Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Friday 09.28.2012
Gold rebounds sharply on negative US data
LONDON(Commodity Online): Gold rebounds sharply on negativce US data. It has climbed around $15 to $1768.5/oz. Silver has climbed close to 0.5% at $34.34. The US second quarter final GDP is stuck at 1.3% compared to 1.7% previous data. Meanwhile, August durable goods orders dipped 13.2% compared to 5.0% expected.
"Comex Gold December is trading above 200 day moving average at $1741.90 and could creep higher targetting 1780 in the short term", according to Sreekumar Raghavan Chief Commodity Strategist at Commodity Online.
$2 Trillion in New Money (TNM)
By Richard Daughty - GoldSeek.com
Ben Bernanke is the panicked and clueless chairman of the evil Federal Reserve, and he has just shocked the world to announce that, henceforth, the Federal Reserve will create enough money to buy $40 billion per month of mortgage-backed securities.
This comes to a cool $480 billion a year in new money right there.
And this does not even mention the additional $1 trillion or so that the Fed is going to have to create over the next year to buy the tons of new government bonds necessary to pay for what seems to a terrifying $1.4 trillion budget-deficit of the loathsome Obama administration.
Death Knells for the USDollar
By: Jim Willie CB - GoldSeek.com
The recent decision by the US Federal Reserve to contaminate the financial body until it responds favorably was the last straw in my book. Witness a declaration of permanent QE and hyper monetary inflation of the most virulent strain, unsterilized. The USFed is essentially admitting failure. The signal serves as the loudest death knell for the USDollar among many in a sequence. On a similar parallel note, lighter and more humorous, one might be reminded of the pirate swash buckling style of yelling at the swabbies that the beatings will continue until morale improves. The QE bond monetization of USGovt debt has turned viral and entrenched. It is sold as stimulus, when in fact it acts like a giant wet blanket on the USEconomy. It is intended as stimulus to businesses, but the effect is felt on the financial speculation and on Asian direct business investment. In the past the emergency lever device had been successful only because it was used on a temporary basis. But now the USFed high priest assures it is a permanent fixture, a sign of their failure. The public is too ignorant to comprehend the ruin. They can only see the threat to their personal ruin.
Why QE Won't Create Inflation Quite as Expected
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
The Fed can create money but if it doesn't end up as household income it is "dead money."
In the consensus view, the Federal Reserve's unlimited quantitative easing (QE3) programs will do two things: 1) boost stocks and other "risk on" assets and 2) generate inflation. The two follow-on effects are related, of course; gold and other hard assets are rising in anticipation of higher inflation.
But all is not quite as it seems when it comes to the inflationary effect of creating money. I'm going to cover a lot of ground here so buckle up and grab your favorite stimulating beverage.
How Crony Capitalism
(Or The 'Undiluted Lunacy' Of The Fed)
Corrupts The Free Markets
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
"This is the final abomination" is how David Stockman begins his epic rant on the Federal Reserve and crony capitalism in this clip.The "undiluted lunacy" of their actions prompted him to address the Fed's decision to "print ourselves to death" by saying "this has gone too far, it's street-fighting time" as he decides, instead of the erudite philosophical view of how capitalism is being destroyed by statist philosophies of one type or another, to launch into a full-strength tirade about The Fed. For starters, "The Fed is being run by the single most-dangerous man ever to hold high office in the history of the United States, "as he opines that Bernanke is more dangerous than Geithner, Greenspan, Summers, Hank Paulson all put together.
How Crony Capitalism Corrupts the Free Market
David Stockman
Archived from the live Mises.tv broadcast, this lecture by David Stockman was presented at the Mises Circle in Manhattan: "Central Banking, Deposit Insurance, and Economic Decline." Includes a welcome and introduction by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Music by Kevin MacLeod.
SEC's Gallagher Calls for Floating Price for Money Funds
By Joshua Gallu and Robert Schmidt - Bloomberg.com
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission member Daniel Gallagher, who helped derail efforts to tighten rules for money-market mutual funds, said he would likely support a measure forcing the industry to abandon its marquee $1 share price.
Requiring money funds to have a fluctuating share price "is an attractive option that I am likely to support," Gallagher, a Republican, said in an interview.
The Financial Crisis Of 2015 - A Non-Fictional Fiction
by Tyler Durden Via Oliver Wyman - ZeroHedge.com
The financial crisis of 2008 shook politicians, bankers, regulators, commentators and ordinary citizens out of the complacency created by the 25-year "great moderation". Yet, for all the rhetoric around a new financial order, and all the improvements made, many of the old risks remain (and some are far larger). The following 'story' suggests a scenario based on an 'avoidable history' andwhile future crises are not avoidable, being a victim of the next one is.
"John Banks was woken by his phone at 3am on Sunday 26th April 2015. John worked for Garland Brothers, a formerly British bank that had relocated its headquarters to Singapore in late 2011 as a result of..."
Entering Stage Three for the Euro Crisis?
By Brad DeLong - Project-Syndicate.org
BERKELEY – The first two components of the euro crisis – a banking crisis that resulted from excessive leverage in both the public and private sectors, followed by a sharp fall in confidence in eurozone governments – have been addressed successfully, or at least partly so. But that leaves the third, longest-term, and most dangerous factor underlying the crisis: the structural imbalance between the eurozone's north and south.
First, the good news: The fear that Europe's banks could collapse, with panicked investors' flight to safety producing a European Great Depression, now seems to have passed. Likewise, the fear, fueled entirely by the European Union's dysfunctional politics, that eurozone governments might default – thereby causing the same dire consequences – has begun to dissipate.
Spain's rising debt costs eat up austerity gains
Spain has pushed through €40bn of fresh austerity measures in the teeth of recession, despite violent protests across the country and separatist crises in Catalonia and the Basque region that threaten to break the country apart.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Premier Mariano Rajoy has frozen public pay in 2013 for the third year in a row. The agriculture ministry and culture expenses will be cut by 30pc and the defence bureacracy by 15pc. It comes on top of a €62bn squeeze already in the pipeline.
He brushed aside warnings that fiscal overkill – at a time when unemployment is already 25pc – could push the country into turmoil, saying he would listen only to the "silent majority" of responsible citizens.
Spain heads towards confrontation with Catalan parliament Spain's deputy prime minister says government will resist any attempt at unilateral referendum on independence
By Giles Tremlett in Madrid - The Guardian
As Spain's government announced fresh austerity for next year on Thursday, the country was launched headlong into confrontation between central government and a Catalan parliament that pledged to hold a referendum on moves towards independence.
Spain's deputy prime minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaría, warned that the government would stop any attempt at a unilateral referendum, effectively challenging the Catalans to either desist or break the law and face the consequences.
Spain must leave the euro Mario Draghi's promise to do "whatever it takes" to save the euro never did look like inducing any more than a temporary lull in the storm; still less did the German Constitutional Court's thumbs up to the European bail-out fund and the trouncing that eurosceptic parties received in the Dutch election.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Yet the eurozone crisis has sparked back into life more swiftly than even I would have anticipated, with the epicentre returning to a fast-shrinking Spanish economy. Political and economic developments are once more threatening to combine into an uncontrollable firestorm.
To understand why, it is first necessary to explode some myths about the nature of the eurozone debt crisis. This is not at root either an isolated banking crisis or indeed a fiscal one, though that's how public policy in Europe attempts to define it.
Spain and Greece Take Steps Towards Austerity
Matthew Feeney - Reason.com
The Spanish government has unveiled its 2013 budget. If the protests of the last few days are anything to go by chances are it might not be as well received as many in the Spanish government might like.
The austerity budget includes the following (the last one in particular sounds oddly familiar):
a 12% average cut in ministerial spending
a freeze in public sector pay for the third consecutive year
a new independent authority to monitor government finances
an increase in pensions funded by drawing on 3bn euros of reserves
a new 20% tax on lottery wins above 2,500 euros (£2,000; $3,200)
a new car scrappage scheme
Welcome to the End of the Euro's Indian Summer After a few sunny weeks, a political and economic storm is battering the euro zone once again
The Economist
THE sugar-rush brought on by the European Central Bank's pledge to intervene in bond markets to help troubled euro-zone countries—some diplomats call it "Mario Draghi's ice cream"—was bound to fade at some point. But nobody expected it to fade quite so suddenly this week.
Anti-austerity protests in Spain and Greece, uncertainty over their bail-out terms, the resurgence of Catalan secessionism, the likely departure of Mario Monti as Italy's prime minister next year, obstacles to creating a credible banking union (see Charlemagne) and a darkening economic outlook all combined to dispel hope that the euro zone was out of the woods. Spanish and Italian bond yields shot back up and European stockmarkets fell.
Germany on firm footing as rest of eurozone sinks Germany's unemployment rate remained at 6.8pc in September after a smaller than expected rise in the country's jobless numbers.
By Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
It looks increasingly likely that Germany will avoid recession in the second half of the year, having managed 0.3pc GDP growth in the second quarter compared with a 0.2pc fall in the rest of the eurozone. But while Germany will probably weather the remainder of this year in reasonable shape, the same cannot be said of the rest of the eurozone, especially in its southern states.
Comparing the fortunes of Germany with Greece (unemployment rate of 22.5pc) and Spain (24.8pc) it's clear the euro is now delivering an intolerable dose of social injustice. As Germany sits back and enjoys a relatively benign economic outlook, its neighbours burn.
Ammunition for a Trade War Between U.S. and Mexico
By STEPHANIE STROM and ELISABETH MALKIN - NYTimes.com
Estimates are that nearly one out of two tomatoes eaten in the United States comes from Mexico — a statistic Florida growers would like to change, even at the risk of a trade war.
On Thursday, they got a reason to hope.
The United States Department of Commerce signaled then that it might be willing to end a 16-year-old agreement between the United States and some Mexican growers that has kept the price of Mexican tomatoes relatively low for American consumers. American tomato growers say the price has been so low that they can barely compete.
A Chinese Mega City Is On The Verge Of Bankruptcy
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
While most "developed world" people have heard of Hong Kong and Macau, far fewer have heard of China's province of Guangdong, which is somewhat surprising. With over 100 million people, a GDP of nearly $1 trillion - the biggest of all Chinese provinces, this South China Sea adjacent territory is perhaps China's most important economic dynamo. One of the key cities of Guangdong is Dongguan, which as the map below shows is a stone's throw from Hong Kong, has a population of nearly 10 million, and has long been considered Guangdong's boomtown and one of China's richest cities.
China's Great Slowdown Is Really Here—
and It's Worse Than You Think Welcome to the new normal in Asia.
By Steve LeVine - TheAtlantic.com
For years, global economists have forecast a slowdown in China's breakneck growth. Now that the deceleration is actually here, rich-world investors, companies and government officials, reliant on the Chinese juggernaut for their financial well-being, seem impatient for the revelry to resume, and are hoping that the Chinese government will follow up its stimulus of package of 2008-2009 with another generous injection of capital. (On Sept. 25, the medium-sized province of Sichuan became the latest to announce a¥3.67 trillion [$582 billion] package of measures aimed at giving the regional economy a boost.)
But economists are calling the current rate of growth the "new normal". And there is a betting chance that, for demographic and other reasons, the Asian giant could slow much further and even have a permanent level of far less growth. Even a generous new stimulus may not ignite a new day, analysts say.
Geithner Urges Regulators to Press on Money-Market Overhaul
By Ian Katz and Cheyenne Hopkins - Bloomberg.com
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner put pressure on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to tighten oversight of the $2.6 trillion money- market fund industry, saying the funds may pose a risk to the stability of the financial system.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council, a group of regulators that includes the SEC and is headed by the Treasury, should release for public comment options for an overhaul of the funds, an alternative to bank accounts for individuals and companies, Geithner said in a letter to the council today.
Treasuries Head for Weekly Gain Before Spending Report
By Wes Goodman - Bloomberg.com
Treasuries headed for a second weekly gain before a government report economists said will show consumer spending in the U.S. was little changed in August after accounting for inflation.
Benchmark yields were 26 basis points, or 0.26 percentage point, from the record low as theU.S. economy shows signs of slowing and European leaders struggled to find ways to pay their debts. Government securities have returned 0.6 percent since the end of June, versus a 3 percent gain in the second quarter, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes.
Keiser Report: Bankstatocracy (E345)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the bankstatocracy that has led to what the mainstream financial media calls an 'unintended' wealth gap in the consumer sector - between those recovered-from-recession and those still-struggling. To suggest that this gap is intentional, however, is considered now 'suspicious' behavior by the US government. And they also look at the 'wealth managers' for the poor in Australia. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to privacy extremist Frank Braun about sneaker net and privacy, the libertarian case for bitcoin and a flourishing over the counter bitcoin exchange.
Wells Fargo believed to be victim
of cyber-attack over Innocence of Muslims Group pledging retaliation for controversial online video claims it has targeted several US banks
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
US banking company Wells Fargo is believed to have become the latest victim of a cyber-attack launched by a group pledging retaliation for the controversial Innocence of Muslims video that has triggered anger and violence across the Muslim world.
A group calling itself Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has claimed responsibility for the online attacks on US banks in protest against the online video. The attacks were launched last week under the name Operation Ababil, meaning "swarm", and have already affected banks including JP Morgan and Bank of America.
Hackers May Have Had Help With Attacks
on U.S. Banks, Researchers Say
By NICOLE PERLROTH - NYTimes.com
The hackers claiming responsibility for cyberattacks on American banks over the past week must have had substantial help to disrupt and take down major banking sites, security researchers say.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo and PNC all experienced disruptions and delays on their banking sites over the past week because of denial of service or DDoS attacks, in which hackers clog a Web site with data requests until it slows or collapses under the load.
Cyber attack takes down PNC website for second day
By Alex Nixon - triblive.com
A cyberattack that one expert called the biggest of its kind to hit the United States crippled PNC Financial Services Group's website on Thursday.
For the second consecutive day, the Pittsburgh-based bank's website fell victim to a denial-of-service attack, in which a person or group directs a flood of traffic to a website, overwhelming the system and preventing customers from gaining access.
"The volumes have been unprecedented," said Dmitri Alperovitch, a co-founder of Internet security firm CrowdStrike, based in Irvine, Calif.
The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia How America's biggest banks took part in a nationwide bid-rigging conspiracy - until they were caught on tape
By Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
Someday, it will go down in history as the first trial of the modern American mafia. Of course, you won't hear the recent financial corruption case, United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, called anything like that. If you heard about it at all, you're probably either in the municipal bond business or married to an antitrust lawyer. Even then, all you probably heard was that a threesome of bit players on Wall Street got convicted of obscure antitrust violations in one of the most inscrutable, jargon-packed legal snoozefests since the government's massive case against Microsoft in the Nineties – not exactly the thrilling courtroom drama offered by the famed trials of old-school mobsters like Al Capone or Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo.
U.S. Banks' Leverage Should Be Halved to Cut Risks, Bair Says
By Yalman Onaran - Bloomberg.com
Banks should be required to reduce by half the amount they can borrow against equity to make the financial system safer, according to former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. ChairmanSheila Bair.
Bair called for a "hard-and-fast" leverage ratio of 8 percent in "Bulls by the Horns," her memoir of the financial crisis published this month. That's double the 4 percent ratio U.S. banks must adhere to currently and more than twice the 3 percent called for by new global rules on bank capital.
Bank of America call center shut down due to threats
by Chad Tucker - WGHP - FOX8
HIGH POINT, N.C. – High Point Police say a man believed to be mentally ill and making suicidal and hostage threats forced the evacuation of the Bank of America call center Friday afternoon.
"He was very irate when he called [911], making some comments about being blown away, his soul and he wasn't afraid to die," said Capt. J.T. Stroud of the High Point Police Department.
The unidentified man, made the threats from the parking lot, first by phone to 911 and second by text message to his wife who works inside the building on Piedmont Parkway.
Fed's Evans wants months of jobs gains above 200,000
By Ann Saphir
HAMMOND, Indiana | Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:04pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve should keep on buying assets to lower borrowing costs until U.S. employers are routinely adding 200,000 or more jobs a month, for at least two quarters, a top Fed policy maker known for his dovish views said on Wednesday.
"I think that would be a good marker - it's a threshold, it's an indication," Chicago Fed President Charles Evans told reporters after a speech in this industrial Chicago suburb. "In combination with (GDP) growth above trend, that would really reinforce and solidify the idea that we are getting substantial improvement."
Tying policy to jobless rate dangerous: Fed's Plosser
(Reuters) - Keeping U.S. monetary policy extraordinarily loose until the jobless rate hits a defined level could be very dangerous, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said on Thursday.
"Tying policy to an unemployment rate, a specific unemployment rate, can be very risky and very dangerous," Plosser said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
Two other heads of regional Fed banks -- Narayana Kocherlakota of the Minneapolis Fed and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans -- have proposed keeping rates low until employment falls to specific levels, as long as inflation stays under control.
Fed Helps Lenders' Profit More Than Homebuyers: Mortgages
By Jody Shenn - Bloomberg.com
The Federal Reserve's latest mortgage bond purchases so far are helping profit margins at lenders including Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) more than homebuyers and property owners looking to refinance.
Since the Fed's Sept. 13 announcement that it would buy $40 billion more securities per month, the rates offered for new 30- year loans have fallen by just 0.13 percentage point, compared with a drop of about 0.7 percentage point for yields on thebonds into which the loans get packaged, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Bankrate.com. The gap between the two, which typically signals increasing lender revenue when it widens, has reached a record of more than 1.7 percentage point.
Keiser Report: Boom & Bust Vicious Cycle (E346)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss punk rock 'Tall Paul' giving the two finger salute to Ben Bernanke's QE3 and gold adjusting for zero growth, yield, velocity and confidence. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Detlev Schlichter of PaperMoneyCollapse.com about quantitative easing to infinity, Central Banking 'devils' and the future for the gold standard.
Durable goods drop worst since recession
(Reuters) - New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods in August fell by the most in 3-1/2 years, pointing to a sharp slowdown in factory activity even as a gauge of planned business spending rebounded.
The Commerce Department said on Thursday durable goods orders dived 13.2 percent, the largest drop since January 2009, when the economy was in the throes of a recession. Orders for July were revised down to show a 3.3 percent increase instead of the previously reported 4.1 percent gain.
Weak orders point to sharp slowdown in manufacturing
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:29pm EDT
(Reuters) - Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods fell sharply in August, suggesting the main engine of the economic recovery was stalling even as a report showing a drop in new claims for jobless aid offered a hopeful sign on the labor market.
While weak demand for aircraft and automobiles accounted for much of the drop in orders last month, the Commerce Department report on Thursday underscored the damage being inflicted by the uncertainty over U.S. fiscal policy, Europe's debt troubles and a slowdown in China.
What Does the Future Hold for Natural Gas Prices?
By Brian Westenhaus - OilPrice.com
Asian demand for natural gas has risen sharply in recent years. Prices in dollars per million BTUs, are about $13.50 in Argentina and $13.80 in Japan and South Korea, and $13.40 in China. Even Argentina has a $13.50 price, but U.S. wholesale prices are about $2.50 to $3.00.
The world price disparity raises a question that swirls just under the surface of the national energy conversation, which whipsaws between relieved happiness that shale gas exists at all and unfounded fears stoked by extremists that the method of extracting it called fracking, is polluting the water.
Justice Department's Warrantless Spying
Increased 600 Percent in Decade
BY DAVID KRAVETS - Wired.com
The Justice Department use of warrantless internet and telephone surveillance methods known as pen register and trap-and-trace has exploded in the last decade, according to government documents the American Civil Liberties obtained via a Freedom of Information Act claim.
Pen registers obtain, in real time, non-content information of outbound telephone and internet communications, such as phone numbers dialed, and the sender and recipient (and sometimes subject line) of an e-mail message. A trap-and-trace acquires the same information, but for inbound communications to a target. No probable-cause warrant is needed to obtain the data. Judges are required to sign off on these orders when the authorities say the information is relevant to an investigation.
ACLU: Government documents
show surge in electronic surveillance
By Brendan Sasso - TheHill.com
Warrantless surveillance of telephone calls, text messages and emails has shot up dramatically in recent years, according to Justice Department documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday.
The ACLU obtained the reports through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The documents show that real-time monitoring of electronic communications jumped 60 percent from 2009 to 2011. The Justice Department said it used "pen register" and "trap and trace" techniques 23,535 times in 2009 and 37,616 times in 2011.
U.S. cyber warrior accuses China of targeting Pentagon
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 27, 2012 9:23pm EDT
(Reuters) - The U.S. Cyber Command's top intelligence officer accused China on Thursday of persistent efforts to pierce Pentagon computer networks and said a proposal was moving forward to boost the cyber command in the U.S. military hierarchy.
"Their level of effort against the Department of Defense is constant" while alleged Chinese attempts to steal corporate trade secrets has been growing, Rear Admiral Samuel Cox, the command's director of intelligence, told Reuters after remarks to a forum on the history of cyber threats.
Rep. Issa threatens to subpoena HHS over Medicare bonuses
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Thursday that he's willing to subpoena documents from the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), alleging a conspiracy to hide the impact of President Obama's healthcare law.
Issa, as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is investigating an $8 billion demonstration project in which Medicare pays bonuses to certain private Medicare Advantage plans based on quality.
Aetna pays $1.5 million for forcing businesses
to pay for abortion, contraception
BY JOHANNA DASTEEL - LifeSiteNews.com
JEFFERSON CITY, MO, September 25, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Aetna will pay $1.5 million in a settlement with the state of Missouri after the insurance giant did not allow employers to opt out of paying for coverage of abortion and contraception.
Missouri's insurance regulators say Aetna had been violating a 2001 law providing conscience protections for employers and individuals seeking policies without coverage for contraception.
They also say the company violated a 1983 state law by illegally providing coverage for abortions in their basic policies.State law mandates that abortion coverage is only permitted when an additional premium is paid.
A Culture of Delusion
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
A writer's greatest disappointments are readers who have knee-jerk responses. Not all readers, of course. Some readers are thoughtful and supportive. Others express thanks for opening their eyes. But the majority are happy when a writer tells them what they want to hear and are unhappy when he writes what they don't want to hear.
For the left-wing, Ronald Reagan is the great bogeyman. Those on the left don't understand supply-side economics as a macroeconomic innovation that cured stagflation by utilizing the impact of fiscal policy on aggregate supply. Instead, they see "trickle-down economics" and tax cuts for the rich. Leftists don't understand that the Reagan administration intervened in Grenada and Nicaragua in order to signal to the Soviets that there would be no more Soviet expansion or client states and that it was time to negotiate the end of the cold war. Instead, leftists see in Reagan the origin of rule by the one percent and the neoconservatives' wars for US hegemony.
An Attack on Free Speech
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina is giving Steve Cooksey some choices. He can stop speaking. Or he can get a Ph.D. in nutrition, or a medical degree, or a bachelor's degree in nutrition and then pass an examination after completing a 900-hour clinical internship. Or he can skip this onerous credentialing, keep speaking, and risk prosecution.
He has chosen instead to get a lawyer. His case, argued by the libertarians at the Institute for Justice (IJ), will clarify the First Amendment's relevance to an ancient human behavior and a modern technology.
"I'm the first one to confess that the spirit that I brought to Washington, that I wanted to see instituted, where we weren't constantly in a political slugfest … I haven't fully accomplished that. Haven't even come close in some cases…. My biggest disappointment is that we haven't changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked." --President Barack Obama on "60 Minutes," Sunday, Sept. 23
It was the commitment at the core of Barack Obama's candidacy, the most important promise he made to the American people: He would unify a divided nation. Again and again, he vowed to repair the political breach. To end the bitter polarization of American life, to do away with "slash-and-burn" politics that "tear us apart instead of bringing us together" -- above all else, that was the hope and the change he offered.
How Hitler Became a Dictator
by Jacob G. Hornberger - FFF.org
Whenever U.S. officials wish to demonize someone, they inevitably compare him to Adolf Hitler. The message immediately resonates with people because everyone knows that Hitler was a brutal dictator.
But how many people know how Hitler actually became a dictator? My bet is, very few. I'd also bet that more than a few people would be surprised at how he pulled it off, especially given that after World War I Germany had become a democratic republic.
The Aldebaran Mystery - Nazi UFO Secrets
During Adolf Hitler's rise to power, did a daring group of Nazi scholars and technicians learn the secrets of anti-gravity and space travel from extraterrestrials? If true, these conclusions may shock and amaze you. Get the facts about UFO Secrets of World War II - The 3rd Reich and beyond, in a way that will change the way we stare up at the stars for years to come.
Obama Versus Obama: Part III
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
Much puzzling behavior by Barack Obama falls into place when we go behind the image that he projects ("Obama 1") to the factual reality of the man's whole life and thrust ("Obama 2").
Obama himself is well aware of the nature and importance of his image. In his own words, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." An 18th century philosopher put the matter bluntly: "When I speak, I put on a mask. When I act, I am forced to take it off."
Soros donates $1M to pro-Obama super-PAC
By Cameron Joseph - TheHill.com
Liberal billionaire George Soros has donated $1 million to Priorities USA, the super-PAC backing President Obama's reelection, two sources with knowledge of the donation confirmed to The Hill.
The donation comes as a shift for Soros, who'd donated to other pro-Democratic super-PACs earlier this year and has long bankrolled a number of liberal grassroots organizations — but had yet to give any money directly toward supporting Obama this cycle.
This Presidential Race Should Never Have Been This Close
By Matt Taibbi - rollingstone.com
The press everywhere is buzzing this week with premature obituaries of the Romney campaign. New polls are out suggesting that Mitt Romney's electoral path to the presidency is all but blocked. Unless someone snags an iPhone video of Obama taking a leak on Ohio State mascot Brutus Buckeye, or stealing pain meds from a Tampa retiree and sharing them with a bunch of Japanese carmakers, the game looks pretty much up – Obama's widening leads in three battleground states, Virginia, Ohio and Florida, seem to have sealed the deal.
That's left the media to speculate, with a palpable air of sadness, over where the system went wrong. Whatever you believe, many of these articles say, wherever you rest on the ideological spectrum, you should be disappointed that Obama ultimately had to run against such an incompetent challenger. Weirdly, there seems to be an expectation that presidential races should be closer, and that if one doesn't come down to the wire in an exciting photo finish, we've all missed out somehow.
War by Drone
By Clive Crook - TheAtlantic.com
Conor Friedersdorf's attack on the Obama Administration's drone campaign makes strong points. The Stanford/NYU study he reviewed previously, Living Under Drones, should be widely read. Friedersdorf thinks the policy is outrageous and indefensible.
Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis. The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn't "precise" or "surgical" as he would have Americans believe. It kills hundreds of innocents, including children. And for thousands of more innocents who live in the targeted communities, the drone war makes their lives into a nightmare worthy of dystopian novels. People are always afraid. Women cower in their homes. Children are kept out of school. The stress they endure gives them psychiatric disorders. Men are driven crazy by an inability to sleep as drones buzz overhead 24 hours a day, a deadly strike possible at any moment. At worst, this policy creates more terrorists than it kills; at best, America is ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists.
Iran unveils 'indigenous' drone with 2,000km range Iran has unveiled what it says is a new "indigenous" long-range unmanned drone capable of flying over most of the Middle East, state media report.
BBC.co.uk
The Shahed (Witness) 129 had a range of 2,000km (1,240 miles) and could be equipped with bombs and missiles, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said.
It is reportedly capable of carrying out reconnaissance and combat missions.
Last year, the Iranian authorities displayed a US drone which they claimed to have brought down electronically.
THE LIE FACTORY How politics became a business.
BY JILL LEPORE - NewYorker.com
I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty," by Upton Sinclair, is probably the most thrilling piece of campaign literature ever written. Instead of the usual flummery, Sinclair, the author of forty-seven books, including, most famously, "The Jungle," wrote a work of fiction. "I, Governor of California," published in 1933, announced Sinclair's gubernatorial bid in the form of a history of the future, in which Sinclair is elected governor in 1934, and by 1938 has eradicated poverty. "So far as I know," the author remarked, "this is the first time an historian has set out to make his history true."
"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." --Samuel Adams (1779)
In the conservative and business media, there is much perplexity and vexation over the inverse relationship between Barack Hussein Obama's rising job approval ratings and our nation's failing economic status. Yes, Leftmedia "Pollaganda" skewed political polls used as propaganda to prop up Obama, are a factor. But what mystifies some are the more reliable ratings which indicate Obama is increasing his lead over Romney.
Will Israel Blow Up Something and Falsely Blame It On Iran?
by George Washington - ZeroHedge.com
According to U.S. officials, Israel is training and supporting Iranian terrorists who are trying to topple the Iranian government. Those Israeli-funded terrorists have faked documents to falsely indicate that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. 1
Israel has admitted to previous use of false flag attacks to justify war against Middle Eastern nations.
For example, Israel admits that an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind "evidence" implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed).
'Nuclear Iran same as nuclear-armed al-Qaeda':
Netanyahu full UN 2012 speech
Iran might have enough enriched uranium to build nuclear weapon by next summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the UN General Assembly. He urged the gathering to draw a "red line" for the Iranian nuclear program.
Obama to Jihadists: Be Nicer
By GEORGE NEUMAYR - Spectator.org
He appeared on The View and at the UN to offer sermonettes on civility.
In the first few decades of the country's history, presidential candidates didn't even campaign, seeing the act of shilling for votes as inherently undignified. Surrogates would campaign on their behalf. Now presidential candidates not only campaign but seek out the stupidest shows to retail their demagoguery. "It is dying but it laughs," the Romans said of their disintegrating empire. Obama's America is dying too as it laughs with Whoopi, Joy, and Dave.
Binyamin Netanyahu demands 'red line'
to stop Iran nuclear programme Israel's prime minister tells UN general assembly that Iran is more than 70% of the way to producing a nuclear weapon
By Julian Borger in New York - The Guardian
Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has called on the international community to set a "clear, red line" to stop Iran making a nuclear weapon, a line he claimed would be reached as early as next spring.
To illustrate those claims, Netanyahu presented the UN general assembly in New York with a diagram of a cartoon bomb, complete with a burning fuse, and used a red felt pen to mark a line near the top of the bomb beyond which he said Iran should not be allowed to pass. That line, representing 90% of the way to making a warhead, would be reached "by next spring, at most by next summer".
Bibi's Subtext: Israel Won't Bomb Iran Before Spring
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
A number of people, including my Atlantic colleague Jeffrey Goldberg, have noted that Bibi Netanyahu's speech before the United Nations today was weird. What they mean is that he pulled out a chart featuring a cartoonish image of a bomb and then drew a red line on it--kind of like the "red line" he's been demanding that President Obama draw, except more literal.
Yes, that part was weird, and the title of Goldberg's post--"Bibi: The Middle East's Wile E. Coyote"--was deserved. So were such entertaining Photoshop riffs as the one below (taken from the Israeli website 972).
Netanyahu draws "red line" on Iran's nuclear program By Jeffrey Heller
UNITED NATIONS | Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:39pm EDT
(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew his "red line" for Iran's nuclear program on Thursday despite a U.S. refusal to set an ultimatum, saying Tehran will be on the brink of a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
By citing a time frame in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu - who has clashed with President Barack Obama over the urgency of military action against Iran - appeared to suggest no Israeli attack was imminent before the November 6 U.S. presidential election.
Coast To Coast AM May 21 2012 -
Financial Crisis Special Part 1
Convergence & Bible Prophecy
In the first hour, author and professor of biblical prophecy, Paul McGuire, spoke about a convergence of events-- a possible WWIII, a one-world govt./economic system, radical earth changes such as tsunamis and volcanoes, which relate to Bible predictions about Armageddon and End Times. In addition to Bible prophecy in books such as Revelation, the works of Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, as well as the Mayans and Hopi, also point to the next 30 years as being a time of accelerating cataclysms, he said.
Coast To Coast AM May 21 2012 -
Financial Crisis Special Part 2
Guests: Peter Schiff, Paul McGuire, Lindsey Williams, John Truman Wolfe
In separate hours, three guests addressed future and current economic crises. First, global financial strategist Peter Schiff argued that the crisis of 2008 is nothing compared to what is coming. The government stimulus programs have made the situation worse, in that they prevent free market forces from correcting the situation, he commented, adding that the real problem with the US economy is that interest rates are too low. These low rates contribute to economic structural problems, he explained-- we borrow and spend too much, and we don't invest or save enough. If we keep the rates low indefinitely, we're going to completely destroy the dollar, which will unleash a far worse crisis than if we actually dealt with the problem, he continued. Schiff favors an overhaul of Social Security (which he called a kind of Ponzi scheme)-- no benefits should go to the wealthy, and further, everyone expecting something from government should take less, he said.
Coast To Coast AM May 21 2012 -
Financial Crisis Special Part 3
Former senior banking officer John Truman Wolfe discussed how the current world economic crisis is an intentional coup designed to take down the U.S. dollar. He cited the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as two organizations that "truly became global predators." Behind the scenes, they created economic crises in third world countries, and then came in on a "white horse" to save these countries with loans, which they knew could never be paid back, he detailed. They have much of the planet in debt, and exert control through this, Wolfe continued, adding that another economic crash is coming. The 2008 US crash as well as the current European crisis were planned scenarios in order to place a global monetary interest in authority, he revealed. He also was critical of the massive derivatives market, which he characterized as unscrupulous casino-like gambling practiced by banking institutions.
Coast To Coast AM May 21 2012 -
Financial Crisis Special Part 4
In the last hour, ordained Baptist minister Lindsey Williams shared his contention that the collapse of the dollar is being orchestrated. According to his "elite" sources, we should be on the lookout for signs that a collapse is imminent. These indicators include a crack in the derivatives market, currency & trade wars, as well as a 1% rise in interest rates. He suggested that people "secure their assets immediately," which means to get out of all paper, and invest in gold and silver (which he was told will be used to back the new world currency).
The Fed is Trapped, Gold is the Exit
By Darryl Robert Schoon - GoldSeek.com
....In capitalist economies, capital, i.e. money, is introduced by central banks into the economy in the form of loans; and because interest constantly compounds, economies must constantly expand in order to pay down and/or service those loans. This is why economists in capitalist systems are obsessed with growth.
Capitalism is, in actuality, a smoke and mirrors shell game where credit and debt have been substituted for money; and, as long as capitalism expands no one is the wiser because the fraud is so subtle. Capitalism, however, is no longer expanding. It is contracting.
A Future Gold Standard?
From Deutsche Bank's Daniel Brebner: - ZeroHedge.com
A common theme in discussing the gold market is the prospect for a new gold standard in the future. That such a topic is now common says much about the change in attitudes by investors, many who would have ridiculed the mere mention of such a thing as little as five years ago. It also, perhaps, gives a hint as to the desperation of investors in their search for assets which they believe may protect their wealth over the long-term, a period which may experience more than its fair share of event risk.
Doug Casey on the 'Worsening Storm,'
QE3 and the Hard Assets Alliance
Anthony Wile Interview with Doug Casey - TheDailyBell.com Daily Bell: Welcome, Doug. Give us an update on what you call the "Greater Depression." Doug Casey: A depression is a period of time when most people's standard of living drops significantly. I think we can argue that this one really started in 2008. For the last couple of years, by printing up trillions of currency units, governments have − so far successfully − papered things over. Instead of allowing markets to liquidate, their currency printing has made it possible for people to continue living beyond their means. It's just a question of time before things really come apart but it's impossible to say exactly how much time. My guess is, based on what is happening in Europe and what I think will be happening shortly in China, is that we go back into the storm within a few months. As you know, it's not a good idea to predict both an event and its timing. But I'm an economist − which is to say, someone who tries to describe the way the world works − not a fortuneteller. So I'm willing to take a shot at the timing...
Gold Holds As Equity Dead-Cat-Bounce Folds
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
10Y Treasuries hit a 1.60% handle as yields fell without a bounce all day. Equities managed a post-European-close bounce (notably to VWAP and unable to break above it) off pre-FOMC levels but that faded rapidly into the close of the US day session as volume and average trade size picked up. VIX traded over 17% (up over 1.4vols on the day). Gold held up better than stocks - especially given the strength in the USD - and remains well above pre-FOMC levels (holding its bounce into the close).Of the major US equity indices, only the Dow remains green from pre-FOMC as CRAAPL sees its worse 3-day slide in 5 months dragging NDX down (and high-beta Russell dropping fast). MS and GS are down 4.2% from pre-FOMC levels now as Financials are the biggest losers (just trumping Energy and Industrials) from when Ben opened his book. Healthcare remains the clear winner. WTI dived into the EU close but recovered to close at $90 (-3% on the week) but in general risk-asset correlations with US equities are extremely high (with risk suggesting more downside to come).
Death Knells for the USDollar
BY JIM WILLIE - FinancialSense.com
The central bankers cannot dictate the speed at which money moves. They can only create it and drop it in the mix, speak their incantations, sprinkle pixie dust, offer some loony fiat prayer to the duped public, and continue with the next paper dump...
The recent decision by the US Federal Reserve to contaminate the financial body until it responds favorably was the last straw in my book. Witness a declaration of permanent QE and hyper monetary inflation of the most virulent strain, unsterilized. The USFed is essentially admitting failure. The signal serves as the loudest death knell for the USDollar among many in a sequence. On a similar parallel note, lighter and more humorous, one might be reminded of the pirate swash buckling style of yelling at the swabbies that the beatings will continue until morale improves. The QE bond monetization of USGovt debt has turned viral and entrenched. It is sold as stimulus, when in fact it acts like a giant wet blanket on the USEconomy. It is intended as stimulus to businesses, but the effect is felt on the financial speculation and on Asian direct business investment. In the past the emergency lever device had been successful only because it was used on a temporary basis. But now the USFed high priest assures it is a permanent fixture, a sign of their failure. The public is too ignorant to comprehend the ruin. They can only see the threat to their personal ruin.
Not even the great economists of history
can get us out of this fix Our financial crisis is unique, and the route back to health will be painful, costly and long
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Every big financial crisis has its own defining characteristics, but both in origin and consequence, such implosions tend to be remarkably similar. In virtually every case, you first see a long period of excess in financial risk-taking, where credit spirals out of control. This ultimately proves unsustainable, and in the resulting bust the process of credit expansion goes violently into reverse, causing often catastrophic economic damage, from which it will typically take many years to recover. There is no quick bounce back from recessions caused by financial crises.
In one important respect, however, the present maelstrom is unique. Never before have we seen a financial crisis result in such all-encompassing and explosive growth in public indebtedness. This is not a problem exclusive to Britain, nor is the UK even the worst example of it. To a greater or lesser extent, all advanced economies that were directly involved in the financial crisis have suffered the same phenomenon, with public debt climbing to previously unthinkable levels. This might be understandable in the event of a no-holds-barred military conflict, where nations are fighting for their very existence, but for public indebtedness to be approaching such extremes in peacetime is quite without precedent.
Quantitative Easing Did Not Work
For The Weimar Republic Either
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Did printing vast quantities of money work for the Weimar Republic? Nope. And it won't work for us either. If printing money was the secret to economic success, we could just print up a trillion dollars for every American and be done with it. The truth is that making everyone in America a trillionaire would not mean that we would all suddenly be wealthy. There would be the same amount of "real wealth" in our economy as before. But what it would do is render our currency meaningless and totally destroy faith in our financial system. Sadly, we have not learned the lessons that history has tried to teach us. Back in April 1919, it took 12 German marks to get 1 U.S. dollar. By December 1923, it took approximately 4 trillion German marks to get 1 U.S. dollar. So was the Weimar Republic better off after all of the "quantitative easing" that they did or worse off? Of course they were worse off. They destroyed their currency and wrecked all confidence in their financial system. There was an old joke that if you left a wheelbarrow full of money sitting around in the Weimar Republic that thieves would take the wheelbarrow and they would leave the money behind. Will things eventually get that bad in the United States someday?
Bernanke Put: Beware of Easy Money
By: Axel G. Merk - FinancialSense.com
Central bankers around the world may be providing a backstop to the financial markets in much the same way Greenspan did during the "Goldilocks" years, but when the short-term euphoria wears off, will the negative repercussions be even more severe? Bernanke's Federal Reserve (Fed) appears to specifically target equity market appreciation as part of its offensive in bringing down the unemployment rate; expectations are high: every time the market sells off, the Fed might simply print more money. We fear central bankers have overstepped their reach, and the implications of their actions may be much worse than the anticipated benefits.
Fed Prez Spills the Beans
on the Excess Reserve Inflation Time Bomb
by Robert Wenzel - LewRockwell.com
For the second time in two weeks, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser is warning about the time bomb that is excess reserves.
I first reported on this last week, exclusively in the EPJ Daily Alert. I wrote:
Here's something very big. There has been very little coverage in mainstream media about the Fed super-money printing and how much of it is going into excess reserves. But what if it doesn't go into excess reserves and instead ends up in the system bidding up prices?
While mainstream media is pointing at Bernanke's QE3 and not reporting beyond that, the Fed knows it is all about where the money they print ends up.
Here's part of a very important interview Philadelphia Fed President
Charles Plosser gave yesterday to MNI News. It spills the beans:
The Great Game, Gold Arbitrage, & Three Little Pigs
BY DANIEL AMERMAN CFA - FinancialSense.com
An astute reader from Atlanta named Ken wrote the following in a letter to me:
"It seems that the game plan (for financial heavyweights) is to buy assets, real things that can't be papered away by the government, and pay back with depreciated dollars."
Ken gets it. Ken understands the Great Game as it is being played at the highest levels of our monetary system. The Game has two halves: going long the real, and short the symbol. That is, going long real assets by owning them, and going short the dollar and the financial system by selective and advantageous borrowing. That way if you are a hedge fund manager, CEO or "private equity" investor who has essentially gambled the world monetary system on your speculations, and you collapse the financial markets and the value of the dollar when you guess wrong – you don't jump out the office window. Instead, you enjoy an extraordinarily lucrative early retirement.
QE3 – Pay Attention If You Are in the Real Estate Market
by Catherine Austin Fitts - TheDailyBell.com
I used to have a deputy who said that the FHA mortgage insurance funds were where mortgages went to die. That was, however, before the creation of MERS, derivatives and the explosion of mortgage fraud during the 1990′s which in combination with the "strong dollar policy" engineered what I have referred to as a financial coup d'etat.
The challenge for Ben Bernanke and the Fed governors since the 2008 bailouts has been how to deal with the backlog of fraud – not just fraudulent mortgages and fraudulent mortgage securities but the derivatives piled on top and the politics of who owns them, such as sovereign nations with nuclear arsenals, and how they feel about taking massive losses on AAA paper purchased in good faith.
QE3 triggers fear of new currency wars Traders steer clear when central bank intervention a risk
By Alice Ross - FT.com
Fear has crept into the foreign exchange markets: fear of central banks. Currency traders are rapidly shifting assets to countries seen as less likely to try to weaken their currencies, amid concern that the fresh round of US monetary easing could trigger another clash in the "currency wars".
Fund managers are rethinking their portfolios in the belief that "QE3" – the Federal Reserve's third round of quantitative easing – will weaken the dollar and trigger sharp gains in emerging market currencies. Such moves would cause a headache for central banks worried about the domestic impact of a strengthening local currency, leading to possible intervention.
Operation Screw
by Peter Schiff - TheDailyBell.com
With yesterday's Fed decision and press conference [Sept. 13], Chairman Ben Bernankefinally and decisively laid his cards on the table. And confirming what I have been saying for many years, all he was holding was more of the same snake oil and bluster. Going further than he has ever gone before, he made it clear that he will be permanently binding the American economy to a losing strategy. As a result, September 13, 2012 may one day be regarded as the day America finally threw in the economic towel.
Here is the outline of the Fed's plan: buy hundreds of billions of home mortgages annually in order to push down mortgage rates and push up home prices, thereby encouraging people to build and buy homes and spend the extracted equity on consumer goods. Furthermore, the Fed hopes that ultra-cheap money will push up stock prices so that Wall Street and stock investors feel wealthier and begin to spend more freely. He won't admit this directly, but rather than building an economy on increased productivity, production, and wealth accumulation, he is trying to build one on confidence, increased leverage, and rising asset prices. In other words, the Fed prefers the illusion of growth to the restructuring needed to allow for real growth.
Fiscal Cliff, Global Economy Woes Fuel CEO Pessimism
By Niraj Chokshi - NationalJournal.com
Pessimism among executives at large U.S. businesses hit a three-year high in the third quarter because of global economic weakness and fear that Congress will be unable to resolve its standoff over tax increases and automatic spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff," according to a survey by the Business Roundtable.
"The so-called fiscal cliff and the uncertainty attendant to it, certainly is cold water on long-term planning," said Boeing CEO James McNerney, who is also chairman of the Business Roundtable. "Until a path to a resolution of these issues is identified, business confidence will likely remain under pressure."
8 Warning Signs Inflation Is Percolating Investors need to know when price problems are near
By Robert Powell - MarketWatch.com
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — They don't ring a bell at the top of a bull market nor at the bottom of a bear market. But when it comes to inflation there are some early warning signs that investors can monitor, according to a new report.
Inflation is relatively low at the moment. But two risks — some type of shock or monetary policy mistake — could potentially spur "significant and sustained increases in inflation," according to Michael Hood, a strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and author of "Managing Inflation."
Corporate America sweats as U.S. nears fiscal cliff
By Scott Malone
BOSTON | Wed Sep 26, 2012 6:12pm EDT
(Reuters) - Top U.S. executives have less confidence in the business outlook now than at any time in the past three years - and a key reason is fear of gridlock in Washington over the fiscal deficit and tax policy.
The uncertainty, coupled with slowing demand in Asia and Europe, is forcing corporate leaders to postpone decisions on major investments and hiring, and hurting sales of everything from textbooks to telephone lines.
Finding The Keys To National Prosperity
By Jeffrey Sachs, Project Syndicate
NEW YORK – In many of history's most successful economic reforms, clever countries have learned from the policy successes of others, adapting them to local conditions. In the long history of economic development, eighteenth-century Britain learned from Holland; early nineteenth-century Prussia learned from Britain and France; mid-nineteenth-century Meiji Japan learned from Germany; post-World War II Europe learned from the United States; and Deng Xiaoping's China learned from Japan.
Fed's Evans Calls for More Easing, Warns of 'Lost Decade'
By Aki Ito and Joe Carroll - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said policy makers must not be passive in the face of high U.S. unemployment, firing back at critics of the Fed's decision this month to step up record stimulus.
"We cannot be complacent and assume that the economy is not being damaged if no action is taken," Evans said today in a speech in Hammond, Indiana. "If we continue to take only modest, cautious, safe policy actions, we risk suffering a lost decade similar to that which Japan experienced in the 1990s."
The Miraculous Decoupling Of Reality, For Now
By Wolf Richter - ZeroHedge.com
A veritable chorus of large US corporations has chopped their forecasts down a few sizes, citing the China slowdown, wobbly demand from emerging markets, the ongoing fiasco in Europe, or weakness in the US. Among the usual bellwether suspects:
Caterpillar raised eyebrows on Monday when it lamented "fairly anemic" global growth and a slowdown in China, not just for the quarter or the year, but through 2015. FedEx cut its outlook on September 18 due to lower shipping volumes and a shaky global economy. On September 7, Intel slashed its third-quarter revenue outlook, ominously on weakness in the enterprise segment and in emerging markets. On August 30, the International Air Transport Association announced that July air-freight was down 3.2% worldwide from last year. And in July, UPS lowered its guidance.
European lawmakers warn of banking union split
By John O'Donnell
BRUSSELS | Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:24am EDT
(Reuters) - Creation of a banking union to help resolve the euro zone debt crisis could lead to a split within the wider European Union, lawmakers in the European Parliament warned during a debate that laid bare the extent of tensions in the bloc.
Brussels proposed earlier this month that the European Central Bank (ECB) take charge of supervising all banks in the euro currency zone, as a first step towards creating a banking union under which euro zone countries would eventually jointly back their lenders.
Hundreds of thousands of Greeks march against austerity General strike brings country to a halt in first confrontation with three-month-old government
By Helena Smith in Athens - Guardian.co.uk
Hundreds of thousands of anti-austerity protesters took to the streets ofGreece on Wednesday as the country was paralysed by a general strike in the first mass confrontation with Athens's three-month-old coalition government.
In one of the biggest demonstrations in the capital in recent years, as many as 200,000 marched on the Greek parliament, according to unions in the public and private sector, which called the strike to oppose new wage and pension cuts – the price of further rescue funds from international lenders.
Athens descends into violence
as 200,000 march against austerity Police respond with tear gas to firebombs thrown from sidelines of demo against €12bn cuts
By Helena Smith in Athens and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
Violence erupted in the heart of Athens as mass protests against further austerity measures in crisis-hit Greece escalated on Wednesday.
Police fired tear gas at crowds throwing rocks and petrol bombs. The exchange disrupted an otherwise peaceful march through the capital by up to 200,000 demonstrators participating in a general strike, the first big confrontation with Greece's three-month-old coalition government.
Spain's crisis flares again
as AAA club scuppers bank rescue deal Spain's debt crisis has returned with a vengeance after Germany, Holland and Finland reneged on a crucial summit deal and scuppered hopes of direct eurozone help for Spanish banks.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Yields on 10-year Spanish bonds punched back above the danger line of 6pc and spreads over German Bunds reached 450 basis points, intensifying pressure on Madrid as it continues to resist a sovereign bail-out.
The alliance of hardline creditors said the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) – or bail-out fund – could not be used to cover "legacy assets" from past banking crises, even after the eurozone's banking supervisor starts work next year.
Spain is turning into the new Greece,
and Mariano Rajoy has himself to blame Spain has taken another confident stride to becoming the next Greece, a status long predicted for the country in some quarters.
By Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
When the economic situation is bad (the country's GDP estimates fell again on Wednesday) there's nothing like a dose of political mismanagement to give things a good hard shove towards the same abyss that Athens disappeared into sometime in the middle of last year.
It's only September but the scenes from Madrid in recent days prompted me to revisit the annual predictions in which we indulge every January. At the start of the year, as we looked forward to another 12 months of experimental eurozone economics, not to mention politics, with renewed austerity measures and another euro treaty, this column said: "None of this has been tested at the ballot box and I predict a year of popular political protest across the eurozone, some of which will turn violent, prompting shocking scenes as governments use force to regain order."
China's Rebalancing Act
By Yu Yongding - Project-Syndicate.org
BEIJING – China's 12th Five-Year Plan calls for a shift in the country's economic model from export-led growth toward greater reliance on domestic demand, particularly household consumption. Since the Plan's introduction, China's current-account surplus as a share of GDP has indeed fallen. But does that mean that China's adjustment is on track?
According to the IMF, the fall in China's current-account surplus/GDP ratio has largely been the result of very high levels of investment, a weak global environment, and an increase in prices for commodity imports that has outpaced the rise in prices for Chinese manufactured goods. So the fall in China's external surplus/GDP ratio does not represent economic "rebalancing"; on the contrary, the Fund predicts that the ratio will rebound in 2013 and approach its pre-crisis level thereafter.
The Obamacare Gift Basket It's bountiful for Republicans. So start running on it.
By MATT PURPLE - Spectator.org
Something remarkable happened at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month. After three years of reeling from the political damage wrought by Obamacare, which stroked even Massachusetts with a red brush, Democrats stood up and defended their law. Patients with pre-existing conditions took to the podium. Health secretary Kathleen Sebelius had a prime speaking slot. The delegates wore "Obamacare as [a] badge of honor," as Greg Sargent gushed.
But then something even more remarkable happened. Despite the Democrats' collective bear hug, the polls didn't budge. And they still haven't. According to a Rasmussen survey taken last week, likely voters favor repealing Obamacare by 11 points. The numbers have been fairly static for two years.
NYT Reporter Confirms Paper Is Purposeful Mouthpiece
for Military-Industrial Complex
by Staff Report - TheDailyBell.com
EXPOSED: NY Times Peddles War Propaganda ... Former New York Times journalist, Daniel Simpson, spills the beans on how NYT operates. − RT Dominant Social Theme: The New York Times is a great beacon of truth and freedom. Free-Market Analysis: In this RT video, former New York Times reporter Daniel Simpson reveals much of what we've been presenting to you, dear reader, for the past three years.
He confirms that the New York Times is basically a vast warehouse of manufactured, elite dominant social themes and adds that the CIA's favorite newspaper, The Washington Post, is as well.
Little of it is real. The New York Times at this point in its illustrious history is nothing more than a megaphone for themilitary-industrial complex and the even more powerful coterie of power elite families that have organized this superstructure.
Postal Service Prepares for Second Default in Two Months
By Amanda Palleschi, Government Executive - NationalJournal.com
The U.S. Postal Service will default this week on a $5.6 billion congressionally mandated obligation to pre-fund retiree health benefits, marking the second time in two months the cash-strapped agency has done this.
The Postal Service last month failed to pay $5.5 billion for its fiscal 2011 prepayment obligation, which originally was due in September 2011 but was deferred by Congress until Aug. 1. That was the first time it ever defaulted on a payment to the Treasury Department. The $5.6 billion due this week, on Sept. 30, represents this fiscal year's obligation.
NFL Blindsided by Ref Furor
By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN And KEVIN CLARK - WSJ.com
A series of blown calls by the National Football League's replacement officials has pushed a difficult business reality to the fore: The integrity of a $10 billion industry is riding on a fight over about $3 million.
NFL lawyers resumed discussions Tuesday with the leaders of the NFL Referees Association, which represents the 121 officials who were locked out when their contract expired this summer.
The referees are asking for a continuation of their pension plan, while the NFL wants to give them a 401(k).
How Bank Of America Destroyed Football
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As the NFL torments it players, coaches, and viewers by playing hardball over 'real' referee earnings, the truth of Monday's blown call is coming out. Courtesy of American Banker, we now know that the referee at the center of the most controversial call of the season so far is in fact a vice president for small-business banking at Bank of America in California.
Apple Moves Toward a Google-Free Future
By Rich Jaroslovsky - Bloomberg.com
The new version of iOS, the software that runs Apple's iPhones and iPads, may be more important for what was taken away than for any of the things added.
Gone from iOS 6 are two formerly built-in Google (GOOG) apps that were integral to previous versions of the operating system: Google Maps and YouTube. (The latter, at least, can be reinstalled from the App Store.) Google's search capability is still there, but Apple's improvements to Siri, its voice-based personal assistant, provide an alternative way of finding more and more information.
How Much Data Can Facebook Collect
Before the FTC Gets Involved?
By REBECCA GREENFIELD - TheAtlanticWire.com
Facebook has defended its new in-store tracking partnership with Datalogix, which gives Facebook access to our offline shopping habits via our rewards cards, by explaining that it doesn't violate any Federal Trade Commission regulations. Facebook says it will anonymize the data and is only interested in showing advertisers how their ads are converting to new sales. But it led us to ask what exactly the FTC does protect in the data collection department. According to the social network, the hard-to-find opt-out link, which is located all the way over on the Datalogix website, clears the company of any privacy violations that might get the federal consumer protection agency involved. Considering how unclear that process is, we wondered how easy it is for a company like Facebook to gain access to our on- and offline buying habits. To get that answer we spoke with Ryan Calo, an affiliate scholar for the Center for Internet and Society and Assistant law professor at the University of Washington, who clued us in on what the FTC can and can't do about Facebook's new tracking program.
Internet Funding Boom Ends as Fast as It Began
By PUI-WING TAM And AMIR EFRATI - WSJ.com
The falling stock prices of Facebook Inc., Zynga Inc. ZNGA andGroupon Inc. are causing some investors to pull back from Web start-ups.
Jeff Tangney recently experienced the change firsthand. Mr. Tangney, chief executive of Doximity Inc., a social network for doctors, said venture capitalists clamored to invest in his San Mateo, Calif., start-up earlier this year. At the time, the investors "encouraged focus on user engagement, not revenue," he said.
The Commute of the Future To Get Riders, Buses Try to Be More Like Trains; Skip Red Lights
By KRIS HUDSON - WSJ.com
Cleveland
City buses that carry people to and from work each day are attempting an identity change: They want to be trains.
To woo workday commuters, Cleveland and select cities across the U.S. are trying to replace the image of the gritty, pokey, crowded bus by sending sleeker, more spacious and trainlike buses onto certain commuter routes. They are packing these buses with amenities cribbed from the handbook of other cities' commuter rail and light-rail trains.
The Post-Apocalyptic Tech Scene A reflection on what happens
when only the rich have a place in the world.
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
I spent the last week traveling around the Rust Belt talking with startups and entrepreneurs. We spent time in incubators and accelerators, in co-working spaces and rehabbed manufacturing complexes. As I wandered through the post-industrial landscape, I kept recalling something that author and farmer Novella Carpenter said at a panel she did with my wife at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association a couple months back. Commenting on her neighborhood in west Oakland she said something like, "Where I live, the apocalypse already happened."
Jobs went away. Crack swept through on a wave of violence. People abandoned their homes. Businesses fell apart. This is the story of so many major American industrial cities. Everything went to hell. I think of Jay Z talking about what crack did to his neighborhood:
BEWARE AN OCTOBER STATE OF 'EMERGENCY' Robert Ringer speculates on Obama's options should he fear electoral defeat
By Robert Ringer - WND.com
As the reincarnation of Meyer Lansky once said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
Well, wadda ya know, the Duplicitous Despot just happens to be a man badly in need of a serious crisis, and the Middle East just happens to be on fire. But surely Obama couldn't have created the turmoil in Arab countries all by himself, could he?
No, but he certainly has done everything within his power to fan the flames of discontent throughout the region, such as playing up the infamous, anti-Muslim YouTube video as the cause of the "spontaneous" Islamic protests.
Survive an End Times Event Alternatives to a Bugout Location – What You Should Consider
By Holly Deyo - StanDeyo.com
Every person will face an ugly new reality when life as we know it vanishes. It's coming. Soon. It might be a slow crawl decline or a rapid descent into nightmarish conditions. Various scenarios now flit threateningly across the horizon. If we're brave enough to peer into the abyss, we can see some of these events bordering on fruition. Most are unnerving; some will be paralyzing. Regardless of the fright factor, we must examine individually how to handle these looming crises. When they strike,people without a plan in place, will die.
So what's lurking about?
Phoenix Filmmaker Arrested After Allegedly Staging Terrorist Hoax to Test Police Response Time
By ALYSSA NEWCOMB - ABCNews.com
A Phoenix filmmaker has been arrested for allegedly videotaping his nephew dressed in a sheet while pointing a fake grenade launcher at passing cars in an apparent terrorist hoax to test police-response time after the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre, authorities said today.
Police arrested Michael Turley, 39, Monday after a nearly two-month investigation. The filmmaker faces charges of knowingly giving a false impression of a terrorist act, endangerment and contributing to the delinquency of his minor nephew, 16.
Everyone Who Wants a Drone Will Have One Soon
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
Our Brian Fung brings word that Iran has a drone, and I think it's reasonable not to worry about it, per se.
But let's talk about the (very) near future.
Drones are not like the atomic bomb. There won't be a day when suddenly we realize that a horrible new weapon has changed the world forever. Instead, one day we'll wake up and there'll have been a terrorist attack by a swarm of drones launched by hand from a park across the Potomac from Washington, DC, and no one will know where they came from or who sent them. We'll wake up one day to a drone peering in our window as preparation for a common burglary.
US Navy Develops a Technique
to Produce Jet Fuel from Sea Water
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington is working to develop a system that can produce jet fuel from seawater.
Last year the US Naval Military Sea Lift Command, the main fuel supplier to Naval vessels that are at sea, delivered around 600 million gallons to ships that were on the open water.
Refuelling is a very difficult and dangerous procedure when two vessels are at sea, especially if the seas are rough, or there is a storm, or even in the middle of a fire fight. Yet it is also vital as running out of fuel would be devastating to a naval ship in action.
1979 ARTICLE TIES 'OBAMA'S REAL FATHER'
TO SAUDI FINANCIER? Vernon Jarrett was close friend
of communist Frank Marshall Davis
By Jerome R. Corsi - WND.com
NEW YORK – The recently discovered 1979 newspaper article by Vernon Jarrett – the father-in-law of senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, opens a new dimension to understanding Obama's youth, as Vernon Jarrett was a close friend of Obama's Communist Party-activist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.
The connections were not lost on Joel Gilbert, the filmmaker whose documentary "Dreams from My Real Father" argues Davis, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, was the biological as well as ideological father of Barack Obama, not the Kenyan who came to the University of Hawaii in 1959.
Can Obama Win Without ACORN? Romney's comments about the "47 percent" -- an imagined Democratic-voting underclass -- highlighted a problem for Obama: His 2008 voters may not show up in 2012.
By Molly Ball - TheAtlantic.com
"POOR PEOPLE DON'T VOTE."
An ACORN organizer named Chris Edwards scrawled the words on a white board in a dingy Las Vegas strip mall. It was the summer of 2008, and Edwards was training a roomful of $8-an-hour job seekers to go out and sign up new voters in the worst parts of town in 109-degree heat.
"We have to blow this up, break this axiom that poor people don't vote," Edwards told the room that day. "We have to destroy it." Only by participating, he said urgently, would lower-income people get elected officials who actually cared about their needs.
Perpetuating Falsehoods
By PETER FERRARA - Spectator.org
If only we could go back to "failed policies" of Ronald Wilson Reagan -- while the real failed policies are still with us today.
All the Republicans are offering, President Obama tells us over and over, are the same old, failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place. At the Democrat convention, Obama told us about the Republican economic plan, "all they have to offer is the same prescription they've had for the last thirty years."
And who was President 30 years ago? That would be Ronald Wilson Reagan. So you see, Obama is attacking not just the Bush but the Reagan tax rate cuts as well, the 25% across the board rate cuts for everyone known at the time as Kemp-Roth.
The Coming Romney Comeback Narrative
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
If there's one thing the media won't tolerate for long, it's an unchanging media narrative. So the current story of the presidential campaign -- Obama sits on a lead that is modest but increasingly comfortable, thanks to a hapless Romney and a hapless Romney campaign -- should be yielding any moment to something fresher.
The essential property of the new narrative is that it inject new drama into the race, which means it has to be in some sense pro-Romney. This can in turn mean finding previously unappreciated assets in Romney or his campaign, previously undetected vulnerabilities in the Obama campaign, etc. The big question is whether the new narrative then becomes self-fulfilling, altering the focus of coverage in a way that actually increases Romney's chances of a victory. And that depends on the narrative's exact ingredients. Here are some candidate memes:
Most Republicans think west and Islam
are in fundamental conflict, poll finds Most Americans reject view of a clash of cultures that can only have one winner, but two-thirds of Republicans support it
By Tom Clark - Guardian.co.uk
An overwhelming majority of Republican voters in the United Statesregard the west and Islam as being embroiled in "a fundamental conflict which only one side can win", according to new YouGov polling seen exclusively by the Guardian.
As the UN general assembly was convening in New York, with an agenda including the ongoing conflict in Syria, the Iranian nuclear question and the Arab uprisings, the pollsters asked both American and British voters about their attitudes to the Muslim world.
UN Plans to Supply Sustainable Energy to the World by 2030
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
At the recent UN general assembly, the UN secretary general Ban-Ki Moon pushed his idea for the Sustainable Energy for All initiative. One of the massively ambitious goals of the initiative is to connect every single household in the world to a reliable, sustainable energy source by 2030.
Ban addressed the UN delegates, saying that "sustainable energy for all is the answer to some of the key challenges of our time – poverty, inequality, economic growth, and environmental risks."
Colombia: Opportunities Abound in This Unique Country
by Ron Holland - TheDailyBell.com
Last week I had the opportunity to spend a few days in the booming South American nation of Colombia. This is my third visit to the province of Antioquia where the modern, vibrant city of Medellin is located, surrounded by lush green mountains. I must tell you, I'm really impressed with the cleanliness of the city, the modern infrastructure and the industriousness of the people. Colombia is a nation of opportunity and the time is right for Americans and other foreigners to visit ahead of the crowd.
I know what you are thinking: Colombia is full of guerilla fighters, crime and drugs. A few years ago I would have agreed with you because all I knew about Colombia came from the 1984 movie "Romancing the Stone" starring Michael Douglas as Jack. Who could forget the wild ride he and Joan had in the mudslide segment? Later, the Tom Clancy novel and 1994 movie "Clear and Present Danger" with Harrison Ford, in which CIAanalyst Jack Ryan found himself caught in an illegal war between the US and a Colombian drug cartel, completed my education about Colombia.
Japan Won't Compromise With China
on Claim to Islands, Noda Says
By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Stuart Biggs - Bloomberg.com
Japan will never budge on its "sacred" ownership claim to islands in the East China Sea also claimed by China, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said, doing little to ease tensions with Asia's top economic power.
While Japan isn't seeking a military confrontation with China and wants to keep talking "calmly," the disputed islands "are an inherent part of our territory in light of history and also under international law," Noda told reporters in New York today in comments translated into English by an interpreter.
Chinese-Japanese Senkaku Island Dispute -
Vital U.S. Strategic Interest or Not?
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
As the U.S. repositions its military forces to assume a great role in the Western Pacific, the state Department has taken a position to defend the contested Senkaku islands, which most Americans have never heard of.
In a rare display of solidarity, both Taiwan and China dispute Japan's claim over the archipelago. At present, the dispute is apparently being handled by water cannons, with the Japan Coast Guard on 25 September spraying with water cannon 75 Taiwanese fishing boats, according to Taiwan's government-owned Central News Agency, were joined by 12 Taiwanese government patrol boats in approaching the islands' territorial waters, After hosing from both sides, the Taiwanese boats left Japanese waters.
Egyptian PM Mohamed Morsi to UN:
conflict in Syria is 'tragedy of our age' Morsi accuses Assad regime of killing its people 'night and day' while Ahamdinejad gives rambling speech in farewell to UN
By Julian Borger in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Mohamed Morsi, addressing the United Nations as the first democratically chosen leader of Egypt, called the Syrian war "the tragedy of our age" for which the whole world was responsible – and accused the Assad regime of "killing its people night and day".
President Morsi called for the replacement of the regime with a democratic government representative of all the country's ethnic and religious groups, but said this should be done without outside military intervention. Instead, he pointed to a new diplomatic initiative begun by Egypt, Turkey and Iran, and called on other nations to join it.
Israel Must Be 'Eliminated' Netanyahu has to take Iran's words seriously.
Why doesn't Obama?
Opinion - WSJ.com
'To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." —George Orwell
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at the United Nations today, which also happens to be Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. The timing is apt because when it comes to Iran and Israel, the hardest thing for some people to see or hear is what Iranian leaders say in front of the world's nose.
"Iran has been around for the last seven, 10 thousand years. They [the Israelis] have been occupying those territories for the last 60 to 70 years, with the support and force of the Westerners. They have no roots there in history," Mr. Ahmadinejad told reporters and editors in New York on Monday.
Netanyahu promises tough response to Ahmadinejad
(Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday promised a tough response at the United Nations to the latest verbal attacks on Israeli by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said he was determined to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.
Before boarding a flight to New York to address the annual U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu issued an open letter to Israelis marking the end of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most sacred holiday in the Jewish calendar.
Iran's Ahmadinejad Says America Entrusted Itself to the Devil
By DANA HUGHES - ABCNews.com
In a fiery speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed today against the United States and European Union, whom he said have "have entrusted themselves to the devil."
The assembly hall was not full when Ahmadinejad spoke. The United States delegation to the United Nations, along with Israel's delegation, boycotted Ahmadinejad's speech to protest the anti-Israel views Ahmadinejad has perpetuated this week during in a spurt of media interviews.
In New York, defiant Ahmadinejad
says Israel will be 'eliminated'
By Louis Charbonneau
NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated," ignoring a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary rhetoric ahead of the annual General Assembly session.
Ahmadinejad also said he did not take seriously the threat that Israel could launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, denied sending arms to Syria, and alluded to Iran's threats to the life of British author Salman Rushdie.
The United States quickly dismissed the Iranian president's comments as "disgusting, offensive and outrageous."
Gold has the potential to rise to $3500-4000: Sharps Pixley
LONDON (Commodity Online): Gold has the capacity to rise to $3500 to $4000 an ounce depending on the increasing size of the US balance sheet, according to Ross Norman, CEO of Sharps Pixley, London. The Fed balance sheet which has grown four-fold from pre-crisis levels is set to double again.
"If gold is to maintain its run rate - and why wouldn't it - and if prices were to correlate with the size of the US monetary base, this would suggest that the gold price rally is also only roughly half way there (arguably it would outperform as confidence in the US dollar evaporates). In other words gold has the capacity to rise to between $3500 and $4000 - something we have maintained for some time. Furthermore, this level would see the dow/gold ratio marking a fall to 2.5:1 as we also forecast," Ross Norman said.
Recent drops in Gold have been short lived: UBS
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): There's a chance those waiting for a correction lower to buy into the gold market may only get limited dips, based on recent activity, said Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in a commodities research note
"Many are waiting for a deeper correction that would allow them to jump in at better levels," the bank added.
The Swiss bank continued that, "with spec positioning now elevated on a relative basis, the reluctance is understandable: gold spec positioning at 28.1moz is at the highest in over a year, and sits at 85% of the all-time high."
Gold is not just a lunatic fringe investment
By Paul R. La Monica - Fortune.com
Gold is often derisively referred to as an investment that only kooks who are preparing for the end of the world in a bunker can love. But it might be time to stop with all the gold bashing.
Sure, plans to return to the gold standard may still seem a bit extreme. (Sorry Ron Paul and your loyal minions!) Yet if you look at the reason why gold has done so well lately, it seems logical to expect the price of the yellow metal could continue to climb, blow past its current all-time high (not adjusted for inflation) of about $1,923 an ounce and surpass $2,000 in the process.
Gold Holds Post-QE Gains As S&P Drops Most In 2 Months
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
It seems European credit markets were on to something this morning. As European tensions spilled over so the US equity markets just could not hold on to the post QEternity gains and turned down rapidly shortly after Europe closed. The S&P 500 has retraced over 75% of its post-FOMC spike gains, Treasuries are well below the pre-FOMC yield levels and the USD has retraced all of its losses. The 1% drop in the S&P 500 is the largest in over two months. equities closed at their lows - something we have not seen in a while - with all the usual high-beta suspects (e.g. AAPL -2.5%) all getting crushed. VIX surged to 15.5% (up 1.25 vols) as volume surged across most equity indices. Only Healthcare and Staples remain green post-FOMC.
Silver to outperform Gold in coming quarters: Morgan Stanley
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Silver to outperform gold in the coming quarters, said Morgan Stanley in a weekly commodities research note.
According to Morgan Stanley, Silver has outperformed gold since speculation over QE3 (a third round of U.S. quantitative easing) emerged in early September this year.
"While the risk-on rally in the first quarter of the year underpinned a strong performance from silver, uncertainty in global macroeconomic policy steered investors toward gold in 2Q and 3Q," they added.
Central banks tinker with gold reserves in August
By MarketWatch
SYDNEY--Central banks active in the international gold market largely only tinkered with their reserves last month as the price of the yellow metal increased on expectations the U.S. would take fresh steps to ease its monetary policy, new data from the International Monetary Fund shows.
Russia, which is traditionally a significant buyer of gold from its domestic market, lifted its reserves just 3,000 troy ounces in August, to 30.116 million ounces. This compares to purchases of 597,000 ounces in July and 216,000 ounces in June.
Central Banks on the Offensive?
By Jean Pisani-Ferry - Project-Syndicate.org
FRANKFURT – It looks like a coordinated offensive: on September 6, the European Central Bank outlined a new bond-buying program, letting markets know that there were no pre-set limits to its purchases. On September 13, the United States Federal Reserve announced that in the coming months it would purchase some $85 billion of long-term securities per month, with the aim of putting downward pressure on long-term interest rates and supporting growth. Finally, on September 19, the Bank of Japan declared that it was adding another ¥10 trillion ($128 billion) to its government securities purchase program, and that it expected its total holdings of such paper to reach about $1 trillion by end-2013.
Dow will repeat 2007-2008 peak-crash cycle It's deja vu as lessons of meltdown go unheeded
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Dow skyrockets near 20,000 by 2014? In two years? Then crashes near 10,000 by 2016 presidential elections? Possible? You bet. Déjà vu 2007-2008.
So what's your biggest risk as an investor? Listening and acting on the relentless manipulative B.S. from Wall Street's media bulls in the next few years.
Consensus Thinking Is Wrong on 'Deleveraging' Z1, QE3 and deleveraging
By Doug Noland, Asia Times
As you read my opening summary of the Federal Reserve's latest quarterly Z.1 "flow of funds" report, keep in mind the Fed's recent decision to move to an altogether more aggressive monetary policy stance.
For the second quarter, total non-financial credit market debt expanded at a 5.0% rate, the strongest expansion since Q4 2008 (14 quarters ago). Debt growth increased from Q1's 4.4% rate and was almost double Q2 2011's 2.6%. Corporate credit market borrowings expanded at a 6.9% pace, up from Q1's 4.7%. Total household debt expanded at a 1.2% pace, the strongest growth since Q1 2008. Consumer credit grew at a robust 6.2% rate, the strongest in 19 quarters (Q3 '07). Home mortgage credit contracted at a 2.1% pace, an improvement from Q1's 3.3% pace of decline. State & local borrowings increased at a 0.8% pace, compared to Q1's 1.2% rate of contraction.
It's Not Just the Economy, Stupid!
By Dennis Prager - PatriotPost.us
Given the awful state of the American economy, featuring a four-year high unemployment rate and an increasingly crushing national debt ...
Given that America is at least as hated in the Muslim world as it was when George W. Bush was president -- despite the Obama policy of obsequious rhetoric directed toward that world ...
Given the virtually unprecedented tension between the United States and Israel, its closest ally in the Middle East ...
Given the complete failure of sanctions to stop Iran from its pursuit of an atom bomb ...
Given the spectacle of European financial collapse -- and very possibly the end of the Euro -- owing to the inevitable failure of the very type of welfare state that the president and the Democratic Party advocate ...
Reflections on the effects of War
as compared to the effects of Fiat Money
Hugo Salinas Price - Plata.com.mx
Modern warfare is highly destructive. A couple of centuries ago, wars involved fighting between armies; civilians were spared. Cannons were directed at the opposing army.
Today, war means general destruction; civilians on the losing side can expect to be plundered, killed or raped. Cities are targeted for mass destruction. We rode a bus through post-war Germany in 1948, and recall that the city of Bremen was simply miles of rubble piled up on either side of a road cleared for traffic.
WW II leveled some cities of Europe in the countries which were part of the Axis, and killed millions of soldiers and civilians.
After the war, both the winners and the losers turned to re-building their countries. The devastated cities began to heal; new, modern factories were built. People went back to doing what they had been doing before the war. By 1970, a traveler could hardly tell there had been such terrible destruction and loss of life just twenty-five years earlier.
IMF: Turkey, Russia, Korea boosted gold reserves
By Francesca Freeman - MarketWatch.com
The central banks of Turkey, Russia, Korea and Kazakhstan boosted their gold reserves in July, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.
