Bernanke provided the "QE is coming" crowd with hope again this morning, using the usual ambiguous language that stock bulls convert into a definitive declaration of more QE.
Here's what Bernanke said:
"If this hypothesis is wrong and structural factors are in fact explaining much of the increase in long-term unemployment, then the scope for countercyclical policies to address this problem will be more limited. Even if that proves to be the case, however, we should not conclude that nothing can be done."
Fed should not pump more money
into economy in 2012: survey
(Reuters) - U.S. business economists said the Federal Reserve's easy money policies have been effective but they do not think the central bank should pump more money into the economy, a survey showed on Monday.
Just over 60 percent of economic professionals polled by the National Association for Business Economics felt the Fed's two rounds of quantitative easing had been a "success," the survey said.
However, 81 percent of economists surveyed said the Fed should not pursue another round of quantitative easing or bond-buying this year.
Treasury Said to Want Ally Sale With IPO Seen Unlikely
By Jeffrey McCracken and Dakin Campbell - Bloomberg.com
The U.S. Treasury Department, which put $17.2 billion into a bailout of Ally Financial Inc., would prefer a breakup and sale of the lender because an initial public offering may not succeed, according to people familiar with the matter.
Treasury officials are telling Ally executives, directors and financial advisers that an IPO is unlikely soon because of the company's high cost of capital relative to other banks, the potential bankruptcy of a mortgage unit, and its recent performance in Federal Reserve stress tests, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
Mounting Foreclosures Draw Panel's Attention Westchester Residential Opportunities, a housing counseling group, gathers experts for a discussion.
By Tom Bartley - Chappaqua.patch.com
"Robo-signing," a sketchy device intended to speed home-mortgage foreclosures, could also prove a pitfall for banks in court cases, a Washington-based housing advocate told his Mount Kisco audience Thursday.
The advocate, Robert Strupp, is a lawyer who called such wholesale production of potentially false documents "a total deviation" from legal norms. Strupp suggested the tainted forms could leave a fundamental question unanswered if a bank sued a defaulting homeowner.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Resistance
To Principal Reduction Costs Taxpayers
By Peter S. Goodman - Huffingtonpost.com
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- After two years of bewildering futility, John and Linda DeCaro thought they had finally found a way to hang on to their home.
They could no longer afford their mortgage payments and had slipped into delinquency. They could not refinance to take advantage of low-interest rates because they were among the nearly 11 million American homeowners who are "underwater," meaning that they owed the bank more than their house was worth. Bank of America had already initiated foreclosure proceedings.
Services Displace Factories
in Driving U.S. Expansion: Economy
By Carlos Torres - Bloomberg.com
Service producers are taking over from manufacturing as the driver of the almost three-year-old U.S. expansion.
The end of the recession in June 2009 triggered the biggest surge in production in a decade, propelled by rising demand from overseas and the need to replenish inventories and upgrade equipment. That is now giving way to increasing sales at places like restaurants, transportation companies and temporary-help agencies, leading to gains in employment that have bolstered the world's largest economy.
The anti–Walmart
By David Rohde - Reuters.com
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Cashiers are barred from interacting with customers until they have completed 40 hours of training. Hundreds of staffers are sent on trips around the U.S. and world to become experts in their products. The company has no mandatory retirement age and has never laid off workers. All profits are reinvested in the company or shared with employees.
A doomed Internet startup? Occupy Wall Street fantasy? Bankrupt retailer recently purchased by Walmart?
No, a $6.2 billion-a-year, 79-store-supermarket chain with cult-like loyalty among its customers.Wegmans, which operates its 79 stores in New York, Pennsylvania and four other East Coast states, shows that a business can generously train its workforce and profit handsomely.
Something To Think About Inflation, Stagnant Wages, Higher Taxes, No Jobs The end of the middle class and other things to think about.
by Richard Russell, 321Gold - LewRockwell.com
Here I am, a the tender age of 87. How did I ever get here? And one of my problems is that I don't know many people my age to talk to (except my sister and my first wife). Going – My old pal Harry Schultz has quit the business. And one of my favorites, the brilliant Fred Hickey of theHigh Tech Strategist, has dropped out of the business from sheer exhaustion (I don't blame him), which leaves me, Granville and Dines as the remaining godfathers of the investment advisory biz. Thumbs up guys, and keep at it.
City May Sell Historic Landmarks
Blatimore.CBSLocal.com
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — More than a dozen historic landmarks in Baltimore may be up for sale soon.
But as Gigi Barnett reports, the city first wants to know how much they will bring in first.
The city says its historic buildings are a liability, an eyesore and a drain on its pockets.
