Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

Wednesday 10.31.2012

Gold volume light due to Hurricane Sandy
A slight decline in gold to more long liquidation from momentum-based traders. Some support is coming from Chinese physical flows thanks to their interest to buy gold from now and until New Years.
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Activity in gold futures was light Monday, with the New York trading floors closed due to the approach of Hurricane Sandy but trade continuing on CME Group's electronic platform, according to the traders.

Supply Issues Offer Additional Underpinnings to Gold
BY PETER GRANT - FinancialSense.com
Gold turned defensive in recent weeks, weighed by global growth concerns, persistent economic uncertainty in the eurozone and the United Sates, along with a rising lack of clarity about the likely outcome of next week's U.S. Presidential election. However, downside potential is thought to be limited by continued robust demand for the precious metal as a hedge against the global debasement of fiat currencies, as well as ongoing central bank demand for the purposes of reserve diversification.
Most of our readers are probably pretty well aware of these macro-drivers on the demand side, but it's also worth noting some significant supply side considerations:

Romney Election Bad News for Gold
BY BEN TRAYNOR - FinancialSense.com
The spot market gold price traded just below $1715 an ounce during Tuesday morning's London session, little changed from last week's close, while European stock markets recovered their losses from a day earlier and UK and German government bond prices fell.
"Downside targets will be in focus while the gold price stays below the 17 October high at $1753.86," says Commerzbank senior technical analyst Axel Rudolph.
The silver price climbed above $32 an ounce shortly after London opened, holding above that level for most of the morning, while other commodities were broadly flat.

The Unadulterated Gold Standard
by Keith Weiner - ZeroHedge.com
The choice of the word "unadulterated" is not accidental. There were many different kinds of gold standard, including what we now call the Classical Gold Standard, the Gold Bullion Standard, and the Gold Exchange Standard. Each contained flaws; each was adulterated.
For example, in the Coinage Act of 1792, the government forced the price of one thing to be fixed in terms of another thing. The mechanism was in Section 11:
"And be it further enacted, That "the proportional value of gold to silver in all coins which shall by law be current as money within the United States, shall be as fifteen to one…"

Dollar Drops as Safety Bid Eases Before Chinese PMI Data
By Kristine Aquino and Masaki Kondo - Bloomberg.com
The U.S. dollar weakened versus most of its 16 major peers on speculation reports tomorrow will show improvement in Chinese manufacturing, brightening the global economic outlook and damping demand for haven assets.
The greenback remained lower after dropping yesterday against the yen as U.S. capital markets are set to reopen today after Hurricane Sandy swept through New York. Demand for the euro was tempered before data due today that may show unemployment in the 17-nation region climbed to a record last month, adding to concern the debt crisis is hurting prospects for growth.

The Virtual Recovery
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Since mid-2009 the US has been enjoying a virtual recovery courtesy of a rigged inflation measure that understates inflation. The financial Presstitutes spoon out the government's propaganda that prices are rising less than 2%. But anyone who purchases food, fuel, medical care or anything else knows that low inflation is no more real that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction or Gadhafi's alleged attacks on Libyan protesters or Iran's nuclear weapons. Everything is a lie to serve the power-brokers.

Anticipating the Devolution of Big Government
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
Massive Borrowing
In a misguided attempt to maintain an unsustainable Status Quo, the Federal government is borrowing unprecedented amounts of money that then must be serviced. And the Federal Reserve is expanding its balance sheet by trillions of dollars ("printing money") and intervening in stock, bond, and other markets for the purposes of managing perception ("the recovery is here!")
These government funds are not just paying the government's bills – they are being used to guarantee loans and mortgages that subsequently enter default, transferring what was private debt to the public and subsidizing politically powerful special interests.

European Union reaches highest unemployment rate since crisis started – Spain hits 25 percent unemployment rate for first time. The missing EU crisis headlines.
MyBudget360.com
During the height of the US Great Depression, the unemployment rate stood at 25 percent. This was a devastating experience for our economy and shifted policies and geopolitics for decades to come. So when you have the European Union, the world's largest trading bloc with two countries experiencing unemployment rates of 25 percent people should be paying more attention. The unemployment rate in Spain for the first time hit the 25 percent mark last month. The figures are more troubling when you dig deeper into the data. Greece is also facing tough economic times. At the core of the crisis is the subject matter of too much debt. Spain is pulling back from a busted housing bubble and Greece is dealing with massive debt-to-GDP ratios. We trade heavily with the EU so what happens in Europe is bound to have an impact in the US. Is the crisis in Europe solved?

Don't Worry Germany -
Your Gold At The New York Fed Is Safe And Sound
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The hurricane water surge has come and gone, devastating downtown New York, but one place, the one that represents the deepest hole burrowed south of Houston street and literally lies on the New York bedrock 80 feet below street level, is safe and sound. The place, of course, is where over 20% of the world's tungsten gold is stored. Especially that of Germany (wink wink). And Germany, whose central bank was recently caught in a series of official disclosure faux pas as described here in regards to its official gold holdings, can rest assured that nothing that hasn't already happened to its gold, happened last night.

Brazil's Growth Conundrum
By Andrés Velasco - Project-Syndicate.org
SANTIAGO – Brazil needs to grow more. That is what the country's president, Dilma Rousseff, keeps telling Brazilians. With the economy nearly stagnant in 2011 and the first half of 2012, faster growth is a political necessity for her. But her admonition also reflects a broader national preoccupation with economic might, befitting a vast country with continent-size aspirations.
That outlook sets Brazil apart in a region where politicians – from Argentina and Chile to Ecuador and Venezuela – often seem more concerned with handing out slices of natural-resource wealth than with creating new sources of prosperity.

Why Is Jamie Dimon Doing The Hustle
With The Countrywide "Hustler"?
By Steve Dibert - MFI-Miami.com
Last week when word broke out about the U.S. Government suing Bank of America under the False Claims Act for a $1 Billion, two important issues were overlooked by the media that could very well affect the legitimacy of this case and could impact U.S. monetary policy for the next four years.
The first issue is a legal issue that could very well destroy the government's civil complaint depending on how liberal or conservative the judge is. How can the federal government sue Bank of America under the False Claims Act which imposes liability on those who defraud the federal government, over something Countrywide did prior to Bank of America's acquisition of Countrywide Financial?

Stop Manipulating Bank Earnings
With Loan-Loss Reserves, Currency Comptroller Warns
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Readers of Zero Hedge know well that one of the most abhorred (by us) accounting gimmicks employed by banks each and every quarter over the past 3 years to boost their bottom line, is to engage in loan-loss reserve releases: a process which has absolutely no associated cash flow benefit, but merely boosts EPS for GAAP purposes. In some cases, like this quarter's absolutely farcical JPM earnings release, the abuse is beyond the pale, as the offending bank releases reserves even as it reports surging non-performing loans: two processes which in a normal world can not coexist. Yet quarter after quarter banks keep on doing this, and in fact a big part of Q3's to date EPS outperformance is courtesy of financial company "earnings", of which, in turn, loan losses amount to about 50% of the entire blended financials bottom line. Yet while we can rage and warn, nothing usually happens until there is a market crash due to the gross manipulation of reality that such an activity entails. Luckily, this time someone with more clout in the legacy establishment has now stood up to warn about the mounting dangers associated with the relentless abuse of loan-loss reserve releases: none other than the US Comptroller of the Currency.

Kocherlakota: Fed policy is, if anything, too tight
By Joseph Cadotte
Duluth, Minnesota | Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:57pm EDT
(Reuters) - Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota on Tuesday delivered a spirited defense of the Fed's ultra-easy monetary policy and said the central bank may need to do even more to stabilize prices and boost employment.
The Fed earlier this month repeated its vow to keep U.S. interest rates near zero through at least mid-2015 and stuck to its plan to buy mortgage-backed securities to push down long-term borrowing costs.

Inequality Is The Child Of Fiat Money
By Brian Domitrovic - Forbes.com
For a while there, it looked like the 2012 election was going to be a referendum on economic inequality. This would have been weird, in that economic growth and its twin, employment, are the clear issues of choice in these years of torpid economic recovery. Had President Obama succeeded in making the election about inequality, which it appears now he will not, it would have amounted to one of the great examples of changing the subject in recent political history (as I pointed out a few months ago in atalk at the Cato Institute).

Bearishness Rises among Pros
Bye-Bye Bull?
Bearishness rises among Big Money poll respondents, who see Obama winning, but think Romney would be better for stocks. High on GE, Microsoft, and IBM, down on Sears Holdings.
By Jacqueline Doherty - Barron's
After three years of handsome returns for U.S. stocks, the optimism of our Big Money pros is waning as the list of things to worry about grows longer. Just under half of the money managers who responded to our fall survey describe themselves as bullish or very bullish about the market's potential through June 2013.
While still outnumbering the bears, the bulls have shrunk to 46% of respondents, down from 55% in our spring poll and 52% a year ago. Those who have pulled in their horns certainly have good reason for doing so. Corporate earnings growth is slowing, there's the threat of war in the Middle East and defaults in Europe, and the fiscal cliff and a contentious election are approaching in the U.S. Yet the Big Money bulls expect the Dow Jones Industrial Average to rise to about 14,400 in the next year.

Economic Confidence at Five-year High: Gallup
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
Confidence in the U.S. economy rose 4 points in the week ending October 28th, from a reading of -19 to -14, the highest reading since 2008 when Gallup began tracking economic confidence. The previous all-time high of -16 was reached in May of this year. As Gallup noted:
The current daily tracking data, conducted on the eve of the presidential election, are the most positive Gallup has found during the last five years, roughly corresponding to the entire span of the economic downturn.

UBS to cut 10,000 jobs in fixed income retreat
By Katharina Bart
ZURICH, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS unveiled plans on Tuesday to fire 10,000 staff and wind down its fixed income business, returning to its private banking roots as it adapts to tough capital rules that make it harder to turn a profit from trading.
Zurich-based UBS will focus on wealth management and a smaller investment bank, ditching much of the trading business that ran up $50 billion in losses in the financial crisis and is embroiled in a global LIBOR rate-fixing investigation.

Personal Incomes Offset By Rise In Food & Energy
BY LANCE ROBERTS - FinancialSense.com
The Bureau Of Economic Analysis reported that Personal Incomes in September advanced 0.4 percent from August which had increased by only 0.1 percent. More importantly, wages & salaries gained 0.3 percent tacking onto the 0.1 percent increase in August. Real disposable incomes, after adjusting for inflationary pressures, declined for the month by 0.02%. This was the second month of decline after falling by -0.28% in August. However, digging down into the report revealed some other interesting issues as they relate to the financial state of the average American.

Disney to make new 'Star Wars' movies,
buy Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion from George Lucas
AP - WashingtonPost.com
LOS ANGELES — A decade since George Lucas said "Star Wars" was finished on the big screen, a new trilogy under new ownership is destined for theaters after The Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it was buying Lucasfilm Ltd. from him for $4.05 billion.
The seventh movie, with a working title of "Episode 7," is set for release in 2015. Episodes 8 and 9 will follow. The trilogy will continue the story of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia beyond "Return of the Jedi," the third film released and the sixth in the saga. After that, Disney plans a new "Star Wars" movie every two or three years. Lucas will serve as creative consultant in the new movies.

Apple Shake-Up Signals Tim Cook Era
By JESSICA E. LESSIN - WSJ.com
Now the Tim Cook era at Apple Inc. really begins.
In a shake-up weeks in the making, Apple's chief executive this week made a series of moves designed to restore peace to a management team roiled by the death last year of company co-founder Steve Jobs, whose outsize personality had kept managers in check.
Mr. Cook jettisoned Apple's most controversial executive, mobile software head Scott Forstall, who oversaw Apple's troubled maps unveiling, handing off his chief duties to a software executive viewed inside Apple as a more even-keeled manager. At the same time, Mr. Cook pushed out John Browett, who only six months ago took over Apple's widely-praised retail operations.

The Tech Behind Apple's Impossibly Thin New iMacs
BY CHRISTINA BONNINGTON - Wired.com
We know Apple has a love affair with thin. The iPhone 5 is the thinnest iPhone ever. The MacBook Air could very well be used to slice bread. And the svelte MacBook Pro with Retina Display shows even premium notebook offerings can stand to shed a few pounds.
Still, when Apple unveiled the new 21.5- and 27-inch iMacs at its media event last week, it was shocking just how much thinner Apple had managed to make them. They seemed almost surgically precise, the result not just of remarkably slim displays but also an advanced welding technology borrowed from the aerospace industry.

Labor Department Plans to Publish U.S. Jobs Report on Time
By Carlos Torres - Bloomberg.com
The Labor Department is striving to issue its monthly report on employment in the U.S. in three days as scheduled, a spokesman said today.
"The employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics are working hard to ensure the timely release of employment data on Friday, November 2," Carl A. Fillichio, the department's senior adviser for communications and public affairs, said in an e- mailed response to a Bloomberg inquiry. The report on October employment is due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington on Nov. 2.

Lukewarm jobs report awaits Americans as election nears
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:19pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. job growth likely picked up in October, but not enough to prevent the unemployment rate from rising off a near four-year low, although that might not matter for next week's presidential election.
Coming four days ahead of the tight contest, the closely watched employment report on Friday is not expected to shift much from its recent pattern, limiting its impact on voters.

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Hurricane Sandy relief: How to help now
Donations can be directed to those impacted by the storm.
By Jonnelle Marte - MarketWatch.com
Emergency responders are helping residents on the East Coast brace for — and recuperate from — flooding, downed trees and power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy. And those who aren't in the storm's cross hairs have several ways to support the relief efforts.
As of Sunday night, the American Red Cross had preshipped blood supplies to hospitals up and down the East Coast and dispatched 1,200 emergency responders to help hand out meals, care for the sick or disabled, and to support shelters. And with landfall still hours away, there were already more than 3,000 people in shelters managed or supported by the Red Cross, says spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego, who adds, "It's going to be a large and costly response across several states."
The Red Cross is by far the biggest charitable organization providing relief to those impacted by the storm. Donations can be directed to this effort by designating contributions for the disaster relief fund at RedCross.org or by calling 800-RED CROSS. Donations made by text message, however, will not necessarily be directed to hurricane relief. Texting "RedCross," with no spaces, to 90999 will create an automatic $10 donation to the Red Cross that will be added on to your next monthly phone bill, says Borrego. That donation will automatically go in the organization's "where the need is greatest" fund. Currently those affected by Hurricane Sandy would be beneficiaries of that fund, but that could change in coming weeks.

Sandy Cuts Wide Swath of Damage
Millions are left without power
By ANTON TROIANOVSKI, ALISON FOX,and JENNIFER LEVITZ - WSJ.com
Megastorm Sandy's march of destruction claimed at least 43 lives and left more than eight million people without electricity by late Tuesday, in one of the largest storms ever to strike the East Coast.
Diminished but still dangerous, the storm churned across Pennsylvania on Tuesday in an arc toward Canada, and the northeastern U.S. began its slow process of recovery. In New York, financial markets were expected to resume trading Wednesday, though big chunks of the city are without electricity and its vast network of subways remains idled by historic flooding.

Sandy Knocks Out Cable, Telephone, Wireless in 10 States
By Todd Shields and Ryan Faughnder - Bloomberg.com
Sandy, the Atlantic superstorm that landed yesterday, knocked out cable or telephone connections to more than 1 million customers in the New York area and weakened mobile-phone service from Virginia to Massachusetts.
About one-fourth of mobile-service transmitters failed in an area stretching from the coast of the northeastern U.S., where Sandy came ashore yesterday, to inland West Virginia, Federal Communications Commission officials said in Washington.

Hurricane Sandy Topples New York Data Center, Gawker, Gizmodo
BY CADE METZ - Wired.com
Big-name websites Gawker, Gizmodo, The Huffington Post, and BuzzFeed experienced outages on Monday after a Manhattan data center apparently lost power due to Hurricane Sandy.
All four sites are hosted by Datagram, an internet service provider and web hosting operation based in New York. According to a message posted to BuzzFeed at about 7 p.m. PDT on Monday, DataGram was without power after its basement flooded and a fuel pump broke.

U.S. Declares 'Alert' At Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant In N.J.
By Eric Savitz - Forbes.com
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that at "Alert" has been declared at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Forked River, New Jersey, an event related to Hurricane Sandy.
The NRC said that the plant, which is in a regularly scheduled outage, declared the Alert at 8:45 p.m. Eastern time "due to water exceeding certain high water level criteria in the plant's water intake structure."

Sandy's Damage So Far: More than $20 Billion
Depending on the full toll in New York,
it could be much, much greater.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
The economic wreckage from Hurricane Sandy will likely total more than $20 billion, according to a research outfit quoted in Bloomberg this morning. Kinetic Analysis Corp.'s Charles Watson told the outlet that the majority of that cost will fall on cities and states as they rebuild damaged infrastructure.
Those figures will surely evolve as authorities get a better handle on the extent of the storm's toll. But to put the losses in some perspective, Hurricane Katrina left behind nearly $100 billion in total property damage. The nine other most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history each left behind between $9 billion and $30 billion in destruction.

There Are 3 New Yorks Today:
My Last 24 Hours in Manhattan
One is underwater.
One is dark, but dry.
And one is basically normal.
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
NEW YORK -- This city is proudly kaleidoscopic. But in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, there are three New Yorks. The first is underwater. The second is dry and dark. And the third is, rather miraculously, as close to normal as anybody could possibly expect after what might be the worst storm to touch Manhattan in recorded history.
And that is the single most surprising thing about being a New Yorker in the wake of Sandy. In the span of a 20 minute bike ride from Lower Manhattan to the 50s, you can pass one city floating underwater, one city dark and abandoned, and, finally, one city with lights and coffee lines and frantic people pushing through throngs of pedestrians -- in other words, typical New York.

New York Subway System
Faces Weeks to Recover From Storm
By Angela Greiling Keane, Jeff Plungis
and Alan Levin - Bloomberg.com
New York's subway system may take weeks of work and tens of billions of dollars to be restored to full service as officials assess the toll from floods, hurricane-force winds and electrical damage that crippled the most populous U.S. city's transportation hub.
"I can say unequivocally that the MTA last night faced a disaster as devastating as it has ever faced in its history," Metropolitan Transit Authority Chairman Joe Lhota said at a news conference today.

The Article That Predicted
the New York Subway Storm Surge Problem
Sandy may flood New York's transportation system. Meet the Columbia risk researcher who told us this could happen last month.
By Alexis Madrigal - TheAtlantic.com
If you would like to see the definition of prescience, take a look at this New York Times article from September by Mireya Navarro. She quotes Columbia's Klaus Jacob essentially predicting the trouble that New York now faces, namely, that a big storm surge could paralyze its transportation system.
Klaus H. Jacob, a research scientist at Columbia University's Earth Institute, said the storm surge from Irene came, on average, just one foot short of paralyzing transportation into and out of Manhattan.

Sandy's destruction in New York
turns life in Lower Manhattan on its head
By Sally Jenkins - WashingtonPost.com
NEW YORK — Ordinarily, veteran New Yorkers don't like to be caught looking up. But when a power center loses its power, it's no ordinary tourist sight. Residents stared open-mouthed Tuesday at the darkened, sodden outline of the Manhattan financial district left by Hurricane Sandy. A triangular shard of glass hung, shivering, from a blown-out office window, revealing an empty brown desk. The steps of the mighty JPMorgan Chase building looked like a muddy shore. Strings of stoplights swung in the wind, dead as fish eyes.

Hospital Evacuation in N.Y. Exposes Outdated Power Backup
By Stephanie Armour, Meg Tirrell
and Shannon Pettypiece - Bloomberg.com
The failure of generators at New York University Langone Medical Center during Hurricane Sandy has raised concerns that U.S. hospitals are vulnerable to the collapse of outdated emergency backup power systems.
One in 20 hospitals are unprepared for power disruptions, and an incident may result in more than $1 million in lost revenue and other costs, according to Lawrence Associates LLC, a Bridgewater, New Jersey-based consulting company that focuses on economic justification for technology spending. Coney Island Hospital and Bellevue Hospital Center in New York also reportedly evacuated some patients after backup power failures.

Nuclear plants shut down units as storm hits coast
By Josh Lederman - WashingtonPost.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Parts of two nuclear power plants were shut down late Monday and early Tuesday, while another plant — the nation's oldest — was put on alert after waters from Superstorm Sandy rose 6 feet above sea level.
One of the units at Indian Point, a plant about 45 miles north of New York City, was shut down Monday because of external electrical grid issues, said Entergy Corp., which operates the plant. The company said there was no risk to employees or the public, and the plant was not at risk due to water levels from the Hudson River, which reached 9 feet 8 inches and was subsiding. Another unit at the plant was still operating at full power.

Obama Gets Christie's Praise as Storm Aftermath Assessed
By Lisa Lerer and Julianna Goldman - Bloomberg.com
President Barack Obama drew praise from one of Republican Mitt Romney's top backers for the government's response to the Atlantic superstorm as both candidates tried to navigate the politics of a natural disaster with the election one week away.
New Jersey Republican Chris Christie, the governor of one of the states hardest hit by Sandy, lauded the president during interviews on morning news shows today. Obama will visit New Jersey tomorrow, the White House said in a statement.

'Cooling Out' the Voters
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
Confidence men know that their victim -- "the mark" as he has been called -- is eventually going to realize that he has been cheated. But it makes a big difference whether he realizes it immediately, and goes to the police, or realizes it after the confidence man is long gone.
So part of the confidence racket is creating a period of uncertainty, during which the victim is not yet sure of what is happening. This delaying process has been called "cooling out the mark."

Mitt Romney in 2011:
'We Cannot Afford' Federal Disaster Relief
As Hurricane Sandy looms and flooding begins, the Republican presidential candidate's primary remarks are getting a second look.
By Garance Franke-Ruta - TheAtlantic.com
Mitt Romney said America shouldn't be in the business of providing federal disaster relief and that it would be better for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's functions to be handled by individual states or even the private sector.
Queried directly on the topic by CNN's John King during the June 13, 2011 Republican presidential primary debate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, Romney said the federal government "cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids."

A big wind for the final week before the elections
By Wesley Pruden-The Washington Times
Heeeeeere's Frankenstorm. All bets are off.
Television editors and reporters and some of our flightiest politicians have abandoned the presidential campaign for more frightful stuff. They're determined, as usual, to make something bad a lot worse.
The tone of the coverage, not of the storm but of the wait for the storm, ranges from "excited" to "hysterical." A tsunami warning was canceled Sunday for Hawaii, but you might think if it could squeeze through the Panama Canal and make a few sharp turns out of the Gulf of Mexico it would threaten Manhattan. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg could have taken that possibility into account — or maybe by shutting down the trains and subways he was preventing thirsty evildoers in Manhattan from traveling into the 'burbs to find a man-sized soda pop.

Q&A: Could Sandy postpone the election?
By JOSH LEDERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) - One week before a close election, superstorm Sandy has confounded the presidential race, halted early voting in many areas and led some to ponder whether the election might even be postponed.
It could take days to restore electricity to more than 8 million homes and businesses that lost power when the storm pummeled the East Coast. That means it's possible power could still be out in parts of some states on Election Day next Tuesday - a major problem for precincts that rely on electronic voting machines.

And The Survey Says:
If Obama, Sell Stocks;
If Romney, Sell Bonds
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The US elections have the potential to have a significant impact on US equities and rates markets, according to a recent survey by Barclays Research. Investors seem to believe in a more promising growth outlook under a Romney win, in spite of their concerns about a likely tighter monetary policy stance. They favor long equities and short bond portfolios as the best way to express a Romney win. Under anObama win, investors favor bonds and are divided about the direction of equities, but would choose bonds and equities over FX and commodities to express this scenario. Obama's victory would likely be perceived as preserving the status quo (asset market moves are expected to be muted across the board), while a Romney win is more likely to suggest a change of direction to clients by way of a better growth outlook. Congressional deadlock remains the biggest economic/policy concern no matter who wins.

Romney goes off-road with the truth
By Dana Milbank - WashingtonPost.com
Mitt Romney spoke to supporters in the Ohio town of Defiance last week, but his words came from the twin cities of Duplicity and Deception.
"I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China," the Republican presidential nominee proclaimed, referring to the automaker President Obama saved from dissolution with taxpayer funds. "I will fight for every good job in America."

Race is tied, but most think Obama will win:
Reuters/Ipsos poll
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:51pm EDT
(Reuters) - The U.S. presidential race remains a dead heat one week before Election Day but most Americans think President Barack Obama will defeat Republican Mitt Romney, according to a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released on Tuesday.
Obama leads Romney among likely voters by 47 percent to 46 percent, a statistically insignificant margin, the online survey found. Neither candidate has held a clear lead since early October.

This Election Is About the Court, Not the Economy
By Noah Feldman - Bloomberg.com
One-issue voters have always seemed like cranks to me. It's natural enough to have priorities, but who thinks one of them is more important than all the other political issues combined?
This U.S. presidential election, though, is different. A reasonable person could vote on the basis of future U.S. Supreme Court nominations alone -- because on almost everything else that matters, the differences between the candidates are going to be vanishingly small when put into practice.

Why Romney Is the War Candidate (cont'd)
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
I recently argued that America is more likely to wind up in a war with Iran if Mitt Romney is elected president than if President Obama is re-elected. The idea wasn't that Romney is any more eager to attack Iran than Obama. Rather, Romney is less likely to reach a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue--and the longer that issue goes unresolved, the more likely war is to happen, whether via American attack, Israeli attack, assassination tit-for-tats that get out of hand, a misconstrued naval mishap in the Persian Gulf, whatever.
But Iran isn't the only place where a Romney presidency would increase the chances of American involvement in war. The second most likely venue is Syria. I'm not saying Romney is likely to get American militarily involved in Syria--just that he's more likely to do so than Obama is.

U.S. intel budget topped $75 billion in 2012
By Shaun Waterman-The Washington Times
The U.S. spent $75.4 billion on its military and civilian spy agencies in the last fiscal year, officials announced Tuesday.
The U.S. intelligence budget is divided between the Military Intelligence Program, which the Pentagon said was $21.5 billion for fiscal 2012, and the National Intelligence Program, which was $53.9 billion, according to Director of National IntelligenceJames R. Clapper.

Israel reckons with unraveling Gaza policy
By Joel Greenberg - WashingtonPost.com
JERUSALEM — When the emir of Qatar paid the first visit by a head of state to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip last week, there were two different reactions from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In one statement, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the ministry, accused the emir, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, of backing a terrorist organization and having "thrown peace under the bus."

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Tuesday 10.30.2012

Don't Fear a Normal Gold Correction
By Frank Holmes - GoldSeek.com
I spent the latter half of last week at the New Orleans Investment Conference, talking with investors, mining companies and analysts about the state of the gold industry. The annual conference falls at an interesting time of the year, as the price of gold typically corrects in October. In fact, going back 30 years, the historical seasonality of gold has been to rise during September, with a subsequent correction in October.

A Musing on Gold and Fiat Currencies
A Monday Morning Musing from Mickey the Mercenary Geologist
By Mickey Fulp - GoldSeek.com
Gold is money that maintains its purchasing power, and for this reason it should be viewed as insurance against financial calamity and a hedge in case of economic collapse.
When money supplies are inflated, fiat currencies are devalued and the price of gold goes up. For example, monopoly money manipulators Bernanke and Draghi announced the purchase of more tranches of American and European debt in late August and early September and gold rose $127 an ounce in a two-week period:

Memo to Central Banks:
You're Debasing More than Our Currency
BY JOHN MAULDIN - FinancialSense.com
I can only pass on Societe Generale's work to you once in a while, but the piece for today's Outside the Box is important enough that its author, Dylan Grice, worked hard to convince his bosses to let me share it with you. Dylan is one of my favorite investments analysts, as well as just an all-around nice guy.
In a change from his usual fun-loving demeanor, Dylan issues a serious warning here.
I am more worried than I have ever been about the clouds gathering today (which may be the most wonderful contrary indicator you could hope for...). I hope they pass without breaking, but I fear the defining feature of coming decades will be a Great Disorder of the sort which has defined past epochs and scarred whole generations….

Dollar buoyed as Sandy menaces East Coast
By William L. Watts and Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The U.S. dollar edged up as Hurricane Sandy menaced the East Coast Monday, sparking modest, haven-related buying in thin trade as market participants braced for the potential devastation from the storm.
The ICE dollar index, which measures the unit against a basket of six major currencies, traded at 80.236, up from 80.046 in North American trade late Friday.

Why Does the SEC Protect Banks' Dirty Secrets?
By William Cohan - Bloomberg.com
Remember Richard Bowen?
He is the former senior executive at Citigroup Inc. (C) who in November 2007 issued a clarion call to his colleagues and Citi's board that a major credit-quality problem loomed for the bank.
Bowen was the chief underwriter in the business unit that bought some $50 billion annually in home mortgages from third parties that were then bundled up and sold as securities to investors the world over. On Nov. 3 he sent an "urgent" e-mail to executives including Robert Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary who was then chairman of the bank's executive committee, and Gary Crittenden, the chief financial officer, raising concerns about "breakdowns in internal controls and resulting significant but possibly unrecognized financial losses existing within our organization."

Big Banks' Hold on Regulators Must Be Broken: Barofsky
AmericanBanker.com
Lawsuits against banks are flying, the presidential candidates are promising action – yet none of it will solve the lingering financial mess.
So says Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. He was as critical as ever of policymakers and financial firms, and called for more independent regulation in a talk at the Museum of American Finance in New York on Thursday evening.

FDIC Takes Actions Against Nine Banks in Six States
AmericanBanker.com
Regulators took a slew of enforcement actions against banks last month in connection with consumer protection, capital adequacy and other matters.
Nine banks in six states have agreed to take steps to bolster their compliance with various laws and regulations, according to a series of orders the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. released late Friday. The orders covered American Express Centurion Bank of Salt Lake City, Utah; University Bank in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Security Bank of California in Riverside, Calif.; Southcrest Bank in Thomaston, Ga.; Talbot State Bank in Woodland, Ga.; Signature Bank of Georgia in Sandy Springs; Golden Eagle Community Bank in Woodstock, Ill.; First State Financial of Pineville, Ky.; and Peoples Exchange Bank of Stanton, Ky.

Let the Markets Clear!
BY RON PAUL - FinancialSense.com
French businessman and economist Jean-Baptiste Say is credited with identifying the fundamental economic principle that aggregate demand for goods in an economy will equal the aggregate supply of goods when markets are permitted to operate. Or in Say's words, "products are paid for with products."
English classical economist David Ricardo, among others, more fully developed this principle into what has become known as "Say's Law." Say's Law, according to Ricardo, leads us to understand that market equilibrium for goods is constant. This simply means that markets, when left alone by government planners or other fraudulent actors, inexorably tend toward an "equilibrium price" which eventually balances supply and demand for any particular good. Thus markets will clear themselves of any surpluses or shortages in the form of excess supply and demand.

Gordon Gekko Was Wrong: Sometimes the Pig Gets Eaten
BY WILLIAM PATALON III, Executive Editor, Money Morning
As longtime readers know, I have a real affinity for old investing adages – in large part because of the very real lessons the best ones convey.
And one of my favorites tells us that "Bulls make money, bears make money – and pigs get slaughtered."
With apologies to Gordon Gekko, while greed may be good, excessive greed can be hazardous to your health – and to your portfolio.
And a news item I spotted last week drove that point home.

How the Supreme Court
Stacked the Deck Against Economic Liberty
A federal price-fixing case highlights the judiciary's troubling deference to government regulation.
By Damon W. Root - Reason.com
When it comes to the protection of individual rights by the U.S. Supreme Court, some rights are more equal than others. If a government regulation infringes on freedom of speech or the right to vote, for example, the Court presumes the law to be unconstitutional and forces the government to justify its actions. Lawyers call this approach strict scrutiny.
But if a government regulation infringes on economic rights, the Court takes the opposite tack, presuming the law to be constitutional and therefore requiring the regulated party to shoulder the burden of proving why the law should be struck down. This approach is known as the rational-basis test.

When Hell Freezes Over: The Tax Reform Mirage
Washington insiders think the stars are aligned to dramatically simplify the tax code and broaden the tax base.
By Steve Chapman - Reason.com
Tax reform is the new rage. It's not just the favorite idea on the campaign trail and think tank circuit these days. It's the glorious inevitability that will end the nation's fiscal crisis.
Everyone is for it, and everybody agrees on what it involves. The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission said, "The tax code is rife with inefficiencies, loopholes, incentives, tax earmarks and baffling complexity. We need to lower tax rates, broaden the base, simplify the tax code and bring down the deficit."

What's Behind UBS Decision to Axe 10,000 Jobs?
UBS goes under cover
By Chan Akya - Asia Times
News over the weekend had it that one of the world's biggest universal banks is essentially shuttering a significant portion of its investment banking operations. UBS, the giant Switzerland-based bank, was reacting to changes in the marketplace as well as tighter regulations for capital adequacy as they came along.
The Financial Times reported that UBS will cut 10,000 of its 63,000 global jobs over the coming years; the bank will also put a large part of its trading fixed income, currencies and commodities under the stewardship of its one of its old co-heads of investment banking with a view to shutting down the business over the next few years.

Pew: More Americans concerned about retirement financing
By Betsi Fores - DailyCaller.com
With Social Security set to become insolvent by 2033, Americans are more worried about financing retirement today than they were at the end of the recession in 2009, according to a new Pew survey.
"About four-in-ten adults (38%) say they are 'not too' or 'not at all' confident that they will have enough income and assets for their retirement, up from 25% in a Pew Research survey conducted in late February and March of 2009," Pew research center found.

The Age of Personalized Medicine Is Near
By Chris Wood - GoldSeek.com
Today, personalized medicine seeks to move away from the one-size-fits-all, trial-and-error approach that has defined drug R&D and patient treatment basically since the time of Galen of Pergamon in the 2nd century AD. It increasingly focuses on matching the biological characteristics of each person with the best treatment options available and dosing for them, and in the future even perhaps the development of specific drugs for specific patients.

China takes over Bryce Canyon
By Pepe Escobar - ATimes.com
ON THE ROAD IN NEVADA AND UTAH - In the search for the (remixed, imploded?) American dream the road goes on forever. I left San Francisco in an Otis Redding's Pain in my Heart mood - past the playground of Silicon Valley Google/Facebook whiz kids, lanky blondes talking into their McBook Pros on the sidewalk, desperate flotsam and jetsam of the 47% defying the shadows in downtown at night, Italy alive at Coppola's Caf้ Zoetrope, the resurgence of Occupy Oakland, the Hudson 49 that crisscrossed the West in Walter Salles' ode to Kerouac's On the Road now parked at the Beat Museum - and I went east, past an already snow-stormed Sierra Nevada and an eerily quiet Lake Tahoe that seemed to have emerged from a noir opus like Out of the Past, the ghost of Robert Mitchum included.
Reno spelt Murder - like in a masked weirdo straight out of Seven Psychopaths (where Christopher Walken, once again, rules) surging out of nowhere to raise hell in a ghost town. The Eldorado early in the morning was virtually empty, save for the odd bag lady working the slots. Talk about Dylan's Desolation Row.

Economy may skirt direct hit from Hurricane Sandy
By Pedro da Costa, Luciana Lopez and Leah Schnurr
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK | Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:33pm EDT
(Reuters) - Hurricane Sandy is shaping up to be one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States but even with the severe damage that is expected, the blow to the economy is seen as short-term.
Economists say some of the impact caused by businesses closing will be offset by reconstruction efforts, and point to catastrophic storms like Katrina, which devastated New Orleans but did not deal lasting damage to the national economy.

Sandy Teaches a Lesson
By Eugene Robinson - Truthdig.com
Back when he was being "severely conservative," Mitt Romney suggested that responsibility for disaster relief should be taken from the big, bad federal government and given to the states, or perhaps even privatized. Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he'd care to reconsider.
The absurd—and dangerous—policy prescription came in a GOP primary debate in June. Moderator John King said he had recently visited communities affected by severe weather, and noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency "is about to run out of money."

Worst Case Scenario:
Hurricane Sandy Is The Biggest Storm Ever To Hit The Northeast
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The biggest storm to ever hit the northeast United States is creating a tremendous amount of havoc up and down the eastern seaboard. It is hard to describe how gigantic this storm actually is. From end to end, Hurricane Sandy is more than 1000 miles across. It is twice the size of the state of Texas, and meteorologists are calling this storm a "worst case scenario". It is currently coming ashore in New Jersey, but this is just the beginning. A winter storm approaching from the west is going to combine with Hurricane Sandy, and the combined storm is projected to hammer the northeast with wind and rain all the way through the end of the week. Meteorologists all over the nation are saying that they have never seen anything like this. Hurricane Sandy is the biggest storm in modern U.S. history, and earlier today the storm pressure was recorded to be even lower than the Long Island Express Hurricane of 1938. In fact, Hurricane Sandy has the lowest pressure ever recorded for any storm north of the state of North Carolina. On Monday evening it was packing maximum sustained winds of about 90 miles per hour, and hurricane-force winds could be felt as far out as 175 miles from the center of the storm. To say that this storm is a major disaster is a tremendous understatement.

Hurricane Sandy: Litmus Test for America's Utilities
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
About this time last year, Americans lost faith in their power companies, who failed to respond effectively to restore power outages resulting from a storm. This past summer, a series of outages under less dire weather circumstances demonstrated that the country's electricity distribution network was bad and getting worse.
Today, as some 60 million people face power outages with the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Eastern Seaboard on Sunday, power companies are expressing confidence that they are up to the latest challenge put forth by Mother Nature. There is little public optimism to support this confidence.

The Real Election 2012 October Surprise: Hurricane Sandy
by Tracy Bloom - Truthdig.com
With eight days to go until voters head to the polls to elect the next president, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are being forced to alter their campaign schedules because of Hurricane Sandy.
In preparation for the superstorm, which is expected to wreak havoc along the mid-Atlantic coast, President Obama headed back to the White House—and off the campaign trail. He has canceled scheduled appearances in the critical swing states of Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Virginia. Romney, meanwhile, nixed a Sunday event in Virginia and canceled a previously scheduled campaign stop in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

Hurricane Sandy throws the presidential campaigns off course
By Amie Parnes and Justin Sink - TheHill.com
Hurricane Sandy is hitting the presidential race and the East Coast at the same time, throwing both candidates off their schedules and threatening to alter the voter-turnout calculus.
The storm comes at a tough time for both candidates — the election is only eight days away, and polls show the race remains tight.

Hurricane Sandy upends campaign schedules
Storm alters Obama, Romney plans eight days before election
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Hurricane Sandy forced President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to change their campaign schedules with just eight days remaining before the election, shaking up their tight race for the White House just as it goes down to the wire.
Obama on Monday cancelled a planned campaign event in Orlando, Fla., and returned to Washington to monitor the response to Sandy. He is due to make a statement about the storm at 12:45 p.m. Eastern.

Emergency officials:
Sandy will be 'long-duration event,' election impact unclear
By Russell Berman - TheHill.com
Federal emergency management officials warned on Monday that Hurricane Sandy is likely to be a "long duration event" lasting into Wednesday — but it is too early to judge its impact on next week's presidential election.
Barreling toward the mid-Atlantic coast, Hurricane Sandy was to make landfall Monday night. Federal officials said it remains on track to bring an unprecedented combination of wind, storm surge, rainfall and snow from New England to the mountains of West Virginia.

The World After November
By Javier Solana - Project-Syndicate.us
MADRID – On November 6, either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will emerge victorious after an exhausting electoral race, setting the wheels in motion for the coming four years. An ocean away, on November 8, more than 2,000 members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will gather in Beijing. Approximately a week later, the members of the Politburo Standing Committee will walk out in hierarchical order, preparing to take charge of a growing country of 1.3 billion people.

Voting Is a Right, Not a Duty
By Jeff Jacoby - PatriotPost.us
If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: It's your civic duty to vote. Between now and Election Day -- unless you're planning an extended session in a sensory-deprivation tank -- you'll no doubt hear it again. And again.
Don't believe it. It's not your duty to vote.
Not that I'm against voting. I was 9 when I first saw the inside of a voting booth. It was Election Day, 1968. My father took me with him early in the morning when he went to vote and let me pull the lever for his candidate -- Hubert H. Humphrey. (My mother cast her ballot later that day for Richard M. Nixon.) Once I turned old enough to vote I became an Election Day regular. My candidates don't usually win, and even those who do routinely disappoint me in office. Still, "don't vote -- it only encourages them" has never been my philosophy.

The Biggest Policy Issues Missing From the Campaign
From Medicaid to housing and the Federal Reserve, here are the issues the Obama and Romney campaigns haven't talked enough about.
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
For those of you in presidential debate withdrawal ... well, who are you? For the rest of you in policy debate withdrawal, well, we have you covered. I talked with Harold Pollack, a professor of public health and social service administration at the University of Chicago as well as a health policy blogger, about some of the biggest policy issues that have gotten short shrift during the campaign.
In other words, come for the Medicaid talk, and stay for the discussion on housing and the Federal Reserve.
The debates are finally over and there's just over a a week until Election Day. What issue do you think didn't get enough attention during the four presidential and vice-presidential debates?

The Heartland Election
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Truthdig.com
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—When Mayor Bobby J. Hopewell talks about the importance of manufacturing to this friendly Michigan town with a name that lends itself to song, he doesn't reel off the usual list of heavy industries typically associated with the word "factory."
He speaks of Kalsec, the Kalamazoo Spice Extraction Company founded in 1958 that produces and markets natural herbs and spices for food manufacturers. He mentions Fabri-Kal, a 62-year-old packaging company that describes itself as "the seventh-largest plastic thermoformer in North America." Think of products in drug stores encased in heavy plastic. And he doesn't leave out the pharmaceutical industry, long vital to his city's economy.

Obama Camp: Romney's Blue State Momentum Is A Bluff
By BENJY SARLIN OCTOBER - TalkingPointsMemo.com
Mitt Romney's campaign and its allies are testing the waters in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, two states that have mostly been taken for granted as solid blue this election. But top aides to the Obama campaign claim they're not worried.
"We're winning this race," senior adviser David Axelrod told reporters over the phone on Monday. "And I say this not on the basis of some mystical faith in a wave that's going to come, or some hidden vote. We base it on cold hard data based on who's voted so far and on state-by-state polling."

Changing Demographics Won't Mean the End of Republican Party
By Michael Barone - PatriotPost.us
When reading one of the endless stories about a just-released poll Thursday night, a pair of numbers struck my eye: 60 and 37.
Those were the percentages of white voters supporting Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the ABC/Washington Post tracking poll. Overall, the poll showed Romney leading Obama 50 to 47 percent.

Obama Defends His Finance Reform Record
to Rolling Stone: A Response
By Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
The new issue of Rolling Stone features an in-depth interview with President Obama. An interview with a sitting president is always an intense experience for any news outlet, but in this case the Obama interview offered us an additional surprise. When asked a question about financial regulation, the president turned the tables on us and critiqued Rolling Stone's reporting on issues like the Dodd-Frank reform bill. We – well, I, specifically – criticized the Obama administration for not going far enough in reforming Wall Street, and he used the interview as an opportunity to respond on that score.

Romney Soars in Pensacola
Mitt-mentum becomes him, as he elevates his game.
By QUIN HILLYER - Spectator.org
The proverbial "electricity" was palpable in the crowd at the Pensacola Civic Center on Saturday, but candidate Mitt Romney was talking about electricity of another kind. Romney, a onetime Boy Scout leader, was speaking about a major national Scout ceremony from years ago in which a Scout leader from Monument, Colorado, was telling a story while he, Romney, was there on the dais.
The Monument scouts had created a special American flag (with gold trim, or something like that), had it flown at the U.S. Capitol, and then somehow convinced NASA to send it on a space shuttle. The shuttle was the Challenger; the flight was in 1986.

Why I'm Voting Green
By Chris Hedges - Truthdig.com
The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us. And if we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil disobedience and in defiance. Those who rebel are our only hope. And for this reason I will vote next month for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, although I could as easily vote for Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. I will step outside the system. Voting for the "lesser evil"—or failing to vote at all—is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction.

The Final Days, the Biggest Issue, and the Clearest Choice
By Robert Reich - Truthdig.com
As we go into the final days of a dismal presidential campaign where too many issues have been fudged or eluded — and the media only want to talk about is who's up and who's down — the biggest issue on which the candidates have given us the clearest choice is whether the rich should pay more in taxes.
President Obama says emphatically yes. He proposes ending the Bush tax cut for people earning more than $250,000 a year, and requiring that the richest 1 percent pay no less than a third of their income in taxes, the so-called "Buffett Rule."

Is the Ohio Trend Romney's Friend?
The Republican campaign
sees encouraging signs in the Buckeye State.
By ROBERT STACY MCCAIN - Spectator.org
MARION, Ohio -- Paul Ryan stood onstage Sunday evening and told a fired-up crowd of nearly 5,000 supporters, "As Ohio goes, so goes America."
Few would argue with the Republican vice presidential candidate. Of the 11 states rated as "toss ups" by Real Clear Politics, none is more fiercely contested than the Buckeye State, whose 18 Electoral College votes appear destined to decide this election. And the latest poll, commissioned by a consortium of Ohio's eight largest newspapers, shows the state a dead heat, with 49 percent each for GOP challenger Mitt Romney and President Obama. Perhaps more important, the poll conducted Oct. 18-23 by University of Cincinnati's Institute for Policy Research, showed Romney has gained three points -- and Obama has lost two points -- since September, when Obama led 51-46 in Ohio.

Mitt Romney's Tax Dodge
A guide to how the multimillionaire twists the law to hide his massive fortune - and avoid paying his fair share in taxes
By TIM DICKINSON - RollingStone.com
How does a private-equity kingpin worth at least $250 million pay a lower tax rate – just 14 percent – than many teachers and firemen? By exploiting tax loopholes that favor the rich and hiding his money in the world's most notorious havens for tax cheats. That's what Mitt Romney has done, according to his 2010 and 2011 tax returns, a trove of secret Bain Capital documents unearthed by Gawker, and exposés by Bloomberg and Vanity Fair. "The bottom line," says Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel at Citizens for Tax Justice, "is that these are ways to reduce your taxes that are only available to rich people."

The US is Not Even Close to Being the Next Saudi Arabia
By Dave Summers - OilPrice.com
There has been a little stir in the news on Energy lately, as folks have begun to extrapolate the growth in American oil and gas production to the point that they predict that the United States may out-produce Saudi Arabia, in terms of the totality of hydrocarbon production. Of course, in some cases, it has been North American oil independencethat is featured, rather than that of the USA. And the reason for the generalization is that by broadening the geography so that the region also includes Canadian and Mexican production then the US imports from those countries magically disappear (which does not mean that they don't have to be paid for. The US imported around2.5 mbd from Canada and 1 mbd from Mexico in July). The stories also don't dwell on the comparison of apples and apples. Consider the following quote from NPR. It is that easily missed sentence at the end of the first paragraph that is critical.

Water Injection Used to Increase Life
of Deepwater Wells in the Gulf of Mexico
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
As oil wells age, the volumes of oil that they yield falls dramatically. On land this is countered by injecting water down into the well, thereby maintaining the pressure and forcing the oil out; unfortunately the technology did not exist, or was too expensive to be used in deepwater wells such as those found in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Gulf of Mexico, once one of the world's most productive oil producing regions, has fallen behind in terms of the amount of oil it yields. Pioneers are now adapting old water injection technology to be used in deep water wells.

Americans Should Reject Obama-Romney Foreign Policy
Obama and Romney think a U.S. president can and should orchestrate events in the Muslim world.
Sheldon Richman - Reason.com
If we needed evidence of the impoverishment of American politics, the so-called debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney gave us all we could ask for.
We normally expect a debate to highlight some disagreement, but in American politics disagreement is reserved for minor matters. The two parties — actually the two divisions of the uniparty that represents the permanent regime—agree on all fundamentals. If you need proof, observe how the establishment media treated Ron Paul, who challenged the permanent regime's basic premises on foreign policy, civil liberties, and monetary control. He dug too deep.

Another Election
By Rich Galen - PatriotPost.us
From Dnipropetrovsk, Ukarine
I've been here for two days preparing for, and actually observing the Ukrainian parliamentary elections. I was part of the International Observer Mission in that effort.
During the day before I hopped on an airplane from Kiev to come down here we were briefed by various government and political leaders. One person in our group asked whether international observers could remain in a precinct to watch the counting process.

Benghazigate: Chapter Two
Treachery and betrayal were the Administration's response, as the media gives Obama cover.
By JED BABBIN - Spectator.org
What more does anyone need to know than that Americans are under attack before ordering a military response to suppress the attack and possibly rescue our people?
Even if the initial response isn't exactly what you'd want it to be, even if you don't have every asset available that you might in a perfect world, isn't it your duty -- whether you're a lowly second lieutenant or the Secretary of Defense -- to do everything you can as quickly as you can?

Benghazi and the Lethal Price of Arming Jihadists
New information on the function of the "consulate"
paints a grim picture.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
Over the weekend, the newest, and by far the most disturbing, revelations surrounding the Benghazi attack were revealed. Several sources have pointed to the possibility that a major CIA gun-running operation aimed at arming anti-Assad Al-Qaeda-affiliated forces was in danger of being exposed. If true, the information casts an even more devastating pall over the Benghazi terrorist attack and the administration's botched handling of the region.

Iran Finally Blinks in Terms of Sanctions Pressure
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
The Iranian defense minister said last weekend that his country has no plans to choke of maritime oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. In early 2012, Iranian threats to close the key shipping lane caused a ripple effect in the international oil market, pushing prices up to historic highs. U.S. President Barack Obama in April acknowledged there were problems in the global oil market but said the situation was secure enough to move ahead with tighter sanctions against Iran. An announcement from Iran that it was no longer considering closing the strait, however, may suggest western sanctions may be taking a toll on Tehran.

Iran has pictures of restricted Israeli areas: Iran MP
(Reuters) - Iran holds pictures of Israeli bases and other restricted areas obtained from a drone launched into Israeli airspace earlier this month, an Iranian lawmaker was quoted as saying on Monday.
Earlier this month, Israel shot down a drone after it flew 25 miles into the Jewish state. Lebanese militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the aircraft, saying its parts had been manufactured in Iran and assembled in Lebanon.

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Monday 10.29.2012

Jim Sinclair: Gold Is Going To And Through $ 3,500
Gold Silver Worlds
Jim Sinclair is not only known for his nick name Mr Gold, but also for encouraging people with its down-to-earth but wise words. His fundamental belief for a very long time has been that the price of gold would go much, much higher, not excluding it could reach $ 12,000. During that fantastic journey, two price points would be key pivot points: $ 529 and $ 1764. Both prices would mark the transition to a new phase in the long term gold bull market. What's remarkable is that Jim Sinclair made these statements and mentioned those price points before the start of the bull market. Up until now, he has had a perfect track record.

Fiscal cliff could hit economy harder than many expect
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON | Sun Oct 28, 2012 1:57pm EDT
(Reuters) - The United States runs the risk of a recession far deeper than many investors and policymakers may think if lawmakers fail to avert looming tax hikes and cuts to public spending.
Absent action by Congress, the country will face the so-called fiscal cliff at the start of next year, a combination of lower spending and higher taxes that is expected to extract about $600 billion from the economy.

Is the Market Plunging Over an Earnings Cliff?
BY SY HARDING - FinancialSense.com
The previous worries of the market seem to be fading away, only to be replaced by a new one that is perhaps more directly meaningful to stock market valuation.
The U.S. economic slowdown of the spring and summer months appears to have bottomed. Home sales, new home starts, and home prices, have all been rising. The employment numbers have improved so much that skeptics even suspect the government must have somehow manipulated the numbers. Retail sales have been picking up. The latest reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index shows consumer confidence is at its highest level since 2007. On Friday it was reported that the U.S. economy (GDP) grew 2.0% in the 3rd quarter, up from 1.3% in the second quarter, and better than the consensus forecast of 1.8%.

About Raising Taxes as the "Solution" to the Fiscal Cliff....
Raising taxes is the "solution." Too bad incomes are declining. What will raising taxes do to household savings, spending and the economy?
By Charles Hugh Smith - OfTwoMinds.com
We all know cutting Federal spending is politically impossible, so that leaves raising taxes as the only "solution" to the "fiscal cliff."
Since most income tax revenues flow from household income, let's look at some charts of the workforce and household income:

What Fiscal Cliff?
Obama Planning Another "Tax Cut" Fiscal Stimulus
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Since it would appear that QEternity has ostensibly failed in its main goal of pushing the stock market higher (and mortgage rates lower), the White House seems to be scrambling. Obama administration officials have concluded that the economy, while improved (apparently), is still fragile enough to warrant another bout of stimulus. The same old kitchen sink is being thrown at the problem as they are now resorting to the same fiscal stimulus that has also failed time and time again (as we noted here). As WaPostrawmans reports the White House is discussing the idea of a tax cut that it believes will lift American's take-home pay and boost a still-struggling economy (citing people familiar with the administration's thinking).

Meet the fiscal cliff-divers,
who think jumping off could be our best bet
Posted by Suzy Khimm - WashingtonPost.com
The very notion of a "fiscal cliff" suggests that the country is approaching a calamitous drop-off at the end of the year — and it would be tantamount to suicide to jump off.
But a contingent of policy wonks and Democrats insist that letting the Dec. 31 deadline come and go — thus triggering automatic tax increases and spending cuts — could produce the best outcome for the country. Once the tax hikes have kicked in, the reasoning goes, Republicans would be hard-pressed to roll them all back and would have to accept a deal on taming the deficit that contains more new tax revenue than GOP lawmakers want.

Fed's Lacker says inflation fears underpin policy dissent
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
WASHINGTON | Fri Oct 26, 2012 7:33am EDT
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's latest stimulus will not boost economic growth without creating unwanted inflation, said Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond Fed and lone dissenter on the central bank's policy committee.
Lacker said on Friday he also opposes the Fed's indication that it expects to keep interest rates near zero until at least mid-2015, and the suggestion that rates will be keep low even as economic growth picks up.

Does the Fed Favor Republican Presidents?
The Fed seems to care about inflation much more during Democratic administrations
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
Central banks are independent from politics, but are central bankers? In other words, does the Fed do more to juice the economy when one party controls the White House than the other? That's the question University of Michigan professor William Clark asks, and his answer is a statistically significant, though qualified, yes -- the conservative folks who tend to run central banks seem to prefer conservative politicians.
Let's consider the evidence. Rather incredibly, interest rates have fallen over the course of every Republican term and risen over the course of every Democratic term ever since the Fed became independent in 1951, excluding Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama, as the chart below shows. That's a hell of a coincidence.

Frequently Asked Questions on Hyperinflation
BY VINCENT CATE - FinancialSense.com
The following are frequently asked questions or objections common among hyperinflation skeptics. The statements or questions in bold below are things hyperinflation skeptics say and my responses follow.
How is hyperinflation defined?
The International Accounting Standard of IAS 29 says there is hyperinflation when "the cumulative inflation rate over three years approaches, or exceeds, 100%." This works out to 26% per year. There are many other definitions for hyperinflation but they almost all have something like "inflation over X per year" or "inflation over Y per month." People pick some level of price inflation as the cutoff between regular inflation and hyperinflation. It is just the values for X or Y that differ. Note that hyperinflation is not defined in terms of the moneysupply alone, since the velocity of money and GNP are also key factors in the price level during hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is a process, a positive feedback loop, that once entered is very hard to get out of. This process can go on for years.

Germany rattled as taxpayer losses loom in Greece
The EU-IMF Troika of inspectors in Greece has called on European bodies and official creditors to write off a chunk of their loans, opening the way for first taxpayer losses since the sovereign debt crisis began.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
A draft version of the Troika report obtained by Spiegel magazine said EMU governments and the European Central Bank must accept their share of losses in order to bring Greece's public debt back to 120pc of GDP by 2020, deemed the sustainable level.
Greece must carry out a further 150 reforms, some involving a drastic loss of sovereignty. Troika payments will be held frozen in a special account under creditor control.

Some Follow-Up Questions For The Bundesbank, And Its Gold
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Yesterday we posted the official statement of Bundesbank executive board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele, which in turn was a response to a recent surge in concerns about the safety and sanctity of German sovereign gold, held mostly abroad (if a major part of it held in London had been secretly repatriated), and demands by the general public - i.e., those who actually own the gold - for either an audit, or full repatriation, or both. There are, however, some problems with the official Bundesbank statement: the statistics cited in it, as well as the various explanations, are wrong, incorrect or misleading. Below we present some of the "facts" stated by Herr Thiele, and what the truth is.

Barclays slashes bankers' pay by up to half as profits fall
Barclays is to cut the salaries of some of its leading investment bankers by as much as half in a bid to reduce costs and show that the bank has fundamentally changed following the financial crisis.
By James Quinn - Telegraph.co.uk
The bank – working to rebuild its reputation after the exit of chief executive Bob Diamond and chairman Marcus Agius following the Libor scandal – will undertake the drastic measure after a series of reviews into the future of its investment banking arm.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that investment bankers who earn a base salary of between £500,000 and £3m will see their salaries cut by between 30pc and 40pc.

Francois Hollande holds crisis talks
after 'worst week' for bruised party
Factory closures and spending deficit have fuelled voters' doubts over ability of president to lead country to recovery
By Kim Willsher in Paris, The Observer - Guardian.co.uk
President François Hollande will meet the heads of global economic organisations for crisis talks on Monday after suffering a series of damaging economic blows in what was his worst week since taking power five months ago.
The French leader has been hit by soaring unemployment figures, further factory closures and job losses, and plummeting popularity on top of growing fears that he and his Socialist government are failing to address the country's problems. Members of the opposition right-of-centre UMP have accused them of being "amateurs".

The Perils Of Bubbles And Speculative Finance
Greek debt crisis was the first crack in the global government debt Bubble
by Doug Noland - PrudentBear.com
Let's return this week to the broader global Macro Credit Thesis. First of all, we live in a highly over-indebted world that becomes only more so each year. Moreover, the global system is today in an exceptionally high-risk phase of rapid non-productive debt growth in concert with historic financial and economic imbalances. Global policymakers are desperate to reflate debt and economic structures, in what I believe is both ill-advised and inevitably destined for failure. And there is the issue of history's greatest financial mania…

Europe left behind
as shale shock drives America's industrial resurgence
The wonders of US shale gas continue to amaze. We receive fresh evidence by the day that swathes of American industry have acquired a massive and lasting advantage in energy costs over global rivals, demolishing assumptions about US economic decline.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Royal Dutch Shell is planning an ethane plant in the once-decaying steel valley of Beaver County, near Pittsburg. Dow Chemical is shutting operations in Belgium, Holland, Spain, the UK, and Japan, but pouring money into a propylene venture in Texas where natural gas prices are a fraction of world levels and likely to remain so for the life-cycle of Dow's investments.
Some fifty new projects have been unveiled in the US petrochemical industry. A $30bn investment blitz in underway in ethelyne and fetilizer plants alone.