Emerging markets' central banks have bought gold in reaction to the sovereign-debt crises affecting traditional reserve currencies such as the dollar and the euro. This has become an important support for gold prices, as it not only absorbs supply but boosts investor sentiment toward the metal, market participants say.
IMF says risks remain in financial system
as US investors take fright Banking system vulnerable despite blizzard of new regulations, according to Global Financial Stability Report
By Heather Stewart - The Guardian
A Federal Reserve official's scepticism about the US central bank's efforts to stem the financial crisis alarmed Wall Street on Tuesday, as the International Monetary Fund warned that the global financial system remains as risky as it was before the credit crisis.
US investors recorded their biggest sell-off in three months after Charles Prosser, hawkish president of the Fed's Philadelphia branch, said the bank's revival strategy, including $40bn a month of mortgage bond purchases, were unlikely to do much for economic growth or unemployment.
Merkel: Europe must stay the course with painful reform German leader says budget cuts are the only to end Europe's economic crisis
By TONY PATERSON - Independent.co.uk
Angela Merkel issued a blunt warning to Germany's ailing eurozone neighbours yesterday, telling them that pressing ahead with painful reforms and tough budget policies was the only way of resolving Europe's intractable and deepening economic crisis.
The Chancellor made her remarks in a speech to the Federation of German Industries on another day of turmoil in the currency bloc. The Spanish government faced mass anti-austerity protests in Madrid, while Greece was reported to be billions of euro off-track in meeting the terms of its bailout. Meanwhile, the ratings agency Standard and Poor's once again highlighted the grim state of the EU economy, forecasting that the eurozone would not return to growth until at least 2014.
The Spanish public won't accept a financial coup d'etat Spain's government is right to fear the public reaction to this new round of suffering mandated by the financial markets
By Katharine Ainger - Guardian.co.uk
The attempt by the Spanish "Occupy" movement, the indignados, tosurround the Congress in Madrid has been compared by the secretary general of the ruling rightwing People's party (PP) to an attempted coup.
Spanish democracy may indeed be in peril, but the danger is not in the streets. According to the Financial Times, the EU has been in secret talks with the economy minister Luis de Guindos to implement further austerity measures in advance of Spain requesting a full bailout. On Thursday the government will announce structural reforms and additional spending reductions, on top of the already huge cutbacks in health and education.
Spain prepares more austerity, protesters battle police
By Tracy Rucinski and Paul Day
MADRID | Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:07pm EDT
(Reuters) - Protesters clashed with police in Spain's capital on Tuesday as the government prepared a new round of unpopular austerity measures for the 2013 budget to be announced on Thursday.
Thousands gathered in Neptune plaza, a few meters from El Prado museum in central Madrid, where they formed a human chain around parliament, surrounded by barricades, police trucks and more than 1,500 police in riot gear.
Spanish Protest Turns Violent
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Sadly the social unrest that we had predicted, when over 50% of the youth are unemployed and the politicians are navel-watching, has erupted, as angry protesters charge the local police, who in turn are arresting rioters and using volleys of rubbers bullets to keep the crowd at bay.
Why Germany Is Going To Exit The Eurozone
By by Alasdair Macleod - ZeroHedge.com
It's becoming clear that there is only one sensible solution ahead of us as the Eurozone's problems evolve: Germany and the other countries suited to a strong currency should leave. If they do, the European Central Bank (ECB) will be free to pursue the easy money policies recommended by Keynesians and monetarists alike. It's increasingly clear that Germany has no option but to behave like any creditor seeking to protect its interests – and do its best to defuse the growing resentment against her from the Eurozone's debtors. If Germany is to abandon the euro, it has to do so as quickly and elegantly as possible. It must be able to demonstrate that it has no alternative and that it is the best solution for all parties involved. Germany's politicians know this. For the moment they are frozen in a state of inaction, but there is a general election to concentrate their minds in about a year's time - and Germany's electorate is becoming acutely aware of the enormity of the task. It has become obvious to many people from all walks of life in Germany that the euro has done them no good, and, far from reaping benefits, they are actually less wealthy as a result of it.
"Such paper, in the place of actual gold, is practical: we know just what we hold ... But wise men will, when they have studied it, place infinite trust in what is infinite." Mephistopheles, from Faust Part Two, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whatever you need to know about Germany, you will probably find it somewhere in Goethe's Faust. But it is rare that wisdom is found in part two of the tragedy, one of the most revered and least read books in all of German literature. Someone who managed to dig up something truly remarkable from it was Jens Weidmann. The president of the Bundesbank cited Mephisto's advice to the Emperor, quoted above, that the simple solution to a lack of money is to print it.
The Right Way To Break Up The Euro Don't believe the politicians. The common currency can't survive as is. Here's the right way to handle a split.
By Shawn Tully, Fortune.com
FORTUNE – Roger Bootle prides himself on being something of a modern-day Nostradamus -- with good reason. In 1999 the British economist predicted a bursting of the dotcom bubble, and in his 2003 book,Money for Nothing, he forecast a worldwide crash in housing that would prove dire for the financial system. A rigorous student of markets, Bootle, 60, is a onetime Oxford don and chief economist for HSBC (HBC) who now runs Capital Economics, a London consulting firm. Operating out of a 19th-century Victorian townhouse near Buckingham Palace, the bald, bespectacled son of a civil servant confidently advises major banks and hedge funds from New York to Beijing. But away from the office he isn't much of a risk-taker. Bootle likes to unwind at England's famous Ascot Racecourse, where he wagers no more than "five or 10 quid just so I have a horse to cheer home."
One Third Of Athens Businesses Shuttered
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Two weeks ago we showed the human aspect of the absolute economic collapse in Greece (because depression is too light a word to describe what is happening in this globalist vassal collony) when charting Greek unemployment surging by 1% in one month to 24.4%, and which as of September is likely nearly 30%. What this means in practical tax revenue terms (if the tax collectors were actually doing their job collecting taxes, instead of striking) is that there is nobody generating any economic products and services, and thus no state revenues. Today, Kathimerini confirms this, in a report that almost a third of all business in Athens have now shuttered: "The number of shuttered shops on the capital's busiest commercial streets, Panepistimiou and Stadiou, also hit a record high in August, reaching 34.7 percent on Panepistimiou and 42 percent on Akadimias, up 14 percent in the last six months." And so the close loop continues as fewer businesses are around to hire less people, generating less state revenue, encouraging less businesses to open and so on, until the entire country collapses in a heap of worthless debt.
Last Tango in Argentina?
By Sin-ming Shaw - Project-Syndicate.org
BUENOS AIRES – Argentina and economic crisis, it can sometimes seem, have been conjoined since the country's birth, like Siamese twins. In fact, Argentina is the only developed country that has succeeded, in the period from World War II until today, in mismanaging its way out of the First World.
But, for all their failings, Argentina's ruling elites have never been short on "attitude," viewing their country as the equal of the world's strongest, and thus never afraid to stand up to them all.
Geithner under attack for 'protecting' Citi Bair labels Treasury secretary 'bail-outer in chief'
By Shahien Nasiripour in Washington
Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, acted to shield Citigroup's bondholders and management from accountability at the height of the financial crisis while taxpayers were left on the hook, a former US bank regulator has alleged.
Sheila Bair, who served as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp during the crisis and its aftermath, levelled fresh attacks at Mr Geithner, the Obama administration, fellow financial regulators and bankers such as Vikram Pandit, Citi's chief executive, in a new book that has laid bare policy disagreements of the past few years.
Falling profits spell trouble ahead Corporate earnings are canaries in coal mine
By Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — After a lengthy skein of yearly gains, quarterly corporate profits are falling — a sign that the economy may soon decline as well.
While professing optimism over the outlook for 2013, when they examine the current quarter, a growing number of pundits have come to the conclusion that the near term is not quite as rosy.
According to The Wall Street Journal, S&P 500 earnings are expected to decline in the current quarter compared with the same period last year.
The 30 Year Decline of American Entrepreneurship
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.om
America is obsessed with its entrepreneurs, perhaps now more than ever. We seem to worship them, as Malcolm Gladwell has put it, treating men like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg as "our new prophets."
Yet, for all the attention we lavish on successful start-up founders as a culture, the unavoidable truth is that we're becoming less entrepreneurial as an economy. For roughly 30 years, new businesses have made up a steadily shrinking portion of companies in the United States while generating a declining fraction of new jobs.
Sikorsky Aircraft to close New York plant, cut 570 jobs
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BIG FLATS, N.Y. — Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., citing declining military budgets and a tough economy, said it will close its plant in upstate New York and eliminate all 570 jobs.
Employees at the 5-year-old facility, where the ranks have dwindled from a peak of 1,300, were told Monday that the plant would close as of Dec. 31 and its work transitioned to Sikorsky's facility in West Palm Beach, Fla.
"Faced with these difficult economic conditions we must eliminate excess production capacity and increase operational efficiencies to remain competitive," said Paul Jackson, a spokesman for the Stratford, Conn.-based subsidiary of United Technologies Corp.
Why Facebook Stock Has Much Farther to Fall
BY DIANE ALTER, Contributing Writer, Money Morning
After Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the public earlier this month to stem concerns over the stock's steep and steady fall, Facebook shares enjoyed a mild rally.
That was fun for investors while it lasted.
Facebook stock Monday renewed its descent, dropping 11% before stabilizing a bit to finish the day down 8.3% at $20.79.
Monday's intraday decline was the steepest since July 27. It was so sharp it tripped Nasdaq's circuit breakers meant to shield investors from short-seller manipulation.
Can Facebook Possibly Build a Business Model
That Isn't Inherently Creepy?
by Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
That question is meant 100% seriously. The issue isn't that I find Facebook creepy. I don't, really. But today's story about the company tracking drug store purchases to display more relevant ads to users is a good example of the tension between social media and social mores.
For now, Facebook uses aggregated information about the lives of its hundreds of millions of users to place relevant ads next to pictures and stories from our friends. That's how it makes money. Our information is currency. More information makes better ads with better click-throughs at better rates for Facebook.
Facebook Now Knows What You're Buying at Drug Stores
By REBECCA GREENFIELD - TheAtlantic.com
In an attempt to give advertisers more information about the effectiveness of ads, Facebook has partnered with Datalogix, a company that "can track whether people who see ads on the social networking site end up buying those products in stores," as The Financial Times's Emily Steel and April Dembosky explain. Advertisers have complained that Facebook doesn't give them any way to see if ads lead to buying. This new partnership is their response. The service will link up the 70 million households worth of purchasing information that Datalogix has with Facebook profiles so they can see if the ads you see changes the stuff you buy and tell advertisers whether their ads are working. Up until now, the social network has been limited to only tracking your Internet life (on and off Facebook.com) with its ubiquitous "like" buttons, but as promised, the future of Facebook is more focused on data, including tracking our offline habits.
A TV As Thin As Saran Wrap
is Just the Beginning For these New Materials
BY MICHAEL A. ROBINSON, Defense and Technology Specialist, Money Morning
Call it the "Graphene Factor"...
Discovered in 2004, this radical new material made from a single carbon atom has turned the world on its ear.
Since then, experts around the globe have heralded graphene as the hot new commodity that could change everything from satellites to semiconductors.
As it turns out, graphene is only a part of a much bigger story about a new generation of smart materials.
In fact, I've discovered five new materials besides graphene that will change the world, making early investors a fortune along the way.
Half Of Americans Making Under $30K
Have Less Than $100 In Savings
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As we noted earlier, the main reason for the surge in consumer "confidence" in September was the near record surge in sentiment for those making $15,000-$25,000, which soared from 43.5 to 62.4 in the month, the most since April 2009. And whether this was due to their forecast of the future, and expectation that things will get much better, or not, we don't know, what we do know is that half all of those people whose sentiment defined the market tone today, and who may be quite instrumental in the outcome of the upcoming election (per Mitt Romney), have less than $100 in cash savings. full survey results here
Staples picks up pace of closings in U.S., Europe
ByThe Washington Times
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Staples is speeding up the closures of more than a dozen U.S. stores and plans to close 45 stores and some delivery businesses in Europe.
The office supply company also says it will invest more in its online and mobile efforts and will expand the product assortment that it offers to its business customers.
Staples Inc. said Tuesday that these moves and other actions are part of a strategic plan to better serve customers' needs and accelerate growth.
It's Getting Pretty Expensive
to Have a 'Free Checking' Account
By ALEXANDER ABAD-SANTOS - TheAtlantic.com
Thanks to U.S. banks upping fees and modifying minimum-balance rules, so-called "free checking" accounts are the most expensive they've ever been in history. In fact, chances are that unless you've got $723 in your "free checking" account, you're probably paying for it. That is the average minimum balance that bank customers in the U.S. must have in order to avoid a monthly fee on "free" checking accounts that pay no interest. That's up 23 percent from last year, according to a survey from Bankrate Inc., a research/data firm that analyzed 477 checking account offerings at 247 banks.
Premium hikes for top Medicare drug plans
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR - APNews.MyWay.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of seniors enrolled in some of the most popular Medicare prescription drug plans face double-digit premium hikes next year if they don't shop for a better deal, says a private firm that analyzes the highly competitive market.
Seven of the top 10 prescription plans are raising their premiums by 11 percent to 23 percent, according to a report this week by Avalere Health.
NFL ref blunder has Vegas worried
By Chris Isidore - Fortune.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Football fans are outraged -- and Las Vegas is worried.
The National Football League has relied on replacement referees in the first three weeks of its season after it locked out the unionized refs in a dispute over pension plans and work rules.
The replacement refs have been widely criticized, and that criticism became a firestorm late Monday when a refs' call at the end of the Green Bay Packers-Seattle Seahawks game resulted in a Seattle win -- to the shock of millions watching at home. Even the NFL issued a statement saying the Packers should have won the game, but it refused to overturn the call.
Betting Site to Refund Bets on Outcome of Packers/Seahawks Game Some Bettors Get Relief on Game Decided by Botched Call
By SAM BORDEN - NYTimes.com
While it remains to be seen what, if anything, Commissioner Roger Goodell and the N.F.L. are going to do about the controversial ending to the game Monday night between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers, the gambling world — which was boosted by the replacement referees' decision on the game's final play, as significant money was bet on the Packers — appears to be showing at least a little compassion.
One sports betting Web site was refunding wagers on the Packers, who appeared to be robbed of a victory after the league's crew of replacement officials botched the final play of the game, ruling an apparent Green Bay interception in the end zone to be a Seattle touchdown instead.
The NFL's Night of Horror:
'I Don't Think This Changes Anything,'
Says Sports Economist
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
A terrible mistake by replacement referees at the end of last night's football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers inflamed the online community of NFL fans, who are demanding that the league end the referee lockout and bring back the professionals.
But David Berri, a sports economist with Southern Utah University and the author of The Wages of Wins, has a different take. Here is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Set the scene. What's this whole NFL referee lockout about?
The refs are looking for more money and security, and the NFL is saying: 'We don't think you're that important. We don't think you're irreplaceable.'
Politicians grab political football, run with it
Substitute refs hit from sidelines
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
Finally, Republicans and Democrats have found grounds for bipartisan agreement: It's time to get the regular referees back on the field for the NFL.
President Obama, who didn't find much time to meet one-on-one with any foreign leaders at the United Nations this week, did catch up on the infamous Monday night game between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks, saying a questionable last-second touchdown call shows why the league needs to get back the regular refs, who are locked out by the owners in nasty labor dispute.
America's Election and the Global Economy
By Michael Boskin - Project-Syndicate.org
STANFORD – As America's elections approach, with President Barack Obama slightly in front of his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, pollsters still rate the races for control of the presidency and the United States Senate too close to call, with the House of Representatives likely to remain in Republican hands. The differences between the candidates are considerable, and highly consequential for American economic policy and the global economy, although enactment of their programs will depend on the makeup of Congress.
Why the 2012 election will be another inside job
By Charles Ferguson - CapitalismWithoutFailure.com
While Romney and Obama trade insults about who's the worse Washington insider, the reality is both are in hock to Big Money
Last week, Mitt Romney and President Obama traded insults in a most amazing way, reminding us that success in American politics these days requires two things: saying the most absurd things with a straight face, and maximizing the appearance of differences with your opponent, while minimizing their reality. Consider …
Obama:
"I've learned some lessons. Most important is you can't change Washington from inside, only from the outside."
Romney:
"He said he can't change Washington from inside. He can only change it from outside. I can change Washington. I will change Washington. We'll get the job done from the inside."
Obama:
"What kind of inside job is he talking about? Is it the job of rubber-stamping the top-down, you're-on-your-own agenda of this Republican Congress? Because if it is, we don't want it … We don't want an inside job in Washington."
Obama Versus Obama
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
Many voters will be comparing Mitt Romney with Barack Obama between now and election day. But what might be even more revealing would be comparing Obama with Obama. There is a big contrast between Obama based on his rhetoric ("Obama 1") and Obama based on his record ("Obama 2").
For example, during the 2008 election campaign, Obama 1 spoke of "opening up and creating more transparency in government," so that government spending plans would be posted on the Internet for days before they passed into legislation. After he was elected president, Obama said, "My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government."
10 Reasons Mitt Will Win
By David Limbaugh - PatriotPost.us
Call me Pollyannaish, but I believe Mitt Romney will defeat Barack Obama in November. Let me give you some of my reasons:
1) Romney's campaign message is essentially positive; Obama's is overwhelmingly negative. People always prefer promises of something better, but Americans are especially hungry now because times are very tough. Romney is offering concrete and realistic plans to help America grow again and create millions of new jobs. Romney's message and agenda appeal to all Americans, not just certain groups, and tell them they are not imprisoned in their current economic "station" as Obama would have them believe. Though Obama's promises of "hope and change" in 2008 were vague, at least he presented them as something positive. Today he tells us we must accept an America in decline both internationally and domestically. He insists that 8 percent unemployment is the new normal and that we must adjust to the malaise because it is going to take a long time to make a dent in it.
Something I read:
In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling "targeted killing" of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts.
This narrative is false.
These are the first words of a devastating report I've just read, "Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan".
This thing is required reading.
This isn't some half-assed, crazed droolings of some hippy-dippy Lefty twerp who ought to get a bath and a haircut: This was written by Stanford and New York University lawyers—and it shows. It's clearly and devastatingly written, with the facts, testimony and evidence so scrupulously laid out that it's almost like the brief for the prosecution of the war crimes trial that we can only pray will one day take place.
Take the Test to See If You Might Be Considered
a "Potential Terrorist" By Government Officials
By Washington's blog - Ritholtz.com
There have been so many anti-terrorism laws passed since 9/11 that it is hard to keep up on what kinds of things might get one on a "list" of suspected bad guys.
We've prepared this quick checklist so you can see if you might be doing something which might get hassled.
The following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a "suspected terrorist" today:
Watch Your Tongue: Law Enforcement Speech Recognition System Stores Millions of Voices
By Ryan Gallagher - Slate.com
Intercepting thousands of phone calls is easy for government agencies. But quickly analyzing the calls and identifying the callers can prove a difficult task.
Now one company believes it has solved the problem—with a countrywide biometric database designed to store millions of people's "voice-prints."
Russia's Speech Technology Center, which operates under the name SpeechPro in the United States, has invented what it calls "VoiceGrid Nation," a system that uses advanced algorithms to match identities to voices. The idea is that it enables authorities to build up a huge database containing up to several million voices—of known criminals, persons of interest, or people on a watch list. Then, when authorities intercept a call and they're not sure who is speaking, the recording is entered into the VoiceGrid and it comes up with a match. It takes just five seconds to scan through 10,000 voices, and so long as the recording is decent quality and more than 15 seconds in length, the accuracy, SpeechPro claims, is at least 90 percent.
FTC: Rented computers spied on customers,
secretly snapped pics
By Brendan Sasso - TheHill.com
The Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement on Tuesday with seven computer rental companies over charges that the companies used software to spy on their customers.
The FTC said the companies captured screenshots, logged keystrokes and even activated the computer webcams to take pictures of people in their homes. The customers were not told about the spying software.
Gov. Brown gives green light to driverless cars in California
By Sarah McBride
MOUNTAIN VIEW | Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:03pm EDT
(Reuters) - California took the fast lane to the future on Tuesday when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that lets self-driving cars onto public roads.
Brown rode to the signing ceremony at Google Inc headquarters in the passenger seat of a vehicle that steered itself, a Prius modified by Google. Google co-founder Sergey Brin and State Sen. Alex Padilla, who sponsored the bill, were along for the ride. An engineer for the technology company, Chris Urmson, sat in the driver's seat, but the car drove itself.
Is Technology Making Us Less Human?
by Andrea Kuszewski - Qualcomm.com
This article is one-half of a point-counterpoint with Ray Kurzweil's article, "The Man-Machine Merger."
I'm sitting in this café in Silicon Valley, watching conversations flowing between Macs, tablets, mobile devices, and their owners. I'm imagining the volume of information that is being streamed back and forth just from this one, small public space. That thought blows my mind.
Never have we had greater access to knowledge than we do right now—limitless information just a few clicks away, the line between man and machine increasingly blurred. But what are we sacrificing when we tether our brains to our mobile devices, relying on them to tell us when we're hungry, where we should go for cocktails, what driving route we should take, and what we should buy our significant others for their birthdays? Is all of this connectivity helping us to evolve into a more intelligent species, as some futurists speculate, or is this actually hurting us?
The Man-Machine Merger
by Andrea Kuszewski - Qualcomm.com
This article is one half of a point-counterpoint with Andrea Kuszewski's article, "Is Technology Making Us Less Human?" Will human intelligence one day rely on computational power and processing speed? Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil says yes.
QUALCOMM SPARK: Besides "brain extenders" like smartphones and computers, is there any other evidence of the merge between man and machine?
KURZWEIL: Yes, there are people who already have computers in their brains. Dr. Benabid first demonstrated this with Parkinson's patients. With a neural implant, the symptom of rigidity would disappear and they would suddenly come alive and could walk around. This is one example of many. We're all handicapped in what we can remember, what our minds can do. We create tools to extend our reach.
How Mind-Controlled Devices Will Change Our Future
by Tan Le - Qualcomm.com
On a Sunday night nine years ago, I arrived home for a family dinner, greeted at the door by my sister. It took no more than a few seconds for her to notice that I wasn't my usual cheery self. She knew the exact remedy to liven me up: a bowl of Mum's delicious soup and our favorite '80s playlist, which got both of us grooving and singing along. Before long, I was laughing joyfully, my worries and concerns temporarily suspended.
These simple steps were so obvious to my sister, yet completely out of the realm of possibility for a computer. Computing applications primarily respond to what you explicitly direct them to do. They can't observe your mood or feelings and respond intuitively. I couldn't help but wonder back then whether it might be possible to introduce this whole realm of human interaction to human-computer interaction. Could technology be developed that not only understands what you direct it to do, but also knows how to respond to your facial expressions, moods, and emotional cues?
Defense firm to close plant, cut 570 jobs
By Jeremy Herb - TheHill.com
The Pentagon's budget crunch has pushed defense contractor Sikorsky to close a plant in upstate New York and cut about 570 jobs, the company said Tuesday.
Sikorsky, a subsidiary of United Technologies, informed employees at its facility in Horseheads, N.Y., on Monday that it would close the plant at the end of the year and move the work to West Palm Beach, Fla.
The helicopter manufacturer cited "declining defense budgets" and continuing economic weakness as its rationale behind the move.
Woodrow Wilson Obama
By William Murchison - PatriotPost.us
Thus far, we know what the Obama administration won't do in response to the obvious decay of U.S. standing in the Middle East. It won't stop deploring the video for which it originally blamed attacks on our diplomatic facilities in the region, worsened by the murders of our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. It won't schedule a meeting this week between Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and the president, who seems to need more time on the campaign trail. And so on.
What the administration will do to make its attitudes and responses feared throughout the region isn't likely to take up much space in public communications inasmuch as the administration seems generally bent on the projection of softness -- softness of manner and of tongue; softness, if truth be told, of the brain cells.
US pivots toward trouble in West Pacific
By Jian Junbo - ATimes.com
SHANGHAI - The dispute over the territorial sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands (called Senkaku Islands in Japan) in the East China Sea continues to escalate. There is not the slightest sign that either side wants to back off a bit.
Now more and more people in China are beginning to question the role of the United States in this territorial dispute with Japan. Washington repeatedly says it takes no side in it. But it has adopted Senkaku as its official name for the disputed islands and proclaimed that the US-Japan Security Treaty applies to them. And recently, the US and Japan held joint military drills focusing on seizing islands, suggesting that "the United States intends to put pressure on China", commented Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong, of China's National Defense University.
World leaders clash over Syria Ban calls on countries not to assist either side
By Ashish Kumar Sen - The Washington Times
UNITED NATIONS — Sharp differences on how to end Syria's civil war surfaced at the United Nations on Tuesday, as an Arab ruler urged total support for Syrian rebels soon after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admonished nations not to arm either side in the conflict.
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar called on Arab nations to "interfere out of the national, humanitarian, political and military duties and do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria" because the U.N. Security Council has failed to forge an effective position on ending the violence.
Obama uses UN speech to condemn extremism President warns Iran time is running out in UN general assembly speech aimed at resetting relations between US and Arab world
By Julian Borger in New York - Guardian.co.uk
President Barack Obama today sought to reset US relations with the Arab world in the wake of anti-American riots triggered by an amateur video insulting the prophet Mohamed, that led to the death of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.
Obama used his speech to the UN general assembly, expected to be his last major foreign policy address before the November elections, to pay a personal tribute to Stevens, highlighting the murdered diplomat's passion for Arab culture and support for democracy, and present it a model for American-Arab relations.
Obama aims at Ohio and Cairo with speech to the United Nations
By Julian Pecquet and Amie Parnes - TheHill.com
President Obama sought to counter Republican rhetoric that the Middle East is spinning out of control with a speech at the United Nations aimed as much at the angry crowds in Cairo, Egypt, as on-the-fence voters in Ohio.
Obama called on the gathered leaders to "seize this moment" and "speak out forcefully against violence and extremism," adding that "real freedom is hard work."
Obama garbles U.S. history in human trafficking speech
By Dave Boyer and Susan Crabtree-The Washington Times
NEW YORK — President Obama called on nations Tuesday to end the modern slavery of human trafficking and, in the process, got his U.S. Civil War history a bit garbled.
In making an impassioned plea for the international community to crack down on trafficking, Mr. Obama pointed out that his speech at the Clinton Global Initiative was taking place a few days after the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862.
"With the advance of Union forces, it brought a new day — that all persons held as slaves would thenceforth be forever free," Mr. Obama said.
"How would you cry when the spears of the enemies are broken on your waist? And your body is the battleground between your big murderer and your small murderer, where could you send the call?" - Mahmoud Darwish, "Fi Intizar al-barabira [Waiting for the Barbarians]," Al-Karmel, 1987
On September 24, as the UN General Assembly waited to inaugurate its annual session, Lakhdar Brahimi went before the UN Security Council. As the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria after the failed mission of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Brahimi has a very stiff task. The "civil war" in Syria has consumed 20,000 lives, with 235,000 Syrians removed to Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey and an additional 1.2 million Syrians displaced inside the country.
Ahmadinejad pushes new world order
By EDITH M. LEDERER
and WENDY BEN JAMINSON - APNews.MyWay.com
NEW YORK (AP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that a new world order needs to emerge, away from years of American "bullying" and domination.
Ahmadinejad spoke to The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly - his last as president of Iran.
He also discussed solutions for Syria, dismissed the question of Iran's nuclear ambition and claimed that despite Western sanctions his country is better off than it was when he took office in 2005.
Iconic Israeli newspaper of the verge of collapse
By ARON HELLER - APNews.MyWay.com
JERUSALEM (AP) - Throughout much of Israel's history, the Maariv daily was known as the "country's paper," the newspaper with the highest circulation and a cornerstone of Israeli media. Now it is on its last legs - the victim, some say, of a Jewish-American billionaire who is a close friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson launched his free "Israel Hayom" or "Israel Today" daily five years ago. The tabloid has steadily gobbled up market share since then. Handed out by ubiquitous distributors clad in red overalls at busy intersections, it has become the most read newspaper in Israel.
China, Japan And The Senkaku Islands:
The Roots Of Conflict Go Back To 1274 Sensitivity to domination, aggression
and loss of face run deep in East Asia.
by Charles Hugh Smith - ZeroHedge.com
Longtime correspondent Cheryl A. asked me to comment on the dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. I am happy to oblige, as this raises a great number of deeply intertwined issues that are playing out in Asia.
Let's start by noting the "stranger than fiction" absurdity of privately owned islands in ambiguous-nationality waters off China--the scenario of Bruce Lee's classic martial arts film Enter the Dragon. The plot revolves around an ex-Shaolin monk engaged in the drug and prostitution trade who has acquired a private island with murky nationality where he stages martial arts competitions of "epic proportions."
Security forces on high alert as Israel marks Yom Kippur Full closure on West Bank in place until after Day of Atonement ends; large police forces deployed in Jerusalem; train and bus services ceased.
By JPOST.COM
Security and rescue forces were on high alert and deployed in large numbers in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank for Yom Kippur, which begins Tuesday afternoon and ends Wednesday at dusk.
Ahead of the holiday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz ordered a 48-hour closure of West Bank and Gaza Strip border crossings beginning Monday at 11:59pm and continuing until Wednesday at 11:59pm, the IDF Spokesman's Office said Monday.
Obama: US will 'do what it must' to stop Iran nukes US president at UNGA will tell Tehran "time not unlimited" for talks, but will stop short of meeting PM's demand for "red lines."
By REUTERS - JPost.com
NEW YORK - US President Barack Obama will warn Iran on Tuesday that the United States will "do what we must" to prevent it acquiring a nuclear weapon, and appeal to world leaders for a united front against further attacks on US diplomatic missions in Muslim countries.
Preparing to take the podium at the United Nations six weeks before the US presidential election, Obama hopes to counter criticism of his foreign record by Republican rival Mitt Romney, who has accused him of mishandling the Arab Spring uprisings, damaging ties with Israel and not being tough enough on Iran.
Iran test-fires missiles designed to hit warships
AP - MyFOXDC.com
TEHRAN, Iran -
Iranian military leaders gave details of a new long-range drone and test fired four anti-ship missiles Tuesday in a prelude to upcoming naval war games planned in an apparent response to U.S.-led warship drills in the Persian Gulf.
The show of Iranian military readiness and its latest tool -- a domestically made drone capable of reaching Israel and most of the Middle East -- also came as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepared to address the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday amid a deepening impasse with the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Iran unveils new long-range drone
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and NASSER KARIMI - APNews.MyWay.com
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian military leaders gave details of a new long-range drone and test fired four anti-ship missiles Tuesday in a prelude to upcoming naval war games planned in an apparent response to U.S.-led warship drills in the Persian Gulf.
The show of Iranian military readiness and its latest tool - a domestically made drone capable of reaching Israel and most of the Middle East - also came as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepared to address the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday amid a deepening impasse with the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
"Do You Own Gold?" Ray Dalio at CFR: "Oh Yeah, I Do"
BY MARK O'BYRNE - FinancialSense.com
....Ray Dalio, founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, L.P. and one of the most successful hedge fund managers of all time told Maria Bartiromo last week that he owns gold and that he sees no "sensible reason not to own gold".
The interview was part of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Corporate Program's CEO Speaker Series, which provides a forum for leading global CEOs to share their priorities and insights before a high-level audience of wealthy and influential CFR members.
Manipulation of the Gold Price & the Crash of Paper Gold
By Jeff Thomas - GoldSilverWorlds.com
There is much discussion these days as to whether the price of gold is being manipulated. The answer is simply "yes."
It is likely that most potential gold investors would agree that the major financial institutions have theability to influence the gold price. They would also agree that to do so would be of benefit to those institutions. Yet, many investors still have difficulty making the final leap to agree that, if the institutions can manipulate the gold price and, by doing so, will profit from it, they will actually manipulate the price. Odd, as this would seem to me to be the easiest of the three premises to accept.
Don't Miss the Big Show in Silver
By John Thomas - OilPrice.com
Those transfixed by gold blasting through the $1,750 level have been missing the real action in silver. The white metal has soared 34% to $34 since the beginning of the year, compared to only a 14% move for the barbaric relic, an outperformance of 2.4 to one. I have been a raging bull on the precious metals space since early August. Silver gives you additional diversification into the space with that extra bit of spice on the volatility side.
Does China Plan a Gold-backed Renminbi?
By Ronald-Peter Stoeferle - GoldSilverWorlds.com
We expect the Chinese central bank to continue gradually accumulating gold, and we think that it might be planning a gold backing for the renminbi. If that were to happen, international acceptance would soar. Not for nothing was the enormous amount of gold reserves in the United States (N.B. the US reserves were at 29,663 tonnes in 1953) along with military dominance a central reason for the US dollar becoming the global reserve currency.
G-20 Agree
More Government Action Needed for World Recovery
By Nacha Cattan and Eric Martin - Bloomberg.com
Group of 20 officials meeting in Mexico City agreed that the latest monetary easing by developed nations will buy time for the global economic recovery and that governments must do more to boost growth, Mexican central bank Deputy Governor Manuel Ramos Francia said.
Ramos Francia spoke at a news conference following the end of a two-day meeting of deputy finance ministers and central bank officials from G-20 nations in Mexico City. Mexico is presiding over the group this year.
QE3, Deleveraging, and Radical Monetary Management
BY DOUGLAS NOLAND - FinancialSense.com
"De-leveraging" discussions have been intriguing. Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio has been public with his framework. According to Mr. Dalio, deleveraging can be broken down into three processes: Austerity, debt restructuring and money printing. He has even referred to the ongoing "beautiful deleveraging" here in the U.S. that has supposedly found the right mix of austerity, restructuring and printing appropriate to ward of deflation while promoting slow growth.
Fed May Need to Boost QE 'Dramatically' This Year: Pros
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
The Federal Reserve's latest easing move has been nicknamed everything from "QE3" to "QE Infinity" to "QEternal," but some on Wall Street question whether the unprecedented move will be QEnough.
With unemployment remaining high and the effects of previous Fed-sponsoredquantitative easing programs a matter of debate, the central bank is embarking on a round of mortgage-backed securities purchases that will last until the jobless rate comes down to acceptable levels.
From Morgan Stanley chief equity strategist Adam Parker's point of view, the Fed soon will find its new program inadequate.
QE4? The Big Wall Street Banks
Are Already Complaining That QE3 Is Not Enough
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
QE3 has barely even started and some folks on Wall Street are already clamoring for QE4. In fact, as you will read below, one equity strategist at Morgan Stanley says that he would not be "surprised" if the Federal Reserve announced another new round of money printing by the end of the year. But this is what tends to happen when a financial system starts becoming addicted to easy money. There is always a deep hunger for another "hit" of "currency meth". Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was probably hoping that QE3 would satisfy the wolves on Wall Street for a while. His promise to recklessly print 40 billion dollars a month and use it to buy mortgage-backed securities is being called "QEInfinity" by detractors. During QE3, nearly half a trillion dollars a year will be added to the financial system until the Fed decides that it is time to stop. This is so crazy that even former Federal Reserve officials are speaking out against it. For example, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker says that QE3 is the "most extreme easing of monetary policy" that he could ever remember. But the big Wall Street banks are never going to be satisfied.
Paul Volcker: ring-fencing banks is not enough Ring fencing Britain's banks will not protect taxpayers in the event of another financial crisis, according to Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve and the architect of the "Volcker Rule".
By Helia Ebrahimi - Telegraph.co.uk
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Volcker said that plans to force banks in the UK to ring-fence their traditional retail arms from "casino" investment divisions would not work in the event of a bail out. Ringfencing, he said, would only work in "fair-weather" conditions but not when banks were under pressure.
"In my experience ring-fencing is not terribly effective," said Mr Volcker. "It only works in fair-weather. But doesn't work in foul weather. They have already run into problems and they are bound to run into more."
IMF chief Lagarde warns of renewed global downturn,
urges U.S., Europe to act
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
The United States and Europe need to speed key political decisions to help keep the weakening global economy from sinking under high debt and unemployment, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Monday.
The ongoing crisis in Europe, U.S. fiscal problems and a developing slowdown in Asia are threatening even deeper problems, Lagarde said, and have triggered new worries about waning momentum for action still needed to address some of the issues behind the 2008 financial crisis.
Václav Klaus warns that the destruction
of Europe's democracy may be in its final phase 'Two-faced' politicians have opened the door to an EU superstate by giving up on democracy, Václav Klaus, the veteran Czech statesman, tells Bruno Waterfield.
By Bruno Waterfield, Prague - Telegraph.co.uk
The new push for a European Union federation, complete with its own head of state and army, is the "final phase" of the destruction of democracy and the nation state, the president of the Czech Republic has warned.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Václav Klaus warns that "two-faced" politicians, including the Conservatives, have opened the door to an EU superstate by giving up on democracy, in a flight from accountability and responsibility to their voters.
Bundesbank castigates IMF for saving Europe Germany's central bank has launched a blistering attack on the International Monetary Fund, accusing officials of spraying around money like confetti and overstepping their legal mandate.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"The IMF is evolving from a liquidity mechanism into a bank. This is neither in keeping with the legal and institutional role of the IMF or with its ability to handle risks," said the Bundesbank in its monthly report.
The bank said the Fund was right to help rescue Greece, Ireland and Portugal but said monitoring levels were slipping and there had been a "watering down" of standards. The scale of loans risks "overwhelming the IMF's institutional structure".
IMF hints at more time for Greece to implement hardline austerity Managing director Christine Lagarde says IMF 'prepared to be flexible' – saying both growth and austerity are necessary
By Larry Elliott and Giles Tremlett - The Guardian
The International Monetary Fund dropped the broadest of hints on Monday night that it would give Greece more time to implement its hardline cuts programme as it warned that Europe posed a "critical risk" to a weakening global economy.
Christine Lagarde, the Fund's managing director, said the Washington-based institution was "prepared to be flexible" and said both growth and austerity were needed to put an end to a crisis which will next month again force the IMF to cut its global growth forecasts.
The Road to Serfdom in Venezuela
BY JR NYQUIST - FinancialSense.com
For the past thirteen years Venezuela has been moving away from a market economytowards a socialist economy under the leadership of Hugo Chavez. And now the future of Venezuelan socialism hangs in the balance. Or does it? A few days ago I spoke with Eric Ekvall, an American political consultant who has lived and worked in Venezuela since that country's 1982 presidential election. Ekvall has helped with the election campaigns of such notables as Venezuela's Jaime Ramón Lusinchi in 1983, Costa Rica's Oscar Arias in 1985, and Brazil's Lula da Silva in 1993. I asked Ekvall about the ongoing re-election bid of Venezuela's ailing Hugo Chavez, especially as President Chavez has been in power for thirteen years and continues to build socialism there. Given the downgrading of the country'seconomy, how could Chavez possibly expect to win yet another election?
Crisis Replay… Soon Argentina Will Be on Sale Again
By Ronan McMahon - DailyReckoning.com
09/20/12 Just over a decade ago Argentina spectacularly unraveled with the biggest default in history — $100 billion. Dollar deposits were converted to pesos. Then, overnight, the peg of one-to-one with the dollar was broken. The unpegged currency immediately devalued. Savings were wiped out. Banks were set alight and locals took to the streets in protest.
That crisis created the biggest buying opportunity of a decade. During the fire sales you could have picked up a historic, high-end property in Buenos Aires or a vineyard in Mendoza for a song.
Today, Argentina is back in a bind. There is a strong possibility of another crack-up within the next year. And then we'll have the same opportunity we had a decade ago. The signs are all there. The streets of Buenos Aires have recently seen the return of the backstreet currency exchange.
Liking It Or Not, States Prepare for Health Law
By: Abby Goodnough - NYTimes - CNBC.com
Like many Republican governors, Jan Brewer of Arizona is a stinging critic of President Obama's health care law. When the Supreme Court upheld it in June, she called the ruling "an overreaching and unaffordable assault on states' rights and individual liberty."
Yet the Brewer administration is quietly designing an insurance exchange — one of the most essential and controversial requirementsof the law. Officials in a handful of other Republican-led states say they are also working to have a framework ready by Nov. 16, the deadline for states to commit to running an exchange or leave it to the federal government to run it for them. That is just 10 days after Election Day, which is likely to decide the future of the law.
The Fed's US Land-Grab
Hidden Within Purchase of Mortgage-Backed Securities
By Susanne Posel - Infowars.com
As of August 9th of this year, the banks are legally allowed to co-mingle customer segregated funds with their own if the financial institution is insolvent, under duress or in bankruptcy. In other words, the technocrats have made the theft that Jon Corzine committed a non-criminal offense.
The latest scheme of the banking cartels has been introduced as QE3, which is nothing more than a massive land-grab in the domestic US by the technocrats under the guise of purchasing the mortgage-backed securities through the Federal Reserve to alleviate the pressure the banks are feeling from the bait-and-switch they caused.
Americans Are Literally Being Worked To Death
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Are you constantly tired and do you feel incredibly stressed almost all the time? Well, that means that there is a really good chance that you are a typical American worker. Even though our incomes are going down, Americans are spending more time at work than ever before. In fact, U.S. workers spend more time at work than anyone else in the world. But it was not always this way. Back in 1970, the average work week for an American worker was about 35 hours. Today, it is up to 46 hours. But there are other major economies around the globe that are doing just fine without burning their workers out. For example, the average American worker spends 378 more hours working per year than the average German worker does. Sadly, for many Americans work is not even finished once they leave the office. According to one recent survey, the average American worker spends an extra seven hours per week on work tasks such as checking emails and answering phone calls after normal work hours have finished. Other Americans are juggling two or three jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Americans are busier than ever and work is often pushing the other areas of our lives on to the back burner.
In Stamps We Trust:
Paving the Road to Prosperity with Food Stamps
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
...."SNAP [i.e. food stamps] is the only public benefit program which also serves as an economic stimulus," the FNS asserts, "creating an economic boost that ripples throughout the economy when new SNAP benefits are redeemed. By generating business at local grocery stores, new SNAP benefits trigger labor and production demand, ultimately increasing household income and triggering additional spending… Increases in food stamp benefits can stimulate additional economic activity. Every five percentage point increase in the national participation rate [in food stamp usage] would generate a total of $2.2 billion in economic activity."
The FNS calls the economic benefit of its activities the "multiplier effect." We call it the "broken window fallacy." Fixing a broken window generates "economic activity." But that doesn't mean breaking windows produces prosperity. Likewise, feeding the poor creates economic activity, but that doesn't mean increasing the number of people who receive food stamps produces prosperity.
GAO: Obama Administration Flip-Flopping
on Welfare Waiver Authority
By Matt Cover - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – A new reportfrom the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had previously stated that it did not have the legal authority to waive the work requirements of welfare, precisely the opposite of what the Obama administration now claims.
The finding comes from a Sept. 19 report issued to Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) examining if there was any precedent for the Obama administration's July announcement that it would begin issuing waivers of the work requirements for welfare.
Education Nation: Rural Arkansas Town Rethinks High School
By: Jane Wells - CNBC.com
A group of students in a high school gym hovers over a remote controlled robot while it shoots basketballs from the free throw line with better precision than Dwight Howard. They built and programmed the robot themselves, and it won first prize in a global robotics competition.
In a classroom nearby, other students are studying leeches recently used in microsurgery to reattach a severed hand.
And down the hall, a third group of students is working on a team building exercise—competing against each other to build the tallest tower using nothing more than marshmallows and toothpicks. "We need to break these right here," says one student, as the exercise tests their communication skills and math.
Olive oil prices to soar after Spanish drought devastates crop Loss of 600,000 tonnes of olives will force huge price rise on British shoppers
By Rupert Neate, The Observer - Guardian.co.uk
A fresh oil crisis is brewing. However, this time it won't be hitting the garage forecourts but the nation's kitchens.
The wholesale price of extra virgin olive oil has jumped 62% in three months after a severe drought in Spain, the world's largest producer, wiped out an estimated 600,000 tonnes of production.
Curing Diabetes with "Self Cell Therapy"
By Patrick Cox - DailyReckoning.com
09/21/12 Marco Island, Florida – My publisher tells me that I should focus on writing dramatic headlines. Is "Curing Diabetes" dramatic enough?
If you've studied diabetes, you have almost certainly "learned" that there is no cure for the disease. Stem cell scientists, in fact, have encountered particular challenges trying to create the pancreatic beta cells that naturally produce insulin. This has led many observers to conclude that diabetics are doomed to the daily routine of glucose monitoring and insulin injections.
Feds scramble to halt stink bug invasion
by Paul Bedard - WashingtonExaminer.com
The stink bug is back and in much bigger numbers than last year, giving fear to a potentially historic outbreak next year that has federal officials scrambling to deploy a killer that will stop the Chinese import's march into 38 states so far.
While last year's breakout was described as mild due to unfriendly weather, this fall's explosion of the brown marmorated stink bug is the second this year, a rare "second generation" of the bug that is now pouring into homes looking for a safe haven until they can emerge next spring to lay eggs.
Washington state's first 'zombie bees' reported;
parasite causes bees to fly erratically, die
AP - WashingtonPost.com
SEATTLE — The infection is as grim as it sounds: "Zombie bees" have a parasite that causes them to fly at night and lurch around erratically until they die.
And experts say the condition has crept into Washington state.
"I joke with my kids that the zombie apocalypse is starting at my house," said Mark Hohn, a novice beekeeper who spotted the infected insects at his suburban Seattle home.
Chinese electronics factory closed after 2,000 riot
By Maxim Duncan and Clare Jim
TAIYUAN, China/TAIPEI | Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:16pm EDT
(Reuters) - About 2,000 Chinese employees of an iPhone assembly company fought a pitched battle into the early hours of Monday, forcing the huge electronics plant where they work to be shut down.
Authorities in the northern city of Taiyuan sent 5,000 police to restore order after what the plant's Taiwanese owners Foxconn Technology Group said was a personal dispute in a dormitory that erupted into a mass brawl.
Caterpillar Cuts 2015 Outlook as Mining Spending Falls
By Shruti Date Singh and Liezel Hill - Bloomberg.com
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), the world's biggest construction and mining equipment maker, cut its forecast for 2015 earnings after commodity producers reduced capital expenditure.
Caterpillar said profit will be $12 to $18 a share, compared with a previous projection of $15 to $20. While a global recession remains possible, Caterpillar is forecasting moderate and "anemic" growth through 2015, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman said today in a presentation to analysts at the MINExpo industry conference in Las Vegas. Construction activity in emerging markets will probably show modest improvements, he said.
Fiat to make U.S. cars in Italy as government mulls incentives
By Paola Arosio and Jennifer Clark
MILAN/TURIN | Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:43am EDT
(Reuters) - Italian carmaker Fiat (FIA.MI) plans to start making cars at its idled Italian factories to sell in the United States, a source close to the matter said on Monday, as the government mulls fiscal and other incentives to help the group's exports.
Chief executive Sergio Marchionne, who also runs majority-owned U.S. carmaker Chrysler, met Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Saturday to discuss how Fiat can keep its factories open at a time when car sales have plunged to their lowest level in 40 years.
Toyota drops plan for widespread sales of electric car
By Yoko Kubota
TOKYO | Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:09am EDT
(Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp has scrapped plans for widespread sales of a new all-electric minicar, saying it had misread the market and the ability of still-emerging battery technology to meet consumer demands.
Toyota, which had already taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars than rivals General Motors Co and Nissan Motor Co, said it would only sell about 100 battery-powered eQ vehicles in the United States and Japan in an extremely limited release.
Iran accuses Germany's Siemens of alleged nuclear sabotage, company denies ties to project
AP - WashingtonPost.com
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran accused Germany's Siemens on Saturday of implanting tiny explosives inside equipment the Islamic Republic purchased for its disputed nuclear program, a charge the technology giant denied.
Prominent lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iranian security experts discovered the explosives and removed them before detonation, adding that authorities believe the booby-trapped equipment was sold to derail uranium enrichment efforts.
Coal and Nuclear Power Can't Substitute for Pricey Oil
By Jeff Rubin - Bloomberg.com
About 40 percent of the world's electric power is generated from burning coal, which is second only to oil in contributing to global energy use.
And affordable coal may soon be running out just as fast as affordable oil is.
No resource can withstand the pressure of an exponential growth in demand. China burned 3.7 billion tons of coal in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, compared with 1.2 billion tons in 2000. Today, China uses almost twice as much coal as the U.S. while possessing only half of its reserves.
Blind, Deaf and Ignorant: 5 Recipes for US Intelligence Failure
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
It was so much easier when it was just the Soviet Union, a clear enemy, even a fun game. So with the 9/11 disaster, America's spy agencies were made to understand that there was a new single enemy in town—Osama bin Laden. The only way to advance your career as a spy was to focus on bin Laden, or at least on al-Qaeda. Countless intelligence failures later, we have Libya.
19 Signs That America Is Being
Systematically
Transformed Into A Giant Surveillance Grid
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
You are being watched. The control freaks that hold power in the United States have become absolutely obsessed with surveillance. They are constantly attempting to convince the American people that we are all "safer" when virtually everything that we do is watched, monitored, tracked and recorded. Our country is being systematically transformed into a giant surveillance grid far more comprehensive than anything George Orwell ever dreamed of. If you still believe that there is such a thing as "privacy" in this day and age, you are being delusional. Every single piece of electronic communication is monitored and stored. In fact, they know that you are reading this article right now. But even if you got rid of all of your electronic devices, you would still be constantly monitored. As you will read about below, a rapidly growing nationwide network of facial recognition cameras, "pre-crime" surveillance devices, voice recorders, mobile backscatter vans, aerial drones and automated license plate readers are constantly feeding data about us back to the government. In addition, private companies involved in "data mining" are gathering literally trillions upon trillions of data points about individual Americans each year.
Globalists Want Chinese-Style Control
for Americans Under Agenda 21
While major metropolitan cities including San Francisco and New York are rolling out tiny micro-apartments, local and rural areas are working by stealth across the United States heartland to implement Agenda 21 containment policies by stealth.
Under HUD grants driven by President Obama's Partnership for Sustainable Communities, regional governments are implementing "smart growth" and "sustainable" policies to force the population into concentrated development patterns that favor insider profits and "green"-branded solutions-- it is a "planned-opolis" vision for the future where the State is God and the individual is subservient to the "greater good."
The Power of the Mormon Church Over Mitt Romney
By William John Cox - GlobalResearch.ca
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's candidacy is only the last in a series of powerful "callings" to the members of his Mormon royal family, extending from his great-great-grandfather Miles Romney, who helped build Joseph Smith's second temple, through his great-great-grandfather Pratt, who was one of Joseph Smith's first Apostles, through his cousin Marion Romney, who served in the First Presidency of the Church, and through his father Michigan Governor George Romney, who tried and failed to be elected president.
Not only because of his royal family, or because of the high positions he and his family have held in the Church and government, Mitt Romney is no ordinary Mormon because he is what is known as an "iron-rodder" in the Church. These are the members who follow "a straight and narrow" path and who "are certain that prophetic revelation and scriptural instruction … will lead them toward a righteous life and, eventually, godhood."
Romney's nightmare scenario
Posted by Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
If things don't start looking better for Mitt Romney soon, they're going to get a lot worse for him, and very quickly.
To understand the Romney campaign's nightmare scenario, you need to understand the Romney campaign's much-vaunted finances. It's become conventional wisdom that the Romney campaign has more money than the Obama campaign. But that's not quite right.
Obama's AARP Speech Broke My BS Detector The President told so many whoppers last Friday
that it fried the machine's circuits.
By DAVID CATRON - Spectator.org
President Obama spoke via satellite to the AARP "Life@50+" convention last Friday morning and I was foolish enough to turn on my patented BS Detector during the event. Unlike the "fact checkers" employed by the MSM, its special BUNK software was written such that it could recognize White House talking points and separate such input from actual facts. It turns out, however, to have had a fatal design flaw. Although I had successfully tested it on several pathological liars, and even a couple of lawyers, it simply didn't have the capacity to process the volume of BS contained in a typical Obama speech. The machine was a smoking hulk by the time the President finished answering the final question from the AARP audience.
Dalio Fears Social Unrest That Led to Hitler's Rise
By: Maneet Ahuja - CNBC Hedge Fund Specialist
Ray Dalio, founder and co-chief investment officer of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, thinks it's likely the euro will survive; however, he does predict a "10 to 15 year managed depression" in Southern Europe. In a worst case scenario, he painted a much darker picture.
"When people get at each other's throat, the rich and the poor and the left and the right and so on, and you have a basic breakdown, that becomes very threatening," Dalio told CNBC in an exclusive interview on"Squawk Box." "For example, Hitler came to power in 1933, which was the depth of the Great Depression, because of the social tension between the factions. So I think it very much is dependent on how the people work this through together and worry about the social elements."
Former US President Carter:
Venezuelan Electoral System "Best in the World"
By Ewan Robertson GlobalResearch.ca
Former US President Jimmy Carter claimed Venezuela's electoral system is "the best in the world" (agencies).
Mérida, 21st September 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Former US President Jimmy Carter has declared that Venezuela's electoral system is the best in the world.
Speaking at an annual event last week in Atlanta for his Carter Centre foundation, the politician-turned philanthropist stated, "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world."
Something Is Wrong Don't look now, but Islam is becoming
the MSM's official religion of America.
By BEN STEIN - Spectator.org
Don't look now, but Islam is becoming the MSM's official religion of America.
Now, it's not just that no one bats an eye at the amazing truth that the United States is beaming TV ads all over Pakistan apologizing for a derogatory Internet trailer for a nonexistent movie demeaning the being that Muslims call "The Prophet Mohammed." No one in the MSM even slightly hints that doing the kowtow in the same country that sheltered Osama bin Laden to a group that reveled in, delighted in the terrorism against American civilians and still provides the framework for the terrorist Haqqani network, might be humiliating and an insult to the memory of the great Americans who were murdered just last week in Libya.
Obama Cancels Meeting With Muslim Brotherhood...But, Why?
By Alex Cortes - CNSNews.com
In July, President Obama invited Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi to the United States and the two were set to meet. But now, when Morsi is actually here, Obama is suddenly cool to meeting with him, so they aren't.
One has to wonder why Obama is suddenly averse to meeting the leader of the government he gave $1.5 billion to and had over to the White House a few months ago?
Obama to address Middle East unrest in UN keynote speech President's speech to general assembly on Tuesday 'a moment for US to assert its values and leadership', White House says
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama will use his keynote speech to the United Nations on Tuesday to confront the violent unrest in the Muslim world in the wake of a US-made anti-Islamic video – and to insist he will not be deflected from support for the Arab spring.
Amid attacks from Mitt Romney and the Republicans on Obama's Middle East record, the White House said the UN speech offered a chance for the president to address the issues raised by the unrest.
House members push Obama
to prevent Ahmadinejad UN speech on Yom Kippur
By Pete Kasperowicz - WashingtonPost.com
A bipartisan group of House members put forward a resolution that calls on the Obama administration to pressure the United Nations to prevent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, which is Yom Kippur.
"An outspoken, anti-Semitic Iranian leader should not be given the opportunity to criticize a Jewish person's right to freely practice religion or denounce Israel's right to exist on the largest international stage," reads the resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and is co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 14 House members.
In New York, defiant Ahmadinejad
says Israel will be "eliminated"
By Louis Charbonneau
(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated," ignoring a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary rhetoric ahead of the annual General Assembly session.
Ahmadinejad also said he did not take seriously the threat that Israel could launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, denied sending arms to Syria, and alluded to Iran's threats to the life of British author Salman Rushdie.
Kudlow: This Issue Could Trump Economy with Voters
By: Lee Brodie, Producer - CNBC.com
Until quite recently, it looked as if the economy was going to be the deciding factor in the election. But that may be about to change.
If new developments are any indication, national security could move front and center with trouble in the Mideast seeming to escalate by the day.
The latest tensionsinvolved Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who made inflammatory remarks about Israel, ahead of an annual UN meeting, saying that Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated."
Ryan says under Obama, Middle East looks like '1979 Tehran'
By Daniel Strauss - TheHill.com
Paul Ryan delivered a blistering speech against President Obama on foreign policy Monday, saying because of the president's policies, the Middle East looks like Tehran during the mob protests on the U.S. embassy in 1979.
Ryan, speaking in Lima, Ohio, was referencing Nov. 4, 1979, when Islamic revolutionaries in Iran attacked the U.S. embassy and took more than 50 Americans hostage. Ryan said that Obama has failed to fulfill promises to bring peace to the Middle East.
Tehran says new drone can reach most Mideast destinations Unmanned airplane design copied from downed American RQ-170 Sentinel, says Iranian general
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A senior Iranian commander says the country's newly produced missile-carrying drone has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), which puts much of the Middle East within operating distance of Iranian territory.
The Monday report by the semiofficial Fars agency quoted Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is aerospace chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.
His description of the aircraft, which Iran first announced last week, is like that of the American RQ-170 Sentinel, one of which went down in Iranian territory last year. Iran said it was building a copy of the RQ-170 in April.
Iranian general threatens pre-emptive strike against Israel, attacks on US bases Head of Revolutionary Guards missile command says confrontation will become World War III
By JOSHUA DAVIDOVICH and AP - Times ofIsrael.com
Israeli preparations to attack Iran could trigger a pre-emptive attack and "World War III," a top-ranking Iranian general told a TV station in the Islamic Republic Sunday.
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the missile command for the Revolutionary Guards, told the country's Arabic-language Al-Aram that as things stood now Iran would not attack, but that could change.
Senate Iran Resolution: De Facto Declaration of War?
Written by Joe Wolverton, II - TheNewAmerican.com
For 26 minutes last Friday night, the sound of war drums reverberating through the Senate chamber were silenced as Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stood and delivered a speech that served as a vehicle for filibuster and a voice of warning against military intervention in yet another Middle Eastern country. "I think a vote for this resolution is a vote for the concept of preemptive war," Paul said.
Senate Resolution 41 is a non-binding measure originally introduced in February and sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bob Casey (D-Penn.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). The Senate passed the resolution late Friday night/early Saturday morning by a vote of 90-1. Senator Paul was the lone dissenting voice.
Hamas signs binding military commitment
to Iran-led war on Israel
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar and deputy commander of its military arm, Marwan Issa, spent the second week of September in Beirut and Tehran finalizing and signing protocols covering a binding commitment by the radical Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to join Iran, Syria and Hizballah in a war on Israel, DEBKAfile's exclusive military sources disclose.
The protocols set out in detail the circumstances, procedures and terms governing Hamas's participation in a conflict, whether it arises from an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program or the involvement of Iran's allies, Syria and Hizballah, in comprehensive or partial hostilities against Israel. Hamas agreed to obey any orders to attack the Jewish state coming from Tehran, Damascus or Beirut.
New York Times a "Propaganda Megaphone" for War,
Says Former Reporter
Written by Alex Newman - TheNewAmerican.com
The New York Times has essentially become a "propaganda megaphone" to peddle the establishment's narrative — especially when it comes to war — charged foreign correspondent Daniel Simpson, who resigned from the paper in disgust. According to Simpson, the paper, which is often lambasted and ridiculed by conservatives and libertarians for its blatant "liberal" bias, is actually just a propaganda tool for the ruling establishment.
Ahmadinejad Tells the New York Press
that he Wants the Elimination of Israel
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York this week for the UN General Assembly, and rather than be on his best behaviour, he has used this event to make another verbal threat against Israel.
On Sunday the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned Ahmadinejad that he should refrain from making any statements that could ignite tensions in the Middle East, yet on Monday the Iranian told reporters that "Iran has been around for the last seven, 10 thousand years. They (the Israelis) have been occupying those territories for the last 60 to 70 years, with the support and force of the Westerners. They have no roots there in history."
Syrian jets bomb Aleppo
as envoy says Bashar al-Assad rejects reforms Opposition sources report 15 people killed in the northern city, and a total of 58 across the country
By Ian Black - The Guardian
Syrian air force planes bombed targets in the northern city of Aleppo, killing 15 people, including three children from one family, according to opposition sources. Fighting was also reported around Damascus and elsewhere across the country.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition network, reported on Monday that at least 58 people had died, including the 15 in Aleppo, where two buildings were hit by bombs dropped by government planes in the southern suburb of Maadi. Video posted online showed people digging through rubble searching for survivors.
Ahmadinejad Meets With 'Useful Idiots' Of 'Occupy'
To Share Anti-Semitic, Anti-American Values
By Dan Gainor - CNSNews.com
The Iranian leader must be running out of anti-capitalists at home, so he comes to New York to find more.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is coming to America to both attend a UN General Assembly meeting and to meet with "American university students, artists, intellectuals and elites, including Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist protestors."
Where else can he find people who are just as anti-American as he is, except American universities and Occupy Wall Street?
Iran could launch pre-emptive Israel strike-commander
(Reuters) - Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state was preparing to attack it, a senior commander of its elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made the comments to Iran's state-run Arabic language Al-Alam television.
All Signs Now Point to Gold
Frank E. Holmes, Guest Writer - MoneyMorning.com
With another syringe of quantitative easing being injected into the U.S. economy's bloodstream, Ben Bernanke is giving the markets their liquidity fix.
The Federal Reserve's action reaffirmed the stance I've reiterated on several occasions that the governments across developed markets have no fiscal discipline, opting for ultra-easy monetary policies to stimulate growth instead.
The government's liquidity shot promptly boosted gold prices and gold stocks, as investors sought the protection of the precious metal as a real store of value.
Gold Bulls Extend Streak as Prices Jump on Stimulus
By Nicholas Larkin - Bloomberg.com
Gold traders extended their bullish streak as analysts from Bank of America Corp. to Deutsche Bank AG forecast record prices by next year after central banks pledged more action to bolster economic growth.
Fifteen of 29 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week and seven were bearish. A further seven were neutral, extending the overall bullish outlook for an 18th week. Hedge funds' bets on a rally are at a six-month high and investors bought the most through gold-backed exchange-traded products this quarter in more than two years.
Bernanke's QE a real kick in the (oil) can
By JOHN CRUDELE - NYPost.com
What could possibly go wrong with Ben Bernanke's latest quantitative easing scheme?
The Fed chairman's decision last week to continue printing money indefinitely — or until he decides the economy is expanding enough — could cause a whole lot of bad things to happen, not the least of which is to render the US currency worthless.
If the dollar does go down significantly against major world currencies it will not only cause no small amount of embarrassment for our country but will make it nearly impossible to find foreign buyers for our bonds.
Back Ben Bernanke's QE3 with a clothes peg on your nose Monetarists from across the world can mostly agree on one thing. The US Federal Reserve caused the Great Recession.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Fed chair Ben Bernanke kept policy far too tight after the US economy buckled in early to mid 2008. He allowed a collapse in the money supply to run unchecked, causing avoidable disasters at Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, and AIG later that year.
Call it the "Bernanke Depression" if you want, a term gaining traction in elite circles. The indictment is a little unfair. The European Central Bank was worse. It raised rates into a deflationary oil shock in August 2008, and worsened a run on the dollar that constrained Fed actions.
Forget the Punch Bowl, With QE3 Ben's Party is Open Bar
BY PETER KRAUTH, Global Resources Specialist, Money Morning
Everything changed on September 13. It's the day Ben Bernanke promised not to take away the punch bowl.
Last Thursday, Helicopter Ben announced that the Fed would start buying $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities – for as long as it takes. He also announced the Fed will keep rates between 0-0.25%, until mid-2015.
The goal is to keep supporting the mortgage bond market until the employment level improves "sufficiently."
But given that the last several rounds of multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus didn't accomplish that goal, it's hard to see why they'd expect this time to be any different.
Bernanke may be losing his stimulus mojo
By Bernad Condon, AP - WashingtonTimes.com
Ben S. Bernanke hopes his latest plan to stimulate the economy will get you to buy stocks and other risky assets. Maybe you should. People who did that after two similar Federal Reserve efforts are sitting on big gains today.
But the odds of fat profits aren't looking as good this time and seem to be getting worse.
Stocks rose sharply before the Fed chairman announced his plans Sept. 13 instead of falling, as they did before the two previous efforts, suggesting less room for gains now.
The Wages Of Bernanke: Winners And Losers From QE3
By Mark Hendrickson, Contributor - Forbes.com
The only doubt about the Federal Reserve's decision to embark on a third round of quantitative easing was about when it would begin. It was a foregone conclusion that Chairman Ben Bernanke's Fed would resort to more quantitative easing.Under his leadership, the Federal Reserve has become a one-trick pony, always trying to inflate the supply of money and credit in response to economic downturns. When one considers that those downturns were the inevitable aftermath of bubbles fed by the Fed's inflationary policies, then it is rank quackery for the Fed to prescribe the same medicine that triggered these boom-bust cycles as the cure.
Atlanta Fed's Lockhart Speaks on FOMC Action
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
Dennis Lockhart, President of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, spoke to a Georgia audience today and explained some of his thinking leading to the recent FOMC decision to begin purchasing agency mortgage-backed securities. Lockhart was one of 11 FOMC members to vote in favor of the new asset purchases.
Lockhart said he was guided by the numbers:
For most of the first half of this year, I held to a view on the medium-term outlook that predicted continuing growth at a modest pace, a gradual decline in unemployment, and inflation staying close to the FOMC's 2 percent target. Recent data have called even this modest growth scenario into question. … [T]he accumulation of data through August suggested a slowdown from the already anemic pace of growth and a stagnating labor market.
The Race to Debase Is On
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
This week saw the third central bank step on the gas in an attempt to reflate their economy. We had the ECB and the Fed which announced open-ended QE (quantitative easing) programs, followed this week by Japan which extended its current QE program into 2013. In effect, global QE has now begun, stoking a reflationary fire as stocks, commodities, and other asset markets react to the fire being kindled by central banks around the globe.
Debt crisis: Spain 'will need extra bail-out' Spanish banks may need a cash injection of more than €100bn (£80bn), the results of an official stress test are expected to show this week, placing more financial pressure on to an already explosive political crisis in Madrid.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
A bank-by-bank test of financial stability due on Friday is expected to conclude that Spain's lenders are dangerously over-burdened with toxic debts and need to be recapitalised, restructured or shut down.
The stress test is expected to show a dramatic deterioration since the previous tests were carried out at the beginning of the summer which suggested a €60bn cash injection would be the worst-case scenario.
Spain braced for further austerity as Madrid prepares for bailout Budget and reform programme to be unveiled on Thursday to feature more spending cuts, tax increases and pension freezes
By Giles Tremlett in Madrid - The Guardian
Recession-hit Spaniards will this week be told to swallow yet more austerity as the government prepares a fresh round of reforms and another budget filled with spending cuts and tax increases that will allow it to seek a bailout from eurozone partners.
Pension freezes are also expected to form part of a raft measures to prepare the way for the European Central Bank (ECB) to give Spainsupport to control borrowing costs that will eat up a large chunk of next year's budget.
Coeure: Inflation decisive in next ECB rate move
By Sara Toth - MarketWatch.com
RAMALLAH, West Bank--Inflation will be the decisive factor in the European Central Bank's next interest rate decision, a top executive at the central bank said Sunday.
Despite lower growth figures and forecasts for the euro zone, a rate cut isn't certain after recent policy decisions boosted public confidence in a resolution to the region's debt crisis, said ECB's executive board member Benoit Coeure.
"The jury is still out," Mr. Coeure told a group of journalists after his speech at the Palestinian Public Finance Institute, an organization backed financially by France that trains local economists in public finance.
SEC's Schapiro: U.S. risk council
must push for money market reforms
by Sakthi Prasad; Edioting by Kim Coghill - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - The new financial risk council must consider what reform actions it can take to reduce the continuing systemic risk posed by money market funds, Chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission Mary Schapiro wrote in an Wall Street Journal op-ed.
In August, Schapiro said she had failed to win enough support at the SEC to advance money market reforms, which had faced fierce opposition from fund companies and their allies. The reform proposals included introduction of capital buffers and floating net asset values.
Senate JPMorgan Probe Said to Seek Tougher Volcker Rule
By Cheyenne Hopkins - Bloomberg.com
A U.S. Senate panel probing the multibillion-dollar trading loss by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)plans to unveil its findings at a hearing this year to press regulators to tighten the Volcker rule, according to three people briefed on the matter.
Staff members of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Senator Carl Levin, have interviewed JPMorgan officials as well as examiners and supervisors at the institution's regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the inquiry isn't public.
JPMorgan's mortgage-backed migraine
By Alison Frankel - ThomasReuters.com
In a conference call in July on JPMorgan's second-quarter results, Chief Financial Officer Doug Braunstein told banking analysts that JPMorgan had reached "an inflection point" on mortgage repurchase claims by investors alleging that the bank and its acquirees, Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns, breached representations and warranties about the loans underlying mortgage-backed securities. JPMorgan has paid out $3.4 billion in reps and warranties claims, Braunstein said, but decided to reduce reserves going forward by $215 million, in anticipation of a third-quarter "net repurchase number" of "approximately zero."
Is QE-3 Really DS-1?
BY NED W SCHMIDT CFA - FinancialSense.com
Wow! The hyperventilating hyperbole on hyperinflation to be brought about by QE-3 was near overwhelming. From some of what we read, QE-3 is to cure all the economic woes of the U.S., cause hyperinflation, crash the U.S. dollar, prevent male patten baldness, push $Gold to $2,400, and cause the death of our favorite pet. Oh, and the perennial favorite fantasy trotted out on a regular basis is Silver going back to $50. Could QE-3 really be all those things, or is it really Damp Squib One?
In order to appease the Street, FOMC announced the purchase of $40 billion of mortgage backed securities each month. To help understand the meaning this policy let us consider the chart above. The blue line, using the left axis, is Federal Reserve Credit, or the size of the Federal Reserve's assets. We have extended it out a year at a rate of $40 billion per month. Before going on let us note that the rationale for this policy is totally frivolous, and it was adopted purely to appease the paper asset pushers on the Street.
Housing, Diminishing Returns and Opportunity Cost
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
The Fed's policies of keeping interest rates at zero and buying mortgage-backed securities are intended, we're assured, to bolster the housing market by making it cheaper for buyers to borrow money. With mortgage rates under 4% and a trillion (soon to be two) dollars of dodgy mortgages transferred from the banks' tottering balance sheets to the Fed's wonderfully opaque balance sheet, then this appears plausible. But of course it's all a PR ruse, like everything else the Fed says.
How to Stop Hospitals From Killing Us Medical errors kill enough people to fill four jumbo jets a week. A surgeon with five simple ways to make health care safer.
By MARTY MAKARY - WSJ.com
When there is a plane crash in the U.S., even a minor one, it makes headlines. There is a thorough federal investigation, and the tragedy often yields important lessons for the aviation industry. Pilots and airlines thus learn how to do their jobs more safely.
The world of American medicine is far deadlier: Medical mistakes kill enough people each week to fill four jumbo jets. But these mistakes go largely unnoticed by the world at large, and the medical community rarely learns from them. The same preventable mistakes are made over and over again, and patients are left in the dark about which hospitals have significantly better (or worse) safety records than their peers.
Medicare Bills Rise as Records Turn Electronic
By REED ABELSON, JULIE CRESWELL
and GRIFFIN J. PALMER - NYTimes.com
When the federal government began providing billions of dollars in incentives to push hospitals and physicians to use electronic medical and billing records, the goal was not only to improve efficiency and patient safety, but also to reduce health care costs.
But, in reality, the move to electronic health records may be contributing to billions of dollars in higher costs forMedicare, private insurers and patients by making it easier for hospitals and physicians to bill more for their services, whether or not they provide additional care.
Obama Wages a War Against Cheap Energy A "Mean Green", Obama Wages War Against Cheap Energy
By Mark Hendrickson, Contributor - Forbes.com
You know who the "mean greens" are. They are those curmudgeonly misanthropes who begrudge and bewail humankind's economic progress and the high standards of living attained in the modern era.
President Obama is amean green. Indeed, he sounds like one of their leaders when he tells us there is something wrong with Americans living so comfortably when there are poor nations in the world. In his words: "We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes, you know, 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that every other country is going to say OK … [when we] keep using 25 percent of the world's energy."
Are We Really Getting Smarter? Americans' IQ scores have risen steadily over the past century.
By JAMES R. FLYNN - WSJ.com
IQ tests aren't perfect, but they can be useful. If a boy doing badly in class does really well on one, it is worth investigating whether he is being bullied at school or having problems at home. The tests also roughly predict who will succeed at college, though factors like motivation and self-control are at least as important.
Advanced nations like the U.S. have experienced massive IQ gains over time (a phenomenon that I first noted in a 1984 study and is now known as the "Flynn Effect"). From the early 1900s to today, Americans have gained three IQ points per decade on both the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales. These tests have been around since the early 20th century in some form, though they have been updated over time. Another test, Raven's Progressive Matrices, was invented in 1938, but there are scores for people whose birth dates go back to 1872. It shows gains of five points per decade.
Researchers Create Batteries
that can be Painted onto Virtually Any Surface
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
One of the biggest problems with batteries is the weight and bulky nature of their packaging. It is the major limiting factors for electric vehicles. Several years ago, to overcome this problem, scientists started researching ultra-thin batteries which would be able to hold the same charge but in a much smaller space. In 2009 researchers from the University of Stanford announced that they had created a battery out of a single piece of plain copier paper by using carbon nanotubes to store energy and generate electricity.
The announcement of such a thin battery led some to predict that one day someone would invent printable battery technology.
That day has arrived.
Watchdog group once again blasts Foxconn, Apple over labor Despite Foxconn's efforts to improve working conditions at its factories, a watchdog group says it has found numerous faults.
by Josh Lowensohn - CNet.com
Workers putting together Apple's latest iPhone in one of Foxconn's plants in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China still face "deplorably harsh working conditions" according to a new report published today.
The 10-page report entitled "New iPhone, old abuses," by the Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), claims that workers at Foxconn's Zhengzhou facility are still being forced to work overtime and experiencing numerous working violations.
Keiser Report: Happy Hacking! (ft. Richard Stallman) (E344)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss tuning in, dropping out and the modern day opting out. They also talk about 'high value' customers being fast tracked at Heathrow in the name of expediency; while in the US poor people are fast tracked into a private debt collectors' kickback scheme with the help of district attorneys. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Richard Stallman about Anonymous protests outside virtual doorways, corporate tyrannies and free software.
Small Farms' Large Benefits
By Kanayo F. Nwanze - Project-Syndicate.org
ROME – As drought becomes increasingly common, farmers worldwide are struggling to maintain crop yields. In the United States, farmers are experiencing the most severe drought in more than a half-century. As a result, global corn, wheat, and soybean prices rose in July and August, and remain high.
But the severe dry spell parching croplands across the US is only the latest in a global cycle of increasingly frequent and damaging droughts. In Africa's Sahel region, millions of people are facing hunger for the third time since 2005. Lack of rain in the region and volatile global food prices have made a bad situation worse. Indeed, it is the world's poor – particularly those in rural areas – that suffer the most from these combined factors.
