Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Tuesday 07.31.2012
Gold extends gains to fourth session Metal rises on expectations for central-bank action
By Claudia Assis and Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures extended gains to a fourth session on Monday as traders anticipated central-bank action in both the U.S. and Europe.
Gold for August delivery rose 70 cents to trade at $1,618.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"It is all going to ride on central-bank action this week," said Matt Zeman, a trader and strategist at Kingsview Financial in Chicago.
The world's gold is moving from West to East
Tim Staermose - SovereignMan.com
Did you know that, according to Capgemini and the Royal Bank of Canada's latest World Wealth Report, there are now more millionaires in Asia than North America…?
An estimated 3.37 million individuals in the Asia-Pacific region have a liquid net worth of over US$1 million. That compares to 3.35 million in North America.
The same trend is evident in the gold market.
Gold looks for break above $1640 just ahead of Fed meet
LONDON/MUMBAI(Commodity Online):Gold has steadied at $1620 as markets look forward the US Federal Reserve meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday for further signals on QE3 to bolster economic growth. Investors are also eyeing the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday for pro-growth measures.
On Monday trading spot gold is already up at $1623 an ounce after posting a weekly gain of 2.5%. The Eurozone uncertainties and slowdown in emerging economies have provided support for the yellow metal but in recent months prices have hovered around $1525 and $1640.
Sentiment turns positive for Gold, buyers still hesitant: UBS
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): The investor community is starting to pay more attention to gold and the mood toward the metal in the U.S. is the friendliest we'd seen since the metal's sizeable pullback in late February, said Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in commodities briefing.
" The interest in the metal has not been met with new positioning, which could mean that if prices rise, then buyers might return. A lot of uncertainty surrounds the timeframe," Edel Tully, precious metals strategist at UBS.
The Fed On Gold Price Manipulation
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Lately various media outlets have been swamped with stories and allegations of precious metal manipulation ranging from the arcane, to the bizarre to the outright ridiculous. At issue is not that these claims of price fraud are unfounded - they very well may be completely true - but without a notarized facsimile of an actual trade ticket signed by Brian Sack, or his replacement Simon Potter, or any of the BIS traders confirming they are indeed selling gold on behalf of the Fed, BOE, ECB, SNB or BOJ simply to keep the price of the metal down, what such constant factless accusations (and no, sorry, a chart showing that the price of gold may go up or go down sharply indicates merely that and nothing about the underlying factors for such a move) do is to habituate the broader public to the real issues surrounding precious metal, and other asset class, manipulation. So instead of searching for circumstantial evidence which one can easily find everywhere, we decided to go straight to the source. To do that we go back to a post we wrote back in September of 2009, based on an internal previously confidential Fed document, which conveniently enough explains everything vis-a-vis gold manipulation and leaves nothing to speculation or misinterpretation. Zero Hedge presents the smoking gun that may provide responses to all the various open questions regarding the Fed's Modus Operandi in the gold arena which answer the core question - motive - courtesy of a declassified memorandum, written by none other than the then Fed Chairman, and addressed to the president of the United States.
Underfunded Pensions Undermine the Entire Economy
BY SHAH GILANI, Capital Wave Strategist, Money Morning
The difficulties facing retirees aren't just their problems. Underfunded pensions weigh down everyone's retirement expectations and America's future growth prospects.
Kicking the can down the road on this one has involved everything from outright lying to misrepresentation, bordering on fraud in the way pension plans calculate their liabilities.
If long- term solutions aren't implemented, the U.S. economy will experience a secular decline, equities will plummet, and millions of Americans of all ages will suffer.
Deflation Dismissed By Bond Measure Amid QE3 Anticipation
By Daniel Kruger - Blooomberg.com
For all the handwringing over the slowdown in the U.S. economy, the bond market shows there's less risk of deflation now than before the Federal Reserve's first two rounds of large-scale debt purchases.
The expectation that consumer prices will rise, measured by the five-year, five-year forward breakeven rate, means that Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has persuaded traders the U.S. will avoid the chronic deflation that has slowed Japan's economy since 1995. It also complicates the central bank's decision about starting more quantitative easing to boost an economy that grew at the slowest pace in a year during the second quarter. Commodity prices surged during QE1 and QE2 in 2008 and 2010.
O shrugs as economy sags A double-dip by Election Day?
By Charlie Gasparino - NYPost.com
President Obama can't stop talking about the 1 percent of people who he says don't pay their fair share of the nation's taxes. But he should be obsessing about a 1.5 percent — the rotten growth rate produced by the once-mighty US economy in the second quarter.
The slowdown announced Friday — on top of another slowdown in the first quarter — is further proof that the president's class-warfare economic rhetoric and policies are pushing the country perilously close to a double-dip recession.
Bernanke's Plan: Sit, Wait and Then Do Something
By Caroline Baum - Bloomberg.com
Reporters whose job it is to tell us what the Federal Reserve tells them didn't have much to go on last week. So they told us what we already knew.
The Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath, the current "go-to" person on the Fed, reported on July 25 that policy makers are "moving closer to taking new steps to spur activity and hiring." They could take action this week, he said, or they could wait until the September meeting to "accumulate more information on the pace of growth and job gains." (That's the thing about information: You always accumulate more if you wait.)
5 lessons Bernanke has learned on the job Commentary: Fed chief now knows his own limitations
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Back in 2006 when Ben Bernanke was named chairman of the Federal Reserve, he knew he'd make some mistakes, but he was pretty sure the Fed wouldn't do what the United States did in the 1930s or what Japan did in the 1990s that allowed depressed conditions to persist for years.
Monetary policy had learned from those errors, Professor Bernanke used to teach his students. A depression, great or otherwise, could never happen again.
In 2002, Bernanke gave a now-famous speech in which he asserted that he was "confident that the Fed would take whatever means necessary to prevent significant deflation in the United States." Furthermore, he asserted that "a determined government can always generate higher spending."
Fed Easing May Do Little to Lift Bank Lending
By David Wilson, Bloomberg - Ritholtz.com
according to Michael Shaoul, Oscar Gruss & Son Inc.'s chief executive officer. As the CHART OF THE DAY illustrates, banks reduced the amount of reserves held at the Fed's regional banks and made more money available to businesses in the past 12 months. The shifts took place even though the central bank's total assets were little changed, as Shaoul wrote two days ago in a report. "This point is sadly missed by those looking for a new round of quantitative easing," the report said.
Fed Weighs Cutting Interest
On Banks' Reserves After ECB Move
By Caroline Salas Gage and Liz Capo McCormick - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may be taking another look at cutting the interest rate the Fed pays on bank reserves to bring down short-term borrowing costs and spur the slowing U.S. expansion.
Bernanke testified to Congress on July 17 that reducing the rate from its current 0.25 percent is one of several easing steps the Fed might take to reduce unemployment stuck above 8 percent for more than three years. In February, by contrast, the Fed chairman told Congress that lowering the rate might drive away investors from short-term money markets.
Treasurys edge up before Fed, ECB meetings
By Deborah Levine and Regina Hing, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices rose on Monday, pushing yields down from their highest level in three weeks, with focus on this week's Federal Reserve and European Central Bank meetings.
Yields on 10-year notes, which move inversely to prices, fell 5 basis points to 1.50%.
A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Treasury Admits It Underestimated Debt Needs,
Predicts Ceiling Breach In 2012;
$600 Billion More Debt In Second Half
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Back on April 30, when the US Treasury, together with the TBAC chaired by Matt Zames (who as everyone knows is being groomed to take over JPMorgan after Jamie gracefully steps down) sat down put together its latest debt funding needs projection, we openly mocked the numbers when we said "Now obviously we are all for the US needing less debt, however we wonder: did the US discover some magical source of tax revenue: last we checked the companies with $100+ billion in cash were paying virtually zero taxes, and US workers were making less and less courtesy of more and more jobs being converted into temp jobs with lower wages, and less withheld tax as a result." Sure enough, minutes ago the Treasury just admitted what we and our readers knew all along: in its quarterly Treasury refunding appetizer, it noted that during the "September 2012 quarter, Treasury expects to issue $276 billion in net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $60 billion. This borrowing estimate is $12 billion higher than announced in April 2012. The increase is primarily due to lower receipts, higher outlays, redemptions of portfolio holdings by the Federal Reserve System, and higher issuances of State and Local Government securities." In other words: if only it wasn't for that pesky lack of revenue and excess spending our mocking would have been for nothing. Alas, it was spot on, and as a result instead of needing $253 billion in fiscal Q4, the US will need $272 billion (after having a $5 greater financing need in fiscal Q3, calendar Q1 as also expected).
Trickle of Libor lawsuits from rate-fixing scandal
likely to become deluge
By Danielle Douglas - WashingtonPost.com
Lawsuits are mounting against some of the world's biggest banks over the manipulation of the global interest rate known as Libor as smaller lenders, municipalities and investors take stock of losses tied to the widening scandal.
The cases are believed to be a trickle before an oncoming deluge of civil litigation that will beset the world's largest banks for years. Yet the ultimate problem for the accused may not be the millions they pay in damages but rather the cloud of uncertainty looming over their business.
LIBOR, Lies and Derivatives
TheAutomaticEarth.com
Three weeks, ago, I wrote LIBOR was a criminal conspiracy from the start. An avalanche of articles have been written on LIBOR since, and I think an update is in order, which also gives me a chance to delve a little further into the bold statement in that title.
It's not that I'm a big fan of using terms like conspiracy, not at all, but then again, neither am I a fan of constantly being lied to.
The average Joe and Jane and Jack and Jill in the street should be able to rely on the fact that those who they vote in office represent them and their interests; it's the very definition of the essence of our democratic systems. What they get instead, and increasingly so, are lawmakers and regulators who collude with private industries, which due to their size have grabbed an enormously bloated hold on political power. In the US, the UK and EU the actual say a voter gets to exercise from the ballot box has been reduced to something that fast approaches the freezing point.
LIBOR - Insider Trading on a Massive Scale Major banks fixed interest rates to make short term profits and look stronger than they were
Stephany Griffith-Jones interview by Paul Jay - TheRealNews.com JAY: Thank you. So let's first of all talk about how this thing works. Now, if I understand it correctly, every day the various big banks kind of negotiate with each other or tell each other what they're paying for interest on interbank loans, and then some average is supposed to be taken, and then that average becomes like a benchmark which affects prime rates all over the globe. And we're told by The Wall Street Journal maybe $800 trillion worth of derivatives and loans are wrapped up in all of this. So, first of all, am I describing the process correctly? And then what went wrong with this process? GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes, you're describing it correctly. This is an interest rate which is fixed by 16 banks in London, and it is supposed to determine—I've heard figures of around $500 trillion of transactions a year. I think it would be interesting to stress that this is far more than the total production of goods and services over all the globe. So the financial transactions that are affected by LIBOR are much more than what all the people produce on this planet.
11 Signs That Time Is Quickly Running Out
For The Global Financial System
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Are we rapidly approaching a moment of reckoning for the global financial system? August is likely to be a relatively slow month as most of Europe is on vacation, but after that we will be moving into a "danger zone" where just about anything could happen. Historically, a financial crisis has been more likely to happen in the fall than during any other time, and this fall is shaping up to be a doozy. Much of the focus of the financial world is on whether or not the euro is going to break up, but even if the authorities in Europe are able to keep the euro together we are still facing massive problems. Countries such as Greece and Spain are already experiencing depression-like conditions, and much of the rest of the globe is sliding into recession. Unemployment has already risen to record levels in some parts of Europe, major banks all over Europe are teetering on the brink of insolvency, and the flow of credit is freezing up all over the planet. If things take a really bad turn, this crisis could become much worse than the financial crisis of 2008 very quickly.
Geithner, Schaeuble Hail Euro Plan As Greece Gets No Word
By Rainer Buergin and Ian Katz - Bloomberg.com
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble backed a commitment by European leaders to do everything needed to defend the euro area while failing to mention its weakest link, Greece.
In a joint statement issued after they held talks on the German North Sea island of Sylt today, Geithner and Schaeuble "took note" of comments made last week by European leaders to "take whatever steps are necessary to safeguard financial stability" in the 17-nation currency area.
Why a Euro-Zone Crisis Can't Be Avoided Very Much Longer Each postponement of financial disaster in the euro zone seems likely to last for a shorter time, and the U.S. won't be able to escape the fallout indefinitely
By MICHAEL SIVY - Time.com
Stocks rallied powerfully late last week after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi declared that the ECB stands ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. That was mighty tough talk, but analysts remain skeptical about the outlook for the common European currency. No one doubts that the ECB can provide short-term support for euro-zone economies. But even so, most forecasters believe that the euro zone is heading for a crisis. And whatever form that crisis takes, the impact on the U.S. would be negative.
So why did the Dow gain more than 400 points in two days, rocketing through the 13,000 mark to a three-month high, after Draghi's speech on Thursday? The answer is that the euro's eventual failure has been predicted for so long that it has become conventional wisdom. Each postponement creates a burst of optimism — not that the crisis has been solved but simply that it has been delayed.
No doubt about no debt In Germany, for the most part, cash-only is the only way to go
By David Rising - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
BERLIN — Head to the checkout at an Ikea in Stockholm to pay for your new leather corner sofa and with the swipe of a Visa card it's yours. Don't try that in Berlin — that will be $2,080 up front please.
It's that financial culture — a deep-seated aversion to debt and an emphasis on responsibility — that makes Chancellor Angela Merkel's hard-line approach to solving the European financial crisis so popular inGermany.
The attitude shows up in all walks of life, from the daily trip to the grocery store to putting a roof over your head.
Barclays dragged into new probe after Libor blow
By Steve Slater and Matt Scuffham
(Reuters) - Barclays Plc revealed a new regulatory probe and more U.S. lawsuits on Friday, making it harder for the British lender to rebuild its reputation damaged by the central role it played in the interest rate-rigging scandal shaking banks.
Despite these latest blows, Barclays' profit of more than 4 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) in the first six months of the year beat forecasts. The bank said its performance during July was ahead of last year and there had been no exodus of clients, sending its shares up more than 7 percent.
Why Is Bank of America Keeping Merrill?
By Jonathan Weil - Bloomberg.com
Why doesn't Bank of America Corp. (BAC) break itself up? Its leaders should have plenty of motivation to try, assuming they believe their own balance sheet.
With a $78 billion stock-market value, the company trades for 36 percent of its official book value -- meaning its net assets supposedly are worth almost three times as much as the market says the company is worth.
The Wall Street Journal took a crack at answering the question in an article today. The most notable part of the explanation was something it said about Merrill Lynch.
Planets Align for Stock Market Crash in 2013 − If Not Sooner
BY DAVID ZEILER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
Of all the tools one might use to predict a stock market crash in 2013, planetary alignments and solar particles are not, for most people, the first options that spring to mind.
But market analyst Arch Crawford has applied his arcane "astro indicators" for 35 years with surprising success.
You see, Crawford has forecast market crashes before. His astro indicators helped him predict the stock market crash of 1987, as well as the crash following the 9/11 attacks and the crash of 2008.
Flash Mob Crimes And Organized Looting
Have Become A Normal Part Of Life In America
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Once upon a time, most Americans had never even heard of "flash mob robberies" or "organized looting". Now they are considered to be a part of normal life in America. On Saturday, more than 20 teens stormed into a trendy clothing store in Chicago and stole more than $3,000 worth of jeans, but it barely made a blip on the national news because this kind of thing has become so common. After all, we just saw the exact same kind of thing happen inJacksonville, Detroit, Baltimore and a whole bunch of other places. Flash mob crimes have become so common in Chicago that they take public opinion polls about them. But when I first started writing about this phenomenon a couple of years ago, hardly anyone knew what "mob robberies" were. In fact, I had to explain what these "flash mobs" were doing to a couple of radio hosts because they had never heard of such a thing. But now everybody knows about the flash mobs. Another disturbing trend that we are seeing all over America is "organized looting". Groups of desperate criminals are going into empty or abandoned buildings and stripping out copper wire, copper pipes and anything else that they can sell for money. At one time these kinds of thefts made the news, but now they have also become so common that they don't get much notice anymore.
As 'fiscal cliff' looms, debate
over pre-Election Day layoff notices heats up
By Zachary A. Goldfarb - WashingtonPost.com
The deep federal spending cuts scheduled to take effect at the start of next year may trigger dismissal notices for tens of thousands of employees of government contractors, companies and analysts say, and the warnings may start going out at a particularly sensitive time:
Days before the presidential election.
By law, all but the smallest companies must notify their workforce at least 60 days in advance when they know of specific job cuts likely to happen.
GAO: $460M in food stamps
went to households that shouldn't be eligible
Joel Gehrke - WashingtonExaminer.com
Federal officials spend $460 million annually on Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps for households only deemed eligible for the program because they already benefited from another safety net program, according to a new government report.
"Although SNAP households that had incomes over the federal limits made up an estimated 2.6 percent of the SNAP caseload in fiscal year 201o, this group received an estimated 0.7 percent of all SNAP benefits," the Government Accountability Office reported today. "These benefits totaled an estimated $38.3 million a month, or approximately $360 million annually."
Blueprint For States To Reject And Replace Obamacare
By Ken Blackwell - CNSNews.com
Here's the blueprint for how the states can reject three central pillars of Obamacare and set the stage for replacing it, if Mitt Romney takes the White House and the GOP takes the Senate this November.
Two reasons compel dismantling Obamacare. First is restoring individual liberty by empowering states against the national government and citizens against both. Second is recognizing that free markets outperform centrally-planned markets, so private-sector healthcare will better serve Americans than government-controlled Obamacare ever could.
House Dems To Force Vote On Middle-Income Bush Tax Cuts
By BRIAN BEUTLER - TalkingPointsMemo.com
House Democrats will put Republicans on record this week voting down an extension of the middle-income Bush tax cuts unless the tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest Americans are also extended.
On Monday, Ways and Means Committee ranking member Sander Levin (D-MI) will introduce legislation mirroring a bill Senate Democrats passed last week to extend the Bush tax cuts up to a family's first $250,000 in income.
Clinton Seizing Spotlight, Again He'll be the star of the Democratic convention,
while Bush stays home
by Howard Kurtz - TheDailyBeast.com
As the House was in the process of impeaching Bill Clinton in the final days of 1998, I was somewhat surprised to see him posing for pictures with members of the Fourth Estate.
He easily could have blown off his appearance at the annual Christmas party. From the White House perspective, the gathering was populated by those who had been torturing Clinton all year over the Monica Lewinsky affair. It was the era of the stained blue dress and "depends on the meaning of is." And yet the president of the United States, who would soon be tried in the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors, showed up and acted like it was a normal social gathering.
Does Barack Obama Expect The Upcoming Election
To Spark Rampant Civil Unrest?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What is Barack Obama preparing for? What does Barack Obama actually expect to happen in November? Does he believe that the upcoming election could actually spark rampant civil unrest inside the United States? The conditions are certainly ripe for civil unrest in this country. A multitude of recent polls and surveys have shown that Americans are angrier and more frustrated than ever. Sadly, we are taking a lot of that anger and frustration out on each other. America is more divided today than at any other time since the Civil War era. The left absolutely hates Mitt Romney the Republicans, and the right absolutely hates Barack Obama and the Democrats. If you doubt this, just surf political blogs for a few hours and read the comments that people leave. This country is a boiling cauldron of hatred and anger and all it is going to take is just the right "spark" to cause all of this hatred and anger to absolutely explode. This upcoming election season is likely to be one of the most heated and divisive election seasons in U.S. history, and if there is not a clear winner on election night there is the potential that chaos could be unleashed that would be far, far worse than anything we saw during the Bush/Gore debacle of 2000.
Justice Scalia on 2nd Amendment Limitations:
'It Will Have to Be Decided'
By Susan Jones - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says "yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed" on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. It's up to future court cases to determine what those limitations are, he said on "Fox News Sunday."
Some limitations "undoubtedly" are permissible, Scalia said, because limitations existed when the Constitution was written: "For example, there was a tort called affrighting, which if you carried around a really horrible weapon just to scare people, like a head ax or something, that was, I believe, a misdemeanor," he explained.
Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail -
for Collecting Rainwater on His Property If Oregon Owns The Rain, Then Who Owns The Air?
By Craig Bannister - CNSNews.com
If the government owns the rain and can punish you for using it without permission, shouldn't it be liable for the damage its rain does?
Oregon is sending Gary Harrington to jail for 30 days and fining him $1,500 for collecting rainwater on HIS property – because the state says it has a law that gives it exclusive ownership of all water (including rainwater).
But, if the government owns the rain, shouldn't it be held responsible for the damage it allows its rain to do? If I had a pit bull and allowed it to go around biting people, I'd be liable.
Using a Virtual Power Plant
to Help Connect Renewable Energy Sources to the Grid
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
Renewable energy sources provide a headache for electricity grid operators due to the difficulty of predicting the constantly changing levels of power that renewable sources such as wind and solar generate. To add to the problem is the fact that there are many gigawatts of power produced across hundreds of locations in the form of small scale installations, which prove almost impossible to coordinate and efficiently add to the national grid.
Researchers at the University of Southampton, England, have developed a virtual power plant which can efficiently combine the power generated in small scale renewable energy projects to create a single stable power source. The cooperative virtual power plants (CVPP's) use an intelligent, multi-agent software to control the variable power being received by the distributed energy resources (DER's), and stabilise it for use on the grid.
Consumer sentiment falls to 2012 low
(Reuters) - Consumer sentiment fizzled in July, falling to its lowest level of the year, as Americans took a dim view of the employment situation and their income prospects, a survey showed on Friday.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment fell to 72.3 from 73.2 in June. It was the second month in a row attitudes have soured and the lowest level since December.
The Hangover: How Las Vegas Explains
the Past and Future of the Economy The first American city of the new century is a dazzling, dizzying metaphor for our collapse -- hyperconstruction! preposterous gambles! concerted recklessness! -- and, just maybe, the way forward.
By J. Patrick Coolican - TheAtlantic.com
On the plane, after a debaucherous weekend in Las Vegas, or after a tamer mid-week convention, you might look down at the neon and twinkling sprawl and sigh. You're headed home, back to the real America, the America where the main commercial thoroughfare isn't a parade of drunks, gamblers and prostitutes. Vegas, you comfort yourself, is aberrant, a preposterous desert carnivale and one you can forget -- hope to forget! -- as soon as you depart.
The reality, however, is quite the opposite. Las Vegas might be the country's crazy little brother we see only once per year. But now, his ethos is ours. Las Vegas isn't aberrant. It's emblematic.
School Nowadays
By Charlie Daniels - CNSNews.com
When I was a kid the most common offenses in school were talking and chewing gum in class. I never could figure out why chewing gum was disruptive, although I could see where 25 kids all trying to get their point across at the same time could be.
Sometimes, the teacher, if she was going to be out of the room for a few minutes, would appoint a monitor to make sure nobody talked while she was gone - usually some prim and proper girl who never had a wrinkle in their blouse or a hair out of place, with a somewhat haughty, superior, daddy's little princess attitude, who would take down your name on a piece of paper if you talked, putting a check mark beside it with every additional offense.
Will Pam Bondi Be The Next Vice President
Of The United States?
8 Reasons Why It Might Actually Happen
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Could it actually be possible that Mitt Romney is considering selecting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as his running mate? Most Americans have never even heard of her, but there are now indications that she has made the short list of VP contenders. Over the weekend she traveledup to New Hampshire to campaign for Romney, and Republican activists all over the country are buzzing about the fact that her name is seemingly being "floated" at a stage when it seemed like the list of VP hopefuls was being narrowed down. So what do we know about Bondi? Well, she is 46 years old, she is very accomplished, she is both articulate and attractive, and she was the lead attorney general in a national lawsuit against Obamacare. But would Romney actually risk selecting a woman as his running mate just four years after there was so much criticism of Sarah Palin? Everyone has just sort of assumed that there was very little chance that a woman would be selected, but the truth is that the selection of a woman is much more of a possibility than most Americans might think.
Why Smartphones Won't Be Replacing Wallets Anytime Soon
By BRAD TUTTLE - Time.com
For quite some time, we've heard that smartphones will replace wallets. Instead of using cash or plastic, the day will come, likely soon, when consumers will simply wave, tap, or swipe their phones for payment. While there are some technological and organizational hurdles holding back the advent of mobile payments, there's another, more basic problem that's likely to slow the rise of the smartphone wallet.
The problem is that the mobile payment is a solution to a problem that most people don't really view as a problem.
US army prepares for domestic riots and civil unrest It's not just Homeland Security: US Army orders riot gear too
RT.com
It's more than just stockpiling surveillance drones to spy on US citizens: the United States Army is attempting to procure an arsenal of riot gear in case the military must go toe-to-toe with civilians on US soil.
A solicitation for weapons posted on the official government website for federal business opportunities reveals that the US Army has been in the market for nonlethal equipment that it very well might be used in the United States. In a Web posting made earlier this summer, the Army asked for bids regarding its request for riot shields, face masks, polycarbonate batons and body armor. On July 10, they awarded the contract to A2Z Supply Corp of Stevensville, Montana, who pledged to fulfill their request at the tune of $6,589.98.
DHS wants to use spy drones domestically for 'public safety'
RT.com
The United States already uses surveillance drones on its borders, but Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said during a hearing on Wednesday that flying unmanned aircraft inside the US could be the next step to ensuring "public safety."
Sec. Napolitano weighed in on the topic of unmanned aerial vehicles during this week's Committee on Homeland Security and suggested that implementing UAVs for domestic surveillance could the next step in the United States' amazingly accelerating drone program.
Pentagon's 30,000-pound
bunker-buster 'superbomb' ready for use
Rt.com
The biggest conventional bomb ever developed is ready to wreak destruction upon the enemies of the US. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said its record-breaking bunker-buster has become operational after years of testing.
"If it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that," told Donley Air Force Times. "We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing. We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today."
The Pentagon has spent $330 million to develop and deliver more than 20 of the precision-guided Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker-busters, which are designed to blast through up to 200 feet of concrete.
Greece increases Guards at Syrian border Greece Toughens Border Policing over Syria War
By AP - Time.com
(ATHENS, Greece) — Greece is quadrupling the number of guards at its border with Turkey and boost other defenses along the border in part because of a potential influx of Syrian refugees, a government minister said Monday.
Greece is the busiest entry point for illegal immigrants trying to reach the European Union. Turkey, meanwhile, is hosting thousands of Syrians who have been fleeing their country's civil war.
There's been no sign yet of a notable number of Syrians heading to Greece from Turkey, but the Greek government is under pressure to crack down on illegal migration in general, especially as the country struggles with an economic crisis whose symptoms include an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent.
Gold may return to trading like a safe haven asset: UBS
LONDON (Commodity Online): Gold is trading like a risk asset, but eventually investors may look to gold as a safe-haven asset again, said Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in a snippet.
Edel Tully, precious metals strategist at UBS stated that, "the ratings downgrade of Germany, Holland and Luxembourg "effectively reduces by 50% the global pool of sovereign bonds with AAA ratings and stable outlooks from all three major agencies."
Gold & Silver Jump to 3-Week Highs
BY ADRIAN ASH - FinancialSense.com
The wholesale-market gold price leapt more than 1% inside an hour in London trade Thursday morning, setting 3-week highs above $1620 per ounce after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said "The ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve" the single Euro currency.
"And believe me, it will be enough."
Speaking in London one day after the gold price jumped following fresh rumors of more quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve, Draghi did not specify plans, but did point to the high bond yields now being paid by Eurozone members such as Italy and Spain.
GATA files new gold records requests
with State, Treasury, Fed, and FOMC
Submitted by cpowell - Gata.org
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Through its lawyer, William J. Olson P.C. of Vienna, Virginia (http://www.lawandfreedom.com/), GATA today filed federal Freedom of Information Act requests with the U.S. State Department, Treasury Department, Federal Reserve Board, and Federal Open Market Committee, greatly expanding upon GATA's 2009 FOIA request to the Fed, which sought access to records involving gold swaps.
Gold may stay above $1,600 on likely stimulus measures
SINGAPORE (Commodity Online): Gold stood steady above $1,600 an ounce, as investors pondered the possibility of more stimulus measures from central banks to revive a flagging global economy on Thursday after struggling to extended gains from previous session.
Boosted by expectations that the European Central Bank (ECB) will intervene to prop up the euro zone's ailing finances after an official suggested leveraging a rescue fund to increase its capacity Gold rose to a three-week high on Wednesday.
1. Creating money out of thin air on a massive basis is all that stands between the current state of hidden depression, and overt depression with unemployment levels in excess of those seen in the US Great Depression of the 1930s.
2. It is the weapon of choice being used to wage currency war and reboot US economic growth.
3. It is the most effective way to meet not just current crushing debt levels, but to deal with the rapidly approaching massive generational crisis of paying for Boomer retirement promises.
4. Political survival and enhanced power for incumbent politicians.
LIBOR Fraud May Be the Mother of All Bank Scandals
By JAMES RICKARDS - USNews.com
nvestors have by now heard of the LIBOR scandal engulfing thebanking industry. LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate. To some it may be just the latest entry on a list of bank frauds and blunders in recent years, from mortgage scams to MF Global and the London Whale.
In fact, this may be the mother of all scandals—the one that finally leads to criminal charges and the insolvency of major banks. The fraud is breathtakingly easy to understand once past a small amount of jargon. Indeed, the simplicity of the fraud is the greatest threat to the perpetrators because here at last is a fraud that is easy for juries to understand and for prosecutors to prove.
How Ben Bernanke Can Prevent the End of Civilization
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
The Dow up 58 yesterday…nothing important there.
Gold up $31. Hmmm…what does the gold market see? More QE?
Last week, it was the IMF. It urged the Europeans to increase their money-printing efforts to avoid deflation. This week, the Financial Times tells Ben Bernanke to get off his cushy derriere and take bold, decisive action in the fight against the Great Correction.
Sebastian Mallaby, writing in the FT, says Bernanke is acting like a wimp. He needs to come up with some new weapons, new strategies, and new tactics. C'mon Ben, "show some real audacity."
Ben Bernanke, hero of '08, will not want to see himself stripped of his medals. He will not sit on his hands and watch as the US follows Japan down that long, lonely road towards stagnation. He will not want his resume blemished by a splotch of failure just when he faced his greatest challenge.
No, dear reader, he will 'do something!' — no matter how dimwitted it may be.
Central Banks Chomping At the Bit: Perpetual 'QE'
BY PATER TENEBRARUM - FinancialSense.com
In recent days, numerous central bank bureaucrats have given us hints that another round of pump priming is more or less imminent. It started with John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed who mused about 'QE without a limit'. The FT reported:
"The US will make little progress tackling high unemployment before 2014 unless the Federal Reserve eases policy further, one of the central bank's leading officials has warned in the run-up to a meeting next week where the option of "QE3" will be on the table.
Economic outlook still gloomy
despite some good news, analysts say
By Michael A. Fletcher - WashingtonPost.com
Stock markets surged Thursday on assurances that the euro will be kept intact. Durable goods orders were up. And the number of people seeking unemployment benefits was down.
But analysts said that those bright spots were not enough to alter a gloomy economic picture marked by tepid hiring.
The federal government releases its estimate for growth in the second quarter of 2012 on Friday, and expectations are not good. Economists predict that the economy grew by a dismal annual rate of 1.4 percent between April and June.
Citigroup's ex-CEO does an about-face on big banks
By CHRISTINA REXRODE, AP Business Writer – Google.com
NEW YORK (AP) — Sandy Weill is having a change of heart.
Weill, the aggressive dealmaker who built Citigroup on the idea that in banking, bigger is better, said Wednesday that he believes big banks should be broken up.
Speaking on CNBC's "Squawk Box," the 79-year-old Weill appeared to shock the show's anchors when he said that consumer banking units should be split from riskier investment banking units.
That would mean dismembering Citigroup as well as other big U.S. banks, like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
Sceptics abound as Mario Draghi's ECB bond 'bluff'
electrifies global markets The European Central Bank has opened the door to emergency support for the Spanish and Italian bond markets, setting off a blistering rally on bourses across the world.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Mario Draghi, the ECB president, vowed to do "whatever it takes" to save the euro within limits of its mandate. "Believe me, it will be enough," he said in London.
Picking codewords instantly understood by traders, Mr Draghi said the violent spike in bond yields in recent days was hampering "the functioning of the monetary policy transmission channels" - the exact expression used to jusfify each of the ECB's previous market interventions.
Greece to run out of money by August 20 Greece may run out of money and go bankrupt by Aug 20, a British government analysis of the ongoing eurozone crisis has warned.
By Robert Winnett - Telegraph.co.uk
The beleaguered country will have to refinance billions of euros worth of government bonds in less than a month and requires international assistance — which may not be forthcoming — to repay the money.
International inspectors arrived back in Greece on Tuesday to assess the country's austerity programme with European officials warning that it was "hugely off track".
U.S. Cities vs. European Countries: How Do They Rank?
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
What if Europe were the United States? is a question we've played with often on this page, at a safe distance from the crisis across the ocean. Far from a frivolous query, it helps us unpack the difference between a monetary experiment (their euro zone) and a true monetary and fiscal union (our "dollar zone"). The United States has plenty of intractable problems. Deciding whether to keep paying Medicaid for Mississippians after the state has a particularly disappointing year, or century, isn't one of them. Where we have laws and permanent transfer programs, Europe has debates over backstopping bonds and trading month-to-month bailouts for promises of fiscally ruinous austerity.
Citi sees 90 percent chance of Greece leaving the euro
(Reuters) - The chances of Greece leaving the euro in the next 12-18 months have risen to about 90 percent, U.S. bank Citi said in a report on Thursday, saying Athens was most likely to quit the single currency within the next two to three quarters.
The report, dated July 25 but distributed in an email on Thursday, said the bank expected Italy and Spain to take a formal bailout from the European Union and IMF on top of the banking aid for which Madrid has already asked.
Citi economists had previously put the chances of a Greek exit at 50 to 75 percent.
Ben Bernanke Doesn't Care
About the Price of Your Hamburger (Good!)
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
Do you like food? Yes? Well, I've got some bad news. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) expects the historic drought hitting half the country to push up food inflation next year.
But it's not as bad as you might think -- the jump in food prices, that is. The drought is a once-in-a-half-century disaster amidst once-in-a-century temperatures. The chart below from the USDA puts it in perspective.
State Dept. Says It Will Fight For Internet Freedom
At U.N. Telecom Conference
By CARL FRANZEN - TalkingPointsMemo.com
The U.S. State Department will advocate on behalf of Internet freedom, and oppose proposed plans by other nations to control the flow of content or turn more control of Internet technology standards to the United Nations at an upcoming U.N. conference, U.S. ambassador Philip Verveer, told TPM in a phone interview.
"We recognize that this is a very important conference," Verveer told TPM, referring to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), a summit to be held in Dubai in December that will involve all 193 member nations of the United Nations with the aim of revising global telecom regulations, last agreed to in a 1988 treaty, well before the full commercialization and adoption of the Internet.
Inside the Quest to Put the World's Libraries Online The Digital Public Library of America wants to make millions of books, records, and images available to any American with an Internet connection. Can it succeed where others have failed?
By Esther Yi - TheAtlantic.com
In his short story "The Library of Babel," Jorge Luis Borges imagines the universe as a "total library," whose 410-page books have achieved all possible combinations of letters and punctuation. No two books are the same. Some, of course, are gibberish. But others carry the answer to life's deepest mysteries. In Borges's library can be found every thought ever had, every turn of phrase ever uttered, every masterpiece penned by Shakespeare, and even the ones that he never got to write—simply stated, everything.
A Very Mean (But Maybe Brilliant) Way to Pay Teachers A Freakonomics author and a 'Genius Grant' winner suggest that giving teachers bonuses, then threatening to yank them away, might be the key to classroom success
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
One of the great, early insights from the field of behavioral economics was that when it comes to handling money, most people are driven much more by fear than they are by greed. The concept is called "loss aversion." Faced with a financial choice -- say, whether to sell a stock or hold onto it -- the majority of us are more likely to worry about blundering away what we already have than get excited about the prospect of adding to our bank accounts. We simply feel the sting of losing a buck more strongly than we do the joy of making one.
The Attack On Chick-Fil-A
Is An Attack On The Freedom Of Speech Of Every American
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
If you are an American, your freedom of speech is under attack. Over the past week, remarks made by Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy defending traditional marriage have sparked controversy all over the nation. Many Americans have expressed support for his remarks and many have expressed disdain for his remarks. And all of that is fine, because in the United States people are supposed to be able to express their opinions. But in Chicago, Boston and other U.S. cities, politicians are actually promising to keep any more Chick-fil-A stores from opening because their CEO does not support gay marriage, and that crosses the line. When politicians threaten to ban a business from their cities just because the CEO does not hold the "politically correct" position on a social issue that is an attack on the freedom of speech of every American. You see, the truth is that the enforcers of political correctness in America are very "tolerant" except when somebody disagrees with them. The politically correct control freaks that are trying to ban Chick-fil-A from their cities would try to ban Chick-fil-A from opening any more restaurants in the entire country if they had the power to do so. The goal of these politically correct control freaks is to intimidate. They want to end debate on these social issues by shutting down the free speech of the opposition. In the end, if America continues to go down this path it will end up looking just like many of the other totalitarian regimes throughout history where free speech has been banned.
Support Dan Cathy - eat at Chick-Fil-A on August 1st Billy Graham Throws Support Behind Chick-fil-A President
By Henry J. Reske - NewsMax.com
The Rev. Billy Graham has thrown his support behind embattled Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy and announced plans to stop by the fast food restaurant next Wednesday as part of Mike Huckabee's "Eat Mor Chikin" promotion.
Dan Cathy's recent comments supporting the "biblical definition" of marriage as between a man and a woman has led to calls by gay rights advocates to boycott the chain. The mayors of Boston and Chicago have recently promised to stop further expansion of the restaurants in their cities.
EAT MOR CHIKIN
By James Quinn - TheBurningPlatform.com
Everyone knows Chick-fil-A is run by a religious family. They sacrifice enormous potential profits by being closed on Sundays. The fact that the owner is against gay marriage is his personal view. The company does not discriminate against gay employees or gay customers. If you are so outraged by his personal view and his exercising of his right to free speech, then you have the right to boycott Chick-fil-A. The government and asshole liberal politicians like Rahm Emanuel do not have the right to stop Chick-fil-A from opening outlets because they disagree with the owners personal views. Maybe Rahm should worry about the hundreds of murders and gang wars in his fine city. Karl Denninger is absolutely correct. Teach these liberal scumbag politicians another lesson. Buy a chicken sandwich, waffle fries and a lemonade on your way home tonight at Chick-fil-A.
Rahm Emanuel, The Dictator
By Karl Denninger - Market-Ticker.org
You want to know what unconstitutional is defined by? You just found it.
The anti-gay views openly espoused by the president of a fast food chain specializing in chicken sandwiches have run afoul of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a local alderman, who are determined to block Chick-fil-A from expanding in Chicago.
"Chick-fil-A's values are not Chicago values. They're not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you're gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values," Emanuel said Wednesday.
That's illegal Rahm. It's flatly unconstitutional for government to impose a "litmus test" on the "permitting process" for a business or other entity due to the religious beliefs of the owners.
School supt.: Churches opposed to homosexuality not welcome
By Todd Starnes - SRNNews.townhall.com
Supt. Alberto Carvalho released a statement to a local television station alleging that Impact Miami's opposition to homosexuality "appears to be contrary to school board policy as well as the basic principles of humanity."
"I have asked for immediate legal review to seek the termination of the contract that is involved," he told Local10.com. "I am making this decision not on the basis of policy or politics but as a rejection of prejudice and intolerance."
US midwest drought worsens despite rains The drought across the states that produce most of the country's corn, soybeans and livestock has intensified, a report shows
By Reuters - Guardian.co.uk
The most extensive drought in five decades intensified this week across the US midwest and plains states that produce most of the county's corn, soybeans and livestock, a report from climate experts showed on Thursday.
Almost 30% of the nine-state midwest was suffering extreme drought, nearly triple from the previous week, according to the US drought monitor for the week ending 24 July.
Republicans want to raise taxes on the poor. Why?
Posted by Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Orrin Hatch is the Republican point man on taxes in the Senate. And he's got a plan. It's called the Tax Hike Prevention Act of 2013. He's even got Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate Republicans, as a co-sponsor.
Hatch's plan would extend all the Bush tax cuts for another year. It would keep the alternative minimum tax in check. It would direct the Senate Finance Committee to begin working on tax reform. Just about the only thing it wouldn't do is prevent a tax hike from occurring in 2013.
Actuary: GOP Cuts To Social Security Anti-Fraud Programs
Could Cost Taxpayers $5 Billion
SAHIL KAPUR - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Cuts proposed by House Republicans to programs designed to weed out waste and abuse within Social Security could end up costing taxpayers more in the long run than the spending cuts themselves are designed to save, according to the program's chief actuary.
An appropriations bill that last week cleared a GOP-led subcommittee slashes 2013 funding for disability reviews and eligibility redeterminations, which seek to ensure that seniors and other eligible beneficiaries don't receive more funds than they are entitled to. The proposed cuts would shave this specific budget item from the $1.024 billion agreed upon in the debt limit law last year to $272 million, saving nearly $800 million.
Two apples a day keeps the cardiologist away Just two apples a day could help protect women against heart disease by cutting their cholesterol levels, according to new research.
Telegraph.co.uk
Scientists found apples significantly lowered blood fat levels in postmenopausal women, the group most at risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Snacking on the fruit every day for six months slashed cholesterol by almost a quarter.
The biggest reduction was seen in low-density lipoprotein, the so-called 'bad' cholesterol that furs up arteries and raises the risk of a life-threatening clot forming near the heart or brain.
Walmart accused of firing union organizers
in bid to intimidate workers Retail giant denies it planned illegal campaign to stamp out union activity but workers say firings point to emerging strategy
By Spencer Woodman - Guardian.co.uk
Walmart is facing accusations that the company is engaged in a bold and illegal campaign to stamp out union activity after firing five employees in recent months who were involved in a group organizing the company's workers.
Although the company says that the terminations are unrelated to any employees' organizing activity, OUR Walmart – which receives funding and support from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union – argues that the pattern points to an emerging strategy to break the organization's command structure and intimidate workers.
Hawker Beechcraft defends bonus plan for top execs
AP - SRNNews.townhall.com
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Hawker Beechcraft is defending its plan to pay more than $5.3 million in bonuses to eight top executives. Company officials say the executives are talented and have much work left to do before the company can emerge from bankruptcy.
The company told the bankruptcy judge in a document filed Thursday — just hours before a hearing — that its executives must continue to pursue a possible company sale to a Chinese firm and a plan for a reorganized standalone company.
Bombardier to halt production of Learjet 60 XR;
275 jobs at risk
By Molly McMillin - Wichita Eagle - Kansas.com
Bombardier Learjet is halting production of its Learjet 60 XR midsize business jet sometime this fall and evaluating the positions of the 275 people who work on the program.
If the market improves, production can be restarted, said Annie Cossette, a spokeswoman for Bombardier.
"We're monitoring the situation closely," Cossette said. "The demand in the light aircraft market is weak."
It will continue to evaluate the market.
Alcatel-Lucent to cut 5,000 jobs,
costs after reporting $308 million loss for second quarter
AP - WshingtonPost.com
PARIS — Telecoms equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent plans to eliminate 5,000 jobs in a multimillion-euro drive to cut costs announced Thursday after it reported a second-quarter net loss of €254 million ($308 million).
The Franco-American company unveiled a restructuring plan that it said would take €1.25 billion off its bottom line by next year.
Shares in the company plunged as the Paris bourse opened; by late afternoon, they were down 6.9 percent. Alcatel-Lucent had reported a second-quarter net profit of €43 million last year.
Pentagon official says civilian workforce
could get layoff notices 4 days before election
AP - WashingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of civilian employees in the Defense Department could receive warnings about potential layoffs four days before the November election if impending spending cuts aren't averted, hitting presidential battleground states such as Virginia and Florida hard.
The alerts would come in addition to any that major defense contractors might send out at the same time to their workers under an often-overlooked law, a prospect that is unnerving the White House roughly three months before voters go to the polls.
Ten Reasons Why Fracking is Doomed
By Juan Cole - OilPrice.com
Proponents of natural gas fracturing and oil drilling are delirious with joy over the ability to recover shale gas, which has brought down world gas prices and made the US a major player again. Likewise, North Dakota wells are set to produce up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day soon. (Although, since the world uses roughly 89 million barrels a day, and the US uses a fifth of that, and demand in Asia will likely spike in coming years, the ND addition is just not that much).
Fracking is dangerous to ground water purity, and both oil and gas, as hydrocarbons, contribute to global climate change, which is a dire threat to human well-being in coming decades and centuries.
Chamber of Commerce to promote shale boom in campaign
By Ayesha Rascoe - SRNNews.Townhall.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday launched its first major salvo in support of shale oil and gas development, unveiling a campaign promoting the economic benefits of the booming energy sector that is under fire from environmentalists.
The powerful business group will be running newspaper and radio ads in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia where the shale gas boom has sharply boosted drilling.
STOP ICLEI [Agenda 21 on the local level] Why You Should Be Concerned About ICLEI
Anticlei.com ICLEI = International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
Taking care of our environment, developing energy independence, and planning for the future is a responsible approach to living. However, the green/environmental/sustainable movement consistently demonstrates their lack of concern for the people who live on the planet. Many green-labeled practices actually cause more damage to the environment.
Powerful environmental special interest groups prevent research, development and implementation of new technology. Free market solutions to any problem are far superior to government intrusion. There is exciting research and development being conducted by private businesses, but they cannot compete against multibillion dollar foreign nongovernmental organizations.
Richard Rothschild Battles Local Agenda 21
By Cassandra Anderson - PPJGazette
Richard Rothschild was the first county commissioner to officially oppose the United Nations' International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), also known as Local Governments for Sustainability. In fact, Mr. Rothschild won the November 2010 election in Carroll County, Maryland based on his opposition to ICLEI, which is the local UN Agenda 21 Sustainable Development action plan that attacks property and Constitutional rights.
Lord Christopher Monckton -
Agenda 21 and Environmental Marxism
On March 18, 2012 Lord Christopher Monckton spoke to supporters of the International Free Press Society - Canada at Windermere Manor in London, Ontario. Topics of his speech included the United Nations, environmentalism, science, reason, Agenda 21, Marxism, Islam, and abortion as a major reason for the eventual downfall of the West.
ICLEI Agenda 21
Commissioner Richard Rothschild, a county level elected board member educates the public about the dangers of UN's Agenda 21 initiatives and the Sustainability Development plans by the ICLEI.
KICK ICLEI OUT: Santa Rosa CA Council Meeting
Citizens in Santa Rosa, CA spoke during public comments and urged their City Council to put its membership in ICLEI (International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives) on the council agenda so that it could be discussed and debated by the citizens. The Council's response will shock you.
Santa Rosa became a member of ICLEI in 2007 and never disclosed that to the people. ICLEI was created specifically to implement UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development worldwide. It claims to represent over 600 million people but most of us have never heard of it, even though our towns, cities, and counties are members. There is a growing grassroots movement to KICK ICLEI OUT. Cities and counties all across the United States are cancelling their memberships and purging Sustainable Development doctrine out of their General/Comprehensive Plans. You can do it too! For more information please go to www.DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com
Colorado shooting:
James Holmes claims he can't remember killings James Holmes has reportedly claimed he does not know why he is in prison as he awaits trial accused of killing 12 people in a massacre in a Colorado theatre.
Telegraph.co.uk
The 24-year-old repeatedly asked prison guards "Why am I here?" and said he had no recollection of the killings during a midnight premiere of the new Batman film, according to the New York Daily News.
Holmes, a former neuroscience PhD student, also apparently complained about the food in the Arapahoe County Detention Centre in Colorado, where he is being held in solitary confinement to protect him from possible vigilante justice by other inmates.
Obama calls for measures against gun violence
By Dave Boyer-The Washington Times
Faced with a clamor in his party for stricter gun control in the wake of the Colorado movie-theater massacre, President Obama said Wednesday night he would "leave no stone unturned" in seeking new measures to reduce violence nationwide, including more restrictive background checks on gun purchases.
"A lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals," Mr. Obama said at the annualNational Urban League convention in New Orleans. "They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities."
Obama calls for US gun control laws
to be tightened in wake of Aurora shooting President affirms right to bear arms but says assault rifles do not belong in the hands of citizens, drawing contrast with Romney
By Adam Gabbatt in New York - Guardizn.co.uk
Barack Obama has addressed the issue of gun control for the first time since the Colorado film premiere shootings, appealing for "a consensus around violence reduction" and suggesting assault rifles "belong on the battlefield".
The president's comments came as the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the US did not need new gun laws and argued that "changing the heart of the American people" might be the way to avoid future tragedy instead.
Mayor Bloomberg Says
Cops Should Go On Strike
Until Americans Give Up Their Guns
By Mike Riggs - Reason.com
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told CNN's Piers Morgan last night that he doesn't "understand why police officers across this country don't stand up collectively and say we're going to go on strike, we're not going to protect you unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what's required to keep us safe."
We've been hearing a lot of that recently. Earlier this year, The New York Timesreprinted a Department of Justice press release and slapped this lede on top of it: "As violent crime has decreased across the country, a disturbing trend has emerged: Rising numbers of police officers are being killed."
[How many police officers were killed in Aurora? Oh, yeah... Zero.]
NSA whistleblowers:
Government spying on every single American
Reuters/Jason Reed - RT.com
The TSA, DHS and countless other security agencies have been established to keep America safe from terrorist attacks in post-9/11 America. How far beyond that does the feds' reach really go, though?
The attacks September 11, 2001, were instrumental in enabling the US government to establish counterterrorism agencies to prevent future tragedies. Some officials say that they haven't stopped there, though, and are spying on everyone in America — all in the name of national security.
Gun Sales Are Through the Roof
Truthdig.com
In reaction to the deadly shooting spree in Aurora, Colo., Americans are stockpiling their own arsenals. Sales are up across the land, from Georgia to California.
In Colorado, background checks were up by 25 percent this weekend and 43 percent the week before, according to The Associated Press.
Fear prompts gun sales, panic after Colo. massacre
By By MIKE BAKER and KRISTEN WYATT – Google.com
DENVER (AP) — Firearms sales are surging in the wake of the Colorado movie massacre as buyers express fears about both personal safety and lawmakers who are using the shooting to seek new weapons restrictions.
In Colorado, the site of Friday's shooting that killed 12 and injured dozens of others, gun sales jumped in the three days that followed. The state approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm — 25 percent more than the average Friday to Sunday period in 2012 and 43 percent more than the same interval the week prior.
Pew: Some Voters Still Believe Obama Is Muslim,
Most Unconcerned With Candidates' Religions
By KYLE LEIGHTON - TalkingPointsMemo.com
More voters are "uncomfortable" with President Obama's religion than they are with presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney's Mormon faith — but that's mostly because many of the 19 percent concerned about Obama think he's Muslim.
A new study from the Pew Research Center shows that 60 percent of voters can correctly identify Romney's religion as Mormon, and of those correct responses, 13 percent are uncomfortable with it. Forty-nine percent correctly identify President Obama's religion as Christian, while 17 percent believe he is Muslim. Among those who are are "sure" they know Obama's faith, 19 percent say they are uncomfortable — but most of those who express discomfort believe Obama is Muslim.
Obama to be the next President prophecy
Trunews interview between Rick Wiles and TD Hale. Obama will be re-elected followed by riots and cities of fire. World war III China Russia submarines nuclear weapons
Iran expands ability to strike U.S. Navy in gulf Iran bolsters retaliation capability in gulf, experts say
By Joby Warrick - WashingtonPost.com
Iran is rapidly gaining new capabilities to strike at U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, amassing an arsenal of sophisticated anti-ship missiles while expanding its fleet of fast-attack boats and submarines, U.S. and Middle Eastern analysts say.
The new systems, many of them developed with foreign assistance, are giving Iran's commanders new confidence that they could quickly damage or destroy U.S. ships if hostilities erupt, the officials say.
Syria: Washington's Latest War Crime
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
One wonders what Syrians are thinking as "rebels" vowing to "free Syria" take the country down the same road to destruction as "rebels" in Libya. Libya, under Gaddafi a well run country whose oil revenues were shared with the Libyan people instead of monopolized by a princely class as in Saudi Arabia, now has no government and is in disarray with contending factions vying for power.
Just as no one knew who the Libyan "rebels" were, with elements of al Qaeda reportedly among them, no one knows who the Syrian "rebels" are, or indeed if they are even rebels (Antiwar.com). Some "rebels" appear to be bandit groups who seize the opportunity to loot and to rape and set themselves up as the governments of villages and towns. Others appear to be al Qaeda.
Syria dispatch: Rebels forced to share guns
as Assad's tanks roll in to Aleppo The countryside around Aleppo is a fragile haven for Syria's rebels. Makeshift battalions of local fighters have filled the vacuum left by the withdrawal of most of the regime's forces, but their gains are uncertain.
By Damien McElroy, in al-Bab, Aleppo Province - Telegraph.co.uk
The insurgents are ill-equipped to defend the area from the possible return of an army with vastly superior firepower. Al-Bab, a market town 20 miles east of Aleppo, is one of the first to fly the colours of what rebels call "Free Syria". Their green and black flag has been painted on to former police stations and government offices.
But on the outskirts of the town, an army garrison steadfastly refuses to capitulate. "We have them surrounded and we are trying to talk them into surrender," said Suleiman Nadoom, a rebel fighter. "We think they are still in touch with the army and are being promised reinforcements. The other night they shelled us. There were 40 martyrs."
The Middle East after Assad
By Joschka Fischer - Project-Syndicate.org
BERLIN – What will the Middle East look like once the Syrian civil war brings about the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, whose clan has ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 40 years? Given the recent dramatic turn of events that has pushed the battle for Syria to a new stage, this question can no longer be avoided.
The successful bomb attack on Assad's innermost circle, the spread of the fighting into the capital, Damascus (and to the borders with Turkey andIraq), and the increasing flow of heavier and more precise arms to the insurgents mark the beginning of the endgame. But no one should harbor false hopes about the coming change: Assad's regime will not be supplanted by a rule-of-law democracy. On the contrary, the post-Assad era is likely to be even more chaotic and violent, as the regime's opponents attempt to settle accounts with its supporters and conflict erupts among various clans and religious communities.
Gold Roars, Treasury Bores, Equity Floors, US Scores
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedges.com
With GDP on Friday, FOMC around the corner, month-end T-3 ahead of that, and a market so ultra-sensitive to any and every word uttered from EU leaders, it is perhaps little wonder that volume was lack-luster (and so was commitment with the lowest average trade size of the year) today. What is perhaps most notable about a day when Treasuries ended unch to +1bps and stocks marginally higher is the weakness of the USD (pulling back to unch on the week) and strength in Gold (and Silver). What also surprises is the dramatic rise in correlation across asset classes - suggesting a high degree of systemic preparedness for some 'event'. Equities leaked higher all night helped by Nowotny's nonsense, double-topped at around the magical 1340 level once again and ended up pulling back down to VWAP (what a surprise). Financials led along with Industrials (and Utilities!?) as Tech lagged thanks to CRAAPL's 4.3% loss. WTI staged a solid comeback from earlier weakness but it was Gold and Silver that won (as the former managed to test $1610 - its highest in 3 weeks). The S&P 500 remains very marginally better than the Long Bond YTD as Gold is catching up. VIX dropped from around its 'fair' equity/credit price to spur some strength is stocks and ended the day down around 1 vol at 19.4% as ES managed to once again close just above its 50DMA (with heavy volume and large average trade size once again coming at VWAP into the close) perfectly at 50% of the March-to-June swing.
Where Do You Hde %50 Billion of Gold in Hong Kong? This Fall: A Brand Spanking New
Gold Storage Facility in Hong Kong
By Robert Wenzel - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Hong Kong's largest gold-storage facility, which can hold about 22 percent of the bullion now in Fort Knox, will open in September to meet rising demand from banks and the wealthy, according to owner Malca-Amit Global Ltd, reports Bloomberg.
The facility, located on the ground floor of a building within the international airport compound, has capacity for 1,000 metric tons, said Joshua Rotbart, general manager for the Hong Kong-based company's Malca-Amit Precious Metals unit. Two of the vaults may hold assets, including gold, for banks and financial institutions, and others will be used for diamonds, jewelry, fine art and precious metals, said Rotbart.
End Is Near for Economic Rebound
BY CLIF DROKE - FinancialSense.com
Since the start of the global economic recovery in 2009, the status of the U.S. economy has been a perplexing one. We've been bombarded with conflicting reports as to the economy's strength or weakness at various times over the past 3+ years and at any given time it's hard to get a good read on how well the domestic economy is performing overall.
When confusion prevails the best approach to cutting through the uncertainty normally begins with defining the basic terms involved. When news commentators talk about the "economy," for instance, what they're referring to is the sales and revenue trends of multi-national corporations such as McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, et al. Under this rather limited definition of economy, how well these U.S.-based multinationals are doing in foreign markets like China or India counts for as much (if not more) as how much they are selling to customers here in the U.S. Under this definition of "economy," the global rebound since 2009 has been truly impressive.
Financial First Responders discuss
whether US has become "Too Sexy to Survive"
As stocks fall, volatility spikes, perceived safe haven yields hit record lows, potential criminal Libor charges loom, and headlines tout "Global Economy in Worst Shape Since 2009," a large group of investors are meeting in Vancouver for the Agora Financial conference. The theme of the conference is 'Innovate or Die: Empire at a Turning Point.' We check in with the organizer, Eric Fry, Editor of the Daily Reckoning and Chief Investment Strategist at Agora Financial to find out why high profile investors and economic experts see such high stakes and what answers they may have.
Also, with new lows for treasury yields, the US government has never borrowed this cheaply. We talk to Eric Fry about what the indebted US may learn from the extinction of the Irish Elk.
With major Italian cities on the verge of collapse and residents taking to social media to demand return of the Lira, we talk to blogger extraordinaire Mike "Mish" Shedlock about what lies ahead for Europe.
Deflation Now. Inflation Later.
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
07/25/12 Vancouver, Canada – Stocks down another 104 points yesterday…measured by the Dow.
What's going on…? What's going on?
That was a song by Marvin Gaye. It was also the question the interviewer asked. Followed by, what's going to happen next?
But those are questions no one can answer. All we can do is guess…speculate…and wonder.
"Deflation now. Inflation later" is what we've been saying for the last 4 years.
The interviewer seemed happy with the answer. And the elaboration:
"Japan now…but don't be surprised when we end up in Argentina."
What do Japan…Argentina…and the US all have in common? They can print money. And when their backs are to the wall, that is what they will do.
House easily approves Paul's 'audit the Fed' bill in 327-98 vote
By Pete Kasperowicz - TheHill.com
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) won a rare legislative victory on Wednesday when the House passed his legislation allowing for a full audit of the Federal Reserve, including an audit of the Fed's monetary policy decisions.
The House approved Paul's Federal Reserve Transparency Act, H.R. 459, in a bipartisan 327-98 vote. The vote split Democrats almost evenly — 89 for and 97 against — while only one Republican, Rep. Robert Turner (R-N.Y.), voted against it
US House passes Fed audit bill;
measure seen dying in Senate
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:00pm EDT
(Reuters) - Legislation to subject the Federal Reserve's monetary policy to audits sailed through the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday although the measure is expected to die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The legislation, written by Republican representative Ron Paul, whose anti-Fed crusade prompted a presidential bid and his grass-roots folk-hero status, passed the House by a 327-98 vote on Wednesday, exceeding the two-thirds majority needed.
LIBOR 2.0: Is the Biggest Manipulation Yet to Come?
by Bob English - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Is LIBORgate the crime of the century? Or is the real crime yet to come? As has long been alleged at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, the biggest manipulators of short term rates are the central bankers themselves. Yet, they (unfortunately) have been ignored by the MSM in this mess--even the Bank of England, which appears to be directly culpable.
Tim Geithner investigating
whether Treasury lost out over Libor Treasury secretary appears before House committee and blames British regulators for failing to stop rate manipulation
By Dominic Rushe - Guardian.co.uk
US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner said he was investigating whether the US government had lost out as a result of the Libor scandal as politicians grilled him over the growing scandal.
Appearing before the House financial services committee, Geithner once again blamed British regulators for failing to stop the manipulation of Libor interest rates. Geithner was head of the New York Federal Reserve at the time that Barclays and other banks are alleged to have manipulated the key set of interest rates used to set more than $800tn in securities and loans worldwide.
Of course, Timmy never bother to bring it up during all those congressional hearings, did he? Geithner says he did all he could to address Libor problem
By Rachelle Younglai and Pedro da Costa
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 25, 2012 6:58pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, under pressure for not doing enough to stop fraudulent manipulation of a key benchmark interest rate, told lawmakers on Wednesday he alerted the appropriate authorities "early on."
In his first chance to defend his actions on the widening Libor scandal before Congress, Geithner said he became aware of the problem in 2008, when he was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, an influential bank regulator.
Geithner says he acted appropriately on LIBOR at New York Fed
By Jim Puzzanghera - LATimes.com
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told lawmakers Wednesday that he acted appropriately as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when he learned in 2008 that a key international interest rate could be manipulated by large banks.
But despite concerns that the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, was vulnerable to under-reporting by banks at the time, Geithner said he and other Fed officials felt it was not a problem to use the rate to set the terms for the $182 billion bailout of American International Group and a $1-trillion emergency lending program called the Term-Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility.
Major Sell Signal Triggered
Written by Lance Roberts - StreetTalkLive.com
For some time now we have been warning about the danger to portfolios given the deteriorating fundamental, economic and technical backdrop in the markets. Our warnings, for the most part, have been ignored as individuals continue to chase stocks in hopes that "this time will be different", and somehow, stocks will continue to ramp higher even though all three support legs are weakening. Currently, it is the imminent arrival of the next round of Quantitative Easing (QE) that keeps "hope" elevated but further Central Bank interventionis unlikely in the near term leaving the markets at risk of a further correction.
The Shift to a New Global Currency
Alters International Relations
BY MARIN KATUSA - FinancialSense.com
Last week I wrote about how Israel's newfound natural gas wealth is catalyzing a shift in Middle-Eastern relations. It was a topic that generated much discussion in our office - we knew that the Mediterranean Sea resource is highly significant for the Jewish state, which has long struggled with energy insecurity, but the deeper we delved into the issue the more we realized that Israel's new resource is already having wide global implications. In particular, we were very intrigued to realize just how cozy Russia and Israel are becoming - this being the same Russia that usually supports Iran and Syria, Israel's sworn enemies.
Global Trade Likely to Collapse if Romney Wins -
Interview with Mike Shedlock
By James Stafford - OilPrice.com
As markets continue to yo-yo and commentators deliver mixed forecasts, investors are faced with some tough decisions and have a number of important questions that need answering. On a daily basis we are asked what's happening with oil prices alongside questions on China's slowdown, which commodities or instruments will provide safety in the current environment, will the Euro-zone split in the future and what impact the presidential election is going to have on the economy and markets?
Why a eurozone break-up is just the sort of shock the UK needs Forget the latest GDP figures, depressing reading though they undoubtedly make.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
I'm not going to pretend they don't matter, but the demands of the Westminster village and a 24-hour rolling news agenda make them seem more significant than they really are.
Like many others, I'm not even convinced they give the true picture. Rising tax revenues, still significant levels of job creation, including the announcement on Wednesday of a further 1,100 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover, and much of the survey evidence all point to a marginally growing economy, not a declining one. What's more, the Jubilee and the wettest April to June quarter on record plainly had a significant effect.
Dominoes
BY DAVID KOTOK - FinancialSense.com
Europe appears to be dismembering. We see Spanish yields breaking well above 7%. The Spanish government bond market is essentially closed to private investors. The only funding for Spain, and many of its political subdivisions, is now institutional and governmental from elsewhere in the eurozone.
The sovereign default process in Europe resembles falling dominoes. It started with Greece and has moved on to Ireland (which appears to be attempting resuscitation on its own), Portugal, Cyprus, and now Spain. The danger is that this sequential toppling of countries may be accelerating.
Euro exit beats begging bowl, says Spanish elder statesman The regional leader of Asturias in Spain has become the country's first major figure to call for a radical change of strategy and exit from the euro, unless monetary union is fundamentally reformed.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Francisco Alvarez Cascos, the region's president and former secretary-general of Spain's ruling party, accused premier Mariano Rajoy of humiliating the nation by touring Europe with a "begging bowl".
The attack came as Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos hopped from Berlin to Paris in a desperate attempt to drum up support as yields on Spanish two-year debt surged to a fresh record of 7pc.
Greek economy is in a 'Great Depression' says Samaras
Greece is in a "Great Depression" similar to the American one in the 1930s, the country's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told former US President Bill Clinton on Sunday.
Reuters - Telegraph.co.uk
Mr Samaras's comments come two days before a team of Greece's debt inspectors arrive in Athens to push for further austerity measures if the debt-laden country wants to qualify for further rescue payments and avoid a chaotic default.
Athens wants to soften the terms of a €130bn bailout agreed last March with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, to soften their impact on an economy going through its worst post-war recession.
Down Goes Britain: The UK Economy Tumbles Deep Into Recession
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The economic crisis that is sweeping Europe is starting to hit Britain really hard. Over the last couple of years economists have been warning that we can't let the "contagion" spread from troubled nations such as Greece and Portugal to the rest of Europe. Well, it is too late for that now. Spain and Italy are coming apart at the seams at this point, and even "stronger" nations such as the UK and France appear to be deeply troubled. According to numbers that were released just this week, the UK economy has now contracted for three quarters in a row. During the second quarter of 2012, the UK economy shrunk by 0.7 percent. That was a much larger contraction than the 0.2 percent contraction that economists were forecasting. At this point we have got a definite trend going. During the fourth quarter of 2011, the UK economy shrunk by 0.4 percent. During the first quarter of 2012, the UK economy shrunk by 0.3 percent. And now in this latest quarter the contraction of the UK economy appears to be accelerating. This economic downturn in the UK is being called "the longest double-dip recession for more than 50 years". So will Britain soon look like Greece and Spain and Italy or will it be able to pull out of this nosedive in time?
IMF Says China's Economy Has Managed a 'Soft Landing'
By ELAINE KURTENBACH - AP - DailyFinance.com
SHANGHAI -- China has achieved a "soft landing" in its economic slowdown, the IMF says, while cautioning that more sweeping reforms are needed to ensure healthy growth in the longer term.
In a report Wednesday on its website, the International Monetary Fund praised China's leaders for adjusting policies to help counter the malaise plaguing the global economy that has also slowed robust growth in China and other emerging nations.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Hires JPMorgan, Goldman For IPO
By Serena Saitto and Christopher Palmeri - Bloomberg.com
MGM Holdings Inc. (MGMB), the parent of Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, hiredJPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) to manage its initial public offering, according to two people familiar with the situation.
JPMorgan will lead the share sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn't public. MGM submitted a draft IPO registration statement confidentially to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Los Angeles- based company said in a press release dated today, without disclosing details of the offering.
World Bank president: 'I want to eradicate poverty'Jim Yong Kim says he will bring urgency to efforts to end global poverty in exclusive Guardian interview
By Sarah Boseley, health editor, in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
The new president of the World Bank is determined to eradicate globalpoverty through goals, targets and measuring success in the same way that he masterminded an Aids drugs campaign for poor people nearly a decade ago.
Jim Yong Kim, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian, said he was passionately committed to ending absolute poverty, which threatens survival and makes progress impossible for the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day.
"I want to eradicate poverty," he said. "I think that there's a tremendous passion for that inside the World Bank."
Senate Dems pass middle-class tax-rate extension
in close vote
By Bernie Becker and Ramsey Cox - TheHill.com
Senate Democrats narrowly pushed through a measure to extend tax rates for family income up to $250,000 for a year, as both parties continued their election-year messaging war on taxes.
By a 51-48 tally, Democrats overcame two defections to win passage of a measure that would also raise the top rate on capital gains and dividends, as well as continue several targeted tax provisions that Democrats say help the middle class.
Bankruptcy Bonuses:
Another Way Execs Cheat Workers (and Taxpayers)
By Bruce Watson - DailyFinance.com
Ever since 2008, when sordid tales of big bonuses at bailed-out Wall Street banks flooded the news media, the huge checks that top executives often write themselves have been reliable class warfare bait. Little wonder: That year, amid failing banks, mass foreclosures, skyrocketing unemployment and frenzied bailouts, New York financial companies paid their workers an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses.
Since then, Wall Street has gotten a bit more careful about its bonus structure. Many companies reduced their bonuses, some capped the amount that employees could receive, and still others found creative ways to conceal their biggest paychecks. Even so, banker bonuses remain a tough sell to the general public, especially when it appears that they are coming at the expense of average workers -- and taxpayers.
The Big Jobs Myth: American Workers
Aren't Ready for American Jobs What ails the American worker? Republicans and Democrats, chief executives and certain academics all say they see a mismatch between workers' skills and employers' needs. The data see something different.
By Barbara Kiviat - TheAtlantic.com
A specter haunts the job market. You've witnessed it on the campaign trail. You've seen it on TV. It is the idea that the skills of U.S. workers don't match the needs of the nation's employers.
This "skills mismatch" is routinely held up to explain why the unemployment rate is still at 8.2% three years after the Great Recession officially ended, and why nearly half of those out of work have been so for more than six months. The Romney campaign affirms that the skills mismatch "lies at the heart of our jobs crisis." In his State of the Union speech, President Obama quoted conversations with businessmen who can't find qualified workers, and then proposed "a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job."
Sales Of New U.S. Homes Decrease
From Two-Year High: Economy
By Michelle Jamrisko - Bloomberg.com
Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly dropped in June from a two-year high, a sign the market is being held back by a lack of inventory after builders curtailed projects.
Purchases fell 8.4 percent to a 350,000 annual rate, the weakest since January, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 74 economists was 372,000. The decline was led by a record plunge in the Northeast, where the number of properties available last month was the fewest for any June.
How Caterpillar Explains the World
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Caterpillar builds machines for digging up the earth. When countries grow, they need more machines. When they stop growing, they need fewer. That's one reason why a company like Caterpillar, while perhaps not as sexy as Apple or Goldman Sachs, actually paints a better picture of the world economy than almost any other big corporation. So the company's announcement today that it's earnings rose 67 percent year over year in the second quarter has, predictably, been received as great news on Wall Street.
But breaking down Caterpillar's sales by geography, as I've done in the chart below, also tells us about the strange, precarious position that the world's in these days.
California's Impending Energy Crash
By Gregor Macdonald - OilPrice.com
California, which imports over 25% of its electricity from out of state, is in no position to lose half (!) of its entire nuclear power capacity. But that's exactly what happened earlier this year, when the San Onofre plant in north San Diego County unexpectedly went offline. The loss only worsens the broad energy deficit that has made California the most dependent state in the country on expensive, out-of-state power.
Its two nuclear plants -- San Onofre in the south and Diablo Canyon on the central coast -- together have provided more than 15% of the electricity supply that California generates for itself, before imports. But now there is the prospect that San Onofre will never reopen.
Bye-bye to printed magazines Newsweek plans eventual transition to digital-only format Owner of magazine says company is examining its options as manufacturing costs continue to hinder publication's profits, but Tina Brown denies imminent closure of print edition
By Staff and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
The owners of Newsweek have said they are considering whether to make the weekly news magazine available only in a digital format.
Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InteractiveCorp, told analysts on a conference call that a major problem with Newsweek is with the cost of "manufacturing" a weekly. He then strongly hinted at taking the Newsweek brand to a digital-only format similar to its sister title the Daily Beast.
Reid sets crucial cybersecurity vote
By Jennifer Martinez - TheHill.com
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a crucial procedural vote that could determine the fate of cybersecurity legislation in the upper chamber.
The test vote is set up for Friday on Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) cybersecurity bill, but an aide for Reid said Republicans will likely yield back time for the vote to take place on Thursday.
Bypassing Government Roadblocks to Your Personal Prosperity
By David Galland, Casey Research - TheBurningPlatform.com
Recently I helped out with some delivery chores. As I drove about, I discovered that one of the roads I would normally use was closed by roadblocks. It was, I imagine, due to road repair work. I had to reverse course and take a substantial detour.
I wondered why the road crew hadn't put up a sign indicating the road was closed back at the main intersection, but I shrugged and muttered something like "Typical government operation."
Driving back home, this idea of roadblocks took root in my mind. The thing is, only governmental entities can set up roadblocks – at least, legally.