World's Most Powerful Laser Beams to Zap Nuclear Waste
By Roxana Zega - Bloomberg.com
The European Union will spend about 700 million euros ($900 million) to build the world's most powerful lasers, technology that could destroy nuclear waste and provide new cancer treatments.
The Extreme Light Infrastructure project has obtained funding for two lasers to be built in theCzech Republic and Romania, Shirin Wheeler, spokeswoman for the European Commission on regional policy, said in a phone interview. A third research center will be in Hungary.

Exchanges Close Trading Floors as Hurricane Sandy Nears
By Nina Mehta, Whitney Kisling
and Inyoung Hwang - Bloomberg.com
The New York Stock Exchange and New York Mercantile Exchange canceled floor trading as Hurricane Sandy barreled toward New York City with the threat of a 10-foot storm surge and winds of 70 miles per hour.
The market operators said trading would occur normally on their electronic platforms. NYSE Euronext took the action after city and state officials declared emergencies and suspended public transportation, according to a statement on its website. The NYSE plans to maintain the contingency plan for using its Arca exchange through Oct. 30, Joseph Mecane, head of U.S. equities, said on a conference call in which some member firms opposed opening the stock market at all.

Mass Firings Soar at Fastest Pace Since 2010
BY MICHAEL SHEDLOCK - FinancialSense.com
In precisely the kind of news president Obama does not want heading into the election, Ford (F), Dow Chemical (DOW), DuPont (DD), and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) all announced mass layoffs this past week as Firings Reach Highest Since 2010.
North American companies have announced plans to eliminate 62,600 positions at home and abroad since Sept. 1, the biggest two-month drop since the start of 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Firings total 158,100 so far this year, more than the 129,000 job cuts in the same period in 2011.

Federal Salary Council's call
for 35 percent pay hike unrealistic
By Joe Davidson - WashingtonPost.com
There's good reason federal employee unions don't use last week's Federal Salary Council report to demand a mighty pay raise for their members.
The council says Uncle Sam's workforce is underpaid, not including benefits, by almost 35 percent compared with the private sector. That's a huge difference, particularly when compared with last year's figure of 26.3 percent.

CNBC article on 43 Trillion Lawsuit has been taken down just as I thought it would be. Link goes to an empty page now. CNBC Sr. V.P. digital executive two kids killed hours after being put on net.
The article was taken down that I wrote about yesterday. I got the screen shots of it on CNBC and so there is proof that it was there and a lawsuit was filed against the banksters and top government officials.
The original link to CNBC is here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/49555671/ (you can still see the comments left from the article at the bottom of the page and that the article was about the lawsuit. (Until they make the page a "404" error).

43 TRILLION dollar suit against U.S. govt. officials and major banks! Accuses of stealing from U.S. people and money laundering. Screenshots of CNBC running it.
by Sherrie - sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com
Now this will BLOW you away!
A racketeering lawsuit was filed in the U.S. against top U.S. government officials and the wall street banks! It is for the tune of 43 TRILLION dollars!
What is even MORE shocking is this information is on CNBC! Imagine that!
I have captured screen shots of the website, just in case the article gets taken down! This way there is a record of it. I am putting the shots in this post along with the information.
You have to read the article... thousands of complaints have been served to bankers around the world and government officials! This is HUGE!
Here is my article about it with the screenshots:

Kagan could sway Supreme Court decision on copyright case
By Tim Devaney-The Washington Times
All eyes will be on Justice Elena Kagan on Monday, when the Supreme Court considers a copyright case that some fear could prevent people from reselling goods that they own such as iPhones, DVDs or, as in this case, books that have been purchased abroad.
In a case that tests the boundaries of copyright law, some merchants and consumers say they have the right to resell what they own while the creators of the original content argue they should be protected from shady dealers.

Hurricane Sandy: millions brace for impact
New York partially evacuated before 'super storm' arrives; US presidential election campaign is also thrown into disarray
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington
and Matt Wells in New York - The Guardian
Tens of millions of people braced themselves for the arrival of hurricane Sandy on Sunday, as the gigantic storm threatened to unleash punishing winds, driving rain, heavy snow and a potentially lethal storm surge along the east coast of the US.
The hurricane, which has claimed 65 lives in the Caribbean, is also likely to play havoc with the US election, introducing a fresh element of uncertainty and disruption in the final days of the closely contested campaign.

How To Prepare For A Hurricane? Some Lessons That Preppers Can Learn From Hurricane Sandy
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
If you are just starting to prepare for Hurricane Sandy, the truth is that you are already too late. Most of the essential supplies have already been stripped from store shelves. If you don't have an emergency generator, you might be without power for quite some time. It is being estimated that up to 10 million people could lose power during this storm, and it is already being projected that some people may end up being without power for a week or more in the worst hit areas. Hopefully you have already boarded up your windows. They can be broken very easily during a hurricane, and you certainly don't want to be dealing with a broken window during the worst moments of the storm. Those that have prepared ahead of time are likely to be in good shape to ride this storm out, but sadly the reality is that most people have not prepared ahead of time.

Sandy a 'unique, large, dangerous' storm
By Megan Poinski-The Washington Times
Officials on Sunday implored residents of the Washington area to use common sense and respect nature's will as Hurricane Sandy steered toward its clash with wintry weather from the north.
What has been called an unprecedented weather event has closed schools and government offices and left people up and down the East Coast preparing for power outages and collapsed roofs before a single raindrop fell.

N.J. nuclear plants brace for oncoming storm, rising waters
By Eliot Caroom/The Star-Ledger - NJ.com
New Jersey's nuclear plants are bracing for Sandy today, federal regulators and officials for PSEG Nuclear and Exelon said.
"We'll have to see where it goes, but it looks like it's going to have a pretty good hit on New Jersey," Sheehan said today.
Sheehan said that federal inspectors with satellite phones will be stationed at the plants through the storm.

Hurricane Sandy delays Google's tablet launch
Google has been forced to cancel an event launching a new technology, as Hurricane Sandy is expected to hit New York City on Sunday evening.
By Graham Ruddick - Telegraph.co.uk
The internet giant was set to reveal the Nexus 10 alongside Samsung on Monday. The new 10-inch tablet will compete against Apple's iPad and Microsoft's new Surface tablet. It will set a new launch date "as soon as we know more".
Google has revealed little detail about the new tablet, but leaked photos on technology blogs suggest the tablet has a high-resolution screen, a five mega-pixel camera and will run with Google's latest Android operating system.

Worst of Sandy Yet to Come: Northeast Impacts
By Alex Sosnowski - AccuWeather.com
An extremely rare and dangerous storm will turn in from the Atlantic, affecting 60 million people in its path and could lead to billions of dollars in damage.
Hurricane Sandy is forecast by AccuWeather.com to slam into New Jersey Monday evening.
Coastal inundation and damaging wind will occur in the Garden State and the New York metropolitan area. However, damaging and life-threatening impact from the giant, powerful storm will reach as far inland as the central Appalachians and will span the coast from North Carolina to southern New England.

The $100 Billion Storm:
17 Things You Should Know About Hurricane Sandy
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Meteorologists are warning that Hurricane Sandy could potentially be the worst storm to hit the east coast of the United States in 100 years. Do you remember "the perfect storm" back in 1991? That storm was so bad that Hollywood made a blockbuster movie starring George Clooney about it. Well, this storm is going to be much worse. When I first heard about Hurricane Sandy, I didn't make that much of it. I figured that the east coast would get some wind and some rain and that they would whine about it a bit but that everything would be just fine. But then I started looking into this storm a bit more. It turns out that this storm is even larger than Hurricane Katrina was. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has categorized the destructive potential of this storm to be 5.8 on a scale that goes from 0 to 6.

Virginia Gov. McDonnell:
Sandy won't affect readiness for election day
By Alexandra Jaffe - TheHill.com
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) said on Sunday that his state is prepared for the severe storm that threatens to devastate the East Coast and potentially affect the outcome of the election.
Speaking on CNN's State of the Union, McDonnell said that the state had learned the lessons of the last monumental storm, which left Virginians without power for days, and was unconcerned about a repeat of that situation playing out with this storm.

Hurricane Alters Campaign as Democrats Point to Early Lead
By John McCormick and Sandrine Rastello - Bloomberg.com
Hurricane Sandy is already altering the final days of the presidential race and potentially affecting early voting from Virginia to Ohio even before it makes landfall along the U.S. East Coast tomorrow.
Both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have shifted their campaign schedules and canceled appearances over the next several days in Virginia, one of the most closely contested states in the presidential election.

GATHERING STORM: TIME FOR DEMS TO HIT PANIC BUTTON
by MIKE FLYNN - Breitbart.com
A massive and historic storm is barreling towards the beltway this weekend. The entire DC-NYC axis, headquarters of the left media complex, will suffer the effects of three storm-fronts, converging at the same time. Evacuations may be ordered, but it is likely too late. No, I'm not talking about Hurricane Sandy. The storm I mean is the growing realization that Obama is on the cusp of losing the election. But, with just a little over a week to go, it may be too late to hit the panic button.

After Bush v. Gore,
Obama, Clinton wanted Electoral College scrapped
By Mario Trujillo - TheHill.com
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are among the politicians whose past criticisms of the Electoral College system would draw new scrutiny if there is a split verdict in this year's presidential election.
National and swing state polls suggest it's possible Republican Mitt Romney could win this year's popular vote while Obama triumphs in the Electoral College — potentially marking the second time the rare split in outcomes has occurred in the last 12 years.

Romney and Obama: A Tax Comparison Part 2
BY DAVID KOTOK - FinancialSense.com
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" (attributed to Mark Twain)
There were a lot of responses on the tax piece, "Romney and Obama: A Tax Comparison Part 1." Thank you for the emails.
Some comments supported Obama. The most extreme came from Lori S., a stock broker from San Francisco who is clearly a dyed-in-the-wool Pelosi-ite Democrat. She heaped opprobrium on me. She criticized everything we wrote as well as the Tax Foundation view of the Romney tax plan. She offered no concrete support for Obama's positions. She produced no numbers, only ridicule. Clearly, Lori does not know me well. With behavior like hers, she never will.

Poll: Romney, Obama tied at 49-49 in Ohio
By Meghashyam Mali - TheHill.com
A new poll shows President Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney locked in a dead heat in the key battleground of Ohio.
A new Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News Organization poll released late Saturday shows both candidates receiving 49 percent support from likely voters in the Buckeye state.
The new numbers represent a slight drop for Obama, who tallied 51 percent support in the same poll's September survey.

It Could Still Go Either Way
By Rich Galen - PatriotPost.us
The answer to the question is: I'm here to be an official observer of the Ukrainian national elections on Sunday to select a new Parliament. I'll be back in the U.S. on Tuesday to unofficially observe our own elections.
Speaking of our own elections ...
Romney's bounce in the polls since the first debate remains stubbornly in place. According to the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, Romney has a lead of two percentage points in those polls that have been taken this week.

Romney makes economic case against Obama
By Seth McLaughlin-The Washington Times
NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Pouncing on new modest economic growth numbers, GOP nominee Mitt Romney pounded home the message at a couple of campaign stops Friday that President Obama has failed to deliver on his promise to revive the economy and to nurture the bipartisanship necessary to confront the nation's problems.
Speaking in the critical swing states of Iowa and Ohio, Mr. Romney derided Mr. Obama for blaming his poor economic record on the recession he inherited from predecessor George W. Bush, saying the Democrat also inherited the "most productive and innovative nation in history" and a "people who have always risen to the occasion."

If Mitt Romney Loses,
Blame All the Time the GOP Wasted This Cycle
The conspiracy theories, the obviously unqualified primary candidates, the Clint Eastwood speech -- it all adds up to a lot of opportunities lost.
By Conor Friedersdorf - TheAtlantic.com
When the ballots are tallied on election night and pundits begin grappling with why it turned out as it did, a Democratic loss will be attributed to the economy. But a Republican loss? That will be more complicated to explain. Everyone will agree that the incumbent was beatable. So what went wrong? No single factor can explain something as complicated as a presidential election's outcome. Exit polls will tell us some of what happened. And there will be truth in many of the speculative theories that analysts offer about what the GOP campaign could've done better.

Tightening fiscal policy on this scale
will send the US into recession
"It's the economy, stupid." With those words uttered in 1992, James Carville, an adviser to Bill Clinton, suggested that American elections turned on the state of the economy.
By Roger Bootle - Tlelgraph.co.uk
It has since been accepted as the essential governing truth for all elections around the world. It is an exaggeration, of course – but not much of one. In the forthcoming Presidential election, the economy is going to play a major role. So how is it doing?
It is a mixed bag. Since the Lehmans crisis, the US economy has done much better than the UK or the eurozone. It has recently been growing at an annual rate of about 2pc. And US output has crawled above its pre-recession level. By contrast, even after last week's welcome (but over-hyped) 1pc growth in UK GDP, our output remains 3pc below its peak.

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE AND THE NOVEMBER ELECTION
by PATRICK CADDELL - Breitbart.com
The October Surprise in 2010
At 4:22 p.m. on Friday, October 29, 2010, President Barack Obama stepped into the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House and announced some startling news: Two bombs, hidden inside printer cartridges, had been detected the previous day on a cargo plane heading from Dubai to Chicago.
The detection was obviously good news--but did it really have to be news? That is, wasn't there much to be gained by staying mum on the news, with an eye to catching the culprits?

Obama's Real Second Term Plan
You won't recognize this country after his second term -- the obvious reason he's not telling you what he has in mind for it.
By NED RYUN - Spectator.org
Mitt Romney said it best in the last debate when he informed the President that, "attacking me isn't an agenda," which prompted the Obama campaign to immediately release what they call a plan for the second term. This 20-page repackaging of speeches notwithstanding, President Obama remains perhaps the only president in history to run for reelection who not only can't talk about his record but also can't discuss his real agenda for a second term.

Union members campaign for Obama
on frontline of US election in Ohio
Outside Timken steel plant, owned by Republican donors, union members say they fear Romney will wipe out organised labour
By Ewen MacAskill in Canton, Ohio - Guardian.co.uk
There are few places in America where the dividing line in the 2012 election is as clear as the desolate stretch of Harrison Avenue on the outskirts of Canton, Ohio. On one side of the street is the smoke-belching Timken steel plant, its owners generous contributors to the Republicans. On the other, four of the workers, members of the steel union, distribute leaflets on behalf of Barack Obama.
It was just after dawn on the first bitterly cold day of autumn and, even clad in hats and heavy jackets, they were shivering. But no one was complaining. They were on a mission, handing out pro-Democrat leaflets to sleepy-eyed, largely uninterested workers coming off the night shift and others about to start the day shift.

LEADERSHIP: Romney Uses Campaign Bus
to Deliver Hurricane Relief
by TONY LEE - Breitbart.com
The Romney campaign has canceled campaign events, commercials, and fundraising appeals in states that will be impacted by Hurricane Sandy, and is instead using a campaign bus to help deliver supplies to those who will be impacted by what forecasters are predicting may be a "storm of the century."
The Obama campaign has canceled events, but has yet to announce it have pulled commercials or fundraising appeals from states in Sandy's path. Romney was also first on the scene when Hurricane Irene struck the Gulf Coast in August, with President Obama arriving three days later after adjusting his schedule.

George Herbert Walker Obama
By Andrew Ferguson - WeeklyStandard.com
The news readers from NPR were mum-mum-mumbling in the background the other morning as I was putt-putt-puttering around the house when .  .  . all of a sudden .  .  . running counter to every fiber of my being .  .  . pulling against my every natural inclination .  .  . I began to pay attention! President Obama, one of the news readers said, was giving a speech in the Midwest to road-test a new theme for the campaign's final weeks: "trust."
"There's no more serious issue in a presidential campaign than trust," the president said. "Trust matters!" The Midwesterners cheered.

A Romney victory could spook the US markets
With just over a week to go before the US election, it's too close to call. President Barack Obama is rediscovering his touch as a ladies' man, polling well ahead among female voters just as he did when he won the White House in 2008.
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk
Republican challenger Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is the choice of most men – or at least those who intend to vote. The outcome of this titanic struggle really is in the balance, not least in the likes of Ohio and Florida, the all-important "swing states".
The normal assumption among financial analysts is that a Republican victory leads to a rally on America's equity markets.
Right-wingers tend to be fans of lower taxation, particularly on businesses, and less inclined to regulate.

If Elected, Moderate Mitt Will Disappear
By Jonathan Alter - Bloomberg.com
You have to hand it to Mitt Romney and his team. Starting in the first debate, he pivoted almost effortlessly to the center, which is where elections are won. If he beats President Barack Obama, it will be because he Etch-A- Sketched his earlier positions and convinced enough people that he would be a moderate president.
Unfortunately, he has little chance of governing that way. We don't know which Romney will show up on a given day, but we sure know which Republican Party would be in charge in Washington every minute. The Republicans have become the most extreme major political party in generations. They are tolerating Romney's heresies this month only to gain power.

Swing state's newspaper backs Romney
The Des Moines Register in Iowa surprises commentators by endorsing a Republican for the first time since Nixon
By Ewen MacAskill - Telegraph.co.uk
The biggest paper in Iowa, the Des Moines Register, has backed Mitt Romney for the White House, the first surprise among the endorsements from US papers.
It is the first time since 1972 that the Des Moines Register has endorsed a Republican – the last was an incumbent president, Richard Nixon.
The New York Times, to no one's surprise, came out at the weekend in favour of Obama as did, earlier, the Miami Herald.

Cutter: Des Moines Register endorsement not based 'in reality'
By Meghashyam Mali - TheHill.com
Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter on Sunday dismissed the Des Moines Register endorsement of GOP candidate Mitt Romney, saying it was not "based at all in reality."
"They endorsed Mitt Romney in the primary, so this was not much of a surprise," said Cutter on ABC's "This Week" of the influential swing-state paper's backing for President Obama's challenger.

TIDAL WAVE:
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS ENDORSES MITT ROMNEY
by MICHAEL PATRICK LEAHY - Breitbart.com
On Saturday the Daily News, the second largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan Los Angeles area, endorsed Mitt Romney for President in 2012. In 2008 the Daily News endorsed Barack Obama:
FOUR years ago, as America faced serious trouble at home and abroad, this news organization embraced the need for bold change to a different brand of leadership and endorsed Barack Obama for president.
That assessment of the depth of the nation's problems and the most promising solution was correct in 2008. Regrettably, it applies no less in 2012, after nearly a full term of Obama's administration. This is why the editorial board urges voters to choose Mitt Romney for president in the Nov. 6 election. He is the leader this country needs for the future. . .

Romney's Cold War Ponzi Scheme
By Robert Scheer - Truthdig.com
Poor President Obama, as Colin Powell pointed out in endorsing him Thursday, clearly holds what should be a winning hand in the war-on-terror game, and yet Mitt Romney and his neocon speechwriters won't cut him any slack. Suddenly it's not Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida that matter, but rather the military threat from Red China that is killing us with slick iPhones and cheap solar panels.
Throw in some good old Russia baiting, and if Romney has his way, the military-industrial complex will get its beloved Cold War back despite the fact that the communist threat is now one of conquering space on the shelves at Wal-Mart. Obama, the naive community organizer, thinks the foreign policy debate is about national security, but Romney, the quintessential vulture capitalist, knows that it's always been about maximizing profit.

Marvellous Mitt
BY WILLIAM KRISTOL - WeeklyStandard.com
Six months ago, in an editorial titled "President Romney," I speculated that Mitt Romney​—​then behind in the polls​—​could prevail this fall: "If Romney can speak to Americans' sense that it's a big moment, with big challenges, and if he can make this a big election rather than a petty one, then he can win​—​perhaps big." I continued: "Romney needs, over the next six months, to convince some number of swing voters he can and should be the next president. The easiest way to do this is by .  .  . behaving like a president. If you want to seem presidential, be presidential. .  .  . Let Obama lower himself by acting as campaigner in chief rather than commander in chief. Let Obama be shrill. Let his campaign be petty. Meanwhile, Romney can lay out his governing agenda to restore our solvency, put us on a path to prosperity, attend to our security, and safeguard our liberty. .  .  . If Romney can make that case, he has a very good chance to win."

U.S.-Russia Relations in Presidential Campaign Spotlight
By Ivo Mijnssen and Philipp Casula - Truthdig.com
During the third and final debate, President Barack Obama reminded voters that Mitt Romney once referredto Russia as "our No. 1 geopolitical foe." International powers such as Russia have been watching the candidates closely throughout the campaign, as both politicians and experts abroad ponder what to expect from the next four years. Although Obama's stance is not likely to change much, Romney remains an unknown quantity for the Russians.

White House Tries to Throw Military Under Bus
BY DANIEL HALPER - WeeklyStandard.com
Yesterday, the CIA insisted that "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate." The denial is in reference to the report that the CIA held back forces from helping the Americans who were under attack in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11.
And today, the White House is making a similar claim. "Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi," an Obama administration spokesman tells Yahoo's Olivier Knox.

Israel Conducts Air Strike
On Sudan Missile Base In 'Dry Run' For Iran Attack
Submitted by Tyler Durden - zeroHedge.com
This past Wednesday, nobody reported that a squadron of 8 Israeli F-15 jets dropped 4 two-ton bombs on the giant Yarmouk missile factory on the outskirts of Sudan's capital Khartoum. Which is just as Israel wanted it. Because what otherwise would be a provocative incursion tantamount to war (if only Sudan wasn't a complete basket case of a country), was really nothing short of a dry-run for an Israeli attack on Iran. At least according to theSunday Times. "A long-range Israeli bombing raid last week that was seen as a dry run for a forthcoming attack on Iran's nuclear facilities has destroyed an Iranian-run plant making rockets and ballistic missiles in Sudan.... The raid, in which two people died, triggered panic across the city. Witnesses said they heard a series of loud blasts followed by the sound of ammunition exploding. "It was a double impact — the explosion at the factory and then the ammunition flying into the neighbourhood," said Abd-al Ghadir Mohammed, 31, a resident. "The ground shook. Some homes were badly damaged." And... nobody cares. Here we leave it up to readers to imagine the epic horror, deep revulsion that would greet news that Iran had conducted a pre-emptive strike against Israel by blowing up a missile factory in Turkey, killing two innocent people, just to make sure it can.

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Friday 10.26.2012

Think Gold's Pricey Now?
Wait Until It Hits $5000: Schiff
By By: Javier E. David - CNBC.com
Runaway public spending combined with excessively loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve and other global central banks will push gold to $5,000 per ounce within the next two years, noted investor Peter Schiff said Thursday.
A longtime bullion bull, the head of Euro Pacific Capital told Futures Now in an interview that despite a recent retracement, "gold's got only one direction to go, and that's higher."

Standout central bank Gold action
includes Venezuelan sales, Brazil buys: UBS
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Some of standout activity in the IMF central bank gold data for August and September include Venezuela selling 120,000 and Brazil buying 56,000 ounces, said Edel Tully, precious metals strategist at UBS.
She continued that, "since the much publicized action of bringing its gold home, Venezuela has been a net seller of gold, with a previous 119,000-ounce sale in July and a chunkier offloading in December."

Countries Start to Resume Trade with Iran
Using Gold to Avoid US Sanctions
By Dian L. Chu - OilPrice.com
In recent months there has been a lot of incorrect speculation that because Iran has been shut off from the petrodollar, SWIFT-mediated regime, its economy will implode as the country has no access to the all important greenback and can thus not conduct international trade - the driving factor behind the international sanctions that seek to topple the local government as Iran dies an economic death. And while there have been bouts of substantial inflation, which so far the local government appears to have managed to put a lid on by curbing gray market speculation, Iran continues to more or less operate on its merry ways with international trade most certainly taking place, especially with China, Russia and India as main trading partners.

Brazil's Gold Reserves Rise For First Time Since 2008
By Nicholas Larkin and Glenys Sim - Bloomberg.com
Brazil increased its gold reserves for the first time since December 2008 at a time when investors raised holdings in exchange-traded products to a record.
Brazil's holdings expanded 1.7 tons last month to 35.3 tons, data on the International Monetary Fund's website showed. Turkey's holdings increased 6.8 tons and Ukraine added 0.3 ton. Brazil's central bank doesn't comment on the policy of its reserve composition, it said in an e-mail.

Silver Demand In China For Wealth Protection
to Climb to Record 7,700 Tons
BY MARK O'BYRNE - FinancialSense.com
Today's AM fix was USD 1,715.00, EUR 1,317.71, and GBP 1,063.24 per ounce. Yesterday's AM fix was USD 1,708.50, EUR 1,321.04, and GBP 1,069.28 per ounce.
Gold fell $6.00 or 0.35% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,700.90. Silver dropped to $31.52 in NYC trading in the late morning but recovered in the afternoon and finished with a gain of 0.19%.

There Is No National Debt Unless You Want It
Video Rebel's Blog - vidrebel.wordpress.com
The US federal debt is 16 trillion dollars – 20 trillion if you add in state and local government debts – but it could just as easily be zero dollars if we had the monetary system Benjamin Franklin described to the people of London in the 1760s. Englishmen could not understand why the American colonies had no poor houses and unemployed. He explained that if a colony needed to build a bridge or to fight a colonial war against the French they issued money which was retired from circulation as people paid taxes. The New England colonies did print too much money to support of England's wars against the French in Canada.
The important point is that there was no interest paid and no debt issued. Contrast that to the Federal Reserve which churns out fraudulent and fictional debt by the trillions. The interest on the federal debt is over 500 billion dollars a year. If Ben Bernanke were not printing money to buy bonds, the interest rate would have to at least equal the inflation rate of 10% which would give us an annual bill of two trillion dollars.

All Debt Is Not Created Equal
By Dan Steinhart, Casey Research - FinancialSense.com
The US has too much debt. This is no longer a controversial statement. Some may believe other problems are more urgent, or that we need to grow our way out rather than slash spending. But even the most spendthrift pundits acknowledge that the debt-to-GDP ratio of the US must decrease if we are to have a stable, prosperous economy.
The private sector has reacted to this over-indebted reality as you would expect: by deleveraging. Since 2008, households and businesses have extinguished of 67% of their debt when measured against GDP. Some paid debt down purposefully, and others defaulted. For our purposes, it doesn't matter how the debt went away. Only that it did.

Gentlemen, Start Your Deloreans
by Lee Quaintance & Paul Brodsky - ZeroHedge.com
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious _ _ _ _."
It seems engines are revving and it may be time to go forward to the past. Earlier this month, a large and well respected asset manager that has begun taking positions in gold expressions issued a report in which it began to justify gold's relative value. One metric it used was comparing the quantity of currency in the world to the quantity of gold. The report concluded that using this metric, the relative value of gold would be about $2,500/ounce, a significant premium to its current spot price.

Hubbard Said to Prefer Treasury to Fed If Romney Wins
By Peter Cook and Ian Katz - Bloomberg.com
Glenn Hubbard, the chief economic adviser to Mitt Romney, would rather be Treasury secretary than Federal Reserve chairman if the Republican candidate wins the presidential election, according to three people familiar with his thinking.
Given the choice, Hubbard prefers to go to the Treasury Department to lead an effort to overhaul the tax code, said the people, who declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter. They also said Hubbard could still end up at the Fed and other people are also under consideration for the Treasury. Hubbard declined in an e-mail to comment.

David Einhorn Explains
How Ben Bernanke Is Destroying America
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
David Einhorn knocks it out of the park with his very first statement during today's Buttonwood Gathering, in a segment dedicated to one thing only: explaining how the Fed's policies are not only not helping the economy,they are now actively destroying this country.

"Sometimes you have to look at what is the base assumption. because sometimes you have a groupthink around the base assumption and everybody agrees to the same thing and acts reflexively and doesn't really challenge what is going on. I think we have reached that point with the monetary policy. The assumption is that if you want the economy to improve, if you want more jobs, if you want more consumption, what we need is ever-easing monetary policy. My point is that if one jelly donut is a fine thing to have, 35 jelly donuts is not a fine thing to have, and it gets to a point where it's not a question of diminishing returns but it actually turns out to be a drag. I think we have passed the point where incremental easing of Federal policy actually acts as a headwind to the economy and is actually slowing down our recovery, and I am alarmed by the reflexive groupthink of the leaders which is if we want a stronger economy, we need lower rates, we need more QE and other such measures."

Eurozone nears Japan-style trap
as money and credit contract again
All key measures of the eurozone money supply contracted in September and private credit fell at an accelerating pace, dashing hopes of a quick recovery from recession.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Data from the European Central Bank show that the tentative rebound in the money supply over the summer may have stalled again in September.
The broad M3 gauge -- watched by experts as an early warning signal for the economy a year or so ahead -- shrank by €30bn and is now down by €143bn since April. This is highly unusual.
The narrow M1 gauge watched for signals of activity six months head has held up better but also contracted in September, falling by €16bn.

Corporate leaders warn
Congress must strike deficit deal before end of year
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
The business community is ramping pressure on Washington lawmakers to strike a broad deficit reduction deal during the upcoming lame duck session, with dozens of corporate leaders embarking on a public campaign demanding congressional action.
Over 80 CEOs from some of the world's largest companies announced Thursday they were calling on Congress and the White House to strike a deficit deal sooner rather than later.

The Regulation Cliff That We Will Face in 2013
The US also faces a regulatory cliff in 2013
By Simone Foxman - Quartz
Everyone is focused on the impending disaster of America's "fiscal cliff" at the start of 2013, when automatic spending cuts kick in, tax cuts expire, and politicians have to fight another debate over the government's debt ceiling. But to add to the turmoil, a raft of new regulations are due to come into force at around the same time—a "regulatory cliff" that is the other aftermath of the financial crisis. More than four years after the fall of Lehman Brothers, regulators are beginning to crack down on banks, law firms, and businesses, demanding that those companies managing consumer debts and deposits adhere to stricter standards.
For the most part, the regulations themselves aren't a problem. But the sheer quantity of them, and the pace at which institutions will have to implement new policies, could be.

Business investment stalls as "fiscal cliff" looms
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON | Thu Oct 25, 2012 7:52pm EDT
(Reuters) - Business investment showed signs of stalling in September, an indication that worries over a possible sharp tightening in the federal budget are already weighing on the economy.
Other data on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, a fresh sign the labor market is slowly healing.

Ford to Cut 5,700 Jobs With Three European Plant Closings
By Keith Naughton and Alex Webb - Bloomberg.com
Ford Motor Co. (F) will shut three European plants, its first factory closings in the region in a decade, and cut 5,700 jobs to stem losses that the carmaker predicts will total more than $3 billion over two years.
The shutdown of two U.K. factories and a plant in Belgium will remove production capacity for 355,000 vehicles, or 18 percent of the carmaker's total in the region, Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford said in a statement today. The moves will yield gross annual savings of $450 million to $500 million annually, it said. Ford rose after saying its third-quarter earnings will be better than the second.

The Fiscal Cliff and Demographic Drag
By Charles Hugh Smith - OfTwoMinds.com
Federal spending is heading for a fiscal cliff while millions of retirees are starting to draw Federal benefits.
We know two things about the future:
1. Borrowing 35% of Federal expenditures every year is unsustainable. (2012 Federal budget = $3.8 trillion, Federal deficit = $1.3 trillion, 34.2% of every Federal dollar spent is borrowed)
2. The Baby Boom generation of 75+ million may be working longer, but they are also retiring en masse, joining the ranks of Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries at the rate of 10,000 per day, a flood that will not ebb until the late 2020s. (The Baby Boom is generally defines as those born between 1946 and 1964, though many quibble with the 1964 date. The choice of parameter doesn't change anything about the consequences.)

Will The Bottom Fall Out?
15 Signs That Layoffs And Job Losses Are Skyrocketing
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you still have a good job, you might want to hold on to it very tightly because there are a whole bunch of signs that unemployment in the United States is about to start getting worse again. Over the past several weeks, a substantial number of large corporations have announced disappointing earnings for the third quarter. Many of those large corporations are also loaded up with huge amounts of debt. So what is the solution? Well, the favorite solution on Wall Street these days seems to be to lay off workers. In fact, it is almost turning into a feeding frenzy. Since September 1st, we have seen more job cuts announced than during any other two month period since the start of 2010. These announcements represent future layoffs and job losses which are not even showing up in the unemployment numbers yet. So needless to say, things don't look very promising for the end of 2012 or for the beginning of 2013. If this race to eliminate jobs becomes a stampede, will we see the bottom fall out of the employment market?

Why Freddie Mac Resisted Refis
By Jesse Eisinger - ProPublica.org
Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage giant, made it harder for millions of Americans to refinance their high-interest-rate mortgages for fear it would cut into company profits, present and former Freddie Mac officials disclosed in recent interviews.
In closed door meetings, two Republican-leaning board members and at least one executive resisted a mass refi policy for an additional reason, according to the interviews: They regarded it as a backdoor economic stimulus.

Home Prices Push Low-Wage Workers Out of Cities
By: Nicole Goodkind, Yahoo Finance - CNBC.com
Sales of single-family homes in the U.S. rose by 5.7% in September, the highest rate since April 2010.
Most would argue that these numbers are indicative of an improving economy — an increase in housing sales leads to an increase in housing prices. Daniel Shoag, associate professor of Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School, would argue the opposite.
High housing prices actually decrease income mobility and ultimately hurt the U.S. economy, according to a new study by Shoag and his colleague Peter Gangong.

Ford cutting 1,500 jobs in U.K. as European losses grow
AP - WashingtonTimes.com
LONDON (AP) — FordMotor Co. announced Thursday it will cut 1,500 jobs in Britain, closing a plant and eliminating a stamping and tooling facility, as it warned that losses in Europe will exceed $1.5 billion this year.
Ford, which on Wednesday announced the closure of another plant in Brussels, is struggling in Europe, as are many major carmakers. Sales are down as the region's economic crisis hurts demand from households and businesses.

Did the For-Profit College Bubble Just Go Pop?
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Is higher education a giant bubble? I'd argue that it's probably not. But for-profit higher education just might be, and today we could be witnessing it pop.
Last Tuesday, Apollo Group Inc., the corporate parent of the University of Phoenix, unloaded a round ofhellacious news on its investors. The company's fourth quarter net income -- essentially, its profits -- had fallen 60 percent from the year before. The number of new students enrolling had slumped by 13 percent, and yet costs were up. To try and stanch the bleeding, management announced it would shutter more than half of the school's brick and mortar campuses and lay off almost 5 percent of its staff.

Baseball World Series Opener's TV Rating Drops 13% From 2011
By Mason Levinson - Bloomberg.com
The San Francisco Giants' 8-3 win over the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of Major League Baseball's World Series drew a 12.6 percent smaller television rating on Fox than a year earlier, according to initial national data.

No Denial: 'Son of Detroit'
Profited From Bailout—and Jobs Shipped to China
By Joe Conason - Truthdig.com
"I'm a son of Detroit. I was born in Detroit. My dad was head of a car company. I like American cars," said Mitt Romney on Monday night when he met with President Obama to discuss foreign policy. "And I would do nothing to hurt the U.S. auto industry."
That might be considered true—unless moving the most important American auto parts manufacturer to China counts as hurting the U.S. auto industry. But those words now stand as one of Romney's most glaring falsehoods in the final debate.

Churches openly defy IRS on pulpit politics
Ministry aims to push 1954 tax law to Supreme Court
By Keely Brazil - The Washington Times
Pastor Ron Walker knew he was breaking the law when he took his place behind the pulpit of The Little White Church in Hill City, S.D., to preach a sermon critical of President Obama.
"I think it's a risk well worth taking," said the pastor of the nondenominational church of about 150 members. "We would be delighted to be sued and have the opportunity to defend ourselves — in front of the Supreme Court, if necessary."

Why the US is NOT the New Saudi Arabia
By Dave Cohen - OilPrice.com
Here we go again, another 'Planet Stupid' update. All posts like this one have a predictable structure. Some egregious baloney is put out by a propaganda organization like Reuters, the Associated Press, CBS, NPR, etc. Well this load demands a refutation, which I supply. What's different today is that I will let Brad Plumer of the Wonk Blog do the debunking.

Perfect storm threatens Northeast & Mid-Atlantic
Sandy-Winter Storm Hybrid Threatens East Coast
WASHINGTON — Much of the U.S. East Coast has a good chance of getting blasted by gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and maybe even snow early next week by an unusual hybrid of hurricane and winter storm, forecasters say.
Though still projecting several days ahead of Halloween week, the computer models are spooking meteorologists. Government scientists said Wednesday the storm has a 70 percent chance of smacking the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.

This Storm Is Long Overdue!
By Joe Bastardi - PatriotPost.us
Since the weekend I have been loudly warning Weatherbell clients that an historic storm is in the making. For years I have wondered why a storm like what I have forecasted -- a hurricane hit on the mid or north Atlantic Coast from the southeast -- has not occurred. In this case a tropical cyclone is entrained into a massive early season cold air mass and is forced to turn northwest into the Mid-Atlantic States. In fact, in talks I give about hurricanes, I show the example of this kind of storm, which I call the "Philadelphia Story" -- a hurricane hits the mid Atlantic states from the southeast near or south of the mouth of the Delaware Bay. It sends its storm surge up Delaware Bay which is funnel shaped, much like the 1938 hurricane did in Providence, and that rising storm surge is met by flooding coming down the Delaware River. The flooding is worse than it would have been, because the lakes that were not dammed up years ago are, so they must release their water downstream into the river. In addition such a storm would devastate the Jersey shore worse than 1944.

Hurricane Sandy Risks to Northeast Coast Grow
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
Hurricane Sandy became a more powerful storm than what the forecasters were expecting. Now it is looking as though Hurricane Sandy is another risk to the Northeast. The official path shows that the storm could be a risk anywhere from North Carolina up to Massachusetts starting late Sunday night as far south as North Carolina and up to Tuesday for further up the East Coast.
Officially, the Atlantic hurricane season is June 1 to November 30 but some storms can still occur outside of these dates. That being said, this is late in the storm season for there to be a strengthening hurricane which could come back in and skirt the Northeast coast.

Water derivatives; trading water as a commodity
Public or Private: The Fight Over the Future of Water
By Brandon Keim - Wired.com
All around the world, from the Himalayas to the Great Plains, fresh water is starting to run low. It's shaping up to be one of the 21st century's great environmental and humanitarian challenges: People use water faster than nature can replenish it.
Some people argue that privatization is the answer to the water crisis. But others, including food journalist Frederick Kaufman, say that's a recipe for disaster. The author of Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food, published in October by Wiley, Kaufman points to the recent history of food prices as an example of the dangers posed by modern finance.

Eric Schmidt is headed to Paris
to head off French proposal to charge Google for linking
By Christopher Mims - Quartz
France's new government has been making noises about forcing Google to pay for the privilege of linking to French news sites. Google responded by threatening toremove all French news sites from its index, which would presumably eliminate the 4 billion clicks it sends to those sites every year.
Now France's minister of technology, Fleur Pellerin, tells me that Google chairman Eric Schmidt is traveling to Paris next week to discuss the issue. The hope, says Pellerin, is that Google can reach some sort of agreement with French newspaper publishers that would eliminate the need for legislation.

Hand Crank Is a Backup for Your Backup Battery
BY KARISSA BELL - Wired.com
A backup battery for your phone can be essential in emergencies. But even the best ones can die or lose their charge.
EtonC has released a series of backup batteries that come with their own fallback for when the initial charge runs out. The BoostTurbine Series batteries come equipped with a hand crank that will let you generate power manually. Eton claims that just one minute on the hand crank can produce enough power for a 30-second phone call or a few text messages.

Donald Trump's Latest Challenge to Obama
Renders Him Irrelevant
It's not us. It's you. You've been annoying in the past. You've also been good copy. But your latest pitiful attempt to keep your name in headlines is one empty bid for attention too many.
By Lloyd Grove - TheDailyBeast.com
It's been fun, Donald. You've provided your share of colorful copy and driven more than your share of online traffic with your attention-getting antics and desperate PR stunts. In the spirit of taking responsibility, let's acknowledge that we in the media have been your enablers.

Back When Democrats Knew Economics
Who warned that "increasing federal expenditures" would "demoralize both the government and our economy"?
By RALPH R. REILAND - Spectator.org
Eleven months before he was assassinated as he rode with his wife in the back seat of an open convertible in a motorcade through downtown Dallas, President John F. Kennedy delivered a major address to the Economic Club of New York at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on December 14, 1962.
The unemployment rate that month was 5.5 percent. The annual inflation rate was 1.3 percent.
The sticker price on a new Chevy Impala convertible was $2,919. Gas was 31 cents a gallon. A morning coffee and newspaper was 15 cents -- a dime for the coffee, a nickel for the paper. Cheeseburgers were 20 cents.

Before The Election Was Over, Wall Street Won
By Nomi Prins - ZeroHedge.com
Before the campaign contributors lavished billions of dollars on their favorite candidate; and long after they toast their winner or drink to forget their loser, Wall Street was already primed to continue its reign over the economy.
For, after three debates (well, four), when it comes to banking, finance, and the ongoing subsidization of Wall Street, both presidential candidates and their parties' attitudes toward the banking sector is similar – i.e. it must be preserved – as is – at all costs, rhetoric to the contrary, aside.

Romney and Obama: A Tax Comparison
BY DAVID KOTOK - FinancialSense.com
This link (click here) will take you to a summary of the two presidential candidates' taxation plans. We are also copying the summary and pasting it below. The website offers you more detail. Hat tip to Pete Speer for this link.

A Quick Guide to the Obama and Romney Tax Plans
By: Nick Kasprak and William McBride October 18, 2012

An additional tax issue involves the treatment of tax-free municipal bonds. Various proposals can alter this landscape, and all of them are subject to complex political outcomes. In its discussion of options, the Simpson-Bowles Commission used the repeal of the exclusion for interest on newly issued state and local government bonds.

Presidential Election Preview 2:
Where They Stand And Why It Matters
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The 2012 US presidential election is perhaps one of the most unique and important elections in recent history from an economic perspective (with the time-line rapidly approaching). In choosing its leader for the next four years (for which we provide a handy 'where-do-they-stand' cheatsheet), we agree with Goldman that the country will likely be determining the path for near-term economic growth, medium-to-longer term fiscal stability and monetary policy at a time when the stakes are exceptionally high - whether or not the US economy returns to recessionary conditions in 2013, the US sovereign debt rating and the broader credibility of the US government to Americans and foreigners alike all hang in the balance. Goldman sees three factors that set the 2012 election apart.

PAUL RYAN AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE CIVIL SOCIETY
BY PAUL MIRENGOFF - PowerlineBlog.com
Paul Ryan gave an important speech in Cleveland, Ohio yesterday. The underlying subject was the enduring necessity of civil society and the role that local communities play in the typical American life, about which Ryan said this:
[Romney is] the type we've all run into in our own communities – here in Cleveland, too, and all around America. Americans are a compassionate people, and there's a consensus in this country about our fundamental obligations to society's most vulnerable. Those obligations are not what we're debating in politics. Most times, the real debate is about whether they are best met by private groups, or by the government; by voluntary action, or by more taxes and coercive mandates from Washington.

Romney's China-Bashing Is 100% Correct ... but 5 Years Late
China's currency manipulation used to be a problem,
but isn't as much anymore
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
If it's election season, then it must be time to bash China for currency manipulation. Right on cue, Mitt Romney has promised to label our second-largest trade partner a currency manipulator from "day one" -- which Alan Beattie of the Financial Times points out wouldn't actually do anything -- and then levy countervailing tariffs on their goods. This would be a defensible policy -- if it were 2007. But guess what. It's not 2007 anymore.
Currency manipulation itself is a simple game. It just means printing money to buy foreign currency, which suppresses the value of your own. A weaker currency not only means cheaper and more competitive exports, but also keeps prices from falling too much -- it's monetary easing.

Obama: No doubt Romney win could overturn Roe v. Wade
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
There's no question a Romney presidency could spell the end of Roe v. Wade, President Obama said in an interview with Rolling Stone.
Romney has said he'd like to see the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that said abortion is legal. And if he wins in November, he might be able to tilt the balance of the court to make that possible.

Working-class voters
could be the key to Romney's chances in Ohio
By Justin Sink and Keith Laing - TheHill.com
White, working-class voters in Ohio are supporting President Obama at higher levels than in other swing states, making it tougher for Mitt Romney to catch the incumbent in perhaps the most vital of all battlegrounds.
Even as the GOP nominee has inched ahead in polls of swing states like North Carolina, Florida and Colorado, Romney has been unable to crack Obama's slim but steady advantage in polls of the Buckeye State.

Republican Colin Powell Endorses Obama Re-Election
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama in his bid for re-election, citing the Democratic president's efforts to wind down the war in Afghanistan and tackling terrorism.
"And so I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on," the Republican, who also backed Obama in 2008, told "CBS This Morning" on Thursday.
The move comes just days after Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney clashed over foreign policy in the third and last presidential debate ahead of the Nov. 6 election.

The New Obama
By Jonathan Schell - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – After the second debate between US President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, Obama's supporters chorused in near-unison, "He's back!" The languid, disengaged, and lackluster performer of the first debate had disappeared, and the impressive, beloved figure of the victorious 2008 campaign had reappeared. As the commentator Andrew Sullivan put it, "I saw the person I first saw...I saw the president I thought I knew."

The Plan, the Man, and the Believers
Four years of failure don't disillusion Obama's faithful.
By ROBERT STACY MCCAIN - Spectator.org
Less than two weeks before Americans finally have a chance to vote him out of office, President Obama has begun shouting at campaign rallies: "I've got a plan!"
It's really a slogan, not a plan, referring to a 20-page pamphlet that is about as plausible as Obama's notorious June 2008 boast that his election would mark "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Difficult as it may now be to recall, there were once "spiritually advanced people" who looked at this Chicago machine politician and saw "a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being… who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet." Obviously, none of these "advanced" people read The American Spectator, but many of them are still out there awaiting this "new way of being," which is the only possible explanation for the crowds who show up to cheer their hero as he reads his lines from the teleprompter screens.

Will President Obama Fire Hillary?
By Ken Blackwell, coauthored by Bob Morrison - PatriotPost.us
Bing West's column on National Review Online is hard reading. It is must reading for every American. We are more than a month into one of the worst foreign policy debacles in our history. Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were brutally murdered in the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. That consulate is American sovereign territory. It is as if the Libyans came across the border into San Antonio and killed American citizens on American soil.

Hillary Clinton suggests she could stay at State
by Rachel Weiner - WashingtonPost.com
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she will serve only one term. But in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, she suggested it was possible — if "unlikely" — that she would stay in the post a bit longer.
"A lot of people have talked to me about staying," Mrs. Clinton said, declining to be more specific. When asked if current events will force her departure date to slip, she said it was "unlikely," but for the first time left open that possibility for the short term.

WH thought she was leaving
For Clinton as Top Diplomat, Tumultuous Closing Chapter
[Google title for free article pass]
By MONICA LANGLEY - WSJ.com - $$
Just weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was poised to glide out of office as secretary of state with job-approval ratings near 70% and a political buzz suggesting she is already the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate to beat.
Then, disaster struck at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Mrs. Clinton calls the "terrible events"—involving the death of a U.S. ambassador—"one of the most challenging" periods of her four-year tenure. At that moment, U.S. foreign policy, largely overshadowed by economic concerns in the presidential election, roared to the forefront.

Drone Wars: From 'Kill Lists' to the 'Disposition Matrix'
By Tracy Bloom - Truthdig.com
The "conventional wars" the U.S. is waging may be winding down, but the war on terrorism is far from over. According to a new report in The Washington Post, more names have been added to the Obama administration's controversial "kill list," ensuring that drone attacks designed to hunt down those on the list will likely continue for at least another decade. What that means is that the global war on terror—which began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks—is just reaching its midpoint.

U.S. Rushes to Stop Syria
from Expanding Chemical Weapon Stockpile
By Noah Shachtman - Wired.com
The regime of embattled Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is actively working to enlarge its arsenal of chemical weapons, U.S. officials tell Danger Room. Assad's operatives have tried repeatedly in recent months to buy up the precursor chemicals for deadly nerve agents like sarin, even as his country plunges further and further into a civil war. The U.S. and its allies have been able to block many of these sales. But that still leaves Assad's scientists with hundreds of metric tons of dangerous chemicals that could be turned into some of the world's most gruesome weapons.
"Assad is weathering everything the rebels throw at him. Business is continuing as usual," one U.S. official privy to intelligence on Syria says. "They've been busy little bees."

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Thursday 10.25.2012

Gold takes a sigh as US Federal Reserve leaves QE to its own
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): The US Federal Open Market Committee has left the monetary policy unchanged and maintained the interest rates near zero giving fillip to gold prices. Earlier there were apprehensions expressed by some quarters that US Federal Reserve may clip the QE wings as some positive signs emerged in the economy.
"The Committee remains concerned that, without sufficient policy accommodation, economic growth might not be strong enough to generate sustained improvement in labor market conditions," the FOMC said in a statement.

Republicans Eye Return to Gold Standard
By: Robin Harding and Anna Fifield, Financial Times - CNBC.com
The gold standard has returned to mainstream U.S. politics for the first time in 30 years, with a "gold commission" set to become part of official Republican party policy.
Drafts of the party platform, which it will adopt at a convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, next week, call for an audit of Federal Reserve monetary policy and a commission to look at restoring the link between the dollar and gold.

Gold, Silver to help investors
as governments pursues financial socialism
In all likelihood, this increasingly obvious trend will not end through the political process but instead via a complete currency collapse as people lose faith in intrinsically worthless paper currencies.
By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com
As the democratic masses increasingly sense that their living standards are becoming threatened,they have been blindly authorizing their governments to do "whatever it takes" to arrest the impending economic collapse.
In fact, as the vocal voting public insists upon quick solutions to the economic crises, politicians are ready and waiting to analyze popular needs and desires in order to deliver the messages that the people so badly want hear.

The Precious Metal Barter Tax and IRS Mission Creep!

Why Did The Bundesbank Secretly Withdraw
Two-Thirds Of Its London Gold?
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Two days ago we reported that the German Court of Auditors demanded that the German Central Bank, the Bundesbank, verify and audit its official gold holdings consisting of 3,396 tons, held mostly offshore, namely New York, London and Paris, at least according to official documents. It also called for repatriation of 150 tons in the next three years to perform a quality inspection of the tungsten gold. Today, in a surprising development, via the Telegraph we learn that none other than the same Bundesbank which is causing endless nightmares for all the other broke European nations due to its insistence for sound money, decided to voluntarily pull two thirds of its gold holdings held by the Bank of England.

Do they know something we don't?
Germany insists on regular checks on gold held in foreign vaults
By THIS IS MONEY REPORTER - dailymail.co.uk
At a moment when many of its crisis-hit eurozone partners are left counting their pennies, Germany is seeking to count its gold bars.
The German Federal Court of Auditors have called on for the country's central bank to carry out a physical inspection of the gold reserves it stores at foreign central banks because the precious metal holdings have never been fully checked.

Bundesbank slashed London gold holdings in mystery move
Germany withdrew two thirds of its vast holdings of gold from Bank of England vaults shortly after the launch of the euro more than a decade ago, according to a confidential report that emerged on Wednesday.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The revelation came as Germany's budget watchdog demanded an on-site probe of the country's remaining gold reserves in London, Paris, and New York to verify whether the metal really exists.
The country has 3,396 tons of gold worth €143bn (£116bn), the world's second-largest holding after the US. Nearly all of it was shifted to vaults abroad during the Cold War in case of a Soviet attack.

The Germans Are Coming for Their Gold
By: John Carney, Senior Editor, CNBC.com
A German federal court has said that country's central bank should conduct annual audits and physically inspect its gold reservesworldwide, including gold in the custody of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In addition to the FRBNY, Bundesbank gold is stored in London, Paris and Frankfurt.

So just ask them: Western central banks
have enormous secrets about gold
By: Lars Schall - GoldSeek.com
It's strange what you encounter when you try to take a serious look at the gold policy of central banks and their agents, the bullion banks.
Some observers, including the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), estimate that Western central banks have on hand nowhere near as much gold as they claim. These observers suspect that much Western central bank gold has been sold or leased largely surreptitiously to restrain the gold price over the last two decades.

10 nations that control the world's gold
By 24/7 Wall St. - MarketWatch.com
It is now more obvious than ever that gold is becoming the new global reserve currency. Continuous and aggressive central-bank actions from the United States and Europe are driving the demand for gold. Investors have not yet seen any of the real hyperinflationary pressures that seem likely down the road.
Gold's substantial rise in price should speak for itself. In dollar terms, gold returned 11.1% in the third quarter and was up by 16% year-to-date through the end of the quarter. The World Gold Council said that gold has a low stock-market correlation through time. That was not the case in the third quarter. Gold still outperformed almost all the major equity markets in the largest gold-holding nations in 2012.

Triple Top in Gold?
By Scott Silva - GoldSeek.com
Gold is amazing stuff. Gold has launched wars, destroyed and created whole societies. For thousands of years gold has been the trusted medium of exchange, and for hundreds of years had been the reserve currency of developed nations. Today, there is revived interest in gold. Central banks are net buyers of gold bullion, and more and more individuals are buying gold and silver bullion. That's because gold has intrinsic value as money anywhere on the globe. Gold maintains its value as fiat currency is debased as central banks print Trillions more paper notes on the pretext of stimulating ailing economies. In fact, these robber-baron governments are implementing their secret agenda to monetize massive national debts, that is, paying interest (rarely principle) with paper currency of ever-diminishing value. Where are the RICO laws for that criminal practice?

John Williams: Fed Money Printing
will Trigger a Sell-Off Providing Start to Hyperinflation
Economist John Williams says the latest round of "open-ended" QE has set the table for a global "dollar sell-off" and "hyperinflation"no later than 2014. Williams says, "There's no way the consumer can fuel the economic recovery, and there is no way we're going to see one in the near future." Williams predicts, "The Treasury is going to have funding problems, and that means the deficit gets a lot worse."

Fed Cites Moderate U.S. Growth, Takes No New Action
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER - DailyFinance.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that the U.S. economy is improving only moderately and still needs its support to help lower unemployment.
The Fed took no new action after a two-day policy meeting. It wants time to assess whether aggressive steps launched in September will boost growth and job creation.

[Fiscal Cliff] Bigger than Bernanke?
Are today's problems bigger than Dr. Bernanke
and the Federal Reserve?
By John Nyaradi - MarketWatch.com
With the monthly Federal Reserve meeting scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, investors again look to Dr. Bernanke and his colleagues for clues as to how they might further support economic growth.

Bernanke's bailing... regardless
BERNANKE TO STEP DOWN FROM FED
REGARDLESS OF WHO WINS ELECTION
By Becket Adams - TheBlaze.com
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke has reportedly told close friends that he will step down at the end of his second term in 2014 regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election, the New York Times reports.
Even if he wanted to stick around for a third term, it would require an Obama victory. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has said that he would not re-appoint Bernanke should he win the White House.

Keiser Report: Asphyxiation Nation (E357)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss mugging hoodies and asphyxiating economies with cynical bank fiddles and institutionalized fraud. They also review the past 18 months in which "Barclays has been exposed for ripping off the elderly, avoiding £500million in tax, mis-selling payment protection insurance to the tune of £1.5billion, manipulating crucial interest rates and now mis-selling loans to small firms." In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Kwasi Kwarteng, a Member of Parliament in the UK and author of Britannia Unchained, about the golden egg of fraud in the City of London.

Fed sticks to stimulus plan, says economy a bit firmer
By Pedro da Costa and Alister Bull
WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:13pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday stuck to its plan to keep stimulating U.S. growth until the job market improves even as it acknowledged some parts of the economy were looking a bit better.
In a statement after a two-day meeting, the central bank repeated its vow to keep rates near zero until mid-2015 and its pledge to keep supporting growth while the recovery strengthens.

'I'm Quite Concerned About Fiscal Cliff': Greenspan
By: Justin Menza - CNBC.com
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reservechairman, told CNBC he's "quite concerned" about the looming "fiscal cliff" and the inability of legislators to compromise to reach a solution.
Greenspan said in an interview on "Power Lunch" that the two sides need to find compromise to address the automatic tax increases and spending cuts that kick in at the end of the year.

One Chart Explains Why Government Debt
Is Dragging on the Economy
By Dan Steinhart - GoldSeek.com
The US has too much debt. This is no longer a controversial statement. Some may believe other problems are more urgent, or that we need to grow our way out rather than slash spending. But even the most spendthrift pundits acknowledge that the debt-to-GDP ratio of the US must decrease if we are to have a stable, prosperous economy.

Global Megabanks: Too Big To Handle
By Simon Johnson - Project-Syndicate.org
WASHINGTON, DC – In the discussion of whether America's largest financial institutions have become too big, a sea change in opinion is underway. Two years ago, during the debate about the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation, few people thought that global megabanks represented a pressing problem. Some prominent senators even suggested that very large European banks represented something of a role model for the United States.

Must Watch "Rumble in the Monetary Jungle"
with Karl Denninger and Mike Norman!!

Three Horsemen of a Weakened U.S. Currency
Commentary: 'Financial WMDs' debase dollar, risk inflation
By Satyajit Das - MarketWatch.com
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — "The USA lived off credit for too long, inflated its financial sector massively and neglected its industrial base." Such was the sobering assessment that German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble gave the Wall Street Journal in November 2010.
Two years later, and after two more years of borrowing. U.S. government debt currently totals around U.S.$16 trillion. The U.S. government holds around 40% of the debt through the Federal Reserve, Social Security Trust Fund and other government trust funds. Individuals, corporations, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, mutual funds, state or local governments, hold 25%. Foreign investors: China; Japan, and "other", principally oil exporting nations, Asian central banks or sovereign wealth funds, hold the remaining 35%.

US sues Bank of America for $1bn
over 'hustle' mortgage fraud scheme
Civil suit accuses bank of selling dodgy mortgages to government-controlled financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
By Dominic Rushe in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Bank of America defrauded the US government in a scheme called "the hustle", federal prosecutors alleged on Wednesday as they sued the bank $1bn in compensation.
The justice department filed a civil complaint in New York seeking recompense for some of the massive losses suffered by quasi-government controlled mortgage finance firms Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae following the collapse of the ill-fated housing boom.

Ron Paul Tells The Truth About The Stock Market Crash On Fox

Kansas Kids stand up to protest food feds
Abilene students boycott cafeteria to protest federal food statute
By GARY DEMUTH - Salina Journal
ABILENE -- Charles Slaughter brought his own hamburger to school to save his brain cells.
Charles, a 16-year-old junior at Abilene Senior High School, sat in the hallway near the cafeteria Tuesday munching on his burger, which he called "real meat made on the grill."
Charles, along with other like-minded students, was participating in part of a weeklong protest of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, a federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama.