Big Oil Funding U.S. Politics
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
U.S. Rep. John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, received nearly twice as much financial support from donors tied to the energy sector than did the next-closest recipient, a report from the National Wildlife Federation finds. The 20-page report highlights the role it says oil companies play in U.S. politics, stating energy companies are working behind the scenes on Capitol Hill to influence legislation in favour of oil, natural gas and coal policies. The NWF report finds that the current 112th U.S. Congress has voted one out of every five times against legislation drafted in favour of environmental issues.
From Utah, With Love
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
SALT LAKE CITY -- A specter is haunting the Congressional Black Caucus, the specter of integration. It is discomforting enough that the now 43-member CBC has included a Republican since 2011, when Florida's Allen West became the first Republican to join the CBC since 1997. South Carolina's Tim Scott, an African-American, also came to Congress in 2011 but declined to join.
And soon a second might move in. There goes the neighborhood.
Mia Love, 37, is running against incumbent Democrat Jim Matheson, 52, in a district created when the 2010 census gave a fourth representative to this booming state -- imagine Utah's growth if the federal government did not own 58 percent of the land.
Alabama GOP Chair Goes Birther,
Says Obama's Communist Upbringing 'Verified'
By CASEY MICHEL - TalkingPointsMemo.com
The head of the Alabama Republican Party this week threw his support behind one of the most far-fetched theories of the already bizarre birther movement.
Speaking to a group of GOP diehards on Wednesday in Fairhope, Ala., party Chair Bill Armistead raved about a film called "Dreams From My Real Father."The movie claims President Obama's grandfather was a CIA agent who convinced Barack Obama Sr. to marry his teenage daughter to hide the fact that she'd been secretly impregnated by a communist.
Useful Idiots
By Oliver North - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- Ever since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2012, the Obama White House has sought to lay blame for deadly and destructive anti-American attacks in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and more than two dozen other countries on someone else. The O-Team -- and the perpetrators -- have had a lot of help from the "useful idiots" in the mainstream media. The disinformation campaign being waged by the Obama administration over the cause of this violence would be comedic but for the fact that six Americans have been killed and dozens have been injured.
WORLD WITHOUT TORTURE: THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE WEST
Paul Craig Roberts interviewed by Nilantha Ilangamuwa - PaulCraigRoberts.org
....NI: How can we change for the better? Where should it start if we are to achieve a torture free society? PCR. In my opinion, there is no prospect for a moral and torture free world until the West is held accountable for its crimes. The war crimes tribunal in Malaysia was a beginning. The convictions of the Bush regime monsters have no legal authority, but the convictions assert morality authority. If the Malaysian war crimes tribunal is repeated in many other countries, the US and UK war criminals and their NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) puppet criminals would not be able to travel beyond their own borders. The image would be created of Western leaders hunted by the rest of the world for their criminal actions. This is the only way to re-empower morality as a force in history.
Western governments have become the antithesis of morality.
FBI renews broad Internet surveillance push Director Robert Mueller tells Congress that police are "increasingly unable" to bring criminals to justice because rapid advances in technology thwart surveillance.
by Declan McCullagh - CNet.com
The FBI is renewing its request for new Internet surveillance laws, saying technological advances hinder surveillance and warning that companies should be required to build in back doors for police.
"We must ensure that our ability to obtain communications pursuant to court order is not eroded," FBI director Robert Mueller told a U.S. Senate committee this week. Currently, he said, many communications providers "are not required to build or maintain intercept capabilities."
Bill Clinton: 'No earthly idea' whether Hillary will run again
By Paige Winfield Cunningham - The Washington Times
Former President Bill Clinton said Sunday he has "no earthly idea" whether his spouse, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, will make a second bid for president four years from now.
"It's her decision, her life," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Whatever she decides, I'll support it."
Mrs. Clinton has said she won't stay on as secretary of state for a second term, even if President Obama wins re-election, but has remained coy on whether she still harbors political ambitions.
Mr. Clinton said that, for now, she wants to take some time off to "regroup" and write a book.
Crisis Replay… Soon Argentina Will Be on Sale Again
By Ronan McMahon - DailyReckoning.com
09/20/12 Just over a decade ago Argentina spectacularly unraveled with the biggest default in history — $100 billion. Dollar deposits were converted to pesos. Then, overnight, the peg of one-to-one with the dollar was broken. The unpegged currency immediately devalued. Savings were wiped out. Banks were set alight and locals took to the streets in protest.
That crisis created the biggest buying opportunity of a decade. During the fire sales you could have picked up a historic, high-end property in Buenos Aires or a vineyard in Mendoza for a song.
JAPAN-CHINA CONFLICT UNLIKELY TO ESCALATE TO WAR
by: Linda Sieg - WashingtonTimes.com
Hawkish Chinese commentators have urged Beijing to prepare for military conflict with Japan as tensions mount over disputed islands in the East China Sea, but most experts say chances the Asian rivals will decide to go to war are slim.
A bigger risk is the possibility that an unintended maritime clash results in deaths and boosts pressure for retaliation, but even then Tokyo and Beijing are expected to seek to manage the row before it becomes a full-blown military confrontation. ...
Collapse of the Cairo Doctrine
By Charles Krauthammer - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- In the week following 9/11/12 something big happened: the collapse of the Cairo Doctrine, the centerpiece of President Obama's foreign policy. It was to reset the very course of post-9/11 America, creating, after the (allegedly) brutal depredations of the Bush years, a profound rapprochement with the Islamic world.
On June 4, 2009, in Cairo, Obama promised "a new beginning" offering Muslims "mutual respect," unsubtly implying previous disrespect. Curious, as over the previous 20 years, America had six times committed its military forces on behalf of oppressed Muslims, three times for reasons of pure humanitarianism (Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo), where no U.S. interests were at stake.
Events in Muslim world
bear on Obama's speech at United Nations
By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times
A year after President Obama largely defused a diplomatic showdown at the United Nations over Palestinian statehood, his difficulties with the Muslim world are multiplying rapidly as he prepares to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.
Across the Middle East and beyond, protesters have stormed U.S. diplomatic posts, killing four Americans in Libya in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11 and clashing with security forces elsewhere in a wave of anti-U.S. violence.
Oops, there goes freedom of opinion AND speech... Egypt Salafi urges U.N. to criminalize contempt of Islam
By Marwa Awad
CAIRO | Sat Sep 22, 2012 4:19pm EDT
(Reuters) - Egypt's president and other Muslim leaders should demand the U.N. criminalize contempt of religion after the release of an anti-Islamic film and cartoons which demonstrate growing racism, said the leader of the biggest ultra-orthodox Islamist party.
Despite doctrinal and political differences with President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist Nour Party played a key role in supporting it during presidential elections in June.
Dangerous and deepening divide between Islamic world, West
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters)- For those who believe in a clash of civilizations between the Islamic world and Western democracy, the last few weeks must seem like final confirmation of their theory.
Even those who reject the term as loaded and simplistic speak sadly of a perhaps catastrophic failure of understanding between Americans in particular and many Muslims.
The outrage and violence over a crude film ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad points to a chasm between Western free speech and individualism and the sensitivities of some Muslims over what they see as a campaign of humiliation.
MORSI, SHAMELESS, DICTATES TO U.S. HIS TERMS
by: Jonathan S. Tobin - WashingtonTimes.com
Say this for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi: he isn't short of nerve. The Muslim Brotherhood leader has shoved aside the military and now presides over the most populous Arab nation with what appear to be few checks on his power. That gives him the confidence to tell the United States it must accept his Islamist government on its own terms and throw Israel under the bus. But it doesn't mean he wants the American gravy train that funnels $1.5 billion to the Egyptian government to stop.
Koch Faults Obama on Israel and on Libya Attack
By GERRY MULLANY - NYTimes.com
Edward I. Koch, the former three-term Democratic mayor of New York, has some critical words about President Obama's relations with Israel and his handling of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, this month.
In an interview with the New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin, Mr. Koch deemed as "unacceptable" Mr. Obama's decision not to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel while Mr. Netanyahu is in the United States this week for the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
"There should be a certain courtesy involved," Mr. Koch said. "You don't just say, 'We can't fit him into our schedule.' "
Libyan authorities give Islamist militia
two days to leave their bases Officials seek to exploit wave of people power after gunmen flee angry crowds in Benghazi
By Chris Stephen in Benghazi,
Matthew Weaver and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
The Libyan authorities have given armed groups two days to vacate military bases and compounds as they seek to capitalise on the wave of people power that drove an Islamist militia from Benghazi at the weekend.
Jihadist militias in Derna, Libya's Islamist stronghold, threw in the towel on Sunday, withdrawing from their stronghold and announcing they were disbanding to avoid a repeat of the scenes in Benghazi in which angry crowds sent armed gunmen fleeing. One of the routed militias was blamed for an attack on the US consulate two weeks ago that left four Americans dead including the ambassador, Chris Stevens.
Israel's Offshore Gas Reserves - Bonanza or Security Threat?
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
The Middle East, source of much of the world's hydrocarbons, is one of the most volatile regions on earth, where energy issues impact international relations. From Iraqi oil output, still struggling to reach its 2003 pre-invasion levels through Iran's sanctioned nuclear program, the region focuses the world's attention like nowhere else.
Now another issue is complicating the mix, Israeli natural gas production.
Like Turkey, Israel is a net energy importer – according to the CIA, in 2010 Israel produced a mere 4,029 barrels per day of oil, but imported 238,000 bpd.
Saudi Arabia's Attempts to Control Oil Prices Continue
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
In March Saudi Arabia managed to increase their oil production to 10.1 million barrels per day, their highest output in 31 years, as they tried to compensate for the declining supplies coming out of Iran. This volume saw them become the largest crude oil producer in the world, overtaking Russia for the first time in six years.
However, a month later they dropped their production volume again as oil prices started to fall, allowing Russia to retake their place at the top. In July Saudi Arabia produced just 9.8 million barrels a day, compared to Russia's 9.92 million barrels, according to data from the Joint Organisation Data Initiative.
Syrian rebels move command from Turkey to Syria
By BASSEM MROUE
BEIRUT (AP) - The leaders of the rebel Free Syrian Army said Saturday they moved their command center from Turkey to Syria with the aim of uniting rebels and speeding up the fall of President Bashar Assad's regime.
Brig. Gen. Mustafa al-Sheikh, who heads the FSA's Military Council, told The Associated Press that the group made the move last week. He would not say where the new headquarters is located or give other details.
Israel Is America's Shield
By Ken Blackwell, coauthored by Bob Morrison - PatriotPost.us
We are used to hearing that America defends Israel. President Obama assures Israel that he has their back. That may be convincing talk in the 'hood, but it rings hollow from this invertebrate administration to talk about anyone's back. Actually, we may have all that backward. It may well be that Israel that is defending us. Israel may yet prove America's Shield.
All the usual chin-pullers and deep thinkers are warning of the parade of horribles that will descend on the world if Israel strikes Iran to prevent the mullahs from getting nuclear weapons. Why, says Georgetown University think tanker Anthony Cordesman, "a strike by Israel will give rise to regional instability and conflict as well as terrorism."
As Israel's Threat to Bomb Iran Looms,
U.S. Vows to Keep Aircraft Carrier Strike Group in Persian Gulf
BY: DANIEL SAGALYN - PBS.org
USS ENTERPRISE, North Arabian Sea | The U.S. Navy is vowing to keep commercial sea lanes open in the international waters off Iran, despite a view among a small number of critics that Washington's military muscle may inadvertently stoke tensions with Tehran in the event of a crisis.
Israel has threatened to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities if that nation's uranium enrichment and other activities suspected of building an atomic weapon do not abate.
Lindsey Williams :No War With Iran Soon & The Elite Wants Obama Out!
Some Keypoints: Russia needs 120+ dollars a barrel oil to sustain their economy. Putin understands this and he can further his agenda reinstalling the U.S.S.R. and the communist manifesto. Obama is also a communist and the agenda is to consolidate the banking sector and bring in the one world currency known as SDRs with a 40% gold backing. Trends are a military police state face, retina, finger print scanners, and RFID chips. Examples Facebook face scanner, employers fingerprint/retina scan clocking devices , Walmart forcing vendors to RFID technology, commercials for RFID use and ease of access. Consolidation of the family unit, devaluation of the dollar, shrinking of the middle class, the rising of people dependent on the government for assistance. From what I see in order to get your SNAP benefits you will be required to get RFID technology installed.
Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israeli threats,
nuclear program and Syria
By David Ignatius - WashingtonPost.com
Iran may be on the firing line, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was as calmly combative as ever Sunday, dismissing Israel's military threats and predicting that nothing will happen in the nuclear talks until after the U.S. presidential elections.
In an interview on the eve of his visit to the United Nations, Ahmadinejad seemed unfazed by recent months of speculation about bombing strikes or by the precarious state of Tehran's allies in Damascus. Instead, he talked often about politics — including a reference to what he saw as the war-weariness of the American public.
Iran reportedly moving on domestic Net plan, blocks Google Official says government agencies and offices have already been connected to its "national information network," just as state news says Google is being blocked, Reuters reports.
by Michelle Meyers - CNet.com
Iran is following through with previously reported plans to move its citizens onto a domestic Internet network, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, the country is about to start blocking Google, also according to Reuters. It's unclear whether the two moves are related.
A government deputy minister today announced the domestic Internet plans as a way to improve cybersecurity, adding that all government agencies and offices have been connected to the "national information network." The next step would be to connect everyday citizens to the network as well, he said.
Upgrades Boost U.S. Naval Capabilities Against Iranian Threat
By Tony Capaccio - Bloomberg.com
The 41-year-old refurbished transport vessel overseeing an international Middle East mine- hunting exercise can defend itself from Iranian speedboats with two new machine guns cued by long-range cameras bought under a special Pentagon program.
The USS Ponce is also carrying an underwater drone being tested that's capable of taking sonar and video images of the Persian Gulf's bottom in search of mines as deep as 300 meters (984 feet).
Iran threatens attacks on US bases in event of war
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A senior commander in Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard warned that Iran will target U.S. bases in the region in the event of war with Israel, raising the prospect of a broader conflict that would force other countries to get involved, Iranian state television reported Sunday.
The comments by Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the Guard's aerospace division, came amid tension over Iran's nuclear program and Israel's suggestion that it might unilaterally strike Iranian nuclear facilities to scuttle what the United States and its allies believe are efforts to build a bomb. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Ahmadinejad Under Attack at Home and Abroad
as UN Bow Out Nears
By Ladane Nasseri - Bloomberg.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his final appearance at the United Nations this week as a leader vilified abroad and with dwindling popularity at home.
With nine months left before his final term expires, Ahmadinejad, 55, presides over an economy hobbled by European and U.S.-led sanctions and a currency collapse that's firing inflation. As Israel repeatedly warns that it may bomb Iran to stop it getting atomic weapons, Ahmadinejad's last speech to the UN on Sept. 26 may highlight his growing isolation.
IRAN OFFICIAL: 'BIG WAR' MEANS MAHDI'S COMING Military leader ties 'last messiah'
to regime's preparations for conflict
By Reza Kahlili - WND.com
For the first time, Iran's highest-ranking military official has tied the reappearance of the last Islamic messiah to the regime being prepared to go to a war based on ideology.
"With having the treasure of the Holy Defense, Valayat (Guardianship of the Jurist) and martyrs, we are ready for a big war," Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said, according to Mashregh news, which is run by the Revolutionary Guards.
Ahmadinejad Says Iran Will Defend Itself From Potential Attack
By Brian Wingfield - Bloomberg.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his nation will defend itself if attacked by Israel, according to excerpts of a CNN interview scheduled for broadcast tomorrow night.
"The response of Iran is quite clear, I don't even need to explain that," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, according to a transcript. "Any nation has the right and will indeed defend herself."
Tensions between the nations are high as Iran pursues a nuclear program that it says are for peaceful purposes, while the U.S. and its allies say Iran may be hiding nuclear weapon development. While Iran wouldn't begin a potential war with Israel, it could strike pre-emptively if plans to attack the Persian nation are confirmed, Iranian air force commander Amir Ali Haji said, the state-run al-Alam television reported today.
Gold Bulls Extend Streak
as Prices Jump on Stimulus: Commodities
By Nicholas Larkin - Bloomberg.com
Gold traders extended their bullish streak as analysts from Bank of America Corp. to Deutsche Bank AG forecast record prices by next year after central banks pledged more action to bolster economic growth.
Fifteen of 29 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week and seven were bearish. A further seven were neutral, extending the overall bullish outlook for an 18th week.Hedge funds' bets on a rally are at a six-month high and investors bought the most through gold-backed exchange-traded products this quarter in more than two years.
Stagflation in Extremis & The Explosive Rise of Gold
Darryl Robert Schoon - 321Gold.com
Stagflation is where economic growth slows, unemployment is high and prices rise.
Stagflation's appearance in the 1970s was like an outbreak of three-headed children. It wasn't supposed to happen. Prevailing wisdom - an oxymoron among economists - held that high employment and rising prices were economic handmaidens; and that, conversely, slowing economies and inflation were mutually exclusive.
In the 1970s, for the first time in capitalism's history stagflation appeared, i.e. prices rose and economic growth stagnated; and, while economists would search for reasons to explain the apparently inexplicable, it was only because they avoided the obvious that they did not find the answer.
Quantitative easing supports Gold,
but impact could be limited: HSBC
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold's resilience against weakness in the euro, crude oil and platinum is impressive and a pickup in Chinese physical buying may underpin prices, too, said HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC) in a commodity research note.
Last week's quantitative easing announcement by the Federal Reserve will also support gold prices, but it is "careful not to be overly enthusiastic as regards the bullish influence on gold of QE3," they added.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
A Look At Precioius Metal ETFs - Split Right Ball Curl On Ben
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
The line is being held as I said yesterday. 1800 is the next 'first down' marker for gold, if they can cross it and hold it. Silver *could* lead the way, but that might look more like a deep pass to midfield.
Ben Davies thinks that the next move in gold can be big. I think he might be right IF they can break and run with it past the prior highs. And that is a big if with Ben and his extended team of thugs throwing cheap shots all over the field and 'managing' the scoreboard. This sometimes seems like The Longest Yard. Maybe its time for the bulls to call Split Right, Ball Curl on 1. Heads up Ben.
Precious Metals Benefit From a Shift in Currencies
By Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA - GoldSeek.com
We recall with some nostalgia that it was last year on September 6, that gold hit an all-time high of $1,923. This of course reminds us that a month before that the credit agency Standard & Poor's stripped the United States of its AAA rating on its bonds after partisan wrangling over raising the government's debt limit led the nation to the brink of default. And now in addition to nostalgia we get a feeling of déjà vu. The U.S. recently received another warning of a credit downgrade, this time from Moody's Investors Service. The credit agency said last Tuesday that it would most likely cut its Aaa rating on United States government debt, probably by one notch, if Washington's budget negotiations failed. This does not bode well for the U.S. dollar in the long run.
China to surpass India
in Gold consumption this year: Deutsche Bank
BEIJING (Commodity Online): Mainland China is poised to overtake India as the world's largest consumer of gold, said Deutsche Bank in a special report.
Asian demand in particular has grown dramatically, where China is expected to become the world's largest buyer of gold as soon as this year, the German bank added.
"We would argue that China's long-term strategy on trade and finance likely includes a definitive position on gold. Given the possibility that China's could be the world's largest economy in the second half of the century we expect that at some point over the long-term the RMB may be in a position to challenge the USD as the world's reserve currency," the German bank added.
Government and gold confiscation: tips to protect your assets
Taki Tsaklanos w/ Claudio Grass point of view - Gold Silver Worlds
My advice to everyone is simple and clear: "Get out of the current financial system, avoid paper money and the banking system in general and move into physical precious metals." David Stockman has put it this way: "ABCD – Anything Bernanke Cannot Destroy!"
Confiscation is already here. I am not talking about outright confiscation of assets, but the confiscation of the buying power by inflating the money supply. If you keep your money in a bank account or "invest" it in bonds, you are actually losing money in real terms (i.e. after inflation). The decrease of your wealth basically results in an increase of the wealth of governments and banks, hence fulfilling the definition of confiscation.
Silver: $45 or more looks attainable on inflationary trends
By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com
The vocabulary in which modern monetary policy is expressed has created complacency and acceptance. For example, people have learned to accept outrageous financial concepts like $1 trillion, when very few individuals have any sense of how much this actually represents.
Furthermore, people have become accustomed to elegantly expressed monetary concepts like quantitative easing, when all the term really refers to is the printing or creation of more money that dilutes the value of a country's currency.
Deposit flight from Europe's banks eroding euro
By Yalman Onaran, Bloomberg News - FinancialPost.com
Capital flight is leading to the disintegration of the eurozone and divergence between the periphery and the core
An accelerating flight of deposits from banks in four European countries is jeopardizing the renewal of economic growth and undermining a main tenet of the common currency: an integrated financial system.
A total of 326-billion euros (US$425-billion) was pulled from banks in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece in the 12 months ended July 31, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The plight of Irish and Greek lenders, which were bleeding cash in 2010, spread to Spain and Portugal last year.
Keiser Report: World Flash Clash Center (E343)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss flash crashes, reputation woes on the U.S. exchanges and sheep screaming at all the fraud. Max also talks to one of the Queen's sheep for its opinion on quantitative easing. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Jim Rickards, author of Currency Wars, about QE to infinity, the dollar, the euro and a gold standard.
Forget the Punch Bowl, With QE3 Ben's Party is Open Bar
BY PETER KRAUTH, Global Resources Specialist, Money Morning
Everything changed on September 13. It's the day Ben Bernanke promised not to take away the punch bowl.
Last Thursday, Helicopter Ben announced that the Fed would start buying $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities – for as long as it takes. He also announced the Fed will keep rates between 0-0.25%, until mid-2015.
The goal is to keep supporting the mortgage bond market until the employment level improves "sufficiently."
But given that the last several rounds of multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus didn't accomplish that goal, it's hard to see why they'd expect this time to be any different.
Ben: Reverse Robin Hood in Middle Class Clothing
By Liz Peek, Fiscal Times
If you're wondering why the rich are getting richer, ask Mr. Bernanke.
President Obama has accused Mitt Romney of being a "reverse Robin Hood" – taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Ironically, that's exactly what Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is doing, with the blessing of the Obama White House. Mr. Bernanke has again opened the central bank spigots, promising another round of quantitative easing, or bond and asset purchases, aimed at keeping interest rates low for the foreseeable future.
The upshot? Rising gasoline prices which will hurt low-income Americans, reduced income for retirees, and soaring stock prices. While seniors worried how they could cope with diminished incomes, the 40 wealthiest people in the world saw their net worth jump by $29 billion this past week.
PIMCO's Gross sees no end
to QE3 until U.S. jobless rate hits 6%
By Tim Reid and Jennifer Ablan, Reuters - FinancialPost.com
PIMCO'S Bill Gross, who runs the world's largest bond fund, said on Thursday that he does not see the Federal Reserve pulling back from its quantitative easing policies until the U.S. unemployment rate at least drops to 6%.
Speaking at the IndexUniverse's Inside Fixed Income conference in Newport Beach, California, Gross said: "I'm basically saying they are not going to exit." He added, Fed Chairman Ben "Bernanke has basically said if QE3 doesn't work, there's more behind this."
California May See More Bankruptcies, Chiang Says
By Alison Vekshin - Bloomberg.com
California may see more municipal bankruptcies than the three that have been filed since June, state Controller John Chiang said.
Municipal budgets already strained by surging pension costs and declining real-estate tax revenue were stripped of more than $1 billion in local redevelopment funds and vehicle-license fees to cut California's deficit.
Stockton, San Bernardino and Mammoth Lakes have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past three months.
"We will start to see more bankruptcies, not necessarily because of pension issues," Chiang said yesterday at a conference in San Francisco. "We need the state to participate in trying to prevent these bankruptcies."
Pushing on a String
BY PAUL J NOLTE CFA - FinancialSense.com
To quote Buzz Lightyear, "QE to infinity and beyond!" Ok, Buzz really didn't say anything about QE, however Ben's comments last week regarding the beginning of a new QE program essentially said that easy monetary policy would be from now on, until such time, that the Fed believes it should be revoked. The open-ended nature of the QE lit a fire under commodity prices and stocks within the commodity sector. Treasury bonds took it on the chin as the Fed focus is now on mortgage backed securities.
How to Navigate an Economy Weighed Down
by Government Meddling and Cronyism
By Doug Hornig, Casey Research - GoldSeek.com
If you wanted to sum up the just-concluded Casey Research/Sprott Inc. Summit titledNavigating the Politicized Economy, you could say "The situation is hopeless but not serious."
More than 20 speakers – many of them world-renowned financial experts and best-selling authors – gathered in Carlsbad, CA, from September 7 to 9 to ascertain exactly how hopeless, and what investors can do to protect themselves.
Casey Chief Economist Bud Conrad reconfirmed – with a blizzard of charts and graphs – that the ship of state is still heading for a fiscal iceberg… and that iceberg looms closer by the day.
PMI, ISM Numbers Indicate Slowing
BY SHERAZ MIAN - FinancialSense.com
Stocks have been taking solace from the coordinated central bank actions that have flushed the markets with liquidity, offsetting persistent questions about the growth outlook of the global economy. But the growth questions refuse to go away and keep taking center stage through a combination of weak economic readings and profit warnings from bellwether companies like FedEx (FDX - Analyst Report) and Intel (INTC - Analyst Report). They have failed, however, in damaging the market's strong momentum that has pushed it to new multi-year highs.
We mustn't fall for The Great Illusion again With China sabre-rattling over the disputed Senkaku islands, the lessons of history are going unheeded as free trade comes under threat around the world
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
In 1910 the British journalist Norman Angell published a book called "The Great Illusion", which perfectly captured the Zeitgeist and fast became a bestseller. Its thesis was that integration of the global economy had become so all-embracing and irreversible that future wars were all but impossible.
In many respects, the early 20th century was a period much like our own – one of previously unparalleled global trade and exchange between nations. Human beings appeared largely to have outgrown their propensity to mass slaughter, and everyone could look forward to increasing prosperity.
Spain risks break-up as Mariano Rajoy stirs Catalan fury The ruling parties of Catalonia have sought guidance from Brussels on the legality of secession from Spain, requesting a "route map" for membership of the European Union and the euro as an independent state.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
It is the latest move in a fast-escalating clash between Catalan nationalists and Spanish nationalists, the latter backed by King Juan Carlos and the Spanish military.
Jose-Manuel Garcia-Margallo, the foreign minister, threw down the gauntlet, calling Catalan secession "illegal and lethal". He warned that Spain would use its veto to stop the region of Catalonia becoming an EU member "indefinitely".
Forceful QE3 needed to aid economy: Fed's Rosengren
By Ben Berkowitz, REUTERS - TheFiscalTimes.com
QUINCY, Massachusetts (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve's new stimulus policy is essential to get the U.S. recovery back on track and to avoid damaging economic stagnation, a top Fed official said on Thursday.
Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said he strongly supported the U.S. central bank's decision last week to launch a potentially massive program of asset purchases, arguing its risks are considerably smaller and more manageable than doing nothing.
US Power Market Regulator Threatens to Suspend JPMorgan
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
U.S. federal energy regulators threatened on Thursday to suspend JPMorgan Chase & Co's right to sell electricity at market rates after accusing the bank of misleading authorities — a measure that would effectively banish it from the power market.
The move by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the latest salvo in a months-long enquiry into whether the bank, one of the biggest power traders on Wall Street, manipulated power prices in the Midwest and California power markets.
U.S. senators join forces to find fiscal cliff solution
By Heidi Przybyla, Bloomberg News - FinancialPost.com
A group of U.S. senators is quietly attempting to do something almost unthinkable in Washington: craft a bipartisan solution to the nation's growing deficit in an election year.
The group — which includes Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, and Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat — hasn't been given a name like the "Gang of Six," and members might fail like others before them. That hasn't stopped them from joining forces when most lawmakers are focused on campaigning.
Farm bill left to die on vine before recess
By Sean Lengell-The Washington Times
As Congress bolts Washington this week for its pre-election recess, it will let lapse the massive federal farm bill, setting up a path for agricultural supports and subsidies to expire and return to a 1940s-era system — a scenario neither party nor the farm community is happy about.
The situation leaves lawmakers — particularly Republicans in the House where the measure has indefinitely stalled — fretting about having to face voters without the popular subsidies in hand.
Police Speak Out on
Red Dawn Style Takeover of Rural America
Alex takes calls from military & police and gets their take on the joint community oriented policing program designed to deal with rural americans that refuse to go along with socialist/marxist created laws from washington d.c. One caller breaks down a shocking scenario to that of the early 80's hit movie, "Red Dawn." Where foreign soldiers takeover a small town and deal with its citizens who fight back against such tyranny.
Fed Risks Disaster if Ignores Harm Done
by Housing Bust: Bullard
Reuters - CNBC.com
The U.S. central bank would be courting disaster if it pursued a so-called nominal growth target that did not take into account the economic damage done by the housing crisis, a senior Federal Reserve official warned on Thursday.
James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, also argued that the only variable in the economy the Fed could control over the longer term was inflation, saying it did best when focusing solely on that goal.
BofA speeds up plans to cut 16,000 jobs: WSJ
Reporting By Rick Rothacker,
Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Dale Hudson,
Reuters via TheFiscalTimes.com
(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp is speeding up planned job cuts as revenue continues to decline amid new regulations and a tepid economy, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The second-largest U.S. bank intends to slash 16,000 jobs by year-end, putting it a year ahead of a plan to eliminate 30,000 under a cost-cutting program called Project New BAC, the newspaper said, citing a document given to top management.
Bank of America to Slash 16,000 Jobs by Year-End
Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- In "Street News," Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu reports on today's top stories including Bank of America is set to cut 16,000 by the end of the year, Nike will buy back $8 billion in stock over the next four years, GM looks to buy the auto-lending units of Ally Financial in Europe and Latin America and 6 million Americans face a health care penalty for not having health insurance.
21 Facts About America's Decaying Infrastructure
That Will Blow Your Mind
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
You can tell a lot about a nation by the condition of the infrastructure. So what does our infrastructure say about us? It says that we are in a very advanced state of decay. At this point, much of America is being held together with spit, duct tape and prayers. Our roads are crumbling and thousands of our bridges look like they could collapse at any moment. Our power grid is ancient and over a trillion gallons of untreated sewage is leaking from our aging sewer systems each year. Our airports and our seaports are clogged with far more traffic than they were ever designed to carry. Approximately a third of all of the dam failures that have taken place in the United States since 1874 have happened during the past decade. Our national parks and recreation areas have been terribly neglected and our railroads are a bad joke. Hurricane Katrina showed how vulnerable our levees are, and drinking water systems all over the country are badly outdated. Sadly, at a time when we could use significant new investment in infrastructure, our spending on infrastructure is actually way down. Back during the 50s and the 60s, the U.S. was spending between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Today, that figure is down to about 2.4 percent.
Workforce dropouts: Frustrated, retired or lack skills
By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
Nearly every month, the same fight broke out between Democrats and Republicans as updated government data showed the U.S. unemployment rate dropping from more than 9 percent to 8.1 percent over the past year: Democrats pointed to the 4.6 million new private-sector jobs created since 2009, while Republicans contended that the rate was falling in part because millions of frustrated people were simply dropping out of the job market because they were unable to find work.
Both sides had a point, economists say. Jobless rates are down both because some people are finding work and because some people have stopped trying.
Meet the New Boss: Big Data Companies Trade In Hunch-Based Hiring for Computer Modeling
By JOSEPH WALKER - WSJ.com
When looking for workers to staff its call centers, Xerox Corp. used to pay lots of attention to applicants who had done the job before. Then, a computer program told the printer and outsourcing company that experience doesn't matter.
The software said that what does matter in a good call-center worker—one who won't quit before the company recoups its $5,000 investment in training—is personality. Data show that creative types tend to stick around for the necessary six months. Inquisitive people often don't.
Chicago's Next School Crisis: Pension Fund Is Running Dry
By: Mary Williams Walsh - NYTimes - CNBC.com
One of the most vexing problems for Chicago and its teachers went virtually unmentioned during the strike: The pension fund is about to hit a wall.
The Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund has about $10 billion in assets, but is paying out more than $1 billion in benefits a year — much more than it has been taking in. That has forced it to sell investments, worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, to pay retired teachers. Experts say the fund could collapse within a few years unless something is done.
The Love Song of AARP and Obama Newly released emails reveal the 'nonpartisan' group's stealthy White House alliance on health care.
By Kimberly A. Strassel - WSJ.com
When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan address the AARP on Friday, good manners will no doubt keep them from asking this question: How can that lobby claim to speak for American seniors given its partisan role in passing ObamaCare?
Thanks to just-released emails from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we now know that AARP worked through 2009-10 as an extension of a Democratic White House, toiling daily to pass a health bill that slashes $716 billion from Medicare, strips seniors of choice, and sets the stage for rationing. We know that despite AARP's awareness that its seniors overwhelmingly opposed the bill, the "nonpartisan membership organization" chose to serve the president's agenda.
The Diminishing Effects of Gas Price Spikes on the Economy
By James Hamilton - OilPrice.com
As U.S. retail gasoline prices once again near $4.00 a gallon, does this pose a threat to the economy and President Obama's prospects for re-election? My answer is no.
The graph below plots average U.S. gasoline prices, adjusted for inflation, over the last decade. This is now the fourth time we've been near the $4 threshold. It first happened in June 2008, again in May 2011, and again in April of this year. In fact, on each of those previous 3 occasions the average U.S. retail price of gasoline was higher than it is today.
You Can Drill All You Want, Oil Prices Are Still Headed Higher
BY DR. KENT MOORS, Global Energy Strategist, Money Morning
Today I want to focus again on oil prices. It seems that some TV pundits have never heard (with apologies to Alexander Pope) that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Some people on Wall Street believe that by scaring the individual investor they stand to make a greater profit for themselves.
Over the summer, there was a report issued by Credit Suisse that said that oil could hit $50 a barrel. We've also seen predictions on CNBC saying $40 a barrel. Others think that oil prices could fall even go further.
ExxonMobil Increases Stake in Bakken Field to 600,000 Acres
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
ExxonMobil have agreed to buy Denbury Resources Inc's stakes in the Bakken shale formation for $1.6 billion, in a deal that will see their holdings in the area increase to nearly 600,000 acres.
Undocumented Latinos in Arizona
fear for children as key clause takes effect Hotline flooded with calls from parents asking for help in event of being picked up under SB 1070 'show-me-your-papers' provision
by Ed Pilkington - Guardian.co.uk
Latinos living without immigration papers in Arizona have begun bombarbing helplines and lawyers' offices with anxious requests about how to provide for their children should they be arrested under a controversial new police power that came into effect this week.
A phone line hosted by the Arizona branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has received almost 4,000 calls in just two days, many from anxious parents who fear that their children could be left abandoned should they be picked up under the so-called 'show-me-your-papers' provision. Hundreds have been asking for help setting up a "power of attorney", which gives a relative or friend who has US citizenship the right to care for minors in such an eventuality.
The Fallacy of Redistribution
By THOMAS SOWELL - Spectator.org
The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty.
The recently discovered tape on which Barack Obama said back in 1998 that he believes in redistribution is not really news. He said the same thing to Joe the Plumber four years ago. But the surfacing of this tape may serve a useful purpose if it gets people to thinking about what the consequences of redistribution are.
Those who talk glibly about redistribution often act as if people are just inert objects that can be placed here and there, like pieces on a chess board, to carry out some grand design. But if human beings have their own responses to government policies, then we cannot blithely assume that government policies will have the effect intended.
Welfare Reform as We Knew It Inside the Obama work waiver: It's worse than Romney says.
Opinion - WSJ.com
It's hard to remember now, but this summer Mitt Romney opened a useful debate about "dependency"—concerning President Obama's regulation to rewrite the 1996 welfare reform. Democrats deny any such intent, but as early as this week the House plans to hold a vote to override the new rule.
So it's a good moment to dissect what the Administration is really trying to do, because in this case Mr. Romney is right: The Administration has made welfare's work requirements far weaker, and for ideological reasons that the press corps has failed to report.
It's Called Treason America's New "Separate and Unequal" Societies
by Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS - CounterPunch.org
After studying the 1967 U.S. urban riots, the Kerner Commission's report indicted White America's institutions and society for creating and condoning a destructive environment of segregation and poverty in the racial ghettos, and warned, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal." (Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Bantam Books, 1968, pages 1 and 2) Today our nation is again moving toward separate and unequal societies, with tens of millions of White people joining Black, Latino, Asian and other citizens at the bottom of a hierarchy of access to economic and political power controlled by the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
Koch brothers' free-market group
plan anti-Occupy rally in New York Americans for Prosperity to gather in Manhattan on Thursday to 'stand up to these extremists who despise free enterprise'
By Adam Gabbatt - Guardian.co.uk
An activist group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers is planning a rally in New York on Thursday to "stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists".
Americans for Prosperity will gather at the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan to demonstrate against Occupy protesters and Barack Obama's handling of the economy.
"The Occupy Wall Street crowd is nothing but a fringe element of malcontents bent on mayhem and destruction," said Steve Lonegan, Americans for Prosperity's New Jersey state director.
Occupy activists commandeer anti-Occupy Wall Street rally Protest backed by billionaire Koch brothers fizzles out as Occupiers match numbers and attend with host of satirical signs
By Adam Gabbatt - Guardian.co.uk
A conservative rally billed as an opportunity to "stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists" fell flat on Thursday when it was co-opted by members of Occupy Wall Street.
Supporters of Americans for Prosperity, a Tea Party-esque groupfunded by the billionaire Koch brothers, gathered at the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan to demonstrate against both Occupy Wall Street and President Obama.
What's Depressing the White Working Class These Days? Everything
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
When pollsters ask Americans who they fault for our economic woes these days, we seem to come back with a very troubling answer: We blame everybody.
Last month, The Pew Research Center released a lengthy study of the U.S. middle class that found its ire directed at banks, Congress, large corporations, the Obama and Bush administrations, and foreign competition. The only people the middle class didn't seem angry with were middle class families themselves.
America's Big Choice
By Ben Shapiro - PatriotPost.us
What happens when a free people decides it was never free to begin with? What happens when a nation decides that individual liberty is a myth, that the endless vicissitudes of life form an impenetrable wall to success, that we are all controlled by outside forces?
We despair. We turn to the power of the masses.
This is where almost half of America currently stands. It came out this week that Mitt Romney made this claim back in May, and he was exactly right. That doesn't mean that every American who doesn't pay federal income tax -- veterans, recipients of Social Security -- has given up the American dream. But it does mean that the vast majority of Americans who, on net, receive government benefits and beg government for more, have given up on that dream.
Not a Gaffe, but the Real Romney
By Ralph Nader - Truthdig.com
There was something missing from the release of a tape showing Mitt Romney pandering to fat cats in Boca Raton, Florida, with these very inflammatory words: "There are 47 percent who are with him, (Obama) who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. These are people who pay no income tax." Romney said his job "is not to worry about those people."
Muslims, Mormons and Liberals Why is it OK to mock one religion but not another?
By Bret Stephens - WSJ.com
'Hasa Diga Eebowai" is the hit number in Broadway's hit musical "The Book of Mormon," which won nine Tony awards last year. What does the phrase mean? I can't tell you, because it's unprintable in a family newspaper.
On the other hand, if you can afford to shell out several hundred bucks for a seat, then you can watch a Mormon missionary get his holy book stuffed—well, I can't tell you about that, either. Let's just say it has New York City audiences roaring with laughter.
A Can't-Do President Why Americans long for Reagan and Clinton.
By CHRISTOPHER ORLET - Spectator.org
Recently over several pints of cheap domestic ale, my brother-in-law held forth on the topic of the unnaturalness of men working in offices. Like most guys chained all day to a desk, he confessed to feeling somewhat ambivalent, if not embarrassed, about his desk job.
For once we were in agreement. Consider the following: for most of his existence the male homo sapiens worked chiefly alfresco, first as hunter and fisherman, and more recently as planter, rancher, trader, teamster or builder, often alone, sometimes with his sons, to whom he passed down the values of hard work.
"Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. [I]ndustry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them." --Benjamin Franklin (1753)
Barack Hussein Obama's Leftmedia sycophants declared the Romney-Ryanpresidential ticket DOA this week. The talkingheads have convicted Mitt Romney for what they insist is a very offensive "political gaffe" uttered at a private campaign event back in May.
The colossal blunder in question? Romney identified the underbelly of Obama's socialist political agenda -- the fact that an ever-increasing number of "useful idiots" have been lured into subservience by generations ofSocialist Democrat policies, are now dependent on a laundry list of government subsidies, and, consequently, they are very likely to vote for the candidate who will continue redistributing wealth to fund those subsidies.
Feast of Fools
By Lewis H. Lapham, TomDispatch - Truthdig.com
All power corrupts but some must govern. —John le Carré
The ritual performance of the legend of democracy in the autumn of 2012 promises the conspicuous consumption of $5.8 billion, enough money, thank God, to prove that our flag is still there. Forbidden the use of words apt to depress a Q Score or disturb a Gallup poll, the candidates stand as product placements meant to be seen instead of heard, their quality to be inferred from the cost of their manufacture. The sponsors of the event, generous to a fault but careful to remain anonymous, dress it up with the bursting in air of star-spangled photo ops, abundant assortments of multiflavored sound bites, and the candidates so well-contrived that they can be played for jokes, presented as game-show contestants, or posed as noble knights-at-arms setting forth on vision quests, enduring the trials by klieg light, until on election night they come to judgment before the throne of cameras by whom and for whom they were produced.
E-Mail Privacy Reform Vote Postponed Until After Elections
BY DAVID KRAVETS - Wired.com
A Senate committee on Thursday delayed until after the November elections whether to approve sweeping digital privacy protections requiring the government, for the first time, to get a probable-cause warrant to obtain e-mail and other content stored in the cloud.
The move by the Senate Judiciary Committee to table considering the first meaningful rewrite of the1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act comes as law enforcement urged the committee to evaluate how crime fighting would be impacted under what would be the biggest advance to digital privacy following the act's original adoption during the President Ronald Reagan administration.
Lawmakers are expected to recess at week's end until after the elections.
Wal-Mart stops selling Amazon Kindles
By Jessica Wohl
Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:40pm EDT
(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc will no longer sell Amazon.com Inc's Kindle eReaders and tablets, severing its relationship with a major competitor and placing a bet that consumers are more interested in Apple's iPad and other gadgets.
The world's largest retailer, which has been trying to catch up to Amazon in online sales, said the decision was consistent with its overall merchandising strategy.
Facebook to charge merchants to run offers
By Alistair Barr and Alexei Oreskovic, REUTERS | The Fiscal Times
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc said it will start charging businesses to run Offers on its social network, turning a previously free service into a potential revenue generator at a time when Wall Street is demanding new sources of growth and profit from the company.
Facebook launched Facebook Offers earlier this year, letting retailers and other local merchants send deals to their Facebook fans. Users claim the offers from their News Feeds and redeem the vouchers at stores to get discounts.
3-D Printing Goes Prehistoric With a Kickstarted Dinosaur
BY NATHAN HURST - Wired.com
Paleoartist Tyler Keillor has long specialized in sculpting realistic clay dinosaur heads for museums and universities, but for his next project — an exacting replica of a full Dryptosaurs built entirely as a 3-D digital object — Kiellor needed a little help from the crowd. He set up a modest Kickstarter campaign to help buy the tools needed to craft his dinosaur digitally, offering various 12-inch dinosaur models he's designed as rewards. The $6,000 goal being met on Monday (and since doubled), Keillor is now setting up to start building a virtual model of this T-Rex cousin.
Harvard creates cyborg flesh that's half man, half machine
By Sebastian Anthony - ExtremeTech.com
Bioengineers at Harvard University have created the first examples of cyborg tissue: Neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels that are interwoven by nanowires and transistors.
These cyborg tissues are half living cells, half electronics. As far as the cells are concerned, they're just normal cells that behave normally — but the electronic side actually acts as a sensor network, allowing a computer to interface directly with the cells. In the case of cyborg heart tissue, the researchers have already used the embedded nanowires to measure the contractions (heart rate) of the cells.
Could the Internet Ever "Wake Up"? And would that be such a bad thing?
By Dan Falk - Slate.com
In the world of sci-fi movie geekdom, Aug. 29, 1997, was a turning point for humanity: On that day, according to the Terminator films, the network of U.S. defense computers known as Skynet became self-aware—and soon launched an all-out genocidal war against Homo sapiens.
Fortunately, that date came and went with no such robo-apocalypse. But the 1990s did bring us the World Wide Web, which is now far larger and more "connected" than any nation's defense network. Could the Internet "wake up"? And if so, what sorts of thoughts would it think? And would it be friend or foe?
Arizona Begins Enforcing Immigration Law -- for Now But pro-illegal alien crusaders are gearing up for a fight.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
In Arizona on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton lifted the injunction on the part of Arizona's immigration law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in June. As a result, police can check the immigration status of people they stop and suspect are in the country illegally. The implementation of this particular provision of SB 1070 represents the latest development in the two-year battle between the state of Arizona and the federal government. Governor Jan Brewer was delighted. "Today is the day we have awaited for more than two years," Brewer said, before adding a caveat. "It must be enforced efficiently, effectively and in harmony with the Constitution and civil rights. I have full faith and confidence that Arizona's State and local law enforcement officers are prepared for this task," she added.
The Narrative Structure of Global Weakening
By Robert J. Shiller - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW HAVEN – Recent indications of a weakening global economy have led many people to wonder how pervasive poor economic performance will be in the coming years. Are we facing a long global slump, or possibly even a depression?
A fundamental problem in forecasting nowadays is that the ultimate causes of the slowdown are really psychological and sociological, and relate to fluctuating confidence and changing "animal spirits," about which George Akerlof and I have written. We argue that such shifts reflect changing stories, epidemics of new narratives, and associated views of the world, which are difficult to quantify.
Agenda 21: Stealth Takeover Exposed
Infowars Nightly News reporters Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton investigate the local initiatives driving the spread of "sustainable communities," now taking over Central Texas and driving its population into a containment grid under the guise of "smart growth" and other such measures. The Infowars team visits several local meetings working to inject 'sustainable' principles into the region, confronting bureaucrats who deny any connection with or sufficient knowledge of the UN's Agenda 21, while Melissa Melton interviews an Urban Design and Landscape Architecture professor at the University of Texas who teaches a class on Agenda 21.
Inside China: Generals urge get-tough policy on Japan
By Miles Yu-The Washington Times
China's state media gave prominent space last week to the People's Liberation Army's most outspoken hawks, who urged Beijing to adopt a unanimous policy of getting tough with Japan. The 10 generals agreed that an immediate war with Japan might not be beneficial for China. But they argued that China should take all measures necessary, including military action, to gain administrative control of the Diaoyudao, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.
"We must get ready militarily," said Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan. "When necessary, we should designate the Diaoyudao area as a military exercise zone, or missile test zone.
Middle East Madness
By Victor Davis Hanson - PatriotPost.us
Last week, Muslim mobs took to the streets to murder the American ambassador in Libya and three of his staffers. American embassies were attacked from Egypt to Yemen.
Embarrassed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice insisted that these assaults were just reactions to an insensitive video circulating on the Internet that disparaged Islam. As embassies burned, we were assured that there was no animosity directed at America in general, or at this administration and its foreign policy in particular.
Judge Refuses to Order YouTube to Remove Anti-Islam Film
BY DAVID KRAVETS - Wired.com
A California judge refused Thursday to order YouTube to remove controversial footage from "Innocence of Muslims," the inflammatory film that sparked a U.S. backlash in the Middle East.
A woman who starred in the film, Cindy Lee Garcia, asked a Los Angeles County judge to take down the film because she said she was fired from her job, received death threats and was tricked into starring in the "hateful anti-Islamic production." The film has possibly led to the killing of J. Chrisopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and about two dozen others the past week.
Cindy Lee Garcia speaks out over controversial movie
Bakersfield resident Cindy Lee Garcia told The Bakersfield Californian she had no idea the movie "Innocence of the Muslims" was the movie she was filming earlier this year. Garcia said her lines were re-dubbed after the movie was filmed at a Los Angeles-area studio's green screen. Garcia said the lines she read were never included in the finished movie.
Close Down Those Embassies In so doing we'll be killing two birds with one stone.
By R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR. - Spectator.org
WASHINGTON -- Allow me to offer a suggestions as to how our government might avoid the slaughter of our personnel in diplomatic installations around the Islamic world by mobs.
It seems to me most probable that insults to the Prophet Muhammad appear regularly in the modern world. After all, insults against revered figures in the world's other major religions pop up all the time. As for Islam, a book such as Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses can be published anywhere. A thirteen-minute anti-Islamic video can arrive on YouTube, and my guess is there are others that have and will appear there. In some obscure land, far from the major media, a cartoon is published perhaps with the Prophet in an absurd pose. Why not a simple slur on Facebook? Who can control Facebook? Will a slur found there set off the mobs next time? And what constitutes a slur? These Islamic mobs keep changing their standards. What was a minor lapse of taste yesterday becomes a cause for terrible indignation today.
Palestinian official says Mitt Romney
is undermining hopes for peace Top aide to Mahmoud Abbas rejects Romney's recent video remark that Palestinians have 'no interest whatsoever' in peace
Associated Press in Ramallah - Guardian.co.uk
A senior Palestinian official has said Republican US presidential candidate Mitt Romney is undermining hopes for peace and democracy in the Middle East.
Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, rejected Romney's recent video remark to donors that the Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever" in peace.
Binyamin Netanyahu gambles on Mitt Romney victory Israeli prime minister denies interfering in the US election, but his relationship with Barack Obama grows more antagonistic
By Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem - Guardian.co.uk
The political TV advertisement featuring Binyamin Netanyahu and the slogan "The world needs American strength, not apologies" is likely to fuel claims that the Israeli prime minister is interfering in the US presidential election in support of Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
It comes increasing during anxiety that Netanyahu has overplayed his hand in displays of warmth and enthusiasm for Romney while his relationship with Barack Obama grows more antagonistic. Some say Netanyahu is gambling too heavily on a Romney victory on November 6 and that if Obama is re-elected, the potential blowback could be damaging not just for the prime minister but for Israel itself.
Israel stages largest snap exercise in years The Israeli army staged its largest snap exercise in recent years, deploying troops in the occupied Golan Heights as contingency planning for possible conflicts with Iran and Syria.
By Adrian Blomfield, Jerusalem - Telegraph.co.uk
Thousands of soldiers were summoned from their homes during the night after the Jewish new year holiday and flown to the territory, which Israel captured from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967.
The unannounced manoeuvres come a week before Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York where he is expected to give warning that time is running out to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
10 Quotes From Financial Experts About The Effect That QE3 Will Have On Gold And Silver
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Do you want to know what QE3 is going to do to the price of gold and the price of silver? Well, you can read what the financial experts are saying below, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out what is likely to happen. During QE3, the Federal Reserve will be introducing 40 billion new dollars that have been created out of nothing into the financial system each month. So there will be more dollars chasing roughly the same number of goods and services, and that means that more inflation is on the way. In an inflationary environment, investors tend to flock to hard assets such as gold and silver. And it is important to remember that a lot of the money from QE1 and QE2 ended up pumping up the prices of various financial assets. This included commodities such as gold and silver. The same thing is likely to happen again with QE3. In addition, investors now have an expectation that the Fed will continue printing money for the foreseeable future and that the U.S. dollar is going to steadily decline, and that expectation will also likely give further momentum to the upward movement of gold and silver. Of course when it comes to investing, there is never a "sure thing" and as the global financial system falls apart in the coming years we are likely to see wild swings in the financial markets. So there is definitely an opportunity when it comes to gold and silver, but anyone that wants to invest in gold and silver needs to be ready for a wild ride.
Gold to reach new high of $2,000/oz
in the first half of 2013: Deutsche Bank
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold prices likely to reach the new high of $2,000 an ounce in the first half of 2013, says Deutsche Bank in a snippet. The bank cites growth in the supply of fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar.
"When one has accumulated too much debt, while the right thing to do is pay it back, the easiest thing to do is default and hope your creditor has a short memory," Deutsche Bank says.
"We believe the Western economies in general are biased towards the latter, whether they will admit it or not. We expect a soft default will likely be the preferable course of action; a managed form of currency depreciation through various stages of quantitative easing or successive bailouts by central banks of the banking system," bank continues.
Gold may hit new highs in medium term
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): SEB Commodity Research says it looks for gold to potentially hit new highs in the short to medium term but has a "more bearish view" on a one-year time horizon.
Federal Reserve quantitative easing and a European Central Bank bond-buying plan have provided support.
"With markets already quite saturated by liquidity this is likely to be supportive for gold and the rest of the precious-metals complex," SEB says.
Emerging market central bank Gold demand to continue: Deutsche Bank
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Emerging market central bankers are a key source of long-term gold demand, said Deutsche Bank in a special report.
According to the German bank, two key market transformations helped gold run up from $250 in 2001 to current levels near $1,770
--Increased investment demand and more widespread regional buying that includes developing nations. This can be most easily observed by examining the increase in holdings of global gold ETF's but also in the physical demand observed in coin/bar sales in most regions around the world.
Deutsche Bank: Gold Is Money
by George Washington - ZeroHedge.com
Deutsche Bank analysts Daniel Brebner and Xiao Fu have just released a new report saying that gold is money:
While it is included in the commodities basket it is in fact a medium of exchange and one that is officially recognised (if not publically used as such).We see gold as an officially recognised form of money for one primary reason: it is widely held by most of the world's larger central banks as a component of reserves.
Gold to consolidate before breaking new highs
By Austin Kiddle - CommodityOnline.com
LONDON: The U.S. Comex Gold futures dropped $1.40 this week to settle at $1,768.70 on Tuesday after reacting positively to the Fed's QE3 announcement last week and taking off from the $1,600 level in mid-August. Having surged 4.21 and 6.30 percent respectively in the past two weeks, the S&P 500 Index and the Euro Stoxx 50 Index retreated 0.44 and 1.59 percent this week. The Crude Oil futures were volatile - having broken through $100 on 14 September, the Crude Oil futures dropped to $95.29 on Tuesday.
Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found
In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
It is one thing for tungsten-filled gold bars to appear in the UK, or in Germany: after all out of sight, and across the Atlantic, certainly must mean out of mind, and out of the safe. However, when a 10 ounce 999.9 gold bar bearing the stamp of the reputable Swiss Produits Artistiques Métaux Précieux (PAMP, with owner MTP) and a serial number (serial#038892, likely rehypothecated in at least 10 gold ETFs across the world but that's a different story), mysteriously emerges in the heart of the world's jewerly district located on 47th street in Manhattan, things get real quick. Moments ago, Myfoxny reported that a 10-ounce gold bar costing nearly $18,000 turned out to be a counterfeit. The discovery was made by the dealer Ibrahim Fadl, who bought the PAMP bar in question from a merchant who has sold him real gold before. "But he heard counterfeit gold bars were going around, so he drilled into several of his gold bars worth $100,000 and saw gray tungsten -- not gold. The bar was filled with tungsten, which weighs nearly the same as gold but costs just over a dollar an ounce."
'Consumerist culture: One deterrent for a Gold Standard'
Commodity Online
While a gold standard could work, Deutsche Bank remains sceptical that it will be considered (barring a serious financial crisis, perhaps associated with highly volatile inflation). And guess why? It is culture, smart!
"In large part we blame the low probability on culture. The world economy has, over the past century, morphed into a highly integrated, government dominated system guided by conventional wisdom (group think). The self-reliant, individualism of the free market has been left behind in favour of a 'new age' of coddled consumerism. Culturally this represents a very powerful force in our view, one which minimises creative options/solutions to economic impasses. On this basis we are cautious of predicting such a radical solution to monetary imbalances." Deutsche Bank argues.
Silver climbs 211% in less than 4 years: Silver Institute
WASHINGTON DC(Commodity Online): The silver price has risen more than 20% since the beginning of this year and significantly, from January 2009 through September 15, 2012, the silver price has increased an astounding 211%.
Factors leading to the price increase include a desire by investors to diversify their portfolios with hard assets, the diminished value of key currencies and continued global economic uncertainty, said Silver Institute in a press release.
Japan launches QE8 as 20-year slump drags on Japan has launched an eighth round of quantitative easing to weaken the yen and cushion a slide back into recession.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The Bank of Japan (BoJ) is to buy a further 10 trillion yen (£79bn) of bonds, bringing the total accumulated so far in its battle against deflation to 80 trillion yen, or 20pc of Japanese GDP.
Jun Azumi, Japan's finance minister, praised the bank's "bold" efforts to hold down the yen, lending credence to suspicions that the real motive is to counter "beggar-thy-neighbour" currency devaluations by other powers and prevent the strong yen choking Japan's export industry.
Bank of Japan Joins the Party
BY THOMAS J SMITH CFA - FinancialSense.com
Stocks traded higher form the open after the Bank of Japan raised its asset purchase target in an attempt to add liquidity into the market and weaken the yen. Existing home sales data was better than expected and was an early catalyst for buyers. Buying pressure waned throughout the day and the S&P 500 finished 0.12% higher on the day.
The Bank of Japan action today showed its increased desire to end the era of deflation. They announced a large increase in their Asset Purchase Program (APP) of 10 trillion yen. The flip side is they are doing this in response to forecasts for slower economic growth.
Money printing has only allowed governments
to duck their problems Forget QE3 in the US, or whatever round of quantitative easing we are now up to here in the UK; in Japan they are about to embark on QE7, or is that QE8 – it's hard to keep up.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
In the land of the setting sun, QE is now such an everyday part of the economic landscape that it would barely have warranted a mention, let alone an entire column, but for the fact that the latest dollop of "unconventional" policy action appears to be part of a co-ordinated, global response to the economic slowdown .
Like big deficits and mountainous public debt, in Japan, QE no longer generates the same agonised debate it does in the West. It just is. For Japan, the "unconventional" is now very much the conventional.
The Trouble With Printing Money
by Chris Martenson - FinancialSense.com
For a while now, I have been expecting a coordinated, global central bank action that would seek to print more money out of thin air, or "QE" (quantitative easing), as it is now called. Now we have two of the most important central banks, that of the U.S. (the Federal Reserve) and in Europe (the ECB) having committed to open-ended, limitless QE.
In Part I of this report, we analyze the actions themselves, and then in Part II we discuss the implications to individuals and those with responsibilities to manage money.
The most recent announcement came from the Fed, and it had these features:
'Krugman's Kryptonite' Pedro Schwartz
On Creating Money Out Of Thin Air
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
"A serious inflationary disaster will only be prevented if governments succeed in reducing their deficits and stop selling bonds" is how the infamous destroyer of Krugman, Pedro Schwartz, describes the dangerous 'tennis match' being played between The Fed and The ECB. In an excellent interview with GoldMoney's James Turk, the Spanish 'Austrian' economist talks about bank regulation, the creation of money out of thin air, and the beauty of a trult free market system. From fictional reserve lending to the fragility (and boom-bust cycles) of our financial system, the mild-mannered 'Keynesian-Krusher' concludes that "there has to be a change in social mentality - so that people realize that nothing is free, and the government has to shrink."
Can the Fed Survive After QE3?
By Ed Dolan - OilPrice.com
Each time the Fed undertakes a new program of quantitative easing, questions arise about the possible impact on its solvency. I addressed that concern in November 2010, at the time QE2 was announced. Here is an updated version of that post that looks at the solvency issue in the context of QE3.
The Fed's new program of quantitative easing, QE3, once again raises an old question: Can central banks go broke? Conventional analysis, aptly summarized by Willem Buiter in a 2008 report, says "Never–Well, hardly ever." The Fed is most assuredly not going to suffer a run or become unable to meet its obligations, but under some scenarios, keeping it from going going broke could raise difficult political issues and perhaps even threaten its independence.
Watchdogs headed for heavy budget cuts Operation changes could be 'significant'
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
The automatic spending cuts looming at the first of next year might end up eliminating some waste, but they also will take a giant bite out of the waste-watchers themselves — the auditors who taxpayers count on to weed out fraud and keep tabs on government money.
The cuts also will slash through the agencies that watch Wall Street, protect workers' rights, combat discrimination and otherwise patrol American businesses. These watchdog agencies stand to lose nearly half a billion dollars from staff and operations budgets, eating into their ability to do the work Congress has asked them to do.
Fed's Fisher Says U.S. Inflation Expectations Rising
By Steve Matthews and Aki Ito - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the central bank's third round of large-scale asset purchases has led to an increase in market expectations for higher inflation without more job creation.
"I do not see an overall argument for letting inflation rise to levels where we might scare the market," Fisher said on Bloomberg Radio's "The Hays Advantage" with Kathleen Hays and Vonnie Quinn. "We have seen a sharp rise in inflation expectations. If you let this get out of hand, then I think we will have a market reaction."
Fed's Bullard says QE3 was launched too soon
By Alister Bull
ST. LOUIS | Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:09pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve should have waited for clearer signs of a flagging economy before launching its new bond-buying program, the head of the St. Louis regional Fed bank said on Tuesday, adding that he would have voted against it.
James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, also told Reuters that he is sufficiently concerned about the risk of future inflation that he backs a controversial proposal by congressional Republicans for the Fed to return to having only a single mandate: preventing inflation.
Fed's dual mandate on the table in wake of QE3
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Two top Federal Reserve officials who opposed the latest round of Fed asset purchases have waded into tricky political waters by suggesting that lawmakers could tie the Fed's hands if they wanted to block more asset purchases.
"A future Congress might restrict us to a single mandate – like other central banks in the world operate under – focused solely on price stability," said Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank in a speech on Wednesday night in New York.
Is Inflation Back From the Dead? The Fed's latest moves have revived fears among bond investors.
By Brett Arends - SmartMoney.com
One of the standout features of the financial crisis has been that inflation has collapsed. Over the past few years, even as the Federal Reserve has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy to get it moving, prices and wages have barely moved, and the bond market has boomed.
Until now?
In the past few weeks, as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has announced his latest and potentially biggest program of money printing yet, inflation worries have suddenly and dramatically perked up in the bond market.
Bernanke briefs lawmakers on fiscal cliff
(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke trekked to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to caution Senate lawmakers on the economic dangers of the looming "fiscal cliff," the nearly $600 billion in planned spending cuts and tax hikes that will bite at the start of next year unless lawmakers act.
Bernanke, who has publicly warned that dawdling by lawmakers was putting the U.S. economy in peril, spoke to members of the Senate Finance Committee for about an hour behind closed doors in a meeting requested by the panel chairman, Democrat Max Baucus.
Bernanke holds closed-door meeting with senators on fiscal cliff
By Peter Schroeder and Erik Wasson - TheHill.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke underlined his concerns about the fiscal cliff in a closed-door meeting with senators Wednesday.
The head of the nation's central bank met privately with members of the Senate Finance Committee, as he continued to make his case to lawmakers that they must adjust policy before the end of the year to avert a fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts that economists argue could thrust the nation back into a recession.
Why Bernanke Refuses To Let Oil Prices Fall
BY CLIF DROKE - FinancialSense.com
A prominent symptom of the final deflationary phase of the 60-year/120-year cycle scheduled to bottom in 2014 is, ironically, asset price inflation. While this may seem contradictory at first glance, it makes perfect sense after closer scrutiny. Asset price inflation is the central bank's response to the destructive undercurrent of economic deflation. It requires a decisive action, as the recent QE3 initiative showed.
Obama administration, Fed,
have missed 60% of Dodd-Frank deadlines
WashingtonExaminer.com
Federal regulators have missed the statutory deadlines on 145 of the 237 rule-making requirements in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, according to a top financial-regulation analyst.
After a bill becomes law, it's up to executive agencies to write rules implementing the legislation. Dodd-Frank was more than 2000 pages, and the legislative language was a wonderful mix of complex, vague, and open-ended. The result is a huge burden on the SEC, the Fed, and other federal agencies. And they're not meeting those burdens.
Fiscal Cliff Becomes Investors' Worst Fear
By Douglas McIntyre, 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
A report from Merrill Lynch shows that investors are now more worried about the "fiscal cliff" than the financial trouble of Europe:
Europe is staging a comeback in investor portfolios while concerns about the U.S. fiscal cliff have taken center stage, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey for September.
A Rare Look at Why The Government Won't Fight Wall Street
By Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
The great mystery story in American politics these days is why, over the course of two presidential administrations (one from each party), there's been no serious federal criminal investigation of Wall Street during a period of what appears to be epic corruption. People on the outside have speculated and come up with dozens of possible reasons, some plausible, some tending toward the conspiratorial – but there have been very few who've come at the issue from the inside.
The Experimental Economy
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
On the heels of last Thursday's Fed announcement, there has been much commentary on the whys and wherefores of a new quantitative easing (the so-called QE3). Rather than re-hashing well-covered ground, I want to instead discuss the potential effects and unintended consequences of this policy and how it may impact the investment landscape going forward. Suffice it to say that the Fed had its reasons. QE3 evidences a belief in the so-called "wealth-effect" – the idea that one will spend more if he/she feels wealthier – and the Fed also believes it can contain any negative consequences. However, others would argue that it's another shot across the bow of our foreign lenders that we are willing to engage full-out in a currency war as this policy clearly weakens the U.S. dollar. Because the Fed has embarked on a path with little historical precedent – where a central bank has signaled the intent to expand its balance sheet as much as it needs to – we are all now part of an experimental economy.
5 Ways QE3 Will Affect Your Wallet
By John Grgurich, The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
How many times have you seen a box of detergent or a bottle of cold medicine that says something like "new and improved" or "more powerful than ever" and wondered whether the contents could live up to the hype on the label? Well, the Federal Reserve's third round of quantitative easing -- known as QE3 -- is all that and more. In fact, if rounds of quantitative easing had slogans, QE3's would be: "Wow! We've never tried anything this powerful before!"
Compared to QE1 and QE2, QE3 is unprecedented in its direction and scope. As such, it's making people across the board nervous, for one familiar reason: the possibility of inflation.
Is America The Most Materialistic Society
In The History Of The World?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
When it comes to materialism, has any nation ever surpassed what we are seeing in the United States right now? We define our lives by how much stuff we have, to a large degree our personal and business relationships are defined by how much money we make, and even most of the important dates on our calendar are all about materialism. Just think about it. We throw outrageous birthday parties for our kids and we shower them with gifts. Most of our "holidays" have become highly materialistic, and the biggest holiday of all in our society, Christmas, is an absolute orgy of materialism. We make lists of the "wealthiest Americans" and we glorify their achievements. We spend most of our time either making money or spending it. Even the phrase "the American Dream" reveals how materialistic we are. When most people are asked what "the American Dream" is, they start talking about a house, a car, vacations, retirement, sending your kids to college, etc. The American Dream has become all about money and stuff. Sadly, no matter how big our homes are and no matter how many shiny new toys we accumulate, we never seem to be happy. We always want more, and we always seem to be willing to go into more debt to get it. We are the most materialistic society in the history of the world, and our endless greed is going to end up swallowing us alive.
Gap widens between haves and have-nots. Richest Americans' net worth jumps to $1.7 trillion: Forbes
By Dan Burns
NEW YORK | Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:08pm EDT
(Reuters) - The net worth of the richest Americans grew by 13 percent in the past year to $1.7 trillion, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday, and a familiar cast populated the top of the annual list, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and the Koch brothers.
The average net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans rose to a record $4.2 billion, up more than 10 percent from a year ago, while the lowest net worth came in at $1.1 billion versus $1.05 billion last year, the magazine said. Seven in ten of the list's members made their fortunes from scratch.
CBO Says 6 Million in U.S.
to Face Penalty for Lacking Insurance
By Brian Faler - Bloomberg.com
About 6 million Americans would have to pay a penalty under President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul for failing to get insurance, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Officeestimated.
The agency said it now expects about 50 percent more people to be subject to the tax than it had previously anticipated. That's partly because the CBO said it foresees higher unemployment, which translates into more people without employer-sponsored coverage.
Two million more expected to pay penalty under Obamacare
By James O'Toole - CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Congress' official scorekeeper said Wednesday that roughly two million more Americans will pay penalties under President Obama's health care law for lacking insurance than had previously been estimated.
Under the law, Americans must be insured starting in 2014 or pay a penalty assessed on their tax returns.
Shortly after the legislation passed in 2010, the Congressional Budget Office, working alongside the Joint Committee on Taxation, estimated that in 2016 roughly four million people a year would opt to pay the penalty instead of getting coverage. On Wednesday, the CBO and JCT revised that figure up to six million, citing legislation passed since 2010 as well as the weaker economic outlook.
CBO: Obamacare mandate
will cost 6 million taxpayers $7 billion in 2016
By Philip Klein - WashingtonExaminer.com
The individual mandate in President Obama's health care law will cost 6 million taxpayers a total of $7 billion in 2016, according to new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office. The cost will then average around $8 billion from 2017 through 2022.
The health care law requires Americans to either purchase government-approved insurance or pay a penalty. The mandate starts in 2014, and the penalties fully go into effect in 2016. The CBO estimates that 30 million will be uninsured by that year, but most will be exempted from the mandate, because they are unauthorized immigrants, members of Indian tribes, or don't earn enough income to file taxes, among other reasons.
Work slowdown - pilots union doesn't like contract terms American cancels flights as pilots call in sick American's plan to get out of bankruptcy
By Chris Isidore - CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- American Airlines has canceled more than 300 flights since Sunday and will cut back on the number of flights through the end of October, because pilots, unhappy with their labor contract, have started to call in sick, the airline said Wednesday.
The pilot's union had new rules imposed on it by the bankruptcy court after 7,500 pilots last month overwhelmingly rejected the tentative deal that their union, the Allied Pilots Association, had reached with management.
HUD paid over $1B in false claims
By Danielle Douglas - WashingtonPost.com
The U.S. government may have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgage aid to struggling homeowners who did not qualify for that help, a new report found.
The inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the agency did not adequately enforce standards for its Preforeclosure Sale Program, which uses government aid to cover the shortfall for troubled homeowners who must sell their home for less than they owe on their mortgages. The program ran from September 2010 to August 2011, paying more than $1.7 billion in claims on nearly 20,000 homes.
Canceled contracts dog real-estate recovery
By AnnaMaria Andriotis - MarketWatch.com
A housing recovery may be under way, but there's an obstacle that appears to be slowing down the rebound: the unusually high number of buyers who walk away from their contracts.
An average of nearly 18% of signed contracts on existing home sales were canceled during the three months ending July, according to data released this month by Capital Economics, an independent research firm. That's the highest all year and the most since May 2010, when that figure reached 23%; in the five years before the housing slump started, the average never went higher than 10%. Separately, 36% of Realtors are reporting some kind of problem with a contract, including cancellations, delays and renegotiations of the sales terms, according to August data by the National Association of Realtors. That's up from 30% earlier this year.
Mortgage Rates Get Back To Record Lows
By Jon Ogg, 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
Zillow, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z) reported today that mortgage rates have fallen back to record lows this week. The report showed that 30-year fixed rate mortgages fell to 3.34% from 3.38% at the same time last week. Zillow showed that the 15-year fixed mortgage was down at 2.71% and that a 5/1 adjustable rate mortgage was 2.45%.
Zillow's Lauren Riefflin wrote, "After peaking at 3.46 percent on Wednesday, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate dropped to 3.33 percent and hovered between 3.36 and 3.39 percent over the weekend, dropping to the current rate this morning."
Why North American Gas Prices Are So High
By Keith Schaefer - OilPrice.com
Driving gasoline is 50% higher today than in 2008 – relative to the price of oil.
In other words, gas prices are nearly what they were in 2008... but at that point oil was priced at $147 a barrel.
Today the oil price is $50 less than that.
That's why driving gasoline is 50% higher.
And drivers in North America are now competing for cheap American crude – with gasoline drivers everywhere.
Thousands flee as Guatemalan volcano erupts
Guatemalans fill local emergency shelters after they were evacuated from their homes after the Fuego volcano erupted, spewing smoke and ash into the sky. Red Cross officials and volunteers were called in to help people, including children and disabled residents, move to safety
U.S. Income Inequality:
It's Worse Today Than It Was in 1774
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Here's a finding that would have made for great occupy sign last year: American income inequality may be more severe today than it was way back in 1774 -- even if you factor in slavery.
That stat's not actually as crazy (or demoralizing) as it sounds, but it might upend some of the old wisdom about our country's economic heritage. The conclusion comes to us from an newly updated study by professors Peter Lindert of the University of California - Davis and Jeffrey Williamson of Harvard. Scraping together data from an array of historical resources, the duo have written a fascinating exploration of early American incomes, arguing that, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, wealth was distributed more evenly across the 13 colonies than anywhere else in the world that we have record of.
Dear Obese America:
Uncle Sam Wants To Regulate What You Eat
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
It seems that the recent foray of Mayor Bloomberg into determining what one may and may not consume based on calorie count, was just the appetizer, so to say. As some may recall, back in March we wrote that based on OECD predictions, up to 75% of the US nation will be overweight or obese. Now, none other than Uncle Sam has gotten wind that his population will soon be primarily made up of fat people. So he has a solution, which is in the vein of all other solutions where Uncle Sam is concerned: regulate, regulate, regulate.
Obesity Drugs Gain Attention on FDA Backing for Therapies
By Meg Tirrell - Bloomberg.com
Obesity drugs are getting a lift after years of languishing even as populations around the globe get heavier. Rather than pharmaceutical giants, though, it's small companies with an appetite for risk leading the charge.
Plagued with failures and side effects, drug development in obesity slowed to a near halt in the last decade as most large pharmaceutical companies abandoned efforts, leaving smaller biotechnology companies to forge ahead. This year, after 13 years with no new drug approvals, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared two medicines for obesity, kick starting what many hope will be a rejuvenation for the field.
The Truth Behind the Romney "Gaffe"
By Jeffrey Tucker - DailyReckoning.com
09/19/12 Auburn, Alabama – Cover the kids' ears! Hide their eyes! Shuffle the weak and frail from the room! A politician running for president has uttered a heresy that brings into question the holy grail of democratic politics. Romney has failed to pretend as if the country is one big happy family that uses our glorious voting system to discover ever better ways of governing ourselves.
Which is to say that Romney made a gaffe.
You know the definition of a political gaffe: inadvertent and unscripted truth. That's what the supposed scandal of Romney's off-the-cuff comments amounts to. He told potential donors an unvarnished truth that everyone knows but which is not part of the official civic creed of the land of the free:
USS Romney goes Titanic
Pepe Escobar - ATimes.com
Willard "Mitt" Romney comfortably sees himself as the chief executive officer of a US$1 billion enterprise - the Republican Party election campaign that should place him as the next President of the United States (POTUS). Meanwhile, current POTUS Barack Obama is increasingly convinced he just needs to deploy a secret weapon to clinch re-election.
That weapon is Mitt Romney.
USS Romney is like one of those state-of-the art aircraft carriers parked somewhere between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. The problem is, at winter and the November presidential election approaches Washington, it has hit not only one iceberg, but a climate changeful of icebergs. And this while the orchestra on board merrily keeps playing Baby, It's Cold Outside to the $50,000-a-plate plutocrats who have not yet abandoned the sinking ship.