Drought will bring about higher food prices, US warns Department of agriculture says catastrophe in the corn belt will push up prices, with drought now covering two-thirds of America
By Suzanne Goldenberg - Guardian.co.uk
The US government acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that the drought now covering two-thirds of the country will lead to significantly higher food prices.
The catastrophe in the corn belt, which has seen crops decimated by extreme heat and prolonged drought, will have ripple effects throughout the food system, the department of agriculture said in its food price outlook.
Why Gas Producers Are Getting Crunched by the Shale Boom
By Keith Schaefer - OilPrice.com
North America's shale drilling revolution is taking a toll on natural gas producers.
The reason? The shale boom has generated a tremendous oversupply of Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) – These are the byproduct gases and liquids like ethane, pentane, and propane which come out of the well alongside oil and regular natural gas.
The supply glut, for its part, has forced a sharp drop in the price of NGLs in North America. And that is crunching the profits of gas producers.
Gun sales surge in US following Colorado shooting American buyers of firearms fear politicians may use the Aurora massacre to push for new ownership restrictions
Associated Press in Denver - Guardian.co.uk
Firearms sales are surging in the US in the wake of the Coloradomassacre as buyers express fears that politicians may use the shootings to seek new restrictions on owning weapons.
In Colorado – the scene of Friday's shooting during the screening of a Batman film that killed 12 and injured dozens of others – gun sales jumped in the three days that followed. The state approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm – 25% more than the average Friday to Sunday period in 2012 and 43% more than the same period the week before.
McManus: The NRA has won Don't count on new gun control laws any time soon.
By Doyle McManus - LATimes.com
Politicians haven't always been allergic to gun control, not even Republicans.
In 1968, after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr., Congress — on a bipartisan vote — outlawed guns sales to felons and the mentally ill. In 1993, when Congress passed the Brady bill requiring background checks for gun purchasers, former President Reagan, who narrowly escaped assassination in 1981, was among its supporters.
Anaheim officials scramble
to contain public anger as protests escalate Looting and vandalism mar demonstrations against spate of police shootings, exacerbating city's stark race divisions
By Andrew Gumbel in Anaheim - Guardian.co.uk
Officials in Anaheim, the southern California home to Disneyland, are scrambling to contain public anger over a rash of police shootings of young Latino men and pleaded for calm following a fourth night of street demonstrations marred by vandalism and looting.
Members of a 1,000-strong crowd broke windows and set fire to garbage skips in downtown Anaheim on Tuesday night, leading to hours of clashes with police, who responded with pepper spray and rubber bullets and made at least 24 arrests. The demonstrators said they were expressing frustration at what is widely seen as indifference by the city's all-white leadership to the majority Latino population.
DHS head: Expect more members
of terrorist organizations to visit US
WashingtonExaminer.com
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress today to expect more members of designated foreign terrorist organizations to visit the United States.
"I think you are right in pointing out that as we move forward we are going to continue to have visitors to this country that the State Department and others feel are useful to bring to the country to have discussions moving forward who say they are members of the political party that in the past have been so designated," Napolitano told House Homeland Security Committee chairman Pete King, R-N.Y. during a committee hearing this morning.
East End Has Thousands In Illegal Squalor Near Olympics
By Simon Clark and Chris Spillane - Bloomberg.com
Five thousand meters from London's gleaming, white-spoked Olympic Stadium -- a 3.1-mile distance that games organizer and gold medalist Sebastian Coe once ran in 14 minutes and 6 seconds -- Christine Lyons has ferreted out a modern-day scene evocative of VictorianEngland.
In a side street with cracked, weedy paving covered in litter and rubble, just past an old stable, she knocks at a whitewashed shed built of bricks. A Hungarian couple in their 20s open the door to the single room they rent for 155 pounds ($240) a week. There's barely space to walk around a bed, a chair, a table, a bicycle, a rack covered with drying clothes and a sink on the wall. A bathroom is closed off in a corner. A bare light bulb hangs in the middle of the ceiling.
This May Be the First Computer-Generated Motion Picture
Of course, it was made at Bell Labs, like everything else.
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
This simple animation of a satellite orbiting a sphere may be the very first computer-generated movie. Ed Zajac created the simulation at Bell Labs in an effort to better understand the forces at play in the company's work with Telstar satellites.
Yes, there's violence, but some Syrians think it's time to return There has been a rebel surge – but most of the country is still under Bashar al-Assad's iron rule
By Robert Fisk - Independent.co.uk
A Syrian friend calls me early. "Just to let you know we're going back – things are OK now in the Mezzeh area." I wonder. Then a Lebanese colleague tells me that three Syrian friends of hers have just called to say goodbye, they're going back to Damascus with their families now that the fighting has died down.
Then the same woman calls to tell me that she spoke to a friend in Aleppo on Tuesday night to check on his welfare. "He was in a packed restaurant in the centre of the city – it was difficult to hear what he was saying over the noise." The lines of posh Syrian cars outside Beirut restaurants last weekend – belonging to supporters of the regime taking a brief "holiday" from Syria – have suddenly vanished from the streets.
Syria rushes reinforcements to its largest city
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY - APNews.MyWay.com
BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian troops rushed dozens of tanks and reinforcements Wednesday toward Aleppo, the country's strategically vital commercial capital, in a bid to crush a rebel advance that has spread to wide swaths of the sprawling city.
As five days of fighting in Aleppo intensified, and with rumors swirling of a final showdown in that city, neighboring Turkey tightened its borders but said refugees will be allowed through.
On Gold And The US Debt Trap?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As with much of the euro area, the US is in a debt trap. All the politicking in DC does not change this economic fact. The federal debt is going to be devalued. Yet even now, amid a new economic slowdown, US consumer price inflation is set to remain positive following a large spike in global food prices. Few things damage economic confidence more than food price inflation. Combined with the escalating financial crises in the euro area and also now in US municipals, the global slowdown already underway is likely to accelerate, leading to a further deterioration of sovereign finances. The debt trap is deepening, with ominous consequences for monetary and price inflation. The dollar and most currencies remain severely overvalued; gold and most commodities, undervalued. Those not in a position to vote themselves pay rises should consider buying some gold instead. Diluting dollars are not a store of value. Gold is.
Santelli Rants: "Ditch The Duct Tape;
The Problem Is Insolvency"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
"What's the difference between the US and Europe?" 'About Six Years' is the punchline that CNBC's Rick Santelli ascribes the apparently magnanimous view that Europe is so much different from us. Between PIMCO's Kashkari pontificating on unsustainable debt (and the Fed's need to 'do something', and Liesman still defending the Fed with all his might, Santelli loses it - noting Kashkari's intelligence, he rhetorically asks "Do you really think [the Fed] is the solution?" - and rightly so. "It's all band-aids," he exclaims, adding that "the problem is insolvency." Speaking out loud what many are thinking, Rick blasts the hypocrisy of the Kashkaris of the world who opine on solutions (and band-aids) while missing the critical underlying problem - that no one is accountable. Between Reagan, 'unreal' spending cuts, compromised 'bad' resolutions, and the continuing ostrich economics in the US mainstream, Santelli tells it like it is - as hard as it is for the CNBC anchors to hear.
Fed Moves Closer to Action
[Google title for free article pass] Central Bank Prepares Steps
to Spur the Economy Unless the Recovery Picks Up
By JON HILSENRATH - WSJ.com $$
Federal Reserve officials, impatient with the economy's sluggish growth and high unemployment, are moving closer to taking new steps to spur activity and hiring.
Since their June policy meeting, officials have made clear—in interviews, speeches and testimony to Congress—that they find the current state of the economy unacceptable. Many officials appear increasingly inclined to move unless they see evidence soon that activity is picking up on its own.
Fed strives to replenish depleted toolkit
By Pedro da Costa and Jonathan Spicer
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK | Tue Jul 24, 2012 5:06pm EDT
(Reuters) - When economists at Bank of America piped headlines from minutes of the Federal Reserve's June meeting down to the firm's trading floor, one sentence elicited an audible gasp of excitement: the Fed was exploring "new tools" to support growth.
Investors are now trying to cull hints about just what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who showed a willingness to stretch the boundaries of conventional monetary policy during the financial crisis, might have up his sleeve.
How the Fed Will Trigger the Next Crash
By Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
Over the last two months, I have witnessed one of the least convincing rallies in the US stock market in recent memory. Looking at the chart for the S&P 500 below you can clearly see a modest, low conviction, declining volume rally in an ever-narrowing channel. This is further confirmed by the chart of the NYSE advance/decline ratio that is failing at the March support level, which has now become resistance.
Keiser Report: Financial Feeding Frenzy (E318)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss feeding frenzies on Wall Street, drug money laundering in the City and Javier Bardem pays a little visit to the bankers. In the second half of the show, Max talks to comedian, actress, writer and Presidential candidate, Roseanne Barr about the mainstreaming of calls to 'hang bankers' and about ridding our democracies of politicians owned by bankers.
Europe is sleepwalking towards imminent disaster,
warn top economists The euro has completely broken down as a workable system and faces collapse with "incalculable economic losses and human suffering" unless there is a drastic change of course, according to a group of leading economists.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Europe is "sleepwalking towards disaster", according to the 17 experts, who warned that over the past few weeks "the situation in the debtor countries has deteriorated dramatically".
"The sense of a neverending crisis, with one domino falling after another, must be reversed. The last domino, Spain, is days away from a liquidity crisis," said the economists. They include two members of Germany's Council of Economic Experts and leading euro specialists at the London of School of Economics, all euro supporters.
Europe is sleepwalking towards imminent disaster,
warn top economists The euro has completely broken down as a workable system and faces collapse with "incalculable economic losses and human suffering" unless there is a drastic change of course, according to a group of leading economists.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Europe is "sleepwalking towards disaster", according to the 17 experts, who warned that over the past few weeks "the situation in the debtor countries has deteriorated dramatically".
"The sense of a neverending crisis, with one domino falling after another, must be reversed. The last domino, Spain, is days away from a liquidity crisis," said the economists. They include two members of Germany's Council of Economic Experts and leading euro specialists at the London of School of Economics, all euro supporters.
Excerpts: Geithner on Economy, Libor, Europe, Fiscal Cliff
By Damian Paletta - WSJ.com
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had a wide-ranging and substantive interview airing Monday night on PBS's Charlie Rose show.
Here are some key excerpts from his interview, according to an initial transcript:
On the situation in the U.S.: "I think there's these two clouds over us. One is the impact of Europe on growth here and around the world and concerns about how they manage this crisis, and the second is a broader concern about whether the political institutions of the country are going to find a way to move again, to govern again, become unstuck, and do some things that are good for the economy in the short and the long run."
Euro-Contagion: Germany outlook 'negative'
over nonstop debt debacle of others
Rating agency Moody's has set itself on a collision course with German Chancellor Angela Merkel - after changing the country's credit outlook to negative. The agency even hinted at possible downgrades - if the Eurozone gets worse. But Merkel immediately fired back that Germany would remain Europe's financial haven, despite the Eurocrisis.
Euro crisis brings world to brink of depression Parallels to 1930s' missteps unmistakable
By Darrell Delamaide
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Europe is a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
The financial volatility in Europe may have created a situation that is now beyond the capacity of policy makers to control or curb.
When an accomplished fixer like Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization and the longtime chief of staff for former European Commission President Jacques Delors, describes the situation in Europe as "difficult, very difficult, very difficult, very difficult," you know it is time to run for cover.
A Spanish bailout? Don't hold your breath Borrowing costs are high, but Spanish reluctance to seek a bailout at the moment makes very good sense
By Megan Greene - Guardian.co.uk
It is a rule of thumb among eurozone crisis observers that the more something is denied by officials, the more likely it is to happen. With Spain's borrowing costs at euro-area record highs, its officials insist it will not need a full bailout programme. To most of us, however, it seems no longer a question of if, but when a bailout will come. Market panic this week seems to suggest it is imminent, but I think it will be put off as long as possible, probably until early next year.
Long-term borrowing costs may have broken an eye-watering 7.5%, but the fact that short-term borrowing costs have rocketed as well is more worrisome. This indicates a lack of investor confidence that Spain will be solvent even over the next two years.
Reinventing Crony Capitalism:
the Context of Geithner's Obscene Rant against Barofsky
By William K. Black - CapitalismWithoutFailure.com
Neil Barofsky, the former Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) (SIGTARP), was one of the officials that made one proud of America. Naturally, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner detested him. Barofsky discusses Geithner's antipathy for him in a newly published book: "Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street." The juicy parts that have been discussed in the media involve Geithner's epic "f" word rant against Barofsky in fall 2009 in response to Barofsky's recommendations for greater transparency about TARP.
The future of cash
By Kim Hjelmgaard - MarketWatch.com
Microbling? iJack? The synonymic arsenal that is bread, cake, cheddar, moola and dough might have to make room for a whole new generation of short hands for the green stuff as the world pushes deeper into digital.
Clearly, cash is ceding at least some of its aura of indispensability to the smartphone, and to mobile devices and technology platforms of various stripes and hues in general, as the limit of what can conceivably be a convertible store of value is growing.
Keiser Report: Alien Bankers, Leave Earth Alone! (E316)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, demand that Jamie Dimon leave Earth alone! They also discuss the global Jim Jones like cults surrendering to the derivatives with hostile intent. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Jim Rickards, author of Currency Wars, about 'Singapore on the Mediterranean' and how the U.S. Congress will intervene in the Libor case to avoid the Son of Tarp.
Americans' Trust In Banks Falling; Thank You, JP Morgan
By Janet Novack - Forbes.com
Americans' trust in the U.S. financial system fell in June to its lowest point since March 2009, driven down by a notable drop in confidence in big banks, according to the quarterly Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index.
Paola Sapienza, co-author of the index and the Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Research professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, said researchers are "speculating" the drop resulted from public concern over trading losses at JPMorgan Chase, which came through the financial crisis with a reputation as Wall Street's best manager of financial risk. She noted that the 1,029 interviews, conducted from June 20 to 28th, began the day after JP Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon testified before the House Financial Services Committee about billions in losses caused by a trader known as the "London Whale".
Under Geithner, N.Y. Fed quiet about Barclay's N.Y. Fed silent on Barclays' admission of rigging Libor
By Jia Lynn Yang and Danielle Douglas - WashingtonPost.com
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has said that he sounded the alarm four years ago to regulators about problems with the benchmark interest rate known as Libor.
But Geithner, who was then head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, did not communicate in key meetings with top regulators that British bank Barclays had admitted to Fed staffers that it was rigging Libor, according to people familiar with the matter.
Washington must act to avoid damaging economy: Geithner
Reporting By Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Peter Cooney
(Reuters) - A wave of tax increases and billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts would cause "a lot of damage" to the fragile economy, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday.
Tax breaks for all Americans are set to expire at the end of the year, and $100 billion in cuts to domestic and military programs are set to take effect in January if Congress does not agree on a new deficit-cutting deal.
Keiser Report: Where Money Goes To Die (E317)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the Irish government being so terribly 'embarrassed' that they hired two dirty bankers to 'clean up' their financial system and they remind David Cameron over in 'Grim Britain' of the 'dreadful backgrounds' of Bob Diamond, Jamie Dimon and their ilk. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Wolf Richter of the Testosteronepit.com about the wine bubbles and where money goes to die.
David Stockman: "The Capital Markets
Are Simply A Branch Casino Of The Central Bank"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
From Casey Research
The New Economic Collapse Video: It makes uncomfortable but urgent viewing.
When Casey Research Chief Technology Investment Analyst Alex Daley met former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman to talk about the economy and where he sees it leading taxpayers investors and savers in the near future, he got some very intriguing insights from a man who served right at the heart of the US federal government.
David Stockman - Conversations with Casey
At the latest Casey Research Conference, "Recovery Reality Check" in Weston, Florida, Casey Research's Chief Technology Investment Strategist Alex Daley sits down with David Stockman, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan
True, some if it makes for uncomfortable watching, but the message is critical if you want to keep your assets safe in what David calls calls "the great unwind."
Fed Eyes Limiting Money-Market Fund Withdrawals
By Michael S. Derby - NASDAQ.com
NEW YORK--The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said it supports limiting some types of money-market fund withdrawals in a bid to protect those funds from suffering the equivalent of a bank run.
The recommendations came from a staff report released Thursday. New York Fed President William Dudley in a press release accompanying the document said he "strongly" endorses the ideas put forth by authors Patrick McCabe, Marco Cipriani, Michael Holscher and Antoine Martin.
"Further reform of money funds is essential for our nation's financial stability," Mr. Dudley said.
Beware The Financial-Political Complex
Sy Harding, - Forbes.com
When President Eisenhower left office in 1961 his parting message to the nation included an admonition not to allow the "military industrial complex" to "endanger our liberties and democratic process." In essence, he warned that military contractors had become so chummy with congress and the Pentagon that "the potential for a disastrous rise of misplaced power exists."
We now face a much more dangerous power grab that could actually melt down the entire financial system of the country if it isn't brought under control. I refer of course to the still growing power and influence of the financial industry.
Lieberman Worried that Cyber Attack 'Could Be Imminent'
By Henry J. Reske and John Bachmann - NewsMax.com
Congress must pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 if the United States hopes to prevent a cyberspace version of the Pearl Harbor attack that could cripple key electrical and transportation systems, the bill's sponsor Sen. Joe Lieberman tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.
The independent Connecticut senator, who is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, reintroduced a version of the still-controversial measure July 19. The revised version is designed to address concerns from the right and left about government regulation and privacy and the new measure has so far gained the support of President Barack Obama.
Ticking off by Troika heightens fears of Greek exit from euro International debt inspectors claim Greece is failing to keep to deficit reduction plan, while shares in Spain tumble
By Larry Elliott, Jill Treanor and Giles Tremlett - Guardian.co.uk
Financial market fears over a possible Greek exit from the single currency were fanned on Tuesday by a gloomy assessment of the country's economic plight from international debt inspectors and evidence of a growing rift between Athens and Berlin.
Officials from the so-called Troika – the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank – warned that Greece had failed to keep to the deficit reduction plan agreed earlier this year.
The economics of corporate crime
by Brad Plumer - WashingtonPost.com
Why do companies break the law? Poor morals on the part of their executives, perhaps. But another basic economic explanation is that companies are more likely to break the law if the upsides of doing so outweigh the risks. If either the odds of getting caught or the penalties for lawbreaking are too low, then companies will find it profitable to engage in illegal behavior.
And there's some evidence that this is the world we live in: The Economist's Free Exchange column looks at some recent economic research on 283 instances of antitrust behavior between 1990 and 2005. This included companies illegally colluding with each other to overcharge customers. The firms reaped about $300 billion, all told, by doing so. And the penalties levied on companies that got caught (which includes both government fines and private lawsuits) were far too low to offset those profits:
Titanic banks hit Libor 'berg
By Ellen Brown - ATimes.com
At one time, calling the large multinational banks a "cartel" branded you as a conspiracy theorist. Today the banking giants are being called that and worse, not just in the major media but in court documents intended to prove the allegations as facts.
Charges include racketeering (organized crime under the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO), antitrust violations, wire fraud, bid-rigging, and price-fixing. Damning charges have already been proven, and major damages and penalties assessed. Conspiracy theory has become established fact.
CBO: Court ruling cuts cost of health-care law,
but leaves 3 million more uninsured
By Lori Montgomery - WashingtonPost.com
President Obama's signature health-care initiative will cost a bit less than expected as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling, but the decision is also likely to leave millions more people without access to insurance, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday.
In its June 28 ruling, the court upheld the bulk of the Affordable Care Act, but struck down a plan to require states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover residents who earn as much as 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
Stockton made scant headway in U.S. pre-bankruptcy talks
By Jim Christie and Peter Henderson
SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Jul 24, 2012 7:21am EDT
(Reuters) - Stockton, California, the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, never came close to striking deals with key creditors in talks before it sought court protection, the city disclosed on Friday in documents illustrating its stark choices.
The city's bond insurers snubbed proposals from managers of the city of nearly 300,000 in California's Central Valley, where crime and unemployment have soared as the housing market fell. Retired city employees and fire and police unions over three months made some headway, but in the end the only tentative deals were with six other unions.
What In The World Is Wrong With American Kids?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
What in the world has happened to the children of America? All over the United States kids are acting like half-crazed monsters, but most people seem to think that this is "normal". American kids today are selfish, self-centered, sadistic, cruel, disrespectful, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, boastful, unforgiving, incredibly brutal and they possess very little self-control whatsoever. They feel entitled to everything, but they don't want to work for any of it. They are absolutely addicted to entertainment, and they know very little about self-sacrifice. Disciplining children is not considered to be "politically correct" in America today, and with each passing year these little hellions get even worse. So what in the world is our country going to look like when all of these out of control kids grow up?
Aurora church, 1 mile from theater massacre,
aiming to convey that 'God is real'
By Aaron Earls - SRNNews.Townhall.com
Aurora pastor Mitch Hamilton told the congregation Sunday that the bulletins for the service would not be of much use -- they were printed Thursday and then "everything changed" just after midnight.
While none of Mississippi Avenue's members were among the victims, four were in an adjacent theater and escaped unharmed despite bullets flying through the walls. Nevertheless, trauma permeates the suburban Denver community after the slaying of 12 people by a lone gunman, who also left 58 wounded.
What's Next for Superhero Movies? With Batman finished for now, the future belongs to Marvel.
By Daniel Snyder - TheAtlantic.com
When The Dark Knight Rises leaves theaters (probably sometime after the sun has gone out), it will mark the end of arguably the most commercially and critically successful comic-book movie franchise of all time. Save for Marvel's loosely connected Avengers films, no series will have grossed more money at the box office, been subjected to more acute critical analysis, or garnered such devotion from both genre aficionados and outsiders.
This is all great for comic-book movies, which have now proven themselves not only to be a source of revenue but of genuine artistic worth. But what happens now? Has the genre peaked? In the wake of The Dark Knight Rises, it's time to look at the future of comic book movies and see where they might go from here:
Hallmarks of a False Flag:
Colorado University Held Identical Drill
on Same Day as Aurora Theater Mass Shooting,
Mind Control, and Multiple Suspects
By Alex Thomas -TheIntelHub.com
In the last few days there has been numerous reports that seem to indicate that once again the government and corporate controlled media are directly lying and possibly covering up a "black op" that resulted in at least a dozen deaths during a premier screening of the new Batman movie at a theater in Aurora, Colorado.
Now, yet another startling revelation has come to light and, like other bits of evidence released in the last two days, this "coincidence" adds to a series of facts that bear all the hallmarks of a false flag.
Here's the app that could kill Facebook Investors should keep an eye on this start-up
By David Weidner, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — I have 663 friends. Of course, it depends on what you call a "friend."
These are my so-called "Facebook friends." I know almost all of them in some capacity. I like most of them. No one, I would say, is an enemy.
But are they all my friends? Not by my definition. My real friends and I have spent a lot of time together or are spending a lot of time together. I wouldn't count on many of my Facebook "friends" to stand up for me in a pinch. I don't think most of them would expect the same from me.
Attorney General to place New Orleans police
under federal monitoring
SRNNews.Townhall.com
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder will announce on Tuesday that the New Orleans police force, which has been accused of widespread abuses, will be placed under the scrutiny of a federal judge, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Orleans.
The office said in a statement that Holder will announce he is placing the department under court-ordered monitoring for a period of years in order "to resolve allegations of unlawful misconduct in the New Orleans Police Department."
Most people waiting up to 10 years to buy a new car
By Chris Woodyard - USAToday.com
People aren't going to buy cars every two or three years anymore, an automotive website says based on an unscientific poll it conducted online.
Now, 78% of the more than 4,000 people polled by AutoMD.com says they will keep their cars at least 10 years.
"What is most compelling is that longer ownership has become an embedded habit for car owners, regardless of what the economy does," said Brian Hafer, a vice president atAutoMD.com. "This significant lengthening of the ownership cycle looks like it is here to stay."
Bears Burst Bakken Bubble
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
Ongoing concerns of the Spanish debt crisis dragged on international markets Monday. Oil prices, meanwhile, had rallied last week amid tensions in the Persian Gulf. By Monday, however, Iran had softened its stance on oil transit lanes through the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. crude oil for September delivery, meanwhile, was down more than $2 to end Monday at $89.23. Analysts in the United States expressed concern that, if U.S. crude oil prices continue to fall, development of shale oil fields in North Dakota could slow down.
Critics of U.S. President Barack Obama last week passed legislation through the House of Representatives that calls for an expanded offshore lease plan that goes well beyond what the White House envisions for the next five years. The American Petroleum Institute, meanwhile, said oil well completions in the United States increased by 13 percent during the second quarter compared with the previous year.
How the West Was Re-Won
By Dominique Moisi - Project-Syndicate.org
PARIS – In 2005, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, a prestigious exhibit sponsored by the Chinese Government, "The Three Emperors," celebrated the greatness of Chinese art. The show's central piece was a giant painting in the European (Jesuit) style depicting the envoys of the Western world lining up to pay respect to the Chinese emperor. The message could not have been more explicit: "China is back." The West would have to pay tribute to China in the future the way it had kowtowed to it in the past.
In 2012, China is on the verge of becoming the world's largest economy and is by far the leading emerging power. Yet two simultaneous phenomena suggest that the West may have been buried prematurely by its own Cassandras and by Asian pundits who sometimes behave like "arrogant Westerners."
Bubbles without Markets
By Robert J. Shiller - Project-Syndicate.org
A speculative bubble is a social epidemic whose contagion is mediated by price movements. News of price increase enriches the early investors, creating word-of-mouth stories about their successes, which stir envy and interest. The excitement then lures more and more people into the market, which causes prices to increase further, attracting yet more people and fueling "new era" stories, and so on, in successive feedback loops as the bubble grows. After the bubble bursts, the same contagion fuels a precipitous collapse, as falling prices cause more and more people to exit the market, and to magnify negative stories about the economy.
Fukushima - Local Children Unwitting
(and Unwilling) Radioactive Guinea Pigs
By John Daly | OilPrice.com
Seventeen months after the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the Tokyo Electric Power Company's six–reactor complex at its Fukushima Daiichi, discussions continue about the possible effects of the radiation "dusting" the prefecture's inhabitants received, and their consequences.
Far outside most media coverage, 2012 is shaping up to be the media battleground between the massed proponents of the ongoing 'safety' of nuclear power, as opposed to a motley coalition of environmentalists, renegade nuclear scientists and anti-nuclear opponents, largely bereft of media contact.
An Old Spy in the New Tunisia President Ben Ali fled the country in January of 2011. But what happened to the thousands of secret police he left behind?.
By John Thorne - TheAtlantic.com
I was reporting on a conference at a hotel near Tunis when I recognized his face among the security men by the door. Years before, he had trailed me through the streets. Tunisia's dictator, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, had been rigging another election then, and in any case they always used to spy on reporters.
The security man was walking away, and I trotted up behind him.
As-salaamu aleikum, samahni," I said. "Peace be upon you, excuse me."
He turned and gave me a blank look. That surprised me, because we had come to know each other a little.
I can't recall exactly where I'd first seen him, back in Ben Ali's time. Most likely his had been among the faces on a crowded sidewalk. But once you identified the face of a Tunisian agent, you remembered it.
The Egyptian Crucible
By Javier Solana - Project-Syndicate.org
MADRID – As Egyptians tensely awaited the results of their country's presidential elections, a thread of pessimism ran through the discourse of the young people and secular liberals who had brought down Hosni Mubarak in January 2011. The "anything is possible" sensation of the Tahrir Square rebellion had faded, and now two candidates whom the protesters deeply opposed, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, and Ahmed Shafiq, a factotum of the old regime (and of the current military government), prepared to face off in the second round.
Syrian aircraft bomb Aleppo as rebels fight for city
By Babak Dehghanpisheh - WashingtonPost.com
BEIRUT — Syrian warplanes bombed the nation's largest city Tuesday, activists said, a dramatic escalation in the 16-month-uprising and a stark sign of the government's growing desperation as it tries to reverse the recent momentum of rebel forces.
Aleppo, like Damascus, the Syrian capital, had long been seen as a stronghold of support for President Bashar al-Assad. But the unrest has spread to the city, Syria's commercial capital, in recent days, adding to a sense that the regime is losing control after the assassinations last week of four of its top security officials in a bombing.
The Syrian Tipping Point
By Itamar Rabinovich - Project-Syndicate.org
TEL AVIV – During World War II, Winston Churchill famously drew a distinction between "the end of the beginning" and "the beginning of the end." That distinction is equally applicable to the unfolding Syrian crisis. Recent events – the growing number of high-level defections from the regime's leadership, the killing of three of President Bashar al-Assad's most senior officials in a bomb attack, and the rebellion's spread into Damascus itself – suggest that, after a long period of gradual decline, the Assad regime is now approaching collapse or implosion.
Inside Syria: rebels and regime
trapped in cycle of destruction In an exclusive dispatch from the eastern city of Deir el-Zour,Ghaith Abdul-Ahad finds signs of stalemate as fractured rebel forces fail to make inroads against determined loyalists
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Deir el-Zour - Guardian.co.uk,
The column of eight rebel fighters picked their way along the street in Deir el-Zour at sunset, moving carefully through the debris of crushed glass and concrete, keeping their heads low and backs bent under the weight of the guns and rockets they carried.
They worked their way along the cratered road, past buildings chipped with multiple bullet holes and apartments and shops that had spilled out their contents on to the warm tarmac: burned mattresses, sofas, a fridge.
Hype over Syria chemicals 'deja-vu
& old Pentagon scenario to oust regime'
Syria's rebels claim the regime has moved its chemical arsenal to airports near the country's borders, in a move they say is to intimidate foreign powers. Sources in Damascus, though, claim the lion's share of the stockpiles are stored securely in Syria's less-turbulent south.
William F. Engdahl, the author of "Myths, Lies and Oil Wars" talks to RT. He says the hype over Syria's chemical weapons may be a part of America's plan to topple inconvenient dictators.
Israel: Syrian Transfer of WMD to Hezbollah is Act of War
By Jim Meyers - NewsMax.com
Israel will act "decisively and without hesitation or restraint" if Syria transfers any chemical weapons to the terrorist organization Hezbollah, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman declares.
Liberman also said Syria's transfer of chemical weapons to Hezbollah would be a "justification for war."
Speaking at a press conference at the EU-Israel Association Council meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, Liberman said the transfer of some of Syria's stockpile of chemical and biological weapons to anti-Israel Hezbollah would make tensions in the region "a completely different ballgame," adding that "we hope for the understanding and cooperation of the international community," the Jerusalem Post reported.
Israel's security chiefs rally to disperse war clouds with Syria
DEBKAfile
Amos Gilead, head of the Defense Ministry Political and Security Division, went first with a long radio interview on Tuesday, July 24, followed by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz – both administering their own brands of tranquilizer. Gilead said that the Assad regime was in full control of Syria's unconventional weapons and so, while Israel's intelligence bodies must be extra alert and prepare for all eventualities in Syria, there is no need to panic.
Gen. Gantz offered the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee this abstruse thought: "If you work from one focus, you may find it hard to find the point, but if you act broadly, you may quickly find yourself in an area that is broader than you planned."
Russia warns Syria against using chemical weapons
AP foreign - Guardian.co.uk
VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV= MOSCOW (AP) — Russia chided its longtime ally Syria on Tuesday over its threat to use chemical weapons in case of a foreign attack, but Moscow gave no sign it was abandoning President Bashar Assad's regime, despite growing international condemnation over the violence in the Arab country.
Syria is Russia's last remaining ally in the Middle East and hosts the only naval base Moscow has outside the former Soviet Union. Russia has protected Syria from international sanctions and supplied it with weapons amid an escalating civil war.
Mideast tensions, rising food prices
not factored into Gold values: UBS
LONDON (Commodity Online): Tensions in the Mideast and rising global prices for corn and soybeans have not been priced into gold prices and could be potential upside price catalysts, said Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in commodities briefing.
"Growing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East of late have been generally ignored by the gold market. And as this uncertainty has not been factored into the price, any escalation could lead to a sharp reaction from gold," the Swiss bank added.
The War on Silver
By Theodore Butler - SilverSeek.com
It has taken more than 25 years for me to fully comprehend a conclusion that I never wanted to reach, namely, that there is an organized war against the price of silver that has come to include the US Government. I think the US Government involvement came into being almost accidently, but even if it was an accident of sorts, that does not diminish the serious nature of what must be described as illegal activity at the highest levels. I am conflicted between feelings of sadness and outrage.
Starting around 1985, I became convinced that the price of silver was being manipulated by collusive and concentrated short selling by certain commercial entities on the world's leading precious metals commodity exchange, the COMEX. Having a background in futures trading going back to 1972, it dawned on me that the concentrated and orchestrated short selling was dominating and, therefore, manipulating the price of silver. The very first thing I did after this discovery was to petition the regulators at the CFTC and the COMEX to alert them to the existence of the most serious market crime possible. My petitions fell on deaf ears but I continued to petition them through the present. Since this was in the pre-Internet era, I was limited in convincing others of the silver manipulation due to distribution restrictions. Communication was very different 25 years ago.
The coming economic collapse
By Peter Morici - FoxNews.com
The U.S. economy is teetering on the brink of another recession. The bad news is that if it goes down again, there won't be much we can do to save ourselves. Like a weary heavyweight, if it hits the mat again, it's down for good.
The expansion has been terribly disappointing—growth is hardly 2 percent and jobs creation barely keeps unemployment steady at 8.2.
Manufacturing and exports powered the recovery but are now weakening. Consumer spending and existing home sales are flagging, because policymakers failed to aid underwater homeowners as generously as the banks.
Geithner Says Extending Tax Cut For Wealthy Irresponsible
By Ian Katz - Bloomberg.com
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said it would be irresponsible to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and President Barack Obama is "absolutely committed" to letting them expire as scheduled at the end of this year.
"If the president were to say now, 'I'm prepared to extend the taxes for the top 2 percent of Americans,' it's a deeply irresponsible thing to do fiscally and economically," Geithner said in an interview today on the "Charlie Rose" show to be broadcast on PBS and Bloomberg Television. "It would hurt our credibility. It would leave us with no capacity to address these long-term fiscal problems."
Federal Government's Debt Jumps
More Than $1T for 5th Straight Fiscal Year
By Terence P. Jeffrey - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - By the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2012, the new debt accumulated in this fiscal year by the federal government had already exceeded $1 trillion, making this fiscal year the fifth straight in which the federal government has increased its debt by more than a trillion dollars, according to official debt numbers published by the U.S. Treasury.
Prior to fiscal 2008, the federal government had never increased its debt by as much as $1 trillion in a single fiscal year. From fiscal 2008 onward, however, the federal government has increased its debt by at least $1 trillion each and every fiscal year.
Prepare for Stock Market Crash 2013
BY JONATHAN YATES, Contributing Writer, Money Morning
Volatile market behavior has increased speculation over whether or not we're headed for "stock market crash 2013" - or even 2012.
With the Dow Jones down more than 200 points in the first 20 minutes of trading today (Monday), there's certainly reason to believe wild market moves are in our future.
Even without market plunges, we may just be due for an economic growth slowdown and a stock market pullback.
In a recent interview with NewsMax TV, legendary investor Jim Rogers stated that "Every four to six years since the beginning of the Republic, we've had economic slowdowns, we've had recessions. Always. It's coming again. You can add as well as I can - in 2013 or 2014, we're going to have another slowdown, whether it's caused by Europe or who knows what's going to cause it, but it's coming."
Geithner: Europe must move back from abyss
By MarketWatch
WASHINGTON--Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Monday warned European leaders against standing too long on the edge of a financial "abyss" while trying to force reforms, saying such a strategy could ultimately raise the cost of the crisis.
"If you leave Europe on the edge of the abyss as your source of leverage, your strategy's unlikely to work because you're going to raise the ultimate cost of the crisis much more expensive to fix and you're going to -- you do a lot of damage to the politics of those countries because the human costs of what's happening not just in Greece but across Europe now are enormously high and you're seeing that reflected in much more political extremism," Mr. Geithner said in an interview with PBS's Charlie Rose show.
Germany, Netherlands Rating Outlooks
Cut To Negative By Moody's
By John Detrixhe and Meera Louis - Bloomberg.com
Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had the outlooks for their Aaa credit ratings lowered to negative by Moody's Investors Service, which cited "rising uncertainty" about Europe's debt crisis.
Risks that Greece may leave the 17-nation euro currency and "increasing likelihood" of collective support for European countries such as Spain and Italy were among reasons for the change, Moody's said yesterday in a statement.
"Given the greater ability to absorb the costs associated with this support, this burden will likely fall most heavily on more highly rated member states if the euro area is to be preserved in its current form," Moody's said.
Eurozone danger mounts as Spain spins out of control
Spain is battling to avert a fully-fledged sovereign rescue after borrowing costs spiralled out of control, with dangerous knock-on effects in Italy and Eastern Europe.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The yields on closely-watched two-year debt surged by 78 basis points to a modern-era high of 6.42pc, leaving it unclear how long the country can continue funding itself. Italy's two-year yields vaulted to 4.6pc.
"We can't keep going like this for another 15 days," said Prof Miguel Angel Bernal from Madrid's Institute of Market Studies. "The European Central Bank has to bring out its heavy artillery."
Andrew Roberts, credit chief at Royal Bank of Scotland, said the dramatic spike in short-term borrowing costs marked a key inflexion point in the crisis, replicating the pattern seen in Greece, Ireland and Portugal as they lost access to market finance. "We are fast approaching the endgame," he said.
12 Signs That Spain Is Shifting Gears
From Recession To Depression
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Where have we seen this before? Bond yields soar above the 7 percent danger level. Check. The stock market crashes to new lows. Check. Industrial activity plummets like a rock and the economy contracts. Check. The unemployment rate skyrockets to more than 20 percent. Check. The bursting of a massive real estate bubble pushes the banking system to the brink of implosion. Check. Broke local governments beg the broke national government for bailouts. Check. The international community pressures the national government to implement deep austerity measures which will slow down the economy even more and hordes of violent protesters take to the streets. Check. All of this happened in Greece, it is happening right now in Spain, and mark my words it will eventually happen in the United States. Every debt bubble eventually bursts, and right now Spain is experiencing a level of economic pain that very, very few people saw coming. The recession in Spain is rapidly becoming a full-blown economic depression, and at this point there is no hope and no light at the end of the tunnel.
Panic selling of shares in Spain
as country's bond yields go above 7.5% Big falls on world financial markets as fears grow of second successive eurozone summer crisis
By Giles Tremlett in Madrid and Larry Elliott - Guardian.co.uk
Spain announced tough curbs on the short-selling of shares on the Madrid stock exchange on Monday after fears of a second successive summer crisis for the eurozone triggered big falls on the world's financial markets.
Interest rates on US Treasury bonds dropped to levels not seen since the 19th century as investors sought safe havens in anticipation that Greece would be the first country to exit the 17-nation single currency area.
Mario Draghi has just weeks to save the euro,
but will Germany let him? Trotting out a now all-too-familiar line over the weekend, Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, said nobody should underestimate the political will behind saving the euro, or the support the single currency continues to command among the general public.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Monetary Union, he declared, was "irreversible", as if merely to repeat the assertion is to make it so.
This is the sort of pretence that policymakers feel obliged to indulge in at times of crisis – it would indeed be unimaginable for the president of the ECB to say anything else – but looking at the evidence around him, it seems somewhat unlikely that this wise and somewhat reserved central banker could actually believe what he is saying.
Seven Largest U.S. Banks Have Created
Thousands Of Subsidiaries To Avoid Taxes: Fed Report
Filed by Bonnie Kavoussi - HuffingtonPost.com
On Wall Street, there's a benefit to developing into something big and complex.
America's seven biggest banks now have more than 14,500 subsidiaries around the world, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (h/t Bloomberg). They have hatched more than 10,000 of these subsidiaries since 1991, largely in an aim to skirt regulations and taxes, according to the report.
By stashing assets in foreign subsidiaries, banks can avoid U.S. taxes since the assets are subject to taxes in the country in which they are held. In addition, if the subsidiaries are in tax havens, the companies can pay taxes at a super low rate or, in some cases, not at all.
Dodd-Frank expands "too big too fail" 'Too big to fail' grows The failure of banking reform
By Charlie Gasparino - NYPost.com
The two-year anniversary of Dodd-Frank has come and gone, and Too Big To Fail is only growing.
Sure, President Obama assured us the sweeping law would reform the sleaze and mindless risk-taking of the banking business — but all it's given us is the certainty of future bailouts.
Actually, that's not fair: It's also producing reams and reams of rules and regulations that force banks out of certain profitable lines of business, like proprietary trading, that had little to do with the shenanigans that led the financial crisis.
Regulators knew Libor was rigged
By Jonathon M. Trugman - NYPost.com
The Libor scandal hit US shores this week, but bank regulators just shrugged their shoulders.
It appears from their reactions that problems with the London Interbank Offered Rate — which is used to price trillions of dollars in US mortgages, car loans and credit cards as well as derivatives — aren't a big deal.
Fed chief Ben Bernanke said during Capitol Hill testimony last week that he was troubled by the Libor manipulation.
Bungled Bank Bailout Leaves Behind Righteous Anger
By Neil M. Barofsky - Bloomberg.com
In the year since I stepped down as the special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the sadly predictable consequences of the government's disparate treatment of Wall Street and Main Street have only become worse. As the banks amass size and power, Main Street continues to get pummeled.
Part of the current economic malaise can be traced directly to Treasury's betrayal of its promise to use TARP to "preserve homeownership." The Home Affordable Modification Program has brought little meaningful improvement, with fewer than 800,000 ongoing permanent modifications as of March 31, 2012, a number that is growing at the glacial pace of just 12,000 per month.
Raskin Says Fed To Debate Benefit Of New Bond Buying Plan
By Aki Ito - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin said U.S. policy makers next week will debate whether to start another program to spur economic growth through large- scale Fed purchases of bonds.
Another round of Treasury purchases "is something that will be debated in the upcoming FOMC meeting," Raskin said today in response to audience questions after a speech in Boulder, Colorado, referring to the Federal Open Market Committee. "It will be debated against the backdrop of the dual mandate" to ensure stable prices and maximum employment.
The Dawn of the Great California Energy Crash
BY GREGOR MACDONALD - FinancialSense.com
California, which imports over 25% of its electricity from out of state, is in no position to lose half (!) of its entire nuclear power capacity. But that's exactly what happened earlier this year, when the San Onofre plant in north San Diego County unexpectedly went offline. The loss only worsens the broad energy deficit that has made California the most dependent state in the country on expensive, out-of-state power.
Its two nuclear plants -- San Onofre in the south and Diablo Canyon on the central coast -- together have provided more than 15% of the electricity supply that California generates for itself, before imports. But now there is the prospect that San Onofre will never reopen.
Economic Growth Idea: Forgive
or Restructure Debt U.S. Citizens Hold Restructuring Private Debt May Be Better Option
than Austerity or More Stimulus
by Steve Clemons and Richard Vague - TheAtlantic.com
In the Spring of 2011, the Obama administration started to rev up a campaign called "The Summer of Recovery" and planned to deploy the President, VP Joe Biden, and the economically connected Cabinet members and advisers to go to all parts of the country, particularly battleground states, and convince Americans that things were getting better, that jobs were being created, and that the vector of the nation was pointing in a great direction.
The Summer of Recovery became a Summer of Anxiety as the jobs machine sputtered and as other parts of the global economy slowed reducing demand for American exports. Voices like Paul Krugman and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich lambasted the White House for not having been Keynesian enough and not opening the government spending spigots to more deeply invest in US infrastructure, shore up deteriorating state balance sheets, and keep more Americans employed and in their homes that were still being foreclosed at record rates.
Countrywide Corruption on Capitol Hill The report is on the sleaziest mortgage lender of them all.
By DOUG BANDOW - The American Spectator.org
Four years have passed since the financial crisis that for a time threatened to carry America's economy into the abyss. The epicenter of the crash was the housing market. No mortgage lender had a more malign influence than Countrywide Financial Corp., which, a House committee found, bought itself political clout by giving cheap loans to important political and industry officials.
So-called influence peddling on Capitol Hill is neither new nor surprising. Although housing is essential for all Americans, home ownership is not. The industry, from builders to realtors to financers, has sought government support to inflate housing demand. And, not incidentally, their profits.
CENSORSHIP of News, by Big Brother The New York Times Admits That Virtually Every
Major News Organization Allows The News
To Be Censored By Government Officials
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
In one of the most shocking articles that the New York Times has ever put out, a New York Times reporter has openly admitted that virtually every major mainstream news organization allows government bureaucrats and campaign officials to censor their stories. For example, almost every major news organization in the country has agreed to submit virtually all quotes from anyone involved in the Obama campaign or the Romney campaign to gatekeepers for "quote approval" before they will be published. If the gatekeeper in the Obama campaign does not want a certain quote to get out, the American people will not see it, and the same thing applies to the Romney campaign. The goal is to keep the campaigns as "on message" as possible and to avoid gaffes at all cost. But this kind of thing is not just happening with political campaigns. According to the New York Times, "quote approval" has become "commonplace throughout Washington". In other words, if you see a quote in the newspaper from someone in the federal government then it is safe to say that a gatekeeper has almost certainly reviewed that quote and has approved it. This is another sign that "the free and independent media" in this country is a joke. What we get from the mainstream media is a very highly filtered form of propaganda, and that is one reason why Americans are turning away from the mainstream media in droves. People want the truth, and more Americans than ever realize that they are not getting it from the mainstream media.
8,753,935: Workers on Disability
Set Another Record in July;
Exceed Population of 39 States
By Terence P. Jeffrey - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - The number of workers taking federal disability insurance payments hit yet another record in July, increasing to 8,753,935 during the month from the previous record of 8,733,461 set in June, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration.
The 8,753,935 workers who took federal disability insurance payments in July exceeded the population of 39 of the 50 states. Only 11 states — California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey — had more people in them than the number of workers on the federal disability insurance rolls in July.
1,300 more pink slips follow last year's cut of 6,500 jobs More layoffs coming at Cisco Systems
By Steve Johnson and Jeremy C. Owens - MercuryNews.com
SAN JOSE -- Continuing to trim expenses amid growing competition and the sluggish economy, San Jose networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO) said Monday it will lay off about 1,300 employees, a year after announcing 6,500 job cuts.
The layoffs come as Cisco's sales have been relatively flat the past four quarters and some analysts doubted that they reflect a general weakening of the overall tech economy. However, others said the soured economic climate could have been a factor.
Ron Paul to Newsmax: Fed Policy Destroying Middle Class
By Todd Beamon and John Bachman - NewsMax.com
The American people are "waking up" to the idea that the Federal Reserve "is very biased against the middle class," Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul tells Newsmax.TV.
"The American people are waking up," the Texas congressman declared in an exclusive interview with Newsmax. "They know that the Fed is very important – and a lot more people are looking at it.
"A larger crisis is going to come, and I think the American people will be very attuned to looking at the Federal Reserve and why they always want to do things in secret."
Union blow:
California parents set to take over failing school
By Stephanie Simon - Townhall.com
(Reuters) - Parents in the impoverished desert community of Adelanto, California, will become the first in the nation to seize control of a failing public school under a controversial "parent trigger" law, the parents announced Monday.
The Adelanto School District had fought to preserve control over Desert Trails Elementary School. But on Friday, Superior Court Judge Steve Malone ruled that the parents had met all the requirements under the trigger law by gathering signatures from the legal guardians of at least half the students at Desert Trails.
Southwest joins as airlines raise fares on most U.S. routes
By Nancy Trejos, USA TODAY
A three-month break from airfare increases has ended, with Southwest Airlines raising fares by $4 to $10 round trip on most routes inside the U.S.
United Airlines led the latest price increase late last week. JetBlue Airways and Virgin America started raising fares Thursday. Southwest followed over the weekend.
Typically, when Southwest goes along with a fare increase, travelers can expect it to stick. And it didn't take long for network carriers Delta, American and US Airways to follow its lead.
When the Mega-Rich Fall, Do the 99% Laugh ...
or Sympathize? The Queen of Versailles, the true story of a timeshare mogul's collapse, reveals a dirty secret of the filthy rich: They really are just like us.
Noah Berlatsky - TheAtlantic.com
If you don't want to feel rich, opines David Siegel, you're "probably dead." That's a pithy summation of the logic of capitalism—and not coincidentally, of Siegel's own life, as portrayed in the new documentary The Queen of Versailles. Siegel, a time-share apartment mogul, made himself a billionaire by giving middle-Americans the chance to spend their vacations in luxury for only a low, low, low down payment. He catered shamelessly to their dreams of wealth—a dining room that can serve 14! Enormous flat screen TVs for all!—and in return they ... catered shamelessly to his even more extravagant dreams of wealth.
Mother's Words Twisted by ABC Holmes's mother suggests ABC News
mischaracterized her statement
By DYLAN BYERS - Politico.com
Arlene Holmes, the mother of Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes, has suggested that ABC News mischaracterized her when it reported that her initial statement to the reporter, "you have the right person," was a reference to her son.
"This statement is to clarify a statement made by ABC media. I was awakened by a call from a reporter by ABC on July 20 about 5:45 in the morning. I did not know anything about a shooting in Aurora at that time," Holmes said in a statement this afternoon, read to the national press by attorney Lisa Damiani. "He asked if I was Arlene Holmes and if my son was James Holmes who lives in Aurora, Colorado. I answered yes, you have the right person. I was referring to myself."
James Holmes Is Not Alone -
20 More Examples Of The Sickos
That Are Overrunning America
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
There is much more to the collapse of America than just our economic problems. The truth is that the United States is like a beautiful house that may still look great on the outside but that has rotted and decayed very badly on the inside. In fact, the foundations of our country have rotted away so badly that our entire society is starting to collapse. Just look at James Holmes. It would be great if we could honestly say that James Holmes is an aberration, but we all know better than that. James Holmes is not alone. The cold, hard reality of the matter is that our degenerate society regularly produces sickos and monsters like James Holmes. As I wrote about the other day, we lead the world in a whole host of bad categories. We lead the world in child abuse, we lead the world in divorce, we lead the world in teen pregnancy and we lead the world in drug addiction. The basic building blocks of society that tie us together and help keep us grounded (such as the family) are breaking down, but we still seem surprised that we have hordes of "lone wolf individuals" running around doing crazy things. We are a sick, twisted society that is producing sick, twisted individuals. If we do not admit how deep our problems really are, then we are never going to find any real solutions and we are going to keep being shocked when another James Holmes pops on to the scene.
Gotham City Is a Caricature of Biblical Babylon
By Wallace Henley - ChristianPost.com
The dark knight rises and Gotham's dark night deepens.
Gotham is a virtual world that sprang into horrid actuality as alleged shooter James Holmes gave flesh and breath to his avatar, the Joker.
Survivors, some costumed in the attire of Gotham, ran into the dark night shrouding Aurora, Colorado, and emerged from the virtual world into hard concrete, shrill sirens, squawking police radios, and the cold metallic microphones of reporters seeking eye-witness sound bites describing the world's latest atrocity.
Security and Self-Goverance
BY RON PAUL - FinancialSense.com
The senseless and horrific killings last week at a movie theater in Colorado reminded Americans that life is fragile and beautiful, and we should not take family, friends, and loved ones for granted. Our prayers go out to the injured victims and the families of those killed. As a nation we should use this terrible event to come together with the resolve to create a society that better values life.
We should also face the sober reality that government cannot protect us from all possible harm. No matter how many laws we pass, no matter how many police or federal agents we put on the streets, no matter how routinely we monitor internet communications, a determined individual or group can still cause great harm. We as individuals are responsible for our safety and the safety of our families.
The IRS Illegally Expands Obamacare Tax Credits The tax man discovers a new power
not found in the actual health care law.
By DAVID CATRON - The American Spectator.org
Recently I wrote that the states could kill Obamacare by refusing to implement its insurance exchanges. This strategy would be effective because the survival of PPACA depends on the ability of Beltway bureaucrats to dole out its tax credits and subsidies, but the law stipulates that all such assistance must be dispensed via state-run exchanges. Likewise, PPACA's employer mandates can only be triggered by premium assistance that originates from state exchanges. Even if the federal government creates an exchange in a state that has declined to do so, it would not be authorized to issue tax credits or fine noncompliant businesses. Thus, if the majority of the states refuse to create exchanges, it will doom Obamacare.
U.N. Commission Calls for Legalizing Prostitution Worldwide
By Amanda Swysgood - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - A report issued by the United Nations-backed Global Commission on HIV and the Law; recommends that nations around the world get rid of "punitive" laws against prostitution – or what it calls "consensual sex work" -- and decriminalize the voluntary use of illegal injection drugs in order to combat the HIV epidemic.
The commission, which is made up of 15 former heads of state, legal scholars and HIV/AIDS activists, was convened in 2010 by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and is jointly backed by the United Nations Development Programme and UNAIDS – the Joint U.N. Programme on AIDS/HIV.
How thousands of Americans are still getting leprosy...
and why you should stay away from ARMADILLOS
if you want to avoid it
Reporter - DailyMail.co.uk
Despite being dismissed as a mostly ancient disease, the threat of leprosy still exists in the U.S. today, and it can be dangerous if ignored.
Commonly referred to in the Bible, leprosy (also known as Hansen's disease) has long been thought to have been eliminated – as effective treatments are available.
However, the Health Resources and Services Administration has reported that there are currently about 6,500 cases of the disease in the U.S.
While the disease can be spread between humans through respiratory droplets, health officials warn that some Americans can be at risk when in contact with armadillos.
We Can't Make Americans Safer By Making Them Defenseless
By Charlie Daniels - CNSNews.com
The world is aware and aghast at the horrible and bizarre tragedy that took place in Aurora, CO. At the time of this writing, the details are still somewhat sketchy but as they emerge it becomes evident that James Holmes had been planning this abominable evil for some time.
From the pictures I've seen so far, this monster appears perfectly normal; not the look of a heartless mass murderer on the level with any al-Qaeda terrorist, capable of causing indiscriminate death and suffering with no regard for age or innocence.
55 Percent Of Americans Believe
That The Government Will Take Care Of Them
If Disaster Strikes
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
If a major emergency happened in the United States, do you have faith that the government would take care of you? Amazingly, even after all of the examples to the contrary that we have seen in recent years, a solid majority of all Americans actually believe that the government will be there for them when things hit the fan. According to a new survey conducted by the Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation,55 percent of Americans believe that the authorities will come to their rescue when disaster strikes. Sadly, most Americans still view the government as a "nanny state" that has both the capability and the willingness to take care of them from the cradle to the grave. Most Americans still have faith that the government will come through for them when they need it the most. But all we have to do is look back at what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to realize what a crock of baloney that is. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that was limited to a relatively small geographic area, and yet we all saw how the response of the federal government was a complete and utter failure. So what is going to happen someday if there is a nationwide disaster that stretches on for months or even years? Do you really believe that the federal government will be there for you?
White House: No New Gun Laws,
Use Existing Law to Keep Guns
From 'People Who Should Not Have Them'
By Fred Lucas - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama has no plans to push for new gun laws in light of the movie theater massacre in Colorado, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said over the weekend, even as other liberal politicians were calling for stricter gun control.
As a candidate for president, Obama favored restoring the so-called assault weapons ban that was passed in 1994 and expired in 2004. Aboard Air Force One en route to Aurora, Colo., Sunday, Carney took questions from reporters about whether Obama would seek gun control legislation.
Secret Fracking Ingredient Discovered
By Brian Westenhaus - OilPrice.com
The guar bean grown in the northern India state of Rajasthan is now a key element in the chemical cocktail used to frack wells, the technology that has prompted the oil and gas boom sweeping across North America and is set to spur a worldwide boost in oil and gas recovery.
The key product is a hydrocolloid, a substance that forms a gel when mixed with water. The powdered gum with the hydrocolloid is produced from the endosperm of the guar or cluster bean. Guar gum is made by removing the beans inside the pod, splitting them and then extracting the endosperm from the seed.
Insurance coverage denied... Nationwide Mutual Declines to Cover Fracking
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
Nationwide Mutual has become the first insurance company to decline coverage for claims related to hydraulic fracturing, a controversial energy production known as "fracking."
In a press statement "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" posted on its website on 13 July, the Columbus, Ohio firm laid out in detail the reasons for its decision. "Gas and oil drilling has been going on in this country for many years in the west and southwest. Fracking is another variation of the gas and oil business. In recent years, oil and gas exploration has come to New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio."
If you're still operating under the assumption that the earth's petroleum--or at least the cheap stuff--is about to run out, you're not going to thrive in the new oil era. Technology is making it possible to find, produce, and refine oil so efficiently that its supply, at least for practical purposes, is basically unlimited. -- BusinessWeek, December 14, 1998
That was the industry's story right before a decade-long climb in oil prices that ended with an all-time high in 2008. Only the oil industry would now have the audacity once again to peddle a story that it has gotten wrong for more than a decade as if it were brand new. Enlisting the media and its army of paid consultants, the industry is once again telling the public that oil abundance is at hand. And, what is doubly audacious is that it is promoting this tale as oil prices hover at levels more than eight times the 1999 low. Clearly, the industry is counting on collective amnesia to shield it from ridicule.
Bachmann sticking to her story
about Muslim Brotherhood ties inside State Department Michele Bachmann defends letters linking Clinton aide Huma Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Lizzy Tomei - GlobalPost.com
Even Michele Bachmann's former campaign manager thought her comments claiming a Clinton aide might have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood were a low blow. But that hasn't stopped the congresswoman and former presidential hopeful from sticking to her story.
In a statement, Bachmann said that the content of letters she and conservative colleagues last week sent to several national agencies, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of State and Department of Defense, was "being distorted."
"I encourage everyone, including media outlets, to read them in their entirety," she wrote.
Barack Obama warns Assad
not to make 'tragic mistake' of using chemical weapons US President Barack Obama warned Bashar al-Assad on Monday not to make the "tragic mistake" of deciding to unleash his stockpile of chemical weapons.
Telegraph.co.uk
Mr Assad's beleaguered regime had earlier threatened to use such weapons if Syria faced international military intervention, although it vowed not to turn them against its own civilians.
"Given the regime's stockpile of chemical weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad and those around him that the world is watching," Mr Obama told an audience of US veterans in the western state of Nevada.
Israeli forces could intervene in Syria over chemical weapons Its two biggest cities burn while rebels talk of 'liberation'. Israel, meanwhile, warns of action if Hezbollah gains arms
By DONALD MACINTYRE - INdependent.co.uk
Amid heavy fighting in Syria's two main cities, Israel yesterday issued a thinly veiled warning that military action would be used if necessary to prevent the Damascus regime's chemical weapons from falling into the hands of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
During a third day of fierce street battles in Aleppo, a leader of Syrian rebel forces said they were fighting to "liberate" the country's second city, long seen as a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad. And in Damascus, government troops backed by helicopter gunships appeared to be regaining some ground in their effort to win back neighbourhoods seized by the rebels over the last few days.
Turkey sends missile batteries to Syria border
AFP - France24.com
Turkey sent batteries of ground-to-air missiles to the border with Syria on Sunday, media reports said, boosting its firepower as rebels in Syria seized several border posts.
As fighting raged in Damascus and Aleppo, rebels were said to have taken control of three crossing points on the border with Turkey, which is sheltering thousands of Syrians who have fled the conflict at home.
A train convoy carrying several batteries of missiles arrived in Mardin in southeastern Turkey and will be transferred to several army units deployed on the border, according to the Anatolia news agency.
Syria stands by chemical threat Syria insists chemical weapons
would only be used against outside forces Damascus responds to warnings from Israel and US by insisting chemical arsenal would never be used on the Syrian people
By Ian Black, Middle East editor - Guardian.co.uk
Syria has made it clear that it would only use deadly chemical or biological weapons if it was attacked by outside forces and flatly rejected a call by the Arab League for President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power to end the country's escalating crisis.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, added his voice to a chorus of alarm over the issue as the Damascus government scored what observers ridiculed as a damaging own goal on Monday by admitting for the first time that it possessed an arsenal of the banned weapons.
Aurora shooting suspect James Holmes jailed in solitary:
'All the inmates were talking about killing him' 'He was spitting at the door and spitting at the guards,' a just-released inmate told the Daily News. 'He's spitting at everything. Dude was acting crazy.'
BY MATTHEW LYSIAK IN AURORA, COLO.,
JAMES ARKIN AND LARRY MCSHANE / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Movie massacre suspect James Holmes remained unapologetic and irrational Saturday in a Colorado jail where his life was at risk from inmates bent on revenge.
Holmes, held under suicide watch in solitary confinement, remained in his murderous "Joker" persona after arriving at the Arapahoe Detention Center, a jailhouse worker told the Daily News.
"Let's just say he hasn't shown any remorse," the employee said. "He thinks he's acting in a movie."
Batman cinema shooting:
Under the radar, the easy-going PhD student with no friends The masked gunman arrested for the shooting rampage, who later told police he was The Joker, is a highly educated PhD neuroscience student.
By Mark Hughes, New York - Telegraph.co.uk
James Eagan Holmes, 24, is alleged to have walked into theatre number nine of the Century 16 cinema in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire on the audience, using four different weapons to murder a dozen people.
Dressed head to toe in black combat clothes and sporting dyed red hair and a red goatee, he then calmly left the cinema and told police that he was The Joker, a senior police officer revealed.
Colorado shooting renews
anti-gun mission for Columbine victim's father Tom Mauser is angry that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have avoided talking about gun crime in wake of theater attack
by Paul Harris in Littleton, Colorado - Guardian.co.uk
Tom Mauser's shoes may look like an ordinary pair of sneakers. But they are not. They are the very pair his 15-year-old son Daniel was wearing when he died in the 1999 Columbine school massacre.
But Mauser was not thinking about the shoes. He was just plain angry and his voice shook with emotion as he explained why neither PresidentBarack Obama nor Republican challenger Mitt Romney had spoken out about stricter gun controls in the wake of the Aurora mass shooting.
Colorado Governor Schools Candy Crowley:
Stricter Gun Laws Wouldn't Have Prevented Massacre
By Noel Sheppard - NewsBusters.org
CNN's Candy Crowley got a much-needed education Sunday on the uselessness and futility of stricter gun laws in the wake of Friday's movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado.
As she pushed Governor John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) to agree that tighter gun restrictions are needed to prevent such incidents in the future, the Democrat pushed back, "If there were no assault weapons available, there were no this or no that, this guy's going to find something...He's going to know how to create a bomb" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Ban Guns? Blame the Pulpits & Believers!
by HHW - UnderstandingMatters.com
During the early morning hours of July 20, 2012, in a movie theater located in Aurora, Colorado, a pre-meditated tragedy took place and great evil prevailed while the movie played on. The only thing separating the fantasy on the screen from the real event in the theater was blood on the floor, from innocent victims of the massacre by a quiet but delusional young man who thought he was the Joker from the movie.
Public outcry portrayed by major media and some politicians is to BAN GUNS. Violating 2nd Amendment rights of American citizens will not solve the problem.
The real problem is much deeper and better solved by understanding how to deal with evil in the world by exposing and opposing it. A better answer is found in the prayer by Pastor Joe Wright before the Kansas House of Representatives in 1996.
Police: Shooting Suspect Told Officers He Was 'The Joker' Friend: Holmes Always 'Rooted For Bad Guys'
When Watching Superhero Films
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) – The suspect in the Aurora movie shooting is not cooperating with police and has asked for a lawyer after investigators tried to question him about the attack, CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass reports.
Police said a gunman with a gas mask on and dressed in black shot and killed dozens of people and injured more than 50 more. Authorities say the suspect, James Holmes, 24, killed 10 people inside the theater complex and that two others died after they were taken from the scene.
Batman won't save you But a concealed weapon might
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES-The Washington Times
The midnight massacre at a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colo., has put the issue of gun control back at center stage. Leftist lawmakers and TV anchors jumped the gun with the usual calls to restrict the Second Amendment. Propaganda aside, preventing tragedies like this in the future involves giving citizens the ability to fight back, not just be sitting ducks.
Invariably when a tragedy like this occurs, politicians and pundits seek quickly to spin it to their advantage. ABC News rushed out a report linking the shooter to the Colorado Tea Party, apparently based on a few seconds of Internet research that yielded the name "Jim Holmes" on a Tea Party website. Predictably, it turned out that this Jim Holmes is not the 24-year-old alleged shooter but a 52-year-old Hispanic conservative, whose ethnicity doesn't fit the dominant mainstream media narrative. ABC News later apologized for "disseminating that information before it was properly vetted." This was a particularly egregious breach of journalistic discipline considering that the suspect was already in custody and many details regarding his life and motives would soon be made public.
On PBS, Bill Moyers Trashes America and the NRA
As 'Venomous...Enablers of Death'
By Tim Graham - NewsBusters.org
With the first heart-breaking headlines out of Colorado, gun-rights advocates just had to know that leftist lecturers in our media would mount their soap boxes and trash this country for its gun culture and trash the National Rifle Association as an "enabler of death -- paranoid, delusional, and as venomous as a scorpion."
But it's additionally sad that the soap box in this case is paid for by taxpayers -- in the form of taxpayer support for every PBS station that spews out this leftist loathing. On his show Moyers & Company, 78-year-old PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers reached back to America's inhumane and vicious Westward expansion, when so many blood-thirsty Americans were killed because of their ineptitude with firearms:
George Will and Jennifer Rubin Demolish
Time's Joe Klein on Gun Control Laws
By Noel Sheppard - NewsBusters.org
Time's Joe Klein on Sunday found out what it's like to actually have to debate conservatives rather than the liberal media members he normally appears with on political talk shows.
When he uttered the typical left-wing line on ABC's This Week about the need for more gun control in the wake of Friday's movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, Klein got a much-needed education from George Will and the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Complex portrait emerges
of suspected Colorado gunman James Holmes
By Matt Stevens, Phil Willon, and Larry Gordon - LATimes.com
James Holmes, the suspect in the "Dark Knight" movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., took Advanced Placement classes in high school. He wanted to get into a good college. At UC Riverside, he earned merit scholarships. He was quiet but kind.
That was the portrait that began to emerge Friday from people who knew Holmes, 24, when he grew up and studied in California. None of those interviewed by The Times said he showed any signs of violence or anger.
Holmes graduated from Westview High School in San Diego in 2006.
The Dark Knight Movie Massacre
& Why I Carry a Gun Everywhere I Go
By Doug Giles - Townhall.com
I would venture to guess that the folks filing in to see the latest Batman installment in Aurora, Colorado last Thursday evening didn't figure on over 70 of them getting shot before the credits rolled. The last count I received before filing this column was 12 dead and 59 wounded.
As the news starting pouring in about what happened in the theater this week when Satan's spawn James Holmes donned Kevlar and a small battery of weapons and opened fire on an unsuspecting crowd, I kept thinking, "One fast-thinking and trained person who was armed/licensed with a concealed weapon could have stopped that SOB right in his tracks before the body count skyrocketed."
Shootings renew fire at gun-law adequacy
By Paige Winfield Cunningham-The Washington Times
As the country continued to mourn last week's mass shooting in Colorado — President Obama visited victims' families there Sunday — lawmakers reignited the debate about whether stricter gun-control laws would have prevented the movie theater massacre that left a dozen people dead.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper dodged a question by ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" about whether Colorado should revisit its gun laws, saying that shooting suspect James Holmes would have found a way to create "horror" even if he hadn't been able to acquire guns.
Colorado Dark Knight Batman Shooting
A Culture of Death James Holmes
On this Friday, July 20, edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex covers the shooting in Colorado and breaks down how it will be used to push through ratification of the United Nations' gun-grabber treaty in the Senate and also manufacture anti-Second Amendment hysteria in the corporate media. [read more online]
----- Back to news of the day -----
Bank Failure Friday: FDIC Seizes 5 Banks!
Osprey Flyer
The FDIC closed 5 banks on Friday, July 20, 2012. Total bank failures for 2012 increased to38. Credit union failures for 2012 remain at 8.
#34 The Royal Palm Bank of Florida, Naples, FL
#35 Georgia Trust Bank, Buford, GA
#36 First Cherokee State Bank, Woodstock, GA
#37 Heartland Bank, Leawood, KS
#38 Second Federal Savings and Loan Association of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Fed looks at third round of easing
By Robin Harding in Washington
The recent slowdown in US economic growth is forcing the Federal Reserve to consider something for which it has always set the bar very high: a third round of quantitative easing.
A decision on whether to launch another round of asset purchases remains in the balance as the central bank wrestles with a complicated economic outlook and uncertainty about the costs and benefits of its easing tools.
Global QE Is Coming: Let the Gold Mania Begin!
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
In my last article I commented on Japan's coming debt time bomb (Massive Japanese Debt Monetization is Coming, Yen to be Devalued), in which I made the case that Japan had a tremendous amount of their debt maturing over the next three years and that the Bank of Japan was likely to monetize much of it and weaken the Yen as a result. Since then I've dug a bit deeper and taken a look at the top 10 debtor nations of the world to see if they too had a large portion of their total outstanding debt maturing in the near future. What I found startled me: Nearly 50% of the total outstanding debt of the world's top 10 debtor nations needs to be rolled over by the end of 2015.
Blaming the Spanish victim as Europe spirals into summer crisis It is time for Spain and the victim states to seize the initiative.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The financial credibility of Spain is close to zero. Fiscal credibility is zero. Political credibility is zero. The new government of Mariano Rajoy has squandered the advantages of its absolute majority in a matter of months, and completely lost the confidence of Europe's institutions.
That is the verdict of unnamed EU officials and sources in Brussels cited by El Pais, following the twin crash of the Madrid bourse and the Spanish bond market on `Black Friday'.
Message to Europe: It's Time For Your Bank Holiday
By Nathan Lewis, Contributor - Forbes.com
Anecdotal reports suggest that the various attempts to shore up banks' condition with phony financials and vast theft of public money are coming to an end. Despite these stopgaps, banks are still struggling, in many cases taking steps to delay or prevent withdrawal of funds. This amounts to a sort of soft default, which may progress soon to a hard default.
"It is increasingly likely that some kind of total 'bank holiday' is enforced to put a stop to market pressures,"wrote Saxo Bank economist Steen Jakobsen in November 2011. He expected this to happen in 2012.
IMF To Stop Further Aid Tranches To Greece, Spiegel Says
By Brian Parkin - Bloomberg.com
The International Monetary Fund will stop paying further rescue aid to Greece, making the country's insolvency in September more likely, the Der Spiegel magazine said. citing unidentified European Union officials.
While a review of Greece's progress in meeting terms of its rescue is unfinished, it is "already clear" to the reviewing body of the IMF, the EU Commission and the European Central Bankthat Greece will not be able to fulfill its promise to cut debt to 120 percent of annual economic growth in euro terms by 2020, Der Spiegel said.
Is the US losing patience with the eurozone debacle? Having shown the eurozone a lot of latitude, the rest of the world - particularly America - is on the brink of losing patience.
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk
On Thursday, the Spanish government's borrowing costs came within a whisker of their euro-era high. Madrid's 10-year bond yield jumped back above 7pc in a poorly covered €3bn (£2.3bn) auction.
Trying to minimise its immediate financing costs, Spain has recently skewed its debt sales towards short-term instruments. Ominously, though, yields are soaring even on two-year debt. Sovereign bonds for 2014 repayment were sold last week only at a huge 5.204pc yield, with Madrid now paying a fifth more for short-term money than it was six weeks ago. Even at these sky-high rates, the two-year auction was also poorly covered.
How to Kill an Economy
BY NED W SCHMIDT CFA - FinancialSense.com
Many lessons have been revealed by the experience of the EU nations this past year. In parts of the EU, those lessons are being given serious reflection. However, two nations, the U.S. and France, seem determined to ignore the adverse financial consequences of bad government policies. Since being elected the French leader, Hollande, has pursued policies that may only serve to destroy the French economy. France is today's lesson on how to kill an economy. The U.S. may be the second.
U.S. weekly jobless claims shoot back up Applications for benefits jump 34,000 to 386,000
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. jobless claims jumped 34,000 to 386,000 last week, the government reported Thursday, reflecting typical summertime fluctuations in auto-industry employment.
Applications for unemployment benefits are now back to somewhat elevated levels after falling two weeks ago to a four-year low, suggesting the labor market remains sluggish.
Treasury yields tumble; Gross favors real assets Treasury Yields Drop To Records
By Kristine Aquino and Anchalee Worrachate - Bloomberg.com
Treasuries rose, with five-, 10- and 30-year yields falling to records, before reports this week forecast to show U.S. growth cooled and as concern Europe's debt crisis is worsening spurred demand for the safest assets.