THIS 'FOOD STAMP NATION' CHART IS DEEPLY DEPRESSING
By Becket Adams - TheBlaze.com
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (i.e. food stamps) and EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) card abuse are two things TheBlaze regularly keeps up with.
We've talked about the record number of people enrolled in the government assistance program. We've talked about representatives from the USDA meeting with Mexican government officials to encourage food stamp participation in Latino communities. We've talked about multiple cases of people abusing their EBT benefits. We've talked about cashiers refusing business to EBT card holders and we've talked about EBT fraud.

The Dark Side of Facebook's Triumphant Day
How do you build a $100 billion business
serving ads on a three-inch screen?
Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Facebook, Inc. just had the best day of its young life.
The stock surged 20 percent in morning trading after Mark Zuckerberg announced third quarter earnings. Mobile advertising -- the elusive golden snitch of the social media biz -- increased infinity percent (that's a real statistic!) from $0.00 a few months ago to $153 million in the last quarter. For perspective: Facebook is now on pace to make more than $1 billion in the next year from a business that didn't exist in 2011.
All of this is good news for Facebook's investors, who can finally catch their breath, and good news for Facebook's leadership, who can finally stop fielding questions about whether the company is too quixotic to build a real business. But there's a dark lining to Facebook's mobile triumph.

Keiser Report: Washington's Choco Moat (E356)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the fudge and candy moat surrounding Washington DC, protecting its inhabitants from the plunge in economic freedom for the citizens outside the Swiss chocolate moat. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Swiss prepare for refugees from financial collapse while the elite chow down on the Dutch sandwich. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Michael Krieger of LibertyBlitzkrieg.com about Jamie Dimon trying to instigate World War 3 and how the wars on drugs and terror are causing the US to plunge down the index of economic freedom.

US downplayed effect
of Deepwater oil spill on whales, emails reveal
Documents obtained by Greenpeace show officials controlling information about wildlife affected by the disaster
By Suzanne Goldenberg - Guardian.co.uk
The images from the summer of 2010 were undoubtedly gruesome: the carcass of a young sperm whale, decayed and partially eaten by sharks, sighted at sea south of the Deepwater Horizon oil well.
It was the first confirmed sighting of a dead whale since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April that year – a time of huge public interest in the fate of whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other threatened animals – and yet US government officials supressed the first reports of the discovery and blocked all images until now.

U.N. calls for 'anti-terror' Internet surveillance
United Nations report calls for Internet surveillance, saying lack of "internationally agreed framework for retention of data" is a problem, as are open Wi-Fi networks in airports, cafes, and libraries.
by Declan McCullagh - CNet.com
The United Nations is calling for more surveillance of Internet users, saying it would help to investigate and prosecute terrorists.
A 148-page report (PDF) released today titled "The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes" warns that terrorists are using social networks and other sharing sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Dropbox, to spread "propaganda."

Plan for hunting terrorists
signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists
By Greg Miller - WashingtonPost.com
Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the "disposition matrix."
The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the "disposition" of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.

T-Mobile beefs up Android security with malware protection
The carrier partners with mobile security company Lookout to preload free malware- and virus-protection software into select Android devices.
by Dara Kerr - CNet.com
T-Mobile is aiming to fortify the Android smartphones and tablets it carries by offering users free protection against malware and viruses.
The company announced today that it is partnering with mobile security company Lookout to help T-Mobile customers protect their devices with a product called Automatic App Security. The software will come preloaded on certain devices this year, and then T-Mobile will roll it out to most Android devices in 2013.

What's the big deal with 3D printing?
Does it really mark the advent of a 'new industrial revolution'? Will Dean heads to the first-ever 3D printing consumer trade show to find out if the hype is right
By WILL DEAN - Independent.co.uk
"The internet changed the world in the 1990s," says the programme. "The world is about to change again." As boasts go, it's up there. But can 3D printing beat the hype?
If you're aware of 3D printing, but not sure how it works, then you could have done worse than head to the City of London last Friday for the world's first-ever consumer 3D print show, the catchily titled 3D Print Show.

Peeved? Apple will exchange your 3rd-gen iPad
for the newer model
Customers who purchased a third-generation iPad within the last 30 days might be able to exchange their device for a newer model at select Apple stores.
by Sharon Vaknin - CNet.com
Just got a third-gen iPad? Apple might be willing to exchange it.
In an unexpected move, Apple refreshed its 10-inch iPad today, leaving many third-generation iPad owners groaning at a suddenly subpar device.
Apple customers like Roger Cheng have (until now) slept soundly knowing that any Apple product purchased is the "latest and greatest" for at least one year. Today, Apple killed that notion.

New Technology Creates Petroleum from Air
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
A small firm of engineers from the North of England have developed a revolutionary new technology that could change the entire energy world; their technology produces petrol from air.
The method is as follows:
Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and then mixing it with sodium hydroxide. The resulting sodium carbonate solution is then electrolysed to produce pure carbon dioxide. In a spate process, water vapour collected from the air in a dehumidifier. The CO2 and hydrogen are then combined to form methane, which is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor to create petroleum.

Flaring Increases in the US Due to Low Natural Gas Prices
By Saltanat Berdikeeva - OilPrice.com
North Dakota's oil production from its Bakken Shale formation continues to grow, reaching 660 thousand barrels per day (bbl/d) in June 2012. With a back-to-back 5 percent rise in oil output every month, North Dakota does not expect the pace of production to slow down. By all accounts, an immediate challenge for the oil boom is the inability of producers to deliver to refineries due to insufficient pipeline capacity. Rapidly growing oil production and infrastructure problems are also starting to pose serious environmental challenges.

The Tea Party is OVER!
How the right wing lost in 2012
By E.J. Dionne Jr. - WashingtonPost.com
The right wing has lost the election of 2012.
The evidence for this is overwhelming, yet it is the year's best-kept secret. Mitt Romney would not be throwing virtually all of his past positions overboard if he thought the nation were ready to endorse the full-throated conservatism he embraced to win the Republican nomination.

How the Presidential Election Will Impact the Supreme Court
The winner in November may name one or more new justices. Shouldn't the voters get to hear more about it?
By Damon W. Root - Reason.com
President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent Mitt Romney sparred over matters large and small in this month's three presidential debates, yet when it came to one of the most pressing issues in American politics, the two candidates were strangely quiet. There was not a single discussion about the president's central role in appointing new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.
That silence makes even less sense when you consider the demographic forces at work. Of the Court's nine sitting members, four are now in their 70s, including 79-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who recently underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer, a notoriously deadly affliction. America's next president may well have the opportunity to name one or more new justices to the High Court. Shouldn't the voters get to hear something about it?

The Battleground States That Will Decide the Election
A tight race, but Obama's huge margins of victory in key swing states have vanished.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
Now that the debates are over, the most significant information Americans will get regarding how the candidates are doing will be from the polls. If those polls are any indication, it is Republican challenger Mitt Romney who has been the beneficiary of a bump that most likely came from his obvious win in the first debate, followed by two debates in which no clear cut winner emerged. This week Romney moved above 50 percent in his favorability rating with the voters for the first time. Yet it is no secret that this election will be decided by 11 battleground states. Those states are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The current polling numbers, according to the Real Clear Politics website (RCP), which averages the polling data from a number of independent sources, reveal an incredibly close and intense race between the president and Mitt Romney. Of particular note is that President Obama has seen his once-huge margins of victory against 2008 challenger John McCain virtually vanish. Yet it is far from certain that this will translate into a victory for 2012 GOP nominee.

White House winner will have to deal with housing,
European debt problems
By Patrice Hill-The Washington Times
The election is all about the economy this year, but neither presidential candidate has talked much about two major problems that could make or break the economic recovery in the next presidential term: housing and its broken finance system, and the European debt crisis.
The housing market has been the biggest drag on the economy since its historic collapse in 2007 sent the economy into a deep recession. While the market is struggling to stage a recovery this year, all sides agree that the biggest obstacle to improvement is Congress' failure to lay out clear rules and a new structure for reviving the dysfunctional mortgage market, which remains almost entirely dependent on government support. Banks remain reluctant to lend because of their huge losses during the financial crisis, and they provide loans only to people with the best credit or government backing. This reluctance undermines the housing recovery despite the record affordability of homes and an unprecedented drop in interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve.

October Surprises aren't what they used to be
By Dana Milbank - WashingtonPost.com
October Surprises just aren't what they used to be.
Carnival barker and Mitt Romney surrogate Donald Trump (R-Absurdity) set the gossip mill churning this week when he declared he would make a "major announcement" about President Obama. "It's very big — bigger than anybody would know," he told Fox News Channel.
Would it be the bombshell revelation that Obama sold cocaine in college? The discovery of divorce papers for the president and the first lady?

Trump to give $5 million to charity if Obama releases records
by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Paul Simao
(Reuters) - Donald Trump offered to pay $5 million to the charity of President Barack Obama's choice if Obama releases his college and passport records, the real estate mogul and television personality said on Wednesday.
"Frankly, it's a check that I very much want to write," Trump said in a YouTube video released via his Twitter and Facebook pages.
Trump has questioned whether Obama's birth certificate issued by the state of Hawaii is legitimate, suggesting Obama was not born in the United States, which could have made him ineligible for the White House. The White House released the long-form copy of Obama's birth certificate in 2011.

Trump offers Obama $5 million for his college, passport records
By Alicia M. Cohn - TheHill.com
After playing up a election-shaking announcement for several days, businessman Donald Trump on Wednesday offered President Obama $5 million to release his college and passport records.
"All he has to do for $5 million to the charity or charities of his choice is get his colleges to immediately give his applications and records and also to release his passport records," Trump said in the announcement. "When he does this to my satisfaction, if it's complete, this check will be sent immediately."

From the Desk of Donald Trump: Major Announcement

Speculators see rise in gun prices if Obama wins
WTHR-TV - MSNBC.com
The presidential race appears to be giving an unexpected boost to at least one business - gun sales.
Sale of assault rifles are going through the roof, as talk by President Barack Obama of an assault weapons ban has some guns doubling in price.
"Because a lot of them are talking, they are just putting them away. Right now, the stock market is down, they are getting better returns on these rifles if the election goes Barack Obama's way," said Greg Burge, Beech Grove Firearms.

Speculators see rise in gun prices if Obama wins
WTHR-TV - MSNBC.com
The presidential race appears to be giving an unexpected boost to at least one business - gun sales.
Sale of assault rifles are going through the roof, as talk by President Barack Obama of an assault weapons ban has some guns doubling in price.
"Because a lot of them are talking, they are just putting them away. Right now, the stock market is down, they are getting better returns on these rifles if the election goes Barack Obama's way," said Greg Burge, Beech Grove Firearms.

'TRILLIONS ARE AT STAKE' IN THIS ELECTION
Steve Liesman, CNBC.com via TheBlaze.com
Wall Street is beginning to game out what will happen to Federal Reserve policy and interest rates if Republican Mitt Romney is elected president.
With Romney drawing even in recent polls, markets are taking more seriously his vow to replace Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as well as his criticism of Fed policy, creating the potential for what one fund manager calls "a monetary cliff."

Romney gains favorability,
Obama wins over women in latest polls
By Jonathan Easley - TheHill.com
A flurry of new polls shows Mitt Romney eliminating a likeability gap with President Obama, but the incumbent rebuilding an advantage with female voters.
The polls suggest Romney, who has had the momentum in the race since the first presidential debate, has completely repaired the damaged image that plagued him throughout the Republican primaries.

Ryan: Government rules crippling social safety net
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
Seeking to lay groundwork for a rewrite of the social safety net, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said Wednesday the federal government must stop measuring its programs by dollars spent and instead grade them by how many people are lifted out of poverty.
The Wisconsin congressman said he and the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, don't want to gut the programs, but he argued that the safety net is crippled by government rules and misplaced priorities that mean more people are falling into poverty and staying poor longer.

Why Romney Is the War Candidate
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
In Monday night's debate, Mitt Romney took pains to sound like the kind of guy who wouldn't lead America into yet another war. "We can't kill our way out of this mess," he said about turmoil in the Middle East. And on Iran: Though he'd tighten sanctions, "military action is the last resort."
But the fact is that Romney is significantly more likely to get the US into a war with Iran than Obama is. Oddly, the main reason doesn't have much to do with Romney's own disposition toward war (which is unknown), or with the fact that his stated policies toward Iran are more hawkish than Obama's. These things do matter, but not as much as this simple fact: Obama would be a second-term president and Romney would be a first-term president.

Obama's Underachieving Foreign Policy
By Zaki Laïdi - Project-Syndicate.org
PARIS – To evaluate an American president's foreign-policy performance after one term is challenging, given the complex diplomatic and strategic environment and significant domestic constraints that confront every US president. Nevertheless, in advance of November's presidential election, it is important to distinguish the forces that have shaped Barack Obama's foreign policy, and to assess his handling of them.

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Wednesday 10.24.2012

Deutsche Bank still bullish on Gold;
raises 2013 Gold, Silver forecasts
FRANKFURT (Commodity Online): Germany's biggest bank Deutsche Bank raised its 2013 and 2014 forecasts for gold and silver, citing support from stimulus measures by central banks such as the United States Federal Reserve.
According to Deutsche Bank, the gold price could exceed to $2,200 a ounce in 2013. the bank lifted its 2013 gold price outlook by 3% to $2,113 per ounce and its 2014 forecast by y 11.1% to $2,000/oz. The German bank similarly advanced its 2013 price forecast on silver by 3% to $44/oz and its 2014 outlook by 11.1% to $40/oz.

US elections: Precious metals correction to end in near term
By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com
As the upcoming presidential election looms on November 6th, the recent 'correction' lower in gold and silver came once again as the COT report showed short positions held by Commercial Traders increasing notably as the net long positions held by large and small traders also grew.

"Pause in Monetary Policy" Sees Gold Drop Below $1710
BY BEN TRAYNOR - FinancialSense.com
Wholesale prices for gold bullion dropped below $1710 an ounce ahead of Tuesday's US session, its lowest level in over six weeks, as stocks and commodities also fell and the Dollar rallied, with two weeks to go until the US presidential election.
Silver bullion fell through $32 an ounce to hits its lowest level since the first week of September.
"You've had QE priced in and what we're seeing now is a bit of a retracement following that," says Daniel Brebner, analyst at Deutsche Bank, referring to last month's Federal Reserve announcement of open-ended quantitative easing.

Fed Maintains Dovish Stance as Earnings Ruffle Markets
By: Patti Domm - CNBC Executive News Editor
Fed officials, huddling in Washington for a second day Wednesday, are likely to be discussing how to tweak policy later in the year.
Those changes could include a new way of communicating their low rate policy, and what they will do when their Operation Twist ends in December.
"It's more likely they talk about it at this meeting and then use the minutes to give the market a heads up and then make changes in December," said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies. The minutes from the meeting are released in mid-November.

Are We Crashing Like 1987?
By Avi Gilburt - MarketWatch.com
The one thing that this market has taught us over the last four years is that it can be violently unkind to bears.
People have attempted to jump on a decline to short this market at every opportunity, expecting further declines, only to have their shorts handed back to them at a fraction of the cost. So, for the last several years, I have cautioned, on each seemingly impulsive decline, to look for confirmation of the bearish case before putting on your bear suit.

Weak Earnings Spark Selloff
U.S. Stocks Lose $500 Billion in Three Days, as Fed's Impact Appears to Fade
By JONATHAN CHENG, KATE LINEBAUGH
and JAMES R. HAGERTY - WSJ.com
In just a few days, American corporations have doused months of euphoria for stock investors.
Companies from Google Inc. GOOG +0.25% and Caterpillar Inc. CAT -1.76% toDuPont Co. DD -9.06% and United Parcel Service Inc. UPS +3.03% have disappointed investors with lackluster earnings or forecasts, fueling fears the global economic recovery isn't as robust as once thought.

Gold in 'wait and see' mode ahead of FOMC
Wait and see prevails as two-day Fed meeting starts on Tuesday. Traders (are) carefully looking at headlines, looking for inflationary signs and re-examining sell stops and buy stops.
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold is near steady to modestly higher in early activity as the market seemingly enters a "wait and see" period with the Federal Open Market Committee meeting Tuesday and Wednesday, said George Gero, vice president and precious-metals strategist with RBC Capital Markets Global Futures.
The December futures initially extended Friday's correction lower overnight, bottoming at $1,714.40 an ounce, their lowest level since Sept. 7, before finding some footing.

FOMC meeting likely to pass quietly by commodity markets
The FOMC meeting this week is likely to be more inconsequential than the previous two, with no shifts expected in the Fed's monetary policy stance or bias.
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): TD Securities expects a limited commodity market reaction to a Tuesday-Wednesday meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.
"The FOMC meeting this week is likely to be more inconsequential than the previous two, with no shifts expected in the Fed's monetary policy stance or bias," they added.

If U.S. goes over fiscal cliff, dollar could fly
By Julie Haviv
NEW YORK | Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:11am EDT
(Reuters) - In times of trouble, investors tend to flee to the comfort of the U.S. dollar -- even when the trouble is emanating from the United States.
If Congress fails to reach a deficit reduction deal by the end of the year, it will automatically trigger big spending cuts and tax increases in 2013. This so-called "fiscal cliff" would hit the still-recovering U.S. economy hard.

Bernanke Probably Won't Stand For a Third Term at the Fed
Casting Dual Roles, at Treasury and the Fed
By Andrew Ross Sorkin - The New York Times via CNBC.com
For the last couple of months, there has been a parlor game on Wall Street and in Washington about who will become the next Treasury secretary. After all, Timothy F. Geithner has made it clear he plans to be out of that office at the end of the year whether President Obama is re-elected or not.
But there is another wrinkle in the parlor game calculus: Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, is likely to need a successor, too. If Mitt Romney wins the presidency, he has already pledged he will replace Mr. Bernanke, whose term as chairman ends in January 2014, in just over 15 months. However, Mr. Bernanke has told close friends that even if Mr. Obama wins, he probably will not stand for re-election.

Bye, Bye, Bernanke
Bernanke To Retire At The End Of His Term
By Steve Dibert, MFI-Miami.com
Yes, after nearly six tumultuous years after becoming Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke is telling close friends that he will be stepping down when his term is up at the end of January 2014.
According to Reuters,
"Bernanke, who was first appointed to run the U.S. central bank by former president George W. Bush and was given a second term by Obama, has declined to comment publicly on whether he would accept another four-year term.
"I am very focused on my work, I don't have any decision or any information to give you on my personal plans," he told a news conference last month after the Fed announced a new and open-ended round of bond buying to support the U.S. economy."

America May Soon Be Changing Bankers
By William Pesek - Bloomberg.com
America may soon be changing bankers, shifting its business from China back to Japan.
Japan had long been the U.S.'s main creditor. That is until September 2008, when China became the biggest foreign owner of Treasuries. This worried many in Washington who would rather be indebted to a friendly democracy than an ambitious communist power. One of Mitt Romney's big talking points, in fact, is that the U.S. is too beholden to China.

Earnings Stink Like a Big Pile of Trash
By Paul La Monica, CNNMoney
Investors are in an Oscar the Grouch-like mood. But unlike the fuzzy, green Muppet, they don't love trash. And that's exactly what the latest slew of corporate earnings reports are: Dirty, dingy and dusty. Rotten, ragged and rusty.
Stocks plummeted Tuesday after Dow components DuPont (DD), United Technologies (UTX)and 3M (MMM) issued underwhelming outlooks.

Debt crisis: Europe ratchets up grip on Madrid
The EU-IMF Troika in charge of Spain's €60bn (£48bn) bank rescue is to demand much tougher action by the country's authorities to clean up toxic debts, risking a clash that could deter Madrid from requesting a full sovereign bail-out.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
BNM Mare Nostrum, and other mid-tier "Group 2" banks such as Popular, Caja 3, and Liberbank, have little chance of tapping the markets to cover most of their capital deficits, according to Troika officials.
They are also losing patience with the glacial pace of cuts at Bankia and other nationalised lenders such as Catalunya-Caixa and Banco Valencia,according to the Spanish newspaper El Confidencial.

Spain's 'Vicious Circle' Worsens
as Moody's Downgrades Regions
By: Matt Clinch, special to CNBC.com
With Spain looking increasingly likely to miss this year's deficit target, credit rating downgrades for several of its regions, and its borrowing costs showing an uptick things aren't getting any better for the country, with one analyst telling CNBC that the country is caught in a "vicious circle".
Spanish newspaper El Confidencial reported on Tuesday that the central bank had written to the European Union explaining that Spain's government is due to miss its deficit forecast for this year, which currently stands at 6.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Japan owns almost as much U.S. debt as China
By Chris Isidore - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- China's massive stake in U.S. Treasuries gets a lot of attention. But it's Japan, and not China, that has been busy gobbling up U.S. debt over the past year.
In fact, Japan could soon pass China as the largest foreign holder of Treasuries. China held about $1.15 trillion in U.S. bonds through August, the most recent reading available from the Treasury Department. That's little changed from the start of the year and down from 12 months ago.

Big Business Is Not Conservative
By Dennis Prager - PatriotPost.us
Stephen Moore, of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, reported Friday that the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Arizona, Congressman Jeff Flake, has little support among some powerful big businessmen in Arizona:
"In his razor-tight race for Arizona's open Senate seat, Republican nominee Jeff Flake -- a six-term U.S. congressman -- recently met behind closed doors with about a dozen leading businessmen in the state, including two powerful and respected CEOs: real-estate developer Mike Ingram and former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo.

U.S. stocks retreat sharply on earnings
Nasdaq closes under 3,000 for the first time since early August
By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks fell sharply Tuesday, with the Dow taking its worst single-day hit in four months, as weaker earnings and concern about Spain heightened fears about the global economy.
"You can rally on rhetoric, you can rally on monetary policy, but at some point investors need to sink their teeth into something, and this quarter's earnings don't seem to be solid enough," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago.

Bearish Evidence Piling Up Against Stocks
BY CHRIS CIOVACCO - FinancialSense.com
The present day market has numerous similarities to the period just prior to a 10.5% drop in the S&P 500 that occurred last spring. In this article, we describe what we'll be watching in the days ahead to manage risk and reward.
Slowing Growth, No Resolution in Spain
Below are the five fundamental drivers we outlined on September 24 that could spark astock market correction:

• Spain may choose to delay a formal request for aid.
• An increasing demand for safe-haven assets.
• Global growth is slowing.
• Earnings may disappoint.
• The approaching 'fiscal cliff'.

Volcker group to say Illinois budget is unsustainable
By Karen Pierog
CHICAGO | Tue Oct 23, 2012 2:54pm EDT
(Reuters) - Illinois has dug itself into such a huge financial hole that it may not be able to provide basic services to residents or meet employee benefit obligations, according to a national task force that is due to release a report about the state's finances.
The report, prepared by the nonpartisan State Budget Crisis Task Force and expected on Wednesday, will also say that the state's fiscal stress is a "serious drag" on its economic performance, a statement from the task force said. The group is led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former New York Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch.

Exploiting the Americans With Disabilities Act
How Congress helped created a frivolous lawsuit racket.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
Under the heading of unintended consequences, few things can match the spate of frivolous lawsuits engendered by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Two of the latest abuses have been chronicled on both coasts. In Rye, NY, a single wheelchair-using resident, Luigi Girotto, has filed at least 12 separate lawsuits against local merchants for ADA violations. Yet in Yuba City, CA, such abuse has reached an unprecedented level: officials there have agreed to pay serial litigant George Louie $15,000 to stop filing any more ADA-inspired lawsuits within the city limits.

Why Florida is Sitting on $300 Million Meant to Help Homeowners
by Cora Currier - ProPublica.org
Florida has the highest percentage of home loans in foreclosure in the country. So why is more than $300 million that could help homeowners sitting unused?
Florida was awarded those millions in February as part of the $25 billion national settlement between five of country's biggest banks and forty-nine states and the District of Columbia. The settlement resolved allegations of wrongful foreclosures and other mortgage servicing abuses, and required banks to offer some homeowners the opportunity to modify their loans or refinance, or, in some cases pay homeowners directly for wrongful foreclosure.

Where Are the Foreclosure Deal Millions Going in Your State?
by Paul Kiel, Lena Groeger and Cora Currier - ProPublica.org
As part of the mortgage settlement finalized in April, 2012, the five biggest banks agreed to pay $2.5 billion to 49 states and the District of Columbia. ProPublica contacted every state to determine whether the money will be going to consumer-focused efforts related to the settlement or not. See below for a breakdown of each state's share.

37 Facts About How Cruel This Economy
Has Been To Millions Of Desperate American Families
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Have you ever laid in bed awake at night with a knot in your stomach because you didn't know how your family was possibly going to make it through the next month financially? Have you ever felt the desperation of not being able to provide the basic necessities for your family even though you tried as hard as you could? All over America tonight, there are millions of desperate families that are being ripped apart by this economy. There aren't nearly enough jobs, and millions of Americans that actually do have jobs aren't making enough to even provide the basics for their families. When you have tried everything that you can think of and nothing works, it can be absolutely soul crushing. Today, one of my regular readers explained that he was not going to be online for a while because his power had been turned off. He has been out of work for quite a while, and eventually the money runs out. Have you ever been there? If you have ever experienced that moment, you know that it stays with you for the rest of your life.

Home Heating Costs Expected to Spike
as Winter Gets Back to 'Normal'
By Margaret Ryan, AOL Energy - DailyFinance.com
New England's dependence on fuel oil for heating is putting the region in the energy crosshairs this winter, with the average heating oil price projected to hit a record $3.81 per gallon.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says it currently looks like the US winter will be slightly warmer than normal, but not nearly as warm as last winter in much of the nation.

Software Glitch Could Strand Chevy Volt Drivers
GM upgrading '13 Volt software to fix glitch
Issue over delayed charging affects small number of owners
By David Shepardson and Melissa Burden -The Detroit News
General Motors Co. said Monday it is upgrading the software on about 4,000 2013 plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt cars because a glitch could cause the electric motor to shut down.
GM said the issue only impacts owners that use the delayed charging function — which allows owners to recharge the vehicle at certain times.

Social Security Checks Consumed by Inflation
Social Security checks need to rise faster
Commentary: Cost of living increase of 1.7% is an insult
By Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — What do you call a cost-of-living raise of 1.7%? An insult.
Each year at this time, the government tries to ensure that seniors and disabled veterans have adequate buying power to be able to purchase their everyday needs. It does this by lifting Social Security payments and veterans' benefits enough to compensate for the rise in the cost of living.
It's a great idea — but more often than not the government gets things wrong. For you see, Washington tends to under-compensate seniors and vets for the actual rise in their cost of living — year after year, decade after decade.

Spiraling State of Welfare Spending
Approaches hair-raising $1 trillion mark
By Edwin J. Feulner - PatriotPost.us
When the news from Washington contains words such as million, billion and trillion, it's all too easy for our eyes to glaze over. Numbers that big aren't easy to grasp. But in an era when the federal government continues to spend as if the party will never end, it's essential to try.
Here's one way to get a handle on those words, courtesy of Jim Bohannon, the popular radio host. He recently told me how to put them in perspective.

Dark Money and Citizens United:
What Obama and Romney Would and Wouldn't Do About It
by Justin Elliott - ProPublica.org
With campaign finances limits renderednearly meaningless, election spending is on pace to set records. Where does each presidential candidate stand on how to regulate money in politics?
President Obama talks about changes but hasn't instituted many. He favors legislation that would require disclosure of donors to dark money nonprofits. The president has also floated a Constitutional amendment to address Citizens United — an idea that's currently politically impossible. Yet advocates point out Obama hasn't even instituted campaign finance measures that he could do on his own using executive power.

Candidates Battle to Lock Up Key States
By CAROL E. LEE, PATRICK O'CONNOR
and DANNY YADRON - WSJ.com
Backed by a ramp-up in TV ad purchases, Mitt Romney will spend much of the final two weeks of the campaign presenting himself as a bipartisan bridge-builder, aides said, while President Barack Obama tries to persuade voters that his Republican rival is painting a centrist veneer over conservative policy positions.
With the last of their debates behind them, the candidates offered Tuesday a look at the closing arguments they plan to make in the home stretch and where they intend to work hardest to drive them home.

After final debate, Obama says election comes down to trust
By Jeff Mason
DAYTON, Ohio | Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:46pm EDT
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama warned voters on Tuesday that Republican rival Mitt Romney cannot be trusted to deal honestly with the public as the presidential campaign shifted from televised confrontation to a frantic dash for votes.
After three televised debates that have boosted Romney's prospects before the November 6 election, Obama delivered what is likely to be his closing argument: that, unlike Romney, he has been honest with voters about his plans to deliver a broadly shared prosperity over the next four years.

It's Not About the Economy, Stupid
It's about trust.
That's President Obama's message for the home stretch.
By John Dickerson - Slate.com
DELRAY BEACH, Fla.—President Obama moved from center stage to center court Tuesday. The day after the third and final debate, Obama started his day at a tennis stadium grinning under the waves of adulation from an eager and approving crowd. The night before, the president was all sharp elbows and crisp declarations about world affairs, but for those arrayed in the bleachers surrounding him on all sides, he was in full campaign mode, joking, switching accents, and returning to the perils of Romnesia—less Situation Room and more The Situation.

The Third and Final Debate: Romney Won
By Rich Galen - PatriotPost.us
The foreign policy debate was not given much chance of being a game changer. No one really thought that a talk about the future of US-Myanmar relations was going to move the needle very much.
Incumbent Presidents are expected to know more about foreign policy than their challengers, but the challengers' challenge is to show that if they get the daily security briefing in the Oval Office they can handle the job.

A Very Discouraging Performance
On the most important questions, Mr. Romney meandered.
By BEN STEIN - Spectator.org
Monday
I flew from LAX to Dallas today on a super nice American Airlines 777. The flight was pleasant until I ate some kind of nuts that the flight attendants passed out and I had a very poor reaction. Endless hiccoughing, terrible esophageal cramping, extreme feelings of panic and general discomfort. I tried herbal tea, ginger ale, mint lifesavers. After about 40 minutes it all died down but it was a scary time. It follows on having dizziness and chest pain last night. I don't like it.
My hotel room here in Dallas is simply magnificent. It even has a good-sized piano. I would call it a grand piano.
I laid down on my bed to watch Debate The Third. It did not make me happy.
Gov. Romney was served up the juiciest ball right over the plate when Mr. Bob Schieffer asked him about Libya. Instead of saying --

Beyond the Bayonets:
What Romney Had Right and Wrong About Our Navy
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Mitt Romney wandered into the mother of all sarcastic take downs at last night's debate when, in an effort to paint the president as weak on defense, he noted that the U.S. Navy has fewer ships now than any time since 1917. By now, you've probably heard Obama's retort:
Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships. It's what are our capabilities?

Global Poll: Obama Overwhelmingly Preferred to Romney
GlobeScan.com
22 October 2012 - A new 21-nation poll for BBC World Service indicates that citizens around the world would strongly prefer to see Barack Obama re-elected as US President rather than his Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
The poll of 21,797 people, conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA between July 3 and September 3, 2012, indicates that Obama is preferred to Romney in 20 of the 21 countries polled. Overall, an average of 50 per cent would prefer to see Obama elected, compared to only 9 per cent who prefer Romney. The rest express no preference between the two.

Europe Notices Snub
at Presidential Foreign Policy Debate; "Mistake"
By Ed Krayewski - Reason.com
The Frankfurter Rundschauwrites about our word count of the Obama-Romney foreign policy debate last night and what it means that Europe got nary a mention. The paper points to the fact as a teachable moment for Europe:
Omitting Europe is also the result of the current peacefulness in Europe. And wars at other parts of the world demand the public attention. We Europeans are not so many and we are also not so important as we (sometimes) like to think. A TV-debate of this kind is good for teaching us modesty.

Is the World Ready for Mitt Romney?
That's not up to him to decide, really, is it?
By TheAtlantic.com
Mitt Romney talks a lot about wanting to restore America's standing in the world and perceptions about its strength. But the reality is that the world is going to consider him on its own terms and his calls for a posture of greater American toughness -- even while continuing Obama's policies on the ground -- seem likely to rankle global leaders who are less prepared even than hardcore Democrats in America for a possible Romney win. From the Washington Post:
From Europe to China to the Middle East, perceptions of the contest have lagged behind indications that the two men are in a virtual dead heat. Obama remains widely popular abroad, and there are signs that many leaders are unprepared for a Romney presidency.

Why Iran Wants to Talk to Us Now
Could it be alarm over the prospect of a President Romney?
By AARON GOLDSTEIN - Spectator.org
On Saturday, the New York Times ran a story which stated unnamed officials with the Obama Administration had disclosed that Iran had agreed to direct talks with the United States over its nuclear program following next month's presidential election. Within hours of this report both the White House and the Iranian Foreign Ministry had denied the story.
However, for argument's sake, let us suppose there are plans in the works for direct talks. What do the United States and Iran gain from entering into them? The United States, as represented by the Obama Administration, can make the case that sanctions policy against Iran have been working and now it wants to sit down and talk. Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Times, "This month of October, the currency in Iran has declined 40 percent in value. There is unrest in the streets of Tehran, and the leaders in Iran are feeling it. That's exactly what we wanted the sanctions program to do."

How Companies Have Assembled
Political Profiles for Millions of Internet Users
by Lois Beckett - ProPublica.org
If you're a registered voter and surf the web, one of the sites you visit has almost certainly placed a tiny piece of data on your computer flagging your political preferences. That piece of data, called a cookie, marks you as a Democrat or Republican, when you last voted, and what contributions you've made. It also can include factors like your estimated income, what you do for a living, and what you've bought at the local mall.

Trump Promises 'Very Big' Political Bombshell Wednesday
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
Real estate magnate and Republican political figure Donald Trump told CNBC he has a major announcement to make Wednesday concerning the presidential race.
Though he was cagey about details, Trump promised it would make an impact and indicated the announcement could come via microblogging site Twitter.
"I do have something that's very big. It's about President Obama," he said during a"Squawk Box" interview. Asked if he could provide any hints of what he might be divulging, Trump said, "No, but tomorrow you'll see."

Vladimir Putin: The New Global Shah of Oil
BY MARIN KATUSA - FinancialSense.com
Exxon Mobil is no longer the world's number-one oil producer. As of yesterday, that title belongs to Putin Oil Corp - oh, whoops. I mean the title belongs to Rosneft, Russia's state-controlled oil company.
Rosneft is buying TNK-BP, which is a vertically integrated oil company co-owned by British oil firm BP and a group of Russian billionaires known as AAR. One of the top-ten privately owned oil producers in the world, in 2010 TNK-BP churned out 1.74 million barrels of oil equivalent per day from its assets in Russia and Ukraine and processed almost half that amount through its refineries.

$1 trillion in defense cuts: What you need to know
By Jeanne Sahadi - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The looming spending cuts at the Pentagon played a starring role in Monday night's foreign policy debate.
Mitt Romney said several times he would "not cut our military budget by $1 trillion."
At issue are changes to defense spending in President Obama's budget, as well as the impending "sequester" that will hit the Pentagon starting on Jan. 2.

Oil Still Calling the Cards in Mideast
By Claude Salhani - OilPrice.com
The battle for control of the Middle East, part of which is being fought today in Syria, and that this past weekend many fear has spread to engulf neighboring Lebanon, is at the end of the day still very much a battle for control of the region's oil fields. Whoever controls the Middle East oil fields controls the region's politics and by default the region's religion; given that religion and politics are very difficult to separate in Islam, it is often the focus point of conflict.
This conflict is as complicated as it is complex but can be explained in relatively simple terms as a power struggle between Sunni Muslims, who make-up the main branch of Islam, and Shiite Muslims, whom the Sunnis consider to be heretics. Some see this current conflict as a continuation of the initial conflict between the followers and the descendants of the prophet over who would be the legal heir to the House of Islam. That was when the Sunni-Shia schism first developed.

Investors Demand that Oil Sands Developers
Reduce the Environmental Impact
By Gloria Gonzalez - OilPrice.com
Canadian oil sands developers must dramatically reduce the environmental and social impact of their operations, according to investors.
The developers should take steps to lower their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by investing in renewable energy and working with the Alberta and Canadian federal governments to set a carbon price sufficient to drive emissions reductions, among other actions, according to a group of 49 investors with $2 trillion in assets under management.

Baghdad Loses its Grip as Kurdistan
Starts to Sell Oil on International Markets
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
In a move that will undoubtedly enrage the government in Iraq, and at the same time open the doors further for Kurdistan's way to full autonomy from Baghdad, the Kurds have begun to independently sell their oil on international markets.
The trading houses that have purchased Kurdistan's oil are Trafigura, and Vitol, two of the world's largest, making it very difficult for Baghdad to retaliate.

Negotiations -- or War With Iran?
By Patrick J. Buchanan - CNSNews.com
"It would be unconscionable to go to war if we haven't had such discussions," said Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state in the Bush administration, of reports the Obama White House has agreed to one-on-one talks with Tehran over its nuclear program.
Sen. Lindsey Graham dissented Sunday: "I think the time for talking is over. ... We talk, they enrich. It needs to stop. We need to have red lines coordinated with Israel and end this before it gets out of hand."

Iran Says May Stop Oil Sales If Sanctions Tighten
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
Iran said on Tuesday it would stop oil exports if pressure from Western sanctions got any tighter and it had a "Plan B" contingency strategy to survive without oil revenues.
"If sanctions intensify we will stop exporting oil," Iranian oil minister Rostam Qasemi told reporters in Dubai.
"We have prepared a plan to run the country without any oil revenues," he said, adding, "So far to date we haven't had any serious problems, but if the sanctions were to be renewed we would go for 'Plan B'.

Iran's Bark Bigger Than Bite on Oil
By: Patti Domm - CNBC Executive News Editor
Iran's threat to keep its oil off the world market if the West tightens sanctions would not likely have much impact on world oil prices, already trading at a three-month low.
Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi told reporters Tuesday that Iran could survive without oil revenue, and that it would keep itsoil off the market if the sanctions intensify. Qasemi said that Tehran is prepared to run the country without oil revenue and that they had a "Plan B" contingency strategy.

Libya and Lies
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
It was a little much when President Barack Obama said that he was "offended" by the suggestion that his administration would try to deceive the public about what happened in Benghazi. What has this man not deceived the public about?
Remember his pledge to cut the deficit in half in his first term in office? This was followed by the first trillion dollar deficit ever, under any President of the United States -- followed by trillion dollar deficits in every year of the Obama administration.

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Tuesday 10.23.2012

Gold Bullion Flowing from West to East
BY ALASDAIR MACLEOD - FinancialSense.com
Earlier this month Eric Sprott circulated a paper, co-authored by him, which concluded that Western central banks have considerably less physical gold than they claim. It shows that since the year 2000 there has been a net increase in identifiable annual demand of 2,268 tonnes, and concludes that some supply, apart from mine output from the "free" world, must come from Western central banks – because there can be no other source.
This supply amounts to price suppression in the name of demonetising gold. Therefore, while minimal investment interest is shown in precious metals in the West, central bank selling and net jewellery liquidation (currently running at about 1,000 tonnes annually) are effectively supplying Asia with gold at artificially low prices in what amounts to a transfer of wealth.

The Highs and Lows of Gold Prices Following QE3
By Zachary Fillingham - OilPrice.com
Following the announcement of the US Federal Bank's intention to begin a third round of quantitative easing in mid-September, the global price of gold skyrocketed. With prices already beginning to fall back down to earth, it seems now that earlier confidence in this trend as a long-term phenomenon might have been misplaced. Despite its status as a favourite and reliable commodity, surprisingly slippery factors determine gold's value.
On September 13th 2012, the United States Federal Reserve announced its intention to initiate a new round of quantitative easing, or QE. Easing refers to a process whereby an institution like the Reserve seeks to affect the nation's fiscal landscape by increasing the quantity of money in the economy. This is usually done by purchasing assets and securities from private banks, directly introducing more money into circulation.

Barclays firmly bullish on Gold, Q4 forecast $1810
Speculative positions have fallen to a four-week low and although physically backed ETP holdings have eased from record highs, overall metal held in trust remains close to its recently attained peak.
LONDON (Commodity Online): US gold futures fell to $1722 per ounce last week to a six week low but has climbed on Monday to $1725 in electronic trading. Barclays Research remains firmly bullish on gold.
Gold prices sliped on profit taking amid stronger dollar and reduction in risk appetite with equity markets also weakening, Barclays said.

Fed considers upping QE3 size and language
Central bank could alter guidance at this week's meeting
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — After historic changes last month, Federal Reserve officials this week will discuss a possible expansion of the size of its third round of bond buying and better ways to guide markets about future policy actions.
At its two-day meeting that starts Tuesday, the Fed may abandon its calendar-date approach to forward guidance and adopt some form of numerical target for policy, according to analysts.

"But There Is No Inflation!"
Misconceptions About the Debasement of Money
BY DETLEV S SCHLICHTER - FinancialSense.com
"But there is no inflation!" – This is a statement I hear quite often, sometimes from people who are, in principle, sympathetic to my arguments, sometimes from people who are less so. In either case, those who state "but there is no inflation" consider it to be a statement of fact and one that they assume must pose a challenge for me. Should the man who argues that we are heading for the collapse of paper money, for some kind of hyperinflationary endgame, not be concerned that all this money printing by central banks around the world has not led to much higher inflation yet? Do present inflation statistics not provide comfort to those who believe in the practicability and even superiority of central-bank-managed fiat money, and do these statistics not allow them to discard my analysis as paranoid?

Why the U.S. will never have a debt crisis
No, The United States Will Not Go Into A Debt Crisis,
Not Now, Not Ever
By Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry - Forbes.com
If there's one article of faith inWashington (and elsewhere), it's the idea that the United States might get into a debt crisis if it doesn't get its fiscal house in order.
This is not true.
The reason why it's not true is because we live in a fiat currency system, where the United States government can create an infinite number of dollars at no cost to meet its obligations. A Treasury bill is a promise that the government will give you US dollars–something that the United States government can produce infinitely and at no cost.

Reasons For US Economic Optimism
By Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
This may come as something of a surprise to regular readers of this column, but I'm feeling rather optimistic these days about the U.S. economy.
It's not that the statistical evidence (lower unemployment rate, a spike in housing starts) is so compelling. Ours remains a weak recovery that looks good largely because it has persisted in the face of political dysfunction, rising oil prices, a looming fiscal contraction and global headwinds. In the short term, the possibility of a quarter or two of near-zero growth cannot be ruled out.

How an improving economy
makes new Fed policies more potent
By Neil Irwin - WashingtonPost.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the rest of the Federal Reserve policy committee gather again this week for what is sure to be a less dramatic meeting than last month, when they unveiled a new program of bond buying to try to drive down unemployment.
But while major changes in policy will probably be scarce when the Federal Open Market Committee unveils its handiwork Wednesday afternoon, the events of the six weeks since its last big change have shown the real importance of the Fed's new approach to policy.

Firm dollar, weak Europe crimp U.S. industrials' sales
By Nick Zieminski
NEW YORK | Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:29pm EDT
(Reuters) - Four top U.S. manufacturers, including General Electric Co (GE.N) and Honeywell International Corp (HON.N), reported weaker-than-expected sales on Friday, in a fresh warning to investors that demand around the world remains sluggish.
The ream of recent results sets the stage for an even heavier week ofearnings reports next week, including those of global heavyweights such as Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), Dupont Co (DD.N), 3M Co (MMM.N), Boeing Inc (BA.N), Eli Lilly & Co (LLY.N) and Procter & Gamble (PG.N).

What If We Adopted A System
Where The Banks Did Not Create Our Money?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
What if there was a financial system that would eliminate the need for the federal government to go into debt, that would eliminate the need for the Federal Reserve, that would end the practice of fractional reserve banking and that would dethrone the big banks? Would you be in favor of such a system? A surprising new IMF research paper entitled "The Chicago Plan Revisited" by Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof is making waves in economic circles all over the globe. The paper suggests that the world would be much better off if we adopted a system where the banks did not create our money. So instead of a system where more money is only created when more debt is created, we would have a system of debt-free money that is created directly by national governments.

Why debt is a threat to national security
By Jeanne Sahadi - CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The national debt is not on the official agenda for Monday's presidential debate on foreign policy.
But it may as well as be. A chorus of former military leaders, current administration officials and fiscal hawks have all labeled the country's debt a threat to national security.
"A nation with our current levels of unsustainable debt ... cannot hope to sustain for very long its superiority from a military perspective, or its influence in world affairs," Admiral Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month.

At European Central Bank, new thinking
about what ails euro-zone economies
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
Italian bank analysts combed through years of data and applied advanced mathematics to try to understand the country's rising interest rates. But what sparked a breakthrough this summer was a blunter tool: a look at the number of Google searches for phrases such as "euro breakup" and "end of euro."
The finding was stark. Such searches peaked at the same time that the rates on Italian government bonds were spiking. This suggested that there was a link between investors' concern about putting their money in Italy and their more general anxiety about whetherthe euro zone as a whole might break apart.

IMF's epic plan to conjure away debt and dethrone bankers
So there is a magic wand after all. A revolutionary paper by the International Monetary Fund claims that one could eliminate the net public debt of the US at a stroke, and by implication do the same for Britain, Germany, Italy, or Japan.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
One could slash private debt by 100pc of GDP, boost growth, stabilize prices, and dethrone bankers all at the same time. It could be done cleanly and painlessly, by legislative command, far more quickly than anybody imagined.
The conjuring trick is to replace our system of private bank-created money -- roughly 97pc of the money supply -- with state-created money. We return to the historical norm, before Charles II placed control of the money supply in private hands with the English Free Coinage Act of 1666.

Unease about Germany's unchecked gold reserves
By JUERGEN BAETZ - AP - YahooNews!
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's central bank has failed to properly oversee the country's massive gold reserves, which have been stored abroad since the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion, independent auditors say.
The central bank must renegotiate its contracts to gain the right to inspect its gold bars, which are worth tens of billions of dollars and are stored in the United States, Britain and France, the Federal Auditors' Office said in a report to lawmakers obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

Galicia elections: Spanish government hails
'overwhelming support' for austerity programme
The conservative party of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has hailed the result of electoral victory in the north-western region of Galicia as an endorsement of its national austerity programme.
By Fiona Govan - Telegraph.co.uk
The People's Party increased its majority in the Galician assembly in regional elections on Sunday that had been billed as a referendum on the government's first 11 months in office during which it introduced stringent austerity measures, tax hikes and public sector cuts.
"The steps, that we have explained had to be taken to resolve the crisis, have had overwhelming support," Carlos Floriano, the party campaign chief claimed in an interview with state radio, Monday. "There is no precedent in this crisis situation of a government not just defending but actually increasing its majority."

Cash-strapped Cyprus plots Russian exit from austerity
It has been three years since I was last in Paphos, a resort on Cyprus's west coast, and at first glance not much has changed.
By Jeff Randall - Telegraph.co.uk
In a taxi from the airport, down a rollercoaster road of potholes and speed bumps, we drive past white-walled villas draped in bougainvillea. At the quayside of the old harbour, traditional fish restaurants continue to do steady business, as tourists gather by the castle to watch a magnificent sunset. Behind this façade of familiarity, however, the comings and goings have been so dramatic that many in Cyprus are struggling to understand what has happened to them. Important features of local life have, literally, disappeared – and I'm not talking just about thousands of feral cats that used to reside here.
This island, once a magnet for money, is perilously close to running out of cash. Standard & Poor's, the ratings agency, has downgraded Cyprus twice since the beginning of August, citing "deteriorating domestic credit conditions and eroding consumer and investor confidence".

Japan reports worst September trade figures in 30 years
Japan posted its worst September trade figures in more than 30 years, official data showed on Monday, as the global slowdown and a territorial dispute with China weighed on the world's third-largest economy.
AFP - Telegraph.co.uk
The country has been struggling to turn around its fortunes following theMarch 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, while also suffering from Europe's debt crisis, slowing Chinese demand and the strong yen.
Weaker shipments to the US market also dug into the latest results, which showed a monthly trade deficit of 558.6 billion yen (£4.4bn), reversing a year-earlier surplus of 288.8 billion yen as exports fell 10.3pc on year.

Japan to join currency wars as exports slump
Japan is poised to join the world's "currency wars" as it battles a triple crisis of crashing exports, recession and a suffocatingly-strong yen.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The country's exports plunged 10.3pc in September from a year ago, dimming hopes of rapid recovery in the Far East. Exports to Europe crashed 21pc. Shipments to China fell 14pc as the Diaoyu-Senkaku islands dispute led to a slump in car sales. Honda, Mazda, and Nissan all saw sales plunge near 30pc as Chinese consumers boycotted Japanese brands. Nomura said the export slump will push country into full recession.
Stephen Jen from SLJ Macro Partners said the global storm is drifting eastwards into Asia, opening a "third chapter" of the crisis that will last well into 2013. "Many analysts have declared that the low in the global economic cycle is in place. We are not convinced," he said, predicting a rise in currency protectionism.

Issa warns taxpayers' loss on Solyndra loan
may near $850 million
By Pete Kasperowicz - TheHill.com
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Monday charged that the controversial loan to the failed solar-panel maker Solyndra could lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue for the government — pushing the total cost far beyond the $535 million already incurred when the company went bankrupt.
Issa wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu to ask for details about the tax implications of that loan, in the wake of reports that the tax losses from Solyndra could be as high as $341 million.

Let's Keep Politics Out of Economics: Paul Krugman
By Clive Crook - TheAtlantic.com
In his latest column, Paul Krugman draws attention to a quarrel about the pace of the current recovery. We have Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff on one side and John Taylor and Michael Bordo on the other. It's pretty heated, given that it's about so little. Let's start with the points they agree on:

• Recessions associated with systemic financial crises tend to be unusually prolonged and severe.
• The US experience since 2008 is an instance of 1.
• Right now, the US economy could and should be growing faster than it is.

Obama: 'Too many' homes still underwater
By Megan R. Wilson - TheHill.com
President Obama brought housing to the forefront during his weekly address Saturday, again calling on Congress to act on mortage relief.
Obama noted a recent decline in foreclosure notices, but said lawmakers still need to pass a plan he released in February that would allow millions of homeowners to refinance their mortgages.
"We're not where we need to be yet," he said. "Too many homes are still underwater. Too many families are still having a hard time making the mortgage on their piece of the American Dream."

Profitable companies slashing jobs
Job Killers: A Rogues' Gallery
by William Baldwin, Forbes Staff
Employers chopped 8.7 million jobs during the recession. Is it possible they overdid it—and that's why the recovery is so terrible?
If this theory is correct, then we have a third set of culprits for the dismal state of the economy today. Two causes we can all agree on: the bursting of the home price bubble and the collapse of spending by over-indebted consumers. The third reason for the weak recovery would be that employers are messing up. They have been too quick to fire workers and too slow to hire.

FedEx forecasts record holiday shipments
By Chris Isidore - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- FedEx is forecasting a 13% increase in the shipments it handles this holiday season, largely due to a jump in online spending.
The forecast of 280 million shipments would be a record number of packages for the Memphis-based delivery company. FedEx expects to hire 20,000 seasonal workers to help with the holiday surge, about the same number it hired last year. The company has about 300,000 permanent workers worldwide.

Gas prices drop in Ohio, swing states
By Ben Geman - TheHill.com
Gasoline prices are heading downward nationwide, and the decline is especially sharp in several swing states in the White House contest, including the prized battleground of Ohio.
The trend is likely a relief to President Obama's campaign. But prices remain high by historical standards as Mitt Romney continues to hammer the president over drivers' pain in the race's homestretch.

Debate This: Report Says If Iran Gets The Bomb,
Gas Costs For Americans Will Jump $130 Billion A Year
By Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff
If Iran got The Bomb, gasoline prices would rise by $1.40 per gallon on the back of a 25% spike in world oil prices. Within three years the global price of oil would rise 50% as Saudi Arabia followed Iran into the club of nuclear nations and the oil markets tacked a massive geopolitical risk premium onto oil supplies. From today's oil prices that would imply a jump up to a sustained $120 a barrel — and on to $150 a barrel in three years.
For the United States, which consumes roughly 18 million barrels of oil a day, a sustained $20 per barrel increase would cost us $130 billion a year. Multiplied across world consumption of about 85 million barrels per day, and the cost would be $620 billion a year.

What Obama Should Say About Iran in the Debate
By Robert Wright - TheAtlantic.com
Sunday's New York Times carried a story that will presumably come up in Monday's foreign policy debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney: The U.S. and Iran have reportedly agreed "in principle" to have direct bilateral negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, negotiations that could start after the election if Obama wins it.
If true, this is good news. Iran has long resisted direct talks with the U.S., and lots of people think this format would be more productive than the current cumbersome format known as "P5+1" (the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany on one side of the table, Iran on the other). One reason Iran may have been reluctant to depart from the P5+1 format is that it includes Russia and China, which are relatively sympathetic to Tehran. Maybe, now that sanctions are starting to do serious damage to its economy, Iran figures it can't afford to hold out for the optimal deal and needs to cut to the chase. In any event, the new Iranian position reported by the Times is auspicious.

Will Frustrated Homeowners And Armed Posses
Take Matters Into Their Own Hands As Home Invasions Rise?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Violent crime is on the rise in the United States, and many Americans are totally fed up. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of household burglaries roseby 14 percent last year, and the overall rate of violent crime in the United States increased by 18 percent during 2011. Based on what we have seen so far this year, we will almost certainly see another huge increase once the statistics for 2012 are released. All over the country criminals are becoming bolder. Meanwhile, police budgets are being slashed from coast to coast. Things have gotten so bad in some communities that police are openly admitting that crime is completely and totally out of control. For example, police in Detroit recently handed out flyers with this message: "Enter Detroit at your own risk". Sadly, you can't even escape the crime and the violence by staying in your own home these days. Home invasions are becoming increasingly common, and many police departments seem powerless to stop them. If many of the poorer areas of America today, if you are a victim of a home invasion you will be really lucky to get a police officer to show up a couple of hours later to fill out a report. A lot of frustrated home owners have had enough and have started to arm themselves to the teeth. Some have even begun to form armed posses to patrol their own neighborhoods. We are watching America change right in front of our eyes, and it is frightening to think about what is coming next.

National Geographic to sell off archive in $3m auction
Independent.co.uk
The National Geographic Society is selling parts of its massive archive of world exploration, offering 240 pieces spanning from the late 1800s to the present at an auction expected to bring in about $3m (£1.9m).

How Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
have changed private investigation
By Mohana Ravindranath - WashingtonPost.com
In the past few years, parts of Phil Becnel's private investigation job have become easier.
His Arlington, Va.-based company, Dinolt Becnel & Wells Investigative Group, has generally followed the standard investigative protocol established by an older generation of detectives since it was founded in 2004. But whereas he used to take witness' statements on paper, he now can record them on a tablet. And instead of posting a physical sign for a missing person with a phone number, he can request informational tips in exchange for a reward on a Facebook page.

Samsung Quits as Apple LCD Panel Supplier
By Paul Ausick - 247WallSt.com
Citing a "stiffer supply-chain management structure," Samsung Electronics said today that it will end its contract with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and stop supplying the U.S. company with LCD panels. Samsung shipped more than 15 million LCD panels to Apple in the first six months of 2012, according to a report in the Korea Times, but only 3 million panels in the third quarter. Fourth-quarter shipments are expected to fall to 1.5 million units.

In Mobile World, Tech Giants Struggle to Get Up to Speed
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and SOMINI SENGUPTA - NYTimes.com
SAN FRANCISCO — Intel made its fortune on the chips that power personal computers, and Microsoft on the software that goes inside.Google's secret sauce is that it finds what you are looking for on the Internet. But the ground is shifting beneath these tech titans because of a major force: the rise of mobile devices.
These and other tech companies are scrambling to reinvent their business models now that the old model — a stationary customer sitting at a stationary desk — no longer applies. These companies once disrupted traditional businesses, from selling books and music to booking hotels. Now they are being upended by the widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets.

North Korea Improves Cyber Warfare Capacity, U.S. Says
By Tony Capaccio - Bloomberg.com
North Korea's government has a "significant" cyber warfare capability that it continues to improve, the top U.S. commander on the Korean peninsula said.
The capability is part of an unconventional arsenal that the North Koreans possess, along with what the U.S. says is the world's largest special operations force of 60,000 personnel, Army General James Thurman said yesterday in Washington.

Foreign Policy
By Rich Galen - PatriotPost.us
Tonight's debate will center on foreign policy.
The problem with foreign policy is that as President you just need so many of them.
It's a big world. There are 193 members of the United Nations and 192 of them are not named The United States of America.
Every one of those countries has problems. Some are problems with too many people earning too little money, like Haiti. Some are problems with too much money that they use to buy off their non-working population, like Saudi Arabia.

Obama Could Be Buoyed by Latest W.T.O. Victory Over China
By MARK MCDONALD - NYTimes.com
HONG KONG — China is expected to be a centerpiece of the third and final U.S. presidential debate on Monday night, and my colleague David Sanger, in a curtain-raiser, calls China "perhaps the most important long-term subject of the debate."
Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, has charged that President Barack Obama has not pressed China hard enough on its trade policies, to the detriment of American firms and jobs. Mr. Obama has countered by calling Mr. Romney "a pioneer of outsourcing" and noting that his administration has brought twice as many trade cases against China as the previous administration.

Frightened Republicans Try To Shut Down Election Competitors
By Doug Bandow, Contributor - Forbes.com
The Republican Party claims to believe in freedom. But not really. Certainly not if that means being able to vote for someone who truly believes in liberty.
Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican who cut spending while advocating legalization of marijuana, originally ran for the GOP presidential nomination. But most of the debate organizers refused to let him join the largely undistinguished candidate herd which included another unknown former governor (Jon Huntsman) and a businessman with no political experience (Herman Cain).

Trump says he will release 'very big news'
about Obama this week
By Jonathan Easley - TheHill.com
Donald Trump says he has "very big news" about President Obama that could significantly alter the race for the White House just two weeks before Election Day.
"Something very, very big concerning the president of the United States," Trump said Monday on "Fox and Friends." "It's going to be very big. I know one thing — you will cover it in a very big fashion."
Trump said he would "probably" release the bombshell sometime on Wednesday.

Romney wins battle for evangelical vote
with blessing from Billy Graham
By GUY ADAMS - Independent.co.uk
Mitt Romney notched up a key victory in the battle for America's powerful evangelical vote after the nation's most famous preacher, Billy Graham, published a series of newspaper adverts offering what amounts to an endorsement of the Republican's challenger's bid for the White House.
The 93-year-old televangelist, who met and prayed with the former Massachusett Governor earlier this month, has also removed a page from his website which has for years described the Mormon Church, of which Mr Romney is a prominent member, as a "cult".