The Brilliant Prudence of Dwight Eisenhower Never showy or impulsive, the 34th president always played for the long term. As voters consider what qualities they want in a leader, a new look shows why Americans were right to like Ike.
By Evan Thomas - TheAtlantic.com
Dwight Eisenhower is a president whose reputation has improved over time. When he left office, he was regarded as a genial, grandfatherly figure but also as a caretaker who was a little out of it. At the time, in January 1961, his Farewell Address presciently warning against the "military-industrial complex" was little noticed; far more attention was paid to JFK's soaring (and, in hindsight, overreaching) inaugural speech, promising to "bear any burden."
Final testing under way for Wyoming supercomputer
WashingtonExaminer.com
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Final testing is being done on a National Center for Atmospheric Research supercomputer on the outskirts of Cheyenne that will be used for climate modeling and other Earth sciences.
Research is expected to begin this fall on the new computer, called Yellowstone, which has enough power to rank among the top dozen or so fastest supercomputers in the world.
So how fast is it, exactly?
Launching affordable 3-D printers The New MakerBot Replicator Might Just Change Your World
BY CHRIS ANDERSON - Wired.com
Take the subway to an otherwise undistinguished part of Third Avenue in Brooklyn. Knock on the door. Wait for some stylishly disheveled young man to open it and let you in. You've arrived at the BotCave—the place where 125 factory workers are creating the future of manufacturing.
The BotCave is home to MakerBot, a company that for nearly four years has been bringing affordable 3-D printers to the masses. But nothing MakerBot has ever built looks like the new printer these workers are currently constructing. The Replicator 2 isn't a kit; it doesn't require a weekend of wrestling with software that makes Linux look easy. Instead, it's driven by a simple desktop application, and it will allow you to turn CAD files into physical things as easily as printing a photo. The entry-level Replicator 2, priced at $2,199, is for generating objects up to 11 by 6 inches in an ecofriendly material; the higher-end Replicator 2X, which costs $2,799, can produce only smaller items, up to 9 by 6 inches, but it has dual heads that let it print more sophisticated objects. With these two machines, MakerBot is putting down a multimillion-dollar wager that 3-D printing has hit its mainstream moment.
Intel introduces palm reading biometric
Taking a hands-on approach.
BY CANACCORD GENUITY MORNING COFFEE - FuturesMag.com
Intel last week said it wants to do away with computer passwords – and wants to let them. Research scientists at the world's largest chipmaker demonstrated a system that recognizes the pattern of veins in the palm of a hand as it's waved over a sensor, eliminating the need for the string of numbers and letters now used to gain access to phones, computers or web sites.
"Nobody likes passwords," Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner said at a meeting for developers on Thursday. "This completely removes this deeply inconvenient notion of passwords."
Library of Congress unveils new
bill-tracking site to replace THOMAS
By Brendan Sasso - TheHill.com
The Library of Congress on Wednesday unveiled Congress.gov, a new site that will allow members of the public to learn about past and pending legislation.
The site, which offers bill summaries, bill texts and vote tallies, will eventually replace THOMAS, Congress's current legislative database.
Congress.gov offers a host of improvements over the old service. The site is now accessible on mobile devices and features live and archived video of floor debates. The Library of Congress also cooperated with the House and Senate to provide profiles and biographical data of every member of Congress, along with information on all the bills they have introduced.
DHS "Arming Itself to The Teeth" for Massive Civil Unrest
Following controversy over its purchase of around 1.2 billion bullets in the last six months alone, the Department of Homeland Security has put out a new solicitation for over 200 million more rounds of ammunition, some of which are designated to be used by snipers.
A series of new solicitations posted on the FedBizOpps website show that the DHS is looking to purchase 200 million rounds of .223 rifle ammunition over the next four years, as well as 176,000 rounds of .308 caliber 168 grain hollow point boat tail (HPBT) rounds in addition to 25,000 rounds of blank .308 caliber bullets...
White House demands military prisons
for Americans under NDAA
RT.com
The White House has asked the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to place an emergency stay on a ruling made last week by a federal judge so that the president's power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge is reaffirmed immediately.
On Wednesday, September 12, US District Court Judge Katherine Forrest made permanent a temporary injunction she issued in May that bars the federal government from abiding by the indefinite detention provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or NDAA. Judge Forrest ruled that a clause that gives the government the power to arrest US citizens suspected of maintaining alliances with terrorists and hold them without due process violated the Constitution and that the White House would be stripped of that ability immediately.
OBAMA GETS DETENTION AUTHORITY BACK – FOR NOW
WND.com
Appeals court panel to review constitutional issue again
An appeals court judge has issued an order temporarily restoring to Barack Obama – whose administration previously has described individuals who hold a pro-life position or advocate for the Second Amendment or limited government as possible terrorists – authority to detain indefinitely those suspected of aiding or supporting America's enemies.
The order late last night from Raymond Lohier of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a permanent injunction issued by the trial court in the case and instructed that the issue be addressed by the court's motions panel Sept. 28.
Fast and Furious - Holder cleared... More Than a Dozen Senior U.S. Officials
Were in on Mexican Gunwalking Plan
By Robert Beckhusen - Wired.com
A disastrous plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to allow guns to "walk" into Mexico wasn't the fault of a few misguided officials, a new investigation from the Justice Department's internal watchdog finds. The gun-walking plan, known as Operation Fast and Furious, compromised the integrity of more than a dozen senior officials and three agencies. Attorney General Eric Holder has been cleared of allegations he knew about Fast and Furious. Many of his subordinates were not so fortunate.
Iran preparing internal version of Internet
By James Ball and Benjamin Gottlieb - WashingtonPost.com
The Iranian government, determined to limit Western influence and defend itself against cyberattacks, appears to have laid the technical foundations for a national online network that would be detached from the Internet and permit tighter control over the flow of information.
The concept of a self-contained network has been reverberating within Iran for almost a decade and has often been treated with skepticism, given the significant investment in infrastructure and security that would be required. But Iranian officials and outside experts say that development of the network has accelerated following cyberattacks aimed at the country's nuclear program.
The Next Task for China's New Leaders
By Ana Palacio - Project-Syndicate.org
BEIJING – On a recent fact-finding trip to China, organized by the European Council on Foreign Relations, I began with the assumption that the country's biggest challenge revolved around the need to promote domestic consumption in order to maintain rapid economic growth. By the end of the trip, what had emerged was a complex picture of Chinese assertiveness and uncertainty, poise and anxiety.
Although impending, the 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is shrouded in mystery. While the congress is presumably set for October, the exact dates remain unknown, as does much about the internal process and preparatory discussions.
Wars and Rumors of Wars...
Waging war: A US monopoly
By Tom Engelhardt - ATimes.com
It's pop-quiz time when it comes to the American way of war: three questions, torn from the latest news, just for you. Here's the first of them, and good luck!
Two weeks ago, 200 US marines began armed operations in ... ?:
a) Afghanistan
b) Pakistan
c) Iran
d) Somalia
e) Yemen
f) Central Africa
g) Northern Mali
h) The Philippines
i) Guatemala
If you opted for any answer, "a" through "h", you took a reasonable shot at it. After all, there's an ongoing American war in Afghanistan and somewhere in the southern part of that country, 200 armed US marines could well have been involved in an operation. In Pakistan, an undeclared, CIA-run air war has long been under way, and in the past there have been armed border crossings by US special operations forces as well as US piloted cross-border air strikes, but no marines.
Sen. McCain: US should consider option
of leaving Afghanistan more quickly
By Jeremy Herb and Carlo Muñoz - TheHill.com
The mishandling of the war in Afghanistan by the Obama administration has made it so dangerous that the U.S. should consider withdrawing all troops from the country early, according to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other lawmakers.
"I think all options ought to be considered, including whether we have to just withdraw early, rather than have a continued bloodletting that won't succeed," McCain said Wednesday.
Alaska F-22s deployed to Pacific
even as tensions escalate between China, Japan
Ben Anderson - AlaskaDispatch.com
Alaska's fleet of F-22 fighter jets and their elite pilots have been deployed to an airbase in the Pacific U.S. territory of Guam, according to officials at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. The deployment has been planned for some time, but happens to coincide with a period of escalating tension in the Pacific Theater, as Japan and China dispute who has the rights to a set of uninhabited, resource-rich islands.
Chinese General: Prepare for Combat Top Chinese general in unusual move tells troops to ready for combat with Japan
BY: Bill Gertz - Washington Free Beacon
China's most powerful military leader, in an unusual public statement, last week ordered military forces to prepare for combat, as Chinese warships deployed to waters near disputed islands and anti-Japan protests throughout the country turned violent.
Protests against the Japanese government's purchase of three privately held islands in the Senkakus chain led to mass street protests, the burning of Japanese flags, and attacks on Japanese businesses and cars in several cities. Some carried signs that read "Kill all Japanese," and "Fight to the Death" over disputed islands. One sign urged China to threaten a nuclear strike against Japan.
Growing Unemployment and Civil Unrest -
The Real Picture in Iran
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
"Business is drying up, industry is collapsing. There's zero investment. I know. I see it with my own eyes." The words of a wealthy Iranian business man on the state of his country's economy.
Tough economic sanctions imposed by Western countries are crippling Iran. Inflation is officially at 25%, although many economists believe that the true level could be double this rate, and hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs as the sanctions have curbed export demand, and made it difficult for manufacturing companies to locate vital raw materials. Some members of parliament, have estimated that 500,000 to 800,000 people have lost their jobs in the past year alone.
Western report - Iran ships arms, personnel to Syria via Iraq
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS | Wed Sep 19, 2012 6:40pm EDT
(Reuters) - Iran has been using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to Syria to aid President Bashar al-Assad in his attempt to crush an 18-month uprising against his government, according to a Western intelligence report seen by Reuters.
Earlier this month, U.S. officials said they were questioning Iraq about Iranian flights in Iraqi airspace suspected of ferrying arms to Assad, a staunch Iranian ally. On Wednesday, U.S. Senator John Kerry threatened to review U.S. aid to Baghdad if it does not halt such overflights.
Tensions Mount in the Strait of Hormuz
From theTrumpet.com
A massive fleet of navy vessels from around the world converged on the Strait of Hormuz last week to prepare for an annual 12-day naval exercise. Ships representing 25 nations, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, began exercises Sunday in preparation for potential retaliation from Iran should Israel strike Iran's nuclear sites.
Fearing that Iran might close down the Strait of Hormuz, the fleet is scheduled to conduct exercises on "how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and … counter-mining drills," as well as destroying Iranian ships, fighters and missile batteries in the Persian Gulf area, the Telegraph reported. Though these war games are conducted every year, never before has such a large force participated. The exercise will include three full U.S. carrier groups, each accompanied by dozens of support vessels and carrying more aircraft than the entire Iranian air force.
WORLD BACKS IRAN
By Pete Papaherakles - AmericanFreePress.net
Top officials representing 120 governments—the majority of the world—showed up in Tehran on August 26 to attend the week-long "Non-Aligned Movement" (NAM) summit, where they unanimously voted to support Iran's nuclear energy program and condemn the American-led attempt to isolate and punish the Islamic republic.
Despite the fact that the summit marked the largest international gathering in Tehran since the country's founding in 1979, the Western mainstream media barely mentioned it. It was the strongest show of support ever for Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy.
Obama at a Syrian crossroads
By Victor Kotsev - ATimes.com
United States policy in Syria is at a crossroads. The current situation is untenable: the bloodshed continues unabated, while spillover threatens all the neighboring countries, and by extension, US interests. Powerful ethno-nationalist movements are stirring, most importantly among the Kurds, and are threatening to confront the international community with a new reality on the ground. Rival powers Russia and China (each in its own way), sensing American weakness following the embassy attacks and riots throughout the Muslim world in the last week, are positioning to cash in.
On the other hand, there are simply no easy solutions in the country where a civil war is becoming more violent and intractable by the day. Such wars, as former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack put it, end "in one of two ways: One side wins, typically in murderous fashion, or a third party intervenes with enough force to snuff out the fighting."
Dennis Gartman Bullish on Gold: 'Don't Fade It'
By: Bruno J. Navarro - CNBC.com
After a Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst said that gold will hit $2,400 in two years, noted investor Dennis Gartman weighed in Tuesday on CNBC.
Editor of widely followed The Gartman Letter, Gartman said on "Fast Money" that he was reluctant to put a number target on the precious metal — but his bet was clear.
"I think clearly the trend in gold is from the lower left to the upper right," he said.
"Clearly, it's moving higher. Clearly, the expansion of the monetary aggregates is going to drive gold prices upward. It is a bull market. Don't fade it."
Stagflation in Extremis and the Explosive Rise of Gold Stagflation is where economic growth slows, unemployment is high and prices rise.
By Darryl Robert Schoon - GoldSeek.com
Stagflation's appearance in the 1970s was like an outbreak of three-headed children. It wasn't supposed to happen. Prevailing wisdom—an oxymoron among economists—held that high employment and rising prices were economic handmaidens; and that, conversely, slowing economies and inflation were mutually exclusive.
In the 1970s, for the first time in capitalism's history stagflation appeared, i.e. prices rose and economic growth stagnated; and, while economists would search for reasons to explain the apparently inexplicable, it was only because they avoided the obvious that they did not find the answer.
Gold Standard Explained
Peter Schiff - A very successful investor explains the gold standard with a history background.
Fed's 'QE-Infinity' Will Push Gold Up to $2,400: Pro
By: John Melloy - CNBC.com
In one of the most bullish gold calls since the Federal Reserve announced a new round of easing last week, one strategist sees a 36 percent jump in the metal's price, to $2,400 an ounce, by the end of 2014.
"The new target reflects our view that the Fed will maintain mortgage purchases until the end of 2014 and will move to buy Treasuries following the end of Operation Twist this coming December," wrote Francisco Blanch, a global investment strategist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in a note to clients Tuesday.
Fed's Dudley Says Easing Vital to Spur Too-Slow Growth
By Caroline Salas Gage - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley said the central bank's new stimulus is vital for boosting "unacceptably slow" improvement in economic growth.
"In the absence of further monetary easing, I concluded that growth would remain too subdued over the next several years to make big inroads into the spare capacity that remains from the Great Recession," Dudley said today in a speech in Florham Park, New Jersey. "As a result, unemployment would remain unacceptably high, with economic risks skewed to the downside."
It's All Out the Window Now
By Gary Tanashian - GoldSeek.com
In the run up to Thursday's FOMC announcement of open ended 'asset' (mortgage debt) purchases, ZIRP extension and Twist continuation, NFTRH had been using the average US presidential election cycle, sentiment backdrop and of course technical analysis to stay bullish (with associated rising risk profile). We had incorrectly minimized the potential for QE right here and now in the interest of not running with an increasingly over bullish herd and with respect to risk management.
The Federal Reserve Is Systematically Destroying Social Security And The Retirement Plans Of Millions Of Americans
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Last week the mainstream media hailedQE3 as the "quick fix" that the U.S. economy desperately needs, but the truth is that the policies that the Federal Reserve is pursuing are going to be absolutely devastating for our senior citizens. By keeping interest rates at exceptionally low levels, the Federal Reserve is absolutely crushing savers and is systematically destroying Social Security. Meanwhile, the inflation that QE3 will cause is going to be absolutely crippling for the millions upon millions of retired Americans that are on a fixed income. Sadly, most elderly Americans have no idea what the Federal Reserve is doing to their financial futures. Most Americans that are approaching retirement age have not adequately saved for retirement, and the Social Security system that they are depending on is going to completely and totally collapse in the coming years. Right now, approximately 56 million Americans are collecting Social Security benefits. By 2035, that number is projected to grow to a whopping 91 million. By law, the Social Security trust fund must be invested in U.S. government securities.
Why Ben Bernanke's QE3 is a Game Changer
By John Thomas - OilPrice.com
I think that Ben Bernanke's QE3 is such a game changer, that we have to throw all existing strategies into the trash and start all over again from scratch. Suddenly, investors and traders have to face the prospect of adding $500 billion to $1 trillion to the Fed's balance sheet, taking it to a record $3.7 trillion. All of this new money will go into risk assets.
This demands that I radically change my approach to the market. You can kiss the big September correction I was expecting goodbye and the ones for October, November, and December goodbye as well. The markets might even continue up for the rest of 2012.
Bonds—Heading From Bull Market to Bubble?
By BRETT ARENDS - WSJ.com
Ben Bernanke's latest announcement may provide a short-term boost to America's love affair with bonds—but at the risk of longer term pain.
The Fed chairman last week unveiled a new program of easy money to help kick start the economy. He will, in layman's terms, print money and use it to buy bonds, hoping to drive down interest rates and boost economic activity. It's the third time he's done this since 2009. He says he is willing to continue the latest program until it works.
Beijing hints at bond attack on Japan
A senior advisor to the Chinese government has called for an attack on the Japanese bond market to precipitate a funding crisis and bring the country to its knees, unless Tokyo reverses its decision to nationalise the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Jin Baisong from the Chinese Academy of International Trade – a branch of the commerce ministry – said China should use its power as Japan's biggest creditor with $230bn (£141bn) of bonds to "impose sanctions on Japan in the most effective manner" and bring Tokyo's festering fiscal crisis to a head.
Writing in the Communist Party newspaper China Daily, Mr Jin called on China to invoke the "security exception" rule under the World Trade Organisation to punish Japan, rejecting arguments that a trade war between the two Pacific giants would be mutually destructive.
The Dangerous Standoff in the South China Sea
is About to Boil Over
BY WILLIAM PATALON III, Executive Editor, Money Morning
We've been telling you for months about the ongoing territory disputes in theSouth China Sea – and warning that it wouldn't take much to spark a major confrontation.
Now you see why.
Today, the anniversary of Japan's 1931 occupation of parts of mainland China, an already smoldering territorial dispute between China and Japan is threatening to boil over.
Panetta in talks with Chinese leader-in-waiting
WashingtonExaminer.com
BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is meeting with Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jingping (SHEE-jingping), who just days ago reappeared after a puzzling two-week disappearance.
The meeting in Beijing is part of Panetta's weeklong trip through the Asia Pacific, in a campaign to pursue the U.S. military's increased focus on the region.
Anti-Japan Protests Raise Risks for China's Leadership Shift
By Bloomberg News
Demonstrations across China against Japanese businesses and property pose a growing risk for the country's leaders as the economy slows and the Communist Party prepares for a once-a-decade transition of power.
With growth in danger of reaching a 22-year low, ousted Politburo member Bo Xilai's case still pending public resolution and the biggest diplomatic spat with Japan since 2005, any uncontrolled protests risk undermining authority before the handover. Thousands waved flags and brandished Mao Zedong portraits yesterday at Japanese diplomatic posts in Beijing andShanghai in a sign of public fury over a territorial dispute.
China-Japan Island Dispute
Worsens in 'Blow' for Global Economy
BloombergNews.com - SFGate.com
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A territorial dispute between China and Japan worsened as Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said he'll demand the Chinese government ensure the safety of Japanese citizens, thousands protested in Chinese cities and Toyota Motor Corp. and Panasonic Corp. reported damage to their operations.
Demonstrators took to the streets in a dozen cities across China including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, calling for Chinese sovereignty over disputed islands and the boycott of Japanese goods. In the city of Shenzhen, police used tear gas and water cannons to stop protesters from reaching a Japanese department store, Radio Television Hong Kong reported.
Japan embassy, businesses bunker down,
more China protests expected
BEIJING/TOKYO, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Japanese businesses and the country's embassy suspended services in China on Tuesday, expecting further escalation in violent protests over a territorial dispute between Asia's two biggest economies.
China's worst outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment in decades led to protests and attacks on Japanese companies such as car makers Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co, forcing them to halt operations and prompting Chinese state media to warn that trade relations could deteriorate.
Anti-Japan protests reignite across China
on occupation anniversary
By Ben Blanchard and Antoni Slodkowski
BEIJING/TOKYO | Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:58pm BST
(Reuters) - Anti-Japan protests reignited acrossChina on Tuesday, the sensitive anniversary marking Tokyo's occupation of its giant neighbour, escalating a maritime dispute which has forced major Japanese firms to suspend business there.
Relations between Asia's two biggest economies have faltered badly, with emotions running high on the streets and also out at sea where twoJapanese activists landed on an island at the centre of the dispute.
Why the latest row between China and Japan
is a nightmare for the tech industry
By Willard Foxton - Telegraph.co.uk
In Baotao, inner Mongolia, a huge mine operates day and night. Workers in chemical suits hose acid into tunnels. Huge posters bearing images of smiling employees proclaim "Become the leader in Rare Earth mining!" as huge refineries and factories belch smoke into the sky. Yet this huge centrally planned project is in danger because of events thousands of miles away.
You probably haven't heard of the Senkaku islands. Or, as they are known in China, the Diaoyou islands. Called the Pinnacle islands on British naval charts, they are a collection of uninhabited, barren rocks, home to a rare albatross and a exceptionally rare type of mole. Not a great holiday destination.
Japanese companies shut China factories
By Leslie Hook in Beijing and Ben McLannahan in Tokyo - FT.com
Dozens of Japanese businesses shut operations in China on Monday and urged expatriates to stay indoors, fearing an escalation of protests triggered by Tokyo's decision to nationalise a group of islands claimed by Beijing.
There have been widespread and increasingly violent demonstrations across China since the Japanese government announced last week that it had bought the Senkaku islands – known as the Diaoyu in China – from their private owner. Protests continued on Monday, forcing companies including Fast Retailing, owner of the Uniqlo brand, to close outlets in Beijing.
Chinese firms wave the flag to cash in on Japan tension
By Jason Subler
SHANGHAI | Tue Sep 18, 2012 9:41am BST
(Reuters) - The image of a small island topped by a massive Chinese flag that dominated the home page of Chinese internet giant Baidu Inc on Tuesday leaves little doubt as to where its allegiances lie.
Baidu and companies across the country are tapping a frenzy of nationalist sentiment, launching patriotic promotional campaigns as thousands take to the streets to protest against the Japanese government's purchase last week of some disputed islands from a private owner, islands China claims as its own.
Beijing demonstrators damage US ambassador's car
WashingtonExaminer.com
BEIJING (AP) — The U.S. State Department says about 50 protesters in Beijing surrounded the car of the U.S. ambassador to China, causing minor damage to the vehicle.
Ambassador Gary Locke was unhurt, but diplomats have expressed concerns to the Chinese Foreign Ministry over Tuesday's incident. They were among thousands of Chinese involved in a boisterous anti-Japan demonstration that spilled over to the nearby U.S. Embassy.
New Pentagon report outlines China's military buildup China is preparing for war over Taiwan.
by John J. Xenakis - GeneralDynamics.com
One of the saddest things that I've had to report on my web site is China's rush towards total war with the United States. I've been describing this for years, but it was always in the distance. A new report by the Pentagon makes it clear that this war is no longer distant, and an attack within the next 12-18 months is a reasonable expectation.
Something Rotten in Land of the Rising Sun Fear and loathing in Japan Sharp is only the latest Japanese tech giant to experience shocking declines. Something seems to be rotten in the land of the rising sun.
By Michael Fitzpatrick - Fortune.com
FORTUNE -- A much diminished electronics sector in Japan is buckling further still. How much more retrenchment and pain is needed to succor its once triumphant tech industry is the question now as Sharp Corp, one of Japan Inc.'s bigger beasts, faces ruin. Japan analysts are also pondering who could be next.
Mirroring Japan's post-war rise from tinkering electronics amateurs to masters of the transistor age, Japan's biggest TV maker Sharp might not even make it past the 100-year-mark it celebrates this month suggest some observers. Wages and jobs have all been slashed, but Sharp is still suffering massive losses while its share price has fallen dramatically. (This year it is down 73%.) Meanwhile, the woes of other giants -- Sony (SNE), Olympus, and others -- are making the industry's fall from grace as palatable at home as a plate of Made-in-China McSushi. "The good old days walked out the door and no one noticed," says Hideki Onda former distributor for Apple (AAPL) Japan, referring to the sector's sudden loss of competitiveness.
Legalized Plunder
"Legalized Plunder – Why we have all been had, fooled and deceived…. and the surprising reason we keep asking for more of the same bad medicine"
Banks Are Setting Us Up Again,
This Time The Fall Could Be $2.6 Trillion or More
BY KEITH FITZ-GERALD, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning
Just five years after they played a primary role in engineering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, America's big banks are quietly setting the world up to do it all over again.
Only this go-round the costs will be far higher and the damage much worse. This time the fall could be $2.6 trillion or more.
Let me explain.
It started back in the mid-2000s. Wall Street was busy packaging low-rated subprime loans into securitized offerings that were somehow worth more than the sum of their parts.
In reality, what they were doing was little more than laundering toxic debt while raking in obscene profits along the way.
Draghi and Bernanke's Worst Nightmares Are About to Unfold
By Graham Summers - GoldSeek.com
Ben Bernanke and Mario Draghi must be absolutely terrified.
These two men, in the last two weeks, have both initiated open-ended bond buying programs. The purpose of these programs, aside from keeping insolvent banks in business, was to scare the markets into believing that no matter what happens, the Central Banks will be able to step in and support the financial system.
From a philosophical standpoint, this was Draghi's and Bernanke's "all in" moment. I won't say they they've gone "nuclear," as they have yet to truly monetize everything, but they're not far from that.
And they've both failed.
Debt crisis: central bank action is work of the devil,
says Germany's Jens Weidmann The head of Germany's Bundesbank has raised eyebrows across Europe after he appeared to compare Mario Draghi's bond buying programme with the "devil's work".
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Jens Weidmann said that efforts by central banks to pump money into the economy reminded him of the scene in Faust, when the devil Mephistopheles, "disguised as a fool", convinces an emperor to issue large amounts of paper money. In Goethe's classic, the money printing solves the kingdom's financial problems but the tale ends badly with rampant inflation.
Without specifically mentioning Mario Draghi's bond-buying programme, he said: "If a central bank can potentially create unlimited money from nothing, how can it ensure that money is sufficiently scarce to retain its value?" He added: "Yes, this temptation certainly exists, and many in monetary history have succumbed to it," Mr Weidmann warned.
Das Gift: Did Merkel Just Save Obama? How Angela Merkel's bold plan to save Europe may have just saved Barack Obama.
By Benjamin Weinthal - ForeignPolicy.com
BERLIN — Barack Obama had a lot on his hands last week with attacks on U.S. embassies across the Middle East, but in Europe, a big story buried by the drama of firefights in Libya, Cairo riots, and tumult in Tunisia should have him sleeping a bit easier. In fact, he might want to send a thank-you note to Germany's top court, which on Wednesday, Sept. 12, upheld Chancellor Angela Merkel's plan to rescue the euro.
"Germany today is sending again a strong signal to Europe and beyond," declared Merkel, who Forbes magazine last month called the most powerful woman in the world. The Federal Constitutional Court -- Germany's functional equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court -- ruled that Merkel's administration can allocate funds to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to help bail out fledgling eurozone countries, as well purchase bonds from Italy and Spain's struggling economies.
Paul Volcker on Greedy Bankers, the Ryan Plan, and the Fed Legendary economist Paul Volcker speaks out on what's wrong with Wall Street today, the Ryan plan, and the Fed's bold moves.
By Leslie H. Geld - TheDailyBeast.com
When Paul Volcker speaks, Republicans and Democrats, labor and business, listen. The former Federal Reserve chair consented to a rare and exclusive interview with Leslie H. Gelb, a frequent columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. The 6-foot-7, 85-year-old, gruff, plain-spoken yet very careful Volcker had some blunt and important messages for government and banking leaders—and for all Americans.
When it Comes to QE3, Ben Should Have Tried the Helicopter
BY MARTIN HUTCHINSON, Global Investing Strategist, Money Morning
At last Thursday's Fed meeting, Ben Bernanke finally played his last card.
With an open-ended promise to buy $40 billion a month in agency-guaranteed mortgage bonds, the Fed Chief turned QE3 into a much larger gift called "QE Infinity."
But the truth is he would have been better off if he had tried the helicopter.
For those who forget the reference, Ben's first foray into national fame came in November 2002, when he delivered his famous "helicopter speech" at the National Economists Club in a Washington, DC Chinese restaurant.
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Democracy in the US clearly reached Mencken's "perfection" with George W Bush's rise to the presidency and has since remained perfect. However, it occurred to us late last week that with a few minor tweaks the above quote could apply just as well to central banking.
Neil Barofsky on "Too Big to Fail" and the Next Financial Crisis
BY RON HERA - FinancialSense.com
Hera Research is pleased to present a sobering interview with Neil Barofsky, Senior Research Scholar, Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. From December 2008 until March 2011 Mr. Barofsky served as the Special Inspector General for the $700 billion U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that bailed out the U.S. banking system in 2008.
In his role as Inspector General, Mr. Barofsky's mandate was to root out and prosecute waste, fraud and abuse. He gained nationwide recognition for his courage and willingness to stand up to the most powerful people and institutions in Washington D.C. and on Wall Street and for his relentless criticism of U.S. Treasury Department officials, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
Global Economy in Twilight Zone as Stocks Suggest Growth1
By Simon Kennedy - Bloomberg.com
The world economy is sliding into a "twilight zone," trapped between outright expansion and renewed recession.
"It could go either way," said Joachim Fels, chief economist at Morgan Stanley in London, who coined the description in an Aug. 15 report. "It doesn't take much to tip us into a global recession."
The quandary is forcing central banks back to the fore, with theFederal Reserve last week embarking upon a third round of quantitative easing and the European Central Bank standing ready to buy bonds. While the moves were enough to propel the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to its highest since 2007, the test is whether they can lift the global economy from its so-called stall speed.
Max Keiser: Global Collapse by April!
Max discuss collateral transformation desk feeding the multitude of banksters with five quadrillion in infinitely leveraged toxic derivatives and two Treasury bills of a bankrupt nation.
Are You Seeing What I'm Seeing?
BY JAMES QUINN - FinancialSense.com
Is it just me, or are the signs of consumer collapse as clear as a Lowes parking lot on a Saturday afternoon? Sometimes I wonder if I'm just seeing the world through my pessimistic lens, skewing my point of view. My daily commute through West Philadelphia is not very enlightening, as the squalor, filth and lack of legal commerce remain consistent from year to year. This community is sustained by taxpayer subsidized low income housing, taxpayer subsidized food stamps, welfare payments, and illegal drug dealing. The dependency attitude, lifestyles of slothfulness and total lack of commerce has remained constant for decades in West Philly. It is on the weekends, cruising around a once thriving suburbia, where you perceive the persistent deterioration and decay of our debt fixated consumer spending based society.
Keiser Report: Depression, Debt & Doublespeak (E342)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss that after five years of depressing depressed savers, the government and Central Bank reaps the rewards while Americans have given up hope and now concede to being 'lower class.' In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Chris Cook about the price of chickens in Tehran and petrol in the United Kingdom and the role of ETFs in destroying markets.
Europe Banks Fail to Cut as Draghi Loans Defer Deleverage
By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany - Bloomberg.com
European banks pledged last year to cut more than $1.2 trillion of assets to help them weather the sovereign-debt crisis. Since then they've grown only fatter.
Lenders in the euro area increased assets by 7 percent to 34.4 trillion euros ($45 trillion) in the year ended July 31, according to data compiled by the European Central Bank. BNP Paribas SA (BNP), Banco Santander (SAN) SA, and UniCredit (UCG)SpA, the biggest banks in France, Spain and Italy, all expanded their balance sheets in the 12 months through the end of June.
80 million hours needed to tackle Obamacare tax rules
By Paul Bedard - WashingtonExaminer.com
A week after small businesses warned that Obamacare taxes will eat up to half of their profits, a new government report reveals that simply complying with the new tax rules in the health care act will cost American families and businesses nearly 80 million hours--essentially a whole new tax.
Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, the House Committee onWays and Means has compiled an estimate of the total amount of hours it will take to comply with the tax rules. The bottom line: 79,229,503 hours, most of which will fall on small businesses.
Be Ready for Higher Capital-Gains Tax Rates
By Carolyn T. Geer - WSJ.com
When it comes to incurring taxes on your investments, it often pays to procrastinate.
But with long-term capital-gains rates poised to jump at year's end, investors should, at the very least, ready themselves to take action in the months ahead, financial advisers say.
Currently, gains from the sale of assets held more than one year are taxed at a rate of 15% for investors in the 25% income tax bracket or higher, and 0% for investors in the 10% or 15% bracket. Those rates are set to expire on Dec. 31 and revert to 20% and 10%, respectively, unless Congress acts.
Shiller: 'Not Ready Yet' to Call Housing Bottom
By: Bruno J. Navarro - CNBC.com
It would take at least a year of price increases to call a recovery in the housing market, Yale University economist and housing expert Robert Shiller said Tuesday on CNBC.
"There are a lot of positive indicators, but I think people tend to overreact to these. And if you look at the trend, which has been down since 2006, it's a pretty strong trend that we have to see reversed. I might call it later this year, that we've reached the bottom, but I'm not ready yet," he said on "Fast Money."
Robert Shiller Still Cautious On Housing Housing Expert Robert Shiller Isn't Sure Housing Is Back The Yale economist who called the bubble isn't hopping on the bandwagon.
By Matthew Zeitlin, The Daily Beast
When it comes to the housing market, there's no one more authoritative than Robert Shiller, the Yale economist and co-namesake of the Case-Shiller index of home prices. In a 2005 article for Barron's, Shiller described the housing market as being in "the throes of a bubble of unprecedented proportions that probably will end ugly." Now, with many declaring that the housing market is starting to come back, Shiller is more cautious.
How Will QE3 Affect Mortgage Rates and Housing?
BY LANCE ROBERTS - FinancialSense.com
Over the weekend Paul Krugman discussed that "This [housing recovery] means that we actually can hope that the Fed's new policy will boost housing as well as operating through other channels, and therefore that it can act more like conventional monetary policy infostering recovery." I touched on Bernanke's misunderstanding of QE programs on interest rates in last week's post but Krugman's comments spurred me to go a little bit more in depth about the disconnect that exists between the Fed and Main Street.
Housing's Wealth Effect to Nudge U.S. Spending: Economy
By Alex Kowalski and Elizabeth Dexheimer
For the first time since the recession, there's potential for rising U.S. property values to boost consumer spending and give the economy a nudge.
Housing's so-called wealth effect has been a drag on household purchases since 2008. A projected 2 percent gain in home values next year will start to lift consumer spending in the second half of 2013, according to Michelle Meyer, senior economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York.
Meyer predicts the wealth effect will add 0.1 percentage point to spending per quarter, swinging from a 0.9 percentage point drag at the height of the housing crisis in the first quarter of 2009. The contribution represents a long-awaited turning point at a time when a struggling labor market impedes wage growth and manufacturing provides less support for the three-year expansion.
Obama In 1998: "I Actually Believe In Redistribution"
At an October 19, 1998 conference at Loyola University, Barack Obama spoke against "propaganda" that said government doesn't work and the need to "pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution."
Let the Wealthy Pay for Their Crisis The Jobs Crisis, the "Unemployable," and the Fiscal Cliff
by SHAMUS COOKE - Counterpunch.org
With the November elections right around the corner, the millions of unemployed and under-employed have little reason to care. Aside from some sparse rhetoric, neither Democrats nor Republicans have offered a solution to job creation. Most politicians seem purposefully myopic about the jobs crisis, as if a healthy dose of denial might get them through the electoral season unscathed.
In reality, the jobs crisis continues unaddressed, and threatens to get worse after the election. The post-election "fiscal cliff" of social cuts — "triggered" by Obama's debt commission —will pull the economy below the current treading-water phase, drowning millions more workers in America in unemployment and hopelessness. In addition, two million more long-term unemployed — those lucky enough to still receive benefits — face the very likely possibility of having their benefits ended due to the trigger cuts.
Chicago teachers vote to return to classroom
AP - WashingtonExaminer.com
CHICAGO (AP) — Teachers agreed Tuesday to return to the classroom after more than a week on the picket lines in Chicago, ending a combative stalemate with Mayor Rahm Emanuel over evaluations and job security, two issues at the heart of efforts to reform the nation's public schools.
Union delegates voted overwhelmingly to suspend the strike after discussing a proposed contract settlement that had been on the table for days. Classes were to resume Wednesday.
Cap And Frown Today's university graduates are paying more for less,
and cheap credit is partially to blame.
By DANIEL FOSTER - Spectator.org
"God, what a mess / on the ladder of success / When you take one step and miss the whole first rung. / Dreams unfulfilled / Graduate unskilled / Beats picking cotton and waiting to be forgotten." —The Replacements, "Bastards of Young"
RELAX, GENERATION Y. It's much worse than you think. According to the shiny new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Americans' total student debt has just surpassed $1 trillion and now exceeds total credit card debt. Millennials' share of that has doubled since 2005, and sits at a cool $300 billion—or about 21 grand for each of you under 30. Meanwhile, tuition costs continue their alpine climb, increasing ever faster than the consumer- price index, even as a weak labor market drives new hordes into post-secondary education, inflating away the advantage of holding a degree. So, too, is the recession changing the way we pay for college, and not for the better. According to an annual report from Sallie Mae, the average share of tuition paid with parents' savings has dropped, as has the percentage of students receiving scholarships. To bridge the gap, students are paying more out of pocket and taking more loans from the federal government— a 55 percent increase in borrowing over the last five years.
GOP Civil War Is Coming
as Mitt Romney Campaign Flails in Video's Wake The video carping about government moochers may well have sealed it. Mitt Romney is going down, and the fight already is on for the future of the Republican Party. The battle will be bitter—and prolonged, says Robert Shrum.
by Robert Shrum - TheDailyBeast.com
There is a civil war gathering in the Republican Party. It looks more and more like a dispirited and disappointed collection of factions, preparing to lay blame for a lost presidential election and to do battle to shape a new direction for the Grand Old Party.
Last week the view hardened that the Republican nominee was in close to terminal trouble. Having lost the summer as he let the Obama campaign define him, having lost the conventions when he let Clint Eastwood step all over his acceptance speech, Mitt Romney spectacularly lost his head on Sept. 11 during the mob attack on U.S. diplomats in Egypt and Libya. He came across as a low-life opportunist rushing to exploit a national tragedy in order to score political points and then doubling down on this venal dumbness with a smirking and contentious press conference. This week he may well have finished the job, with a video leaking of him referring to 47 percent of the electorate as government moochers.
IS THIS REALLY THE END OF MITT ROMNEY?
Posted by Alex Koppelman - NewYorker.com
Mitt Romney looked a mess Monday night. Standing in front of a group of reporters and cameras gathered on a few minutes' notice, he was flustered. He spoke quickly, without his usual composure. He looked sad, frustrated—even seemed, once or twice, to be holding back flashes of anger. And worst of all, perhaps, his hair: so famously perfectly coiffed at all times, on Monday night it was, like its owner, out of sorts.
Even the most ardent Democratic partisan couldn't begrudge Romney his evident distress. When he was twenty years old, he saw his father's Presidential campaign undone by an ill-considered remark. Now, forty-five years later, his campaign already in disarray, he had to explain to all those gathered reporters what he'd meant when he'd disparaged nearly half the country at a private fundraiser, video of which had been unearthed and published by Mother Jones.
Romney defends donor comment,
says more jobs will mean more paying taxes
FOXNews.com
Mitt Romney, in an interview with Fox News, defended his comments from a fundraiser earlier this year in which he said President Obama's base supporters don't pay federal income tax, "believe they are victims" and will vote for Obama "no matter what." Romney, challenging the notion that he's dismissing those voters, told Fox News he wants to create jobs so that far more Americans are able to pay taxes.
"I do believe that we should have enough jobs and enough take-home pay such that people have the privilege of higher incomes that allow them to be paying taxes," Romney said Tuesday. "I think people would like to be paying taxes."
Mitt Romney says Palestinians
have 'no interest in peace' in leaked video The Republican presidential candidate says peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is "almost unthinkable" in secret recording made at US election campaign fundraising dinner.
Telegraph.co.uk
Mitt Romney was filmed at a private fundraising event in Florida in May declaring that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is "almost unthinkable".
In the recording, the Republican presidential candiate can be heard saying that the Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace".
He goes on to add: "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."
Romney Wants To Attack Iran To Prevent A Dirty Bomb
by Ali Gharib - TheDailyBeast.com
In the video, released today by Mother Jones, of Mitt Romney laying out more hawkish Middle East policies to a private audience than he does in public, Mitt Romney suggested that he'd bomb Iran because of the tremendous risk posed by an Iranian "dirty bomb" in Chicago. Here's what he said:
If I were Iran, if I were Iran—a crazed fanatic, I'd say let's get a little fissile material to Hezbollah, have them carry it to Chicago or some other place, and then if anything goes wrong, or America starts acting up, we'll just say, "Guess what? Unless you stand down, why, we're going to let off a dirty bomb." I mean this is where we have—where America could be held up and blackmailed by Iran, by the mullahs, by crazy people. So we really don't have any option but to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.
Google's dump-IE8 move
backs Windows XP users into corner But Microsoft at fault, too,
for not letting XP users run newer IE9
By Gregg Keizer - Computerworld.com
Computerworld - Google has put Windows XP users in a tight spot by dropping support for Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), analysts said today.
The search giant's decision also smacks of competitive pushiness, one expect added, and will be seen by some Windows users as a bald attempt to get them to switch browsers to Google's own Chrome.
Last week, Google announced it will drop support for IE8 for its online apps and services on Nov. 15. The move was dictated by a policy that thecompany adopted last year, which mandates that it support only the current edition of a browser and its immediate precursor.
Apple's business priority should be
cleaning out its dark satanic mills,
not launching more products
By Willard Foxton - Telegraph.co.uk
This morning, on my way to work, I came across a disturbing news story. A reporter from the Shanghai Evening Post went undercover in the factory which is rushing to fill the expected demand for Apple's brand new iPhone 5. The conditions he found inside the factory complex were predictably poor. Security guards demanded bribes from prospective employees to get fast-tracked through the system; accommodation was filthy and infested with insects; workers were pushed into doing exhausting overtime without breaks. The response to a spate of worker suicides seems to have been to replace the dormitory windows with wire mesh.
German cybersecurity agency prods users to ditch IE 'Too early to panic,' says security pro of German suggestion to switch browsers until Microsoft patches IE zero-day
By Gregg Keizer - Computerworld.com
Computerworld - Germany's cybersecurity agency on Monday urged users to drop Internet Explorer (IE) and switch to a rival, like Chrome or Firefox, until Microsoft patches a new critical bug in its browser.
In an alert released Monday, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security, known by its German initials of BSI for "Bundesamt fuer Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik," noted that the unpatched vulnerability is already being exploited by hackers, and that "the attack code is freely available on the Internet."
BSI then advised users to stop running IE for now.
DHS Purchases 200 Million More Rounds of Ammunition Additional purchase includes bullets designated for snipers
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
Following controversy over its purchase of around 1.2 billion bullets in the last six months alone, the Department of Homeland Security has put out a new solicitation for over 200 million more rounds of ammunition, some of which are designated to be used by snipers.
A series of new solicitations posted on the FedBizOpps website show that the DHS is looking to purchase 200 million rounds of .223 rifle ammunition over the next four years, as well as 176,000 rounds of .308 caliber 168 grain hollow point boat tail (HPBT) rounds in addition to 25,000 rounds of blank .308 caliber bullets.
A Disruptive Technology Sets Its Sights on Nuclear Power
By Llewellyn King - OilPrice.com
Is nuclear power ready for a truly disruptive technology? One company, with a track record of technology revolution, thinks so.
The company has convincing cred: It has revolutionized warfare with its Predator drones and aircraft launching from carriers with electromagnetic catapults.
Now it wants to soar away from today's reactor designs, rooted in the 1950s and the beliefs of Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy and by extension the nuclear power industry.
Boeing Test Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powered Aircraft
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Boeing has spent 45 days in Glasgow, Scotland, testing its next-generation 737-800 ecoDemonstrator aircraft. The airplane uses a range of technologies designed to increase its fuel efficiency and reduce noise pollution. Boeing believes that by learning from tests such as this they could help achieve carbon neutral flight by 2050.
One of the technologies being used is a regenerative fuel cell which stores the surplus energy produced during take-off and cruising, and then uses it to power the aircrafts systems. Fuel cells have always been considered as having the potential to revolutionise road transport, and shipping, in terms of creating low carbon transport, but never has it been successfully used to power flight.
Obama's Rumsfeld: Hillary Clinton Should Resign
By JEFFREY LORD - Spectator.org
Naïveté, weakness, and incompetence lead to death, disaster: Did the Three Stooges cause World War II?
"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
-- Member of Parliament Leo Amery quoting Cromwell on the Long Parliament to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain -- May 7, 1940. Three days later the Chamberlain government fell, Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain -- and Hitler invaded France.
It was a good week for Islamic fascists.
Hillary Clinton has become Barack Obama's Donald Rumsfeld.
The murders of Benghazi have become Clinton's Abu Ghraib.
And by the way, did you know the Three Stooges caused World War II?
In the event, this Secretary of State has irrefutably proven herself to be naïve, weak, and grossly incompetent. And no, it doesn't matter that the Secretary has said she wishes to leave the Obama administration if the President is re-elected. Hillary Clinton has to go. Now.
Engine Woes Could Ground China's Stealth Armada
By David Axe - Wired.com
China's newest stealth fighter prototype is made in the People's Republic and could pose a challenge to U.S. air power. But it's got an Achilles' heel: Its engines are Russian imports.
Without reliable, homemade motors, China's planned stealth armada will continue relying on Russian-made engines that aren't always adequate — and in any event can be withheld by a wary Moscow.
"China's inability to domestically mass-produce modern high-performance jet engines at a consistently high-quality standard is an enduring Achilles' heel of the Chinese military aerospace sector," wrote Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College analyst. Erickson chalked up the engine gap to a lack of standardization, cooperation and quality control in Chinese industry.
Killer Apps... Air force chief wary of cyber 'black hole'
Posted By John Reed - ForeignPolicy.com
Gen. Mark Welsh, the U.S. Air Force's brand new chief of staff, revealed today that he is worried that investing in cyber without truly understanding the military's requirements could be a resource "black hole."
"I'm a believer, I'm just not sure we know exactly what we're doing in it yet, and until we do, I'm concerned that it's a black hole," said Welsh during a speech at an Air Force Association-sponsored conference just outside of Washington. "I'm going to be going a little slow on the operational side of cyber until we know what we're doing."
Beastly Drone Sub May Test Next-Gen Undersea Sensors
By Spencer Ackerman - Wired.com
One of the largest unmanned submarines ever built is finally performing sea trials. But don't expect the U.S. Navy, which dreams of undersea drones that can span oceans, to proclaim the Proteus its drone sub of the future. Instead, Proteus' manufacturers want to work with the Navy to test the software, sensors and power systems that will define those next-gen drone subs — and maybe use the Proteus as a stopgap solution until someone develops those long-range submarines.
We first ran across the beastly Proteus at a special-operations industry conference in May 2011. It was hard to ignore: a 25-foot, 6,200 lb. black cylinder hauling two 220-lb. bomblets, with room to fit 400 lbs. of submerged cargo, or six Navy SEALs in its optional manned mode. By contrast, the SeaFox, an undersea drone the Navy is using to spot Iranian mines, is a paltry four feet long.
F-35's biggest problems: software and bad relationships
Posted By John Reed - ForeignPolicy.com
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a "monster" of a program and some of its toughest developmental challenges may still be ahead of it, said deputy JSF program manager Air Force Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan today, in refreshingly frank discussion of the biggest weapons buy in Pentagon history. In particular, those challenges revolve around software delays, a glitchy helmet, and fixing a toxic-sounding relationship between the Pentagon and F-35 maker Lockheed Martin.
The Montpelier Manifesto Barack Obama and the Temple of Doom
by THOMAS H. NAYLOR - Counterpunch.org
The defining image of the Obama White House is a culture of so-called smart power and death – F-35 fighter jets, unmanned killer drones, Navy Seals, Delta Force death squads, and more recently, the White House kill list. In an act of unprecedented arrogance, President Obama has granted himself the authority to order the assassination of anyone, anywhere, anytime, with no questions asked, no trial, no due process – just pure law of the jungle.
And what has been the response of the political Left in Vermont to this egregious behavior? Stony silence. Neither Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Peter Welch, Peter Shumlin, nor Bill McKibben has uttered a whimper. The political Left in Vermont is morally and intellectually bankrupt, but so too is the political Right.
Get ready for an autumn hurricane as Israel plots its Iranian strike For stock markets, October can be a cursed month. Many of the truly memorable crashes have taken place in this season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, or thereabouts, from the Great Crash of 1929 itself to Black Monday.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Yet just because October is so often associated with market catastrophe doesn't mean it automatically has to deliver one. Most years, October turns out to be a perfectly benign month, and certainly few are yet betting on imminent market meltdown this time around. Many indices are at or close to post Lehman highs.
The consensus view in the City and on Wall Street is very much that this is going to be a relatively good year for equities. Taking mid–year as the starting point, the returns already look impressive, particularly for European markets. Even Greece has perked up.
Mideast in Flames -- And Obama Still Can Do No Wrong In the eyes of a worshipful press, of course.
By ANDREW B. WILSON - Spectator.org
The Middle East is in flames, our embassies are under attack, and four American diplomats have come home in coffins. So who is to blame?
It's time for the MSM to round up all the usual suspects -- and to exonerate a president who cavorts with Hollywood celebrities and goes on the David Letterman show to demonstrate his famous cool under fire. Perhaps he will do a Top Ten list on why the U.S. should stand by and do nothing while Iran gets ready to launch a nuclear attack that will achieve its oft stated goal of destroying Israel.
Bibi's Blunder How Netanyahu killed the Israel lobby.
BY DAVID ROTHKOPF - ForeignPolicy.com
Starting Sunday evening, we marked the beginning of the Jewish New Year. Numerologists with too much time on their hands noted that the digits of the year 5773 add up to the same numerical value as the word tovah, meaning good. That is supposed to be an omen, I suppose. But ever since Madonna embraced Kabala, I've been dubious about it. I like my omens more concrete and, where possible, drenched in irony.
Fortunately, this New Year has begun auspiciously even for skeptics like me -- because it has been ushered in by a fierce debate that may finally have done in one of the most pernicious and enduring myths of our time: that of the existence of an all-powerful Israel Lobby. Neatly, providing just enough irony to offer the honey sweetening we Jews look for to start off each year, the myth has been done in by the most unlikely of perpetrators: Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel.
The War to Come Who says Iran can be deterred?
Here's why Israel has no such illusions.
By GEORGE H. WITTMAN - Spectator.org
It may be shocking to some, but the Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was correct when he said a few days ago that Israel can not survive a nuclear weapon attack. He didn't add, but it is certainly true, that these need only be lower yield devices. A brief study of the industrial topography and demography of Israel shows that a minimal number (3-4) well targeted nuclear weapons would leave Israel inoperable as a modern state.
Drones and subs in the Persian Gulf staging for war?
Dozens Of Underwater Drones Deployed To The Waters Of Iran
Peter Murray - SingularityHub.com
What to do when international talks begin falling apart? Send a fleet of unmanned submersibles in preparation for a waterway showdown. As US talks with Iran over their nuclear program began to sour and the possibility of sanctions against the country rose, Iran responded by threatening to cut off the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway and the only way into and out of the petroleum-rich Persian Gulf. The US responded in turn, the LA Times reports, by sending dozens of SeaFox unmanned submersibles to the region to seek out and destroy mines in the strait.
Each SeaFox is outfitted with an underwater television camera, homing sonar, an explosive charge, and is controlled through an optic fiber tether. None of the submersibles, however, return from a successful mission as they end, not only with the destruction of the mine, but the craft itself, each costing about $100,000. The SeaFox can sniff out both submerged and surface mines.
US Moving submersibles to Persian Gulf to oppose Iran
By David S. Cloud - LATimes
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.
Iran deploys Russian-made submarine in Gulf
AP - FOXNews.com
TEHRAN, Iran – Tehran has deployed one of its Russian-made submarines in the Persian Gulf, just days after the United States and more than two dozen allies began naval exercises nearby, Iranian state television reported Tuesday.
The Taregh-1 joined the Iranian fleet in the southern port of Bandar Abbas after it was overhauled earlier this year, according to the TV report. It's one of three Russian Kilo class submarines that Iran obtained in the early 1990s.
In May, Iran redeployed another Russian-made submarine after repairs.
Dhimmitude, Obama-Style The implications of his submission to Islam.
By GEORGE NEUMAYR - Spectator.org
The only religion for which liberals make excuses is the most illiberal one -- Islam. While they interpret Christianity in the worst possible light -- the Obama administration places Catholic and Evangelical opponents of gay marriage in the same moral category as racists -- they cast Islam in the rosiest one. It is a "great religion," pronounced Hillary Clinton last week, even as its adherents set fire to embassies and cheered the killing of U.S. diplomats and Navy Seals.
The more violence Islam produces, the more liberals insist it is "peaceful." The cravenness would be comic were its implications not so serious. Last week self-styled Voltairean liberals, who normally gush about the glories of free speech, popped up on mindless morning shows to endorse the imprisonment of Islam's critics. MSNBC pundit Mike Barnicle encouraged the Justice Department to round up Florida pastor Terry Jones as an "accessory" to crimes. Barnicle's colleagues appeared untroubled by his fascistic suggestion. One even chimed in that "I was thinking the same thing."
All Signs Pointing to Gold
By Frank Holmes - GoldSeek.com
With another syringe of quantitative easing being injected into the U.S. economy's bloodstream, Ben Bernanke is giving the markets their liquidity fix. The Federal Reserve's action reaffirmed my stance I've reiterated on several occasions that the governments across developed markets have no fiscal discipline, opting for ultra-easy monetary policies to stimulate growth instead.
Gold is extremely bullish, target $1791, 1803: Barclays
LONDON (Commodity Online): Gold breached $1750 an ounce as the much awaited catalyst helped make the precious market buoyant wiht physically backed gold exchange traded fund (ETP) holdings hitting another record high, according to a report by Barclays Capital.
Importantly alongside the investor-led rally, physical demand has also picked up significantly in India and China with buying into the recent rally, indicating growing expectations of higher prices.
A new gold standard?
By Alasdair Macleod - GoldSeek.com
The US Republican Party recently announced its intention to set up a "gold commission", to examine the feasability or not of returning to a gold standard. This raises important questions, cutting across the neoclassical economic consensus, so is bound to be controversial. If the commission is appointed, it members will have to re-learn how gold works as money, take on board the consequences of its reintroduction, and understand the reasons why mixing un-backed paper and gold is a flawed compromise.
China's Silver buying interest advances
BEIJING (Commodity Online): Buying interest in silver is rising, with the metal "benefiting from its status as the higher-beta, cheaper version of gold," said Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in a commodities snippet.
According to the Zurich based bank, stronger silver prices are attracting investors, particularly in China, which had vacated the market following violent action in 2011.
It's Just Getting Stupid!
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
As Cantor's Peter Cecchini notes today "when things are this senseless, a reversion to sensibility will occur again at some point." His view is to be long vol and as the disconnect between the economic cycle and stocks continues to grow, we present three mind-numbing charts of the exuberant hopefulness that is now priced in (oh yeah, aside from AAPL actually selling some iPhones in pre-order). Whether it is earnings hockey-sticks, global growth ramps, or fiscal cliff resolutions, it seems the market can only see the silver-lining. We temper that extreme bullish view with the fact that all the monetary policy good news has to be out now - for Ben hath made it so with QEternity.
Firing Up the Money Printing Presses Robbing Main Street to help Wall Street.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
While Americans were largely focused on the debacle that the Obama administration's Middle East foreign policy has become, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was quietly reinforcing the Obama administration's Keynesian-inspired economic policy that is every bit as dangerous. Last Thursday, the Fed announced it will pursue its third round of Quantitative Easing (QE3), and begin buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities every month -- ad infinitum. Simultaneously, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced it would keep its federal funds interest rate near zero though at least mid-2015. Both moves are ostensibly aimed at improving an economy dangerously close to a double-dip recession, yet the political implications are far more transparent: the Fed is playing its part in attempting to get Barack Obama re-elected.
Either You Believe In Math; Or You Believe In Magic
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Analogizing from the sleight-of-hand tricks of magicians to the confidence-based efforts of the world's central bankers, Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital provides at once an entertaining and also devastatingly simple explanation of what these guys are up to. As he notes, in deference to The Usual Suspects, "the greatest trick central bankers ever pulled was convincing the world that they work for the public and not for the banks." Comprehending the financial repression and inflation that is occurring - and knowing where to look to see the truth (and how to protect your assets) - is critical in not becoming the shill in Bernanke, Draghi et al.'s global game of Three-Card-Monte.
Stimulus: To Infinity and Beyond
BY DETLEV S SCHLICHTER - FinancialSense.com
There was a beautiful symmetry to last week's policy announcement by the Fed. Precisely a week after the ECB had pledged its commitment to unlimited purchases of Euro Zone government bonds, the Fed declared that its new round of debt monetization – 'quantitative easing' or QE3 – would be open-ended.
Unlimited, open-ended. The concept of stimulus has certainly evolved since the crisis started.
Ben's Latest Move Has a Desperate Air
By Robert Samuelson - WashingtonPost.com
We are reaching - or may already have passed - the practical limits of "economic stimulus." Last week, the Federal Reserve adopted an open-ended bond-buying program of $40 billion a month to goad the economy into faster growth. But even before the announcement, there was skepticism that it would do much to lower the unemployment rate, which has exceeded 8 percent for 43 months. The average response of 47 economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal was that a similar program might cut the jobless rate 0.1 percentage point over a year.
Marc Faber: Federal Reserve Policies Will 'Destroy the World'
By Forrest Jones - NewsMax.com
Loose monetary policies pushed through by the Federal Reserve as well as at other central banks will literally "destroy the world" by sending the global economy swelling, bursting and then tanking, said Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report.
Beware of China's Quantitative Tightening Watch the People's Bank of China, not the Federal Reserve
By Craig Stephen - MarketWatch.com
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — The idea of an all-powerful Federal Reserve, as custodian of the world's reserve currency creating new money that cascades to all corners of the globe, is a popular one.
Last week, confirmation of a fresh round of quantitative easing by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, lifted equity markets all the way to Asia.
U.S. Banks Ignore Europe's Lesson on Greed
By William Cohan - Bloomberg.com
Four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the near-total paralysis of capitalism's central nervous system -- the moment fear completely overwhelmed greed on Wall Street -- we are starting to see a few glimmers of hope.
The good news: Several big banks have finally started taking steps to reform Wall Street's out-of-control compensation system, which rewards bankers and traders with big bonuses for taking insane risks with other people's money. The bad news: These banks are in Europe, and most of their U.S. cousins still just don't get it.
Is Europe's Financial Crisis Over?
By Gene Frieda - Project-Syndicate.org
LONDON – The European Central Bank's recently announced policy of bond buying, what it calls "outright monetary transactions" (OMTs) marks a convergence of European central banks with their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. While the ECB's actions represent the best chance yet to put an end to a crisis that has been playing out since 2010, the Bank has markedly raised the stakes for governments.
Bickering Continues over EU Bailouts, ECB Powers
By Douglas A. McIntyre, 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
The bickering over the structure that banks and sovereign bailouts should take continues among Europe's leaders. As a meeting of the finance ministers of the region ended, two critical issues remain unresolved.
Normalizing Italy
By Paulo Subacchi - Project-Syndicate.org
LONDON – Italy's political exceptionalism – its chronic inability to marshal coherent governments backed by stable parliamentary majorities – is weakening Europe and threatening the eurozone's survival. More than electoral reform is needed: Italy requires comprehensive institutional renewal.
Italy's particular characteristics put its political system and institutional framework at odds with other democracies, and expose the challenges that it faces in becoming a "normal" country. Indeed, these features have made it difficult to produce from a disparate coalition of political forces and interest groups a government that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Will Germans Pick Up the Tab for Deutsche Bank, Too?
By Simon Johnson - Bloomberg.com
Pity the German taxpayer.
Recent weeks have brought a slew of bad news in terms of contingent liabilities for the German state -- meaning that taxpayers are potentially on the hook for increasing amounts. Two weeks ago, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi affirmed his willingness to commit the ECB -- partly owned by Germany -- to take on added sovereign-debt risk. And last week the German constitutional court confirmed that the European Stability Mechanism is consistent with German law, allowing further fiscal transfers to the euro-area periphery.
Germans Don't Love the Euro
By Paul Ausick, 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
In a recent poll by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation, some 65% of German believe they would be better off if the country had not adopted the euro. The same poll revealed that just 36% of French citizens think France should have stayed with the French franc.
When the euro came into existence in the late 1990s, Germany's deutschmark was a very strong currency. The strength of the currency made German products quite expensive to import.
Enough With The Fed's Transparency Already!
BY SY HARDING - FinancialSense.com
When Ben Bernanke became chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006 he promised a significant change. The Fed would be much more 'transparent' in letting markets and the public know more about its inner workings, its concerns, its internal debates, its potential decisions. He has certainly kept his promise.
Playing With Fire
BY DAVID KOTOK - FinancialSense.com
"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21
The Federal Reserve (Chairman Bernanke) sent the message of giving at the Jackson Hole conference on Labor Day weekend. Many, including us, read it as a statement that Operation Twist would continue and may be extended. Many, including us, concluded that the forecast period of low rates would be lengthened to 2015. At the FOMC, Bernanke gave us both.
Fiscal Cliffs and Monetary Mountains
By George Smith - GoldSeek.com
On September 13, economist Frank Shostak had an article on Mises.org about the upcoming "fiscal cliff," which he explains this way:
The "fiscal cliff" refers to the impact of around $500 billion in expiring tax cuts and automatic government-spending reductions set for 2013 as a result of successive failures by Congress to agree on some orderly alternative method of reducing budget deficits.
The impact, according to the CBO, is that the federal deficit could fall by nearly half (43%), from $1.128 trillion in 2012 to $641 billion in 2013.
Dr. Krugman on How QE Could Work….
By CULLEN ROCHE - PragCap.com
I've had a lot of criticism for QE over the years and its transmission mechanism so I thought I'd offer the opinions of a rather well known economist as a counter to my criticisms. Paul Krugman is one of the few economists who has gotten a lot right over the course of the last 10 years. We don't entirely agree on the mechanics of the monetary system (just another case of heterodox and neoclassical butting heads on specifics), but many of the big picture themes are in agreement. In this case, we both agree more fiscal is the optimal policy in this environment.
QE and the new Fed plan: what are its dynamics?
by Robert Brusca - ZeroHedge.com
Paul Krugman writes,
The idea here is that by indicating its willingness to let the economy rip for a while, the Fed can encourage more private-sector spending right away. Potential home buyers will be encouraged by the prospect of moderately higher inflation that will make their debt easier to repay; corporations will be encouraged by the prospect of higher future sales; stocks will rise, increasing wealth, and the dollar will fall, making U.S. exports more competitive.
It sounds so easy. Is there any sense that the third round of QE layered on top of an extend operation twist will really do all of these things?
Central Bankers, Chinese Stimulus, and Blackjack
BY THOMAS J SMITH CFA - FinancialSense.com
I am going to include some common sense questions in my effort each week. Hopefully the entire piece will be at least linked with common sense. The answers to the questions I will pose are really quite simple but it is amazing how often I hear the exact opposite.
Q: Can you play with "house money"?
I am referring to when you gamble in a casino. You often hear people talk about their exploits in Vegas and how their behavior changed when they were playing with "house money". My question is, can you even play with house money? Answer to follow.
How the Fed Will Force a Mispricing of Risk
By Walter Kurtz - PragCap.com
Credit Suisse has made an important point with respect to the Fed's purchases of MBS. As we know, a mortgage borrower is long an option to prepay. That means a mortgage lender is short this same prepayment option. Therefore a buyer of MBS is an options seller and the Fed is in effect selling vol into the market.
It's Later Than Any Dare Think When republics fall, it's not always slow.
By Ben Stein - Spectator.org
....Let's start with a few facts.
A man made a cheesy movie about the being that Muslims call the Prophet Mohammed. That man has a criminal record and seems to be a marginal character, at best.
But that man is an American. He is operating in America. He has the full protection of the Constitution, including freedom of expression. So he is supposed to be allowed to say whatever he likes barring libel of living persons and exposure of state secrets. The man made the movie some months ago and nothing happened about it.
Fed Says Joblessness Would Be 7%
With Less Consumer Doubt
By Aki Ito - Blooomberg.com
The U.S. unemployment rate would be around 7 percent instead of 8 percent to 9 percent without the current level of doubt among consumers about economic issues including fiscal policy, a Federal Reserve study showed.
"Uncertainty has pushed up the U.S. unemployment rate by between one and two percentage points since the start of the financial crisis in 2008," Sylvain Leduc and Zheng Liu, who are research advisers at the San Francisco Fed, wrote in a paper released today. "The private sector responds to rising uncertainty by cutting back spending, leading to a rise in unemployment and reductions in both output and inflation."
Training Teachers to Embrace Reform Chicago-style war with unions is the past. Here's how Finland and Ontario found a new way forward
By AMANDA RIPLEY - WSJ.com
Making sense of the Chicago teachers' strike (where the two sides were reportedly moving toward resolution on Friday) is like trying to understand the failure of a friend's marriage. You can't help speculating about who's to blame, but you'll never really know. In truth, it doesn't matter. Many countries have revolutionized their education systems in recent years, but not one of them has done it through strikes, walkouts or righteous indignation.
Just as Intended, Teachers Strike Hurts Families
By Jeff Jacoby - PatriotPost.us
The true long-term impact of the Chicago teachers strike may be not be known for some time. But there is no mystery about its impact in the immediate term -- anxiety, panic, and disruption for myriad mothers and fathers left in the lurch when 30,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union walked away from their classrooms last week just as a new school year was getting underway.
Chicago teachers mull contract details, continue strike Emanuel calls the walkout 'illegal' and pledges to seek court order to stop it
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and Joel Hood, ChicagoTribune.com
What was thought to be a done deal unraveled Sunday as Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was unable to sell union delegates on ending the teachers strike, likely leaving more than 350,000 Chicago Public Schools students locked out of the classroom at least two more days.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel late Sunday called the walkout "illegal" and pledged to seek an injunction in court to force an end to the city's first teachers strike in a quarter century.
GM wants out; Obama says, "NO"! Obama's wistful GM exit strategy
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) – The Wall Street Journal took a fresh look Monday at General Motors Co.'s efforts to end its awkward relationship with the U.S. Treasury.
The article, citing "people familiar with the government's thinking," states the government is reluctant to sell its 26.5% holding in GM because it would mean booking a loss on the bailout. That's understandable. While it's great to be able to point to all the jobs saved by the $50 billion bailout, any political currency gained by the White House would be a lot sweeter if it also made a profit on the deal.
Report: Treasury resists pressure
from General Motors to dump shares
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
The U.S. Treasury Department is reportedly resisting efforts by General Motors to exit its government bailout sooner rather than later.
A report in The Wall Street Journal on Monday said the nation's largest automaker is eager to shake a "government motors" stigma associated with it ever since it took a bailout from U.S. taxpayers.
The Plus-Size MRI Machine
By CHRISTOPHER WEAVER - WSJ.com
David Washington has encountered a hurdle to getting the medical treatment he needs to return to work as a mechanic: He can't find an imaging device large enough to accommodate his 630 pounds.
The 57-year-old Mr. Washington hurt his back at work last year, but said surgeons won't operate without a magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scan to evaluate his injury.
Wonder when "survival for the fittest" (ONLY) begins? 8,786,049: Yet Another Record for Americans Collecting Disability
By Terence P. Jeffrey - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - The Social Security Administration has releasednew data revealing that 8,786,049 American workers are collecting federal disability insurance payments in September. That sets yet another record for the number of Americans on disability.
The 8,786,049 workers taking federal disability in September is a net increase of 18,108 from the 8,767,941 workers who took federal disability in August.
Calif. exchange wants TV shows
to help tout Obama healthcare law
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
Officials in California want prime-time TV shows to help promote President Obama's healthcare law.
Outreach to television producers is part of the marketing plan adopted by California's insurance exchange — a new marketplace, created by the Affordable Care Act, where individuals and small businesses will be able to buy private insurance.
The American Election's Global Reach
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Truthdig.com
The Obama-Clinton alliance, formalized with Bill Clinton's blockbuster speech at the Democratic convention, confirms what has often been played down: President Obama has chosen to build on Clinton's legacy rather than abandon it.
This is why the 2012 election matters not only to Americans but also to supporters of the moderate left across the world. What's at stake is whether the progressive turn that global politics took in the 1990s will make a comeback over the next decade, and also how much progressives who embraced markets during the heyday of the Third Way sponsored by Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will adjust their views to a breakdown in the financial system they did not anticipate.
Romney Fail: Caught On Video
Revealing Extraordinary Contempt
For 47 Percent Of Americans
By Rick Ungar, Contributor - Forbes.com
David Corn of Mother Jones Magazine has obtained a video recording of Mitt Romney speaking to a small group of wealthy contributors at a fundraiser wherein the Republican candidate reveals what he really thinks of people who he expects to vote for PresidentBarack Obama.
When asked by a guest how the Governor plans to pull of a win in November, he responded:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. These are people who pay no income tax."
Why Romney and Ryan Are Going Down
By Robert Reich - Truthdig.com
Unemployment is still above 8 percent, job gains aren't even keeping up with population growth, the economy is barely moving forward. And yet, according to most polls, the Romney-Ryan ticket is falling further and further behind. How can this be?
Because Republicans are failing the central test of electability. Instead of putting together the largest possible coalition of voters, they're relying largely on one slice of America — middle-aged white men — and alienating just about everyone else.
Mitt Romney's Bizarre Attack on the Fed Do Republicans think Milton Friedman
was a big government liberal?
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
How much can you get wrong in just three sentences? A whole lot, it turns out.
Consider Mitt Romney's most recent fundraising email titled "Another Bailout?!?" -- not exactly a policy document, but still -- about the Fed's latest round of quantitative easing. See if you can spot anything that might correctly be called "correct".
Today, Mitt Romney Lost the Election
By Josh Barro - Bloomberg.com
You can mark my prediction now: A secret recording from a closed-door Mitt Romneyfundraiser, released today by David Corn at Mother Jones, has killed Mitt Romney's campaign for president.
On the tape, Romney explains that his electoral strategy involves writing off nearly half the country as unmoveable Obama voters. As Romney explains, 47 percent of Americans "believe that they are victims." He laments: "I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Memo To Mitt Romney: The 47% Pay Taxes Too
By Janet Novack - Forbes.com
A secret videotape of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney talking at a private fundraising event earlier this year could revive—in virulent form— the debate Texas Gov. Rick Perry started last yearwhen he complained of "the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don't even pay any income tax." The video, leaked to left-leaning Mother Jones (excerpts and a report here), captures the normally cautious Romney at his most candid and impolitic.
Constitution Day 2012
September 17, 2012 - PatriotPost.us
Today, Sept. 17, 2012, marks the 225th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution at the Philadelphia (Constitution) Convention in 1787. The best way to honor the day might be to read it. It's up to "We the People" to hold our elected representatives accountable for failing to honor their oaths.
We Vote, They Rule: The Case for Voter Rebellion
By Scott Tucker - Truthdig.com
Democratic and Republican politicians keep each other in business. That matters much more than the usual dead end debates about whether there is a dime's or even a dollar's worth of difference between the two ruling parties of this corporate regime. Of course there are differences, and the divergent points in public policy are very much what we would expect from a party that hopes for a better regulated form of capitalism on the "left," and a party that hopes for a more dictatorial rule of the rich on the right. Only in the bizarrely reduced worldview of "our two-party system" would the borders of one country define the borders of political thought and practice.
No "right to refuse service" to anyone. The Tangled Web of Conflicting Rights
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- Elaine Huguenin, who with her husband operates Elane Photography in New Mexico, asks only to be let alone. But instead of being allowed a reasonable zone of sovereignty in which to live her life in accordance with her beliefs, she is being bullied by people wielding government power.
In 2006, Vanessa Willock, who was in a same-sex relationship, emailed Elane Photography about photographing a "commitment ceremony" she and her partner were planning. Willock said this would be a "same-gender ceremony." Elane Photography responded that it photographed "traditional weddings." The Huguenins are Christians who, for religious reasons, disapprove of same-sex unions. Willock sent a second email asking whether this meant that the company "does not offer photography services to same-sex couples." Elane Photography responded "you are correct."
We Won—for Now
By Chris Hedges
In January I sued President Barack Obama over Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized the military to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely, strip them of due process and hold them in military facilities, including offshore penal colonies. Last week, round one in the battle to strike down the onerous provision, one that saw me joined by six other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, ended in an unqualified victory for the public. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who accepted every one of our challenges to the law, made her temporary injunction of the section permanent. In short, she declared the law unconstitutional.
Update: Hackers exploit new IE zero-day vulnerability HD Moore, maker of Metasploit, urges users to ditch IE7, IE8 and IE9 until Microsoft fixes critical flaw
By Gregg Keizer - Computerworld.com
Computerworld - Attackers are exploiting a "zero-day" vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and hijacking Windows PCs that cruise to malicious or compromised websites, security experts said today.
Microsoft confirmed the IE bug, saying, "We're aware of targeted attacks potentially affecting some versions of Internet Explorer," but did not set a timetable for fixing the flaw.
Printing Evolves: An Inkjet for Living Tissue Biomedical engineers are working on ways to print living human tissue, in the hope of one day producing personalized body parts and implants on demand.
By ROBERT LEE HOTZ - WSJ.com
Need an artery for bypass surgery or custom cartilage for that worn-out knee?
Hit print.
In about a dozen major university and corporate laboratories, biomedical engineers are working on ways to print living human tissue, in the hope of one day producing personalized body parts and implants on demand. Still far from clinical use, these tissue-engineering experiments represent the next step in a process known as computerized adaptive manufacturing, in which industrial designers turn out custom prototypes and finished parts using inexpensive 3-D computer printers.
Instead of extruding plastic, metal or ceramics, these medical printers squirt an ink of living cells. Researchers call it by the shorthand bioprinting.
[see video: Engineering Replacement Body Parts in a Lab]
The Return of Facebook's Winklevoss Twins
By JOHN JANNARONE - WSJ.com
The Winklevoss twins lost the biggest social-network showdown ever when their rival,Mark Zuckerberg, walked away with Facebook. Now they are trying again—with a social network for professional investors.
Flush with at least $65 million from the settlement of a legal battle with Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook Inc., Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are backing fellow Harvard alumnus Divya Narendra, their ally in the Facebook fight, in the investment website. The Winklevosses have put $1 million into SumZero, which was founded by Mr. Narendra and another Harvard alum Aalap Mahadevia, in 2008.
"The band is back together," Tyler Winklevoss said over lunch at Manhattan's Ace Hotel with his brother Cameron and Mr. Narendra.
Oil Aiming at $100 a Barrel
By Paul Ausick, 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
The price for U.S.-traded WTI crude is inching its way back to $100 a barrel today as traders respond to the civil unrest in North Africa and the Middle East following last week's killing of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. The American deaths resulted from the posting on the Internet of an anti-Islam video that led to demonstrations in Benghazi and other parts of the Muslim world.