Ten-year yields declined to an all-time low of 1.4128 percent, while the five-year rate dropped to 0.5427 percent and 30-year yields slid to 2.5074 percent. Treasuries have returned 1.2 percent this month after a 0.4 percent decline in June, according to indexes compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Bill Gross, who runs the world's biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., wrote on Twitter that real assets are a "better bet" amid negative real interest rates.
Nationalizing the Financial Industry
BY WALTER DONWAY - FinancialSense.com
When government proposes to nationalize a major industry, it is a loudspeaker blaring the message that the country is abandoning the market economy, moving from capitalism to full socialism. So it has been in Venezuela as socialist President Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil-drilling, gold-mining, coffee producing, and other companies. When nationalizations begin, capital flees a country, businessmen despair, and socialists cheer the death of private property.
But no one is talking about nationalizing American business, right? There are no decrees transferring businesses from private ownership to government "ownership." And no panicked flight of capital or despairing businessmen.
Libor arrests in US could be imminent, say sources Sources familiar with investigation say American prosecutors close to arresting individuals over Libor scandal
Reuters - Guardian.co.uk
American prosecutors and European regulators are close to arresting individual traders over the Libor scandal and charging them with colluding to manipulate global benchmark interest rates, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Federal prosecutors in Washington DC have recently contacted lawyers representing some of the individuals under suspicion to notify them that criminal charges and arrests could be imminent, said two sources speaking anonymously.
Prosecutors, regulators close to making Libor arrests
By Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan and Philipp Halstrick
Sun Jul 22, 2012 6:20pm EDT
(Reuters) - Prosecutors and European regulators are close to arresting individual traders and charging them with colluding to manipulate global benchmark interest rates, according to people familiar with a sweeping investigation into the rigging scandal.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have recently contacted lawyers representing some of the suspects to notify them that criminal charges and arrests could be imminent, said two of those sources, who asked not to be identified because the investigation is ongoing.
Lieborgate: Here Come The Arrests
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
For over four years, virtually everyone in the finance industry knew that Libor was manipulated. The stench of manipulation rose to the very top and thanks to a document release of formerly confidential information, we now know for a fact that even the Fed was in on it - recall that as part of production, the Fed provided a transcript of an April 2008 phone call between a Barclays trader in New York and Fed official Fabiola Ravazzolo, in which the unidentified trader said: "So, we know that we're not posting um, an honest LIBOR." And yet without any tangible, black on white evidence, there was no catalyst for pursuing legal action. That all changed when in a desperate attempt to protect its ass, Barclays decided to rat out everyone by settling with regulators, and "turn state" producing e-mail based evidence, most of it quite visual (after all what is more tangible to the common man that evil bankers sipping on Bollinger), which essentially threw years of quiet cartel cooperation under the bus. As a result, regulators, enforcers, and legal authorities, many of whom were in on this manipulation from the beginning, no longer had an excuse to not pursue civil and criminal charges against perpetrators, who until recently were footing the tabs at various gentlemen's venues and ultra expensive restaurants. And while the imminent waterfall of civil prosecution will force bank litigation reserves to go through the roof, here comes, with a very long delay, the criminal charges. As Reuters reports, here come the arrests.
Worst Suspicions About TARP Confirmed... Into the Bailout Buzz Saw
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON - NYTimes.com
IT might seem remarkable that there's more to say about our late Bailout Age. But there is more — a lot more.
Nearly four years after Washington began its huge rescues of banks with taxpayer dollars, an important player in this, one of the great financial dramas of all time, is offering a damning account of how the Bush and Obama administrations handled the whole episode.
Wealth doesn't trickle down –
it just floods offshore, new research reveals A far-reaching new study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put parts of Africa back on its feet – and even solve the euro crisis
By Heather Stewart, business editor - Guardian.co.uk
The world's super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy.
James Henry, a former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has conducted groundbreaking new research for the Tax Justice Network campaign group – sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts to construct an alarming picture that shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system.
We're Headed To $8 Natural Gas
By Richard Finger, Contributor - Forbes.com
There is a glut of natural gas. Everybody knows that. There's so much of the latest multi stage hydraulic fracturing going on from New York State to Texas and all places in between, prices will be low forever. But just as a full watering hole can deplete quickly the current gas storage glut can recede. If fact it already has been and at an alarmingly brisk pace and there may be a confluence of other events which could hasten the process. Consider this. The weekly EIA natural gas storage numbers reported each Thursday came in with a 28 billion cubic feet (bcf) injection. The inventory increase last year at this time was 67 bcf while the five year average accretion was 74 bcf. So true that one week does not a trend make. But this makes eleven straight weeks that have experienced below average storage injections.
Natural Gas is the Next Logical Step in US Energy
By Barry Stevens - OilPrice.com
The term "logical" may not be strong enough – "only" is certainly more appropriate. The story however remains the same. We are finding more reserves of natural gas, drilling more, watching prices decline, and yet using only slightly more.
It is clear that the U.S. is between the proverbial rock and a hard place with respect to its dependency on fossil fuels. We are indeed a carbon based economy, and with low prices and abundant availability one would think the demand for natural gas would be sky-high. So then why is the consumption of natural gas stick in the mud?
Coal Set to Make a Comeback
with Underground Coal Gasification
By Peter McCusker - OilPrice.com
Following a 100 year gestation period there are signs we could be about to witness the birth of a new coal rush.
The first Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) trials - during which coal's inherent energy is extracted in situ - were conducted in the North East of England in 1912.
One hundred years later scientists and businesspeople based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, just a few miles from the site of the original trials, have launched a new drive to fully commercialise the potential of the earth's remaining 850 billion tonnes of coal.
The Trajectory is for Oil Prices to Rise
BY DR. KENT MOORS, Global Energy Strategist, Money Morning
Crude oil and gasoline futures contract prices moved down yesterday, as the market took a breather from an accelerated upturn.
But the overall medium-term trajectory for oil prices no longer appears to be in doubt.
As I have indicated on several occasions recently, the downward movement in May and June was an overreaction to softness in the sector, with the ultimate slide over twice as large as any objective reading of the fundamentals would justify.
U.S. crops bake in searing heat, no relief for weeks
By Sam Nelson
CHICAGO | Fri Jul 20, 2012 1:13pm EDT
(Reuters) - Midday weather updates indicate extreme heat and drought conditions were set to continue baking already scorched corn and soybean crops in America's breadbasket through early August.
"It's the same old general theme, dry in the southwest Corn Belt and some showers in the north and east," said Drew Lerner, meteorologist for World Weather Inc.
Chris Hayes on the Twilight of the Elites
and the End of Meritocracy
By Julian Brookes - RollingStone.com
If history is "one damned thing after another," the short history of 21st-Century America looks like one damned gigantic clusterfuck. First, and worst, national security and intelligence failures enabled the 9/11 terrorist attack, the largest mass murder on the continent in the nation's history. Then came Enron, a colossal fraud and the largest corporate bankruptcy ever. Next we had the pointless and devastating Iraq war, the biggest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. At mid-decade, we watched a major American city, New Orleans, drown on national television, killing a thousand people. A few years later, the housing bubble popped, wiping out trillions of dollars of wealth and precipitating the largest financial crisis in 70 years and the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Unbelievably, very few people have been held to account for this catalogue of scandal and disaster – not in Washington, not on Wall Street, not, for the most part, in America's corporate boardrooms.
Moral and Financial Relativism
BY CRIS SHERIDAN
WITH RICHARD LARSEN - FinancialSense.com
The late Allan Bloom, professor of philosophy at Cornell, Yale, and the University of Chicago, wrote some twenty years ago in The Closing of the American Mind, "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative." If all truth is relative, all morality becomes relative as well, for the elimination of absolute truth claims absolute morality as its first victim.
This moral relativism has coincided, perhaps unremarkably, with the secularization of our culture. The secular concept that there are no absolute truths has gradually yet effectively eroded our collective value system in such a way as to alter and distort even the basis of our global economy.
Scientific study proves energy efficient bulbs
can harm human skin cells
BY: HOLLY MARTIN - Examiner.com
Environmentalists have pushed to abolish traditional incandescent light bulbs, in order to reduce the amount of electricity needed to light up our homes.
However, a small but vocal minority has insisted that the curlicue-shaped compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) pose a threat to human health.
Now, a group of scientists at Stony Brook University has proven that CFLs do emit ultraviolet (UV) light rays that can harm human skin cells.
China to formally garrison disputed South China Sea
SRNNews.Townhall.com
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's powerful Central Military Commission has approved the formal establishment of a military garrison for the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Sunday, in a move which could further boost tensions in already fractious region.
China has a substantial military presence in the South China Sea and the move is essentially a further assertion of its sovereignty claims after it last month upped the administrative status of the seas to the level of a city, which it calls Sansha.
US hawks rally to defend defense
By Jim Lobe - Asia Times
WASHINGTON - While Iran, Russia, and China are all pretty scary, the ominous word "sequestration" is what is keeping right-wing hawks and their friends in the defense industry up at night. After rallying their forces for most of the past year, their campaign to avoid the "specter of sequestration", as they often refer to it, shifted into high gear on Capitol Hill this past week, as top industry executives were summoned to testify to the urgency of the threat.
At stake could be as much as US$600 billion in Pentagon funding - much of which would presumably be spent on lucrative procurement contracts for new weapons systems - over the next 10 years, as well as what the hawks see as the further erosion of US global military dominance.
Al-Qaida: We're returning to old Iraq strongholds
By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF
CAIRO (AP) - The first online statement from the new leader of al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq claims that the militant network is returning to strongholds from which it was driven by U.S. forces and their Sunni allies before the American withdrawal at the end of last year.
The al-Qaida leader claimed the militant group is preparing operations to free prisoners and assassinate court officials.
Egypt Allowing Palestinians Entry Without Permits
By SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press
CAIRO July 23, 2012 (AP)
Airport officials say Egypt is allowing Palestinians free entry into the country, ending part of a five-year blockade on the Gaza Strip.
The decision means Palestinians can freely leave Gaza. It also applies to Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a branch of new Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. The blockade was imposed after Hamas took control of Gaza by force in 2007. It banned most Palestinians from leaving.
Shots fired from Egypt at Israeli troops, none hurt
(Reuters) - Gunshots fired across the border from Egypt on Sunday hit an Israeli army bus but caused no casualties, a military spokeswoman said.
The attack, in the central sector of the porous desert frontier, may heighten Israeli fears of an erosion of security in the Egyptian Sinai given the political upheaval in Cairo.
A Sinai pipeline built to supply Israel and Jordan with gas was blown up in a separate incident on Sunday, the 15th such sabotage since the start of a popular revolt that toppled the U.S.-aligned Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February last year.
Assad's weapons could fall into Hezbollah's hands,
Netanyahu warns Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu expresses fears about collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime
Reuters - Guardian.co.uk
Israel's prime minister warned on Sunday that his country would "have to act" if the Syrian regime collapsed and there was a risk its chemical weapons and missiles could fall into the hands of militant groups.
In an interview on Fox News in the US, Binyamin Netanyahu said Bashar al-Assad's government would fall and chaos might leave the weapons sites unguarded. "We certainly don't want to be exposed to chemical weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah or some other terror groups. ... It's a great threat," he said.
Israeli forces could intervene in Syria over chemical weapons Its two biggest cities burn while rebels talk of 'liberation'. Israel, meanwhile, warns of action if Hezbollah gains arms
By DONALD MACINTYRE - Independent.co.uk
Amid heavy fighting in Syria's two main cities, Israel yesterday issued a thinly veiled warning that military action would be used if necessary to prevent the Damascus regime's chemical weapons from falling into the hands of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
During a third day of fierce street battles in Aleppo, a leader of Syrian rebel forces said they were fighting to "liberate" the country's second city, long seen as a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad. And in Damascus, government troops backed by helicopter gunships appeared to be regaining some ground in their effort to win back neighbourhoods seized by the rebels over the last few days.
71 shot, 12 killed
at Aurora movie theater during Batman premiere
By Ryan Parker, Kurtis Lee, John Ingold,
Jordan Steffen and Jennifer Brown - The Denver Post
AURORA — The lone suspect in a movie-theater shooting that left 12 dead had a ticket to the midnight premiere of the newest Batman film and entered along with the crowd, investigators believe.
Then he walked out of the theater's emergency door unnoticed, investigators said, propping it open. The suspect, later identified as 24-year-old James Eagan Holmes, allegedly returned through the same door minutes later, clad in black ballistic gear, and opened fire.
12 Signs That The Next Recession
In The United States Has Already Begun
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Is the U.S. economy in a recession right now? Has the next recession in the United States already begun? Unfortunately, there are a lot of economic numbers that are pointing in that direction. U.S. retail sales have fallen for three months in a row, U.S. manufacturing activity is contracting and there are numerous indications that the labor market is getting weaker. Of course there are some economists that will argue that we never even left the last recession. For example, the percentage of working age Americans with jobs fell from above 63 percent in 2007 to under 59 percent during the last recession. Since the end of the last recession, that number has not gotten back above 59 percent. In fact, it has been below 59 percent for 34 months in a row. In addition, we have continued to see poverty and government dependence steadily rise during this "economic recovery". Since Barack Obama became president, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by 6 million and the number of Americans on food stamps has risen by 14 million. So it would be really hard to argue with anyone that wants to say that the last recession never really ended. However, the latest economic numbers indicate that things are about to get even worse for the U.S. economy, and that is not good news at all.
Gold & silver should soar, as it did with QE2... QE3 is on Its Way – Here's How to Prepare
BY JONATHAN YATES, Contributing Writer, Money Morning
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke to the U.S. Senate Tuesday and yesterday (Wednesday) in his two-day biannual meeting with Congress - and failed to make any promise to institute more stimulus measures.
He did leave the door open for the Fed to do something - even if it won't commit to what that will be.
The markets rallied, although investors were disappointed that the Fed chief couldn't deliver a bigger commitment.
But make no mistake - quantitative easing, or QE3, is coming.
That is assured for one simple reason.
Mired in Gridlock, Congress Barrels Toward a Fiscal Cliff Over Debt With no serious budget negotiations underway in the House, Senate or White House, lawmakers are closing on a fiscal disaster, with no parachute in sight—and doing little more than arguing over blame.
by Patricia Murphy - TheDailyBeast.com
Dick Cheney had a familiar message for House and Senate Republicans when he made a rare appearance on Capitol Hill this week: The cuts coming for the Defense Department at the end of the year are very, very bad.
But Cheney, who was the architect of the Pentagon's war-time budget and a staunch supporter of the simultaneous Bush tax cuts, had no solutions to offer his GOP audience as they grasped for some way—any way—to undo the defense cuts that most of them agreed to last summer, all while vowing to preserve the Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year.
New York Fed plan aims to stop runs on money funds
By Jonathan Spicer
NEW YORK | Thu Jul 19, 2012 3:47pm EDT
(Reuters) - Federal Reserve economists are pushing reforms that would protect against runs on U.S. money market mutual funds by introducing a 'minimum balance at risk' to dissuade investors from running at the first sign of trouble.
The minimum balance would make the financial system more fair, reduce systemic risk and protect smaller investors who can be left with losses if larger investors in their fund withdraw cash first, argues the staff report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
This Is The Government:
Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account
Has Been Denied - The Sequel
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
....What does the Fed know about market liquidity conditions that it does not want to share, and more importantly, is the Fed seeing a rapid deterioration in liquidity conditions in the future, that may and/or will prompt retail investors to pull their money in another Lehman-like bank run repeat?
....Basically, according to the Fed, the minimum balance would make the financial system more fair, reduce systemic risk and protect smaller investors who can be left with losses if larger investors in their fund withdraw cash first. The proposal would require a "small fraction" of each fund investor's recent balances to be segregated into a sinking fund to absorb losses if the fund is liquidated. Subsequently redemptions of these minimum balances at risk would be delayed for 30 days, "creating a disincentive to redeem if the fund is likely to have losses." In other words: socialized losses. Where have we seen this before?
Operation Twist, disinflation and precious metals
By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com
In its most recent Meeting Minutes for June 19-20, which were released on July 11th, the FOMC gave no indications of another round of stimulus or QEIII. Nevertheless, the monetary policy making committee did reiterate that it would continue its "Operation Twist" program of bond repurchases through the end of this year.
While the immediate reaction to the FOMC Meeting Minutes depressed precious metals prices and drove the U.S. dollar higher, markets corrected afterwards. The price of gold dropped marginally, and the price of silver actually rose by 10 cents per ounce.
Some bullish factors in Gold
even without signs of QE: Commerzbank
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Even if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke does not hint more strongly at further quantitative easing during his second round of congressional testimony, gold has some factors in its favor, said Commerzbank, the second-largest bank in Germany, after Deutsche Bank.
According to the German bank, the yellow metal fell Tuesday when the Fed chief did not make clearer allusions to the possibility of a third round of QE. The bottom line is that the Fed is still keeping all options for QE3 open.
Is Gold is Making a Comeback?
By Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
One of my best calls of the year was to plead with readers to avoid gold like the plague, periodically dipping in on the short side only. The barbarous relic has been in a bear market since it peaked at $1,922 an ounce at the end of August last year. Gold shares have fared much worse, with lead stock Barrack Gold (ABX) dropping 36% since then and the gold miners ETF (GDX) suffering a heart rending 43% haircut.
However, the recent price action suggests that hard times may be over for this hardest of all assets. Despite repeated attempts, the yellow metal has failed to break down below the $1,500 support level that I have been broadcasting as the line in the sand.
11 International Agreements
That Are Nails In The Coffin Of The Petrodollar
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Is the petrodollar dead? Well, not yet, but the nails are being hammered into the coffin even as you read this. For decades, most of the nations of the world have used the U.S. dollar to buy oil and to trade with each other. In essence, the U.S. dollar has been acting as a true global currency. Virtually every country on the face of the earth has needed big piles of U.S. dollars for international trade. This has ensured a huge demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. government debt. This demand for dollars has kept prices and interest rates low, and it has given the U.S. government an incredible amount of power and leverage around the globe. Right now, U.S. dollars make up more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world. But times are changing. Over the past couple of years there has been a whole bunch of international agreements that have made the U.S. dollar less important in international trade. The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely quiet about all of these agreements, but the truth is that they are setting the stage for a fundamental shift in the way that trade is conducted around the globe. When the petrodollar dies, it is going to have an absolutely devastating impact on the U.S. economy. Sadly, most Americans are totally clueless regarding what is about to happen to the dollar.
BlackRock Mulls Legal Action Amid Libor Scandal
By Charlie Gasparino -FOXBusiness.com
BlackRock, the world's largest money management firm, is weighing what action it should take, if any, in light of allegations that major global banks manipulated a key interest rate that could have depressed investment returns for many of its customers, the FOX Business Network has learned.
A person at the firm with direct knowledge of the matter says the firm will have a better handle on its decision, including the possibility of litigation against big banks at the center of the scandal, within the next week or so.
Libor fraud exposes Wall Street's rotten core
By Elizabeth Warren, WashingtonPost.com
Elizabeth Warren chaired the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel from 2008 to 2010. She is the Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts.
The Libor scandal is more than just the latest financial deception to come to light. It exposes a fraud that runs to the heart of our financial system.
The London interbank offered rate is a benchmark for a range of interest rates, and the misdeeds making headlines have to do with how those rates are set. If insiders can manipulate the basic measurement of a loan — the interest rate — there is rot at the core of the financial system.
Feeding Frenzy Seen If Wall Street Sues Itself Over Libor
By Donal Griffin - Bloomberg.com
Wall Street, grappling with mounting regulatory probes and investor claims over alleged interest-rate manipulation, may face yet another formidable foe: Itself.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) are among financial firms that may bring lawsuits against their biggest rivals as regulators on three continents examine whether other banks manipulated the London interbank offered rate, known as Libor, said Bradley Hintz, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Even if Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley forgo claims on their own behalf, they oversee money-market funds that may be required to pursue restitution for injured clients, he said.
Market-Rigging and Price-Fixing
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
07/19/12 Laguna Beach, California – "Markets are so rigged by policymakers that I have no meaningful insights to offer."
That's what Nomura International's Investment Strategist, Bob Janjuah, griped five months ago. Since then, policymakers have stepped up their market-rigging, while new revelations of past market-rigging have also come to light.
It's starting to feel like the financial markets are all rigging and no ship.
Merkel wins Spain bank bailout vote with large majority
By Annika Breidthardt
and Michelle Martin, Reuters - FinancialPost.com
BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel easily won a parliamentary vote on a eurozone rescue package for Spanish banks on Thursday despite growing unease in her centre-right coalition about the rising cost of Europe's debt crisis for German taxpayers.
Merkel, who won broad opposition support, managed to secure a simple majority from her own coalition in the Bundestag lower house of parliament, whose members were recalled to rainy Berlin from their summer recess for this one-day session.
Spanish debt crisis returns as Germany nears bailout fatigue Spanish borrowing costs have surged to euro-era highs despite draconian fiscal cuts and backing from the German parliament for the country's €100bn (£78bn) bank rescue package.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - TheAtlantic.com
Yields on five-year bonds jumped to a fresh crisis peak of 6.46pc at a closely-watched auction as hopes fade for fresh stimulus from the European Central Bank and direct recapitalisation of Spanish banks by the EU bailout find, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
"Demand for Spanish paper is collapsing, even for shorter-dated debt which is very worrying and raises the spectre of Spain losing market access," said Nicholas Spiro from Spiro Sovereign Strategy.
Nouriel Roubini:
Five factors that could derail the global economy
Edward Krudy, Reuters - FinancialPost.com
NEW YORK – Economist Nouriel Roubini is standing by his prediction for a global "perfect storm" next year as economies the world over slow down or shudder to a complete halt, geopolitical risk grows and the eurozone's debt crisis accelerates.
Roubini, the New York University professor dubbed "Dr. Doom" for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, highlighted five factors that could derail the global economy.
Those factors are:
How the Elites Built America's Economic Wall
By Virginia Postrel - Bloomberg.com
For a century, incomes became increasingly equal across the U.S., as poor states such asAlabama caught up to rich places like California.
Economists have long taught this history to their undergraduates as an illustration of the growth theory for which Robert Solow won his Nobel Prize in economics: Poor places are short on the capital that would make local labor more productive. Investors move capital to those poor places, hoping to capture some of the increased productivity as higher returns. Productivity gradually equalizes across the country, and wages follow. When capital can move freely, the poorer a place is to start with, the faster it grows.
Should we be worried
about China's $2.2-trillion shadow banking system?
Matthew Boesler, Business Insider - FinancialPost.com
It is clear that the Chinese economy is slowing, and some think the risks of a hard landing are rising substantially.
If economic growth in China continues to slow, rising and sudden defaults on loans made in the country's shadow banking system could threaten to bring down China's traditional banking sector and throw the world's third-largest economy in jeopardy, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch China Strategist David Cui.
The hodgepodge web of non-banks that comprise the shadow nexus in China includes pawn shops, underground banks, various wealth management products, trust companies, and guarantors – many of which don't take deposits to insure against risky lending activities and operate completely beyond the eye of regulators and authorities.
China to buy US assets via GM pension
By Stanley Pignal in London and Dan McCrum in New York - FT.com
The Chinese government has agreed to buy investment stakes currently held by General Motors' pension plan, in a deal that will make Beijing a sizeable investor in many of the US and Europe's largest private equity funds.
The State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which manages China's more than $3tn in foreign exchange reserves, will pay $1.5bn-$2bn for GM's positions in blue chip private equity funds managed by firms including Carlyle Group, Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners.
Chinese premier calls for closer economic,
trade relations with Africa
Xinhua - China.com
BEIJING, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Wednesday pledged to push forward the economic and trade relations between China and Africa to a new level.
Wen made the remarks during a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Fourth Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs.
The friendly cooperation between China and Africa has not only yielded rich fruit, but also enhanced our friendship and mutual trust, which is more precious than gold, said Wen.
"History has shown time and again that China and Africa are forever good friends, good partners and good brothers," the premier said.
California's San Bernardino Bracing for Bankruptcy
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
San Bernardino's city council has declared a fiscal emergency, allowing the California city to file for bankruptcy protection without having to first hold talks with its creditors.
The city will take about 30 days to make its filing for Chapter 9 protection, most likely in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside, Calif., said City Attorney James Penman.
The city of about 210,000 people located 65 miles east of Los Angeles could become the third city in California to seek protection from its creditors since late June. Stockton and the ski resort city of Mammoth Lakes have already filed in bankruptcy court.
Scranton: When Your City Needs to Go Bankrupt
By Josh Barro - Bloomberg.com
A lot of cities are in financial trouble these days, but the case of Scranton, Pennsylvania, stands out for its unusual degree of bickering as it descends into the fiscal abyss. Mayor Chris Doherty has cut nearly every city employee's pay -- including his own -- to minimum wage ($7.25 an hour).
The mayor is acting in defiance of a court order mandating that he pay the employees in full. The International Association of firefighters ran a full page ad in the Scranton Times this past weekend, depicting the mayor in a dunce cap for his actions.
Foreclosure crisis hits older Americans hard
By Josh Lederman - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON — More than 1.5 million older Americans already have lost their homes, with millions more at risk as the national housing crisis takes its toll on those who are among the worst positioned to weather the storm, a new AARP report says.
Older African Americans and Hispanics are the hardest hit.
"The Great Recession has been brutal for many older Americans," saidDebra Whitman, AARP's policy chief. "This shows that home ownership doesn't guarantee financial security later in life."
Retirees hit hard by foreclosures People age 75+ have highest foreclosure rate
among Americans 50+
By Andrea Coombes, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Golden years? Not for an increasing number of older Americans who are losing their homes to foreclosure.
One of the hardest hit groups: Those aged 75 and older, according to a report by AARP based on mortgage data from 2007 through 2011.
All told, more than 1.5 million Americans aged 50 and older lost their homes in the five years from 2007 through 2011.
Why Drop in Foreclosures Is Bad for Housing Market
By: Diana Olick - CNBC .com
In a normal housing market, lack of supply is generally considered a good thing. When demand outweighs supply, home prices rise and homeowners gain equity. Like so many things in this historic economic recovery, that premise doesn't exactly apply.
This housing market has been running on distress for the past year, as investors rush to buy foreclosed properties in order to take advantage of today's hot rental market. Sales of millions of foreclosed homes pushed home sales higher, off the bottom in fact.
America's worst drought disaster just got worse
Russ Blinch and K.T. Arasu, Reuters - FinancialPost.com
WASHINGTON/CHICAGO — Oppressive heat and a worsening drought in the Midwest pushed grain prices near or past records on Wednesday as crops wilted, cities baked and concerns grew about food and fuel price inflation in the world's top food exporter.
Soybean prices at the Chicago Board of Trade set a record high and corn closed near a record as millions of acres of crops seared in triple-digit heat in the Corn Belt. Corn fields have been plowed up in many locations for lack of rain. Now soybeans, which develop later than corn, are in the bull's eye.
Geoengineering: Sun-Reflecting Chemicals
to be Sprayed into Air Above New Mexico
By Charles Kennedy | OilPrice.com
Geoengineering has been covered before on oilprice.com. It is a radical method to counter climate change which involves manipulating the environment in order to cool the atmosphere on a global scale.
Previously strategies for geoengineering have merely been theorised, yet never implemented, however two engineers at Harvard are finalising the details of a plan to test one form of geoengineering.
It really is a world-wide web!
Stunning map that shows the sprawling mass
of internet cables that keeps the world connected
By MARK PRIGG - DailyMail.co.uk
You almost certainly use it every day, but until now nobody has really known what the internet actually looks like.
However, Fortune magazine and graphic designer Nicolas Rapp teamed up with telecom data and infrastructure company GeoTel Communications.
The company maps fiber optic cables and geographic information systems (GIS) that connect people all over the world, which were used to create the stunning image below.
It shows the key locations for fiber optic cables, the high speed connections that form the backbone of the internet.
Beware the singularity, says Skype founder
By ASHER MOSES - Stuff.co.nz
One of the founding engineers of Skype and Kazaa wants to sound a warning to the human race: fasten your seatbelts, as machines are becoming so intelligent that they could pose an existential threat.
Jaan Tallinn, in Australia at the moment, argues human-driven technological progress has largely replaced evolution as the dominant force shaping our future. Machines are becoming smarter than we are, but Tallinn warns that if we are not careful this could lead to a "sudden global ecological catastrophe".
Lieberman Revises Cybersecurity Bill Seeking Senate Support
By Eric Engleman - Bloomberg.com
Senator Joe Lieberman introduced a new version of a bill to improve U.S. cybersecurity, seeking a compromise to gain support for a measure that has stalled over disagreements on government standards.
The proposal would set up voluntary incentives for operators of critical infrastructure such as power grids and chemical plants to improve security against computer attacks. Lieberman's original bill would have allowed the Department of Homeland Security to create mandatory security standards for infrastructure.
New High-Tech Body Scanners Coming, Courtesy of the CIA
by Bob Adelmann - TheNewAmerican.com
The latest piece of terrifying technology, the Picosecond Programmable Laser scanner from Genia Photonics, will be able to identify gunpowder residue on an individual's shoes, and what he had for breakfast along with his adrenaline levels, according to the anonymous author of Gizmodo.com.
The portable unit, about the size of a breadbox, is described as "robust" and "mobile," meaning it could not only be used in airports to supplement the invasions of privacy already being performed by the TSA but also in mobile units, such as police cruisers, roaming the streets, looking for suspicious "wavelength patterns and sequences." According to anonymous:
Why Are So Many Bad Things Happening To America?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Have you ever wondered why things have been going so badly for the United States in recent years? Our economy is falling apart, we have been plagued with heat, drought and endless natural disasters, our cities are absolutely crumbling, we just keep getting involved in even more wars and Americans are more anxious and more overweight than ever before. So why are so many bad things happening to America? Why do we lead the world in so many bad categories? Why does nothing seem to be going right? Are we under some kind of a curse? It is almost as if we have entered a "perfect storm" that just keeps getting worse. In the old days it would seem like something bad would happen to the United States every once in a while, but now massive problems seem to be hitting us in rapid fire fashion. At this point, many Americans have "crisis fatigue" because our problems never seem to end. Each new crisis just seems to overlap with all of the other problems that are still going on. So why is this happening, and what is our country going to look like if our problems continue to multiply at this rate?
A sneaky way to control guns A UN treaty could curtail our rights
John R. Bolton | New York Daily News - AEI.org
Gun-control advocates and the Obama administration are rushing to complete negotiations in New York on a proposed international agreement called the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.
They hope to finish the drafting within weeks, perhaps having a document ready for signature so that President Obama could press a lame-duck Senate to ratify it after our Nov. 6 elections.
Because these UNATT negotiations had long escaped serious media attention, many Americans are only now learning about their disturbing direction.
UN Arms Transfer Treaty (ATT) on Small Arms:
Gun Grab Gradualism
by Thomas R. Eddlem - LewRockwell.com
The United Nations is polishing up a global Arms Transfer Treaty (ATT) this month in a New York convention that would create a global registry of private ownership of firearms. This treaty – which would also mandate creation of a national collection agency for those guns and is contrary to the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment – has the long-standing and enthusiastic backing of the Obama State Department, headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"Conventional arms transfers are a crucial national security concern for the United States, and we have always supported effective action to control the international transfer of arms," Hillary Clinton noted as early as October 14, 2009. Clinton boasted that "the United States regularly engages other states to raise their standards and to prohibit the transfer or transshipment of capabilities to rogue states, terrorist groups, and groups seeking to unsettle regions." Of course, that speech was delivered at the same time the Obama administration was transferring some 2,000 small arms to Mexican drug gangs in the "Fast and Furious" gun-walking scandal.
20 Signs That All Point To The Exact Same Thing -
Can You Guess What That Is?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The U.S. economy is in a massive amount of trouble. There aren't enough jobs. There isn't enough money to go around. Business activity is slowing down again. Household wealth has been falling. Food prices have been rising. Many state and local governments all over the country are flat broke and are drowning in debt. The federal government has been rolling up unprecedented amounts of debt in an attempt to keep things going, but everyone knows that kind of borrowing is simply unsustainable. So where do we go from here? We consume far more than we produce and we use debt to make up the difference. 40 years ago the total amount of debt in America (government, business and consumer) was less than 2 trillion dollars. Today it is nearly 55 trillion dollars. How in the world did we let the total amount of debt in the United States grow more than 27 times larger over the past 40 years? Our economic system is fundamentally broken, but most Americans don't realize it yet because times are still relatively good.
Omnipotent Government, the runaway, arbitrary State. The Rule of Law
by Andrew P. Napolitano - LewRockwell.com
The greatest distinguishing factor between countries in which there is some freedom and those where authoritarian governments manage personal behavior is the Rule of Law. The idea that the very laws that the government is charged with enforcing could restrain the government itself is uniquely Western and was accepted with near unanimity at the time of the creation of the American Republic. Without that concept underlying the exercise of governmental power, there is little hope for freedom.
The Rule of Law is a three-legged stool on which freedom sits. The first leg requires that all laws be enacted in advance of the behavior they seek to regulate and be crafted and promulgated in public by a legitimate authority. The goal of all laws must be the preservation of individual freedom. A law is not legitimate if it is written by an evil genius in secret or if it punishes behavior that was lawful when the behavior took place or if its goal is to solidify the strength of those in power. It also is not legitimate if it is written by the president instead of Congress.
Crony Nation
By F. H. BUCKLEY - The American Spectator.org
So how does the U.S. fare on measures of the rule of law?
THIS IS THE CENTURY OF THE RULE OF LAW. In the 20th century, that wasn't thought so important, and Milton Friedman argued that to succeed, all a country need do was shrink the state by privatization:
Just after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, I used to be asked a lot: "What do these ex-Communist states have to do in order to become market economies?" And I used to say: "You can describe that in three words: privatize, privatize, privatize." But I was wrong. That wasn't enough. The example of Russia shows that.… Privatization is meaningless if you don't have the rule of law.
Friedman's prescription for growth was an important component of what came to be called the Washington Consensus, a set of classically liberal policies that dominated the literature about economic development after the fall of Communism. Apart from privatization, other elements included deregulation, free trade, and low taxes. Property rights came in last on the list. As Friedman and others came to realize, however, this ignored the crucial role of social and legal institutions in promoting growth.
Obama's Rhetoric
By THOMAS SOWELL - The American Spectator.org
It's important to resist all the rhetoric about "giving back" and focus on safeguarding our freedom.
Barack Obama's great rhetorical gifts include the ability to make the absurd sound not only plausible, but inspiring and profound.
His latest verbal triumph was to say on July 13th, "if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own." As an example, "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Let's stop and think, even though the whole purpose of much political rhetoric is to keep us from thinking, and stir our emotions instead.
ANOTHER DOCTORED IMAGE DEEPENS OBAMA MYSTERY Filmmaker claims black man removed
from 2012 campaign Facebook image
By Jerome R. Corsi - WND.com
NEW YORK – Does a family photograph of a young Barack Obama posted on the president's Facebook campaign page offer a clue to the identity of his real father?
A professional graphic artist who examined the 1973 photo believes the image of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was airbrushed into the scene to cover up an African-American man who was standing next to Obama at the Honolulu airport.
Filmmaker Joel Gilbert, who commissioned the analysis, told WND there's substantial evidence that the man in the original photograph was Frank Marshall Davis, the Communist Party member, pro-Soviet propagandist and pornographer who played a fatherly role in Obama's teen years.
[see detailed analysis of photo]
Weimar America: Four Major Ways
We're Following In Germany's Fascist Footsteps What happens when a mature industrial nation turns its back on democracy and lets its right-wing elite destroy the middle class? We've seen this movie before.
By Robert Cruickshank - Alter-net.org
What happens when a nation that was once an economic powerhouse turns its back on democracy and on its middle class, as wealthy right-wingers wage austerity campaigns and enable extremist politics?
It may sound like America in 2012. But it was also Germany in 1932.
Most Americans have never heard of the Weimar Republic, Germany's democratic interlude between World War I and World War II. Those who have usually see it as a prologue to the horrors of Nazi Germany, an unstable transition between imperialism and fascism. In this view, Hitler's rise to power is treated as an inevitable outcome of the Great Depression, rather than the result of a decision by right-wing politicians to make him chancellor in early 1933.
Russia, China veto Syria sanctions resolution at UN Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would impose sanctions against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad if he does not end the use of heavy weapons.
Agence France Presse - Alter-net.org
It was the third time in nine months that Russia and China have used their powers as permanent members of the 15-nation council to block resolutions on Syria. There were 11 votes in favor, Russia and China's votes against and two abstentions.
Netanyahu refuses explicit Iran threat
By Gareth Porter - ATimes.com
WASHINGTON - The perception that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to attack Iran's nuclear facilities unless sanctions and diplomacy succeed in shutting them down has been the driving force in the Iran crisis. But although Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have made some tough statements, especially over the past several months, there is still one gaping hole in the record of their rhetoric on Iran: neither Netanyahu nor Barak has ever made an explicit public statement threatening to attack Iran.
And in recent months, both have refused to make anything like such a threat when invited to do so by interviewers.
Netanyahu vows to react 'forcefully to Iran's terror'
after bomb kills seven Israelis in Bulgaria
Aron Heller,Veselin Toshkov, The Associated Press - NationalPost.com
SOFIA, Bulgaria — Israel vowed to strike back at Iran for a brazen daylight bombing Wednesday that killed at least seven people on a bus full of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria.
The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks attributed to Iran that have targeted Israelis and Jews overseas and threatened to escalate a shadow war between the two arch-enemies. Iran has denied involvement in the past but did not comment on Wednesday's attack.
Syrian rebels seize control of Iraqi,
Turkish border crossings, killing 21 guards Syrian army abandoning periphery and focusing forces on Damascus, Iraqi official says
By ILAN BEN ZION - TimesOfIsrael.com
Syrian rebels control all of the border crossings with Iraq and several along the border with Turkey, Arab media and news agencies reported on Thursday.
The Iraqi-Syrian border crossings were forcefully taken from Assad troops, Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi told AFP. He claimed Iraqi border guards witnessed Free Syrian Army forces attacking a border post and killing Syrian soldiers.
Obama Backs Israel
as Netanyahu Blames Iran for Burgas Blast
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
Obama has pledged support for Israel in the wake of a deadly blast yesterday in Burgas on the Black Sea.
"I strongly condemn today's barbaric terrorist attack on Israelis in Bulgaria. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed and injured, and with the people of Israel, Bulgaria, and any other nation whose citizens were harmed in this awful event," Obama said in a statement. "These attacks against innocent civilians, including children, are completely outrageous."
Pentagon reportedly seeking to avert Israeli strike
on Syrian chemical weapon sites International community fears Assad's stockpile
could fall into the hands of terrorists
By GABE FISHER - The Times of Israel
Defense officials are in talks with the Pentagon, which wants to prevent a possible Israeli strike on Syria's chemical weapons facilities, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Syria, one of only seven nations not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, is widely believed to have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, as well as an active manufacturing capacity.
Understanding the Situation in Syria
By AYMENN JAWAD AL-TAMIMI
& OSKAR SVADKOVSKY - Spectator.org
Minority numbers aren't adding up for Bashar Assad's defenses.
It's become an article of faith among policy makers and analysts in the West that Syria is a nation of minorities. Various sources put the share of non-Sunni Muslim minorities at around one quarter of the population. These minorities are believed to constitute the bulk of the support base of the Syrian regime. Some ventured as far as to suggest that the regime was deliberately stoking sectarian tensions with the massacres in Houla and Qubeir in order to consolidate its minority support base.
The commonly accepted percentages of Syrian minorities are: Alawites and Shia -- 13%, Christians -- 10%, and Druze -- 3%. Syria, however, does not collect or publish data related to the sectarian composition of its population and trying to track the origin of common estimates usually leads nowhere.
Syria: Bashar al-Assad swears in minister
as diplomacy stalls at UN President seen for first time since blast that killed three top officials, while Russia and China veto censure of regime
By Ian Black and Martin Chulov - Guardian.co.uk
Bashar al-Assad surfaced in Damascus to swear in a new defence minister to replace one of the three top officials whose killing stunned his regime as rebel fighters took over the country's border crossings into Turkey and Iraq and diplomacy reached a dead end.
Fighting was reported in the capital and across Syria as the president was seen for the first time since Wednesday's bomb blast in the heart of the city. It killed his brother-in-law and security chief, Assef Shawkat, as well as the defence minister and a third senior figure.
Can Assad Be Kept from Using Chemical Weapons?
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
Over at foreignpolicy.com, Andrew Tabler has posted a piece with this pithy billing: "The United States needs to tell the Syrian regime in no uncertain terms: Use chemical weapons and we will end you."
Meanwhile, over on twitter, Dan Drezner sees a weakness in this incentive structure. By taking only modest poetic license, I can render Drezner's tweets in this form:
Assad would probably use chemical weapons only if he felt cornered--felt as if failing to use them would spell doom for his regime and/or him. So it's not as if he'd see the choice of whether or not to use chemical weapons as being between death and life. He'd see the choice as being between one path to death and another path. What's more, since the U.S. threat to end the regime could require a ground invasion for its realization, and America isn't exactly looking for new ground invasions to lead, Assad might think the one path to death--the path of using chemical weapons--would stand some chance of not actually leading to death.
UBS Issues Hyperinflation Warning For US And UK,
Calls It Purely "A Fiscal Phenomenon"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Supposedly warnings about the latent inflationary threat posed by simply ridiculous non-financial debt levels (as presented most recently here yesterday), not to mention financial debt (which as MF Global's rehypothecated implosion demonstrated so vividly can be any number between minus and plus infinity, thank you London "regulators") from the blogosphere can be ignored ($15 trillion melting ice cube that is shadow banking which also doubles as the best inflationary buffer known to man, notwithstanding). After all, what does the blogosphere know: remember, Libor has been repeatedly proven to not be manipulated, as the mainstream media so strenly claimed year after year after year until it had no choice but to do a 180 and pretend its advertiser paid for lies in the past 3 years never existed. But when these same warnings emanate from the "very serious people" at UBS, economists with a Ph.D. at that, it may be a little more difficult to dismiss them. So here it is: "Hyperinflation Revisited" from Caesar Lack, PhD, economist.
Faith in the Feds Ability to Hit Inflation Targets
Continues to Fall
By Ed Dolan - OilPrice.com
The latest inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the CPI unchanged in June, following a 0.3 percent decrease in May. For the full year, the CPI has risen just 1.7 percent, well below the Fed's target of 2 percent. Since the beginning of June, an important indicator of the risk of Japanese-style deflation has begun to rise for the first time in two years. [see chart]
Falling energy prices were the single largest cause of low inflation in June. Energy prices fell by 1.4 percent on the month, led by a 2.3 percent decline in the price of gasoline. The main factor that prevented another overall decrease in the CPI was a 2.7 percent increase in the price of food, driven in part by a severe drought and heat wave in U.S. farm country.
on the flip side... IMF: Euro zone in 'significant' jeopardy from threat of deflation
By Howard Schneider, WashingtonPost.com
Europe could suffer a dangerous bout of deflation if regional officials, including those at the European Central Bank, do not move quickly to support the continent's banks and the wider economy, the International Monetary Fund warned Wednesday.
Using some of its most ominous language yet, the usually understated IMF called the euro zone "unsustainable" in its current form. The agency said the 17-nation currency union is a "half-finished" project and could disintegrate as banks and other nervous investors shelter money in their home countries rather than letting it flow across the euro zone.
Audit the Fed? Bernanke fights back against Ron Paul
By Annalyn Censky @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- In what is likely to be the last showdown between Ron Paul and Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman once again fought back against the Congressman's calls to audit the Federal Reserve.
Rep. Paul, a Republican from Texas and author of "End the Fed", has been trying for years to pass a law that would give Congress the ability to examine the central bank's decision-making process.
Geithner defends U.S. response to 2008 Libor concerns
By Jonathan Spicer and Leah Schnurr
NEW YORK | Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:04pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended himself against criticisms that regulators should have taken bigger steps to address concerns over the credibility of the benchmark Libor interest rate, saying on Wednesday that U.S. authorities had pushed early and forcefully for reforms.
The reliability of the London interbank offered rate, which underpins transactions worth trillions of dollars, has been rattled by revelations that bankers manipulated it to profit on trades and hide their own borrowing costs during the 2007-09 financial crisis.
Bernanke's Libor Alternatives
Submitted by Tyler Durden, Via Stone & McCarthy-ZeroHedge.com
Libor is not a market determined interest rate, rather it is a trimmed mean from a survey of banks participating in a survey conducted on behalf of the British Bankers Association (BBA). There are a number of problems inherent in the survey-based Libor calculation.
First, there is the stigma associated with a higher than average Libor posting. This stigma results in an under-reporting of Libor. Banks that submitted Libor postings above the average submission, risked being punished by speculators, depositors, and other creditors including other banks. This dynamic rendered a "gaming" of submissions that rendered an understandable under-representation of Libor.
Central bankers eyeing whether Libor needs scrapping
By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA | Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:12pm EDT
(Reuters) - Central bankers and regulators will hold talks in September on whether the troubled global Libor interest rate can be reformed or whether it is so damaged that the benchmark of borrowing costs should be scrapped.
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told fellow central bankers in a letter that it was "very clear that radical reforms of the Libor system are needed".
Santelli Slams "It's Not My Job" Bernanke
And Screams "Enough Is Enough"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
CNBC's Rick Santelli is goaded into responding to the easing-based hope that is driving stock prices and levitating every risk asset class. "Enough is enough", he notes, quoting Volcker's recent comments, "as we have to let the economy sink or swim on its own at this point." Liesman's responds by stepping away a little from his comments as he leaves Bernanke alone believing that QE will do some good at the margin (while the economic reporter remains less sure). Implicit in his downgrade of the economy is an increase in the probability of additional QE and retail sales sank the ship. A little later in this brief clip, Rick goes full-Santelli - feeling the need to add a third pillar to the Fed's mandate "if we see something wrong in the market, it's our job to do something about it" with Bernanke's response being "it's not my job". Critically, Rick notes, "if anybody listening or watching right now ever thinks that more regulators will ever stop anything, you have to watch Ben Bernanke - appears to be an honest guy and straightforward though I don't always agree with him - saying 'it's not my job. I don't regulate that.' unbelievable!" The CYA, not-my-problem, someone-else-did-it, keep-my-job mentality when it's front-and-center in the most powerful financial entity in the world is deplorable.
Deep Into The Lieborgate Rabbit Hole:
The Swiss Hedge Fund Link?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
That Lieborgate is about to spill over and take down many more banks is well known: as previously reported that the world's biggest bank Deutsche Bank, has become a rat for the Liebor prosecution having turned sides. The reason: "Under the leniency programs of the EU, companies may get total immunity from fines or a reduction of fines which the anti-trust authorities would have otherwise imposed on them if they hand over evidence on anti-competitive agreements or those involved in a concerted practice." However, just like in the case of Barclays (with Diamond), JPM (with Bruno Iksil), UBS (with Kweku) and Goldman (with Fabrice Tourre), there always is a scapegoat. Today we find just who that scapegoat is. From Bloomberg: "Regulators are investigating the possible roles of Michael Zrihen at Credit Agricole, Didier Sander at HSBC and Christian Bittar at Deutsche Bank, the person said on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The names of the banks and traders were reported earlier today by the Financial Times."
Central Bankers To Discuss Libor's Future In September
By Greg Quinn - Bloomberg.com
Central bankers will join Bank of England Governor Mervyn King in September for a meeting on the possible future of the London interbank offered rate, with talks to be followed the next week by discussion among policy makers at the Financial Stability Board.
King suggested the meeting in a letter to his colleagues on the Economic Consultative Committee, an informal body that includes governors from the Bank for International Settlements, the BIS general manager and central bankers from India and Brazil.
More on LIBOR: Plus, Spitzer takes on Bartiromo
in Japanese Monster-Movie Epic
By Matt Taibbi - rollingstone.com
Was on Viewpoint with the inimitable Eliot Spitzer last night and joined Dennis Kelleher from Better Markets in discussing some of the more upsetting recent revelations from the LIBOR banking scandal -- including most notably the not-so-surprising revelation that Tim Geithner was apprised of the rate-rigging as far back as 2008.
P.S. I advise everyone to check out the Godzilla-v.-Mothra death-battle between Spitzer and Maria Bartiromo from last Friday on her show on CNBC. Maria's always been a little nuts, but this latest crusade to rewrite history and cleanse ex-AIG chief Hank Greenberg of culpability in a fraud scandal that at the time led to the biggest financial settlement ever paid is an absolute head-scratcher.
Bailout fund could become
eurozone budget authority, says ECB
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Eurozone states need to give up more sovereignty in order to fix the construction flaws of the euro, with the bailout fund possibly turning into a budget authority further down the road, European Central Bank board member Joerg Asmussen has said.
"We have construction mistakes of Economic and Monetary Union and it is time to correct them. It is clear that the core of the current debate has a name: further sharing of sovereignty," Asmussen said Tuesday (17 July) at the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank.
The Growing Pressures Likely To Blow The Eurozone Apart
Submitted by Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity - ZeroHedge.com
There was yet another European Union summit at the end of June, which (like all the others) was little more than bluff. Read the official communiqué and you will discover that there were some fine words and intentions, but not a lot actually happened. However, there are some differences when compared with past meetings that need explaining:
Who Needs the Euro When You Can Pay With Deutsche Marks? Germans Hang On to Old Currency;
Admiring Brothers Grimm, Clara Schumann
By VANESSA FUHRMANS - WSJ.com
GAIBERG, Germany—Shopping for pain reliever here on a recent sunny morning, Ulrike Berger giddily counted her coins and approached the pharmacy counter. She had just enough to make the purchase: 31.09 deutsche marks.
"They just feel nice to hold again," the 55-year-old preschool teacher marveled, cupping the grubby coins fished from the crevices of her castaway living room sofa. "And they're still worth something."
Monti plans 'Greek-style' takeover of Sicily to avert default Italian premier Mario Monti is mulling emergency action to take direct control of Sicily's regional government before the island spirals into a full-blown financial crisis, fearing contagion to the rest of Italy.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telrgraph.co.uk
Mr Monti held an "urgent" meeting with the country's president Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday to grapple with the constitutional issue after it emerged that the region faces a deficit of up to €7bn (£5.49bn) this year and is in danger of default without sweeping cuts.
Sicily's regional councillor Andrea Vecchio warned that the island has run out of money. "I'm afraid we will soon no longer be able to pay civil servants' salaries," he said.
"The developments in Sicily are very serious," said Prof Giuseppe Ragusa from Luiss University in Rome. "It is just the sort of negative shock we don't want right now. Everything has to go perfectly for Italy to pull through."
Romania and Bulgaria continue to flout rule of law
BY NIKOLAJ NIELSEN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Contract killings in Bulgaria and a direct affront to the rule of law in Romania are some of the major concerns underlined by the European Commission in its progress reports adopted on Wednesday (July 18).
The Commission said overall both countries have made some progress but neither have fully met their respective benchmarks nor entirely produced convincing results in areas of judicial reform, fight against corruption and organised crime.
Romanian MEP charged with defrauding over €400,000
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Adrian Severin, a Romanian MEP accused of having taken bribes from journalists posing as lobbyists, has been charged with siphoning €436,000 from the EU budget.
Anti-corruption prosecutors in Bucharest on Monday (16 July) said they had filed new charges against Severin, after having started an investigation linked to the 'cash for amendments' scandal uncovered by the Sunday Times last year.
Poor Thieves Go To Jail, Rich Thieves Don't
By John Aziz - ZeroHedge.com
A bank clerk who dreamed of becoming a model stole £46,000 from the tills — and spent it on plastic surgery and shopping sprees...
....Steal thousands from a bank? You face criminal charges, a trial and jail time.
When that same bank manipulates a $600 trillion market by rigging the LIBOR rate for profit? No criminal charges, no trial, no jail time.
In a better world people who rob a company engaged in a manipulative criminal enterprise like LIBOR-rigging would not face criminal charges. There is a case that this girl should be treated as a hero. In stealing the money, she was just getting back a tiny fraction of the money that Barclays stole by rigging LIBOR. And by spending the money at least she gave the money back to the public instead of stashing it away in the Cayman Islands.
Your burger is about to get pricier
By Hibah Yousuf @CNNMoneyInvest
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- As the widespread drought continues to damage grain crops across the Midwest, consumers could soon be facing steeper bills at the grocery store.
"We haven't seen any rain at all, and based on that, food inflation is definitely a real threat," said Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst at the Price Futures Group in Chicago.
The dry, scorching heat has had the most severe impact on corn crops.
Retailers confident lawmakers
will pass legislation for online sales tax
By Bernie Becker - TheHill.com
Retail groups say their campaign for an online sales tax bill is gaining momentum and now say it's a question of when, not if, such a measure is enacted.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) say last week's push for a sales-tax bill in the Senate, though unsuccessful, shows that the idea is gaining traction. The groups say the growing pressure from governors across the country is having an impact and express confidence that a bill will eventually pass Congress.
City Of Compton Next On The Muni Bankruptcy Deck
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Because once the dominoes start, they don't stop. Stockton, Mammoth, San Bernardino and now legendary rap and LA riots nexus - the City of Compton. Fear not: the ESM, and the German population whose retirement age will have to be in the quadruple digit range to fund a broke world, has got this, too, covered. Also, only squares don't make fun of Meredith Whitney for saying municipal America is insolvent, so please do.
The City of Compton, a city of 93,000 people located on the outskirts of Los Angeles, must decide by Sept. 1 whether to seek bankruptcy, according to its two most senior financial officials.
Such a move would see it join a growing number of deficit-hobbled California cities that have used the filing to restructure onerous debt loads.
California's San Bernardino Vote Clears Way To Bankruptcy
By James Nash - Bloomberg.com
San Bernardino, whose government is under criminal investigation, will become the firstCalifornia community to skip prebankruptcy mediation with creditors after the City Council voted to hasten a bid for court protection.
City of San Bernardino, California,
to vote on filing for bankruptcy
By Michael Martinez, CNN
Los Angeles (CNN) -- The City Council of San Bernardino, California, is scheduled to vote late Wednesday on a resolution formally authorizing the filing of bankruptcy.
The council, scheduled to meet at 5 p.m., is to consider first another resolution declaring a fiscal emergency.
Last week, Interim City Manager Andrea Miller and Finance Director Jason Simpson issued a report stating that the city was facing insolvency and its expenditures are projected to exceed revenues by $45 million. The city's general fund reserves had been as high as $19 million in 2001 but are now depleted, the report said.
Post Office Might Miss Retirees' Payment
[Google 'title' for free article pass]
By JENNIFER LEVITZ - WSJ.com $$
While lawmakers continue to fight over how to fix the ailing U.S. Postal Service, the agency's money problems are only growing worse.
The Postal Service repeated on Wednesday that without congressional action, it will default—a first in its long history, a spokesman said—on a legally required annual $5.5 billion payment, due Aug. 1, into a health-benefits fund for future retirees. Action in Congress isn't likely, as the House prepares to leave for its August recess.
Vilsack: Farmers need help from Congress
By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he prays for rain every day, but farmers need action from Congress more than prayers to ease the effects of a drought that is affecting nearly two-thirds of the U.S.
"I get on my knees every day," Mr. Vilsack told reporters at the White House. "And I'm saying an extra prayer now. If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance I could do, I would do it. But honestly, right now the focus needs to be on working with Congress."
House passes bill demanding sequester details
from the Obama administration
By Pete Kasperowicz - TheHill.com
The House approved legislation on Wednesday that would give the Obama administration 30 days to provide details on how it will deal with a required $109 billion cut to 2013 spending, which the administration must impose under last year's debt-ceiling agreement.
The bill enjoyed broad support from both parties and passed easily in a 414-2 vote. The two "no" votes came from Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel (N.Y.) and Maurice Hinchey (N.Y.).
* * * * *
ARPAIO'S OBAMA PROBE FINDS 'NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT' Hawaii found to be bogus birth-certificate factory
WND.com
PHOENIX – After determining earlier this year there is probable cause to suspect the document released by the White House as Barack Obama's birth certificate is a forgery, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said today he believes his Cold Case Posse's investigation should be advanced to the federal government, based on further information released today at a press conference under way now in Phoenix that is being live-streamed by WND.
Cold Case Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo said the new information confirms the document presented to the American public in April 2011 is undoubtedly fraudulent.
Senate Considers Adopting U.N Measure
Regarding Disabled People
by Karla Dial - CitizenLink.com
As a first step toward ratifying a controversial United Nations resolution, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing today on how to care for disabled people.
According to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the "best interests of the child" is the gold standard for deciding how those with disabilities are educated — and by whom, and in what setting.
If two-thirds of the senators choose to ratify it, the treaty would become binding, and supersede all existing federal and state laws concerning parental rights, said Michael Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, who testified at the hearing.
Pentagon, CIA Sued for Lethal Drone Attacks on U.S. Citizens
By David Kravets - Wired.com
Survivors of three Americans killed by targeted drone attacks in Yemen last year sued top-ranking members of the United States government, alleging Wednesday they illegally killed the three, including a 16-year-old boy, in violation of international human rights law and the U.S. Constitution.
"The government has killed three Americans. It should account for its actions. This case gives us an opportunity to do that," Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a press call.
Justice Department Sues Telecom
for Challenging National Security Letter
By Kim Zetter - Wired.com
Last year, when a telecommunications company received an ultra-secret demand letter from the FBI seeking information about a customer or customers, the telecom took an extraordinary step — it challenged the underlying authority of the FBI's National Security Letter, as well as the legitimacy of the gag order that came with it.
Both challenges are allowed under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed information on Americans' finances and communications without oversight from a judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs and been reprimanded for abusing them — though almost none of the requests have been challenged by the recipients.
A hi-tech tale of two cities [UK]:
Ex-bankers are ditching the pinstripes to launch start-ups Ian Burrell meets these new Silicon Roundabout stars
By Ian Burrell - Independent.co.uk
"I'm in flip-flops and shorts at the moment," says former City consultant Tom Blomfield, speaking from the premises of GoCardless, where mountain bikes rest against the wall and colleagues are not discouraged from spending their downtime on the office pool table.
This is a new and emerging branch of Britain's financial services industry, the "FinTech" sector as it's known to insiders. It's where young graduates have eschewed their pin-striped destiny in the Square Mile in favour of the alternative working lifestyle of the internet start-up – but are building dynamic companies based on their specialist knowledge of business.
Online comic Penny Arcade seeks $1 million to go ad-free
By Erin Kim @CNNMoneyTech
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- How much would you pay to skip the ads on your favorite websites? A hit online comic strip is using Kickstarter to find out.
Penny Arcade, an online comic about video games and geek culture,launched a crowdfunding campaign to remove ads from its website for all of 2013.
More than 5,000 fans have already pledged cash, pushing the company past its initial goal of raising $250,000 -- a milestone that took just five days to reach. That sum will cover the cost of removing the ad at the top of the homepage for all of next year.
Franken grills Facebook over facial recognition tool,
cites privacy concerns
By Brendan Sasso - TheHill.com
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pressed a Facebook official on Wednesday to provide stronger privacy protections for the company's tool that identifies users' faces.
He argued that Facebook should require that users opt in to the feature, rather than just allowing them to opt out of it.
He also expressed concern that Facebook does a poor job of explaining how the feature works.
"I'm worried about how Facebook handles the choices it does give users about this technology," Franken said at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, which he chairs.
Natural Gas Explosion in Louisiana Heard 12 Miles Away
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
This morning in southern Louisiana, a 14 inch natural gas pipeline ruptured, causing a large explosion which could be heard up to 12 miles away.
A local paper, the Eunice News, along with local television stations reported that the explosion occurred near to Intracoastal City. The incident took place in a sparsely populated rural area and no injuries have been reported.
The Natural Gas Massacre And Price Spikes
By Wolf Richter - TestosteronePit.com
Forecasting the price of natural gas is easy. The US Energy Information Agency (EIA) does it regularly, and like all seasoned forecasters, it produces a slightly wobbly line that is trending either slightly higher or slightly lower. The graph below shows what this exercise looks like. Given that the dip before the dotted line was the April low of $1.90 per million Btu (MMBtu) at the Henry Hub, a decade low, the slight upward trend seems reasonable.
So, we expect smooth sailing, with gently rising prices as is appropriate for the relaxing calm that reigns in the natural gas market. Alas, reality is a series of violent ups and down with sporadic and vicious spikes.
In North Dakota, the gritty side of an oil boom
By Steven Mufson - WashingtonPost.com
KEENE, N.D. — Donny Nelson is the epitome of old-time North Dakota. A lean, sharp-featured man sporting a thick goatee, jeans and dirty boots, Nelson is the grandson of homesteaders. Over the past century his family has collected 8,000 acres of prime cattle grazing acreage and cropland.
But now Nelson has some unwanted company: Oil prospectors.
Leaked Docs Reveal 'Off the Charts' Damage at US Nuke Plant San Onofre's steam generators in worst shape
of all US nuclear plants
By Common Dreams staff
Problems with the steam generators and miles of tubing at the San Onofre nuclear plant are the most severe found in comparable generators in the US and much more severe than previously reported, according to a new report.
The report by Fairewinds Associates (and commissioned by Friends of the Earth) also provides an analysis of leaked documents (pdf) by plant owner Southern California Edison that shows, despite assertions by the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, thousands of tubes inside both San Onofre reactors are severely damaged.
States' pressure shifted TransCanada stance
on pipeline extension
By Steven Mufson, - WashingtonPost.com
MALTA, Mont. — Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) says that it took some doing to get TransCanada to strike deals for an "on-ramp" that would allow companies drilling for oil in eastern Montana and North Dakota's Bakken reservoir to feed some of their output into the proposed 1,700-mile-long Keystone XL pipeline.
Every time TransCanada asked him about the slow pace of state permitting for the pipeline, Schweitzer said he would ask them about their negotiations with Bakken producers. This went on, he said, for about 18 months.
US Coast Guard Needs Billions of Dollars
to Cover Oil Companies in the Arctic
By James Burgess - OilPrice.com
Shell is one of six energy companies hoping to begin drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic next month. Global warming has led to large amounts of ice melting, which in turn has opened up new areas off Alaska's north coast, ready for oil and gas exploration.
Since 2005 Shell has spent $4.5 billion preparing for its upcoming Arctic adventure, but it now turns out that US citizens may be required to fork out nearly as much in order to control and regulate oil company operations in the Arctic.
U.S. missing out on Arctic land grab
By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- There's an international race to divvy up the Arctic Ocean's oil and mineral bounty, but the United States could lose out on a big chunk of it because it hasn't signed a United Nations treaty governing the area.
Earlier this week two key U.S. senators announced they would not support ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty. The treaty codifies a whole host of maritime laws and customs which could help smooth tensions simmering in the Arctic.
Three US Aircraft Carriers Now In The Middle East
With Fourth En Route
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
A week ago we reported news that Middle East veteran aircraft carrier CVN-74 Stennis was ending its brief sabbatical prematurely, and far earlier than previously expected, and heading right back into the field, er sea, of action. As Kitsapsun reported, "Bremerton-based aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis is returning to the Middle East much sooner than expected. The Navy hasn't officially announced the new deployment plan for the Stennis, said spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Zach Harrell." The ship came home to Naval Base Kitsap on March 2 after seven months of launching planes into Iraq and Afghanistan. Generally, it wouldn't go back to the Fifth Fleet area of responsibility for four to five years, after a deployment to the Western Pacific and a maintenance period. But with Iran making threats, crew members learned Saturday they'll be leaving again in late August for eight months." We concluded that shortly, Stennis will be the third carrier accompanying Lincoln and Enterprise. As it turns out, a third carrier was already en route, and as of today, CVN 69 Eisenhower is either at the opening of the Straits of Hormuz, or just past it. That makes 3 aircraft carriers in the middle east, 2 in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea and one just off the coast of Syria. And technically, the LHD 7 Iwo Jima Big Deck Amphibious ship, which is also just off the coast of Iran region, makes three and a half. Which means that a 5th one (rounded up) - Stennis - is coming in 1-2 months. Good luck Iran.
Theater Intelligence and Assessment,
Heaven Is About To Render Judgement!
By Greg Evensen - SteveQuayle.com
July 18, 2012
Steve:
Within the past few days, I have received information from a retired general who is in a network of "old school" senior officers evaluating the known intelligence concerning a two front combat theater of operations. To keep as much information available to an involved cadre of military and law enforcement agents/agencies, this unofficial, undirected, yet highly qualified working group, have arrived at the conclusion point as I will describe it here.
The overall engagement strategy here is to entice the American military into pledging huge naval assets in the gulf region. The Straits of Hormuz is the "choke point" for all things challenging to Iran. It is here that the Iranian Navy and Air Force will have their greatest chance to inflict REAL damage on our (perversion embracing) armed forces. This is a real point of smack down for the Muslims to bring utter destruction on the American military, the American armed forces, and the American people (infidel society). The Russians and Chinese do NOT have the immediate design or permission from the luciferians to openly face the Americans, however; they will be in the command and control loop that manages the combat theater, once operations begin. This entire scheme is part of a feint to also run interference at Diego Garcia, the staging area for material' and air support. Russian, Chinese and North Korean subs are stationed there with surface ship support. It is clear that events are moving toward an engagement of historic proportions and cataclysmic repercussions on a Biblical scale...
Israel accuses Iran after seven tourists die
in coach bomb blast Bomb placed in trunk of bus with at least 40 people on board was detonated near Burgas airport
By Phoebe Greenwood in Tel Aviv and agencies in Sofia - The Guardian
Israel has accused Iran of ordering a fatal bomb attack on an Israeli tour group in Bulgaria, in which at least seven tourists were killed and 32 injured, three critically.
A group of about 200 mostly young Israelis travelling with the Kavei Chufsha tour company had just flown into the country and were being driven to their hotels in three coaches when the explosion hit one of the vehicles in the Black Sea city of Burgas, 250 miles (400 kilometres) east of the capital, Sofia.
Will the Murder of Israelis in Bulgaria Cause War?
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
Of today's two big stories abroad--the Syrian assassinations and the murder of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria--the Syrian story got more attention. But it was events in Bulgaria that Trita Parsi had in mind when hewrote, in the Daily Beast, "All the ingredients of a repeat of the shots in Sarajevo in 1914 seem to be in place."
Parsi is guessing that Iran, as alleged by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, is behind the terrorism in Bulgaria. He sees this as retaliation for the assassination of Iranian scientists that is widely attributed to Israel.
Iran at Its Strategic Juncture
By Gregory R. Copley - OilPrice.com
Iran, no less than the European Union or the United States of America, faces a series of problems which place it at a critical strategic junction. It now faces urgent challenges, the response to which will determine its viability — even its survival — over the coming decades.
The US thinker Hans Morgenthau said, in Politics Among Nations: "Never put yourself in a position from which you cannot retreat without losing face, and from which you cannot advance without grave risks." Iran has allowed itself to be put in this position, and — with regard to a potential conflict with Iran — Israel and the United States have also allowed themselves to be put in such a position, albeit not so gravely as Iran.
Syria in crisis... Syria rebels kill top chiefs of Assad regime
in Damascus bomb strike Three key figures reported dead amid mass troop defections and rumour of flight to Russia of Bashar al-Assad wife
By Ian Black and Martin Chulov - Guardian.co.uk
Syria's uprising entered uncharted territory after rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad killed three of his top security chiefs in a devastating bomb attack in the heart of Damascus – the single worst loss for the government in 16 months of increasingly bloody struggle.
Mass defections of soldiers and a rampage by pro-regime militiamen were reported in the capital amid a swirl of rumours, including one that Assad's wife, Asma, had fled to Russia and another that troops were being issued with gas masks, raising fears of the use of chemical weapons.
Obama, Putin talk as U.S. says Assad losing grip on Syria
By Andrew Quinn and Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:42pm EDT
(Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was losing control of his country and urged Russia and the international community to get behind a political transition plan to avert sectarian civil war.
U.S. President Barack Obama called Russian President Vladimir Putin - Assad's main international supporter - after a Damascus bomb blast killed Syria's defense minister and Assad's brother-in-law, throwing the 16-month old rebellion onto an unpredictable new path.
Washington worried over Syria attack
By Guy Taylor-The Washington Times
The State Department on Wednesday raised concerns that the security apparatus surrounding Syrian President Bashar Assad is beginning to falter after top Syrians were killed in a bombing at the National Security headquarters.
"We think the regime is losing control in Syria," said State Departmentspokesman Patrick Ventrell, who added that U.S. officials are "watching the situation very closely" amid concerns that a chaotic power vacuum could open should Mr. Assad himself be assassinated.
No sign of Assad after bomb kills kin, rebels close in
By Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes
BEIRUT/AMMAN | Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:50pm EDT
(Reuters) - Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, a day after a bomber killed and wounded his security chiefs and rebels closed in on the centre of Damascus, vowing to "liberate" the capital.
The Syrian leader made no public appearance and no statement after a bomber killed his powerful brother-in-law, his defense minister and a top general.
Assassinations on an epic scale –
but rebels will not claim their greatest prize The appalling scenes in Syria begin to reflect the barbarism of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia
By Robert Fisk - Independent.co.uk
They have gone for the jugular now. The brother-in-law of the President, the Defence Minister, a massive bomb close to – or in – the headquarters of the military apparatus run by the President's own brother. Assassinations take time to plan, but this was on an epic scale, to match the bloodbath across Syria.
Bashar al-Assad's own sister, Bushra, one of the pillars of the Baath party, loses her husband in a massive explosion in the very centre of Damascus. No wonder the Russians talk about the "decisive battle".
The Cure for Our Economy's Stationary State Adam Smith knew what ails us—and he prescribed the cure.
By Niall Ferguson - TheDailyBeast.com
Jesse L. Jackson Jr. has been suffering from "a mood disorder."
He is not alone. The world economy may not be in a depression as bad as that of the early 1930s. But it's certainly got emotional problems.
A year ago, according to Gallup, economic confidence in the United States plunged, touching bottom in late August. It then rallied, only to start sliding again with the arrival of summer. Sunshine doesn't seem to work like it used to.
What is going on?
Fed Chief Says U.S. Economy Has Lost Strength
Chairman Ben Bernanke offered a sour assessment of the U.S. economy Tuesday and said the Federal Reserve is ready to take further action if growth doesn't pick up.
Bernanke: Recession likely if Congress doesn't act
By Martin Crutsinger - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke painted a dark picture of where the U.S. economy is headed if Congress fails to reach agreement soon to avert a budget crisis.
"It would probably knock the recovery back into a recession and cost a lot of jobs, and would greatly delay the recovery that we're hoping to facilitate," said Bernanke at the end of two hours of testimony Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee.
But Bernanke said lawmakers must go beyond the year-end issues and come up with on a plan to shrink the budget deficit. Otherwise, the United States could suffer a financial crisis marked by rising interest rates.
The Federal Reserve Is Not Going To Save Us
From The Great Depression That Is Coming
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his annual address to Congress on Tuesday, and he did very little to give lawmakers much confidence about where the U.S. economy is heading. Bernanke told members of Congress that recent economic data points "suggest further weakness ahead" and that the Federal Reserve is projecting that the U.S. unemployment rate will remain at 7 percent or above all the way through the end of 2014. Now, it is important to keep in mind that Federal Reserve forecasts are almost always way too optimistic. The actual numbers almost always end up being much worse than what the Fed says they will be. So if Bernanke is saying that the U.S. unemployment rate will be 7 percent or higher until the end of 2014, then what will the real numbers end up looking like? During his testimony, Bernanke seemed unusually gloomy about the direction of the U.S. economy. He seemed resigned to the fact that there really isn't that much more that the Federal Reserve can do to stimulate the U.S. economy.
QE3 is pointless as we head over the cliff Fed's powerless about Europe or U.S. fiscal crisis
By MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. economy faces two major risks, and there's nothing Ben Bernanke or the Federal Reserve can do about it.
That's the message Bernanke himself delivered to the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. The message wasn't received by either politicians or markets.
In his twice-a-year official testimony on the state of the economy, Bernanke repeated the warning he's delivered many times before: The economy is weak, threatened with a renewed recession because policy makers here and in Europe are hell-bent on disaster.
MarketWatch full news coverage of Bernanke's testimony Pessimistic Bernanke doesn't commit to action Fed chairman says labor-market gains will be frustratingly slow
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sketched out for members of Congress on Tuesday the weaker economic outlook and stressed that the central bank was prepared to take further action to try to give the recovery a jolt.