Defense: $2 trillion divides Obama and Romney
By Jeanne Sahadi - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- President Obama and Mitt Romney have a big disagreement over defense spending -- up to two trillion dollars' worth.
Obama includes defense cuts in the mix for deficit reduction.
Romney, by contrast, would be the bigger spender. He rules out any cuts to military spending as an option to curb the country's growing debt. "I don't think you cut [the] military for purposes of balancing a budget," Romney said Wednesday.

Final Debate Memo to Mitt
By Mark Alexander - PatriotPost.us

"National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman." --John Adams

Last week, I met with one of the brightest Republican Senators in Congress, a longtime friend. I asked him if he thought Obama's October surprise could be a "rice paper" agreement of some sort with Iran over their nuclear production program -- something to help Obama look like a strong "foreign policy president" ahead of his final debate on that subject with Mitt Romney.
We have asserted in The Patriot Post for weeks that Obama would pull this prospect out of his political hat. I even closing my 11 October essay, "Obama's October Surprise," with this note: "There are still four weeks for a diversionary 'October Surprise' to bolster Obama's stature as a 'foreign policy president.' Expect a 'rice-paper' (easily dissolvable) agreement from Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, puppet of Ali Khamenei, promising new negotiations on their uranium enrichment plans. Additionally, expect BO to drop a few 500 pounders on some peasant villages in Libya and claim direct hits against those who attacked our embassy -- since the diversionary 500 pounder they dropped on that anti-Islamic web video did not suffice."

Obama, Romney tangle on al Qaeda in final presidential debate
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
BOCA RATON, Fla. — Opening the final debate of the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney said Monday night that al Qaeda is no longer on the run but, after four years under President Obama, has actually surged in a dozen countries across the map.
"We can't kill our way out of this mess," Mr. Romney said, in the debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, as he sought to draw distinctions between himself and Mr. Obama, saying the U.S. must take more leadership to try to push the Muslim world toward moderation.

Romney Attacks on Foreign Policy as Obama Says U.S. Safe
By Kristin Jensen and John McCormick - Bloomberg.com
Mitt Romney said Barack Obama doesn't have a clear plan for stabilizing the Middle East, while the president said his Republican challenger's policies have been "all over the map" as the two met for their last debate.
"We can't kill our way out of this mess," Romney said, after listing what he described as growing threats in Syria, Libya, Mali, Egypt and Iran. While he congratulated Obama for the raid that killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, he said, "we must have a comprehensive strategy" to reject extremism.

Want a Better Economy? History Says Vote Democrat!
By Adam Hartung, Contributor - Forbes.com
There was a time, before primaries, when each party's platform was really important. Voters didn't pick a candidate, the party did. Then voters read what policies the party planned to implement should it control the executive branch, and possibly a legislative majority. It was the policies that drew the most attention – not the candidates.
Digging deeper today than shortened debate-level headlines, there is a considerable difference in the recommended economic policies of the two dominant parties.

Chinese protesters clash with police over power plant
Dozens injured and many detained as police fire teargas at Hainan residents in China's latest environmental dispute
Associated Press in Beijing - Guardian.co.uk
People protesting against the building of a coal-fired power plant in a southern Chinese town threw bricks at police who fired volleys of teargas and detained dozens in the country's latest environmental dispute, residents say.
At least 1,000 people in Yinggehai, on China's Hainan island, began several days of protests last week after construction resumed on the plant, which had been halted by earlier demonstrations.

Egyptian court decides
whether to dissolve Islamist-dominated assembly
President's struggle with judiciary represents one of most significant moments since Mohamed Morsi came to power
By Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo - Guardian.co.uk
The continued friction between Egypt's judiciary and its president,Mohamed Morsi, will come to a head on Tuesday as a court prepares to give its verdict on whether to dissolve the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly drafting the country's post-revolution constitution.
If the court annuls the assembly on grounds of the unconstitutionality of its makeup it will be a victory for Morsi in his attempts to rein in a judiciary that is refusing to acquiesce to executive will.

Israel's cranes reprove Barack Obama's failure
to pursue two-state solution
In the West Bank's Jewish settlements, 'facts on the ground' entrench divisions between Israel and the Palestinians
By Harriet Sherwood in Ariel - The Guardian
At the eastern tip of the Israeli settlement of Ariel, cranes and earth-movers are at work on the college campus, which stretches across a hill overlooking the villages and valleys of the West Bank. Eleven miles from the internationally recognised Green Line separating Israel from thePalestinian Territories, construction is under way of buildings to accommodate a projected growth from 13,000 to 20,000 students over the next 10 years.
In September, the college passed a significant milestone when the Israeli cabinet voted to upgrade the college to a university as a matter of "national importance". Backing the move, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the cabinet that Ariel was "an inseparable part of Israel" and would remain so in the future.

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Monday 10.22.2012

You can see $1,900 Gold by October end,
if QE history repeats: Deutsche Bank
After QE1 and QE2, gold prices rallied for up to 50 trading days and by around 15%. If it repeated today, this would imply gold prices rising to $1,900/oz by the end of October
LONDON (Commodity Online): After QE1 and QE2, gold prices rallied for up to 50 trading days and by around 15%. If it repeated today, this would imply gold prices rising to $1,900/oz by the end of October, said Deutsche Bank, the Germany's largest bank, in a weekly commodities report.
Global gold prices ended lower for the second week in a row. The most-active December gold contract on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $1,724 an ounce, down 2% on the week.

Examining the case for (and against) gold
By: Clif Droke - GoldSeek.com
Since being shunned by traders last year after a series of margin increases, gold has enjoyed a worthy comeback since turning around this summer. The yellow metal rallied from a yearly low of $1,540 to a recent high of nearly $1,800. All in all, not a bad performance in just over an eight week period.
Analysts and investors are divided as to what was the impetus behind the late summer rally for gold. Was it fear of a European-led global economic recession? A slowdown in China? An anticipation of loose central bank monetary policy? The reasons behind the rally are debatable but the gains gold has made since July aren't.

US Gold, Silver production falls,
rising demand pushes up industry revenues
As demand grows domestically and internationally, producers are attempting to boost production to take advantage of high prices. However, a lack of investment in exploration and mine development in the 1990s and early 2000s has made it difficult for producers to catch up.
LOS ANGELES (Commodity Online): US gold and silver production is declining having reached the lowest point in almost 20 years in 2011. But the industry is happy having achieved high revenues in the past five years to 2012 as rising global demand and higher prices make mining more attractive, according to a report by IBISWorld titled Gold and Silver Ore Mining in the US industry.
The rising demand for gold as a safe haven asset is driven by the recent economic downturn. In 2012, revenue is expected to grow an additional 2.7% to $14.0 billion as prices climb due to recessionary conditions in Europe and continued disappointment in the US economic recovery.

Gold gets rejected at resistance
Scott Pluschau | GoldSilverWorlds.com
Since gold flushed out some traders on the previous bearish "Head and Shoulders" pattern that was pointed out on the blog last week, gold made a rally to the prior support of the "Balance Area" around $1,755 an ounce and this acted as strong resistance.
I would have never guessed that over the past six weeks I would not have had a single entry for a swing/position trade in gold to the long side in the model swing/position trade portfolio, but there has not been a single order executed with my methodology. There is nothing wrong with preserving capital for future opportunities.

Keiser Report: High on Delusions (E355)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the Bobo and Gono global central banking clown show featuring Ben Bernanke and Gideon Gono and their crowd pleasing echo bubble gags and hyperinflationary squirting money printing flowers. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Jim Rickards, author of CURRENCY WARS, about Ben Bernanke's speech in Japan where America's chief currency warrior warned emerging economies to appreciate their currencies or suffer inflation. Rickards also notes it could be the first time the head of the Federal Reserve has ever talked about the US dollar, normally the domain of the US Treasury..

U.S. Dollar: Double Top or Double Bottom?
BY CHRIS PUPLAVA - FinancialSense.com
Since the middle of this summer, the stock market has generally traded up while the USD has been trending down. However, beginning in September the stock market stopped advancing and the USD stopped declining. Given the strong inverse correlation between the stock market and the USD Index, keeping an eye on the USD may shed light to the market's next intermediate-term move.
Currently a Bullish and Bearish Case for the USD
As can be seen below, the USD Index and the S&P 500 have a strong negative correlation between them (Note: USD shown inverted). Currently it looks like the USD is bottoming (topping in chart) and the S&P 500 is peaking. If we continue to see strength in the USD Index then we are likely to see our first intermediate top in the markets since the March highs.

Dollar Index Disguises Global Inflation Threat
BY JONATHAN KOSARES - FinancialSense.com
When the U.S. Dollar Index peaked at 120.51 in January of 2002, few suspected that it was on the brink of a one-directional correction that would ultimately erase a third of its value. In fact, in just three short years, the dollar index shed, on average, a point a month before ultimately hitting a low of 80.77 in January of 2005. This sharp decline in the dollar index coincided with, and largely fueled, the first few years of the now decade-old bull market in gold. Those participating in the gold market in those first few years were taught 'at a young age', so to speak, that the dollar and gold were inseparably linked. If one wanted to know what was going on with gold, one would look no further than the dollar index. If the index fell, gold would rise, and if it rose, gold would fall. Even today, financial media outlets still 'explain' the daily movements of the gold price in this same context of corresponding activity in the dollar index. If the dollar index is so important to predicting and explaining the value of gold, then how does one explain that seven years after hitting the low of 80.77, the dollar index is still trading in the same range - just above 80 today - yet gold has quadrupled?

SEC Must Put a Stop to Casino Markets
By Leon Cooperman, Sal Arnuk and Joseph Saluzzi - Ritholz.com
A little less than 2,000 years ago, the Great Fire of Rome wiped out nearly three-quarters of the city. It was widely rumoured that Emperor Nero fiddled while his city burnt. A similar story may go down in history with our equity markets. Regulators have done little while recent events have wreaked havoc on what had been the best source of capital formation and creation in the world.
On August 1, Knight Capital's rogue algorithm tore through the market for almost 45 minutes. Another episode – similar to the Madoff Ponzi scheme, the Flash Crash of May 2010, the BATS IPO and the Facebook IPO – that has devastated investor confidence and trust. How many more events do our regulators need to see before they recognise there is a problem?

Capitalist Pig on Why Hedge Funds
and Ayn Rand are Great for the Economy
"Although I'm hopeful about the individual, I'm very fearful about the direction that, politically, this country is going," says Capitalist Pig Hedge Fund Manager Jonathan Hoenig.
Hoenig sat down with ReasonTV's Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss why hedge funds are great for the economy even though they get a bad rap, and why he thinks Ayn Rand's ideas are crucial for a cultural and economic upswing.

IMF's epic plan to conjure away debt and dethrone bankers
So there is a magic wand after all. A revolutionary paper by the International Monetary Fund claims that one could eliminate the net public debt of the US at a stroke, and by implication do the same for Britain, Germany, Italy, or Japan.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
One could slash private debt by 100pc of GDP, boost growth, stabilize prices, and dethrone bankers all at the same time. It could be done cleanly and painlessly, by legislative command, far more quickly than anybody imagined.
The conjuring trick is to replace our system of private bank-created money -- roughly 97pc of the money supply -- with state-created money. We return to the historical norm, before Charles II placed control of the money supply in private hands with the English Free Coinage Act of 1666.

Europe Moves East
By Dominique Moisi - Project-Syndicate.org
PARIS – Madrid and Warsaw recently looked very similar: both were the sites of massive demonstrations. But the crowds gathered at Europe's western and eastern extremities had very different agendas in mind.
In Spain, citizens were united by economic and social despair. They took to the streets to express their rejection of a European Union-imposed austerity policy that they believe is leading them into an abyss. They want jobs and the dignity and salaries that go with them. The indignation of some had a clear anti-capitalist and anti-globalization tone.

EU leaders agree 'fiscal facility' plan with eye on budget union
Europe's leaders agreed on Thursday to plans for a "fiscal facility" to help eurozone countries cope with shocks, opening the door to partial budgetary union.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The joint fund is to go far beyond crisis firefighting or enforcement of fiscal discipline on states in trouble. EU documents describe it as a fiscal buffer to offset the booms and busts caused by the EMU's one-size-fits-all interest rates, along the lines of America's system of fiscal transfers to depressed regions.
"All other monetary unions have built-in mechanisms that allow them to absorb asymmetric regional shocks in a much smoother and automatic way," it said.
Mats Persson, from Open Europe, said the plan aims to "soften German resistance to the idea of a joint back-stop". For Berlin, it is preferable to eurobonds, or money-printing by the European Central Bank.

A Europe for the World
By Javier Solana - Project-Syndicate.org
MADRID – Despite the welter of economic problems surrounding Europe, one fact should not be forgotten: the European Union remains the world's largest economy. With a GDP of more than €15.5 trillion, it is larger than that of the United States. And, with 20% of world trade, the EU is also the world's second-largest exporter and importer, after China and the US, respectively. The EU is, quite simply, the world's leading commercial power.
But this data cannot hide the fact that the institutional model that made today's integrated Europe possible is inadequate to the problems created by the financial crisis. So we Europeans need to deepen European integration with much greater determination and speed. If we do not, there is a real risk that social discontent will undermine the EU's foundations before we can complete the process of integration that will resolve the problems now blighting the lives of millions of people.

Gerald Celente - Trends In The News -
"The World Banking Order" - (10/17/12)
China doesn't show at IMF meeting in Tokyo, the world banking order & The Presidential Reality Show: Debate #2!

The Only Game in Town
Raghuram Rajan - Project-Syndicate.org
TOKYO – What should central banks do when politicians seem incapable of acting? Thus far, they have been willing to step into the breach, finding new and increasingly unconventional ways to try to influence the direction of troubled economies. But how can we determine when central banks overstep their limits? When does boldness turn to foolhardiness?
Central banks can play an important role in a cyclical downturn. Interest-rate cuts can boost borrowing – and thus spending on investment and consumption. Central banks can also play a role when financial markets freeze up. By offering to lend freely against collateral, they "liquify" assets and prevent banks from being forced to unload loans or securities at fire-sale prices. Anticipating such liquidity insurance, banks can make illiquid long-term loans or hold other illiquid financial assets.

The Only Game in Town
Raghuram Rajan - Project-Syndicate.org
TOKYO – What should central banks do when politicians seem incapable of acting? Thus far, they have been willing to step into the breach, finding new and increasingly unconventional ways to try to influence the direction of troubled economies. But how can we determine when central banks overstep their limits? When does boldness turn to foolhardiness?
Central banks can play an important role in a cyclical downturn. Interest-rate cuts can boost borrowing – and thus spending on investment and consumption. Central banks can also play a role when financial markets freeze up. By offering to lend freely against collateral, they "liquify" assets and prevent banks from being forced to unload loans or securities at fire-sale prices. Anticipating such liquidity insurance, banks can make illiquid long-term loans or hold other illiquid financial assets.

Goldman Bonus System Corrupted in 2005, Smith Book Says
By Christine Harper - Bloomberg.com
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) changed how it calculated year-end bonuses in 2005, corrupting a culture of teamwork that existed previously, according to a book published today by former employee Greg Smith.
Before 2005, the company determined workers' annual awards "not just on how much business you'd brought in, but also on how good you were for the organization," Smith, a former vice president, writes in "Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story."

From Floppy Disk Crash of '87 to Flash Crash of today
w/the Nanex Algo Hunter!

Wall Street walks a tightrope as US gets back on track
US shares should continue to outperform next year but the election means there are a few tricky weeks to get through first.
By Tom Stevenson - Telegraph.co.uk
With only a little over two weeks to go before the US Presidential election, Wall Street is walking a tightrope between fast-improving economic fundamentals and the potential for the politicians to mess it up by allowing America to tip over the fiscal cliff of automatic spending cuts and tax rises.
Logic says that they couldn't be so stupid. After all the hard work putting the economy back on track after the financial crisis no-one could be so dim as to push the US back into recession with a $600bn (£374.8bn) tax and spend squeeze. Or could they?

The Investor Class Is Scared Out of Its Wits
By Robert Lenzner, Forbes.com
The investor class is sitting on tons of cash, scared of market volatility, worried about the economy, about the high level of debt– and not especially sanguine about low interest rates making stocks still look cheap.
And this yellow light of caution is still prevalent despite the 14% rise in stock prices throughout 2012. According to Natixis Global Asset Management, 77% of Americans are concerned about outliving their assets in retirement, 64% don't even know how much they need to save, 53% fear losing money from market volatility, and 22% believe the stock market is just " a pure gamble."
This extreme caution is signified by retail investors " aggressively selling" stocks while mutual funds, ETFs, and other institutions "have been adding equities," writes J. P. Morgan's Michael Cembelast in a recent market comment.

Lew Rockwell explains how the Federal Reserve Enables War, Empire, and Destroys the Middle Class

How Government Workers Profit at Taxpayer Expense
The purpose of government is to provide services to the public, not enrich the people who work for it.
Steven Greenhut - Reason.com
Stockton, California city workers who attended the unveiling of a new report detailing the trends in public-employee compensation in California on Wednesday night complained about cuts in their compensation packages that are causing hardship for them and their city.
But the report, prepared on behalf of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation, and released at a meeting of the San Joaquin County Taxpayers Association, left me searching for the world's smallest violin—that fictional instrument I like to play whenever my kids or anyone else starts whining about something that's largely their own fault.

Psst, taxes go up in 2013 for 163 million workers
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER - APNews
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama isn't talking about it and neither is Mitt Romney. But come January, 163 million workers can expect to feel the pinch of a big tax increase regardless of who wins the election.
A temporary reduction in Social Security payroll taxes is due to expire at the end of the year and hardly anyone in Washington is pushing to extend it. Neither Obama nor Romney has proposed an extension, and it probably wouldn't get through Congress anyway, with lawmakers in both parties down on the idea.

Adult Stem Cell Cures Are Ready Blow the Lid Off the Market
BY MICHAEL A. ROBINSON,
Defense and Technology Specialist, MoneyMorning.com
You probably know that macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss among the elderly.
The disease affects the retina, a section of the eye that provides the kind of sharp, central vision needed to see objects clearly.
Indeed, age-related blindness affects between three and 10 million people in the U.S. alone, including some of your fellow Money Morning readers.
So it's no small news that a new type of treatment based on stem cells could provide a cure for blindness – and in the very near future.

The Alamo II: Texans Up in Arms over TransCanada Land Grab
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
Texans are having nightmares of a Niger Delta nature, and while they have always been the friends of Big Oil, TransCanada is changing the rules of the game in a legally-aided land grab that will test just how tough Texans are.
Oil spills, the destruction of agricultural communities, impoverished farmers … this is what Texans fear as TransCanada paves the way to build its 1,179-mile pipeline to transport Canadian tar sands to refineries in south Texas.

Chris Hedges on Occupy, Black Bloc, conservatives and more.
CUTV met with journalist Chris Hedges on the occasion of the publication of La Mort de l'Élite Progressiste, French translation of The Death of the Liberal Class, by Lux Éditeur. We asked him about the Occupy movement and what should follow, as well as the relationship conservative America might have with any possible revolution. We spoke about his comments on the Black Bloc and radical violent groups, cause of much debate in the past year.

McGovern: He Never Sold His Soul
By Chris Hedges - Truthdig.com
In the summer of 1972, when I was 15, I persuaded my parents to let me ride my bike down to the local George McGovern headquarters every morning to work on his campaign. McGovern, who died early Sunday morning in South Dakota at the age of 90, embodied the core values I had been taught to cherish. My father, a World War II veteran like McGovern, had taken my younger sister and me to protests in support of the civil rights movement and against the Vietnam War. He taught us to stand up for human decency and honesty, no matter the cost. He told us that the definitions of business and politics, the categories of winners and losers, of the powerful and the powerless, of the rich and the poor, are meaningless if the price for admission requires that you sell your soul. And he told us something that the whole country, many years later, now knows: that George McGovern was a good man.

Housing market returning,
but not soon enough to boost Obama campaign
By Vicki Needham and Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
The housing market is showing signs of sustainable growth but the improvement could be too little too late to boost President Obama's reelection hopes.
Although the housing market has been on the mend for the past year, industry experts now say that the sector has finally turned the corner, reaching deeper into harder hit areas and creating the expectation that the pace of the recovery will accelerate over the next several years.

Obama And Romney Both Favor
A One World Economic System That Kills American Jobs
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Either way this election turns out, American jobs are going to continue to get slaughtered by the millions. During this campaign, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have both attempted to portray each other as the "outsourcer in chief". Unfortunately, they are both right. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both participated in the outsourcing of American jobs, and both are openly admitting to the American people that they favor the emerging one world economic system which will continue to destroy millions of American jobs. In fact, they argue with each other about which of them will be more aggressive in pursuing more "free trade" agreements over the next four years. Unfortunately, the "free trade" agreements that the U.S. government enters into are never "fair trade" agreements. As a result, over the past decade we have lost tens of thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of national wealth.

Scoring Romney/Obama on Energy
Scoring Romney & Obama's Disappointing Energy Debate
By Jerry Taylor & Peter Van Doren - Forbes.com
The presidential debate Tuesdaynight hit perhaps its most bumpy stretch during the extended argument about energy policy. The question that started it all was an unexpectedly excellent query directed at the president from a Mr. Phillip Tricolla: "Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating it's not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department?" The rhetorical mayhem that ensued provided an excellent mirror upon which to judge the state of the energy policy debate in America today … and it is not pretty.

Obama and Romney tied in polls
ahead of frantic final fortnight of campaigning
Latest poll has candidates tied on 47% ahead of Monday's final televised debate, which is dedicated to foreign policy
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will this week throw themselves into frantic, almost non-stop tours of the battlefield states that will help decide what is shaping up to be one of the most closely contested elections in recent US history.
In a sign of the intensity of the campaign in the final fortnight, after Monday's third and final presidential debate, Obama is to travel to six swing states and his hometown, Chicago, in 48 hours. The president, who normally returns to Washington overnight, is to sleep aboard Air Force One to save time for campaigning and will also make election calls while the plane is in the air.

Obama Campaign Borrows $15M from Bank of America
Warren Buffett invested $5B in BofA last year
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
Obama For America took out a $15 million loan from Bank of America last month, according to the campaign's October monthly FEC report. The loan was incurred on September 4 and is due November 14, eight days after the election. OFA received an interest rate of 2.5% plus the current Libor rate.
Warren Buffett, Obama donor and namesake of the infamous "Buffett Rule," invested $5 billion in Bank of America last year in an effort to help the ailing financial institution. Last month, two weeks after OFA took out the loan, Bank of America announced a plan that would lay off 16,000 workers by the end of the year.

DNC Chair Has Never Heard of Obama's 'Kill List'
by Alexander Reed Kelly - Truthdig.com
You may know from a widely discussedNew York Times article published earlier this year that Barack Obama has a secret "kill list" he has used to select targets for assassination around the world. But U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, doesn't.
Shortly after the second presidential debate, Schultz was asked about the kill list by Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change. As Glenn Greenwald writes in The Guardian: "She doesn't defend the 'kill list'. She doesn't criticize it. She makes clear that she has never heard of it and then contemptuously treats Rudkowski like he is some sort of frivolous joke for thinking that it is real."

Obama Rep. Schultz on The NDAA and Secret Kill List

Chavez, Castro, Putin: Four more years!
by: Ilana Freedman - Times247.com
The latest [dictator] to publicly announce his support for the commander-in-chief's reelection bid was Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who this week assured he'd vote for Obama if he were from the United States. The America-bashing strongman made the announcement on state-owned television, saying "Obama is a good guy" and that if Obama was from Caracas, he'd surely return the favor by voting for Chavez.
Earlier in the year the government-official daughter of Cuban military dictator Raul Castro proclaimed her country's support for Obama during a visit to the U.S. "I believe that Obama needs another opportunity and he needs greater support to move forward with his projects and with his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart," Mariela Castro said during a cable news interview. ...

Sen. Rubio:
Obama has 'given up' on outlining second term agenda
By Meghashyam Mali - TheHill.com
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday charged that President Obama had "given up" on trying to present voters with a second term agenda.
"The most startling thing that has happened here the last month over this campaign is the president has completely given up on outlining any sort of agenda for the future. What's his plan for the next four years?" asked Rubio, a prominent surrogate for GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney, on ABC's "This Week."

Do the Cops Know Your Info?
A Conversation with the ACLU of Illinois's Adam Schwartz
Are the police keeping pictures of you on file? Do they know who your neighbors are? What property you own? Adam Schwartz of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois says yes they do. He sat down with Reason TV's Paul Detrick to talk about the information police gather in organizations called fusion centers.

Mitt Romney still struggling
to convince Pennsylvania's female voters
Obama's lead has grown smaller in the Democratic-leaning state but women say they are unimpressed by Romney at debates
By Karen McVeigh - Guardian.co.uk
To Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Briana Mihok is gold dust. She ticks the three boxes that qualify her to be exactly the type of voter the presidential candidates are focusing all their attention on as the White House race enters its final three weeks. She is undecided, she lives in an unexpectedly competitive state and – by far the most important of all – Mihok is a woman.
Presidential elections always come down to a narrow territorial battle for advantage in a handful of swing states. But after almost a year of constant campaigning and millions of dollars of television advertising, it became clear this week that both candidates believe that the defining battle of 2012 is now for female voters.

Barack Obama, the Arab spring
and a series of unforeseen events
After promising Muslims a new beginning in his Cairo speech, the president put the US squarely on the side of the Arab street
By Ian Black, Middle East editor - Guardian.co.uk
On 4 June 2009 Barack Obama bounded on to the stage at Cairo University to deliver a speech which promised to seek "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world". It was, he said solemnly, a time of great tension.
Speaking from a lectern set against a backdrop of plush red curtains, Obama sought to move beyond the toxic legacy of the 9/11 attacks, the US-led invasion of Iraq, the "war on terror" and the long and occasionally bloody impasse on the Palestinian issue.

Why Expanding America's Military Strength
Puts The U.S. at Risk
Joshua Swain & Nick Gillespie - Reason.co.uk
"People think that strength is a function of how much you spend," says Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defence and Foreign Policy Studies at The Cato Institute. "We've confused having military strength with having the ability to actually make things happen."
Preble sat down with Reason TV's Nick Gillespie at FreedomFest 2012 to discuss military spending, the Obama administration's handling of Libya, and Preble's 2009 book, The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous and Less Free.

Why Expanding America's Military Strength Puts The U.S. at Risk
"People think that strength is a function of how much you spend," says Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defence and Foreign Policy Studies at The Cato Institute. "We've confused having military strength with having the ability to actually make things happen."

Muslim Brotherhood calls for Sharia Law
New FJP leader in Egypt calls for Sharia law
Saad al-Katatny elected head of Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, says goal is to "institute Islamic Sharia law."
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Saad al-Katatny was elected chairman of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, Egyptian media reported Friday. He beat out FJP's acting leader Essam al- Erian in a vote that took place October 6.
The FJP is Egypt's largest political party, currently occupying 47 percent of all seats in the country's lower house of parliament.

Washington denies secret plan for direct talks with Iran
Obama administration responds to report that both sides have agreed in principle to one-on-one discussions after election
Staff and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
The Obama administration has moved quickly to water down a report that the US and Iran have agreed in principle to meet one-on-one for negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme.
The New York Times said secret talks between officials that began early in Barack Obama's term as president had delivered the provisional agreement. Iran had insisted the talks wait until after the November presidential election, the New York Times said, attributing the information to a senior official in the Obama administration.

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Friday 10.19.2012

World Gold Council publishes Conflict-Free Gold Standard
The World Gold Council has developed the Conflict-Free Gold Standard with its member companies, comprising the world's leading gold mining companies, and with extensive input from governments, civil society and supply chain participants
LONDON (Commodity Online): The World Gold Council, has published the Conflict-Free Gold Standard, an industry-led approach to combat the potential misuse of mined gold to fund unlawful armed conflict.
The World Gold Council has developed the Conflict-Free Gold Standard with its member companies, comprising the world's leading gold mining companies, and with extensive input from governments, civil society and supply chain participants. By following this Standard, gold miners can assess their operations and provide assurance that they do not cause, support or benefit unlawful armed conflict, nor contribute to serious human rights abuses, or breaches of international humanitarian law. It is designed to increase trust and transparency in the gold supply chain. It provides further confidence that responsibly undertaken, gold mining is an important source of social and economic development.

Gold Is Not Back In Favor Yet …
By Chris Vermeulen - GoldSilverWorlds.com
Despite the decline this past week, gold seems to be regaining favor with global investors, as just a week earlier it had been flirting with the $1,800 an ounce mark. Quite a change from the sentiment in early summer when some investors were questioning whether the yellow metal's decade-long bull run was coming to a close.
The rebound in investor sentiment toward gold, of course, coincided with the launching of open-ended QE3 (or QE infinity) by the Federal Reserve. Since then gold has "barely paused for breath. It has, as discussed previously, touched all-time highs in terms of euros or Swiss francs.

One may not like it; what is bad for US economy is good for Gold
Invariably, it has to be noted with pain that what is bad for US economy is good for gold. In fact, many job seekers out of classic case of exasperation may refrain from filing for insurance as they even consider putting a full stop to job search; unfortunate, one may say.
By Rakesh Neelakandan
AHMEDABAD (Commodity Online): Gold and silver prices are looking positive for the day even as evening awaits a jobless claim report from the US. The figures are expected to boost gold prices.
The weekly data, known as initial jobless claims records the number of people who filed for insurance for the first time as jobs were snatched away from them by a down trend in the economy.

If the law won't stop market rigging, what can we do?
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - GoldSeek.com
GATA's friend and researcher R.M. writes today from Europe:
"If the U.S. judiciary deemed protection of the nation's currency or similar national interests (such as stable financial markets and oil prices) as justification not to prosecute a cartel's war against gold by federal authorities, foreign governments, and their agents, could anti-trust law ever be brought to bear against such activity in our lifetimes?
"What I'm asking essentially is: What is the Achilles' heel of gold market collusion that would provoke enforcement in a compromised judicial system?"
I have replied to R.M. as follows.
As I read the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 as amended, it authorizes the U.S. government to trade secretly not just in the gold market but in any market:

CEOs warn Obama, Congress to avoid 'fiscal cliff'
By Zachary A. Goldfarb - WashingtonPost.com
The largest U.S. financial firms warned Thursday of dire consequences if Washington fails to head off year-end tax hikes and spending cuts, saying they could jolt the economy into recession and prompt a new and dangerous downgrade of the U.S. credit rating.
These projections come as U.S. business leaders have been escalating their lobbying on behalf of a bipartisan deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff," pressing their case in a series of meetings with key members of Congress.

Three boring words that could avert the fiscal cliff
'Accelerated regular order':
Three boring words that could avert the fiscal cliff
Posted by Suzy Khimm - WashingtonPost.com
Deficit hawks are dreaming that a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction will come out of the fiscal cliff standoff. But how could you possibly get a sweeping plan to reform spending, taxes, and entitlement through a paralyzed Congress that has already failed so many times to come to an agreement? The Bipartisan Policy Center thinks it has the answer.
The group has laid out a framework for deficit reduction that's basically in line with a multi-step approach that's being floated on Capitol Hill right now: It would avoid the fiscal cliff by requiring Congress to pass a $4 trillion, comprehensive deficit plan that would go through the Hill committees, with an "automatic backstop" of cuts if Congress fails to come up with a plan and an upfront down payment.

Keiser Report: Enema of the State (E354)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss banksters having the 'eyes of used enema resellers' as 'transflation' rages and the bond markets teeter on the verge of collapse. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to a former fraud squad detective, Rowan Bosworth-Davies of Rowans-blog.blogspot.co.uk, about the organized criminal conspiracy and racket happening right now in the City of London and why the police are not allowed to investigate without approval from politicians.

U.S. credit rating will be cut: Pimco
The U.S. will get downgraded, it's a question of when
Tracy Withers, Bloomberg News - FinancialPost.com
The sovereign credit rating of the U.S. will be cut as "fiscal theater" plays out in the world's biggest economy, according to Pacific Investment Management Co., which runs the world's largest bond fund.
"The U.S. will get downgraded, it's a question of when," Scott Mather, Pimco's head of global portfolio management, said today in Wellington. "It depends on what the end of the year looks like, but it could be fairly soon after that."

QE Infinity Won't Work, But Here's What Will
BY KEITH FITZ-GERALD, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning
Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher recently offered a stunning assessment about our policymaking central bankers down in Washington.
They're winging it.
In a talk before a Harvard Club audience, Fisher presented a candid assessment about all the levers the Fed has been pulling in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. And that includes the recently announced QE3.

"Nobody really knows what will work to get the economy back on course. And nobody-in fact, no central bank anywhere on the planet-has the experience of successfully navigating a return home from the place in which we now find ourselves. No central bank-not, at least, the Federal Reserve-has ever been on this cruise before."

I don't know about you, but the idea that four years and trillions of dollars into this quantitative easing voyage we're still sailing without a compass isn't just appalling.
It's terrifying.
Yet this ship of fools sails on.

World's oldest bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena
cut to 'junk' by Moody's
The world's oldest bank has been cut to "junk" by Moody's, as the rating agency warned that there was a "material probability" that the lender may need another cash injection from the Italian government.
By Telegraph staff and agencies
Monte Paschi was the only Italian lender to fail the European Banking Authority's stress tests and is the first of the five main Italian banks to fall below investment grade.
In a statement, Moody's said that there remained "a material probability" that the bank will need to seek further external support over the rating horizon.
"Given the weak growth prospects for Italy's economy and the EU operating environment, there is a strong probability that the bank would not be able to generate sufficient capital internally to maintain regulatory capital levels," it added.

Obama prepared to play hardball
Officials: Obama ready to veto
a bill blocking 'fiscal cliff' without tax hike for rich
By Lori Montgomery - WashingtonPost.com
President Obama is prepared to veto legislation to block year-end tax hikes and spending cuts, collectively known as the "fiscal cliff," unless Republicans bow to his demand to raise tax rates for the wealthy, administration officials said.
Freed from the political and economic constraints that have tied his hands in the past, Obama is ready to play hardball with Republicans, who have so far successfully resisted a deal to tame the debt that includes higher taxes, Obama's allies say.

Romney camp slams Obama over 'fiscal cliff' veto threat,
lack of contact with Boehner
FOXNews.com
The White House confirmed Thursday that President Obama is prepared to veto legislation that would skirt the so-called "fiscal cliff" -- a battery of tax hikes and spending cuts -- unless Republicans consent to raise taxes on top earners.
The move drew renewed accusations from rival Mitt Romney that the president has chosen to "simply ignore" Republicans on the Hill instead of dealing with the problem. According to one account, Obama hasn't so much as spoken with House Speaker John Boehner since July.

Tom Woods interviews Steve Forbes:
Debt, Romney, gold standard & Freedom Manifesto
Tom Woods interviews Steve Forbes. Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, on whether a gold standard is the only way out of our easy money morass, if Romney understands the gravity of America's debt crisis, and his new book, Freedom Manifesto: Why Free Markets Are Moral and Big Government Isn't

The Fed's Mission Creep
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
DALLAS -- In the 1920s, in the wee small hours of the mornings, employees at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas sang while they worked. One, Jack Culpepper, went into vaudeville, where he teamed up with a dance partner named Ginger. They married and performed as "Ginger and Pepper." But show business marriages are perishable, so Ginger Rogers found another dance partner, Fred Astaire.
Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, who calls the legendary dance team "Fed and Ginger," defends the Fed as an institution as vigorously as he questions its current policy. He prefers policies more suited to the Fed as it was before it acquired the burden -- and temptation -- of the dual mandate. Hence his praise for legislation by another Texan, Republican Rep. Kevin Brady.

EU leaders agree 'fiscal facility' plan with eye on budget union
Europe's leaders agreed on Thursday to plans for a "fiscal facility" to help eurozone countries cope with shocks, opening the door to partial budgetary union.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The joint fund is to go far beyond crisis firefighting or enforcement of fiscal discipline on states in trouble. EU documents describe it as a fiscal buffer to offset the booms and busts caused by the EMU's one-size-fits-all interest rates, along the lines of America's system of fiscal transfers to depressed regions.
"All other monetary unions have built-in mechanisms that allow them to absorb asymmetric regional shocks in a much smoother and automatic way," it said.

EU Leaders Commit to Bank Supervisor Design by Year End
By Rebecca Christie and Jim Brunsden - Bloomberg.com
European leaders committed to their goal of creating a euro-area bank supervisor by year-end, pushing divisive questions on cost-sharing into 2013.
Leaders will seek to agree on a framework to establish the European Central Bank as the main supervisor by Jan. 1, according to officials at a European Union summit in Brussels. The new system, intended to break the link between banks and governments at the root of the region's financial crisis, will phase in over a year and cover all 6,000 euro-area banks by Jan. 1, 2014, a French official said.

Greece eurozone exit would trigger global economic crisis:
think tank
Reuters - FinancialPost.com
BERLIN – A Greek exit from the eurozone could trigger a global economic crisis of dire proportions and must be avoided at all costs, a respected German think tank said in a study published on Wednesday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right government has strongly criticized Greece's repeated failure to meet tough fiscal targets since its debt crisis erupted in late 2009 but has recently stressed it wants Athens to stay in the eurozone.

Keiser Report: Slippery Snake Split Strategy (E353)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss workers of the world 'uniting' to give up their rights and nations of the world 'uniting' to give up their sovereignty. And the IMF sees for Europe an Irish like future where JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America and the Big Four accounting firms write the laws. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Nick Verbitsky, director of CONFIDENCE GAME, about the civil mortgage fraud suit filed against JP Morgan.

EU summit: France to clash with Germany
over eurozone bailout fund
France and Germany will clash over Berlin's attempts to block using the eurozone bailout fund to recapitalise banks but no decision will be taken before the end of the year, say senior officials.
By Bruno Waterfield - Telegraph.co.uk
Diplomats predict that tonight's EU summit dinner will not resolve any urgent issues for the eurozone.
This will include prevarication on moves to banking union and the controversial issue of bank recapitalisation.
"All the underlying problems are still there but they won't go forward because the market pressure is off. I can't see these arguments going forward," said a senior diplomat.

Citigroup's new CEO likes to quote Spiderman
Citigroup Picks Spartacus-Trained Corbat as CEO After Pandit
By Bradley Keoun, Max Abelson and Donal Griffin - Bloomberg.com
Citigroup Inc. (C) paid a hedge-fund manager with a doctorate in finance more than $200 million over five years to save the bank from the brink of collapse. Now it's turning to a former Harvard football lineman to run it better.
The board of directors replaced Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit with Michael Corbat, who "will place a special emphasis on sharpening the company's focus on achieving sustained, strong operating performance," Chairman Michael O'Neill said on a conference call yesterday.

Gerald Celente - Trends In The News
"The World Banking Order"
China doesn't show at IMF meeting in Tokyo, the world banking order & The Presidential Reality Show: Debate #2!

Why the big banks are a mess
By Neil Irwin - WashingtonPost.com
The biggest U.S. banks have released their latest quarterly financials, and the results for the third quarter were, well, so-so. Shares of major financial companies are up a meager 1.2 percent since the start of earnings season.
But that "meh" picture of the health of the major banks masks some deep turmoil within. And what the reports have in common is that they show how the biggest global banks still haven't figured out what their business should be in a post-crisis world.

Treasuries Snap Four-Day Loss Before Existing Home Sales
By Wes Goodman - Bloomberg.com
Treasuries snapped a four-day decline before an industry report economists said will show sales of existing homes fell in September, highlighting an uneven recovery in the U.S. housing market.
Government securities still headed for their steepest weekly loss in a month, after a report two days ago showed an unexpected surge in housing starts. Treasuries slid yesterday and an auction of $7 billion in 30-year inflation-indexed bonds sold at a record-low yield of 0.479 percentas investors paid a premium to guard against the threat of rising consumer prices.

States find other ways to spend mortgage settlement funds
Some states using mortgage settlements to help budgets instead of borrowers
By Brady Dennis - WashingtonPost.com
The landmark settlement this year between the government and the nation's largest banks over widespread foreclosure abuses set aside $2.5 billion to help states pay for housing counselors, mortgage mediation, legal aid and other efforts aimed at helping struggling homeowners.
But more than six months after the deal was finalized, less than half of that money has been put toward such programs, with numerous states instead diverting the funds to plug holes in their budgets.

Depression-Proof Banking
and Monetary Mayhem in Myanmar w/Chris Mayer!

Mud Pies From the Labor Department
By RALPH R. REILAND - Spectator.org
Nice work if you can fudge it, as cynically as possible.
The funny thing about the Labor Department's monthly unemployment report is that the number-crunching bureaucrats act like they're delivering high carat diamonds when the real worth of what they're reporting is closer to the value of a mud pie.
First, a college graduate with a degree in biomedical engineering who gets a $90,000 job in his field is counted exactly the same in the government's unemployment report as a biomedical engineering graduate who can't find a job and is working weekends as a bus boy at Applebee's.

AARP: Please, let payroll taxes go up
by Suzy Khimm - WashingtonPost.com
The AARP thinks it's time for American taxpayers to pony up.
The advocacy group for seniors opposes any further extension of the Social Security payroll tax holiday, which is scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, when the rest of the fiscal cliff goes into effect. The tax cut was originally part of a 2010 deal to replace the stimulus' expiring Making Work Pay Tax cut with a payroll tax cut of two percentage points. Lawmakers extended the tax break by another year, with largely enthusiastic support from Democrats and more reluctant support from Republicans, to continue to support a flagging economy.

Welfare spending jumps 32% in four years
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
Welfare spending has grown substantially over the past four years, reaching $746 billion in 2011 — or more than Social Security, basic defense spending or any other single chunk of the federal government — according to a new memo by the Congressional Research Service.
The steady rise in welfare spending, which covers more than 80 programs primarily designed to help low-income Americans, got a big boost from the 2009 stimulus and has grown, albeit somewhat more slowly, in 2010 and 2011. One reason is that more people are qualifying in the weak economy, but the federal government also has broadened eligibility so that more people qualify for programs.

Boy Scout files reveal long history of child sex abuse cases
By Chris Francescani and Teresa Carson
NEW YORK/PORTLAND, Oregon | Thu Oct 18, 2012 6:01pm EDT
(Reuters) - A popular Colorado Boy Scout leader named Floyd Slusher allegedly had a strategy when it came to molesting boys: He first plied his victims with alcohol, then abused them and threatened to kill anyone who talked.
On one occasion in 1976, according to police, Slusher told a Scout as he undressed the child that "what I'm going to do now, if I get arrested, after I get out of jail, I'll come after you and your family."

Fighting Hackers:
Everything You've Been Told About Passwords Is Wrong
BY MARKUS JAKOBSSON - Wired.com
Security is not just about strong encryption, good anti-virus software, or techniques like two-factor authentication. It's also about the "fuzzy" things … involving people. That's where the security game is often won or lost. Just ask Mat Honan.
We – the users – are supposed to be responsible, and are told what to do to stay secure. For example: "Don't use the same password on different sites." "Use strong passwords." "Give good answers to security questions." But here's the troublesome equation:
more services used = more passwords needed = more user pain
… which means it only gets harder and harder to follow such advice. Why? Because security and practicality are in conflict.

Google shares nosedive after early earnings misfire
by: Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan, Reuters - Times247.com
Google Inc's quarterly results fell well short of Wall Street's expectations after its core advertising business slowed, stunning investors accustomed to consistently rapid growth from the Internet giant and wiping more than 9 percent off its market value.
The disappointing numbers on Thursday came hours ahead of schedule in a rare instance of premature filing. Google blamed the misfire on an unauthorized filing by its financial printers, R.R. Donnelley, and later confirmed the numbers' accuracy.

Google and Facebook Have the Same Big Problem:
Small Screens
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
In ten years, Google might dominate the car business and Facebook might dominate the everything-else business. But in 2012, they are firmly in the putting-ads-on-screens business, and both are having a Norma Desmond Crisis: The companies are big, but the screens are getting small.
Google announced today that it missed its third-quarter earnings expectations by half a billion dollars. One obvious target of blame is the Motorola unit, which itself lost half a billion dollars in the same three months. But Google has a more serious phone problem on its hands.

Apple loses tablet copyright appeal against Samsung
By Stephen Eisenhammer
LONDON | Thu Oct 18, 2012 8:27am EDT
(Reuters) - Apple has lost its appeal against a ruling that cleared rival Samsung of copying its registered designs for tablet computers, in a decision which could end the two firms' legal dispute on the subject across Europe.
The world's two leading smartphone makers are fighting over patents, both for smartphones and for tablets like Apple's iPad, in courts around the world.

Hawker Sees Stand-Alone Bankruptcy Exit as Sale Collapses
By Beth Jinks, Susanna Ray and Jeffrey McCracken - Bloomberg.com
Hawker Beechcraft Inc., the business-jet maker partly owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), plans to emerge from bankruptcy as a stand-alone company after a sale to Superior Aviation Beijing Co. collapsed.
A review of strategic alternatives for the Hawker jet line is under way, and that business may close "if no satisfactory bids are received," according to a statement today. The post- bankruptcy company would be renamed Beechcraft Corp. and focus on planes including civilian turboprops and military trainers.

2012 ALCS: Detroit Tigers rout New York Yankees
in Game 4 to reach World Series
By Rick Maese - WashingtonPost.com
DETROIT — There were plenty of moments in the days and weeks between April and October that fans had reason to doubt the Detroit Tigers. The only disbelief to be found at Comerica Park on Thursday was in the vacant eyes of a stunned New York Yankees team, uncertain what had just rolled over them.
While a sellout crowd of 42,477 spilled out of the stadium to take the party onto the city streets, a Detroit team that's peaking at the perfect time celebrated an American League pennant. The Tigers thoroughly bashed New York, 8-1, in Game 4, sweeping the Yankees from the league championship series and punching their ticket back to the World Series.

Tom Woods 10/12/2012 @Rio Grande Foundation
"Our Government Overlords Are Just Here to Serve Us"
Thomas 'Tom' E. Woods Jr., a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, speaks on "Our Government Overlords Are Just Here to Serve Us -- and Other Myths about Government" at the Albuquerque Rio Grande Foundation lunchon on 10/12/2012.

Newsweek to axe print edition
News magazine to go digital-only from 2013 after 79 years and will publish single worldwide edition
By Mark Sweney - Guardian.co.uk
Newsweek is to axe its print edition after 80 years and move to digital-only from the new year.
Tina Brown, the editor-in-chief of Newsweek and sister digital news site the Daily Beast, told staff in an email that the last print edition will appear on 31 December.
The new digital-only publication, which will be called Newsweek Global, will be a "single worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context".

Tajikistan's Oil and Gas
could Change the Landscape of Central Asian Politics
By Eurasianet - OilPrice.com
There's a potentially huge story developing in Tajikistan: Central Asia's poor cousin may be sitting atop a vast pool of oil and natural gas. Yet, no one in Dushanbe – neither government officials, nor energy company executives – seems eager to discuss the prospect of an energy boom.
In July, Tethys Petroleum announced that its development zone in southwestern Tajikistan could hold over 27 billion barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. The estimate, if accurate, would represent more than the remaining oil in United Kingdom's North Sea field. In a July 19 press release, Tethys boss David Robson asserted that Tajikistan had "super-giant potential."

Will an OPEC Nation's Runaway Inflation
Spark an Oil Bull Market?
By Marin Katusa, Casey Research - TheBurningPlatform.com
In the third century, greed got the best of Rome's emperors. As they spent through the silver in the treasury, one emperor after another reduced the amount of precious metal in each denarius until the coins contained almost no silver whatsoever.
It was the world's first experience with currency debasement and hyperinflation. As people saw the value of their savings evaporate, society grew angry and demanded a scapegoat. Christians became that scapegoat, and Romans turned on them with incredible violence.

Could Social Upheaval in Iran Spark an Oil Bull Market?
By Marin Katusa - OilPrice.com
In the third century, greed got the best of Rome's emperors. As they spent through the silver in the treasury, one emperor after another reduced the amount of precious metal in each denarius until the coins contained almost no silver whatsoever.
It was the world's first experience with currency debasement and hyperinflation. As people saw the value of their savings evaporate, society grew angry and demanded a scapegoat. Christians became that scapegoat, and Romans turned on them with incredible violence.
This pattern – currency debasement leading to social upheaval and violence – would repeat many times over.

"I'm talking more openly than I'm comfortable with . ."
- Gordon Duff w/ Jeff Rense

Thoughts on Roman Circuses (and ours)
BY MIKE ENDRES - FinancialSense.com
From history, we can glean more than just the bare facts of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. First, one has to understand that before Rome slowly toppled into dust, it was a very prosperous place. There was distinct upper, middle, lower and slave classes and, all in all, there was more than enough to eat and time to spare for numerous sports. Also, the Roman Legions were the largest and strongest, best trained and fed, best equipped with hardware aplenty of any nation-state-empire in the world at that time. Very similar, in fact to the U.S.A. (less a lot of technology).

55 Facts About The Debt And U.S. Government Finances
That Every American Voter Should Know
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The future of the United States of America is being systematically destroyed by our politicians, but unfortunately most Americans don't really grasp exactly what is happening. 30 years ago, our national debt had just crossed the one trillion dollar mark. Just recently, it crossed the 16 trillion dollar mark. Prior to every election, politicians from both parties swear up and down that they will do something about our exploding debt, but it never happens. Once again this year, our politicians are making all kinds of grand promises about getting U.S. government finances under control. But they are also promising all kinds of new plans and programs which are going to cost a lot more money on top of what we are already spending. For the average American, all of this can be incredibly confusing. That is why I have put together a list of facts about the debt and U.S. government finances below.

Rense & Texe Marrs - A Hobson's Choice Of Evil For President
Obama or Romney: both mean a police state

Koch-backed activists use power of data
in bid to oust Obama from White House
Americans for Prosperity building sophisticated digital tools to target swing-state moderates and spread anti-Obama message
By Ed Pilkington - Guardian.co.uk
Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party-aligned group part-funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, is building a state-of-the-art digital ground operation in Ohio and other vital battleground states to spread its anti-Obama message to voters who could decide the outcome of the presidential election.
The group hopes that by creating a local army of activists equipped with sophisticated online micro-targeting tools it will increase its impact on moderate voters, nudging them towards a staunchly conservative position opposed to President Obama's economic and healthcare policies. Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is spending tens of millions of dollars developing its local strategy, already employing more than 200 permanent staff in 32 states.

Why Romney Is Afraid To Explain His Tax Plan
By Eliot Spitzer - Slate.com
In today's Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove asserts that Mitt Romney fundamentally altered the arc of the presidential race in the first debate because he came across as a "man with a plan." And it is surely the case that, despite the president's apparent win on points in Tuesday's debate, the race is a near dead heat. Mitt Romney must have earned a second hard look from a lot of voters who had been skeptical.
The problem is that what Rove calls a "plan" doesn't yet measure up. Romney, Paul Ryan, and their campaign need to give us answers to some of the hard questions about this plan. As the president asserted in the debate on Tuesday, what we have been told so far surely wouldn't have been enough for Romney to justify a Bain investment in him, and it surely shouldn't be enough to earn a vote.

50 Crazy Things That Obama Supporters
Are Threatening To Do If Romney Wins
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Will cities all over America erupt in violence if Mitt Romney wins the election? Right now we are probably witnessing the most divisive campaign in modern U.S. history, and both sides truly hate one another. Even CNN is running articlesabout how polarized politics in America has become and how vicious both sides can be. There is a lot of anger and frustration out there that has been bottled up for a long time, and this election could end up being a trigger event that releases a lot of it. Both sides are entirely convinced that they can win this tightly contested election, and one side is going to feel bitterly disappointed when it does not happen. Both sides are talking as if it is going to be "the end of America" or "the end of the world" if they lose this election. This is particularly true when it comes to Obama supporters. On social networking sites such as Twitter, many of them have actually been proclaiming that Mitt Romney wants to "exterminate black people" and many of them have been openly threatening to harm him if he does win the election. This is a very dangerous sign, and these threats should be taken very seriously. Of course a lot of Romney supporters are also likely to go absolutely insane if Obama ends up winning. In fact, one Romney supporter apparently put a bullet through the window of an Obama campaign office in Denver the other day. But when it comes to threatening to do crazy things if the election does not go their way, Obama supporters definitely take the cake.

Obama's Hope Fades in Virginia
By ROBERT STACY MCCAIN - Spectator.org
Republicans seek to score a decisive win in the Old Dominion.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia -- The Romney-Ryan "Victory Center" here is on Highway 29 a few miles north of the University of Virginia campus, and the phone-banking operation Wednesday night was in full swing. More than 15,000 calls are made per week from the campaign office that covers not only Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County, but also a 10-county area of north-central Virginia. Most of the volunteers in the office Wednesday were UVA College Republicans, who have already made more than 60,000 calls as part of a get-out-the-vote effort aimed at maximizing the GOP vote in this area, not only to help Mitt Romney win Virginia, but also to help elect George Allen to the U.S. Senate.

Jim Rogers on Election 2012: "A Pox on Both Their Houses'
BY DAVID ZEILER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
Investing legend Jim Rogers says it doesn't matter who wins Election 2012.
In his view, both President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney are equally bad.
"I repeat Shakespeare: A pox on both their houses as far as I'm concerned," Rogers said in a Breakout interview this week. "These are the guys who got us into this problem, so why does anybody think they will get us out?"
The "problem" to which Jim Rogers is referring to is the sluggish U.S. economy, dragged down by the huge $16 trillion federal debt and annual budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion.
Rogers predicted that regardless of who wins Election 2012, things won't get better.

Gallup poll gives Romney a significant lead
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
Mitt Romney is now solidly above 50 percent support among likely voters in Gallup's tracking poll and holds a 52-45 lead over President Obama, according to the latest numbers Thursday afternoon.
The seven-day rolling average is still heavily weighted toward respondents polled before Tuesday night's debate, but the numbers make clear just how big a lead Mr. Romney had built heading into that affair.
Gallup also gave Mr. Romney a slight lead, 48-47, when all registered voters were included.

Why Libya Matters
By Ben Shapiro - PatriotPost.us
During the second presidential debate, moderator-turned-Obama-advocate Candy Crowley helped President Obama make the case for why he'd been a true leader on the murder of our ambassador and three other brave Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Obama was asked a simple question: "We were sitting around, talking about Libya, and we were reading and became aware of reports that the State Department refused extra security for our embassy in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the attacks that killed four Americans. Who was it that denied enhanced security and why?"

Largest US-Israel missile defense drill to kick off
Patriot, Iron Dome, Arrow missile defense shields to be tested; forces to simulate Unmanned Aerial Vehicle intrusion.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN - JPost.com
US military forces have begun arriving in Israel to take part in the largest joint missile defense exercise of its kind, which will begin next week.
One thousand American soldiers will arrive on Israeli territory and a further 2,000 US troops in Europe and the United States will take part via remote defense computing systems.

Up to 28,000 Syrians have 'disappeared' since uprising began
Many civilians abducted by government forces are believed to be dead or being tortured in detention, rights groups claim
By Luke Harding - Guardian.co.uk
Up to 28,000 Syrians have disappeared over the past 19 months, with civilians snatched from the streets or forcibly abducted by government troops or security forces, human rights groups say.
Relatives had been unable to discover the fate of their loved ones. Many of those abducted were almost certainly dead, while others were alive and being held in Syrian prisons or secret detention centres where they were tortured, the groups claimed.

Iran Launches Submarine and Destroyer
into Gulf During US Naval Exercises
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
This week the US, UK, France, and a few Middle Eastern countries are conducting naval exercises in the Gulf of Persia to practice clearing mines that Iran, or other groups may place around the Straits of Hormuz in an attempt to disrupt the movement of oil tankers in the region.
Mohammed Ali Jafari, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that the "exercise is a defensive exercise and we don't perceive any threats from it. We are not conducting exercises in response."
Yet this is not the impression that is given.

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Thursday 10.18.2012

HSBC still bullish on Gold; sees $1,900/oz by year end
The Fed's open-ended commitment to easing until U.S. labor markets improve will support gold well into 2013
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC) remains bullish on gold, and they expect yellow metalprices to reach $1,900 an ounce by year-end.
According to the British bank, Federal Reserve's third round of asset purchases via quantitative easing (QE3) and other central banks' policy easing measures are measurably boosting gold-investment demand.

Gold Set to Decline for First Day in Three Before Chinese Data
By Glenys Sim - Bloomberg.com
Gold was poised to drop for the first time in three days before a report forecast to show growth in China slowed for a seventh quarter, curbing demand for commodities. Silver fell.
Spot gold was little changed at $1,748.55 an ounce at 9:13 a.m. in Singapore, after advancing 0.7 percent in the past two days. The metal for December delivery slid 0.2 percent to $1,749.70 an ounce on the Comex in New York.

Gold to get a new catalyst soon,
escalation of Eurozone crisis: Richcomm Global
Top of our catalyst list is a renewed escalation of the crisis in the euro-zone, including the exit of one or more of the smaller peripheral countries. There have already been periods in the recent past when gold has risen while the dollar has been firm.
DUBAI (Commodity Online): Gold could make further gains only if a new catalyst emerges and it will appear in the form of a renewed escalation of the Eurozone crisis, reviving safe haven demand for the yellow metal, according to Richcomm Global, a commodity services company based in Dubai.
Gold has weakened as dollar recovered and inflation expectations fell. The gold rally has paused after a trigger in the form of QE pushed prices closer to $1800 levels.

Money-Market Resistance
By Mark Roe - Project-Syndicate.org
CAMBRIDGE – The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently rejected proposed rules aimed at making money-market funds safer in a financial crisis – a rejection that has caused consternation among observers and other regulators. Given the risks that money market funds can pose to the global financial system, as shown by their destabilizing role in the 2008 financial crisis, it is not hard to see why they are worried.

Don Quixote Is Alive and Well and Living in Spain
Spain is the euro area's fourth-largest economy. Bad government policy threatens the whole euro project and the global economy.
By Desmond Lachman - American.com
It was said of the Bourbons that they learnt nothing and that they forgot nothing. The same might be said of the Spanish government, judging from its recent economic policy pronouncements amid widespread social and regional unrest. The government seems to be persisting with the past year's failed economic policies, which have not only gotten Spain into its current difficult economic straits but that are now also running the real risk of tearing the country apart.

The Next Euro Storm Is Brewing in Italy
The next euro storm is in Italy
Berlusconi may campaign on anti-euro platform
By Matthew Lynn - MarketWatch.com
LONDON (MarketWatch) — One thing should have been learned for certain during the almost three years the euro has been in crisis. While the markets are getting worked up over one issue, the real trouble is usually brewing somewhere else.
Right now, Spain and Greece are occupying everyone's attention. Investors want to know when Greece will be bailed out yet again, and whether Spain will finally call on its partners in the euro zone for help.
But the next storm will be in Italy.