Secretive Oil Billionaire Scores New $550M Payday
By Christopher Helman - Forbes.com
Houston billionaire Jeffrey Hildebrand is set to monetize a nice chunk of his fortune with the $550 million sale of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas fields to EPL Oil & Gas.
The uber-private Hildebrand, 53, is worth an estimated $5.5 billion at Forbes' most recent reckoning. He is the sole shareholder of Hilcorp Energy.
The Next Recession Will Be Triggered By Oil
By Toby Connor - GoldSeek.com
I was confident that the Fed had already begun printing. That seemed quite evident by the overall action in the commodity markets, the dollar, and the fact that stocks were unable to correct in the normal timing band for a daily cycle low. However, I didn't really expect Ben would come out and publicly admit it. That one took me by surprise Thursday. I guess Bernanke wants to get full value for his attack on the dollar and make sure that markets are rising into the election.
The Oil Push Is Coming With Saudi oil running dry sooner than expected, Iran is sure to capitalize on the demand for oil.
From theTrumpet.com
According to a report released by Citigroup this month, Saudi Arabia may run out of oil to export within 20 years—much sooner than previously thought. This is a worrisome development, as Saudi Arabia is currently the world's greatest net exporter of crude oil.
Making the situation worse, local consumption in Saudi Arabia is rocketing, reportsTelegraph business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
Shell Suffer Yet Another Delay to Arctic Drilling Plans
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Shell must be beginning to wonder if there is some greater power that doesn't want them to drill for oil in the Arctic after they have suffered yet another setback in their plans.
They have had to postpone their latest plans after a containment dome that is intended to cap any spills that may occur, was damaged.
Beijing's Folly: As Goes Steel, So Goes China
By Gordon Chang - Forbes.com
"We reckon traders and mills have accumulated steel inventory of almost 100 million tons," said Citigroup analyst Scarlett Chen to theWall Street Journal this month. Steelmakers are the core of Chinese manufacturing, and manufacturing is the core of the Chinese economy. The gross overproduction of steel tells us China will not recover this year.
How China's Rehypothecated "Ghost" Steel Just Vaporized, And What This Means For The World Economy
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
One of the key stories of 2011 was the revelation, courtesy of MF Global, that no asset in the financial system is "as is", and instead is merely a copy of a copy of a copy- rehypothecated up to an infinite number of times (if domiciled in the UK) for one simple reason: there are not enough money-good, credible assets in existence, even if there are more than enough 'secured' liabilities that claim said assets as collateral. And while the status quo is marching on, the Ponzi is rising, and new liabilities are created, all is well; however, the second the system experiences a violent deleveraging and the liabilities have to be matched to their respective assets as they are unwound, all hell breaks loose once the reality sets in that each asset has been diluted exponentially.
China-Japan Dispute Over Islands Risks $340 Billion Trade
By Bloomberg News
China and Japan's worst diplomatic crisis since 2005 is putting at risk a trade relationship that's tripled in the past decade to more than $340 billion.
Toyota Motor Corp. (7203), Honda Motor Co. (7267) and Nissan Motor Co. halted production at some plants while Panasonic Corp. (6752) reported damage to its operations in China as thousands marched in more than a dozen cities on Sept. 16. Shares of automakers fell in Tokyo after protesters called for boycotts of Japanese goods and in some instances smashed store fronts and cars after Japan last week said it will purchase islands claimed by both countries.
Panetta Warns of War Between China and Japan
Over Disputed Islands
By Patrick Goodenough - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – Exchanging warnings but avoiding confrontations thus far, Chinese and Japanese ships have come within less than half a nautical mile of each other in an ongoing dispute over the sovereignty of contested islands.
Amid deepening tensions in a long-running saga over the uninhabited islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Sunday about the possibility of war between the two Asian countries.
Chinese Riots on Japan Pit Confucius Against Self-Interest
By Adam Minter - Bloomberg.com
What does a Chinese citizen owe the state in times of crisis? For most of recorded history, the answer to that question was simple: everything.
The individual was second to that state in all matters, and was expected to sacrifice self-interest for national interest when called upon. Those who sacrificed the most were the most patriotic. Those who refused the state were selfish, and worse.
Can Syria's Rebels Overthrow Assad?
An Interview with Jellyfish Operations
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
As rebels attempt to regroup in advance of a new strategy to overpower Assad, and Western powers try to start from scratch with a new rebel formation that is presumably devoid of Salafi Jihadists, the US is calling on third party, non-state actors to arm the rebels in order to avoid becoming embroiled in a geopolitically sensitive conflict just ahead of presidential elections. As attentions turn to the chaos breaking out across the Middle East and North Africa (and even further afield), what chance do the rebels have of pushing Assad to his limits? Michael Bagley, President of the Jellyfish Operationsprivate intelligence boutique, which has adopted an approach that is contrary to the typical "yes-man" characteristics of its competitors, calls a spade a spade.
Freedom, Blasphemy, and Violence
By Aryeh Neier - Project-Syndicate.org
PARIS – Violent attacks on US diplomatic outposts across North Africa and the Middle East have once again raised the question of how to respond when Americans and other Westerners engage in provocative expression that others consider blasphemous. Though the attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three members of his staff were murdered, may well have been planned, as the State Department has maintained, the killers clearly exploited the opportunity created by outrage at an anti-Muslim film produced in the US.
Qatar: Rich and Dangerous
By Felix Imonti - OilPrice.com
The first concern of the Emir of Qatar is the prosperity and security of the tiny kingdom. To achieve that, he knows no limits.
Stuck between Iran and Saudi Arabia is Qatar with the third largest natural gas deposit in the world. The gas gives the nearly quarter of a million Qatari citizens the highest per capita income on the planet and provides 70 percent of government revenue.
Dagan vs Netanyahu
by John Aziz - ZeroHedge.com
A regional war in the Middle East could result, potentially sucking in the United States and Eurasian powers like China, Pakistan and Russia. China and Pakistan have both hinted that they could defend Iran if Iran were attacked — and for good reason, as Iran supplies significant quantities of energy. And with the American government deep in debt to foreign powers like China who are broadly supportive of Iran's regime, America's ability to get involved in a war on Israel's behalf is highly questionable. And even without a war, further hostility and tension between America and her creditors would surely result in an even faster rush toward more bilateral and multilateral agreements to ditch the dollar for trade, something that America will almost certainly seek to avoid. So even with a President in the White House significantly more sympathetic to Netanyahu than Obama, America may find herself constrained by the realities of global economics, and unable to assist Israel...
Israeli Leader Takes Iran Case to U.S. TV Viewers
By COREY BOLES - WSJ.com
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the U.S. to establish a firm "red line" that Iran's nuclear program can't cross without risking a military response, despite White House resistance to laying down the marker.
In an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Mr. Netanyahu said that within six months Iran would be 90% of the way toward having enough enriched uranium to assemble a nuclear weapon, suggesting military action to stop Tehran should occur before then.
Egypt-Iran Intelligence Meeting Prompts Fears of New Terror Axis Then Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Murad Muwafi had a personal meeting with a senior Iranian spy in August.
From theTrumpet.com
According to the Washington Free Beacon, "U.S. intelligence agencies recently monitored a secret meeting between Egypt's intelligence chief and a senior Iranian spy that is raising new fears the Muslim Brotherhood government inCairo could begin covertly supporting global terrorism."
The news has made the headlines because the Iranian spy was a senior official of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Officials who monitored the meeting refer to the spy only by his last name, Gerami. His name is not as important as that of his employer, MOIS.
Iran Confronts Reality
By Javier Solana - Project-Syndicate.org
MADRID – Who has not seen what looks like water on a highway on a hot summer's day? Or a three-dimensional image that was actually a picture on a flat surface? The nature of illusion is that we mistake what we perceive for reality.
That is true whether an illusion is cognitive or political. Depending on how a particular event develops, it can lead us to formulate erroneous interpretations of what is actually happening.
Fed 'Currency Debasement 3' (QE3)
Sees Gold and Silver Surge 2% and 4.3%
BY MARK O'BYRNE - FinancialSense.com
....Bernanke's announcement of further money printing and ultra loose monetary policies saw gold and silver surge in all currencies yesterday. Gold rose $34.30 or 1.98% in New York and closed at $1,732.00. Silver soared to a high of $34.781 and finished with a gain of 4.34%.
Gold surged to a 6 month high in dollars, to very close to new record highs in euros and importantly to an all time record nominal high in Swiss francs (see chart below). Gold climbed as much as 2.2% in the "safe haven" Swiss franc to 1,657 per ounce.
German Weimar Republic in the early 1920s
and the U.S. - Troubling similarities
NowAndFutures.com
There's a possibility of something similar (but not as severe) happening in the U.S. - we'd rather at least mention it than not.
The parallel to the German war reparations is the derivatives area today. Don't shoot the messenger, we didn't invent the facts below.
10 Shocking Quotes
About What QE3 Is Going To Do To America
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Ready or not, QE3 is here, and the long-term effects of this reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve are going to be absolutely nightmarish. The Federal Reserve is hoping that buying $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities per month will spur more lending and more economic activity. But that didn't happen with either QE1 or QE2. Both times the banks just sat on most of the extra money. As I pointed out the other day, U.S. banks are already sitting on $1.6 trillion in excess reserves. So will pumping them up with more cash suddenly make them decide to start lending? Of course not. In addition, QE3 is not likely to produce many additional jobs. As I showed in a previous article, the employment level did not jump up as a result of either QE1 or QE2. So why will this time be different? But what did happen under both QE1 and QE2 is that a lot of the money ended up pumping up the financial markets. So once again we should see stock prices go up (at least in the short-term) and commodities such as gold, silver, food and oil should also rise. But that also means that average American families will be paying more for the basic necessities that they buy on a regular basis. The most dangerous aspect of QE3, however, is what it is going to do to the U.S. dollar.
Mr. Bernanke Lacks The Courage To Do The Right Thing
By Richard Finger, Contributor - Forbes.com
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Subjects of the realm take note. Quantitative Easing number 3 to create policies congruent to past plans designed to penalize responsible middle class savers. QE3 to codify a path designed at market distortions which shall henceforth perdure indefinitely.
Against the headwinds of reams of empirical data, Uncle Ben B. persists that perennially low interest rates will bewitch businesses to increase payrolls. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result…….Einstein would get a chuckle from avuncular Ben's pertinacious streak.
My Big Issue: Economic Distortion
Keiser Report: Collateral Transformation (E341)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss Jamie Dimon's collateral transformation desk feeding the multitude of banksters with five quadrillion in infinitely leveraged toxic derivatives and two Treasury bills of a bankrupt nation. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Joshua Mellors of SocialJusticeFirst.com about financial suicides and the government and banking policies that cause it.
Where the Fed Stands on Monetary Policy
By Clive Crook - TheAtlantic.com
The decision to embark on QE3 was right, in my view, if overdue. But perhaps I'm not the only one who's uncertain which way the Fed's strategy is evolving. Is it guided by a coherent account of how monetary policy should be conducted, and if so what exactly is that account?
Scott Sumner, the indispensable scholar-blogger who's been campaigning for nominal GDP targeting, sees the Fed's move as a step in that direction. My Atlantic colleague Derek Thompson, getting a little carried away, anoints Sumner "the blogger who saved the economy"--meaning (a) the Fed has just adopted his way of thinking and (b) it will work like a charm. The NGDP approach got another boost at the Jackson Hole central bankers' conference, when Michael Woodford, an eminent (many would say today's pre-eminent) monetary theorist, endorsed it.
Bernanke attacked for 'too low' interest rates
The US Federal Reserve and central banks worldwide kept interest rates far too low in the build-up to the global credit bubble and may have caused much of the crisis, the world's top watchdog has concluded.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"Monetary policy on aggregate has been systematically accommodative globally since the early 2000s," the Bank for International Settlements said in its quarterly report.
The BIS, the "bank of central bankers", said loose policy may have been "a potential cause in the build-up of the financial imbalances before the global financial crisis".
How QE3 Will Make The Wealthy Even Wealthier
While Causing Living Standards To Fall For The Rest Of Us
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The mainstream media is hailing QE3 as a great victory for the U.S. economy. On nearly every news broadcast, the "talking heads" are declaring that Ben Bernanke's decision to pump 40 billion dollars a month into our financial system is definitely going to help solve our economic problems. The money for QE3 is being created out of thin air and this round of quantitative easing is going to be "open-ended" which means that the Federal Reserve is going to keep doing it for as long as they feel like it. But is this really good for the average American on the street? No way.
US teeters on fiscal cliff
By James Politi in Washington
and Stephen Foley in New York - FT.com
The White House warned automatic budget cuts worth $109bn that are due to take effect next year would be "deeply destructive" to both national security and domestic government investments and urged Congress to reach a deal to prevent them.
The assessment came as the Office of Management and Budget on Friday released a 394-page report providing the most detailed analysis so far of the across-the-board cuts that would take place under "sequestration" – listing which government departments and agencies would be hit and by how much.
Dollar Ignores QE3
BY CARL SWENLIN - FinancialSense.com
First a funny story. In Los Angeles the other day, some bank robbers trying to escape the police were driving along throwing money out of the windows in order to thwart their pursuers. In a Tweet someone had labeled the link to the YouTube video, "Bernanke Pursued by Police in L.A."
While stocks have responded favorably to the QE3 announcement, the U.S. dollar continues to tank. The chart snapshot below of the Dollar Index ETF (UUP) was taken midday Friday, so there is still time for a reversal before the close, but at the time of this writing we can see that a logical support line has been violated. We would not characterize that line as being significant. It should be noted that the dollar has been declining snce the July top, so QE3 only adds to the weight dragging the dollar down.
Understanding the Rules
Before You Transport Precious Metals Oversees Part 2
BY MARK NESTMANN - FinancialSense.com
In my last post, I wrote that there are two sets of rules with which you must be concerned when you move precious metals across a U.S. border:
1. Rules from the Treasury Department requiring that you report certain movements of currency and monetary instruments across a U.S. border. These rules don't appear to apply to gold and silver bullion or coins, for reasons I described in that post.
2. Rules from the Census Bureau obligating you to make a declaration if the value of certain commodities that you export from has a value that exceeds $2,500. These rules are poorly publicized. However, border officials routinely confiscate precious metals from travelers who aren't aware of them.
Lehman's toxic legacy The investment bank collapsed four years ago today, and yet our politicians have done little to fix the system
BY WALLACE TURBEVILLE - Salon.com
Four years ago today, Lehman Brothers collapsed as Hank Paulson and his colleagues made the fateful decision that free market principles demanded that at least one bank crippled by the deteriorating financial system had to be sacrificed at the altar of moral hazard. These "deciders" had no idea of the firestorm they were igniting. They did not foresee that the financial system that had evolved during 30 years of deregulation (based on specious economic theory and ideology) was so interconnected that it would collapse like a house of cards. Within a few weeks, the U.S. taxpayer was "all in" to the global banking network. The public focuses on the TARP bailout of the banks and AIG, but a few people understand that the risks taken on by the U.S. government made those amounts seem like chump change by comparison. The Fed effectively guaranteed the money market funds, all inter-bank lending and the commercial paper market. It even saved the European and Asian banks from failure by guaranteeing the foreign exchange markets.
Spain shuns further cuts as unrest grows Spain is digging in its heels against further austerity as protests sweep the country and mounting tensions with Catalan nationalists threaten to split the country.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Finance minister Luis de Guindos ruled out further fiscal cuts needed to qualify for a eurozone rescue, leaving it unclear whether the European Central Bank can activate Europe's grand plan to stabilise markets.
Mr de Guindos said over the weekend that Madrid's €100bn (£81bn) austerity measures are "sufficient" to meet a deficit ceiling of 6.3pc of GDP this year, although it is an open secret that Spain will miss its target.
The End of China's Easy Growth The more we learn about China's vast stimulus plans, the more far-fetched they seem.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Caixin magazine reports - with disbelief - that the wish-list for industrial parks and mega-projects unveiled by all echelons of the Chinese system has reached 15 trillion yuan by some estimates.
This is over $2.3 trillion or nearly four times the blitz of extra spending after the Lehman crisis in 2008, a policy that pushed investment to a world record 49pc of GDP and is now deemed to have been a mistake.
Is Unilateral Free Trade a Good Thing?
Adam Ozimek, Contributor - Forbes.com
Noah Smith and Tim Worstall are having a fun little debate on whether declaring absolute free trade unilaterally is in a country's best interest, with particular focus on the solar industry. Here is Noah, and Tim, andNoah again. The short version of Noah's latest is that if China imposes tariffs on U.S. goods they create a globally inefficient allocation of goods. The U.S. could threaten to counter this with tariffs of their own, which if it stopped China from imposing their tariffs would increase global welfare. The important claim of Noah's is that threatening protectionism is welfare increasing if it reduces protectionism on net. I agree with this, and it certainly strikes me as plausible that if the U.S. declared we will trade freely with anyone no matter what it could lead to increased global protectionism.
Ben Bernanke's Heavy Artillery:
Will Open-Ended Bond Buying Drive Down Unemployment?
Ben Bernanke and made an open-ended commitment yesterday to purchase mortgage-backed securities at a rate of $40 billion per month, aiming to inflate asset prices and pump fresh credit into the economy. The move answers critics who have accused him of being too timid, but what will it do to bring down unemployment?
By CHRISTOPHER MATTHEWS - Time.com
America has been mired in its worst unemployment crisis since the Depression, and everything policymakers in Washington have tried to fix the problem has — at best — been not good enough. Huge stimulus programs from Congress and low interest rates paired with massive asset purchases on the part of the Federal Reserve have by most accounts improved the unemployment situation. But four years after the financial crisis, the unemployment rate remains above 8%, and would be even higher if not for the hundreds of thousands of workers who have abandoned the workforce entirely.
QE3 hit by mortgage processing delays
By Tom Braithwaite and Tracy Alloway in New York
and Robin Harding in Washington - FT.com
The Federal Reserve's attempt to push aid into the heart of the US economy is being blunted by banks struggling to process mortgage applications fast enough, keeping rates on home loans elevated, according to the largest lenders.
The Fed announced last week that it would buy mortgage-backed securities inanother round of quantitative easing – nicknamed QE3.
This was partly designed to ease further the cost of mortgages, but bankers say the impact will be limited by a dearth of loan officers with banks reluctant to cut mortgage rates without the staff to process any increase in business.
Obamanomics Has Failed Dismally
By Lawrence Kudlow - PatriotPost.us
About 30 years ago, Paul Volcker launched a monumental monetary effort to bring down inflation. As Fed chairman, he sold bonds, removed cash from the economy and cared not one wit about rising interest rates. And it worked. Gold plunged, King Dollar soared, and the drop-off in bank reserves and money extinguished high inflation -- and actually launched a multi-decade period of very low inflation.
This week, current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke embarked on an absolute reversal of Volcker's policy. He is launching a monumental effort to buy bonds and inject new money into the economy in order to reignite economic growth and job creation. It's like history is repeating itself, but in reverse. Gold is soaring, the dollar is falling. Something's wrong with this picture.
Get Ready For The Most Fiscally Destructive
Lame Duck Presidency Ever
By Bill Flax - Forbes.com
America rapidly approaches a precipice where previously negotiated budget gimmicks will cut $109 billion from federal spending come January. While statistically unaesthetic for calculating GDP, curtailing Washington's footprint is financially necessary. But per the Democrats' neo-Keynesian paradigm, this must be postponed while America remains economically stagnant. Democrats also loathe surrendering the recent government upsurge they've established.
Just as emphatically, Republicans insist the Bush cuts expiring this January must continue. Otherwise, an anemic recovery will suffer massive tax increases potentially triggering another nasty recession. Many Democrats desire extension too, but only for the middle and lower classes.
Tax Cuts Don't Lead to Economic Growth,
a New 65-Year Study Finds
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Here's a brief economic history of the last quarter-century in taxes and growth.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush raised taxes, and GDP growth increased over the next five years. In 1993, President Bill Clinton raised the top marginal tax rate, and GDP growth increased over the next five years. In 2001 and 2003, President Bush cut taxes, and we faced a disappointing expansion followed by a Great Recession.
Does this story prove that raising taxeshelps GDP? No. Does it prove that cutting taxes hurts GDP? No.
Chicago teachers fear wave of school closings after strike
By Mary Wisniewski
CHICAGO | Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:46pm EDT
(Reuters) - Striking Chicago teachers fear that once they approve a new contract with the school district and end their strike, Mayor Rahm Emanuel will go ahead with dozens of school closings because of falling enrollment and poor academic performance.
The closing of schools and what happens to the teachers working in them has been a major issue in the bitter dispute, even though the disagreement over evaluating teachers based on standardized test results of their students has received more attention.
Mitt's "Middle Class" Is $250,000 a Year Really 'Middle-Income'?
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
In an interview with ABC, Mitt Romney offered his definition of the middle class. "Middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less," he said.*
Who knows what "middle class" really means. It's more of a feeling than a statistical definition. But as a matter of arithmetic, it doesn't make much sense to think of people earning $200,000 as being in the middle of anything, except the top decile of earners. Using data from the Tax Policy Center 2012 projected distribution, here's a look at the share of American tax units that make less than $200,000. The big blue slice is Romney's definition of middle class, which in all fairness to him, is more or less shared by the White House.
Halliburton Asks National Guard
to Help in Search for Lost Radioactive Device
By James Burgess - OilPrice.com
The National Guard has been asked by Halliburton Co. to help in the hunt for a seven inch radioactive rod used in the drilling of natural gas wells, after they lost the device earlier this week somewhere in a 130 mile stretch of south western Texas, between Pecos, and Odessa.
On the 11th of September Halliburton found that the rod was missing when workers discovered that a lock on the container used to transport it was missing, along with the rod inside. Trucks were sent out to retrace the route of the vehicle that was carrying the unit before it was lost, but have had no luck. Halliburton say that the National Guard have the equipment to locate the radioactive item more quickly.
7,000MW High Voltage Transmission Line
to Connect Wind Farms in Oklahoma
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has granted approval for the construction of the Plains and Eastern Clean Line wind power transmission cable. The 800 mile line will provide a high voltage direct current transmission for electricity generated by wind farms in western Oklahoma, southwest Kansas, and the Texas Panhandle, to customers in the Mid-South and Southeast.
Gasoline pushes up inflation, could dent growth
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 14, 2012 2:29pm EDT
(Reuters) - A jump in the cost of gasoline pushed U.S. consumer prices up in August at the fastest pace in more than three years and squeezed spending on other items, threatening to further slow the already sluggish economy.
At the same time, production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities dropped by 1.2 percent, the biggest decline since March 2009, other data on Friday showed.
Crude oil ought to be $150 per barrel: Iran
DUBAI | Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:15pm EDT
(Reuters) - Crude oil should be at least $150 per barrel, Iran's oil minister was quoted as saying on Sunday, and the sanctions-hit country's OPEC governor said current oil prices were not high enough to threaten the world economy.
Benchmark Brent crude prices rose to nearly $118 a barrel on Friday, stoking fears that surging energy costs could harm fragile economic growth. Days earlier, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said he was worried by high prices and the kingdom would take steps to moderate them.
Shell boss defends Alaska project as ice halts drilling Oil chief dismisses fears of another Gulf spill after huge floe forces drill ship to move
By Terry Macalister, energy editor - Guardian.co.uk
The man at the centre of Shell's controversial drilling programme in theArctic has said he is aware of the responsibility on his head but is convinced the Anglo-Dutch oil group is acting in a fully responsible and accountable way.
Speaking after a huge ice floe forced drilling 70 miles off the north-west coast of Alaska to be temporarily halted, Peter Slaiby, vice-president of Shell Alaska, insisted that the company had learned from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Romney Energy Plan - Good or Bad for America? - Part Three
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
On 22 August, the Republican campaign released its "The Romney Plan For A Stronger Middle Class: ENERGY INDEPENDENCE."
The white paper's "Pursue a North American Energy Partnership" section reports, "As Canadian Prime Minister Harper notes, fostering a greater North American energy partnership that replaces OPEC imports with stable supply from secure sources at discounted prices should be a "no brainer." And Mexico is now displaying a renewed interest in collaborating with outside partners to increase development of its own plentiful resources."
Wisconsin judge strikes down law
that ended collective bargaining rights Law that led to push to recall governor Scott Walker is found unconstitutional after two public-workers unions sue
AP - Guardian.co.uk
A Wisconsin judge has struck down the state law championed by governor Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
It was not clear if the ruling means the law is immediately suspended. The law took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most workers and has been in effect for more than a year.
The End of Men, for Real:
Hooters Is Desperate for Female Customers Guys, this really might be it.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
There are lots of statistics you could break out to illustrate the growing power of women in the economy. But if numbers don't do it for you, then just look at what's going on at Hooters.
After five years of falling sales, the restaurant chain is trying to revamp its fortunes by easing up on its unreconstructed frat-boy image and appealing more to female customers, all without ditching the waitresses parading around in skimpy t-shirts and shorts. Sound like a tough sell? I think so.
Jamie's food revolution runs into $1.2bn suit Beef processor sues for damages
over TV chef's comments on 'pink slime'
By GUY ADAMS - Independent.co.uk
If Jamie Oliver thought the American junk food industry was going sit back and twiddle its thumbs while he attempted to undermine its highly lucrative business model, he can think again.
The British chef and healthy eating campaigner is at the centre of a controversy involving a $1.2bn (£730m) lawsuit over efforts to draw public attention to a controversial form of mechanically separated meat popularly known as "pink slime". Beef Products Inc, a South Dakota processing firm, is suing the broadcaster ABC for allegedly spreading "false and defamatory" information about the now notorious product, which it describes as lean, finely textured beef. It says the offending slurs first hit the airwaves in May 2011, during an episode of Oliver's Food Revolution.
Gun Sales Hinge on Obama Re-Election Cabela's, Other Retailers Prepare for Surge in Demand
By SHELLY BANJO - WSJ.com
As Cabela's Inc. prepares the selection of guns it will sell for the holiday season and winter hunting, the outdoor-gear retailer has two plans: one if President Barack Obama is re-elected, and one if he isn't.
The Sidney, Neb.-based retailer and other companies in the guns-and-ammo business say if Mr. Obama wins a second term they are preparing for a surge in sales—the same as they saw after he was elected in 2008—from buyers fearful the president would back policies to make buying a gun more difficult. If Republican challenger Mitt Romney wins, though, the chain plans to stock more items such as waterproof boots and camouflage hunting gear.
Microsoft admits millions of computers could be infected with malware before they're even out of the box
By KEVIN RAWLINSON - Independent.co.uk
Hackers have uploaded viruses which can help them steal people's personal data on to millions of PCs and laptops before they are even taken out of the box, Microsoft has admitted.
The company said it found malware which allows would-be criminals to remotely switch on and control cameras and microphones, among other devices, on machines which were still factory sealed. The software is loaded with counterfeit copies of Microsoft Windows, the company said.
Will drones replace commercial air travel? They're no longer the sole domain of covert government operatives and paramilitary independent contractors
BY CHRISTOPHER SCHABERG - Salon.com
We might be tempted to read this epigraph, taken from Don DeLillo's short story "Hammer and Sickle," as a testament to the sublimity of human aviation. In fact, this scene is conjured from the perspective of maximum-security prisoners who are on work detail, cleaning up the tarmac of an Air Force base while jet fighters thunder indifferently around them. Like so many of DeLillo's descriptions of air travel, the ostensibly simple beauty of human flight just barely conceals a hideous underbelly.
Now we can imagine a similar scene wherein the aircraft themselves are "unmanned" or piloted by remote control. They might be drones. "Unmanned aerial vehicles" represent an increasingly contested nexus for public and secret discussions about airspace, privacy, police jurisdiction, and remote military targets. And they're bleeding into everyday life.
New mosquito poses greater malaria threat Nets are no defence against bug that bites people in the evening
By SANCHEZ MANNING - Independent.co.uk
Scientists have discovered what could be a new breed of mosquito in Africa with the potential to cause hundreds of thousands more deaths from malaria. Charities say the previously unknown parasite could pose a serious setback to the global fight against the disease – one of the world's biggest killers.
A Worm in the Apple
By Ken Blackwell - PatriotPost.us
Apple is a great American success story and we can say of the late Steve Jobs: Youdid build that. But there's a problem with Apple in China. The Beijing government's forced abortion policy is worming its way into the factories of Apple, Inc. Twenty-four of these factories, it is reported, have helped the Communist government's brutal efforts to prevent so-called unauthorized births to Chinese mothers.
Exiled human rights champion Chen Guangcheng is reporting on the collaboration of Apple in compulsory pregnancy testing of Apple's Chinese employees. Chen told Bloomberg news agency that Apple should refuse to comply with such gross violations of human rights in their facilities. Chen urged Apple to take a stand for human rights -- to stop the Beijing government's cruel pursuit of young mothers. This, we know, is the real "war on women." And it's currently being waged with active collaboration of U.S. companies.
Tens of thousands in anti-Putin protests Huge crowds in Moscow defy Kremlin and 7,000 police to demand fresh elections after parliament votes to expel opposition politician
By LYNN BERRY, VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV - Independent.co.uk
Tens of thousands of people marched across downtown Moscow yesterday in the first big protest in three months against President Vladimir Putin, a sign of the opposition's strength despite the Kremlin's efforts to muzzle dissent. Leftists, liberals and nationalists combined with students, teachers, gay activists and others on the capital's tree-lined boulevards, chanting "Russia without Putin!" and "We are the government!"
US withdraws diplomats from Tunisia and Sudan US state department orders departure of non-essential staff from embassies amid concerns over rising anti-American violence
AP - Guardian.co.uk
The US state department has ordered non-essential staff from its embassies in Sudan and Tunisia to leave with their families and warned its citizens against travelling to the two countries owing to concerns over rising anti-American violence.
"Given the security situation in Tunis and Khartoum, the state department has ordered the departure of all family members and non-emergency personnel from both posts, and issued parallel travel warnings to American citizens," said a spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland.
The west must be honest about its role in Libya's violent chaos The ambassador's death is a symptom of a wilting Arab spring for which the US and its allies bear much responsibility
By Benjamin Barber - Guardian.co.uk
The violent attack on the US consulate in Benghazi leading to the death of ambassador Chris Stevens and three aides, and subsequent assaults on western diplomatic offices in Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere are evidence of a wilting of the Arab spring, for which the west bears considerable responsibility. To blame are the west's impatience, its belief that democracy can be imposed in a hurry from the outside, and its insistence that resistance to democracy must be the consequence of a few aberrant actors and isolated terrorists.
Libyan parliamentary speaker hints at military strike after consulate attack Magariaf confirms US officials intercepted communications that linked al-Qaida in Maghreb to Islamist brigade Ansar al-Sharia
By Chris Stephen in Benghazi - Guardian.co.uk
The president of Libya's parliament, Mohamed al-Magariaf, has said military action is being considered against militants blamed for the killing of the US ambassador Chris Stevens.
Magariaf also confirmed reports from Washington that US officials intercepted communications discussing the planned attack on the UN consulate in Benghazi, which he said linked al-Qaida in the Maghreb to an Islamist brigade, Ansar al-Sharia. "Yes, that happened," he said.
Benjamin Netanyahu warning on Iranian nuclear progress Benjamin Netanyahu stubbornly ignored warnings from the White House to tone down his rhetoric on Iran, warning that Tehran would be on the brink of nuclear weapons capability in six to seven months.
By Phoebe Greenwood inTel Aviv - Telegraph.co.uk
Speaking on the most popular Sunday morning news show, Meet The Press, he repeated his demand for Washington to draw a "red line" over the Iranian regime's nuclear weapons ambiton.
"You have to place that red line before them [Iran] now, before it's too late," he said.
Earlier, Mr Netanyahu rejected as "completely groundless" the notion that he is wielding the Iranian nuclear threat as a political weapon to weaken President Obama ahead of the US elections, which has gained currency among some American commentators.
PM warns: Iran on brink of nuke bomb in 6-7 months Netanyahu takes case against Iran to US public, says by mid-2013 Tehran will have 90% of required enriched uranium for a nuke.
Reuters - JPost.com
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Iran was just six to seven months away from being able to build a nuclear bomb, adding urgency to his demand that President Barack Obama set a clear "red line" for Tehran in what could deepen the worst US-Israeli rift in decades.
Obama's foreign policy of reconciliation lies in tatters The President appears to be rethinking his stance on American interference abroad. Will he let the electorate know before the election?
By Janet Daley - Telegraph.co.uk
What exactly is the nature and intention of Barack Obama's foreign policy? What has the net effect been of his emphasis on apology and reconciliation with the Muslim world? How does he now see America's global role? Bizarrely enough, none of these questions was being discussed in the immediate aftermath of last week's attack on the United States consulate in Libya, which resulted in the first killing of an American ambassador since 1979. A spectacularly successful White House spin operation saw to it that the only topic for debate in the media was Mitt Romney's Gaffe – a statement by the Republican presidential candidate that was diplomatically inept and mistimed, but trivial in comparison to the monumental issue of the President's stance on America's future relations with the Middle East.
US defence secretary says elite forces on standby
for Middle East protests Leon Panetta expects waves of anti-US demonstrations to continue but said the level of violence appears to have peaked
By Matt Williams and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
Defence secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday that the US was still on standby to deploy elite forces to protect American interests in cities caught up in a wave of Muslim protest, but that the level of violence appears to be levelling off.
The Pentagon had already sent troops to "a number of areas in the region to be prepared to respond to any requests that we receive to be able to protect our personnel and our American property", he said.
Armada of British naval power
massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran's covert nuclear weapons programme.
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent - Telegraph.co.uk
Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.
Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world's petroleum traded by sea.
Weeks before U.S. election,
Mideast gives Obama perfect storm
By Peter Apps and Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:53pm EDT
(Reuters) - An eruption of violent unrest across the Middle East is confronting President Barack Obama with the most serious challenge yet to his efforts to keep the Arab Spring from morphing into a new wave of anti-Americanism - and he has few good options to prevent it.
Less than two months before the U.S. presidential election, a spate of attacks on embassies in Libya, Egypt and Yemen poses a huge dilemma for a U.S. leader who took office promising a "new beginning" with the Muslim world but has struggled to manage the transformation that has swept away many of the region's long-ruling dictators.
In Lebanon, pope calls on Christians, Muslims to join to end war
By Patrick J. McDonnell - LATimes.com
BEIRUT –- Pope Benedict XVI called on Christians and Muslims on Saturday to forge a common front against warfare, even as battles raged in neighboring Syria and the new U.N. peace envoy to that country conceded that the situation there was deteriorating.
"It is time for Muslims and Christians to come together so as to put an end to violence and war," Benedict, 85, told an enthusiastic youth gathering on the second day of his three-day visit to Lebanon.
Israeli PM demands US set 'red line'
over Iran nuclear programme Binyamin Netanyahu uses American network TV interviews to repeat call for US to clarify point of military intervention over Iran
By Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem - Guardian.co.uk
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has renewed his demand that the US set out clear "red lines" for Iran over its nuclear programme, in remarks likely to put further strain on his relationship withBarack Obama in the runup to the presidential election.
In interviews on American television networks to mark the Jewish new year, Netanyahu repeated his call for the US to clarify the point at which it would take military action rather than allow the Iranian nuclear programme to advance.
Middle East protests: meet the hardline 'tele-Islamist' who brought anti-Islam film to Muslim world's attention The violent protests over a new film insulting Islam has highlighted two conflicting new visions emerging in the post-Arab Spring world
By Nick Meo, Cairo and Colin Freeman - Telegraph.co.uk
His inflammatory chat show on satellite television has long prided itself on baiting liberals, Christians and Jews, but last week saw Sheikh Khalid Abdullah stage the broadcasting controversy of a lifetime.
The rabble-rousing Egyptian tele-Islamist knew he had found a ratings-grabber when he found an obscure, badly-made film on the internet called the Innocence of Muslims.
Hidden Causes of the Muslim Protests What are the sources of simmering hostility toward America that helped fuel these demonstrations?
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
As the Muslim protests subside, more and more people have come to realize that what seems to have sparked them--one of the worst YouTube videos ever, which is saying something--isn't what they were mainly about.
But what were they about? Here theories differ, and some of the best theories haven't been getting much attention, because they're not on the talking-points agendas of Democrats or Republicans--which means they won't be occupying much airtime on network or cable TV during an election campaign.
Darkness on the Edge of Rosh Hashanah
By Jeffrey Goldberg - TheAtlantic.com
Bruce Springsteen came to Washington the other night -- Friday night, to be exact -- but since Springsteen concerts are religious experiences, I figured it was okay for us to be at Nationals Park for what seemed to be most of Shabbat. This was my fourth concert on this tour, and, for whatever reason, they keep getting better. I think Springsteen goes harder the older he gets. I was interested to see how he would address the upcoming election, given his audience (an extraordinary number of journalists, and an equally extraordinary number of lobbyists -- I saw one guy who I believe works for Patton Boggs, the huge influence-peddling shop, mouthing the words to Springsteen's kill-the-bankers song, "Jack of All Trades -- "If I had me a gun/ I'd find the bastards and shoot 'em on sight" -- which I thought was pretty funny.)
Middle East Spirals Out of Control Almost four years of foreign policy repudiated.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
The bankrupt instincts of an Obama administration determined to find moral equivalence between America's enemies and friends have been thoroughly illuminated. Within a 48-hour period -- beginning on the commemoration of the worst domestic attack in our nation's history -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was snubbed, and President Obama, besotted by the notion that the Islamist-dominated uprisings in the Middle East constituted an "Arab Spring," has has reaped a self-inflicted whirlwind for his myopia: our embassies in Egypt, Libya and Yemen have been attacked and an ambassador and three members of his staff have been murdered.
Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran's covert nuclear weapons programme.
By Sean Rayment - Telegraph.co.uk
Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.
Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world's petroleum traded by sea.
QE3: Helicopter Ben Bernanke
Unleashes An All-Out Attack On The U.S. Dollar
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
You can't accuse Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke of not living up to his nickname. Back in 2002, Bernanke delivered a speech entitled "Deflation: Making Sure 'It' Doesn't Happen Here" in which he referenced a statement by economist Milton Friedman about fighting deflation by dropping money from a helicopter. Well, it might be time for a new nickname for Bernanke because what he did today was a lot more than drop money from a helicopter. Today the Federal Reserve announced that QE3 will begin on Friday, but it is going to be much different from QE1 and QE2. Both of those rounds of quantitative easing were of limited duration. This time, the quantitative easing is going to be open-ended. The Fed is going to buy 40 billion dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities per month until they have decided that the economy is in good enough shape to stop. For those that get confused by terms like "quantitative easing" and "mortgage-backed securities", what the Federal Reserve is essentially saying is this: "We're going to print a bunch of money and buy stuff for as long as we feel it is necessary." In addition, the Federal Reserve has promised to keep interest rates at ultra-low levels all the way through mid-2015. The course that the Federal Reserve has set us on is utter insanity. Ben Bernanke can rain money down on us all he wants, but it is not going to do much at all to help the real economy. However, it will definitely hasten the destruction of the U.S. dollar.
Fed Undertakes QE3 With $40 Billion Monthly MBS Purchases
By Joshua Zumbrun - Bloomberg.com
The Federal Reserve said it will expand its holdings of long-term securities with open-ended purchases of $40 billion of mortgage debt a month in a third round of quantitative easing as it seeks to boost growth and reduce unemployment.
"We're looking for ongoing, sustained improvement in the labor market," Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in his press conference today in Washington following the conclusion of a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. "There's not a specific number we have in mind. What we've seen in the last six months isn't it."
Fed unveils bold, open-ended steps to aid economy
WASHINGTON (AP) — Alarmed by the chronically weak U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve launched an aggressive new effort Thursday to boost the stock market and make borrowing cheaper for years to come.
And it made clear it won't stop there and is ready to try other stimulative measures if hiring doesn't pick up.
Stock prices rocketed up in approval. But economists said the Fed's plans to buy mortgage bonds for as long as it deems necessary and to keep interest rates at record lows until mid-2015 — six months longer than previously planned — might provide little benefit to the economy.
Fed bets big in new push to rescue economy
By Pedro da Costa and Alister Bull
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:40pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve launched another aggressive stimulus program on Thursday, saying it would pump $40 billion into the U.S. economy until it saw a sustained upturn in the weak jobs market.
The central bank's decision to tie its controversial bond buying directly to economic conditions was an unprecedented step that marked a big escalation in its efforts to drive U.S. unemployment lower. Stock prices jumped, while gold hit a six-month high as investors braced for higher inflation.
Text of Fed Statement on QE3
By Federal Reserve
The following is the statement issued by the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee after its two-day meeting:
"Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August suggests that economic activity has continued to expand at a moderate pace in recent months. Growth in employment has been slow, and the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending has continued to advance, but growth in business fixed investment appears to have slowed. The housing sector has shown some further signs of improvement, albeit from a depressed level. Inflation has been subdued, although the prices of some key commodities have increased recently. Longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.
QE3: May not be a U-turn for the global economy
KOCHI(Commodity Online): The QE3 is a relief measure, but may not facilitate a U-turn for the US, as well as the global economy, according to Martin Patrick, Economist, and Director; Rural Academy for Management Studies, Kochi.
"No doubt, measures like these in a phase of downturn bring some relief. But will it facilitate a U-turn? It may not" he said.
The technicals of the Federal Reserve announcement will have to be studied before a conclusion should be reached, he said.
The sheer size of the problem evades easy solutions.
QE3: The Fed's New Stimulus Is a Monster,
but How Will It Help the Economy? Ladies and gentlemen, we're all about to learn the value of a Ben Bernanke promise
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Ben Bernanke has a message for Washington. The recovery doesn't deserve its name. You're not doing your job to fix it. Now it's my turn.
To be fair, it's been his turn for a long time. The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate to keep both inflation and unemployment low. But unemployment hasn't fallen under 8% in Obama's term and inflation is nowhere to be seen. And so, two years after announcing a second round of quantitative easing, or QE, to help the economy, the Fed chair did something really, truly big.
He announced stimulus without limit.
Fed acted because Congress is lame
By Paul R. La Monica - CNN.com
In a move that will forever be known as QE3 because it's the Federal Reserve's third round of asset purchases, the central bank pledged Thursday to buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities a month.
Now let's be honest. The economy isn't in great shape. But things aren't as dire as they were in 2008.
Even though Fed chairman Ben Bernanke recently referred to the high level of joblessness as a"grave concern," it was far worse not that long ago. The current unemployment rate is 8.1%, down from a peak of 10% in October 2009 -- shortly after the Great Recession officially ended. So we are heading in the right direction.
Keiser Report: Banksters Bilking Billions (E340)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss David Cameron appointing former bankers to Treasury. We look at another former banker who became a Treasury Secretary only to become a bankster - Robert Rubin - and his role in Citigroup bilking Abu Dhabi of billions. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Reggie Middleton about Facebook, fraud and financialization.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
Benny Has a Printing Press - QE3 Begins
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
Jeff Christian's clients were being carried out on stretchers today as the Fed made it rather clear to any who were still in doubt that they do have a printing press and, by hell's heart, they were going to use it.
The Fed clearly signalled their intent to spend, and gave some indications of their willingness to 'do whatever it takes' in their own Draghi moment. What will restrain them. The difference is that the US has no Merkel, just Urkel. Or Herman Munster. Take your pick.
Gold & Silver Prices Today On Fire
GoldSilverWorlds.com
....It seems like "QE to infinity", a term that was introduced by the much respected Jim Sinclair, is for real. Jim Sinclair whose nickname is "Mr Gold", has been forecasting for a long long time that $ 1764 was a key pivot point in the long term bull market, marking the start of the third and final phase. In the last phase of a bull market, prices tend to accelerate to the upside. That's where incredible gold prices of $5000 or $10000, forecasted by several experts quite some time ago already, could eventually be reached.
US Federal Reserve announces new round of QE;
Silver surges on MCX
NEW YORK(Commodity Online): The US Federal Reserve has done it, and done it again! QE3 is here! The Federal Reserve is planing to buy $40 billion in mortgage securities a month. The purchase is open-ended meaning the Fed will continue to buy the securities until satsfied by the economic conditions; particularly unemployment.
"If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases and employ its other policy tools as appropriate," the FOMC said in a statement.
Treasury Inflation Indicators Surge on Fed Bond Buying
By Wes Goodman - Bloomberg.com
Inflation gauges in the Treasury market have surged on speculation the Federal Reserve's plan to buy more debt will lead to higher prices in the U.S. economy.
The difference between yields on 10-year notes and same- maturity Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, an indicator of trader expectations for consumer prices over the life of the debt, widened to as much as 2.54 percentage points. It was the highest level in 16 months and compares with the average of 2.16 percentage points over the past decade. The Fed said it will expand its holdings of long-term securities with purchases of $40 billion of mortgage debt a month.
Fed announces bond-buying stimulus to spur economic growth
Ben Bernanke calls move 'a Main Street policy' as Wall Street reacts by sending Dow Jones average soaring by 200 points
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke pledged to keep injecting money into the US economy until it recovers Thursday as it announced a rolling program to buy $40bn a month in mortgage-backed securities.
The widely anticipated third round of quantitative easing – dubbed QE3 – comes after Fed chairman Ben Bernanke had said he was increasingly concerned about the recovery.
Resisting the Monetary Morphine Fix
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Fortunately, not everything is up to date in Kansas City. Esther George, president of the regional Federal Reserve Bank here, is refreshingly retrograde regarding what less-circumspect people welcome as the modernizing of the nation's central bank into a central economic planner. She has concerns, both prudential and philosophical, about the transformation of the Fed in ways that erase the distinction between monetary policy, which is the Fed's proper business, and fiscal policy, which is inherently political.
Recovery at risk from fiscal cliff-Bernanke
By Mark Felsenthal
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 13, 2012 6:31pm EDT
(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Thursday the U.S. economic recovery could be in jeopardy if lawmakers can't stop automatic year-end spending cuts and tax hikes from taking effect.
Bernanke said potent new central bank stimulus efforts would not be enough to protect the economy from the twin shocks.
The Fed and the ECB determine to Destroy the Middle Class
Dan Norcini - GoldsilverWorlds.com
While Wall Street cheers the actions by the Fed to further enlarge its already bloated Balance Sheet, those of us who live on Main Street should get accustomed to further increases in our food and energy costs. What I find rather perverse, is the statement by the FOMC that "longer term inflation expectations remain stable". Yeah, maybe on the salaries and wages front but sure as hell not on the raw materials front.
Weak Leadership Will Lead To Crash Fiddling at the Fire
By Nouriel Roubini - Project-Syndicate.org
PARIS – Financial markets have rallied since July on the hope that the global economic and geopolitical outlook will not worsen, or, if it does, that central banks stand ready to backstop economies and markets with additional rounds of liquidity provision and quantitative easing. So, not only has good – or better-than-expected – economic news boosted the markets, but even bad news has been good news, because it increases the probability that central-banking firefighters like US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will douse the markets with buckets of cash.
The Revolution From Above
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Today the Western peoples are experiencing the destruction of their well being that is comparable to what the one percent in Rome imposed on Roman citizens and conquered peoples. Here is how John Williams (shadowstats.com, 9-12-12) phrases the wipeout of Americans' hopes:
"Consumers simply cannot make ends meet. Inflation-adjusted, or real, median household income declined for the fourth-straight year, plunging to its lowest level since 1995. Deflated by the CPI-U, the 2011 reading actually stood below levels seen in the late-1960s and early-1970s."
Era of 'jobs-targeting' begins as Fed launches QE3 Quantitative Easing has become banal, a fine-tuning tool like any other. It is by now drained of all drama. Even the Federal Reserve's hawks have lost the will to resist. Five of the six critics acquiesced.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The Fed will buy a further $40bn (£25bn) of mortgage bonds each month until the jobs market improves "substantially", and more if need be. It is open-ended. Zero interest rates will continue until mid-2015.
It is pocket-sized compared with the pace of $75bn a month in the QE heyday, or the 500 basis point rate cuts at the onset of the Great Recession. This is calibrated, not full-throttle.
U.S. Jobless Claims Rise to Highest in Two Months: Economy
By Shobhana Chandra - Bloomberg.com
The number of Americans who filed applications for unemployment benefits last week rose to the highest in almost two months, highlighting the Federal Reserve's view the economy isn't expanding fast enough to drive bigger job gains.
Jobless claims increased 15,000 in the week ended Sept. 8 to 382,000, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 370,000 claims.
UCLA shuts down
controversial illegal immigrant college program
By Claudia Cowan - foxnews.com
Following scrutiny from a California lawmaker, the University of California is shutting down a controversial college program for illegal immigrants, though the reasons for the closure are not satisfying critics of the so-called National Dream University.
Critics of the plan of the so-called National Dream University (NDU) welcomed the decision to stop the program, though they weren't satisfied with the reasons given for its closure.
Walmart supplier NFI's warehouse workers
strike over working conditions California workers say they've filed labour complaints over lack of access to drinking water and alleged bullying by managers
By Paul Harris in New York - Guardian.co.uk
A group of workers at a warehouse that supplies Walmart stores have gone on strike to protest what they say are dangerous labour conditions and retaliation by management against employees who complain about them.
Organisers for the activist group Warehouse Workers United, which is working in the booming warehouse industry that has grown up in the Inland Empire region of southern California, say at least 20 workers had walked off the job and were protesting outside the gates of a warehouse run by transport firm NFI.
Time for School Choice in Chicago
By Cal Thomas - PatriotPost.us
"There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." -- Calvin Coolidge, responding to the 1919 Boston police strike
This oft-quoted line from the then-governor of Massachusetts might be updated to include "the public interest," as well as public safety.
There are few matters of public interest greater than educating the next generation. Chicago public school teachers who went on strike Monday have struck against the public interest, placing self-interest in difficult economic times ahead of children.
Chicago Teachers' Retirement Benefits Are Extravagant
By Jason Richwine - Heritage.org
When Chicago teachers began their strike on Monday, critics rightly pointed out that the city already pays one of the highest average teacher salaries in the nation. Even more important, however, is the generous retirement package received by Chicago public school teachers.
A Chicago teacher who retired in 2011 after 30 or more years of service time could expect an annual pensionpayment of $77,496. For context, the average Social Security benefit—which requires a much higher employee contribution into the system—would likely be in the range of $25,000 to $30,000 per year for a worker with a similar salary history.
Chicago teachers' strike nears end
as City Hall and union close on deal After four days of strike action, union and CPS appear close to having children back at school next week
By Gary Younge in Chicago - Guardian.co.uk
After months of deadlock and four days of strike action, Chicagoteachers appeared on Thursday to be close to a deal with City Hall which would have children back to school by the beginning of next week.
Tuesday's deadlock appears to have been broken after Chicago Public Schools officials offered a revised contract, conceding several key points regarding teacher evaluations.
Things Are Getting Worse:
Median Household Income Has Fallen 4 Years In A Row
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
New numbers that have just been released show that things are getting worse for American families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income declined to $50,054 in 2011. That is a 1.5 percent decline from the previous year, and median household income has now fallen for 4 years in a row. In fact, after adjusting for inflation median household income has not been this low since 1995. These new numbers once again confirm what so many of us have been talking about for so long - American families are steadily getting poorer. Incomes are going down and the cost of living just keeps going up. This dynamic is squeezing more Americans out of the middle class every single month. Others just keep going into more debt in an attempt to maintain their previous lifestyles. As Americans, we really don't like to hear that things are getting worse and that we are in decline, but unfortunately that is exactly what is happening. Our economy does not produce nearly enough jobs for everyone anymore, the proportion of low wage jobs in our economy continues to grow, and the middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate. Our politicians can deliver speeches about how great we all are until the cows come home, but it isn't going to change the reality of our situation. If we want different results we have got to start taking different actions.
Wholesale inflation rises; labor market struggles
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 13, 2012 4:47pm EDT
(Reuters) - Producer prices in August rose by the most in three years as energy costs surged, but fairly benign underlying inflation pressures should help the Federal Reserve maintain its accommodative monetary policy stance.
Other data on Thursday underscored the weakness in the labor market, a major concern for the U.S. central bank, with the number of Americans filing new claims for state unemployment benefits touching a two-month high, although some of the gain was attributed to Tropical Storm Isaac.
Medicare Reform Debate:
What Really Works in Health Care Competition
By Kevin Dayaratna - Heritage.org
Recently, economist Paul Krugman derided the premium support plan to reform Medicare:
Still, wouldn't private insurers reduce costs through the magic of the marketplace? No. All, and I mean all, the evidence says that public systems like Medicare and Medicaid, which have less bureaucracy than private insurers (if you can't believe this, you've never had to deal with an insurance company) and greater bargaining power, are better than the private sector at controlling costs.
Of course, Medicare has been shown to be "efficient" enough to lose more money to fraud than private insurance. Peter Suderman of Reason magazine recently pointed out a number of studies suggesting that the private sector can effectively control costs in health care. One notable study recognizes that private plans do have the potential to control costs better than the government, as illustrated by Medicare Advantage's success in constraining costs compared to traditional Medicare.
Franchisors warn Obamacare will halve profits
By Paul Bedard - WashingtonExaminer.com
The International Franchise Association held a convention in Washington this week where most of the Radio Shack, Dunkin Donuts, Curves and other franchisers were grumbling about new federal regulations, especially the impact of Obamacare.
Most, said Atlanta Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchiser David Barr, presumed that the reports about how hard Obamacare will hit them were overblown. "They had their head in the sand," he told Secrets.
That is until he pulled out his powerpoint showing how funding Obamacare will cut his--and likely their--profits in half overnight. With simple math the small business folks understood, he spelled out that their only choice is to slash employee hours so they aren't eligible for company-paid health care or stop offering insurance and pay the $2,000 per employee fine.
$86M White House Big Dig ending,
but what was built underground?
By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House Big Dig is finally wrapping up, but the Big Reveal is proving to be a pretty big letdown.
After nearly two years and $86 million worth of noisy and disruptive construction, the West Wing has emerged from its visual seclusion remarkably unchanged. And deep underground, whatever has been built there remains shrouded in mystery.
Plus, if you ask what the next phase is in this massive, four-year project, the official answer is "TBD" — to be determined.
Tax on Amazon purchases in Calif. begins Saturday
AP Staff Writer - WashingtonExaminer.com
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Online retailer Amazon.com has tried to become all things to all consumers, but in California, it is about to take on a role it has fought against for years: tax collector.
The change, which takes effect this weekend, comes after years of bitter back and forth between the world's largest online mall and the California Legislature over whether Internet retailers should have to charge sales tax. The two sides reached a deal in 2011 that included a one-year grace period set to end Saturday.
A Cybersecurity Executive Order Could Harm Security
By Steven Bucci - Heritage.org
With reports of a draft executive order on cybersecurity being circulated, it now seems likely that President Obama will go forward with this flawed approach. The peculiar thing is that the order does not seem to add anything new. If that is true, why is the President expending political capital to pursue it?
The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 failed to pass in the Senate, even with the last minute horse trading that occurred just before the vote. The concern of most opponents—including numerous businesses and the Chamber of Commerce—was the regulatory basis of the bill. Regulation is the wrong way to add security, and many of the nation's legislators agreed. The bill could not clear the Senate, and certainly wouldn't have passed the House.
BO's BS Exposing Obama's Socialist Dezinformatsia
By Mark Alexander - PatriotPost.us
"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind." --Thomas Jefferson (1790)
There's been a flood of BS from Barack Hussein Obama in the last week, and high ground is in short supply. H. L. Mencken had it right: "Democracy is a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jack asses."
Rather than try to capture all the piles of BO'ssocialist dezinformatsia in narrative form, allow me to depart from that format and just list the larger loads.
Government Agencies Using Criminal Law for Self-Promotion
By Daniel Dew - Heritage.org
In a prior Foundry post, we highlighted the egregious misconduct of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Legal Enforcement in the prosecution of marine biologist Nancy Black. NOAA is criminally prosecuting her for bogus charges, including lying to investigators and feeding whales. These charges could land Black in prison for more than 20 years.
More importantly to NOAA, she faces fines of $700,000 and forfeiture of the inflatable boat she uses for research. Why is that "more important" to NOAA? Read on.
OPEC Predicts More of the Same
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
OPEC in its market report for September offered more of the same when compared with the previous month's assessment. U.S. gasoline prices and oil in general were shaken by Hurricane Isaac last month, though any major fluctuations there were expected to be temporary. Meanwhile, the European economy is expected to return to growth next year, though the U.S. economy is anticipating a modest decline. Beijing, for its part, can expect further stagnation. In terms of the impact on global oil consumption, OPEC saw few dark clouds on the horizon keeping its demand forecast from the previous month in place.
Romney Energy Plan - Good or Bad for America? - Part Two
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
....The Romney white paper proposals, adopted should he become President, would end a century of federal control over oil and gas drilling and coal mining on government lands by transferring decision-making on drilling and mining federal lands to individual states. The policy stands in stark contrast to those of both previous Democratic and Republican presidents, dating back to Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who more than a century ago first set aside vast areas of federal lands, mostly in the energy-rich Western states including New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Alaska, to preserve wildlife and open the tracts for recreation.
Bacteria Consumed Over 200,000 Tons of Oil
from Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
By Leonor Sierra-Rochester - OilPrice.com
Over a period of five months following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, bacteria consumed at least 200,000 tons of oil and natural gas that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico.
For a study published this week in Environmental Science and Technology, researchers analysed an extensive data set to determine not only how much oil and gas was eaten by bacteria, but also how the characteristics of the feast changed with time.
Revealed: inside story of US envoy's assassination America 'was warned of embassy attack but did nothing'
By KIM SENGUPTA - Independent.co.uk
The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal.
American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.
New Arab leaders must defuse tensions Islamist governments fear being outflanked by Salafis
By Roula Khalaf in London - RT.com
Every once in a while an act that mocks an Islamic symbol, whether the Koran or the Prophet, leads to its intended objective – to portray Muslims as violent fanatics – and allows unreasonable people, both critics and defenders of Islam, to feed a dangerous frenzy. Such a turn of events has been made easier in the age of YouTube and Twitter, and with the proliferation of Islamist satellite television stations that catch on to the silliest of banter and blow it out of proportion.
It was thanks to a discussion on a religious programme on Egyptian television that a grotesque amateur film apparently made by a US-based Egyptian Copt triggered a swell of protests that started on September 11 and, it would seem, were also exploited by some extremists to bomb the US consulate in Benghazi, killing the ambassador.
Violence spreads across Middle East over anti-Islam film
FoxNews.com
Anti-American protests have erupted in the Middle East, resulting in violent embassy protests around the Middle East and heightened security at U.S. facilities abroad.
U.S. officials are bracing for possible protests across the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film blamed on the attack in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
Libya - Doomed from Day One
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
People often ask me why the West doesn't attempt a Libya-style intervention in Syria. After all, things are going so well in Libya. Oil production is up. But oil production is merely a mirage, as is security in Libya, which was doomed from the day one PG (post-Gaddafi) because of the way it was "liberated".
On Wednesday, US envoy to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed along with three other American diplomats in a rocket attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.
New Wave of Attacks on U.S. Embassies
Amy Payne - Heritage.org
Protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Yemen today and set fire to a building. Like the mob in Egypt on Tuesday, they tore down the American flag. Reports are also circulating of a separate protest in Tehran today with about 500 Iranians chanting "Death to America." Meanwhile, a onetime mentor of Osama bin Laden called on his followers to replicate what happened in Libya and Egypt.
Following the deaths of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other embassy staff, it is realistic to fear other attacks on U.S. diplomats. "Our men and women—in and out of uniform—are out there every day, protecting us and our interests. And that will always make them a tempting target," Heritage expert Jim Carafano reminds us, commenting on the attacks in Libya and Egypt. Heritage's Jim Phillips wrote in June about a larger Iranian campaign to assassinate foreign diplomats, including Israeli and Saudi diplomats, in at least seven countries over 13 months.
Libya Commemorates 9/11
By Ann Coulter - PatriotPost.us
When President Obama intervened in Libya last year, he claimed that "it's in our national interest to act" to remove a tyrant who -- in response to Bush's invasion of Iraq -- had just given up his weapons of mass destruction and pledged to be America's BFF.
Apparently Gadhafi neglected to also tell Obama, "I've got your back."
Obama said: "We must stand alongside those who believe in the same core principles that have guided us through many storms ... our support for a set of universal rights, including the freedom for people to express themselves and choose their leaders; our support for the governments that are ultimately responsive to the aspirations of the people."
For Whom Syria Tolls
By Dominique Moisi - Project-Syndicate.org
PARIS – With every passing week, the Syrian conflict increasingly resembles the Spanish Civil War. The images of warplanes bombing civilians and destroying cities have turned Aleppo into a latter-day version of Guernica, immortalized in Picasso's masterpiece. But the real similarities between the two conflicts are to be found in the behavior of the international community's main actors, which have again taken opposite sides.
On one side stand Russia and Iran, cynically determined to buttress President Bashar al-Assad's regime. On the other side stand the established democracies, hesitant and ambivalent in their support of the rebels. In 1930's Spain, of course, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy fully supported General Francisco Franco's rebellion, while the democracies reluctantly offered scant help to the Spanish Republic.
China's missing No.2 surfaces Xi Jinping 'sends condolences' over death of Communist official China's president-in-waiting cited in state media as offering his sympathies to the family of Huang Rong who died 6 September
Reuters in Beijing - Guardian.co.uk
China has issued its first public communication from the president-in-waiting Xi Jinping since his unexplained disappearance from the public eye ignited rumours over his health last week.
Xi, who has missed meetings with visiting leaders and senior officials over the past week, was cited by state media late on Wednesday night as expressing condolences to the family of a veteran Communist Party official who died last week.
China Communists Near Soviet Tenure as Leader Pick Looms
By Bloomberg News
China's Communist Party will approach its defunct Soviet counterpart in longevity in power after it navigates the leadership succession clouded by concern over Xi Jinping's status, a Bloomberg News survey indicates.
The party that took control of the mainland in 1949 will still be in office a decade from now, according to 21 of 22 Chinese political analysts across seven nations who were surveyed in the past two weeks. Ten respondents cited the likelihood of some degree of evolution, such as embracing greater democracy within the party, and one predicted a split.
Chinese Ships Enter Waters Near Islands Disputed With Japan
By Isabel Reynolds - Bloomberg.com
Six Chinese government ships entered what Japan sees as its territorial waters close to islands disputed by the two nations, heightening nationalist sentiment in a standoff that damping trade and tourism.
Two ships have since left the area and the other four are being urged to do so, Japan's coast guard said in a statement. Another two vessels were seen in nearby waters, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. China's official Xinhua News Agency said two Chinese surveillance fleets are patrolling around the islands, which are in areas rich in gas and fishing grounds.
Iraqi militia threatens U.S. interests over film
By Suadad al-Salhy
BAGHDAD | Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:09am EDT
(Reuters) - An Iraqi militia that carried out some of the most prominent attacks on foreigners during the Iraq war on Thursday threatened U.S. interests in the country over a film that has triggered protests in Libya, Egypt and Yemen.
"The offence caused to the messenger (Prophet Mohammad) will put all American interests in danger and we will not forgive them for that," said Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib al-Haq militia.
Forcing Israel's Hand
By Ken Blackwell - PatriotPost.us
In the dreary years of Depression and drift leading up to World War II, there was always a difference of perception between Britain and France about the Hitler threat. France wanted to strike Hitler when he marched into the Rhineland in 1936. This was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles and France felt its very life was threatened by a re-militarized Rhineland on her border. The French premier was invited to London by Prime Minister Baldwin -- for talks. Four years later, France fell under the Nazi boot.
Britain always had the advantage of distance from Germany. Britain had a 22-mile anti-tank trench called the English Channel. France naturally resented Britain's talking, talking, talking while Hitler moved.
Obama vows to "bring to justice" ambassador's killers
By Matt Spetalnick and Hadeel Al Shalchi
WASHINGTON/BENGHAZI, Libya | Thu Sep 13, 2012 5:06am EDT
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed on Wednesday to "bring to justice" the Islamist gunmen responsible for a ferocious assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans - an attack that may have been organized in advance.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the other Americans died after the gunmen attacked the lightly fortified U.S. consulate and a safe house refuge in Benghazi on Tuesday night. The attackers were part of a mob blaming America for a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.
Not a Neighborly Day in the Brotherhood Yesterday's embassy stoning sets the stage for Egyptian President Morsi's upcoming visit to the U.S.
By JERI THOMPSON The American Spectator.com
The storming yesterday of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt should not come as a surprise to those who have been following the increasingly volatile situation in that country, and as the radical Islamic organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, takes great control there. The embassy violence also comes at an inconvenient time, as the U.S. relationship with Egypt was already being tested by its new president, Mohammed Morsi, who will visit the U.S. later this month.
Libya Attack Sparks Crisis U.S. Sends Marines After Ambassador, Three Other Americans Killed; 'We Couldn't Stop Them'
By MARGARET COKER, ADAM ENTOUS
and JULIAN E. BARNES - WSJ.com $$
The killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, in one of the most brazen attacks on a U.S. diplomatic compound in a generation, sparked a security crisis in the North African country, elevated tensions across the Middle East and raised concerns about how well the U.S. can protect its diplomats abroad.
[Scroll down for more articles on the Middle East]
'Anti-Islam film a pretext;
US diplomat's killing shows Libya intervention's failure'
Washington has condemned the killing of its ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other officials - who died when an armed mob attacked the U.S. consulate in the city of Benghazi. The bloodshed followed protests over an American film which has been described as an insult to Islam. It's the first time a U.S. ambassador has been killed while in post since 1979. RT's Gayane Chichakyan has the latest.
QE3 hopes: Gold markets ready to press bull button
NEW YORK(Commodity Online): The Federal Reserve may do it and hence the precious metals are extending rallies or trading firm.
Gold has climbed near to a six month high on expectations of a stimulus measure by US Federal Reserve. Cash gold jumped up to 0.3 percent to $1,736.45 an ounce and was spotted trading at $1,735.30 at 11:20 a.m., extending Monday's 0.3 percent gain.
QE3 hopes: Gold markets ready to press bull button
NEW YORK(Commodity Online): The Federal Reserve may do it and hence the precious metals are extending rallies or trading firm.
Gold has climbed near to a six month high on expectations of a stimulus measure by US Federal Reserve. Cash gold jumped up to 0.3 percent to $1,736.45 an ounce and was spotted trading at $1,735.30 at 11:20 a.m., extending Monday's 0.3 percent gain.
Understanding the Rules
Before You Transport Precious Metals Oversees Part 1
BY MARK NESTMANN - FinancialSense.com
While it's perfectly legal to move precious metals in or out of the United States, you must understand the reporting rules before you begin. Otherwise, your risk confiscation of your metals along with possible civil and criminal sanctions. You're much better off paying an armored security service such as Brinks or ViaMat to transport the metals for you.
However, if you simply want to walk, drive, or fly across a U.S. border carrying, say, 100 one-ounce U.S. gold eagles with a market value of US$175,000 in your carry-on bag, there are two sets of rules with which you must be concerned:
Developed World in Financial Decay –
How Long Before Money Collapses?
By: Julian D. W. Phillips - GoldSeek.com
The Current Scene
Since 2007 and the start of the "credit-crunch" the developed world's money system has been under stress. As a consequence, there has been an economic downturn that government and bankers have not been able to stop, convincingly, in the last five years.
The developed world has decayed to the point that it can't handle another major crisis such as an oil price well into the $100+ area.
Keiser Report: Blackhole of Bamboozlement (E339)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the Paul Bunyan banks, which are too big to be true and all flow, no assets. They also discuss the Bermuda Triangle of Fraud and the London disease. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to investigative journalist and author, Leah McGrath Goodman about her being banned from the UK for reporting on the Jersey sex and murder scandal. They discuss the $5 billion per square mile in laundered money that means Jersey rises, while Switzerland sinks.
Why the Fed's words mean more than its actions FOMC must credibly promise to be irresponsible
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Federal Reserve has tried a lot of things over the past five years to get the economy back on track: It's lowered overnight rates nearly to zero, it's bailed out banks, investment banks and insurance companies, and it's bought trillions of dollars worth of bonds and mortgage-backed securities.
But still the economy is stuck in the mud. The listless economy has idled millions of people and dashed the hopes of millions more.
Bernanke Should Do the Right Thing and Not Say He's Sorry
By the Editors - Bloomberg.com
If Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke fails this week to announce new measures to stimulate the U.S. economy, he'd better have a good reason. We can only think of a bad one, and we urge Bernanke to refute it explicitly.
For weeks, Bernanke has been signaling to the financial markets that he will act. If he fails to follow through when the Fed's policy-making committee meets Sept. 13, it will probably be because, with the presidential election coming in November, he wants to shield the Fed from the charge that it's doing the Obama administration's bidding. That's the bad reason he should confront and dismiss.
Cui Bono Fed: Who Benefits from the Federal Reserve?
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
Does the Federal Reserve benefit the nation, or just the banks?
Cui bono--to whose benefit?--is a skeptic's scalpel that cuts through the fat of propaganda and political expediency to the hard truth. Since the world has been trained (in Pavlovian fashion) to hang on every word issued by America's privately owned central bank, the Federal Reserve, it's appropriate to ask a simple but profound question:
Who benefits from the Fed's existence and its policies of loaning "free money" to banks at 0% and ZIRP (zero interest rate policy)? The Status Quo's answer is "the American people," of course, a deliciously juicy layer of "Big Lie" propaganda and obfuscation.
QE3 won't create jobs
By Annalyn Censky - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Federal Reserve's policymaking committee is meeting for the next two days, and it is widely expected to announce a third round of quantitative easing, known as QE3.
But even if the Fed launches that third bond-buying spree, it is unlikely to have a major positive effect on the economy.
The impact would be "microscopic" at best, said Catherine Mann, a Brandeis University finance professor and former Federal Reserve economist.
Will we see a Big Sell-Off in the Coming Weeks?
By Dave Zgodzinski - OilPrice.com
I had a neighbour who had a method for market timing. It was physical.
She told me that she knew it was time to sell a stock when she got a tingling in her fingers.
In the past couple of weeks, somebody out there has been letting their fingers click the sell button.
Maybe it's the time of year. There is a seasonality to the markets. A time to buy and a time to harvest. September has often been a selling time for stock markets.
J.P. Morgan Reorganizes Investment Banking
By CHRISTIAN BERTHELSEN - WSJ.com
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. announced a reorganization of its corporate and investment banking division on Wednesday, organizing it into two units and shifting the decade-long head of its equities business to run a restructured arm catering to institutional investors.
The corporate and investment bank, which was recast in late July as part of an overhaul in the wake of the bank's $5.8 billion trading loss on credit derivatives, will now be divided between banking and market and investor services. An internal memo announcing the changes was sent out by Mike Cavanagh and Daniel Pinto, the division's co-leaders.
Markets rally after German high court
gives nod to European bailout package
AP - WashingtonPost.com
KARLSRUHE, Germany — Germany's highest court paved the way Wednesday for the creation of Europe's €500 billion ($640 billion) rescue fund for indebted governments after it rejected calls to block it
The Federal Constitutional Court's decision allows President Joachim Gauck to sign off on the German parliament's ratification of the treaty that sets up the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund — a financial weapon that that leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro hope will help calm the debt crisis that threatens the eurozone and the global economy.
A party in Europe, but a hangover is coming The German court's ruling that the European bailouts can go ahead came with some major caveats. The euro hasn't necessarily been saved.
By Cyrus Sanati - Fortune.CNN.com
FORTUNE -- The euro will live another day, but it remains on life support. The markets rallied overnight on word that the German constitutional court had affirmed the Fatherland's role in the European bailout scheme, allowing the European Central Bank to heat up the printing presses. That was followed by reports that pro-euro parties were in the lead in a critical national election in the Netherlands, putting an end to concerns that one of the eurozone's strongest members could fly the coop.
But while the twin victories for the euro are worth popping a bottle of champagne, it isn't enough to open an entire case. There were plenty of caveats in the German ruling that could cause some problems for the bailout down the road. And while the court gave the thumbs up to the bailout, they seem to have expressed some severe reservations to Germany's role in a possible fiscal union with its eurozone partners.
A Europe Devoid of Sovereign Democracies
BY DANIELLE PARK - FinancialSense.com
The European Stability Fund (ESM) was due to take effect in July and proposed as a backstop to protect the debt crisis from spreading by providing loans to troubled euro zone members. It was designed to replace the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which was a established as an emergency fund in May 2010. Euro zone countries (including those in dire financial shape like Italy and Spain) pledged 440 billion euros in loan guarantees, which the E.F.S.F. used to supply 192 billion euros in bailouts for Ireland, Portugal and Greece. The EFSF now has little of the initial funds left to deploy.
The euro's demise may be the final chapter of the ERM debacle The drama of 1992 showed why Germany cannot lead Europe out of a monetary crisis
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Few problems in economics are genuinely new. Virtually every scenario you care to think of has been played out before in some shape or form. Thus it is with the eurozone debt crisis, which has some striking parallels with the debacle of Britain's entanglement with the European exchange rate mechanism back in the early Nineties.
Today's crisis is of course infinitely more complex, intractable and serious, but it shares many of the same characteristics. The central issue – that it is next to impossible to maintain a currency union with Germany unless wholly aligned to the German economic cycle – hasn't changed.
German court backs ESM rescue fund in double-edged ruling Germany's highest court has cleared the way for ratification of the eurozone bail-out fund but capped German contributions and fired a cannon shot across the bows of the European Central Bank.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Markets breathed a sigh of relief across the world after the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the EU's Fiscal Compact are compatible with the country's Basic Law. The euro surged to a four-month high of €1.29 to the dollar.
"This is a good day for Germany and a good day for Europe," said Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Germany is fulfilling its full responsibilities as the biggest economy and a trusted partner in Europe."
Who Built the Recession? Two guilty parties.
BY JEFFREY BELL AND RICH DANKER - WeeklyStandard.com
Bill Clinton, who rode a recession into office and left the scene just before another one began, knows something about the blame game. Addressing the Democratic convention on Wednesday night, he made a full-throated effort to defend the Obama presidency by putting it in the context of past Republican failure.
"They want to go back to the same old policies that got us into trouble in the first place," he warned, listing tax cuts, financial deregulation, defense spending, and domestic budget cuts as examples. Clinton's argument was an inch deep, but it recalled the fact that the economic catastrophe that primed Obama's 2008 victory and has dogged his incumbency remains a liability to Republicans four years later.
Chicago Teachers Shouldn't Be Obstacle to School Progress
By the Editors - Bloomberg.com
The stakes in Chicago's school strike go well beyond the nation's third-largest public school system. For U.S. education reform, it may be a watershed. For teachers unions, it may be a Waterloo.
It was poor timing for Chicago teachers to walk out on 350,000 children Monday, the second week of the school year. (Despite union claims to the contrary, "walk out" is exactly what the teachers did, unilaterally shutting off negotiations with city.)
'The Super Bowl of School Reform':
What the Chicago Teacher Strike Is Really About The public supports higher pay for teachers, but not at the expense of less accountability. That's a problem for the Chicago teachers union.