In testimony to the Senate Banking Committee as part of his twice-yearly report on monetary-policy issues, Bernanke said that the reduction in the unemployment rate will likely be "frustratingly slow."
Fed's Pianalto says more easing could be warranted
By Kim Palmer
ERIE, Penn. | Tue Jul 17, 2012 3:24pm EDT
(Reuters) - Policy easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve, including buying more bonds, could be warranted if the U.S. economic recovery continues to sputter, as recent data suggest, a top Fed official said on Tuesday.
"If the expansion were to continue to lose momentum, and inflation threatened to run persistently below 2 percent, additional policy action could be warranted," Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto said in remarks that struck a slightly more dovish tone than in May, when she last publicly addressed monetary policy and the economy.
Boston Fed wants discount rate cut, KC Fed a hike
(Reuters) - The Boston Federal Reserve Bank again pushed for a cut in the central bank's rate for emergency bank loans in June while its Kansas City counterpart sought an increase, minutes of central bank board meetings showed.
The Fed has kept the discount rate steady at 0.75 percent, following the recommendation of the other 10 regional Fed banks.
At its most recent meeting in June, the Fed decided to extend a program where it buys long-term debt to keep borrowing costs low by using the proceeds from shorter-dated securities so as to not increase the size of its balance sheet.
Bernanke offers few hints on further Fed easing
By Pedro da Costa and Mark Felsenthal
WASHINGTON | Tue Jul 17, 2012 2:28pm EDT
(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday offered few new clues on whether the U.S. central bank was moving closer to a fresh round of monetary stimulus, even as he underscored his concerns over the economy's weakness.
Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee the U.S. economic recovery was being held back by anxiety over Europe's debt crisis and the path of U.S. fiscal policy.
US economy has slowed significantly, says Ben Bernanke Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said the economy had slowed significantly in recent months due to the continuing eurozone debt crisis and uncertainty surrounding US fiscal policy
By Richard Blackden - Telegraph.co.uk
In prepared testimony to Congress on Tuesday, Mr Bernanke forecast slower growth for this year and next.
Shares on Wall Street turned negative when he said the central bank stood ready to offer additional monetary support for the world's biggest economy but provided few details.
In a blow to Barack Obama and others hopeful for better economic news ahead of November's presidential elections, hje said US economic data had been "disappointing".
Bernanke disappoints markets with no stimulus hint
By CARLO PIOVANO
LONDON (AP) — Global markets turned lower on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a gloomy assessment of the economy but offered no hint that the central bank might offer new monetary stimulus.
In his semiannual report before Congress, Bernanke said the U.S. economy has weakened and repeated that the Fed, as usual, is ready to take action to bolster growth if needed. However, he provided no clues about what steps the Fed could take or whether any action was coming soon.
The comments disappointed investors, who were hoping Bernanke would sound more aggressive about helping the U.S. economy, which is struggling to create jobs.
How Bernanke will cause the next crash before 2014 Rich will lose 50% in massive wealth destruction
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — "Massive wealth destruction coming," warns Hong Kong economist Marc Faber, one of many "Dr. Dooms" we've featured over the years.
Faber warned in a recent interview on CNBC: The Super-Rich "may lose up to 50 percent of their total wealth."
How? "Somewhere down the line we will have a massive wealth destruction. That usually happens either through very high inflation or through social unrest or through war or credit-market collapse." And as if to punctuate his message, in Barron's recent "Midyear Roundup," Faber was asked, "Will things get worse before they get better?"
US Federal Reserve chairman disappoints markets Ben Bernanke delivers gloomy assessment of US economy and offers no hint central bank will embark on QE3
Agencies - Guardian.co.uk
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke disappointed markets on Tuesday as he gave a gloomy assessment of the US economy and offered no hint that the central bank might embark on another round of monetary stimulus.
In his twice-yearly report before Congress in Washington, Bernanke said the US economy has weakened and repeated that the Fed was ready to take action to bolster growth if needed. However, he provided no clues about what steps the Fed could take or whether any extension of the Fed's multi-trillion dollar money-printing scheme, known as quantitative easing or QE, was planned.
The eurozone endgame will begin in Greece Greece won't be able to make its austerity policies stick and, as the global depression worsens, will have to leave the eurozone
By Costas Lapavitsas - Guardian.co.uk
The June summit of the eurozone was initially trumpeted as a decisive step towards resolving the crisis. Italy and Spain won agreement to allow European institutions to recapitalise banks and purchase sovereign debt directly.
But once financial markets had a closer look, it became clear that little of substance had been achieved, and the borrowing costs of Italy and Spain again approached forbidding heights. Meanwhile the Spanish government has imposed fresh austerity, breaking its promises to the electorate. And unemployment in the eurozone continues to rise,exceeding 11% on average.
Fund managers expect more trouble in Germany Fund managers from across the world have begun to doubt Germany's ability to withstand further shocks from the region's debt crisis, registering a stark change in view since the late spring.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The monthly survey of funds by Bank of America Merrill Lynch has picked up a sudden crumbling of confidence in the eurozone core, with France viewed as the country most likely to deliver a nasty surprise later this year. Europe's debt crisis is by far the biggest worry worldwide, with the US "fiscal cliff" and China's property slide well behind.
A net 32 of money managers expect trouble in Germany, a dramatic reversal since May. The worries may be linked to the Bundesbank's rocketing claims on eurozone central banks under the ECB's "Target2" payment system, now €729bn (£572m). These reflect the scale of capital flight from the Club Med bloc, and may prove hard to collect if the euro blows apart.
Keiser Report: Cotton Candy Fraud (E315)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss how market participants are never more than a few milliseconds away from the next act of fraud and how a teaspoon of collateral leads to economic martial law. They also discuss German economists proposing that the wealthy be forced to buy bonds while in Spain the government and EU force bank losses on cooks and pensioners. In the second half of the show, oil analyst, Chris Cook, about how, despite sanctions, oil will always find a home; the Enron technique of pre-pay now being used by Enron's former counterparties; and how stability is the death for the oil market middlemen.
HSBC executive resigns before Senate
as bank apologises for 'horrific' actions Bank faces massive fines from US justice department for lapses that resulted in laundering money to drug cartels and terrorists
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Executives with Europe's biggest bank, HSBC, were subjected to a humiliating onslaught from US senators on Tuesday over revelations that staff at its global subsidiaries laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels, terrorists and pariah states.
Lawmakers hammered the British-based bank over the scandal, demanding to know how and why its affiliates had exposed it to the proceeds of drug trafficking and terrorist financing in a "pervasively polluted" culture that persisted for years.
Seven Banks Under U.K. Libor Investigation As FSA Criticized
By Lindsay Fortado and Ben Moshinsky - Bloomberg.com
The U.K. financial regulator said it's investigating seven lenders over attempts to manipulate interbank offered rates as lawmakers criticized it for not opening the probe earlier.
The regulator didn't pay attention to warning signs or react fast enough to reports of problems with Libor rates, lawmaker George Mudie told Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner.
Bernanke Defends U.S. Regulators in Libor Scandal
By Dunstan Prial - FOXBusiness
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday defended U.S. regulators' response to suspicions in 2008 that a key global interest rate was being manipulated.
But Bernanke said even today he can't guarantee that Libor rates are accurate because few of the reforms proposed by U.S. regulators at the time were accepted by British banking officials.
Bernanke in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee painted a picture of an aggressive response by the New York Federal Reserve, which the Fed chief said said quickly offered proposals for structural reform for setting interbank borrowing rates.
Tim Geithner "Aided and Abetted" LIBOR Crimes: Jim Rickards
By Aaron Task | Daily Ticker - Finance.Yahoo.com
The economy is the main event but the LIBOR scandal will be on the under-card when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies before Congress today and tomorrow.
At issue is what the Fed, and other bank regulators, knew about manipulation of the key lending rate and whether they condoned banks giving low-ball estimates of LIBOR in order to make themselves look healthier during the crisis of 2008.
Bernanke is likely to face some inquires about this issue, but the U.S. regulator most questions are being asked about is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who is set to testify about the matter before the House Financial Services committee next week.
Libor scandal:
Barclays 'in denial' over dealings
with regulators – Mervyn King Bank of England governor under fire from MPs during latest bout of accusation and counter-accusation
By Jill Treanor, City editor - Guardian.co.uk
Barclays was in a "state of denial" about its dealings with regulators, according to Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, as he came under fire from MPs on Tuesday during the latest bout of accusation and counter-accusation over the Libor scandal.
As emails were released showing the close relationship between the former Barclays boss Bob Diamond and deputy governor of the Bank of England Paul Tucker, King accused Barclays of repeatedly sailing "close to the wind" in its dealings with regulators before Diamond's departure. Tucker had thanked Diamond for being a "brick" in an email in December 2008.
Goldman Sachs builds private bank - WSJ
(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs is building an in-house private bank to serve wealthy customers around the world as part of a cautious strategy to reshape its business, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The banking push, which has not been previously disclosed, will give Goldman more deposits, a source of low-cost funding less vulnerable to the vagaries of financial markets.
Goldman Sachs Controlling Costs Through Pay
By: Mary Thompson - CNBC Reporter
Goldman Sachs reported better-than-expected second quarter earningshelped in large part by strict cost controls, something the firm said will continue to play a key role in its profitability in the coming quarters.
"In a difficult operating environment we have two principal levers to enhance returns: expense and capital management," said CFO David Viniar on a conference call.
To that end, the firm is looking to cut expenses by an additional $500 million dollars. Those added cuts come in the wake of a completed $1.4 billion expense initiative.
Goldman Sachs profits fall 11%
Wall Street bank's net profit for the three months to June was $962m (£612m), compared with over $1bn in the second quarter of 2011
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Goldman Sachs' profits fell 11% in the second quarter as the weak global economy cut demand for investment banking. Net profit for the three months to June was $962m (£612m) and net revenues were $6.63bn, compared with profits of $1.08bn on revenues of $7.28bn in the same period last year.
Revenue from equity underwriting, which included fees from Facebook's controversial IPO, fell 37% on the year to $239m.
Goldman's golden egg turns leaden; bank plans cuts
By Lauren Tara LaCapra
July 17 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc's quarterly profit fell 12 percent as investment income plunged, reflecting the pressure the bank faces as demand for its services remains tepid and regulators clamp down on bank risk-taking.
In an environment the investment bank characterized as "tough," Goldman said it was embarking on a new round of cost-cutting, which will include laying off some senior employees.
Congress is unpopular
By Henrik Temp - AEIdeas.com
According to the July edition of AEI's Political Report, "Congress remains deeply unpopular and high confidence in the institution falls below all 16 institutions Gallup examined recently."
Stop the presses. Congress is unpopular!? I had no idea.
In all seriousness, though, everyone knows that Congress is unpopular, and has been for some time (see chart above). As John McCain likes to joke, Congressional approval is pretty much down to paid staff and blood relatives at this point. What many people may not realize, however, is just how poorly Congress does when compared to other American institutions. It's not just in last place, it's indead last:
The Left refuses to face facts
on Fannie and Freddie's role in the financial crisis
By Peter J. Wallison - AEIdeas.com
They are truly crazed. The Left just can't stand any challenge to their narrative about the financial crisis and will go to absurd lengths to prevent views different from their own from getting exposure. Below is a "review" on Amazon.com of Oonagh McDonald's recent book, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Turning the American Dream Into a Nightmare." The book is a carefully researched and thorough description of how an ideologically-based desire to increase low-income home ownership led to the insolvency of Fannie and Freddie and the financial crisis.
"Cliff" Tax Hikes Could Cost 710,000 Jobs
By: Robert Frank - CNBC.com
Hiking taxes on upper-income Americans could cost 710,000 jobs, according to a new study.
The study, from Ernst & Young, and a collection of pro-business groups that includes the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, looked at the impact of raising taxes on capital gains and dividends and hiking the top two individual tax rates to 36% and 39.6% respectively. It also included the tax hikes for health-care reform.
Income Equality Is the Road to Middle-Class Taxation
By Brian Domitrovic - Forbes.com
It's staple fare in opinion pages and textbooks these days that "inequality" has been on the rise in this country over the past generation. President Obama's economic policy, for what it's worth, has been based on this premise. The introduction to Obama's first budget, back in 2009, went on at length:
"For the better part of three decades, a disproportionate share of the Nation's wealth has been accumulated by the very wealthy. [Yet] instead of using the tax code to lessen these increasing wage disparities, changes in the tax code over the past eight years exacerbated them. … By 2004, the wealthiest 10 percent of households held 70 percent of total wealth, and the combined net worth of the top 1 percent of families was larger than that of the bottom 9 percent. In fact, the top 1 percent took home more than 22 percent of total national income, up from 10 percent in 1980."
If You Don't Buy Insurance, Will You Really Pay the Tax?
Generally speaking, if you owe the IRS, it will get the money from you—with the possible exception of the ObamaCare tax.
By Joseph Antos and Michael R. Strain - The American Magazine
Now that the Supreme Court has decided that ObamaCare's mandate to buy health insurance is a tax, will the IRS be able to collect it?
Generally speaking, if you owe the IRS, it will get the money from you—with the possible exception of the ObamaCare tax. Though ObamaCare's individual mandate imposes a tax on people who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, the law explicitly neuters the IRS's ability to collect the tax.
Calif. cities eye plan to seize mortgages
By AMY TAXINCHRISTINA REXRODE via FindLaw.com
FONTANA, Calif. (AP) — In the foreclosure-battered inland stretches of California, local government officials desperate for change are weighing a controversial but inventive way to fix troubled mortgages: Condemn them.
Officials from San Bernardino County and two of its cities have formed a local agency to consider the plan. The securities industry has been quick to register its displeasure and say it will only make loans harder to get.
State budget crisis seen lasting
By Matt Michaels of Medill News Service
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Even if the U.S. economy rebounds from the meltdown of 2008, leading budget experts said Tuesday that the financial crises facing many states will continue indefinitely.
The State Budget Crisis Task Force — an independent group led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former New York Lieutenant Gov. Richard Ravitch — said rising Medicaid costs, expected federal budget cuts, underfunded pensions, volatile tax revenue and encumbering laws will prevent states from developing a sustainable budget unless significant changes are made.
Fiscal Crisis in States
Will Last Beyond Slump, Report Warns
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
and MICHAEL COOPER - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — The fiscal crisis for states will persist long after the economy rebounds as states confront financial problems that include rising health care costs, underfunded pensions, ignored infrastructure needs, eroding revenues and expected federal budgetcuts, according to a report issued here Tuesday by a task force of respected budget experts.
The severity of the long-term problems facing states is often masked by lax state budget laws and opaque accounting practices, according to thereport, an independent analysis of six states released by a group calling itself the State Budget Crisis Task Force. The report said that the financial collapse of 2008, which caused the most serious fiscal crisis for states since the Great Depression, exposed a number of deep-set financial challenges that will grow worse if no action is taken by national policy makers.
US states face fiscal problems
that will likely diminish services, report says
By Associated Press, WashingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — U.S. states face long-term budget burdens that are already limiting their ability to pay for basic services such as law enforcement, local schools and transportation, a report released Tuesday said.
Aging populations and rising health care costs are inflating Medicaid and pension expenses. At the same time, revenue from sales and gas taxes is shrinking. And grants from the federal government, which provide about a third of state revenue, are likely to shrink, the report said.
Senators debate security of electricity grid
By Shaun Waterman-The Washington Times
The current system for protecting the U.S. electricity grid from cyberattacks is inadequate, leaving the nation's power system open to sabotage by hackers, spies and terrorists, senators warned Tuesday.
The warning comes as the deadline for the Senate to act on a cybersecurity bill before the August recess draws near, negotiations stymied by differences on the degree of regulation required.
Volcker Report Sees U.S. Cuts As Threatening States
By William Selway - Bloomberg.com
Budget cuts in Washington may put added pressure on state governments already strained by employee pensions and rising health-care costs, according to a report by a group led by formerFederal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
Congress's need to reduce the budget deficit jeopardizes state aid as well as tax breaks, including those for buyers of municipal bonds, which assist state and local governments, according to the report released today by a panel of former government officials. It's led by Volcker, 84, and Richard Ravitch, 79, New York's Lieutenant Governor in 2009 and 2010 and state adviser during New York City's fiscal crisis in the 1970s.
[NY] State Budget Crisis Must Be Addressed,
Before It's Too Late
By Richard Ravitch, Former Lieutenant Governor, New York
While much has been said of our problems around the growing federal debt and deficit, very little light has been shed on the other half of what I call the perfect storm. And that is why the State Budget Crisis Task Force was established last year to better understand the extent of the fiscal problems faced by the states in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
The 11-member Task Force that I co-chaired with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker today unveiled the first-ever comprehensive report detailing states' fiscal sustainability and actions that can be taken to address them.
North Las Vegas Officially In State Of Emergency
After Mounting Financial Woes
By CRISTINA SILVA - HuffingtonPost.com
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- There are no signs of rioters, wind-damaged homes or flooding. The brand new City Hall features gleaming marble floors and the public recreation centers offer Zumba, karate and Pilates classes.
Despite all of its suburban trimmings, North Las Vegas is officially a disaster area.
After five years of declining property taxes, massive layoffs and questionable spending, leaders of the blue-collar, family-oriented city outside Las Vegas declared a state of emergency, invoking a rarely used state law crafted for unforeseen disasters.
Bernanke Predicts Slow Progress On Unemployment
By Joshua Zumbrun and Craig Torres - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told lawmakers that progress in reducing unemployment is likely to be "frustratingly slow" and repeated that the central bank is ready to take further action to boost the recovery, while refraining from pledging any new policies.
Bernanke, responding to questions during testimony today to the Senate Banking Committee in Washington, said easing tools include further purchases of assets, such as mortgage-backed securities, reducing the interest rate that the Fed pays on reserves banks keep with the Fed, and altering its communications on the outlook for interest rates.
Paul Ryan rips Obama's comment
that 'if you've got a business — you didn't build that.
Somebody else made that happen'
By James Pethokoukis - AEIdeas.com
It was Rep. Paul Ryan's wife, Janna, who first saw — via Twitter — President Obama's recent comments about American entrepreneurs, that "if you've got a business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
And the Wisconsin Republican — thought to be on Mitt Romney's running-mate short list — couldn't believe it. He thought someone must "have been putting words in the president's mouth."
But Obama said it all. And Ryan absolutely tore into the president in a chat I had with him earlier today. Among the highlights:
Hawker Can Negotiate With Superior Aviation, Court Says
By Dawn McCarty - Bloomberg.com
Hawker Beechcraft Inc., the bankrupt business-jet maker owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Onex Corp. (OCX), received court permission to negotiate exclusively with bidder Superior Aviation Beijing Co.
Allowing the company 45 days to negotiate "really doesn't change the status quo," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein said at a hearing today in Manhattan. Bernstein approved the agreement over the objections of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
After review, Boy Scouts reaffirm ban on gays
AP - FOXNews.com
NEW YORK – After a confidential two-year review, the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday emphatically reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays, ruling out any changes despite relentless protest campaigns by some critics.
An 11-member special committee, formed discreetly by top Scout leaders in 2010, "came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts," the organization' national spokesman, Deron Smith, told The Associated Press.
Arizona's sheriff Joe Arpaio faces civil lawsuit
over racial profiling allegations Controversial Maricopa County sheriff will testify this week in class action lawsuit over sweeps of Latino neighborhoods
By Karen McVeigh in New York - Guardian.co.uk
The self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America", Joe Arpaio, will be called to account in a courtroom this week over long-standing accusations that he is waging an unlawful campaign of discrimination and harassment against Latinos.
Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, will be questioned before a federal judge in Phoenix in a class action lawsuit over allegations that his so-called "crime suppression" sweeps racially profile Latinos and those who look like them rather than target any evidence of criminal activity.
Lane County, Oregon, Releasing Nearly 100 Inmates,
Some Killers, Amid Budget Woes
Budget cuts may not kill, but they can lead to the release of killers.
Oregon's Lane County this month freed 92 of its prisoners, some of them accused killers, after closing an entire wing in its facility, according to Foxnews.com. The county is facing a $100 million budget deficit and, in an aim to close the gap, is leaving more than two-thirds of its jail beds empty. Other things that have fallen victim to cuts: Nearly 65 positions in the Sheriff's department, leaving up to 8 hours per day when there's no one to respond to calls for help.
As cities and states across the country face budget crises, many have been forced to cut essential services. More than half of U.S. cities boosted fees, stopped construction on city projects or laid off staff last year, according to a September National League of Cities report. In some extreme cases, municipalities have even filed for bankruptcy protection. San Bernardino last week became the third California city in less than two weeks to seek bankruptcy protection.
Rules a burden for hunters
The Republic | azcentral.com
Not all the infernos are raging in the nation's forests. A huge conflagration has erupted over the public's ability to use the national forests, especially people who want to drive a wheeled vehicle off designated roads.
Things are changing on the forest edge. On instructions from Washington, D.C., the U.S. Forest Service has reviewed access policies in each forest region and, as a result, serious cutbacks are under way.
Motorized vehicles, including camper trailers and motor homes, must park no further than 30 feet from a designated roadway.
Cutting-Edge "Maple Seed" Drones
are About to Reshape High-Tech Surveillance
JULY 17, 2012
BY MICHAEL A. ROBINSON,
Defense and Technology Specialist, Money Morning
A new generation of small drones and robots are about to reshape the world of high-tech surveillance.
They include drones that look like the seeds of a maple tree and others that can fly in formation like a flock of birds.
Soon swarms of drones will hit the skies and take to the oceans...
They could provide remote surveillance for complex systems like oil rigs and power plants. Or they could help farmers track crop yields and insects in their fields.
But no matter how you slice it this is cutting-edge stuff...
Take the case of the newest entry from Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT). Its latest spy drone is called the Samarai.
* * * * *
How Far Agenda 21 Has Come,
And How To Stop It - Dr. Michael Coffman
A truly informative lecture on America's threat Agenda 21 by Dr. Michael Coffman who is responsible for stalling the implementation of Agenda 21 for the last 18 years. If you are one of those who does not believe that there is a serious effort to reduce the population and control man's existence by a New World Order, then watch this video.
What's the U.S. Up to in Egypt?
Clinton in Cairo
by ESAM AL-AMIN - CounterPunch.org
Over the past weekend Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Egypt for the first time since the election in late June of Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Dr. Muhammad Morsi. During her visit, Clinton not only met with the new president but also sat with Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the same military council that has been effectively ruling the country since Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February 2011.
Gold looks bullish, to reach $1,840/oz
by year end: Goldman Sachs
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): New York based global investment banking firm Goldman Sachs Group is maintaining a bullish view on gold and lists a year-end forecast of $1,840 an ounce.
"As we look forward, our U.S. economists forecast subdued growth and further easing by the Fed, which should push the market's expectations of real rates back down and gold prices back to our 6-month forecast of $1,840/toz," the American bank added.
'Gold to hit $2000/oz in a year'
VIENNA (Commodity Online): Gold prices are likely to reach $2000 an ounce in 12 months, said Erste Group Bank AG, one of the largest financial services providers in Central and Eastern Europe.
According to the bank, gold is yet to peak, bolstered by low real interest rates and the desire for secure, sustainable forms of savings and investments
As the Federal Reserve will continue its zero interest policy until at least 2014, real interest will continue to be negative, laying the ground for gold price to climb higher.
Gold Climbs As U.S. Retail Data
Increase Stimulus Speculation
By Glenys Sim - Bloomberg.com
Gold advanced after data showed that U.S. retail sales unexpectedly declined last month, increasing speculation that the Federal Reserve will take more steps to shore up the world's biggest economy.
Spot gold climbed as much as 0.4 percent to $1,596.25 an ounce, and was at $1,595 at 9:42 a.m. in Singapore. August- delivery bullion gained as much as 0.3 percent to $1,596 an ounce on the Comex in New York, and traded at $1,594.50.
Gold to focus on possibility
of QE this week: Standard bank
LONDON (Commodity Online): The gold market is likely to spend much time this week focused on the prospects for further U.S. quantitative easing, as traders scrutinize a heavy slate of economic data and congressional testimony on the economy from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Gold to play along physical markets soon: Barclays
LONDON (Commodity Online): The next potential trigger to drive gold prices higher may be how fiscal policy makers intend to deal with the "fiscal cliff" in early 2013, which leaves gold in the hands of the physical market in the near-term, said Barclays Capital in a research note.
Gold prices had held up well ahead of the FOMC meeting in June, but only temporarily, before they tumbled below $1600/oz, a new low for the month as the Fed decided to continue its programme to extend the average maturity of its securities (ie, Operation Twist) and amid dollar strength and weaker-than-expected macro data.
Dollar Weak Before Bernanke Senate Testimony
By Masaki Kondo and Kristine Aquino - BusinessWeek.com
The dollar weakened against most of its major peers amid speculation Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will hint at further monetary easing in testimony before Congress today.
The greenback slid for a third day versus the euro after an unexpected drop in U.S. retail sales rekindled speculation the Fed will introduce additional steps to support the world's largest economy. The 17-nation euro was 0.2 percent from the lowest in more than three years against the pound before German data that may signal deteriorating confidence among investors.
The Trillion-Dollar Question
By Mark Reeth - The Motley Fool.com
Sequestration, the automatic budget cuts for various U.S. government programs, is no laughing matter for major defense contractors. If Congress doesn't act to stop the cuts from taking place, they will begin in June 2013 and reduce the U.S.' defense budget over the next 10 years by $492.3 billion. And that would be on top of around $500 billion already slashed over the next 10 years. While many government defense contractors are exposed to the budget cuts, one company that may have more to lose than any other is Northrop Grumman.
World economy heads for another perfect storm The International Monetary Fund's latest "World Economic Outlook" makes for chilling reading. A perfect storm in which all parts of the world economy go down together seems fast to be gestating somewhere out in the mid-Atlantic.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
True enough, the IMF has not reduced its forecasts of world growth for this year and next by very much — just 0.1 and 0.2pc respectively — but it notes some key downside risks, and it is not just the problems of the eurozone it is talking about this time either. Already struggling to return to growth, the UK needs these new pressures like a hole in the head.
To the all too familiar economic threats posed by the eurozone must now be added the approaching "fiscal cliff" in the US, whose own nascent recovery is in any case fast losing momentum, and the evident slowdown in emerging markets.
Moody's downgrades 13 Italian banks Moody's cut its rating for 13 Italian banks this evening, citing the weakened borrower standing of the Italian government after its credit grade was downgraded last week.
By AFP - Telegraph.co.uk
The ratings fell by one to two notches, with Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo both falling to Baa2 from A3.
"Today's actions follow the weakening of the Italian government's credit profile," Moody's said in a statement.
"Along with the increase in the risk of sovereign bond defaults, the downgrade of Italy's long-term ratings to Baa2 also indicates a similarly increased risk that the government might be unable to provide financial support to its banks in financial distress."
Spain debt costs to stay high in wake of austerity plan
By Nigel Davies
MADRID | Mon Jul 16, 2012 7:07pm EDT
(Reuters) - Spain's borrowing costs are likely to stay high on Tuesday when it tests investor appetite for its debt for the first time since announcing more austerity last week, suggesting markets remain unconvinced it can avoid a European bailout.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy unveiled a package of savings and tax hikes worth 65 billion euros ($80 billion) over the next two and a half years, in a bid to demonstrate that Madrid can control its finances. But market doubts have kept its debt costs elevated.
Senate report criticizes HSBC for money laundering,
inadequate monitoring
By Brady Dennis - WashingtonPost.com
The U.S. affiliate of global banking giant HSBC was for years a haven for foreign money laundering, drug-trafficking money and potential terrorist financing activities, largely because of the bank's woefully inadequate monitoring practices, according to a 340-page Senate report scheduled for release Tuesday.
The report chastises the bank's primary U.S. regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, for failing to take more aggressive enforcement measures against the bank after the OCC became aware of illicit activities.
HSBC faces grilling over US money laundering
By STEPHEN FOLEY - Independent.co.uk
Murderous Mexican drug cartels, financiers of terrorist organisations, tax exiles with Cayman Island bank accounts, and suspicious Russians who claimed to be in the used car business – all of them used HSBC to launder money through the United States, according to a damning Congressional report out today.
Executives from the British bank face a roasting in front of a Senate panel after a months-long investigation into lapses across the company over the last decade, when huge imports of US banknotes from Mexico and suspicious quantities of travellers cheques failed to raise the red flags they ought to have.
What We Really Need to Be Asking About JPMorgan
By Matt Koppenheffer - TheMotley Fool.com
JPMorgan Chase's (NYSE: JPM ) "London Whale" is still on the tip of everyone's tongue. That's as it should be since the debacle has already cost the bank close to $6 billion.
But, if we step back for a moment, the question we should be asking is: Why does JPMorgan's chief investment office -- the source of the rapidly metastasizing trade -- have an investment portfolio of $323 billion in the first place? Or, in other words, why is JPMorgan trading its deposit base rather than making loans?
Criminal Inquiry Shifts To JPMorgan's
Mispricing Of Hundreds Of Billions In CDS:
Is Dimon The Next Diamond?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
On the last day of May, when we first learned via Bloomberg that there was even the scantest likelihood that JPM may have been massaging its CDS marks within the (London-based of course) CIO organization - the backbone of hundreds of billions in notional exposure, and thus a huge counterfeited benefit to trader bonuses and corporate earnings - we wrote, "The Second Act Of The JPM CIO Fiasco Has Arrived - Mismarking Hundreds Of Billions In Credit Default Swaps" in which we explained precisely how this activity would and did take place, precisely why other traders caught doing the same are on the verge of being thrown in jail, precisely why everyone else does it, and precisely why the biggest CDS self-reporting and client/banker owned-organization (this is where images of Libor should appear), MarkIt, may well be implicated in everything - very much in the same way that the BBA is the heart of Lie-borgate.
Barclays just the first of many: finance expert
Bartlett Naylor, a financial expert and the former chief of investigations for the US senate banking committee. He says Barclays may be just the first big bank to be caught in the latest scandal.
NY, Conn. probing banks over Libor manipulation
Reuters - NYPost.com
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has launched a probe into possible manipulation of the Libor benchmark international lending rates by global banks, his spokesman said on Sunday.
Schneiderman, along with Connecticut's Attorney General George Jepsen started the investigation six months ago into the possible rigging of Libor, the London interbank offered rate, New York Attorney General spokesman James Freedland told Reuters.
Barclays boss told me to change Libor, says banker Jerry del Missier tells MPs he believed he was acting on Bank of England's instruction when he manipulated interest rates in 2008
By Jill Treanor, Guardian.co.uk
A former senior Barclays executive has justified his decision to order his staff to manipulate interest rates during the 2008 banking crisis because he believed he was acting on the instruction of the Bank of England.
Jerry del Missier also spread the blame throughout the bank by revealing that its compliance department had been told about the instruction to reduce the Libor level, and that no action was taken.
Former Barclays executive insists
Bob Diamond instructed him to cut Libor Jerry del Missier told MPs he spoke directly to former chief executive before instructing staff to cut bank's Libor submission
By Jill Treanor, Guardian.co.uk
Jerry del Missier, a former top Barclays banker, revealed that he spoke directly to his former boss Bob Diamond before instructing staff to cut the bank's submission to Libor.
He also revealed that the bank's compliance department was informed that traders were going to attempt to manipulate the crucial interest rate.
In evidence to MPs following his resignation as chief operating officer of Barclays, Del Missier was adamant that Diamond instructed him to cut the Libor rate following a conversation with Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England.
Geithner yawned at epic fraud
By Charles Gasparino - NYPost.com
Tim Geithner had evidence of a financial crime of epic proportion — so he wrote a memo.
That's about the only way you can sum up the then-New York Fed boss' actions several years ago, when he was confronted with fairly compelling evidence that banks under his direct supervision were manipulating Libor — a key benchmark of global finance.
The Libor scandal has become pretty big news, with Barclays ousting its CEO and agreeing to pay a large fine even as it cooperates with civil and criminal law-enforcement authorities now investigating other big banks.
Libor scandal riles Calpers chief investment officer
(Reuters) - The biggest U.S. public pension fund will seek damages if it finds it has been hurt by the Libor scandal, its chief investment officer said on Monday.
Suspected manipulation by global banks of Libor benchmark international rates shows the financial services industry cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of long-term investors like the California Public Employees' Retirement System and any misdeeds uncovered in Libor probes need to prosecuted, said Joe Dear, who oversees the assets of the $233 billion pension fund.
Q&A: What the LIBOR scandal might mean
for the leveraged loan market
By Steve Miller - LeveragedLoan.com
Syndicated loans are, perhaps, the credit product most associated with LIBOR. Not only are virtually all loans set to a spread over LIBOR, but so are liabilities backing CLOs, the market's essential funding source over the past decade.
Portfolio managers say Barclays' recent admission that it attempted to manipulate the rate has led to an overwhelming amount of calls and e-mails from senior management, liability holders, and investors. The questions break down into four main categories. Here's a rundown and some early views based on conversations with participants (though the comments are admittedly speculative):
Libor Lie – A Black Swan?
By Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com
The Libor interest rate rigging scandal is being called the biggest financial fraud in history. Libor is a key interest rate that is used globally to set as much as $800 trillion in transactions. It is used to set interest rates for things such as credit cards, student loans, mortgages, corporate bonds and hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives. Libor stands for the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate. It is supposed to be an estimate of what it would cost for some of the biggest banks in the world to borrow money from one another. Sixteen global banks are involved in setting the rate, three of which are in the U.S. (JP Morgan, B of A, and Citi.) It was recently revealed by Barclays Bank (in the UK) that this key interest rate quoted by most of these banks was nothing more than a gigantic rate rigging scheme.
Libor: They all knew – and no one acted Regulator's claim it knew nothing thrown into doubt as documents show authorities were told of rate-rigging in 2008
By BEN CHU - Independent.co.uk
Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic failed to act on clear warnings that the Libor interest rate was being falsely reported by banks during the financial crisis, it emerged last night.
A cache of documents released yesterday by the New York Federal Reserve showed that US officials had evidence from April 2008 that Barclays was knowingly posting false reports about the rate at which it could borrow in order to assuage market concerns about its solvency.
Goldman Sachs and the $580 Million Black Hole
By LOREN FELDMAN - NYTimes.com
THE business deal from hell began to crumble even before the Champagne corks were popped.
The deal, the $580 million sale of a highflying technology company, Dragon Systems, had just been approved by its board and congratulations were being exchanged. But even then, at that moment of celebration, there was a sense that something was amiss.
Clouds gather over money market funds
By Steve Johnson - FT.com
In March, a European Commission green paper raised the spectre of the continent's money market funds being forced to scrap their cherished constant €1-a-share structure and instead adopt the variable pricing model common to the rest of the asset management industry.
If the doommongers are to be believed, a different branch of Europe's governing apparatus may achieve exactly the same effect.
When bankers get nervous, watch out As economies worldwide weaken, the pressure is rising on the world's central bankers for dramatic action that will ultimately do more damage. When that happens, the gold rally is on.
By Bill Fleckenstein - Money.MSN.com
World stock markets remained under pressure over the last week due to the ongoing dysfunction in Europe and -- not to be underestimated -- the fact that the world economy is slowing down dramatically (which should not come as a shock to anyone who reads this column).
I think at this point it is worth discussing the worldwide response by central banks to this macro-deterioration. As my longtime readers know, I have absolutely no respect for any of the idiots who run central banks. They are always wrong. Repeat: they are always wrong.
Epic Santelli Rant On 'Un-American'
Federal Reserve/Treasury Incompetence
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Stunned at the sheer ineptness and lack of due diligence in the Libor-rigging details that are being uncovered specific to Geithner's Treasury and Bernanke's Fed, CNBC's Rick Santelli reflects on just how unbelievable TARP was in this context. "Hurry up, let's spend three quarters of a trillion dollars; how much due diligence did they do for our role as taxpayers in basically bailing out the banking system? Obviously zero!" and this as they knew these very-same banks were manipulating rates. Opining on the un-Americanism of jet-skis and outsourcing, Rick states unequivocally "what's un-American is we now have the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Treasury taking heightened importance in regulating us in the future through Dodd/Frank. Shame on their legislation!" Meanwhile, those very same un-American Treasury staff (who we are supposed to trust with the future of our banking system and implicitly the economy we pre-suppose) have just been caught soliciting prostitutes and breaking conflict-of-interest rules.
FOIA docs reveal Treasury officials
cited for soliciting prostitutes, accepting gifts
By Bob Cusack - TheHill.com
Treasury Department officials have been cited for soliciting prostitutes, breaking conflict-of-interest rules and accepting gifts from corporate executives, according to the findings of official government investigations.
The revelations of unethical behavior at Treasury are detailed in little-noticed documents posted this month on governmentattic.org, which publishes agency responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
US Treasury Curve 1990-2012 In Its Full 3-D Glory: Redux
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Just under two years ago, when we mocked then Morgan Stanley's analyst Jim Caron's call for a surge in long-dated yields on the back of an improvement in the economy (not something more realistic like the Fed losing all control of the TSY curve), we penned "Visualizing The Past Of The Treasury Yield Curve, And Deconstructing The Great Confusion Surrounding Its Future" in which we said that contrary to pervasive expectations of a bull steepener, the treasury curve would continue flattening more and more, until the whole thing would become one big pancake. Today, we have decided to revisit that post: in short - Jim Caron was fired by Morgan Stanley as head of rates following 3 consecutive years of bad calls starting in 2009 (only to be rehired in June as a Portfolio Manager... oops), while our view that sooner or later the 2s30s will be 0 bps is over one third complete.
Europe 2012—The Revival of the Nazi Vision
Today's euro crisis is forcing the final pieces into place for the ultimate fulfillment of the grand Nazi vision of 1942.
By Ron Fraser - TheTrumpet.com
United States of Europe, Ten Nations, EU Empire, German Dominance, German Empire—all these terms have been used on more than one occasion by a multiplicity of media in past months to describe the European Union. All infer that the EU has become an imperial entity dominated by Germany.
That the world remains largely ignorant to the fact of one white-haired patriarch having prophesied this would be the case—even when Germany lay in abject defeat at the close of World War ii—is rather sad. Particularly when one considers that he even prophesied that the seventh resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire would be catalyzed by a great financial crisis, such as we see rampant in Europe today!
Wall Street falls, bond yields near record lows
By Wanfeng Zhou
NEW YORK | Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:15pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. government bond yields flirted with record lows, oil prices rallied and the dollar fell to a one-month low against the yen on Monday after weak U.S. retail sales data fed bets a faltering economy would prompt more stimulus from the Federal Reserve.
Wall Street stocks ended down, although Citigroup's better-than-expected earnings limited losses. The S&P 500 has fallen in seven of the last eight sessions, weighed by concerns about economic growth.
U.S. Economy Appears Weaker as Retail Sales Slump
AP - DailyFinance.com
WASHINGTON -- The outlook for the U.S. economy appeared dimmer Monday after a report that Americans spent less at retail businesses for a third straight month in June.
The report led some economists to downgrade their estimates for economic growth in the April-June quarter. Many now think the economy grew even less than in the first quarter of the year, when it expanded at a sluggish 1.9% annual rate.
Spending in June fell in nearly every major category -- from autos, furniture and appliances to building, garden supplies and department stores. Overall, retail sales slid 0.5% from May to June, the Commerce Department said.
Let Unsound Money Wither Away
Mises Daily: by Joseph T. Salerno
Chairman Paul and members of the subcommittee, I am deeply honored to appear before you to testify on the topic of fractional-reserve banking. Thank you for your invitation and attention.
In the short time I have, I will give a brief description of fractional reserve-banking, identify the problems it presents in the current institutional setting, and suggest a potential solution.
600,000 federal workers at risk if sequester goes through
By Jeremy Herb and Carlo Munoz - TheHill.com
The Topline: As many 600,000 federal jobs could be lost if the automatic cuts through sequestration take effect, according to a new study being released Tuesday by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA).
In a study last year, the AIA found that more than 1 million defense-related jobs could be at risk if the $500 billion cut to defense and non-defense spending through sequestration occurred. Now the defense industry trade group is coming out with a new study looking at the broader implications of the sequester to both defense and non-defense industries.
Bankrupt Hawker Beechcraft seeks court OK
of $5.3M in executive bonuses
By John Bringardner - LeveragedLoan.com
Nine top Hawker Beechcraft executives will receive an aggregate bonus of up to $5,328,000 if the company completes a sale of its assets or a standalone restructuring and exit from Chapter 11, according to a proposed compensation plan the company filed today with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.
Another 31 management-level employees could see an aggregate payout of up to $1.9 million under the plan.
'Lost Generation' of Homeowners May Just Be on Hold
By Meghan Walsh - BusinessWeek.com
Blase Hennessy is about halfway through a three-year residency in internal medicine at Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University, with full-time job offers already wafting in. Last spring the 27-year-old flirted with the idea of buying a condo for the duration of his residency, figuring he could sell it and make a few bucks if the job market pulls him out of Columbus. Then he learned his landlord had paid $200,000 for the one-bedroom roughly five years ago. And that for almost two years it had sat on the market listed for only $150,000. "When I saw that, I said, 'Forget it,'" Hennessy says. "It's just too scary." Today he rents the unit instead.
San Bernardino County's Loan Seizures Would Destroy Its Mortgage Market Just as Housing Starts to Recover
By David John - Heritage.org
The drive to force mortgage investors to refinance loans where the homeowner owes more than the house is currently worth (often know as underwater mortgages) is reaching absurd levels. In the latest example, California's San Bernardino County is exploring using eminent domain to seize certain mortgages and require the investors that own them to accept refinancing that reduces the amount of the mortgage.
Not only would this be a complete misuse of eminent domain, raising substantial constitutional issues and the prospect of years-long litigation, but it would hurt the very people the proposal is supposed to help.
Property tax first-quarter revenue down, seen sliding more
(Reuters) - Local property tax revenue fell 0.9 percent in the first quarter of 2012 versus a year ago and likely will keep sliding in the coming quarters, a report said on Monday.
Local property tax revenue, often the most important source of income for local governments, had firmed during the previous two quarters, the Albany, N.Y.-based Rockefeller Institute said. It noted that it can take at least three years to factor in a downturn in housing prices.
Foreclosure review program befuddles borrowers
By Anna Louie Sussman
NEW YORK | Mon Jul 16, 2012 4:06pm EDT
(Reuters) - Nothing about the letter that Keturah Miller received late last year indicated it could be worth as much as $125,000 to her. So she put it aside, forgetting about it for months until she stumbled across it while cleaning.
Miller, 34, a family liaison worker with the New York City Department of Education, read it over four times. It still made no sense to her.
"I can read the words, but the meaning of what they're saying? That's the confusing part for me," she said.
Many more homeowners
using Obama refinance plan: regulator
(Reuters) - The number of underwater homeowners refinancing through an Obama administration anti-foreclosure program has picked up sharply since its expansion late last year, according to figures a housing regulator released on Monday.
More than 78,000 home loans were refinanced using the expanded Home Affordable Refinance Program, nicknamed HARP 2.0, during the first five months of 2012, more than for all of 2011, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said.
Can Eminent Domain Save the Housing Market?
By Dan Caplinger - Fool.com
The housing crisis has confounded experts for years, despite the best efforts of private parties and public governments. Now, though, a new proposal would use the government's power to take property with compensation in order to simplify restructuring mortgage loans. The proposal has drawn strong comments as proponents and opponents debate whether it can actually get the housing market moving forward.
A quick fix to the housing crisis?
In the past four years, investors and ordinary Americans alike have increasingly looked to the government for solutions to some of the biggest problems facing the nation. From the financial crisis to health care and housing, the government has been instrumental in exercising its power at critical times, and while those of different political ideologies would disagree about the results, few could argue that the government hasn't taken more dramatic steps recently than it has in the past. Yet the checks and balances on government power built into the fabric of the nation represent one of the biggest distinctions of the U.S. from its world peers.
The New Artisan Economy Manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. Neither are construction jobs. America's workers need to learn some new skills to stay ahead.
By Ray Fisman - Salon.com
The recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-09 has been so anemic that the average American would probably be surprised to hear that the recession has officially ended. TheNational Bureau of Economic Research declared that it was over by June 2009, but the economy hasn't exactly come roaring back. In the 12 months that followed, GDP grew by a modest 2.5 percent, less than one-half of the bounce following the two previous recessions (in 1974-75 and 1981-82) that pundits often compare to the most recent one.
Shame on the News: Pols Get to Edit Their Quotations
By Peter Z. Scheer - Truthdig.com
The New York Times reports that it is now commonplace for everyone from campaign advisers to the Treasury Department to edit and approve quotes before journalists allow themselves to print them. Keith Olbermann calls it "appalling," and that's being nice.
Journalists are supposed to fight for the truth on behalf of their readers, not sniff around for table scraps from politicians.
GOP Scuttles Law-of-Sea Treaty
By Keith Johnson - WSJ.com
Senate Democrats' hopes of passing the Law of the Sea Treaty sank Monday, when a pair of Republican senators announced their opposition to ratification.
Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire penned a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) saying, "we have concluded that on balance this treaty is not in the national interest of the United States."
Curiosity piqued for Mars landing New, riskier propulsion system poised for rover's arrival
By Cory Brown-The Washington Times
NASA officials said Monday they will be taking their most sophisticated swing yet at answering the age-old question of whether there is life on Mars, with Curiosity, the space agency's newest Red Planet rover, set for a high-risk/high-reward landing in three weeks.
Curiosity will make its final approach to the Martian surface Aug. 6 at 1:31 a.m. EST, NASA administrators said in a briefing for reporters. However, this mission will not feature the airbag "bounce" landing that has defined previous NASA missions. Curiosity is using a newer and riskier propulsion system to land.
Are PCs Going Extinct?
By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
PC makers better learn to start thinking outside of the box.
Computer sales continue to slip, especially closer to home, as companies cautiously watch their spending and consumers flock to "good enough" tablets and smartphones for their basic computing needs.
That isn't just an opinion. Studies back it up, and the earnings reports out of the big PC makers later this month will likely confirm the trend.
Persian Gulf Incident Could Heat Up Crude Prices
By Paul Ausick - 247WallSt.com
A US Navy supply ship fired on a small boat of the cost of Dubai after the boat failed to respond to warnings and continued its rapid approach toward the Navy ship. The New York Times reports that one person on the small boat was killed. A Navy spokesman emailed a statement that included the following information:
Britain's Intelligence Chief Warns
Iran Closing on Bomb, Predicts Israeli Attack
NewsMax.com
The head of Britian's intelligence service warned that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon by 2014 at the latest, and predicted a military strike may be the only way to prevent such a calamity.
Sir John Sawers, head of Britain's MI6, told a group of civil servants Friday that Iran is on the path to acquiring a weapon and predicted Israel will act to stop her.
Assad receives last warning
to stop moving his WMD: Top generals defect
DEBKAfile
Several high-placed generals bolted Bashar Assad's inner circle Sunday, July 17, including such key figures as two security services chiefs who were operations commanders of the Alawite Shabiha militia plus the former head of Syria's chemical and biological administration who took six other generals with him. They all fled to Turkey and defected. A fourth senior general from another security service was assassinated in Aleppo. This is reported exclusively by DEBKAfile's military sources.
The loss of the generals orchestrating the pro-Assad paramilitary Shabiha's savage crackdown on the opposition has seriously weakened Assad's protective circle of trusties and reduced his military and security options.
Into Syria without Arms
Richard N. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations
NEW YORK – Much of the debate over what to do in the Middle East tends to pit realists against idealists. Bahrain is a classic case, as is Saudi Arabia and, for that matter, Egypt: calls for the United States and other countries with interests and influence in the region to stand up for democracy and human rights run up against concerns that national-security interests will suffer if pro-Western authoritarian regimes are ousted. European and US policymakers often attempt to square the circle with a compromise policy that is inconsistent and satisfies no one.
Syria refusing visas for Western aid workers: U.N.
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA | Mon Jul 16, 2012 1:22pm EDT
(Reuters) - Syria is refusing visas to Western aid workers, hampering United Nations efforts to expand further its humanitarian operation to meet growing needs in the conflict-torn country, a senior U.N. aid official said on Monday.
Some 1.5 million people require assistance in Syria amid escalating violence and "political failure" to resolve the crisis, John Ging told reporters in Geneva.
Insecurity remains a tremendous challenge as fighting prevents aid agencies from reaching increasingly hungry and desperate civilians in flashpoint areas including Homs, he said.
Regulators shutter bank in Missouri;
brings to 33 the number of US bank failures this year
AP - WashingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have closed a small bank in Missouri, bringing the number of U.S. banks that have failed so far this year to 33.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday that it seized Glasgow Savings Bank in Glasgow.
The bank had one branch and about $24.8 million in assets and $24.2 million in deposits as of March 31.
Fed fiddles as America slides back into recession The Economic Cycle Research Institute in America has doubled down on its recession call. A fresh US slump is not just a risk any longer. It has already begun.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Output slowed to stall speed over the winter. The US economy tipped into outright contraction in the second quarter, even before facing the "fiscal cliff" later this year – tightening of $600bn or 4pc of GDP unless action is taken to stop it.
Nothing serious is yet being done to head off the downward slide. If ECRI is right, the implications for the global system are ugly.
It is never easy to read the signals at inflexion points. Washington is always caught off guard. As ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan says, it took the Lehman collapse ten months into recession in September 2008 to "wake people up".
27 Things That Every American Should Know
About The National Debt
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The U.S. government has stolen $15,876,457,645,132.66 from future generations of Americans, and we continue to add well over a hundred million dollars to that total every single day day. The 15 trillion dollar binge that we have been on over the past 30 years has fueled the greatest standard of living the world has ever seen, but this wonderful prosperity that we have been enjoying has been a lie. It isn't real. We have been living way above our means for so long that we do not have any idea of what "normal" actually is anymore. But every debt addict hits "the wall" eventually, and the same thing is going to happen to us as a nation. At some point the weight of our national debt is going to cause our financial system to implode, and every American will feel the pain of that collapse. Under our current system, there is no mathematical way that this debt can ever be paid back. The road that we are on will either lead to default or to hyperinflation. We have piled up the biggest debt in the history of the world, and if there are future generations of Americans they will look back and curse us for what we did to them. We like to think of ourselves as much wiser than previous generations of Americans, but the truth is that we have been so foolish that it is hard to put it into words.
PM Summer Doldrums 4
By: Adam Hamilton - GoldSeek.com
With gold, silver, and their miners' stocks drifting listlessly near correction lows, the sentiment in precious-metals land is even more pessimistic than usual. Bears abound while bulls are now an endangered species. But interestingly, demoralizing consolidations are par for the course this time of year. Throughout most of their secular bull, the precious metals have suffered during the summer doldrums.
Back in the era of wind-powered tall ships, the doldrums were the name given to the areas of the oceans near the equator where prevailing winds often didn't exist. These periods of dead calm meant there was no wind for sails, trapping ships for days or even weeks. Many years ago I thought this was a great analogy for how PMs feel in the summer. They drift lethargically and all hope for progress vanishes.
Does Central-Bank Gold-Buying Signal the Top Is Near?
BY JEFF CLARK - FinancialSense.com
Doug Casey told me in January, "The only thing that scares me is that central banks are buying a lot of gold; they're historically contrary indicators." When it comes to buying gold, central banks have such a poor timing record that they're frequently joked about as a contrary indicator.
We dislike referring to tonnes of gold instead of ounces. Gold is priced by the ounce. But certain market players, especially central banks, report gold transactions in tonnes. One metric ton (tonne) equals 32,150.7 troy ounces.
Recently, they have been buying, quite literally, tonnes of it. Consider the following:
EU leaders fall short when it comes
to putting their ideas into practice European leaders have a vision of the EU as a banking union, a fiscal and a political union, the problem is implementing it
By Barry Eichengreen - Guardian.co.uk
Europe's leaders, unlike former US president George Bush Sr, have never had trouble with the "vision thing." They have always known what they want their continent to be. But having a vision is not the same as implementing it. And, when it comes to putting their ideas into practice, the European Union's leaders have fallen short repeatedly.
This tension between Europeans' goals and their ability to achieve them is playing out again in the wake of the recent EU summit. Europe's leaders now agree on a vision of what the EU should become: an economic and monetary union complemented by a banking union, a fiscal union, and a political union. The trouble starts as soon as the discussion moves on to how – and especially when – the last three should be established.
Is Europe ready to give up national autonomy
for the sake of the euro? For the first time in years, the pros and cons of the European project are being discussed out in the open
By Wolfram Richter - Guardian.co.uk
Economists tend to be thoughtful people, which is why most of them sign open letters reluctantly. When it comes to the euro, though, things are different: here you can't stop them adding their names to manifesto after manifesto. When the foundation was laid for monetary union in Maastricht in 1992, 60 German professors signed a statement calling the move a "danger for Europe". When the new currency was introduced in 1999, 160 economists warned that the euro had come too early. And they were at the ready again to criticise plans for further bailouts at the EU summit in March 2011.
European banks are technically bankrupt
A new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) says the eurozone is in danger of losing 4.5 million jobs over the next four years, unless it changes its current economic policies.
Eurozone rescue without growth
means Finland could be first to leave After last week's euro meeting,
Spanish 10-year government bond yields fell back to 6.6pc.
By Roger Bootle - Telegraph.co.uk
So that's all right then. In fact, if Spain carried on borrowing at this rate it would be set for the knacker's yard sooner than you could say Don Quixote.
The essence of the eurozone's financial problem lies in the discrepancy between northern and southern members. So why don't they just integrate their finances? Because that would mean the northern countries taking their share of the debts incurred by the southerners.
The Real LIBOR Scandal
BY FREDERICK J SHEEHAN - FinancialSense.com
Whatever can be said for and against Barclays and Bob Diamond, the story is in danger of exhausting itself at the wrong link in the chain. It has sidelined BubbleTV's around-the-clock coverage of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's dog walker has been waiting in a studio sound booth for a week now.
The populace has been so successfully coached and beaten to a pulp that the source of interest-rate price fixing is not mentioned. That source is the Federal Reserve.
Libor scandal: Marcus Agius to face investors
as Jerry Del Missier takes to the stand with MPs Marcus Agius and Sir Mike Rake will this week meet investors in bid to contain the fall-out from the Libor scandal Barclays faces further embarrassment from Jerry Del Missier's evidence to MPs.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Barclays' chairman and deputy chairman will travel to shareholders and investors groups to explain their strategy for stemming the crisis that has ripped through the bank and its boardroom. The pair are expected to use the meetings to sound out investors on the plan to elevate Sir Mike to chairman so he can swiftly start looking for a new chief executive and fill the management vacuum at the top of the bank.
But it comes as Mr Del Missier, Barclays former chief operating officer - accused of ordering his subordinates to rig the bank's Libor submission in 2008 - goes before the Treasury Select Committee.
This global financial fraud and its gatekeepers The media's 'bad apple' thesis no longer works. We're seeing systemic corruption in banking – and systemic collusion
By Naomi Wolf - Guardian.co.uk
Last fall, I argued that the violent reaction to Occupy and other protests around the world had to do with the 1%ers' fear of the rank and file exposing massive fraud if they ever managed get their hands on the books. At that time, I had no evidence of this motivation beyond the fact that financial system reform and increased transparency were at the top of many protesters' list of demands.
But this week presents a sick-making trove of new data that abundantly fills in this hypothesis and confirms this picture. The notion that the entire global financial system is riddled with systemic fraud – and that key players in the gatekeeper roles, both in finance and in government, including regulatory bodies, know it and choose to quietly sustain this reality – is one that would have only recently seemed like the frenzied hypothesis of tinhat-wearers, but this week's headlines make such a conclusion, sadly, inevitable.
Ron Paul readies salvos for last showdown with Fed's Bernanke
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
It might not be a surprise to find a smile on the face of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when he appears before the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday. It looks to be the last time he will have to face off against Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
While unforeseen events could always compel Bernanke's return to testify, his delivery of his semi-annual report on the nation's monetary policy may mark the final time Paul will have the chance to take swings at his least favorite institution, as the lawmaker is retiring at the close of the rapidly dwindling session.
JPMorgan says bad trade has ballooned to $5.8B
By Daniel Wagner and Pallavi Gogoi - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan Chase said Friday that its traders may have tried to conceal the losses from a soured bet that has embarrassed the bank and cost it almost $6 billion — far more than its CEO first suggested.
The bank said an internal investigation had uncovered evidence that led executives to "question the integrity" of the values, or marks, that traders assigned to their trades.
Keiser Report: Fraud Race (E314)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the mainstream media joining the 'hang bankers' bandwagon, as it becomes increasingly obvious that the space race has been replaced with a fraud race and getting your Series 7 broker's license makes stealing a risk-free business proposition. In the second half of the show, Max talks to analyst and newslettter writer, Rob Kirby of Kirby Analytics, about the derivatives complex as a price control grid and about the fact that every time the JP Morgan monster needs a feeding, something must die.
* * * * *
The Real Libor Scandal
By Paul Craig Roberts and Nomi Prins
According to news reports, UK banks fixed the London interbank borrowing rate (Libor) with the complicity of the Bank of England (UK central bank) at a low rate in order to obtain a cheap borrowing cost. The way this scandal is playing out is that the banks benefitted from borrowing at these low rates. Whereas this is true, it also strikes us as simplistic and as a diversion from the deeper, darker scandal.
Banks are not the only beneficiaries of lower Libor rates. Debtors (and investors) whose floating or variable rate loans are pegged in some way to Libor also benefit. One could argue that by fixing the rate low, the banks were cheating themselves out of interest income, because the effect of the low Libor rate is to lower the interest rate on customer loans, such as variable rate mortgages that banks possess in their portfolios. But the banks did not fix the Libor rate with their customers in mind. Instead, the fixed Libor rate enabled them to improve their balance sheets, as well as help to perpetuate the regime of low interest rates. The last thing the banks want is a rise in interest rates that would drive down the values of their holdings and reveal large losses masked by rigged interest rates.
U.S. considering criminal charges in Libor case: NY Times
(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is building criminal cases against several financial institutions and their employees related to the manipulation of interest rates, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
Citing government officials close to the case who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Times said traders at Barclays Plc (BARC.L) were among the individuals against whom Justice was building cases. Authorities expect to file charges against at least one bank later this year, the newspaper reported.
Senator says JPMorgan should hold executives accountable
(Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee said on Friday that JPMorgan Chase & Co should hold accountable everyone responsible for the bank's massive trading loss and that he welcomed news that the bank will claw back some employees' pay.
Earlier on Friday, JPMorgan said it was paying no severance to the managers in its London office responsible for its roughly $6 billion trading loss for the first half and is taking back bonuses for prior years from some.
Web Extra: Jim Grant on JPMorgan's
Clawback Proposal and the Quest for Accountability
Jim Grant discusses the Isaac Clawback plan, and the need to reinstitute accountability for bank executives who continue to enjoy the upside, but no longer suffer the downside. Mr. Grant says that this trend began around the time that federal deposit insurance was instituted in the 1930's, and has only worsened from there. Too big to fails banks have gotten bigger, and their failures less acceptable to our overlords at the Federal Reserve.
Fed's Lacker: Libor scandal hurting confidence
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
RICHMOND, Virginia | Fri Jul 13, 2012 10:21pm EDT
(Reuters) - A growing scandal surrounding manipulation of a key benchmark interest rate is feeding public anger towards banks, Richmond Federal Reserve bank President Jeffrey Lacker told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
The debacle over the setting of the London interbank offered rate, a global benchmark for $550 trillion of interest rate derivatives contracts, has already cost Barclays' CEO Bob Diamond and other top executives at the London-based bank their jobs and the fallout continues to broaden.
Libor Probe May Yield U.S. Charges By September
By Greg Farrell and Ben Moshinsky - Bloomberg.com
Libor investigations on both sides of the Atlantic intensified as Barclays Plc (BARC) traders could face possible U.S. charges by September and British lawmakers may use hearings this week to expand their inquiry to other banks tied to the global financial scandal.
Barclays traders involved in allegedly manipulating Libor rates between 2005 and 2007 may be charged by U.S. prosecutors before the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 3, said a person familiar with the Justice Department investigation in Washington.
Bank of England says it acted on Geithner's Libor email
By David Milliken and Timothy Ahmann
LONDON/WASHINGTON | Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:46pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Bank of England confirmed on Friday it had received U.S. recommendations to overhaul the Libor benchmark at the heart of a global rate-rigging scandal, saying it had passed them on to the banking group responsible for the rate.
Documents obtained by Reuters earlier on Friday showed that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed the British central bank in June 2008 to make changes to the way that the widely used interest rate benchmark was set.
China's deflationary growth threatens profit
Commentary: Hard landing for earnings; watch for more rate cuts
By Craig Stephen
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China may have reassured investors it has avoided a collapse in growth, but corporate profits and prices are increasingly taking the strain.
There was some relief as GDP growth came in at 7.6% in the second quarter, but the economy is showing new signs of falling into deflation. Some analysts argue China will now need much more aggressive interest-rate cuts.
The Invincible Lie: Part II As far back as the 1920s, a huge cut in the highest income tax rate led to a huge increase in the amount of tax revenue collected by the federal government. Why?
By THOMAS SOWELL - The American Spectator.org
Nothing produces more of a sense of the futility of facts than seeing someone in the mass media repeating some notion that has been refuted innumerable times over the years.
On July 9th, on CNN's program "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer, commentator Gloria Borger discussed President Obama's plan to continue the temporary extension of the tax rates established under the Bush administration -- except for the top brackets, where Obama wanted the tax rates raised.
Ms. Borger said, "if you're going to lower the tax rates, where are you going to get the money from?"
James Howard Kunstler: It's Too Late for Solutions
Submitted by Chris Martenson - ZeroHedge.com
The wishful thinking dominant today is that "with a little more growth, a little more energy, a little more technology -- a little more magic -- we'll somehow sail past our current tribulations without having to change our behavior." Such self-delusion is particularly dangerous because it is preventing us from taking intelligent, constructive action at the national level when the clock is fast ticking out of our favor. In fact, we are past the state where solutions are possible - instead, we need a response plan to help us best brace for the impact of the coming consequences. And we need it fast. One of the lessons that used to be at the center of a liberal education, and no longer is, is that life is tragic. And by that we do not mean that happy endings are impossible or that bad outcomes are guaranteed. What we mean is that there are consequences to the things that you do and that everything has a beginning and a middle and an end. And we have to get real with those. We are discovering more and more is that the world is comprehensively broke in every sphere, and in every dimension and in every way. The governments in every level are all broke, the households are going broke, the banks are insolvent, the money really is not there. And the pretense that the money is there has been kept going simply with accounting fraud.
Middle Class? Here's What's Destroying Your Future
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
According to the conventional account, the Great American Middle Class has been eroded by rising energy costs, globalization, and the declining purchasing power of the U.S. dollar in the four decades since 1973. While these trends have certainly undermined middle-class wealth and income, there are five other less politically acceptable dynamics at work:
• The divergence of State/private vested interests and the interests of the middle class
• The emergence of financialization as the key driver of profits and political power
• The neofeudal "colonization" of the "home market" by ascendant financial Elites
• The increasing burden of indirect "taxes" as productive enterprises and people involuntarily subsidize unproductive, parasitic, corrupt, but politically dominant vested interests
• The emergence of crony capitalism as the lowest-risk, highest-profit business model in the U.S. economy
A Bottom in Housing? No Way! A Market in Ruins
by MIKE WHITNEY - CounterPunch.org
According to a recent report by Clear Capital, "The nation's home prices rebounded with quarterly and yearly gains of 1.7%." The Home Data Index (HDI) report, which was released on July 10, shows that "Regional performance improved across the board", and that "Home price forecast through 2012 shows continued growth for the nation…"
Hooray! Housing prices have hit bottom and the market is slowly recovering, right?
A growing number of experts appear to agree with this view, such as the Wall Street Journal's economics editor, David Wessel. Here's what Wessel had to say in an article on Wednesday:
Calif. cities eye plan to seize mortgages
By AMY TAXIN and CHRISTINA REXRODE | AP - Yahoo.com
FONTANA, Calif. (AP) — In the foreclosure-battered inland stretches of California, local government officials desperate for change are weighing a controversial but inventive way to fix troubled mortgages: Condemn them.
Officials from San Bernardino County and two of its cities have formed a local agency to consider the plan. But investors who stand to lose money on their mortgage investments have been quick to register their displeasure.
These 12 Hellholes Are Examples
Of What The Rest Of America Will Look Like Soon
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Do you want to see where this country is headed? If so, don't focus on the few areas that are still very prosperous. New York City has Wall Street, Washington D.C. has the federal government and Silicon Valley has Google and Facebook. Those are the exceptions. The reality is that most of the country has been experiencing a slow decline for a very long time and once thriving cities such as Gary, Indiana and Flint, Michigan have become absolute hellholes. They are examples of what the rest of America will look like soon. 60 years ago, most Americans were decent, hard working people and there were always good jobs available for anyone that was willing to roll up his or her sleeves and put in an honest day of work. But now all of that has changed. Over the past decade, tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities have shut down and millions of jobs have left the country. Cities such as Cleveland, Baltimore and Detroit were once shining examples of everything that was right about America, but now they stand out like festering sores. The "blue collar cities" have been hit the hardest by the gutting of our economic infrastructure. There are many communities in America today where it seems like all of the hope and all of the life have been sucked right out of them. You can see it in the eyes of the people. The good times are gone permanently and they know it. Unfortunately, the remainder of the country will soon be experiencing the despair that those communities are feeling.
Why Republican state leaders
are resisting Medicaid expansion
By N.C. Aizenman - WashingtonPost.com
The expansion of Medicaid called for in President Obama's health-care law would seem an irresistible deal for states: Starting in 2014, in exchange for spending a percent or two more of their own funds, states will get nearly a trillion additional federal dollars during the next 10 years to extend health insurance to 17 million of their neediest residents.
So why are so many Republican state leaders balking?
Health care law has governors split along party lines
By David Eldridge - The Washington Times
The nation's governors launched their weekend gathering in Williamsburg, Va., with a press release touting bipartisanship, but by Saturday afternoon it was clear the Republican and Democratic executives are as divided over the Obama administration's health care law as the rest of the country.
Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat who takes over chairmanship of the group on Sunday from Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican, said Friday the purpose of the meeting was to share ideas: "Which party or place an idea comes from can matter much less than where an idea can take you when implemented well."
White House to states:
Time to get on board with healthcare reform
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
The Obama administration is aggressively pushing states to implement the healthcare reform law now that the Supreme Court has upheld it.
In the two weeks since the court issued its decision, the Health and Human Services Department has pushed out new grants, new policies and a new rhetorical standby: It's time to get onboard.
"The volume of activity has certainly gone up," said Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.
From Penn State to JPMorgan Chase and Barclays:
Destroying Higher Education, Savaging Children
and Extinguishing Democracy
By Henry A Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed
The Freeh report makes clear that there was a concerted attempt to cover-up the acts of a serial predator, Jerry Sandusky, while willfully disregarding the welfare of the children he abused. Given the reporting of the last year, much of this is not news, though the report makes clear the nature and depth of the cover-up, while providing some important new details. While the Freeh report reveals that the cover-up at the top of the Penn State administration "was an active agreement to conceal," it raises further questions about how the justice system works in this country when it comes to prosecuting the rich and powerful who sink more and more into a bottomless pit of corruption and moral irresponsibility. At his press conference, Louis J. Freeh, when asked if criminal charges should be brought against a number of people, including former President Spanier, replied that "it's up to others to decide whether that's criminal." While Freeh's reply suggest he is acting cautiously given that some of the people who hired him may be indicted, he unknowingly touches on another related and important issue. That is, justice in America works primarily for the rich and powerful and against the poor and marginalized. And that Freeh's response or equivocation reveals what is well known - the rich and powerful rarely get prosecuted for their crimes or what The Economist has called "the rotten heart of finance." Just ask the CEOs who run Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, GlaxoSmithKline, and so it goes.
The Largest Natural Disaster In U.S. History:
The Endless Drought Of 2012
Will Bake America Well Into August
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Why is the heartland of the United States experiencing such a horrific drought right now? At the moment, approximately 61 percent of the entire nation is experiencing drought conditions, and this is absolutely devastating farmers and ranchers all over the country. Less than two weeks ago I wrote an article asking what would happen if these drought conditions persisted, and now we are finding out. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created the largest natural disaster area in U.S. history. The USDA has declared 1,016 counties in 26 U.S. states to be disaster areas. The USDA declaration basically covered about half of the nation, and there is now no denying how horrible this drought really is. You can see a map of this disaster area right here. This endless drought is being compared to the nightmarish drought of 1988, and if it persists into August it could become perhaps the worst drought that America has ever seen. The USDA says that approximately 60 percent of all corn in the country is experiencing "moderate to extreme" drought conditions. If this drought does not end soon, the losses are going to be mind blowing. Already, it is estimated that farmers and ranchers have suffered billions of dollars in damage. How much worse can things get?
Pioneer plane maker looks to China For Beechcraft, sale of company the last option
By Roxana Hegeman-AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WICHITA, Kan. — Walter Beech was one of America's greatest aviation pioneers, a former World War I flyer who spent three years after the war touring the country as a barnstorming exhibition pilot. That experience spawned ideas for aircraft design, inspiration that came to fruition in 1932 when he and his wife founded Beech Aircraft Co.
Today, the airplane maker that traces its roots to that iconic Kansas company is fighting for its very survival in bankruptcy court. Hawker Beechcraft Corp. — one of the linchpin companies that helped make Wichita the "Aviation Capital of the World" — is now betting its future on Chinese industrialist Shenzong Cheng and his wife, Qin Wang.
The FDA Surveils Its Employees
by Alexander Reed Kelly - Truthdig.com
In an effort to protect its public image, the Food and Drug Administration secretly intercepted thousands of emails sent from disgruntled scientists working at the agency to members of Congress, journalists, labor officials and the White House.
The scientists were attempting to blow the whistle on the FDA's approval of medical devices that they said posed a threat to the public.
Col. Craig Roberts Breaks Down Operation Blackstar
Alex also talks with Col. Craig Roberts, a Vietnam veteran, former police officer with the Tulsa Police Department, and author of many books, including: The Medusa File, Crosshairs on the Kill Zone, and Doorway to Hell: Disaster in Somalia. Col. Roberts talks with Alex about Operation Blackstar.
Postal Service rescue bill stalls in Congress as cash woes mount
By Bernie Becker - TheHill.com
The House's delay in considering a postal reform bill is sparking concerns that the rescue of the U.S. Postal Service could be delayed until after the November elections — or even until the next Congress.
Republicans signaled last week that the House would likely not vote before the August recess on a postal bill from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the Oversight Committee chairman, and Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.).
The Problem Isn't Fiscal; It's Political Pensions Under Attack
by MARK VORPAHL - CounterPunch.org
On Friday, July 6, President Obama signed into law a bill that would renew transportation programs and extend low interest rates on student loans for one year. While this minimal gesture resulted in, no doubt, sighs of relief from those burdened by student debt, tucked away within the bill's pages was a little-noticed proposal to further erode the funding of workers' pensions. The bill was a brilliant sleight of hand where what it appeared to be giving with one hand distracted the public from what it was taking away with the other.
Interview: Unusual Pre-9-11 Currency Movements;
an Ex-Federal Reserve Employee Talks to Robert Wenzel
Submitted by EB - ZeroHedge.com
Bill Bergman-a former Federal Reserve (Chicago branch) economist and policy analyst, who has raised concerns about unusual currency transactions pre- 9-11----including billions in one hundred dollar bills, is the guest this week on the Robert Wenzel Show.
Bergman worked at the Chicago Federal Reserve for over 13 years as an economist and financial markets policy analyst, until he started asking questions about unusual currency movements before 9-11. On the show we talk about what happened to him, after he started his investigation.
Mysterious Currency Transfers Before 9-11
by Robert Wenzel
Bill Bergman worked at the Chicago Federal Reserve for over 13 years as an economist and financial markets policy analyst, until he started asking questions about unusual currency movements before 9-11. On the show we talk about what happened to him, after he started his investigation.
We also talk about how the Fed's Biege Book is assembled, the trillion plus dollars sitting at the Fed as excess reserves, the LIBOR "scandal", Warren Buffet and much more.
The Titanic of Talk Radio? Has an iceberg named Limbaugh
already started to sink the Huckabee show?
By JEFFREY LORD - The American Spectator.org
Whatever happened to Mike Huckabee?
OK.
I confess, I never got the idea from the get go.