Private Financial Info at Risk If Ecuador's Government
Takes Over Credit Rating Agencies
By Jim Roberts - Heritage.org
Earlier this month, Ecuador's National Assembly passed legislation that would nationalize the country's private credit reporting industry.
President Rafael Correa has to decide by November 4 whether or not to sign it. The legislation would permit only the government's central public data agency to provide credit reports and scores.
Private credit bureaus (domestic and foreign) would be nationalized and put out of business as private entities. The new law would also force them to hand over to the government—without compensation—their data about the credit histories of private citizens and companies.

Pandit Is Forced Out at Citi
Clash With Board Followed Stumbles
Over Pay and Rejected Plan for Buybacks
By DAVID ENRICH, SUZANNE KAPNER and DAN FITZPATRICK - WSJ.com
Vikram Pandit, who was named chief executive of Citigroup Inc. on the eve of the financial crisis and led the bank through a bruising five-year stretch that included a $45 billion federal rescue, abruptly stepped down Tuesday.
Mr. Pandit, 55 years old, departed following a clash with the board over strategy and performance, according to senior bank executives and advisers. Citigroup, the nation's third-largest bank by assets, named Citigroup veteran Michael Corbat, 52, as Mr. Pandit's successor.

Pandit's Censured Bonus Unhurt by Smith Barney Writedown
By Donal Griffin and Michael J. Moore - Bloomberg.com
Citigroup Inc. (C)'s $4.7 billion pretax writedown of its Morgan Stanley Smith Barney stake probably won't reduce a profit-sharing plan's award for Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit that could total $24 million.
That's because the plan doesn't count losses at Citi Holdings, the division of unwanted assets that includes the Smith Barney brokerage, a regulatory filing shows. The exclusion may mean more pay for Pandit this year even as the board considers cuts in his 2011 compensation package, which shareholders rejected in April amid criticism that he collected millions of dollars in rewards too easily.

Plot foiled to attack Federal Reserve in Manhattan
21-year-old man indicted in plot to attack Federal Reserve
by Scott Curkin and Jennifer Matarese, Eyewitness News
NEW YORK (WABC) -- One man was arrested in a federal terrorism sting targeting the Federal Reserve in lower Manhattan.
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis , 21, was arrested this morning in downtown Manhattan after he allegedly attempted to detonate what he believed to be a 1,000-pound bomb at the New York Federal Reserve Bank on Liberty Street in lower Manhattan's financial district.
The suspect was arraigned in federal court in Downtown Brooklyn and remanded without bail.

The Trillion Dollar Mistake
That Triggered the Economic Meltdown
By Martin Andelman - ml-Implode.com
It was summer, 2006, and Fed Chair Alan Greenspan had just raised interest rates for the 17th consecutive time in an effort to cool off the over-heated U.S. housing market.
And it was working.
By the third quarter of 2006, defaulting loans became the first foreclosures of today's full blown crisis, and as 2007 began, defaults were occurring at the fastest rate in a decade. Finally, as the summer of 2007 was approaching, even though the prices of some bonds backed by sub-prime loans had dropped, their ratings reflected no change.

Is $250K a middle-class income?
The number that both Obama and Romney use to define the "middle class" might be too high.
By Alicia Munnell - MarketWatch.com
It seems as though no one reads the Census annual publication Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States for anything but the number of people in poverty. The parts I find most interesting are those pertaining to the level and distribution of income. The numbers go to the heart of conversations about the "middle class" and the "rich."
Both President Obama and Governor Romney have adopted household income of $250,000 as a meaningful demarcation point for defining the middle class. In the case of the President, he proposes to retain the Bush tax cuts for households with less than $250,000 and eliminate the tax cuts for those above that threshold. Governor Romney in a recent ABC interview offered the same definition of the middle class: "Middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less."

Cap of $25,000 on Deductions Would Cover 32% of Tax Cuts
By Richard Rubin - Bloomberg.com
Capping itemized tax deductions at $25,000 would generate $1.3 trillion, covering about 32 percent of the cost of Mitt Romney's proposed income tax cuts for individuals, the nonpartisanTax Policy Center said today.
The Republican presidential nominee has suggested a deduction cap as one option to offset the effect of his proposal to cut tax rates by 20 percent and repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax. During a debate last night with President Barack Obama, Romney suggested a $25,000 limit, which he said would apply to deductions and credits.

Santelli: Do the Math! Zero Jobs Created!
RealClearMarkets.com
In his Santelli Exchange, Rick rejects President Obama's campaign claim that millions of jobs have been created during his term.

Sales stumbles raise fresh worry for corporate America
By Scott Malone
BOSTON | Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:44pm EDT
(Reuters) - A flagging world economy took a toll on much of Corporate America in the third quarter, leading the likes of eBay Inc, American Express, IBM and Textron Inc to miss Wall Street's sales targets or warn that spending was slowing into the holidays.
Those misses sparked concerns among investors that corporate America's year-long streak of profit growth could be nearing an end as CEOs run out of costs to cut and customers are increasingly wary about spending.

Postal Service Hits Borrowing Cap for First Time
[Google title for free articles pass]
By ERIC MORATH - WSJ.com - $$
The U.S. Postal Service in September hit its $15 billion borrowing limit from the U.S. Treasury for the first time in its history, leaving the agency with only the revenue it takes in from selling stamps, shipping and other services to cover its operating costs.
The Postal Service has added $2.4 billion to its debt since June 30, pushing the agency to its borrowing cap, said Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer.

U.S. Postal Service Announces New Prices
and Services for 2013
First-Ever Global Forever Stamp Debuts
When Prices Change January 27
WASHINGTON — Beginning early next year, the Postal Service will introduce a First-Class Mail Global Forever Stamp. The new stamp will allow customers to mail letters anywhere in the world for one set price of $1.10, and is among new mailing and shipping services filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission today.
The price for First-Class Mail single-piece letters will increase by just a penny when prices change in Jan. The new 46 cent Forever stamps will allow customers to mail letters to any location in the United States. Forever stamps are always good for mailing a one-ounce letter anytime in the future regardless of price changes.

Why Are Gas Prices Plunging in Swing States?
Why Are Gasoline Prices Suddenly Falling?
By Sharon Epperson - CNBC.com
A dramatic spiral for gasoline prices in some key battleground states comes just three weeks before the U.S. presidential elections.
Ohio voters have watched prices at the gas pump drop by nearly 20 cents on average in the past week. At the same time, retail gas prices have plunged more than 10 cents in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Millions to take part in largest ever-earthquake drill
More than 13 million Americans are expected to clamber under desks and hide beneath tables on Thursday as they take part in the world's largest-ever earthquake drill.
By Raf Sanchez - Telegraph.co.uk
Families from Los Angeles to New York will dive for cover at 10.18am in each timezone as they rehearse what to do in the event of a major quake.
Local radio stations will simulate news announcers warning that a 7.8 magnitude earthquake is about to strike, while ominous rumblings will play in the background.

Heritage Experts Analyze Second Presidential Debate
By Amy Payne - Heritage.org
During last night's debate between President Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney, Heritage's policy experts were live-blogging their analysis of the ideas discussed. Below are some of the highlights of our experts' reactions to the major points made.

The Next POTUS Inherits Economic Peril
The Next POTUS Inherits a Low-Growth Economy…or Worse
By Merrill Goozner - The Fiscal Times
After last night's debate, are you convinced that either party has a plan to create jobs? Let's look at the real economy. Stock prices are rising despite a looming fiscal cliff that would immediately throw the economy into recession. (Have Wall Street traders collectively donned their Alfred E. Newman caps and tee shirts?)
The more benign interpretation is that financial markets are signaling the economy has some underlying strengths that will reemerge once the political uncertainty lifts. If that were to occur, get ready for President Fill-in-the-Blank to take credit for a modest recovery next year.

Aggressive Obama and Romney
exchange blows in second debate
By Amie Parnes and Justin Sink - TheHill.com
President Obama and Mitt Romney traded heavy verbal blows Tuesday night in their second face-to-face confrontation, repeatedly approaching each other like prize fighters and trying to talk over each other's answers.
The 90-minute presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York state was intensely aggressive and more closely matched than their first debate two weeks ago, largely because the president was more animated and assertive.
Obama's performance enthused Democrats, who have watched public opinion polls shift significantly against the president this month.

Did Either Candidate Tell the Truth in the Second Debate?
Aggressive Debate Is Tough on Facts
By: Scott Cohn - CNBC.com
It was a fact-checker's dream.
The two major candidates for president, standing practically toe-to-toe, with contradictory versions of a basic fact: the level of oil production on public lands.
"Production on government land, ..." Mitt Romney began.
"Production is up," President Barack Obama interrupted.
"Is down," Romney insisted.
"No, it isn't."
"Production on government land of oil is down 14 percent."
"Governor…"
"And production of gas…"
"It's just not true."

Something Went Wrong Tonight
On Libya, a disastrously missed opportunity.
By BEN STEIN - Spectator.org
Tuesday
I am in New York and I will be honest with you, my belovedSpectator people. Governor Romney was not strong tonight on foreign policy. Fine on jobs, the economy, regulation, guns. Super good on how women should get married before they have children, a point that Mr. Obama should have been making for years. (I wonder why he doesn't…)
But when he was asked a question about Pres. Obama's response to the murders by an al Qaeda affiliate in Benghazi, Mr. Romney completely got flustered by an outright lie by Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama falsely said that he had called the murders in Benghazi a terrorist act the day after September 11. Gov Romney was seemingly bewildered about what to say. Mr. Obama further told the outrageous untruth that in a democracy, the President should not be criticized over a defense/foreign policy disaster.
Let's look at the facts:

Energized Obama Takes Round 2 of Presidential Debates
By Tracy Bloom - Truthdig.com
With exactly three weeks to go, and the presidency on the line, time is running out for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to persuade voters.
The pressure is on for both candidates, but more so perhaps for Obama, who has seen his poll ratings decline since a disastrous performance in the first presidential debate.
As a result, Obama needed to rebound in his second showdown against Romney to erase the bad memories of the first. He also needed a strong performance in Tuesday night's second presidential debate to energize the Democratic base and win over independent voters.

When Candidates Attack
Obama won Tuesday night's slugfest,
but Romney will live to fight another day.
By John Dickerson - Slate.com
In the seal of the United States, the eagle turns its head toward its right talon, which holds an olive branch, and away from the talon holding 13 arrows. It is meant to suggest a preference for peace. The eagle that hovered between the two candidates in the second debate had the same design, but for one difference: The eagle's head was turned toward the arrows. It was a fitting symbol for the pointed and sniping contest between President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney. It was a night of barbs, interruptions, and charges and counter-charges. "Very little of what the president said is true," said Romney. "It's not true governor," said Obama. "Not true. It's not true." During one exchange, Romney said, "You'll get your chance. I'm still speaking," as the audience in the arena seemed to gasp. At another point, the two men got so close and huffy, I thought moderator Candy Crowley might just ask them to take it outside.

Town Haul
Mitt's best performance ever --
creative, transformative, and brilliant.
By JAY D. HOMNICK Spectator.org
Watching the town-hall debate between President Obama and Governor Romney on Tuesday night, I kept murmuring to myself: "This is unprecedented. No one has ever debated like this before."
The moment the debate ended, the ponderous voice of one the CBS Newsasurauses came on and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have just witnessed something historic. The nature of Presidential debate has been transformed forever." My daughter quickly high-fived me, as her faith in Daddy's omniscience was confirmed. Meanwhile, the oldster on the screen - probably kicked in the shins by outraged colleagues -- walked his statement back to an extent, saying only that both sides had set a new record for rancor.

Obama Wins Second Debate With His Record, Not His Vision
By Bill Boyarsky - Truthdig.com
President Barack Obama woke up and came back in the nick of time in the second presidential debate Tuesday night, making clear the wide differences between himself and Gov. Mitt Romney.
Polls showed the race tightening up after the president's weak showing in the first debate. But this time, in a town hall setting at Hofstra University in New York, Obama was the attacker. He pressed Romney hard for details on the former governor's vague five-point plan to revive the economy. Romney, except to promise to create more jobs and to cut taxes, had no concrete answer. Obama wasn't exactly clear where he would steer us in his second term, but he took pride in his record and held his rival to promises made during the reactionary Republican primaries. Once again, Romney insisted that he was focused on the middle class, but the president effectively dismantled the Romney plan to cut taxes for the wealthy and hope the proceeds filter down to the middle class and the poor—a strategy that has failed in the past.

So Much for Obama's New Era of Responsibility
It can't begin so long as he's in office.
By AARON GOLDSTEIN - Spectator.org
In the 1,374 days Barack Obama has held the office of President of the United States it is clear that he has not gladly seized his duties let alone grudgingly accepted them. In that time, Obama has instead provided a litany of excuses as to why he has not succeeded in bringing about hope and change. He has at various points blamed ATMs, the Arab Spring, and the Japanese tsunami for his shortcomings.
Obama, of course, reserved most of the blame for his predecessor, George W. Bush. To this day, Obama speaks of the mess he inherited from Bush while ignoring the mess of his own making. Should Mitt Romney be elected he will inherit an even bigger mess. But you won't see Romney spending the next four years blaming Obama for it.
It can't begin so long as he's in office.

Romney's Obstacle Course
He was strong despite the expectations,
the questions, the moderator, the audience…
By MATT PURPLE - Spectator.org
Conventional wisdom going into last night's debate was that Mitt Romney should cruise, having already decimated the president once. As long as Romney turned in a solid performance, as long as he brought back some of the magic of two weeks ago, Mitt-mentum would keep pushing deeper into the swing states.
Instead the opposite happened. Romney almost became a victim of his own success. Expectations for Barack Obama were so low that there was no question the president would shine. That plus an off-base moderator, a moronic audience, and several questions that seemed lifted from the DNC field manual meant Romney had his work cut out for him.

Candy Crowley Almost Got Around to a Question
"For All You Climate Change People"
By Will Oremus - Slate.com
When we look back on this presidential election 30 years from now, we might be darkly amused by the tenor of the debate around energy policy. Or maybe we'll just be angry.
For the second debate in a row, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney sparred over who, if elected, could get the country burning more fossil fuels. And for the second debate in a row, they managed to avoid any mention of climate change or the environment. This in a debate that featured an almost unheard-of 12 minutes on energy policy.

Moderator Crowley helps Obama rebut Romney on Libya
By Julian Pecquet - TheHill.com
President Obama had the help of moderator Candy Crowley during Tuesday's second presidential debate when rebutting an argument from Mitt Romney about his administration's response to last month's attack in Libya.
Romney and congressional Republicans for weeks have been lambasting the president for taking too long to qualify the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead on Sept. 11 as a result of terrorism.
In response to a question about the assault, Obama said he had called it an "act of terror" during remarks the next day in the Rose Garden, and Crowley vouched for him.

Romney surrogate rebukes Crowley
for 'fact-check' on Libya during debate
By Alicia M. Cohn -TheHill.com
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a prominent surrogate for Mitt Romney, on Wednesday rebuked Candy Crowley for backing up President Obama during a discussion of Libya at Tuesday's debate.
Crowley on Wednesday defended her decision as moderator to settle a disagreement between Romney and Obama, saying she only intended to "move them along."
But Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a prominent Romney surrogate, said she overstepped.

Townhall Tussle! Reason Takes It To The People
in the Second 2012 Presidential Debate Drinking Game
Peter Suderman - Reason.com
It's a tie game, folks: With the first of three presidential debates down and the vice presidential sideshow over, the two men at the top of the major party tickets will face off once again in yet another 90 minute debate.
The last two weeks have been driven by Mittmentum: After a listless performance by President Obama in the first debate, GOP nominee Mitt Romney has picked up about three points in the polls, making the race essentially tied. So tonight's big question is whether the president will be able to stage a comeback, or at least show up looking fully awake.

U.S. Fires Its Own Broadcasters in Russia
By Helle Dale - Heritage.org
The treatment inflicted on 41 Russian journalists in Moscow's Radio Liberty office is nothing less than scandalous, and it threatens to silence American broadcasting into Russia for good.
But what is even more scandalous is that it was not the Russian government that, without warning, shut those journalists out of their offices on September 20 and 21 with armed guards, marched them to a lawyer's office, and demanded they sign away their jobs of many years.
It was the government of the United States.

Arab Awakening and a Failed European Aeronautics Merger
By William Pfaff - Truthdig.com
It has been a bad week for American policymakers concerned with the Middle East (as for the Middle Easterners themselves), and it will be important to see what Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make of it in their second debate (which occurs after this writing).
From the beginning of the Arab Awakening ("Arab Springtime," as it was, but alas two springtimes have already passed), my opinion has been to stay out of these events, as far as possible, and certainly not to attempt to control them. To do so has seemed certain to fail and leave the Western countries suffering serious collateral damage.

In China, a Move to Tiny Living Space
By TOM ORLIK And ESTHER FUNG - WSJ.com
DONGGUAN, China—Even as China's economy slows from efforts to fight a bubble in high-end housing, waiting in the wings with potential to revive growth is a different housing market: the low end.
Some 50 million of China's 230 million urban households live in substandard quarters often lacking their own toilet and kitchen, research firm Dragonomics estimates. The firm figures China will need to build 10 million apartments a year until 2030.
A model apartment on display in Dongguan, a factory town in southeast China, gives an idea what some of these could be like.

Time to Test Iran
By Richard N. Haass - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – Most of the debate about how to address Iran's efforts to develop nuclear-weapons capacity focuses on two options. The first is to rely on deterrence and live with an Iran that has a small nuclear arsenal or the ability to assemble one with little advance notice. The second is to launch a preventive military strike aimed at destroying critical parts of the Iranian program and setting back its progress by an estimated two or more years.

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Wednesday 10.17.2012

BMO Capital raises 2013 Gold, Silver price forecasts
BMO Research's revised 2013 metal price forecasts imply a gold-to-silver ratio of 50:1, compared to the current 53:1.
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): BMO Capital Markets has raised its 2013 price forecasts for gold and silver by 14.7% and 11.4%, respectively.
The European Central Bank's intentions to purchasesovereign debt and a new round of quantitative easing by theFederal Reserve that suggests "continued negative real interest rates and appeal for precious metals as a store of value," the Toronto based firm added.

The Future of Gold, Oil & the Dollar
BY GREGOR MACDONALD - FinancialSense.com
The ability of reflationary policy to mute the worst risks of debt deflation has been a source of enormous frustration for stock market bears ever since the 2008 collapse. Yes, the initial moderate rally out of the S&P500's black hole was perhaps not so surprising in 2009. Bombed-out stock markets can always manage some sort of rally. But the ability of the rally to continue through 2010, and then 2011, and now 2012 has been quite vexing and painful for bearish investors.

U.S. Exporting Record Amounts of Gold Overseas
BY STEVE ST. ANGELO - FinancialSense.com
In a stunning development over the first seven months of the year, the United States has run up a huge gold deficit as it has exported a record 424 metric tonnes of gold. This is indeed a significant amount when the U.S. exported a total of 488 metric tonnes for the entire year in 2011.
According to the USGS July Gold Mineral Industry Survey, the U.S. only imported 188 metric tonnes of gold between Jan-Jul, but exported 424 metric tonnes leaving a huge shortfall. Some of this deficit was made up by the U.S. domestic gold mine supply.

Is China Boycotting US Dollars?
By CULLEN ROCHE - PragCap.com
I keeping seeing articles and headlines in various places about how China is revolting against US paper in various ways. These headlines either say that China is selling off US T-bond holdings or on the verge of rejecting US dollars. This makes for great headlines and generates lots of page views for those who think China is about to "dump" their Treasury Bond holdings on the world and crash the US bond market, but it is outright misleading and infuriating for anyone who actually understands how the monetary system works.

Fed's Raskin: Regulators don't have "gotcha mentality"
By Ros Krasny
BOSTON | Tue Oct 16, 2012 2:44pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. financial regulators have not overcompensated for past behavior in their approach toward regulation since the financial meltdown of recent years, and do not approach their work with a "gotcha mentality," a top Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday.
"Overcorrection is not preached as best practice in regulation," said Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Raskin. "I haven't seen overzealous examinations."

Fed Governor's Plan to Limit Bank Size Fuels Debate
BY PETER EAVIS - NYTimes.com
Since the financial crisis, academics, politicians and even former bank chieftains have called for the nation's banking behemoths to be broken up or shrunk — calls that appear to have fallen largely on deaf ears among Washington's policy makers.
Now, a powerful insider has suggested a simple tool that could place a tight limit on the size of individual banks. Daniel K. Tarullo, a Federal Reserve governor who oversees bank regulation, said in a speech last week that an important part of a bank's balance sheet could be capped at a set percentage of the nation's gross domestic product.

If Romney Wins, Expect the End of Quantitative Easing
BY GARY DORSCH - FinancialSense.com
It's been nearly eight years, since Fed chief Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee at his confirmation hearing, that "with respect to monetary policy, I will make continuity with the policies and policy strategies of the Greenspan Fed a top priority." The former Princeton University professor who served as a Fed governor from August 2002 to June 2005 before accepting the post as President George W. Bush's top economic adviser, also pledged, "I will be strictly independent of all political influences," Bernanke said.

Soros Warns of EU Self-Destruction
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
Billionaire investor George Soros has spent the past year warning that the European Union will be destroyed by financial and debt problems that will plunge Europe into an economic dark age. Soros will talk about his concerns to anyone who will listen, which means he writes op-ed pages on the subject, speaks about it at conferences all around the world and makes as many appearances on TV as possible. According to CNBC:
The crisis "is pushing the EU into a lasting depression, and it is entirely self-created," said Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management. "There is a real danger of the euro destroying the European Union," he said.

Germany shocks EU with fiscal overlord demand
Germany has stated its exorbitant price for keeping Greece in the euro and agreeing to mass bond purchases by the European Central Bank.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
There must be an EU "currency commissioner" with sweeping powers to strike down national budgets; a "large step towards fiscal union"; and yet another EU treaty.
Finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dropped his bombshell in talks with German journalists on a flight from Asia, and apparently had the blessing of Angela Merkel, the chancellor. "When I put forward such proposals, you can take it as a given that the chancellor agrees," he said.

China's Pyramid of Power
BY FRANK HOLMES - FinancialSense.com
China celebrated another achievement last week, as Mo Yan became the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize for literature. The selection of Mo was praised by a Chinese nationalist tabloid as a sign that mainstream China could "no longer be refused by the West for long."
Mo grew up in Shandong province in northeastern China, and during the Cultural Revolution, he left school to work in the fields, finishing his education in the army, according to The Guardian. The author draws upon his rural upbringing in his novels, mixing historical perspective with mythical elements. His real name is Guan Moye, but he chose "Mo Yan" as a pen name meaning "don't speak," to reflect the culture in which he grew up.

Japan PM plans new economic stimulus by end-Nov: Kyodo
(Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda plans a new round of economic stimulus by the end of next month as the country has entered a lull, Kyodo News reported, quoting sources close to the prime minister.
The steps are expected to include measures to curb deflation, ease strength in the yen, expand earthquake reconstruction work and relax regulations on businesses, the news agency reported.

Fear of a Yuan World
Japan fears the rise of the Chinese currency, should you?
BY DAN COLLINS - FinancialSense.com
Last week's IMF and World Bank meeting in Tokyo failed to accomplish much especially considering China, the world's second largest economy boycotted the event due to the recent disputes over the Diaoyu island chains in the East China Sea.
lthough not much was accomplished, the meeting highlighted a future economic event that will transform the world we all live in. That event is the rise of the Chinese yuan or renminbi as a world reserve currency. Japan sees this coming…and they might be the first nation to publicly
declare their fear of a Yuan World.

Unexpected... but why?
Vikram Pandit quits as Citigroup chief executive
US investment bank says Pandit has stepped down as chief executive and left the board with 'immediate effect'
By Rupert Neate - The Guardian
The chief executive of Citigroup abruptly quit on Tuesday after five years in the top job, amid reports of a boardroom clash.
Citi said Vikram Pandit, 55, was stepping down as chief executive and leaving the company's board with "immediate effect". Within minutes of the bank's announcement, Pandit's name was gone from Citigroup's website. Chief Operating Officer John Havens, a long-time associate of Pandit, also resigned.

Pandit quits Citigroup, shocks Wall Street
A day after the bank reported earnings, the CEO abruptly resigns
By Sam Mamudi, MarketWatch.com
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Vikram Pandit's stormy tenure at Citigroup Inc. ended with perhaps the biggest shock of all.
Pandit took Wall Street by surprise early Tuesday, announcing he would immediately step down as chief executive officer, as well as leave Citi's board.
Pandit's deputy John Havens, who was president and chief operating officer at Citi, also departed.

Citi's CEO Pandit exits abruptly after board clash
By Carrick Mollenkamp and Jed Horowitz and Rob Cox
Tue Oct 16, 2012 6:50pm EDT
(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc's Vikram Pandit quit as chief executive on Tuesday after months of simmering tensions with the board - an abrupt change that surprised investors and employees of the third-largest U.S. bank.
The bank's board of directors named Michael Corbat as Citigroup's new CEO. Pandit told Reuters the decision to leave was his own and that he had been contemplating the move for some time.

Was Housing Miss Final Nail in Pandit's Coffin?
Housing: The nail in Pandit's coffin?
Vikram Pandit's resignation comes a day after Citigroup admitted it missed the refinance boom.
By Stephen Gandel, Fortune
FORTUNE -- This time Citigroup may not have gotten to the dance soon enough.
On Tuesday morning, Citi's CEO Vikram Pandit said he was stepping down. The bank announced that Michael Corbat, a long-term veteran of the bank and former head of investment banking, was taking over.

Pandit leaves Citi without an identity
Corbat will try what Weill, Prince and Pandit failed at
By David Weidner, MarketWatch.com
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) – Talk about unfinished business.
Vikram Pandit, who resigned abruptly Tuesday as chief executive of Citigroup Inc., ends a tumultuous five years at what was once the country's biggest financial services company. He leaves behind a healthier institution, but one without a strong identity.
There are many questions, but two stand out: What's Pandit's legacy and where does the bank go from here?

Why Conservatives Don't Really Want
the U.S. to Run Like a Business
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
Earlier this week, Florida timeshare mogul David Siegel sent an email to his company's 7,000 employees imploring them to vote for Mitt Romney. He didn't quite threaten their jobs; instead, Siegel argued that if Obama raised taxes on the wealthy any time in the next four years, it would be so devastating that'd he'd be forced to start laying people off. The letter was published on Gawker, and now Siegel, never a bashful sort -- he and his wife are building a 90,000-square-foo house they've nicknamed Versailles, after all -- has explained himself to Bloomberg Businessweek.
"If only businessmen voted in the election, Romney would win 99 to 1," he told the magazine. "The United States is like a big company, and we need a CEO to run it."

September CPI Within Inflationary Targets
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
Today brought news about retail inflation for Joe Public. The U.S. Labor Department has reported its Consumer Price Index for the month of September, and the numbers are looking as though inflation is still contained at the retail level. The headline CPI reading was +0.6%, but the core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose only by 0.1% in September.

A New Year's Banking Union
By Michel Barnier - Project-Syndicate.org
BRUSSELS – Five years after the outbreak of the financial crisis, Europe's economic and political situation remains fragile. A mild recession is expected in Europe this year, and unemployment is on the rise. Beyond deficit reduction, we need to implement a €120 billion ($155 billion) European investment plan, and deepen the European Single Market to unleash its growth potential.
But we also need other structural measures. The European Union must put an end to the negative feedback loop between individual member states and their national banking systems. Between 2008 and 2011, EU taxpayers granted banks €4.5 trillion in loans and guarantees. In some countries, the threat of bank recapitalization with public funds has resulted in a drop in market confidence and a huge rise in interest rates.

Celebrities and the wealthy find ways to keep home sales secret
Among other tactics, the well-to-do use word-of-mouth 'pocket listings' or buy and sell property in the name of a trust in the pursuit of privacy.
By Lauren Beale, Los Angeles Times
Madonna is selling her Beverly Hills estate, but she doesn't want you to know about it.
The sinewy singer is asking $28 million for the 16,500-square-foot, French-Normandy-style mansion. You won't find it, however, on the Multiple Listing Service, Realtor.com or other online marketplaces. Her real estate agent is quietly shopping it among a select network of Los Angeles-area brokers with deep-pocket clients.
This velvet-rope tactic, known as a "pocket listing," is being used more and more by celebrities and the wealthy in this TMZ age, say real estate agents specializing in high-end properties. Listing publicly just invites paparazzi mischief. With word-of-mouth marketing, there's no for-sale sign on the front lawn or snoops traipsing through open houses.

Want to Know Just How Bad Job Market Is?
Labor market is weaker than it looks
Official statistics hide large number of jobless
By Irwin Kellner - MarketWatch.com
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — If you want to know just how bad the labor market really is, then you need to multiply September's jobless rate by three.
For starters, let's recall that last month's reported rate of unemployment was 7.8%. This was 0.3 points lower than in August and the lowest since the beginning of 2009. However, it was still a whopping three percentage points higher than the average rate posted in 2007.

America R.I.P.
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
During the second half of the 20th century the United States was an opportunity society. The ladders of upward mobility were plentiful, and the middle class expanded. Incomes rose, and ordinary people were able to achieve old-age security.
In the 21st century the opportunity society has disappeared. Middle class jobs are scarce. Indeed, jobs of any kind are scarce. To stay even with population growth from 2002 through 2011, the economy needed about 14 million new jobs. However, at the end of 2011 there were only 1 million more jobs than in 2002.

The Last Days Of America? 25 Signs Of Extreme Social Decay
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Are we on the verge of societal collapse? Many of the greatest empires throughout world history were not conquered by outside forces. Rather, they crumbled inwardly as extreme social decay set in. There have been many that have compared the last days of the Roman Empire to what America is going through right now. In the decades following World War II, the United States was the most powerful and the most prosperous nation on the entire planet, but now things are rapidly changing. There are literally thousands of signs that our society is collapsing all around us. All you have to do to see this is turn on a television or pick up a newspaper.

Obama or Romney:
War and Economic Collapse Regardless Who Wins the Election
By Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
CNN is making a big deal out of Romney's "right leaning" supporters. The corporate media branch of thePentagon's psyops program thinks there's a good chance these "severely conservative" voters may push Romney over the top and get him installed in the White House as preeminent teleprompter reader for the global elite.
In August, Peter Schiff, economic adviser to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign, said he thinks the economic implosion will occur during the next administration. He has no faith in Obama and little in Romney to turn things around.

America's Schools: Breeding Grounds for Compliant Citizens
By John W. Whitehead - Rutherford.org

"[P]ublic school reform is now justified in the dehumanizing language of national security, which increasingly legitimates the transformation of schools into adjuncts of the surveillance and police state… students are increasingly subjected to disciplinary apparatuses which limit their capacity for critical thinking, mold them into consumers, test them into submission, strip them of any sense of social responsibility and convince large numbers of poor minority students that they are better off under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system than by being valued members of the public schools."—Professor Henry Giroux

For those hoping to better understand how and why we arrived at this dismal point in our nation's history, where individual freedoms, privacy and human dignity have been sacrificed to the gods of security, expediency and corpocracy, look no farther than America's public schools.

Seniors on Social Security squeezed by rising prices
By Blake Ellis - CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Janis Mason is 94 and has been receiving Social Security benefits for nearly 30 years. Because she has outlived her savings, the monthly checks are her only source of income.
"I always cross my fingers that the money can last the whole month," Mason said.
To keep pace with the rising cost of living, the Social Security Administration announced a 1.7%benefits increase for 2013. This will give a $19 boost to the average benefit of $1,130 a month.

Strange Domes to Line the Texas Coast
in Preparation for Something to Come
FEMA Funding Impenetrable Dome Structures Around Houston
By Shepard Ambellas - TheIntelHub.com
HOUSTON — Disaster-proof domes that can sustain winds in excess of 250 mph will cost taxpayers more than $50 a foot.
FEMA has now offered to pick up the tab of at least $50 million dollars, to install disaster shelters in and around Houston that, according to the manufacturer, (ABC Domes based out of Sealy – Division of Golden Sands General Contracting out of Miami) are "almost impenetrable".

Shame on US
Planned Parenthood Marks 96th Birthday
With 6 Million Abortions
by Steven Ertelt - LifeNews.com
Planned Parenthood marks its 96th birthday today and one leading pro-life activists who has been a watchdog of the abortion business for decades estimates Planned Parenthood has denied 6 million unborn children birthdays of their own.
"In 2010, Planned Parenthood did 27 percent of all the abortions in the United States. It has ended the lives of over 6,000,000 human beings in its own facilities since 1970. And, during that same time, it collected over $6 billion in taxpayer money," says Jim Sedlak of American Life League.

Joe Biden's Religion: Catholicism or Leftism?
By Dennis Prager - PatriotPost.us
In the vice presidential debate, the two candidates, both Roman Catholics, were asked about their religious beliefs, how they impact the candidates' political positions and specifically about abortion. This was the response of Vice President Joe Biden:
"My religion defines who I am. And I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life. And it has particularly informed my social doctrine. Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who -- who can't take care of themselves, people who need help.

The Bold Second-Term Agenda
Obama Should Unveil at the Second Debate*
*It's called the American Jobs Act,
and he announced it back in 2011
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
President Obama is having trouble with that vision thing.
While he certainly has a long list of first-term accomplishments, the most that can be said about what he wants to do in a second-term seems to be protecting his accomplishments from the first. As Timothy Noahof The New Republic argues, making sure that Obamacare and Dodd-Frank get implemented actually is a substantive, even historic, agenda -- but playing defense is hardly the stuff of inspirational politics. You need a list of things you want to do, not just keep from happening, when you make your case to voters.
Which brings us to the payroll tax cut.

Obama's Last-Minute Bet
On the eve of the second debate, Obama is wagering that you think things are looking up. For his sake, he better be right.
By John Dickerson - Slate.com
Is President Obama running on the economy rather than running away from it? For months, the Obama campaign never let more than a second elapse between a boast about the economy's progress and a declaration that they understood more work needed to be done. They didn't want anyone to think for a moment that they didn't know people were still hurting. The president and his team didn't want to look out of touch. They knew that no matter what the numbers might say, people were not feeling better.

Overcautious Obama
By Anne-Marie Slaughter - Project-Syndicate.org
PRINCETON – In this election season in the United States, President Barack Obama is two men in one. The Obama of the Cairo speech of 2009, when he called for a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, has been increasingly eclipsed by Obama the terrorist-slayer, the commander-in-chief who has launched hundreds of drone strikes against Al Qaeda and its affiliates and who ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Mitt Romney: The Great Deformer
Is Romney really a job creator? Ronald Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, takes a scalpel to the claims.
by David Stockman - TheBurningPlatform.com
Bain Capital is a product of the Great Deformation. It has garnered fabulous winnings through leveraged speculation in financial markets that have been perverted and deformed by decades of money printing and Wall Street coddling by the Fed. So Bain's billions of profits were not rewards for capitalist creation; they were mainly windfalls collected from gambling in markets that were rigged to rise.

Do Republicans, Progressives,
and Technocrats Now Actually Agree
About "Too Big To Fail"?
By Eliot Spitzer - Slate.com
There is a funny convergence, not sufficiently remarked upon, in recent thinking about bank regulation. It began with Mitt Romney's rather surprising attack on Dodd-Frank during the first debate. Dodd-Frank, he said, was too kind to the major financial institutions because it essentially provided a federal guarantee. This swipe at Dodd-Frank was viewed initially, and possibly properly, as merely a part of Romney's clever political jujitsu: moving to the middle and even outflanking the president from the left on the banking issue.

Random Thoughts
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
Not since the days of slavery have there been so many people who feel entitled to what other people have produced as there are in the modern welfare state, whether in Western Europe or on this side of the Atlantic.
Economist Edward Lazear has cut through all of Barack Obama's claims about "creating jobs" with one plain and inescapable fact -- "there hasn't been one day during the entire Obama presidency when as many Americans were working as on the day President Bush left office." Whatever number of jobs were created during the Obama administration, more have been lost.

What Are the Koch Brothers Up to These Days, Anyway?
Employees at one of the conservative megadonors' companies received a list of recommended candidates in upcoming elections.
By David Graham - TheAtlantic.com
Remember when liberals saw David and Charles Koch hiding behind every rock? (Call it the Koch Classic era.) Since then, they've faded a bit from view: Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have become Democrats' favorite bogeyman buddy act, and super PACs have exerted less influence so far than expected. If you don't believe it, check out this chart, made with Google Trends data, on the number of web searches involving them:

Cuba lifting hated travel restrictions
By Jeff Franks
HAVANA | Tue Oct 16, 2012 6:39pm EDT
(Reuters) - Cuba will scrap much-reviled travel restrictions starting in January, making it easier for its citizens to leave the communist-ruled island in the first major reform to its migration policies in half a century.
The changes reverse tough restrictions imposed in 1961 when the government tried to put the brakes on a mass migration of people fleeing after the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

Fifty years later, Cuba still haunted
By Jeff Franks
HAVANA | Mon Oct 15, 2012 5:37pm EDT
(Reuters) - Fifty years ago, in October 1962, Estela Rivas Vasquez stood watch in a newly dug bunker outside Havana's grandiose Hotel Nacional, using binoculars to scan the Straits of Florida for signs of an American invasion.
She did not fully know why Cuban leader Fidel Castro had put the country on a war footing, but as a civilian militia member she was certain of one thing - at the tender age of 18 she was prepared to die for her country.

Havana and the Other Cuba
You don't have to get far past the capital
to see one economy end and another begin.
By Lois Parshley - TheAtlantic.com
Few visitors to Cuba make it past the country's famed capital city, where cigar aficionados smoke up in private eating houses and wealthy vacationers pass the nights in cabarets. But nine of Cuba's 11 million inhabitants live outside Havana, living very different lives than the urban elite's. Here's a photographic tour of what the island looks like beyond its refurbished tourist destinations.

Will Hillary Resign?
By Ken Blackwell - PatriotPost.us
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stepped forward to say she accepts responsibility for the fact that our consulate in Benghazi was refused enhanced security. This is another example of her willingness to take one for the team. But what does it mean? Will she "accept responsibility" by resigning her office?
This is what is meant by accepting responsibility in most parliamentary democracies. As Secretary of State, she surely knows that any of her NATO colleagues who accepted responsibility for such a debacle would immediately surrender his office.

War Over the Nile River
Will Egypt topple the Ethiopian government?
By Robert Morley - theTrumpet.com
War may soon be coming to Ethiopia.
In March of 2011, at the height of the political revolution in Egypt, Ethiopia strategically announced that it would soon start construction on a massive hydroelectric dam on the headwaters of the Nile River. This is an explosive declaration. Not only will this dam undoubtedly reduce the amount of water flowing into Sudan and Egypt for several years and perhaps permanently, it is an existential threat to Egypt.
For Egypt, allowing Ethiopia to construct this dam is somewhat like Israel allowing Iran to build a nuclear arsenal.

EU Strengthens Iran Sanctions, Israel Applauds
theTrumpet.com
The European Union levied a new array of sanctions on Tehran on Monday. The EU said it was troubled by what it called Iran's refusal to come clean on its nuclear program. The measures are designed to hit Iran's treasury by banning Iranian natural gas imports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the EU for toughening its stance. "I want to commend the EU for the tough sanctions that were adopted yesterday against the greatest threat to peace in our time," he said.

Iran claims 'dozens' of its drones reached Israel
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI - APNews
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A senior Iranian military official claimed Tuesday that Iranian-made surveillance drones have made dozens of apparently undetected flights into Israeli airspace from Lebanon in recent years to probe air defenses and collect reconnaissance data. An Israeli official rejected the account.
The Iranian official declined to give further details on the purported missions or the capabilities of the drones, including whether they were similar to the unmanned aircraft launched last week by Lebanon's Hezbollah and downed by Israeli warplanes. It also was impossible to independently verify the claims from the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Israel and Palestine After Oslo
By Daoud Kuttab - Project-Syndicate.org
RAMALLAH – On September 13, 1993, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas met on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles, or the Oslo Accords. PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin then sealed the agreement with a historic handshake.
The Oslo Accords – the result of secret talks that had been encouraged by the Norwegian government and conducted in the country's capital – called for a five-year transitional period during which Israeli forces would withdraw from the Gaza Strip and unspecified areas of the West Bank, and a Palestinian Authority would be established. Letters of recognition between the PLO and Israel accompanied the agreement. The ultimate aim, though never explicitly stated, was to create a Palestinian state roughly within the 1967 borders.

As per Eric's request... :-)

Paul Ryan Girl "Let's Get Fiscal" Original Video & Lyrics

Paul Ryan Girl

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Tuesday 10.16.2012

If Gold Breaches $1,800 a Huge Rally Coming
By: Daryl Guppy - CNBC.com
Technical analysts are often accused of drawing meaningless lines on charts on the grounds that the market knows nothing about these lines. The gold chart shows how useful these lines can be in determining the limits and behavior of future price activity. The long term up trending trading channel continues to define the price activity in gold.
The projection of support and resistance lines helps to define where future price action may pause, develop a retreat, or develop a trend continuation. his allows traders and investors to prepare appropriate trading responses.
Gold has significant resistance features that cap any rapid change in the trend.

Gold Set to Gain for First Day in Three
as Slump Spurs Purchases
By Glenys Sim - Bloomberg.com
Gold was poised to advance for the first time in three days as some investors made purchases after prices dropped the most in three months yesterday.
Spot gold was little changed at $1,736.80 an ounce at 9:26 a.m. in Singapore. The metal tumbled as much as 1.5 percent yesterday, the most since July, to a one-month low of $1,728.85. The metal for December delivery was also little changed at $1,738 an ounce on the Comex in New York.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts -
A Rather Deliberate Bear Raid
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
There was a very deliberate bear raid on gold this morning as someone or some group dumped a large number of contracts into a thin market. You know the drill: Dr. Evil.
What next? In the short term this is a technical market, meaning that those with the most power and money, the market insiders, get to cast the most votes on price, particularly as the regulators are bought off or sleeping on the job, waiting for their own spin through the revolving door.

21 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis
Is About To Go To A Whole New Level
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The global debt crisis has reached a dangerous new phase. Unfortunately, most Americans are not taking notice of it yet because most of the action is taking place overseas, and because U.S. financial markets are riding high. But just because the global economic crisis is unfolding at the pace of a "slow-motion train wreck" right now does not mean that it isn't incredibly dangerous. As I have written about previously, the economic collapse is not going to be a single event. Yes, there will be days when the Dow drops by more than 500 points. Yes, there will be days when the reporters on CNBC appear to be hyperventilating. But mostly there will be days of quiet despair as the global economic system slides even further toward oblivion. And right now things are clearly getting worse.

Treasuries Show Inflation Expectations Are Above Average
By Wes Goodman - Bloomberg.com
Treasury yields show inflation expectations held above the average over the past decade before a government report economists said will indicate U.S. consumer prices rose for a second month.
The difference between yields on 10-year notes and same- maturity Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, a gauge of trader expectations for consumer prices over the life of the debt, was 2.47 percentage points. The average since October 2002 is 2.17 percentage points.

Dudley Says Fed Won't Make 'Hasty' Exit From Stimulus
By Caroline Salas Gage and Jeff Kearns - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley said the central bank won't cut back record monetary stimulus too quickly when the economy begins to gain strength.
"If we were to see some good news on growth I would not expect us to respond in a hasty manner," Dudley said in a speech today in New York.

Eurozone Stuck in Limbo Between Peace, War
By David Marsh - MarketWatch.com
TOKYO (MarketWatch) — Helmut Kohl, the former German chancellor, used to say that his landmark European project — economic and monetary union (EMU) — was a matter of war and peace. It would make European conflict impossible. Kohl got it partly right, partly wrong, for different reasons than those he anticipated.
Europe is enduring a long-running but profoundly unsettling ceasefire between debtors and creditors. Neither war nor peace is breaking out. As long as doubt persists on whether the euro truce will hold, so will the uncertainty overhanging the world economy. That encapsulates the mood of many participants at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that ended at the weekend in Tokyo.

Switzerland Prepares Army for Euro Zone Fallout
By CNBC - Yahoo! News
With anti-austerity protests across Europe resulting in civil unrest on the streets of Athens and Madrid, the European country famed for its neutrality is taking unusual precautions.
Switzerland launched the military exercise "Stabilo Due" in September to respond to the current instability in Europe and to test the speed at which its army can be dispatched. The country is not a member of the union or among the 17 countries that share the euro.

France 'in danger of economic hurricane'
French business erupts in fury against "disastrous" Hollande
France is sliding into a grave economic crisis and risks a full-blown "hurricane" as investors flee rocketing tax rates, the country's business federation has warned.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"The situation is very serious. Some business leaders are in a state of quasi-panic," said Laurence Parisot, head of employers' group MEDEF.
"The pace of bankruptcies has accelerated over the summer. We are seeing a general loss of confidence by investors. Large foreign investors are shunning France altogether. It's becoming really dramatic."

Greece Used to Be an Economic Miracle,
Then the Socialists Got in
By Matthew Feeney - Reason.com
I am lucky enough to be writing from the Cato Institute, which is holding a conferenceon the euro-crisis and the European welfare state today. One of the speakers, Aristides Hatzis, is a Greek lawyer who helps run the greekcrisis.netblog, which is well worth a visit. During his time to speak Hatzis laid out how extraordinary Greece's economic achievements were in the years up to and following the brutal Nazi occupation. A copy of the arguments made can be found here.

Greece admits €13.5bn in cuts
unlikely to be settled by EU summit
Greek officials say friction with creditors
means parliament's approval doubtful
despite desperate need for cuts-dependent aid
By Helena Smith in Athens - The Guardian
Greek officials have admitted that friction with international creditors was such it was unlikely a package of austerity cuts that have been set as the price of further aid would be approved by the Athens parliament before mid-November.
At no other time has near-bankrupt Greece so needed the €31.5bn (£25bn) in rescue funds dependent on the measures. With public coffers set to run dry by the end of November, the country could be forced to default on its debt mountain if there are further delays in the disbursement, put on hold since July.

Greece Is Not Poor -
It Actually Has Massive Uptapped Reserves
Of Gold, Oil And Natural Gas
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
It turns out that the poster child for the European debt crisis is not actually poor at all. In fact, the truth is that the nation of Greece is sitting on absolutely massive untapped reserves of gold, oil and natural gas. If the Greeks were to fully exploit the natural resources that are literally right under their feet, they would no longer have any debt problems. Fortunately, this recent economic crisis has spurred them to action and it is now being projected that Greece will be the number one gold producer in Europe by 2016. In addition, Greece is now opening up exploration of their massive oil and natural gas deposits. Reportedly, Greece is sitting on hundreds of millions of barrels of oil and gigantic natural gas deposits that are worth trillions of dollars. It is truly sad that Greece should be one of the wealthiest nations in all of Europe but instead the country is going through the worst economic depression that it has experienced in modern history. It is kind of like a homeless man that sleeps on the streets every night without realizing that a relative has left him an inheritance worth millions of dollars. Greece is not poor at all, and hopefully the people of Greece can learn the truth about all of this wealth and chart a course out of this current mess.

The origins of our current woes -
and the way to escape from them
Why are we here, in the worst recession for over 70 years? Unless we uncover the answer we won't be able to address the more important issue of when and how we can hope to come out of it.
By Roger Bootle - Telegraph.co.uk
Some analysts say that we have exhausted the growth impulses that have continued since the Industrial Revolution. I do not subscribe to this uber-pessimistic view, nor to the view that much supply capacity was destroyed by the financial crisis. (In a later article I will explain why.)
The corollary is that we are suffering from a shortage of aggregate demand. The intriguing question is why – and why can so little apparently be done about it? After all, it is supposed to be supply that limits what we can have. What we want is supposed to be limitless

China's economic power
mightier than the sword
By Brendan O'Reilly - ATimes.com
China is facing intensifying political and economic disputes with Japan, the United States and the European Union. Meanwhile, the outlook for the global economy is decidedly grim, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting a prolonged recession in Europe and severe budgetary woes in the US.
At this crucial juncture, China's leadership is exploring avenues for leveraging the country's growing economic clout into geopolitical gains. If used wisely and consistently, China's economic power could be a powerful instrument for advancing its foreign-policy goals. The government's push to use financial capabilities to further diplomatic objectives will have dramatic effects on the international system.

Soros Says China Growth Slowing on Consumption Share Drop
By Jeff Kearns and Whitney Kisling - Bloomberg.com
Billionaire investor George Soros said China's growth is slowing because household spending as a percentage of the world's second largest economy is waning.
"The growth model which has worked is running out of steam because consumption as a percentage of GDP has fallen" to one- third of output from half, Soros said at a National Association for Business Economics conference in New York today. Central bankers "will have to modify the growth model and somehow allow the household sector to have a bigger share of the total."

Fed's Bullard Says 3.5% 2013 Growth Will Cut Unemployment
By Steve Matthews - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said U.S. economic growth will probably pick up to 3.5 percent next year, pushing the unemployment rate down to close to 7 percent.
"I still think it is reasonable to expect faster growth as we go forward," Bullard said in a speech in St. Louis. "The normal expectation would be the effects start to dissipate" from headwinds that have included the European debt crisis and the slow housing recovery, he said.

Here come Renter Bonds
Your rent check
is about to make private equity investors richer
By Greg Morcroft - MarketWatch.com
So here's a quick history quiz to start off the week. What was one of the key triggers of the global financial crisis we're all still recovering from?
OK, sure, easy enough you say, it was the total breakdown of the subprime mortgage market and the web of financial connections and commitments they built. OK, so you get an A.
Now, if you're on Wall Street that's old news, and it's hardly worth crying about something in the rearview mirror.

Fears Over US Mortgages Dominance
By: Robin Harding, FT.com via CNBC.com
Dominance of the mortgage market by a few big banks is undermining monetary policy, said a senior policy maker at the US Federal Reserve, in comments that may herald greater scrutiny of lenders such as Wells Fargoand JPMorgan Chase.
Bill Dudley, president of the New York Fed, said "concentration of mortgage origination volumes at a few key financial institutions" meant that banks were not passing on low interest rates to borrowers.

Study shows $1.2 trillion gap for public pensions
By Hilary Russ
(Reuters) - The largest 100 public pension funds have around $1.2 trillion of unfunded liabilities, about $300 billion above the nearly $900 billion they reported themselves, according to a new actuarial study to be released on Monday.
The pension systems reported a median funding level of 75.1 percent. The study by the actuarial firm Milliman, which used different ways to value assets and measure liabilities, finds an aggregate level of funding of 67.8 percent.

Skilled-Worker Shortage Is Exaggerated, Says Study
By: Paul Davidson - CNBC.com
A shortage of skilled manufacturing workers that's blamed for helping push up unemployment is far smaller than believed, according to a study out today.
The study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) says manufacturers may have openings they can't fill, but it's not because workers aren't out there. It's because companies are being too selective about who they hire and are unwiwlling to pay a competitive wage.

Big Labor Is Going For Broke in Michigan
Protect Our Jobs ballot initiative
will make unions more powerful than the legislature.
By Shikha Dalmia - Reason.com
We've seen Gov. Scott Walker's battle in Wisconsin and the Chicago Teachers Union strike next door. Now in Michigan comes another Midwestern political showdown that will carry enormous implications for the role of unions in American life.
The Michigan Supreme Court recently approved the placement of a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot. If passed by voters, the so-called Protect Our Jobs amendment would give public-employee unions a potent new tool to challenge any laws—past, present or future—that limit their benefits or collective-bargaining powers. It would also bar Michigan from becoming a right-to-work state in which mandatory union dues are not a condition of employment. The budget implications are dire.

Government dictates school lunches that kids won't eat it
School Official: Place Box at Cafeteria Exits to Collect Healthy Food Students Won't Eat
By Susan Jones - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) - The government's new school lunch rules mean more wasted food, critics say.
One school board official in New Hampshire is suggesting that schools set up a collection box at cafeteria exits, where students can deposit all the uneaten apples, oranges and other "healthy" foods they don't want to eat -- or maybe don't have time to eat during their 20 minutes in the school cafeteria.

Oakland County Clerk Candidate Lisa Brown Needs To Denounce Alleged Doc Fraud Surrounding Her Brother's Foreclosure Mill
By Steve Dibert - MFI-Miami.com
Milford, MI – On October 15, 2012, Steve Dibert, President of MFI-Miami, an internationally recognized leader in investigating mortgage fraud and mortgage backed securities fraud has called on State Representative Lisa Brown (D-West Bloomfield) who is currently running for Oakland County Clerk/Register of Deeds to denounce what appears to be robo-signing and notary fraud involving her brother, Randall S. Miller's foreclosure mill law firm located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Doctor Sums Up Obamacare In One Sentence
By Craig Bannister - CNSNews.com
A doctor sums up the ironies and hypocrisies of Obamacare in one sentence. It's 132 words long and takes about a minute to get out, but it's still one sentence.
As a humorous introduction to an in-depth examination of the serious dangers of Obamacare, Dr. Barbara Ruth Bellar provided her audience with a surprisingly succinct single sentence summary of Obamacare.

Krugman: 'Ugly Reality'
of the Romney-Ryan Health Care Plan
by Tracy Bloom - Truthdig.com
In his latest Op-Ed, the New York Times columnist rips the Republican presidential ticket for a health care plan that would deny potentially millions of Americans coverage in order to save money—all while proposing a trillion-dollar tax cut that would help the wealthiest Americans.
Krugman argues that recent comments by Mitt Romney demonstrate that he "has no idea what life (and death) are like for those less fortunate than himself."

Sprint's $20 Billion Deal Could Mean Lower Rates for All
BY MARCUS WOHLSEN - Wired.com
The takeover of Sprint (S)by Japanese mobile phone company Softbank has Wall Street chattering about the history-making size of the $20 billion deal. But for most of us regular consumers, the relevant question is: What can $20 billion do for me?
Possibly a lot, even if you're not a Sprint customer.
For years, the U.S. mobile marketplace has been dominated by two heavyweights engaged in a Republican-versus-Democrat-style two-party contest for dominance. As with many elections, consumers often end up feeling like they have to pick between the lesser of two evils rather than what they really want. But as with voting for third-party candidates, you can feel left out of the national conversation (literally) when you choose a company other than AT&T or Verizon.

The Final Word on Mitt Romney's Tax Plan
By Josh Barro - Bloomberg.com
Mitt Romney's campaign says I'm full of it. I said Romney's tax plan is mathematically impossible: he can't simultaneously keep his pledges to cut tax rates 20 percent and repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax; broaden the tax base enough to avoid growing the deficit; and not raise taxes on the middle class. They say they have six independent studies -- six! -- that "have confirmed the soundness of the Governor's tax plan," and so I should stop whining. Let's take a tour of those studies and see how they measure up.

Ryan and Romney's Secret Plan to Cut the Deficit –
and why Romney opposes it
by Devin Smith - NewEconomicPerspectives.org
My favorite scene from The West Wing is the episode in which the President's press secretary is recovering from a root canal and Josh Lyman decides to handle a press briefing. Lyman is a young whiz kid who believes he is the smartest guy in the room, but the briefing goes disastrously. Lyman has to explain to the President that he has, sarcastically, told the press that the President has "a secret plan to fight inflation." The press, fed up with Lyman's arrogance, has decided to report Lyman's statement about the secret plan without noting the sarcasm. Worse is still to come, for upon questioning Lyman about the incident, the President asks in exasperation: "Are you telling me that not only did you invent a secret plan to fight inflation but now you don't support it?"

Obama's Task Tuesday Night
By Eugene Robinson - Truthdig.com
First, he has to show up. Then, in his second debate with Mitt Romney, President Obama needs to offer not just history lessons and dire warnings, but also a hopeful vision for the next four years.
It would be hard for Obama to turn in a worse performance Tuesday night at Hofstra University than he did at the first debate in Denver. All he has to do is show a little energy and enthusiasm, and the next morning's headlines will surely be full of "comeback" metaphors. But that's not enough.

A Terrifying Threat Obama & Romney Aren't Talking About
Editors - Bloomberg.com
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made some alarming predictions during a speech on Oct. 11. Cyber attacks are looming, he said. They "could be as destructive as the terrorist attack of 9/11" and might amount to a "cyber Pearl Harbor."
Strong words -- and ones that have the virtue of being both accurate and necessary. One of the most pressing military threats facing the U.S. today is one we can't see, and therefore is the most difficult to have a sensible discussion about.

The Sagging Obama Campaign
By Rich Galen - PatriotPost.us
This campaign feels like it has been going on since 1873.
It hasn't but it feels that way and we are now down to 22 days to go; three weeks from tomorrow.
For the past 12 days the political world has been marveling at the enormous impact -- however tenuous it might turn out to be -- that first debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney has had on this race.

Goldman Sachs & Obama
The Vampire Squid has feelings and Obama is no longer her BFF
by Devin Smith - NewEconomicPerspectives.org
Matt Taibbi famously dubbed Goldman "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Taibbi knew his metaphor worked a deep injustice on Vampyroteuthis infernalis, a small animal that feeds on carrion and excrement (I will let the reader explore the metaphorical possibilities). Goldman Sachs' leaders were always secretly flattered by Taibbi's metaphor. They like being thought of as hyper-aggressive and intimidating. Saying that an investment banker's goal is to make money is to state the obvious and causes no embarrassment.

The Constancy of Crony Capitalism
Corporations double dip at taxpayers' expense.
By Veronique de Rugy - Reason.com
In his 1986 memoir The Triumph of Politics, former Reagan administration budget director David Stockman wrote: "I had long insisted, to any liberals who would listen, that the supply-side revolution would be different from the corrupted opportunism of the organized business groups; that it would go after weak [corporate welfare] claims like Boeing's, not just weak clients such as food stamp recipients. Giving the heave-ho to the well-heeled lobbyists of the big corporations who keep the whole scam alive would be dramatic proof that we meant business, not business-as-usual."

Romney is shocked to learn how the Fed creates money
By William K. Black - NewEconomicPerspectives.org
The following passage from the transcript of Governor Romney's secretly videotaped May 17, 2012 fundraiser has not received any attention in the media. It is a fascinating passage, however, from the perspective of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Here is the full context of the passage:
....He said, "Once– once that over– that's over," he said, "we're gonna have a failed Treasury option. Interest rates are gonna have to go up. You know, we're– we're– we're living in this borrowed– fantasy world where– where the government keeps on borrowing money." You know, we– we borrow this extra trillion a year. We wonder, "Well, who's– who's loaning against the Treasury? The Chinese aren't loaning to us anymore. The Russians aren't loaning it to us anymore. So who's giving us a trillion?"