Baltimore's Shot Tower was the tallest building in the nation back in 1828 and became a national historic landmark in the early 1970s. The city says it wants to know how much the Shot Tower is worth to a private developer.
Bernanke Says Accommodative Policy
Needed to Cut Joblessness
By Steve Matthews and Jeff Kearns - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said while he's encouraged by the unemployment rate's decline to 8.3 percent, continued accommodative monetary policy will be needed to make further progress.
The drop in unemployment may reflect "a reversal of the unusually large layoffs that occurred" in 2008 and 2009, and this process may now be over, Bernanke said in a speech today in Arlington, Virginia. Reducing the jobless rate further will probably require a quicker expansion of business production and consumer demand, which "can be supported by continued accommodative policies," he said.
Apple Seeks Help With 'Next Generation' Data Centers
By Caleb Garling - Wired.com
Apple is actively advertising for help with the design and construction of its "next generation" data centers as it begins work on a new computing facility in Prineville, Oregon and expands its iCloud data center in Maiden, North Carolina.
"As Apple's new products and services expand and grow, so too does the need for more servers and server space to house them, Data Centers," reads a new Apple job listing.
"The candidate selected for this position will become an important part of the Apple team responsible for the design and construction implementation of the next generation of data centers. They will be expected to participating in meetings as the project develops from the conceptual phase into design development, and then up and through issued for construction."
FTC urges transparency law for Internet data brokers
By Cecilia Kang - WashingtonPost.com
The Federal Trade Commission on Monday urged Congress to enact Internet privacy laws that would force data brokers to reveal what information they buy and sell about consumers.
In a wide-ranging report that also supports self-regulatory efforts by businesses, the FTC stopped short of supporting laws that would mandate anti-tracking buttons on Web sites — a proposal that Internet advertisers have lobbied hard to keep out of legislation.
FTC Tells Net:
Agree to Stop Invading Privacy (Or We'll Say 'Stop' Again)
By Ryan Singel - Wired.com
The FTC put the online advertising and user tracking industry on notice Monday that it's time to clean up its act and start treating users' data with respect, laying out broad guidelines for companies to follow. But the agency stopped short of calling for federal regulation of online data collectors, amid protests from online companies that regulation would kill a vibrant industry.
The report adds more weight to the Commerce Department's own recent report and the White House's call for an online bill of rights. The FTC's report (.pdf) outlines broad principles that the FTC wants browser makers, ISPs, online ad companies, search engines and social networks — as well as offline data collecting entities — to pledge to obey.
Gray Nation:
The Very Real Economic Dangers of an Aging America Two economists envision a scary -- and scarily realistic -- future where the working population expands slower and slower, and jobless recoveries are the only recoveries we know
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
In the future, U.S. growth will be slower. Recessions will be deeper. Recoveries will be weaker. And there's exactly one thing to blame.
Demographics.
That's the stark conclusion from James Stock and Mark Watson in this fascinating, and occasionally depressing, new paper. In fact, they say, the future is now. For the last few years, we've weathered the beginning of what demographers have called the grey tsunami. "Most of the slow recovery [in today's job market] is attributable to a long-term slowdown in trend employment growth," Stock and Watson write.
Antibiotics, the Next Generation!
By Patrick Cox - DailyReckoning.com
03/21/12 Marco Island, Florida – Scientists are very interested in bacteria for a number of reasons. Among the most recent is that they can be used to manufacture various important chemicals, including fuels.
We tend not to think about it, but the single-cell microorganisms categorized as bacteria are the dominant life form on Earth. In some mathematical sense, this is their planet and we just use it.
Obamacare on Trial: Day One
BY ADAM J. WHITE - WeeklyStandard.com
The solicitor general had an interesting morning. He argued before the Supreme Court's nine justices that Obamacare's individual mandate isn't a "tax"—even though he'll argue tomorrow that the mandateis a "tax." And then the government's top litigator invoked the possibility of incompetent government litigators as a reason to reject an argument raised by the plaintiffs
Welcome to the Supreme Court's review of Obamacare. One day down, two more to go.
3 Reasons to End Obamacare Before it Begins!
Nick Gillespie & Meredith Bragg - Reason.com
As the legality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - a.k.a. Obamacare - goes before the highest court in the land, here are three reasons to chuck the whole program even before it gets underway.
1. It Represents the End of Limited Government... [snip]
2. Its Price Tag is Already Ballooning... [snip]
3. Obamacare Won't Make Us Healthier... [snip]
3 Reasons to End Obamacare Before it Begins!
As the legality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - a.k.a. Obamacare - goes before the highest court in the land, here are three reasons to chuck the whole program even before it gets underway.