A political idea that is a regular loser in the political marketplace was being marketed as a sure-fire winner in talk radio. And marketed is an understatement about all of the hype that swirled around this particular radio launch.
To put names to this curious fantasy, the moderate Republican former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, was to take on Rush Limbaugh in a venture sponsored by the public company that is Cumulus Media.
War Is Betrayal
By Chris Hedges, Boston Review - Truthdig.com
We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites.
The 1% Connection:
Mexico and the United States, Crony Capitalism
and the Exploitation of Labor Through NAFTA The Richest Person in the World, Carlos Slim, Lives in Mexico
Sunday, 15 July 2012 08:32
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | News Analysis
According to Forbes Magazine, Carlos Slim, 72, is the wealthiest person in the world, accumulating $69 billion in net worth as of March 2012.
Born and raised in Mexico City (of Lebanese Christian descent), Slim was well on his way to becoming a very rich man when he struck pay dirt. Under the Mexican presidency of Carlos Salinas, who served from 1988 to 1994, Slim jumped on the Milton Friedman-inspired south-of-the-border rush to privatization and led a buyout of the state run Telmex phone company.
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic." --Joseph Story
The United Nations is now considering its Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), a document that threatens Second Amendment rights of American citizens. The treaty must clear many hurdles before that threat comes to fruition, but we must remain aware and active in opposing it.
In 2009, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to hold a conference to draft the ATT. That conference began July 2 -- ironically, just as we celebrated ourIndependence from tyranny. Details will be crafted throughout July, but the push is well underway to regulate the trade of weapons around the globe. Some nations say the treaty shouldn't regulate domestic arms sales, but others -- notably, Mexico -- say that not even individual rights should excuse "products traded without controls." Mexico has long blamed American guns for its own drug war, a con in which the Obama administration has been complicit.
Brazil to Invest Heavily in Wind Power
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
Analysts seeking reasons for the soaring economies of the BRIC nations ought to take note of their interest in renewable energy.
According to a new report by the International Energy Agency Brazil will add 32 gigawatts of renewable energy to its power grid within the next five years. The move will put Brazil tied for fourth place with Germany in renewable energy investment, exceeded only by China (270 gigawatts), the U.S. (56 gigawatts) and India (39 gigawatts).
Accordingly, BRIC nations India and Brazil occupy two of the top four places.
UAE starts up pipeline to bypass Strait of Hormuz
By Adam Schreck- AP - WashingtonTimes.com
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates on Sunday inaugurated a much-anticipated overland oil pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, giving the OPEC member insurance against Iranian threats to block the strategic waterway.
The 236-mile Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline snakes across western desert dunes and over the craggy Hajar Mountains to the city of Fujairah on the UAE's Indian Ocean coast, south of the strait.
Abu Dhabi Bypasses Hormuz Strait In Exporting First Pipeline Oil
By Anthony DiPaola and Ayesha Daya - Bloomberg.com
Abu Dhabi started exporting its first crude from a pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, shipping the fuel to a refinery in Pakistan.
The pipeline, stretching from Abu Dhabi to the neighboring sheikhdom of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, was loading the first shipment of 500,000 barrels to the Pakistani plant, Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al-Hamli, oil minister for the United Arab Emirates, said yesterday at a ceremony to inaugurate the network. International Petroleum Investment Co. spent $4.2 billion building the 423- kilometer (263-mile) link, Khadem Al-Qubaisi, managing director of the Abu Dhabi-run fund known as IPIC, said at the ceremony in Fujairah.
Iran offers to host Syria crisis talks: foreign minister
By Yeganeh Torbati
DUBAI | Sun Jul 15, 2012 10:37am EDT
(Reuters) - Iran is ready to host talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups, the Iranian foreign minister was quoted as saying on Sunday, but members of the opposition quickly rejected the offer.
The statement by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi appeared to suggest a possible shift in the Iranian leadership's approach. Iran has consistently supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's efforts to suppress a 17-month-long uprising.
Iran Announces Plans to Build First Nuclear Submarine
By: James Burgess - Oilprice.com
Iran has announced plans to start building its first nuclear submarine—a piece of advanced military technology that only the most powerful nations on earth are even able to construct—and which runs on uranium enriched to such a level that it can double as the fuel source for a nuclear bomb.
Olli Heinonen, former chief nuclear inspector for the United Nations, said that "such submarines often use HEU (highly enriched uranium)," yet due to international opposition to Iran's nuclear program, foreign nations will be reluctant to supply them with the HEU needed. Iran will then be able to "cite the lack of foreign fuel suppliers as further justification for continuing on its uranium enrichment path."
Monitoring 'enemy moves':
Iran 'vigilant' over US presence in Gulf waters
RT.com
Iran warns it's closely monitoring the "enemy's" moves from the Caribbean Sea to the Persian Gulf. The statement comes after Washington is reported to have dispatched a fourth aircraft carrier and a fleet of underwater drones to Gulf waters.
Iran's intelligence systems are tracking all the activities of the US forces and its allies from the Caribbean Sea to the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf, says Rear Admiral Javad Mashidi, the deputy commander of Iran's elite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy.
Russian Navy ready to break Syria blockade
ZeeNews.India.com IANS
Moscow: Russian Navy warships will be sent to defend Russian merchant vessels in the event of a blockade due to the situation in Syria, an official said.
"The fleet will be sent on task to guarantee the safety of our ships, to prevent anyone interfering with them in the event of a blockade. I remind you, there are no limits," said Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy head of Russia's military technical cooperation agency.
Bashar al-Assad could face prosecution
as Red Cross rules Syria is in civil war Declaration signals that Geneva-based organisation regards all civilians and detainees as protected under international law
By Martin Chulov in Beirut and Julian Borger - Guardian.co.uk
The International Committee of the Red Cross says Syria is now in a state of civil war, a definition it suggests could change the rules of engagement in the violence-ravaged country and help lay the ground for war crimes prosecutions.
The announcement came hours after a senior Syrian official denied government forces had committed a massacre in the town of Tremseh on Thursday, and rejected a UN claim that the regime had led the attack with heavy weapons and helicopters.
Fiercest fighting yet reported inside Damascus
By Erika Solomon
BEIRUT | Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:00pm EDT
(Reuters) - Opposition fighters battled Syrian government forces in Damascus into the early hours of Monday in what residents described as the fiercest fighting yet inside the capital.
Activists said the fighting spread from the south of the city to a second area as night fell. At least five people were killed and dozens wounded, locals said.
The spread of fighting came as U.N. peace mediator Kofi Annan was due to fly to Moscow for a two-day visit in which he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin who has resisted Western calls to increase pressure on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
The price of gold has been manipulated.
This is more scandalous than Libor
By Thomas Pascoe - Telegraph.co.uk
The new media and the 24-hour news cycle have a great deal to answer for, not least encouraging a political class which would otherwise be happily engaged expensing duck houses into the belief that it should demonstrate perpetual action on our behalf – hence the endless stream of badly drafted legislation from the corridors of Whitehall.
It does, however, reveal things that would otherwise be ignored. The issue of manipulation in the gold market which I wrote about last week is a case in point. The ball of half-truths and downright lies which have surrounded the issue for a long time is beginning to unspool in an issue internet activists kept alive long before it was acknowledged by the mainstream media.
Are Banks Raiding 'Allocated' Gold Accounts?
by George Washington - LewRockwell.com
In 2007, Morgan Stanley paid out $4.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by its clients after Morgan Stanley charged them to buy and "store" precious metals for them, but neither bought or stored the metals.
(Similarly, a 2011 class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in New York accused UBS Financial Services of misleading silver investors and harging them storage fees for metal that was never actually purchased, segregated, and stored for them.)
Avery Goodman points out that Morgan Stanley has once again just launched a similar scam, offering "allocated" metals, but gaming the definition so that the holdings are not really allocated.
Crash Warning
by Jeff Nielson - LewRockwell.com
Regular readers of my work know that I have been outlining (and warning people about)two potential economic scenarios; as the West's terminally-ill economies lurch towards their final collapse. These hollowed-out, debt-saturated economies would (will) either crash under the weight of their own insolvency; or our governments will create a hyperinflation death-spiral – in a last desperate attempt to avoid that bankruptcy event.
While both paths represent utter, economic suicide; the road to ruin is much different in these two scenarios. This has severely limited the investment options and strategies for any prudent investor. Forced not only to "play defense" with our investing but to prepare for two more-or-less opposite events has made precious metals the one asset class which can protect investors from either of these fates.
A scandal over rate-fixing is about to hit the US
By Roland Jones - MSNBC.MSN.com
It may seem like just another obscure banking scandal at a 322-year-old British bank, but there are a number of good reasons why you should care about the LIBOR rate-rigging scandal now roiling the world's biggest and most powerful banks, including that it probably cost you money if you own a mortgage.
In late June, Barclays paid $453 million to regulators in the U.K and the U.S. to settle accusations that it had tried to influence LIBOR, or the London interbank offered rate -- a benchmark interest rate that affects the price at which consumers and companies across the world borrow funds.
Barclays' Diamond turns to top lawyer for Libor scandal
By Steve Slater and Aruna Viswanatha
LONDON/WASHINGTON | Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:47pm EDT
(Reuters) - Barclays' embattled former chief executive Bob Diamond is being represented by top white-collar defense lawyer Andrew Levander in a widening scandal over the manipulation of benchmark interest rates, people familiar with the matter said.
More than a dozen current and former employees of several large banks under investigation have hired defense lawyers over the past year, but Levander's role is one of the most high-profile.
What did Tim know? Geithner's Libor labors
By Charles Gasparino - NYPost.com
The latest development in the Libor-manipulation scandal is that the banks weren't really fixing the price of the key interest rate in total secret — US regulators were aware of the sleazy activities at the time, and seemed to have done nothing.
Which should surprise no one.
I can't tell you how much federal officials knew about the activities of Barclay's, JPMorgan, Citigroup and the other big banks at the center of the maelstrom. In coming weeks, both Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will inevitably discuss the mess when they appear before Congress.
Keiser Report: Ponzi Overdose (E313)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the naked crime wave resulting from an overdose of synthetic stimulants like quantitative easing, bailouts and low interest rates. In the second half of the show Max talks to Ian Fraser of IanFraser.org about the Li(e)bor scandal and other banking crime waves emerging from the City of London.
Jim Grant Discusses The Fed's 'Backward Shooting Gun', And Black Walnut Tree Treasury Replacements
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Yesterday, when discussing the forthcoming implications of the Libor scandal, we said that in the barrage of coming lawsuits, "the entity that will be sued by proxy is the Federal Reserve, whose Federal Funds rate is really the setter for the baseline Libor rate." This claim came at an opportune time, just hours before one of the Fed's most vocal critics (and gold standard advocates), Jim Grant, appeared on TV to discuss precisely the same thing. Best summarizing his position is a cartoon that appeared in a recent issue of Grant's Interest Rate Observer in the context of Lieborgate, and who is really at fault here.
We Are at a Turning Point
by Andrew P. Napolitano - Lew Rockwell.com
Presently in America, nearly half of all households receive either a salary or substantial benefits from the government. Presently in America, nearly half of all adults pay no federal income taxes. Presently in America, the half that pay no income taxes receive the bulk of their income courtesy of the government, but ultimately from the half that do. This money is extracted involuntarily from the paying half by a permanent bureaucracy that extracts and gives away more each year no matter who is running the government. The recipients of these transfer payments rely upon them for subsistence, so they have a vested financial interest in sending to Washington those who will continue to take your money and give it to them.
The Market Has Spoken, and It Is Rigged
By SIMON JOHNSON - NYTimes.com
In the aftermath of the Barclays rate-fixing scandal, the most surprising reaction has been from people in the financial sector who fully understand the awfulness of what has happened. Rather than seeing this as an issue of law and order, some well-informed people have been drawn toward arguments that excuse or justify the behavior of the Barclays employees.
This is a big mistake, in terms of the economics at stake and the likely political impact.
The behavior at Barclays has all the hallmarks of fraud – intentional deception for personal gain, causing significant damage to others.
Four Reasons To Be Even Less Optimistic About The Global Financial System Than You Were Last Month
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The cracks in the ice are getting bigger. At this point it is really hard to have much confidence in the global financial system at all. They told us that MF Global was an isolated incident. Well, the horrific financial scandal over at PFGBest is essentially MF Global all over again. They told us that we would not see a huge wave of municipal bankruptcies in the United States. Well, three California cities have declared bankruptcy in less than a month. They told us that we could have faith in the integrity of the global financial system. Well, now we are finding out that global interest rates have been fixed by insiders for years. They told us that Greece was an isolated problem and that none of the larger European nations would experience anything remotely similar. Well, what is happening in Spain right now looks like an instant replay of exactly what happened in Greece. So who are we supposed to believe? Why does it seem like nearly everything that "the authorities" tell us turns out to be a lie? What else haven't they been telling us?
Banking and Monetary System They Own It All... and YOU
By Greg McCoach - WealthDaily.com
It governs everything we do...
And yet 95% of the population is totally in the dark regarding this topic.
I am talking about the complete and criminal hijacking of our country and money by a very small but extremely powerful group of men: the elitist bankers.
Few understand how our system works — or how the original system given to us by our Founding Fathers has already been circumvented.
Henry Ford understood what happened to us and proclaimed the following statement many years ago when the biggest parts of the hijacking occurred:
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
$10 Billion Away From $10 Trillion
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
According to the just released M2 update, the broadest publicly tracked monetary aggregate (because the Fed doesn't have enough money to keep track of M3) just hit $9,991.5 billion, a $43 billion increase from last week. In other words, this is the last week in which M2 is under $10 trillion. So enjoy it while the "complete lack of penetration" of the monetary base into broader monetary aggregates, and of the Fed's reserves so tightly locked up in bank vaults, is still only 13 digits (most of it comprising of bank deposits which of course represent no inflationary threat at all). Next week it will be a record 14 digits for the first time, and well on its way to surpassing the $15 trillion held in the deposit-free shadow banking system as the importance (and inflationary convexity) of the two is rapidly interchanged.
Keiser Report: From Tommy Guns to Credit Guns (E312)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss bankers robbing Central Banks and governments because that's where the credit is and the modern Central Bank robbing banker uses his Tommy gun of choice - the derivative (along with the occasional 'accidental transfer'). In the second half of the show Max talks to Ellen Brown about the European Stability Mechanism as a permanent bailout fund for the rich.
Combating Widespread Currency Manipulation
By Joseph E. Gagnon - Peterson Institute for International Economics
This Policy Brief identifies the 20 most egregious currency manipulators over the past 11 years. Four groups of countries stand out: (1) longstanding advanced economies such as Japan and Switzerland; (2) newly industrialized economies such as Israel, Singapore, and Taiwan; (3) developing Asian economies such as China, Malaysia, and Th ailand; and (4) oil exporters such as Algeria, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
Although currency manipulation to boost trade balances is a violation of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), there is currently no procedure to punish or curtail it. The best forum for sanctions against currency manipulators is the World Trade Organization (WTO), operating in consultation with the IMF. Countries affected by currency manipulation would be authorized to impose tariffs on imports from manipulators. In order to get manipulators to agree to this change in international rules, the main targets of currency manipulation—the United States and the euro area—may have to play tough. One strategy would be to tax or otherwise restrict purchases of US and euro area financial assets by currency manipulators.
Fractional Reserves and Economic Instability
Mises Daily: by John P. Cochran
Fractional-reserve banking has historically been viewed by some economists and most monetary cranks as a panacea for the economy — a source of easy credit and new purchasing power to quicken trade. Better economists, however, recognized fractional-reserve banking with its ability to create credit, Mises's (1971, pp. 268–69) circulation credit or Rothbard's (1994) deposit banking, as a major source of financial and economic instability. The establishment of a central bank was often, when not driven by fiscal priorities of government, an attempt to achieve the first while mitigating or eliminating the second. For the United States, in particular, the effort was perhaps misguided. Per Vera Smith (1990 [1936], p. 166)
Euro tumbles as Asian funds shun EU chaos The euro has plunged to multi-year lows against a range of currencies on fears of a deepening slump in Italy and Spain, and ugly disputes between eurozone leaders.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The single currency has been sliding relentlessly since the European Central Bank cut its discount rate to zero last week, triggering an exodus of money market funds, but has now broken key resistance levels watched by technical analysts.
It tumbled to 0.7882 against sterling today, the lowest since late 2008, overpowering efforts by the Bank of England to weaken the pound with its latest £50bn burst of quantitative easing.
Comeback kid America's economy is once again reinventing itself
The Economist.com
ALMOST the only thing on which Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger, agree is that the economy is in a bad way. Unemployment is stuck above 8% and growth probably slipped below an annualised 2% in the first half of this year. Ahead lie the threats of a euro break-up, a slowdown in China and the "fiscal cliff", a withering year-end combination of tax increases and spending cuts. Mr Obama and Mr Romney disagree only on what would make things worse: re-electing a left-wing president who has regulated to death a private sector he neither likes nor understands; or swapping him for a rapacious private-equity man bent on enriching the very people who caused the mess.
US June Deficit: $60 Billion, $17 Billion Worse Than Prior Year
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The good news: the deficit in June was $59.7 billion, just on top of expectations of $60.0 billion. The bad news: the June deficit was $59.7 billion, following $125 billion in May (and yes, right after that shocking and one-time, tax return driven $59 billion surplus in April), and $16.7 billion higher compared to last June. Total debt in June increased by $85.7 billion so more or less in line. The cumulative deficit in Fiscal 2012 is now $904 billion through June, compared to $970 billion last year over the same period. Will this ever change? Not as long as profligate spending-encouraging record low yield is there. Tune in next month when we find that the July deficit was about $140 billion in line with historical data.
Regulators' Shake-Up Seen as Missed Bid to Police JPMorgan
BY JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG
AND BEN PROTESS - NYTimes.com
After the financial crisis, regulators vowed to overhaul supervision of the nation's largest banks.
As part of that effort, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in mid-2011 replaced virtually all of its roughly 40 examiners at JPMorgan Chase to bolster the team's expertise and prevent regulators from forming cozy ties with executives, according to several current and former government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
But those changes left the New York Fed's front-line examiners without deep knowledge of JPMorgan's operations for a brief yet critical time, said those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because there is a federal investigation of the bank.
How Your Bank Account Could Disappear
By Jeff Nielson - BullionBullsCanada.com
On the same morning we hear that ¼ of Wall Street executives think that fraud is a necessary part of "doing business" in the financial sector, we hear of a second "MF Global". The U.S.'s so-called regulators are now reporting that somewhere around $220 million in customer funds is "missing" at a financial institution known as PFGBest; once again closing the barn door after all the cows have run off.
With at least one out of every four bankers at U.S. Big Banks (that's how many admitted to being crooks in the survey) thinking that stealing is part of their job descriptions, it's very important for people to realize how little protection there now is between these thieves andyour bank accounts. Based on the writing of a number of other individuals with more expertise in these markets, it is apparently an inherently fraudulent banking process known as"rehypothecation" which is allowing the mass-plundering of accounts at U.S. financial institutions, with other Western financial regulatory authorities also rubber-stamping this relatively new form of bankster crime.
Baltimore takes lead in suit against banks
over alleged Libor manipulation
By Michael A. Fletcher - WashingtonPost.com
Dozens of states, cities and other government entities are exploring whether they lost money because of the alleged manipulation of a crucial benchmark used to set interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of loans and investments.
Baltimore City is leading a federal lawsuit against the group of big banks that set Libor, the London interbank offered rate, accusing it of conspiring to suppress the benchmark. The banks named in the case include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, CitiBank and Deutsche Bank.
U.S. probing failed broker PFGBest's use of small auditor
By Sarah N. Lynch and Nick Carey | Reuters - ChicagoTribune.com
WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. futures industry investigators are looking into why Iowa-based collapsed brokerage PFGBest used a tiny accounting firm that appears to be operating from inside a suburban Chicago home to audit its books, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Experts said the use of such an auditor should have been a red flag to regulators of a futures brokerage with more than $500 million in assets and several hundred employees across the United States as well as in Shanghai and Canada.
The Chronology Of A Collapse:
Santelli's Primer On The PFG Debacle
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
There remains some confusion about the timing of actions around the PFG Best disaster. From withdrawn salary cuts to liquidation-only orders to forced liquidations from Friday to today, CNBC's Rick Santelli provides a succinct and shocking insight into what real money accounts and brokers have dealt with and continue to try to comprehend. The sad truth about where the money went is summed up by his guest that "we're just hearing rumors; it could be, on a percentage basis, worse than MF Global."
The Many Collapses of Keynesianism
Mises Daily: by Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.
It should be obvious to everyone but the most dedicated adherent of Keynesianism that the stimulus did not accomplish its end. The combination of outright spending by Congress, the desperate schemes to reflate the housing market, the attempt to transfuse bleeding firms with other people's money, and the creation of trillions in artificial money, has not done a thing to lift the US economy.
Actually, the reverse has been true. All these efforts have prevented the adjustment of economic forces to the postboom world. And all the resources that the stimulus consumed were extracted from the private sector, for we must always remember that government has no resources of its own. Everything it does must come from the hides of private producers and the citizenry in general, in the future if not immediately.
New foreclosure filings swell 27% in Chicago area
By Mary Ellen Podmolik - Chicaqgo Tribune staff reporter
Foreclosure filings in seven Chicago-area counties swelled during June and the second quarter, keeping pressure on a local housing market trying hard to find a bottom.
Another 6,952 homes started the foreclosure process in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will counties, RealtyTrac data showed. That's a 27 percent increase from June 2011 when initial filings of foreclosure in the seven counties totaled 5,485. The number declined from May 2012, when 7,595 homes entered foreclosure.
Maine Governor Just Can't Stop
Comparing 'Obamacare' To The Holocaust
By EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) on Thursday simultaneously apologized for and doubled down on comments he made last week equating the IRS with the Gestapo.
LePage told Vermont weekly Seven Days that he understands why his claim about the IRS — voiced after the Supreme Court upheld the health care law — offended some.
"The Holocaust is probably a bad example. Americans should not forget that it did happen," he said. "I apologize to the Jewish Americans who feel offended. I also apologize to the Japanese Americans who were put in prison during World War II and I also apologize to those people who were accused of being Communists under McCarthyism, because that's not the American way."
Judge Napolitano Explains What Will Happen
If You Refuse to Pay for ObamaCare
The IRS is gearing up for its new role as health care cop. The agency, whose main responsibility is to collect taxes, will soon be in charge of enforcing ObamaCare. How can the IRS police a bill that comes with no civil or criminal penalties for those who refuse to pay?
Judge Andrew Napolitano weighed in on the issue on today's Fox and Friends, saying that if someone chooses to pass on the health care plan and pay the tax, the IRS can withhold tax refunds, put a tax lien on your house, and send threatening letters in order to collect the tax.
Napolitano said that the scary part about this law is that it provides for 16,000 new IRS agents and funds them for the first four years.
Wells Fargo pays $175M in discrimination settlement
By Pete Yost, Associated Press - USAToday.com
WASHINGTON – Wells Fargo Bank will pay at least $175 million to settle accusations that it discriminated against African-American and Hispanic borrowers in violation of fair-lending laws, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Wells Fargo, the nation's largest residential home mortgage originator, allegedly engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers from 2004 through 2009.
United places $14B order with Boeing Airline to take delivery of 150 737s between 2013 and 2022
By Gregory Karp - Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Two aviation giants based in Chicago, United Continental Holdings and Boeing Co., furthered an 81-year relationship Thursday by inking a deal for 150 airplanes with a total list price of nearly $15 billion.
The order, the first since United's megamerger with Continental two years ago, is for 150 Boeing 737 jets, worth $14.7 billion at list prices, the companies announced Thursday during a news conference at United headquarters in Chicago. However, most airlines don't pay full list prices, especially on large orders.
The Recession's Unexpected Gift:
Reviving Multigenerational Living
By Brian Stoffel, The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
My wife and I got a notice from our management company this week; rent will be going up 10% next year. We live fairly well below our means, so it wasn't disastrous news, but any notice of such things always sends me down a mental rabbit hole. It usually ends with me getting irrationally worried about our family's finances.
At the peak of my worries, I thought back to my friend Gabriel, who helps run his family's organic coffee farm in Costa Rica. We are about the same age, and got married within weeks of each other. But his life seems far more laid-back and less fraught with financial uncertainty.
There's one key difference between my situation and Gabriel's: He lives with family, and though my wife and I recently moved back to the Midwest to be closer to ours, my parents are still 100 miles away. That led me to ponder: Would many of our financial anxieties disappear if we adopted a similar practice in America?
The Real Class Warfare is Baby Boomers
Vs. Younger Americans Hey kids, Mom and Dad are screwing you.
By Nick Gillespie - Reason.com
Hey kids, wake up! Stop playing your X-Box while listening to your Facebooks on the iPod and wearing your iPad with the cap turned backwards with the droopy pants and the bikini underwear listening to Snoopy Poopy Poop Dogg and the Enema Man and all that!
Take a break from getting yet another tattoo on your ass bone or your nipples pierced already! And STFU about the 1 Percent vs. the 99 Percent!
You're not getting screwed by billionaires and plutocrats. You're getting screwed by Mom and Dad.
Systematically and in all sorts of ways. Old people are doing everything possible to rob you of your money, your future, your dignity, and your freedom.
"Our common goal is clear: a robust and legally binding Arms Trade Treaty that will have a real impact on the lives of those millions of people suffering from the consequences of armed conflict, repression and armed violence,"….."It is ambitious, but it is achievable." UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon
In a mere couple of weeks, (July 27th as being reported), the President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama will under all expectations sign the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which many believe will be the end of the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution, as we know it.
This is not new. The UNATT has been in the works for years and on October 14, 2009 in a statement presented by Hillary Clinton and the State Department that it would overturn the position of former President George W. Bush, which opposed a UN Arms Trade Treaty, on the insistence that national controls were better.
The Road to Totalitarianism
Mises Daily: by Henry Hazlitt
In spite of the obvious ultimate objective of the masters of Russia to communize and conquer the world, and in spite of the frightful power which such weapons as guided missiles and atomic and hydrogen bombs may put in their hands, the greatest threat to American liberty today comes from within. It is the threat of a growing and spreading totalitarian ideology.
Totalitarianism in its final form is the doctrine that the government, the state, must exercise total control over the individual. The American College Dictionary, closely following Webster's Collegiate, defines totalitarianism as "pertaining to a centralized form of government in which those in control grant neither recognition nor tolerance to parties of different opinion."
New CIA Scanner Rolled Out Soon
by TSA Can Surveil You on a Molecular Level
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
The Department of Homeland Security and the national security state are determined to convert the nation's airports into Gestapo zones where citizens are subjected to the latest high-tech surveillance technology.
The latest example: the CIA's technology front group, In-Q-Tel, has subcontracted with a cutting edge company to develop a molecular-level scanner that Homeland Security plans to install in airports.
Government Plans to Use Super Lasers that Can Sense Drugs, What You Had for Breakfast
The Department of Homeland Security is planning to use an improved laser scanner system that can detect every molecule in and on you from as far as 164-feet away. The technology, developed by Genia Photonics, can pick up on everything from illegal drugs, to cancer, to what you had for breakfast. Patrick Jones has the full story.
Bob Barr: Feds Determined
To Label Conservatives 'Thought Criminals'
by Paul Joseph Watson, InfoWars - LewRockwell.com
Former Congressman Bob Barr has slammed as "frightening," "bizarre," and "insidious" a new study funded by the Department of Homeland Security with lists 'liberty lovers' as right-wing terrorists, noting that the federal government is determined to re-define legitimate political beliefs as thought crimes.
As we reported last week, a study produced by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland with the aid of $12 million dollars in DHS funding characterizes Americans who are "suspicious of centralized federal authority," and "reverent of individual liberty" as "extreme right-wing" terrorists.
Nationwide utility payment scam hurts thousands
By Scott Bauer, Associated Press - USAToday.com
MADISON, Wis. – As much as President Obama wants your vote, he's not actually offering to pay your monthly bills.
But thousands of Americans have been persuaded otherwise, falling victim to a fast-moving scam that claims to be part of an Obama administration program to help pay utility bills in the midst of a scorching summer.
The scheme spread quickly across the nation in recent weeks with help from victims who unwittingly shared it on social media sites before realizing they had been conned out of personal information such as Social Security, credit card and checking account numbers.
New Facebook Mobile Ads Push Privacy Limits
Facebook will launch a second mobile ad product which will serve ads to users based on which other apps they've downloaded onto their phones—raising concerns over privacy, according to the Wall Street Journal:
... ads for apps directly in a users' News Feed on their mobile devices, whether the consumer has noted an interest in that company or not,
Facebook engineers have built technology that lets the company track what apps people have on their phones and target ads based on that information, these people said.
Previously, Facebook largely served ads keyed by users' own preferences, friends, and their Likes. Sponsored stories, for instance, Facebook's first mobile ad product, serves ads triggered by users' brand mentions in their status updates.
Scenes Of Despair
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Sometimes it can be easy to forget that behind all of the horrible economic numbers that we hear about are millions of real people that have had their lives absolutely devastated by this economy. Elderly couples are being brutally evicted from their homes, young families are living in their cars, terminally ill people are dying because they cannot afford medication that they need and millions of parents can't sleep at night as they wrestle with anxiety over not being able to provide for their children. Often those that lose their jobs or their homes discover that people start looking at them very differently and that there is very little compassion out there these days. As you will read about below, one major U.S. bank is even kicking an elderly woman with stage 4 breast cancer out of her home because she cannot make her full mortgage payment each month. When the next major global financial catastrophe happens, we are going to see a whole lot more economic despair. Will society respond to that crisis by becoming warmer and more compassionate, or will the world around us become even more cold and even more cruel? As bad as things are right now, it truly is frightening to think about what the world is going to look like after the next major economic downturn.
USDA Admits Exterminating Birds, Crops, and Bees
WorldTruth.tv
The USDA has been under fire recently for its admitted assault against nature, after multiple investigations have uncovered its deliberate tampering with both plants and animals alike. One such investigation has put an end to the mystery surrounding the death of millions of birds, with USDA documents revealing the organization's role in the massive slaughter. In addition to the mass bird killings, it turns out the USDA was fully aware that a highly-popular herbicide chemical was a known bee-killer, which may have aided the bee decline. The USDA has also threatened the genetic integrity of the nation's crops. Information has surfaced regarding the USDA's illegal approval of Monsanto's biotech crop, sugar beets. These crimes are simply an excerpt from the long list of USDA crimes that are continually being exposed.
GET OUT.
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GET OUT.
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GET OUT.
GET OUT.
The ENTIRE SYSTEM is totally, completely corrupt and therefore NO FIRM IS SAFE. Don't be stupid. Don't be obtuse. Snap yourself out of the Stockholm Syndrome that you are clearly stuck in. Get ALL MONEY out of the ENTIRE FINANCIAL SYSTEM, including stocks, bonds, retirement accounts, futures, EVERYTHING...
Yahoo confirms theft of 450K unencrypted passwords 'Utter negligence,' says expert about latest online business black eye that included disclosure of .gov and .mil account info
By Gregg Keizer - Computerworld.com
Computerworld - Yahoo today confirmed that 450,000 unencrypted usernames and passwords were stolen Wednesday from one of its services, although it downplayed the threat.
"We confirm that an older file from Yahoo! Contributor Network, previously Associated Content, containing approximately 450,000 Yahoo! and other company usernames and passwords was compromised yesterday, July 11," Yahoo said in a statement forwarded by a company spokeswoman Thursday.
Summer's Biggest Solar Storm
(And Northern Lights Show) to Hit Earth Friday
By Dave Mosher - Wired.com
A giant solar flare shot out of a sunspot Thursday, hitting Earth with a powerful burst of X-ray and ultraviolet radiation. Solar researchers expect a small geomagnetic storm to follow and strike Earth this weekend, causing minor satellite glitches and major northern lights shows.
At 12:11 p.m. EDT, the flare began unleashing about a billion hydrogen bombs' worth of energy. Radiation temporarily jammed some radio frequencies for about an hour.
Right behind the flare is a belch of solar atmosphere called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, which is now traveling toward Earth at about 3.1 million mph. The resulting solar storm should start on Earth on Friday and conclude by Saturday's end.
Obama's China Card?
By Malcolm Fraser, former prime minister of Australia
Project-Syndicate.org
MELBOURNE – According to the United States Federal Reserve, Americans' net worth has fallen 40% since 2007, returning to its 1992 level. Progress towards recovery will be slow and difficult, and the US economy will be weak throughout the run-up to November's presidential and congressional elections. Can any incumbent – and especially President Barack Obama – win re-election in such conditions?
To be sure, the blame for America's malaise lies squarely with Obama's predecessors: Bill Clinton, for encouraging the Fed to take its eye off financial-market supervision and regulation, and George W. Bush, for his costly wars, which added massively to US government debt. But, come Election Day, many (if not most) Americans are likely to ignore recent history and vote against the incumbent.
Over 200 massacred
in Syrian government forces attack: activists
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Erika Solomon
AMMAN/BEIRUT | Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:25pm EDT
(Reuters) - More than 200 Syrians, mostly civilians, were massacred in a village in the rebellious Hama region when it was bombarded by helicopter gunships and tanks and then stormed by militiamen, opposition activists said.
If confirmed, it would be the worst single incident of violence in 16 months of conflict in which rebels are fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad and diplomacy to halt the bloodshed has been stymied by jostling between world powers.
Fed officials weighing stimulus
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
Several members of the Federal Reserve suggested during a June policy meeting that further efforts to boost the economy might soon be needed.
Minutes from the last meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) released Wednesday reveal that a handful of its 12 members said further policy steps would "likely" be needed to push the economy in the right direction. "Several others" agreed that the Fed would need to do more for the economy if the recovery were to lose steam or additional threats to the economy were to arise.
Moody's Triples Pension Debt Estimates
Walter Russell Mead - The-American-Interest.com
As we follow the evolving story of collapsing public pensions, one of the trickiest issues is the lack of reliable estimates of future returns on investment. Many of the biggest offenders among pensions assume returns of 8 percent or higher. These numbers may seem reasonable by historical standards, but they're hopelessly optimistic today. Even plans that have revised their estimates downward still project returns far above what most analysts expect. If these estimates don't come through, taxpayers will be left holding the bag, and either pension payouts will have to shrink or other services, including education and law enforcement, will have to.
Fed officials warn of looming crisis for economy
By Martin Crutsinger - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Most Federal Reserve policymakers agreed last month that they might need to take more action to support growth if the U.S. economy loses momentum.
Minutes of their June meeting released Wednesday show that Fedofficials signaled their concern that the struggling U.S. economy could worsen if Congress fails to avert tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts that kick in at the end of the year. They also expressed worries that Europe's debt crisis will weigh on U.S. growth.
Fed officials are worried about economy,
divided over what to do about it
By Zachary A. Goldfarb - WashingtonPost.com
Federal Reserve leaders are worried about the economy. Their assessment of economic growth and employment has worsened, and many think it could still get worse.
But they are deeply divided over what to do about it — whether to act, how to act, when to act, according to Wednesday's release of the minutes from the central bank's June policymaking meeting.
"A few members expressed the view that further policy stimulus would be necessary," the minutes said of the 19 officials on the Federal Open Markets Committee. "Several others noted that additional policy action could be warranted if the economic recovery were to lose momentum."
Glum Fed keeping easing options open, minutes show
By Pedro da Costa and Mark Felsenthal
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:37pm EDT
(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve is open to buying more Treasury bonds to stimulate the economy, but the recovery might need to weaken for a consensus to build, minutes from the central bank's June meeting released on Wednesday showed.
The Fed last month expanded its latest effort to keep long-term interest rates low, announcing it would buy an additional $267 billion in long-term bonds with proceeds from short-term debt in a measure known as Operation Twist.
The Federal Reserve: The Biggest Systemic Risk of All
By Alex Pollock - RealClearMarkets.com
Oh, the trials and tribulations of being a modern central bank! There are the unrealistic expectations of how much you know about the economic present and future (encouraged by your own PR, of course). There are the equally unrealistic expectations of how much you can control the economic future (encouraged by textbooks). And then there is the infinitely frustrating nature of the financial markets which you would like to manipulate. For financial markets are densely recursive, complex systems of self-reflective interactions and expectations, including actions which reflect expectations of what you will do all the time. This makes them hard to forecast, for the central bank just as for everybody else.
19 Warnings About A Coming Global Financial Catastrophe
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Global leaders have tried just about everything that they can think of, but the coming global financial catastrophe continues to march steadily toward us. We have seen "stimulus packages", quantitative easing, bond buying, interest rate cuts, emergency economic summits, bailout packages for banks, bailout packages for entire nations, "Operation Twist", unprecedented government intervention in business and massive amounts of new government debt and yet nothing seems to revive the global economy. In fact, it looks like we are rapidly heading into the second dip of a "double dip recession". Unfortunately, many believe that this next dip will be more like a full-blown depression. All over the world, top economic experts are warning that we are facing an unprecedented crisis of debt and insolvency that will result in a global financial catastrophe. The eurozone is drowning in debt, the U.S. government is drowning in debt and major banks all over the globe are drowning in debt. Global authorities have been trying to patch the system together and keep it going, but the incredible damage that all of this debt has done is now becoming apparent to everyone. The global debt bubble that has fueled prosperity in the western world for the last several decades is getting ready to burst, and when that happens the chaos that will result will be absolutely horrifying.
Spanish imposes another round of austerity,
aiming to shave $79 bln off budgets
AP - WashingtonPost.com
MADRID — Spain's government imposed more austerity measures on the beleaguered country Wednesday as it unveiled sales tax hikes and spending cuts aimed at shaving €65 billion ($79.85 billion) off the state budget over the next two and a half years.
A day after winning European Union approval for a huge bank bailout and breathing space on its deficit program, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned Parliament that Spain's future was at stake as it grapples with recession, a bloated deficit and investor wariness of its sovereign debt.
Spain bows to EU ultimatum with drastic cuts
Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy has raised VAT sharply in a humiliating volte-face and pushed through €65bn (£51bn) of drastic austerity measures to comply with a European Union ultimatum, risking a downward spiral into full depression.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
In Churchillian tones of blood and toil – even as Asturian miners and their wives clashed violently with police after a three-week march on Madrid – Mr Rajoy called for yet another round of cuts, admitting that Spain was obliged to take "urgent" action under the terms of the latest EU summit deal.
"We Spanish no longer have the choice whether or not to make sacrifices. We no longer have such liberty," he said.
Hours before, daily newspaper El Pais had stunned the nation by publishing the leaked "Memorandum" imposed by the eurozone's creditor bloc as the condition for Spain's €100bn bank rescue.
Insiders betting on a correction Insiders as bearish as at early May bull market high
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
TEMAGAMI, Ont. (MarketWatch) — The stock market has much to worry about.
In yesterday's column, in fact, when arguing that light volume was not something to worry about, I mentioned a far more legitimate cause for concern: The excessive levels of bullishness that prevail currently among investment advisers.
In falling sharply Tuesday on higher volume, the stock market dutifully illustrated my point.
Four Reasons To Be Even Less Optimistic About The Global Financial System Than You Were Last Month
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The cracks in the ice are getting bigger. At this point it is really hard to have much confidence in the global financial system at all. They told us that MF Global was an isolated incident. Well, the horrific financial scandal over at PFGBest is essentially MF Global all over again. They told us that we would not see a huge wave of municipal bankruptcies in the United States. Well, three California cities have declared bankruptcy in less than a month. They told us that we could have faith in the integrity of the global financial system. Well, now we are finding out that global interest rates have been fixed by insiders for years. They told us that Greece was an isolated problem and that none of the larger European nations would experience anything remotely similar. Well, what is happening in Spain right now looks like an instant replay of exactly what happened in Greece. So who are we supposed to believe? Why does it seem like nearly everything that "the authorities" tell us turns out to be a lie? What else haven't they been telling us?
Blame Barclays, Not Capitalism How the Left is right and wrong about the Libor scandal.
By Jonah Goldberg - NationalReview.com
Why aren't more people furious about the Libor scandal?
That's a question mostly being asked on the political left these days, and they're right to ask it.
Here are the basics: Barclays is the second-largestbank in Britain and one of the largest in the world. It has admitted to U.S. and British regulators that it manipulated the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, which basically measures how much it costs banks to borrow money from one another for various periods of time. If you ever read the fine print on a home mortgage, credit-card agreement, or car loan, you've seen reference to Libor.
LIBOR Manipulation Leads to Questions
Regarding Gold Manipulation
BY MARK O'BYRNE - FinancialSense.com
Today's AM fix was USD 1576.50, EUR 1284 and GBP 1012.91 per ounce. Yesterday's AM fix was USD 1594.50, EUR 1293.29 and GBP 1026 per ounce.
Gold fell by $19.40 in New York yesterday and closed down 1.2% at $1,568.40/oz. Silver fell 1.8% or 50 cents to $26.84/oz.
Gold gradually ticked higher in Asian trading and has kept those gains and seen slight further gains in European trading.
This latest price weakness is confusing many market participants and causing further jitters to some owners of gold.
Revealed: why Gordon Brown sold Britain's gold
at a knock-down price
By Thomas Pascoe - Telegraph.co.uk
A great deal of Gordon Brown's economic strategy would strike a sane man as troubling. Not a great deal was mysterious. The orgy of consumption spending, frequent extensions of the cycle over which he would "borrow to invest", proclamations of the "end of boom and bust": these are part of the armoury of modern politicians, of all political hues.
One decision stands out as downright bizarre, however: the sale of the majority of Britain's gold reserves for prices between $256 and $296 an ounce, only to watch it soar so far as $1,615 per ounce today.
When Brown decided to dispose of almost 400 tonnes of gold between 1999 and 2002, he did two distinctly odd things.
Gold to Outshine Dollar?
BY AXEL G MERK - FinancialSense.com
As the price of gold has gone up fivefold over the past 10 years, why would one buy it at today's prices? For the same reason an investor would buy any other asset: if one believed it would be a good investment now, that is if one believed it may appreciate in value and add portfolio diversification benefits. A key reason to hold gold today might be to prepare for the crisis tomorrow.
Unscary Reasons to Add Gold
By: Adrian Ash - GoldSeek.com
GOLD IS OF COURSE for kooks and weirdos only – those doom-mongers who, bothering to read history, think printing money risks massive inflation, and who also fear banking and even government default today. Can you imagine!
Still, as we've learnt since gold's record peaks of summer 2011, it does much more than go up in a straight line. And that's why gold investing might also for other people too – better-paid, less wild-eyed people in sharper suits. Or at least it would be. If only professional money managers studied the data, like the doom-mongers read history.
In 2007, New York Fed was told about problems with Libor
By Zachary A. Goldfarb - WashingtonPost.com
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday it had received word as early as 2007 from the British bank Barclays about problems with the benchmark interest rate that underpins much of global lending.
Barclays has admitted to rigging Libor, an interest rate that sets the standard for lending in a wide variety of markets — from corporate bonds to credit cards and some mortgages.
On Tuesday, the New York Fed said that it had received "occasional anecdotal reports from Barclays of problems with Libor" in late 2007, as the financial crisis was starting.
LIBOR-Gate Will Take Down Many More Bankers,
And The Claims Will Spiral Into The Trillions
By David Kotok - BusinessInsider.com
Markets reacted to this crazy week of discredited, ADP-based employment forecasts, LIBOR revelations and central bank fizzle. The result is plain ugly.
In Europe, post-ECB, credit spreads widened. Good-guy yields declined; bad-guy yields rose. See our updated EU contagion series at www.cumber.com. Note how Swiss yields are negative until the 5-year maturity (which is a whopping 7 basis points). For new readers, see our archives on why the Swiss 10-year government bond is now the de facto benchmark for the eurozone. The European Central Bank demonstrated too little, too late. This week's Draghi Q&A did not help matters. We continue to underweight Europe. It is still too soon to bottom fish.
Banker disappears; so does $17M Investigators ask: Suicide or flight and a fake note?
By Kate Brumback - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
ATLANTA — After penning a rambling letter to financial regulators and writing notes to his family, a southern Georgia bank director boarded a ferry in Key West, Fla., and disappeared.
Now local and federal investigators are trying to determine whetherAubrey Lee Price killed himself, as the lengthy letter - which they've described as a confession - would have them believe, or slipped away with $17 million of investors' money. His family has told authorities they think he's dead, but federal investigators aren't so sure and have offered $20,000 for information leading to his arrest.
MF Global redux as Iowa broker hid missing millions for years
By Ann Saphir and Alexandra Alper
CHICAGO/WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. futures industry reeled o n T uesday as regulators accused Iowa-based broker PFGBest of misappropriating over $200 million in customer funds for more than two years, a new blow to trader trust just months after MF Global's collapse.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which along with industry regulators had given a clean bill of health to dozens of brokers following spot checks in January, alleged that the firm's regulated Peregrine Financial Group (PFG) unit and its owner had defrauded customers and lied to regulators in order to hide a shortfall that now exceeds $200 million.
Deflation and the Global Garage Sale
By: Rick Ackerman - GoldSeek.com
The media frequently report the chronic disappointment of the political elites that the economy isn't rebounding. Is this perhaps because people with different incomes see the economy differently? The simple fact is that people buy less if they are jobless or working part time. These days, quite a few of them, including those The Government would count as employed, are seeking additional sources of income. It may be all the same to the Labor Department's statisticians whether the economy is creating full-time or part-time jobs, but the latter don't put much spending money in the hands of those who hold them. Buying power is something that those who work full-time with benefits and some sense of security possess. Those are the jobs we all want, because they amount to a career.
California Demon
By JOHN H. FUND - TheAmerican Spectator.org
A state fast becoming America's version of Greece.
THE LATEST UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS show the economic recovery stalling. But as weak as the national economy is, it's nothing compared to the condition of some states whose policies are guaranteed to scare away jobs and investment.
Call it the European Disease: Run up spending and debt, raise taxes in the name of balancing the budget, and then watch as jobs flee, deficits rise, and credit ratings fall.
Mammoth Lakes, Calif. files for bankruptcy
(Reuters) - Mammoth Lakes, California filed on Tuesday for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection from its creditors due to a nearly $43 million legal judgment against it.
The filing follows a vote Monday by Mammoth Lake's town council in favor of a bankruptcy filing, specifically to seek protection from the property developer awarded the judgment against the resort town of about 8,000 residents in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The developer, Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition, is the town's largest creditor, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of California (Case 12-32463).
Municipal bonds discount San Bernardino bankruptcy
By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Municipal bond investors on Wednesday shrugged off the move by San Bernardino, Calif., to file for bankruptcy as the broader market continues to perform relatively well, indicating investors understand these things will occasionally happen.
San Bernardino, a city of about 200,000 people east of Los Angeles, thus is on track to be the third municipality in the Golden State to opt for bankruptcy, joining Stockton and Mammoth Lakes.
Another California city, another bankruptcy
as San Bernardino joins Stockton, Mammoth Lakes
AP - WashingtonPost.com
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — In this sweltering Southern California city, officials tried to keep the budget in check by selling assets, cutting spending and asking public employees to take a hit as tax revenues dwindled.
But San Bernardino officials found themselves staring at a bleak prospect Tuesday night: Vendors hadn't been paid and cash was running out to make payroll, threatening to shut down the city altogether.
California's crazy train On the fast track for fiscal ruin
By BEN BOYCHUK - NYPost.com
California is broke and broken. Its freeways and roads are crumbling. Many cities — like Stockton, which declared bankruptcy two weeks ago — are straining under hundreds of millions in bond debt and unfunded pensions for retired public workers.
In the face of a slow-motion fiscal train wreck, why would state lawmakers commit to spending $5.8 billion in state and federal funds on the first phase of a high-speed rail line that practically nobody wants in part of the state where practically nobody lives?
House votes to repeal Obama healthcare law, again
By Thomas Ferraro and Donna Smith
WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:12pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Republican-led House of Representatives, on a near party-line vote of 244-185, on Wednesday once again passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama's overhaul of the healthcare system.
Just like previous House efforts to end the two-year-old healthcare law, the bill is certain to be stopped by Obama's fellow Democrats who control the Senate.
House votes 244-185 to repeal Obama healthcare reform law
By Pete Kasperowicz - TheHill.com
The House voted again Wednesday to repeal the 2010 healthcare reform law, giving Republicans some revenge against the late June Supreme Court ruling that found the law to be constitutional.
Members approved the bill in a 244-185 vote, after five hours of debate that stretched over two days.
As expected, just a handful of Democrats supported the GOP repeal bill. Five Democrats, Reps. Dan Boren (Okla.), Larry Kissell (N.C.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Mike McIntyre (N.C.) and Mike Ross (Ark.), sided with Republicans in the final vote. Of this group, all but Matheson voted with the GOP in a procedural vote on the bill Tuesday.
Obamatax's 'HIT' on Small Businesses and Families Higher taxes on insurance companies
mean higher premiums for all.
By Richard Burr & Tom Coburn - NationalReview.com
President Clinton recently created quite a stir when he suggested Congress should act to prevent massive tax hikes that will automatically occur at the end of the year. Even President Obama once admitted that "you don't raise taxes in a recession."
Unfortunately, the tax policies in the president's signature health-care law ignore this advice. The Supreme Court's decision last week does not change the fact that the scandalous new tax on life-saving medical devices (of all of the new taxes tucked into the law) had received the most prominent attention prior to the Supreme Court's ruling, most notably when the House recently voted to repeal it.
Bill would curb oversight of payday loans Pawnshops, check-cashing places at issue
By Cory Brown-The WashingtonTimes.com
A group of bipartisan lawmakers are pushing a plan to exempt pawnshops, payday lenders, check-cashing stores and installment lenders from oversight by President Obama's new consumer finance watchdog agency, saying the oversight could restrict credit and economic opportunities for lower-income and inner-city customers.
But the Consumer Federation of America and other advocacy groups say the move runs the risk of undercutting a key power of the newConsumer Finance Protection Board (CFPB), while leaving vulnerable borrowers prey to risky, high-interest loans that leave families and small business high, dry and deeper in debt.
Key Republican dings Postal Service for foot dragging
By Bernie Becker - TheHill.com
A key House Republican dinged the U.S. Postal Service in a recent letter for slowing down efforts to cut costs.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said the cash-strapped agency had dragged its feet and reined in plans to consolidate facilities, and failed to implement other cost-cutting measures at its disposal.
New Obama EO to give WH control of the Internet?
BY ED MORRISSEY - HotAir.com
We get a lot of e-mail about executive orders these days, much of it overly hysterical reaction to routine updates on long-standing EOs. Executive orders are legitimate when they deal directly with implementation of Article II powers or the enforcement of laws passed by Congress, as long as they don't arrogate authority not granted by the law or the Constitution. Obviously, there is plenty of room for abuse in that system, but under normal circumstances an EO is simply an instrument of delineating executive-branch policy by having the President himself sign off on it.
However, an EO signed last Friday generated enough concern that it caught the attention of the media. Titled "Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions," it appears to grant DHS some fairly wide-ranging responsibility to ensure that private networks and broadcast facilities operate properly in the case of national emergency. This is the section that has some worried:
Brutal Gestapo Tactics Are Being Used
Against Homeowners All Over America
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Property rights are being absolutely shredded all over America. Buying a piece of land and enjoying it with your family has always been a big part of the American Dream. Unfortunately, in the United States today you don't actually own your own home. If you don't pay your rent (property taxes) your home will be taken away from you, and you are only allowed to use your property in very narrowly defined ways. The control freaks that run things tell us what we can build on our own property, what we can grow on our own property, what types of gatherings we can have on our own property, how many visitors we can have on our own property and they have imposed very strict rules about how our property must be maintained. If we get "out of line", they will use "zoning ordinances" and "code violations" to make our lives a living hell. All over America today, brutal Gestapo tactics are being used against homeowners that just want to be left alone. Anyone that has ever dealt with a "compliance officer" or a "nuisance abatement team" knows what I am talking about. But if we have so very little "freedom" on our own properties, then how in the world can we continue to call this country "the land of the free"?
Tech Revolution Continues Despite Poor Economy
Walter Russell Mead - The-American-Interest.com
The economic optimism that many expressed coming into 2012 is now far behind us. Month after month of anemic growth in America, ineffective leadership in Europe, and slowing economies in China and India has sent the world economy into a prolonged blight, and people are once again concerned that we may see a double-dip in the recession before the year is out.
But amidst all the bad news, there are a few bright spots. Energy discoveries in America are one, and the growth of online education is another. Many of the biggest advances, however, are coming in the world of technology.
Algorithms now writing articles for media New reporter? Call him Al, for algorithm
The new reporter on the US media scene takes no coffee breaks, churns out articles at lightning speed, and has no pension plan.
That's because the reporter is not a person, but a computer algorithm, honed to translate raw data such as corporate earnings reports and previews or sports statistics into readable prose.
Algorithms are producing a growing number of articles for newspapers and websites, such as this one produced by Narrative Science:
Lawmakers fuming over Pentagon guidance
limiting reports to 10 pages
By Justin Fishel - FOXNews.com
Republican Rep. Buck McKeon and other members of the House Armed Services Committee are furious over what they are calling an "arbitrary" decision by the Pentagon to limit reports to Congress to as few as 10 pages.
McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the committee, on Wednesday cited the most recent military report on China, which totaled just 15 pages of written content on China's military -- in addition to 29 pages of graphs, appendices and title pages.
Senate stalls on small business bill,
Bush-era tax rate extension proposals
By Daniel Strauss - TheHill.com
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Wednesday evening attempted to move forward on a small business bill and two competing proposals on extending the Bush-era tax rates but was thwarted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Reid attempted to advance the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act (S.2237) by setting up a vote on that bill as well as two separate pieces of legislation extending all the Bush-era tax rates and extending the same tax rates except for incomes over $250,000 a year.
The WSJ likely understated massive union political spending
BY KARL - HotAir.com
Don't get me wrong: The Wall Street Journal's Tom McGinty and Brody Mullins performed a valuable public service in compiling the Department of Labor data showing that Big Labor spent $3.3 billion more on political activity than the $1.1 billion they reported to the Federal Election Commission and congress. However, their analysis appears to take the numbers for political spending listed by the unions at face value. You will be shocked,shocked to learn those numbers might not be rock solid.
For example, we could look at the most recent annual report filed by the National Education, one of the nation's most politically active unions and the one whose political activities sparked the current rules of disclosure of union political spending. The NEA's most recent LM-2 disclosure form (downloadble here) lists tens of millions of supposedly non-political grants paid to its affiliates for its UniServ program.
NRA draws red line on UN arms treaty
By Julian Pecquet - TheHill.com
The National Rifle Association (NRA) warned the United Nations on Wednesday that the effort to craft international rules for weapons sales will go nowhere in Congress if it includes civilian arms.
Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the powerful lobby group, said 58 senators have pledged to oppose the treaty if it covers civilian weapons, fearing an infringement of America's gun rights.
Rothschild, Soros and Rockefeller Want Your Firearms
By DBHJ - Keys To Liberty Blog
Three world wars were predicted by Freemason Albert Pike in 1871. At he end of the World War I, the League of Nations was formed; at the end of World War II the United Nations was formed and at the end of World War III the New World Order will be born. But first countries like the United States that have a Bill of Rights that guarantees the right to "keep and bear arms" must be eliminated through treaties, war, civil war; or a combination of those events. In short, we are living in perilous times and our once great Republic is dying-on-the-vine because of our involvement with the United Nations.
UN arms treaty could put U.S. gun owners
in foreign sights, say critics
FOXNews.com
UNITED NATIONS – A treaty being hammered out this month at the United Nations -- with Iran playing a key role -- could expose the records of America's gun owners to foreign governments -- and, critics warn, eventually put the Second Amendment on global trial.
International talks in New York are going on throughout July on the final wording of the so-called Arms Trade Treaty, which supporters such as Amnesty International USA say would rein in unregulated weapons that kill an estimated 1,500 people daily around the world. But critics, including the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre, warn the treaty would mark a major step toward the eventual erosion of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment gun-ownership rights.
Russia's new bomber is arriving early
Michael Auslin | National Review Online
RIA Novosti reported last week that Russia's next-generation long-range bomber, the PAK DA, will start arriving in 2020, and not 2025, as initially planned. In addition, Russia's three other types of strategic bombers, which currently can carry a total of 850 long-range cruise missiles, are all scheduled for modernization. Last year, Russia began test flights of its new stealth fighter, the PAK FA, which is being co-produced with India. All this is a reminder that America's air supremacy, which has been largely uncontested at least since the Soviet Union collapsed back in 1991, will be coming under increasing pressure. China is also modernizing and expanding its fleet of fighters and ground-attack jets, and by most estimates has a decided advantage over Taiwan and possibly even Japan.
Floating Base Steps Up U.S. Presence in the Persian Gulf
By THOM SHANKER - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — One of the Navy's oldest transport ships, now converted into one of its newest platforms for warfare, arrived in waters off Bahrain late last week, a major addition to the enlarged presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf designed as a counter to Iran.
The keel for the ship, the Ponce, was cast in 1966, and the vessel, nearing the end of its service, was to have been scrapped. But the Ponce was reborn as a floating forward base for staging important military operations across the region — the latest example of the new American way of war.
U.S. moving submersibles to Persian Gulf to oppose Iran
By David S. Cloud - LATimes.com
WASHINGTON — The Navy is rushing dozens of unmanned underwater craft to the Persian Gulf to help detect and destroy mines in a major military buildup aimed at preventing Iran from closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the event of a crisis, U.S. officials said.
The tiny SeaFox submersibles each carry an underwater television camera, homing sonar and an explosive charge. The Navy bought them in May after an urgent request by Marine Gen. James Mattis, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East.
Russia Sending Warships on Maneuvers Near Syria
By ANDREW E. KRAMER and RICK GLADSTONE - NYTimes.com
MOSCOW — Russia said on Tuesday that it had dispatched a flotilla of 11 warships to the eastern Mediterranean, some of which would dock in Syria. It would be the largest display of Russian military power in the region since the Syrian conflict began almost 17 months ago. Nearly half of the ships were capable of carrying hundreds of marines.
The announcement appeared intended to punctuate Russia's effort to position itself as an increasingly decisive broker in resolving the antigovernment uprising in Syria, Russia's last ally in the Middle East and home to Tartus, its only foreign military base outside the former Soviet Union. The announcement also came a day after Russia said it was halting new shipments of weapons to the Syrian military until the conflict settled down.
Iran's top leader: Country 'immune' to sanctions
AP - FOXNews.com
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's top leader claims the country is immune to Western sanctions over its controversial nuclear program and has been able to make technological advancements despite the punitive measures.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's remarks on state TV Wednesday were meant to shrug off the latest EU ban on Iranian oil sales that was imposed to pressure Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, which is a potential pathway to nuclear weapons.
The Fiscal Cliff: A Hard Landing Becomes More Likely
By Bill Frenzel - RealClearMarkets.com
There is hardly an optimist so bold as to predict that the Congress and the President can make any real progress on our fiscal problems before the election. Both parties and all candidates in the 2012 elections are in their full campaign modes now.
Campaign promises, not compromise solutions, will dominate the political scene until November. But what happens then? One idea is that the branches and parties will reach some miraculous accommodation in the lame-duck Session that will prevent our economy from falling off what Chairman Bernanke has called the "fiscal cliff."
Why Economy Is Slowing: 'Things Could Get Much Worse'
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
The global economy is weak and getting weaker, due in large part to the same policies that helped bring the world back from the brink just a few years ago.
Measures like lowering interest rates and creating money for central banks to conduct trillions in asset purchases are "now seen as a sign of weakness rather than strength," said Andrew Kenningham, senior global economist at Capital Economics, a London-based forecasting firm.
That view is gaining validity as easing moves last week in Europe and China as well as the recent measure from the Federal Reserve have had little effect in financial markets.
Four fiscal cliffs ahead, and a jobs war Commentary: Recession to turn U.S. into doomsday machine
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch)—Election wars are masking the fiscal cliff that America is destined to drop off in early 2013, warns the Congressional Budget Office. History tells us our politicians will slowly drive America off the fiscal cliff and into a mid-1930s-style sinkhole. Why? Because no matter who's elected, our dysfunctional government will continue to be driven by secretive super-PAC billionaires obsessed about either holding on to or regaining the presidency in 2016.
America's fiscal cliff is actually four cliffs. And any one can easily trigger the other three. By 2013 the public will wake up to discover America is still a political war zone facing a recession no politician can solve, igniting further rage with warring politicians and their billionaire buddies.
Art Laffer: US 'Close' to Double-Dip Recession
By: Bruno J. Navarro - CNBC.com
The U.S. economy is near a double-dip recession, economist Art Laffer said Monday on CNBC.
"We're close — the single worst recovery of all time," he said on "The Kudlow Report." "If the tax increases go through to 2013, I think we fall off the cliff to be very honest with you."
Vice President Joe Biden's former chief economist, Jared Bernstein, had said that keeping the Bush tax cuts only for the middle class would only mean higher taxes for the top 2 percent of earners.
Not true, argued Laffer of Laffer Associates.
"They employ everyone else, invest capital and provide the economic recovery," he said. "It's just terrible."
The 2 Indicators That Make or Break
Every Recovery: Houses and Cars
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
The collapse of the housing and car markets plunged us into the Great Recession. Could reviving them be enough to get us out?
Economist James Hamilton asked the question in a recent Econobrowser post, and his answer, as you might expect from a thoughtful academic, boiled down to a big maybe. But some of the data he digs out while exploring the issue tells a truly remarkable story about just how vastly the health of these sectors influences the U.S. economy. On average, houses and cars account for just 8 percent of America's GDP. But when it comes to economic growth (or contraction), both markets punch way above their weight. That's because they're both prone to dramatic seesaws: they perform exceptionally well when the economy is healthy, and exceptionally poorly when it's ailing.
Germans in court battle to block eurozone bailouts The German Constitutional Court may take up to three months to rule on an injunction by private citizens and Left-wing lawmakers aimed at blocking the eurozone bailout machinery, leaving markets hanging in suspense as the eurozone debt crisis eats at confidence.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Chief justice Andreas Vosskuhle said the court in Karlsruhe must be allowed a "constitutionally reasonable" period to weigh matters of great public significance, brushing aside warnings that any further delay by the eurozone's key creditor power would set off a disastrous chain of events.
Finance minister Wolfgang Schauble told the eight judges that there would be "serious consequences far beyond Germany" if the case dragged on for long, risking a funding crisis for EMU states in trouble and throwing the whole euro project into doubt.
Is China picking off individual EU members?
BY DARIUSZ KALAN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Lately EU integration seems to have become a wrestling match between those member states large enough to impose conditionality on their partners and those member states large enough to escape this interference. No wonder small and peripheral members are feeling trampled upon.
They can be forgiven for looking for a less onerous form of co-operation. In particular, those member states obliged to accept the harsh conditions attached to the EU''s financial support seem to be looking to the east, waiting expectantly for a dollop of investment as well as preferential credits.
ECB pledges action as southern Europe buckles The European Central Bank has vowed to do whatever it takes to hold the euro together after the North-South gap in borrowing costs reached fresh extremes, pushing the two halves of monetary union closer to breaking point.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Yields on Spanish 10-year bonds punched through the danger line of 7pc yesterday, obliterating the short-lived gains from the European Union summit last month. Italian yields rose above 6.08pc. With a cruel twist, German rates for six-month money fell to a record low of minus 0.03pc on safe-haven flows, while France's borrowing costs turned negative for the first time in French history.
Spanish and Italian leaders pleaded for ECB intervention to stop yields spiralling out of control. "At this moment the only institution that has enough money to act is the ECB. The ECB should start massive purchases of public debt," said Spain's foreign minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo. Italy's premier, Mario Monti, said market mayhem was obstructing the "the transmission of monetary policy", the code term used by the ECB to justify intervention.
Europe's Divided Visionaries
By Barry Eichengreen - Project-Syndicate.org
BERKELEY – Europe's leaders, unlike former US President George H. W. Bush, have never had trouble with the "vision thing." They have always known what they want their continent to be. But having a vision is not the same as implementing it. And, when it comes to putting their ideas into practice, the European Union's leaders have fallen short repeatedly.
This tension between Europeans' goals and their ability to achieve them is playing out again in the wake of the recent EU summit. Europe's leaders now agree on a vision of what the EU should become: an economic and monetary union complemented by a banking union, a fiscal union, and a political union. The trouble starts as soon as the discussion moves on to how – and especially when – the last three should be established.
Germany and UK are main adversaries
on EU laws, survey says
BY HONOR MAHONY - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Germany and the UK are the most likely to have opposing views on EU legislation, while France and Lithuania are in perfect voting harmony, an analysis of member state voting shows.
Of the 343 voted-on pieces of legislation between July 2009 and June 2012, the most votes were taken on laws to do with economic and monetary affairs - an area that has seen a surge in legislation since the financial crisis kicked off - followed by environment and transport.
Imagining a Universe Without Central Banks
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
07/06/12 Paris, France – The God Particle has been discovered!
Yesterday, the saints at central banks in China, Europe and the UK said they would perform what could only be a miracle. The world economy wheezes, rattles and shakes because it has been poisoned by too much debt. The central bankers offer a cure — more debt!
"Central banks take action," is the headline in today's Financial Times. "Moves to stimulate global economy," the FT described them.
But what really got our attention was the 'god particle' story. Without it, say the scientists who tracked it down, we wouldn't exist.
Of course, you could say that about a lot of things. Without air, we wouldn't exist. Or water. Or sunlight.
Central Banks Need to Lose Credibility
By ALEN MATTICH - WSJ.com
Are investors starting to see through quantitative easing?
It remains likely that the only way for QE to work is if it makes people believe the central bank has lost its inflation-fighting credibility. And that hasn't happened yet. Although the time is getting closer.
Last week, the Bank of England said it would be buying yet more U.K. government bonds from the market; its total QE is rising to £375 billion ($580 billion) from £325 billion. The European Central Bank is holding off from bond purchases because of political hurdles but another mechanism is being put into place for European QE-lite, while the Bank of Japan is working through a 10 trillion yen ($125 billion) program announced earlier this year, as part of what is looking like perpetual QE, according to a commentary by the Sober Look economics blog in March.
Italy faces another year of recession as capital drains
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
Italy will be stuck in recession for at least another year and is facing some of the same developing problems that have pushed other European countries to request outside aid, the International Monetary Fund reported on Tuesday in its latest review of the country's economy.
The fund painted a muddled picture of the euro zone's third-largest economy. The government is enacting major changes to improve growth and is getting public deficits under control. Yet investors are pulling money from the country, banks are at risk from rising numbers of bad loans, and the economy continues to contract.
Here's One Reason Why the U.S. Economy
is Leaving Europe in the Dust
By Matt Phillips - WSJ.com
Great chart here from the always-insightful Deutsche Bank fixed income squad. It shows the difference between credit creation — essentially borrowing from banks — in the U.S. and Europe. As you can see the U.S. banking sector — the grey dotted line — has started making more loans again. European banks, which are on especially poor footing, haven't.
There are a bunch of reasons why the European banks are loathe to lend, and they differ from country to country. In Spain, for example, they're vulnerable to a ton of bad housing loans they made during that country's housing boom, then bust. In Italy it might be because they're super exposed to the debt of the Italian government. Prices for that debt have been hugely volatile. Essentially that means the foundation of the banks are especially unsteady.
Fed trio move closer to QE3 Sound alarm on outlook
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A trio of influential Federal Reserve officials on Monday sounded the alarm on the economy, and suggested that the central bank is close to starting another round of asset purchases.
In a speech to a bankers' convention in Idaho, John Williams, the president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, said progress on bringing down the unemployment rate is now running at a "snail's pace," and perhaps even stalled.
He said the Fed is on the "edge" of being forced from the sideline to once again prop up growth.
Geithner, Bernanke to face questions on interest rate scandal
By Tim Devaney-The Washington Times
In a sign that the uproar over manipulation of interest rates by the world's biggest banks is picking up steam on this side of the Atlantic, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Federal ReserveChairman Ben Bernanke are expected to face questions on Capitol Hill in the coming days over the possible involvement of American firms in the scandal.
London-based Barclays, the world's fourth largest bank, last week admitted in a $451 million settlement with British regulators to colluding with other banks to fix the "London interbank offered rate," or Libor — the benchmark interest rate that banks charge each other that in turn affects rates on everything from home mortgages and car loans to credit cards. The revelations have already cost top Barclays executives their jobs and spawned hearings in Parliament.
Priceless!... see diagram. LONGITUDINAL VIEW OF LIBOR CESSPIT
William Banzai clarifies the process by which Lie-bor submissions are turned into entirely irrelevant (and yet massively important to trillions of dollars of derivatives) interest-rate settings.
Beyond Barclays: Laying out the Libor Investigations
by Cora Currier: ProPublica.com
Last week, the British bank Barclays was slapped with $450 million in fines and penalties for manipulating information used to set a critical interest rate.
Settlements filed by government regulators in the U.S. and the U.K. show this manipulation happened in two ways: first, Barclays' traders attempted to steer rates up or down in order to benefit trades they had made to profit off of those rates. Separately, the filings show that during the financial crisis, Barclays tried to counter reports that it had financial troubles by changing the interest rate it reported.
If you're just catching up to this, here's some background on the scandal, and how we'll likely see government action on other banks besides Barclays.
New York Times, Gretchen Morgenson Applaud British, Issue Challenge To American Regulators Over LIBOR Scandal
By Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
The New York Times and its outstanding financial reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, have published an important article about the LIBOR banking crisis, challenging American regulators to take this mess as seriously as the British appear to be.
We found out just over a week ago that Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, as well as several other senior Barclays officials, were pushed out of their jobs after Bank of England chief Mervyn King trained a mysterious Vaderesque power on them, impelling them to leave with an "inflection of the eyebrows."
Barclays to ask Diamond to cut pay-off Barclays' board is to ask former chief executive Bob Diamond to give up at least part of a possible £17m pay-off to save the bank's reputation from further damage.
By Kamal Ahmed, Harry Wilson
and Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Discussions have already taken place with the Association of British Insurers, the trade group which represents billions of pounds of pension funds' investments, over plans to open negotiations with Mr Diamond over his exit payment.
Manifest, the share voting agency, estimated that the compensation package for Mr Diamond after he resigned over the Libor fixing scandal could be as high as £17m.
Futures Brokerage PFG Best Freezes Accounts
Following Discovery Of Accounting Irregularity
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com Update 3: Russ Wasendorf Sr., the founder and CEO of PFGBest, reportedly attempted to commit suicide this morning outside the corporate headquarters in rural Cedar Falls, company officials confirmed Monday afternoon. Update 2: PFGBest had $400MM in customer segregated funds at the end of April. Is JPMorgan about to "discover" another $400 million in Q2 "profits"? Update: PFGBest Plans 'Several Hundred' Layoffs, Spokeswoman Tells Dow Jones - Dow Jones. Sounds like a good idea in the facec of liquidation
Just out from futures broker PFG Best to clients, where the owner's suicide attempt apparently has led to a whole new MF Global spin off.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Due to a recent emergency involving Russell R. Wasendorf, Sr., a suicide attempt, some accounting irregularities are being investigated regarding company accounts. PFGBEST is wholly owned by Mr. Wasendorf. Therefore, the NFA and other officials have put all funds on hold, and PFGBEST is in liquidation-only status with our clearing FCM. What this means is no customers are able to trade except to liquidate positions. Until further notice, PFGBEST is not authorized to release any funds. We will update you as any new procedures are stipulated and with any further information as it becomes available.
Biderman Blasts The Bernanke Put
And Questions QE-Hopers
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Scoffing at the smugness of a CNBC talking head suggesting he is long-term bullish because of the Bernanke Put, TrimTabs' CEO Charles Biderman empirically analyses the effects of QEs-past and just as we have noted again and again - highlights the fact that without at least a 15% drop in stocks, Bernanke will not ride to the rescue. Based on his analysis of wage and salary growth, he believes the US economy is now starting to contract in line with what is going on in Europe and the rest of the emerging world. Earlier this year in the US, portfolio managers hoped and prayed that what looked like rapid growth was real, "It Wasnt!" and, as we have noted, Charles adds that with earnings season starting we will see future guidance cut and this will kick the leg out from the bullish stool - leaving only the hope for another QE flush to save us. However, with the effects of Bernanke's beneficence diminishing with each round, he suspects that we will be lucky to see a 10% rally on NEW QE.
Financial sector least transparent
AP - Boston.com
BERLIN (AP) — An anti-corruption watchdog says a new survey of corporations shows mining, oil and gas sector firms rank among the best at disclosing information on revenue, taxes and community contributions while financial companies tend to be the worst.