Obama, Romney look to channel Bill Clinton in next debate
By Justin Sink - TheHill.com
Both Mitt Romney and President Obama are looking to channel one man at Tuesday night's debate: former President Bill Clinton.
According to political consultants on both sides of the aisle, Clinton's 1992 performance against then-President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot serves the gold standard of the town-hall format.

New Study Shows that Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
Figures that have recently been released by Hadcrut 4, the collaboration between the Met Office's Hadley Research Centre and the Climatic Research Unit, describing the changes in global temperature. The results are astounding, and sure to put a spanner in the wold climate debate as reported by The Daily Mail: Global warming stopped around 16 years ago.
The data was collected from over 3,000 measuring points across both land and sea, and shows that between 1997 and August 2012, there has been no discernible difference in the average global temperature.

Join the Blockade of the Keystone Pipeline
By Chris Hedges - Truthdig.com
The next great battle of the Occupy movement may not take place in city parks and plazas, where the security and surveillance state is blocking protesters from setting up urban encampments. Instead it could arise in the nation's heartland, where some ranchers, farmers and enraged citizens, often after seeing their land seized by eminent domain and their water supplies placed under mortal threat, have united with Occupiers and activists to oppose the building of the Keystone XL tar sand pipeline. They have formed an unusual coalition called Tar Sands Blockade (TSB). Centers of resistance being set up in Texas and Oklahoma and on tribal lands along the proposed route of this six-state, 1,700-mile proposed pipeline are fast becoming flashpoints in the war of attrition we have begun against the corporate state. Join them.

Saudi Aramco to Spend $35 Billion
on Increasing Oil Production Capacity by 2017
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Khalid al-Falih, the head of the world's biggest oil producer, Saudi Aramco, has given a speech at Oxford University in which he mentioned that his company will invest $35 billion over the next five years to create new oil production opportunities and maintain an oil production capacity cushion which the world heavily relies upon.
He stated that "preserving our spare oil production capacity is crucial to maintaining oil market stability because it plays a pivotal role in protecting the world's economic health."

The Great Demographic Revolution and Depopulation
of Industrialized Countries
By Diplomatic Courier - OilPrice.com
It took tens of thousands of years for humanity to reach its first billion in 1804. But it took only 123 years to reach its second billion, 32 years to reach its third and another 15 years for its fourth. The seventh billion was attained only 13 years after the sixth.
Yet, the United Nations Population Division's figures released in May 2011 on Western states' aging workforce provided fresh evidence on the most important trend of our time: the global labor force will peak in 2050 or is already close to peaking in most major economies. If the Industrial Revolution was the main highlight of the 19th century, and competition between sociopolitical ideologies haunted the 20th, then the 21st will be an epoch fixated on the planet's depopulation, especially in the West and some new industrialized countries. The future humanity faces is not one of overpopulation, but of depopulation.

Brotherhood head calls for 'jihad' to liberate J'lem
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader
Mohammed Badie says "jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem
is a duty for all Muslims."
JPost.com Staff
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Mohammed Badie called on Muslims worldwide to liberate Jerusalem by means of jihad, according to AFP.
In his weekly message to supporters, Badie reportedly asserted that "The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims," stressing that the city's conquest "will not be done through negotiations or at the United Nations."

U.S. warship, nuclear submarine
collide during naval exercises
AP - NationalPost.com
NORFOLK, Va. — The Pentagon said late Saturday that it is investigating why a Navy submarine collided with an Aegis cruiser off the East Coast.
The U.S. Fleet Forces Command said in a news release that the submarine USS Montpelier and the Aegis cruiser USS San Jacinto collided at about 3:30 p.m. during routine operations. No one was injured, and the extent of any damage to the vessels was not clear Saturday evening, said Lt. Commander Brian Badura of the Fleet Forces Command.

Administration weighing military strike
against Libya attackers
By Jeremy Herb - TheHill.com
The White House is considering a strike against militants responsible for the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others — if and when it can track down the perpetrators, The Associated Press reported.
The AP, citing current and former administration officials, reports that the Obama administration is weighing whether the short-term payoff of retribution against al Qaeda for the Sept. 11 attack in Libya is worth the trade-off of potentially elevating the group's stature. There is also concern about alienating governments that could help fight terror in the region, according to the AP.

Kudlow: White House Getting Desperate About Libya?
By: Lee Brodie - CNBC.com
A stunning development related to the aftermath of the Libya attacks left Larry Kudlow more puzzled than ever.
According to a CNN report, Hillary Clinton said she 'takes responsibility' for what happened in Libya on September 11. Clinton insisted President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were not involved in security decisions.

Clinton: 'I take responsibility' for events in Libya
By Mario Trujillo - TheHill.com
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she takes responsibility when it comes to security concerns in Libya in the run up to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans including a U.S. ambassador.
Clinton conducted a number of interviews with news outlets in Lima, Peru, on Monday, where she is part of a conference on entrepreneurship for women.

Imran Khan says Taliban's 'holy war'
in Afghanistan is justified by Islamic law
Pakistani politician's comments at hospital that treated shooting victim Malala Yousafzai outrage Afghanistan's government
By Jon Boone in Islamabad - The Guardian
Afghanistan's government has lashed out at Imran Khan after the formerPakistan cricket star, now a politician, said the Taliban were fighting a "holy war" in the country that was justified by Islamic law.
Speaking after visiting a hospital in Peshawar where Malala Yousafzai – the 14-year-old activist shot in the head by the Taliban for supporting girls' education – was treated last week, Khan told reporters that insurgents in Afghanistan were fighting a "jihad". Citing a verse from the Qur'an, he said: "It is very clear that whoever is fighting for their freedom is fighting a jihad …

Syrian crisis: Iran asked to help secure ceasefire
Lakhdar Brahimi calls on Iran to persuade President Assad to implement ceasefire as UN appeals for halt to arms flow
By Ian Black, Middle East editor - Guardian.co.uk
Iran has been asked to persuade the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to implement a ceasefire later this month in tandem with an appeal by the UN to halt the flow of weapons to both sides in the country's bloody conflict.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the envoy for the UN and Arab League, used a weekend visit to Iran, a loyal ally of Damascus, to appeal for help in securing a ceasefire to mark Eid al-Adha, the four-day Muslim holiday later this month. In Baghdad on Monday he called on the Iraqi government to use its influence, while Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, called for a speedy "political solution".

Iran Threatens Oil Spill in Persian Gulf
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
A report from German news magazine Der Spiegel states that Iran's latest effort to disrupt key shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz may be to cause a massive oil spill. Code-named Murky Water, the operation may serve to force a temporary respite from sanctions targeting the country's energy sector. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein tried a similar tactic during the first Gulf War to deter invading U.S. forces. If the German report is true, the Iranian operation could be a sign of Tehran's dwindling options.

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Monday 10.15.2012

Gold's primed for a breakout, but where to?
Commentary: Metal is trading just a stone's throw from a record level
By Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold is primed for a breakout.
Just a stone's throw away from a record level, gold prices may be ready to break free from the trading range they've been stuck in for months.
"Concerns about overall global economic health have kept gold in a pretty tight trading range, but this is typical just before some type of breakout, up or down," said Nathan Rowader, portfolio manager of the Forward Commodity Long/Short Strategy Fund. "Right now, the weight of the evidence points toward higher prices."

Lindsey Williams:
Master Plan to Bring Down America Revealed

Gold action could be erratic short term
The Asian nation is "in some ways, is the last 'hold-out' and one that could provide the gold market another lift in the event that authorities signal more monetary relaxation.
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Now that the headlines about central bank easing are fading, the markets are drifting and that could mean generally softer prices, according to INTL FCStone.
"The decline may be erratic and somewhat uneven in gold, as the complex will be more susceptible to easing policies and less vulnerable to slowing growth concerns compared to others in the group," said Ed Meir, commodities consultant at INTL FCStone

The Case For A Higher Gold Price Based on Monetary History
Gold Silver Worlds
People tend to forget quickly and fail to learn from history. As George Bernard Shaw once said: "What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history." So it's worth one's time to look back to the past and learn what others before us learnt sometimes the hard way.
As far as Gold's role in our monetary system is concerned, the most recent learnings and insights come from "the Bretton Woods period". Apart from being a nice resort in the mountains, Bretton Woods stands for the agreements that created a new world monetary system in 1944. Courtesy of Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners, who wrote the short but very powerful paper (bottom of this article), full of insights from monetary history. The learnings should be used by all of us, including our economic and political leaders.

Federal deficit tops $1 trillion for fourth year
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal budget deficit has topped $1 trillion for a fourth straight year. But a modest improvement in economic growth helped narrow the gap by $207 billion compared with last year.
The Treasury Department said Friday that the deficit for the 2012 budget year totaled $1.1 trillion. Tax revenue rose 6.4% from last year to more than $2.4 trillion, helping contain the deficit.

UNSUSTAINABLE
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
When it comes to explaining the problems with our economy, one of the hardest things to do is to get people to understand that we are living in an economic fantasy world that is completely and totally unsustainable. As a nation we consume far more than we produce, we spend far more than we bring in, our debt is growing much faster than our GDP is, our entitlement programs are growing at an exponential rate, our retirement system is a Ponzi scheme and the Federal Reserve is printing money as if there is no tomorrow in a desperate attempt to paper over all of our problems.

Bernanke defends QE from international criticism
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended his central bank's extraordinary efforts to revive the U.S. economy from international criticism, saying the Fed isn't responsible for artificially boosting rival currencies — and that other nations should let market forces determine exchange rates anyway.
Speaking before the International Monetary Fund meeting in Tokyo, Bernanke on Sunday refuted criticism that the Fed's asset purchases and low interest rates are mainly driving capital flows to emerging market economies. The Fed last month embarked on its third major bond-purchase program, this time buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities every month until unspecified improvement in the economy.

Keiser Report: Parasites Fat on Fraud (E352)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the very civil lawsuits that are oh so amiable, benevolent, benign, clubby, cordial, courteous and cozy but available only for financial crooks. They also discuss the mysterious algorithm with an unknown motive that accounted for 4% of all quotes on the US stock markets last week. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Jon Najarian of OptionMonster.com about options trading, high frequency trading and naked short selling.

Economic confusion reigns
Crosscurrents add to U.S. economic puzzle
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — If someone is cooking the books of U.S. economic data, all this person has managed to do is make things pretty confusing.
"The latest round of monthly and weekly economic data presents so much of a mixed picture of the economy that even an ardent follower of the numbers like myself is left scratching my head," said Steve Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities.

Fischer Backs Fed's QE3
as World Is 'Awfully Close' to Recession
By Sara Eisen and Shamim Adam - Bloomberg.com
Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said the world is "awfully close" to a recession, and backed the Federal Reserve's increase in quantitative easing as strengthening its policy credibility.
While there has been "a lot of progress made" to improve the global economy, its impact hasn't materialized, Fischer said in an interview in Tokyo with Bloomberg Television airing today. He signaled that by deciding not to set an end date or total amount to its third program of bond buying, the Fed is easing worries it will run out of ammunition before achieving its goals.

U.S. Economy "Below Potential," says OPEC
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
Oil supply growth in the United States is expected to be the highest for non-OPEC countries this year, the Vienna-based cartel said. With less than a month before U.S. voters head to the polls in what's expected to be a close race, both sides of the political debate are making aggressive claims on energy, a contributing factor to the national economy. OPEC said it anticipated "robust" growth in the U.S. economy when compared to other developed countries, though "U.S. expansion remains below potential." The economic climate in the United States, OPEC said, could have regional implications, suggesting the U.S. election could have broad-based effects.

Keiser Report: Slippery Snake Split Strategy (E353)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss workers of the world 'uniting' to give up their rights and nations of the world 'uniting' to give up their sovereignty. And the IMF sees for Europe an Irish like future where JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America and the Big Four accounting firms write the laws. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Nick Verbitsky, director of CONFIDENCE GAME, about the civil mortgage fraud suit filed against JP Morgan.

US rebound signals IMF gloom may be overdone
The US economy appears to have turned the corner at last after flirting with danger earlier this summer, according to a rash of new data.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The tentative US rebound comes as forward-looking indicators across the world suggest that a clutch of countries are poised to pick up momentum again, though dangers abound.
New jobless claims in the US fell last week to the lowest since the onset of Great Recession, while home foreclosures have dropped to levels last seen before the sub-prime crash.

Euroland's debt strategy is an economic and moral disgrace
The International Monetary Fund has demolished the intellectual foundations of Europe's debt crisis strategy.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Drastic fiscal tightening in a string of interlinked countries does two to three times more damage than assumed, especially if there is no offsetting monetary stimulus.
Pushed beyond the therapeutic dose, it is self-defeating. At a certain point it becomes pain for pain's sake.
The error has long been obvious in Greece. The EU-IMF Troika originally said the economy would rebound quickly, growing 1.1pc in 2011, and 2.1pc in 2012, and on from there to sunlit uplands.

Eurozone needs 'limited fiscal solidarity'
BY HONOR MAHONY - EUObserver.com
BRUSSELS - The eurozone should consider introducing treasury bills, a special budget and a finance ministry in order to stabilise the future of the single currency, says an ideas paper published by EU council president Herman Van Rompuy on Friday (12 October).
The seven-page document, meant to spur discussions among EU leaders at next week's summit, outlines the "specific challenges by virtue of sharing a currency."

Nigel Farage on the Rise of UKIP, the Fall of Europe,
and the Parallels for the US

IMF's Lagarde urges Europe to deploy bailout
By Ian Talley
TOKYO--The head of the International Monetary Fund Friday urged euro zone authorities to deploy the currency union's bailout funds and the European Central Bank's bond-buying program as part of an aggressive plan to tame its debt crisis.
Although IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde didn't refer to any particular country when prodding the EU to wield its crisis-fighting weapons, Spain is the only country in the euro zone that's currently mulling whether and when to tap the bailout funds.

Mario Monti: 'I convinced Thatcher
that the Maastricht Treaty was a good idea'
Mario Monti talks to Michael Day in Milan about his admiration for the Iron Lady – and why Italy's tax evaders should be running scared
By MICHAEL DAY - Independent.co.uk
For a man who has devoted much of his career working towards a closer Europe, it might come as a surprise to learn that now, as the technocrat prime minister of Italy, Mario Monti, cites of one of the bloc's fiercest critics as an inspiration.
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Monti hails Margaret Thatcher's decade-long overhaul of the British economy and the former UK premier's success in making "profound changes to British society" in her three terms of office.

Capital Account asks Jamie Dimon
about the Failed Bear Stearns Acquisition at the CFR!

Clinton's Legacy: The Financial and Housing Meltdown
Clinton sowed the seeds of the Great Recession
by helping to inflate the housing bubble.
By Sheldon Richman - Reason.com
Bill Clinton is certainly full of himself these days. That might have something to do with the fact that no one is likely to ask why he hasn't owned up to his share of the blame for the housing and financial bust.
The former president is treated like an elder statesman whose tenure in office was so good that even some Republicans look back fondly on it. On the surface his economic record looks good, but it would be rash to credit Clinton. During his time in office the information revolution took off, boosting productivity and economic growth. And when his Democratic Party lost control of Congress in 1992, Clinton had to accept spending restraints, which meant less government obstruction to economic growth.

US woman takes on banks over Libor
Repossessed homeowners sue over rates in class action
By Caroline Binham in London - FT.com
A pensioner whose home was repossessed is taking on some of the world's leading banks in the first known class-action lawsuit claiming that alleged Libor manipulation made mortgage repayments for thousands of Americans more expensive than they should have been.
The subprime mortgages of Annie Bell Adams and her four co-lead plaintiffs were securitised into Libor-based collateralised debt obligations and sold by banks to investors.

Reverse Mortgages hurting seniors
A Risky Lifeline for Seniors Is Costing Some Their Homes
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG - NYTimes.com
The very loans that are supposed to help seniors stay in their homes are in many cases pushing them out.
Reverse mortgages, which allow homeowners 62 and older to borrow money against the value of their homes and not pay it back until they move out or die, have long been fraught with problems. But federal and state regulators are documenting new instances of abuse as smaller mortgage brokers, including former subprime lenders, flood the market after the recent exit of big banks and as defaults on the loans hit record rates.

Social Security benefits to rise 1% to 2% in 2013
By Stephen Ohlemacher, AP - USAToday.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Social Security recipients shouldn't expect a big increase in monthly benefits come January.
Preliminary figures show the annual benefit boost will be between 1% and 2%, which would be among the lowest since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. Monthly benefits for retired workers now average $1,237, meaning the typical retiree can expect a raise of $12 to $24 a month next year.

ObamaCare Already Hurting Workers
The unintended consequences of leftist policies.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
The Left is expert at selling its statist, government-knows-best agenda as being in the service of the "greater good," improving the overall quality of life for individual citizens. These policies, however, almost always cause unintended consequences that leave the targeted individuals -- and scores of ancillary parties -- at the mercy of myopic government meddling. The ever-expanding list of unintended consequences produced by the disastrous Obamacare law provide a case in point.

John Goodman on Curing the Health Care Crisis
"The problem is that we've so completely surpressed the marketplace in healthcare that none of us ever sees a real price for anything," says economist John Goodman.

Los Angeles mayor wants ID card for immigrants
AP - FOXNews.com
LOS ANGELES – Immigrants would get access to banking services in Los Angeles under a proposal by the mayor that would create an official city photo identification card that could also be used as a prepaid ATM card for their private bank account.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says his plan is similar to programs in San Francisco and Oakland, where ID cards are issued to anyone who can prove residency, regardless of immigration status, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The Big Bird Counterattack
By Charles Krauthammer - PatriotPost.us
WASHINGTON -- No mystery about the trajectory of this race. It was static for months as President Obama held a marginal lead. Then came the conventions. The Republicans squandered Tampa; the Democrats got a 3- to 4-point bounce out of Charlotte.
And kept it. Until the first debate. In 90 minutes, Mitt Romney wiped out the bump -- and maybe more.
Democrats are shellshocked and left searching for excuses. Start with scapegoats: the hapless John Kerry, Obama's sparring partner in the practice debates, for going too soft on the boss; then the debate moderator for not exerting enough control.

Koch Industries, other CEOs warn employees
of layoffs if Obama is reelected
By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News
Koch Industries, the Wichita, Kan.-based company run by the billionaire Koch brothers, sent a voter information packet to 45,000 employees of its Georgia Pacific subsidiary earlier this month.
In it was a letter, dated Oct. 1, from Koch Industries president Dave Robertson implicitly warning that "many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences" of voting for President Obama and other Democrats in the 2012 elections, a list of conservative candidates the company's political action committee endorses and a pair of editorials: one, by David Koch, supporting Mitt Romney, and the other, by Charles Koch, condemning Obama.

Confusing Strength With Aggression
A draw on substance, but the vice president loses on style.
By Peggy Noonan - PatriotPost.us
The vice presidential debate was uniquely important because if Paul Ryan won it or did well, the Romney-Ryan ticket's momentum would be continued or speed up. If he did not, that momentum would slow or stop. So the night carried implications.
The debate, obviously, was the Republican versus the Democrat, a particular kind of conservative versus a particular kind of liberal, one philosophical approach versus another. Beyond that there was some iconic weight to it. It was age versus youth; full, white-haired man versus lean, black-haired man. Youth is energy -- new ideas and new ways. But age can stand for experience, wisdom. Youth can seem callow, confident only because it is uninformed. But age can seem reactionary, resistant to change in part because change carries a rebuke: You and your friends have been doing things wrong, we need a new approach.

Another Obama Executive Order
Allows Seizure of Americans' Bank Accounts
Written by Bob Adelmann - TheNewAmerican.com
The latest executive order (EO) emanating from the White House October 9 now claims the power to freeze all bank accounts and stop any related financial transactions that a "sanctioned person" may own or try to perform — all in the name of "Iran Sanctions."
Titled an "Executive Order from the President regarding Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions…" the order says that if an individual is declared by the president, the secretary of state, or the secretary of the treasury to be a "sanctioned person," he (or she) will be unable to obtain access to his accounts, will be unable to process any loans (or make them), or move them to any other financial institution inside or outside the United States. In other words, his financial resources will have successfully been completely frozen. The EO expands its authority by making him unable to use any third party such as "a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, subgroup or other organization" that might wish to help him or allow him to obtain access to his funds.

Will The Election Results Cause Massive Riots
To Erupt All Over America?
By Michael Snyder.com
Will the most divisive campaign in modern American history culminate in massive riots in our major cities? Right now, supporters of Barack Obama and supporters of Mitt Romney are both pinning all of their hopes on a victory on November 6th. The race for the presidency is extremely tight, and obviously the side that loses is going to be extremely disappointed when the election results are finalized. But could this actually lead to violence? Could we actually see rioting in communities all over America? Well, the conditions are certainly ripe for it. A whole host of surveys over the past few years have shown that Americans are very angry and very frustrated right now.

Feds closer to filing Google antitrust lawsuit
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators are moving closer to suing Google web giant over allegations the company abuses its dominance of Internet search to stifle competition and drive up online advertising prices, news reports said late Friday.
Several news outlets reported that staff members at the Federal Trade Commission are preparing to recommend that the agency file an antitrust lawsuit against Google (GOOG).

Too Big to Maintain?
By George Will - PatriotPost.us
DALLAS -- If in four weeks a president-elect Mitt Romney is seeking a Treasury secretary, he should look here, to Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Candidate Romney can enhance his chance of having this choice to make by embracing a simple proposition from Fisher: Systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), meaning too-big-to-fail (TBTF) banks, are "too dangerous to permit."
Romney almost did this in the first debate when he said Dodd-Frank's designation of TBTF banks makes them "effectively guaranteed by the federal government" and constitutes "the biggest kiss that's been given to -- to New York banks I've ever seen." Fisher, who has a flair for rhetorical pungency, is more crisp:

Hezbollah takes responsibility for downed drone,
confirms it was manufactured by Iran
Netanyahu fingers Lebanese group, says Israel 'determined to defend its land, air, and maritime borders' from future incursions
By GREG TEPPER - TimesOfIsrael.com
The leader of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah on Thursday claimed responsibility for launching a drone aircraft that was shot down over Israel earlier this week, saying the UAV had been assembled by Hezbollah men using parts provided by Iran. The rare admission by Hassan Nasrallah raises regional tensions at a sensitive time when the group's backers, Syria and Iran, are under pressure.
Nasrallah said the drone sent Saturday was named the Ayoub, honoring both an Islamic prophet (of patience) and a "martyr" by the name of Hussein Ayoub.

Advisor: Israeli strike on Iran less likely if Romney wins
Dov Zakheim, advisor to Republican presidential candidate, says his victory will ensure Israel 'greater support'; may prevent independent Israeli strike on nuclear facilities
AFP - Ynetnews
An ill-advised Israeli strike against Iran would be less likely if Republican candidate Mitt Romney wins the presidential elections because he would shore up strained US relations with Israel, an advisor said Thursday.
If the Republican nominee wins the race for the White House, he would tighten sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and bolster ties with Israel, which have deteriorated under President Barack Obama's administration, said Dov Zakheim, a foreign policy adviser to the candidate.

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Friday 10.12.2012

UBS raises Gold, Silver, Copper 2012, 2013 price forecasts
The open-ended nature of QE … promises longevity for a higher gold trade and the quantitative easing and strength in gold also supports silver.
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Zurich based investment bank UBS AG lifts its 2012 average estimate for gold prices by $20 an ounce to $1,700 and its 2013 estimate to $1,900 from $1,725.
"The open-ended nature of QE … promises longevity for a higher gold trade and the quantitative easing and strength in gold also supports silver," the Swiss bank noted.

Why Mainstream Media,
Main Street And Institutions Fail To See The Benefits Of Gold
By Nick Barisheff - GoldSilverWorlds.com
Many of today's investors have only lived through the long term bull market of financial assets, between 1980 and 2000. Those two decades have been characterized by strong growth in bond and equity markets. At the same time, gold & silver prices experienced a slow and steady decline. Nick Barisheff remembers it was remarkable how the Central Banks, Wall Street and the media were exploiting every opportunity to make negative comments about precious metals.

Yes, The Fed Is Printing Money
BY LEE ADLER - FinancialSense.com
One way that the Fed creates money is the indirect route. It buys MBS at a profit from the Primary Dealers and in so doing it credits their accounts at the Fed. Because the Fed has essentially cornered that market it has driven MBS prices to all time highs, so it is buying paper from the dealers which they acquired earlier at lower prices. With the increase in their cash from their sales to the Fed, using leverage the dealers then buy most of the the Treasury paper that the government newly issues that week. The purchase money is credited to the Treasury's account at the Fed, increasing its balance in that account by the dollar amount of the newly issued paper.

Cashin Remembers Germany's Hyperinflation Birthday
By Art Cashin - ZeroHedge.com
UBS' Art Cashin provides the clearest 'simile' for our current economic malaise as he remembers back 90 years... On this day in 1922, the German Central Bank and the German Treasury took an inevitable step in a process which had begun with their previous effort to "jump start" a stagnant economy. Many months earlier they had decided that what was needed was easier money. Their initial efforts brought little response. So, using the governmental "more is better" theory they simply created more and more money. But economic stagnation continued and so did the money growth. They kept making money more available. No reaction. Then, suddenly prices began to explode unbelievably (but, perversely, not business activity). Think it can't happen here?

G-7 Discusses Potential Fiscal Measures If Growth Falters
By Theophilos Argitis - Bloomberg.com
Some Group of Seven nations raised the possibility of extra fiscal measures if the global recovery weakens, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said after a G-7 meeting in Tokyoyesterday.
"There has been some discussion by some of the participants along those lines, generally relating to the European situation," Flaherty said on a conference call with reporters today. "The continent is in recession and there's rising unemployment."

How to Save the World from Governments and Banks
BY DOMINIC FRISBY - FinancialSense.com
Today I have something a little different for you.
I'm not going to forecast the gold price. I'm not going to tell you about a mining company I like the look of. I'm not even going to remind you that house prices have fallen by 75% (if you measure them against gold).
It's something much bigger than that.
Today I want to tell you why I think our system of money is failing us so badly. And what that means for you, me, and everyone else in the country. How it affects every aspect of our lives.

Bullard Backs Limiting Banks' Size to Proportion of GDP
By Steve Matthews - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said he would back limiting the size of individual U.S. banks to a proportion of gross domestic product, while warning of the risks from "too-big-to-fail" firms.
"Scaling by GDP would make sense," Bullard said to reporters today in St. Louis. "Of course, the devil is in the details of exactly how you would do that."

Fed's Bullard-Banks should be smaller to manage failure
By Alister Bull
ST. LOUIS | Thu Oct 11, 2012 5:46pm EDT
(Reuters) - Big U.S. banks should become smaller to make any failure more manageable, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Thursday, supporting a suggestion that the size of banks be limited to a specific percentage of U.S. gross domestic product.
"I'm very much of a view that 'too-big-to-fail' remains alive and well and the only way to really make progress on this issue is to get firms down to a smaller size where you'd feel comfortable letting them fail if the situation arose," St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard told reporters.

U.S. Sues Wells Fargo:
Yet Another Bailed-Out Bank Accused of Fraud
By Matt Taibbi - RollingStone.com
Earlier this year, Charlie Munger, who is billionaire Warren Buffet's right hand at Berkshire Hathaway and a sort of self-proclaimed mad oracle of Wall Street, made some interesting comments. He bashed people who buy gold, delivering an all-time amazing quote:
Gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939 but civilized people don't buy gold – they invest in productive businesses.
Munger, if you might remember, is the same gazillionaire dickhead who two years ago ripped people experiencing post-crash economic hard times, saying they should "suck it in and cope" and that anyone who wants to complain about the Wall Street bailouts should realize they were "absolutely required to save your civilization" (Munger thinks a lot about "civilization"). He added that even if you didn't like them, "you shouldn't be bitching about a little bailout. You should have been thinking it should have been bigger."

Global banks bet on green shoots, defy IMF gloom
The US economy appears to have turned the corner at last after flirting with danger earlier this summer, according to a rash of new data.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The tentative US rebound comes as forward-looking indicators across the world suggest that a clutch of countries are poised to pick up momentum again, though dangers abound.
New jobless claims in the US fell last week to the lowest since the onset of Great Recession, while home foreclosures have dropped to levels last seen before the sub-prime crash.

Why would Scotland turn itself into Greece?
A fatal financial contradiction lies at the heart of the Scottish National Party's plan for independence
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
In or out" – that is the question. Scots, we now know, are to be presented with a simple choice when the referendum on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom is held in 2014, with the devo-max option traded in for a lower voting age. Only in practice, nothing is ever that uncomplicated.
What Scotland will in fact be voting on is whether to give its devolved government a mandate to negotiate independence. Precisely what form that separation takes is at this stage anyone's guess, and is highly likely to remain so right up to the time Scots make their fateful decision. In that sense, they will be voting blind. Critical issues such as the share of the national debt Scotland takes on, whether it is made liable for the tens of billions spent bailing out Scottish banks, what share of tax revenues from North Sea oil belongs to Scotland, and therefore what sort of a fiscal position it will be in after separation, are likely to remain unanswered.

Chicago foreclosures up from year ago, down for the month
BY DAVID ROEDER - Chicago Sun-Times
Foreclosure filings in the Chicago area rose 25 percent in September from a year ago as lenders played catch-up in trying to get homes off their books, a report by RealtyTrac showed Thursday.
The local results fit with a pattern shown statewide. Foreclosures in Illinois rose 23.36 percent in September compared with a year ago but fell 20.77 percent from August 2012, RealtyTrac said.
With a statewide rate of one foreclosure for every 376 homes, Illinois in September had the third-highest foreclosure rate in the nation. In August, the state's ranking was No. 1 in the country.

EIA Predicts Cold Winter
will Cause Heating Bills to Increase 19%
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
The Energy Information Administration has compiled a report that suggests US households should expect their energy bills to be higher this winter due to the forecast of colder temperatures than normal, especially in the Northeast, which will lead to a higher demand.
The report said that households with heating oil systems should expect to see their winter fuel bill, from October 1st to March 31st, rise by 19 percent, whereas those houses with natural gas will pay an extra 15 percent.

Billionaire CEO Threatens To Fire Employees If Obama Wins
By Scott Keyes - ThinkProgress.org
The CEO of a massive timeshare company sent an email about the upcoming election to his employees yesterday, threatening to fire some of them if President Obama wins re-election.
David Siegel, who owns Florida-based Westgate Resorts, sent an email to all his employees yesterday to discuss the upcoming election. "The economy doesn't currently pose a threat to your job," Siegel wrote, noting that the company is "the most profitable [it's] ever been." "What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration." He went on to say that although he "can't tell you whom to vote for," if Obama is re-elected, it would mean "fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone."

Fed Presidents Dismiss
(Welsch's) Allegation of Job Data Tampering
By Jeff Kearns and Steve Matthews - Bloomberg.com
Presidents of two Federal Reserve district banks dismissed a suggestion that the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulated the September employment report to aid the re-election campaign by President Barack Obama.
"I can't imagine that's the case," Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, told reporters after a speech today in Avondale, Pennsylvania. "I don't think there is a conspiracy," St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said to reporters in St. Louis.

Why the Drop in Weekly Jobless Claims Is Flawed
By Jon Ogg, 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
When we saw that the Labor Department reported a 30,000 drop in weekly jobless claims, the initial thought was that more suspect calculations may be involved. Then the thought that perhaps things may have improved so fast at the end of September that it skewed the data higher. As it turns out, the big drop in the weekly jobless claims does in fact have a huge asterisk attached to it.
CNBC and Dow Jones have both confirmed that this latest weekly jobless claims report was missing data from one large state. Bloomberg noted that the Labor Department spokesperson said that one state accounted for most of the plunge in claims.

1,100 Illinois inmates got unemployment while in jail last year
AP - Chicago Sun-Times
State officials say they have found more than 1,100 inmates who they believe improperly collected unemployment benefits totaling more than $2 million while jailed in Illinois sometime in about the last year.
One Cook County inmate collected almost $43,000, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security, though most were paid far less. Nearly all of the fraud occurred in mid-2012 from county jails across the state.

BAE in Play for U.S. Buyers as EADS Deal Fails
By Brooke Sutherland, Tara Lachapelle
and Robert Wall - Bloomberg.com
For BAE Systems Plc, a failed merger with European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. could be just the first attempted deal for the company's defense contracts around the world.
After facing resistance from European governments, the combination that would have created the biggest aerospace and defense company was terminated yesterday. While BAE said it won't look for another partner, the company may still be a takeover candidate as the industry consolidates to help weather any cuts to government defense budgets, said Huntington Asset Advisors. Espirito Santo Investment Bank said U.S. defense contractor General Dynamics Corp. (GD)now may be among the most logical acquirers of BAE, which makes everything from electronic warfare systems to submarines.

Wyoming Water Tests in Line With EPA Finding on Fracking
By Mark Drajem - Bloomberg.com
Tests of drinking water near a natural-gas drilling site in Wyoming back up findings that established the first link by the federal government between hydraulic fracturing and tainted water, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
The EPA yesterday issued its follow-up analyses of two test wells it drilled in Pavillion and of five residents' water wells, saying the pollutants it found were "consistent" with the results last year used to establish that connection to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Pipeline to Nowhere?
By Michael Doyle - OilPrice.com
Last week the news headlines blazed on about the proposed natural gas project in Alaska between Exxon, Conoco and Trans-Canada to build a pipeline over 800 miles long to run from Alaska's North Slope on to Asia. Talk was of the 15,000 jobs to be created and the revenues to be rewarded for the 10-year endeavour. Richard Bass argues in Forbes that exporting LNG to Asia would be helpful to the North American gas market. Maybe we should think this one through a little.

Chinese nationals brought in to fill B.C. coal miner shortage
BY PETER O'NEIL, VANCOUVER SUN
OTTAWA — The first of a group of 200 temporary Chinese workers approved by the federal government will start arriving in B.C. in coming weeks to work in the burgeoning northeast coal industry, a mine project spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.
In total, anywhere from 1,600 to just under 2,000 Chinese nationals could find full-time work in four projects being proposed in coming years for the region, due to the shortage of underground mining skills in Canada, according to industry officials.

Apple Has Quietly Started Tracking iPhone Users Again,
And It's Tricky To Opt Out
Jim Edwards - BusinessInsider.com
Apple's launch of the iPhone 5 in September came with a bunch of new commercials to promote the device.
But Apple didn't shout quite so loud about an enhancement to its new mobile operating system, iOS 6, which also occurred in September: The company has started tracking users so that advertisers can target them again, through a new tracking technology called IFA or IDFA.

Apple Patent Expands
on Biometric Identification Implementations
By Christina Bonnington - Wired.com
When Apple purchased fingerprint security startup Authentic this summer, many began speculating that its biometric technology could make its way to the iPhone 5. Of course, the iPhone 5 announcement came and went without so much as a peep about biometric identification. But a handful of patent applications, especially one published Thursday, indicate Apple is certainly exploring the idea.

10 Ass-Kicking Warplanes You've Never Heard Of
By David Axe - Wired.com
America is an air power. And for every kind of air power, the U.S. has different, iconic warplanes.
When the Pentagon needs to frighten its enemies and rivals, the Air Force deploys fast, radar-evading F-22 stealth fighters or B-52 heavy bombers bristling with weaponry. When threats turn to violence, the Navy and Air Force can call on their huge arsenals of F-15, F-16 and F-18 jet fighters to drop bombs and fire missiles.

A diamond bigger than Earth?
By Chris Wickham
LONDON | Thu Oct 11, 2012 4:45pm EDT
(Reuters) - Forget the diamond as big as the Ritz. This one's bigger than planet Earth.
Orbiting a star that is visible to the naked eye, astronomers have discovered a planet twice the size of our own made largely out of diamond.
The rocky planet, called '55 Cancri e', orbits a sun-like star in the constellation of Cancer and is moving so fast that a year there lasts a mere 18 hours.

GOP Congressman:
Romney Tax Plan Follows The Bush 'Recipe'
By Travis Waldron - ThinkProgress.org
The tax plan proposed by Mitt Romney, which he says will avoid adding to the debt and won't cut taxes for the rich, will work exactly the way the 2003 high-income Bush tax cuts worked, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) said during an appearance on CNN on Thursday. Romney has faced criticism over how his tax plan will provide a 20 percent, across-the-board tax cut without adding to the debt or raising taxes on the middle class. The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan analyst, recently found that Romney's plan as outlined is mathematically impossible.

The Monument Society Versus the Free Society
By Ben Shapiro - PatriotPost.us
Last week, after the first presidential debate, I spoke at an architecture school in downtown Los Angeles. One of the questions the moderator asked was about American exceptionalism. The foam flecked to his lips at the very phrase. What, pray tell, was American exceptionalism, he asked?
I answered by referencing the Founding Fathers and the freedoms they guaranteed us via the American Constitutional System of checks and balances. What makes us unique guardians of liberty, I said, is that our system is designed to counterbalance interest against interest -- we only act together with the full power of unity when we're actually unified. We prize the individual over the collective.

The Romney Family Recipe for Crony Capitalism
By Lee Fang - TheNation.com
Marc Leder, a wealthy investor, played host to Mitt Romney last May at a private fundraiser at his $4 million home in Boca Raton. Little did Leder know at the time, however, that someone would videotape the event and later leak it to the world, revealing the GOP standard-bearer in the act of caustically dismissing 47 percent of the country as too "dependent upon government" even to consider voting for him this year.

The Year of Consequential Debates
As they did in the Republican primary, the presidential debates this year could be having a bigger effect than they have in elections past.
By Molly Ball - TheAtlantic.com
The evidence is starting to gel that Mitt Romney's resounding win in last week's debate gave his campaign a substantial boost. Nationally, a Pew poll has Romney leading by four points, while Gallup has the Republican leading President Obama by two points. Polls also show Romney drawing within one point in Ohio and three points in Pennsylvania and Michigan, all states where he previously trailed by larger margins.

Biden and Ryan trade blows
in aggressive vice presidential debate
By Cameron Joseph - TheHill.com
Vice President Biden attacked the GOP presidential ticket from the start in Thursday night's vice presidential debate — and Paul Ryan punched right back.
The first question of the night was on the attack at the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and Biden pivoted from it to attack Mitt Romney for his positions on Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror.

Obama's Game Changes
By Victor Davis Hanson - PatriotPost.us
Usually after a presidential debate, both sides spin the results. But after the first face-off between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Obama's exasperated handlers made no such effort. How could they when most opinion polls revealed that two-thirds of viewers thought Obama clearly lost?
Within minutes of the parting handshake, the liberal base went ballistic. Bill Maher, Chris Matthews and Michael Moore all but accused Obama of embarrassing the progressive cause. The post-debate spin focused not on whether the president had been creamed by challenger Mitt Romney, but rather on how that had been possible.

Biden-Ryan debate features two Washington veterans
with very different styles
By Felicia Sonmez and David A. Fahrenthold - WashingtonPost.com
DANVILLE, Ky.— Vice President Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan will square off Thursday night in this year's lone vice-presidential debate, playing roles that few would have expected two weeks ago.
For Ryan, the job is to keep up a sudden surge of Republican momentum. For Biden, by contrast, the job is to find any way of stopping it.

Obama's 'October Surprise' #1 -- Obfuscation and Diversion
Saving Big Bird While the U.S. Economy Sinks
By Mark Alexander - PatriotPost.us

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams (1770)

"Facts," as John Adams famously wrote, "are stubborn things." Thus, to alter the perception of the truth, the art of remolding it into something else in order to promote particular political agendas, was perfected by 20th-century socialist propagandists under the heading "Dezinformatsia" (disinformation). The primary goal of this deception was, and remains, the subversion of Liberty and free enterprise.
Disinformation campaigns rely on two primary tactics: obfuscation and diversion.

The Axis of Liberalism Marches to Re-elect Obama
By Larry Elder - PatriotPost.us
"I just thought it's too difficult. And you're not going to like this, but my gut feeling is that all the media is against George, Republicans, any Republican." -- Former first lady Barbara Bush, who said she was surprised when her son won the presidency in 2000.
The Axis of Liberalism -- the other AOL -- is the media, academia and Hollywood.
First, the media.

Russians back a second term for Obama
However, the country's leaders may find Mitt Romney's confrontational stance more useful.
By Tom Balmforth - GlobalPost.com
MOSCOW, Russia — Experts say the Kremlin would like to see President Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in the US election next month — although you may be hard-pressed to divine that from recent developments.
On Monday last week, the US Agency for International Development, USAID, wrapped up its 20 years of work in Russia on orders from the Kremlin.
Two days later, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took a swipe at Obama's policy of improving ties with Russia by warning that perpetually "reset" relations would constitute a "program failure."

United States classifies MS-13 street gang
a global criminal organisation
Salvadorian hoodlums that formed a group in LA join Japanese Yakuza and Mexican Zetas as subject to US sanctions
AP - Guardian.co.uk
The Obama administration has listed a Central American street gang as an international criminal organisation subject to US sanctions.
This is first time the designation has been given to such a group in the US. MS-13, which started as a Los Angeles gang composed largely of Salvadorian immigrants, is believed to have as many as 10,000 members across 46 US states and Central America. Members have been accused of kidnapping, murder, drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Shooting Down the 2nd Amendment, One Lawsuit at a Time
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
It was one of those little stories that most people miss, even more so when it is released during a heated presidential election. But it is one that is critically important because it represents an unprecedented power grab by the one profession that has arguably done more damage to America than any other. If Americans don't demand an end to this nonsense, we have no one to blame but ourselves. The details of the story are both simple and infuriating: a New York appeals court in has ruled that a former high school athlete shot in 2003 can sue -- the companies that made and distributed the handgun used to shoot him.

Egypt's Brotherhood heads urged jihad for Jerusalem
AFP - France24.com
The supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi emanated, called on Thursday for a jihad (holy war) to liberate Jerusalem from Israeli rule.
"Jerusalem is Islamic ... and nobody is entitled to make concessions" on the Holy City, said Sheikh Mohammed Badie in his weekly message to supporters.
"The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims," he said, stressing that the liberation of the Holy City "will not be done through negotiations or at the United Nations."

Hezbollah confirms it sent drone downed in Israel
During tour of security fence in southern Israel, Netanyahu vows to act with determination to defend state's borders.
By GIL HOFFMAN - JPost.com
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged on Thursday sending a drone aircraft into Israel on Saturday which was then shot down by the IDF.
Nasrallah said in a televised speech on the Al- Manar station that the drone was Iranian-made and that it was shot down near the Dimona nuclear reactor.

Obama campaign draws condemnation
from GOP over Benghazi attack
Conservatives slam as 'outrageous' Stephanie Cutter's claim that Romney is using the attack in Libya for political advantage
By Chris McGreal - Guardian.co.uk
The Obama campaign was facing intense criticism from conservatives on Thursday after a senior official said the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was only an issue because Mitt Romney was exploiting the deaths for political gain.
The president's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, told CNN attention was being paid to the killing of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans on September 11 because the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate, Paul Ryan, are seeking electoral advantage.

Needed: A New Foreign Policy
By Cal Thomas - PatriotPost.us
On Monday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivered a foreign policy speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va. He was correct in his indictment of the Obama administration for its numerous failures -- especially in the Middle East -- and his embrace of Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" philosophy. A strong and respected America is less likely to be attacked.

Turkey accuses Russia of supplying Syria with munitions
Turkish prime minister's claims contradict Russian denial that plane forced to land in Ankara was carrying military equipment
By Ian Black, Middle East editor,
and Miriam Elder in Moscow - Guardian.co.uk
Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayipp Erdogan, has accused Russia of directly supplying munitions to the Syrian government, after Turkish jets intercepted a plane en route from Moscow to Damascus.
Russia had earlier flatly denied that the Syrian plane, which was forced to land in Ankara, was carrying any military equipment. But Erdogan told reporters: "These were equipment and ammunition that were being sent from a Russian agency … to the Syrian defence ministry," the Associated Press reported. "Their examination is continuing and the necessary [action] will follow."

Grounded in Ankara: The Russian 'munitions' flight
that was heading for Syria
Moscow rejects Turkey's claims
that jet contained military hardware
By KIM SENGUPTA - Independent.co.uk
Turkey's Prime Minister insisted yesterday that a Syrian passenger plane forced to land at Ankara airport was carrying Russian-made munitions, putting him squarely at odds with Moscow which has angrily condemned Turkey's actions.
Russia demanded to know why embassy staff were prevented from talking to Russian passengers on board the Airbus A320. The plane was forced to land in Ankara by Turkish fighter jets on Wednesday night while en route from Moscow to Damascus, heightening international tensions over the bloody civil war to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Diplomatic push to defuse Iran crisis
Global powers launch new push to end Iran nuclear crisis
Revamped package will offer limited relief from sanctions and other incentives for Iran to limit enrichment of uranium
By Julian Borger - Guardian.co.uk
Six global powers will launch a diplomatic drive after the US elections aimed at defusing the Iranian nuclear crisis in the next few months and avoiding the eruption of a new Middle East conflict next year.
A "reformulated" proposal will offer limited relief from existing sanctions and other incentives for Iran to limit the level of enrichment of its uranium stockpile. An attempt will be made to sequence the steps required to reach a deal to overcome the mutual distrust that helped sink previous rounds of negotiations, where each side appeared to wait for the other to make the first major concession.

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Thursday 10.11.2012

Survive the Coming Financial Tsunami
by Holding Physical Gold and Silver
By David Levenstein - GoldsilverWorlds.com
After trading within a hair of $1800 an ounce last week, gold prices have met with some resistance and have pulled back slightly. As the yellow metal struggled to break through this key level of resistance, it notched up new record highs in euros and Swiss Francs. And, in South Africa as the gold price has risen, the Rand fell by around 10% in a month due to the on-going strikes at the various gold and platinum mines as well as general unrest throughout the country. This pushed the prices of Krugerrands on the domestic market to above R16, 000 each for the first time ever.

Keeping the banks afloat...
"Legalized Plunder of the American People"
- G. Edward Griffin

The Muni Minefield
By Neeraj Chaudhary - GoldSeek.com
Municipal bonds have long been viewed as a staple asset class for conservative, income-seeking investors. "Munis," as they are known, are a large, liquid market of credit-rated securities that provide tax-exempt (from Federal taxes) income to millions of American investors. Towns, school districts, and other public sector authorities across the country have issued an estimated $3.7 trillion dollars worth of these bonds.

Hey Bill Gross, Why So Serious?
BY JACK SPARROW - FinancialSense.com
We like to pick on Bill Gross every once in a while. He is a billionaire who loves to "talk his book" — i.e. tout Pimco's trading positions — so he can certainly take it.
An example from last year, "The Bond King Gets Desperate," is newly relevant given the bond king's latest commentary.
In last year's write-up, we took Gross to task for saying America is like Greece. He's saying it again – that America is comparable to Greece – and it's still just as silly.
The latest Pimco Investment Outlook (Gross' monthly commentary vehicle) is called "Damages."

Fiscal cliff may be a slope
'Fiscal Cliff' May Be Felt Gradually, Analysts Say
By: Annie Lowrey, The New York Times - CNBC.com
Come January, if Congress fails to act, spending cuts and tax increases large enough to throw the country back into recession will hit.
It is known in Washington as the "fiscal cliff." But policy and economic analysts projecting its complicated and wide-ranging potential impact said the term "fiscal hill" or "fiscal slope" might be more apt: the effect would be powerful but gradual, and in some cases, reversible.

Beyond the Fiscal Cliff: the Dollar At Risk?
By: Axel G. Merk - GoldSeek.com
Looking beyond the fiscal cliff, we are afraid the greenback may be at risk no matter who wins the election. We examine the risk to the U.S. dollar in the context of the likely policies pursued under either an Obama or Romney administration.
Some context: The budget deficit as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the U.S. is worse than that of some of the weak Eurozone countries (Portugal, Italy); the Eurozone as a whole has a far lower deficit. If the "fiscal cliff" were to take place – that is, if the tax hikes and government spending cuts were to take effect as currently scheduled - the U.S. would still face a deficit exceeding 3% of GDP before factoring in any economic slowdown as a result of the cliff. The fiscal cliff the U.S. is facing would impose Eurozone style austerity measures and – just as in the Eurozone – not eliminate the deficit.

Fed's Fisher says U.S. must tackle fiscal cliff to spur hiring
By Alister Bull
WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 10, 2012 7:55pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. growth is being held back by uncertainty over the country's tax code and future government spending, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Wednesday, warning that businesses would not boost hiring until these issues were resolved.
Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher said a year-end 'fiscal cliff' of tax hikes and government spending cuts was deterring U.S. businesses from deploying the ample cash they have at hand to invest and add to payrolls.

Banks Rule While The Rest Of Us Drool*
By Neil Barofsky - LinkedIn.com
Two remarkable items in the news this morning which demonstrate how little progress we have made in reining in the Too Big To Fail banks and limiting the political might of their CEOs.
First, the Wall Street Journal reports on ongoing tension between the banks and their primary regulator, the Federal Reserve, over the so-called stress tests. These tests are vitally important, among other things they determine how much of the banks' all important loss-absorbing capital can be frittered away through stock repurchases and dividends. While these payouts are undoubtedly a windfall for the stock-owning executives and shareholders, by definition they increase the risk of failure and eventual bailout.

Fed's Stein may shed light on bank health
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — It is a good time for Fed Governor Jeremy Stein to give his first speech
Stein, an expert on banks, monetary policy and regulation who joined the Fed in May, is scheduled to speak at the Brookings Institution think-tank at 10 a.m. Eastern on Thursday.
Stein, an economics professor at Harvard before joining the Fed, is not a Washington novice. He worked briefly for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and on the staff of the Obama National Economic Council in 2009

Europe edges closer to banking union
By John O'Donnell and Edward Taylor, Reuters - FinancialPost.com
LUXEMBOURG/FRANKFURT – European Union ministers examined a proposal on Tuesday to limit planned new powers for the European Central Bank to supervise lenders, in a bid to allay the concerns of countries outside the eurozone over a new banking union.
The diplomatic drive came as the President of the ECB and Germany's markets regulator cautioned that setting up a new system of supervision would take up to the end of next year, later than many expected and a potential setback to efforts to help distressed eurozone countries and their banks.

Back to the Brink for the Eurozone?
By Kemal Derviş - Project-Syndicate.org
ISTANBUL – When European Central Bank President Mario Draghi announced in late July that the ECB would "do whatever it takes" to prevent so-called "re-denomination risk" (the threat that some countries might be forced to give up the euro and reintroduce their own currencies), Spanish and Italian sovereign-bond yields fell immediately. Then, in early September, the ECB's Council of Governors endorsed Draghi's vow, further calming markets.

IMF fears 'credit shock' in Spain if Rajoy blocks rescue
The International Monetary Fund has issued a veiled warning that Spanish bond spreads could surge to a record 7.5pc and push the country into a deeper crisis if premier Mariano Rajoy continues to drag his feet on a bail-out request.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The fund said sovereign debt woes were spilling into the broader Spanish economy, risking a "pernicious feedback loop" for private companies. The danger is another bout of capital flight combined with a "credit shock" as banks deleverage drastically to meet higher capital ratios.
Olivier Blanchard, the IMF's chief economist, said Madrid was courting fate by trying to muddle through without a bail-out – and without the tough terms it would bring – now that borrowing costs had fallen on hopes of bond purchases by the European Central Bank.

The Eurozone's Narrowing Window
By Ashoka Mody - Project-Syndicate.org
PRINCETON – Portuguese authorities recently made a preemptive offer to their country's creditors: Instead of redeeming bonds maturing in September 2013, the government would stretch its repayment commitment out to October 2015. The deal was concluded on October 3, and has been interpreted as a successful market test for Portugal. Ireland's authorities have conducted similar recent operations, exchanging short-maturity paper for longer-term debt.

Spain Downgraded to One Level Above Junk by S&P on Risks
By Angeline Benoit and Ian Katz - Bloomberg.com
Spain's debt rating was cut to one level above junk by Standard & Poor's, which cited mounting economic and political risks as the government considers a second bailout.
The country was lowered two levels to BBB- from BBB+, New York-based S&P said in a statement yesterday. S&P assigned a negative outlook to the nation's long-term rating and lowered the short-term sovereign level to A-3 from A-2.

Nouriel Roubini Foresees Spain's Doom
despite Bankia Nationalization
by Barbara Zigah - eToro.com
(eToro Blog) Worries of a Eurozone breakup have recently escalated with Greece, but this recent news from Spain on the nationalization of Spanish lender Bankia will only exacerbate that sentiment. Nouriel Roubini, aka Dr. Doom, agrees and believes that Spain will lose market access by the year's end and would need a huge troika-approved bailout that would still only buy them time. Eventually, Spain might find itself alongside Greece – outside of the Eurozone.
A growing banking crisis in Spain is attempting to overshadow Greece's political mess. Yesterday, the Spanish government stepped in and took over Bankia, Spain's 4th largest lender, in an effort to assuage investors' escalating concerns. Critics have long condemned the Spanish government for failing to react and "fix" the financial sector which was essentially decimated by the property market crash that occurred over four years ago.

Tom Woods Talks Agorism, Economics,
and U.S. History on FOX News Station

Why the IMF has got it so hopelessly wrong on the euro crisis
David Cameron and George Osborne are not for turning, but the International Monetary Fund is plainly made of flimsier stuff. The latest flurry of economic analysis from the IMF – to coincide with the annual meeting in Tokyo – has revealed a not so subtle change of heart over fiscal austerity.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
David Cameron and George Osborne are not for turning, but the International Monetary Fund is plainly made of flimsier stuff. The latest flurry of economic analysis from the IMF – to coincide with the annual meeting in Tokyo – has revealed a not so subtle change of heart over fiscal austerity.
Even as recently as a year ago, the IMF was still vigorously banging the drum for fiscal orthodoxy – countries should strive to get on top of their deficits, the IMF said, and those under severe market pressure had no option but to implement deficit reduction plans "in full and without delay".

Japan's unintentional strong Yen policy
By: Steve Saville - GoldSeek.com
Over the years we have read many times that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has rapidly inflated the supply of Yen. The 'pundits' who made such statements were obviously swayed by the numerous announcements of QE programs emanating from Japanese officialdom, but they should have done a little research rather than blindly assume that these QE programs led to large increases in the economy-wide Yen supply. If they had done the appropriate research they would have discovered that over the past 20 years the annual rate of growth in the Yen supply (Japan's monetary inflation rate) has oscillated in a narrow range around an average of only 2%, and that it is presently near this long-term average. This is illustrated by the following chart. The fact is that of the major currencies, the Yen has had by far the slowest rate of supply growth over the past two decades. That's why the Yen has maintained its purchasing power and why it has been a relatively strong currency on a long-term basis despite the many blatant short-term negatives.

Tech Says "Be Careful" With Stocks
BY CHRIS CIOVACCO - FinancialSense.com
Would you be interested in a logical way to monitor the odds of a correction occurring in stocks? If so, it is prudent to keep your eye on the health of technology stocks. The relative strength in tech stocks began to wane in early April 2012 (see A below); general market weakness followed three weeks later (see B). Technology stocks have seen renewed weakness since early September (see C), which may foreshadow a stock market correction (price moving toward D).

Jamie Dimon: I don't mind paying higher taxes
to help solve economic crisis
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon on Wednesday accused Washington of completely mishandling the looming fiscal cliff — and said he'd be happy to pay higher taxes to avoid an economic crisis.
The head of the nation's largest bank said he is "barely" still a Democrat. But he threw his support behind Democrats in saying he would be fine paying more taxes to help resolve the economic threat to the country.

Bankers Growing More Worried About Student Loans
By: Allison Linn - CNBC.com
Here's the good news: Bankers seem pretty confident that most Americans will continue to pay off most of their consumer debt on time.
Here's the bad news: They're not nearly as optimistic about Americans' ability to deal with ballooning student loan debt.
A new quarterly survey of U.S. banks' risk managers finds that more than six in 10 expect student loan debt delinquencies to increase in the next six months. Only about 13 percent expect delinquencies to decrease.

Tim Geithner Is From Mars
And I'm Not The Only One From Venus
By Neil Barofsky - LinkedIn.com
While writing Bailout, I was forced to relive the otherworldly experience of my 27 months in Washington as the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. While I took great care in the book to make sure that the key events and anecdotes were based on more than just my own recollections (they were corroborated by documents, personal notes and other meeting participants), there was a small part of me that still couldn't quite believe what I had seen and heard. Did Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner really shower me with expletives when I urged him to be more transparent? Was Treasury's signature mortgage modification program truly not intended to help up to 4 million homeowners stay in their homes as publicly stated, but actually a way, in Geithner's own words, to "foam the runway" for the banks? Were all of those Treasury officials really engaging in a barrelful of dirty tricks in order to undermine our efforts to bring greater transparency to TARP and to protect taxpayers from fraud, waste and abuse?

Romney's Middle-Class Problem
By Jacob Sullum - PatriotPost.us
During last week's presidential debate, Mitt Romney repeatedly promised to "lower taxes on middle-income families" without reducing "the share paid by high-income individuals." But this combination will prove difficult, if not impossible, for the Republican candidate to deliver given the other elements of his tax reform plan -- especially his illogical definition of "middle-income families."
Romney's basic idea, which in broad outline has bipartisan support, is to "lower tax rates" and "broaden the base" by reducing deductions, credits and exemptions. He proposes cutting individual income tax rates by 20 percent, so that the top rate would be 28 percent rather than the current 35 percent and the bottom rate would drop from 10 percent to 8 percent. He also wants to abolish the estate tax, repeal the alternative minimum tax, and eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains for taxpayers earning less than $200,000.

Yes, We Can Fight Inequality:
3 Ways Washington Can Create Living-Wage Jobs
Some say Washington has run out of ways to help the low-income. Those people should consider the impact from raising the national minimum wage or paying more to government contractors.
By Annette Bernhardt - TheAtlantic.com
Since the first Occupy protests a year ago, the debate over inequality has largely focused on ways to rectify the capture of money and political power by the 1 percent. It's an urgently needed discussion, given the spectacle of bank bailouts, sky-rocketing CEO pay and blatant malfeasance by Wall Street and Congress. But much less attention has been given to the flip side of inequality, namely the collapse of the labor market for the 99 percent.

Jack Welch '100%' Right, Jobs Data Are Wrong: Trump
By: Javier E. David - CNBC.com
Last month's controversial U.S. payrolls report is "not correct," billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump told CNBC Tuesday, echoing a complaint voiced by several Obama administration critics that September's jobs report may have been manipulated for political purposes.
Trump effectively backed the position of former General Electric chairman and CEO Jack Welch — who ignited a firestorm on Twitter last Friday when he assailed the jobs data as "unbelievable."