By Andrew P. Kelly - TheAtlantic.com
The Chicago teachers strike is no ordinary labor dispute. It's a part of a larger war between the teachers unions and a growing coalition of education reformers who have pushed for rigorous teacher evaluation and tenure reform across the country. As the Chicago Tribune argued in yesterday's editorial page, "the strike is not only--or even mostly--about money. It's about who controls schools and classrooms..."
In education policy circles, this is way bigger than even the presidential election. It's the Super Bowl of school reform.
Mayor Rahm-Ney's Attack on the Chicago Teachers Union
By Amy Goodman - Truthdig.com
Unions are under attack in the United States—not only from people like Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, but now, with the teachers strike in Chicago, from the very core of President Barack Obama's inner circle, his former chief of staff and current mayor of that city, Rahm Emanuel. Twenty-five thousand teachers and support staff are on strike there, shutting down the public school system in the nation's third-largest school district. This fight now raging in Chicago, Obama's hometown, has its roots in this historic stronghold of organized labor, and in the movement started one year ago this week, Occupy Wall Street. The conflict presents a difficult moment for Obama, who will need union support to prevail in his race with Mitt Romney, but who is inextricably linked, politically, to his brash, expletive-spewing former aide, Mayor Rahm-ney Emanuel.
Depending on Dependency
By Thomas Sowell · PatriotPost.us
The theme that most seemed to rouse the enthusiasm of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was that we are all responsible for one another -- and that Republicans don't want to help the poor, the sick and the helpless.
All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.
Yet the notion that people who prefer economic decisions to be made by individuals in the market are not as compassionate as people who prefer those decisions to be made collectively by politicians is seldom even thought of as a belief that should be checked against facts.
Live Long and Pay for It: America's Real Long-Term Cost Crisis As the population ages, the costs -- financial and social -- of long-term care will rise rapidly. We're not prepared for it.
By William Galston - TheAtlantic.com
About a decade ago, my mother's slow mental decline became too obvious for our family to deny. She continued to live at home with my father under increasingly difficult circumstances until she fell and broke her hip. In the hospital, it became clear that her mental impairment precluded physical rehabilitation and that institutional care was unavoidable.
Things Are Getting Worse: Median Household Income
Has Fallen 4 Years In A Row
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
New numbers that have just been released show that things are getting worse for American families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income declined to $50,054 in 2011. That is a 1.5 percent decline from the previous year, and median household income has now fallen for 4 years in a row. In fact, after adjusting for inflation median household income has not been this low since 1995. These new numbers once again confirm what so many of us have been talking about for so long - American families are steadily getting poorer. Incomes are going down and the cost of living just keeps going up. This dynamic is squeezing more Americans out of the middle class every single month.
Number of U.S. poor holds steady but earnings gap grows
By Susan Heavey and Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON | Wed Sep 12, 2012 5:21pm EDT
(Reuters) - The poverty rate in the United States stabilized in 2011 for the first time in three years even as incomes fell and inequality grew, according to government figures.
The share of people living in poverty edged down to 15 percent from 15.1 percent in 2010, a "statistically insignificant" drop in the words of analysts at the U.S. Census Bureau, which released the report.
Census: Middle class shrinks to an all-time low
By Carol Morello - WashingtonPost.com
The vise on the middle class tightened last year, driving down its share of the income pie as the number of Americans in poverty leveled off and the most affluent households saw their portion grow, new census data released Wednesday showed.
Income inequality increased by 1.6 percent, the Census Bureau said in its annual report on poverty, income and health insurance. This was the biggest one-year increase in almost two decades and suggested that a trend in place since the late 1970s was picking up steam.
New Public-Private Partnerships:
The President's Stealth Plan To Create Jobs?
By GARY BELSKY - Time.com
As casual reading, the Presidential Memorandum "Accelerating Technology Transfer and Commercialization of Federal Research in Support of High-Growth Businesses," released Oct. 28, 2011, is about as riveting as the Department of Defense Instruction No. 5535.11 ("Availability of Samples, Drawings, Information, Equipment, Materials, and Certain Services to Non-DoD Persons and Entities") that followed in its trail on March 19, 2012. Which is to say, not riveting at all.
But as a window into the Obama Administration's efforts to create jobs, both documents are revealing. And both help to explain a series of new investment partnerships announced today—almost a year after the aforementioned memorandum was released. Hey, no one ever said job creation was easy. At least no one not running for president.
Dollar no longer primary oil currency
as China begins to sell oil using Yuan
BY: KENNETH SCHORTGEN JR - Examiner.com
On Sept. 11, Pastor Lindsey Williams, former minister to the global oil companies during the building of the Alaskan pipeline, announced the most significant event to affect the U.S.dollar since its inception as a currency. For the first time since the 1970's, when Henry Kissenger forged a trade agreement with the Royal house of Saud to sell oil using only U.S. dollars, China announced its intention to bypass the dollar for global oil customers and began selling the commodity using their own currency.
Lindsey Williams: "The most significant day in the history of the American dollar, since its inception, happened on Thursday, Sept. 6. On that day, something took place that is going to affect your life, your family, your dinner table more than you can possibly imagine."
MIT Develop Simple, Fast, Efficient
Method of Cleaning Up Oil Spills
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have proposed a new oil spill clean-up technique which is set to be simple, fast, and energy efficient.
MIT hope to use magnets to strip the oil from the water. The whole system will be highly efficient and all parts of the system are recyclable, including the oil extracted from the water.
OBAMA SPENDS $1 BILLION
ON IRIS & FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY
By: Candice Lanier - HumanEvents.com
For over a year and a half, the Mexican government has been collecting an unprecedented amount of biometric data from minors ages 4 to 17 as part of a youth ID card program.The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that the data is being gathered for Personal Identity Cards for minors. This I.D. card, according to Mexican authorities, will help streamline registration in schools and health facilities and comes embedded with digital records of iris images, fingerprints, a photograph and a signature for each minor.
Missing in China... or under the radar? Xi's Absence Complicates Planning for Party Meeting
By JEREMY PAGE - WSJ.com
BEIJING—Vice President Xi Jinping's continuing absence from public life is throwing another wrench into preparations for China's leadership change this fall when Mr. Xi is due to take over the nation's top job, according to party insiders, analysts and diplomats.
The announcement of when the meeting to start the transition will take place is already considered late, after a highly unusual year in Chinese politics, and Mr. Xi's disappearance, apparently because of a health problem, has created another complication that could cause further delays, those people said.
Israeli Voters in US Election Citizens who never lived in US can vote in 24 states Children of immigrants from the US who have citizenship but never lived there are eligible to vote in upcoming election.
By HERB KEINON0 - JPost.com
Children of immigrants from the US who have American citizenship but have never lived there are eligible to vote in the upcoming elections in 24 states, including six of the eight key battleground states, according to information on a US government website meant to help overseas voters.
Estimates of the number of Americans eligible to vote in the US living, working or studying in Israel vary widely from 100,000 to 250,000.
White House declines Netanyahu request to meet with Obama The White House's response marks a new low in relations between Netanyahu and Obama, underscored by the fact that this is the first time Netanyahu will visit the U.S. as prime minister without meeting Obama; PM to meet with Clinton
By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya - Haaretz.com
The White House declined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request on Tuesday to meet U.S. President Barack Obama during a UN conference in New York at the end of the month.
Israel's Netanyahu opens the door to Iran attack
Reuters - TheNational.ae
JERUSALEM // The United States forfeited its moral right to stop Israel taking action against Iran's nuclear programme because Washington had refused to be firm with Tehran, the Israeli prime minister said yesterday.
In comments which appeared to bring the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran closer, Benjamin Netanyahu took the US administration to task after Washington rebuffed his own call to set a red line for Tehran's nuclear drive.
MI6 chief was British messenger
sent to dissuade Israel from Iran strike Visit by intelligence official is unprecedented, Daily Mail reports
By SAM SER and GREG TEPPER - TimesOfIsrael.com
The high-ranking British official dispatched to Israel to discuss the Jewish state's plans regarding a possible attack on Iran's nuclear program was Sir John Sawyers, the head of England's MI6 intelligence agency, The Daily Mail reported Tuesday night.
The British report followed a revelation in the Hebrew press earlier in the day that a telephone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his British counterpart David Cameron prior to the Olympic games led Cameron to send an emissary to meet with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu: Those that refuse to set red lines
for Iran can't give Israel red light Netanyahu launches unprecedented attack on U.S. government; U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says if Iran decides to make a nuclear weapon, the U.S. would have a little more than a year to stop it.
By Barak Ravid, Reuters, Reuters & AP - Haaretz.com
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday launched an unprecedented verbal attack on the U.S. government over its stance on the Iranian nuclear program.
Obama's Slap at Netanyahu Israeli PM gets the shaft -- while Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood figurehead gets the red carpet.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leveled some of his most stinging criticism to date at an Obama administration that refuses to issue concrete ultimatums to Iran regarding that nation's pursuit of nuclear weapons. "Those who refuse to draw red line to Iran don't have the moral right to put a red line to Israel," said Netanyahu during a press conference in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister's comments were an apparent reaction to a statement made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in an interview with Bloomberg Radio on Sunday. When asked if the administration would specify consequences for Iran's refusal to quit its uranium enrichment program, Clinton refused to do so. "We're not setting deadlines," she responded.
Libya attack may have been planned, sources say
By ILENE PRUSHER - JPost.com
Obama rejects denigrating religious beliefs but condemns senseless violence that killed US Ambassador, 3 others; Clinton says the attack is work of "small, savage group"; PM extends condolences to US.
Armed men at the US Consulate in Benghazi killed US Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three embassy staff late Tuesday following a protest by people upset over an American- made film that bashes the prophet Muhammad.
September 11, 2012 Pro-al Qaeda group suspected in attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
A pro-al Qaeda group is considered the top suspect in the attacks at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead, including Amb. J. Christopher Stevens.
The group, the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, previously attacked the consulate in June of this year. According to CNN, sources tracking eastern Libya say the attack Tuesday was likely too complex to be the result of a protest over an anti-Muslim film:
'Sam Bacile, Israeli Jew,'
May Actually Be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, Coptic Christian
By Jeffrey Goldberg - TheAtlantic.com
From the Associated Press, which previously reported that Sam Bacile was a real person, and an Israeli Jew:
The search for those behind the provocative, anti-Muslim film implicated in violent protests in Egypt and Libya led Wednesday to a California Coptic Christian convicted of financial crimes who acknowledged his role in managing and providing logistics for the production....
U.S. Missions Stormed in Libya, Egypt Movie Critical of Prophet Muhammad Spurs Attack in Benghazi, Killing American; Protesters Breach Wall of Cairo Compound
By MATT BRADLEY in Cairo
and DION NISSENBAUM in Washington - WSJ.com
Demonstrators attacked a U.S. consulate in Libya, killing one American, and breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, amid angry protests over a film by a U.S. producer that mocks and insults the Prophet Muhammad.
The footage, which depicts the Islamic Prophet Muhammad as a womanizing fraud, was posted on YouTube in early July under the user name Sam Bacile.
In a telephone interview Tuesday with The Wall Street Journal, a man identifying himself as Mr. Bacile said he was a 52-year-old Israeli-American real-estate developer in California who raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to promote the film.
Thanks Obama - The Terrorists You Used
To Topple Regimes In Egypt And Libya
Are Now Attacking Our Embassies
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Many of us tried to warn Barack Obama that using militants from al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to overthrow governments in the Middle East would not end well. The Obama administration has been so determined to get rid of some of these dictators in the Middle East that they have not even really stopped to think about who would be replacing them. Our leaders assured us that those opposed to Mubarak and Gaddafi were "freedom fighters" that just wanted "liberty" and "democracy" in those countries. Well, of course it turns out that the folks that took control of both Egypt and Libya bear no resemblance to George Washington whatsoever. They have simply replaced one form of tyranny with an even worse form of tyranny. Sadly, the last couple of days have been a huge wake up call for all of us. Radical Islamic militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt and replaced the American flag with the al-Qaeda flag. In Benghazi, Libya the U.S. consulate was attacked by a crowd equipped with guns, homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. They torched the consulate, looted it, and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other U.S. officials. Apparently they are not as grateful for our help in "liberating" their homelands as the Obama administration thought they would be. Unfortunately, our politicians fundamentally misunderstand what is going on in the Middle East, and this is going to continue to lead to more policy errors.
US moving Navy destroyers off coast of Libya
From Barbara Starr, CNN's Pentagon Correspondent
Two US Navy warships are moving towards the coast of Libya, two US officials tell CNN. The destroyers are the USS Laboon and the USS McFaul. Both ships are equipped with tomahawk missiles that could be used if a strike was ordered. Tomahawks are satellite-guided cruise missiles that can be programmed to hit specific targets.
"These ships will give the administration flexibility," a senior official said, if the administration orders action against targets in Libya.
U.S. Sending Drones to Hunt Libyan Attackers
By DASHIELL BENNETT - TheAtlanticWire.com
CNN reports that the United States will send unmanned drones to Libya to look for jihadist camps, as the White House now accepts the belief that the Benghazi attack was the premeditated work of terrorists. U.S. officials say the attack was not a direct assassination attempt on Ambassador Christopher Stevens, but that used the otherwise peaceful protest of an anti-Muslim film as a diversion to infiltrate the area and then strike the compound.
U.S. envoy to Libya killed in riot over movie Three Benghazi staffers also killed; U.S. Embassy in Cairo attacked
By Robert Daniel, MarketWatch
TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) — Rioters angered by the release of a movie they considered insulting to Islam burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in an attack late Tuesday that killed the U.S. ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three diplomatic staffers.
In Egypt, protesters had earlier scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and replaced the American flag with an Islamic banner.
BENGHAZI AND CAIRO: POLARIZING ATTACKS
Posted by Jon Lee Anderson - NewYorker.com
The ambush-murder, on Tuesday night, of the American Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans in the eastern city of Benghazi, following a violent mob attack on the American consulate there, is the worst in a long string of disquieting episodes that have occurred in Libya in the year since Qaddafi's overthrow by NATO-backed rebels. At about the same time, mobs stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo in neighboring Egypt, though there, thankfully, without loss of life.
Photos from the Aftermath of the Benghazi Embassy Attack
By DASHIELL BENNETT - TheAtlanticWire.com
New photos have been released from the burned-out American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that show what remains of the damaged buildings in the light of day. The pictures show a compound gutted by fire and scarred by graffiti and looting. There have also been some new details this morning about what exactly happened during the assault.
Sam Bacile: The Mysterious Filmmaker
Who Set the Muslim World on Fire
By JOHN HUDSON - TheAtlanticWire.com
Update: Mysterious is right. Skepticism about the actual identity of "Sam Bacile," the producer of the anti-Islam film Muslim Innocence, appears to be justified. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldbergcontacted a consultant of the film, Steve Klein, who said that Bacile, contrary to previous claims inThe Wall Street Journal and Associated Press, is not Israeli nor actually named Sam Bacile. (It's a pseudonym.) Klein tells Goldberg:
"I don't know that much about him. I met him, I spoke to him for an hour. He's not Israeli, no. I can tell you this for sure, the State of Israel is not involved, Terry Jones (the radical Christian Quran-burning pastor) is not involved. His name is a pseudonym. All these Middle Eastern folks I work with have pseudonyms. I doubt he's Jewish. I would suspect this is a disinformation campaign."
"LIBYA SURPRISE"
COULD BE DEATH KNELL FOR ROMNEY CAMPAIGN
Posted by John Cassidy - NewYorker.com
Harold Wilson, who was Prime Minister of Britain twice, in the sixties and seventies, famously said a week is a long time in politics. Sometimes, so is a day. This time yesterday, the conventional wisdom, faithfully trotted out by yours truly among many, was that Obama was coasting to victory in a Presidential sweepstakes that was threatening to peter out in tedium.
So much for that. After last night's "September surprise," Obama is still home free, and Romney is still trailing. In fact, this might well be the death knell for his campaign. But what an uproar.
Mitt Romney's Comments on Embassy Attacks Backfire Badly
By ELSPETH REEVE - - TheAtlanticWire.com
Mitt Romney's attack on President Obama for the "disgraceful" decision to "sympathize" with the murderers -- and his decision to stick with the political attack in a press conference Wednesday -- "is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign," Time's Mark Halperin says. The "campaign faces a near consensus in Republican foreign policy circles that, whatever the sentiment, Romney faltered badly," BuzzFeed's Ben Smithwrites. "I've been inundated with emails and calls from elected GOP leaders who think Romney's response was a mistake. Not today," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough tweeted. Peggy Noonan said on Fox, "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors, say in the past few hours, perhaps since last night... Sometimes when really bad things happen, when hot things happen, cool words or no words is the way to go." Former George W. Bush pollster Matthew Dowd tweeted, "Romney react feels a lot like ready, fire, aim."
What Comes After Assad? Al Qaeda is not a threat in Syria.
BY BARTLE B. BULL - WeeklyStandard.com
The moral and geostrategic arguments for a Western intervention in Syria speak for themselves. There is only good in helping a courageous majority free itself of a barbaric puppet of Iran and Russia who indiscriminately bombs his own civilians from land, air, and sea. Ethically, no outcome could be worse than more of this war. Strategically, nothing could be worse for civilized interests than Assad coming out of it the winner.
Silver to hit $37/oz in a month; Gold to $1,850
ZURICH (Commodity Online): Silver prices to reach $37 an ounce in a month and gold to hit $1,850 per ounce, said Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in a commodities snippet.
UBS has upped its one and three month gold and silver forecasts based on anticipated action from the Federal Open Market Committee.
"Friday's poor payrolls report strongly raises the likelihood of the Fed announcing quantitative easing at its FOMC meeting later this week," the Swiss bank noted.
Top Mining CEO Sees $2,000 Gold Next Year
Eric Platt - BusinessInsider.com
Gold could top $2,000 an ounce next year, Barrick Gold Chief Jamie Sokalsky told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" today.
The CEO was on the program to talk about the company's plans, as well as their outlook on the precious metal.
"Gold could definitely surpass previous highs and go above $2,000 and even higher in the next year," he said.
Buy the Big Dip in Gold
By Mad Hedge Fund Trader - OilPrice.com
Look at the charts for the barbarous relic below and you can only come to one possible conclusion. If the Federal Reserve disappoints on Thursday, just a little bit, even by a smidgeon, and does not deliver QE3 and gold sells off big, you should jump in and by the stuff like crazy.
All of the charts for gold and the derivative plays are showing major breakouts to the upside. This is true for spot gold and the ETF (GLD), which broke a major downtrend line last week. It is the case for the gold miners ETF (GDX). It is also the reality for silver, the silver ETF (SLV), and the silver miners (SIL).
Gold underpinned by buying from two of three main camps
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold lately has been underpinned by buying from two of the three main camps, said Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in a commodity research note.
There has been buying from the speculative community and from what the bank refers to as 'quality' buyers such as exchange-traded funds and the official sector.
However, physical buying has been lacking, with U.S. August coin demand below the same period a year ago and Indian demand still hurt by high gold prices in rupee terms.
Gold gets some powerful friends Commentary: Wall Street notes gold's strength
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch.com
....Gold enthusiasts who like being lone rebels are having to adapt.
LeMetropoleCafe's Friday wrap-up included quotations from a remarkable Bloomberg interview with the famous bond fund manager Bill Gross of Pimco which expressed a preference for holding gold: "Gold cannot be reproduced. It can be taken out of the ground at an increasing rate, but there is a limited amount of gold. There has been an unlimited amount of paper money over the past 20 years to 30 years…
"Central banks got out of the gold trade a few years ago. Just recently, they are coming back into that market…I think for the most part it is not a crowded trade yet even though the price has accelerated in recent quarters and recent years."
Goldbug inflation warnings might just bite
By James Mackintosh - FT.com
Perhaps, just perhaps, the goldbugs are finally going to be right. Enthusiasts for gold have been bawling about inflation risks from central bank experiments such as bond-buying for five years. So far they have been wrong. The profits on gold, rising 19 per cent a year since the start of 2007, have made them richer but no less angry.
The Politics of Gold
By: CAPTAINHOOK - GoldSeek.com
As long as humans have had society, politics has played into economic interaction up and down the scale, from how one pays the butcher to international trade. In fact, it would be fair to say that politics plays as important a role in our economic interaction as the laws of supply and demand (the laws of nature), especially as we move further away from free market rule. Today, our collective political economy has morphed into a tapestry of mature dynasties with America still at center because of US Dollar ($) hegemony supremacy sinceBretton Woods, fading as this may be. Moving forward this is changing however, first with China and other emerging economies feeling the benefit of a mature Western model (capital shifting to the East in search of lower labor costs); and second, with the eventualdecentralization that will follow this Globalization.
Bernanke Has Already Told Us: More Stimulus Is Coming
By Caroline Baum - Bloomberg.com
Let us begin by stipulating that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be damned if he does and damned if he doesn't on Wednesday.
If he introduces a new bond-buying program or some other nontraditional policy to goose the economy, Republicans will accuse him of debasing the currency, creating the conditions for the next great inflation and encouraging another cycle of capital misallocation. If he doesn't introduce anything, Democrats will blame him for not doing his job to promote price stability and maximum employment, as specified by the Fed's dual mandate.
Ben Bernanke expected to take further action
on US economy as Fed meets Wall Street readies for a third round of the Federal Reserve's bond-buying strategy to jolt struggling US economic recovery
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardain.co.uk
As the Federal Reserve prepares to meet on Wednesday, expectation is mounting that chairman Ben Bernanke will once more attempt to energise the US's flagging economic recovery.
Wall Street economists are now priming their clients for a third round of quantitative easing (QE3), the Fed's massive bond-buying strategy that it hopes will increase lending and economic activity.
What the Fed should do (but probably won't) The Fed's efforts to spur borrowers to get loans have not worked. Perhaps it's time to reverse engineer it, by spurring banks to lend instead.
By Nin-Hai Tseng - Fortune.CNN.com
FORTUNE -- When Fed policymakers meet this week, many investors expect the central bank will announce additional steps to bolster the U.S. economy – either by launching another round of bond buying or assuring that interest rates will stay super low for a longer period of time. The Fed could also embark on a mix of both actions.
But as we recall, it has tried similar moves before. Not once, but twice.
Banks Running Out of Runway
BY BRIAN PRETTI CFA - FinancialSense.com
After taking a pass on official QE at the Jackson Hole soiree, once again the focus is on the FOMC meeting this week. Will they or won't they? After last week's not unexpectedly weak employment number where the BLS birth/death model estimate accounted for 94% of reported headline payroll gains, pundits far and wide raised their percentage bets that QE will indeed be on the Thursday FOMC lunch menu. Personally, I'm convinced weak payroll and capital goods orders as of late are due to business concerns over the as of yet unaddressed fiscal cliff concerns. But the Street remains focused on the apparent self imposed Fed mandate of employment acceleration. The first two mega-QE's could not light the cyclical employment fire, but hey, maybe the third time is the charm, right? Regardless, we know another Bernanke inspired QE is coming at some point, despite already high food and energy prices, to say nothing of equity prices in a declining earnings growth rate environment.
Fiscal cliff. Market crash. Depression: A way out Commentary: A 12-step program for investors' peace of mind
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Psst, don't bother reading this if you're certain you're not addicted to money, investing, credit-card debt or overspending. Yes, addicted. But how do you know? Put on a behavioral-economics thinking cap and try this self-diagnosis:
Do you crave it ... gotta have it ... but never have enough ... you think of it often ... it consumes you ... work at a dull job just for the money ... live for vacations, weekends ... bet on lotto, sports, slots ... delay buying a new car ... constantly worried about price of gas, paying kids college, hospital bills, taxes ... Social Security ... half of Americans don't have enough to retire ... will work till you drop.
Dollar Is Near 4-Month Low Versus Euro Before Fed Meets
By Masaki Kondo and Mariko Ishikawa - Bloomberg.com
The dollar was 0.1 percent from a four-month low against the euro before the Federal Reserve starts a two-day policy meeting today amid speculation it will decide to buy bonds to boost the economy.
The U.S. currency remained lower versus all of its 16 major counterparts following a decline yesterday after Moody's Investors Service said the country's Aaa rating may be cut if it doesn't reduce its ratio of debt to gross domestic product. The euro was near a two-month high against the yen before Germany's Federal Constitutional Court issues its ruling today on the country's participation in Europe's bailout fund.
China And Russia Are Ruthlessly
Cutting The Legs Out From Under The U.S. Dollar
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The mainstream media in the United States is almost totally ignoring one of the most important trends in global economics. This trend is going to cause the value of the U.S. dollar to fall dramatically and it is going to cause the cost of living in the United States to go way up. Right now, the U.S. dollar is the primary reserve currency of the world. Even though that status has been chipped away at in recent years, U.S. dollars still make upmore than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world. Most international trade (including the buying and selling of oil) is conducted in U.S. dollars, and this gives the United States a tremendous economic advantage. Since so much trade is done in dollars, there is a constant demand for more dollars all over the globe from countries that need them for trading purposes. So the Federal Reserve is able to flood our financial system with dollars without it causing a tremendous amount of inflation because the rest of the world ends up soaking up a lot of those dollars. But now that is changing. China and Russia have been spearheading a movement to shift away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade.
The euro crisis is not over and is about to get interesting Supposedly the euro crisis is all over. The mighty ECB has spoken. I have received triumphalist suggestions from bastions of euro-fanaticism that I should now capitulate.
By Roger Bootle - Telegraph.co.uk
They even suggested that I should send a rebate of fees to my clients. And something to Telegraph readers, perhaps?
Sorry to disappoint, but I am not remotely contrite. On the contrary. Was it not to be expected that Draghi would deliver some sort of bond-buying programme?
How many times since this crisis began have we supposedly been given "the solution" only to find in the succeeding weeks that it breaks in our hands?
Non-euro countries raise concerns on banking union
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Plans for stronger banking supervision in the eurozone are putting non-euro members in a difficult position: they want the euro-crisis to end, but they do not want to endorse a two-speed Europe.
EU ambassadors from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK met on Monday evening (10 September) in Brussels to share concerns regarding the European Commission's banking union plans to be unveiled on Wednesday.
Banking union: No supervision without representation
BY JACEK SARYUSZ-WOLSKI - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - On 12 September the European Commission is to present first proposals on the banking union, which is the central element of the strategy to stabilise the economic situation in the eurozone.
During the EPP Group meeting in Florence, Commission President Barosso assured us that the single supervision mechanism will be open to all member states, including those which are not yet members of the eurozone. But can these states really agree to a mechanism where the European Central Bank is in control, yet they are not represented in its structures? It is likely that this is the choice they will be faced with.
Debt crisis:
German court clears way for pivotal decision on bazooka The German constitutional court dismissed an eleventh hour demand for delay clearing the way for its pivotal ruling on bail-out funding expected on Wednesday.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
Stockmarkets were muted ahead of the ruling, which could de-rail plans to boost the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the "big bazooka" bail-out fund.
Traders' jitters were compounded as the Greek finance ministry appeared to confirm reports that Athens was preparing a compensation claim against Germany for debts owed from the Second World War. The Greek government has dedicated four officials to raking over the archives from the period of German occupation, which lasted from 1941 to 1945, according to the newsgroup ekathimerini.com. "The matter remains pending," it quoted deputy finance minister Christos Staikouras as saying. "Greece has never resigned its rights."
Spain digs in its heels over ECB's bailout conditions More eurozone jitters as Mariano Rajoy stands firm against Greek-style rescue
By JULIAN KNIGHT - Independent.co.uk
The Spanish Prime Minister sparked concern across the eurozone yesterday after apparently ruling out a Greek-style bailout that would force Madrid to make specific budget cuts.
Mariano Rajoy's resistance could stand in the way of a much-anticipated rescue of the country, which is struggling to bring its finances under control. After facing eye-watering borrowing costs over the summer, Spain is seen as a prime candidate for assistance under the European Central Bank's new bond-buying scheme, which is meant to bring down the punitive interest rates faced by debt-laden countries in southern Europe.
Shadow economy in eastern Europe
undermines growth, says World Bank
BY NIKOLAJ NIELSEN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Doing business and working outside government regulation and tax systems in eastern Europe is so widespread that it risks undermining the region's long-term growth potential, says a World Bank report released on Monday (10 September).
"The governments of the new member states in Eastern Europe simply cannot afford a large shadow economy, neither in the short run due to fiscal concerns, nor in the long run due to the shrinking labour force," said World Bank senior adviser, Katarina Mathernova.
EU Bites the Hand that Feeds It: Gazprom Will Bite Back
BY OIL PRICE - FinancialSense.com
Gazprom has Europe's natural gas market in a stranglehold and Europe is attempting to fight back, first with a raid last year on the Russian giant's offices and then with a probe launched earlier this week against its allegedly illicit efforts to control the EU's natural gas supplies.
The bottom line is that the same natural gas revolution in the US, which was enabled by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), is now threatening to loosen Gazprom's noose on the EU, and Gazprom simply won't have it.
Gorman Call to Pandit Said to Spark Smith Barney Deal
By Bradley Keoun, Michael J. Moore and Donal Griffin - Bloomberg.com
Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. (C) executives held unsuccessful talks since August in a final push to settle a dispute over the value of their jointly owned brokerage, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
An independent appraiser's report, delivered late on Sept. 10, and a phone call from Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman to Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit helped settle the matter within hours.
US warned of credit rating downgrade
if budget dispute continues into 2013 Moody's agency says AAA rating likely to be cut if Congress can't agree on $1.2tn of spending cuts and tax rises
By Phillip Inman - Telegraph.co.uk
US politicians came under renewed pressure to resolve a dispute over $1.2tn worth of spending cuts and tax increases after the ratings agency Moody's said it would probably cut its AAA rating if negotiations fail before a 1 January deadline.
As the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, warned that the global economy was burdened by the US's huge debts, Moody's ratcheted up the pressure on Congress to prevent the "fiscal cliff" from sending the economy into a nosedive next year.
Moody's Says U.S. Faces Aaa Cut Without Budget Deal in 2013
By John Detrixhe - Bloomberg.com
Moody's Investors Service said it may join Standard & Poor's in downgrading the U.S.'s credit rating unless Congress next year reduces the percentage of debt- to-gross-domestic-product during budget negotiations.
The U.S. economy will probably tip into recession next year if lawmakers and President Barack Obama can't break an impasse over the federal budget and if George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire in what's become known as the "fiscal cliff," according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office published on Aug. 22. The rating would likely be cut to Aa1 from Aaa if an agreement on the debt ratio isn't reached, Moody's said in a statement today.
Did We Just Find Someone to Take On the Banks?
By Jonathan Weil - Bloomberg.com
To see how the federal government has pursued money-laundering cases against big banks over their dealings with Iran and other countries under U.S. trade sanctions, consider what happened when Barclays Plc (BARC) and the Justice Department were required to file reports describing the U.K. bank's cooperation under a settlement in 2010.
The deadline came and went. Barclays and the Justice Department failed to comply, infuriating U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington, who had ordered that the reports be filed. "I am amazed that with all the legal talent before the court that no one opened the order to read it," he said. A Justice Department attorney, Kevin Gerrity, told the judge he couldn't explain the lapse. Before approving Barclays's deferred-prosecution agreement, Sullivan called it a "sweetheart deal." Barclays paid $298 million, its core business was unscathed, and no executives were charged.
Audit the Fed?
By Barry Eichengreen - Project-Syndicate.org
BERKELEY – The party platform adopted at the Republican National Convention includes a number of remarkable planks. To a monetary economist, for example, the party's proposal to restore some kind of metallic monetary standard is so outlandish as to be an almost irresistible target.
More serious is the Republicans' proposal for an annual audit of the United States Federal Reserve. This, like the gold-standard plank, is partly designed to appeal to the libertarian followers of Ron Paul, the Texas congressman and perennial presidential candidate who is hugely popular with the Republicans' "Tea Party" wing. While Paul would go further, and abolish the Fed altogether, several bills in the US Congress have mandated an annual audit; earlier this year, one such bill was passed by the House of Representatives (but not the Senate).
The wealthy are 288 times richer than you
By Tami Luhby - Fortune.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The wealth gap between the richest Americans and the typical family more than doubled over the past 50 years.
In 1962, the top 1% had 125 times the net worth of the median household. That shot up to 288 times by 2010, according to a new report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
That trend is happening for two reasons: Not only are the rich getting richer, but the middle class is also getting poorer.
The End of the Middle Class Century:
How the 1% Won the Last 30 Years
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Between 1921 and 2008, the top 10% and the bottom 90% shared income gains equally. The split was 50-50 exactly, according to a new fun interactive graphic built by the Economic Policy Institute with data from economist Emmanuel Saez.
Labor pains: Jobs figures could get worse
By John Crudele - NYPost.com
This month there will be two employment reports.
The second one — coming on Sept. 27 — will get very little attention but could be more important to the Republicans than last Friday's disastrous jobs report.
You couldn't avoid hearing that the Labor Department said on Friday that only 96,000 new US jobs were created in August. That was far lower than even the most conservative Wall Street estimates of 125,000 — and too low to be any use in helping the US economy.
No Help for the Unemployed
By MARK THOMA, The Fiscal Times
There was something important missing from both the Democrat and Republican National Conventions -- the unemployed. We have an unemployment crisis on our hands, and nobody should be satisfied with an unemployment rate in excess of 8 percent and the slow decline in unemployment we have experienced. Yet we heard very little about plans to address the jobs crisis at the conventions, and it's the same on the campaign trail.
I didn't expect the Republicans to say much about the unemployed, except to criticize the president over the slow progress in bringing the number down. The deficit was their convention focus, including the debt clock above the stage, but it is telling that they have little to offer the unemployed beyond criticism of President Obama.
Most Labor Force Dropouts in August Had Jobs
By Ben Casselman - WSJ.com
Who dropped out of the labor force last month? People with jobs.
Of the 7.4 million people who left the labor force in August, well over half — 4.1 million — had been employed in July. Fewer than three million were previously unemployed people who stopped looking for work.
Seniors Turn to Risky 'Reverse' Mortgages for Cash
By SHERYL NANCE-NASH, The Fiscal Times
Elderly homeowners signing up for "reverse" mortgages might be latest victims of the housing crisis.
A reverse mortgage allows homeowners 62 and older who own their homes outright or who have low mortgage balances to get cash by borrowing against the equity in their home. The mortgage comes due when the borrower dies, moves or sells the home – often shifting the responsibility to family members or heirs.
Out-of-Pocket Medical Costs Threaten Seniors
By YUVAL ROSENBERG, The Fiscal Times
When President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law on July 30, 1965, he touted the intended benefits of the program: "No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine," he said. "No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts."
The $289 Billion Cost of Medication Noncompliance,
and What to Do About It New recommendations focus on relatively inexpensive fixes that could significantly reduce health-care waste.
By Brian Fung - TheAtlantic.com
Last week, we explained how the United States spends $750 billion a year on wasted health care. Much of that comes from administrative costs and the ordering of unnecessary medical procedures.
But another major source of waste doesn't show up until after the doctor's visit. According to a meta-analysis published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Americans are failing to comply with medication prescriptions for a variety of reasons -- and it's costing them anywhere between $100 billion to $289 billion a year.
Health insurance premiums rise a moderate 4% The average cost of family health insurance coverage rises to $15,745 for employer-provided plans.
By Chad Terhune, Los Angeles Times
The price of health insurance provided by employers rose a moderate 4% this year, a major survey shows, but experts warn that rates may climb higher next year.
Annual insurance premiums for families increased 4%, on average, to $15,745, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. That was down from a 9% hike in 2011.
Rotten smell reeks havoc across Southern California
A massive fish die-off in the Salton Sea is the prime suspect in a rotten smell that swept the region, but experts can't recall a bad odor ever traveling so far.
By Hector Becerra, Phil Willon and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times
When the rotten egg smell wafted into the Santa Clarita United Methodist Church in Saugus on Monday morning, Kathy Gray thought the church's sewer pipe had burst.
More than 70 miles to the east, steelworker Chris Tatum's nostrils got the punch in Riverside. He assumed a brush fire had just broken out.
"It reeks," he said. "It smells like rotten mush."
Emanuel No Boss Daley as Teachers School Him With Strike
By Tim Jones and Darrell Preston - Bloomberg.com
Rahm Emanuel's mayoral campaign message was subtle yet unmistakable: Vote for me and you won't get another Richard M. Daley, who in 22 years bought labor peace, helping to drain cash reserves and create crushing union- pension liabilities.
Sixteen months into Emanuel's first term, the teachers union in the third-largest U.S. city has proved him right in a way he didn't intend. The new mayor has taken a tougher line and finds himself presiding over something his predecessor never did -- a strike locking more than 350,000 students out of their classrooms.
Chicago teacher strike is not for the children
By Marybeth Hicks - WashingtonTimes.com
On Monday, Chicago's 26,000 public school teachers walked out of the classroom and, after a quick stop at Target for red T-shirts, assembled in the Windy City's downtown Loop to make this crucial point: It's not about the children. It's about us.
But this can't be true!
The motives of teachers unions are always pure and can never be questioned. Unlike other "workers," teachers are professionals who are never out for themselves. Everything they do is for the children.
Obama's Jobs Act—Not Just a Failure but a Fraud
By LIZ PEEK, The Fiscal Times
If President Obama wins reelection, it will be because he has snookered the American public and outwitted the GOP. It will not be because his policies have succeeded.
As he campaigns for a second term, President Obama must convince voters that he has steered the economy in the right direction, and that his Republican rivals are to blame for our continued high unemployment.
GoDaddy Outage Was Due to Technical Glitch, Not Attack
BY ROBERT MCMILLAN - Wired.com
GoDaddy says technical issues, not a hacker attack, knocked it offline yesterday.
"The service outage was not caused by external influences. It was not a 'hack' and it was not a denial of service attack (DDoS)," interim CEO Scott Wagner said in an e-mailed statement. "We have determined the service outage was due to a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables."
Army Wants Tiny Suicidal Drone to Kill From 6 Miles Away
By Spencer Ackerman - Wired.com
Killer drones just keep getting smaller. The Army wants to know how prepared its defense-industry partners are to build what it calls a "Lethal Miniature Aerial Munition System." It's for when the Army needs someone dead from up to six miles away in 30 minutes or less.
How small will the new mini-drone be? The Army's less concerned about size than it is about the drone's weight, according to a recent pre-solicitation for businesses potentially interested in building the thing. The whole system — drone, warhead and launch device — has to weigh under five pounds. An operator should be able to carry the future Lethal Miniature Aerial Munition System, already given the acronym LMAMS in a backpack and be able to set it up to fly within two minutes.
Drones' Future: Supersonic Swarms of Robot Bugs
By Judy Dutton - Wired.com
Robotic Flies
What - A micro-aviary of drones that look—and fly—like ladybugs, dragonflies, and other insects. Since 2008, George Huang, professor of engineering at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, has managed to produce a butterfly model with a 5-inch wingspan. "We haven't done a final version where we declare victory," Huang says. "I'll be happy once it's fly-sized."
When - Darpa and the Air Force have already invested in similarly tiny craft, though with no firm time horizon for deployment. Regardless, micro-drones' potential goes beyond the military. "Police could use them to fly into a drug trafficker's house," Huang says. "Or in a nuclear or mining accident, you can send a fly inside to find victims."
Why is Obama skipping
more than half of his daily intelligence meetings?
By Marc A. Thiessen - WashingtonPost.com
President Obama is touting his foreign policy experience on the campaign trail, but startling new statistics suggest that national security has not necessarily been the personal priority the president makes it out to be. It turns out that more than half the time, the commander in chief does not attend his daily intelligence meeting.
The Government Accountability Institute, a new conservative investigative research organization, examined President Obama's schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012, to see how often he attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) — the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country. During his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB just 536 times — or 43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.
The Pentagon Doesn't Trust Its Own Robots
By Spencer Ackerman - Wired.com
The Pentagon's science advisers want military robots to operate with far greater autonomy than they do today. Only one problem: There's a cloud of distrust and misunderstanding hovering over the robots that the Pentagon already has.
That's an unexpected conclusion in a July study from the Defense Science Board (.pdf), recently acquired by Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. The Board wondered what's inhibiting the development of autonomous military vehicles and other systems. It found that the humans who have to interact with robots in high-stakes situations often labor under the misimpression that autonomy means the machine can do a human's job, rather than help a human do her job more efficiently. And some simply don't have faith that the robots work as directed.
Bill Moyers and Bernie Sanders
On the Dysfunctional US Political System
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN - [See video]
Big money has corrupted the US electoral process, again.
I am not sure what the answer might be, but it is becoming fairly evident that the two party system as it is now constructed is failing.
The 11th Anniversary of 9/11
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
The article below was written for the Journal of 9/11 Studies for the eleventh anniversary of September 11, 2001, the day that terminated accountable government and American liberty. It is posted here with the agreement of the editors.
In order to understand the improbability of the government's explanation of 9/11, it is not necessary to know anything about what force or forces brought down the three World Trade Center buildings, what hit the Pentagon or caused the explosion, the flying skills or lack thereof of the alleged hijackers, whether the airliner crashed in Pennsylvania or was shot down, whether cell phone calls made at the altitudes could be received, or any other debated aspect of the controversy.
Food-Grade Fracking Fluid? (The Future of Fracking)
By Keith Schaefer - OilPrice.com
The fracking debate rages on.
It's a divisive issue, no more so than in the U.S. – where 90%-plus of all global fracking is done now, pitting neighbour against neighbour.
On the table from the industry side: more energy produced in our own backyard, more jobs, more tax revenue.
On the other side: environmental concerns, such as the potential for fracking to contaminated drinking water. (That may or may not be true, but it certainly validates the fierce emotion behind the issue.)
China's Evolving Web
By Andrew Sheng - Project-Syndicate.org
HONG KONG – In a recent article, the economist Axel Leijonhufvud defines the market system as a web of contracts. Because contracts are linked with each other, one default can trigger an avalanche of broken promises, "[making] it possible to destroy virtually the entire web of formal and informal contracts which the market system requires for its functioning." The state's role is to protect, enforce, and regulate these contracts and related property rights, as well as to intervene to prevent systemic failure.
Protesters attack U.S. diplomatic compounds in Egypt, Libya
By David Ariosto, CNN.com
Cairo (CNN) -- The United States said it was taking measures to protect its citizens worldwide after protesters angry about an online film considered offensive to Islam attacked U.S. diplomatic compounds in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday.
In Cairo, several men scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy and tore down its American flag, according to CNN producer Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who was on the scene.
White House denies
Obama is snubbing Binyamin Netanyahu during US visit Haaretz claims president turned down meeting offer from prime minister as Israel increases rhetoric over Iran nuclear facilities
By Chris McGreal - Guardian.co.uk
The public feuding between Israel and Washington ratcheted up sharply on Tuesday amid claims that Barack Obama has declined to meetBinyamin Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister's visit to the US later this month.
Haaretz reported an Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu asked for a meeting with the president after attending the opening of the UN general assembly in New York in late September. Netanyahu offered to travel to Washington but the White House allegedly said Obama was too busy.
Netanyahu: Without ultimatum,
U.S. has no 'moral right' to stop Israel from attacking Iran
By Karen DeYoung and Joel Greenberg - WashingtonPost.com
The deepening dispute between the United States and Israel over how to stop Iran's nuclear program broke into public view Tuesday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggesting that the Obama administration did not have the "moral right" to forestall military action.
Netanyahu's remarks — and a White House decision that President Obama will not meet with the Israeli leader later this month — threatened to further exacerbate tensions between the two allies and possibly push the disagreement over Iran into the U.S. presidential campaign.
U.S. has no right to block Israel on Iran: Netanyahu
By Jeffrey Heller, Reuters - ChicagoTribune.com
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said the United States had forfeited its moral right to stop Israel taking action against Iran's nuclear program because it had refused to be firm with Tehran itself.
In comments which appeared to bring the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran closer, Netanyahu took the Obama administration to task after Washington rebuffed his own call to set a red line for Tehran's nuclear drive.
NAM in Tehran
By Jaswant Singh - Project-Syndiacte.org
NEW DELHI – Nowadays, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is no longer much of a movement. Since the Cold War's end, it has fractured into a far more heterodox grouping whose members range from leftist regimes, as in Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela, to the conservative monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar) of the Persian Gulf. So it should be no surprise that ideological cacophony has severely diluted the group's founding impulse of avoiding entanglement in the disputes of the world's superpowers.
Thus, today's NAM finds itself as a group in search of purpose and principle. Its sole comfort, it seems, is that it has not yet withered away.
EU components used in Belarus spy drones, NGO says
BY NIKOLAJ NIELSEN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - A German-based firm has said that some of its engines may have been used for Belarus spy drones despite EU sanctions.
The company, 3W Modellmotoren in Rodermark in southwest Germany, which makes stroke engines for small airplanes, told EUobserver on Monday (10 September) that dealers might have sold some of its technology for use in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) belonging to Belarus' interior ministry.
Kosovo to Serbia: Time to face reality
BY ANDREW RETTMAN - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - Kosovo's foreign minister has said the end of supervised independence should make Serbia realise it can never divide Kosovo or get it back.
Speaking to EUobserver from Pristina on Sunday (9 September), ahead of solemnities to end supervised rule on Monday, Enver Hoxhaj said the "historic day" will make Kosovo "a more sovereign nation."
Controversial plan to split up Afghanistan A Tory MP proposes dividing the country into zones, some of which could involve the Taliban
By BRIAN BRADY, and JONATHAN OWEN - Independent.co.uk
Afghanistan could be carved into eight separate "kingdoms" – with some of them potentially ruled by the Taliban – according to a controversial plan under discussion in London and Washington.
Code-named "Plan C", the radical blueprint for the future of Afghanistan sets out reforms that would relegate President Hamid Karzai to a figurehead role.
As the Euro Tumbles, Spaniards Look to Gold
By: J. Luis Martin - GoldSeek.com
The unremitting deterioration of the eurozone's sovereign debt landscape continues to fuel uncertainties about the longevity of the euro as a strong currency. Such uncertainties are not only leading to capital flight from the EMU's periphery to the core and destabilizing markets worldwide, but they are also beginning to frighten southern European savers into seeking refuge outside their 10-year-old currency.
Such is the case in my home country of Spain - the latest tumbling economy to threaten the euro's survival. As the crisis deepens, there is still a window of opportunity for Spaniards to turn to gold as a means to protect their wealth against the risks of increased foreign exchange volatility, forced re-denomination, or even a total currency collapse.
Gold & Silver Slip But "Set to Benefit"
If Fed Begins QE3 This Week
By: Ben Traynor - GoldSeek.com
THE WHOLESALE gold price drifted lower to $1730 per ounce Monday morning in London, some ten Dollars below Friday's six-month high.
Stock markets were broadly flat and US Treasuries fell, meantime.
The silver price dipped below $33.50 per ounce – around 20 cents below last week's close – while other commodities were broadly flat, with the exception of copper, which posted gains.
"Our economists now expect the Fed to ease further at this week's FOMC meeting, providing gold the catalyst it requires to test fresh highs for this year over the coming weeks," says a note from Barclays Capital.
Jim Rogers:
End of Bull Market in Commodities long way away
Commodity Online
While Carl Weinberg, chief economist, High Frequency Economics argues that the European Central Bank proposed Outright Monetary Transactions or OMT is something of such a small scale that it would not affect commodity markets in a big way, Jim Rogers has approved of it.
"Rogers, famed as a long-term commodities bull, said there was no reason to correct this stance." CNBC.com reported.
"The bull market in commodities will end someday – but some day is a long way away," Rogers was quoted by the CNBC as saying.
Jim Rogers Sees Worse Recession in 2013-2014,
Says Fed Already Printing More Money
LewRockwell.com
Legendary global investor and chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers reckons the Fed finds it embarrassing to announce QE3 as all previous attempts have failed, but says the central bank is already printing more money. He predicts another recession: "You should be very worried about 2013-2014."
The printing has started
Speaking to India's ET Now on Monday, Rogers said: "I do not know if they will announce it. I know they are going to print more money. They already are."
Fed Watch: Here's Everything They May Do This Week What Can the Fed Do? 5 Possible Steps
Reuters - CNBC.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has made plain that the U.S. central bank is seriously considering additional monetary policy easing at its meeting on Sept. 12-13 to help counter the "grave" stagnation of the U.S. labor market.
The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee is expected to announce its decision at around 12:30 p.m. (1630 GMT) on Thursday and Bernanke will follow with a news conference at 2:15 p.m. (1815 GMT). The Fed will also release policymakers' quarterly economic and interest rate projections.
David Stockman: U.S. Faces Permanent Fiscal Cliff
BY FS STAFF - FinancialSense.com
David Stockman, former Reagan OMB Director, opens fire on the Fed, Congress, the fiscal cliff, entitlement reform and a number of other issues on CNBC today. [See video]
Roubini sees 'perfect world economic storm' – why is this new 'news'?, Coming changes to Canada's GDP measurements, Germans voice concerns over ECB's Outright Monetary Transactions Program
Published by Ian R. Campbell - StockResearchPortalBlog.com
Nouriel Roubini, speaking September 7, is reported as predicting we face years of world economic 'gloom' irrespective of what is decided by political leaders in the Eurozone. Roubini said this would be driven by a 'painful process of deleveraging, and up to a decade of low economic growth. The latter is said to be supported by an OECD report released September 6 that said the G7 economies would grow at an annualized rate of 0.3% in Q3 2012 – and that there now exists worldwide "dampening global confidence, weakening trade and employment and slowing economic growth".
IMF chief Lagarde highlights perils of US fiscal cliff Christine Lagarde has said the "US fiscal cliff" is one of the greatest threats to the global economy.
By Rachel Cooper - Telegraph.co.uk
Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Summit in Vladivostok, Russia, the head of the International Monetary Fund said the US tax increases and spending cuts that come into effect in the new year, were one of the largest risks to the global economy.
She also named the eurozone crisis and medium-term public financing, as the two other greatest risk factors.
Soros: Germany's heading into depression
By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch.com
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Europe's recession will intensify and spread to Germany, the euro zone's largest economy, within six months, said George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management.
"The policy of fiscal retrenchment in the midst of rising unemployment is pro-cyclical and pushing Europe into a deeper and longer depression," Soros said in prepared remarks for a Monday speech in Berlin. "That is no longer a forecast; it is an observation. The German public doesn't yet feel it and doesn't quite believe it. But it is all too real in the periphery and it will reach Germany in the next six months or so."
Euro Zone Will Pay 'Terrible Price': Jim Rogers
By: Catherine Boyle - CNBC.com
A "terrible price" will be paid for the euro zone crisis eventually, whether the European Central Bank (ECB) embarks on mass bond purchases or not, Jim Rogers, investor and co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros, told CNBC Monday.
Rogers said: "These guys have been saying the same old garbage for a long time. It's not a game-changer – it's good for the market for maybe a month. The debt keeps going higher and higher and eventually we'll all going to pay a terrible price."
He warned that the market rally, which many have seen as an opportunity to get back into riskier assets, would only be a short-term rebound.
Europe's Solidarity Imperative
By Peter Sutherland - Project-Syndicate.org
LONDON – When Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, publicly proclaimed that the ECB would do "whatever it takes" to ensure the future stability of the euro, the effect of his remarks was immediate and remarkable. Borrowing costs fell dramatically for the governments of Italy and Spain; stock markets rallied; and the recent decline in the external value of the euro was suddenly checked.
It remains unclear how long-lasting the effects of Draghi's intervention – or of the public support offered to him by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, and Italian premier Mario Monti – will prove to be. What we can say with certainty is that Draghi's remarks and the reaction they evoked demonstrate that the fundamental problems of the eurozone are not primarily financial or economic; they are political, psychological, and institutional.
An Unexpected U-Turn Why Merkel Wants To Keep Greece in Euro Zone Angela Merkel has made a surprising U-turn in her policy on Greece. The German chancellor now wants to stop Athens from leaving the euro zone at all costs -- even if it means massaging the figures in the upcoming troika report. For the German leader, it is essential to avoid the consequences of a Grexit before national elections next year.
By Konstantin von Hammerstein, Christian Reiermann
and Christoph Schult - Spiegel.de
Mantras are short, formulaic phrases that are repeated over and over for meditative purposes. They can be spoken, sung, whispered, recited mentally or even written down and eaten.
The German chancellor has recently opted for the spoken variety, which is the conventional form. Angela Merkel's mantra consists of a short German sentence. It translates as: "We are waiting for the troika report." She repeats it whenever the opportunity arises -- such as two weeks ago, when Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras visited Berlin.
Why ECB Bond-Buying Plans Undermine Democracy The ECB's plan to restart its bond-buying program is possibly the most important decision of the euro crisis. But the bank is not subject to control by national parliaments. Europe's leaders seem to consider saving the euro to be more important than preserving democracy.
A Commentary by Armin Mahler - Spiegel.de
Anyone who breaks a law can hardly excuse his actions by claiming that he is acting within the scope of the law. In any case, it won't help him much -- unless his name is Mario Draghi and he is the president of the European Central Bank (ECB).
The ECB is politically independent, but it is not above the law. It is only independent within its mandate, which is clearly defined by the European treaties: The central bank is tasked with safeguarding price stability in the euro zone -- no more and no less.
JPMorgan Chase Libor Subpoenas
Coming From Everybody In The World
By Mark Gongloff - HuffingtonPost.com
Pretty much everybody in the world with subpoena power has hit JPMorgan Chase with requests for information in the Libor-rigging scandal.
The biggest U.S. bank revealed the extent of its involvement in the probe in a filing Thursday morning with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying regulators in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Switzerland and more had asked it for information:
JPMorgan Chase has received subpoenas and requests for documents and, in some cases, interviews, from the DOJ, CFTC, SEC, European Commission, UK Financial Services Authority, Canadian Competition Bureau, Swiss Competition Commission and other regulatory authorities and banking associations around the world.
Stockman: Our Problem is the Federal Reserve
By Kurt Nimmo - PrisonPlanet.com
Former OMB boss David Stockman told CNBC that Romney's vision of capitalism is not possible if the Federal Reserve continues to run the economy. Stockman said the only candidate that had it right was Ron Paul.
"He was the only one that had it right about the Fed," Stockman said. "The Fed is the heart of the problem. We have destroyed the capital markets, the money markets. Interest rates mean nothing. Everything is trading off the Fed. Wall Street isn't even home. It's a bunch of computers trading word clouds emitted by this central bank or that."
Stockman said that with the insane interest rate policies of the Fed, the crushing debt of entitlements and the neocon-driven war machine with a parasitical military-industrial complex in tow will continue to roll on unless something gives.
Nationalism and Terrorism
By Liah Greenfeld - Project-Syndicate.org
BOSTON – September 11, 2001, may – at least at first – seem like an inappropriate addition to the history of nationalism, given Al Qaeda's explicitly stated global pretensions. In fact, now that the initial shock and confusion have given way to a more sober perspective, the terrorist attacks of that awful day are increasingly seen – as they should be – as one among numerous other nationalist milestones.
From this perspective, the attacks no longer appear, as they did to so many immediately afterwards, to reflect an incomprehensible, irrational, and uncivilized mentality, or a different civilization altogether – pre-modern, unenlightened, and fundamentally "traditional" (in other words, undeveloped). It is in this unflattering sense that Islam, the dominant religion of an economically backward part of the world, was said to have motivated the attacks of September 11, 2001. And, because those who believed this (virtually everyone whose voices were heard) belatedly perceived its insulting connotation, discussing the matter has caused considerable anguish in the years since.
The Real Unemployment Numbers
Are Worse Than You Are Being Told
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
According to the Obama administration, the unemployment rate in the United States has been slowly coming down over the past couple of years. But is that actually true? When you take a closer look at the data you quickly realize that the real unemployment numbers are much worse than we are being told. For example, if the labor force participation rate was the same today as it was back when Barack Obama first took office, the unemployment rate in the United States would be a whopping 11.2 percent. But every month the Obama administration has been able to show "progress" because of the fiction that hundreds of thousands of Americans are "disappearing" from the labor force each month. Frankly, the way that they come up with these numbers is an insult to our intelligence. Personally, I much prefer the employment-population ratio. It is a measure of the percentage of working age Americans that actually have jobs.
Every Job We Created and Lost in the Last 5 Years—in 2 Graphs
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
The Great Recession hit rock bottom in February 2010. If you compare jobs lost two years before the trough with 30 months after the trough, you'll find only three large sectors have made up their losses:
-- Mining (extractors, operators, engineers), which is up 90,000.
-- Utilities (repairers, installers, more engineers), which is up 11,000.
-- Leisure & Hospitality (fitness trainers, artists, plus everybody who works with food, hotels, or parks), which is up 102,000.
Besides health care and education, which never stopped growing, every other major job sector is net negative compared to five years ago. These graphs from today's Bloomberg Brief by Scott Johnson.
HP to cut 2,000 more jobs, rolls out four new computers
By Salvador Rodriguez - LATimes.com
Hewlett-Packard said it will slash 2,000 more jobs as the technology giant unveiled a bundle of new computers.
In a regulatory filing, the Palo Alto tech company revealed it now plans to cut 29,000 jobs by October 2014, according to a report by the Associated Press. Previously, the company had said it planned to cut 27,000.
The additional job cuts come a month after HP suffered the largest loss in its 73-year history, according to the report. HP said it expects to record charges of $3.7 billion mainly for the job cuts, up from a previous estimate of $3.5 billion.
Fannie Mae regulator to clarify when it won't sue
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The regulator for government-seized mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said the agency plans Tuesday to provide clarity about when they won't sue banks for bad mortgages that the two firms buy.
"The objective of the new framework is to clarify lenders' repurchase exposure and liability on future deliveries," said Federal Housing Finance Agency acting director Ed DeMarco to the American Mortgage Conference in Raleigh, N.C. "Under this framework, lenders will be relieved of certain repurchase obligations for loans that meet specific payment requirements."
The Machine: The Truth Behind Teachers Unions
America's public education system is failing. We're spending more money on education but not getting better results for our children.
That's because the machine that runs the K-12 education system isn't designed to produce better schools. It's designed to produce more money for unions and more donations for politicians...
Updated! Why Chicago Teachers Are Striking
Despite an Offered 16 percent Raise Over Four Years
Nick Gillespie - Reason.com
Update: Read this story about how the 45,000 kids in Chicago's charter schoolsare still going to school even as their counterparts in traditional public schools are cooling their heels as teachers strike.
As Reason 24/7 notes, Chicago's teachers are on strike. This, despite what seems like a pretty plum offer from city officials:
Chicago offered teachers raises of 3 percent this year and another 2 percent annually for the following three years, amounting to an average raise of 16 percent over the duration of the proposed contract, School Board President David Vitale said.
"This is not a small contribution we're making at a time when our financial situation is very challenging," he said.
Union: Chicago teachers to go on strike
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Tens of thousands of teachers and support staff in Chicago are set to go on strike Monday after their union and school officials failed to reach a contract agreement, the union president said.
"Negotiations have been intense but productive, but we have failed to reach an agreement that would prevent a labor strike," Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis told reporters late Sunday night.
Minutes earlier, the president of Chicago's school board said officials offered the city's teachers a contract including pay increases and other measures they'd requested.
Teachers strike expected to go into 2nd day
By Joel Hood and Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah - ChicagoTribune.com
Contract talks between Chicago's school board and its teachers union were locked in negotiations Monday evening, making it increasingly likely that the city's first teachers strike in a quarter century would go into a second day.
While thousands of teachers marched and picketed in front of schools across the city, negotiators from both sides met for on issues that have bogged down contract talks for months – teacher compensation, a re-hire pool for laid-off teachers and job evaluations.
The Student Loan Debt Bubble
Is Creating Millions Of Modern Day Serfs
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Every single year, millions of young adults head off to colleges and universities all over America full of hopes and dreams. But what most of those fresh-faced youngsters do not realize is that by taking on student loan debt they are signing up for a life of debt slavery. Student loan debt has become a trillion dollar bubble which has shattered the financial lives of tens of millions of young college graduates. When you are just starting out and you are not making a lot of money, having to make payments on tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt can be absolutely crippling. The total amount of student loan debt in the United States has now surpassed the total amount of credit card debt, and student loan debt is much harder to get rid of. Many young people view college as a "five year party", but when the party is over millions of those young people basically end up as modern day serfs as they struggle to pay off all of the debt that they have accumulated during their party years. Bankruptcy laws have been changed to make it incredibly difficult to get rid of student loan debt, so once you have it you are basically faced with two choices: either you are going to pay it or you are going to die with it.
How to pick the right Apple iPhone 5 plan
By Kelli B. Grant - MarketWatch.com
Consumers who are counting down the hours until Apple announces its new iPhone may want to pause before they pre-order.
For fans, it's not a question of whether to buy—orders for each successive Apple iPhone have topped analyst expectations, and insiders say the iPhone 5 announcement expected Wednesday will be no different.
But the iPhone market has changed substantially in the year since the 4S came on the scene, which means consumers who want one may need to make a thorough assessment of their current plan and carrier before preordering. "Last time around, the big news was Sprint got the iPhone, and that widened the possibilities, but it was still pretty much the same phone, same networks, roughly similar pricing everywhere," says Eddie Hold, a vice president for market research firm NPD Group.
Apple Device IDs Leaked by Anonymous
Traced to App Developer Blue Toad
BY KIM ZETTER - Wired.com
Those Apple device IDs that an Anonymous offshoot claimed to have hacked from an FBI agent's computer in March appear to have actually originated just weeks ago from the hack of a little-known app development company in Florida.
Thanks to some stellar sleuthing by a computer security consultant, the source of the Apple device IDs leaked to the internet by AntiSec last week has been traced to an application developer called Blue Toad.
David Schuetz, a security consultant with Intrepidus Group, described his method for tracking the IDs to Blue Toad in a blog post on Monday.
Cellphone Tracking is Common and Policies Vary, Says ACLU
J.D. Tuccille - Reason.com
With headlinesabounding about the ease with which our activities and travels can be tracked via those handy, better-than-Star Trek-communicators devices we're so accustomed to toting around,it's worth giving some thought to just how likely it is that our personal cellphones are beng used to snitch on us. Fortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union is doing the hard work of contacting law-enforcement agencies around the country to determine what policies they have in place, and the frequency with which they implement those policies to plot our movements on the map like so many migrating wildebeest. Speaking of maps, the ACLU has an interactive map by which you can find the responses received so far to their queries — and some of those answers are doozies.
How Anonymous plans to use DNS as a weapon An Anonymous threat to take down the global Domain Name Service may have been …
by Sean Gallagher - Mar 8 2012 - ArsTechnica.com
After engaging in a recent rash of attacks in retaliation for the takedown of file-sharing site Megaupload, the Anonymous denial of service "cannons" have been firing considerably fewer shells of late.
While Anonymous group members managed to take down Interpol's website on February 28 (largely by using a Web version of their "Low Orbit Ion Cannon" denial of service tool) and have defaced a number of vulnerable sites (including, most recently, sites belonging to Panda Security), threats to take down bigger targets have failed to materialize. What some believed to be the group's boldest plan yet—an effort to bring down the Internet's entire Domain Name System (DNS)—is now being called a "troll" by members of the group.
Go Daddy-service Web sites taken down in apparent attack One hacker claims responsibility for the outage affecting sites for which Go Daddy provides hosting and DNS services.
by Elinor Mills - CNet.com
Web sites serviced by DNS and hosting provider Go Daddy were down for most of today, but were back up later this afternoon. A hacker using the "Anonymous Own3r" Twitter account claimed credit for the outage.
"Things are restored," Go Daddy spokeswoman Elizabeth Driscoll told CNET just before 5 p.m. PT today. She said she did not have many details and was hoping to be able to give an update with more information in the next 24 hours.
GoDaddy Outage Takes Down Millions Of Sites,
Anonymous Member Claims Responsibility
By KLINT FINLEY - TechCrunch.com
According to many customers, sites hosted by major web host and domain registrar GoDaddy are down. According to the official GoDaddy Twitter account the company is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it. Update: customers are complaining that GoDaddy hosted e-mail accounts are down as well, along with GoDaddy phone service and all sites using GoDaddy's DNS service.
Update 2: Anonymous is claiming responsibility. A member of Anonymous known as AnonymousOwn3r is claiming responsibility, and makes it clear this is not an Anonymous collective action.
GoDaddy Goes Down After Apparent DNS Server Outage
BY ROBERT MCMILLAN - Wired.com
Many users of GoDaddy's web hosting services found their websites down and their e-mail not going through on Monday afternoon, apparently following a failure of the company's Domain Name Service servers.
GoDaddy announced the problems around 11 a.m. Pacific with a short Twitter message, saying: "We're aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We're working on it."
At the same time, posters to the Outages mailing list were reporting that GoDaddy's DNS servers — the computers that tell, among other things, internet browsers where to find web servers — had been knocked offline.
Amid Outage, GoDaddy Moves DNS to Competitor VeriSign
BY ROBERT MCMILLAN - Wired.com
Following a day-long Domain Name Service server outage, web hosting provider GoDaddy is letting its competitor, VeriSign, host its DNS servers.
On Monday afternoon — about four hours after it was knocked offline — GoDaddy's administrators made a change to the company's DNS records, indicating that they were shifting control of the servers from GoDaddy to VeriSign.
GoDaddy has not explained the source of its widespread outage which knocked websites and e-mail users offline Monday. "We are experiencing intermittent outages. This is impacting our site and some customers' sites," GoDaddy said in a note sent to customers Monday. "The issue started shortly after 10am PDT."
GoDaddy outage makes websites unavailable
for many Internet users (Updated) There's no evidence to support claims the outage is caused by Anonymous hackers.
by Dan Goodin - ArsTechnica.com
GoDaddy, one of the Internet's biggest webhosting providers, experienced technical difficulties on Monday that prevented many people from visiting sites that relied on the service for connectivity.
A little after 5 p.m. California time on Monday, company officials took to Twitter to say the outage was mostly resolved.
"Most customer hosted sites back online," the dispatch stated. "We're working out the last few kinks for our site & control centers. No customer data compromised."
Mystery Google Device Appears in Small-Town Iowa
BY CADE METZ - Wired.com
Photos of the mystery computing device appeared on the web in late February. Taken with a smartphone, they were a bit washed out and a little blurry in places, but you could easily read the name printed on the long, thin piece of hardware. "Pluto Switch," the label said.
The images were posted by two men who said the device had unexpectedly turned up at a branch office in the tiny farmland town of Shelby, Iowa — population: 641 — and they were hoping someone could tell them what it was.
Clearly, these two men were familiar with the ins and outs of computer networking, and clearly, this was a networking switch, a way of shuttling data between machines. But they'd never heard of the Pluto Switch, and it was littered with networking ports they'd never seen before. "Any ideas?" they asked. "The writing on the back is Finnish."
Intel and AMD Follow in Footsteps of Mysterious Google Switch
BY ROBERT MCMILLAN - Wired.com
The mysterious Pluto Switch has shone a light on Google's mysterious data centers, but there's another way to look at this networking device from another planet. Take it as a sign of how the complex computer systems that power everything from Gmail to Apple's iCloud are being remade to handle the massive bunches of data caroming around today's internet.
When you're adding servers by the truckload and those devices are spending most of their time talking to each other, you get a pretty clear idea of what you need a networking switch to do, and long ago, Google realized it had to build its own. And the general-purpose gear sold by the Ciscos and Junipers of the world simply wasn't cutting it.
The real Angry Birds remember you... Crows react to threats in human-like way:
Neural basis of crows' knack for face recognition
(Phys.org)—Cross a crow and it'll remember you for years. Crows and humans share the ability to recognize faces and associate them with negative, as well as positive, feelings. The way the brain activates during that process is something the two species also appear to share, according to new research being published this week.
"The regions of the crow brain that work together are not unlike those that work together in mammals, including humans," said John Marzluff, University of Washington professor of environmental and forest sciences. "These regions were suspected to work in birds but not documented until now.
Chris Hedges Warns of Authoritarian Takeover
Alex talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and war correspondent Chris Hedges. "Revolt is all we have left. It is our only hope," Hedges recently wrote.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
By Chuck Baldwin - NewsWithViews.com
Believe it or not, I was thinking that my column of two weeks ago was my last column in which I would focus on Congressman Ron Paul--that was before the Republican National Convention in Tampa took place. I have never seen such a disgusting display of chicanery and duplicity in all of my life. So, in spite of the fact that I have written so much about The Greatest Congressman In US History (my title for Ron Paul), here I go again.
First, a report on Paul Fest: I was honored to be one of the featured speakers for the event, which drew thousands of Ron Paul supporters from all over the country. I was able to meet and speak with hundreds of these wonderful people, as they came up to me before and after I spoke.
The True History of Simpson-Bowles Paul Ryan didn't kill the deficit commission,
which dodged the biggest issues.
Opinion - WSJ.com
One of the many ways Paul Ryan scandalized the media-political class in his Tampa convention speech was to criticize President Obama for walking away from the report of his own 2010 deficit commission co-chaired by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson.
How dare the upstart Republican blister Mr. Obama when Mr. Ryan himself refused to endorse the final product! Mr. Ryan even had the impudence to say that Mr. Obama "did exactly nothing" as a result of Simpson-Bowles or Mr. Ryan's own budget proposals or any others, "nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue."
Takes one to know one...
Kochsare hugh beneficiaries of crony capitalism
Charles G. Koch: Corporate Cronyism Harms America When businesses feed at the federal trough, they threaten public support for business and free markets.
By CHARLES G. KOCH - WSJ.com
"We didn't build this business—somebody else did."
So reads a sign outside a small roadside craft store in Utah. The message is clearly tongue-in-cheek. But if it hung next to the corporate offices of some of our nation's big financial institutions or auto makers, there would be no irony in the message at all.
It shouldn't surprise us that the role of American business is increasingly vilified or viewed with skepticism. In a Rasmussen poll conducted this year, 68% of voters said they "believe government and big business work together against the rest of us."
WHY CRONYISM IS ALWAYS BAD
By John Hinderaker - PowerLineBlog.com
In today's Wall Street Journal, Charles Koch explains concisely why corporate cronyism, a hallmark of the Obama administration, is bad–not just when it's the other side's cronies, but bad, period:
"We didn't build this business—somebody else did."
So reads a sign outside a small roadside craft store in Utah. The message is clearly tongue-in-cheek. But if it hung next to the corporate offices of some of our nation's big financial institutions or auto makers, there would be no irony in the message at all.
It shouldn't surprise us that the role of American business is increasingly vilified or viewed with skepticism. In a Rasmussen poll conducted this year, 68% of voters said they "believe government and big business work together against the rest of us."
National Conventions: It's My Party and I'll Lie If I Want To
BY DAVID ZEILER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
Now that both the Republican and Democratic national conventions are over, one key question remains: Which side has the best liars?
If America's two major political parties have anything in common, it's the ability to fold, twist and mutilate the facts of any given subject.
Almost every speaker at both national conventions did their utmost to uphold this ignoble tradition of American politics.
When the media called several GOP speakers on their political lies, a pollster for GOP candidate Mitt Romney, Neil Newhouse, responded with what may have been the most truthful words spoken by any political figure over the past two weeks:
"We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."
Chicago tops nation in travel tax burden For an average visit to downtown Chicago, a traveler will pay about $40.31 in combined taxes per day, a study finds. Three Florida cities tied for lowest cost.
By Hugo Martín, Los Angeles Times - via ChicagoTribune.com
Chicago, the city that brought us deep-dish pizza, Oprah and "da Bears," is also home to the nation's highest tax burden for travelers.
The lowest taxes imposed on travelers can be found in the Florida cities of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and West Palm Beach.
Those are among the findings of new research by the GBTA Foundation, the education and research arm of the Global Business Travel Assn., a trade group for travel managers.
Why General Motors Loses $49,000 on Every Volt GM's Volt: The Ugly Math of Low Sales, High Costs
Reuters - CNBC.com
General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August - but that probably isn't a good thing for the automaker's bottom line.
Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.
Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce.
Watch Darpa's Robotic Dog Follow Its Master
By Robert Beckhusen - Wired.com
Previously we've seen AlphaDog, Darpa's four-legged, autonomous robot wander the woods and play fetch. Now the Pentagon's robo-beast, designed to haul supplies in rough terrain, has become smart enough to follow troops around like a loyal pet.
In the video above, released on Monday by Darpa, the AlphaDog – known as the LS3 or Legged Squad Support System – climbs rocks and trots after a soldier through wooded terrain. "We have been conducting tests to check out its mobility, perception and autonomy, and human-machine interaction," Lt. Col. Joe Hitt, Darpa's program manager, tells Danger Room. And a lot of what the robot is doing looks familiar. The machine, designed by Boston Dynamics, can stand upright, walk for 20 miles without a break and carry up to 400 pounds.
DARPA Legged Squad Support System (LS3)
Demonstrates New Capabilities
This video depicts field testing of the DARPA Legged Squad Support System (LS3). The goal of the LS3 program is to demonstrate that a legged robot can unburden dismounted squad members by carrying their gear, autonomously following them through rugged terrain, and interpreting verbal and visual commands.
Pigskin Progressivism
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- With two extravagant entertainments under way, it is instructive to note the connection between the presidential election and the college football season: Barack Obama represents progressivism, a doctrine whose many blemishes on American life include universities as football factories, which progressivism helped to create.
Higher education embraced athletics in the first half of the 19th century, when most colleges were denominational and most instruction was considered mental and moral preparation for a small minority -- clergy and other professionals. Physical education had nothing to do with spectator sports entertaining people from outside the campus community. Rather, it was individual fitness -- especially gymnastics -- for the moral and pedagogic purposes of muscular Christianity -- mens sana in corpora sano, a sound mind in a sound body.
Mitt Romney and America's Four Deficits
By Laura Tyson - Project-Syndicate.org
BERKELEY – The United States is beset by four deficits: a fiscal deficit, a jobs deficit, a deficit in public investment, and an opportunity deficit. The budget proposals put forward by presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, could reduce the fiscal deficit, but would exacerbate the other three.
To be sure, Romney and Ryan have failed to provide specifics about how they would reduce the fiscal deficit, relying on "trust me" assertions. But the overarching direction of their proposals is clear: more tax cuts, disproportionately benefiting those at the top, coupled with significantly lower non-defense discretionary spending, disproportionately hurting everybody else – and weakening the economy's growth prospects.
OPEC has Probably Deceived Us
About the Size of its Oil Reserves
By Kurt Cobb - OilPrice.com
Has OPEC misled us about the size of its oil reserves? The short answer is probably. The long answer is that currently, there is no way to know for sure.
The next question we should ask is: Does it matter? The answer is most definitely yes. OPEC, short for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, currently claims that its 12 members hold 81.3% of the world's oil reserves. And, with few exceptions the world believes them. Trouble is these reserves "are not verified by independent auditors," according to a study (PDF) done by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. OPEC reserves are simply self-reported by each country. Essentially, OPEC's members are asking us to take their word for it. But should we?