The findings came in a report on 105 of the world's largest publicly-traded companies released Tuesday by Transparency International.
A Crumb of Comfort for Investors
By: Gillian Tett - CNBC.com
This year, investors have been gobbling up US treasuries in a desperate effort to search for safety. But would they have done better to grab Australian sovereign debt or Singaporean bank bonds, as a shield against political incompetence in a fractious world?
If the wealth management arm of Merrill Lynch is to be believed, the answer could be "yes". This month, the US broker is quietly circulating a memo which tells its affluent clients to reposition themselves — and their portfolios — for a fundamental geopolitical shift.
Bond Market Still Waving Red Flags
By Paul Vigna - WSJ.com
While there are fireworksover in London today from the Libor scandal, the bond markets are waving red flags.
Now, on the one hand, this is nothing new. The bond markets have been waving red flags for years. But the combination of three government bond markets in particular, Spain, France, and the U.S., are notable to us at least; whether you heed them is up to you.
"We remain biased toward a risk-off market stance, buying dips in the market," the fixed-income team at Deutsche Bank wrote. "Delayed fiscal compromise and QE3 are consistent with a (bond) market rally, while delivery of those measures will be a catalyst for higher yields. We expect the narrow recent range to persist."
An Economics of National Pride
By E.J. Dionne, Jr.
DENVER—The path to the White House passes through the blue-collar communities in Ohio where President Obama campaigned last week—and the middle-class suburbs of Colorado where he did well four years ago.
The two states illustrate the imperative for both parties to assemble coalitions that cross class lines. Obama did precisely this in 2008. In Colorado, 58 percent of the state's voters had college or postgraduate degrees—and Obama built his nine-point margin over John McCain largely within this highly educated group. In Ohio, where 39 percent of voters had college or advanced degrees, Obama scored a five-point victory. He edged McCain across all educational groups.
Obama's Middle Class Tax Scam
Submitted by Bruce Krasting - ZeroHedge.com
Yesterday the Prez put his proposal on the table about what to do with the Fiscal Cliff the country faces at the end of the year. What Obama said is important. What he didn't say is critical...
The President's proposal appears to be "tax progressive" in that it benefits workers on the middle to lower end of incomes. The plan is clearly designed to get some votes in the key political states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Who knows? Maybe some suckers will actually cast a vote for Obama as they think he's standing up for those on the lower rungs of the income profile. Baloney!
Off the Tax Cliff He Goes President Obama wants lower rates for GE
and J.P. Morgan than for small business.
WSJ.com
So the 2013 tax cliff is a big enough economic problem that President Obama now wants to postpone it for some taxpayers. But it isn't so big that he's willing to curb his desire to raise taxes on tens of thousands of job-creating businesses.
That's the essence of Mr. Obama's announcement Monday that he wants Congress to extend current tax rates for a year, but only for those making less than $200,000 a year. This is a political gambit designed to protect Democrats who are starting to feel queasy about opposing GOP plans to extend all of the Bush rates as the economy weakens again. The ploy could help Democrats if Republicans fall for it, but it won't reduce the economic damage to the country.
Obama Intensifies Tax Fight President Calls for Extension of Bush Cuts for Some;
High Earners Would See Increase
By LAURA MECKLER and DAMIAN PALETTA - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama proposed a one-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000 a year but would let them rise for wealthier Americans, a move that both shifts the election debate to tax rates and sets the table for a showdown with Republicans in Congress.
Mr. Obama's move didn't break new policy ground—he essentially repackaged his existing policy for the campaign season. Nor is it likely to pave the way for action from a deeply divided Congress already in the thrall of the campaign.
Obama's Tax Plan Would Affect 3.5% Of Small Businesses
By SAHIL KAPUR - TalkingPointsMemo.com
The GOP's central argument against President Obama's renewed push to let taxes rise on incomes over $250,000 is that it'll target small businesses. The party's rhetoric obscures the fact that the plan will hike taxes on just a minor fraction small business filers.
"What the President is proposing is therefore a massive tax increase on job creators and on small business," Romney said Monday. "Small businesses are overwhelmingly being taxed not at a corporate rate, but at the individual tax rate. So successful small businesses will see their taxes go up dramatically and that will kill jobs."
Why Housing may not have bottomed out When Foreclosure Supplies Fall, the Bottom Falls Out of Housing
By: Diana Olick - CNBC.com
Growing activity in the spring housing market brought new growth in home prices, but those gains are growing ever more precarious because they are dependent on low-priced, distressed properties.
While prices in the past three months rose 1.7 percent on a national average from a year ago, according to a report from Clear Capital, the biggest gains were out West, where foreclosures and short sales are often the majority of a local market's activity.
Is eminent domain... Housing's Last Chance?
By JOE NOCERA - NYTimes.com
There are few counties in America in as rough shape as San Bernardino County in California. During the housing bubble, the good times were very good. But then came the bust.
Today, San Bernardino County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation: 11.9 percent. Home prices have collapsed. Astonishingly,every second home is underwater, meaning the homeowner owes more on the mortgage than the house is worth. It is well documented that underwater mortgages have a high likelihood of defaulting — and, eventually, being foreclosed on. It has also been clear for some time that the best way to keep troubled homeowners in their homes is by reducing the principal on their mortgages, thus lowering their debt burden and more closely aligning their mortgage with the actual value of the home.
Consumer watchdog agency
proposes new mortgage disclosures
By Ylan Q. Mui - WashingtonPost.com
The federal consumer watchdog agency on Monday proposed banning several controversial mortgage fees and unveiled new disclosure forms intended to help borrowers better understand the terms of their home loans.
The moves come as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau approaches its first anniversary. During a speech in Las Vegas on Monday, CFPB Director Richard Cordray highlighted abuses in the mortgage market and said restoring trust in the industry was one of the key drivers for creating the agency.
FHA Is The New Countrywide?
HousingDoom.com
Countrywide Financial Mortgage wrote a lot of risky loans. The loans often required little down and were made to borrowers with low credit scores. Consequently, lots of these homes went into foreclosure. Bank of America took them over, but as their former CEO, Ken Lewis stated, "It was the worst decision we ever made". These toxic loans have continued to cause problems with Bank of America.
You'd think then after government officials have called for tighter lending that we wouldn't be seeing these problems again. Not so. As foreclosure rates in general have been tapering off, FHA loans are seeing rising foreclosure rates.
No end in sight to world's jobless woes
By Sarah Freishtat-The Washington Times
The world's industrial powers are facing an extended period of struggle in the labor market with no relief in sight on the jobless front, according to an extensive new survey released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The OECD's 2012 Employment Outlook found that unemployment throughout its 34 member countries has continued to rise despite the 3-year-old economic recovery. The number of long-term jobless also is rising, and candidates are giving up on the job-search process, leading to a risk that current unemployment patterns may become structural.
Net Job Losses Under Obama Have Been Devastating
By THOMAS SOWELL - Investors.com
One of the reasons for the popularity of political rhetoric is that everybody can be right, in terms of their own rhetoric, no matter how much the rhetoric of one side contradicts the rhetoric of the other side.
President Obama constantly repeats how many millions of jobs have been created during his administration, while his critics constantly repeat how many millions of jobs have been lost during his administration. How can both of them be right — or, at least, how can they both get away with what they are saying?
There are jobs and there are net jobs. This is true not only today but in years past.
Small business optimism falls sharply in June
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON | Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:54am EDT
(Reuters) - Small businesses' confidence in the economy's future declined in June by the most in two years, increasing the threat that an economic slowdown could stretch into the second half of the year.
The National Federation of Independent Business said on Tuesday its Small Business Optimism Index dropped 3 points last month to 91.4.
Eight of the index's 10 components fell, with businesses downbeat on sales, profits and hiring.
Opinions Kathleen Sebelius: The Affordable Care Act has made the U.S. health-care system stronger
By Kathleen Sebelius - WashingtonPost.com
Kathleen Sebelius is secretary of health and human services.
The Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act was a turning point in the health-care debate, a chance to stop refighting old political battles and move forward with implementing and improving a law that is already lowering health-care costs and providing more security for millions of American families. Instead, congressional Republicans will spend Wednesday staging yet another repeal vote.
Fortunately for those Americans whose health and finances depend on protections in the law, the vote is only symbolic. But it's worth setting the record straight about some false claims that have recently resurfaced.
Six governors say they will opt out of Medicaid.
How long will they hold out?
Posted by Sarah Kliff - WashingtonPost.com
Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared Monday his state would not participate in the health law's Medicaid expansion, becoming the sixth Republican governor to make such a promise. Taken together, those governors opting-out would single-handedly shrink the Medicaid expansion by nearly 4 million people.
While the stakes are high for the White House, the territory is by no means uncharted. Washington has twice faced off with states over federal health care expansions, when Medicaid initially launched in 1965 and with the Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. In both cases, all 50 states ultimately signed up – but not without some wrangling.
Romney would face tough road
trying to repeal 'Obamacare' if elected president
By Sandhya Somashekhar - WashingtonPost.com
Mitt Romney has vowed that on his first day as president, he would act to repeal President Obama's health-care law, thus fulfilling a long-standing promise.
But the reality for a President Romney would be more complicated.
Unless Republicans gain huge numbers in Congress, he probably would not have the votes to simply repeal the entire law.
From the White House, he could instruct the Department of Health and Human Services to drag its feet, pushing back deadlines and turning to an army of lawyers and consultants to figure out how to exploit the law's weaknesses. But that kind of administrative muscle flexing could bring its own political problems.
Brownback Vows No Obamacare for Kansans
By: Bruno J. Navarro - CNBC.com
A day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said he had no plans to implement provisions of the health care law.
"This is now in the hands of the American public. Mitt Romney has said on Day One he'll grant a global waiver from the implementation of Obamacare, so now it's up to the American public to decide, and I'm going to see what's going to happen in the fall election before we move forward," he said on CNBC's "The Kudlow Report."
Approximately 13 percent of Kansans, or 351,000 people, did not have health insurance, according to a 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation report.
New Strategies for Treating Diabetes
By RON WINSLOW - WSJ.com
Researchers are trying new approaches to treat Type 2 diabetes amid widespread uncertainty about the most effective therapies and concerns that current strategies might be doing some patients more harm than good.
New guidelines for treating the disease, which many experts consider a public-health crisis among millions of mostly overweight individuals, suggest doctors vary treatments depending on a patient's age, general health and even personal preferences. The recently updated guidelines recommend that doctors back away from pushing patients to get their blood sugar down to a standard targeted level. Aiming for a very low blood-sugar level might be appropriate for a younger person, for example, while older patients might do better with a less aggressive approach, according to the guidelines, published in June in the journal Diabetes Care.
The Corn Is Dying All Over America
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
All over America the corn is dying. If drought conditions persist in the middle part of the country, wheat and soybeans will be next. Weeks of intense heat combined with extraordinarily dry conditions have brought many U.S. corn farmers to the brink of total disaster. If there is not significant rainfall soon, many farmers will be financially ruined. This period of time is particularly important for corn because this is when pollination is supposed to happen. But the unprecedented heat and the extremely dry conditions are playing havoc with that process. With each passing day things get even worse. We have seen the price of a bushel of corn soar 41 percent since June 14th. That is an astounding rise. You may not eat much corn directly, but it is important to realize that corn or corn syrup is just about in everything these days. Just look at your food labels. In the United States today, approximately 75 percent of all processed foods contain corn. So a huge rise in the price of corn is going to be felt all over the supermarket. Corn is also widely used to feed livestock, and if this crisis continues we are going to see a significant rise in meat and dairy prices as well. Food prices in America have already been rising at a steady pace, and so this is definitely not welcome news.
How to Think
By Chris Hedges - Truthdig.com
Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths. Artists, writers, poets, activists, journalists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, directors and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster. Members of this intellectual and artistic class, who are usually not welcome in the stultifying halls of academia where mediocrity is triumphant, serve as prophets. They are dismissed, or labeled by the power elites as subversive, because they do not embrace collective self-worship. They force us to confront unexamined assumptions, ones that, if not challenged, lead to destruction. They expose the ruling elites as hollow and corrupt. They articulate the senselessness of a system built on the ideology of endless growth, ceaseless exploitation and constant expansion. They warn us about the poison of careerism and the futility of the search for happiness in the accumulation of wealth. They make us face ourselves, from the bitter reality of slavery and Jim Crow to the genocidal slaughter of Native Americans to the repression of working-class movements to the atrocities carried out in imperial wars to the assault on the ecosystem. They make us unsure of our virtue. They challenge the easy clichés we use to describe the nation—the land of the free, the greatest country on earth, the beacon of liberty—to expose our darkness, crimes and ignorance. They offer the possibility of a life of meaning and the capacity for transformation.
Videogames Reach for the Cloud Moving Beyond PlayStation,
Sony Looks to Stream Games Over the Web
By IAN SHERR - WSJ.com
For decades, consumers have played videogames in arcades, on personal computers or specialized consoles hooked to televisions. Sony Corp. SNE -2.60% is placing a bet on a different approach—technology that streams games to Internet-connected devices.
Last week, the Japanese electronics maker announced a $380 million deal to acquire Gaikai Inc., a company that runs games on servers in its data centers. The technology lets gamers play fast-action, visually sophisticated titles through a Web browser—without the need to install specialized game software or buy hardware with special graphics circuitry. Players can use laptops, tablets, smartphones or even some TVs.
14 Incredibly Creepy Surveillance Technologies
That Big Brother Will Be Using To Spy On You
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Most of us don't think much about it, but the truth is that people are being watched, tracked and monitored more today than at any other time in human history. The explosive growth of technology in recent years has given governments, spy agencies and big corporations monitoring tools that the despots and dictators of the past could only dream of. Previous generations never had to deal with "pre-crime" surveillance cameras that use body language to spot criminals or unmanned drones watching them from far above. Previous generations would have never even dreamed that street lights and refrigerators might be spying on them. Many of the incredibly creepy surveillance technologies that you are about to read about are likely to absolutely astound you. We are rapidly heading toward a world where there will be no such thing as privacy anymore. Big Brother is becoming all-pervasive, and thousands of new technologies are currently being developed that will make it even easier to spy on you. The world is changing at a breathtaking pace, and a lot of the changes are definitely not for the better.
US urged to recruit master hackers
to wage cyber war on America's foes Top defense expert says the US should avoid 'ridiculous' prosecutions and use hackers' skills to detect and track enemies
By Rory Carroll in Monterey - Guardian.co.uk
Instead of prosecuting elite computer hackers, the US government should recruit them to launch cyber-attacks against Islamist terrorists and other foes, according to a leading military thinker and government adviser.
The brilliance of hacking experts could be put to use on behalf of the US in the same way as German rocket scientists were enlisted after the second world war, said John Arquilla, a professor of defence analysis at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, in an interview with the Guardian.
Stealth Fighter Jet Chokes Yet Another Pilot
By Robert Beckhusen - Wired.com
The Air Force swears it's working like mad to figure out why its premiere stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, is choking its pilots. They better: Just on Friday, another Raptor pilot experienced shortness of breath while flying his aircraft over Hawaii.
Luckily, he landed safely. But the hypoxia mystery — which the Air Force plans to spend much of the year inspecting — continues: This was the 23rd unexplained "hypoxic incident" since the Raptor was introduced in 2005.
New meaning to, "Your papers, please"... ? How Apple's iTravel Patent
Could Threaten Android's NFC Future
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
There's no end in sight for the smartphone patent wars. Apple was just awarded a notable patent relating to NFC, and if the patent is ever wielded against competitors, consumers might lose out the most.
Apple was granted a patent for travel-related check-ins using near-field communications (NFC) technology Tuesday. In the patent, titled "System and method for transportation check-in," Apple describes how a portable electronic device could "store and transmit travel reservations and traveler identifications using a travel management application." This could be accomplished a number of different ways, utilizing NFC and embedded RFID tags in a government-issued ID, and it sounds like it could fit right into the upcoming iOS 6 feature called Passbook.
Darpa Gets a New Boss, and Solyndra Is in Her Past
By Noah Shachtman - Wired.com
Until last year, Arati Prabhakar worked for the venture capitalists who backed Solyndra, the green-tech firm that imploded in a scandal described by Mitt Romney as an example of the White House's "crony capitalism." Now Prabhakar has a new job, this one in the Obama administration: running the Pentagon's most important research agency. But being the geek-in-chief requires investing billions on risky, high-tech bets that aren't so different from Solyndra.
Prabhakar, who starts in her new position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on July 30, will be Darpa's first Indian-American chief. And she boasts an impressive resume. Prabhakar came to this country at the age of 3, growing up in Lubbock, Texas. She earned a Ph.D. in applied physics from Caltech and founded Darpa's Microelectronics Technology Office. In 1993, at the age of 34, she was appointed as the head of the 3,000-person National Institute of Standards and Technology. From there, she left for Silicon Valley, where she became a top officer at a specialty materials company. She joined the venture capital firm U.S. Venture Partners in 2001, spending a decade investing in green tech and IT start-ups.
The Importance of Being Orwell George Orwell's best-known work (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four) emerged from painstaking investigation. In the introduction to a groundbreaking volume of Orwell's diaries, V.F.'s late columnist dissects one of the 20th century's greatest political minds, a writer who was also his lifelong inspiration
By Christopher Hitchens - VanityFair.com
At various points in his essays—notably in "Why I Write" but also in his popular column "As I Please"—George Orwell gave us an account of what made him tick, as it were, and of what supplied the motive for his work. At different times he instanced what he called his "power of facing unpleasant facts"; his love for the natural world, "growing things," and the annual replenishment of the seasons; and his desire to forward the cause of democratic socialism and oppose the menace of Fascism. Other strong impulses include his near-visceral feeling for the English language and his urge to defend it from the constant encroachments of propaganda and euphemism, and his reverence for objective truth, which he feared was being driven out of the world by the deliberate distortion and even obliteration of recent history.
The new terrorists — they're all of us
By Wesley Pruden-The Washington Times
Barack Obama, the Chicago messiah who promised to unite a fragmented nation, is succeeding beyond his dreams, and maybe even the dreams of his father, which he wrote about so eloquently in his campaign autobiography.
We're all terrorists now.
The Department of Homeland Security, ever on the scout for opportunities to blow taxpayer money, commissioned one of those "studies" so popular among college professors, to find clues that would identify prospective terrorists before they blow up airplanes, bring down skyscrapers and otherwise wreak havoc.
Russia's Putin says the West is on the decline
By Thomas Grove
MOSCOW | Mon Jul 9, 2012 4:32pm EDT
(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Monday the West's influence was waning as its economy declines but warned Russian diplomats to be on their guard against a backlash from Moscow's former Cold War enemies.
In a biennial speech to Russian ambassadors, Putin also took a shot at the West by condemning any unilateral actions to solve international disputes and underlined the importance of resolving such conflicts through the United Nations.
The Effects Of Increasing Global Money Supply On Gold WGC – Linking Global Money Supply to Gold and Future Inflation
Submitted by Tyler Durden - Zerohedge.com
WGC stresses that when looking at the effects of variables like money supply and inflation on the gold price, it is important to look at the global economy, and not concentrate only on what is happening in the US. After the start of the financial crisis in 2007, many governments and central banks in the world implemented monetary and fiscal policies to help their economies, but these policies have led to a large increase in the global money supply.
Gold May Have Been Manipulated Like LIBOR -
Fed Starts Tracking Gold
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
The St Louis Fed has added six daily gold prices in their FRED database. The prices are all from the LBMA.
They are the AM and PM gold price fix in Dollars, Euros, and Pounds.
These Six Daily Gold Prices Added to FRED
Given the rather opaque and somewhat quixotic nature (100:1 leverage and volumes in excess of world production) of the trading at the LBMA, it would not surprise one at all if the gold price has its analogue in the LIBOR price-fixing scandal. [see video]
On Gold As A Hyperinflation Put
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Gold has had an amazing recent run. From December 1999 to March 2012 the U.S. dollar price of gold rose more than 15.4% per annum, the U.S. Consumer Price Index increased by 2.5% per annum, while U.S. stock and bond markets registered annual gains of 1.5% and 6.4%, respectively. It is not surprising then that there is so much disagreement about gold's future and it is this "Golden Dilemma" that a new paper by Erb and Harvey focuses on, analyzing at least six somewhat different arguments that have been advanced for owning gold:
• gold provides an inflation hedge;
• gold serves as a currency hedge;
• gold is an attractive alternative to assets with low real returns;
• gold a safe haven in times of stress;
• gold should be held because we are returning to a de facto world gold standard;
• and gold is "underowned".
Roubini: My 'Perfect Storm' Scenario Is Unfolding Now
By: Ansuya Harjani - Assistant Producer, CNBC Asia
"Dr. Doom" Nouriel Roubini says the "perfect storm" scenario he forecast for the global economy earlier this year is unfolding right now as growth slows in the U.S., Europe as well as China.
n May, Roubini predicted four elements – stalling growth in the U.S., debt troubles in Europe, a slowdown in emerging markets, particularly China, and military conflict in Iran - would come together to create a storm for the global economy in 2013.
Fractional Reserve Banking, Government and Moral Hazard
By Ron Paul - FinancialSense.com
Last week my subcommittee held a hearing on fractional reserve banking and the moral hazard created by government (taxpayer) insured deposits. Fractional reserve banking is the practice by which banks accept deposits but only keep a fraction of those deposits on hand at any time. In practice, nearly 100% of deposits are loaned out, yet depositors believe that they can withdraw the full amount of their deposit at any time. Loaned funds are then redeposited and reloaned up to the limit of the bank's reserve requirements, compounding the effect.
Europe must act fast to avoid the risk of a bank run Financial leaders are sounding the alarm for unified stability, but the usual suspects are dragging their heels once again.
By Sheila Bair, contributor - Fortune.com
FORTUNE -- Europe is starting to look more and more like the U.S. as it headed for the cliff in the fall of 2008. The continent's banking system is fragile and overleveraged. Making a scary situation even scarier is the lack of a central, credible authority to protect European bank depositors against losses should their banks fail. While Europe has not experienced any bank runs -- yet -- banks in Greece, Spain, and, to a lesser extent, Italy have experienced bank "jogs," in which depositors have withdrawn significant amounts of cash. Customers in those troubled nations are protected by national deposit insurance systems, but they are understandably skittish, since those systems are only as good as the banks and governments backing them. Greek depositors in particular fear that if their country ends up exiting the eurozone, they may wake up one morning to find their euro deposits converted into drachmas at only a fraction of their previous value.
Max Keiser: TPP Secret Trade Deal with Dr. Paul C. Roberts
In this edition of the show Max interviews Dr. Paul Craig Roberts from paulcraigroberts.org. Dr. Paul C. Roberts is an economist, author and now a blogger at paulcraigroberts.com. He was an Assistant Treasury Secretary in Reagan Administration. The US economy, TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) secret trade deal, American and foreign powerful corporations, Dr. Robert's book entitled 'Silent Spring for US' and much issues are all discussed in this episode of On the Edge.
Misery Rising American Freefall
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - CounterPunch.org
In a recent column, "Can The World Survive Washington's Hubris," I promised to examine whether the US economy will collapse before Washington in its pursuit of world hegemony brings us into military confrontation with Russia and China. This is likely to be an ongoing subject on this site, so this column will not be the final word.
Washington has been at war since October, 2001. This war took a back seat when Bush concocted another excuse to order the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a war that went on without significant success for 8 years and has left Iraq in chaos with dozens more killed and wounded every day, a new strong man in place of the illegally executed former strongman, and the likelihood of the ongoing violence becoming civil war.
Top Fed officials set table for more easing
By Ann Saphir
Mon Jul 9, 2012 3:39pm EDT
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (Reuters) - Three top Federal Reserve policymakers on Monday laid the groundwork for a third round of bond purchases, saying the U.S. recovery was weak and unemployment far too high.
"We are right at that edge, that if economic data keep coming in below our expectations -- and our view is we are not making progress on our mandates, or we don't expect to make progress on our mandates -- then I think we would need more accommodation," San Francisco Fed President John Williams told reporters after a speech in the resort area of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho.
Fed ready to do what is needed to meet goals: Williams
by Ann Saphir
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve is prepared to do more to bring down unemployment that is far too high and to steer inflation back up to the central bank's 2 percent target, a top Fed official said on Monday.
In remarks prepared for delivery to the joint convention of the Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon Bankers Associations, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams stopped short of calling outright for a new round of bond purchases to further lower borrowing costs already near historic lows.
The Perfect Storm - Santelli Meets Farage
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The undisputed champion of European political ranting (UKIP's Nigel Farage) discussed the sad reality of Europe's inevitable demise with the reigning US chief of non-hype Rick Santelli in a no-holds-barred cage-match of like-minded skeptics. From Rajoy's incompetence to the 'genius of mutual indebtedness', Farage explains the problem is 'bedeviled with complexity' as, for example, the last summit left "the Finnish and Dutch finance ministers leaving with a very different perspective on what happened than the rest" and now even Merkel is arguing domestically what she has and has not agreed to. From the simple self-referential idiocy of Spain's EUR100 billion bailout - that creates vicious circles on all the peripheral 'bailing' nations; to"the same bundle of money going round and round in circles" leaving Nigel tempted to describe it as "a giant ponzi scheme"; Santelli, not to be outdone, explains how the US is just such a money-circulating ponzi scheme as "one part of the government issues debt as another part is buying".
ECB pledges action as southern Europe buckles The European Central Bank has vowed to do whatever it takes to hold the euro together after the North-South gap in borrowing costs reached fresh extremes, pushing the two halves of monetary union closer to breaking point.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telefraph.co.uk
Yields on Spanish 10-year bonds punched through the danger line of 7pc yesterday, obliterating the short-lived gains from the European Union summit last month. Italian yields rose above 6.08pc. With a cruel twist, German rates for six-month money fell to a record low of minus 0.03pc on safe-haven flows, while France's borrowing costs turned negative for the first time in French history.
Spanish and Italian leaders pleaded for ECB intervention to stop yields spiralling out of control. "At this moment the only institution that has enough money to act is the ECB. The ECB should start massive purchases of public debt," said Spain's foreign minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo. Italy's premier, Mario Monti, said market mayhem was obstructing the "the transmission of monetary policy", the code term used by the ECB to justify intervention.
Eurozone talks stuck on detail of bank rescue fund plan Leaders in Brussels divided over how to interpret summit accord aimed at easing pressure on highly indebted states
By Ian Traynor in Brussels - Guardian.co.uk
Eurozone leaders are meeting in Brussels to try to build on a "breakthrough" summit 10 days ago that agreed to ease the pressure on highly indebted states by injecting rescue funds directly into troubled banks.
But the meeting has been plagued by divisions over how to interpret the summit accord and how the decisions should be implemented.
The Spanish banking rescue was the main issue confronting ministers on Monday, but there were mixed signals over who would be liable for the mooted direct recapitalisation of the country's financial sector.
Italy's Version Of Austerity: 3 Months Of Vacation
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The French were willing to 'slash' retirement ages by a few days as the Greeks tied property tax payments to electricity supply in an effort to raise revenues but it seems the much-talked about austerity that is such a great hardship for Europe's non-German/Fins/Dutch is missing in action. Today we hear of the progress in Italy as la Republica explains the incredible provocation of the under-secretary of the economy Gianfranco Polillo that: "We are in a country where you work an average of nine months each year, and I think that now we must think that these nine months of work are too short," suggesting - shock, horror - that "if we gave up one week of vacation, we would have an immediate impact on GDP of around 1%". First of all - adding 1% from an additional week seems a 'stretch' but nevertheless asWirtschaftsfacts notes that these comments only "reinforce the prejudices in the northern countries of the euro zone, that many employees are in the southerners lazy and workshy." So the next time we hear Monto proclaiming the need for Zee Germans to step up or the ECB to monetize, it is clear now what exactly he is protecting - his all-year tan!
Cyprus: bank crisis will not spoil EU presidency
BY ANDREW RETTMAN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Cyprus has said the near-collpase of its banking system will not stop it from running a normal EU presidency.
Its EU mission in a statement circulated on Monday (9 July) said: "The two issues are not connected and Cyprus is ready and able to exercise a fully successful presidency."
It added: "Cyprus has all the potential and, most importantly, the will to act as an honest broker, with the aim of furthering European integration and of a better Europe."
Central Banks: Running Out of Ideas, Road
BY DETLEV S SCHLICHTER - FinancialSense.com
On page two of today's Wall Street Journal Europe you will find the result of a readers' poll from last Friday: Question: Will the ECB's rate cut help restore confidence in the bloc's economy? Answer: 81 percent of readers say no, 19 percent yes.
Last week's round of global monetary easing – another ECB rate cut, another round of debt monetization from the BoE, another rate cut from the People's Printing Press of China – is, of course, more of the same old same old. It has a discernible touch of desperation about it and this is not lost on the public. Monetary policy is ineffective. Or, to be precise, it is only effective in delaying a bit further the much-needed liquidation of the massive imbalances that previous monetary policy helped create, and thereby is contributing, on the margin, towards making the inevitable endgame even more painful. It is counterproductive and destructive. It is certainly not restoring confidence.
Bernanke is Helping Destroy the Global Economy By Doing Too Much, Not Too Little
Matthew Feeney | Reason.com
Business Insider has made a list of 'The 13 People Who Are Destroying The Global Economy'. I agree with most of the list, but not the reasons. The most notable example of this is Business Insider's fourth choice, Ben Bernanke.
I am not going to disagree with the lovely people at BI that Bernanke is up there with Obama and Draghi as one of the most dangerous people influencing the world economy, but the justification is misplaced:
Bernanke has also received criticism from economists like Paul Krugman for not engaging in enough monetary easing to boost the economy further. Krugman wrote recently in New York Times Magazine, "The Fed is supposed to pump up the economy when it's running too cold, with unemployment high and inflation low. That's where we are right now, in the Fed's own estimation. Yet the most recent minutes, from March, show Fed officials unwilling to take any further action to boost the economy.
Peter Schiff - The Fed Unspun: The Other Side of the Story
"Ben Bernake fancies himself as a student of the Great Depression," says renowned investment broker, global strategist, author, and Austrian economist Peter Schiff, "but... if he were my student he would have gotten an F."
During a lecture entitled "The Fed Unspun: The Other Side of the Story", Schiff responded to Bernake's recent four-part college lecture series, rebutting many of the Federal Reserve Chairman's claims about the cause of the housing crisis, the role of the Federal Reserve, the value of the gold standard, and more....
'A cesspit': Libor scandal may be going on elsewhere The market for determining one of the world's key interest rates was a "cesspit" and banks cannot be trusted to be honest in several other major markets, the deputy governor of the Bank of England has warned.
By James Kirkup - Telegraph.co.uk
Paul Tucker told MPs that Barclays' abuse of the Libor system may be only one part of the banks' dishonesty over crucial financial information, suggesting that other markets should now be investigated.
An official inquiry into Libor – which helps determine interest rates for householders and businesses – should be broadened to include several over markets where banks are trusted to report their own data, he said.
Mr Tucker's evidence to the Treasury Select Committee also reignited the political row over the Libor scandal as he insisted that members of the last Labour government had not "absolutely not" put pressure on him to reduce Libor.
Keiser Report: (E311)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss why nobody is freaking about LIBOR in America, while JP Morgan caught doing an Enron on US energy markets and GlaxoSmithKline pays 10% of their ill-gotten gains for bribing doctors and scientists across America. In the second half of the show Max talks to Kevin Sara of the TuNur solar export project of Tunisia about solar exports from the Middle East and toxic derivatives exports from the City of London.
LIBOR, the Fed and the TED
BY DAVID KOTOK - FinancialSense.com
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein
Somehow, the insanity of the present unsupervised system involving the Federal Reserve's primary dealers continues. The Fed had "surveillance" in place during the Drexel Burnham failure and the Salomon Brothers affair. There were no market meltdowns attributed to either event.
Then, in the early 1990s, under the Corrigan initiative and with the approval of the FOMC and Chairman Greenspan, the Fed ceded the surveillance issue to the other regulators. Since this policy change, the toll of primary dealer casualties has grown to include Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, MF Global, Countrywide, and now Barclays.
The LIBOR scandal The rotten heart of finance A scandal over key interest rates is about to go global
The Economist.com
THE most memorable incidents in earth-changing events are sometimes the most banal. In the rapidly spreading scandal of LIBOR (the London inter-bank offered rate) it is the very everydayness with which bank traders set about manipulating the most important figure in finance. They joked, or offered small favours. "Coffees will be coming your way," promised one trader in exchange for a fiddled number. "Dude. I owe you big time!… I'm opening a bottle of Bollinger," wrote another. One trader posted diary notes to himself so that he wouldn't forget to fiddle the numbers the next week. "Ask for High 6M Fix," he entered in his calendar, as he might have put "Buy milk".
What may still seem to many to be a parochial affair involving Barclays, a 300-year-old British bank, rigging an obscure number, is beginning to assume global significance. The number that the traders were toying with determines the prices that people and corporations around the world pay for loans or receive for their savings. It is used as a benchmark to set payments on about $800 trillion-worth of financial instruments, ranging from complex interest-rate derivatives to simple mortgages. The number determines the global flow of billions of dollars each year. Yet it turns out to have been flawed.
On LIBOR - Sue Them All Or Go Home
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Despite BoE's Tucker telling us this morning that there is no need to look at any other market but LIBOR, it appears the world has moved on from this debacle of indication of anything. As we pointed out here, the 'stability' of LIBOR given everything going on around it is incredulous (whether due to the ECB's crappy-collateral standards-based MROs or the Fed's FX swap lines - since unsecured interbank financing is now a relic of the pre-crisis 'trust' era). Furthermore, as we discussed yesterday, the machinations of the LIBOR market and calculations (which Peter Tchir delves deeply into below) suggest that this not the act of a lone assassin suggesting quite simply that complaining or suing Barclays is redundant - any Libor-related suits (from the public or the government/regulators) must sue all the submitters or it misses the critical facts of the manipulation.
Keiser Report: Bankers Going Ultra-Violent (E310)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss bankers doing 'the ultra violent' on the global financial system and propose the Keiser Technique to remedy the asymmetric approach to financial justice. In the second half of the show Max talks to Reggie Middleton of BoomBustBlog about whether or not French banks are next to collapse and about the flashing fraud warnings on Libor that were always there in the credit default swaps market.
FBI Says Cartel Used Bank Of America To Launder Money
By Joe Schneider - Bloomberg.com
The brother of the alleged leader of a Mexican cocaine-trafficking cartel used Bank of America Corp. accounts to invest the organization's drug proceeds in U.S. racehorses, a FBI agent said.
Jose Trevino-Morales, one of 14 people indicted by a federal grand jury in Texas on June 12, used a personal account and a business account under the name of Tremor Enterprises LLC to buy and sell horses using money generated from cocaine trafficking, extortion and bribery, Jason Preece, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said in a June 11 sworn statement filed in federal court in Dallas.
Out of Work, Out of Mind Jobs Crisis Denial
by SHAMUS COOKE - CounterPunch.org
Before any problem can be fixed it must first be acknowledged. The jobs crisis stays in the shadows, out of mind, and consequently unaddressed. This is allowed to happen because those in power – Republicans and Democrats – both have political reasons to remain silent.
When the jobs crisis is discussed, the word "crisis" is seldom used, and the conversation is conducted with hushed tones and minimizing vocabulary. Therefore, when the monthly national jobs report was announced for June, there was quiet grumbling instead of passionate oratory; passivity instead of mobilization and action.
Scranton Mayor: Minimum Wage For All Or Become Stockton
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The infamous city of Scanton, PA has had financial troubles for a couple of decades - losing population since the end of WWII - but as NPR reported this weekend, the $16.8 million budget gap that Mayor Chris Doherty is trying to fill (and the disagreements between his taxation proposal and the city council's borrow-more-money view) has driven the mayor to an incredible action. Doherty has reduced everyone's pay - including his own - to the state's minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In an ironic choice of words, the desperate mayor noted: "I'm trying to do the best I can with the limited amount of funds that I have," Doherty says, "I want the employees to get paid. Our people work hard — our police and fire — I just don't have enough money and I can't print it in the basement." NPR continues, After paying workers Friday, the city had only about $5,000 left in the bank. More money flowed into city accounts that day, but it was still not enough to pay the $1 million the city still owes to its nearly 400 employees.
Bankrupt Alabama county asks for second look at lawyer fees
(Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County wants a federal judge to take a second look at a June 29 ruling favoring Wall Street creditors in order to clarify how the cash-strapped local government can pay $1 million a month in fees to its bankruptcy lawyers.
The county, which last November initiated the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy, said Judge Thomas Bennett's ruling clearly barred setting aside county revenues in reserve funds for estimated professional fees but did not forbid using the revenues for paying lawyers for completed work.
Unthinkable, Predictable Disasters The disintegration of the euro, like America's entitlement bomb, is both unfathomable and inevitable.
By Matt Welch - Reason.com
You'd have to be willfully ignorant to be surprised by Greece's potential exit from the common European currency. First the famously misgoverned country failed to meet the initial 1999 fiscal and monetary targets for euro integration: abudget deficit below 3 percent of gross domestic product, a national debt below 60 percent of GDP, inflation within 1.5 percentage points of the lowest euro-member country's rate, and a stable currency for more than two years. Then Greek officials were forced to admit in 2004 that they had lied when they said they did meet those targets.
In late 2009 the newly elected Greek government let slip that its annual budget deficit was coming in at double its predecessor's previous forecast, which was already double what was technically allowed. The news was hardly startling, given that in its first eight years within the euro zone (2001–08) Greece averaged annual budget deficits equal to 5 percent of GDP, compared to the other members' average of 2 percent; gorged itself on an extravagant 2004 Summer Olympics; and capped off the party in October 2009 by voting in the Panhellenic Socialist Movement party, which promised to spend even moremoney.
The Crisis Can Be Solved--If the Government Wants to Do It
Full-Employment and Political Will
by MARK WEISBROT - CounterPunch.org
Three years after our worst recession since the Great Depression officially ended, the U.S. economy is still very weak. The people most hurt by this weakness are the unemployed and the poor, and of course the two problems are related. We have about 23 million people who are unemployed, involuntarily working part-time, or have given up looking for work — nearly 15 percent of the labor force. And poverty has reached 15.1 percent of the population; amazingly, a level that it was at in the mid-1960s.
The first priority of the U.S. government should therefore be restoring full employment. This is a relatively easy thing to do. As Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman aptly put it: "It's like having a dead battery in a car, and while there may be a lot wrong with the car, you can get the car going remarkably easily, if you're willing to accept that's what the problem really is."
Goldman's Hawker May Get More Bids After China Offer
By Susanna Ray - Bloomberg.com
Hawker Beechcraft Inc., the bankrupt business-jet maker owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Onex Corp. (OCX), may draw higher bids after agreeing to sell itself to Superior Aviation Beijing Co. for $1.79 billion.
Superior will make payments over the next six weeks to help keep Hawker afloat until the deal closes, the companies said yesterday. The accord makes Superior the so-called stalking horse bidder in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court-supervised auction that may win more offers. Textron Inc. (TXT) and Embraer SA (EMBR3) expressed interest previously in Hawker's assets.
Yes, Actually, Obamacare Is the Biggest Tax Increase in History Just because a headline or an idea is repeated over and over again doesn't make it true.
Ira Stoll | Reason.com
No sooner had Chief Justice Roberts issued his ruling that ObamaCare's individual mandate to purchase health insurance ObamaCare was a tax than the law's defenders in the press were racing to rebut the idea that the law, overall, is the largest tax increase in American history.
"No, ObamaCare Isn't the Biggest Tax Increase in History," was the headline over Kevin Drum's piece in Mother Jones, published July 1.
"No, 'Obamacare' isn't 'the largest tax increase in the history of the world' (in one chart)" was the headline over a July 2 postby the Washington Post's Ezra Klein, which hyperlinked back to Kevin Drum.
83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare
By Sally Nelson - DailyCaller.com
Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama's health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.
The DPMA, a non-partisan association of doctors and patients, surveyed a random selection of 699 doctors nationwide. The survey found that the majority have thought about bailing out of their careers over the legislation, which was upheld last month by the Supreme Court.
Texas rejects key provisions of Obama's health law
By Corrie MacLaggan
AUSTIN, Texas | Mon Jul 9, 2012 6:01pm EDT
(Reuters) - Governor Rick Perry said on Monday Texas will not implement an expansion of the Medicaid program or create a health insurance exchange, placing the state with the highest percentage of people without insurance outside key parts of President Barack Obama's signature law.
The announcement makes Texas the most populous state that has rejected the provisions. Some 6.2 million people are without health insurance in Texas, or 24.6 percent of the state population, the highest percentage in the nation. California has more people without insurance but a lower percentage.
Liberals, why are you celebrating Obamacare?
By Hadley Heath - DailyCaller.com
Liberals are celebrating the Supreme Court's decision upholding Obamacare. This raises a question: Why, exactly, are they celebrating? Obamacare is far from the liberal ideal. In fact, many of its provisions fly in the face of what liberals say they stand for. The law promotes cronyism, hurts the poor, limits care for the elderly, fails to reach the left's pet goal of universal coverage, wrecks havoc on government transparency, and raises taxes on the middle class.
Remember Occupy Wall Street? Rowdy groups of young liberals gathered to "occupy" various cities in protest of the Wall Street bailouts and a political system in which the government and big corporations conspire to make rich people richer and poor people poorer. This wheeling and dealing cronyism is at the heart of the health law.
More red flags on reverse mortgages
By Mark Miller
CHICAGO | Fri Jul 6, 2012 1:04pm EDT
(Reuters) - Consumer advocates, government regulators and watchdogs have been warning seniors for several years about the risks associated with reverse mortgages. Now, the red flags are being hoisted significantly higher.
The new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued a report signaling a likely tightening of regulations for reverse loans. Regulation of all mortgages was transferred to the CFPB under the Dodd-Frank reform law. Congress also instructed the agency to produce a detailed study on the reverse loan market - and to issue new regulations if its research uncovered unfair, deceptive or abusive practices.
Joseph Farah: Obama is A Walking False Flag!
On the Thursday, July 5th edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex speaks with author, journalist, and editor-in-chief of the influential alternative news site WorldNetDaily (WND), Joseph Farah. Farah has an expansive career in journalism, having worked as news editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for six years and co-founding the Western Journalism Center. He'll get us up to speed on the latest concerning Obama's eligibility to serve as US president and also gives us his take on the recent passage of Obamacare.
China Threatens With Furious Retaliation
In Growing Trade Wars
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Last week it was the Fairness Distributor In Chief threatening China with WTO action over its unfair duties on US car imports. Before that it was Europe trying to protect its crumbling trade at all costs with its primary trade partner. Now, it is China's turn to retort to the world's beggars, and all those who just happen to ravenously import its iWares with the reckless abandon of a gadget junkie. FT reports: "Beijing has threatened swift retaliation against a range of European Union industries if Brussels presses ahead with an investigation into government subsidies granted to two Chinese telecoms equipment companies. The Chinese threat was delivered at a meeting with EU trade officials in Beijing late last month that was arranged at the behest of Chen Deming, China's commerce minister, to try to defuse a brewing trade dispute that is straining commercial relations between the two sides. Instead, it collapsed into acrimony, with the Chinese warning their EU visitors that they would respond to any investigation of Huawei and ZTE Corp by probing subsidies granted to European agriculture, automotive, renewable energy and telecoms companies.
From Arab Spring to American Summer:
The Politics of Power Outages
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
Amidst record-high temperatures and a very anti-climactic 4th of July, power outages have left millions without air-conditioning and even water in rural areas where households rely on electric pumps. At least 52 people have died from heat and three million people are still without power.
No it's not Yemen, where power outages in the capital Sana'a have sparked a new round of protests. It's the United States of America, where corruption converges with a moribund electricity distribution system to produce increasingly frequent blackouts across the Midwest and East Coast.
U.S. on Pakistani Pipelines - One Good, One Bad
By John Daly | OilPrice.com
Perhaps nowhere in the world are Washington's diplomatic efforts more schizophrenic than in dealing with Pakistan.
On the one hand, the U.S. regularly lauds Pakistan as a stalwart ally in its global war on terror and yet U.S. drones regularly violate Pakistan's airspace in their hunt for militants, provoking increasing anger in Islamabad.
Even worse, on 26 November 2011 a NATO aerial assault on two Pakistani border posts in Mohmand Agency in Pakistan's turbulent NorthWest Frontier Province killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on Pakistani soil, leading Pakistan to close down its border crossings for NATO logistics until an apology was received.
What Does the Future Hold for OPEC?
By Brian Westenhaus | OilPrice.com
We're coming up on 40 years of OPEC trying to set the price of oil as high as they can manage. The oil market is finally at a turning point, non-OPEC production is up, demand is down, and international economics may have finally found a bright spot in 'globalization'.
This week the EU's embargo on Iranian oil came into full force. This is an unprecedented historical event that shows the importance of changes that have affected global energy markets in recent years.
It's not been an easy or quick effort. We've waited for technology and struggled and paid dearly for regulation and taxation, yet somehow the free world's oil industry is prevailing.
Barroso in Palestine:
'We are laying foundations of future state'
BY ANDREW RETTMAN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has pledged support for a future Palestinian state on his first official trip to the region.
Speaking alongside Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah on Sunday (8 July) he said that "through our ... political and financial support we are laying the foundations of a future democratic and viable Palestinian state – its institutions and its infrastructure."
Moscow Warns West of 'Big War' in Syria
RIA Novosti - Ria.ru
Moscow lashed out on Thursday at the Western position on Syria, saying it could aggravate the situation to the point of war.
"Their [Western] position is most likely to exacerbate the situation, lead to further violence and ultimately a very big war," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
The West has also distorted the Russian position on Syria by suggesting Moscow should offer Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asylum, he said.
"This is either an unscrupulous attempt to mislead serious people who shape foreign policy or simply a misunderstanding of what is going on," Lavrov said.
The Collapsing US Economy and the end of the world
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
In a recent column, "Can The World Survive Washington's Hubris," I promised to examine whether the US economy will collapse before Washington in its pursuit of world hegemony brings us into military confrontation with Russia and China. This is likely to be an ongoing subject on this site, so this column will not be the final word.
Washington has been at war since October, 2001, when President George W. Bush concocted an excuse to order the US invasion of Afghanistan. This war took a back seat when Bush concocted another excuse to order the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a war that went on without significant success for 8 years and has left Iraq in chaos with dozens more killed and wounded every day, a new strong man in place of the illegally executed former strongman, and the likelihood of the ongoing violence becoming civil war.
U.S. economy hits another big bump Latest batch of data unlikely to show improvement in growth
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — In the wake of last week's disappointing U.S. jobs report, investors will be searching for clues that the economy is not as weak as it appears.
And that's about all this week's slate of economic data is likely to yield: small clues. On tap are second-tier reports on consumer confidence, wholesale inflation, consumer credit and U.S. imports and exports.
The Black Hole of Deflation - Part 3
BY JULIAN PHILLIPS - FinancialSense.com
In a Democratic world as well as in undemocratic nations the political and social consequences of deflation are considerably worse than those of inflation.
But the concept of inflation is poorly understood. In today's world it is thought of as simply rising prices due to shortages. In economics there are several forms of inflation that appear in different circumstances.
Overall governments favor low inflation because it gives the appearance of rising wealth as prices rise, provided that these levels are restrained around, say 3%. Above that and savings are visibly damaged and consequently the economic power of a nation.
US set for earnings roadblock as growth falters
By Ed Crooks and Arash Massoudi in New York
and Hal Weitzman in Chicago - FT.com
US manufacturers are set to report their slowest growth in earnings since 2009, hit by the European crisis and a slowdown in emerging economies. Analysts are forecasting that industrial companies will fall well short of last year's growth rates reported in the first quarter of 2012 despite being the fastest-growing sector in the US for second-quarter earnings, according to S&P Capital IQ.
Manufacturing has been one of the brighter areas of the US economy, but last week the US Institute for Supply Management survey showed its weakest reading for the industry since July 2009.
Weak Report Lifts Chance of Fed Action
[Google title for free article pass]
By JON HILSENRATH - WSJ.com - $$
Friday's disappointing jobs report increases the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will launch a new bond-buying program to boost economic growth, though it doesn't ensure such a move.
Fed officials emerged from their policy meeting in late June frustrated by the slow pace of the recovery and worried that the economic outlook was deteriorating. Economic data released since then have done little to allay those concerns, according to public comments by some officials and interviews with them before Friday's employment report.
ISM Indicates 'Economy Is Going Nowhere'
By Conor Dougherty - WSJ.com
Economists and others weigh in on the unexpected contraction in the U.S. manufacturing sector.
–If you haven't heard the news: stay on vacation, no reason to hurry back. This economy is going nowhere according to the purchasing managers at manufacturing firms. The latest reading from the Institute of Supply Management is saying the economy's engines have gone into reverse at the start of the summer. –Christopher Rupkey, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
Steve Forbes: How to Bring Back America
BY RON HERA - FinancialSense.com
If there's any better system to ensure a stable value for money, it's yet to be found. For nearly all of America's first 200 years, the dollar was linked to gold. Since we went off the gold standard, we've had more and more financial, economic and banking crises.
Markets, Economies, Central Banks - All Out of Power
BY SY HARDING - FinancialSense.com
Having topped out into corrections in March and April, most global markets rallied back some in June, fueled by hopes that June's unusual schedule of promising events would provide rescues for the eurozone and the U.S. economy. As those events arrived, if one or two failed to produce results, the rally only paused momentarily as there were still remaining events that might produce results.
But now we're out of promising events for a while.
The EU fly in the ointment Controversy over licenses could affect earnings
By John C. Dvorak
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) — In the tech world, the European Union represents a problem for vendors of American entertainment and software products.
Over the past week, two important events took place that potentially will affect major U.S. corporations. The first was a lawsuit brought by Oracle Corp. against a small German company called UsedSoft. Apparently UsedSoft was reselling expensive Oracle licenses no longer wanted by the previous owner of the license.
Does Europe Need a New Marshall Plan?
BY ANTONY P MUELLER - FinancialSense.com
Whenever there is an international problem self-proclaimed experts show up and invoke the myth of the Marshall Plan. This has also recently been the case with the European crisis. Like many before him, such as Krugman, it was recently billionaire investor George Soroswho showed his lack of historical knowledge by pronouncing that Europe needs a new Marshall Plan and that it was foremost American generosity that brought the old continent back on the road to prosperity. He pointed out that the West Germany economic miracle was the result of the Marshall Plan and that now it was Germany's turn to do the same for Southern Europe. Facts, however, tell a different story than those who want us to believe that what makes economies grow is that governments spend ever more money to "stimulate" economies in depression.
Alternative Currencies Rise as the Eurozone Crisis Worsens The advantages of non-political innovations
and cryptocurrencies
Matthew Feeney | Reason.com
For weeks commentators have been discussing the possibility of Greece leaving the eurozone and how a return to the drachma might be facilitated. But when it comes to currency, the drachma is not Greece's only option. If Greece does exit the eurozone an alternative currency could emerge or an already existing one could be adopted. In some parts of Greece social entrepreneurship, technology, and skepticism of politicians have already given rise to alternate trading mechanisms and created an environment where cyrptocurrencies could become increasingly popular.
German president tells Angela Merkel
to come clean on EU debt deal Joachim Gauck, the German president, has ordered Chancellor Angela Merkel to clarify exactly what she agreed behind closed doors at the EU crisis summit ten days ago.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
German president Joachim Gauck has ordered Chancellor Angela Merkel to clarify exactly what she agreed behind closed doors at the EU crisis summit ten days ago, lending a powerful voice to critics dismayed by the surging costs of euro bail-outs.
"She has a duty to explain in great detail what it means, and what it means fiscally. There seems to be a lack of energy in telling the people what is really happening," he told ZDF television.
Angry Brokers Leave Firms — and Take $59B with Them
By ASHLEY LAU, Reuters - TheFiscalTimes.com
More than $59 billion in assets switched hands within the U.S. brokerage industry this year, as veteran financial advisers managing large pools of client assets left their firms in the wake of growing frustrations about their parent banks.
Bank of America's Merrill Lynch <BAC.N> and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney <MS.N> saw some of the biggest defections, with more than half of those total assets managed by advisers who left those two firms. Wells Fargo and UBS, the other top U.S. brokerages, had more success in retaining top talent, based on moves tracked by Reuters.
Libor rate-fixing scandal spotlight now on Citi, JPMorgan
By Agence France-Presse - RawStory.com
NEW YORK — The harsh light of the Libor rate-fixing scandal has crossed the Atlantic, with both Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase saying regulators and investigators have requested information from them in a so-far preliminary probe of the case.
Share prices for both — as well as Bank of America, which has not said if it was asked for information — have fallen sharply this week amid worries they could be in line for the type of heavy fines laid on Britain's Barclays Bank, at the center of the scandal.
What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?
BY BOB EISENBEIS - FinancialSense.com
This paraphrase of the famous question posed by Senator Howard Baker during the Watergate scandal is one that can and should be directed to a number of people as the Barclays LIBOR scandal unwinds. Former Barclays president Bob Diamond's testimony following his resignation is tantalizing, both because of the information that has come out and the myriad of unanswered questions that remain.
The facts are still sketchy in a number of dimensions, but some are clear. The people responsible within Barclays for providing the daily LIBOR fixing to Thomson Reuters, on behalf of the British Bankers Association (BBA), knowingly submitted inaccurate information at times. In part, the false submissions were in response to pleading from derivatives traders seeking to protect positions that could be affected by the spreads posted across dollar, yen, and euro LIBOR rates of differing maturities.
'Liborgate' could trigger crucial banking reform A Glass-Steagall split needs to happen and someone needs to get it done. There really is no alternative.
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk
Finally, the British political classes are starting to get it. Finally, a head of steam is building. Over the past week, calls to impose a proper division between investment and commercial banking have become louder, more authoritative and part of mainstream debate. Pressure for the introduction – or reintroduction – of this crucial split could soon become irresistible, however much the politicians wiggle and the investment bankers deceive.
Until now, it's been mainly nerds like me who have advocated a full Glass-Steagall separation. Given the vested interests that would lose from this change, we've been lampooned for our "hot-headed" views.
The Libor warnings the Bank was told to heed With Bob Diamond gone and a Parliamentary inquiry set to begin, the inside story of a scandal threatening to engulf the City is revealed.
By Harry Wilson - Telegraph.co.uk
If you had asked the average City analyst what the biggest problem in the banking industry was on the afternoon of Thursday November 17, 2007, most would have given one answer: "subprime".
Earlier in the day, Barclays had shocked the London market by announcing a £1bn-plus write-off of securities linked to cheap home loans to poor Americans who would seemingly never be able to repay them.
Bob Diamond would have known about Libor rigging,
claims whistleblower Former senior Barclays employee says bank executives would have been told about interest rate fixing concerns in 2008
By David Batty - Guardian.co.uk
A former senior Barclays employee has claimed that the bank's ex-chief executive Bob Diamond would have known that his traders were involved in the interest rate rigging scandal.
The whistleblower's accusation comes after the bank announced on Friday that it had begun a formal investigation into attempts to fix Libor, meaning that criminal charges could be brought against implicated traders.
European commissioner to take action over Libor scandal: FT
(Reuters) - Michel Barnier, the European commissioner in charge of financial regulation, is expected to bring forward changes to his market abuse directive and regulation within in the next weeks, the Financial Times said on Monday.
In response to the Libor rigging scandal, Barnier will amend reforms to European Union market abuse rules so that potential "loopholes" are closed and criminal sanctions specifically cover tampering with indices such as Libor and Euribor, the newspaper said.
He is cited as calling the falsification of such benchmark rates a "betrayal" with potentially "systemic consequences".
Jenkins: Lies, Damn Lies and Libor Call it one more improvisation
in 'too big to fail' crisis management.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. - WSJ.com
Ignore the man behind the curtain, said the Wizard of Oz. That advice doesn't pay in the latest scandal of the century, over manipulation of Libor, or the London Interbank Offered Rate. The mess is one more proof of the failing wizardry of the First World's monetary-cum-banking arrangements.
One thing is clear –
the Bank knew Libor was broken and did nothing Paul Tucker, the Bank of England's deputy governor, says he is keen to give evidence to the Treasury Select Committee "as soon as possible" to clarify what he sees as the misconceptions surrounding the Libor fixing scandal.
By Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
Let's hope he gets his wish, because clarity is one thing we didn't get on Wednesday from Bob Diamond's appearance.
Diamond didn't satisfy the MPs and the MPs certainly didn't satisfy any watching voters with a session that rarely rose above the mundane. It was not a good advert for the committee which, with one or two exceptions, needs to be better briefed and cleverer in its questioning.
The Big Questions Raised by the Barclays Scandal
By SUZANNE MCGEE, The Fiscal Times
While cities and communities across the United States prepared for fireworks displays to celebrate the Fourth of July, in London the only fireworks on view took place during the hearing held by a British parliamentary committee into the apparent manipulation of London's famed benchmark interbank lending rate, LIBOR. And in the hot seat was Bob Diamond, who joined Barclays investment bank exactly 16 years earlier, on the Fourth of July – and who had resigned just the day before as its CEO, citing "external pressure."
Dismal hiring shows economy stuck in low gear
By Jason Lange
(Reuters) - U.S. employers hired at a dismal pace in June, raising pressure on the Federal Reserve to do more to boost the economy and dealing another setback to President Barack Obama's reelection bid.
The Labor Department said on Friday that non-farm payrolls grew by just 80,000 jobs in June, the third straight month below 100,000.
Job creation was too weak to bring down the country's 8.2 percent jobless rate and the report fueled concerns that Europe's debt crisis was shifting the U.S. economy into low gear.
The Supreme Court's Dismal ObamaCare Decision How conservative legal philosophy
helped create the health care ruling
By Sheldon Richman | Reason.com
Amid all of Chief Justice John Roberts's scholastic hairsplitting over whether ObamaCare imposes a tax or a penalty for failing to buy medical insurance, one passage should matter most to advocates of liberty:
Those subject to the individual mandate may lawfully forgo health insurance and pay higher taxes, or buy health insurance and pay lower taxes. The only thing they may not lawfully do is not buy health insurance and not pay the resulting tax.
We thus are "free" either to become customers of a government-licensed insurance company or to pay a special tax. But we are not free to opt out of this artificially constructed "choice" entirely.
The Dark Side of Roberts' Ruling
By Bill Blum - Truthdig.com
The individual mandate is constitutional and the media spin is in. In switching his vote at the eleventh hour and upholding the central pillar of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—albeit as a tax—Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts not only came to the rescue of the president's primary domestic achievement, but also to the rescue of the court itself. With the stroke of his judicial pen, Roberts moved the institution away from the partisan divide that has crippled the country's civic life and politics and restored the court's reputation as an independent bulwark committed only to the rule of law. So let the canonizations of the chief begin; at least the branch of government under his wise guidance is above the fray.
Small Businesses: Big Losers in Obamacare Decision
By LIZ PEEK, The Fiscal Times
Lost in the hubbub surrounding the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare is thatsmall businesses are among the big losers. For President Obama, triumphing over Republicans is pure nectar; stomping on the nation's job creators is surely dangerous.
Mitt Romney got into hot water for suggesting that corporations are, after all, people. No one can dispute that small businesses are just that, people – people who fear the complications and costs of the healthcare bill and who sued, through their advocacy group the National Federation of Independent Businesses, to prevent its implementation. This in spite of their long-standing alarm over the rising cost of providing healthcare for their employees.
IRS gearing up for new responsibilities in health care
By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press - MSNBC.MSN.com
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's decision to uphold most of President Barack Obama's health care law will come home to roost for most taxpayers in about 2½ years, when they'll have to start providing proof on their tax returns that they have health insurance.
That scenario puts the Internal Revenue Service at the center of the debate, renewing questions about whether the agency is capable of policing the health care decisions of millions of people in the United States while also collecting the taxes needed to run the federal government.
LePage calls IRS the 'new Gestapo' The governor uses his radio address
to attack President Obama's Affordable Care Act.
By Steve Mistler - OnlineSentinel.com
Gov. Paul LePage used his weekly radio address to blast President Obama's health care law and described the Internal Revenue Service as the "new Gestapo."
The IRS description was a reference to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires Americans not insured by their employers or Medicaid to buy health insurance or pay an annual penalty when filing their tax returns. The provision, known more broadly as the individual mandate, was the subject of a multi-state lawsuit, but was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
LePage said the court decision has "made America less free."
The most important tax increase in 'Obamacare'
Posted by Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
Is the Affordable Care Act really "the largest tax increase in the history of the world," as Rush Limbaugh so grandiloquently put it? No. It's not even the largest tax increase in the history of this country.
Or of the past 50 years. Or 20. It's not even the biggest tax increase scheduled to take effect in the very near future. (That's the expiration of the George W. Bush tax cuts slated for New Year's Day.)
LePage Rails Against 'Obamacare,' Calls IRS 'New Gestapo'
By IGOR BOBIC - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) assailed the Affordable Care Act in his weekly radio address today and declared the Internal Revenue Service, which will require Americans to purchase health insurance or pay an annual fee under the individual mandate, as the "new Gestapo."
"This decision has made America less free," Le Page said. "We the people have been told there is no choice. You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo - the I.R.S.."
High rents, tight credit put many at the mercy of the market
By Michelle Conlin and Ilaina Jonas, Reuters - MSNBC.MSN.com
One night last spring, David Hall returned home to his studio apartment outside Boston to learn that his monthly rent had spiked from $725 to $995.
It would be much cheaper for the maintenance manager to buy a nearby starter house than to stay put. But his mortgage broker told him that while his credit score was good, it was not high enough to meet banks' tough standards, he said.
"I know if I walk into a bank, they are just going to laugh at me," Hall says. "So I'm stuck."
He is not alone.
Global Food Prices Set to Soar: 2007-8 Food Crisis Revisited? Global Oil Production Could Be Impacted by Instability
BY JOSEPH DANCY - FinancialsSense.com
The ongoing "Arab Spring" in the energy-rich Middle East has been fueled by rising food prices and economic stagnation – two factors that continue to play a major part in political developments in that part of the world. High and rising food prices led to the 2007-8 food crisis sparking riots, export restrictions, and instability – not something which would benefit the global economy or the global energy markets.
There Will Never Be Enough Jobs In America Again
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Well, we just had another bad jobs report. The U.S. economy created just 80,000 new jobs during the month of June. Normally, about 125,000 new jobs need to be created every month just to keep up with population growth. So it is a bit odd that the official unemployment rate did not rise above 8.2%. What is even more alarming is that the Social Security Administration is telling us that 85,000 U.S. workers "left the workforce" and enrolled in the Social Security Disability Insurance program during the month of June. That means that the number of Americans enrolling in Social Security Disability actually exceeded the number of new jobs that was created. That is definitely not a sign of recovery. Unfortunately, this is about as good as things are going to get. Right now corporate profits are at an all-time high and usually after a recession has ended the percentage of working age Americans that have jobs bounces back very strongly. But that has not happened this time, and when the next economic crisis hits things are going to get a lot worse.
Broader Jobless Rate Ticks Up to 14.9%
By Phil Izzo - WSJ.com
The U.S. unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2% in June but a broader measure rose to 14.9% as the ranks of the underemployed grew.
The jobless rate was unchanged even at the number of people who consider themselves employed jumped by 128,000.. The unemployment rate is calculated based on people who are without jobs, who are available to work and who have actively sought work in the prior four weeks, and that number rose just 29,000. The "actively looking for work" definition is fairly broad, including people who contacted an employer, employment agency, job center or friends; sent out resumes or filled out applications; or answered or placed ads, among other things. The rate is calculated by dividing that number by the total number of people in the labor force. When the unemployed return to the labor force, both numbers increase and the unemployment rate climbs.
Friday's Jobs Report Becomes Sunday's Political Fodder
MoneyNews.com
Republicans on Sunday morning news programs attacked President Barack Obama's handling of the U.S. economy, saying recent reports suggest it's weakening. Democratic defenders urged patience.
"There are almost a half a million more people unemployed today than four years ago," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a television interview on "Fox News Sunday," two days after the Labor Department reported the worst quarter for corporate hiring in more than two years. "Fire Obama and hire Romney. That's the best stimulus program for the country."
U.S. posts weak 80,000 jobs gain in June Unemployment rate unchanged at 8.2%
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. created just 80,000 jobs in June — about one-third of them temporary — as evidence hardened that the economy has hit another rough patch.
The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2%, the Labor Department said Friday.
In U.S. markets, stock prices SPX -0.94% fell. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting a net increase of 100,000 jobs in June. See Market Snapshot.
The disappointing employment report adds to fresh worries about the U.S. economy at a time when growth is slowing around the world and Washington is gridlocked about how to address the malaise.
This Jobs Number 'Stinks'
By Phil Izzo - WSJ.com
Economists and others weigh in on the tepid gain in jobs in June and the unchanged unemployment rate.
–At the outset, let's just agree; this number stinks. Job growth of less than 100,000 for the third consecutive month just stinks. However, today's number is not all fire and brimstone. Yes, the total number of jobs added was low. But there were a number of counterbalancing positives. Income growth picked up, hours worked picked up, construction added jobs again and the participation rate held steady. More broadly though, that we latch onto these modest positives speaks to the bias of low expectations. This was the worst quarter for job growth in about two years. –Dan Greenhaus, BTIG LLC
25 Signs The Collapse Of America
Is Speeding Up As Society Rots From The Inside Out
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The problems that America is experiencing right now are not just confined to the field of economics. The truth is that there are signs of deep decay wherever we look, and without question the United States is rotting from the inside out in thousands of different ways. For a long time our debt-fueled prosperity has masked much of the social decay that has been festering underneath the surface, but now it is becoming increasingly apparent that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is beginning to disappear. For many Americans, it is easy to point a finger at a particular group or political party and blame them for all of our problems, but the reality of the matter is that our societal decay cuts across all income levels, all political affiliations and all regions of the country. We are being destroyed from within, and this decay can be seen on the streets of the most dilapidated sections of major U.S. cities and it can also be seen in the halls of power in Washington D.C. and on Wall Street. It is undeniable that something has fundamentally changed. The American people do not seem to possess the same level of character that they once had. So where do we go from here?
Obama Admin Again Rejects Indiana's
De-Funding Planned Parenthood
by Steven Ertelt - LifeNews.com
For the second time, the Obama administration has rejected Indiana's effort to revoke taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
Written yesterday but released today, the Obama administration, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a component of the Obama administration's Health and Human Services department, issued a letter recommended ruling against Indiana' defunding of Planned Parenthood.
Utah speed traps spur police probe
WSJ - FOXNews.com
Small-town speed traps are legendary among travelers, who often suspect police of targeting tourists from other parts of the country to help fill local coffers. But officers in tiny Springdale, Utah, may have used their radar guns to pocket cash from foreign drivers they stopped, according to the state auditor.
Three police officers in Springdale, a popular gateway to Zion National Park, collected $11,640 from overseas visitors they stopped from January through October of 2011, a report from Utah State Auditor Auston Johnson found. The auditor maintains the collections during the stops were a violation of state law.
Wichita's Race Against Fluoridation
By Travis Crank - Infowars.com
The Kansas Health Foundation is the latest player in a long-history of attempts to both bribe city leaders and dupe the public into approving the introduction of fluoride chemicals into our public water system; as Wichita is now ranked as the 4th largest city in the nation to have resisted prior efforts up to present-day and with a county population of about a half-million people, the majority of which are concentrated right here in Wichita – we're a big fish to fry indeed.
And fry, they are. Complete with local media propaganda and a steady stream of endorsements from the local medical community, all in concert and with the crescendo likely to be their presentation of proponent signatures – alongside their listing of endorsements by the local medical tyranny, later this month. Time is short!
The Regulatory Heavy Hand
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
PHOENIX -- The federal government is a bull that has found yet another china shop, this time in Arizona. It seems determined to inflict, for angelic motives and progressive goals, economic damage on this state. And economic and social damage on Native Americans, who over the years have experienced quite enough of that at Washington's hands.
The gain from this pain? The most frequently cited study says "research to date ... is inconclusive as to whether" there would be "any perceptible improvement in visibility at the Grand Canyon and other areas of concern." The Environmental Protection Agency says the Navajo Generating Station is "near" 11 national parks, several of which are 175 miles distant.
The Drone Zone Air Force Trains Drone Jocks by tracking civilian cars
By MARK MAZZETTI - NYTimes.com
Holloman Air Force Base, at the eastern edge of New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, 200 miles south of Albuquerque, was once famous for the daredevil maneuvers of those who trained there. In 1954, Col. John Paul Stapp rode a rocket-propelled sled across the desert, reaching 632 miles per hour, in an attempt to figure out the maximum speed at which jet pilots could safely eject. He slammed on the brakes and was thrust forward with such force that he had to be hauled away on a stretcher, his eyes bleeding from burst capillaries. Six years later, Capt. Joseph Kittinger Jr., testing the height at which pilots could safely bail out, rode a helium-powered balloon up to 102,800 feet. He muttered, "Lord, take care of me now," dropped for 13 minutes 45 seconds and broke the record for the highest parachute jump.
60 Days In Prison And A $12,180 Fine
For Hosting A Home Bible Study In Arizona
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The war on home Bible studies and house churches is heating up again. Down in Phoenix, Arizona a man has been sentenced to 60 days in prison and has been fined $12,180 for hosting a Bible study in his home. Since 2005, Michael Salman and his wife have been hosting gatherings of about 15 or 20 people where they share food, fellowship and discuss the Bible. Unfortunately, that kind of thing is against the law in Phoenix, Arizona apparently. At one point, nearly a dozen armed police officers raided their home and "evidence" of their "crimes" was gathered. Michael Salman was found guilty of 67 "code violations", and now he is going to be ripped away from his family and put in prison for two months. In addition, the assistant city prosecutor is asking the court to "revoke his probation and convert it into a 2 1/2 year jail sentence since he continues to hold worship gatherings on his property despite court orders." This kind of case has the potential to have a huge "chilling effect" on home gatherings of all kinds all over the United States.
States, Congress rallying for an e-sales tax
By Amrita Jayakumar - WashingtonPost.com
Online shopping in the Washington region is about to become more expensive.
A wave of states, including Virginia, have passed laws that will require consumers to pay sales tax on all Internet purchases as soon as next year. Others, including the District, are pursuing similar measures. And in Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley wants to go further and levy a tax on songs and other digital products bought through popular sites such as iTunes.
How to Avoid an Unwanted Vacation From the Internet
Truthdig.com
For perhaps 64,000 computers in the United States and 300,000 worldwide, the Internet will go dead starting Monday. The story is rather complicated, but at its bottom is a piece of devilment named the DNS Changer Trojan. Here you can find out if your Internet connection is set up for a KO punch and, if so, what you can do to sidestep it.
First, let's put the problem in perspective. According to one source, there are more than 1 billion computers in the world—which means the odds against being infected are vastly in your favor.
Now some facts about the villain of this piece. The DNS Changer is nothing new—it has been around since 2007—but compromised computers will not lose the Internet until Monday. We've assembled some articles here that offer details.
Internet blackout for thousands coming Monday
By Erin Kim @CNNMoneyTech
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hundreds of thousands of Internet users whose computers are infected with a particularly nasty virus will be unable to access the Web starting on Monday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation will shut down Internet servers that it temporarily set up to support those affected by malicious software, called DNSChanger. Turning off those servers will knock all those still infected offline.
Facebook has to be careful with mobile ads It risks alienating users if mobile ads clunky, invasive
By MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Facebook Inc. finally has confirmed it will launch a new type of ad for the mobile versions of the social network, but how effective they will be and whether they annoy users is the big question.
Wall Street analysts have been predicting for months that Facebook Inc. FB +0.83% was developing new types of mobile ads that would help the company gain more inroads in the faster-growing mobile market. The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook plans to offer developers and advertisers the ability to place ads for apps directly in the news feed of its users on their mobile devices, whether or not the consumer has noted an interest in that company.
Burger King: Seducing Customers with Bacon
By STAFF, Knowledge@Wharton - TheFiscalTimes.com
Burger King (BKC) received lots of buzz last month when it launched its new summer menu, including an unexpected treat: a bacon sundae. Yes, that's soft-serve vanilla ice cream topped with hot fudge, caramel and crumbled bacon. And to emphasize the bacon part, the whole thing is served with a bacon-slice garnish.
Initially, some thought the company must be joking. "I wasn't sure if this was for real," says Wharton marketing professor Barbara Kahn.