Survey: 69 Percent of Employed Are Job Hunting
By: Christina Wilkie, The Huffington Post via CNBC.com
Seventy-five percent of working-age Americans are "job seekers" — they're currently looking for or open to a new job — according to an online survey of more than 2,100 people released this week by the hiring software company Jobvite.
Among the employed respondents to the 2012 Social Job Seeker Survey, 69 percent said they were either "actively seeking" a new job or "open to" a new job. That number is up from 61 percent in Jobvite's 2011 survey.

One U.S. industry that can't fill jobs fast enough
Companies confronted with a shortage of truck drivers
By Julia Zhu of Medill News Service
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Workers may find it difficult to get a job, but there's one industry where employers can't hire fast enough: trucking.
"We are absolutely seeing [a] driver shortage right now," said Rod Suarez from the American Trucking Association, the largest national trade association for trucking industry. "Employers have troubles finding qualified drivers. In some companies the hiring rate is lower than 10%."

CEO to Workers: You'll Likely Be Fired If Obama Is Re-elected
By Robert Frank - CNBC.com
David Siegel, the owner of Westgate Resorts, sent a surprising email to his employees Monday.
It said that if President Barack Obama wins re-election and raises Siegel's taxes, he will have to lay off workers and downsize his company — or even shut it down.
"If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company," he wrote. "Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone."

Mitt Romney, Big-Government Man
By John Stossel - PatriotPost.us
President Obama tanked in the last debate. Good.
Now maybe people will listen when Mitt Romney says things like, "The genius of America is the free enterprise system, and freedom, and the fact that people can go out there and start a business. ... The private market and individual responsibility always work best."
They do.
But then Romney responded to Obama by essentially saying: I want big government, too!
We who hope for smaller government as a way to expand liberty and create prosperity are disturbed by what we heard last week. The GOP candidate painted himself as a big government man.

Obama's Lucky Charms: A Hindu God In His Pocket, A Masonic Emblem, And A Ring That Says "There Is No God Except Allah"
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Why do our politicians have to be so weird? You can tell a lot about a person by the jewelry that they wear and by the things that they carry around in their pockets, and Barack Obama's "lucky charms" include a Hindu god, a Masonic emblem and a "wedding ring" that has the phrase "there is no god except Allah" inscribed on it. So what do these things tell us about Barack Obama? That is a very good question. Perhaps someone should ask him about these items. If he is indeed a Prince Hall Freemason (as has been publicly reported), then he should just come out and admit it. If he feels a connection to Hinduism or Islam, then he should just come out and admit it. One of the biggest things that annoys so many people about Obama is the secrecy that he has about his past. There are vast stretches of his history that nobody is even supposed to talk about. We are all just supposed to accept that he is a "Christian" man that is not into any freaky stuff even when there is a tremendous amount of evidence to the contrary.

Romney's Abortion "Agenda"
Don't fall for his insinuation that he won't restrict abortion.
It's full of weasel words.
By William Saletan - Slate.com
Have you heard the news? Mitt Romney met with editors of the Des Moines Register yesterday and dropped a bombshell. "Romney promises no abortion legislation," says the Associated Press. "Romney: No abortion legislation," says Politico."Romney says no plans to restrict abortion," says Agence France-Presse.
Nope. That isn't what Romney said. This is a man with a long history of using technicalities to disguise his abortion views. You have to read his exact words, with attention to the loopholes. So let's back up and listen to the full audio of Romney's remarks.

Lindsey Williams: The Final Countdown

Getting Back on the Road to Prosperity
By Nate Jackson - PatriotPost.us

"The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men." --Alexander Hamilton

Editorial Exegesis
"The president's top-down interventions have virtually paralyzed our economy -- and [Mitt Romney has] presented a solution. ... The answer is pro-growth tax and regulatory reform. The answer is tax and regulatory certainty for businesses. The answer is growing our way out of the budget deficit with a broader, simpler tax base and reduced rates and deductions for all -- especially the risk-taker, the job creator and the entrepreneur. ... Mr. Obama has a much different recipe for lifting the middle class: higher taxes on investors, job creators and small businesses; borrowing money to fund more public-sector jobs and government construction projects; borrowing money to fund more green energy enterprises and projects...; and pushing more young people to seek a debt-funded college education when they have little hope of landing a job upon graduation. The suggestion that tax increases and higher energy prices will lift the middle class defies logic. But it's not terribly surprising coming from an administration that's completely lacking in business experience and openly hostile to free-market capitalism.

Race Cards
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
If you are sick and tired of seeing politicians and others playing the race card, or if you are just disgusted with the grossly dishonest way racial issues in general are portrayed, then you should get a copy of Ann Coulter's new book, "Mugged." Its subtitle is: "Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama."
Few things are as rare as an honest book about race. This is one of the very few, and one of the very best.
Many people will learn for the first time from Ann Coulter's book how a drunken hoodlum and ex-convict, who tried to attack the police, was turned into a victim and a martyr by the media, simply by editing a videotape and broadcasting that edited version, over and over, across the nation.

Bitcoin Prevents Monetary Tyranny
BY JON MATONIS - FinancialSense.com
Bitcoin is not about making rapid global transactions with little or no fee. Bitcoin is about preventing monetary tyranny. That is its raison d'être.
Monetary tyranny can take many ugly forms. It can be deliberate inflation, persecutory capital controls, prearranged defaults within the banking cartel, or even worse, blatant sovereign confiscation. Sadly, those threats are a potential in almost any jurisdiction in the world today. The United States does not have a monopoly on monetary repression and monetary tyranny.

Facebook Fought SEC to Keep Mobile Risks Hidden Before IPO
By Linda Sandler, Brian Womack and Douglas MacMillan - Bloomberg.com
When Facebook Inc. (FB) filed its proposal Feb. 1 to go public, it touted the effectiveness of ads linked to customers' friends, citing research from Nielsen, the audience-counting company.
Barbara Jacobs, an assistant director for corporation finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was skeptical, as she and her staff vetted the filing to ensure Facebook had disclosed all material information to investors. The claim appeared to be drawn from marketing materials, not a Nielsen study, she wrote to Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman, 42.

Facebook loses gains sparked by Zuckerberg
Shares down 15%
since CEO touted mobile-ad gains at conference
By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Facebook Inc. slumped Wednesday, adding to a recent string of losses that has seen the social network's shares give up nearly all of the gains that were sparked by comments from CEO Mark Zuckerberg a month ago.
By late afternoon, Facebook shares were off by 3.5% to $19.51.
A few factors weighed on the stock Wednesday. A pair of brokerage notes expressed continued caution over the company's mobile ad business. Credit Suisse cut its price target on the stock to $24 from $34, keeping its rating at neutral.

FCC chairman warns telecom treaty proposals
would 'threaten the Internet'
By Jennifer Martinez - TheHill.com
The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday warned that some of the proposals submitted for an international telecommunications treaty would "fundamentally threaten the Internet as we know it."
According to his prepared remarks for the Futurecom conference in Brazil, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said some of the proposals submitted for the upcoming International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR) treaty negotiations in Dubai could be used to allow monitoring of Web traffic, restrict online communications and give a United Nations agency authority to regulate cybersecurity. He argued that these proposals would be a major setback for innovation and the expansion of broadband Internet to developing countries.

High court re-examines affirmative action
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday that it could try to rein in affirmative action, following an intense assault on the idea from the court's conservative justices.
The court heard oral arguments in a case challenging the admissions process at the University of Texas. A white student who was rejected from the school sued, saying the admissions process was unfair because it gives partial preference to minority students.

The Forecast Calls For Tyranny

Disputed Islands With 45 Years of Oil Split China, Japan
By Aibing Guo and Rakteem Katakey - Bloomberg.com
China and Japan sat down for talks and agreed to jointly develop a natural gas field under the East China Sea, defusing a dispute between Asia's biggest economies over who owns the reserves. That was in 2008.
The accord, hailed as a model for cooperation at the time, has yet to be carried out and the countries now face a new territorial dispute, also in the East China Sea. The quarrel over who owns the uninhabited islands called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan is again linked to a prize beneath the ocean that may hold enough oil to keep China running for 45 years.

Full Steam Ahead for Suezmax Tankers,
Thanks to Iran Sanctions
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
It has not been a good year for super tankers, what with sanctions on Iran and the US shale boom that has resulted in reduced demand for cargo transport and a glut of vessels. But Europe's sanctions against Iran are providing a bit of relief for one specific type of tanker: the Suezmax, for which demand has been rising since the EU slapped sanctions on Iran in July.
Tanker earnings have been hard hit by the US shale gas boom, which has considerably lowered demand for US gas imports. According to Reuters, estimated earnings for large crude carriers will see a 24% drop from earlier predictions for 2013, while Suezmax tankers are expected to bring in 25% less than originally expected for next year.

Benghazi attack testimony
claims state department ignored warnings
Former security chiefs testify at heated House committee hearing that safeguarding US embassy in Libya was a 'struggle'
By Chris McGreal - Guardian.co.uk
Two former heads of US diplomatic security in Libya have told a congressional hearing that requests for additional agents to protect American officials and premises in the face of a growing threat from armed militias were rejected by the state department ahead of the attack on the Benghazi consulate that killed the US ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other officials.
At a heated hearing before the House of representatives oversight committee, Republicans painted a picture of an incompetent state department failing to heed warnings of a growing terrorist threat or to prepare for a possible attack on the anniversary of 9/11, and then covering up the circumstances of the full scale militia assault that killed Stevens. They also accused Obama administration officials of attempting to suppress unclassified documents because they were politically embarrassing.

Netanyahu's dilemma:
Campaigning on a security ticket when Iran calls the shots
DEBKAfile
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced an early general election in January, 2013. Most pundits agreed he would lead his Likud party's campaign for reelection on the security ticket, namely the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Netanyahu explained his decision by his coalition partners' refusal to make do with a "responsible budget" and said he would rather have his government fall than increase the deficit, especially when the country's top priority was stopping Iran gaining a nuclear bomb.
Running on the Iran ticket subjects him to three major difficulties:

Turkish F16s force Syrian flight from Moscow to land.
Ankara: Syrian air space no longer safe
DEBKAfile
Turkish air force jets forced a Syrian 35-passenger Airbus A320 bound from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara Wednesday night, Oct. 10, on suspicion it was carrying arms. Its cargo compartment was subjected to checks by Turkish officials. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke of information that it may be carrying "certain equipment in breach of civil aviation rules."
At the same time, the Turkish foreign ministry released this statement: "All civilian flights in Syrian airspace have been stopped since it is not safe." TRT television said a Turkish plane that had already taken off for Saudi Arabia made a detour and landed at a Turkish airport.

Is a Larger Middle East War Inevitable?
By Claude Salhani - OilPrice.com
Double, double toil and trouble. All the elements for a larger regional conflict are slowly falling into place, just as the witches' ingredients in Shakespeare's Macbeth, as the fateful day, November 6th, or Election Day approaches.
First, the Turkish parliament voted last week to give the prime minister the authority to launch war against Syria. It was a precautionary move in case Syria's attacks against Turkish territory took a new twist. Over the last few weeks Syrian artillery has on various occasions fired across the border into Turkey. As recently as Monday the Syrians, according to reports from Turkey, fired mortars into Turkish territory.

The Singularity In A Nutshell

Transhumanism , Stargates & Watchers
Tom Horn - Coast to Coast

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Wednesday 10.10.2012

How Helicopter Ben Helps Jobs and, Inadvertently, Gold
By Frank Holmes - GoldSeek.com
The world's central bank leaders continue to spike the monetary punch bowl, with investors imbibing on gold once again. This flurry of gold buying prompts many curious investors and doubting media to ask me two questions: 1) How can demand for gold and gold stocks continue; and 2) How high can the precious metal go?
To answer these questions, we need to look at the intentions behind the economic and political decision-making across several developed countries, analyze the causes, the effects, and the possible ramifications.

Every Economic Recovery in the World
Looks the Exact Same—and That Stinks
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
That graph above? It should feel familiar. It's a snapshot of our great muddle of a recovery.
The line tracks a measure of U.S. economic health from 2003 to today, accounting for GDP and indicators like employment growth, consumer confidence, and the stock market. It's a story of slowish growth, followed by a deep plunge, a heartening bounce-back (especially for financial markets) and, finally, the muddle.

Keiser Report: Mr. Gold vs Chump 'Economists' (E350)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert demonstrate the effects of money printing and Central Bank madness with a hyperinflationary chicken. They also discuss the Securities and Exchange Commission losing its mind as it sues the one rating agency NOT on the payroll of Wal Street. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Professor William K. Black about Deferred Prosecution Agreements, the Financial Conduct Authority and London as the capital of fraud.

The USD October Mystery
and Its Influence on Precious Metals
By Przemyslaw Radomski - GoldSilverWorlds.com
Right now all currencies on the planet are backed by debt. If you need a refresher course in why fiat money can become toast, here are some words published this week on the website of Texas Congressman Ron Paul about fiat money and gold standard :
Fiat money is not good money because it can be issued without limit and therefore cannot act as a stable store of value. A fiat monetary system gives complete discretion to those who run the printing press, allowing governments to spend money without having to suffer the political consequences of raising taxes. Fiat money benefitsthose who create it and receive it first, enriching government and its cronies. And the negative effects of fiat money are disguised so that people do not realize that money the Fed creates today is the reason for the busts, rising prices and unemployment, and diminished standard of living tomorrow.

Hyperinflation and the Middle Eastern Powder Keg
BY MARIN KATUSA - FinancialSense.com
In the third century, greed got the best of Rome's emperors. As they spent through the silver in the treasury, one emperor after another reduced the amount of precious metal in each denarius until the coins contained almost no silver whatsoever.
It was the world's first experience with currency debasement and hyperinflation. As people saw the value of their savings evaporate, society grew angry and demanded a scapegoat. Christians became that scapegoat, and Romans turned on them with incredible violence.

Crackup Central
The federal government's own numbers crunchers project utter budgetary collapse.
By RALPH R. REILAND - Spectator.org
The way the federal government runs things is already bad enough, but it's officially projected to get only worse, much worse, in the years ahead according to the government's own number crunchers.
In fiscal year 2011 -- October 1, 2010 to September 30, 2011-- the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the federal government spent $3.6 trillion, or 24 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, 24 percent of the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in the United States in that year, the highest federal-spending-to-GDP ratio since World War II.

Gross's Burning Bond Market Fails to Frighten Investors
By Saumya Vaishampayan and Margaret Collins - Bloomberg.com
Paul Smith, a retired attorney in Oakton, Virginia, lost 30 percent of his 401(k) retirement savings during the financial crisis.
He shifted to bond funds from stocks and now holds at least 60 percent of his retirement savings in fixed income. While payouts from some of the bond funds barely keep up with inflation, Smith said, he's worried that stocks could see another decline.

Government Dependency Will End in Chaos
BY RON PAUL - FinancialSense.com
The media insists on characterizing statements about dependency on government handouts as controversial, but in truth such statements are absolutely correct. It's not that nearly half of Americans are dependent on government; it's actually more than half. If one includes not just people on food stamps and welfare, but also seniors on Medicare, Social Security and people employed by the government directly, the number is more like 165 million out of 308 million, which is 53%.

David Rosenberg: "Does The Fed Matter?"
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Nothing materially new here from David Rosenberg's latest letter, but it is useful to keep being reminded over and over how central planning has totally destroyed the primary function of capital markets: discounting, and replaced it with a dumb terminal which only responds to red flashing headlines reporting of neverending liquidity. "If the Fed really had its way, the economy would be booming. But it is sputtering. For all the talk of one month's employment report — look at the entire quarter for crying out loud. Looking at total labour input, aggregate hours worked, it eked out a tepid 0.8% annualized gain in Q3....That the stock market is up 16% this year (on track for the best year since 2009) with earnings contracting underscores the major success of Fed policy in 2012 — managing to deflect investor attention away from negative profit trends and towards its pregnant balance sheet. So welcome to the new normal: the Fed has managed to negotiate a divorce between the economy and equity market behaviour.

Riding Into The Sunset or a Brick Wall?
By Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
A month ago, I presented the case for why Fed Chairman Bernanke would have strong motivation to launch another round of quantitative easing (QE) before the election. In short, it would save him his job. Now, I didn't predict with certainty that he would do so - only the few men at the FOMC knew that for sure - but it seemed likely. Shortly thereafter, Bernanke not only announced more stimulus, but promised to keep it flowing to the tune of an additional $40 billion a month until conditions improve. As I had written, this is essentially the election platform of the Obama-Bernanke ticket: we will keep the party going indefinitely.

Are Businesses Quietly Preparing For A Financial Apocalypse?
by Dan Steinhart - ZeroHedge.com
US corporations are sitting on more cash than at any point since World War II. That's without including banks. We're only talking about nonfinancial corporations – the ones that sell goods and services and make the economy go. Those businesses hold $1.4 trillion. As investors, we can infer quite a bit from corporations' inability (or unwillingness) to deploy their cash. For one, it indicates that business have assumed a very defensive stance. Cash, of course, is a buffer against uncertainty - the uncertainty that business slows for any reason. But $1.4 trillion? That tells us that businesses are not just a little jittery about the future. They're prepared for an apocalypse.

Inside the Market's Mind: The illusion of money
BY PATRICK SCHOTANUS - FinancialSense.com
We have an ambivalent relationship with the sea (I'm Dutch, so I should know). Through human history she offered routes to enriching discoveries as well as ruinous disasters, timely escapes as well as eternal damnation. Metaphorically applied to capital markets the sea invokes the image of investors' collective dispositions as they discover prices to deal with the uncertainty of exploring the unknown. Generally experienced as ripples, tides and waves, in extremes the resulting moods reach tsunami-like highs and lows.

The End of the Petrodollar?
By Editorial Dept - OilPrice.com
Say you're an up-and-coming superpower wannabe with dreams of dominating your neighbours and intimidating everyone else. Your ambition is understandable; rising nations always join the "great game", both for their own enrichment and in defense against other big players.
But if you're Russia or China, there's something in your way: The old superpower, the US, has the world's reserve currency, which allows it to run an untouchable military empire basically for free, simply by creating otherwise-worthless pieces of paper and/or their electronic equivalent. Russia and China can't do that, and would see their currencies and by extension their economies collapse if they tried.

China, Russia, and the End of the Petrodollar
BY JOHN RUBINO - FinancialSense.com
Say you're an up-and-coming superpower wannabe with dreams of dominating your neighbors and intimidating everyone else. Your ambition is understandable; rising nations always join the "great game", both for their own enrichment and in defense against other big players.
But if you're Russia or China, there's something in your way: The old superpower, the US, has the world's reserve currency, which allows it to run an untouchable military empire basically for free, simply by creating otherwise-worthless pieces of paper and/or their electronic equivalent. Russia and China can't do that, and would see their currencies and by extension their economies collapse if they tried.

The Renminbi Challenge
By Barry Eichengreen - Project-Syndicate.org
SEOUL – Last month, China unveiled its first aircraft carrier, and is gearing up to challenge the United States in the South China Sea. By initiating a plan to internationalize its currency, China is similarly seeking to challenge the dollar on the international stage.
In carving out a global role for the renminbi, Chinese policymakers are proceeding deliberately. In the words of the venerable Chinese proverb, they are "feeling for the stones while crossing the river."

America Wages Financial War on Europe
By: Rick Ackerman - GoldSeek.com
Everyone knows that a major reason for the dominant position of the USA after World War II was that Europe and Asia were left in rubble. The 8th Air Force in Europe and the 20th Air Force in the Pacific did a thorough job. "Bomber" Harris of England pitched in, and Curtis LeMay's B-29 fire bombings in Japan were so effective that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were spared so that the new atomic weapons would have pristine targets. When peace arrived in 1945, the Cold War suddenly broke out, and that took Russia, East Europe, and China out of the picture. Combined with a strong dollar that was much in demand and a matchless military, US manufacturing made the transition from war to peace and emerged stronger than ever. This enabled the post-WWII US economic boom.

Angela Merkel is unshakeable
as Athens resounds with angry chants
The German chancellor insisted she was not in Greece as a task-master, but protesters outside were having none of it
By Helena Smith in Athens - The Guardian
Up close, Angela Merkel is very static. She stands immovable, her eyes flashing this way and that. In Athens, as she stood behind a lectern after talks with the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, the German chancellor was so restrained she hardly moved at all.
The Greek capital resembled Fort Knox – with riot police guarding her every move, helicopters roaring overhead and marksmen installed on the rooftops of buildings great and small – but Europe's most powerful woman was having none of it. The angry chants and hoarse slogans of the thousands of protesters who had also come out to greet her, eliciting one of the biggest security operations ever put on by near-bankruptGreece, belonged to another world. As did the copious amounts of acrid teargas that wafted through the Athens air.

Angela Merkel recoils
from Greek showdown on Spain contagion fears
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has stamped her seal of approval on Greece's austerity plan and vowed to stand by the country as "partner and friend", signalling almost certain approval for the next tranche of EU-IMF Troika aid.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The German leader – protected by 6,000 police – braved hostile crowds in Syntagma Square and Nazi insults in the Greek press as she made her first visit to Athens since the debt crisis erupted three years ago. TheFrankfurter Allgemeine newspaper said Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had an easier time visiting Greece in 1954, just a decade after Wehrmacht occupation.
The unflappable Mrs Merkel offered a symbolic message of solidarity for the Greek people – now in their fifth year of recession, with an economy reduced by 22pc and youth unemployment at 55pc.

Merkel Hides Behind The Troika Report,
The Greeks Seethe, And The Drachma Advances
By Wolf Richter - ZeroHedge.com
The hoopla in the media about German Chancellor Angela Merkel's 6-hour stay in Greece, and the Greeks' visceral reaction to her, made it look as if her visit actually meant something—that it would change the world for the better, would tweak it in some manner, or at least would reveal a promise to keep Greece in the Eurozone. Every minute was examined at under the microscope. "The Germans," it was noted, for example, as the plane landed at 1:20 p.m., "arrived ten minutes early."

European Banks Need To Sell Up $4.5 Trillion In Assets
In Next 14 Months, IMF Warns
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
While yesterday it was the sovereigns who suffered the wrath of the IMF's wholesale growth outlook downgrade (unbeknownst to Christine Lagarde), today it is the turn of the financial sector (which is increasingly being blurred with the former in a world in which central banks are used to both backstop bank liabilities and fund endless public deficits, unafraid of the consequences in a closed loop fiat world in which defection is, so far, impossible) to be greeted by a cold dose of reality emanating from the IMF's "Global Financial Stability Report" especially as pertains to Europe's insolvent banking system. The most notable finding of said report is the admission that the IMF was only kidding when it said six months ago, in April of this year, that the worst case outlook now has European banks deleveraging to the tune of $3.8 trillion through the end of 2013, or over the next 14 months: now this number is 18% higher, or a gargantuan $4.5 trillion (12% of bank assets).

Euro Declines for Third Day Before French, Italian Data
By Monami Yui and Masaki Kondo - Bloomberg.com
The euro fell for a third day amid speculation data will add to evidence that Europe's failure to resolve its debt crisis is weighing on the region's economy.
The 17-nation euro slid to its lowest level in one week against the yen as economists said reports today may show French and Italian industrial production decreased in August. Japan's currency gained against most major peers as a drop in global stocks boosted demand for safer assets. Losses in the euro were limited before Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy meets French President Francois Hollande today in Paris as investors weigh whether the Iberian nation will ask for a bailout.

Europe and Britain sinking under weight of welfare costs
It's not just that much welfare spending has become bloated, unfair and sometimes outright corrupt, it is also that it is no longer economically affordable.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
So how did Mr Nasty – aka George Osborne – do? I give the Chancellor a qualified thumbs-up for his party conference speech, even if the word "growth" was almost as absent from his rhetoric as "deficit" was last week from Ed Milliband. Osborne is as unforthcoming on how to get the economy growing again as the Labour leader is on dealing with our debts.
We can quickly dispense with the "shares for employment rights" initiative – this was just an irrelevant gimmick which will struggle to gain traction even in start-up companies.

U.S. NFIB business optimism survey
edges lower on hiring plans
by Jason Lange
(Reuters) - U.S. small business sentiment weakened in September for the fourth time in five months as fewer owners expected to add staff and make capital investments.
The National Federation of Independent Business said on Tuesday its optimism index fell 0.1 point to 92.8 last month.
The drop is a sign the U.S. economy is taking a hit from uncertainty over the possibility of tax hikes and government spending cuts next year, said William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the NFIB.

Keiser Report: Bust-a-Bankster (E351)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss whether it's time to start loving bankers as former Mayor Ken Livingstone suggests and they also wonder if the flying naked short selling witch caught by religious police in Saudi Arabia is, in fact, Blythe Masters covering an oil trade. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Aston Walker - aka the Birmingham Looter - about whether he was ever offered a deferred prosecution agreement for his crime of looting during the 2011 riots and ask whether he would have been granted immunity had he offered the loot as an infinitely rehypothecated collateralized looted H&M clothes bonds.

Unemployment 7.8% to 22% - Is There A Better Method?
BY LANCE ROBERTS - FinancialSense.com
Recently I wrote "Why The Real Unemployment Rate Is 16.9%" which sparked quite a few e-mails revolving around the issue of the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures unemployment. In that article we discussed the differences between the U-3 and the U-6 rates and showed what unemployment would look like if you included those that had been out of work longer than 52 weeks. In reality the problem is far worse - as I stated previously:

U.S. Files Civil Mortgage Fraud Suit Against Wells Fargo
By Chris Dolmetsch and Dakin Campbell - Bloomberg.com
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) was sued by the U.S. for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages over claims the bank made reckless mortgage loans that defaulted and caused losses for a federal insurance program.
The government seeks damages and civil penalties under the False Claims Act and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 for alleged misconduct spanning more than a decade related to the bank's participation in a Federal Housing Administration program, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in a statement. The complaint was filed today in New York federal court.

New Style of Health Care Emerges to Fill Hospital's Void
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS - NYTimes.com
The demise of St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village two years ago has led to a struggle for health care supremacy in some of New York's most distinctive neighborhoods, offering a glimpse, in the process, at what might be the future of urban medicine.
Without building a hospital, one large chain, Continuum Health Partners, is establishing a beachhead in Chelsea and the Village by connecting with outpatient clinics, trying to dominate the market and create a feeder network for its hospitals in other neighborhoods. It is joining forces not just with traditional clinics but also with newer experiments like doctors working out of drugstores. A competitor, NYU Langone Medical Center, is expanding its physician practices downtown, and like Continuum, it has hired dozens of stranded St. Vincent's doctors.

Oil Price Soars on Supply Jitters
By The Associated Press - DailyFinance.com
NEW YORK (AP) - The price of oil rose more than 3 percent Tuesday on concerns about supplies from the Middle East and the North Sea.
Benchmark crude gained $2.86, or 3.2 percent, to $92.19 a barrel in New York. In London, Brent crude, which is used to price international varieties of oil, rose $2.38, or 2.1 percent, to $114.20.

Natural Gas Vehicles: US States Aim to Sway the Market
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
As America attempts to harness the power of natural gas to its fullest—and to find a non-export-related use for plentiful supplies—there appears to be a shopping spree for natural gas vehicles under way.
From seminars to state commitments to purchase natural gas vehicles, the idea is suddenly a bipartisan phenomenon with more and more states jumping on the bandwagon.
Most notably, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has announced that his state, in coalition with 21 others, will purchase as many as 10,000 vehicles running on compressed natural gas (CNG) annually—providing that US automakers will actually build them.

MENA Plans to Invest $740 Billion on Energy Projects
Over the Next 5 Years
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
According to a recent report by the Arab Petroleum Investments Corp. (Apicorp), Oil producing countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) plan to spend a combined $740 billion on energy projects in the next five years.
Saudi Arabia leads the group with their plans to spend $165 billion, followed by the United Arab Emirates and their plans to invest $107 billion. Algeria has pledged to use $71 billion to finance projects, and Iran, having had to scale back its investment plans, will only contribute $68 billion.

Man Made Global Warming Disproved
The theory that failed
By Joanne Nova and Anthony Cox - JoanneNova.com.au
It takes only one experiment to disprove a theory. The climate models are predicting a global disaster, but the empirical evidence disagrees. The theory of catastrophic man-made global warming has been tested from many independent angles.
The heat is missing from oceans; it's missing from the upper troposphere. The clouds are not behaving as predicted. The models can't predict the short term, the regional, or the long term. They don't predict the past. How could they predict the future?

Financial War in Iran, Riots in Greece
and Jobless Conspiracies in the US!

China IMF Group Led by No. 2 Officials
Amid Tensions With Japan
By Bloomberg News
China's central bank governor and finance minister won't lead a Chinese delegation to International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Tokyo this week amid tensions over disputed islands.
Yi Gang, a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, and Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao will lead the group, the official Xinhua News Agency reported last night. It didn't mention Governor Zhou Xiaochuan and Finance Minister Xie Xuren.

'Titanic' Defaults Loom on Restructured India Bank Debt
By George Smith Alexander and Anto Antony - Bloomberg.com
India's Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. (KAIR) escaped collapse in 2010 by restructuring 77.2 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) of debt it had run up buying airlines and adding routes amid the nation's economic boom.
Less than two years later, the carrier controlled by billionaire Vijay Mallya was back in talks with creditors, while its net debt had increased by 9 billion rupees. The airline this month grounded its entire fleet after pilots and engineers went on strike to demand seven months of unpaid salaries.

U.S. Navy Investigates Making Jet Fuel from Seawater
By John Daly - OilPrice.com
For centuries navies used a renewable energy form as a means of propulsion.
The wind.
Now the U.S. Navy is investigating another potentially limitless fuel source to produce JP-5 jet fuel – seawater.
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is developing the chemistry for producing jet fuel from renewable resources in theatre. The process envisioned would catalytically convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen directly to liquid hydrocarbon fuel used as JP-5.
And how exactly would this alchemic sleight of hand be performed?

Theft of fingerprints easier than cutting off a finger,
security experts warn
By Claire Connelly - HeraldSun.com.au
COMPANIES that are replacing passwords with biometric security can't be trusted to safely store your personal data like fingerprints and retina scans, experts say.
Recent security breaches have demonstrated that major companies have been unable to properly secure password protected data, they claim, so why should web users trust them with their bio data?
The concerns followed the news that ANZ was considering replacing the traditional ATM pins with bio scanners to prevent credit card skimming.

Phony in Chief
By THOMAS SOWELL - Spectator.org
When he gave that demagogic speech, in a feigned accent and style, it was world class chutzpah and a rhetorical triumph.
When President Barack Obama and others on the left are not busy admonishing the rest of us to be "civil" in our discussions of political issues, they are busy letting loose insults, accusations and smears against those who dare to disagree with them.
Like so many people who have been beaten in a verbal encounter, and who can think of clever things to say the next day, after it is all over, President Obama, after his clear loss in his debate with Mitt Romney, called Governor Romney a "phony."

Goldman Issues Strong Sell On Obama
As Firm Refuses To Vote With Its Wallet
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Confirming a move that will surprise exactly no one, the firm which is best known in the world for two things: i) arbitraging the gullibility of its clients, and ii) flipflopping faster than anyone when the narrative demands it, the WSJ reports that Goldman Sachs has mutated from Obama's biggest financial backer 4 years ago on Wall Street, to one of the most stingiest firms. "Employees at Goldman donated more than $1 million to Mr. Obama when he first ran for president. This election, they have given the president's campaign $136,000—less than Mr. Obama has collected from employees of the State Department. The employees have contributed nothing to the leading Democratic super PAC supporting his re-election. By contrast, Goldman employees have given Mr. Romney's campaign $900,000, plus another $900,000 to the super PAC founded to help him." In other words Goldman has just voted with their wallets, and the bottom line is "Strong Sell" with price target One Term.

28 Good Questions
That The Mainstream Media Should Be Asking
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Why is there so little trust in the mainstream media these days? CNN ratings have been hovering closeto record lows over the past few months. A recent Gallup survey found that 60 percent of all Americans "have little or no trust" in the mainstream media. That was a record high according to Gallup. So why is this happening? Sadly, the truth is that the mainstream media quit telling the truth a long time ago. The mainstream media has an agenda, and more Americans than ever are beginning to recognize this. Once upon a time, control of the news in the United States was at least somewhat decentralized. But now there are just six giant media corporations that control almost everything that we see, hear and watch. The version of "the news" that they give us is designed to serve the interests of those corporate giants and the other corporate giants that spend billions of dollars to advertise their products through those outlets. Watching the news on television can be an extremely frustrating experience these days. Yes, there are little bits and pieces of the truth in there, but you have to wade through an awful lot of "infotainment" to get to those bits and pieces. That is one of the reasons why the "alternative media" has absolutely exploded in recent years. The American people are hungry for the truth, and they are increasingly turning to alternative sources of news on the Internet in an attempt to find it.

Obama camp soliciting donations
from China, Vietnam, other countries
BY: JOE NEWBY - Examiner.com
According to a 109-page report released Monday by the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), the Obama campaign has solicited donations from a number of foreign nations, including China, Vietnam and Azerbaijan.
"Using a collection of online research tools, the Government Accountability Institute analyzed a portion of the foreign links that lead to the Obama campaign website, my.barackobama.com," the report said. "The Institute found a wide variety of instances in which apparent foreign
nationals either received solicitation emails or posted links to my.barackobama.com."

Obama campaign close to $1 billion
By David Jackson - USAToday.com
President Obama is edging closer and closer to U.S. history's first billion dollar campaign.
"All told, Obama's campaign and the committees it controls have raised $923 million," reports National Journal.
"If they raise just half as much in October as they did in September," it added, "Obama's campaign will indeed become the first billion-dollar campaign in history."
As it stands now, it doesn't look like the Republicans will hit the 10-figure mark.

NEWSWEEK: GAI REPORT
REVEALS OBAMA'S 'ILLEGAL-DONOR LOOPHOLE'
by ALEXANDER MARLOW - Breitbart.com
Fifteen years ago this January, Matt Drudge launched the New Media revolution when he scooped Newsweek Magazine and exposed the affair between then-President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. The scandal itself and the cover-up that followed became the biggest news item of the decade, but it was how the story broke that changed the media landscape forever.
Newsweek simply refused to publish the story, and a New Media pioneer made them pay.
Drudge's headline, posted late in the evening of January 17th, 1998 read:
"NEWSWEEK KILLS STORY ON WHITE HOUSE INTERN X X X X X BLOCKBUSTER REPORT: 23-YEAR OLD, FORMER WHITE HOUSE INTERN, SEX RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDENT"

OBAMA SUPPORTER BRAGS ABOUT ILLEGAL FOREIGN DONATIONS ON PRESIDENT'S OWN WEBSITE
by WYNTON HALL - Breitbart.com
With a new Government Accountability Institute (GAI)report highlighting the threat of foreign online campaign donations making a buzz throughout the Beltway, Breitbart News has discovered blog entries on President Obama's official website that highlight the pervasiveness of the problem.
Just last week, a Canadian woman writing on President Obama's official campaign website claims she made a campaign donation to the Obama campaign during the last election and that she intends to do so this time as well—a clear violation of U.S. election laws:

No White House Press Briefing in Last 15 Days
BY DANIEL HALPER - WeeklyStandard.com
The White House has not held a press briefing in the last 15 days, according to records on the White House's website. The last one was held on September 24, 2012, by White House press secretary Jay Carney.
However, in that 15 day time period, and including today, there have been 11 press gaggles. Nine have been conducted by Carney, while 2 have been held by principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest. Campaign surrogates David Axelrod and traveling press secretary Jen Psaki have participated in the gaggles.

Peter Schiff "People Have To Learn Not To Be Fooled
By Government Sleight Of Hand"

Romney's Foreign Policy a Puzzle That Doesn't Fit Together
By William Pfaff - Truthdig.com
The principal problem with Mitt Romney's foreign policy statements is not that his position swings widely, or that he often reverses himself, according to the audience and the daily news. This is no surprise in American presidential campaigning. But is there an underlying scheme lurking in what he says? Does Mr. Romney actually possess a serious understanding of American foreign relations, their past, present and the problems they will present to a new administration? Is he capable of assembling what he says into a coherent national policy?
"No" seems the clear answer to that question. It is no surprise to find a businessman who is clueless with respect to America's international relations. His concerns are elsewhere. But when a businessman is running for the American presidency, you would expect an effort to read, learn and make a serious effort to see the patterns that might lie within the competitive "brainwashings" (to borrow a fateful phrase from Mitt's father, George) being conducted by rival politicians and press and television.

How Big Bird Just Made the Debate
Even More Daunting for Biden
BY MARK HEMINGWAY - WeeklyStandard.com
The reviews are in from the Obama campaign's ad attempting to make Big Bird a campaign issue this morning, and ouch. Naturally, the Romney campaign has blasted out a smattering of headlines and damning tweets about it from reporters. Even the liberal blog Firedoglake ran with "Obama Ad About Big Bird Cannot Find One Prominent Wall Street Criminal Prosecuted By Administration."
As strategic miscalculations go, the ad is pretty devastating because it answers the big question that emerged from wreckage of last week's miserable performance: Why was Obama's performance so bad? The Big Bird ad seems to suggest that the Obama campaign was unable to respond to Romney's aggressive critiques simply because there's no substance to their campaign. They don't know what they're fighting for, as opposed to calling Romney a liar and grasping at Romney's claim that making taxpayers pay for an extremely profitable children's television show might not be necessary in an era where America owes trillions. By contrast, since the debate Romney's embraced big themes and made a major foreign policy address. As Maggie Haberman at Politicopointed out this morning, this is exactly the "small ball" politicking that made the Romney campaign the source of press derision for so long. Now Romney's flipped the script.

Sesame Street asks Obama campaign
to take down attack ad featuring Big Bird
By Daniel Strauss - TheHill.com
Sesame Street has asked President Obama's campaign to take down its latest attack ad against Mitt Romney, which features footage of Big Bird.
"Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns," a Tuesday statement on Sesameworkshop.org reads. "We have approved no campaign ads, and as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down."
The Obama campaign said it would review the request. "We've received and will review their concerns," said an Obama campaign official.

OBAMA CAMPAIGN LASHES OUT WITH 'BIG BIRD' ATTACK
by JOHN NOLTE - Breitbart.com
It's as though Barack Obama didn't diminish himself enough during his debate with Mitt Romney and decided diminishing himself was actually a good tactic. And so, in the immediate aftermath of the debate debacle, instead of showing some dignity as other presidents before him have after a loss, Team Obama started a nanny-nanny-boo-boo name-calling campaign. In ads and in interviews and presidential speeches, Romney's been called everything from a "liar," to a "flip-flopper."
Obama isn't just a sore loser, he's a petulant, dishonest, crybaby, narcissist loser.
Believe it or not, things just got worse. As if to prove Barack Obama is completely out of ideas, all the campaign has left is this petty, goofy, nonsensical stupidity:

NATO backs Turkey in standoff with Syria
Secretary general says Turkey can rely on Nato solidarity and that 'all necessary plans are in place'
AP - Guardian.co.uk
Nato is ready to defend Turkey, the alliance's top official said on Tuesday, in a direct warning to Syria after a week of cross-border artillery and mortar exchanges dramatically escalated tensions between the two countries.
Ankara has sent additional fighter jets to reinforce an air base close to the frontier with Syria where shells killed five Turkish civilians last week, sparking fears of a wider regional crisis. Syria has defended its shelling of neighbouring Turkey as an accidental outcome of its civil war.

Netanyahu calls for early elections 'as soon as possible'
Prime Minister announces elections must be held soon as current Knesset will not be able to pass responsible budget; earliest possible date for vote is three months after dissolution of Knesset.
By GIL HOFFMAN - JPost.com
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ignited an expedited election campaign Tuesday night when he called for early elections to take place.
In a statement delivered at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said that after completing a round of meetings with his coalition partners, he concluded he could not pass the 2013 state budget and has no choice but to initiate elections.

Massive US-Israel air defense drill set for October
Three-week exercise, postponed from spring, will be largest of its kind to date, simulate missile defense scenarios.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN - JPost.com
The US and Israel will commence the largest-ever joint air defense drill of its kind in Israel on October 21, an army source said on Tuesday.
The exercise, named Austere Challenge 12, was originally scheduled for last spring but was postponed due to regional tensions with Iran.

After drone, Israel deploys missile defense unit
By DANIEL ESTRIN - Yahoo News
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has deployed a missile defense battery in a main city near the Lebanese border, the military said Tuesday, two days after warplanes shot down an unmanned aircraft that entered Israeli skies.
An army spokesman said the Patriot missile defense battery has been stationed in the northern city of Haifa. He refused to say if the battery's deployment was connected to Saturday's drone incident.
He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

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Tuesday 10.09.2012

More Bullish Signals For Gold
GoldSilverWorlds.com
It's amusing to see how much people still don't understand the dynamics behind Gold. You can find in this short article a couple of examples.
This video goes back to the days after QE3 was announced (also known as QE to Infinity). The CNBC commentator cannot believe that gold could go to $5,000 and laughs Peter Schiff away. Well, if $5,000 is high, what to think about $10,000 gold that some respected people are expecting? The historic evidence is there. If there is one chart that everyone knows, at least everyone who read at least one article about Gold, it's the historic Dow/Gold ratio.The trend is clearly there, all circumstances are in place for a continuation of the trend … but still lots of disbelief. It's simple: yet another bullish factor for gold.

Gold may wait till Q2 2013 to break $1900/Oz: BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas continue to believe that the direction of the gold price will be tightly linked to monetary easing. In the next 12 months, they expect gold to trend higher.
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): BNP Paribas things gold prices may wait till second quarter of 2013 to break $1900 an ounce level.
It looks for gold to average $1,795 per ounce in the fourth quarter of this year and $1,865 in the first quarter of 2013 and $1,900 in the second, says BNP Paribas in an updated forecast.
The French bank looks for gold to continue working its way high over the next year, with monetary policy likely to be the key influence. Prices rose sharply since mid-August on expectations for more Federal Open Market Committee easing followed by actual accommodation.

The Opposing Forces Behind Gold's Bull Market
BY CLIF DROKE - FinancialSense.com
What accounts for gold's strong performance since the initial rebound in July? That's the question that many analysts are (belatedly) trying to answer. The first and most obvious answer is stimulus; specifically the stimulus provided by the world's leading central bank in the U.S. The Federal Reserve's latest bond-buying scheme known as QE3 is to date the biggest stimulus aid that has had an impact in boosting the gold price.
As we all know, gold loves inflation and any increase in monetary liquidity in the global financial system will be reflected in an increasing gold price sooner or later. Analysts have noted that the gold price has recently increased in, Euro, Swiss Franc and Indian Rupee terms, which indicates monetary stimulus particularly benefits gold. As bullion broker Sharps Pixley observed, "This is not just a weak dollar story."

Gold Traders Bullish But "Caution Advised" on China Slowdown
BY ADRIAN ASH - FinancialSense.com
Wholesale-market prices to buy gold fell 0.5% to $1770 per ounce in Asian and London trade Monday, holding more than $25 below Friday's new 11-month high as world stock markets also fell together with commodity prices.
Chinese traders wanting to buy gold saw the price fall sharply as the Shanghai futures market re-opened after the long Golden Week holidays.
Silver prices fell nearly 5% from last week's new 7-month high against the US Dollar, hitting the lowest level in nearly two weeks.

Did You Get These Warnings? Gold?
By GE Christenson - GoldSilverWorlds.com

Editor's Note: It's easy not to see the fundamental developments because of the day-to-day news streams and information overload (we tend to call it "noise"). So it can take some time to start connecting the dots and clearly see a red line. In this article, people who are not seeing it clearly yet, get some hints. As far as the link with precious metals is concerned, it's very simple in our view: could there be a link between the warnings described in this article and the price of gold? "Oh … so it's not the gold price going up, but something else coming down?"

November 21, 2002: Bernanke gave his "helicopter" speech in which he made reference to a "helicopter drop of money." But the critical point in his speech was:
"U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in term of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services."

Are the Central Bank Vaults Empty?
by Charles Goyette - LewRockwell.com
Is it possible that the vaults of the world's central banks, believed to be stacked with gold bullion, are really empty? Is all the gold actually there?
Something about the numbers doesn't seem to add up.
The importance of the question accelerates in the face of global money-printing, which is also accelerating. Since the start of the economic meltdown five years ago, the balance sheets of the world's central banks have been growing at a frantic pace.

Economic Turmoil and Military Crises
BY JR NYQUIST - FinancialSense.com
Events are moving very fast now, suggesting that substantive changes are approaching. With tanks on the streets of Venezuela, Turkish artillery shelling Syrian positions, unrest in Tehran and rising Sino-Japanese tensions, the danger of further shocks to the world economy cannot be ruled out. At the same time, the unfavorable impression made by President Barack Obama in his first debate with challenger Mitt Romney has now created the impression that Romney may win the election, leading to economic policy changes in Washington.
Is there going to be any good economic news between now and November?

Obama's next Fed chief:
Who gets the job if the president wins a second term?
By Neil Irwin - WashingtonPost.com
Whoever is inaugurated as president Jan. 20 will, in the first year of his term, face a decision that will have a greater impact on the economy than any other single call he will make: Whom to select as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Ben S. Bernanke's term ends Jan. 31, 2014, about a year after the president takes office; if the past is a guide, and given the sluggishness of the Senate confirmation process, a nomination should happen by Labor Day.

IMF sees 'alarmingly high' risk of fresh global slump
The International Monetary Fund has slashed its growth forecast for large parts of the world economy and warned of a full-blown global slump if policymakers in Europe or the US mishandle serious threats.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"Risks for recession in the advanced economies are alarmingly high," said the Fund's latest World Economic Outlook. "The intensity of the euro area crisis has not abated as assumed in previous projections."
Spain's economy is expected to contract by 1.5pc this year and 1.3pc next as austerity bites, pushing public debt to 97pc of GDP in 2013. The estimate was 84pc as recently as April, showing how quickly the debt dynamics have gone horribly wrong.

IMF warns of fresh global crisis unless eurozone finds a fix
World economic outlook warns of fresh downturn as European ministers asked to try and promote growth
By Phillip Inman in Tokyo - The Guardian
The International Monetary Fund has urged Eurozone leaders to act swiftly in response to the debt crisis in Greece and Spain, or risk dragging down the global economy with another financial crisis.
The IMF warned that the situation was grave and could escalate into a wider downturn unless national leaders ended their disputes with a long-lasting deal. As eurozone finance ministers met in Luxembourg for crisis talks and the launch of the euro's permanent rescue fund, the IMF urgedEurope and the US to promote growth to help major developing economies like China, Brazil and India.

A Central Eurozone Budget Is on the Table
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
A consensus has begun to emerge that there be one budget for the entire eurozone. The region's finance ministers will meet shortly. However, it is difficult to imagine why Germany, the strongest economy in the region, would agree to tying it fortunes to the balance of the region in any way. And leaders among the eurozone nations have been unable to agree on most other initiatives to help the financial plight of many countries in the alliance. So, why should something as complex as a budget among so many nations work?

Crosshairs: High Frequency Trading
By Loch Adamson - InstitutionalInvestor.com
High frequency trading is under fire. Over the past week, politicians and regulators in Europe and the U.S. have made plain their intentions to analyze the impact of ultra-fast trade execution on equity market structure — and slow it down, if necessary, in a bid to boost investors' confidence. But regulatory efforts to strengthen market resilience by focusing on speed alone risk overlooking the fundamental changes that electronic trading has wrought on equity market-making and liquidity provision, both of which could be undermined by simply squeezing the high frequency trading community with new rules.

The Truth About Sovereignty
By Dani Rodrik - Project-Syndicate.org
CAMBRIDGE – In the French parliament's recent debate on Europe's new fiscal treaty, the country's Socialist government vehemently denied that ratification of the treaty would undermine French sovereignty. It places "not one constraint on the level of public spending," Jean-Marc Ayrault, the prime minister, asserted. "Budget sovereignty remains in the parliament of the French Republic."
As Ayrault was trying to reassure his skeptical colleagues, including many members of his own party, European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia was delivering a similar message to his fellow social democrats in Brussels. To succeed, he argued, Europe must prove wrong those who believe there is a conflict between globalization and sovereignty.

Government Killed the American Dream
On our current financial, political and electoral mess
by Gerald Celente - LewRockwell.com
Gerald Celente, famed researcher, journalist and self-proclaimed political atheist has plenty to say about the coming election and the corrupt 2-headed 1-party political system. In this interview with The Wall Street Shuffle, he says that in his entire lifetime he has never seen two men so unqualified running for president. He believes that Americans should take control of their own lives and stop looking for leaders to lead them.
Celente's take on voting echoes Mark Twain's when he said: "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it."

Costs will rise on mid-size firms from new healthcare law
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
President Obama's healthcare law won't erode employer-based health insurance — but it will raise some companies' costs by nearly 10 percent, according to a new analysis from the Urban Institute.
Although the law's critics usually focus on small businesses, the new paper says medium-sized firms will see the biggest cost increase.
Small businesses would have seen their costs fall by 1.4 percent. Firms with more than 1,000 workers would have seen a 4.3 percent increase.

CDC: 13,000 patients may have been exposed to fungus
By Lena H. Sun and Sandhya Somashekhar - WashingtonPost.com
As many as 13,000 patients across the country got steroid injections that may have been contaminated by a fungus linked to a rare form of meningitis that has killed eight people, federal officials said Monday.
The officials don't know how many of the injections were tainted. But they do know that 13,000 patients received the injection from the compounding pharmacy at the center of the outbreak, according to officials.

Housing: Plenty of Reasons to Be Pessimistic
BY MICHAEL PANZNER - FinancialSense.com
There's plenty of debate about—and money riding on—the question of whether we are in the midst of a sustainable recovery in the housing market. Nobody knows for sure, of course, but there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic.
For one thing, the supply of homes, in terms of what is currently on the market and what is potentially for sale whether or not prices rebound further—the so-called shadow inventory—remains significant relative to demand, even though data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) shows that inventories of existing homes are back to where they were eight years ago.

The Future of American Housing – McMansion withdrawal, rethinking commutes, designing housing with lower incomes in mind, and the impact of a fully subsidized mortgage market.
DoctorHousingBubble.com
It is still amazing how few people realize how subsidized the housing market really is. I have talked to people that walked into a too big to fail bank, received a government-backed mortgage yet assume this is somehow the "free market" at work. Even after pulling up their loan on a public Fannie Mae database they still want to believe they are participating in a free-market. Why? Ultimately it is a direct benefit to their bottom line. The housing market lost any free-market label post-Great Depression. Plus, that bank is only able to function courtesy of rewriting accounting rules and trillions of dollars in emergency loans. For over a generation the loans that were made were conservative, required a large down payment, and came at a time when household incomes were rising. We can argue the merits of government-banking intervention (i.e., the Fed with QE3, mortgage interest deduction, etc) yet the market is now fully addicted on all these external factors. A Pandora's Box has been opened and now every action that is taken is more extreme and more permanent. Yet the housing market of today is nothing like the one many baby boomers grew up in and eventually purchased. Demographics and stagnant incomes will create different variables for the housing market going forward.

House majority leader says
there's 'no question' election is about taxes
By Peter Schroeder - TheHill.com
There is "no question" that taxes are a central issue of the 2012 election, according to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).
Cantor said he is "very bullish" on House Republicans being able to expand their majority in the election, in part due to their message of lower taxes on the campaign trail.
"It comes down to the point: Do you believe that Washington needs more of the money that you earn and that Washington can spend it better than you can?" he told Bloomberg Television. "Or do you believe that you ought to be able to keep more of what you earn and let Washington get its fiscal affairs straight?"

The Unemployment Surprise
By: John Mauldin - GoldSeek.com
The unemployment number surprisingly dropped to 7.8% last Friday, and the shoot-from-the-hip crowd came out in force. To say that the jobs report was met with skepticism would be a serious understatement. The response that got the most immediate airplay was ex-GE CEO Jack Welch (who knows a few things about making a number say what you want it to say) tweeting, "Unbelievable job numbers ... these Chicago guys will do anything ... can't debate so change numbers."
Not be left out, Fox Business quoted Ed Butowsky of Chapwood Capital Investment:"'No way in the world these numbers are accurate,' he said. 'Somebody needs to do an investigation.... Investigate these numbers.'"

Nah, The Bureau of Labor Statistics Wouldn't Fudge Unemployment Numbers Right Before a Presidential Election, Would They?
by Bill Sardi - LewRockwell.com
It's a fact, you're not going to get re-elected if unemployment rates are high. So just fudge the numbers and re-correct them at a later date (Jan. 2013) which the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) typically does on a regular basis.
The latest new jobs numbers, this time for September '12, reflects what America is becoming – a country that is fooling itself with phony numbers that go unchallenged by the nation's news press. For example, 2.2% is the target rate of inflation published by the nation's central bank – The Federal Reserve. But the actual rate of inflation is more like 9.3% (ShadowStats.com).

Want Cheap Oil? Look no Further than Canada
By Frederik Els - OilPrice.com
The price oil sands producers receive fell to $38 a barrel below the international benchmark after a $3.50 widening to $14.75 of the spread between the price of Western Canada Select – a blend of heavy oil sands crude and conventional oil – and US crude.
The drop in Canadian heavy oil came as the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) discount to the global oil price in the form of North Sea Brent widened to $22.80 – the biggest gap in almost a year and approaching a record margin of $26.87 in early September 2011.

California Gas Prices a Warning for the Nation
California provides a valuable lesson for the rest of the country...
BY ROBERT RAPIER - FinancialSense.com
I am getting numerous questions about the situation with California's surging gasoline prices. Therefore, I want to take some time to explain what makes California's gasoline situation unique.
The EPA defines gasoline specifications, but many states have more restrictive specifications. The reasons for this are varied, but are primarily a function of the climate and the population density of an area. A cold, sparsely populated location will not suffer the same air quality issues as a warm, densely populated area and therefore those two locations may require different fuel specifications. Fuel blends that are specific to specific states are called boutique fuels.

AARP Stands by as Obama Gets Mugged by Reality
The President's erstwhile ally in the Obamacare debate says it doesn't want to get involved.
By DAVID CATRON - Spectator.org
During last week's presidential debate, realizing that he was taking a beating on the Medicare solvency issue, Barack Obama issued the following cri de coeur: "AARP thinks that the savings that we obtained from Medicare bolster the system, lengthen the Medicare trust fund by eight years." Later, after enduring several more blows to his credibility, the President went on to claim AARP agreed with him that Romney's plan would weaken Medicare. Oddly, the "senior advocacy organization" took offense at these remarks. Having provided full-throated support to the President and the Democrats on Obamacare, and resisted Medicare reform, AARP has begun to revert to its nonpartisan pose now that Obama appears to be in trouble.

The 112th Non-Congress
By Tom Davis - PatriotPost.us
Congress is a collective noun used to identify that body of elected representative entrusted with the management of their bosses properties. Congress is also the collective noun for a bunch, a group, a collection or a pack of Baboons. That's right -- the proper collective noun for Baboons is "a Congress." Why did the linguistics experts pick that particular collective for Baboons? Simply because they are more or less representative of our 112th Congress.
Their propensity is to squabble loudly, get little accomplished beside feeding their face and getting their pictures taken telling us all the wondrous things they have accomplished. Case in point: The current candidate for reelection to the Senate from New Jersey is one Robert Menendez who, numerous times each evening appears on every New York TV Station claiming credit for his pork barrel spending to obtain millions of dollars for Solar Panel projects in New Jersey. He closes every ad with, "This is Senator Bob Menendez and I approve this message."

American Undergraduates Recruited For Population Control Agenda As UN Raises The Stakes
Neo-eugenicist John Seager to undergraduates: "you're the ones who are going to be able to move this forward and complete what I see as one of the great social movements of our time."
By Jurriaan Maessen - Infowars.com
In a recent biennial report released last week by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) the projection for global population growth in 2050 has been raised with an additional 117 million people on top of the earlier projection of 8 billion people. As the UN keeps up the pressure an effort is underway to flood universities and colleges throughout the United States with population control propaganda. One of the people doing the rounds across academic America is former EPA chief John Seager, who now heads up an organization called "Population Connection", dedicated to the selling of human population reduction.

Socialism vs. Capitalism: Part II
By Sam Weaver - PatriotPost.us
In Part I of this series, I stated the contemporary "conventional wisdom" definitions of socialism and Marxism. A brief attempt was then made to reveal the true meanings and the modern origins of socialism and communism, and to touch on some of the consequences that societies around the world -- including the U.S.A. -- have suffered and are suffering as a result of implementing socialism and/or communism. [Much more on this in Part III.]
In this article, I will state the "conventional wisdom" definition -- a la Hegel (indirectly), Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, et. al. -- of "capitalism." Brief attempts will be made to provide the true meaning of "capitalism" (economic Liberty) and its Source (and sources).

DHS To Test Spy Drones For "Public Safety" Applications
RAPS system will keep tabs on Americans
By Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
The Department of Homeland Security has announced in a solicitation to drone manufacturers that it will begin testing "Robotic Aircraft For Public Safety" at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, indicating that small spy drones will be used to keep tabs on Americans in the near future.
As Infowars reported back in July, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told a House Committee on Homeland Security that the federal agency was "looking at drones that could be utilized to give us situational awareness in a large public safety [matter] or disaster."
This represented an about-face of sorts for the agency, which had previously been reticent about the idea of using surveillance drones to spy on the public.

The Obama Mandate:
The Gravest Threat to Religious Freedom in 226 Years
By Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison - PatriotPost.us
A liberal reporter speaking at a conference in Georgetown recently dismissed conservative alarms about the Obama administration's mandate that forces religious institutions -- like Catholic Hospitals and Evangelical colleges -- to provide coverage for drugs and procedures that can abortions and that effect sterilizations. "What about the anti-Catholic Bible riots in Philadelphia in the 1840s," she asked. Those led to scores of people actually being killed. Those Bible riots were deplorable, a blot on American history. But they were not the acts of the federal government. They were lawless violence, not a deliberate policy of oppression.

Nazi Propaganda Makes a Comeback on Twitter
By Jeffrey Goldberg - Bloomberg.com
The first time I met the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Eustace Mullins was at a conference I was covering of Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis and paranoiacs (a redundancy, I suppose).
Mullins was then in his 70s, and his general affect was that of an irate eccentric who stands outside government offices, screaming about the Rothschilds. (He actually accused me of being a part of the Rothschild "gang." From your mouth to God's ears, I said.) He seemed, in short, to be a self- marginalizing sort of fascist.

Romney talks tough and accuses Obama
of failing to lead on Middle East
Mitt Romney attacks president's foreign policy record and claims world is a more dangerous place than when Obama took office
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington
and Martin Chulov in Beirut - Guardian.co.uk
Mitt Romney claimed the world was a more dangerous place than when Barack Obama took office, as he accused the president of mishandling the Middle East and called for the US to pursue its traditional role as the world's policeman.
Displaying new-found confidence since his debate victory last week, Romney used a major foreign policy speech in Virginia to attack Obama for a lack of leadership on a range of international issues, including Iran,Israel-Palestine, Libya and Syria. "Hope is not a strategy," Romney declared.