Anti-Obama urologist Jack Cassell interview
Victor Schaffner questions the Mount Dora doctor who posted the infamous sign, "If you voted for Obama ... seek urologic care elsewhere." Originally aired February 11, 2011
Supreme court unlikely to delay healthcare ruling
By Joan Biskupic and James Vicini
(Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday appeared prepared to decide the fate of President Barack Obama's sweeping healthcare law soon, rather than delaying for years a ruling on the mandate that Americans buy insurance or pay a penalty.
In the first of three days of historic arguments, the justices voiced doubt that a U.S. tax law requiring that people pay first and litigate later should postpone a ruling on the legal challenge to the president's signature domestic legislative achievement.
Recovery In Action:
Nearly $300 Billion Student Debt In Default
By Tim Cavanaugh - Reason.com
You may want to hold off on that home purchase/new business start/auto purchase/flat-screen TV/evening out/vente cup of coffee.
You keep hearing that economic recovery is gathering strength. (Which in practice translates into record numbers of people on food stamps,fewer people working for a living, and a drop in both new and existing home sales.) But here's a big D-Minus that could bring down the whole economy's GPA:
Army overwhelmed by massive lots of waiting vehicles
By Kristina Wong - The Washington Times
Imagine a parking lot as large as 100 football fields and filled with nearly every type, make and model of U.S. military vehicle, covered in dust and dirt and baking under a desert sun in Kuwait.
Your job: Find one specific vehicle, read its serial number and catalog it for transport back to the United States.
That's part of the daunting task facing theResponsible Reset Task Force, which must inspect thousands of vehicles used in the Iraq War and decide which ones are worth sending back to the United States.
Is Barack Obama Advocating and Encouraging Treason?
By Tom Davis PatriotPost.us
"Democratic governors discuss bypassing Congress with Obama" was the headline in The Hill's Blog Briefing Room on March 24, 2012 and reported by Alicia M. Cohn.
The first sentence set the tenor of the discussion, "President Obama met with a group of Democratic governors on Friday and discussed plans to work around Congress toward policy goals."
Jack Markell, the Democratic Governor of Delaware told The Hill that the meeting was "very good" and that "many of the governors were responsive to ideas about bypassing Congress."
Markell remarked that they couldn't wait for Congress and are ,"going to do what we can now."
The 'Secret' American Laws You Have to Pay to See
By Bruce Watson - DailyFinance.com
In America, dealing with the legal system isn't cheap If you find yourself in court, chances are that you'll spend a fortune hiring the best lawyer you can afford. But while good legal counsel costs a bundle, access to the law itself is supposed to be free. In other words, although you may need a professional to help you understand the legal code, you are supposed to be able to find out what the laws are without paying for the privilege.
But that's not the case with all laws. For some, you have to pay a stiff price just to take a peek.
A World Headed for De-Globalization?
BY IRWIN M. STELZER - WeeklyStandard.com
Add Brazil to the unhappy trading nations. It attributes the woes of its manufacturing sector to cheap Chinese imports and dumping by developed countries. "We are not going to just sit by while other countries devalue their currencies to give them a competitive advantage…. We don't want to lose our manufacturing sector," announced Brazil's finance minister Guido Mantega. So taxes on foreign cars have been raised, and state-owned Petrobas will direct about 75 percent of its $225 billion capital programme, the world's largest for any corporation, to local suppliers, a buy-local move also being considered by the EU. More important, Brazil is re-introducing currency controls to prevent the value of its real from rising. These are not "protectionist measures," claims Mr. Mantega, they are "defensive measures" in response to "non-competitive mechanisms."
Obama Promises Russia To Be More "Flexible" After Election
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
In today's open mic farce that has made the president a target of a fresh republican onslaught, we have Obama telling Russian presidential pawn Dmitry Medvedev that "this is his last presidential election", and that he will have "more flexibility after the election." One can only assume that Obama is referring to the aggressive NATO expansion which has angered Russia substantially as noted previously, and even led to Russia putting radar stations on combat alert. It could be this or it could be anything, including US posturing vis-a-vis Syria assuming the stance a huanitariam, if completely impotent, do-gooder globocop, or for that matter any other foreign policy fiasco in which Russia now have the upper hand by default. Naturally, one wonders why Obama would be pandering to Russia (well, aside for the country's premier export position when it comes to nat gas and crude of course) in the first place.
Obama and Medvedev caught in unguarded missile remarks
BBC.co.uk
TV cameras have recorded US President Barack Obama making unguarded comments with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Mr Obama said he would have more "flexibility" on difficult issues such as the US missile defence plans after November's election.
Mr Medvedev said he would relay the message to Vladimir, a reference to newly elected President Vladimir Putin.
The White House later released a statement playing down the importance of the remarks.
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