Defining American Exceptionalism
By Joe Conason - Truthdig.com
The Fourth of July is the birthday of American exceptionalism—originally, the idea cherished by the nation's Revolutionary Founders that the practice of liberty, equality and democracy in these United States would kindle hope in a world downtrodden by every form of despotism, hierarchy and oppression.
Independence Day marked the determination of a new and diverse people to throw off the old yoke of hereditary rule, with all its attendant traditions of social and economic stratification. The Founders believed that America would inspire other nations as an ally and friend, rather than dominate them by force of arms or money. They did not regard their weak new republic as intrinsically superior or chosen by God to rule the world—but argued instead that the ideals of popular sovereignty and constitutional freedom represented the natural rights and the future of humanity everywhere.
Sikorsky, U.S. sign $7.3 billion Black Hawk order
(Reuters) - Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), has signed a five-year $7.3 billion agreement that will provide the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force with more H-60 Black Hawk helicopters and other versions of the utility aircraft, according to several sources familiar with the deal.
The agreement puts in force a multi-year procurement that was approved by Congress as part of the Pentagon's fiscal 2012 budget. It includes several variants of the helicopter to be used by the different military services and runs through fiscal 2016.
Which Course Will North American Natural Gas Producers Choose?
BY MARIN KATUSA - FinancialSense.com
News of a "monster" natural gas find in British Columbia has one again highlighted that North Americans need to make a choice. Do we want to keep the huge volumes of natural gas that have been discovered in recent years across the continent landlocked and transportable only by pipeline, or should we develop the infrastructure that will enable us to transport this fuel to the gas-hungry markets of Asia?
Both options come with advantages and drawbacks, of course. Keeping the fuel landlocked will keep prices depressed, likely so much so that many producers will be unable to turn a profit and will shut up shop. Building the infrastructure to transport natural gas to faraway shores is expensive, but more importantly it would commit the continent to a future of fracking, liquefying, and exporting natural gas, a decision that carries heavy environmental repercussions.
Soros Promotes UN Control Over Gun Ownership
Written by Joe Wolverton, II - TheNewAmerican.com
George Soros is financing the fight to give the United Nations control of your guns.
Through his Media Matters organization, Soros is dumping pro-UN gun control propaganda into the mainstream media to coincide with the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty being held in New York July 2–27.
In a blog post published on July 3, Timothy Johnson of Media Matters describes the notion that the United Nations would ever try to take away the right of Americans to keep and bear arms "laughable."
Hillary Clinton issues stern warning
to Assad as war of words escalates Syrian president accuses Washington of fuelling bloodshed by arming rebel forces as country risks reaching point of collapse
By Matt Williams - Guardian.co.uk
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton warned hardline Syrian leaderBashar al-Assad that his days were numbered as both countries intensified the rhetoric in a war of words on Sunday.
Speaking in Tokyo, Clinton said an admission by UN mediator Kofi Annan that his peace plan was failing should serve as a "wake-up call for everyone". As to the future of Assad, the state secretary said it should be clear that "the sand is running out of the hourglass".
Three central banks take action in sign of alarm
by Mike Peacock
(Reuters) - China, the euro zone and Britain loosened monetary policy in the space of less than an hour on Thursday, signaling a growing level of alarm about the world economy, although suggestions of coordinated action were played down.
Of the three, the surprise move was from Beijing which lowered its lending rate by 31 basis points to 6 percent following an interest rate cut just a month ago that also came out of the blue.
Uh Oh: The Economy's 2 Biggest Signals
Are Pointing in Opposite Directions
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Housing leads recoveries. It's a law of American economics. There would have been no "Reagan Recovery" without the acceleration of home building in 1981. The last two bounce-backs -- shallow as they were -- in the early '90s and '00s also corresponded with a huge run-up in residential construction. So one reason why this recovery has been so disappointing is that home prices have kept falling, buyers have kept waiting, and the economy's most important booster engine has been dormant.
That might be changing. For the first time all year, sales prices for existing homes rose in April. Home sales are up, too. And construction spending is rising:
Thunder Road Report On The Death March:
Approaching A New Financial System
By Paul Mylchreest - ZeroHedge.com
If you are reading this, you are probably a member of what the sociologists would term middle class (albeit at the upper end). This is precisely the segment of society which is poised to come off worst from what is coming. Here is a very disturbing idea. As this crisis develops, if you are an equity portfolio manager and you want to outperform the market, you are going to have to position your portfolio so that it benefits most from your own wealth destruction and that of your family, friends and colleagues. Almost everybody is going to lose and there aren't many places to hide. This is deeply unpleasant but you can blame the central planners. I've written about my own investing, e.g. gold and silver, equities in terms of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, etc. In this Thunder Road Report (below) and going forward, I will discuss this middle class theme and highlight positions I have in individual stocks, etc. The only good thing that can come out of this is a rise in awareness. It's just awful.
The Return of the Gold Standard
By Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
....A Strategic Shift
The return to gold is unmistakably the product of a strategic, not merely a tactical, shift in global central banking policy. Central banks in the developed world have now altogether stopped selling bullion. This was foreshadowed by their behavior over the past decade, when they sold even less gold than they were permitted to under the anti-dumping Central Bank Gold Agreements. Clearly the concern about dumping gold was out of step with the trend. But more importantly, central banks in the emerging markets have been buying gold by the truckload.
Silver, Gold and The Coming Deflation
By Hubert Moolman - SilverSeek.com
Historically gold has made its significant gains, relative to other assets (as well as nominally), not during inflation, but during deflation (Note: I am using the terms inflation and deflation very loosely in this case). These significant gold rallies historically occur when value flees instruments such as stocks and certain commodities.
Since the 1920s there have been three major gold rallies (1930s, 1970s and the current rally).
All three major gold rallies came after a significant top in the Dow and the Dow/Gold ratio (1929, 1966 and 1999). A great portion of the 1930s and 1970s rallies occurred when the Dow was falling significantly. In fact, the biggest rise in the gold price occurred when the Dow was falling or was trading closer to the bottom of its trading range during that period.
An American Declaration of Independence
From Big Government
by Richard Ebeling - TheDailyBell.com
The Declaration of Independence, signed by members of the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, is the founding document of the American experiment in free government. What is too often forgotten is that what the Founding Fathers argued against in the Declaration was the heavy and intrusive hand of big government.
Most Americans easily recall those eloquent words with which the Founding Fathers expressed the basis of their claim for independence from Great Britain in 1776:
Europe, China lower rates in urgent effort to spur recovery
By Michael Birnbaum - WashingtonPost.com
BERLIN — Central banks around the world took major steps Thursday to stave off fears of global recession, with the European Central Bank slashing interest rates, China unexpectedly cutting bank lending rates and the Bank of England pumping billions of pounds into Britain's stimulus program.
The measures reflect a growing sense of international urgency about faltering economies and underline the continued power of central banks to take unilateral measures to fight the crisis, even as elected policymakers haggle over their own long-term responses.
What Euro Crisis?
By Norbert Walter - Project-Syndicate.org
FRANKFURT – What constitutes a crisis? Is it sustained economic decline, high and long-term unemployment, poverty, rampant inflation, a precipitous fall in the exchange rate, fiscal deficits, high borrowing costs, and political dysfunction? Most would agree that a crisis exists if just some of these "misery indices" are present. But, while Europe is widely perceived to be in the grip of crisis, only a handful of them are present, and in only a few eurozone countries.
Poison of Neo-National Socialist Public Banking
by Staff Report - TheDailyBell.com
WestLB is almost gone. The bank that embodied many of the problems of Germany's Landesbanken sector – combining excessive international ambition with repeated crises brought on by poor risk controls – is to close for business this weekend after a deal with European Competition authorities. Its demise is the biggest realignment for many years among the Landesbanken, the publicly owned regional banks frequently regarded as one of the weakest links in the German banking system. WestLB will be broken up and its identity inherited by Portigon, a financial services provider that will not do banking business. The asset base of the Landesbanken sector has shrunk from some €2tn in 2007 to about €1.5tn and will be reduced further when WestLB and its €168bn of assets are excluded. – Financial Times Dominant Social Theme: If only the government could print money, everything would be better. Free-Market Analysis: It is ironic that as Germany's public banking sector continues its realignment (see above excerpt), various forms of public banking become more popular on the English-speaking Internet.
"Over a century ago, Nietzsche observed, 'Almost 2,000 years and no new God!' Indeed, though hundreds of new religions appear and disappear every year, it has been centuries since a truly new great religion has appeared on this planet. We are overdue for a new god."—Paul Saffo, futurist, writing for The Economist
In the aftermath of the financial crisis—first in the U.S. and now in Europe—there has been a steady chorus of influential and prominent thinkers testifying that the field of economics is in none other than a full-blown existential crisis. George Soros, for example, speaking at the Italian Festival of Economics last month, said "there has been a widespread recognition, both among economists and the general public, that economic theory has failed." Then there's Paul Saffo, writing for Foreign Policy who states, "we know more about weather systems and the like than we know about the global econosphere, and our weather forecasting is unquestionably better than our economic forecasting."
Equities Fumble As Broke Banks Mounting
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Volumes were not that far below average today as the Dow and the S&P (but not the miraculous NASDAAPL - not that story again please!) ended the day lower after some significant intraday volatility early (around the ECB/BoE decisions and jobs/ISM data in the US). S&P 500 e-mini futures levitated off the day's early lows to stabilize around VWAP before testing up to unchanged and then losing it all into the close on heavy volume and larger average trade size. Financials were the biggest losers, as the big banks dumped off most of their EU-Summit gains (with JPM and MS down over 4% today), followed closely by Energy names - even with WTI basically treading water close to close (despite some +/-2% swings early on). USD strength saw Silver lagging on the day and gold dropped a little but rather notably since the EU-Summit, gold and the S&P have been trading more in lockstep (with Treasuries and the USD pointing to more risk-off perspectives). Elsewhere in commodity-land, corn continues its upsurge - now up 40% in the last 3 weeks.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
Metals Rigging Worse Than LIBOR
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted.
It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
Frantz Fanon
"Or one may say that there were no real human villains; that given the economic and political cues, actors would have been in the wings to come on and play the parts which circumstances dictated.
Exposure of Banker Corruption
By: Jim Willie CB - GoldSeek.com
Few observers make the connection, but the current LIBOR scandal is a middle inning of two important events. The first is the demise of the Western banker leadership crew. The executives from the most powerful banks will be last to be deposed, all sharing an ethnic strain. The second is the open fracture of the Western financial system. Over the past few years, to be sure a great many people have grown tired of Jackass descriptions of corruption within the banking sector and financial system in general. Well, hear this: TOLD YA SO! The London Interbank Offered Rate scandal will erupt into an uncontrollable firestorm, hitting one chamber and then the next, with rapid contagion. The Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve are both implicated, but they will skate until the end game.
The LIBOR Scandal Is a Sham
Engineered by Central Banking Elites?
by Staff Report - TheDailyBell.com
....Even ten years ago the power elite that runs central banking around the world could have gotten away with this massive fraud. But over time the alternative media will chip away at the nonsensical accusations swirling around the banks that create LIBOR.
People, already thinking for themselves (and more and more will), will see in this great, orchestrated showpiece that they are being tricked. A kind of malign "bait and switch is going on."
Why the LIBOR scandal is a bigger deal than JPMorgan
Posted by Dylan Matthews - WashingtonPost.com
Last week, Barclay's admitted to rigging the London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and agreed to pay U.S. and British regulators $450 million dollars in penalties to settle the case. Then the heads began to roll: On Tuesday, its CEO, Bob Diamond, and COO Jerry del Missier resigned, and yesterday Diamond told a British parliamentary inquiry that regulators in Washington and London alike were complicit in his manipulations.
This is a big deal. Remember that JP Morgan scandal a few months back? That was mostly JP Morgan hurting itself. The LIBOR scandal was Barclay's making money by hurting you.
The Big Losers in the Libor Rate Manipulation
By George Washington - Ritholtz.com
Local Governments Which Entered Into Interest Rate Swaps Got Scalped
We know that the big banks conspired to manipulate Libor rates, with the approval of government authorities.
We know that the Libor manipulation effected the world's largest market – interest rate derivatives.
But who are the biggest victims?
Sometimes the big banks manipulated the Libor rates up, and sometimes down. Different groups of people got hurt depending which way the rates were gamed.
Bloomberg's Darrell Preston explained last year how cities and other local governments got scalped when rates were manipulated downward:
The Biggest Financial Scandal In History?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
We always knew that the financial markets were rigged, but this is getting ridiculous. It is now being alleged that 20 major banks have been systematically fixing global interest rates for years. Barclays has already been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for manipulating Libor (the London Inter Bank Offered Rate). But Barclays says that a whole bunch of other banks were doing this too. This is shaping up to be the biggest financial scandal in history, and criminal investigations have been launched on both sides of the Atlantic. What those investigations are likely to uncover could shake the financial markets to their very core. In the end, this scandal could absolutely devastate confidence in the global financial system and it could potentially bring down a number of major global banks. We have never seen anything quite like this before.
The LIBOR affair Banksters How Britain's rate-fixing scandal
might spread—and what to do about it
The Economist.com
"SINCE we have not more power of knowing the future than any other men, we have made many mistakes (who has not during the past five years?), but our mistakes have been errors of judgment and not of principle." So reflected J.P. Morgan junior in 1933, in the middle of a financial crisis. Today's bankers can draw no such comfort from their behaviour. The attempts to rig LIBOR (the London inter-bank offered rate), a benchmark interest rate, not only betray a culture of casual dishonesty; they set the stage for lawsuits and more regulation right the way round the globe. This could well be global finance's "tobacco moment".
"Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it." – Ludwig von Mises
The Internet Reformation is Here
Anthony Wile invented the term "Internet Reformation" to brilliantly describe the end of top-down elite control over information flow, history, politics and current events. This control mechanism was used for centuries by the state and behind-the-scenes power elites to control populations and political jurisdictions but now advances in electronic communications, alternative news and social media are threatening their world order.
"The Internet Reformation is the culmination of the power and glory of Western civil society and free-market thinking. It is the apogee of all that is best in a sweep of history that began with the ancient Greeks and has culminated in the hearts and minds of millions of young men and women who industriously add to its impact every day via additional code, non-mainstream news or fundamental scientific commentary.
The Socialization Of America Is Economically Impossible
By Brandon Smith - Alt-Market.com
I understand the dream of the common socialist. I was, after all, once a Democrat. I understand the disparity created in our society by corporatism (not capitalism, though some foolish socialists see them as exactly the same). I understand the drive and the desire to help other human beings, especially those in dire need, and the tendency to see government as the ultimate solution to all our problems. That said, let's be honest; government is in the end just a tool used by one group or another to implement a particular methodology or set of principles. Unfortunately, what most socialists today don't seem to understand is that no matter what strategies they devise, they will NEVER have control. And, those they wish to help will be led to suffer, because the establishment does not care about them, or you. The establishment does not think of what it can give, it thinks about what it can take. Socialism, in the minds of the elites, is a con-game which allows them to quarry the favor of the serfs, and nothing more.
Federal government fails small businesses
for eleventh straight year
By J.D. Harrison - WashingtonPost.com
The federal government has yet again fallen short of its stated small-business contractinggoals, extending a streak of coming up just shy for an eleventh consecutive year.
Federal agencies awarded a total of $91.5 billion to small companies in fiscal 2011, down 7 percent from $97.9 billion the year prior, according data released Tuesday by the Small Business Administration. That amounts to 21.7 percent of all prime government contracts, down from 22.7 percent in fiscal 2010 and even further short of the stated annual goal of 23 percent.
Countrywide Used Loan Discounts To Buy Congress,
Fannie Mae Execs, Other Government Officials
By LARRY MARGASAK - HufingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON — The former Countrywide Financial Corp., whose subprime loans helped start the nation's foreclosure crisis, made hundreds of discount loans to buy influence with members of Congress, congressional staff, top government officials and executives of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, according to a House report.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said that the discounts – from January 1996 to June 2008, were not only aimed at gaining influence for the company but to help mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Countrywide's business depended largely on Fannie, which at the time was trying to fend off more government regulation but eventually had to come under government control.
Destroying the Young with Permanent Bailouts
BY PAUL TUSTAIN - FinancialSense.com
The tyranny of banking deposit insurance is leading young people to hate 'the market'...
Why aren't young people protesting against bailouts?
Younger adults are usually pretty quick to protest injustices, but they're strangely quiet on financial rescues. Few of them seem able to join the dots and see that bailouts are clobbering them hardest.
Who's Buying Up Your Neighborhood?
By Preeti Vissa - HuffingtonPost.com
Last week, Urban Strategies Council, a smart and savvy nonprofit in Oakland, Calif., caused a bit of a local stir with a report looking at who's been buying up foreclosed properties in their city -- a town that's been seriously hit by the foreclosure crisis. What they found is almost certainly not limited to Oakland, and should be cause for discussion nationwide.
In a nutshell, Urban Strategies reported that widespread foreclosures are producing a massive change in the ownership of entire communities:
Our analysis reveals that -- as of October 2011 -- investors had acquired 42 percent of all properties that went through foreclosure since 2007 in Oakland. Of these properties acquired by investors, 93 percent are located in the low-income flatland neighborhoods of the city. Further, only ten out of the top 30 most active investors are located in Oakland.
An Off-the-Wall Plan to Save Homeowners
(and Make Some Investors Rich) In California, a venture capital fund wants to help local governments seize mortgages from banks and give borrowers a break. Who cares if investors would make a killing? The housing market might get healthy.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
It is distinctly possible that some small cities in California and a venture capital fund are hatching a plan that could fix our sick housing market, and maybe start healing the economy.
More than five years after the real estate bubble began to burst, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that the America's chief economic affliction is still real estate. About a fifth of all U.S. mortgages are currently underwater, meaning the borrowers owe more to the bank than their homes are worth, according to CoreLogic's widely cited estimate. That's 11.1 million households who are stuck paying off debt on a bad investment they've been trapped in instead of spending on trips to the mall, a new car, or a vacation.
Health care law 'here to stay,' president insists Mandate utilizes a penalty, not tax, Obama camp says
By Stephen Dinan and Susan Crabtree-The Washington Times
President Obama defiantly insisted Thursday that his health care law is "here to stay" — and so, apparently, is the controversy over whether the massive plan is enforced by a penalty or a tax.
After watching Mitt Romney's campaign stumble for much of this week over that question, Mr. Obama and his advisers are now facing the same questions as they try to grapple with the individual mandate and the Supreme Court's ruling that it is, indeed, a "tax."
The future of Medicaid Run for cover The Supreme Court's ruling has grave implications for the poor
By The Economist.com
OBAMACARE'S individual "mandate", or requirement to buy health insurance, has been the most controversial part of a bitterly controversial law. The Supreme Court's decision on June 28th to uphold it was historic. But the reality of the mandate fails to live up to the rhetoric. The penalty for not buying insurance is less a stick than a noodle. The fine is fairly small, and those who do not pay it face no further punishment. Arguably much more important, in purely practical terms, was the Supreme Court's ruling on Medicaid.
The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves:
10 Ways That Obama Is Killing Jobs In America
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Have you ever heard the old saying "the beatings will continue until morale improves"? According to Wikipedia, that phrase is often "used sarcastically to indicate the counterproductive nature of such punishment or excessive control over subordinates such as staff in the workplace or children living at home." Well, apparently Barack Obama believes that the more punishment that he inflicts on the U.S. economy the more we will like him. What other explanation is there for his insane economic policies? The truth is that Barack Obama is killing jobs in America. His regulations are absolutely crippling our businesses, he has been heavily promoting new job killing "free trade" agreements, Obamacare has the potential to be the most job killing law of all time, and he is running up debt that will crush job creation in this country for ages to come. Obama will likely go down as the most anti-business president in U.S. history. He has presided over the worst "recovery" from a recession in post-World War II history, and under his leadership a whole host of economic statistics have steadily gotten worse. The percentage of working age Americans that have jobs has not bounced back since the end of the last recession, and now the next major economic crisis is rapidly approaching.
* * * * *
Malware May Knock Thousands Off Internet
AP - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON—Despite repeated alerts, tens of thousands may still lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.
The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.
According to the FBI, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. About 64,000 still-infected computers are probably in the United States.
To check whether a computer is infected, users can visit the DNSChanger web site: http://www.dcwg.org
What is the DNS Changer Malware?
On November 8, the FBI, the NASA-OIG and Estonian police arrested several cyber criminals in "Operation Ghost Click". The criminals operated under the company name "Rove Digital", and distributed DNS changing viruses, variously known as TDSS, Alureon, TidServ and TDL4 viruses. You can read more about the arrest of the Rove Digital principals here, and in the FBI Press Release.
What does the DNS Changer Malware do?
The botnet operated by Rove Digital altered user DNS settings, pointing victims to malicious DNS in data centers in Estonia, New York, and Chicago. The malicious DNS servers would give fake, malicious answers, altering user searches, and promoting fake and dangerous products. Because every web search starts with DNS, the malware showed users an altered version of the Internet.
Under a court order, expiring July 9, the Internet Systems Consortium is operating replacement DNS servers for the Rove Digital network. This will allow affected networks time to identify infected hosts, and avoid sudden disruption of services to victim machines.
Here's a (non-invasive) QUICK CHECK FOR U.S computers. to see if your computer has been infected - if background is GREEN, you're OK - if RED, you're NOT.
First Instance of iOS App Store Malware Detected, Removed
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
It has not been a good day for the App Store. Shortly after it came to light that a widespread bug has been causing newly updated apps distributed by the store to instantly crash upon opening, security researchers unearthed the first known instance of malware in another application in the iOS App Store.
Kaspersky antivirus experts discovered a Russian-language app called "Find and Call" that was available in both the Apple App Store and in Google Play. The app is essentially a Trojan that steals and uploads the user's address book to a remote server. Once uploaded, the server then sends spam to the email addresses and phone numbers belonging to the victim's contacts telling them about the Find and Call application. The app also grabs the GPS coordinates from the victim's phone and uploads them to the server.
Appageddon! Apple Botches DRM Update,
Crashes Dozens of Apps
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
The July 4th holiday has not been kind to Apple users and app developers. Starting late in the day on July 3, Apple began pushing out corrupt App Store updates that cause immediate app crashes. In effect, you launch your app, then — boom! — it dies.
Instapaper founder Marco Arment detailed the widespread issue, which is now affecting at least 73 major app titles, in a blog post Wednesday. The problem seems to be linked with Apple's FairPlay DRM, a copy-protection scheme used for apps in the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, as well as videos and iBooks from iTunes.
Some of the apps currently affected by the issue include Angry Birds Space HD Free, Scanner Pro, GoodReader, and Instapaper.
Outrage over 'white ONLY' Christian conference in the South. Flier for whites only pastors' conference has residents upset
WINFIELD, AL (WBRC) - In most situations, a flier advertising a pastors' conference wouldn't cause much stir, but one event in West Alabama has the townspeople of Winfield upset.
The flier was discovered at Norris Music in downtown Winfield Monday advertising for a conference titled: "Annual Pastors Conference All White Christians Invited."
"It was put up throughout the town in the middle of the night. When everyone was asleep without the permission of the business owner." Norris Music manager Tyler Cantrell said.
"Turn In Your Guns At Your Local Church"
By Chuck Baldwin - Alt-Market.com
Last weekend, the Chicago Police Department collaborated with over 20 local churches in a giant effort to encourage Chicagoans "to get guns out of their homes." WBBM News Radio has the story. "Using the lure of $100 gift cards, the Chicago Police Department is encouraging people to get guns out of their homes and turn them in this Saturday, during the annual gun turn-in program."
The news report goes on to say, "[T]he Police Department is partnering with 20 churches.
First Deputy Supt. Alfonza Wysinger says anyone who turns in a real gun will get a $100 gift card. Replicas and BB guns are worth $10.
Can Americans Escape the Deception?
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Hot Air Day is upon us. On July 4 hot air will spew forth all over the country as dignitaries deliver homilies to our "freedom and democracy" and praise "our brave troops" who are protecting our freedom by "killing them over there before they come over here."
Not a single one of these speeches will contain one word of truth. No speaker will lament the death of the US Constitution or urge his audience to action to restore the only document that protects their liberty. No speaker will acknowledge that in the 21st century the Bush/Obama Regime, with the complicity of the Department of Justice, federal courts, Congress, presstitute media, law schools, bar associations, and an insouciant public have murdered the Constitution in the name of the "war on terror."
Obama Administration Participates
in Finalizing UN Gun Grabbing Treaty
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
United Nations apparatchiks are finalizing details on the Arms Trade Treaty and the Obama administration is taking an active role. A treaty conference commenced on July 3 at the United Nations and is scheduled to run through July 27. Attendees will spend nearly a month tweaking a treaty draft.
"Our common goal is clear: a robust and legally binding Arms Trade Treaty that will have a real impact on the lives of those millions of people suffering from the consequences of armed conflict, repression and armed violence," said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the opening of the conference. "It is ambitious, but it is achievable."
Japan Investigation Finds
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster 'Man-Made'
By Akiko Fujita - ABCNews.com
The Fukushima nuclear disaster was a "man-made" accident caused by a utility and government regulators who put self-interest before the interest of the public, an independent parliamentary commission reported today after a six-month investigation into the crises.
The 641-page report, the first of its kind with wide-ranging subpoena powers in Japan's constitutional history, is the result of more than 900 hours of hearings and 1,100 interviews with officials, including the former president of operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, Masataka Shimizu, and former Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
China's central bank cuts lending, deposit rates
By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China's central bank on Thursday unveiled a surprise interest rate cut, lowering borrowing and deposit rates while also enabling banks greater leeway in setting their own lending rates at a discount to the benchmark.
The People's Bank of China lowered its one-year yuan deposit rate 25 basis points, or a quarter percentage point, to 3% and its one-year lending rate by 31 basis points to 6%, according to a statement posted on its website.
U.S. files complaint against China over auto tariffs
By David Nakamura and
and Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
MAUMEE, Ohio — The United States has filed a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization over tariffs on American-made automobile exports, the Obama administration announced Thursday.
The action comes as President Obama has pledged to get tougher on China's trade policies to help level the economic playing field with the Asian economic power. The tariffs under dispute cover about 80 percent of U.S. automobile exports to China, the administration said.
The Worker Who Helped Forge a Revolution
Tom Paine and the Fourth of July
by AL HART - Counterpunch.org
July 4 is the birthday of the United States, the date when the Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, which turned an ongoing revolt against Britain's oppressive policies into an anti-colonial and anti-monarchical revolution.
Jefferson and George Washington were wealthy planters and slave owners from Virginia. Nearly all the leaders of the American Revolution – known ever since as "the Founding Fathers" – were members of the upper classes: rich merchants, investors, landowners, planters, judges and lawyers. But Thomas Paine – the man whose writings won over the country to the idea of independence and helped rally the army and the people to defeat the powerful British Empire – was the exception.
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy.
The July 4th Question:
236 Years After The First Revolution
Is It Time For A Second?
By Jerry Bowyer, Contributor - Forbes.com
Let's start with a shocking, but true premise: If you are a patriotic American, you believe that there are circumstances under which it is right to take up arms against your own government. That statement feels wrong to me. It reeks of militia and McVeigh and toothless loons holed up with guns in cabins in order to avoid paying income taxes.
But the fact remains that the rationale for the existence of the nation known as the United States of America, which first appeared in print 236 years ago today, is entirely dependent on the premise that there are indeed times "…when in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…" and that such times may require the first group of people to "…mutually pledge to each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor." And that having dissolved those political bands with another people, the newly liberated people ("…and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War…") may, among other things, protect themselves from a tyrannical power which engages in "…a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object [which] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism…"
The Foundation
"It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more." --John Adams
Essential Liberty
In honor of the establishment and preservation of Essential Liberty, we offer a few remarks from a young American Patriot standing watch on the front lines in Afghanistan, followed by insights from our Founding Fathers, as fitting reminders of the constant vigil which must be maintained in defense of Liberty.
Wisdom from the Warfront -- Enemies Foreign and Domestic:
"As an officer who faces combat challenges daily, and who has experienced my share of heartache in defense of our great nation in accordance with my oath, it pains me to see our elected 'leaders' so willfully defy their oaths to support our Constitution. But, war has taught me that we just take today at our best, because we never know what tomorrow will bring.
Daily Kos: July 4 for 'Rebels', Not 'Bootlickers'
By Tim Graham | NewsBusters.org
For July 4 thoughts, it's probably not the best idea to start at the Daily Kos. Meteor Blades wrote a piece emphasizing the idea of patriotism is for "rebels" and "dissidents," not for "bootlickers."
The writer can't stand that patriots believe in American exceptionalism: "They make this claim as if—besides giving us impressive and justifiably revered notions of liberty and justice—our Founders and their successors did not expand the nation from sea to shining sea (and beyond) with a century of mass murder and grand larceny against indigenous peoples, a ginned-up war to grab more than half of Mexico, another to snag Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and a few lesser skirmishes by which places such as Maui became territory where the Stars and Stripes now flies."
70 Reasons To Mourn For America
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Every single year, Americans take the day off on July 4th and they celebrate everything that is good about America. We tend to be very proud of our achievements and we generally are not shy about talking about them. For example, today CNN is running a piece entitled "100 great things about America". And you know what? There are a lot of great things about this country. I am not afraid to say that I love America. In many ways it has been a great light for the rest of the world since it was founded. However, things have changed. The United States has greatly fallen from where it once was. The truth is that America is rotting and decaying in thousands of different ways. We need to repent and go back to doing the things that once made this country great. The road that we are currently on is a path that leads to national suicide. So to be honest now is not really the time for happy celebrations. Rather, now is the time for weeping, mourning and deep reflection. We need to turn from our profligate ways and we need to return to the fundamental principles that the early Americans understood so well. As a nation we need to look into the mirror and understand just how bad our decline has been. We are a complete and total mess, and it is time to admit that.
Sun-Times Columnist 'Celebrates' Fourth of July
by Calling Republicans the 'Treason Party'
By P.J. Gladnick | NewsBusters.org
On a day when most normal Americans are relaxing and celebrating the Fourth of July with family and friends, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg is giving full vent to his Liberal Rage Syndrome by angrily lashing out at Republicans by labeling them as the "treason party." Oh, he pretends he COULD be labeling them as such but won't. However, this disingenous denial is belied by the fact that reading his column leaves no doubt that he is most definitely making that accusation. And for those few people who are actually fooled by his lame denial, there is the very title of his column as proof of Steinberg's intolerance of political opinions at variance to his own beliefs:
Why More and More Americans
are Abandoning Their US Citizenship
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
07/03/12 Laguna Beach, California – In November, millions of Americans will trudge to their local polling places to cast votes in the hope of improving their lives here in the USA. Between now and then, a few hundred Americans will vote with their feet in the hope of improving their lives outside the USA.
Last year, nearly 1,800 Americans surrendered their citizenship. In a nation of 300 million folks, 1,800 émigrés is hardly a rush for the exits. But the recent trend is, nevertheless, intriguing.
Gold Climbs As ECB Rate Reduction May Help Fan Inflation
By Phoebe Sedgman - Bloomberg.com
Gold climbed to near a two-week high on speculation that a decision by the European Central Bank to cut interest rates may help to fan inflation, and after holdings in exchange-traded products expanded to an all-time high.
Immediate-delivery gold gained as much as 0.2 percent to $1,619.13 an ounce and was at $1,619.07 at 10:37 a.m. in Singapore. Holdings in exchange-traded products rose to a record 2,412.42 metric tons on July 3, data tracked by Bloomberg show.
The ECB will probably reduce the benchmark rate 25 basis points to a record low of 0.75 percent today, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 62 economists, as policy makers battle the region's debt crisis. The Bank of England may raise its target for bond purchases today, boosting it by 50 billion pounds ($78 billion), another survey shows.
"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour," Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
The original Declaration of Independence, badly faded from poor 19th-century preservation techniques, is on permanent display in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Each passing Fourth of July provides evidence that this document is better preserved than the land whose inhabitants it grants freedom and rights.
As the United States turns 236, relatively few people dwell on the possibility that within another 236 years, North America may cease to be a place capable of sustaining 300 million people in comfort, stability and peace.
The Dow/Gold Ratio This Independence Day
By: Adrian Ash - SafeHaven.com
Dividing the Dow Jones index of stocks by the Gold Price80 years after its low...
Plenty of people pay close attention to the Dow/Gold Ratio. Eighty years after it sank to its Great Depression low, you might want to take a look this week, too.
This blunt measure of stocks versus stuff gets nearly 5 million results on Google, posting some 650 unique stories on the Dow/Gold Ratio. Search volumes for the term "Dow Gold" don't quite match "Kim Kardashian" say, over the last 5 years (nor even "Reggie Bush"). But spiking in late 2008 and mid-2011, they very nearly matched search volumes for "Treasury bonds" - a market priced at twice the value of all the gold in the world. So why the interest?
Dancing around the fires of hell... The Smartest Man is a Firedancer
By Byron Wien - Blackstone.com
When the New Democracy party in Greece defeated the anti-bailout Syriza, I was anxious to learn what The Smartest Man in Europe thought of it all. The next day I flew across the Atlantic to meet him and we had a long discussion about the world financial outlook. Many of you remember The Smartest Man from earlier essays; I have been writing about him annually for more than a decade. He has been a friend for thirty years, and during that period he has shown an almost uncanny ability to see major events affecting the financial markets before other observers. Among these were the fall of Japan as an economic power in the 1980s, the economic changes in China and their significance the early 1990s, and the serious consequences of excessive borrowing in the developed world in the last decade.
US Needs to Deal With 'Fiscal Cliff' Soon: IMF's Lagarde
By: Justin Menza - CNBC.com
The U.S. economic recovery is only tepid and faces two major risks — the "fiscal cliff" and what's going on in the euro zone, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde told CNBC.
The fiscal cliff is when tax increases and spending cuts are slated to go into effect at the start of 2013.
Lagarde said that if the risks of the debt ceiling and the fiscal cliff were to hit, the U.S. economy could contract.
Greetings from Italy and the 'Endless Crisis'
By: Bob Pisani - CNBC.com
Mikhail Barishnikov helped open the legendary Spoleto, Italy music festival over the weekend with a quirky, experimental play, "In Paris."
The surprise wasn't the reception—it was well received—but the attendance: there were empty seats toward the back.
That a legend like Barishnikov did not sell out in a relatively small venue speaks volumes for the economic quiet that has descended upon Italy.
Is the Fed pushing on a string?
by Ryan Avent - The Economist.com
OCCASIONALLY, I'm asked why I think the Fed can do more to support the economy (indeed, can for the most part engineer a complete recovery without much assistance from fiscal authorities) while its policy rate is effectively zero and long-term rates are close to all-time record lows. Doesn't additional easing amount to little more than pushing on a string?
It does not, in my view. The reason is that, in my opinion, a determined central bank cannot fail to raise inflation expectations. The Fed has the ability to create as much money as it wants and can use that money to purchase every scrap of federal-government debt, every scrap of outstanding mortgage-backed securities backed by federal housing agencies, and as much foreign exchange as other governments will sell it. It strains credulity to think that the Fed could use its printing press to entirely fund the government and most of the mortgage market and to devalue the dollar with reckless abandon without having an impact on inflation expectations. In practice, it seems to take nothing like that to move expectations; a bit of tweaked language or a few hundred billion in QE purchases are enough to do the trick.
Treasuries Rise As Data May Show Struggle To Add Jobs
By Wes Goodman - Bloomberg.com
Treasuries rose, pushing benchmark yields to within 17 basis points of the record low, before reports today and tomorrow that economists said will show the U.S. is struggling to add jobs.
The Federal Reserve plans to buy as much as $5.5 billion of U.S. government securities due from August 2020 to May 2022 today as part of its effort to support the economy by reducing long-term interest rates, according to the Fed Bank of New York's website. The economy is "slowing markedly," Bill Gross, who runs the world's biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., wrote on Twitter July 3.
* * * * *
Have you heard about LIBOR?
It's largest rigging of prices in history of the world!
[note: Bob Diamond (Barclays) is NOT related to Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan)]
Inside Story - Rigged bank rates:
Is there more to come? - Hot Latest News
In the wake of the bank rate-rigging scandal, Bob Diamond, Barclays chief executive, announced his resignation from the post with immediate effect, on Tuesday.
LIBOR Banking Scandal Deepens;
Barclays Releases Damning Email,
Implicates British Government
By Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
This Libor-manipulation story grows crazier with each passing minute. We have officially disappeared now down the rabbit-hole of the international financial oligarchy.
Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond is testifying before parliament in London today, and that's sure to bring some shocking moments. But there's already been one huge stunner. In advance of that testimony, Barclays released an email from October 29, 2008, written by Diamond to then-Chairman John Varley and COO Jerry del Messier (who also stepped down yesterday). The email from the CEO to the other two senior Barclays execs purports to detail the content of the conversation Diamond had with Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker that same day.
Bob Diamond Set To Fight For Payoff
Guardian.co.uk via TalkingPointsMemo.com
Banker missed an opportunity to quell any controversy about a potential payoff at the Treasury select committee hearing
Bob Diamond, former boss of Barclays, appeared ready to fight for a payoff of up to £22m at a hearing with MPs at which he insisted he "got physically ill" when he first read an exchange of emails between the 14 Barclays staff who manipulated interest rates.
Diamond used a series of descriptions such as "reprehensible", "bad" and "abhorrent" as he made his first public appearance since resigning from the bank he "loves" on Tuesday after 16 years - and 18 months at the top.
Why so little discussion over this SCANDAL? Why is Nobody Freaking Out About the LIBOR Banking Scandal?
By MAtt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
The LIBOR manipulation story has exploded into a major scandal overseas. The CEO of Barclays, Bob Diamond, has resigned in disgrace; his was the first of what will undoubtedly be many major banks to walk the regulatory plank for fixing the interbank exchange rate. The Labor party is demanding a sweeping criminal investigation. Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, responded the way a real public official should (i.e. not like Ben Bernanke), blasting the banks:
It is time to do something about the banking system…Many people in the banking industry are hardworking and feel badly let down by some of their colleagues and leaders. It goes to the culture and the structure of banks: the excessive compensation, the shoddy treatment of customers, the deceitful manipulation of a key interest rate, and today, news of yet another mis-selling scandal.
What is Libor and why should we care?
Libor - the London Interbank Offered Rate - is the average cost of borrowing at which Britain's banks lend each other money.
It is calculated daily, based on information supplied by those banks and is used worldwide as a benchmark for prices on trillions fo euros worth of derivatives and other financial products.
After the financial crisis, the Libor rate also was seen as a guide to the health of bank's balance sheets.
Barclays manipulation alone could not have had a big effect on the final rate, but the suggestion is a lot of the big banks were doing the same thing.
Diamond Exit Raises Speculation Of Investment-Bank Split
By Elisa Martinuzzi, Howard Mustoe and Ambereen Choudhury - Bloomberg.com
When Robert Diamond took over Barclays Plc (BARC)'s shrinking securities unit in 1997 he vowed to turn the business into a leading global firm.
Fifteen years later, his success in creating a top investment bank, whose profit reached $4.7 billion in 2011, may hasten its split from the lender after the London-based bank admitted to trying to rig global interest rates. Diamond quit as Barclays's chief executive officer yesterday and hours later Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier followed.
Diamond Says Rivals Lowballed Libor, Blames Regulators
By Jesse Westbrook, Liam Vaughan
and Howard Mustoe - Bloomberg.com
Robert Diamond, who quit this week as chief executive officer of Barclays Plc (BARC), sought to blame other banks for misleading markets about their ability to borrow, and regulators for turning a blind eye.
Ordered to testify to British lawmakers after Barclays agreed to pay a record 290-million pound ($455 million) fine for rigging the London interbank offered rate, Diamond said yesterday he was "disappointed" regulators failed to act on repeated warnings from Barclays that competitors had lowballed their submissions. Legislators challenged him on why he took so long to uncover his own firm's attempts to manipulate the rate.
"If you can count your money, you ain't got none." Banking on Zeros
by LINH DINH - Counterpunch.org
I was just on Press TV with Gabriel Talmain, professor of economics, and Shabbir Razvi, economist. Both men are based in London, a fact that explains a linguistic mishap I had that was baffling, infuriating, then finally amusing. We'll get to it.
Asked about the Barclays manipulation of interest rates scandal, I more or less said,
Barclays is accused of deceiving regulators and the public, but as a major player in the US/UK banking cartel, all they do is deceiving and defrauding the public. This is a criminal network that has bankrupted much of the world. Barclays is being fined $450 million, but that's merely a symbolic gesture, for show. They'll make that back soon enough through their many other criminal rackets. It is a systemic problem.
After the Fourth, It's All About Jobs for This Market
By: Patti Domm - CNBC.com
After the July fourth holiday, Wall Street's traders will be back at their desks Thursday, watching jobs-related data amid rising anxiety about Friday's upcoming June employment report.
There are three pieces of employment-related data Thursday. First, ADP's private-sector employment report is released at 8:15 a.m. ET and is expected to show 108,000 private sector jobs were added in June. There are also weekly jobless claims data at 8:30 a.m., expected at 385,000, just about the same as last week. The ADP number is looked at as a kind of preview of the employment report, although it often does not correlate.
More Government Isn't The Key
To Women's Retirement Security
By Carrie Lukas, Contributor - Forbes.com
All campaigns have predictable moments: the conventions, the naming of the vice-presidential nominee, the sense of a comeback for the candidate trailing in the polls. Since Democrats have made the notion of a "War on Women" a central campaign theme this cycle, we can also safely predict that we will soon hear about the hardship facing senior women. Oppose whatever women-friendly expansion of Social Security liberals dream up, and you are party to the War on Women.
Conservatives need to do more than brace for the easily-imagined campaign ads showing them pushing granny and her wheelchair over the cliff. They should arm themselves with information about how current government policy actually makes women less secure in retirement and the reforms that will help women (and men) live better during old age.
ObamaCare: Tax versus Penalty
James V. DeLong - AmericanThinker.com
At a program on ObamaCare last Monday, Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute made a crucial point about how the comedy of mendacity called ObamaCare will unfold.
After an initial phase-in period, the "tax", as we now know it to be, for not buying health care insurance maxes out at $695 per adult per year, or half of that for children. A household's total liability is capped at $2085. (All this is in Section 5000A.) The cost of health care insurance for a family of four is about $15,000. So, obviously, the rational young and healthy person or family will pay the tax, and sign up for insurance only if and when it is needed. At that point, the insurance company must accept them, under the law.
Medicaid Expansion and Jobs
By CASEY B. MULLIGAN - NYTimes.com
The coming Medicaid expansion will reduce employment, but last week'sSupreme Court ruling could permit states to prevent that outcome.
The state-administered Medicaid program pays health care providers on behalf of low-income individuals and families. It is the largest antipoverty program, spending about $8,000 per beneficiary a year.
Roberts 'Should Be Ashamed'
Over Health-Care Ruling: Trump
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
Mitt Romney will benefit from the Supreme Court health-care ruling, though Chief Justice John Roberts should be "ashamed" of his role in the decision, businessman Donald Trump told CNBC.
The conservative jurist provided the deciding vote in a 5-4 ruling that said the health-care plan's individual mandate, which requires Americans to have health insurance, passed constitutional muster.
The Worst Ruling Since Dred Scott
By Ben Shapiro - PatriotPost.us
Last week Chief Justice John Roberts blatantly ignored the Constitution and the law and purposefully rewrote Obamacare in order to rule it legal. He called Obamacare a "tax" instead of an individual mandate; he then proceeded to blithely expand the government's power to tax to encompass a tax on breathing, which is what Obamacare is.
Now I had warned conservatives years ago that Roberts was a rotten pick for the Supreme Court. "Roberts is not an originalist," I wrote in 2005. "There is nothing in his very short jurisprudential record to indicate that his judicial philosophy involves strict fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution."
Nonetheless, Roberts' decision was stunning.
Obamacare's Hideous History, Recounted This law remains utterly illegitimate.
By QUIN HILLYER - The American Spectator.org
Amid John Roberts' craven surrender to "the political branches" on Obamacare -- a bizarre capitulation, at that, since Roberts honored a statute that he hallucinated, but neither Congress nor the president authored nor authorized -- Americans should remember just how many rules, standards, and traditions had to be twisted or bulldozed in order for the [un]Affordable Care Act to become law.
For Obamacare to be enacted in the first place required each of more than a dozen, highly unlikely or even suspect, occurrences or actions. It then took some serious constitutional hocus pocus for it to survive in court. Consider the awful litany:
The Movie on Health Care
That Obama Doesn't Want You to See
By Jeff Lipkes - AmericanThinker.com
It's not a documentary, and it's not by a conservative. The writer and director is a French-Canadian leftist, or former leftist. But, among other things, the film is a horrifying and hilarious exposé of health care in Canada. The film is The Barbarian Invasions by Denys Arcand, and though it did well in the U.S. for a foreign picture, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film in 2004 and grossing over $25 million, it hasn't been seen by nearly enough people.
Barbarian provides a vivid glimpse of what we have in store if President Obama is re-elected in November. I should perhaps at this point issue the usual "spoiler" caveat, though as it's a film about a man with terminal cancer, there isn't much of a plot to spoil. Like many good movies, it's the interactions of the characters and the ways in which relationships evolve under stress that make the story interesting.
Supreme Errors
By: Peter Schiff - SafeHaven.com
In the wake of my last commentary on the horrendous Supreme Court decision upholding Obama's health care plan, several people have pointed out that I erred in saying that the income tax is a "direct tax." While it is technically correct that the Court ultimately declared it to be an excise, not a direct tax, it is important to understand how it arrived at that opinion and why the decision has no practical relevance to the way the tax has been enforced. Just as it has done with Obamacare, the Court came up with a technically constitutional pathway to allow the government to collect a tax in a blatantly unconstitutional manner.
When it comes to the concept of limited government, which is really at the heart of the recent imbroglio over Obamacare, the Constitution has been described as the law that controls the government.
The Constitution starts off with a preamble that states:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This section of the document is not, in and of itself, a part of the Constitution. It simply describes the reason why We the People are defining what we are allowing the government to do and why we are bothering to do anything at all.
Is Wal-Mart Destroying America?
20 Facts About Wal-Mart That Will Absolutely Shock You
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
America absolutely loves Wal-Mart. 100 million customers visit Wal-Mart every single week in this country. But is Wal-Mart good for America? That is a question that most people never stop and ask. Most of us love shopping in big, clean stores that are packed with super cheap merchandise, but the truth is that Wal-Mart is destroying America in a lot of ways. As you will see below, Wal-Mart has destroyed tens of thousands of small businesses and countless manufacturing jobs over the past couple of decades. Wal-Mart has become a gigantic retail behemoth that sells five times more stuff than any other retailer in the United States. Unfortunately, about 85 percent of all the stuff sold at Wal-Mart is made overseas. What that is costing the U.S. economy in terms of lost jobs and lost revenue is incalculable. But Wal-Mart is a perfect example of where our economic system is headed. Our economy is becoming completely and totally dominated by highly centralized monolithic predator corporations that ruthlessly crush all competition and that will stoop to just about anything in order to cut costs. In the future, will we all be working for gigantic communal entities that funnel all of the wealth and economic rewards to a very tiny elite? That sounds very much like how communist China works, and red-blooded Americans should want no part of that. America is supposed to be about free enterprise and competition and working together to build up this country, and Wal-Mart is destroying all of that.
Corn Crop Shrivels: 'Should Be 7 to 9 Foot Tall by Now'
By: Patti Domm - CNBC.com
The size and quality of the U.S. corn crop continues to deteriorate as scorching heat in the corn belt threatens the crop during its critical pollination, or "tasseling" stage.
The amount of the corn crop that is in good to excellent condition keeps shrinking, now making up 48 percent of the crop compared to 56 percent last week and 63 percent the week before.
The USDA data, released Monday, also showed a decline in the quality of the soybean crop to 45 percent good to excellent, from 53 percent last week.
Apartment rents rise at highest rate since 2007: Reis
By Lauren Tara LaCapra
Thu Jul 5, 2012 12:21am EDT
(Reuters) - Renting an apartment in the U.S. became even more expensive during the second quarter, as vacancies set a new 10-year low and rents rose at a pace not seen since before the financial crisis, according to real estate research firm Reis Inc.
The average U.S. vacancy rate of 4.7 percent was the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2001, down 0.2 percentage points from the prior quarter, according to preliminary data Reis released on Thursday.
Judicial Betrayal Conscience can be an implacable and inescapable punisher.
By THOMAS SOWELL - TheAmerican Spectator.org
Betrayal is hard to take, whether in our personal lives or in the political life of the nation. Yet there are people in Washington -- too often, Republicans -- who start living in the Beltway atmosphere, and start forgetting those hundreds of millions of Americans beyond the Beltway who trusted them to do right by them, to use their wisdom instead of their cleverness.
President Bush 41 epitomized these betrayals when he broke his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge. He paid the price when he quickly went from high approval ratings as president to someone defeated for reelection by a little known governor from Arkansas.
Roberts Channels Obama's Communist Mentor
By KEVIN MOONEY - The American Spectator.org
This is how bad it is.
By allowing the penalty included within Obamacare to stand under the federal government's taxing authority, Chief Justice John Roberts has enshrined the policy ambitions of one Frank Marshall Davis.
In a column published on July 21, 1955 in the Honolulu Record, Davis, a long-time communist operative, who served as a close mentor to Obama, champions the idea of taxpayer funding for universal health care.
The history her is carefully and methodically unpackaged by Paul Kengor, a professor of political science at Grove City College, in his upcoming book entitled: The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, the Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mentor.
Supreme Court Helps Obama
Fulfill Dreams from His Communist Mentor
By Paul Kengor
As readers of this site are aware, thanks especially to Jack Cashill's recent posts, I've been researching and writing a book on Barack Obama's mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. That book, titled The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mentor, just came off the press this week, with an official release date of July 17. I knew that the book would be very relevant, and we've been preparing for media reaction. In the book, I list at length the stunning commonalities in Davis's thinking and communist propaganda work and President Obama's thinking and work. That said, I didn't imagine how relevant it would be in light of the Supreme Court's decision on ObamaCare. Let me explain.
Frank Marshall Davis, who lived from 1905 to 1987, mentored Barack Obama in Hawaii in the 1970s. Davis was a devoted communist -- pro-Soviet, pro-Stalin, and pro-Mao. His Communist Party number was 47544. Davis did terrible, blatant propaganda work for the international communist movement. In The Communist, I publish rare declassified FBI and Soviet archival documents on Davis and his work. I also present columns written by Davis for Communist Party newspapers in the 1940s and 1950s.
The New America Under Agenda 21 with Activist Rosa Koire
Alex also talks with Rosa Koire, a forensic commercial real estate appraiser specializing in eminent domain valuation and an outspoken activist opposed to the United Nations' Agenda 21 and its attempts to attack civilization through so-called Sustainable Development. She is the author of Behind The Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21
Midwest ranchers, lawmakers protest EPA flyovers
By DAVID PITT | Associated Press - Yahoo.com
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Midwest ranchers have never been enamored with environmental regulators, but they really began to complain after learning that federal inspectors were flying over their land to look for problems.
The Environmental Protection Agency flies over power plants and other facilities nationwide to identify potential air, water and land pollution. It began using aerial surveillance in the Midwest in 2010 to check farms for violations of federal clean water regulations.
Homeland Security Report Lists 'Liberty Lovers' As Terrorists Americans who are "suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty" deemed domestic threat
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
A new study funded by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes Americans who are "suspicious of centralized federal authority," and "reverent of individual liberty" as "extreme right-wing" terrorists.
Entitled Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008 (PDF), the study was produced by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. The organization was launched with the aid of DHS funding to the tune of $12 million dollars.
Interview with Gerald Celente of the Trends Journal: A War with Iran Will be the Beginning of WW III
....Gerald Celente thinks, "The banks are taking over the world." That's what is really happening in Europe with the sovereign debt crisis. Celente says, "America has already turned into pre-World War II Germany," and "A war with Iran will be the beginning of World War III." Celente lost money in the MF Global bankruptcy and says the lesson learned is "You don't own your money unless you have it in your possession."
Argentina signs deals with China's military
AP.org
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentina's defense minister is visiting China, signing military agreements and praising the weapons on display during a six-day tour.
Defense minister Arturo Puricelli says cooperation agreements that he signed with Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie will strengthen ties between the Asian giant and Argentina.
U.S. Adds Forces in Persian Gulf, a Signal to Iran
By THOM SHANKER, ERIC SCHMITT
and DAVID E. SANGER - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — The United States has quietly moved significant military reinforcements into the Persian Gulf to deter the Iranian military from any possible attempt to shut the Strait of Hormuz and to increase the number of fighter jets capable of striking deep intoIran if the standoff over its nuclear program escalates.
The deployments are part of a long-planned effort to bolster the American military presence in the gulf region, in part to reassure Israel that in dealing with Iran, as one senior administration official put it last week, "When the president says there are other options on the table beyond negotiations, he means it."
Iran threatens to close Strait of Hormuz
if sanctions increase: lawmaker
English.news.cn - Xinhuanet.com
TEHRAN, July 4 (Xinhua) -- An Iranian lawmaker reiterated the threats that the Islamic republic would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf if the Western sanctions against Iran increase, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.
"If we completely go under the sanctions, we will not let a single drop of oil pass through the Hormuz Strait," Arsalan Fathipour, head of the Economic Commission of Iranian Majlis ( parliament), was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, another Iranian lawmaker, Ebrahim Agha-Mohammadi, said on Monday that the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran's Majlis had prepared a bill which called for the closure of Strait of Hormuz in response to the recent European Union (EU) oil embargo on Iran.
Iran: 'Long-Range' Missiles Attack 'Mock Enemy Bases
By LEE FERRAN - ABCNews.com
The Iranian military has launched a barrage of missiles at "mock enemy bases" as part of a major war games exercise aimed at dissuading any potential outsider attack, the nation's state-run media reported today.
During what is called "The Great Prophet 7" drills, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) "targeted and destroyed hypothetical bases of ultra-regional forces set up in desert areas," according to Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency. The reports did not identify the "ultra-regional forces" but alluded to the ongoing diplomatic conflict between Iran and the U.S., which has several major military installations in the region.
IRAN: WE'LL DESTROY 35 U.S. BASES IF ATTACKED Saber-rattling intensifies
after calling American warships 'easy' targets
By F. Michael Maloof - WND.com
BEIRUT, Lebanon – Amid declarations by Iranian officials that U.S. warships are "easy" targets, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Force said he has "detailed contingency plans to hit 35 U.S. bases in the region in the early minutes of a possible conflict."
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh boasted the U.S. bases around Iran are "within the reach of our missiles."
Palestinian lands, he added, referring to Israel, "are good targets for us as well."
As we celebrate Independence Day on the 4th of July, the daily news is a sobering reminder that all is not well in America. We have been deceived in many respects and the following articles regarding the "Pledge of Allegiance" are for those who are unaware of the origins. Please read the entire article about its Socialist Roots and all the comments. The article is very informative and helps explain why Obama is so enamored with the Lincoln presidency... connect the dots and consider that a second civil war, unfortunately, could be in the offing unless all of our cooler heads prevail. We need to be well informed... and concerned.
SOCIALIST ROOTS OF THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Pledging Allegiance to the Omnipotent Lincolnian State
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
The US Supreme Court's recent decision to review the constitutionality of the "under God" wording in the Pledge of Allegiance provides an occasion to educate Americans about the ideological purpose of the Pledge. A good place to start would be John Baer's book, The Pledge of Allegiance: A Centennial History, 1892-1992 (Free State Press, 1992). In it one would learn that the author of the Pledge was one Francis Bellamy, a defrocked Baptist minister from Boston who identified himself as a Christian Socialist and who preached in his pulpit that "Jesus was a socialist."
The Obama-Lincoln Parallel: A Closer Look
By Phil Hirschkorn - CBSNews.com
Barack Obama's arrival in Washington by train today harkens back to the inaugural White House trip of the former President who is Obama's political idol: Abraham Lincoln. In 1861, our 16th President rode the rails through New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania en route to the capital.
"He called it 'my circuitous journey,'" says Lincoln biographer Harold Holzer, an author or editor of 33 books about Lincoln, including his recently published "Lincoln: President-Elect."
"He knew that it was a cockeyed itinerary meant to expose him to as many people as possible. They say 250,000 people saw him - more than had ever cast eyes on a President in the history of the country."
President Obama and Abraham Lincoln
By Bill O'Reilly - FOXNews.com - April 19, 2012
....Now, I believe President Obama would say that a just society is what Abraham Lincoln stood for. And that's true. But collective justice is far different than individual justice. All of us get hosed in life. Nobody escapes unharmed. The federal government can't alter that reality. We will pay for our mistakes and for the bad things people do to us.
What President Obama does not seem to understand but Abraham Lincoln did is the limitations of the bureaucracy. If the President continues spending the way he has in the past, he'll bankrupt the country. Is that justice for all? Economic chaos is not far away. And that is what this year's presidential election will be about.
Unlike some of you, I believe Mr. Obama is a sincere man. But I do not believe he understands economics. And I don't think he lives in the real world. But he should. He should.
Could another civil war happen?
Disunion sparked the last civil war... Top Five Causes of the Civil War Leading up to Secession and the Civil War
By Martin Kelly, About.com
1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South.
2. States versus federal rights.
3. The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents.
4. Growth of the Abolition Movement.
5. The election of Abraham Lincoln.
Causes of the Civil War: A Balanced Answer
by Gordon Leidner of Great American History
What caused the American Civil War? It is amazing that even today, nearly 150 years after the Civil War started, there is passionate debate regarding the "cause" of the Civil War. Consider this:
It is a fact that when the armies for the North and South were first formed, only a small minority of the soldiers on either side would have declared that the reason they joined the army was to fight either "for" or "against" slavery.
However, equally true is the statement: "Had there been no slavery, there would have been no war. Had there been no moral condemnation of slavery, there would have been no war."
Causes of the Civil War
The Columbia Encyclopedia - Columbia University Press
The name Civil War is misleading because the war was not a class struggle, but a sectional combat having its roots in political, economic, social, and psychological elements so complex that historians still do not agree on its basic causes. It has been characterized, in the words of William H. Seward, as the "irrepressible conflict." In another judgment the Civil War was viewed as criminally stupid, an unnecessary bloodletting brought on by arrogant extremists and blundering politicians. Both views accept the fact that in 1861 there existed a situation that, rightly or wrongly, had come to be regarded as insoluble by peaceful means.
Are You A Slave Of The System?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you went out and took a poll of the American people on July 4th (Independence Day) and asked them if they are free, what would the results look like? Of course the results would be overwhelmingly lopsided. Most Americans believe that they live in "the land of the free" and that they are not enslaved to anyone. But is that really the case? Slavery does not always have to involve whips and shackles. There are many other forms of slavery. Onedictionary definition of a slave is "one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence". I really like that definition. Today, millions of Americans are slaves of the system and they don't even realize it. Debt is a form of slavery, and millions of Americans having become deeply enslaved to our debt-based financial system. When someone enslaves someone else, the goal of the master is to reap a benefit out of the slave. You don't want the slave to just sit there and collect dust. Today, most Americans have willingly shackled themselves to a system that systematically drains their wealth and transfers it to the very wealthy. Most of them don't even realize that they have been enslaved even as the system sucks them dry.
* * * * *
The Rig Is Up
by Jim Sinclair - JSMineset.com
Gold will go to and above $3500. This is the most important message I have sent you since 2001.
There are very few of us dynamic thinkers that see everything as a trend constantly in motion. Anyone can be a static thinker, quoting recent economic figures or news headline (MSM), and coming up with a usually wrong opinion.
The change today is that the "Rig Is Up."
The Bank of England turning their backs on Barclays, the company who did their bidding, will be the event in time marking the trend change.
Many of us in our areas of activity will successfully fight the Riggers. The many complaints that so many of you kindly sent in to fight manipulation released the Kraken in me.
Barclays, Commerzbank, Morgan Stanley
still bullish on Gold medium to long term
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Major global banks Barclays, Commerzbank, Morgan Stanley are still bullish on Gold in the medium to long term. The yellow metal fell to its lowest level in four weeks last week before rising sharply on Friday during a surge in the broader commodity markets.
After an 11-year bull run, global gold prices started sinking late last year, and a springtime swoon pushed the precious metal perilously close to official bear-market territory. From a peak of $1,889 an ounce last August, gold sank to $1,536 an ounce in mid May, down 19%. May marked the fourth straight monthly decline for gold—the longest losing streak in 12 years.
Gold Set To Gain As ETP Holdings
Rise To Record On Stimulus Bets
By Glenys Sim - Bloomberg.com
Gold may climb for a second day on signs of increased investment demand amid speculation that central banks will take more steps to boost growth.
Spot gold was little changed at $1,618.25 an ounce by 8:28 a.m. in Singapore, after climbing 1.3 percent yesterday to a two-week high. Holdings in exchange-traded products backed by bullion expanded to a record 2,412.422 metric tons yesterday, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
"It's about protecting purchasing power," Ben Davies, co- founder of Hinde Capital Ltd. and manager of the Hinde Gold Fund, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We'll migrate to $2,000 by year-end."
Precious metals derivative sellers conveniently trapped
By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com
The large and mostly naked holders of short positions in precious metals are conveniently trapped, especially in the silver market. Covering in any meaningful way would blow the U.S. Dollar's cover.
The Dollar's increasingly serious valuation issues are also being ignored, but this may only last as long as the Euro continues to remain in the currency market's spotlight as a target for selling pressure as Europe's debt problems deepen.
Eurozone events over next several days
to influence Gold, Silver: HSBC
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): The near-term direction of the gold and silver markets could be influenced greatly by eurozone events and the direction of the euro, said HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC), a British multinational bank, in a commodities research note.
According to the British bank, the "Troika" of international leaders – the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – is slated to return to Greece Monday, the ECB will meet Thursday to set monetary policy and the Eurogroup will discuss recapitalization plans for the Spanish banking sector July 9.
Europe Bails Itself Out, for Now
By William Pfaff - Truthdig.com
PARIS—The latest, and 20th, European "summit" meeting, held last week in Brussels, was symbolically a defeat for Germany's Angela Merkel, who agreed that Europe's permanent bailout fund could directly recapitalize certain troubled eurozone banks after weeks of obstinate resistance to such concessions to what in Germany are regarded as the irresponsible and profligate "southerners"—Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese—held responsible for the European debt crisis (with a little help from Goldman Sachs). She also, in the Greek case, agreed to a growth fund.
(One should add that the common journalistic term "bailout," usually used as meaning "giving" money, actually means loaning money for eventual reimbursement.)
Slouching Toward Debt Union Germans commit more money for less economic reform.
WSJ.com Opinion
On Friday euro-zone leaders agreed—or rather, Angela Merkel conceded—that their joint bailout funds may now be used both to buy up sovereign bonds directly and to start bailing out banks with European funds. "[I]t is imperative to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns," the euro group statement reads.
That's one way to put it. Another way is that the deal puts Europe's remaining solvent states on the hook for more of the debts of the southern periphery. That may soon include France and its 90%-of-GDP sovereign debt.
Keiser Report:
Big guy 'scandals' vs small fry 'crimes' (E309)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss 'scandals' for the big guys, 'crimes' for the small fry and they also examine, the worst businessman of the century. In the second half of the show Max talks to journalist and blogger, Teri Buhl of Teribuhl.com, about JP Morgan's $9 billion problem and the information about fraud that the SEC is currently sitting on.
BRICs Priced For Economic Meltdown
By Michael Patterson - Bloomberg.com
The biggest emerging markets are contributing more than ever to the global economy as their proportion of the world stock market shrinks, leaving investors with the widest valuation gap in seven years.
Brazil, Russia (INDEXCF), India and China, known as the BRICs, will comprise 20 percent of the world economy this year after growing more than four-fold in the past decade, International Monetary Fund data show. At the same time, their combined stock-market value has dropped to a three-year low of 16 percent of the total invested in equities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Will Europe Be Willing but Disabled?
Mohamed A. El-Erian, CEO - Pimco - Project-Syndicate.org
NEWPORT BEACH – When it comes to describing Europe's ever-worsening crisis, metaphors abound. For some, it is five minutes to midnight; for others, Europe is a car accelerating towards the edge of a cliff. For all, a perilous existential moment is increasingly close at hand.
Optimists – fortunately, there remain a few, especially in Europe itself – believe that when the situation becomes really critical, political leaders will turn things around and put Europe back on the path of economic growth, job creation, and financial stability. But pessimists have been growing in number and influence. They see political dysfunction adding to financial turmoil, thereby amplifying the eurozone's initial design flaws.
SPIEF 2012: European Crossroads -
Post-crisis Scenarios with Peter Lavelle
Will the EU overcome the ongoing crisis and become a stronger political and economic entity? Who wants to be part of the eurozone? Will there still be would-be euro members if Greece exits the eurozone? RT's Programs presenter Peter Lavelle is joined by Xavier Rolet, Jacob Nell, Ksenia Yudaeva, Erik Berglцf, Dariusz Jacek Krawiec, Dmitry Pankin, Ben Aris and Max Keiser. Please note that Xavier Rolet left the panel discussion before its completion due to a previously scheduled appointment. The presenter of the panel was aware of this in advance and so were the panel organizers.
Barclays libor scandal: lock 'em up -
it's the only way of dealing with abuse like this
Virtually all financial scandals follow the same pattern. First there is the initial exposure of wrong doing, then comes the mitigating claim that it was common practice and everyone was up to it, and finally it emerges that the regulators knew all along but failed to act.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
The only bit of the generally repeated sequence of events missing in the Barclays case is the one I haven't mentioned – the cover-up. As the crisis develops, someone, often the chief executive, is nearly always caught attempting to destroy the evidence.
Barclays did at least manage to avoid that one; emails are not so easily shredded as the paper work of old. But the other two elements are now fast snowballing; as is now apparent, manipulation of interbank interest rates appears to have been endemic at a number of banks and what's more, regulators repeatedly ignored warnings of it.
IMF: Growth in US economy will remain weak through 2013
By Erik Wasson - TheHill.com
Economic growth in the United States will remain depressed over the next two years even if Congress and the White House find a way to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and spending cuts at the end of the year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Tuesday.
The IMF's annual report on the U.S. economy forecasts "modest" 2 percent gross domestic product growth this year and 2.3 percent growth next year. The unemployment rate, according to the IMF, will be 8.2 percent this year and 7.9 percent in 2013.
Big Banks' 'Living Wills' Aiming For Bankruptcy Not Bailouts
By Jesse Hamilton - Bloomberg.com
U.S. regulators, seeking to prevent a repeat of taxpayer-funded bailouts of the financial system, released summaries of plans for breaking up nine of the world's largest banks in the event of an emergency.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve posted the public portions of so-called living wills on websites today as required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The documents outline more detailed proposals submitted privately describing how regulators could dismantle the companies if they fail.
The banks required to file were JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM),Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley, Barclays PLC (BCS),Deutsche Bank AG (DB), Credit Suisse Group AG (CS) andUBS AG. (UBSN)
Banking scandal: how document trail reveals global scam It's not a comfortable weekend for the men heading some of the world's biggest banks. Barclays has already been hit by a £290m fine for rigging interest rates but that could be dwarfed by a series of global lawsuits which could cost banks billions
By Jamie Doward - Guardian.co.uk
The interest rate rigging scandal that has engulfed Barclays was the result of a coordinated attempt at collusion by traders working for a coterie of leading banks over at least five years, according to a series of lawsuits and legal rulings filed in courts in Asia and North America.
The lawsuits allege the fraud was extensive, spanning at least three continents and involving trades worth tens of billions of pounds. The allegations raise further serious questions about the banks' ability to police themselves and the role of senior management in monitoring the activities of their employees.
JPMorgan in US power market probe Regulator says bidding practices may have inflated prices
By Gregory Meyer in New York - FT.com
The US electricity regulator has subpoenaed JPMorgan Chase twice in the past three months as it investigates whether the bank manipulated power markets in California and the Midwest region, court filings showed.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission revealed the probe in court papers filed on Monday that said the bank's bidding practices may have inflated electricity costs by at least $73m.
Wholesale electricity has attracted heightened regulatory attention since the California energy crisis of 2000-01, when Enron and other traders were accused of rigging supplies and causing blackouts.
Big Foreclosure Compensation,
But Only for the Right Wrongs
by Paul Kiel - ProPublica.org
Can you put a price on the damage caused by a wrongful foreclosure? Banking regulators have. And it's $125,000. Or $60,000. Or $15,000. Or… it's unclear.
Last November, banking regulators launched a process to force the big banks to compensate homeowners victimized by their foreclosure abuses. Many crucial details remained unclear, including how much victims might receive.
More than seven months later, regulators finally released a "framework" that shows some of the possible outcomes. It's a list of thirteen mortgage servicing "errors," each with its own associated form of compensation. In addition to fixing the bank's errors, remedies include cash payments ranging from $500 all the way up to $125,000.
Obama braces for June jobs report
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
Weak June manufacturing numbers released Monday intensified concern about the fragility of the economic recovery and turned election-watchers' attention toward unemployment numbers due out at the end of this week.
The reports, just four months before voters cast their ballots in the presidential election, come amid a wave of bad news on the global economy, which is seen by both the White House and President Obama's critics as the most potent threat to his chances of securing a second term in office.
What Happens If Record Heat And Crippling Drought Cause Widespread Crop Failures Throughout The United States?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
It is too early to panic, but if there is not a major change in the weather very soon we could be looking at widespread crop failures throughout the United States this summer. Record heat and crippling drought are absolutely devastating crops from coast to coast. Unfortunately, this unprecedented heat wave just continues to keep going and record high temperatures continue to scorch much of the central United States. In fact, more than 2,000 record high temperatureshave been matched or broken in the past week alone. Not only that, but the lack of rainfall nationally has caused drought conditions from coast to coast. If temperatures continue to stay this high and we don't start seeing more rain, farmers and ranchers all over the nation are going to be absolutely devastated. So what happens if we do see widespread crop failures throughout the United States? That is a question that is frightening to think about.
Climate Change: 'This Is Just the Beginning'
By Amy Goodman - Truthdig.com
Evidence supporting the existence of climate change is pummeling the United States this summer, from the mountain wildfires of Colorado to the recent "derecho" storm that left at least 23 dead and 1.4 million people without power from Illinois to Virginia. The phrase "extreme weather" flashes across television screens from coast to coast, but its connection to climate change is consistently ignored, if not outright mocked. If our news media, including—or especially—the meteorologists, continue to ignore the essential link between extreme weather and climate change, then we as a nation, the greatest per capita polluters on the planet, may not act in time to avert even greater catastrophe.
Bobby Jindal: Obama 'success' is food stamps
By MJ LEE | Politico.com
Louisiana Gov. Bob Jindal, who has vowed to reject the expansion of Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care law, charged Tuesday that the president "measures success by how many people are on food stamp rolls and government-run health care."
"The president, his administration, needs to understand what makes this country great in part is that we're not dependent on government programs," the Republican governor said on "Fox & Friends." "It seems to me like the president measures success by how many people are on food stamp rolls and government-run health care. That's not the American dream."
The Medicaid ruling's ripple effect
By J. LESTER FEDER and DARREN SAMUELSOHN | Politico.com
Think last Thursday's Supreme Court ruling was just about health care? Think again.
Chief Justice John Roberts's surprise opinion, which allows states to opt out of the law's Medicaid expansion, could set up a series of legal showdowns between states and the federal government over the strings attached to billions of dollars in federal grants for everything from transportation to education and the environment.
It'll take many years — and many lawsuits — before the full effects of Roberts's health care ruling are sorted out. Still, legal experts on both the right and the left agree that the door is now open for states to challenge everything from the Clean Air Act to No Child Left Behind and anti-discrimination protections.
Keith Hennessey: A Strategy to Undo ObamaCare To push through key parts of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats used the 'reconciliation' process. A Republican president, House and Senate can use reconciliation to repeal them.
By KEITH HENNESSEY - WSJ.com
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled ObamaCare's individual mandate constitutional, the direction of American health policy is in the hands of voters. So how do we get from here to "repeal and replace"?
Step one is electing Mitt Romney as president, along with Republican House and Senate majorities. Without a Republican sweep, the law will remain in place.
But a President Romney does not need 60 Republican senators to repeal core elements of ObamaCare. Democrats lost their 60th senate vote in early 2010 after Scott Brown took Edward Kennedy's seat. To bypass a Senate GOP filibuster and enact portions of ObamaCare, they used a special legislative procedure called reconciliation.