The Implications of Saudi Arabia becoming a Net Oil Importer
By Ian Nunn - OilPrice.com
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, wrote last week in The Telegraph, Saudi oil well dries up. He presented the following chart of projected Saudi oil consumption, vertical bars, and production, dark blue line. [See chart]
By these estimates, in 2022, Saudi Arabia will no longer be supplying oil into global demand but will be competing in global demand for foreign oil. Long before we reach the trade-off point, however, certain exigencies will emerge.
First consider the area on the chart between the two curves. This area is highly correlated to their balance of trade and their foreign exchange reserve acquisition. The website Suite 101 states that [t]he petroleum sector accounts for more than 90% of the Middle Eastern country's exports. If the two curves are at all representational of what is to come, then it should be noted that they are exponential. The implication is the positive Saudi economic position is decreasing exponentially, doubly so between two diverging exponential trend lines. After 2022, their economic position will deteriorate at the same exponential rate.
Wind Energy Could Meet Global Power Demand 100 Times Over
By James Burgess - OilPrice.com
A new study by the Carnegie Institute and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has discovered that wind power could easily meet the entire planets energy needs.
They study determined to find the geophysical limits of wind power, how much is physically possible before the turbines use up all wind energy in the world. They used computer models to calculate the amount of power that could be generated by wind energy at low altitude (land-based, and offshore turbines) and high altitude (upper atmosphere turbines using kite technology), and also the potential impacts on the climate.
Giant 'balloon of magma'
inflates under Greece's Santorini volcano
Phys.org
A new survey suggests that the chamber of molten rock beneath Santorini's volcano expanded 10-20 million cubic metres – up to 15 times the size of London's Olympic Stadium – between January 2011 and April 2012.
The growth of this 'balloon' of magma has seen the surface of the island rise 8-14 centimetres during this period, a team led by Oxford University scientists has found. The results come from an expedition, funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, which used satellite radar images and Global Positioning System receivers (GPS) that can detect movements of the Earth's surface of just a few millimetres.
Expert: U.S. Will Be On Gold Standard Within 2 Years
By Terry Weiss - MoneyMorning.com
In a stunning interview on King World News, noted expert Peter Schiff said the Fed's failed stimulus plans have debased the dollar so much, the U.S. will have no choice but to go back to the gold standard in "a year or two."
Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, said reckless money printing has done nothing more than manipulate the economy into a "phony recovery" that's bound to end in crisis.
"We've got massive economic imbalances, structural mal-investments around the world because the dollar is the reserve currency. It's too weak. We print too many," Schiff said.
"We are headed for a currency crisis and the only way we're going to stop it is by putting real value back into the paper dollar. So we have to tie it to gold."
Judge upholds government's claim
to $80M in rare gold coins found in safe deposit box
FoxNews.com
Ten of the rarest and most valuable coins in the world were almost certainly stolen from the federal mint in Philadelphia and therefore belong to the U.S. government and not heirs of a coin dealer who found them in his safe deposit box, a federal judge ruled.
The Augustus Saint-Gaudens double eagles $20 pieces were among some 445,500 struck during the Great Depression. But nearly all were pulled out of circulation within weeks as President Roosevelt ordered U.S. banks to abandon the gold standard. It was originally believed that all but a pair of the double eagles was melted down into gold bars. One of the surviving coins fell into the hands of King Farouk of Egypt, and sold for more than $7.5 million at a Sotheby's auction in the summer of 2002.
Spinning Bad Financial News Into Good
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Friday's payroll jobs report says that 96,000 new jobs were created in August and that the unemployment rate (U.3) fell from 8.3% to 8.1%. As 96,000 new jobs are not enough to keep up with population growth, the decline in the U.3 unemployment rate was caused by 368,000 discouraged job seekers giving up on finding employment and dropping out of the work force as measured by U.3. Discouraged workers are not included in the U.3 measure of unemployment, which makes the measure useless. The only purpose of U.3 is to keep bad news out of the news. the U.3 unemployment rate only measures those who have not been discouraged by the inability to find a job and are still actively seeking employment.
Jobs rut tips scales in favor of Fed stimulus
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
WASHINGTON | Sun Sep 9, 2012 8:06am EDT
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve looks set to launch a third round of bond purchases this week to try to drive borrowing costs lower and breathe more life into an economy that is not growing fast enough to lower unemployment.
Despite political opposition and some internal dissent, economists said a weak report on jobs growth for August was likely enough to convince the U.S. central bank a looser monetary policy was needed.
The Real Unemployment Numbers
Are Worse Than You Are Being Told
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
According to the Obama administration, the unemployment rate in the United States has been slowly coming down over the past couple of years. But is that actually true? When you take a closer look at the data you quickly realize that the real unemployment numbers are much worse than we are being told. For example, if the labor force participation rate was the same today as it was back when Barack Obama first took office, the unemployment rate in the United States would be a whopping 11.2 percent. But every month the Obama administration has been able to show "progress" because of the fiction that hundreds of thousands of Americans are "disappearing" from the labor force each month. Frankly, the way that they come up with these numbers is an insult to our intelligence. Personally, I much prefer the employment-population ratio. It is a measure of the percentage of working age Americans that actually have jobs. I like to call it "the employment rate". So what happened to the "employment rate" in August? It fell slightly to 58.3 percent. It is lower than it was when the last recession supposedly ended, and it is almost as low as it has been at any point since the very beginning of this crisis. A few times during this economic downturn it has actually hit 58.2 percent. Needless to say, things are not getting any better. So why aren't the American people being told the truth?
Beijing To Bernanke: Bring On QE3, Fast
By Gordon G. Chang - Forbes.com
There is a country that, more than any other, needs the Federal Reserve to embark on QE3. It is not the U.S., however.
In America, two rounds of quantitative easing, in 2008 and 2010, have produced only mixed results. Chairman Ben Bernankehas not been able to create sustained growth, and unemployment has stubbornly remained at high levels.
Unfortunately, the prospect for the next round of Fed stimulus is not great. Now that the U.S. has already been flooded with liquidity, more easing is unlikely to have much positive effect.
Are Rescue Efforts Too Late to Prevent a Global Recession? Central Banks are Behind the Curve!
BY SY HARDING - FinancialSense.com
Economic growth continues to slow at an accelerated pace globally, not just in Greece and Spain, and other euro-zone countries in the headlines, but in the world's ten largest economies of the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Italy, India, and Canada. The 17-nation eurozone as a whole is already in a recession. Many other nations are just barely keeping their heads above water.
The U.S. Government
Doesn't Really Owe $16 Trillion in Debt The U.S. government tipped over $16 trillion in debt on Tuesday. Matthew Zeitlin explains why that number may not be as high as it seems.
By Matthew Zeitlin - TheDailyBeast.com
On Tuesday, the total debt of the U.S. Federal Government tipped over $16 trillion. That's 16 followed by twelve zeroes and about the size of the country's economic output per year. Cue the news stories pegged to the scary number orthe blistering anti-Obama ad from the Republican party.
What exactly does being $16 trillion in debt as a country mean? Like any debt, there is one party that owes the debt and another party to whom the debt is owed. Most of the debt is owed by the government to outside investors. But another chunk is simply owed to the government itself. While this may seem like a weird accounting fiction, the difference between the government's debt owed to others and the debt owed to itself is significant economically.
Bernanke Revives "We're All Keynesians Now" Bernanke Channels Nixon, Revives "We're All Keynesians Now!"
By Brian Domitrovic - Forbes.com
Last week at the famous Federal Reserve confab at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Chairman Ben Bernanke laid the groundwork for Quantitative Easing III. He couldn't contain himself about how well the first two versions of the big Fed asset-purchase program had turned out over the last few years—unemployment is down from the peak and all that. Bernanke even suggested that had we tried QE in the 1930s, it might have solved the Great Depression.
Then the Fed Chair echoed the President (even using Obama's rhetorical security blanket—"headwinds") in saying that the lack of further expansion in the governmental sector is holding us back. No kidding:
Keiser Report: Euthanized Economy (E338)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss uncertain futures for banks in Italy and business purgatory for citizens unable to retire in America. They discuss Monte dei Paschi Bank in Italy which survived the Borgias and the pestilence only to crumble when faced with the fraud and low interest rate world engineered by Alan Greenspan. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Bill Still about his latest film - Jekyll Island.
Why Germany Should Lead or Leave
By George Soros - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – Europe has been in a financial crisis since 2007. When the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers endangered the credit of financial institutions, private credit was replaced by the credit of the state, revealing an unrecognized flaw in the euro. By transferring their right to print money to the European Central Bank (ECB), member countries exposed themselves to the risk of default, like Third World countries heavily indebted in a foreign currency. Commercial banks loaded with weaker countries' government bonds became potentially insolvent.
George Soros: Germany should back growth or leave euro Germany should leave the euro zone if it is not prepared to take a more decisive lead in helping the euro zone's weaker nations
escape a spiral of increasing indebtedness and economic decline, financier George Soros said.
Reuters - Telegraph.co.uk
Soros said Europe faced a prolonged depression and an acrimonious end to the European unification project if steps were not taken to help its southern nations grow their way out of the debt crisis by collectively assuming some of their debt and relaxing its German-led insistence on austerity.
"Germany should either lead in developing a growth policy, political union and burden-sharing, accept the cost of leadership, or leave through an amicable arrangement," Soros told Reuters in an interview with Reuters television in Vienna.
Fate of eurozone rests in the hands of German judges Decision is likely to give financial rescue fund the go-ahead against a background of German disillusion with single currency
By Kate Connolly in Berlin - The Observer
They have the potential to throw the stock exchange into turmoil, trigger frenzy on bond markets and bring down the German government. So the eyes and ears of the eurozone will be on the eight red-robed judges of Germany's highest court this week when they deliver a long-awaited verdict over whether a financial rescue fund considered crucial to the future of the euro gets the green light.
The constitutional court is under international pressure to rule in favour of the European stability mechanism and fiscal pact. A dissenting ruling from the court, based in Karlsruhe, southwestern Germany, would probably cause havoc on money markets and cast doubt on the future of Europe's single currency.
George Soros urges Germany to save euro George Soros calls on Germany to save euro by dropping austerity policies or by leaving single currency
By Rob McSweeney and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
George Soros is calling on Germany to save the euro, either by abandoning its obsession with austerity policies – or itself leaving the single currency."The difficulty is in convincing Germany that its current policies are leading to a prolonged depression, political and social conflicts, and an eventual break-up not only of the euro but also of the European Union," he said in an article published in the New York Review of Books.
He warned that the split between creditor and debtor countries in the euro risked becoming permanent, with debtor nations condemned to low growth because they are forced to pay a high premium for access to credit. European union was liable to fall apart under the pressure, he added.
IMF backs ECB's plan to buy bonds
By Robert Daniel, MarketWatch
TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) — The head of the International Monetary Fund threw her support behind a plan outlined by the European Central Bank chief to buy unlimited amounts of bonds to assist debt-burdened euro-zone countries.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said her agency stood ready to help implement the plan, although she didn't specify to what extent, Sunday media reports said.
Lagarde spoke with reporters after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit In Vladivostok, Russia.
Draghi:
ECB to Counter 'Unfounded Fears' with Unlimited Cash
BY DETLEV S SCHLICHTER - FinancialSense.com
Yesterday, the ECB pronounced itself the official lender-of-last resort to all Euro-Zone governments. To assure that the state can always borrow at conveniently low rates has been declared an essential component of 'maintaining financial stability' and thus a standard plank of modern central banking. Despite all their professed differences and divergent legal frameworks, all major central banks have now become their respective governments' inexhaustible ATMs. – Coincidence?
Enjoy the Rally While it Lasts,
Super Mario Draghi's Bazooka is a Dud
BY KEITH FITZ-GERALD - MoneyMorning.com
Not too long ago I mentioned that whatever European Central Bank President "Super Mario" Draghi delivers, it had better be big.
Because the only way he could hope to shore up the beleaguered e uro, wrest control of interest rates from the modern day financial pirates that dominate credit default swaps and break the impasse between skittish investors was with a monetary "bazooka."
What if Spain refuses to play Mario Draghi's game? So "Super Mario" did it. The European Central Bank president on Thursday announced "unlimited bond buying" to tame profligate eurozone members' borrowing costs.
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk
"Under appropriate circumstances, we will have a fully effective backstop to avoid destructive scenarios with potentially severe challenges for price stability," Draghi told an expectant world.
The ECB, then, is still referring to "price stability", pretending its actions are designed with its regular inflation target in mind. We are, patently, a long way beyond that point. Draghi's plan is the latest ECB attempt – perhaps the most serious yet – to prevent the break-up of the single currency. Be aware, though, that "perhaps" is the operative word.
ECB to buy Spanish bonds, but with strings attached
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
FRANKFURT - The European Central Bank on Thursday (6 September) announced an "unlimited" bond-buying programme once governments apply for eurozone financial assistance with strict conditions and supervision.
"The Governing Council today decided on the modalities for undertaking Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs) in secondary markets for sovereign bonds in the euro area," ECB chief Mario Draghi said in a press conference after chairing the council of eurozone's central bank governors.
Carthaginian terms for Italy and Spain
threaten Draghi bond plan The cold douche begins. Markets will now learn that the European Central Bank's bond plan is a devout wish, not a done deal. Europe's political minefield lies ahead.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Nothing can happen until Spain and then Italy request a rescue from the EU bail-out funds (EFSF/ESM), and sign away their sovereignty. Nothing further can happen until an angry Bundestag approves the terms and signs away its money.
Germany has a 27pc voting weight and can veto any rescue.
Even less can happen if the German constitutional court issues a preliminary ruling on Wednesday blocking activation of the €500bn ESM fund. Morgan Stanley's team – mostly Germans as in happens – put a 40pc likelihood on this happening.
Alan Greenspan on His Fed Legacy and the Economy
By Devin Leonard and Peter Coy - BusinessWeek.com
Devin Leonard and Peter Coy talk to the former Fed chairman about Fed-speak, Ayn Rand, and why he quit playing the sax. And then there's his legacy …
Before you were a professional monetary policy person, you were a professional saxophonist. What are the similarities between the two professions?
Virtually none.
Really?
The only thing that was economic, I might say, about my music career, aside from the fact that I did everybody's tax returns in the band, was the decision I made to leave the music business on economic grounds. I essentially concluded that having seen what some of the really good people could do, and fundamentally recognizing that it's not an issue of studying and you'll learn, there are certain inherent qualities that you're born with, and if you don't have them, you'll never achieve certain levels. Mozart had it when he was 4. I never had it, period. I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. So I made an economic decision, and it turned out the best judgment I ever made in my life.
Reflationary Train Leaving the Station
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
While most of the central banks across the globe were raising rates since 2010 after the big global reflationary boom of 2009, they have now switched gears and been slashing rates over the past year to spur economic growth. As seen below, central banks across the globe have slashed interest rates with Brazil leading the pack with its 3% (300 basis points) cut in the last six months alone (see green columns). [see chart]
Outside of central bank rate cuts we have seen monetary expansion and in certain countries more fiscal stimulus. Two of the world's three biggest economies are ramping up the stimulus engines as outlined below.
U.S. to Slash Stake in AIG
By DAMIAN PALETTA, ERIK HOLM and SERENA NG - WSJ.com
The U.S. Treasury Department said it will sell $18 billion of American International Group Inc. stock, slashing its stake in the New York company by more than half and making the government a minority shareholder for the first time since the financial crisis was roaring in September 2008.
In turning the government into a minority shareholder, AIG will celebrate an accomplishment that seemed unimaginable four years ago when the government effectively nationalized the insurer as part of a financial-industry bailout.
Subprime Auto Nation
BY JAMES QUINN - FinancialSense.com
Have you heard the news? Auto sales are booming. Total sales for the month of August were 1,285,202 vehicles, according to Autodata Corp, the highest monthly sales figure for any August since 2007, when 1.47 million autos were sold in the United States. Year to date auto sales have totaled 9.7 million and are on track to reach 14.5 million. Between 2006 and 2007, auto sales ranged between 16 million and 18 million. They crashed below 10 million in 2009. The Keynesians running our government have pulled out all the stops to restart this engine of consumer spending. First they wasted $3 billion of taxpayer funds on the Cash for Clunkers debacle. Almost 700,000 perfectly good cars were destroyed in order to keep union workers happy. This Keynesian brain fart distorted the used car market for two years, raising prices for cars needed by the working poor. After that miserable failure, they realized the true secret to selling vehicles is to give them away to anyone that can scratch an X on a loan document, with 0% interest for 60 months, financed by Federal government controlled banking interests. Add in some massive channel stuffing and presto! - You've got an auto sales boom.
Illegals not in health plan Republicans opposed including young noncitizens
By Paige Winfield Cunningham-The Washington Times
Getting healthy young people to buy health insurance is key to making President Obama's health care overhaul work, but his administration is excluding roughly one million illegal immigrant youth allowed to remain in the country from the law's mandates and benefits.
Officials quietly ruled last week that a new group of young immigrants to whom Mr. Obama has granted temporarily legal status may not partake of the law's major benefits, nor are they subject to the mandate to buy insurance.
Taxmageddon 2013:
How to Prepare for Looming Tax Law Changes
BY LARRY D. SPEARS, Contributing Writer - MoneyMorning.com
It's often said the only things certain in life are death and taxes – but this year, even taxes aren't a certainty.
At least not the specifics, thanks to Election 2012 and Taxmageddon 2013. Investors are left with more questions than answers.
Will the so-called Bush tax cuts expire as scheduled – or be extended? Will levies designed to help implement and pay for Obamacare go into effect – or will Republicans finally succeed in repealing the new healthcare program?
Yes, We Can Make iPhones in America
By Baizhu Chen - Forbes.com
In my previous post, The Real Reason the U.S. Doesn't Make iPhones: We Wouldn't Want To, I argued that the current cost structure does not make any sense to assemble iPhones in America. I argued that we would be better off focusing on designing iPhones but letting the Chinese handle the assembly. The article has generated quite a few responses and heated debates. After some periods of soul searching, I have come to realize that I need to revise my original conclusion. So, I say yes, we can make iPhones in America.
We can make iPhones in America, but not under today's cost structure and technology. Lining up thousands of American workers in the 20th century style assembly line, doing repetitive work day in and day out, is not going to win manufacturing jobs back to America from developing nations. Making iPhones in America would require some great American creativity and productivity. This will become increasingly possible given the emerging new technology, especially the additive manufacturing which uses 3D printers turning layers of materials into solid objects.
Shahid Khan:
The New Face Of The NFL And The American Dream
By Brian Solomon - Forbes.com
Driving down a dusty back road in Danville, Ill., Shahid Khan narrates the fall of American manufacturing. "The Allith-Prouty plant closed there. That was 1,400 jobs," he says, pointing out boarded-up buildings on our left. Some 300 people used to work at the welding plant next door. "Gone," he shrugs. Another 7,000 or so were lost when Hyster trucks closed shop.
As we pass more dilapidated warehouses and bulldozed dreams—800 jobs lost at the mill around the corner, 1,200 across the way—we seem like tourists in an industrial wasteland, the ruins of a manufacturing golden age, with crumbling Danville playing the role of Pompeii or Luxor, although those ruins might be better preserved, Khan notes with a rueful smile. "Around you, right now, I can count 30,000 jobs that just disappeared," he says, shaking his head.
Jeff Bezos And The End of PowerPoint As We Know It
By Carmine Gallo - Forbes.com
The next time you deliver a PowerPoint presentation that matters—a product launch, investor pitch, new client meeting— take a cue from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and ditch the bullet points. When Bezos unveiled the all-new new Kindle Fire HD this week, his presentation slides were light on text and heavy on images. This style of delivering presentations is fresh, engaging, and ultimately far more effective than slide after slide of wordy bullet points.
Since I wrote The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, I've noticed that many business leaders around the world are adopting the image-rich style including very famous CEO's such as Facebookfounder Mark Zuckerberg, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and even Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The style works for any leader, in any industry. Ford CEO Alan Mulally even called me personally to thank me for revealing the techniques. Note—Steve Jobs used Apple Keynote software for his presentations, as do current Apple executives. However, since most people use PowerPoint, I use "PowerPoint" as a synonym for presentations. While there are differences between Keynote and PowerPoint, effective storytelling techniques apply equally to both. And no, Steve Jobs did not invent the style. He just happened to use it very effectively.
FBI launches $1 billion face recognition project
by Sara Reardon - NewScientist.com
"FACE recognition is 'now'," declared Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in a testimony before the US Senate in July.
It certainly seems that way. As part of an update to the national fingerprint database, the FBI has begun rolling out facial recognition to identify criminals.
It will form part of the bureau's long-awaited, $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) programme, which will also add biometrics such as iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification to the toolkit. A handful of states began uploading their photos as part of a pilot programme this February and it is expected to be rolled out nationwide by 2014. In addition to scanning mugshots for a match, FBI officials have indicated that they are keen to track a suspect by picking out their face in a crowd.
Student Loans: Debt for Life
By Peter Coy - BusinessWeek.com
This much we know: College pays. You can lose your house to foreclosure, but never your education. Four-year college graduates' pay advantage over high school grads has doubled over the past 30 years. If money for tuition is tight, the advice goes, borrow what you need. Students have been listening. In 2010 student debt exceeded credit-card debt for the first time. In 2011 it surpassed auto loans. In March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that student debt had passed $1 trillion. It grew by $300 billion from the third quarter of 2008 even as other forms of debt shrank by $1.6 trillion, according to a separate tabulation by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In a press briefing at the White House in April, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, "Obviously if you have no debt that's maybe the best situation, but this is not bad debt to have. In fact, it's very good debt to have."
Universities embrace online learning. 'There's Something Very Exciting Going On Here' Stanford's new head of online learning explains his vision for how the Internet can remake college classrooms.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
After years of eyeing it with suspicion, many of America's elite colleges are suddenly bear-hugging online learning, and Stanford University is at the forefront of the movement. Home to some of the first successful MOOCs -- massively open online courses capable of teaching thousands of students at once -- the school has just appointed its first vice provost of online learning, computer science professor John Mitchell. He and I spoke about what exactly Stanford is trying to do, how schools can pull down the cost of higher education, and whether colleges can win the war of attention on the computer against Angry Birds.
Economic recovery sending mixed signals ahead of election
By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
President Obama heads into the final weeks of his re-election campaign getting little support from an economy that is growing weakly and remains threatened by political turmoil at home and economic distress overseas.
Job growth remains subpar, averaging little more than 100,000 a month, in a stubbornly slow-growth mode that will not suffice to put millions of people idled by the recession back to work.
Two Parties for the One-Percent Disposable America
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - CounterPunch.org
If political conventions are ranked on a one to ten scale for intelligence, I give the Republican Convention zero and the Democrats one.
How can the United States be a superpower when both political parties are unaware of everything that is happening at home and abroad?
The Republicans are relying for victory on four years of anti-Obama propaganda and their proprietary programed electronic voting machines. For nearly four years Republican operatives have flooded the Internet with portraits of Obama as a non-US citizen, as a Muslim (even while Obama was murdering Muslims in seven countries), and as a Marxist (put in power by the Israel Lobby, Wall Street, and the military/security complex).
The Heart of the US Election
By Raghuram Rajan - Project-Syndicate.org
CHICAGO – A real debate is emerging in America's presidential election campaign. It is superficially about health care and taxes. More fundamentally, it is about democracy and free enterprise.
Democracy and free enterprise appear to be mutually reinforcing – it is hard to think of any flourishing democracy that is not a market economy. Moreover, while a number of nominally socialist economies have embraced free enterprise (or "socialism with Chinese characteristics," as the Chinese Communist Party would say), it seems to be only a matter of time before they are forced to become more democratic.
The Great Pretender Did Obama Scuttle the Recovery?
by MIKE WHITNEY - CounterPunch.org
The New York Times believes that Barack Obama is responsible for today's sputtering economy. In an article titled "Cautious Moves on Foreclosures Haunting Obama", Times journalist Binyamin Applebaum says that Obama's failure to seriously address the housing crisis has left the economy weaker than it should be at this point in the recovery.
According to the Times, Obama rejected the idea of "a broad bailout of homeowners" similar to the multi-trillion dollar lifeline he provided for the Wall Street banks. The president figured that his modest mortgage modification program (HAMP) would suffice until the economy rebounded "taking care of the rest." Here's an excerpt from the article which illustrates Obama's uneven approach to the suffering of homeowners who were facing foreclosure in record numbers:
Obama and Romney Are All Promises
and No Ideas for the Middle Class In both conventions, candidates
talked to the middle class without listening
By David Rohde - TheAtlantic.com
Throughout the last two weeks of political conventions, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and a vast array of surrogates accused their opponents of gutting the American middle class.
Paul Ryan and Bill Clinton did it blatantly. Michelle Obama and Ann Romney did it subtly. And all speakers tried to portray themselves as in touch with the middle class, from the Romneys eating "lots of pasta and tuna fish" to Barack Obama's proudest possession being "a coffee table he'd found in a dumpster."
The Flight of the Young Chicken Hawk How Mitt Dodged the Draft
by H. BRUCE FRANKLIN - CounterPunch.org
May 1966. Mitt Romney is just finishing his first—and only—year at Stanford. I'm a 32-year-old ex-Strategic Air Command navigator and intelligence officer, now an associate professor in Stanford's English Department and something of an anti-Vietnam War activist.
About a quarter of a million young American men are already being abducted each year to fight the rapidly-escalating Vietnam War. Many college students, however, are protected by their 2S student deferments, which blatantly discriminate against all those millions of other young men unable to afford college. As if this privileging of the relatively privileged were not sufficient, an outcry about "inequity" arises from administrations of some elite universities. Since the 2S deferment is contingent on relatively high class rank (meaning, of course, academic class rank), they argue that this unfairly discriminates against some of the "best" students, i. e., all those attending schools like Stanford. A man in the bottom quarter at an elite university might end up being drafted, even though he might be more "intelligent" than a man in the top quarter of some state college.
Gold may reach all time high of $2,000/oz
by 2012 year end: Bank of America
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold prices may reach its all time high of $2,000 an ounce by the end of this year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML).
The American Bank expects the yellow metal to climb to new highs as they anticipate a QE-3 announcement by the United States Federal Reserve.
"Loose monetary policies with a scope for more aggressive balance-sheet use in the U.S. and Europe will keep real rates in most reserve currencies low (or negative) in 2012. We continue to believe this will allow investor demand for gold to remain strong," told BofAML analysts Sabine Schels and Michael Widmer to Bloomberg News.
WAKE UP CALL –
WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF AN ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
By THOMAS HEFFNER - EconomyInCrisis.org
....Agreements like NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement), signed 18 years ago, and the most recent and MOST DESTRUCTIVEKorean Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) have created conditions that have totally destroyed our ability to compete. Our economy and our country are being completely dismantled; one doesn't have to look very far to see this.
Our condition is becoming permanent and irreversible thanks to our membership in the WTO (World Trade Organization), which has taken away our ability to supervise these agreements. There are 157 foreign countries in the WTO and the U.S. only has one vote. Unbeknownst to most of us, even most of our present legislators, when we joined the WTO we accepted their charter which usurped our Constitution in matters relating to international trade. Most of the important decisions emanating from their judicial proceedings are decided greatly to our detriment and are uncontestable.
Keiser Report: Interregnum of Insanity (E337)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the world's richest woman and how the dingo stole her sanity. They talk about the children of the Crimson, kletographers and the interregnum of insanity. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Catherine Austin Fitts about Libor crimes and item number 17 on the GOP platform and what they mean for the future of the world economy.
Surveying a Ravaged Economy Barack Obama will show you further evidence
of his own greatness.
By ANDREW B. WILSON - Spectator.org
Barack Obama sees only what he wants to see; hears only what he wants to hear; and says only what the teleprompter tells him to say.
When he goes out this evening to address the Democratic National Convention, this is what he will see, hear, and say --
With 15% of Americans either out of work, no longer looking for work, or finding only part-time employment, the president will see further evidence of his own greatness. It is thanks to him that unemployment isn't 40 percent or more.
Ping-Pong and Political Economy
By Harold James - Project-Syndicate.org
PRINCETON – For the last century, economic-policy debate has been locked in orbit around the respective roles and virtues of the state and the market. Does the market control the state, in the sense that it sets a limit on governments' ability to borrow? Or does the state take charge when the market fails to perform socially necessary functions – such as fighting wars or maintaining full employment?
This old debate is at the core of today's profound divisions over how Europe should respond to its debt crisis. The same question is dividing American politics in the lead-up to November's presidential and congressional elections.
No CB Solutions: Liquidity vs Insolvency
BY JIM WILLIE - FinancialSense.com
The Hippocratic Oath dictates never to do harm to the patient. The central bankers instead take the Hypocritical Oath that dictates to cripple the patient, to drain the blood, to preserve power by tightening the straps, to erode buying power from hard work, and to render life savings a weak shell, while whispering lies in the ears on blame for what went badly wrong, against the background din of endorsed war themes. The effectiveness of the latter oath is seen in the systemic failure of the USEconomy, whose financial and economic structure has been destroyed by bad economic policy, the poor paper financial foundation from the monetary system, corrupt bond market practices marred by $trillion frauds, and a marriage between the state and sanctioned large corporations whose only efficiency is seen in dark corners protected by criminal impunity. The Fascist Business Model showed itself in bold terms in the 1990 decade, in the strengthened links between state and major corporations, where inefficiency, favoritism, and corruption produce the bitter fruit of a sclerotic financial structure and weakened body economic. The Gold price responds to the systemic failure of the ruinous financial and economic policy, aggravated by the devoted ghoulish doctors and their perverse solutions that neither fix anything nor attempt to apply remedy.
China's currency reforms may make 'get tough' promise moot
By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
Presidential candidates of both parties like to score points with voters by promising to get tough with China, but recent evidence suggests that currency reforms quietly adopted by the Asian giant since 2005 have come close to eliminating the biggest trade distortion and bone of contention between the two countries.
U.S. leaders have complained for years that Beijing manipulates the value of its currency against the dollar to ensure low prices for Chinese imports and gain an advantage in trade over higher-priced American products. Partly because of such currency suppression over the years, China has taken over entire markets for consumer goods in the U.S., including Christmas ornaments and cribs, by underpricing competitors, causing the U.S. trade deficit with China to bloat to the largest in history, a record $295.5 billion in 2011.
All About Draghi's ECB Purchase Draghi's Circus: How And Why The ECB
Is Buying Bonds To Save Europe
By A. Fontevecchia, Forbes.com
Mario Draghi announced an unlimited European Central Bank bond-buying programThursday, pushing past German opposition.
During a press conference explaining the new "Outright Monetary Transactions" (OMT), Draghi defended the program, said it falls within the ECB's mandate under the Maastricht Treaty, rejected the notion of a "lira-ization" or Italianization of the ECB, and put the ball back into Spain, Italy, and the Eurogroup's court. Markets were happy, with everything from the Dow to gold to oil and the euro rallying.
Eurozone D-Day:
Central bank to announce bond-buying scheme
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
FRANKFURT - Plans to buy government bonds from ailing eurozone countries in return for a stricter supervision of their reforms are likely to be endorsed by the European Central Bank's (ECB) governing council on Thursday (6 September), despite opposition from Germany's Bundesbank.
The intention to resume the dormant bond-buying programme had already been signalled last month, but the final vote was deferred until Thursday pending an internal review and attempts to bring the Bundesbank onboard.
The New Plan to Save Europe
(and Why It Almost Certainly Won't) The European Central Bank: "The euro is irreversible!"
Economist: So is your recession.
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
This morning the European Central Bank announced a brash and market-thrilling plan to help its diseased peripheral European countries borrow at lower interest rates. The catch? Those countries have to dowhatever the ECB tells them.
This is a simple trade. More money for less sovereignty. It is the trade that every state in the U.S. makes without thinking twice about it. Our individual states are obliged to follow certain federal rules, blackmailed to establish laws, and bullied into spending they might not take up as sovereign nations. In exchange for this, they have access to the United States federal government, which is the world's most powerful insurance department. When there's an economic or natural disaster, the federal government has a good, if imperfect, record of spending quickly to establish a bottom in addition to keeping prices steady.
ECB to buy Spanish bonds, but with strings attached
BY VALENTINA POP - EUObserver.com
FRANKFURT - The European Central Bank on Thursday (6 September) announced an "unlimited" bond-buying programme once governments apply for eurozone financial assistance with strict conditions and supervision.
"The Governing Council today decided on the modalities for undertaking Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs) in secondary markets for sovereign bonds in the euro area," ECB chief Mario Draghi said in a press conference after chairing the council of eurozone's central bank governors.
Where There's Smoke, There's Fire
BY MONTY GUILD WITH TONY DANAHER - FinancialSense.com
"Bundesbank Chief Jens Weidmann Threatens to Quit," read last Friday's German tabloid, Bild. After reports surfaced that Mr. Weidmann had contemplated resigning "several times," Weidmann followed up the rumors by saying to the more respected German magazine Der Spiegel that he "won't comment on speculations."
In our opinion, it seems that Mr. Weidmann is angry about the acceptance of ECB president Draghi's ploy to bail out the European sovereign nations and banks. To us it appears probable that Weidmann is on the losing side and may well be saying to himself: "Hey, I have lost the battle to keep QE from happening on a big scale in Europe, so why preside over an outcome I do not want? Is it wiser for me to quit?"
ECB Widens Rescuer, Enforcer Roles In Eurozone Crisis
By JASON MA, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
The European Central Bank expanded its rescuer and enforcer roles in the eurozone debt crisis Thursday, but it could run into the same moral hazard dilemmas that elected officials have failed to resolve.
ECB President Mario Draghi unveiled an open-ended program to buy short-term government bonds that's meant to lower borrowing costs for indebted countries like Spain and Italy.
The central bank will "sterilize" purchases from inflationary potential by soaking up liquidity elsewhere. The ECB also will give up senior creditor status, leaving it vulnerable to any losses while encouraging private investors to keep buying bonds.
Foreign central banks' U.S. debt holdings rise: Fed
(Reuters) - Foreign central banks' overall holdings of U.S. marketable securities at the Federal Reserve rose in the latest week, data from the U.S. central bank showed on Thursday.
The Fed said its holdings of U.S. securities kept for overseas central banks rose $6.26 billion in the week ended September 5, to stand at $3.574 trillion.
The breakdown of custody holdings showed overseas central banks' holdings of Treasury debt rose by $6.84 billion to stand at $2.873 trillion.
JPMorgan Said to Face Escalating Senate Probe of CIO Loss
By Dawn Kopecki, Robert Schmidt
and Cheyenne Hopkins - Bloomberg.com
JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s (JPM) wrong-way bets on derivatives are the focus of an escalating investigation by a U.S. Senate panel led by Carl Levin that has grilled executives from banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc, three people briefed on the inquiry said.
Levin's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is seeking testimony from those who worked in or helped lead JPMorgan's chief investment office, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the inquiry isn't public. The unit's London staff lost at least $5.8 billion this year on the botched wagers, which were large enough to shift markets.
J.P. Morgan Still Faces More Senate Testimony
Over Derivative Losses Tied to London Whale
By Jon C. Ogg - 247WallSt.com
Some politicians just refuse to move on. The woes for Jamie Dimon and friends at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) after the trading losses from the London Whale just refuse to go away. Bloomberg television just reported that a panel led by Senator Levin is said to seek testimony on the losses pertaining to the so-called London Whale. The news is on the heels of J.P. Morgan naming Craig Delaney as its CIO.
The Bailout: By The Actual Numbers
by Paul Kiel - ProPublica.org
Quick, how many billions in the red are taxpayers on the bailout of GM? AIG? Fannie and Freddie? Is it true that the government has reaped a profit from bailing out the banks?
It should be easy to find answers to such questions. But while it's a snap to find rosy administration claims about the bailout, finding hard numbers is much more difficult. That's why, since the bailouts began in 2008, we've maintained a frequently updated site to provide them. Now we've retooled our database to make it even easier to find these sorts of answers.
Bank of America Heist:
Calif. bank manager kidnapped, strapped to bomb
and used in robbery, police say
(CBS/AP) LOS ANGELES - Police said two masked gunmen kidnapped a bank manager, strapped what they said was a bomb to her midsection and forced her to order employees to "take out all the money" from an East Los Angeles bank Wednesday morning.
The two men were armed with handguns and wore ski masks when they arrived at a Bank of America shortly after 8:30 a.m. They took off in a two-door car, possibly a Kia. No arrests were made as of late Wednesday night and they remain at large.
Authorities said the bank robbers got away with an undisclosed amount of cash, but no one was injured in the heist. A Los Angeles County sheriff's bomb squad disabled the device, but investigators said it wasn't an explosive.
Does Bernanke Hate Old People?
BY NED W SCHMIDT CFA - FinancialSense.com
A question that follows from the above is also of interest. Why is Bernanke transferring so much income and wealth from savers and investors to mega-banks and other speculative funds? We are of the basic crowd that believes that actions are more important than words. Since Bernanke has assumed a dictatorial role at the Federal Reserve, savers and investors have been punished. We need only look at the poor plight of savers to see the imposition of the Bernanke Wealth Tax.
$83,046 For A 3 Hour Hospital Visit -
Why Are Hospital Bills So Outrageous?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The fastest way to go broke in America is to go to the hospital. These days it seems like almost everyone has an outrageous hospital bill story to share. It is getting to the point where most people are deathly afraid to go to the hospital. All the financial progress that you have made in recent years can literally be wiped out in just a matter of hours. For example, you are about to read about an Arizona woman that was recently charged $83,046 for a 3 hour hospital visit. How in the world is anyone supposed to pay a bill like that? I have a really hard time understanding why a visit to the doctor should ever be more than a couple hundred bucks or why a hospital stay should ever be more than a couple thousand dollars. Outrageous hospital bills are a real pet peeve of mine and I have not even been to the hospital in ages. What makes all of this even more infuriating is that Medicare, Medicaid and the big insurance companies are often charged less than 10 percent of what the rest of us are billed for the same procedures. There is a reason why 41 percent of all working age Americans are struggling with medical debt right now. It is because our health care system has become a giant money making scam. Millions of desperate Americans go into hospitals each year assuming that they will be treated fairly, but in the end they get stuck with incredibly outrageous bills and in many cases cruel debt collection techniques are employed against them if they don't pay.
Public Health versus Private Freedom?
By Peter Singer - Project-Syndicate.org
PRINCETON – In contrasting decisions last month, a United States Court of Appeals struck down a US Food and Drug Administration requirement that cigarettes be sold in packs with graphic health warnings, while Australia's highest court upheld a law that goes much further. The Australian law requires not only health warnings and images of the physical damage that smoking causes, but also that the packs themselves be plain, with brand names in small generic type, no logos, and no color other than a drab olive-brown.
Where's the War on Lethal Superbugs?
By Ralph Nader - Truthdig.com
What if 2,000 U.S. soldiers were losing their lives every week in Afghanistan? Would the peddlers of the electoral politics of trivia, distraction and avoidance take notice? Of course.
Every week, 2,000 Americans, or about 100,000 men, women and children a year, die from mostly preventable hospital-borne infections in the United States. The toll may even be higher. The Centers for Disease Control will update its figures soon.
To put this deadly disaster in perspective, hospital-induced infections kill more Americans than the combined fatalities from motor-vehicle collisions, AIDs, fire and homicides combined. Additional millions more survive infections. The pain and costs are enormous.
America's 10 Most Polluted States
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
Do you know where you live? Half of all industrial toxic air pollution comes from power plants and 6,700 power plants and heavy industries are responsible for 80% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Coal- and oil-fired power plants contribute 44% of all toxic air pollution. Toxic mercury and emissions from the country's electricity sector are estimated to cause tens of thousands of premature deaths, heart attacks, asthma cases and chronic bronchitis every year.
While there are varying lists of America's most toxic, we'll focus on the latest top 10 list from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which ranks states in terms of overall industrial pollution, along with reporting from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Natural Gas Wars: A Look at Gazprom's Underhand Tactics
By Wolf Richter - OilPrice.com
Why would France suddenly prohibit shale gas exploration? Sure, there are environmental issues with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the methods used to extract gas from porous shale deep underground: flammable drinking water, earth quakes, cows that die, radioactive sludge in sewage treatment plants.... But French governments have had, let's say, an uneasy relationship with environmentalists.
No, there must have been another reason why the government of Nicholas Sarkozy prohibited shale gas exploration in 2011, after having already issued permits in 2010. A mini hullabaloo had broken out, stirred up by the European Ecologists and The Greens (EELV), the fringe on the French left. And Sarkozy caved! Without a fight! Enthusiastically. The government of François Hollande just confirmed the prohibition when Environment Minister Delphine Batho declared: "Hydraulic fracturing remains and will remain prohibited."
Iraq's Oil Exports Hide Broader Problems
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
Iraqi oil production reached its highest level in more than 30 years last month. Oil production in the country has steadily increased despite lingering violence and internal political rivalries. The increase may in part be due to a decision from the semiautonomous Kurdish government to continue exports going through mid-September, suggesting some political tensions may be easing. Oil accounts for the bulk of the federal income in Iraq. In a country where agriculture accounts for most of the employment, however, export data might be a false indication of Iraq's success so far.
White House circulating draft
of executive order on cybersecurity
By Jennifer Martinez - TheHill.com
The White House is circulating a draft of an executive order aimed at protecting the country from cyberattacks, The Hill has learned.
The draft proposal, which has been sent to relevant federal agencies for feedback, is a clear sign that the administration is resolved to take action on cybersecurity even as Congress remains gridlocked on legislation that would address the threat.
The draft executive order would establish a voluntary program where companies operating critical infrastructure would elect to meet cybersecurity best practices and standards crafted, in part, by the government, according to two people familiar with the document.
Are You Better Off?
40 Statistics That Will Absolutely Shock You
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Are you better off today than you were four years ago? This is a question that comes up nearly every election. This year the Romney campaign has even created a Twitter hashtag for it: #AreYouBetterOff. The Democrats are making lots of speeches claiming that we are better off, and the Republicans are making lots of speeches claiming that we are not. So are most Americans actually better off than they were four years ago? Of course not. One recent poll found that only 20 percent of Americans believe that they are better off financially than they were four years ago. But the same thing was true four years ago as well. Our economy has been in decline and the middle class has been shrinking for a very long time. The Democrats want to put all of the blame on the Republicans for this, and the Republicans want to put all of the blame on the Democrats for this. A recent CNN headline defiantly declared the following: "Decline of middle class not Obama's fault", and this is the kind of thing we are going to hear day after day until the election in November. But obviously something has gone fundamentally wrong with our economy. So who should we blame?
Ron Paul 2012: The Real Inside Story.
"Ron Paul's Senior 2012 Campaign Adviser Doug Wead gave WeAreChange an exclusive interview about the Ron Paul RNC delegate controversy, criticism of Jesse Benton, and the real reason Ron Paul didn't attack Mitt Romney during the campaign".
2012 Election FARCE What's the point of voting?
UnderstandingMatters.com
The popular vote does not elect our president. Voting has almost become an exercise in futility designed to convince American voters that they are actually deciding the election outcome by popular vote which, in fact, has never been true. The Electoral College process behind the scenes is the entity that puts someone into the office of Presidency of the United States of America. There is NO Constitutional provision or Federal law binding Electors to vote in accordance with choice by popular vote within each state and D.C.. Some, but not all, states have laws regarding how Electors are expected to vote, however NO Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged. In 24 states the Electors are NOT bound by the will of the voting public and do not have to vote for the candidate chosen by the popular vote. In the other states and D.C. the Electors are supposedly bound by either Party Pledges or state law. In that the Electors are chosen by the political parties the election process remains subject to the influence of big money interests within each political party. It's all legit, but the opportunity for corruption exists because the Electoral process is based upon 'trust' in the Electors to execute votes according to the public will, party pledges or state law… but do they?
God Among the Democrats and Republicans God has returned to the Democratic convention --
but He never really went away this week, nor last.
By MARK TOOLEY - Spectator.org
Performing damage control, Democratic faith outreach director the Rev. Derrick Harkins boasted that God was mentioned 30 times during one evening at the Democratic Convention. But the furor was too much, and after God had been removed from the party's platform, He was abruptly restored Wednesday night. Reportedly the instruction came from on high, meaning the White House.
Along with recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, God was gaveled back into the platform after a dubious voice vote that included some boos from delegates. Wielding the gavel for God, perhaps appropriately, was former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, himself an ordained United Methodist minister who attended an evangelical Methodist seminary.
Joe Biden: Obama Cares About People,
Romney About 'Balance Sheets'
By BENJY SARLIN - TalkingPointsMemo.com
CHARLOTTE — Vice President Joe Biden depicted the key difference between President Obama and Mitt Romney as one of empathy in his speech to the Democratic National Convention Thursday night.
"I got to see firsthand what drove this man," Biden said. "His profound concern for the average American."
Biden's speech made explicit what Michelle Obama's masterful Tuesday address had only implied: One of the candidates understands ordinary people, one doesn't, and the reason is their backgrounds.
"We had a pretty good idea of what all those families and Americans in trouble were going through in part because our families have gone through similar struggles," he said.
Obama to invoke Roosevelt in asking voters for reelection
By Amie Parnes - TheHill.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Obama will argue he's led the country through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression when he accepts his party's nomination Thursday night and asks voters for a second term.
Obama will invoke Franklin Roosevelt — the last sitting president to win reelection with employment over 8 percent — as he argues his path is not "quick or easy" but is the right one for the country.
He also will portray himself as a president who — like Roosevelt — has led the country through tough times and not shied away from hard choices and decisions.
Obama asks voters for more time to finish work
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Accepting his party's nomination to run for re-election, President Obama on Thursday said voters are facing the most momentous election of a generation and told them they must choose between locking in his vision of a government that works to boost the most vulnerable, or side with Republicans in rolling back his agenda.
Pleading with voters to keep him in the White House, Mr. Obama said he has worked to live up to his promises from the campaign trail four years ago and that he has made progress, even though the results haven't shown. He challenged delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte and a television audience nationwide to stick with him for another four years.
Transcript: Bill Clinton's remarks at the DNC
Transcript of former President Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention, as delivered, Sept. 5, 2012:
CLINTON: I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. I want to nominate a man who ran for president to change the course of an already weak economy and then, just six weeks before his election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression, a man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter -- no matter how many jobs that he saved or created, there'd still be millions more waiting, worried about feeding their own kids, trying to keep their hopes alive.
Krauthammer on Cllinton Speech
Political Commentator Charles Krauhammer comments on impeached former President Bill Clinton's self-indulgent speech to nominate Barack Hussein Obama for a second term at the 2012 Democratic Convention on September 5, 2012. As is typical with Clinton, a convicted Perjurer and disbarred attorney, the "facts" he lays out are as believable as when he famously said "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky". Clinton is as slick, slimy and slippery as we all remember.
Bill Clinton's Sham Night And the Native American Elizabeth Warren was no better.
By BEN STEIN - Spectator.org
Wednesday - Now for a few notes on tonight at the Democratic National Convention.
First, last night I watched a breathtakingly good documentary about the financial collapse in America in 2008. It was called "Inside Job." I agreed with virtually every word until the end when it because was too partisan. But it was a magnificent effort and success.
So, I was primed to like Elizabeth Warren, the Native American woman who is running for Senate as a Democrat in Massachusetts. She is a big critic of abuses on Wall Street, as I have been all of my life.
But what a shock when she actually came on. She is a rambling kamikaze of a politician, aiming to blow up everything in her path. She simply made up a bunch of abuses by the GOP, then said she would make them all better. But she never said how. And there is no "how" anyway.
Were Democrats Actually Listening to What Clinton Said?
By Clive Crook - TheAtlantic.com
I liked Clinton's speech last night, though I don't know if I'd go along with Michael Tomasky's feeling that it was "the best political speech more or less ever". I especially liked a section Tomasky didn't mention, except that it was presumably covered by his observation that "There wasn't a thing he didn't touch on, and there wasn't a thing he didn't just blast out of the park."
And so here's what I want to say to you, and here's what I want the people at home to think about. When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good. But what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation. (Cheers, applause.) ...
On the Economy, Obama Is No Clinton 5 Ways Obama Is No Bill Clinton
Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
Leadership: President Obama may hope that by recruiting Bill Clinton as campaign cheerleader he can wrap himself in Clinton's economic record. But Obama just exposes how far he's moved away from Clinton's policies.
In an ad for the Obama campaign, Clinton talks about all the "investments" — liberal code word for government spending — Obama wants and how that will grow the middle class and lead to a full employment economy.
"That's what happened when I was president," Clinton says in the ad.
Except that's not what happened.
Indeed, when you look at the record of these two Democratic presidents, you'd be hard-pressed to conclude they were even in the same political party, much less had "similar policies." Here's a rundown:
Wall Street Still Rules the Roost Amid Public Backlash,
Bankers Maintain Influence in Washington
By Chris Matthews - Business.Time.com
Wall Street isn't the most popular industry in America right now. A poll conducted last fall by the Washington Post and ABC News found that 70% of the country viewed financial institutions on Wall Street unfavorably — and that was before the cavalcade of scandal that whipped through the world's financial centers over the past six months.
It is perhaps a function of this ignominy, and the knowledge that an elected official could score easy political points by tightening the screws on the industry, that financial institutions spend so much money electing and influencing politicians in Washington. According to OpenSecrets.org, the financial services, insurance, and real estate industries have spent more than $5 billion lobbying Washington so far in 2012, the third most of any sector. But the industry goes well beyond hiring high-priced lobbyists in its efforts to exert control over the American political process. As two recent reports in Bloomberg Businessweek show, the financial services industry has been pulling out all the stops over the past three years to affect financial reform.
'This Guy Hates Us': Why Wall Street Turned Against Obama Plenty of financiers supported the president in 2008, but investors I spoke with have decided that the man who rescued the economy isn't the right one to lead its recovery
By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, TheAtlantic.com
The financial services community swooned for President Obama four years ago and opened its collective wallet to offer him more than $16 million in campaign cash. This cycle its well-heeled members have ponied up far less for the president -- contributions to the Obama campaign have barely reached $4 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics - and many who backed the president last time say they don't plan to again.
It's not anger over Wall Street reforms that prompted their change of heart and vote, they say, but questions about the country's economic future. And even while they remain queasy about former Gov. Mitt Romney's socially conservative positions, including on gay marriage, and eager to hear focused and specific economic proposals rather than "59-point plans," they say their desire for stronger economic leadership is leading them toward the GOP nominee.
In Government Obama Trusts The Democrats leave God out of their politics...
By GEORGE NEUMAYR - Spectator.org
On November 10, 2010, Obama delivered a speech, in which he mused on the glories of Islam among other topics, at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. In the course of his pandering address, he changed America's motto from "In God We Trust" to "Out of Many, One." He intoned confidently, "In the United States, our motto is E pluribus unum…" Wrong.
Dismayed congressmen quickly contacted the White House to demand a correction. The White House refused. Congress then passed, 396-9, a bill reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the nation's motto -- a vote that an unapologetic Obama publicly belittled.
Obama's Freudian slip in Indonesia fit with his secularist project for the United States. He is working to build a country in which Americans place their trust not in God but in government. He can't rest until Americans recognize no higher power than his will.
Carly Fiorina pointed out in CNN Interview that the Democrats are now PRO-Abortion, making DEMS the extreme party.
How Democrats Lost Their Way on Abortion
By Margaret Carlson - Bloomberg.com
I hate to bring up abortion during the Democrats' festivities, which are going so swimmingly, but I have a question.
Why has the party removed the sentence "Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare" from its platform? It was in the 2004 document but not in 2008's or this year's. Can't Democrats just throw a crumb to the many millions who are pro-choice but not pro-abortion?
Last week, Democrats feasted on the extreme positions of Representative Todd Akin of Missouri (and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, for that matter) during the Republican National Convention. Yet Democrats have gone too far in the other direction, threatening their hold on the great American middle. Speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed the issue, claiming, "The president of the United States voted three times to protect the right of doctors to kill babies who came out of an abortion still alive" and arguing that the Democratic platform supports "partial-birth abortion."
West whacks Dem foe for 'God' omission
By CHARLES MAHTESIAN - Politico.com
That didn't take long.
One day after the flap over the Democratic platform's omission of the word 'God,' Florida Rep. Allen West is up with a highly-charged ad seeking to tie his Democratic opponent, Patrick Murphy, to the national party.
"Three times they said no to God," the one-minute spot says. "That's Patrick Murphy's party."
There's no narration to the ad, simply video from the Democratic convention proceedings and clips from the television coverage.
False Choices From a Failed Messiah
By QUIN HILLYER - Spectator.org
A boundless ego laid bare as he slams GOP's "past policies."
The Anointed One, the Occupier of the Oval Office, who will accept his party's renomination for president tonight in Charlotte, has created chapter and verse of the political version of an Old Testament -- a mythology explaining how the United States fell into economic difficulties and why his attempts to extricate us from distress so far have been unavailing. The problem is that, like most mythologies but very much unlike the real Old Testament, the Anointed One's explanations are entirely wrongheaded, and sometimes outright dishonest.
The Anointed One (henceforth A.O.) has repeated ad nauseam the claim that the only thing his opponent Mitt Romney offers is "the same failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place." The problems with this claim are two-fold. First, the Romney-Ryan team clearly does offer different policies than those of the past. Second, the policies of the past that Obama blames implicitly (he's never very explicit about the details) are far from the ones that caused our "mess."
Dumb and Dumber
By John Feffer -Truthdig.com
Barack Obama is a smart guy. So why has he spent the last four years executing such a dumb foreign policy? True, his reliance on "smart power"—a euphemism for giving the Pentagon a stake in all things global—has been a smart move politically at home. It has largely prevented the Republicans from playing the national security card in this election year. But "smart power" has been a disaster for the world at large and, ultimately, for the United States itself.
Power was not always Obama's strong suit. When he ran for president in 2008, he appeared to friend and foe alike as Mr. Softy. He wanted out of the war in Iraq. He was no fan of nuclear weapons. He favored carrots over sticks when approaching America's adversaries.
The Only 'Big Idea' Coming Out of the
Romney-Ryan Campaign Is the BIG LIE
By: Michael Tomasky - PoliticalArticles.net
When Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, we were told we were going to get the Big Debate on the Big Questions we've all been waiting for. Well, so far, it isn't quite working out that way. The distinguishing fact of the Romney-Ryan campaign thus far is the extent to which it is built on outright lies in a desperate attempt to avoid honest debate at all costs. The Romney-Ryan strategy is the farthest thing in the world from a Big Debate. Instead, they muddy the waters as much as possible and lie as much as possible, and hope the press doesn't call them on it and hope voters buy it.
Pro-Romney groups go dark in Michigan
By Alexandra Jaffe - TheHill.com
Conservative groups backing Mitt Romney have stopped airing ads in Michigan, an indication that Republicans might see the state as a likely win for President Obama in November.
Pro-Romney groups are pulling money out of Michigan, the state where Romney was raised and his father was governor, though they are continuing to spend money elsewhere to help the Republican nominee, according to The Associated Press.
The last pro-Romney ad to air in Michigan came from the super-PAC Restore Our Future during the Olympics, the AP found.
KORUS – Another NAFTA-Like Trade Deal
EconomyInCrisis.org
The KORUS FTA has now been officially enacted and its disastrous effects have started to accrue. Our trade deficit has been massive in the months since KORUS was enacted. April was the first full month this disastrous trade agreement was in place and we saw a significant increase in the size of our trade deficit with South Korea. The trade deficit nearly tripled in one month to $1.8 billion, which was also a $700 million increase from April of 2011. To make matters worse, our exports actually fell by 12 percent. This is clearly not a good deal for America as a whole, and some industries will see even more damaging effects.
Our domestic auto industry is one area that will almost certainly see adverse effects from this agreement. While KORUS is supposedly a "free trade" agreement, American automakers will continue to get limited access to the small South Korean market, while South Korean manufacturers enjoy open access to our large auto market.
Gold, Silver look most appealing in September
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Over the next few weeks ahead, gold and silver look most appealing as investments this month, said Edward Meir, commodities consultant for INTL FCStone.
Although precious metals are overbought in the near-term, those markets are supported by stabilization in Europe regarding its sovereign debt markets and central banks being in easing mode, Meir added.
What's limiting stronger gains is sluggish physical demand and it's possible that gold will not surpass the 2012 high of $1,792.
Is Central Bank Buying
Just a Driving Force Behind Gold or Much More?
By JULIAN PHILLIPS - FinancialSense.com
Since 2009 we have seen the signatory central banks of the Central Bank Gold Agreement cease selling their gold. We have stated many times in the past that the entire exercise of selling gold by these European central banks was to support the birth and establishment of the euro. They felt this was achieved by 2009, 10 years after the launch of the euro.
In the same year we saw the arrival of emerging nation's central banks into the gold market as buyers. Since then they have set a pattern of buying gold that continues as a driving force behind the gold price even today. In this article we look at these events and other monetary developments in the gold market to see what to expect in the days and months ahead.
Which Central banks are buying gold and why?
Gold's Rise to Continue Above $2,500/oz
on Negative Real Interest Rates
By MARK O'BYRNE - FinancialSense.com
Gold edged up $3.50 or 0.21% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,695.30. Silver rose to $32.27 in Asia, slipped to $31.90 in London, and then hit a high of $32.40 in New York and finished with a gain of 1.84%.
Gold edged down overnight, but is not far from the 6 month high hit last session as weak economic data from the US bolstered hopes of further stimulus measures by central banks.
US manufacturing contracted at its fastest pace in more than three years in August and US construction spending dropped in July by the greatest amount in a year, the disappointing ISM index and construction spending data were released yesterday.
U.S. Republicans Introduce Gold Standard Debate Mainstream Media Go Mental
By DETLEV S SCHLICHTER - FinancialSense.com
I am not holding my breath over the Republicans' plans for another gold commission to investigate the possibility of returning the USA to a gold standard in the case of the Romney-Ryan ticket winning.
Of course, I like the Classical Gold Standard, which existed from about 1880 to 1914, and I am convinced it was a humongous mistake to do away with it, a mistake that was further compounded by the abandonment of its weak successor, Bretton Woods, in 1971. And you know what I think of our present unconstrained fiat money system: It is suboptimal, unstable and unsustainable. It is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism, and it has now amassed so many colossal imbalances, from overstretched banks to a gigantic and never to be repaid public debt load, that it is firmly beyond repair. It is in its endgame.
The age of inflation is upon us The Lending Lindy
By William H. Gross - Pimco.com
Citigroup's Chuck Prince will likely join Irving Fisher in the annals of market history for his now infamous "As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance." Unlike Fisher's quote, however, which affirmed a permanent plateau of prosperity in 1929, Prince's faux pas may have been interpreted unfairly. History books will never record the context under which his statement was made, but what if instead of subprime-specific, Mr. Prince was referring to his job as a banker? What if he had rephrased his response to "It's the job of a banker to keep on lending"? Well now, that would be a different story altogether. Today, that quote would earn him a Medal of Freedom from President Obama at a White House gala! And so I suggest in this instance we don't take him at his literal word, but take him at his role as an ex-CEO of one of the world's largest banks and see just where that takes the lot of us – sovereign, institutional and individual investors who in combination comprise what we now call our global financial system – all $150 trillion or so of it.
Catherine Austin Fitts: Depopulate or Bankrupt the Rest of Us
Catherine Austin Fitts of The Solari report says our leaders are ". . . doing a number of things that are going to depopulate or bankrupt the rest of us." Why are people so ill-informed? Fitts says it's because, "Corporate media is lying to you and wasting your time." She also says, "Were going through a period of great change, and the pace is going to accelerate." And, "Gold will be at the center of a new currency that will emerge."
Gross Says Age Of Credit Expansion Led Fund Returns Over
By Liz Capo McCormick - Bloomberg.com
Bill Gross, who runs the world's biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said private credit-market debt is too high and the age of credit expansion that led to "double-digit" returns is over.
Instead, investors face an "age of inflation, which typically provides a headwind, not a tailwind, to securities prices -- both stocks and bonds," Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook posted on the Newport Beach, California-based company's website today.
Fed Is Killing The Recovery With Quantitative Easing
By Peter Schiff - Forbes.com
There is an ongoing three-way debate between those who believe the Fed should do more to strengthen the recovery, those who believe that the recovery is strong enough to continue on its own, and those who believe that the economy has been so fundamentally altered by the recession that no amount of stimulus can succeed in pushing unemployment down to pre-crash levels. As usual, they all have it wrong, although some are more wrong than others.
Obama And Bernanke Are Bankrupting The U.S.
By Charles Biderman - Forbes.com
While vacationing at the Mauna Kea on the big island of Hawaii, which, by the way is my favorite resort hotel on the planet, I realized during a dinner time conversation that no one is talking the truth about the U.S. economy.
The truth is that the U.S. is being bankrupted by the actions of the Obama Administration hand in hand with the Bernanke Fed. Bankruptcy sooner or later has to occur when an individual, company or government keeps borrowing more then they can pay anytime soon.
The U.S. has borrowed and continues to borrow more money then it will ever be able to repay, and that is true even if economic growth zooms.
FedEx Warns of Slowdown
[Google title for free article pass]
By BOB SECHLER, DOUG CAMERON and KRISTIN JONES
FedEx Corp. on Tuesday said a sharp decline in manufacturing activity would harm its profits, a sign of how declining Chinese output is ricocheting across economies around the world.
The world's largest air-cargo shipper by revenue said earnings in the August-ended quarter came in below its already reduced expectations. FedEx shares fell 3.1% to $84.85 in after-hours trading, with rival United Parcel Service Inc. down 1.9% at $72.31.
"It looks bad," said David Vernon, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. He said the global economy has decelerated faster than even FedEx anticipated.
Europe Funds the Last Ponzi Game Standing
BY LEE ADLER - FinancialSense.com
For the past year or so I have espoused the opinion that chaos in Europe is good for the US because of capital flight from Europe to the US. That capital is funding the Last Ponzi Game Standing, the US Treasury market and US economy.
Here's how that works. As Europe destabilizes, big money exits the problem markets of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and particularly Spain. Ireland and Italy have stabilized somewhat in recent months, but money is still pouring out of Greece, Portugal, and Spain. Much of it is transferred to the US to purchase Treasuries and probably big cap stocks to some degree. These purchase funds flow into the US Treasury and US bank accounts. The Treasury subsequently spends the cash it borrowed from these sources, and it ends up in US bank accounts.
Can ECB President Mario Draghi reshape Europe?
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
European history is marked by geopolitical watersheds, mostly involving generals and kings.
Are central bankers about to join to the list?
When European Central Bank President Mario Draghi holds his monthly briefing Thursday, he is expected to announce details of a new effort to tackle the euro zone's ongoing financial crisis — and potentially push Europe closer toward the economic and political union that has been the region's ambition since World War II.
Draghi Credibility At Stake As ECB Tries To Save The Euro
By Gabi Thesing - Bloomberg.com
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's task today is straight-forward: produce a plan to save the euro.
Draghi pledged more than a month ago to do what's needed to preserve the single currency; now he's under pressure to follow through with details of a bond-purchase plan to lower borrowing costs in Spain and Italy and prevent a breakup of Europe's monetary union. Expectations have built to such an extent that Draghi risks losing credibility unless he delivers at a press conference after today's Governing Council meeting in Frankfurt, economists and investors said.
Max Keiser: Germany strangling other EU economies
Spain is in pain. That seems to sum up the situation in a nutshell as one of Europe's largest economies sputters. Every one in four Spaniards are out of work and 2012 has witnessed capital flight like never before. 276 billion dollars have been taken out of the country this year as the economic pillars of Spain's economy gets shakier and shakier.
Eurozone fall akin to Great Depression: economist The eurozone economic downturn since the start of the crisis looks like the Great Depression of the 1930s, according to one economist
By Antonia Oprita - EmergoingMarkets.com
The decline in the economy of the eurozone, sparked by the beginning of the debt crisis with the shocks in Greece two and a half years ago, "seems to be more of a long-distance run than a quick sprint," according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.
One day ahead of a crucial European Central Bank (ECB) monetary policy meeting, the composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the eurozone – comprising manufacturing and services – fell to 46.3 from a flash reading of 46.6 and compared with a reading of 46.5 in July, data from Markit showed.
DEAR AMERICAN COMPANIES:
Here's How To Fix The Economy
By Henry Blodget - BusinessInsider.com
In 1914, a business executive named Henry Ford did a startling thing:
He announced that he was going to more than double the wages he was paying his employees, from $2.34 to $5 a day--the equivalent of $120 a day in today's money.
The country was as shocked by this then as it would be today.
A powerful company voluntarily sharing some of its profits with its rank-and-file workers and paying them more than it absolutely had to?
Had Henry Ford gone mad?
Didn't he understand that the only goal of a business was to make money?
Are entitlements corrupting us? a 'NO' and a 'YES' below:
Entitlements Are Part of the Civic Compact
By WILLIAM A. GALSTON - WSJ.com
Nicholas Eberstadt assembles a host of empirical trends in order to reach a moral conclusion: that the growth of the entitlement state over the past half-century has undermined the sturdy self-reliance that has long characterized most Americans, replacing it with a culture of dependence that threatens the American experiment.
As far as I can tell, Mr. Eberstadt's statistics accurately represent the trends on which he focuses. But they are not the whole truth. To understand what is happening in American society with respect to entitlements, we need to take into account at least three long-term developments.
American Character Is at Stake
By NICHOLAS EBERSTADT - WSJ.com
The American republic has endured for well over two centuries, but over the past 50 years, the apparatus of American governance has undergone a radical transformation. In some basic respects—its scale, its preoccupations, even many of its purposes—the U.S. government today would be scarcely recognizable to Franklin D. Roosevelt, much less to Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson.
What is monumentally new about the American state today is the vast empire of entitlement payments that it protects, manages and finances. Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine. As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined.
Top Bank Lawyer's E-Mails Show Washington's Inside Game
By Robert Schmidt and Jesse Hamilton - Bloomberg.com
It had been two days since U.S. lawmakers negotiated all night to finish rules that would reshape the business of Wall Street. The 20-hour session left legislators, aides, lobbyists and regulators exhausted. Almost no one had a grip on all the details.
Then Annette Nazareth stepped in. That Sunday morning, she e-mailed a dozen Securities and Exchange Commission officials about the bill that would become the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act.
Nazareth, herself a former SEC commissioner, represents the biggest banks and securities firms as a partner in the Washington office of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. She attached an annotated copy of the measure to her June 27, 2010, e-mail, marking changes made during the wee hours. It could be an invaluable tool for an agency hard-pressed to analyze the bill on a tight deadline.
The new normal:
Businesses could face austerity for years to come
by Ryan Randazzo - The Arizona Republic
It's been three years since the recession technically ended in June 2009, but many small businesses that survived the downturn still are trying to recapture the success they once enjoyed.
They are dealing with a new normal, where modest growth or even flat sales has replaced the once-surging state economy.
Before the Great Recession officially began in December 2007, many Arizona businesses enjoyed a booming economy where annual increases of 10 percent were normal for state retail sales.
Canadian housing bubble goes into full mania mode – Canadian debt-to-personal income ratio near 145% while US at peak of the housing bubble was at 125%.
DoctorHousingBubble.com
As global real estate bubbles burst at differing intervals, those still engaged in the depths of mania fever find every convenient argument to justify the existence of the current inflated economic structure. We can debate the nature of the current US housing market but with the median nationwide home price at $151,600 from the most recent Zillow housing report and the median household income at roughly $50,000 prices look to be leveling out especially with the absurdly low interest rates. As we know, housing markets are regional so applying this nationwide trough to frothy markets may not be the best way to measure investment value. However, when we look at the Canadian housing market we realize how insane things have gotten. I'm amazed by how many of the debt rehab or home flipping shows have migrated to the Canadian market. Of course they rarely mention this thinking the American audience will mindlessly assume they are in some other US city to prime the consumption pump. Yet when we look at the metrics, Canada is poised for a deep and profound correction.
A New Tick-Borne Illness, and a Plea to Consider the Insects
By Maryn McKenna - Wired.com
In the summer of 2009, two men from northwest Missouri showed up at Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, tucked up against the Kansas border 50 miles north of Kansas City. The men were seriously sick. They had high fevers, fatigue, aches, diarrhea and disordered blood counts: lower than normal amounts of white blood cells, which fight infection, and also lower than normal platelets, cells that control bleeding by helping blood to clot. But they had none of the diseases that were high on the differential diagnosis, the list of possible causes that doctors work their way down as they try to figure out what has gone wrong: no flu, no typhus, no Clostridium difficile, and none of the serious foodborne illnesses — no Salmonella, no Shigella, and no Campylobacter.
Nursing Home Inspect Update: More Homes, More Violations
by Charles Ornstein - ProPublica.org
Today, we are refreshing our Nursing Home Inspect app to include thousands more deficiencies found by government inspectors in nursing homes around the country.
Our tool, based on data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS), has already led to an impressive array of news stories.
The Shreveport Times reported that a resident with dementia at a Bossier City, La., nursing home went missing for more than 3½ hours last year before staff went looking for her. A worker found Hattie Mae Chambers "outside the facility lying in a fetal position near a fence, her white socks covered in grass," the paper reported. "Blood was coming from her nose and mouth, and was pooled on the ground. The 57-year-old mother of three was dead. A police report later would reveal Chamber's body temperature was 118 degrees."
Food-Stamp Use Climbs To Record, Reviving Campaign Issue
By Alan Bjerga - Bloomberg.com
Food-stamp use reached a record 46.7 million people in June, the government said, as Democrats prepare to nominate President Barack Obama for a second term with the economy as a chief issue in the campaign.
Participation was up 0.4 percent from May and 3.3 percent higher than a year earlier and has remained greater than 46 million all year as the unemployment rate stayed higher than 8 percent. New jobless numbers will be released Sept. 7.
"Too many middle-class families who have fallen on hard times are still struggling," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an e-mailed statement today. "Our goal is to get these families the temporary assistance they need so they are able to get through these tough times and back on their feet as soon as possible."
License-plate readers create 'massive intelligence database'
By Lance Benzel - Colorado Springs Gazette
It's a little black box perched on a police car, and it's always watching.
When 87-year-old Katherine "Kit" Grazioli's body turned up along a dirt road in the foothills west of Colorado Springs last November, the little black box spied her stolen car within hours.
On the car door, police say, were the fingerprints of her killer.
Over the past two years, roof-mounted license-plate readers — a kind of high-tech surveillance camera — have quietly led authorities in the Pikes Peak Region to scores of stolen vehicles. They also have helped capture fugitives and kept tabs on paroled sex offenders — all by automatically scanning roads and parking lots with lightning-fast optics capable of photographing a license plate in the blink of an eye, or hundreds of license plates during a single patrol.
But according to documents obtained by The Gazette under the Colorado Open Records Act, the devices are watching more than just law breakers.
Feds Say Mobile-Phone Location Data
Not 'Constitutionally Protected'
BY DAVID KRAVETS - Wired.com
The Obama administration told a federal court Tuesday that the public has no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in cellphone location data, and hence the authorities may obtain documents detailing a person's movements from wireless carriers without a probable-cause warrant.
The administration, citing a 1976 Supreme Court precedent, said such data, like banking records, are "third-party records," meaning customers have no right to keep it private. The government made the argument as it prepares for a re-trial of a previously convicted drug dealer whose conviction was reversed in January by the Supreme Court, which found that the government's use of a GPS tracker on his vehicle was an illegal search.
Pentagon's Robot Cheetah Outruns Usain Bolt
By Noah Shachtman - Wired.com
Robots are already stronger than humans, able to lift thousands of pounds at a time. In many ways, they're smarter than people, too; machines can perform millions of calculations per second, and even beat us at chess. But we could at least take solace in the fact that we could still outrun our brawny, genius robot overlords if we needed to.
Until now, that is. A four-legged robot, funded by the Pentagon, has just run 28.3 miles per hour. That's faster than the fastest man's fastest time ever. Oh well, ruling the planet was fun while it lasted.
DARPA's Cheetah Bolts Past the Competition
DARPA's Cheetah robot—already the fastest legged robot in history—just broke its own land speed record of 18 miles per hour (mph). In the process, Cheetah also surpassed another very fast mover: Usain Bolt. According to the International Association of Athletics Federations, Bolt set the world speed record for a human in 2009 when he reached a peak speed of 27.78 mph for a 20-meter split during the 100-meter sprint. Cheetah was recently clocked at 28.3 mph for a 20-meter split. The Cheetah had a slight advantage over Bolt as it ran on a treadmill, the equivalent of a 28.3 mph tail wind, but most of the power Cheetah used was to swing its legs fast enough, not to propel itself forward...
'Bait and Switch' Taxes Those who think President Obama's tax hikes will spare the middle class are only deluding themselves.
By THOMAS SOWELL - Spectator.org
We have heard many times from President Barack Obama how he plans to raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires," but not on the middle class. Apparently, if you don't happen to be a millionaire or billionaire, you don't have to worry.
But the numbers say otherwise -- and say so big time.
The actual tax increase plans being proposed by Obama do not start with people who have an income of a million dollars a year. They start with people with incomes of $250,000 and up.
False Choices and the True Dilemma
BY DANIEL JAMES SANCHEZ - FinancialSenses.com
....On that day, on the eve of the French Revolution, not only was the modern political world born, but so was its terminology.[1] To this day, politics is bisected into a "left wing" and "right wing." Much digital ink is daily spilled in vain on the web over the "best" distinction between "right" and "left." Now, with regard to specific, fleeting political agendas, vague distinctions like this make sense. Movable umbrella terms are necessary, because legislation involves shifting coalitions of people who do not agree on every single point. The trouble starts when the terminology of the political moment is imported wholesale into the language of science, in which precise, fixed distinctions are called for. The left/right divide is downright confusing for social science.
Keiser Report: War, Whores & Welfare (E336)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss boom boom sticks and squeaky wheels and ask whether spending on the military is more libertarian than spending on teaching prostitutes to drink responsibly. And they envision a post leveraged buyout America in which we open up Fort Knox and find only a printer. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.org and the Florida Libertarian Party about jack-booted statists in libertarian clothing.
Ending the Economic Error If Barack Obama is allowed to "finished what he started," government dependency is all that we'll have left.
By ROSS KAMINSKY - Spectator.org
Barack Obama and his supporters at the Democratic National Convention will mostly avoid the topic of unemployment, as unfavorable a subject as that is for Democrats' reelection chances. Still, we will inevitably hear a mantra like "the trend is in the right direction even if slower than we'd like" as an argument to give Barack Obama another four years so he can "finish what he started."
Beside the illogic of suggesting we give a failure four more years to fail further, one approach to unemployment data offers a very different lesson from the positive spin Democrats will give it.
In particular, the Obama team wants you to look at this chart, showing his entire term thus far, hoping that you focus on the modestly declining unemployment rate over the past 20 months.
Upward Mobility Barriers
By Walter E. Williams - PatriotPost.us
Let's pretend that we have the political guts to expand economic opportunities for people at the lower end of the economic spectrum. What vested interests should be attacked, and what economic regulations should be targeted for elimination?