Liberals fear the John Roberts rebound
By JOSH GERSTEIN | Politico.com
Liberals who celebrated the Supreme Court's decision on health care may be nursing an ugly hangover after the justices dive back into their work this fall, with a docket likely to be loaded with controversial cases.
And left-leaning courtwatchers are already worried about the jurist who brought them such relief last week: Chief Justice John Roberts.
Some liberals contend that Roberts's surprise crossover on the health care law has given him a free hand to craft and sign onto a slew of conservative opinions next year without suffering much of a public drubbing from Democrats and the press. With one major case, Roberts may have inoculated himself and the court against charges of partisanship.
Arpaio Set To Unleash
"Shocking" Obama Birth Certificate Revelations
"Breathtaking" information will top previous press conference, says lead investigator
By Paul Joseph Watson - PrisonPlanet.com
Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse are set to unleash "shocking" revelations about Barack Obama's birth certificate at a press conference later this month, information described as "breathtaking" by lead investigator Mike Zullo.
Speaking with Tea Party Power Hour host Mark Gillar, Zullo said that the upcoming press conference would go above and beyond the March 1st event during which Arpaio and his team announced they would investigate the probability that Obama's long form birth certificate, released by the White House in April 2011, was a forgery.
SHERIFF JOE SET TO RELEASE MORE OBAMA 'SHOCKERS' Arpaio schedules another news conference on eligibility
WND.com
Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse investigating Barack Obama's presidential eligibility have been promising more major revelations since their March 1 press conference, and now another event has been scheduled to unveil new information.
Arpaio told WND a press conference will be held July 17 at 2:30 p.m. local time at the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Phoenix, Ariz.
WND will once again provide live Web streaming of the event.
The evidence will include information gathered in the posse's recent investigative trip to Hawaii as well as an update on the ongoing investigation.
How Stockton went broke: A 15-year spending binge
By Jim Christie
SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Jul 3, 2012 6:52pm EDT
(Reuters) - The man in charge of the biggest U.S. city ever to file for bankruptcy is clear about the root of the crisis.
It was a decision that gave firefighters full healthcare in retirement starting on January 1, 1996, said Bob Deis, the city manager of Stockton, California.
At the time, the move seemed cheaper than giving pay raises sought by unions, officials involved in the decision said. When other Stockton employees demanded the same healthcare deal in following years, the city agreed.
Chicago to get hyper-connected
under Rahm Emanuel's grand Wi-Fi plan Emanuel plans to make entire downtown area wireless – the latest in a series of innovations from Chicago's ambitious mayor
By Ed Pilkington in Chicago - Guardian.co.uk
Rahm Emanuel, the hyperactive mayor of Chicago, is drawing up plans that would transform the city into one of the most wired urban centres in the world and affirm its status as the broadband backbone of America.
Emanuel has instructed officials to examine the technical and financial implications of turning the whole of downtown Chicago into a wireless network zone. Under the plans, the city's traffic and street lights would be turned into smart polls, ensuring unbroken internet access throughout the city centre that would be extended underground across the entire CTA subway system.
Whatever happened to our green and pleasant land? Dark, satanic mills of Industrial Revolution take centre stage at Olympics opening ceremony with smoke stacks and pitheads
By ROB COOPER - DailyMail.co.uk
The £27million Olympics opening ceremony will feature smoke stacks, pits and steam power as it showcases Britain's industrial past, new aerial photographs suggest.
Danny Boyle is expected present a grim picture of Britain's satanic mills with a towering factory chimney the centrepiece of a scene showing off the country's coal-powered past.
The organisers have already revealed how they will show off cricket on the village green, dancing happily around the maypoles and singing for joy in the background. But they are expected to show a darker side to our past in the second scene.
Killer microchip
Cyanide equipped RFID chip! Patent Denied in Germany
Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track, Eliminate Undesirables:
The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily.
Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat.
The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants and foreigners overstaying their visas.
666 Micro Chip Implant Coming March 23, 2013 ??
The New Health Care (Obamacare) law H.R. 3590 Also HR 4872 requires all US citizens to have the RIFD implanted http://www.paulbegleyprophecy.comPerry Stone also has http://my.blogtalkradio.com/coming-apocalypseconfirmed this info will be fully implemented world wide end of 2017 Also Congressman Ron Paul on Fox News confirms the RFID micro chip is implantable also Brian Williams of NBC reported it could be implanted world wide by 2017
Google Shaman Explains Mysteries of 'Compute Engine'
By Cade Metz - Wired.com
Google started work on the Google Compute Engine over a year and a half ago, and it was all Peter Magnusson could do to keep his mouth shut.
Magnusson is the director of engineering for Compute Engine's sister service, Google App Engine, and over the past 18 months, as he spoke at various conferences and chatted with various software developers about Google's place in the world of cloud computing, he couldn't quite explain how serious the company is about competing with Amazon's massively popular Elastic Compute Cloud and other commercial services that seek to reinvent the way online applications are built and operated.
Take That, Google Glass:
Apple Granted Patent for Head-Mounted Display
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
Google's been flaunting its Google Glass prototype left and right, but it may not be the only company getting into the head-up-display business. Apple was granted a patent for a head-mounted display apparatus on Tuesday. Originally filed back in 2006, the patent, titled "Peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays," describes how images could be projected to generate a peripheral display that would create "an enhanced viewing experience" for the user.
Apple calls its implementation a head-mounted display (HMD) rather than a head-up display (HUD), and it's designed to display video information in front of one's eyes. Apple's device would have one or two small CRT, LCD or OLED displays embedded in a wearable headset like a helmet, pair of glasses, or a visor, according to the patent description.
Apple Granted Patent for Steering Wheel Remote Control
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
It's rare that an Apple patent application passes through the system completely unnoticed until it's actually granted, but such is the case with a patent for a wireless remote control for a car steering wheel.
The patent, "Wireless remote control device for a portable media device," was discovered by Patently Apple Tuesday. It describes a touch-sensitive, iPod-style clickwheel device that attaches to a vehicle's steering wheel, and is used to control a media player.
New particle found... Leaked Video Appears
to Accidentally Announce Higgs Boson Discovery
By Adam Mann - Wired.com
A video accidentally published on the CERN website appears to leak the long-awaited discovery of the Higgs boson that is rumored to be officially announced early tomorrow morning.
"We've observed a new particle. We have quite strong evidence that there's something there. Its properties are still going to take us a little bit of time," Joe Incandela, spokesman for the CMS experiment, one of the main Higgs-searching experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, said in the video. "We think this is pretty darned significant."
Iran Claims 'War Games' Test Missile Attack on Israel Iran claims it tested "tens" of medium and large-range missiles at a hypothetical enemy base," presumably Israeli and American.
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu - IsraelNationalNews.com
Iran claims it tested "tens" of short, medium and large-range missiles at a hypothetical enemy base," presumably Israeli and American.
Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported Tuesday that the Guards Aerospace Force missile units "fired tens of Shahab 1, 2 and 3, Fateh, Qiyam, Persian Gulf and Zelzal missiles at a hypothetical enemy air base - which IRGC officials had earlier said is a replica of the air bases of the trans-regional powers (the US) - in Iran's Lut Desert simultaneously."
Iran war games: Dozens of ballistic missiles fired Revolutionary Guards' three-day military drill sees short, medium, and long-range missiles fired at targets 'meant to look like foreign military facilities'
By Dudi Cohen - YNetNews.com
Iran has test-fired dozens of surface-to-surface missiles Tuesday, as part of its three-day war games. Iranian state-run media hailed the ballistic test as successful.
The Revolutionary Guards' maneuvers, dubbed "Great Prophet 7," are designed to show Iran's ability to retaliate if attacked, Tehran's media said.
Iran's Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
Congressional Research Services - FAS.org
Some officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have recently renewed threats to close or exercise control over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's threats appear to have been prompted by the likely imposition of new multilateral sanctions targeting Iran's economic lifeline—the export of oil and other energy products. In the past, Iranian leaders have made similar threats and comments when the country's oil exports have been threatened. However, as in the past, the prospect of a major disruption of maritime traffic in the Strait risks damaging Iranian interests. U.S. and allied military capabilities in the region remain formidable. This makes a prolonged outright closure of the Strait appear unlikely. Nevertheless, such threats can and do raise tensions in global energy markets and leave the United States and other global oil consumers to consider the risks of another potential conflict in the Middle East. This report explains Iranian threats to the Strait of Hormuz, and analyzes the implications of some scenarios for potential U.S. or international conflict with Iran. These scenarios include:
Iran Threatens to Disrupt Strait of Hormuz Traffic
Potential shutdown of major oil shipping lane could cause prices to spike
Mark Szakonyi - The Journal of Commerce Online
Shippers and transportation providers could see their fuel prices spike if Iran makes good on a plan to block oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz that are headed to countries no longer buying its crude, according to reports.
In reaction to tightening Western sanctions, Iran on Monday introduced legislation that would work to disrupt the trade lane in which one-fifth of the world's oil is transported. But it's unclear whether the legislation will pass and how much Iran could disrupt shipping in the strait, considering the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet patrols the waters, according to the New York Times.
Iran's MPs debate Strait of Hormuz closure Iranian MPs sign a draft law aimed at blocking Europe-bound oil tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz.
Aljazeera.com
Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has drafted a bill calling for Iran to try to stop oil tankers from shipping crude through the Strait of Hormuz to countries that support sanctions against it.
"There is a bill prepared in the National Security and Foreign Policy committee of Parliament that stresses the blocking of oil tanker traffic carrying oil to countries that have sanctioned Iran," Iranian MP Ibrahim Agha-Mohammadi was quoted by Iran's parliamentary news agency as saying on Monday.
"This bill has been developed as an answer to the European Union's oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Strait of Hormuz: Iran's disruptive military options
IISS.org
Could Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz, or significantly hinder traffic passing through it? A recent decision by the European Union to impose a total embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil has prompted threats from Tehran to close the world's most important oil chokepoint. However, an assessment of military capabilities deployed in the area, and of probable tactics, suggests that Iran would find it difficult or unpalatable to cause major disruption.
According to the United States Energy Information Administration, 17 million barrels of oil passed through the strait every day in 2011, or about 35% of all seaborne traded oil. Iran itself is heavily dependent on oil flowing through the strait: approximately 70% of the government's revenues come from oil exports, all of which currently transit the strait. Iran has no pipelines to its Indian Ocean ports or to countries to its east.
The Path to $10,000-an-Ounce Gold
By Dan Amoss - DailyReckoning.com
07/02/12 Jacobus, Pennsylvania – There's a plausible path to $10,000 an ounce gold. And it doesn't require a breakdown in civil society…
Speculators see central bankers as modern-day superheroes, able to push markets around with a single phrase. In the minds of most investors, Ben Bernanke, Mario Draghi and Masaaki Shirakawa might as well be wearing tights, masks and capes. These superhero central bankers continuously swoop down into the financial markets to defend them from downticks…and to insure that they always deliver capital gains.
Is the Table Set for a Mania in Precious Metals?
By Jeff Clark - DailyReckoning.com
06/29/12 It may feel like I'm out of touch with the precious metals markets to broach the subject of a mania today, but I think the table is being set now for a huge move into gold and silver.
There are, however, very valid reasons to reasonably expect a mania in our sector. For one thing, manias have occurred many times before, but the main issue is that a mania in gold and gold stocks is the likely result of the absolute balloon in government debt, deficit spending, and money printing. Saying all that profligacy will go away without inflationary consequences seems naïve or foolish. Inflation may not attract investors to gold and silver as much as force them to it.
R.I.P. for big banks... Big banks craft "living wills" in case they fail
By David Henry and Dave Clarke
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON | Wed Jun 27, 2012 4:29am EDT
(Reuters) - Five of the biggest banks in the United States are putting finishing touches on plans for going out of business as part of government-mandated contingency planning that could push them to untangle their complex operations.
The plans, known as living wills, are due to regulators no later than July 1 under provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to end too-big-to-fail bailouts by the government. The living wills could be as long as 4,000 pages.
U.S. munis face $2 trillion in unfunded pension costs
By Joan Gralla
Mon Jul 2, 2012 7:03pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. states and localities have run up more than $2 trillion of unfunded pension liabilities, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday, citing data on plans offered by 8,500 local governments and over 14,000 individual entities.
The Wall Street credit agency said that according to its estimate, the total liabilities for fiscal 2010 were more than three times the amount reported by local governments.
"Pension liabilities are widely acknowledged to be understated," Moody's Managing Director Timothy Blake said in a statement. Most states end their fiscal years on June 30.
Investors in the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market are focused on whether states, counties, cities and towns can afford the pension benefits granted public workers.
When Zero Rates Don't Work
BY FREDERICK J SHEEHAN - FinancialSense.com
Jon Hilsenrath, the Wall Street Journal's ferret at the Fed, reports what the Federal Reserve wants the public to know while retaining anonymity. He found the professors in a stew. In the June 19, 2012, edition, Hilsenrath disclosed: "Fed officials have been frustrated in the past year that low interest rate policies haven't reached enough Americans to spur stronger growth, the way economics textbooks say low rates should. By reducing interest rates-the cost of credit-the Fed encourages household spending, business investment and hiring, in addition to reducing the burden of past debts. But the economy hasn't been working according to script."
Audit the Fed Headed for the House Floor!
BY RON PAUL - FinancialSense.com
Last week supporters of Federal Reserve transparency had a major victory when the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform passed my Audit the Fed bill, HR 459 unanimously with all major audit provisions intact. This clears the way for a House floor vote expected sometime in late July, and with a whopping 263 cosponsors, the chances of it passing have never looked better! This is an unprecedented opportunity for transparency into how the currency of the United States is handled, and mishandled by the Federal Reserve. It is more important than ever that my colleagues in the House and Senate understand what this legislation does and why it is so important.
How Government Spending Continues to Add Fuel to the Fire
By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com
07/02/12 Paris, France – "France is rotten," said a friend yesterday. "I don't know why you came back. Half the people are broke. The other half are crazy…
"…and you foreigners still come here, pay $1 million for a hole-in-the-wall apartment…and walk around the city and step in dogsh*t."
Yes, dear reader, that is a fair description of France circa 2012. The new president, Francois Hollande, says he won't wait for the private sector to create jobs. He will do it himself. He'll hire more teachers. Never mind that the payback on educational spending is zero — or less. It sounds good to the lumpen-voters.
Taxmageddon Just Got More Frightening
BY DIANE ALTER, Contributing Writer, Money Morning
Political battles will take center stage in the second half of 2012, but few loom larger than the scheduled tax increases - "Taxmageddon" - set to take effect in January 2013.
Bush-era tax cuts, payroll tax breaks and other provisions set to expire next year could pack an enormous financial hit, harming the already-fragile U.S. economy and thousands of struggling families. While Democrats and Republicans alike are opposed to letting all the cuts expire, they disagree on exactly what to do about it.
Republicans blame U.S. President Barack Obama and his administration for the stalemate.
Get Ready for the New Investment Tax
By LAURA SAUNDERS - WSJ.com
WSJ's Laura Saunders digs deep inside the affordable health-care law affirmed by The Supreme Court this week and reveals a little-known income tax that many call a game-changer.
It really is happening.
Until this week, investors were waiting to see what the Supreme Court would do about the 3.8 percentage-point surtax on investment income, part of President Obama's health-care overhaul. The Internal Revenue Service hasn't yet released guidance on the new tax.
Europe: Sputtering toward oblivion The eurozone crisis at an end right? Not a chance.
By Cyrus Sanati - Fortune.com
FORTUNE -- European leaders continue to apply flimsy Band-Aids to their gushing economic wounds in an effort to avoid making the hard decisions necessary to save the euro from oblivion. The 19th "emergency" EU summit to be called since the European debt crisis began over two years ago concluded on Friday with yet another sputtering salvo of stop-gap measures and shaky promises. There was little, if any, talk of tackling the structural problems behind the crisis, with leaders still at odds over how they will philosophically go about solving the issue.
"We affirm that it is imperative to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns." Press Release, Euro area summit, June 29, 2012
European leaders have finally determined something that was apparent to everyone for years. Now comes the difficult part: how to implement a euro zone-wide banking system. Will sovereign countries give up their sovereignty and submit to a euro zone-wide authority? We shall see.
Meanwhile, in order to accomplish this agreement, Germany, under the leadership of Angela Merkel, achieved something she wanted without having to give up anything. Germany had previously insisted that the coming European Stability Mechanism (ESM) crisis-funding facility have seniority status relative to other sovereign debt claims. Germany's allies in this position included other northern eurozone countries, like Finland. The southern countries had not agreed to this status since it would have created a market based pricing of their multi-tiered sovereign debt..
Euro compromises likely to unravel Merkel weakened at home by Brussels concessions
By David Marsh, MarketWatch
MADRID (MarketWatch) — The major German concessions (above all, over the use of ESM European rescue funds directly for Spanish banking recapitalization) agreed at the euro summit are unlikely to enter into force. The compromises announced on Friday between creditors and debtors will fall apart because they are mutually contradictory.
The good news (of sorts) is that the European Central Bank is out of the firing line for the moment. It can cut interest rates by ¼ percentage point on Thursday without being accused of kowtowing to government pressure. ECB bond purchases, hotly opposed by the Germans and a steadily growing band of other countries, are off the agenda as the focus switches to taxpayer-backed rescue devices.
Kicking The Can Down The Road
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Has Europe finally been saved this time? Has this latest "breakthrough" solved the European debt crisis? Of course not, and you should know better by now. European leaders have held 18 summits since the beginning of the debt crisis. After most of the preceding summits, global financial markets responded with joy because European leaders had reached "a deal" which would supposedly solve the crisis. But a few weeks after each summit it would become clear that nothing had been solved and that the financial crisis had actually gotten even worse than before. How many times do they expect us to fall for the same sorry routine? Nothing in Europe has been solved. You can't solve a debt problem with more debt. European leaders are just kicking the can down the road. More debt will relieve some of the short-term pressure, but in a few weeks it will be apparent that the underlying problems in Europe continue to grow. Unfortunately, there is not an unlimited amount of EU bailout money, so once all of these "financial bullets" have been fired European leaders are going to find that kicking the can down the road will not be so easy anymore. The truth is that the financial crisis in Europe has not been cancelled - it has just been put off for a few weeks or a few months.
At Long Last the Euro Is Finally Being Saved
BY CHRISTOPHER QUIGLEY - FinancialSense.com
Friday the 29th of June 2012 will go down as one of the most important dates in the history of the Euro currency. In the early hours of that fateful morning German resistance to a rational and comprehensive resolution to the Euro crisis was finally crushed. It will take some time for the full implications of this historic result to filter through to the markets but the fact that the dark cloud of dissolution of the Euro is now passing can only be positive.
What happened? Why did Angel Merkel the German Chancellor finally "blink in earnest" as suggested in our article two weeks ago? The answer is she was outmaneuvered by Italy and Spain with the tacit support of France. In essence she was totally isolated. Here is what SPIEGEL the German online newspaper had to say about events:
Paris short €43bn to meet EU deficit targets
BY HONOR MAHONY - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - The French government will have to find €43bn in order to bring the country's deficit in line with EU rules by 2013, a fresh report has shown.
A report on state finances by the national Court of Auditors said Paris will need to find up to €10bn this year and €33bn next year to reduce its budget deficit to 4.5 percent of GDP and then 3 percent of GDP.
"The situation remains extremely worrying," court president Didier Migaud told Le Monde newspaper, referring to the state of the country's public finances.
Fed won't let easy policy spark inflation: Williams
By Braden Reddall
SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Jul 2, 2012 3:52pm EDT
(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve is ready to ratchet back its super-easy monetary policy when the time comes so as to head off any uncontrolled price rises, a top Fed official said on Monday.
"Just as in any recovery, we are going to take away the punch bowl once the party really gets going, to slow the economy down and dampen inflationary pressures and keep inflation low," San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams told the Western Economic Association International.
Ex-Brokers Say JPMorgan Favored
Selling Bank's Own Funds Over Others
BY SUSANNE CRAIG AND JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG - NYTimes.com
Facing a slump after the financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase turned to ordinary investors to make up for the lost profit.
But as the bank became one of the nation's largestmutual fund managers, some current and former brokers say it emphasized its sales over clients' needs.
These financial advisers say they were encouraged, at times, to favor JPMorgan's own products even when competitors had better-performing or cheaper options. With one crucial offering, the bank exaggerated the returns of what it was selling in marketing materials, according to JPMorgan documents reviewed by The New York Times.
JPMorgan's $10 Billion Subsidy
By Brendan Greeley - BuainessWeek.com
In late June, Jamie Dimon told a Senate committee thatno taxpayer money was "impacted" by this spring's trading losses at JPMorgan Chase (JPM). Dimon, the bank's CEO, meant that no one at the Treasury Department had to write a check to save the bank. He's right, and likely to continue to be right, even after the revelation that the bank's trading losses might run as high as $9 billion. But checks are not the only thing of value the federal government can offer a bank.
Barclays and JPMorgan: When Big Banks Get Too Big
By SUZANNE MCGEE, The Fiscal Times
This article was updated on Monday, July 2, at 2:45 p.m.
Big banks just can't seem to catch a break. While publicly griping about the costs involved with all the new regulations that have been introduced since the financial system teetered on the brink of collapse back in 2008, they seem to remain intent on reminding us just why those regulations – or something else of the same kind – were needed in the first place.
Making matters all the more worrying, the two banks that provided those reminders last week have until now been seen as relatively healthy institutions, and "winners" in the wake of the crisis.
As Bloomberg noted last week:
JPMorgan benefited from the assumption that there's a "very high likelihood" the U.S. government would back the bank's bondholders and creditors if it defaulted on its debt, according to the statement. Without the implied federal backing, JPMorgan's long-term deposit rating would have been three levels lower and its senior debt would have dropped two more steps, Moody's said.
And as the editors of Bloomberg pointed out a couple of weeks ago:
JPMorgan receives a government subsidy worth about $14 billion a year, according to research published by the International Monetary Fundand our own analysis of bank balance sheets. The money helps the bank pay big salaries and bonuses. More important, it distorts markets, fueling crises such as the recent subprime-lending disaster and the sovereign-debt debacle that is now threatening to destroy the euro and sink the global economy.
The Implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership When Corporations Are Answerable Only to Themselves
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - CounterPunch.org
Information has been leaked about the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is being negotiated in secret by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk. Six hundred corporate "advisors" are in on the know, but not Congress or the media. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate trade subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the TPP, has not been permitted to see the text or to know the content.
The TPP has been called a "one-percenter" power tool. The agreement essentially abolishes the accountability of foreign corporations to governments of countries with which they trade. Indeed, the agreement makes governments accountable to corporations for costs imposed by regulations, including health, safety and environmental regulations. The agreement gives corporations the right to make governments pay them for the cost of complying with the regulations of government. One wonders how long environmental, labor, and financial regulation can survive when the costs of compliance are imposed on the taxpayers of countries and not on the economic activity that results in spillover effects such as pollution..
Stockton, California:
The Bleeding Edge of a Scary Economic Trend
By Bruce Watson - DailyFinance.com
On Thursday, Stockton, Calif., became the biggest U.S. city in history to file for bankruptcy. At the same time, it also became the new face of America's national budget battle. For while Stockton is relatively rare in facing budget troubles so intractable that they necessitate a Chapter 9 filing, its struggle to put its financial house in order illuminates the wider problems facing the entire country in the wake of the Great Recession.
Municipal bankruptcies are nothing new -- as The San Francisco Chronicle reported earlier this week, there have been 42 since 1981. In recent years, though, the number of bankruptcies has sharply increased; since 2008, 10 municipalities have sought court protection to help them discharge their debts.
Time to Get Crazy
By Chris Hedges - Truthdig.com
Native Americans' resistance to the westward expansion of Europeans took two forms. One was violence. The other was accommodation. Neither worked. Their land was stolen, their communities were decimated, their women and children were gunned down and the environment was ravaged. There was no legal recourse. There was no justice. There never is for the oppressed. And as we face similar forces of predatory, unchecked corporate power intent on ruthless exploitation and stripping us of legal and physical protection, we must confront how we will respond.
The ideologues of rapacious capitalism, like members of a primitive cult, chant the false mantra that natural resources and expansion are infinite. They dismiss calls for equitable distribution as unnecessary. They say that all will soon share in the "expanding" wealth, which in fact is swiftly diminishing. And as the whole demented project unravels, the elites flee like roaches to their sanctuaries. At the very end, it all will come down like a house of cards.
This Is the Most Important Thing We Could Do for the Economy If Ben Bernanke won't act, principal reductions just might be the most powerful tool we have for breaking open the housing recovery
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
Remember housing?
There was a bubble. Then were was a bust. Now there's a mess that's holding back the recovery. Even if there is nascent housing recovery underway, there are still two big stories holding back a big housing rebound. The first is the Fed not doing enough. Unless Ben Bernanke & Co. signal that they'd be willing to tolerate more inflation for a bit of time, credit will remain tight. The second is the awful legacy of the burst bubble -- underwater mortgages, foreclosures, and shadow supply -- acting as a persistent drag on the sector.
What is to be done? Stopping foreclosures is the first step. That prevents shadow supply from piling up, prices getting dragged down, and more owners falling underwater. In other words, it means modifying mortgages.
How Wall Street Scams Counties Into Bankruptcy
By William D. Cohan - Bloomberg.com
Lord knows we've had more than enough scandals ginned up by Wall Street over the years, and the message that banking executives proclaim after each is: "Don't worry, we've learned that lesson, and it will never happen again."
Which is how we got to the recent spectacle of Jamie Dimon, the chief executive officer ofJPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), testifying twice before Congress that although the bank's chief investment office was taking huge proprietary risks with some $350 billion of its depositors' money -- and lost $3 billion (and counting) by making a bunch of risky bets on an obscure, thinly traded derivatives contract -- everything is now fine and dandy because the unjustifiable gambling has been stopped dead in its tracks.
California lawmakers pass historic foreclosure protections
By Marc Lifsher and Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers have passed historic legislation that would provide homeowners with some of the nation's strongest protections from foreclosure and aggressive bank practices, such as when a lender tries to seize a home even as the resident negotiates to lower mortgage payments.
After years of housing and mortgage market distress during which lenders seized nearly a million California houses, legislators on Monday sent a pair of Assembly and Senate bills to the governor designed to help financially distressed borrowers stay in their homes.
Mammoth Lakes files for bankruptcy
By Louis Sahagun - LATimes.com
The High Sierra town of Mammoth Lakes said Monday that it filed for bankruptcy because it cannot afford to pay a $43-million breach-of-contract judgment against it brought by a developer.
In a prepared statement, Mammoth Lakes officials said "bankruptcy, unfortunately, is the only option left" for the town, whose largest creditor, Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition, had won a state court order requiring full payment by June 30, 2012.
Kodak Can Sell Its Patents In Bankruptcy, Judge Rules
By David McLaughlin - Bloomberg.com
Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ), the photography pioneer that seeks to sell digital-imaging patents, won court approval to auction the assets as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in Manhattan said at a hearing today that he would approve an order allowing a sale process for more than 1,100 patents.
Kodak is selling its digital-imaging patents as part of a plan to shrink the company and focus on printing rather than photography. Kodak says the patents relate to the capture, manipulation and sharing of digital images.
Do You Have More Debt Than the Average American?
By Molly McCluskey, The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
Since the beginning of the recession, Americans have been saving more, paying down debt, and curbing spending. Now, a new study shows that individual debt is falling at the fastest rate in nearly 50 years. But not everyone is contributing positively to that statistic, and many Americans are still struggling with overwhelming debt.
Americans have increasingly been paying down their mortgage and credit card balances. But even as total consumer debt has diminished by approximately $100 billion (down to a mere $11.4 trillion), more than $1 trillion of our current debt load is delinquent, and nearly $800 billion of that is overdue by more than 90 days. And while owing less is a good thing, the study shows that we're burning through our savings to pay our debts down. The overall net worth of the average American is down nearly 40% from 2007 to 2010.
8,733,461: Workers on Federal 'Disability'
Exceed Population of New York City
By Terence P. Jeffrey - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - A record of 8,733,461 workers took federal disability insurance payments in June 2012, according to the Social Security Administration. That was up from 8,707,185 in May.
It also exceeds the entire population of New York City, which according to the Census Bureau's latest estimate hit 8,244,910 in July 2011.
There has been a dramatic shrinkage in the United States over the past 20 years in the number of workers actually employed and earning paychecks per worker who is not employed and is taking federal disability insurance payments.
The Right's Top 5 Theories For John Roberts' Betrayal
By SAHIL KAPUR - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Within just a few hours of the Supreme Court handing down its decision last Thursday in the health care reform case, some legal commentators were wondering out loud if Chief Justice John Roberts had flipped positions during deliberations. Teasing out tea leaves from the text of the dissent written by the court's four remaining conservative justices, court watchers from Paul Camposto David Bernstein speculated that Roberts had originally been aligned with his conservative brethren before switching sides and writing the majority opinion.
How Obamacare Could Help You Retire Earlier
(or Destroy Itself Trying)
By Chuck Saletta, The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act constitutional, it's time to consider how best to use it to your advantage. One way to benefit is that if you're looking to retire early, the court's decision could have just handed you the biggest gift of your life.
The reason is that two of the law's key features -- guaranteed coverage and subsidized premiums -- play right into the hands of those who'd like to leave the rat race behind them. With guaranteed coverage, anyone who wants to can buy insurance, regardless of pre-existing conditions. With subsidized premiums, taxpayers could be on the hook for paying premiums for anyone making less than 400% of the poverty level.
Should Small Businesses Really Fear Obamacare? The official plaintiff in the Obamacare case was the main small-business lobbying organization. In fact, the new health care law should be a boon to entrepreneurs.
By Matthew Yglesias - Slate.com
The landmark health care case decided last week by the Supreme Court was a win for the Obama administration and a loss for the Republican Party. But the official plaintiff in the case wasn't a Republican congressional leader or even one of the conservative attorneys general whose activism fueled the litigation. It was the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small-business membership organization and lobbying group that strongly opposed the law.
So is defeat a disaster for small business? Almost certainly not, though it may prove to be a disaster for NFIB's main policy priority of low taxes.
The bill in fact contains substantial benefits (some might even say giveaways) for small businesses. That starts with a program already under way to offer special subsidies to firms with fewer than 25 employees that want to offer health benefits. As long as your employees earn less than $50,000 on average (law firms, medical practices, and other elite professional partnership are thus ineligible), you can get a tax credit to defray 35 percent of the cost of the insurance if you're a for-profit firm, and 25 percent if you're a nonprofit. When the law really gets rolling in 2014, those subsidies rise to 50 percent for for-profits and 35 percent for nonprofits.
Is Obamacare's Individual Mandate
Really The Largest Tax Hike In The History Of The World?
By BRIAN BEUTLER - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Before the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, the principal GOP lines of attack against the law were hyperbolic, but subjective: government takeover of health care, unconstitutional overreach, etc.
From the moment the Court determined the law stands as an exercise of Congress' taxing power, though, Republicans have gone empirical. They now say that if the mandate is a tax, then it's one of the greatest tax hikes in history.
Undoing Obamacare Suddenly, everyone wants out.
By ANDREW B. WILSON - The American Spectator.org
You would have thought that Chief Justice John Roberts had shouted "fire" in a crowded theater. In upholding Obamacare, he set off a headlong race for the exits by the same lobbying groups -- believe it or not -- that had cut deals with the administration to create the legislation. Back then, the lobbyists were telling each other: If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Now the bodies are piling up in the doorway as those who pandered to the president trample over each other in their haste to get out of the blazing or crumbling structure that is Obamacare. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde on the death of Little Nell, no one without a heart of stone can witness this deadly scene without wanting to laugh out loud.
As reported on the front page of this weekend's Wall Street Journal, every one of the health-care industry groups that signed on to Obamacare in 2009 is looking for a way out.
Chief Justice John Roberts Bowed
To Political Pressure
And Changed His Vote On Obamacare
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
It is being reported that after oral arguments were finished back in March, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was planning to join with the other conservative justices in ruling that the individual mandate in Obamacare was unconstitutional. But something changed. According to Jan Crawford of CBS News, two sources with "specific knowledge" of the deliberations at the Supreme Court told her that at some point Roberts switched his position and decided to uphold Obamacare. Roberts decided to characterize the penalty for not complying with the individual mandate as a tax. This argument had been rejected by the lower courts and supporters of Obamacare had considered that argument to be essentially a legal "Hail Mary" with almost no chance of success. But this is how the legal system in America works. Judges decide what they want the result of a case to be, and then they try to figure out a way to justify it under the Constitution and under existing law. Often, judges will go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to get to the results that they want. Most Americans would be absolutely shocked if they truly realized what goes on behind closed doors in our legal system.
The States Already On Record
Rejecting The 'Obamacare' Medicaid Expansion
By SAHIL KAPUR - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Although the Supreme Court upheld 'Obamacare', the ruling complicates an important element of the law by making the Medicaid expansion optional for states. States will no longer risk losing all their Medicaid funds if they opt out of the expansion, which is projected to cover some 17 million low-income people.
Most states will be hard-pressed to turn down the infusion of federal funds to help cover their uninsured residents, despite incurring new costs down the road. But Republican governors face a genuine political predicament because if they accept the Medicaid expansion, they open themselves up to potentially resonant right-wing attacks for buttressing 'Obamacare.'
Why Mayors Might Want Obamacare
Even If GOP Governors Reject It A lot of uncompensated health-care spending comes out of municipal budgets, not state ones, and the bill could save strapped cities money.
By Garance Franke-Ruta - TheAtlantic.com
Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, who worked to develop the health-care overhaul for President Obama before returning to Washington's think tank sector, laid out a reason rejection of the Medicaid expansion provision in the recently upheld law by Republican governors might not be so very popular at the state level.
"There is a sort of political economy problem on Medicaid," she said, turning to the part of the Affordable Care Act that was not upheld by the Supreme Court. States cannot be mandated to accept the expansion of Medicaid, even with a 100 percent federal match to begin with, or risk losing all their Medicaid funding, the court ruled. Ten GOP governors "have said definitively that they will not accept the funds, while 19 are still considering other options," according to a ThinkProgress survey.
Health-care law's Medicaid provision too good to pass up
WashingtonPost.com
Over the coming weeks and months, you're going to hear a lot of Republican governors fulminate against the Affordable Care Act and swear to do everything possible to stand in its way — including refusing to participate in the Medicaid expansion. In fact, the governors of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana have already promised to do exactly that.
Ignore them. The deal the federal government is offering states on Medicaid is too good to refuse. And that's particularly true for the red states. If Mitt Romney loses the election and Republicans lose their chance to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they're going to end up participating in the law. They can't afford not to.
A Victory for Obamacare, a Defeat for the Left The Health Care Trap
by SHAMUS COOKE - CounterPunch.org
The political victory for President Obama in the Supreme Court has created an interesting shift in American politics. More important than the blow against his Republican opponent has been the re-energizing of Obama's base, a loose coalition of liberals, labor, and leftists.
Many in these groups were lured into supporting Obamacare because of the political forces aligned against it, especially the loud extremists of the right wing. Obama's campaign skillfully exploited this fact, and soon a win for Obamacare was a strike against evil. The massive disappointment the President had been to his once enthusiastic supporters was swept aside amid anti-Republican euphoria, just in time for election season.
Jindal's Louisiana Vouchers Face Growing Legal Backlash
By CASEY MICHEL - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) may be currently refusing to implement 'Obamacare,' but he's displayed little reticence in pushing through a series of measures that have propelled his state into the national discussion for entirely different reasons.
State educational reforms signed into law by Jindal in April would allow low- and middle-income students in struggling public schools to receive vouchers to attend private schools. Similar programs have been utilized in about a dozen other states and have long been part of a broader educational reform favored by conservative groups.
The Missing Constitutional Argument Why Montana's "Citizens United" Loss
at the Supreme Court was Avoidable
by JAMES MARC LEAS - CounterPunch.org
The humiliating summary reversal suffered by Montana in the US Supreme Court over its restrictions on campaign contributions could have been avoided, according to two attorneys who filed amicus(friend-of-the-court) briefs in the case.
In a statement announcing its decision, the Court majority indicated what would have been needed to avoid summary reversal: a new argument not previously raised in Citizens United or a fact that distinguished Montana's case from the federal case decided in Citizens United. The Supreme Court said:
Montana's arguments in support of the judgment below either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case.
Manufacturing In U.S. Unexpectedly Contracted In June
By Shobhana Chandra - Bloomberg.com
Manufacturing in the U.S. unexpectedly shrank in June for the first time since the economy emerged from the recession three years ago, indicating a mainstay of the expansion may be faltering.
The Institute for Supply Management's index fell to 49.7, worse than the most-pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, from 53.5 in May, the Tempe, Arizona-based group's report showed today. Figures less than 50 signal contraction. Measures of orders, production and export demand dropped to three-year lows.
The Only Advanced Country
Without a National Vacation Policy? It's the U.S.
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
There's no wrong way to celebrate American exceptionalism, but this might not be the best candidate for cheering this July 4th Week: The United States is practically the only developed country in the world that doesn't require companies to give their workers time off. In Germany, workers are guaranteed a month. In the UK, they're guaranteed more than five weeks of paid vacation. In the U.S., unique in its class, there is no such guarantee. There's your American exceptionalism:
Lobster in Maine now cheaper than bologna
Abundant catches lead to low prices
By Clarke Canfield - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
PORTLAND, Maine — A glut has driven down lobster prices in Maine - bringing cheer to lobster-loving consumers at the start of the state's tourist season but gloom among lobstermen.
Retailers have been selling small soft-shell lobsters in the Portland area for an unusually low $3.79 to $4.99 a pound. At those prices, lobsters have been selling for less than the per-pound price of bologna at many supermarket deli counters.
They Are Turning Our Crops, Animals And Even Our Babies Into Freakish Genetic Monsters - What Could Go Wrong?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The greatest environmental threat that we are facing is genetic modification. All over the globe, scientists are treating the fabric of life as if it was a playground where anything goes. Behind closed doors, scientists all over the planet are creating some of the most freakish and most bizarre monsters that you could possible imagine, and very few people seem concerned about it. But the truth is that messing with the building blocks of life is going to have some very serious consequences. Scientists claim that they are making our crops stronger, more productive and less vulnerable to insects. Scientists claim that they can alter our animals so that they are more "useful" to us. Scientists claim that genetic modification is only going to "enhance" humanity. But what if something goes seriously wrong? For example, what if we learn that eating genetically modified food is really, really bad for us? Well, at this point more than 70 percent of the processed foods sold in the United States contain at least one ingredient that has been genetically modified. It would be kind of hard to go back now. We have rushed ahead and have created hordes of freakish genetic monsters without ever seriously considering the consequences. Someday, future generations may look back on us and wonder how we could have ever been so incredibly foolish.
Facebook email mess spreads to mobile phones
By Julianne Pepitone @CNNMoneyTech
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook already annoyed its users by automatically posting their @facebook.com addresses to profiles and displaying them as the default. Now the problem has spread to some users' mobile phones.
A handful of CNNMoney readers wrote in last week after news of the@facebook.com email "update" to complain about problems with phone contacts that are synced to Facebook accounts.
After several news reports, Facebook confirmed on Monday that the problem is real. The company says it was caused by a bug in the contact-sync system for some phones.
Apple closes MobileMe,
reminds iWork.com users end is nigh
By Salvador Rodriguez - LATimes.com
A report says Apple shut down its MobileMe service Sunday, and on Monday, the company reminded iWork.com users that the end of their service is next.
The two moves are part of an effort to steer users toward using iCloud, a cloud-computing service Apple launched last year at its Worldwide Developers Conference similar to the two services Apple is ending.
MobileMe launched in early January 2000 under the name iTools, and since then, it underwent several brand-name changes until finally being named MobileMe in 2008 in a relaunch alongside theiPhone 3G, the second version of Apple's mobile operating system and the iPhone App Store.
The Inside Story of the Extra Second That Crashed the Web
By Robert McMillan and Cade Metz - Wired.com
When Saturday night's leap second glitch hit Reddit, Jason Harvey didn't realize it was the leap second glitch. He thought it was some sort of internet slowdown related to the massive Amazon cloud outagethat brought down some of the web's most popular services less than 24 hours earlier.
"It looked like the network was just moving really poorly," says Harvey, one of the system administrators who oversee the operation of Reddit, the popular news aggregation and discussion site. "With Amazon going down, a network problem just made sense."
Twitter Loses 'Occupy Wall Street' Case,
Forced To Hand Over User Info
by CARL FRANZEN - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Twitter lost a landmark court case on Monday after a New York judge ruled against the company's attempt to avoid handing over information of one of its users, an "Occupy Wall Street" protester, to the Manhattan District Attorney.
"We are disappointed in the judge's decision and are considering our options," a Twitter spokesperson told TPM in a statement.
Twitter Reports 679 US Government User Information Requests In The First Half Of 2012, Folding On 75% Of Them
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
In the first of its kind action, Twitter has unveiled its first Twitter Transparency Report, in which it says that as "inspired by the great work done by our peers @Google, the primary goal of this report is to shed more light on: government requests received for user information, government requests received to withhold content, and DMCA takedown notices received from copyright holders." Is it something Americans should be concerned about? Well, with 679 out of a total of 849 user information requests by various governments, or the most by a margin of nearly 700% belonging to the US, we would say so. This also translates into 948 of all users/accounts specified. But most troubling is that Twitter has folded on a 75% of all such demands when it comes to the US government demanding information. It has provided information to only 6 other governments: Australia, Canada, Greece, Japan, Netherlands and the UK, but at a far lower "hit rate." You gotta give it to Uncle Sam: he sure can be persuasive.
If One Storm Can Turn D.C. Dark For Several Days,
What Would A Massive EMP Burst Do?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Sometimes we all get a little reminder of just how completely and totally dependent we are on the power grid. Massive thunderstorms that ripped through Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C. and Virginia left millions without power over the weekend. At this point it is being projected that some people may not get power back until the end of the week. The "super derecho" storm that pounded the Washington D.C. area on Friday night with hurricane-force winds is being called unprecedented. But the truth is that there are other events that could happen that would be far more damaging to our power grid. For example, a substantial EMP burst over a major U.S. city would fry virtually all of the electronics in the city and take the power grid in the area down indefinitely. A gigantic EMP burst over the entire country (caused by a massive solar storm or a very large nuclear explosion high in the atmosphere) could theoretically take down the entire national power grid. Just try to imagine a world where nobody has any electricity, nobody can pump gas, nobody can use their credit cards or get any more money, where most vehicles won't start, where nobody has the Internet, where all cell phones are dead and where nobody can heat or cool their homes. That is how serious an EMP burst could potentially be. We are talking about an event that could be millions of times worse than 9/11.
10 sobering realizations the Eastern U.S. power grid failure
is teaching us about a real collapse
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger - NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) In the wake of violent storms, the power remains out today for millions of Americans across several U.S. states. Governors of Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio have declared a state of emergency. Over a dozen people are now confirmed dead, and millions are sweltering in blistering temperatures while having no air conditioning or refrigeration. As their frozen foods melt into processed goo, they're waking up to a few lessons that we would all be wise to remember.
Obama's amnesty edict set in motion Deportations already halted
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
Federal immigration authorities have begun granting tentative legal status to illegal immigrants under President Obama's deportation halt — and in some cases are even ignoring the administration's eligibility rules to stop deportations for those who shouldn't qualify, according to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said he's learned some illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. less than five years have had their deportations canceled, even though Mr. Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano had listed the five-year mark as one of their criteria.
Airbus to build 1st U.S. assembly plant in Alabama
By Melissa Nelson-Gabriel - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
MOBILE, Ala. — In the battle to dominate the global aviation industry, European aerospace giant Airbus announced its first assembly plant in the United States on Monday, a symbolic and significant step in the competition with archrival Boeing.
The French-based company said the Alabama plant is expected to cost $600 million to build and will employ 1,000 people when it reaches full production, likely to be four planes a month by 2017.
UN agrees to new Syria plan
BY NIKOLAJ NIELSEN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Foreign ministers, including China and Russia, agreed Saturday (30 June) in Geneva to a new United Nations peace plan that calls upon the immediate cessation of violence in Syria and for "clear and irreversible steps" towards a transitional government.
The internationally-backed UN plan made no specific reference to the stepping down of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. The new transitional government, notes the UN document, would instead include by "mutual consent" members of the present government and the opposition.
Dragging America Into Turkey's War with Syria? Once again NATO demonstrates
just how outmoded it has become.
By DOUG BANDOW - The American Spectator.org
What is NATO for? It was created to protect Europe from the Red Army. However, the Soviet Union has disappeared. The Warsaw Pact has dissolved. The Europeans have ten times the GDP and three times the population of Russia.
Why are Americans still defending their prosperous and populous allies?
If NATO was merely a social club, it wouldn't be so bad -- though the dues remain a bit high. But the organization has become a transmission belt of needless war. Washington dragged reluctant Europeans into a decade-long nation-building crusade in Afghanistan. Paris and London dragged reluctant Americans into a foolish attempt at regime change on the cheap in Libya. In both cases everyone would have been better off had everyone remained at peace.
Diplomacy failing, West faces tough Syria choices
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent
LONDON | Mon Jul 2, 2012 5:12pm EDT
(Reuters) - There are few signs diplomacy can stem Syria's worsening conflict, leaving Western leaders - and even more so their Arab and Turkish allies - pushed ever further towards backing Bashar al-Assad's ouster by force.
In Geneva on Saturday, world powers attempted a vague show of unity by committing to support for a transitional government. But diplomats led by United Nations envoy Kofi Annan failed to bridge differences between the West and Russia - backed by China - on whether or not that meant that Syria's president must go.
Syria strikes Damascus suburb; U.N. decries arms flow
By Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT | Mon Jul 2, 2012 5:12pm EDT
(Reuters) - Syrian helicopters bombarded a Damascus suburb on Monday and Turkey scrambled warplanes near the border in the north, as the U.N. human rights chief warned that arms supplies to both the government and rebels were deepening the 16-month conflict.
Fighting has come to the gates of the capital in recent weeks and is also raging throughout the country as the battle to unseat President Bashar al-Assad increasingly takes on the character of an all-out civil war, fuelled by sectarian hatred.
Iranian authorities acknowledge impact of sanctions
By Jason Rezaian - WashingtonPost.com
With downgraded nuclear talks with world powers set to begin Tuesday, there are growing signs in Iran that Western sanctions are hurting the nation's economy and alarming its decision-makers.
Authorities remain defiant, but they increasingly are acknowledging publicly the economic pressures that Iran is facing.
Their proposed responses range from military confrontation — including renewedthreats to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz — to economic countermeasures. The reaction illustrates the range of voices vying for influence at a particularly tense period in the Islamic republic's history.
Iran threatens Israel; new EU sanctions take force
By Yeganeh Torbati
DUBAI | Sun Jul 1, 2012 2:58pm EDT
(Reuters) - Iran announced missile tests on Sunday and threatened to wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" if the Jewish state attacked it, brandishing some of its starkest threats on the day Europe began enforcing an oil embargo and harsh new sanctions.
The European sanctions - including a ban on imports of Iranian oil by EU states and measures that make it difficult for other countries to trade with Iran - were enacted earlier this year but mainly came into effect on July 1.
The $289 Trillion Problem
By: David Chapman - GoldSeek.com
Two hundred and eighty-nine trillion dollars. An unimaginable amount. That is the total of derivatives outstanding at the top five US bank holding companies as of March 31, 2012, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
The five holding companies are JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. They hold roughly 45% of all over-the-counter derivatives outstanding in the world, based on the $648 trillion total estimated by the Bank for International Settlements. Others estimate that the total global derivatives outstanding could be as large as $1.2 quadrillion, or $1,200 trillion.
Welcome to the Currency War, Part 2:
Massive Euro Devaluation
BY JOHN RUBINO - FinancialSense.com
As everyone knows by now, Greece, Spain and the rest of the PIIGS countries can't fix their economies because they can't devalue. If they were still using their old national fiatcurrencies, so goes the conventional wisdom, they could just mark them down by 30% and instantly see their exports surge and their deficits shrink. Et voilà, they'd once again be fully-functioning members of the global economy.
But the euro is beyond their control, leaving them with only austerity, which in this context is another word for Depression. Hence all the speculation over radical-but-suddenly-conceivable ideas like a Greek or Spanish exit, fiscal integration with Germany in charge, and eurobonds guaranteed by the eurozone as a whole.
Euro zone: the centralization battle
rages on-On the Edge with Max
In this edition of the show Max interviews Catherine Austin Fitts from Solari.com. She talks about the multiple debt plans; bailouts and funding facilities, attempting to hold the Euro zone together. Catherine Austin Fitts is the president of Solari, Inc., the publisher of The Solari Report, managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC.
Government by the Banks, for the Banks:
The ESM Coup D'Etat in Europe
By Ellen Brown, Truthout | News Analysis
On Friday, June 29th, German Chancellor Angela Merkel acquiesced to changes to a permanent Eurozone bailout fund—"before the ink was dry," as critics complained. Besides easing the conditions under which bailouts would be given, the concessions included an agreement that funds intended for indebted governments could be funneled directly to stressed banks.
According to Gavin Hewitt, Europe editor for BBC News, the concessions mean that:
[T]he eurozone's bailout fund (backed by taxpayers' money) will be taking a stake in failed banks.
Risk has been increased. German taxpayers have increased their liabilities. In future a bank crash will no longer fall on the shoulders of national treasuries but on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a fund to which Germany contributes the most.
Merkel Concedes to the PIGS
and Accepts Bailout Agreement
Matthew Feeney - Reason.com
Angela Merkel has appeased other European leaders, and the markets, by agreeing to a plan that aims to tackle the eurozone crisis. The plan, backed by Italy, Spain, and France, allows for rescue funds to remain available for banks without constituent nations having to impose austerity measures. In Germany the press has spun the agreement as a defeat, with Merkel being portrayed as having conceding too much to Spain and Italy in particular.
The current bailout mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility, will continue to provide relief until the introduction of the recently proposed European Stability Mechanism that will be launched next month. Under the new proposals not only will funds be available to banks regardless of the behavior of the countries they happen to be in, but the funds may now be used to by bonds.
Jim Rogers: Market Surge
from Eurozone Debt Crisis Deal Won't Last
BY DAVID ZEILER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
Stock markets around the world soared Friday in reaction to the morning's Eurozone debt crisis deal, but noted investor Jim Rogers wasn't impressed.
"This is no more than just another temporary stopgap to make the market feel good for a few hours, days or even weeks," Rogers, Chairman of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC. "Then everybody's going to wake up and say, "This doesn't solve the problem.'"
Meeting in Brussels, European leaders announced a plan early Friday that would provide struggling banks with money directly from the bloc's bailout fund.
Cooking the Books, Not the Big Macs, in Argentina & Greece
By: Adrian Ash and Robin Molinas - GoldSeek.com
BACK IN 2001, Argentina was hit by a crisis similar to Greece's today.
Imposing a strict currency peg of 1 Peso to 1 US Dollar meant the currency was over-valued. Or the state should have reined in its spending. Or the economy needed to be more productive. Or all three, depending on your view. But either way, the trade deficit widened as imports became cheaper than exports – especially after neighboring Brazil devalued its Real in 1998-99, adding more pressure to the currency peg, and leading the government to borrow huge amounts of money overseas, including $40 billion arranged by the International Monetary Fund in December 2000.
Massive Japanese Debt Monetization Is Coming,
Yen to be Devalued
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
You can only stretch a rubber band so far before it snaps back or is torn, so too is the case with government indebtedness. There eventually comes a point when the road ends and the can hits a brick wall. It appears that Japan is rapidly approaching that brick wall and there are two likely outcomes. One option is that the bond vigilantes revolt and yields on Japanese debt spike or the second option is a massive debt monetization by the Bank of Japan (BOJ). Given the massive amount of debt relative to the Japanese economy and associated interest payments on the debt, Japan can't afford a sharp rise in yields. Thus, it appears the BOJ is likely to step in and monetize the debt and the currency markets may be signaling this very outcome.
Japan's Debt Mountain Time Bomb is Here
Can The World Survive Washington's Hubris?
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigroberts.org
When President Reagan nominated me as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, he told me that we had to restore the US economy, to rescue it from stagflation, in order to bring the full weight of a powerful economy to bear on the Soviet leadership, in order to convince them to negotiate the end of the cold war. Reagan said that there was no reason to live any longer under the threat of nuclear war.
The Reagan administration achieved both goals, only to see these accomplishments discarded by successor administrations. It was Reagan's own vice president and successor, George Herbert Walker Bush, who first violated the Reagan-Gorbachev understandings by incorporating former constituent parts of the Soviet Empire into NATO and taking Western military bases to the Russian frontier.
Keiser Report: Barclays' Bad Bet (E308)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss 'big boys' and carding crimes, marmite pots and Olympic has-beens, wash trades and perfect games. In the second half of the show Max talks to former commodities analyst and blogger, Michael Krieger, about the meaning of the escalating and blatant financial crime wave.
Simon Johnson Rips Into Jamie Dimon's Conflicts of Interest Pressure mounts on JP Morgan's CEO
to step down from the New York Federal Reserve.
By JOHN HUDSON - TheAtlantic.com
Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson ramped up his quest to oust JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon from the board of the New York Federal Reserve Saturday, taking his campaign to the political elite at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. Dimon's position on the boardhas come under fire in recent weeks, raising somewhat glaring conflict of interest issues given that the New York Fed is tasked with investigating the $2 billion in trading losses that occurred at Dimon's bank. Watch Johnson, an MIT professor, make his case:
Jamie Dimon, quit your New York Fed post: Simon Johnson
Simon Johnson, an economics professor and former International Monetary Fund counselor, says JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon should leave the New York Federal Reserve board if he wants the Fed to again become a bastion of stability. (June 29, 2012)
Obama Versus the Hedge Fund Industry
BY CLIF DROKE - FinancialSense.com
Most investors are aware that the 4-year cycle peak comes into play this year. What few realize is how both Washington and Wall Street are using this cycle as a fulcrum for gaining political as well as economic advantage. In this commentary we'll look at how the hedge fund industry is manipulating certain key markets for political ends as much as financial gain, and how even the president has been forced to respond. It will quickly become apparent how the puerile and self-serving actions of the top hedge fund managers serves to create friction for everyone concerned.
Why Big Business Owns Congress
By Zaid Jilani, Republic Report - Truth-Out.org
In a piece about populism and the Democratic Party in Politico, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) explained how Big Business has, through its ability to tap into an extraordinary amount of campaign contributions, independent expenditures, and other electoral interventions, been able to own Congress:
"They own the Republican Party, and they have too much influence in my party, I mean there's no question about that," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a true-blue populist up for reelection who has had $8.3 million spent against him already by third-party groups, most of them allies of business . "That's why wealth is so concentrated at the top. And that's all enforced now by this outside spending. Every member around here has had to have thought at times that, 'If I vote this way the wrath of God is coming down on me.'"
Keiser Report: Zombie Bank Apocalypse (E307)
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, demand the big banks prove they are not dead by removing the life support systems, especially cufflinky Jamie Dimon's Too-Big-To-Fail bank. In the second half of the show Max talks to Professor Steve Keen about the wages being negatively related to the level of interest rates and debt.
Don't Expect the Obamacare Ruling to Calm the Markets
BY SHAH GILANI, Capital Waves Strategist, Money Morning
Even before the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare was handed down yesterday the markets were selling off hard.
They were tanking on news that the latest European summit was unlikely to be a game-changer, that U.S. gross domestic product was a paltry 1.9% in the first quarter, and a New York Times story that JPMorgan Chase's derivatives loss could top $9 billion.
Then came the long-awaited decision from the country's highest court on the divisive healthcare law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which unhinged markets further.
The Court's historic decision shook the markets for several reasons.
But the single overriding effect of the mixed-bag decision will be its impact on markets going forward.
Sources say Roberts switched vote in healthcare case
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
CBS News says it has confirmed that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts changed his vote in the court's landmark healthcare case.
Legal circles have been buzzing since Thursday with speculation that Roberts might have initially sided with the court's conservatives in a decision to strike down part of President Obama's healthcare law, but then changed his mind at the last minute.
John Roberts jokes about vacationing
on an 'impregnable island fortress'
By Justin Sink - TheHill.com
Chief Justice John Roberts joked Friday that he'll head to an "impregnable island fortress" now that the Supreme Court has wrapped up its session.
His remarks come a day after the he delivered the decisive vote to uphold President Obama's signature healthcare law. He was the swing vote in the case.
Roberts was appearing on a panel at a judicial conference in Pennsylvania on Friday, and Chief Judge David Sentelle of the D.C. District Court asked if he planned to head "to Disney World" now that the court had adjourned.
Justice Roberts' Switch
By Robert Reich, Truth-Out.org
Today a majority of the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare in recognition of its importance as a key initiative of the Obama administration. The big surprise, for many, was the vote by the Chief Justice of the Court, John Roberts, to join with the Court's four liberals.
Roberts' decision is not without precedent. Seventy-five years ago, another Justice Roberts – no relation to the current Chief Justice – made a similar switch. Justice Owen Roberts had voted with the Court's conservative majority in a host of 5-4 decisions invalidating New Deal legislation, but in March of 1937 he suddenly switched sides and began joining with the Court's four liberals. In popular lore, Roberts' switch saved the Court – not only from Franklin D. Roosevelt's threat to pack it with justices more amenable to the New Deal but, more importantly, from the public's increasing perception of the Court as a partisan, political branch of government.
Legal Gimmickry Rescues Obama
By: Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
Despite the celebrations among Democrats, yesterday a majority of Supreme Court justices ruled that the Constitution does not allow the government to force Americans to buy health insurance. However in providing the swing vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) Chief Justice John Roberts broke with the four other justices who shared that view by declaring that the methods chosen to get individuals to buy insurance were not penalties but taxes. He declared that the government wasn't legislating behavior, but simply taxing it. In reaching this tortured decision he erred by declaring the penalties to be taxes and then compounded the mistake by classifying them as "indirect taxes" that are not imposed on individuals. Apparently Roberts feels that these two wrongs will make a right. But his mistake will cost this country dearly.
Support for Obama healthcare law rises after ruling
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON | Sun Jul 1, 2012 3:14pm EDT
(Reuters) - Voter support for President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul has increased following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding it, although majorities still oppose it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed.
Among all registered voters, support for the law rose to 48 percent in the online survey conducted after Thursday's ruling, up from 43 percent before the court decision. Opposition slipped to 52 percent from 57 percent.
Despite high court ruling,
businesses still face uncertainty over healthcare law
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
The Supreme Court put to rest one of the biggest questions in Washington Thursday, but uncertainty still looms large over businesses navigating a rocky economy.
The problem of uncertainty has been repeatedly cited as a reason the economy has failed to gain major speed, as businesses stay on the sidelines when it comes to further investments and hiring. When the nation's highest court narrowly upheld the president's signature legislative achievement, it finished up its work on one of the most contentious fights in Washington.
* * * * *
Supreme Court upholds ObamaCare
and Americans have lost the right to be left alone
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
When President Obama signed the Patients Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law in 2010, the National Federation of Independent Business decided that we had to take the fight to the Courts. We joined the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the healthcare law because, for months, we had heard from small business owners who were greatly concerned over the costs, the burdens and the impositions that the PPACA would bring. They believed it threatened their businesses, employees, families, and livelihoods. So we fought to the bitter end to keep their fears from playing out. Yet this case was about something bigger than health care policy, it was about preserving American liberty from the increasingly powerful hand of the federal government.
Today marks a sad day in the history of America. With this decision, Americans have lost the right to be left alone, which Justice William O. Douglas once called "the beginning of all freedom." It is painful to recognize that the liberties which our forefathers fought a revolution to secure have been lost. But it is clear that our original constitutional system has been thrown out, and we are left with only the democratic process to preserve our rights. That should be a sobering thought for anyone who values liberty.
Understanding the New Healthcare Law
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
The uncertainty and angst is justified, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a massive piece of legislation that will unfold over the next ten years. Its complex provisions have already proven to be difficult to interpret. However, one thing is already clear – as a small business owner you must be prepared to deal with a series of new tax and regulatory requirements.
We are committed to providing you with all the relevant information on healthcare reform (as it becomes available) and serve as a primary resource for understanding how the government's implementation of the new healthcare law will impact your business. We will be updating our overview materials and tools often, please check back frequently to access the timeliest information:
Supreme Court forces states
to make a big Medicaid decision
By Sarah Kliff - WashingtonPost.com
If anyone can claim the title of "most surprised" by Thursday's Supreme Court ruling — in which the justices upheld the health reform law — it might be Matt Salo.
He directs the National Association of Medicaid Directors in Washington. Salo had no inkling that the court would make the law's expansion of Medicaid to 17 million Americans an option, rather than a requirement.
"We did not see that coming," Salo said. "I did manage to put together a short little statement, but this is not an option we had prepared for at all."
12 Incredible Obamacare Quotes
That Show That Our Wretched Healthcare System
Is Headed Directly Into The Toilet
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
You might as well stick a fork in the U.S. healthcare system because it is finished. Even before Obamacare, Americans paid far more for healthcare than anyone else in the world. Now thanks to Obamacare we will be faced with much higher health insurance premiums, much higher taxes, much longer waits to see doctors and more government bureaucrats involved in our lives than ever before. As I have written about previously, the U.S. healthcare industry is a horrible mess, and now Obamacare is going to take the entire system directly into the toilet. All over America today, families are going broke because of outrageous health insurance costs and suffocating medical debt, doctors are going broke and leaving the profession because they can't make a living, and sick people are dying because they cannot get the care that they need. So what solution does Obama give us? A nearly 3,000 page monstrosity that will destroy what is left of our crumbling healthcare system and that will unleash 16,000 new IRS agents to hunt down the millions of Americans that do not currently have health insurance. For those that love Big Brother socialist totalitarianism, Obamacare is a dream come true. For the rest of us it is a total nightmare.
McConnell: Covering 30 Million Uninsured Is 'Not The Issue'
By PEMA LEVY - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Sunday downplayed the need to find an alternate way to insure the 30 million Americans who will get coverage under the President Obama's health care law.
On Fox News Sunday, McConnell said Republicans want to repeal 'Obamacare' and implement "modest" reforms. Host Chris Wallace pressed him on how he would insure 30 million Americans that will get coverage under President Obama's reforms.
Boehner pushes repeal,
wants health law 'ripped out by its roots'
By Amie Parnes - TheHill.com
House Speaker John Boehner vowed on Sunday to repeal the Affordable Care Act, saying the law, which the Supreme Court ruled as being constitutional this week, should be "ripped out by its roots."
"This has to be ripped out but its roots," Boehner said in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation." "This is government taking over the entire health industry. The American people do not want to go down this path. It has to be ripped out and we need to start over one step at a time.
Keystone XL pipeline expansion
driven by oil-rich tar sands in Alberta
By Steven Mufson - WashingtonPost.com
FORT McMURRAY, Alberta — Repairman Shawn Flett stood 30 feet above the ground on the deck of a truck the size of a house. He had just waved it gingerly into the repair shop as if guiding an airplane into a hangar.
This is a beast of a machine, with 14-foot tires and weighing in at more than a million pounds. The truck burns 50 gallons of diesel an hour as it rumbles with 400-ton loads across the giant open-pit mines that have transformed a swath of Alberta's vast northern forest into unsightly but lucrative sources of oil.
Stockton, California new paradigm for struggling cities
By Hilary Russ
NEW YORK | Sun Jul 1, 2012 8:04am EDT
(Reuters) - Stockton, California, the largest city in the United States to ever file for bankruptcy, could create a new template for struggling cities and potentially lift the stigma that scars municipalities if they seek court protection from creditors.
If Stockton, which filed for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy on June 28, can reach consensus with its creditors and craft a plan to exit bankruptcy quickly others may follow suit, legal experts said.
17 Reasons To Be EXTREMELY Concerned
About The Second Half Of 2012
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What is the second half of 2012 going to bring? Are things going to get even worse than they are right now? Unfortunately, that appears more likely with each passing day. I will admit that I am extremely concerned about the second half of 2012. Historically, a financial crisis is much more likely to begin in the fall than during any other season of the year. Just think about it. The stock market crash of 1929 happened in the fall. "Black Monday" happened on October 19th, 1987. The financial crisis of 2008 started in the fall. There just seems to be something about the fall that brings out the worst in the financial markets. But of course there is not a stock market crash every year. So are there specific reasons why we should be extremely concerned about what is coming this year? Yes, there are. The ingredients for a "perfect storm" are slowly coming together, and in the months ahead we could very well see the next wave of the economic collapse strike. Sadly, we have never even come close to recovering from the last recession, and this next crisis might end up being even more painful than the last one.
Mormons quit church in mass resignation ceremony
By Jennifer Dobner
SALT LAKE CITY | Sat Jun 30, 2012 9:45pm EDT
(Reuters) - A group of about 150 Mormons quit their church in a mass resignation ceremony in Salt Lake City on Saturday in a rare display of defiance ending decades of disagreement for some over issues ranging from polygamy to gay marriage.
Participants from Utah, Arizona, Idaho and elsewhere gathered in a public park to sign a "Declaration of Independence from Mormonism."
"This feels awesome," said Alison Lucas, from West Jordan, Utah, who took part in the rally amid soaring temperatures. "I don't know if I would have had the courage except in a group."
Adobe: No Flash for You, Android 4.1
By Scott Gilbertson - WebMonkey.com
The bells tolling the death of Adobe Flash got a bit louder this week.
To go along with the arrival of Google's new Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" update, Adobe has announced that itwill not be developing a certified version of Flash for Android 4.1. Worse for Flash fans, Adobe says it will soon be pulling Flash Player from the Google Play Store.
The move shouldn't be a huge surprise. Adobe already announced last year that it would cease development of its mobile Flash Player. Still, if you were hoping Google might give Flash a bit of a reprieve by including support in the latest version of Android, well, we've got bad news for you.
Is The Olympics The Next 9/11?
Whistleblower Speaks Out!
Alex talks with Lee Hazeldean, a pseudonym for an undercover journalist who has blown the lid off the police state security arrangements put in place for the 2012 Olympics in London.
TruNews interviews 'Lee Hazledean' (alias to protect identity)
by Rick Wiles (audio format)
Guest: British investigative reporter Lee Hazeldean (pseudonym)
Topic: Possible evacuation of London during Olympic Games.
Salafi leader: Brotherhood agrees Sharia,
not principles, to be legislative source
Egypt Independent
Prominent Salafi leader and preacher Yasser Borhamy has said that the Muslim Brotherhood has agreed with the Salafi vision to have a constitution that cites Sharia as the main source for the legislation, rather than the principles of Sharia.
Article II of 1971 Constitution, which is copied into the current Constitutional Declaration, reads "Islam is the religion of the state. Arabic is its official language, and principles of Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia) are the main source of legislation." A 1979 amendment had replaced "a main source" with "the main source."
Iraqi women face court-ordered virginity tests
AFP - EgyptIndependent.com
BAGHDAD — Iraqi women face court-ordered virginity tests that often show they were virgins until marriage but shame them nonetheless, doctors at an institute that carries out the tests and a lawyer told AFP.
Remaining a virgin until marriage can be an issue of life or death for women in the Middle East, where those who are seen as having dishonored the family by having premarital sex are sometimes killed by male relatives.
Iran threatens Israel; new EU sanctions take force
By Yeganeh Torbati
DUBAI | Sun Jul 1, 2012 2:58pm EDT
(Reuters) - Iran announced missile tests on Sunday and threatened to wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" if the Jewish state attacked it, brandishing some of its starkest threats on the day Europe began enforcing an oil embargo and harsh new sanctions.
The European sanctions - including a ban on imports of Iranian oil by EU states and measures that make it difficult for other countries to trade with Iran - were enacted earlier this year but mainly came into effect on July 1.
Iran says country will 'confront' new EU oil sanctions
FOXNews.com
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said Sunday that it has "plans" to deal with a new EU embargo on the country's oil sector and enough hard currency to meet its import needs.
The remarks by central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani carried by the semiofficial Mehr news agency are the first reaction from a senior Iranian official on the day that the sanctions, meant to pressure Tehran over its controversial nuclear program, are to go into effect.
Hillary's spin... Clinton Says Sanctions Pushing Iran Toward Negotiations
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan - Bloomberg.com
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran will face increasing pressure from economic sanctions aimed at its disputed nuclear program.
"The pressure track is our primary focus now, and we believe that the economic sanctions are bringing Iran to the table," Clinton said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio in Geneva on June 30. "They are going to continue to increase and cause economic difficulties for them."
Sanctions advocates in the Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers have been weighing ways to tighten American sanctions. Proposals under discussion include expanding the restrictions to cover all Iranian financial institutions and trading companies, sanctioning money-changers and alternative payment systems, and banning trade and investment in all of Iran's energy sector.
Turkey Scrambles F-16s On Syria Border
As US Intelligence Says Syrian Story
Was Correct All Along
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Last week's false flag story of baseless Middle Eastern provocation refuses to go away. Even after, in a shocking turn of events, US intelligence confirmed this weekend that Syria's version of events surrounding the downed Turkish F-4 jet story was the right one all along, pulling the media narrative rug right from under Hillary Clinton's provocative feet (and making others wonder just which country is the only one that stands to benefit of NATO does pull Article 4 or 5 and does invade Syria on now invalidated and false premises), today we read that Turkey continues to try to escalate. From the BBC: "Turkey has scrambled six F-16 fighters jets near its border with Syria after Syrian helicopters came close to the border, the country's army says. A total of six jets were sent to the area in response to three such incidents on Sunday, although there was no border violation, the Reuters news agency quoted the statement saying. On Friday, Turkey said it had begun deploying rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns along the border in response to the downing of its F-4 Phantom jet." Of course, without an actual confirmed provocation, such as the one Turkey itself pulled against Syria, it is left with the same media rhetoric that continues to expose just one side of the Syrian story - the Western media spun one. "Turkey has strongly criticised Syria's response to the 16-month anti-government uprising, which has seen more than 30,000 Syrian refugees enter Turkey." Fair enough, we do however wonder what Syria would say about Turkey's treatment of Kurdish minorities. Finally, confirmation that just as we first suggested two weeks, this whole incident has been nothing but a provocation stage test to get NATO involved without any of the facts being on the table, comes from no other source than US military intelligence.
Russian Rocket Downed Turkish Plane, Say Sources The Turkish jet shot out of the sky by Syrian fire was almost certainly hit by a rocket provided by the Russians—who might have pressed the button as well, reports Owen Matthews.
By Owen Matthews - TheDailyBeast.com
A Turkish plane downed by Syrian fire over the Mediterranean 10 days ago was almost certainly hit by a Russian-supplied rocket fired by Russian-trained technicians, diplomatic sources in Ankara and London told The Daily Beast on Sunday. The Turkish Air Force F-4E Phantom II disappeared from radar screens at 11:58 a.m. June 22. Syria's Foreign Ministry later admitted that its forces had downed the plane after it violated Syrian airspace.
"The evidence indicates that [the Turkish plane] was hit by a Russian-made Pantsir," a Western diplomat with knowledge of the ongoing NATO investigation into the shooting told The Daily Beast. Russia supplied Syria with 36 mobile Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile launchers in 2007 at a cost of $900 million. "At a range of 13 nautical miles, it's the only kit the Syrians have with the range, response time, and accuracy" to have downed the American-made F-4, the diplomat said.
Syrian Opposition Rejects UN Transition Plan
Syrian opposition groups on Sunday rejected a U.N.-brokered peace plan for a political transition in Syria, calling it ambiguous and a waste of time and vowing not to negotiate with President Bashar Assad or members of his "murderous" regime. (July 1)
Updated report... ? World Powers Agree On Set Of Guidelines For Syria Transition
By Jennifer M. Freedman, Scott Rose and Indira A.R. Lakshmanan - Bloomberg.com
World powers agreed on a new plan for a Syrian transition government that did not contain a call on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
Foreign ministers of the five permanent UN Security Council members -- China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. -- as well as Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, the European Union, the Arab League and Iraq ended talks today in Geneva without indicating agreement on as-Assad's future as the Middle Eastern country's head of state.
World Leaders Agree on Syria Transition Plan
World leaders work towards a transition plan for Syria at the Geneva summit. Still no plan on whether Assad will play a role in the transition process.
Will Geneva Talks Help Solve Syrian Crisis?
Nine countries are meeting in Geneva to discuss U.N. envoy Kofi Annan's new proposal for a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis.