It doesn't take a lot of money to become a taxi owner-operator and earn more than $40,000 a year. One needs a car, an insurance policy and ancillary interior equipment to make a car a taxi. In New York City, to be a taxi owner you'd have to purchase a license -- called a medallion -- that in June 2012 cost $704,000. New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission restrictions that generate such a license price outlaw taxi ownership by people who don't have access to a $704,000 loan. By contrast, in Washington, D.C., the annual fee for a license to own a taxi is $125. I'll let you guess which city has more taxis per capita, cheaper fares and more black taxi ownership.
Ignoring the Rule of Law Is Toxic
BY DANIELLE PARK - FinancialSense.com
The rule of law is a key maxim of a just society and democracy. It dictates that laws of the land be transparent, published and applicable to all. No one, regardless of title, position or wealth can be held above the law and government decisions must be predictable because they follow known legal principles and encoded rules.
For most of the 19th century America was advantaged in its progressive efforts to adhere to the rule of law and strive toward equal opportunity for its citizens regardless of class, wealth or title. While politicians and individuals acting in self-interest have frequently transgressed this key principle (seems to be human nature for some), historically the courts were able to correct back to founding principles. If applying the law of the land results in a shockingly unfair or unjust outcome in a particular set of facts,courts are able to restore balance and respect for the rule of law through the principles of equity.
New York Times Proves Clint Eastwood Correct --
Obama Is Lousy CEO
By Rich Karlgaard - Forbes.com
A Sunday New York Times front page story — New York Times! — might have killed President Obama's re-election hopes.
The story is called "The Competitor in Chief — Obama Plays To Win, In Politics and Everything Else." It is devastating.
With such a title, and from such a friendly organ, at first I thought Jodi Kantor's piece would be a collection of Obama's greatest political wins: His rapid rise in Illinois, his win over Hillary Clintonin the 2008 Democratic primaries, the passage of health care, and so on.
But the NYT piece is not about any of that. Rather, it is a deep look into the two outstanding flaws in Obama's executive leadership:
How to Understand the DNC's Jerusalem Imbroglio
By Jeffrey Goldberg - TheAtlantic.com
David Wolpe, the chief rabbi of Goldblog (and also America's top rabbi, according to Newsweek, which for some reason ranks rabbis -- though you never see them rank priests, do you?), suddenly has a challenge before him -- when he was picked to give the benediction tonight at the Democratic National Convention, who knew that the status of Jerusalem would become such a contentious issue that it would force the Democrats to stage a banana republic-style platform adjustment? Good luck, David.
The whole set-to today is about nothing, actually, except the exploitation of neurosis. There are obviously supporters of Israel in America who believe that President Obama will sell Israel down the river if he's reelected, and there are many people affiliated with the Republican Party who want to advance that idea, and so play on this fear. That faction won big today. This was an unforced error by the Democrats, but an error about nothing meaningful (I haven't seen anything to suggest that Jerusalem was dropped from the initial platform because Democratic Party leaders don't believe that Jerusalem is, or should be, the capital of Israel.)
[Tel Aviv is actually the capital of Israel] Dick Durbin Responds Defensively After DNC Drops 'God' & 'Jerusalem' From Party Platform
Fresh off comments made by top Democrats like DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz last week during the Republican National Convention in Florida that the Republican Party platform is "extreme," Democrats have dropped the acknowledgement of Jerusalem being the capitol of Israel and any reference to God from their party platform.
POLITICO breaks down the difference between the 2008 platform language and the 2012 platform language. 2008: Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths. 2012: President Obama and the Democratic Party maintain an unshakable commitment to Israel's security. A strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States not simply because we share strategic interests, but also because we share common values. For this reason, despite budgetary constraints, the President has worked with Congress to increase security assistance to Israel every single year since taking office, providing nearly $10 billion in the past three years...
Obama Attacked Over Party Platform on Jerusalem
By Jared A. Favole - WSJ.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C.–The Democratic Party platform doesn't state that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, a change from prior years that could provide fuel to critics who say President Barack Obama's commitment to Israel is weak.
"President Obama and the Democratic Party maintain an unshakable commitment to Israel's security," begins the 70-page platform in a section titled "The Middle East." The three-paragraph section details the Obama administration's support for Israel—including boosting security assistance—but says nothing about Jerusalem.
Such an omission provide an opening to Mr. Obama's rival for the presidency, Mitt Romney, as Jewish voters—particularly in the battleground state of Florida—are key to the election.
Democrats put God, Jerusalem back in platform over objections
By Matea Gold and Michael Memoli - LATimes.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a rare moment of actual convention drama, Democratic officials reinserted language back into their official platform Wednesday evening that invokes God and affirms the role of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, trying to defuse Republican attacks over the party's stances.
But the maneuver may have backfired, infuriating delegates who objected to the changes.
The new amendments were introduced by former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and put to a vote by convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa, who was forced to call for three voice votes in an effort to pass the changes.
What I Ask of Romney and Obama
By John Stossel - PatriotPost.us
The Republican Convention ended on the theme "Believe in America." That sounded nice, but it was just another platitude. Mitt Romney's speech was filled with platitudes: "We will honor America's democratic ideals. ... We're united to preserve liberty."
Please.
Liberals and conservatives have real differences. We should state them.
America is going broke, and tough decisions must be made. To save our future, we must slow the growth of entitlements and military spending. Mitt Romney was silent about that.
Sure, "Believing in America" means individuals get to decide how to run the businesses we create. But it should also mean that we get to run the rest of our lives, too: whom we marry, what we do for recreation, what substances we ingest, how big our soft drinks are. Mitt Romney said nothing about that.
A series of court rulings led to the creation of super PACs and an influx of "dark money" into politics, fundamentally changing how elections work. Mitt Romney's Tax Mysteries: A Reading Guide
by Cora Currier - ProPublica.org
Last week, the website Gawker publishedmore than 900 pages of documents from Bain Capital, the private equity firm Mitt Romney founded, and headed from 1984 until 1999. The document dump didn't reveal much about Romney's personal investments, but it added a bit more to the pressure on Romney to release more of his tax returns. Romney and his wife Ann have repeatedly rebuffed such calls. In a primary debate in January, Romney said he'd paid "all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more."
Warren to walk fine line
in appealing to both Mass. voters, nation in speech
By Alexandra Jaffe - TheHill.com
Elizabeth Warren will have to walk a fine line between appealing to Democrats nationwide and voters at home in Massachusetts in her address to the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night.
The rising Democratic star was chosen to introduce former President Clinton in part because her campaign has embodied the main message the Democratic Party is offering at its convention this week: that it's the party fighting for the middle class against big business and corporate influence in politics. The former consumer advocate has framed herself as just that — an advocate — and she frequently refers to herself as a crusader for working families.
Democrats don't want to go back to Clinton-era rates
Posted by Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
Former President Bill Clinton is set to deliver tonight's keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. That means you can expect to hear a lot of Democrats say some version of the following: "What's so bad about going back to the Clinton-era tax rates?"
It's a good question. But when you hear it asked, remember that most Democrats — including the Obama administration — do not want to go back to the Clinton-era tax code. Not for the country, and not even for the rich.
"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be." --John Adams
"The Democrats gathering in Charlotte this week are united behind President Obama but more than a little nervous about their November prospects. The thrill of 2008 is gone, replaced by an almost grim determination. The party of hope and change has become the party of grind-it-out, slug-it-out, and hope to win as less awful than Mitt Romney. ... Democrats of the Obama era are united by cultural liberalism, but above all else they agree on the goal of expanding the reach of government. ... The vanguard of ideas for the Obama White House is the Center for American Progress, which churns out proposals for government to mediate every sphere of economic life. In this view, the entire American economy is a giant market failure -- except perhaps Silicon Valley. Health-care costs can be controlled by dictating prices and medical practice. The climate can be controlled by putting coal out of business and subsidizing wind, solar and ethanol. Wall Street can be controlled by more rules and hanging the occasional banker in the public square as an example. Most important, government spending can conjure private growth by 'investing' in whatever seems like a good idea....
The Che Convention The most left-wing Democrats in American history
have gathered in Charlotte.
By PETER FERRARA - Spectator.org
The Democrats open their national convention this week under dark storm clouds of left-wing extremism. This is not your father's Democrat party. George McGovern would be a right winger at this convention.
The party meets to renominate Barack Obama, the most left-wing nominee and President in U.S. history, a self-identified Marxist with a long professional record of associating with Marxist and left-wing extremist individuals and organizations, if you read his autobiographies. If you disagree, or know someone who disagrees, the answer is read what the man himself has written about himself.
Clinton to argue
Romney would lead 'you're-on-your-own' society
By Russell Berman - TheHill.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former President Clinton will make the case for President Obama's reelection by casting the Republican ticket led by Mitt Romney as the embodiment of a "you're-on-your-own, winner-take-all society."
"The most important question is, what kind of country do you want to live in?" Clinton will ask, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the Obama campaign.
"If you want a you're-on-your-own, winner-take-all society, you should support the Republican ticket," Clinton will say. "If you want a country of shared prosperity and shared responsibility — a we're-all-in-this-together society — you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden."
Bill Clinton will highlight convention tonight,
offering forceful defense of Obama's record
By Philip Rucker and Dan Balz - WashingtonPost.com
CHARLOTTE — Former President Bill Clinton plans to deliver a spirited defense of his Democratic successor's stewardship of the nation's beleaguered economy as he officially nominates President Obama for a second term in a primetime speech here Wednesday.
Hours after Obama touched down in Charlotte, Democrats opened the second night of their convention with a rousing set of speeches to culminate with Clinton's hotly-anticipated speech. Yet although the moderate former president coined the term "New Democrat," he will be preceded on stage by some of the party's best-known liberal leaders and activists, including Elizabeth Warren, whose Senate campaign in Massachusetts has captivated the party's liberal grassroots.
Rewards Outweigh Bill Clinton Risks For Obama's Re-Election Bid
By John McCormick - Bloomberg.com
For Barack Obama, the risk of Bill Clinton is worth the reward. Their sometimes awkward relationship will be showcased tonight when the former president takes the stage to place the current president's name in nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
"There's the possibility of Clinton outshining Obama," saidDouglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University in Houston. "But that's a minor fear if you're Obama, to having Clinton embrace you in prime time."
The relationship between the two men has long been a complicated one. Clinton, 66, often referred to as the Big Dog by fans and foes alike because of his stature in the party, was outraged by Obama's treatment of his wife, Hillary Clinton, during the 2008 primary campaign and miffed he didn't often seek his advice until after the Democrats' losses in the 2010 midterm elections.
The Feelings Convention
By Ben Shapiro - PatriotPost.us
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - If the Republican National Convention was all about the numbers -- unemployment numbers, deficit numbers, tax rates -- the Democratic National Convention thus far has been all about feelings. The keynote address on Tuesday night was delivered by Julian Castro, mayor of San Antonio, who proclaimed that numbers didn't matter -- Barack Obama was the only candidate who could "multiply" individual success. And the capper of the evening went to Michelle Obama, who boldly stated, "I've seen how the issues that come across a president's desk are always the hard ones -- the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer."
When it comes to economics, of course, this is bull. Numbers generally dictate the right answer. Tax rates dictate how hard people will work and how much they will be penalized for working. Spending dictates tax rates. Unionization rates and minimum wage dictate hiring practices. And so on.
Where the Money Lives For all Mitt Romney's touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney's fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate.
By Nicholas Shaxson - VanityFair.com
A person who worked for Mitt Romney at the consulting firm Bain and Co. in 1977 remembers him with mixed feelings. "Mitt was … a really wonderful boss," the former employee says. "He was nice, he was fair, he was logical, he said what he wanted … he was really encouraging." But Bain and Co., the person recalls, pushed employees to find out secret revenue and sales data on its clients' competitors. Romney, the person says, suggested "falsifying" who they were to get such information, by pretending to be a graduate student working on a project at Harvard. (The person, in fact, was a Harvard student, at Bain for the summer, but not working on any such projects.) "Mitt said to me something like 'We won't ask you to lie. I am not going to tell you to do this, but [it is] a really good way to get the information.' … I would not have had anything in my analysis if I had not pretended.
"It was a strange atmosphere. It did leave a bad taste in your mouth," the former employee recalls.
Redistricting How Powerful Interests Are Drawing You Out of a Vote
Opaque redistricting groups are being quietly bankrolled by corporations, unions and others to influence redistricting. They aim to help political allies—and in the process they're hurting voters. Five Ways Courts Say Texas Discriminated
Against Black and Latino Voters
by Lois Beckett and Suevon Lee - ProPublica.org
How does Texas discriminate against minority voters? Federal judges counted the ways.
Last Tuesday, a panel of federal court judges ruled that new district maps drawn by Texas' Republican-controlled legislature weakened the influence of Latino voters and in some cases evinced "discriminatory intent" against both Latinos and African Americans. Two days later, another panel of federal judges unanimously struck down a voter-ID law passed by the legislature in March 2011, arguing that it would disproportionately harm African-American and Latino voters. The judges did not address whether there was discriminatory purpose behind the legislation, but they noted that the legislature failed to pass amendments that would have mitigated the law's discriminatory impact.
4 Reasons Why Gas Prices Are About to Fall Rapidly
BY ROBERT RAPIER - FinancialSense.com
While U.S. gasoline prices have been on the rise for the past two months — and are presently $0.15/gallon higher than they were a year ago — I expect that gasoline prices will start to fall rapidly in the weeks ahead. There are four reasons for this.
The Democrats' Single Least Credible Idea:
An 'All of the Above' Energy Plan The party says it sees a future for coal in our energy future. The Obama administration's climate policies say otherwise.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Ever since his last State of the Union address, President Obama has relied on four short words to describe his administration's energy policy: "all of the above." Should we rely on fossil fuels or renewables? Yes, says the White House.
That sentiment is now enshrined in the Democratic party platform that was officially adopted in Charlotte Monday night. "We can move towards a sustainable energy-independent future if we harness all of America's great natural resources," the document states. "That means an all-of-the-above approach to developing America's many energy resources, including wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal, hydropower, nuclear, oil, clean coal, and natural gas."
It's a nice sounding thought. But in light of the Obama administration's environmental policies, it's sort of nonsense.
Russia and the World's Next Major Oil Spike
BY MARIN KATUSA - FinancialSense.com
Between October 1973 and March 1974, the price of oil shot sky-high. OPEC embargoed its output, and prices spiked from $3 a barrel to $12 - a gain of 300% in six months. For the global oil machine, the OPEC oil crisis sparked a complete overhaul. Oil-needy nations in the West rebelled against their reliance on OPEC, and within ten years non-OPEC production surged by 50%. Rising output in new areas even produced what became dubbed the 1980s Oil Glut.
But did prices go back down? Yes - and no. Yes, they went down - but not all the way.
Big Oil 1 - 0 Environment:
Shell Granted Permit to Work off Alaskan Coast
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
Environmental groups concerned about the potential damage to the Arctic environment suffered another blow after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted a temporary air permit for Shell to work off the coast of Alaska. The company has already asked federal regulators to extend the drilling season in the Chuckchi Sea because its feels ice would remain at bay into late fall. Groups like Greenpeace have staged high-profile demonstrations in an effort to highlight their growing concern about the industry's move toward arctic waters. With millions of barrels of oil potentially lying beneath the ice, environmentalists may lose out to national energy security interests.
US wants Pentagon patrol in Asia via allies
State Secretary Hillary Clinton's in the Chinese capital for talks, but her visit comes amid rising diplomatic tensions. Beijing has warned Washington to stay out of the country's territorial disputes with several other nations off the Chinese coast. The Communist state has threatened to use force to defend its claims to a chain of islands there. Clinton says America's position is neutral, but Beijing has accused Washington of meddling in the region's affairs.
29 Dead in 8 Days as U.S. Puts Yemen Drone War in Overdrive
By Noah Shachtman - Wired.com
29 dead in a little over a week. Nearly 200 gone this year. The White House is stepping up its campaign of drone attacks in Yemen, with four strikes in eight days. And not even the slaying of 10 civilians over the weekend seems to have slowed the pace in the United States' secretive, undeclared war.
At this week's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, you'll hear lots of talk about the Obama administration's pursuit of al-Qaida and its allies — including, of course, the raid that ultimately took out Osama bin Laden. But the hottest battlefield in this worldwide conflict isn't likely to receive much attention. It's a shame, because the fight in Yemen is one that demands discussion. Not only does the White House consider al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to be the extremist group most likely to strike in the United States. But the American response to that threat was been widely questioned by regional experts, who wonder whether U.S. drones and commandos aren't being duped into fighting on one side of a civil war.
US complicit in Israel war plans for Iran
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi - ATimes.com
After supplying Israel with the massive bunker-buster bombs that would be critical in any Israeli military strike on Iran, the US government now wants to have it both ways, trying to shield itself from any backlash by insisting it would not be "complicit" in such an Israeli gambit.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised some eyebrows last week, especially in the Israeli media, by stating publicly: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it." As if intent on convincing Iran of US's determination to stay out of a Tehran-Tel Aviv duel, over the weekend there were unconfirmed reports of secret talks between Tehran and Washington, although this has been adamantly denied by the White House.
Netanyahu mulls a Six-Day War surprise
By Victor Kotsev - ATimes.com
The fog of war has fallen so densely over Iran and the Middle East that it is hard to say for certain whether the latest developments are a sign that one is imminent (in the form of an Israeli strike in the next two months) or that the timetable for a confrontation has been pushed back until the spring and summer of 2013. In the latter case, it is still possible that negotiations would eventually prevail, but this is far from guaranteed or even likely.
All of a sudden, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dropping hints left and right that it is willing to postpone action against the Iranian nuclear program. On Tuesday, it announced a number of new high-level military appointments which had previously been delayed amid the war preparations. As a prominent Israeli analyst put it, "You don't appoint a brand new operations chief when you're about to go to war."
Gold will reach $1,750/oz by 2012 year end
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold prices could reach $1,750 an ounce by the end of the year, based on the likelihood of more quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, said Global Hunter Securities, which could happen as early as the Sept. 12-13 FOMC meeting.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech at the Jackson Hole gathering "provided a clear case and justification for past and future endeavors of quantitative easing. The Fed believes the risk of inflation has been mitigated in the near term; allowing further intervention," they added.
Invest in Silver Before Prices Climb Higher
BY DEBORAH BARATZ, Contributing Writer, Money Morning
Silver prices are up this week on hopes of a third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, reaching their highest level in four months.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday hinted at further central bank action and silver pricesjumped more than 3%. They've continued climbing this week to over $32 an ounce.
Speaking at the annual Jackson Hole, WY economic symposium, Bernanke expressed concern about the U.S. labor market stagnation and said yes, he is open to more quantitative easing to assist the economic recovery.
Did The Great Financial Crisis
Start With The End Of The Gold Standard?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
It's perhaps no co-incidence that the trend towards persistent deficits started around the final collapse of the last link to a quasi-Gold standard back in August 1971. As Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid notes, in a world of the Gold Standard or equivalent, those countries loosening policy too much would have seen a rush to convert their currencies into Gold thus destabilising their economic policy framework. Multi-year (let alone multi-decade) deficits and the GFC could not have occurred under a gold standard. So with the shackles off and with nothing backing paper money, the post-1971 period has seen a uniquely long period of fiat currencies globally with a beggar-thy-neighbour rolling period of credit creation. Never before in observable history have so many countries been off a precious metal type currency system for so long. So after 41 years of global fiat currencies and an unparalleled amount of debt that is proving very difficult to shift, we really are venturing into the unknown.
The Fed's Dirty Easy Money While the GOP met in Tampa, titans of finance flew to Wyoming.
By Niall Ferguson - TheDailyBeast.com
Which mattered more to you last week: the Republican National Convention in Tampa, or the Federal Reserve's annual economic-policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.?
If you're just managing to get by, then it was the former. In his barnstorming speech, Paul Ryan nailed it again: "The issue is not the economy that Barack Obama inherited ... but this economy that we are living. College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life."
Direct hit.
Outlook remains negative
for U.S. banking industry, Moody's says
By Jim Puzzanghera - LATimes.com
WASHINGTON -- While the majority of banks have improved their finances during the last four years, looming economic threats mean the outlook for the industry remains negative over the next 12 to 18 months, Moody's Investors Service said Tuesday.
"Our negative outlook ... reflects a challenging domestic operating environment, with prolonged low interest rates, high unemployment, weak economic growth and fiscal policy uncertainties," said Sean Jones, Moody's senior vice president.
"Additionally, the threat of contagion stemming from the European sovereign debt crisis undermines economic recovery in the U.S. and exposes banks to a heightened risk of shocks," he said.
Will Fiscal Cliff Trigger Muni Bond Defaults?
BY JONATHAN YATES, Contributing Writer, Money Morning
Turns out our nation's counties and cities are in much worse financial shape than previously believed - and the impact of the fiscal cliff could drag these municipalities down even lower.
A recent report by the New York Federal Reserve determined that while Moody's Investment Service reported only 71 defaults from 1970 to 2011, there were actually 2,521.
That's because Moody's only reports on the defaults of rated bonds, which are safer for investors. Taking all U.S. muni bond defaults into account, the default rate is actually 4%, not 1%, according to The New York Times.
Bernanke: "We Can't Really Prove It,
But We Did The Right Thing Anyway"
guest post by Pater Tenebrarum - ZeroHedge.com
It is amazing how big an effect a rambling, sleep-inducing speech by a chief central planner can have on financial markets in the short term. Nonetheless, the speech contained a few interesting passages which show us both how Bernanke thinks and that people to some extent often tend to hear whatever they want to hear. Bernanke noted that although he cannot prove it, econometricians employed by the Fed have constructed a plethora of models that show that 'LSAP's (large scale asset purchases, which is to say 'QE' or more colloquially, money printing) have helped the economy. In other words, although no-one actually knows what would have happened in the absence of the inflationary policy since we can't go back in time and try it out, the 'models' tell us it was the right thing to do. However, some indications would suggest that mal-investment is higher than ever - and accelerating - as the production structure ties up more consumer goods than it releases, an inherently unsustainable condition; additional expansion of money and credit will only serve to exacerbate the imbalance.
Will the German Court undo the Eurozone? If the ruling is against the ratification of treaties, then that could trigger a wild bull rally in precious metals, as the eurozone witnesses a meltdown.
Commodity Online
The treaties of fiscal compact and the European Stability Mechanism will not be declared unconstitutional by the German court, said Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble expressing confidence in Germany's legal system.
The investor community is waiting with bated breath the ruling due on September 12 by the German Court as Germany is backing a significant portion of ESM that is having a capital of 500-billion-euro ($627-billion). If the court decrees the mechanism and the fiscal pact as being unconstitutional, then it would in effect dissolve the tools employed to fight the debt crisis.
Eurozone is running out of options and time
to solve debt crisis
By John W. Schoen, NBC News
Two years after eurozone began its downward financial spiral, the European Central Bank is about to unveil a widely-anticipated plan to pump more money into the system to stem a wider collapse.
But the plan, similar to the massive bond-buying undertaken by U.S. central bankers four years ago, may be too little, too late.
"It's going to take a lot more than a few rate cuts here and there to give us a lift," said Peter Dixon, a senior economist at Commerzbank Securities. "Monetary policy is effectively running out of options."
Eurozone demands six-day week for Greece Government in Athens under pressure to introduce a six-day working week as part of the terms for a second bailout
By Ian Traynor in Brussels - Guardian.co.uk
Greece's eurozone creditors are demanding that the government in Athens introduce a six-day working week as part of the stiff terms for the country's second bailout.
The demand is contained in a leaked letter from the "troika" of the country's lenders, the European commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund. In the letter, the officials policing Greece's compliance with the austerity package imposed in return for the bailout insist on radical labour market reforms, from minimum wages to overtime limits to flexible working hours, that are likely to worsen the standoff between the government and organised labour in Greece.
The Root of Europe's Problem
By William Pfaff - Truthdig.com
The belief widely held is that enlarged federalism is the appropriate response to the economic crisis provoked by the Wall Street credit crash. Why? Fundamental to the crisis is the degree of federation it already has. Seventeen economically disparate nations bound their fortunes together in creating the euro zone, and it is exactly this that has thrown the European project into crisis.
Large parts of the populations of Greece, Spain and Portugal have been forced into destitution; the economies of all 17 members of the euro zone have been gravely damaged; governments of the weaker countries have been stripped of policy autonomy and placed under the tutelage of a "troika" of foreigners from the EU Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, who are imposing uniform, highly controversial and thus far generally unsuccessful austerity programs.
What Happens Once Mario Draghi
Unleashes The European Creosote Bank
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
In two days Mario Draghi may, although without Germany's blessing most likely will not, announce vague terms of how the ECB plans on monetizing hundreds of billions in short-term (sub-3 Year) bonds by Spain and Italy, which according to the ECB is not really monetization, and the only thing that is needed is for the two countries to admit they are insolvent, something which paradoxically will never happen as long as the ECB does everything in its power to spook markets away from fair clearing levels, and to keep the cashflow implied price at record divergence from the centrally-planned "valuation" determination. But let's assume Draghi does go ahead and one up Bernanke, announcing the next easing round a week ahead of the September FOMC meeting, as both central banks take the lunge into the latest lap of currency devaluation. What happens then?
18 Indications That Europe Has Become An Economic Black Hole Which Is Going To Suck The Life Out Of The Global Economy
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomiccollapseBlog.com
Summer vacation is over and things are about to get very interesting in Europe. Most Americans don't realize this, but much of Europe shuts down for the entire month of August. I wish we had something similar in the United States. But now millions of Europeans are returning from their extended family vacations and the fun is about to begin. During August economic conditions continued to degenerate in Europe, but I figured that it wouldn't be until after August that the European debt crisis would take center stage once again. And as I wrote about last week, if there is going to be a financial panic, it typically happens in the fall.
Brinkmanship as Spain warns over bail-out terms Spain has issued a veiled warning that it will not accept a full bail-out from Europe if the terms are too harsh, a move that would paralyse the European Central Bank and call the euro's survival into question.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
In an escalating game of brinkmanship, Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos said his country is not yet willing to sign a Memorandum giving up fiscal sovereignty to EU inspectors. "First of all, one must clarify the conditions," he told German newspaper Handelsblatt.
Mr de Guindos said the crisis engulfing the region is larger than any one country and warned north Europe not to scapegoat Spain.
"My colleagues are aware that the battle for the euro will be fought in Spain. Spain is right now the breakwater for the eurozone," he said, adding that "solidarity" would be well-advised.
The shrinking middle class When the financial clock strikes zero – Half of Americans pass away with nearly zero wealth. The middle class has contracted by ten percent in the last 40 years.
MyBudget360.com
A recent study demonstrates the precarious financial position many Americans find their lives in. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that nearly half of Americans pass away penniless. The exact figures were sobering stating that many of these Americans end up with no financial assets including home wealth and typically rely heavily on Social Security. This study points out a couple of important items regarding the state of the economy for many families. Many simply cannot save and end up relying on external funding. The system is witnessing heavy strain on these sources at a time when government spending is off the charts for bailouts and other targeted spending. Yet the typical American is still ending up in a financially precarious state. In the last four decades the middle class has contracted by ten percent. What does it say about the economy when half of the inhabitants of the wealthiest country pass away with almost no wealth?
Record 46 Million Americans Are on Food Stamps
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
The number of Americans on food stamps hit a record high in June, and economists don't expect much improvement as long as unemployment remains high.
Those receiving benefits through theSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program numbered 46.37 million, the government said in a report that hit just days ahead of the monthly nonfarm payrolls report, which the Labor Department releases Friday.
The two numbers are inextricably linked as the economy battles its way back from the crippling recession that the National Bureau of Economic Research says ended in 2009.
Big-money funds buy foreclosures -- to rent
By MARILYN KALFUS - The Orange County Register - MSNBC.com
No condos wanted, and no "McMansions", either. The objective: Bank-owned "family'' homes, with, say, 1,800 square feet and 3 bedrooms, in stable neighborhoods where prices are expected to rise.
That's the sweet spot for Carrington Capital Management LLC, a private equity fund with Orange County ties in an increasingly competitive field -- big-money players going after foreclosures.
But they're not buying the houses to flip. The private equity firms are becoming landlords.
Why Niall Ferguson Is Right on Obamacare—Mostly
By: John Carney, Senior Editor, CNBC.com
Niall Ferguson has been catching a lot of flak from the coolest kids on the Internet's economic block for his Newsweek cover story arguing that we should fire Barack Obama. The DailyBeast, Newsweek's online parent, commendably links to most of the critics.
The statement that has attracted the most criticism is this one:
The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period.
Student debt crisis enters a tipping point Delinquent student debt now reaching record levels as defaults spike. Paying more and earning less.
MyBudget360.com
The great deleveraging event continues to unwind while one sector of debt continues to grow by leaps and bounds. While other forms of debt have fallen by $1.6 trillion since thepeak of the debt bubble mania, student loan debt has increased by a stunning $303 billion since the third quarter of 2008. What is more disturbing is the rising delinquencies seen in the student debt market that has now breached the $1 trillion barrier. While education overall is correlated with higher wages, there isn't a clear distinction between university quality or even various degrees. Most of the studies examine the aggregate college pool when many went to college when prices were much cheaper. Many students are sucked into the for-profit vortex only to come out with a worthless piece of paper and mounds of debt. There is absolutely a bubble in higher education and how things unfold will carry a deep impact on the economy.
Who Are America's Schools Laying Off?
Not Teachers, Mostly
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
The end of summer means America's kids are headed back to school, where the hallways and offices will be slightly emptier than last year.
From May through July, local governments let go roughly 28,000 education workers, according to theLabor Department, continuing the long period of layoffs that stretches back to 2008. With a new academic year in front of us, I wanted to take stock of exactly what those cuts might mean for schools by looking at who has been getting the ax: teachers, or other workers, such as administrators? Are kids suddenly being funneled into larger classes, or there just fewer assistant principals roaming the halls?
Some Of The Really Bad Things That Could Happen If You Do Not Prepare For The Coming Economic Collapse
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Most people just assume that since things have always been a certain way that they will always be that way in the future. Most people just have blind faith that the people running our government and our financial system know exactly what they are doing and that they are doing their best to take care of us. In fact, once upon a time I was fully convinced of that. When I was a kid I quickly realized that my elementary school teachers really didn't have the answers, but I had total faith that those running society at the highest levels were "experts" that were looking out for our best interests. As time went on I kept progressing in my education, and by the time I was finished with law school I came to understand that none of our "experts" really know what they are doing, and they are definitely not looking out for our best interests. The blind are leading the blind and we all need to finally admit that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.
Manufacturing another headache for U.S. economy
By Jonathan Spicer
NEW YORK | Tue Sep 4, 2012 1:48pm EDT
(Reuters) - Manufacturing in the United States shrank at its sharpest clip in more than three years last month, a survey showed on Tuesday, the latest sign that the slowing global economy is weighing on an already weak U.S. recovery.
August was the third month in a row of contraction in the factory sector, according to an Institute for Supply Management survey. Firms hired the fewest workers since late 2009, a possible red flag for the August U.S. jobs report due on Friday.
The "Mobile Wave" is So Huge America Will Literally Be Reborn
BY MICHAEL A. ROBINSON, Money Morning
Thanks to mobile computing, America is about to be reborn.
This growing technological wave will make the dollar stronger, spread American values throughout the globe, and establish English as the single most important language on Earth.
In fact, our leading position in the rise of smartphones and tablet computers makes it certain that the United States will undergo a major revival and rebranding.
Along the way America will re-emerge as the dominate force in technology and economics in the world - by far - as soon as the end of this decade.
Facebook Falls To Record Low After Morgan Stanley Report
By Danielle Kucera - Bloomberg.com
Facebook Inc. (FB) closed at a record low after Morgan Stanley (MS), a lead underwriter of the company's initial public offering, cut its price forecast on concern that the social network is struggling to reach mobile users with ads.
Facebook fell 1.8 percent to $17.73 at the close in New York, the lowest closing price since theMenlo Park, California- based company went public at $38 a share on May 17.
As more users access Facebook's site over smartphones and tablets, they're exposed to fewer ads, Scott Devitt, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York, said in a note to clients today. Facebook's desktop site shows about 30 times more ads per user each day than its mobile counterpart, he said.
Hacker group claims access to 12M Apple device IDs AniSec posts list containing 1M unique device identifiers, says they came from FBI laptop
By Jaikumar Vijayan - Computerworld.com
Computerworld - Hacker group AntiSec has published what it claims is about 1 million unique device identifier numbers (UDIDs) for Apple devices that it said it accessed earlier this year from a computer belonging to an FBI agent.
The group, which is a splinter operation of the Anonymous hacking collective, claims that it has culled more than 12 million UDIDs and personal data linking the devices to users from the FBI computer. AntiSec said it chose to publish a portion of those records to prove it has them.
FBI denies hacking group AntiSec
obtained Apple IDs from federal laptop Group said it found over 12m Apple IDs on agent's computer, but FBI says it has no knowledge of any data breach
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
The FBI has denied claims by a hacking group that says it obtained details of more than 12m Apple IDs from the laptop of a federal agent.
The group, called AntiSec, said it found 12.36m IDs on the laptop and was making some details public in order to draw attention the the FBI's activities.
In a statement, the group predicted the FBI would deny the breach. "Seems quite clear nobody pays attention if you just come and say 'Hey, FBI is using your device details and info and who the fuck knows what the hell are they experimenting with that,' well sorry, but nobody will care. FBI will, as usual, deny or ignore this uncomfortable thingie and everybody will forget the whole thing at amazing speed."
Why Oil Prices Will Remain High
By Stuart Burns - OilPrice.com
I don't know about you, but in the absence of any dramatic news about Iran in the papers, and especially set against the general background of a weakening global economy, the relentless rise in gas prices each time I pull up at the pump has come as a bit of a shock.
And before anyone leaves a comment about being a bit tight-fisted, let me tell you, here in the UK it costs me about $200 to fill up my tank — no small outlay.
So if anyone else is wondering what's going on, an Economist article makes depressing reading, because rather than report this as just another temporary Ayatollah-induced spike, the learned news mag reports that in spite of oil market indicators being bearish, oil prices are likely to stay above $100 per barrel for the rest of the year.
Auto lenders go back to subprime borrowers
By David Henry
Tue Sep 4, 2012 6:45am EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. lenders are giving as large a portion of new car loans to subprime borrowers as they did just before the start of the financial crisis, according to a new study.
Subprime, or less qualified, borrowers received 25.41 percent of all loans on new vehicles in the three months through the end of June, up from 22.29 percent in the same period a year ago and more than the 24.96 percent at the start of the financial crisis in 2007, Experian Plc's auto finance research unit said in a report released Tuesday morning.
U.S. accuses BP of "gross negligence" in 2010 oil spill
(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is ramping up its rhetoric against BP PLC for the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, laying out in a new court filing examples of what it calls "gross negligence and willful misconduct."
The filing is the sharpest position yet taken by the U.S. government as it seeks to hold the British oil giant largely responsible for the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Why does Social Security need 174,000 bullets? Despite Web conspiracies theories,
it's standard request for agency's armed agents
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, AP - MSNBC.MSN.com
WASHINGTON — It didn't take long for the Internet to start buzzing with conspiracy theories after the Social Security Administration posted a notice that it was purchasing 174,000 hollow-point bullets.
Why is the agency that provides benefits to retirees, disabled workers, widows and children stockpiling ammunition? Whom are they going to use it on?
"It's not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest," the website Infowars.com said.
Life Is Sacred
By Chris Hedges - Truthdig.com
I retreat in the summer to the mountains and coasts of Maine and New Hampshire to sever myself from the intrusion of the industrial world. It is in the woods and along the rugged Atlantic coastline, the surf thundering into the jagged rocks, that I am reminded of our insignificance before the universe and the brevity of human life. The stars, thousands visible in the night canopy above me, mock human pretensions of grandeur. They whisper the biblical reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Love now, they tell us urgently, protect what is sacred, while there is still time. But now I go there also to mourn. I mourn for our future, for the fading majesty of the natural world, for the folly of the human species. The planet is dying. And we will die with it.
Debt and Loving It David Wessel's Red Ink is a handy but revealing guide to the federal budget.
Peter Suderman - Reason.com
Most voters know almost nothing about the federal budget: Few can correctly answer basic questions about how much it spends, how and whom it taxes, and how much is spent on different parts of the budget. On average, for example, surveys shows that on average respondents estimate that anywhere 10 to 25 percent of the federal budget is devoted to foreign aid. In fact, it's closer to 1 percent. A CNN poll last year found that Americans believe that about 5 percent of the federal budget is devoted to public broadcasting. The reality? It's about 0.1 percent.
Obama's Ideological Convention Who are you going to believe:
Romney-Ryan or the Dems' lying eyes?
By JED BABBIN - The American Spectator.org
The morning after last week's Republican Convention, Mitt Romney took off to Louisiana to view the damage caused by Hurricane Isaac. The move apparently caught Barack Obama by surprise. America's empath-in-chief had to scramble his schedule to follow Romney.
That small event capped a convention that generally succeeded in introducing the Romney-Ryan ticket as calm and competent people, a credible team capable of dealing with the nation's economic crisis. The first night of the convention was its best, a parade of Republican governors introducing business people from their states to refute Obama's "you didn't build that" line. Ryan's speech was galvanizing, Romney's passably good, and no one really stepped in the electoral kimchi, which is the underlying fear of every convention manager.
Abortion issue sets tone for women at DNC Pro-life support difficult to find
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In an election defined chiefly by economic issues, Democrats kicked off their nominating convention Tuesday by shifting to hot-button social issues — particularly abortion and women's rights — as they sought to peel female voters away from Mitt Romney.
On the streets outside the convention hall, scores of Planned Parenthood volunteers sporting pink shirts with the motto "Yes we plan!" and a logo showing a pack of birth control pills gathered petition signatures.
Clinton presence undercuts Democrats' celebration of women
By Joseph Curl - The Washington Times
Talk about your irony.
Democrats, who have declared that Republicans are engaging in a "war against women," will be led at their national convention this week by Bill Clinton, whose list of reported transgressions against women is, well, let's say, long.
Though the mainstream media has considered the matter overwrought, and the former president is now held to be a brilliant elder statesman intent on fixing the world's problems through his global consortium, it is worth pondering, as the 42nd president prepares to take the stage to nominate President Obama, the many transgressions toward women committed by The Man From Hope.
President is 'kindred spirit' says first lady Michelle Obama
By Amie Parnes - TheHill.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — First lady Michelle Obama depicted the president as her "kindred spirit" in a prime-time address Tuesday that made the political case her husband is also a kindred spirit for all Americans.
Headlining the opening day of the Democratic National Convention, the first lady—with her high approval ratings—sought to highlight her husband's populist pitch, emphasizing his middle-class roots in an effort to lure women and minorities to his side.
Her speech was loaded with pointed phrases such as "us and them" that drew a sharp implicit contrast with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, whom Democrats throughout the day painted as rich and out of touch.
Are We Better Off Than 4 Years Ago? Of Course Not
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
"Are you better off than you were four years ago?" is a perfect question for Republicans to ask for two reasons.
First, the answer to the question is so clearly: No, we are not better off. Tim Noah rounds up the case: Compared with the summer of 2008, median household income has fallen, unemployed has increased, and the misery index (joblessness plus inflation) is up. Of course, this is starting our timers five months before Sen. Obama became President Obama. In the administration-adjusted count, in which "four years" equals "three years and eight months," the record is slightly different. The most dramatic increase in job losses that you see above happened before or during the changing of the White House. In fact, the unemployment rate is the same today as in Obama's first full month in office.
Why America is much worse off that it was four years ago
James Pethokoukis - AEI-Ideas.org
The Romney-Ryan campaign is now explicitly comparing President Obama to former President Carter. Paul Ryan yesterday: "You see, the president has no record to run on. In fact, every president since the Great Depression who asked Americans to send them into a second term could say that you are better off today than you were four years ago, except for Jimmy Carter and for President Barack Obama."
So are Americans better off today than they were when Obama took office in 2009 — or not?
The superficial answer is "Yes, Americans are better off." In January 2009, America was in a recession; today, the economy is slowly growing. In January 2009, America was losing jobs; today, it is adding them.
But that is setting the bar pretty low and framing the question absurdly narrowly. It also completely ignores the historically-anemic nature of the current economic recovery.
The threat of $600bn of fiscal tightening
may decide the US election It's the question preoccupying the early presidential exchanges. Are Americans better off than four years ago?
By Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
It's a simple question, posed last week by Mitt Romney. As the New York Times reported, the Democrats fumbled the answer on Sunday but are determined to get the message out during this week's convention: "Absolutely they are."
But is that true? Economic data gives both sides the chance to spin it their way. In simple terms, the Obama years would appear to have made meaningful economic progress, with US GDP per capita up 9.3pc, from $45,436 to $49,674.
Democrats have reins
after Republicans flub their convention in Tampa, Fla.
By Markos Moulitsas - TheHill.com
The data coming out of the Republican National Convention have been brutal for GOP standard-bearer Mitt Romney. Not only did he not get any convention bounce, per Gallup polling, he actually lost 2 points to President Obama. And no convention acceptance speech has scored as low as Romney's did since Gallup started polling them in 1996.
None of this should be surprising to anyone watching the convention, where Ann Romney's proclamations of love were immediately overruled by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's brusque declaration that "we have become paralyzed by our desire to be loved." Where the trite message of "we built it" from businessmen and -women that had all benefited from government contracts, services, or infrastructure was unintentionally mocked by the New Mexico road-sign maker whining that he wasn't getting enough government contracts. And, of course, Clint Eastwood proved that conventions are scripted for a reason.
The DNC's Bold Lies DNC website caught lying about party's civil rights record: Wasserman Schultz, Virginia Senate nominee Kaine involved.
By JEFFREY LORD - The American spectator.org
The lies are big, bold and prominent.
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been caught. And the website scandal may also impact the Virginia U.S. Senate race that has former Governor Tim Kaine as the Democrats' nominee against ex-Senator and Governor George Allen. Why?
As reported in all manner of media outlets in September of 2010 (here at the Huffington Post, here on The Today Show and here in a 25-minute presentation at George Washington University posted on YouTube) it was then-DNC Chairman Kaine on whose watch the new DNC website was launched.
Tampa Defines the Charlotte Imperative
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Truthdig.com
The Obama Democrats who gather in Charlotte this week have a big advantage over Tampa's Romney Republicans: Last week's GOP convention gave President Obama a peek at Mitt Romney's playbook. Combining the lessons of this highly public briefing with what's already known about the Romney strategy defines the Charlotte Imperative.
Several things are obvious. Romney has been stung by the attacks on his career at Bain Capital and knows he has a serious likability problem. That's why so much time in Tampa was spent countering these liabilities. Democrats will continue to exploit them.
Now There Is No Hope And by the way, where is the Change?
By BEN STEIN - The American Spectator.org
I flew to Dallas today to give a speech. The flight was uneventful except for a woman seated in front of me who started talking at about 2 PM PDT and did not stop talking at all -- not once -- for the whole flight. How can she do that? She talked for four solid hours.
I checked into my wonderful hotel, the Gaylord Texan, and watched a show on Nat Geo about a man from America put into prison in the Soviet in 1976 for trafficking in heroin. Scary, but what a dope he was.
Then, a show on MSNBC hosted by my old pal, Chris Matthews, about Barack Obama. It was an extremely laudatory show, about how Mr. Obama tapped into all of young America's wish to have Hope and Change rule the land.
Julian Castro owns the audience; delivers enthusiasm in keynote Castro defends Obama's economic record in keynote
By Jonathan Easley - TheHill.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Rising Democratic star Julian Castro defended President Obama's economic record in his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night.
Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, combined two of the Democrats' biggest priorities in his speech: defending one of the president's major electoral weaknesses and courting one of the election's most important voting blocs — Hispanics.
Julian Castro: 'Mitt Romney just doesn't get it'
By Mark Z. Barabak - LATimes.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro mixed praise for President Obama with a pointed attack on Mitt Romney on Tuesday night in a history-making keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Castro, the first Latino to deliver a keynote speech at a Democratic National Convention, offered his family's story as a parable of the American Dream, citing the rise from his grandmother's impoverishment to his success in winning public office.
His grandmother, a Mexican immigrant, did not live to see his achievement or that of his twin brother, Joaquin, a Democratic congressional hopeful, who introduced Julian.
Democrats face tough decision
on whether to move Obama speech
By Amie Parnes and Kris Kitto - TheHill.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Democratic officials face a difficult decision on whether to move President Obama's acceptance speech indoors to a smaller venue.
A forecast of possible rain showers threatens to dampen Obama's big night on Thursday, when he is scheduled to close the Democratic National Convention with a speech at Bank of America Stadium, which holds more than 73,000 seats.
Moving Obama to the much smaller Time Warner Cable Arena, which holds about 22,000 seats, would be a disappointment after Obama accepted his party's nomination in 2008 at Denver's Invesco Field.
What Is Mitt Romney's Plan for Afghanistan? Good luck figuring it out from the party's recent convention, which offered conflicting views.
Ira Stoll - Reason.com
What does the Republican Party or its presidential nominee think about the war in Afghanistan?
Good luck figuring it out from the party's recent convention, which offered conflicting views.
At the convention's Thursday night climax, actor Clint Eastwood made Afghanistan part of his critique of President Obama. Eastwood faulted President Obama, and implicitly, George W. Bush, by saying, "We didn't check with the Russians to see how they did there for 10 years." He ignored the distinction that Russia was fighting to subjugate Afghanistan to Communism, while America was responding to a terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon that was planned in Afghanistan.
French judges investigating Arafat's death seek exhumation
Reporting by Thierry Leveque;
Writing by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Jon Hemming
(Reuters) - Three French judges are preparing to travel to Ramallah to seek the exhumation Yasser Arafat's body as part of an investigation into whether he was murdered by poison, a judicial source told Reuters on Wednesday.
The investigating magistrates will need approval from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already expressed his government's willingness to exhume the body from a limestone sepulchre in Ramallah.
Mysterious Infection Was Yasser Arafat Poisoned? The mysterious circumstances of Yasser Arafat's death are now the subject of a criminal investigation in France. But if it is true that the Palestinian leader was poisoned, then who might have been behind his killing?
By Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Volkhard Windfuhr - Spiegel.de
Suha Arafat says she knew it all along. Someone like Yasser Arafat doesn't die so easily because his body suddenly gives up, even if he was 75 years old. Someone like him had to have been killed, poisoned or exposed to radiation, whether from enemies or rivals. Though many have suspected the same thing, there has never been any proof. Eight years after the death of the legendary Palestinian leader, it looked like things would stay that way.
Democrats accuse Republican critics of 'stunning,
but not surprising' hypocrisy on Jerusalem While hitting back at attacks over changes to party platform, Democrats don't deny pro-Israel provisions have been removed
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR - TimesOfIsrael.com
Democrats hit back Tuesday in the wake of Republican attacks over the removal of pro-Israel provisions from the Democratic Party platform, including the affirmation that Jerusalem is Israel's capital.
They accused the Republicans of hypocrisy, and of seeking to distract attention from the Democratic National Convention, but they did not deny the Republican account of the changes made to the platform.
"President Bush signed waivers 16 times to avoid moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem," noted David Harris, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, accusing Republicans of "stunning, but not surprising" hypocrisy on the issue.
Egypt closes in on $1bn US debt deal Obama administration nears agreement with Egypt's new government as Washington seeks to help Cairo shore up ailing economy
Reuters in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
The Obama administration is close to a deal with Egypt's new government for $1bn in debt relief, according to a senior US official, as Washington seeks to help Cairo shore up its ailing economy in the aftermath of its pro-democracy uprising.
US diplomats and negotiators for Egypt's new Islamist president,Mohamed Morsi – who took office in June after the country's first free elections – were working to finalise an agreement, the official said on Monday.
Syrian use of chemical weapons
would bring a 'blistering' response, warns French FM Laurent Fabius notes Europe and US see eye-to-eye on the issue, with Russia and China holding the 'same position'
By AP and ILAN BEN ZION - TimesOfIsrael.com
France's foreign minister said Western powers are preparing a tough response in case Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime deploys chemical or biological weapons in its civil war.
Laurent Fabius said "our response … would be massive and blistering."
Fabius, speaking on RMC radio Monday, said "we are discussing this notably with our American and English partners." President Barack Obama has called it a "red line" for the US if Assad's regime were to use chemical or biological weapons.
Was Gen. Dempsey Goading Israel to Attack Iran?
By Jeffrey Goldberg - TheAtlantic.com
Chemi Shalev has an interesting interpretation of Gen. Martin Dempsey's unfortunate comments earlier this week -- he said the U.S. doesn't want to be seen as "complicit" in an preventive Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, which when coupled by the U.S. decision to radically reduce the scale of a joint Israeli-American missile defense exercise, suggests that the Obama Administration is, to some degree, cutting Israel adrift. I don't think it's actually cutting Israel adrift; its goal is to prevent Israel from attacking Iran before the November election, and one way to do that is to reinforce the message to the Israelis that Obama means what he says when he says he will stop Iran from going nuclear. Anyway, it's a bit of a mystery. As readers of Goldblog know, I'm in the camp of people who believe that Obama is serious about stopping Iran, but this week I've had my doubts about the overarching strategy. Here's Shalev:
Did Obama Just Make A Deal With Israel
To Delay The War With Iran Until After The Election?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Barack Obama cares about Barack Obama far more than he does about either Israel or Iran. And as far as Barack Obama is concerned, delaying the coming war between Israel and Iran until after the election is what is best for Barack Obama. Just think about it. If Israel attacked Iran right now, who would that please? It would mostly please hardcore Republicans, and they are not going to vote for Obama anyway. To independents and liberals, Obama would look like a guy that couldn't stop war from happening in the Middle East. If the U.S. showed support for the Israeli attack, that would greatly discourage his anti-war supporters from going to the polls. If the U.S. did not show support for the Israeli attack, Obama would potentially lose many of the Jewish voters that he desperately needs in swing states such as Florida. A war between Israel and Iran is a no-win situation for Obama right now, and as I wrote about yesterday, the Obama administration has been trying to discourage Israel from attacking Iran for weeks.
The coming Bond Market collapse and Silver bull run
Commodity Online
It is no secret that paper money has lost its cherished value long ago. It became self evident the moment the Western United States state of Utah allowed gold, silver coin to be used as legal tender.
As the interest rates are maintained at record lows and QE after QE take turns, inflation becomes a given. Currency begins to shed value. And in order to maintain your position on the right side of the inflation curve, you begin to dig deep into precious metals.
So, what will you opt; poor man's gold that is silver, or rich man's privilege that is gold? You may already be aware that you can get 50 times of silver for the same price of gold.
Bernanke Speaks, Precious Metals Surge
By Tim Iacono - SeekingAlpha.com
Following an impressive technical breakout the week prior that constituted the biggest combined jump in gold and silver prices in ten months, precious metals moved sharply higher again last week, capped by a late-week surge spurred by heightened expectations of more central bank money printing after Fed Chief Ben Bernanke defended previous easy money policies, what many viewed as paving the way for more of the same.
After surging nearly $40 an ounce on Friday, the gold price ended at a five-month high while posting its biggest monthly gain since January, and silver jumped more than $1.00 an ounce after the Fed Chairman spoke, rising to its loftiest level in four months.
Bernanke Fails To Move Gold Market Lower
By Jeff Nielson - SilverBearCafe.com
Following the solid gains in the price of gold last week and the much more explosive rise in the price of silver, all expectations (even among normally bearish commentators) were that bullion prices would continue rising this week. That all changed Monday morning, however.
At that point the Corporate Media released their Script for this week (written by the banking cabal itself). They "predicted" that B.S. Bernanke would "disappoint the market" when his prepared remarks would be released to the world on August 31st.
How Long Will the Dollar Remain the World's Reserve Currency?
By: Congressman Ron Paul - GoldSeek.com
We frequently hear the financial press refer to the U.S. dollar as the "world's reserve currency," implying that our dollar will always retain its value in an ever shifting world economy. But this is a dangerous and mistaken assumption.
Since August 15, 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold, the U.S. dollar has operated as a pure fiat currency. This means the dollar became an article of faith in the continued stability and might of the U.S. government.
What Bernanke Couldn't Quite Say
By Robert Kuttner - SeekingAlpha.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke used his much-anticipated Friday speech at the Fed's annual end-of-summer conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to sound almost like the last Keynesian. As he put it: "Monetary policy cannot achieve by itself what a broader and more balanced set of economic policies might achieve; in particular, it cannot neutralize the fiscal and financial risks that the country faces."
Commentators made much of the fact that Bernanke said that he considered the economy dangerously soft; that unemployment was far too high for this stage of a recovery; that housing continued to be a major drag, as well as state and local budget cuts. Fed chairmen are famously Delphic. But Bernanke was blunt:
Federal Reserve has already started QE3,
says investor Jim Rogers Veteran US investor Jim Rogers believes the Federal Reserve has already launched a third round of quantitative easing, despite chairman Ben Bernanke failing to mention stimulus measures in his Jackson Hole speech last week.
By Andrew Trotman - Telegraph.co.uk
Mr Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros, believes that America's central bank is secretly printing money to avoid "getting egg on their face again" after previous attempts to kickstart the faltering economy with $2 trillion of QE failed.
"I do not know if they [the Fed] will announce it," he told India'sEconomic Times. "I know they are going to print more money. They already are. If you look at their balance sheets, you will see that something is happening, assets are building on their balance sheets and they are not coming from the tooth fairy.
The Consequences of Easy Monetary Policy
By: John Mauldin - GoldSeek.com
We heard from Bernanke today with his Jackson Hole speech. Not quite the fireworks of his speech ten years ago, but it does offer us a chance to contrast his thinking with that of another Federal Reserve official who just published a paper on the Dallas Federal Reserve website. Bernanke laid out the rationalization for his policy of ever more quantitative easing. But how effective is it? And are there unintended consequences we should be aware of? Why is it that the markets seem to positively salivate over the prospect of additional QE?
Why The Fed Will Ease In September
By Michael Ashton - SeekingAlpha.com
On Friday, the long-awaited Jackson Hole speech by Ben Bernanke finally happened. With bated breath, investors waited for news of his oration. Unfortunately, most investors don't speak "Fed," so it was manifestly unclear, or clearly unmanifest, what the Chairman was necessarily getting at. Some investors seemed to be expecting him to say "start the choppers, boys, and let's light this candle."
Well, that's not how Fed Chairmen…or economists…or humans, except for Nicolas Cage…speak. But what Bernanke actually said is still fairly clear to those who have listened to Fedspeak for a long time. An important part of Fedspeak is that the speaker assumes the listener is completely aware of the context, and the subtext, of his remarks. So let us forget our predispositions for the moment, about what the FOMC may decide next month, and dispassionately analyze the arguments currently before the Committee – which constitute the context in which the Chairman delivered his remarks.
Can Draghi Be Believed?
By Simon Tilford - Project-Syndicate.org
LONDON – Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, has repeatedly claimed that the ECB will do everything necessary to save the euro. Nothing has been formally agreed yet, but the ECB is expected to announce a new government bond-buying program following next week's meeting of its Governing Council. Will it work?
To have a significant impact on Italian and Spanish borrowing costs, the latest effort must be big enough to dispel the convertibility risk that underlies the extreme polarization of government bond yields across the eurozone: investors are loathe to hold Spanish and Italian debt, because they fear that both countries might be forced to leave the currency union. Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that the ECB will do enough to persuade investors that membership is unequivocally forever, not least because Germany's Bundesbank opposes any open-ended commitment to capping borrowing costs.
"ECB Bazooka Needed" as Pressure on Spain
"Set to Intensify", Central Bank Action "Good for Gold"
By: Ben Traynor - GoldSeek.com
SPOT MARKET gold prices hovered close to $1690 an ounce during Monday morning's London trading, close to five month highs hit after Friday's speech by US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, in which he noted the US economic situation is "far from satisfactory".
"Central banks are still hurtling towards more cash-printing," one Hong Kong dealer told newswire Reuters Monday.
"They are under pressure to be doing something actively, which is good for gold."
Merkel, Monti Lead Diplomatic Push
As Draghi's Plan Takes Shape
By Andrew Frye - Bloomberg.com
European leaders are stepping up shuttle diplomacy this week as they brace for their central banker's plan to defend the euro from bond-market turmoil.
European Union President Herman Van Rompuy is traveling to Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel today as Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti welcomes French President Francois Hollande to Rome. They were all given a hint about what may be in store when European Central Bank President Mario Draghi told officials yesterday he would be comfortable buying three-year government bonds to bring down borrowing costs for nations in financial distress.
US companies get ready for 'the unthinkable' -
a Greek euro-zone exit Whether it's trucking in cash or reorganising computer systems, firms are making plans
NY Times via SCMP.com
Even as Greece desperately tries to avoid defaulting on its debt, US companies are preparing for what was once unthinkable: that Greece will soon be forced to leave the euro zone.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has looked into filling trucks with cash and sending them over the Greek border so clients can continue to pay local employees and suppliers in the event money is unavailable. Ford has configured its computer systems so they will be able to immediately handle a new Greek currency.
Is Spain Running Out Of Cash?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Some hours ago Spain finally bit the bullet, and after months of waffling had no choice but to hand over €4.5 billion (the first of many such cash rescues) in the form of a bridge loan to insolvent Bankia, which last week reported staggering losses (translation: huge deposit outflows which have made the fudging of its balance sheet impossible). As a reminder, in June Spain formally announced it would request up to €100 billion in bailout cash for its insolvent banking system, which subsequently was determined would come from the bank rescue fund, the Frob, which in turn would be funded with ESM debt which subordinates regular Spanish bonds, promises to the contrary by all politicians (whose job is to lie when it becomes serious) notwithstanding.
Euro shorts smell blood
By Alasdair Macleod - GoldSeek.com
Within the eurozone there are great stresses. At one extreme there are punitive costs of borrowing for Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy; at the other there is zero or negative interest rates for Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. Doubtless the first group begets the second, as captive investors in euros have to buy government bonds, and this requirement is being funnelled away from risk into safety.
Global crisis moves East as China suffers rapid downturn China's industrial output is contracting at the fastest pace since the depths of the global financial crisis, with knock-on effects spreading across the Far East.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"It just keeps getting worse," said Alistair Thornton and Xianfang Ren from IHS Global Insight. "The government has underestimated the pace of the slowdown and is behind the curve."
The HSBC/Markit manufacturing index for China fell to 47.6 in August, the lowest since the onset of Great Recession in late 2008. Inventories are rising. The index for new export orders fell to the lowest since March 2009. "Beijing must step up policy easing to stabilise growth," said Hongbin Qu from HSBC.
China Is Going to Save Us – Again
BY PATER TENEBRARUM - FinancialSense.com
Mrs. Merkel has just visited China, a big delegation in tow, for extensive talks with Wen Jiabao and his government. Germany has good reason to keep in close touch with China: it is one of its biggest export destinations these days. Since 1999 Germany's exports to China have risen nearly ten-fold and today amount to 2.5% of its GDP. The rest of the euro area is also exporting quite a bit to China, and conversely, the euro area is also China's biggest customer.
Back in 2007, when Berlin invited the Dalai Lama, the relationship with Beijing chilled considerably, but that is all forgotten today. Business has become the major issue, and China is understandably worried about the crisis its main trading partner goes through.
Treasury Yields Touch Month Lows Before ISM Factory Data
By Masaki Kondo and Sharon Chen - Bloomberg.com
Treasury yields touched one-month lows before U.S. data forecast to show manufacturing is struggling to recover, fanning speculation the Federal Reserve will expand monetary easing.
Rates slid on Aug. 31 after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said he wouldn't rule out a third round of bond buying in so- called quantitative easing to spur growth. The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee will next meet on Sept. 12-13.
"Treasury yields will decline." said Hiromasa Nakamura, who invests in U.S. debt from Tokyo at Mizuho Asset Management Co., which oversees the equivalent of $41 billion. "The U.S. economy is very fragile."
For how much longer can we
keep kicking the can down this road? David Davis was at his most lucid today in arguing the case for a smaller state and a much bolder deregulatory agenda, though he was strangely silent on reform of the planning system, a real blind spot for many on the Tory right.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
Ignoring the inconsistencies, this was nevertheless a welcome call to arms which the Government would be well advised to heed. The one-time contender for leadership of the Conservative Party is right; Britain is not condemned to inevitable economic decline but it requires much more radical action than we have seen to date if such an outcome is to be avoided.
Morgan Stanley faces imminent failure & ruin,
may see first private stock account thefts
By Jim Willie - SilverBearCafe.com
Begin with a preface to a meaningful event that could change the entire US landscape, a redux of what happened four years ago. Consider the next Wall Street financial firm failure. It is in progress. It is not avoidable. It will have numerous ramifications. It will open the door to account thefts, the burial of documents, the ransack of undesired leveraged positions, the concealment of wrecked derivatives, and a path toward the merger of surviving (selected core) firms. It will urge an extreme defensive posture.
More older workers making up labor force Many seniors are staying on the job or returning to the workforce, leaving less room for younger workers and reducing their purchasing power.
By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Millions of workers in their prime have dropped out of the labor market in recent years, but many older Americans are delaying retirement and being added to the workforce in record numbers.
Nearly 1 in 5 Americans ages 65 and older are working or looking for jobs — the highest in almost half a century.
The labor participation rates for other age groups have slid since the recession began at the end of 2007, most sharply for younger adults but also for people in their prime working years, their 30s to 50s.
Denver Public Schools pilot program
to push 'social action,' 'social justice'
By Eric Owens - DailyCaller.com
In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the Denver public schools system are adding a fourth 'r' to the curriculum: rebellion.
According to NBC affiliate KUSA, Denver Public Schools is implementing a new system to evaluate teachers. In order to achieve a coveted "distinguished" rating, teachers at each grade level must show that they "encourage" students to "challenge and question the dominant culture" and "take social action to change/improve society or work for social justice."
How Plan to Help City Pay Pensions Backfired A bond sale that was intended to help Stockton, Calif., reduce a shortfall in pension money wound up making the problem worse.
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH - NYTimes.com
Jeffrey A. Michael, a finance professor in Stockton, Calif., took a hard look at his city's bankruptcy this summer and thought he saw a smoking gun: a dubious bond deal that bankers had pushed on Stockton just as the local economy was starting to tank in the spring of 2007, he said.
Stockton sold the bonds, about $125 million worth, to obtain cash to close a shortfall in its pension plans for current and retired city workers. The strategy backfired, which is part of the reason the city is now in Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Stockton is trying to walk away from the so-called pension obligation bonds and to renegotiate other debts.
The U.S. Drought and Electricity Generation
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
Well, its official – the U.S. government has acknowledged that the U.S. is in the worst drought in over 50 years, since December 1956, when about 58 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in moderate to extreme drought.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climatic Data Center's "State of the Climate Drought July 2012" report, "Based on the Palmer Drought Index, severe to extreme drought affected about 38 percent of the contiguous United States as of the end of July 2012, an increase of about 5 percent from last month… About 57 percent of the contiguous U.S. fell in the moderate to extreme drought categories (based on the Palmer Drought Index) at the end of July… According to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, about 63 percent of the contiguous U.S. (about 53 percent of the U.S. including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico) was classified as experiencing moderate to exceptional (D1-D4) drought at the end of July."
Economy, not Physical Markets, Driving Oil Prices
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
The U.S. Department of Energy last week issued one crude oil loan from the Strategic Petroleum reserve to Marathon Petroleum Co. as gulf operators dealt with the effects of Hurricane Isaac. The dual effect of the Category 1 storm and the Labor Day holiday in the United States caused a brief spike in energy prices. More than 80 percent of the production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico closed as a result of the storm, causing a ripple effect in the market for petroleum products. Western economies had already expressed concern about the economic fallout from high energy prices. A recent statement from the G7, however, and continued growth in the Chinese economy may suggest there are broader geopolitical concerns at stake than physical market issues.
Why Oil Prices are 10 Times More than in 1998
By Kurt Cobb - OilPrice.com
What were the prices of oil and gasoline in 1998? Do you remember? Without looking them up (or looking below this line), make your best guess.
I've been taking an informal poll to find out what people remember about oil and gasoline prices in that year. So far, only one person has correctly characterized prices back then. Most guesses have clustered around $2.50 to $3 a gallon for gasoline (in the United States). Only one person could come up with a crude oil price which she guessed was around $55 a barrel. The answers show a vague recollection that oil and gasoline were cheaper than they are today. But just how much cheaper has been lost down the memory hole.
NASA to Create Robotic Drilling Rig
By James Burgess - OilPrice.com
Robotic Drilling Systems AS is a Norwegian based company that has just signed a deal with NASA which will help it in its dream of developing a fully automated drilling rig which could position itself using satellite coordinates, erect 14 story steel reinforcements on its own, drill a well then move onto the next site.
Kenneth Sondervik, the sales and marketing vice president at Robotic Drilling Systems said that the process may seem futuristic, but is actually very similar to automated systems used in car manufacturing, or the guidance systems in cruise missiles.
Think hard to fly:
Chinese scientists unveil mind-controlled drone
RT.com
Chinese researchers have unveiled a system that allows users to control drones with their thoughts. The technology was designed to help handicapped people, but could have ample applications in other fields as well.
A video posted to YouTube by researchers at Zhejiang University shows how the system, called Flybuddy2, works. And it appears that you don't have to be a nuclear scientist to build one. All you need is an EEG headset with a Bluetooth connection to a laptop – plus a quadrotor Parrot AR Drone linked to the computer.
"The computer can receive EEG signals via Bluetooth and convert them to specific commands to control the AR drones through WiFi," a presenter explains.
Apple, Google gear up for mobile-wallet war
By Salvador Rodriguez - LATimes.com
Apple and Google appear to be headed toward a new fight, this one involving mobile wallets.
Earlier this week, pictures surfaced of a chip located toward the top of what appear to be parts for the next iPhone. Many believe this chip is for Near-Field Communication technology — or NFC — which allows phones to connect in close range using radio communications.
An example of what NFC can be used for is mobile payments, which Google already does with its Google Wallet service.
Convention security the embodiment of a police state
By Charles Hurt - WashingTimes.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Welcome to the police state.
Interest in the political conventions has plummeted, approval of politicians has reached historic lows and our public treasury is nearly broke. So what does the behemoth bureaucratic government apparatus do?
It erects the most impenetrable wall of security ever amassed to protect and promote the political gatherings that separate the hyper-elite from those out of power, unimportant and irrelevant. In other words, taxpayers.
Debt to hit $16T in time to crash Democratic convention
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Just as Democrats are gaveling in their convention Tuesday, the federal government likely will announce another dubious milestone — $16 trillion in total federal debt.
In an election already focused on domestic issues of jobs, spending and deficits, the $16 trillion number is likely to underscore just how much is at stake in November for both parties, which are offering dramatically different ways to begin to eat away at the deep hole.
Shortage of Labor Day
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team PatriotPost.us
The Foundation
"Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow." --Benjamin Franklin
For the Record
"Eight years ago, when John Kerry tried to defeat the incumbent George W. Bush, he accused Bush of leading a 'jobless recovery.' When the economy started creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, Kerry and the Democrats then claimed that Bush was creating mostly 'McJobs,' low-wage positions rather than higher-paying jobs for people with significant skills. ... Today, the Obama administration keeps claiming to have added 4.3 million jobs by choosing to start from February 2010 rather than the start of the recovery in June 2009 or the passage of Barack Obama's stimulus package in February 2009. The Obama recovery in full has only added less than 65,000 jobs per month, far below the level needed to keep up with population growth (125K-150K per month), and the civilian population participation rate has fallen to a 30-year low this spring. A new study now shows that even those jobs that have been added are the 'McJobs' that Kerry inaccurately accused Bush's recovery of generating. ... We're not even keeping up with population growth in this recovery.
How the Council on Foreign Relations
Controls Conservative Republicans
by Gary North, Tea Party Economist - LewRockwell.com
I sent a stripped-down version of my movie review of 2016 to my Tea Party Economist list. I knew it would outrage some of them.
Why did I do it? To make sure D'Souza sees it. The list is large. Someone will send it to him. I want him to know that the Old Right isn't buying his thesis that Obama's agenda is somehow uniquely wrong because it is anti-colonialist. Obama is a defender of the American Empire as Bush was. His agenda is that of one of the factions of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is not in bed with the neocons, meaning big on Israel, but the dominant foreign policy objectives of the CFR were pro-oil and therefore pro-Arab long before 1948, let alone the late 1960s, when the neocons showed up.
Is Ron Paul's 'Revolution' Over? Unquantifiable
by Allan Stevo - LewRockwell.com
At 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, Mitt Romney became the GOP nominee for President.
At about the same time, 5:15 p.m., I watched a man involved with Ron Paul's Louisiana victory box up phones at an outpost of the Ron Paul Revolution – a place from which some of the dispersed grassroots campaigns were run. Boxing up those phones marked the end of the 2012 phone-banking effort in that remote location. A room that I had seen abuzz with volunteer activity for months from early morning until whatever hour it is that Hawaiians start to no longer accept political phone calls was now being packed into a few small boxes and being shipped away. A few small boxes of equipment, a few hundred dollars to keep the lights on, and a dream for freer times ahead filled rooms like that across the country night-after-night. Tuesday that was all packed up.
'Extremists' chase some Republicans toward Obama
By Sean Lengell-The Washington Times
John Martin loves the GOP and wants to remain a Republican. But the party he grew up supporting has changed, he said, and Mitt Romney is doing nothing to keep his loyalty.
The Republican presidential nominee lacks the will or desire to stand up to "extremists" who have gained a sturdy foothold in the party, Mr. Martin said, and President Obama is far from the socialist demon portrayed by GOP leaders.
For that, the politically active New Jersey resident said, he will vote for Mr. Obama.
Obama Lays Foundation For Speech Stressing Choices
By Julianna Goldman - Bloomberg.com
President Barack Obama was 1,600 miles away from delegates gathering at the Democratic National Convention, laying the foundation for a week in which he will draw sharp contrasts with Republican Mitt Romney.
For the incumbent, whose candidacy four years ago was fueled by a theme of hope and change, much of this week at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, will be about setting himself apart from Romney.
Labor Brings Its Frustrations To Charlotte "Charlotte wouldn't have been our choice as a city." Lee Saunders beats the hell out of a chair.
Rosie Gray - BuzzFeed.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The newly-elected president of the giant public workers' union AFSCME, Lee Saunders, took a page out of Clint Eastwood's book at an Ohio delegation Labor Day breakfast on Monday, speaking to an empty chair that he pretended was occupied by Eastwood. At first it was just a lark.
"He's been sitting here listening to all the speakers before me, he's been listening to me, I want you to give Clint Eastwood a round of applause," Saunders said. "I brought him with me to learn some things, OK? To teach him, to educate him." The audience murmured and laughed.
Liberalism, as We Know It
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- With Americans, on average, worth less and earning less than when he was inaugurated, Barack Obama is requesting a second term by promising, or perhaps threatening, that prosperity is just around the corner if he can practice four more years of trickle-down government. This is dubious policy, scattering borrowed money in the hope that this will fill consumers and investors with confidence. But recently Obama revealed remarkable ambitions for it when speaking in Pueblo, Colo., a pleasant place Democratic presidents should avoid.
After delivering in Pueblo what would be his last extended speech, Woodrow Wilson suffered a collapse that prefaced his disabling stroke. And in Pueblo this summer, Obama announced what should be a disqualifying aspiration.
Obama's Accelerating Downward Spiral For America
By Peter Ferrara, Contributor - Forbes.com
New income data from the Census Bureau reveal what a great job Barack Obama has done for the middle class as President. During his entire tenure in the oval office, median household income has declined by 7.3%.
In January, 2009, the month he entered office, median household income was $54,983. By June, 2012, it had spiraled down to $50,964. That's a loss of $4,019 per family, the equivalent of losing a little less than one month's income a year, every year. And on our current course that is only going to get worse not better.
New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism
By Victor Morton - The Washington Times
The Obama campaign apparently didn't look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, "Forward" — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.
Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name "Forward!" or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called "Forward (generic name of socialist publications)."
Al-Qaeda Leader Strikes Deal With U.S.,
Saudis To Send 5,000 Fighters to Syria Yemeni Jihadist personally trained by Bin Laden
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
A militant who fought alongside Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and is now the leader of a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda in South Yemen has struck a deal with the United States and Saudi Arabia to send 5,000 Al-Qaeda fighters into Syria according to reports out of the Middle East.
Tariq al-Fadhli, jihadist leader of the Southern Yemen insurgency and a man personally trained by Bin Laden, has successfully negotiated with U.S. and Saudi officials to send 5,000 jihadist fighters via Turkey to aid Syrian rebels in the attempted overthrow of President Bashar Al-Assad, reports AlAlam. The report was also picked up by AdenAlghad.net.
U.S. Is Near Pact to Cut $1 Billion From Egypt's Debt
By STEVEN LEE MYERS - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Nearly 16 months after first pledging to helpEgypt's failing economy, the Obama administration is nearing an agreement with the country's new government to relieve $1 billion of its debt as part of an American and international assistance package intended to bolster its transition to democracy, administration officials said.
The administration's efforts, delayed by Egypt's political turmoil and by wariness in Washington about new leaders emerging from its first free elections, gained new urgency in recent weeks, even as the United States risks losing influence and investment opportunities to countries like China. President Mohamed Morsi chose China for his first official visit outside of the Middle East.
Egypt and Iran, new twin pillars
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi - ATimes.com
Egypt and Iran this week took a giant step toward overcoming their diplomatic estrangement, brought together by the exigencies of a global movement and, even more so, a complex regional calculus that has a long history of being shaped by foreign powers.
In a sign of changing times, the Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi used the opportunity of his participation in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran to put on full display of the delicate yet significant nuances of a "new Egypt" that has unshackled itself from foreign domination and moves according to its own incandescent atmosphere.
Nasrallah says Iran could strike US bases if Israel attacks "A decision has been taken to respond and the response will be very great," Hezbollah leader says, but adds he doesn't believe Jerusalem will launch a strike on Tehran's nuclear program in the foreseeable future.
Reuters - JPost.com
Iran could strike US bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, the leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said on Monday.
"A decision has been taken to respond and the response will be very great," Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television.
Washington tries to cut a deal with Iran 'Iran must steer clear of US interests in Gulf' Washington reportedly sends Tehran indirect message saying it will not back Israeli strike on nuclear facilities as long as Iran refrains from attacking American facilities in Persian Gulf
By Shimon Shiffer - YNetNews.com
The United States has indirectly informed Iran, via two European nations, that it would not back an Israeli strike against the country's nuclear facilities, as long as Tehran refrains from attacking American interests in the Persian Gulf, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.
According to the report, Washington used covert back-channels in Europe to clarify that the US does not intend to back Israel in a strike that may spark a regional conflict.
Iran could strike US bases if Israel attacks: Hezbollah
By Laila Bassam
BEIRUT | Mon Sep 3, 2012 6:35pm EDT
(Reuters) - Iran could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities even if American forces played no role in the attack, the leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said on Monday.
"A decision has been taken to respond and the response will be very great," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television.