North Korea Says Its Long-Range Rockets
Can Hit Continental U.S.
By Sangwon Yoon - Bloomberg.com
A North Korean military official said the totalitarian country has rockets capable of hitting the U.S. as well as American military bases in Japan and Guam.
An unidentified National Defense Commission official made the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency in response to the U.S. this month agreeing to let South Korea extend the range of its ballistic missiles to 800 kilometers (497 miles) to protect against a possible attack from the North.

Afghanistan 'sliding towards collapse'
Afghan forces are far from ready to secure a country riddled with violence and corruption, Red Cross and thinktank warn
By Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul - Guardian.co.uk
The police and army in an increasingly violent Afghanistan will struggle to secure the country when foreign forces leave and the people face a corrupt presidential election in 2014, the Red Cross and a thinktank have warned.
At stake is the limited and fragile stability that has insulated Kabul and most other urban areas from more than a decade of escalating aggression since the US invasion. There are growing fears the country could face a full-blown civil war after Nato troops hand over security to the Afghan police and army, and leave.

Hands Off Syria?
By Harold Brown - Project-Syndicate.org
WASHINGTON, DC – More than any of the previous events in the Arab Spring, Syria's turmoil has presented serious difficulties for Western policymakers. Just as Syria comprises a more complex society than the other Arab countries currently in the throes of political transition, so, too, are its external relations more complex. As a result, any attempt at decisive military intervention would be not only difficult, but also extremely risky.

Turkish president says "worst case" unfolding in Syria
By Hamdi Istanbullu
GUVECCI, Turkey | Mon Oct 8, 2012 7:18pm EDT
(Reuters) - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Monday the "worst-case scenarios" were now playing out in Syria and Turkey would do everything necessary to protect itself, as its army fired back for a sixth day after a shell from Syria flew over the border.
Gul said the violence in Turkey's southern neighbor, where a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad has evolved into a civil war that threatens to draw in regional powers, could not go on indefinitely and Assad's fall was inevitable.

Iran capable of quickly enriching uranium for warhead
By Jeremy Herb - TheHill.com
Iran has the capacity to enrich enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear warhead in two to four months' time, a think tank reported Monday.
But the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said it would take "many additional months" for Iran to manufacture a nuclear device suitable for underground testing, and even longer to make a warhead for a ballistic missile.
"If Iran were to attempt to make a nuclear weapon, it would likely face new engineering challenges, despite work it may have done in the past," the ISIS report said.

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Monday 10.08.2012

Price of gold could reach $2,400/oz
Quantitative easing could cause a rally in the gold price, with the precious metal hitting $2,400/oz by next summer.
By Emma Wall - Telegraph.co.uk
Gold could hit an all-time high of $2,400 by next summer, driven up by a third round of quantitative easing in the US. The first round of QE in February 2009 caused the gold price to increase rapidly from a base of $900/oz – from which it has never looked back.
BlackRock fund manager Evy Hambro who invests in the precious metal and gold equities, predicted that QE3 could result in the gold price hitting US$2,400/oz by the middle of next summer.

US fiscal cliff debate may take Gold to new highs
Commodity Online
The appeal of gold would continue to get support as the US 'fiscal cliff ' deadline comes around at the end of 2012 under which an agreement has to be reached that would cut the federal budget or trigger $600 billion in spending cuts and higher taxes that were put in place last summer.
"This would be negative for the already stalling economy which would act as a favorable factor for the metal." said a report from Angel Commodities.
The prices may also gain momentum on the back of rising inflationary pressures in the economies and on demand from central bankers of Turkey, South Korea and Russia.

Gold aims for $1800 levels next week as China return
Gold will rise above the $1,800 area, citing upward momentum and China's return to the markets after this week's holiday, which might spur additional buying
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Global gold prices may try to reach $1,800 an ounce next week with Chinese market participants returning from a week-long holiday. This is after the yellow metal missing its chance to break $1,800 an ounce level this week.
Global gold prices were down on Friday and mixed this week. The most-active December gold contract on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange settled $1,780.80 an ounce, up 0.39% on the week.

Physical Gold is the antidote against the ongoing global debt crisis
by Claudio Grass - GoldSilverWorlds.com
Global Gold's vision is that the Gold bull market still has a long way to go. The current economic climate provides the ideal conditions for a continuing rise in the Gold price. The view of Global Gold is influenced by the Austrian School of Economics. In their essay, they come to the following conclusions: savings and investment are the basis of a sound economy, not consumption and debt; values of currencies are declining and fiat money has no intrinsic value; today's debt levels are unsustainable; physical Gold is the antidote against the ongoing global debt crisis.

A Return To Stable Money Requires More Intellectual Gasoline
By Nathan Lewis - Forbes.com
This year, I've been making an effort to meet personally with a number of people who have been prominent advocates of a stable-money policy in the U.S – instead of the funny-money policy we have today. After all, this was the way we did things in this country for nearly two centuries, until 1971. It's the American Way.
One theme I have heard several times is that we need more broad-based support, more media exposure and, especially, some political champions to make it happen here in the U.S. It seems like nobody except Ron Paul wants to carry that flag. (Note to Congresspeople: Ron Paul keeps getting re-elected year after year.)

Deficit tops $1 trillion for 4th straight year
By Jeanne Sahadi - CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The federal government logged a $1.1 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2012 -- marking the fourth straight year of trillion-dollar shortfalls.
As a share of the economy, the deficit fell to roughly 7%, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates released Friday. That's down from 8.7% in 2011, and well below the bruising 10.1% recorded in 2009 during the depth of the economic downturn.
Deficits as a share of GDP in the past four years have been the highest since 1947.

Fed QE and Gold, Silver
Zeal Research | GoldSilverWorlds.com
After the Federal Reserve launched QE3 last month, investors and speculators are growing excited about its future impact on gold and silver. Though the Fed's QE3 campaign started out relatively small, its open-ended nature is utterly unprecedented. Thus an unknown amount of future inflation will be spawned. Naturally gold and silver thrive in such environments, as they proved during QE1 and QE2.
Of course QE stands for quantitative easing. Even as a lifelong student of the financial markets, I don't recall hearing this term before late 2008's epic stock panic. Central banks are notorious for trying to cloak their actions. So although "quantitative easing" was universally derided historically, it was known by a different name. Quantitative easing is simply a pleasant-sounding euphemism for debt monetization.

The Unreformed Muni Bond Market
The Muni Bond Market, Mired in Its Past
By Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times
THE $4 trillion market in municipal bonds, which finances American life where it gets lived, is stuck in the Dark Ages. It has been for decades.
In yet another attempt to pull this market into modern times, regulators put states, cities and municipal issuers on notice three years ago. No longer would they be allowed to stint on disclosing basic financial information — the kind that investors in, say, public corporations, have long relied on. With an expanded and accessible Web sitedesigned by regulators, municipal bond investors could finally find out what was going on.

Why the Next Financial Crisis Will Be Nastier
By Panos Mourdoukoutas - Forbes.com
Of all characteristics that made the 2007-2008 financial crisis unique, one stands out: The simultaneous decline of almost every asset category. US stocks dropped 37 percent, German stocks 42 percent, and Chinese stocks 62 percent; commodities dropped 37 percent (with oil and copper dropping 54 percent). This means that investors had nowhere to hide, taking multiple hits across their portfolios.
The roots of this broad decline in multiple asset categories can be traced back to the September 2001 Greenspan "put," which lowered the cost of owning different assets. This means that investors didn't have to sell one asset to buy another, as was the case before Greenspan' put went in place. That explains why stocks, commodities, and Treasury bonds rallied simultaneously between 2001 and 2007—though T-bonds usually move in the opposite direction than stocks and commodities.

The Inflation Rate Is A Lie Too
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Can we believe any of the economic numbers that the government is feeding us these days? Most of the focus recently has been on thebizarre jobs report that the government released last Friday, but the truth is that the inflation rate is a lie too. In fact, the way that the government calculates inflation has changed more than 20 times since 1978. The government isconstantly looking for ways that it can make inflation appear to be even lower. According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if inflation was measured the same way that it was back in 1990, the inflation rate would be about 5 percent right now. If inflation was measured the same way that it was back in 1980, the inflation rate would be about 9 percent right now. But instead, we are expected to believe that the inflation rate is hovering around 2 percent. Well, anyone that goes to the supermarket or fills up their vehicle with gasoline knows that prices are going up a lot faster than that. Just about everything that we buy on a regular basis is steadily becoming more expensive, and so most Americans are not buying it when government officials tell us that there is barely any inflation right now.

Who Benefits From Financial Regulation?
Financial Regulation and the "Money Power"
In the end, financial regulation will best serve the insiders, the "money power."
By Sheldon Richman - Reason.com
There has been no shortage of financial regulation over the last 30 years. The much-faulted era of deregulation is a laughable myth. If anything can be said to have failed in the run-up to the current financial mess, it is the regulatory state. (Of course, much else also failed, including the Federal Reserve System and housing policy). The idea that we suffer from a shortage of regulation is wrong. Therefore, writes Sheldon Richman, the idea that we need more regulation to prevent a repeat of the debacle is worse than wrong.

Marc Faber vs. Jim Rogers Conversation CNBC 10_4_2012

Economics: the failure of European monetary union
has been abject
The best thing would be if the euro were smashed.
The alternative is to see the flames lick higher
By Larry Elliott - The Guardian
When he was leader of the Conservative party, William Hague once likened membership of the euro to being trapped in a burning building with no fire exit. It was an apt description, as young people in Greecewould testify: in a country that has already contracted by more thanGermany did during the Great Depression, the jobless rate for Greeks under 25 is 55%.
Little wonder then that Antonis Samaras, the prime minister of Greece, is warning that his country has been pushed to the limit and that there is, as with Weimar Germany, the risk of democracy collapsing.

The Largest Economy In The World Is Imploding
Right In Front Of Our Eyes
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
A devastating economic depression is rapidly spreading across the largest economy in the world. Unemployment is skyrocketing, money is being pulled out of the banks at an astounding rate, bad debts are everywhere and economic activity is slowing down month after month. So who am I talking about? Not the United States - the economy that I am talking about has a GDP that is more than two trillion dollars larger. It is not China either - the economy that I am talking about is more than twice the size of China. You have probably guessed it by now - the largest economy in the world is the EU economy. Things in Europe continue to get even worse. Greece and Spain are already experiencing full-blown economic depressions that continue to deepen, and Italy and France are headed down the exact same path that Greece and Spain have gone. Headlines about violent protests and economic despair dominate European newspapers day after day after day. European leaders hold summit meeting after summit meeting, but all of the "solutions" that get announced never seem to fix anything. In fact, the largest economy on the planet continues to implode right in front of our eyes, and the economic shockwave from this implosion is going to be felt to the four corners of the earth.

If Germany were to leave the euro, it would be better off
Another week, another conference about the euro. This time it was in Singapore. Nevertheless, it was Germany that was uppermost in my mind, not least because several Singaporeans asked me why Germany doesn't leave the euro.
By Roger Bootle - Telegraph.co.uk
Last week I gave the political explanation. This week I am going to discuss the economic aspect.
From the formation of the euro in 1999 to now, German unit labour costs have hardly risen.
Since costs have continued rising briskly elsewhere, Germany has gained competitiveness enormously. The result is now a surplus of exports over imports of about 6pc of GDP. It is this surplus – and the associated income and jobs – that defenders of the status quo say would be threatened without the euro.

Belarus: inside Europe's last dictatorship
Belarus is stuck in the Soviet past, under the grip of a brutal regime. But a few dissidents still cling to the small hope that things will improve
By Sigrid Rausing - The Guardian
On 23 September, there were elections in Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko's supporters won every seat. Lukashenko, formerly a state farm director, has been in power since 1994, presiding over the last dictatorship in Europe.
I was there in the early summer, to visit Chernobyl. We stayed mainly on the Ukrainian side, but had received permission to enter the "alienated zone" in Belarus. So much of the former Soviet Union feels depopulated and abandoned compared with the west, but near the Chernobyl zone that feeling gradually intensifies. We drove for hours along empty roads lined with birch and pine, abandoned houses dotting the landscape. On the Ukrainian side, old men and women worked on small plots, raking hay into stacks. Some people have drifted back into the zone, but there are no young people there, and there won't be for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years to come: the radiation is too dangerous.

Lloyds says crash fixed after millions left without access to cash
Millions of bank customers were left with no access to their money on Friday afternoon after systems issues at two separate banking groups led to cards being declined at check outs and cash points, and the banks' online systems freezing up.
By Rosie Murray-West - Telegraph.co.uk
Customers of the Lloyds Banking Group, which includes Halifax and Bank of Scotland, were unable to use cash machines or debit cards, and struggled to bank online. The Co-operative Bank and Smile were also affected by system problems, in a situation reminiscent of the high-profile IT issue at Royal Bank of Scotland in June, which left millions of its customers without cash for several days.

Keiser Report: Cadavers Collateralized Debt (E349)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert bring a bankster rat onto set to discuss the civil suit against JP Morgan's mortgage fraud. We revisit episode 97 of the Keiser Report on which journalist Teri Buhl had first warned you about the residential mortgage back security fraud issue on JP Morgan's balance sheet - thanks to their purchase of Bear Stearns. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Dr. Michael Hudson, author of The Bubble and Beyond: Fictitious Capital, Debt Deflation and Global Crisis, about Timothy Geithner's role in facilitating the takeover of the banking system by the Wall Street mafia and about the oligarchic counter revolution against democracy in Europe.

Police: "Enter Detroit At Your Own Risk"
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you plan on visiting Detroit any time soon, the police have a message for you: "Enter Detroit at your own risk". That ominous message was actually emblazoned across the top of a flyer that the Detroit Police Officer Association was passing out prior to a rally on Saturday. The flyer pointed out that Detroit is the most violent city in the nation and that more homicides are committed in Detroit than anywhere else. Meanwhile, the number of police officers in Detroit has been steadily decreasing. There are more murders in Detroit today than there were a decade ago, but the number of police officers in the city has decreased by about 1,000 over that time period. The remaining police officers are overworked and incredibly frustrated. But Detroit is far from alone. All over the nation there are major cities that are reporting a spike in crime even as police budgets are being slashed. Sadly, this is just the beginning. As the economy gets even worse, budget cuts will become even more severe and crime will become an even bigger problem.

Nearly half of Fannie Mae REO unable to reach market
By Jon Prior - HousingWire.com
Only half of the previously foreclosed homes owned by Fannie Maeare either on the market or being prepared for sale. The remaining properties are currently locked away in some step of the foreclosure system.
The National Association of Realtors said in its existing home sales report Wednesday that its officials were pressuring government agencies to release more of their REO in markets short of inventory.

Obama's second-term housing design
by Justin T. Hilley - HousingWire.com
On the afternoon of Aug. 20, President Barack Obama stepped up to a podium in the White House briefing room for the first time in two months. He had taken criticism from reporters and Republican political operatives for not holding a press conference while his GOP presidential opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, took questions from his traveling press corps.
About nine minutes into the 22-minute conference, Obama received this question from Jake Tapper, ABC News senior White House correspondent:

Housing still impediment to U.S. growth: Fed officials
By Jonathan Spicer and Leah Schnurr
NEW YORK | Fri Oct 5, 2012 3:23pm EDT
(Reuters) - A disappointing rebound in U.S. housing continues to trip up the country's overall economic recovery, two influential Federal Reserve officials said on Friday, highlighting a corner of the economy that still frustrates monetary policymakers.
New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley said the housing market's failure to fully respond to the Fed's easy money policies remains a headwind to U.S. growth, while Elizabeth Duke, a governor at the central bank, highlighted problems associated to the "extraordinary" level of abandoned properties.

JACK WELCH REFUSES TO BACK DOWN ON UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS IN FIERY EXCHANGE WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS
by Jason Howerton - TheBlaze.com
In a heated debate with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch doubled-down on his claim that the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey released Friday, which showed a spike in employment and a drop in the unemployment metric from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent, is bogus.
Welch explained his rationale to the MSNBC host:
"We had 600,000 government jobs added in the last two months. We had 873,00 jobs by a household survey — which is a total estimate — from 50,000 phone calls. Of those, 600,000 were temporary workers. Chris, these numbers are all a series of assumptions. Tons of assumptions. And it just seems somewhat coincidental that the month before the election, the numbers go one-tenth of a point below.

Jobs Report: Carping, Criticism, and Conspiracy Theorizing
By Tim Cavanaugh - Reason.com
As you may have heard, U-3 unemployment took a steep drop in September, from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent. This is the first time unemployment has dipped below 8 percent since February 2009, the first full month of Barack Obama's presidency, and matches the 7.8 percent rate that held when Obama was sworn in.

A Jobs Report Conspiracy?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Well, isn't that convenient? The Obama campaign desperately needed the last employment report to be released before the election to show that the unemployment rate had fallen below 8 percent, and somehow it magically happened. Even though non-farm payroll employment only increased by 114,000 last month (not enough to even keep up with population growth), the official unemployment rate fell from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent. So how did that happen? Well, the unemployment number is not based on the survey of employers that showed that 114,000 jobs were added to the economy last month. Rather it is based on a survey of households. And that survey showed that the total number of Americans employed last month increased by a whopping 873,000 - almost eight times the number that the employer survey showed. That figure for September (873,000) was the biggest one month increase in 29 years. And it just happened to come at the exact perfect time for Barack Obama. So was there a jobs report conspiracy? Examine the evidence and decide for yourself.

Death Panel Rattle
By KEVIN MOONEY - Spectator.org
Romney can move public opinion by further exposing Obamacare's unelected board.
Until two nights ago, most voters were largely unaware of the unelected 15 member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) created as part of Obamacare. Mitt Romney can further capitalize on his adroit performance in Wednesday's debate by focusing public attention on the power and influence of IPAB in the coming weeks.
When he was asked why he wanted to repeal the federal health care law, formally titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Romney quite correctly touched on rising insurance costs, and Medicare cuts, but it was his third response to moderator Jim Lehrer that really stood out.

EADS-BAE deal must limit foreign stakes to pass U.S. muster
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON | Sun Oct 7, 2012 4:05pm EDT
(Reuters) - BAE Systems insists there is "no magic number" for French and German government shares in a possible merger with EADS, but U.S. experts say anything over 10 percent could ruin the chances of winning approval from U.S. regulators.
Britain has told France and Germany repeatedly that their respective holdings in the merged firm should not exceed 10 percent, according to several sources familiar with the process.

The Latino Vote: population flourishes
but electoral sea change is yet to come
The first in a collaboration with USC Annenberg looking at election issues affecting Hispanic communities across the US
By Ed Pilkington and Amanda Michel in New York - Guardian.co.uk
Across America an electoral giant is stirring. The country's growing Latino population – projected to be almost a third of the US population by 2050 – is changing the demographic face of the nation, with potentially huge political consequences.
Since 1986 it has more than tripled from 7.5 million to 23.7 million this year.
Several of the key battleground states that are likely to determine the result of the presidential election on 6 November have large Hispanic populations. In Florida, the quintessential swing state, there are 2.1million eligible Latino voters, one in six of the electorate.

Presidential Rope-a-Dope (but Who's the Dope?)
By Clive Crook - TheAtlantic.com
Last week my Atlantic colleague Bob Wright said he was expecting an imminent swerve in the narrativeabout Romney's prospects, not because of any actual developments but because the media couldn't tolerate an unchanging story. I got a preview of his post last week when visiting Princeton, where Bob lives. According to tradition, he said, this deviation would need three elements. As I recall he had only two when we spoke but his post the next day went one better and offered four: Romney's previously undiscovered sense of humor (check); foreign-policy switcheroo (in progress); Obama loses his mojo (check); and Romney's surprising talent as a debater (check).

Updated election forecasting model still points to Romney win, University of Colorado study says
Colorado.edu
An update to an election forecasting model announced by two University of Colorado professors in August continues to project that Mitt Romney will win the 2012 presidential election.
According to their updated analysis, Romney is projected to receive 330 of the total 538 Electoral College votes. President Barack Obama is expected to receive 208 votes -- down five votes from their initial prediction -- and short of the 270 needed to win.
The new forecast by political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver is based on more recent economic data than their original Aug. 22 prediction. The model itself did not change.

Catholic leaders gather to counter decline of faith
France24.com
AFP - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday opened a meeting of Roman Catholic Church leaders from around the world to debate how to counter rising secularism on the 50th anniversary of the momentous Second Vatican Council.
The synod of 262 archbishops, bishops and other senior clerics heard a call from the pope for a "new evangelism" for the Catholic Church, which is fast losing followers in Europe and feels increasingly discriminated against in many parts of the world.

'Free-Market' Entitlements?
Peter Schiff & Sen. McCain Spar Over Medicare

Meningitis outbreak spreads in US
as number of confirmed infections hits 91
Seven dead after spinal injections traced to Massachusetts pharmacy that operated with little federal oversight
By Karen McVeigh in New York - Guardian.co.uk
The number of people who have contracted a rare and deadly form ofmeningitis from a contaminated steroid injection has almost doubled over the weekend, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A total of seven people have now died of the illness, two of them between Friday and Saturday.
Hospitals and clinics have been alerted to contact patients who have received a spinal injection made by the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Framingham, Massachusetts, to check them for possible symptoms of the illness. It is unclear how many could potentially be affected, but it could be thousands.

Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril
It could become illegal to resell your iPhone 4,
car or family antiques
By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch.com
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Tucked into the U.S. Supreme Court's agenda this fall is a little-known case that could upend your ability to resell everything from your grandmother's antique furniture to your iPhone 4.
At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products.

Why Apple wants to shrink the iPad
By Quentin Fottrell - MarketWatch.com
Experts say there's good reason why the late Steve Jobs warmed to the idea of a (slightly) smaller tablet.
It's been a year since Steve Jobs died, but one of his last legacies — the iPad mini — is reportedly working its way through development, and Apple watchers say it could be another game changer.
The late Apple CEO at one time hated the idea of a shrunken-down version of the tablet. But Jobs reportedly warmed to the idea he once scoffed was "dead on arrival" — and Asian suppliers for Apple have started mass production of a new tablet smaller than the current iPad, according to a report this month in The Wall Street Journal. In fact, some analysts say a mini-iPad could eventually outsell the original iPad. "We expect Apple to maintain the iconic aesthetics of the current iPad and blow away what competitors are offering in this smaller form-factor tablet market," says Brian White, an analyst with Topeka Capital Markets.

The mouse faces extinction as computer interaction evolves
By Ariana Eunjung Cha - WashingtonPost.com
SAN JOSE — Swipe, swipe, pinch-zoom. Fifth-grader Josephine Nguyen is researching the definition of an adverb on her iPad and her fingers are flying across the screen. Her 20 classmates are hunched over their own tablets doing the same.
Conspicuously absent from this modern scene of high-tech learning: a mouse.
Nguyen, who is 10, said she has used one before — once — but the clunky desktop computer/monitor/keyboard/mouse setup was too much for her.
"It was slow," she recalled, "and there were too many pieces."

Forum to discuss virtual ID system
By IAN BURRELL - Independent.co.uk
Further details of a "virtual identity" system being introduced by the Government will be announced next week when cyber experts gather for a conference in London.
Chris Ferguson, head of the Government Digital Service's Identity Assurance Programme, will discuss plans for reducing the threat of online identity theft at the RSA Conference Europe on Tuesday.
The scheme will allow users of public services to verify their identity by choosing from a range of providers – organisations such as the Post Office, banks, mobile phone companies, retailers and social networks. Later this month the initial list of Identity Providers will be announced by the Department of Work and Pensions for use in the roll-out of the Universal Credit System.

Lawmakers call Chinese telecom firm Huawei
a national security threat
By Elise Viebeck - TheHill.com
Top lawmakers are calling Chinese telecom firm Huawei a threat to national security and urging U.S. companies to avoid doing business with the manufacturer.
The warning came Sunday on "60 Minutes" ahead of the release of a congressional investigation into Huawei.
"If I were an American company today … and you are looking at Huawei, I would find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers' privacy, and you care about the national security of the United States of America," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) told CBS.

Energy crisis is going to be expensive...
and paid for by householders
When Ed Miliband published Labour's energy white paper in July 2009 he made it clear to Cabinet colleagues, and anyone else who was listening, that the priority was transforming Britain into a low carbon nation.
By Damian Reece - Telegraph.co.uk
The document said the threat to our security of supply was "low" and in response to that assessment this column wrote: "It might be today but by 2012, for instance, it could easily be much higher."
Today, Ofgem confirmed that the risk is indeed much higher and warned that the amount of spare generation capacity on the system could fall from 14pc to 4pc in 2015-16. In other words we have arrived at the "cliff face" Ofgem had previously identified, back in its 2009 Project Discovery analysis, about 18 months earlier than feared.

Giant Natural Gas Pipeline in Alaska Could Cost $65 Billion
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Back in January the Governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, set a deadline for the three energy giants who are developing a project to build a massive pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska, after he admitted to being fed up by the seemingly endless delays plaguing the project.
Officials from the three companies, ExxonMobil, BP, and Conoco Philips, recently wrote a letter to Governor Parnell to report that good progress has been made on the project, but that "significant environmental, regulatory, engineering and commercial work still remains to reach upcoming decisions to bring North Slope gas to market."

Gore wades into British Antarctic row
Former US vice-president joins scientists in battle over controversial merger plans
By PAUL BIGNELL - Independent.co.uk
Al Gore, former US vice-president and perhaps the world's best-known environmental activist, last week waded into a row over the fate of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), one of the UK's most distinguished scientific operations.
Controversial plans to merge the BAS and the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), to save money, were revealed by this paper in April. Since then, scientists and politicians have said the move could seriously compromise scientific work in the Antarctic and weaken the British presence in the region.

Rio bets it can become Brazil's Silicon Beach
By Anna Irrera
RIO DE JANEIRO | Fri Oct 5, 2012 12:46pm EDT
(Reuters) - For years, Rio de Janeiro's bohemian neighborhood of Lapa has been a hotspot for people seeking samba shows and late night partying. But recently, the area has also started hosting a different kind of crowd.
Once every two months, Lapa becomes home to "Geeks on Beer," a happy hour networking event for tech entrepreneurs and investors. The meet-up includes a session of speed-networking, a round robin of meetings during which 15 startups have five minutes to woo investors into setting up another encounter.

How Brazil Can Create Jobs for the U.S.
While our middle class recovers slowly, millions of consumers in Brazil (and China and India...) are clamoring for American products ... if only American businesses would sell to them
By David Rohde - TheAtlantic.com
VITORIA DE SANTO ANTAO, Brazil - Last year, Kraft built a gleaming new factory on the outskirts of this town in northeastern Brazil. When I visited it last month, my heart sank.
The state-of-the art, $80 million facility seemed to be yet another example of the inevitable shift of jobs from a declining America to emerging powers like Brazil, China and India.
When I looked closer, though, it was clear that the globalized economy at work here is not a zero-sum game. There are opportunities for Americans as well. We simply need to let Europeans teach us how to seize them.

Free Domain Radio's Stefan Molyneux
on the Inevitable Growth of the State
"Even if we did achieve what we wanted with a very small state, we'd just be resetting the clock back to 1776 and it would roll forward exactly the same way again," says Free Domain Radio's Stefan Molyneux.
Reason magazine's Matt Welch sat down with Molyneux at FreedomFest 2012 and discussed why he thinks the libertarian ideal of a small state will inevitably grow, and why the absence of any form of the state is the only answer.
"If you look at America, which was the experiment of the smallest conceivable government, what grows out of that is the largest government the world has ever seen," says Molyneux.

Israeli air force shoots down drone over south of country
Reports suggest unmanned aircraft was for intelligence gathering and did not come from Gaza Strip
By Cass Jones - Guardian.co.uk
The Israeli air force has shot down a drone after it entered the south of the country, the military has confirmed.
Troops are searching for the remains of the unmanned aircraft after it was intercepted and brought down over the Negev desert on Saturday morning.
It was not clear where it came from although local reports suggested that it did not depart from the Gaza Strip.
The drone was spotted above the Mediterranean Sea in the area of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said a military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich.

Israel eyes Lebanon after drone downed
By Guy Azriel, CNN.com
Jerusalem (CNN) -- Israeli military experts Sunday worked around the clock to examine the remains of a mysterious drone that was shot down after penetrating Israeli airspace from the Mediterranean Sea.
The Israeli military announced Saturday that the unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down over the northern Negev Desert. They say the drone did not take off from Gaza, leading them to consider the possibility that it originated in Lebanon.
Israeli security experts point the finger at Israel's longstanding rival Hezbollah, the Shiite militia based in southern Lebanon.

TALIBAN THREATENS TO BOMB CODE PINK DEMONSTRATION IN PAKISTAN AGAINST U.S. DRONE STRIKES
by Erica Ritz
(TheBlaze/AP) — About three dozen American anti-war activists are headed toward Pakistan's militant-riddled tribal belt to protest U.S. drone strikes, but a faction of the Taliban has warned that suicide bombers will prevent their demonstration.
The anti-war activists– many of whom are from the far left women's organization Code Pink– are reportedly joined by thousands of Pakistanis in their march, and their motorcade is being led by ex-cricket star turned politician Imran Khan. Militants have dismissed Khan as a mere tool of the West despite his condemnation of the drone strikes, which have killed many Islamist insurgent leaders.

Libya, Syria and Gazproms Declining Influence in Europe
By Editorial Dept - OilPrice.com
In this week's weekly recap we look at what is happening in Syria, how it differs from Libya, and recap the situation Gazprom now finds itself in thanks to the US shale gas boom and the fracking revolution.
The level of US intervention in a conflict is almost always determined by oil and gas. The US is not getting involved in Syria, other than through back channels, precisely because Syria has little in the way of oil resources, and what it does has is the purview of France's Total. Thus, France has been the most vocal about intervention in Syria; it has assets to protect. This is also why any governments who wish to help the Syrian rebel cause are funneling money through France. Herein lays the main difference between Syria and Libya, which is rich with oil and thus was ripe for fast intervention. It is also why Italy was the first to light the fuse in Libya—to protect its ENI assets.

Saudis line up against Syria's Assad
By Kevin Sullivan - WashingtonPost.com
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia — When King Abdullah announced a national fundraising drive to aid Syrian refugees in late July, Saudis quickly donated nearly $150 million.
Saudi national television hosted a telethon, with banks of men in traditional robes manning phone lines and computers. Donations came by text, by direct deposit into special bank accounts, or from families stuffing crumpled Riyal notes into collection boxes or donating their cars and even their watches.

Pakistani military blocks anti-drone convoy
from entering tribal region
Imran Khan says two-day convoy has been a success despite failing to reach intended destination
By Jon Boone in Dera Ismail Khan - Guardian.co.uk
Makeshift roadblocks, security threats and warnings from Pakistan's army forced Imran Khan to abandon his unprecedented attempt to lead a cavalcade of anti-drone protesters deep into the country's restive tribal belt on Sunday.
Leading a convoy of thousands, the former cricketer was within striking distance of South Waziristan, where the CIA uses remote-controlled planes in the fight against Islamist militants, when he abruptly turned back.
Later Khan said he had changed plan because of warnings from the army and the risk of becoming stuck after the military-imposed curfew.

'Turkey one step away from Syria war'
Turkey's parliament has authorized cross-border military operations into Syria 'when necessary' following a casual mortar-shelling incident on the Turkish-Syrian border.

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Friday 10.05.2012

Did Turkey Just Declare War On Syria?
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
The Turkish Parliament has "authorized military operations" against Syria. So exactly what does that mean? Did Turkey just declare war on Syria? For now, the government of Turkey is making a clear distinction between "military operations" and "declaring war". If Turkey were to "declare war", that would likely involve Turkish troops actually entering Syria, and the war would not be considered "won" until certain objectives are achieved. So by just authorizing "military operations" against Syria, Turkey can sit back and fire off artillery rounds (and potentially call in air strikes if necessary) without being committed to entering Syria or attacking Damascus. Turkey is not too keen on invading Syria by itself anyway. Turkey would want the help of NATO in such an event, and right now Barack Obama has made it abundantly clear to the Turkish government that he is not going to participate in an attack on Syria before the election.

Read more articles on MIddle East situation, below.

Gold Traders More Bullish as Holdings Reach Record:
Commodities
By Nicholas Larkin - Bloomberg.com
Gold traders are the most bullish in three weeks as investors' bullion holdings expanded to a record after central banks pledged to do more to spur economic growth.
Twenty of 32 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week, nine were bearish and three were neutral. Investors are holding the most metal ever through gold-backedexchange-traded products after buying 85.4 metric tons last month, the most since July 2011.Hedge funds' bets on a rally are the biggest in seven months, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.

So, Who's Been Bidding Gold Higher?
By: Adrian Ash - GoldSeek.com
GOLD was up, up and away in September. But who was doing the buying?
New data we released today here at BullionVault show that private households across Western Europe and the US continue to join the bull market. But their response to QE3 and the latest phase of the Eurozone crisis is more measured – you might even say complacent – than the recent price action alone suggests.

Gold Hits New High for the Year,
Breaching $1790 "Opens Up All Time Record"
By: Ben Traynor - GoldSeek.com
SPOT MARKET prices to buy gold climbed to $1794 an ounce ahead of Thursday's US session, a new 2012 high, while stock markets were broadly flat and US Treasury bonds fell ahead of the publication of minutes from the latest Federal Reserve policy meeting.
"We are watching for a break to the upside through $1790 resistance, which will then target the all-time nominal high [at around $1920 per ounce]," say technical analysts at Scotiabank.

Nick Barisheff: The Destruction Of Currency And Rise Of Gold
By Nick Barisheff - GoldSilverWorlds.com
Today's discussion is based on the primary trend that started at the beginning of this millennium. The fundamental shift that has been taking place since then was the creation of value through paper assets shifting in a gradual way to hard assets, primarily (but not only) gold and silver. Part of the current ongoing dollar devaluation is caused by this disparity between financial assets and gold. Nick Barisheff gave with these rounded numbers to create a high level picture of the scale of the paper asset market versus gold. The market for financial assets should be worth approximately $250 trillion. It includes mortgage bonds, equities, treasury bills and related financial instruments. It contains pure paper assets and does not include real estate or derivatives. Against that $250 trillion stands a nominal value of the gold market of around $4 trillion

Attention Gold, Silver investors:
Three key data releases for today
Commodity Online
Three data/information releases for today are expected to set the trend in gold and silver markets for the medium term. Here are they:

18.15 IST: ECB interest rate decision
19.00 IST: US initial jobless claims
19.00 IST: ECB press conference

The Only Way Out Is to Devalue
BY RICHARD RUSSELL - FinancialSense.com
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Mao Tse-Tung
The US national debt is now over $16 trillion — and growing at the rate of more than $1.2 trillion a year. This is clearly unsustainable. But how to cut the debt? One way is to cut entitlements, which are growing exponentially. Will they cut Medicare? Cut food stamps? Cut any entitlements at all? No politician would dare make extensive cuts in entitlements.
OK, then raise taxes sky high for everyone, and I mean for everyone. Are you kidding? If we raised everyone's taxes to the hilt, that still wouldn't solve the US's deficit problem. Furthermore, no politician would dare vote to raise taxes sky high!

Monetary Policy Can't Revive Economy
Monetary Mystification
By Joseph Stiglitz - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic took extraordinary monetary-policy measures in September: the long awaited "QE3" (the third dose of quantitative easing by the United States Federal Reserve), and the European Central Bank's announcement that it will purchase unlimited volumes of troubled eurozone members' government bonds. Markets responded euphorically, with stock prices in the US, for example, reaching post-recession highs.

QE3 was a sign of failure
We dodged Depression, but there's no recovery in sight
By Howard Gold
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a new round of unconventional monetary stimulus last month, he couched it in the language of grim necessity, saying:
"The employment situation… remains a grave concern…Fewer than half of the eight million jobs lost in the recession have been restored… Five million Americans have been unemployed for more than six months, and millions more have left the labor force—many of them doubtless because they have given up on finding suitable work."

Draghi Says Next Move Not His as Spain Resists Bailout
By Jeff Black and Gabi Thesing - Bloomberg.com
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi signaled European governments can't expect much more help from him until they make the next move.
Draghi said nine times during a 54-minute press conference in Slovenia yesterday that the ECB won't start intervening in bond markets until governments like Spain request a bailout and agree to conditions. He also ruled out allowing the ECB to take losses in any further Greek debt restructuring and damped speculation of another ECB interest-rate cut.

JPMorgan Suit May Worsen Next Crisis
By the Editors - Bloomberg.com
The economic damage wrought by a handful of financial firms has left the American public clamoring for a pound of flesh. This week, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman tried to satisfy that desire. He chose a curious first scalp.
Schneiderman, who is co-chairman of a state-federal mortgage-fraud task force created by President Barack Obama, hit JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) with a lawsuit alleging the kind of deceptive behavior all too common in the run-up to the financial crisis: creating and marketing defective mortgage-backed securities that blew up on investors. The conduct, however, took place not at JPMorgan but at Bear Stearns, the investment bank JPMorgan bought in a government-arranged sale as the financial crisis was unfolding.

Money market fund assets fell to $2.564 trillion
WashingtonExaminer.com
NEW YORK (AP) — Total U.S. money market mutual fund assets fell $11.64 billion to $2.564 trillion for the week that ended Wednesday, according to the Investment Company Institute.
Assets of the nation's retail money market mutual funds rose $2.49 billion to $889.81 billion, the Washington-based mutual fund trade group said Thursday. Assets of taxable money market funds in the retail category rose $660 million to $700.1 billion. Tax-exempt retail fund assets rose $1.83 billion to $189.71 billion.

China to Challenge US Dollar Reserve Currency Status
BY MARK O'BYRNE - FinancialSense.com
Today's AM fix was USD 1,786.50, EUR 1,380.92, and GBP 1,109.01 per ounce. Yesterday's AM fix was USD 1,777.25, EUR 1,374.73and GBP 1,102.38 per ounce.
Gold edged up $3.40 or 0.19% in New York yesterday which saw gold close at $1,778.50. Silver initially climbed to $34.848 then it fell off in afternoon trading and finished with a loss of 0.06%.
Gold inched up on Thursday, continuing its 4th day of gains as investors await more clues from central banks on further stimulus plans.

The Scourge of Central Banking
Dylan Grice on the Money Printers
BY PATER TENEBRARUM - FinancialSense.com
Yesterday Dylan Grice of Societe Generale published a brief piece on the debasement of money that has rightly garnered quite a bit of attention. Readers who have missed it can read a summary of the salient points at Zerohedge.
As we have mentioned in the past, Grice appears to be a 'closet Austrian'. He regularly advocates Austrian ideas and viewpoints, but we have never seen him identify them as such. Be that as it may, it is the ideas that count, not their label. It should perhaps also be pointed out in this context that people like Ludwig von Mises or Murray Rothbard did not see themselves as 'Austrian' economists either – rather they felt they were simply economists advancing the science of economics – albeit economists whose work was certainly firmly rooted in the subjectivist tradition of the Austrian school.

Money, Power and the Rule of Law
By Simon Johnson, New York Times
Economic policy is always torn between helping the broader social interest – lots of ordinary people – and favoring particular special interests. Unfortunately, special interests typically win out in the kind of situation we have in America in 2012, when it's all about spending money to win friends and influence people.
The most effective way to push back against powerful special interests is to have the same rules for everyone – and to enforce those rules fairly, even when they are broken by the richest and most politically connected people in the land. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York took a major step toward restoring the rule of law this week, by bringing a case against JPMorgan Chase. But it will be an uphill battle; the forces against him are incredibly strong, including some within the Obama administration.

Jobs Report May Mean More to Presidential Race Than Markets
By: JeeYeon Park - CNBC.com
Traders say Friday's jobs report may have more impact on the presidential race than the markets, though investors will still be watching closely.
Economists expect employers added 113,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate edged up to 8.2 percent from August's 8.1 percent, according to a Reuters survey. Friday's report will be the second-to-last before the November election.

The High Cost of Energy
is Leading the Economy into Recession
By Post Carbon - OilPrice.com
Energy is everything. Without energy literally nothing happens. It's easy to overlook the role of energy in the economy because we often just look at it as how much we spend on energy as a fraction of total GDP. But that really is misleading. Because if you take away energy, the GDP doesn't just contract by that percentage, the GDP disappears.
If suddenly there was no petrol at the pump; if suddenly the lights went out and did not come back on, the economy would go away. Energy is central to all economic activity. Up until the last couple of hundred years, the energy that we used was from renewable sources - it was almost entirely from the sun. But something changed with the Industrial Revolution. We developed the tools, the gears, the metallurgy, the simple heat engine, so that we could access and use the fuels that had been created by nature over tens of millions of years.

Giant Natural Gas Pipeline in Alaska Could Cost $65 Billion
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Back in January the Governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, set a deadline for the three energy giants who are developing a project to build a massive pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska, after he admitted to being fed up by the seemingly endless delays plaguing the project.
Officials from the three companies, ExxonMobil, BP, and Conoco Philips, recently wrote a letter to Governor Parnell to report that good progress has been made on the project, but that "significant environmental, regulatory, engineering and commercial work still remains to reach upcoming decisions to bring North Slope gas to market."

Classmate of both candidates stumped by debate outcome
By Mara Gay - TheDaily.com
The man who went to school with both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and predicted the president would "smoke" the Republican nominee says he is dumbfounded by Obama's poor showing in the first debate.
"I'm surprised. I was shocked, actually," Sidney Barthwell, a district court magistrate in Michigan who attended Cranbrook with Romney and Harvard Law School with Obama, told The Daily. "That was not the Barack Obama I've seen through the years. I'm thinking the man might have had the flu or something."

Was Obama rattled by developing donor scandal story?
By Paul Bedard - WashingtonExaminer.com
President Obama reelection campaign, rattled by his Wednesday night debate performance, could be in for even worse news. According to knowlegable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story.
Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.

16 Critical Economic Issues
That Obama And Romney Avoided During The Debate
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Did you watch the presidential debate on Wednesday night? It is absolutely amazing how they can have an hour and a half debate about the economy and say so little. It seemed like both candidates were falling all over each other wanting to talk about how much they value education, but will more education really solve our problems? After all, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25were either unemployed or underemployed in 2011. So perhaps they should just both agree that education is a good thing and start talking about how to create more jobs for all of us. If you want to grade the debate from a technical standpoint, clearly Romney was the winner of the debate. Romney was full of energy and was generally sharp with his answers. Obama looked like he had just popped a couple of antidepressants and was ready for nap time. As a result, this might have been the worst blowout in the history of presidential debates. A CNN/ORC International poll that was taken right after the debate found that 67 percent of all Americans that had watched the debate thought that Romney was the winner. Never before had any presidential candidate crossed the 60 percent mark in the history of their post-debate polling. So Romney definitely had a big night. But the reality is that both candidates were telling the American people what they want to hear.

Presidential debate: Obama,
Romney harden partisan battle lines
By ALEXANDER BURNS | Politico.com
DENVER – President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney deepened the ideological battle lines of the 2012 campaign at the first general-election debate, underscoring their stark differences on issues of taxation, job creation, debt reduction and entitlement reform.
The two presidential nominees met face to face for the first time at the University of Denver, where both men quickly embraced the big-picture contrast that has defined the 2012 race.

Nielsen: 67.2 million watched debate
By Dylan Byers - Politico.com
An estimated 67.2 million people watched the presidential debate last night, according to Nielsen.
The total viewership, which includes 12 networks, was a 28 percent increase over the first presidential debate in 2008 between then-Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, which drew 52.4 million viewers. 63.2 million watched Obama and McCain's second debate; 56.5 million watched their third.

The First Presidential Debate: Style vs. Substance
By Robert Reich - Truthdig.com
In Wednesday night's debate, Romney won on style while Obama won on substance. Romney sounded as if he had conviction, which means he's either convinced himself that the lies he tells are true or he's a fabulous actor.
But what struck me most was how much Obama allowed Romney to get away with: Five times Romney accused Obama of raiding Medicare of $716 billion, which is a complete fabrication. Obama never mentioned the regressiveness of Romney's budget plan — awarding the rich and hurting the middle class and the poor. He never mentioned Bain Capital, or Romney's 47 percent talk, or Romney's "carried-interest" tax loophole. Obama allowed Romney to talk about replacing Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act without demanding that Romney be specific about what he'd replace and why. And so on.

Romney's Third Down Conversion
In which his debate performance was so strong that the author resorts to football clichés.
By MATT PURPLE - Spectator.org
After the debate last night, I clicked over to MSNBC where I was treated to an intriguing sight: Chris Matthews having an aneurysm live on the air. Here's a rough transcript from my notes:
"Well this wasn't an MSNBC debate was it! … Obama adored the debate rather than participate in it! … Romney wrote off half the country! … You know where we're having a debate?! Here!! On this network!!!! … What was Romney doing tonight?! HE WAS WINNING!!! … OBAMA SHOULD WATCH MSNBC!! HE WILL LEARN SOMETHING EVERY NIGHT ON THIS SHOW!!!"

Debate was Americans' first glimpse
of Romney the overachiever
By Philip Klein - WashingtonExaminer.com
Throughout his career, Mitt Romney has been an overachiever. Yet that side of Romney has been largely absent throughout the presidential campaign. During the general election especially, Americans have seen a Romney who has looked awkward and overly cautious. He gave a pedestrian convention speech and seemed to lack a clear strategy for winning the campaign. This Romney was difficult to reconcile with the biography of somebody who has been tremendously successful at most things he's tried.

Biden: Obama looked 'presidential,' did 'well' against Romney
By Daniel Strauss - TheHill.com
Vice President Biden on Thursday defended President Obama's debate performance, praising Obama for doing "well" and looking "presidential."
"I think the president did well. He was presidential," Biden said just before he gave a campaign speech in Council Bluffs, Iowa. "You just don't ever know what game, what positions Gov. [Mitt] Romney's going to come with."
The vice president's defense comes as pundits on both sides of the aisle are panning Obama's performance in Wednesday night's first presidential debate, in Denver, saying the president looked subdued and tired.

Mitt Romney: Third Party Candidate
By Bill Boyarsky - Truthdig.com
Massachusetts Mitt is back. The right-winger of the Republican primaries is gone. Forget everything Mitt Romney has said in the past. In Wednesday night's debate, he moved from the right to the center, where he needs to be in order to win the presidency.
Unfortunately, President Barack Obama let him get away with it in their debate at the University of Denver. He did challenge Romney on the heart and soul of the Republican candidate's campaign, a dismantling of the economic and social safety net and a tax plan that would reward the very rich and hurt the middle class, the working poor and the unemployed. But Obama failed to point out the inconsistencies between what Romney was saying in the debate and what he has been saying in his campaign. And the president failed to show outrage at the Romney tax plan. Instead, his manner was annoyingly cool.

Romney Brings 'A' Game to First Presidential Debate
by Tracy Bloom - Truthdig.com
Mitt Romney came prepared, Barack Obama looked like he didn't want to be there and Jim Lehrer probably wishes he hadn't agreed to moderate Wednesday night's presidential debate. That's the succinct summary of the first of three debates between the two men vying for the White House.
The debate, held in Denver, presented a key opportunity for Romney to redeem himself after his campaign experienced a series of gaffes and stumbles that left the Republican nominee down not just in the public's perception, but in the polls as well.

Romney campaign explains fuzzy green energy math
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA | Politico.com
Mitt Romney culled statistics from a small subset of loan guarantee recipients to come up with his claim Wednesday night that "about half" of the renewable energy companies backed by the Obama administration "have gone out of business."
As POLITICO and other fact-checkers quickly pointed out, Romney's numbers from the first presidential debate are not correct. Not even close.

Tough to Build on First Debate Win
Reagan, Bush Both Won Re-Election Despite Poor Showings in Initial Face-Offs, as Their Opponents Failed to Capitalize
By JANET HOOK - WSJ.com
Mitt Romney's widely praised performance in the first presidential debate gave his campaign a boost. History shows these kinds of gains, especially by a challenger, are often fleeting.
That was the experience of 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry, who turned in a strong performance in his first debate against President George W. Bush, but couldn't ride it to victory on Election Day. Similarly, President Ronald Reagan stumbled in his first 1984 debate with Democrat Walter Mondale, but recovered in the next debate and went on to win in a landslide.

AARP to Obama: Don't mention us again
By Joel Gehrke - WashingtonExaminer.com
President Obama invoked AARP to defend his health care law last night, prompting the influential group to release a statement telling him not to do that again.
"While we respect the rights of each campaign to make its case to voters, AARP has never consented to the use of its name by any candidate or political campaign," the group posted in a statement. "AARP is a nonpartisan organization and we do not endorse political candidates nor coordinate with any candidate or political party."

Obama, the day after, slams Romney's claims
By Jonathan Easley - TheHill.com
President Obama didn't repeat the mistake of his lackluster debate performance in his first post-debate appearance on Thursday, coming out swinging at Mitt Romney.
"We had our first debate last night," Obama said at an outdoor event at Sloan's Lake Park in Denver on Thursday. "When I got onto the stage I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney. But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country all year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy. The fellow onstage last night said he didn't know anything about that."

BIDEN ADMITS: 'YES WE DO' WANT TO RAISE TAXES $1T
by JOHN NOLTE - Breitbart.com
This is a huge gaffe on Vice President Joe Biden's part. Instead of using the dishonest language of "letting the Bush tax cuts expire," Biden finally comes straight out and tells the truth:
BIDEN: You know the phrase they always use? "Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars." Guess what? Yes we do, in one regard. We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bare the burden of all that money going to the super wealthy.
This is exactly what Mitt Romney was talking about during last night's debate with respect to "trickle-down government" and the promised Obama-tax increase that will will hit our biggest small businesses and cost the economy 700,000 jobs.

Politico Editor: Obama Was Too Busy Being President,
Didn't Have Time to Practice for Debate
By Scott Whitlock - newsBusters.org
Politico editor Jim VandeHei appeared on MSNBC, Thursday, to blame Barack Obama's poor debate performance on the burdens of the office. The journalist spun, "The President had to be the President, and had to be a candidate, and so he didn't have nearly as much prep time." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
VandeHei did not try and sugarcoat the debate performance itself, knocking the President for thinking he could "just walk on there, play it safe, and do well." But the former political reporter for the Washington Post journalist did offer this whopper about how the triumphant Mitt Romney would be treated going forward: "He has a week or two, I think, of probably pretty positive coverage." The liberal media giving Romney two weeks of positive coverage seems stunningly unlikely.

Liberals slam Obama on Social Security
By Alexander Bolton - TheHill.com
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday strongly criticized President Obama for not taking a more forceful stance on Social Security in the presidential campaign.
Sanders, founder of the Senate's Defending Social Security Caucus and a leading voice on the issue in the Senate Democratic caucus, said he was deeply concerned by Obama's effort to minimize differences between himself and Mitt Romney.

Wanna Get Away From Romney or Obama's America?
JetBlue Will Evacuate You
by Peter Z. Scheer - Truthdig.com
The airline is raffling off 1,000 free tickets to foreign destinations for sore losers who can't stand the idea of living under the other guy's rule.
They're calling it "election protection," and the tickets are for round-trip flights in case evacuees want to come back and give Obamacare or Medicare vouchers a try.

Facebook admits millions of accounts are fake
By MYFOX NEW YORK STAFF
Facebook's share price dipped below $20 on Thursday after reporting slowing growth and an admission of an alarming number of fake accounts.
In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the social media company said that as many as 83 million of its accounts are fake.
It also reported that as many as five percent of its active users have duplicate accounts.
Facebook members grew to 955 million this year.
It says 1.5 percent of its accounts are likely spam or accounts set up for other malicious activity. The fake accounts are concentrated in developing markets, according to the filing.
It also blames people who set up accounts for non-human entities, such as pets.
There are "inherent challenges" in measuring usage," the social network said.

William Koch Loses Bid to Reinstate Counterfeit Wine Suit
By Patricia Hurtado - Bloomberg.com
Billionaire collector William Koch lost his bid to reinstate a lawsuit against Christie's International Plc that claimed the auction house "induced" him to buy what he said was counterfeit wine.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan today upheld a 2011 ruling by U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones dismissing Koch's suit after finding that he waited too long to sue. The appeals court agreed that the statute of limitations had expired.

Why Is Germany Collecting Taxes for the Catholic Church?
How easy would it be for Berlin to forcibly tax all Germans and turn over their money to Rome, when it is already involved in tithe collection for state-recognized religions?
BY ANDREW MIILLER - TheTrumpet.com
The German Catholic Bishops Conference issued a decree in September warning that those Germans who opted out of paying the country's "church tax" would no longer be entitled to sacraments, religious burial or any part of parish life.
This "church tax" is a special tax collected in Germany and several other Western European nations that was introduced in the 19th century in compensation for the nationalization of religious property. All Germans who officially register as Catholics, Protestants or Jews on their tax documentation must pay a religious tax of 8 to 9 percent on their annual income tax bill.

National 'virtual ID card' scheme set for launch
(Is there anything that could possibly go wrong?)
Central online identity scheme 'will be a target for criminals'
By IAN BURRELL - The Independent
The Government will announce details this month of a controversial national identity scheme which will allow people to use their mobile phones and social media profiles as official identification documents for accessing public services.
People wishing to apply for services ranging from tax credits to fishing licences and passports will be asked to choose from a list of familiar online log-ins, including those they already use on social media sites, banks, and large retailers such as supermarkets, to prove their identity.

The Positive Power of Crisis
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
Only in crisis do human beings actually change anything.
If there is any demarcation with profound implications going forward, it isn't the line between the 1% and the 99% or the line dividing the Status Quo into two safely complicit ideological camps: it is the divide between those who squarely face the burden of knowing the present is unsustainable and those who flee into the comforts of denial. Those who accept the burden of knowing are part of the solution, those who cling to denial are part of the problem.
Those who accept the burden of knowing do not necessarily have answers, but they are alert to alternatives and potential solutions. Those in denial can only hope that reality can be buried for a while longer.

NRA endorses Romney,
calls him 'only hope' for firearms freedom
By Jonathan Easley - TheHill.com
The National Rifle Association (NRA) endorsed Mitt Romney for president late Thursday.
NRA Executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and NRA Political Victory Fund chairman Chris Cox will formally announce the endorsement at a Romney rally in Virginia later Thursday evening. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will also be on hand.

Hyperinflation Hits Iran; Monthly 70% Inflation Rate
BY MICHAEL SHEDLOCK - FinancialSense.com
The oil embargo against Iran has worked, assuming one defines "work" as a destruction of the Iranian riall which has fallen 33% in a week, 57% in three months and 75% in a year vs. the US dollar.
On Wednesday, the Tehran bazaar closed in turmoil and police used teargas and batons on demonstrators protesting the currency crisis.
Please consider Iran currency crisis sparks Tehran street clashes
Hundreds of demonstrators in the Iranian capital clashed with riot police on Wednesday, during protests against the crisis over the country's currency. Police used batons and teargas to try to disperse the crowds.

Saudi Arabia May Increase
the Price of Crude Oil Exported to Asia
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Reuters believes that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of crude oil, will increase its selling prices to Asia during the month of November.
The seasonal winter demand, as well as the return to operation of several Japanese crude oil refineries that had been shut-down have caused demand in Asia to increase; a point that the Middle East will take note of when it comes to setting their new official selling prices (OSPs).

Ruskies don't want to be at ground zero...
Russia said evacuating its personnel from base in Syria
Moscow pulls military staff and civilians out of Tartus, rebels claim
By ILAN BEN ZION - The Times of Israel
Russia was completing the withdrawal of its citizens and military personnel from its naval base in Syria, Saudi daily Al Watan reported on Sunday.
Free Syrian Army Major Maher al-Naimi told the paper that Russian and Cypriot ships docked at the port in order to evacuate the remaining Russian technicians as well as 52 of the 72 armored vehicles from the military installation.

US says Iran is jamming Western radio broadcasts
Tehran is blocking Voice of America,
Radio Free Europe, BBC, body claims
The Times of Israel
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government-appointed body that oversees Voice of America and other US-sponsored broadcasts is accusing Iran of jamming radio and television programming into the Middle East and eastern Europe amid protests in Iran over the Iranian currency crisis.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors said Thursday that the jamming is coming from inside Iran and violates international telecommunications regulations. It said the interference began on Wednesday and is affecting VOA's Persian service, along with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's and Farsi-language programming from Radio Farda. The jamming is also affecting the BBC, it said in a statement.

Former US defense secretary
lashes out at Israel, warns against military strike on Iran
Israel 'does not have a blank check to harm American interests,' says Robert Gates — who last year called the Jewish state an ungrateful ally
By SAM SER - TimeOfIsrael.com
The United States needs to tell Israel that it does not "have a blank check to take action that could do grave harm to American vital interests," according to former US defense secretary Robert Gates.
Gates, who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama from 2006 through 2011, was quoted by the Virginian-Pilot as warning against a military strike on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, saying it could "prove catastrophic."
Neither the United States nor Israel is capable of totally destroying Iran's nuclear program, Gates said, and any strike would ultimately backfire.

Turkish military fires into Syria, raising fears of regional conflagration
NATO, UN Security Council convene emergency meetings following deadly exchange of fire along Syrian-Turkish border
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY - The Times of Israel
BEIRUT (AP) — Turkish artillery fired on Syrian targets Wednesday after shelling from Syria struck a border village in Turkey, killing five civilians, sharply escalating tensions between the two neighbors and prompting NATO to convene an emergency meeting.
"Our armed forces at the border region responded to this atrocious attack with artillery fire on points in Syria that were detected with radar, in line with the rules of engagement," the Turkish government said in a statement from the prime minister's office.

Syria wanted Israeli help in securing border, report claims
Unconfirmed documents quoted by Al Arabiya purport to show Assad's air force intel chief telling officer to seek cooperation from Jerusalem
By TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF
Damascus reportedly sought Israel's cooperation in securing Syria's borders at the start of the bloody uprising that has rocked the country for the last year and a half, purported secret papers show.
The report by Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya was based on what it said are secret Syrian documents obtained from the Syrian opposition.
According to the papers, Syrian Air Force Intelligence chief Sakr Mennoun asked an officer to secure Syria's border with the Golan Heights "in cooperation with the state of Israel."

FORMER CIA OFFICIAL:
OBAMA 'OCTOBER SURPRISE' AIRSTRIKE IN LIBYA
'WOULD BE CRIMINAL'
by BEN SHAPIRO - Breitbart.com
This morning, Breitbart News spoke with a former senior CIA official with specific knowledge of the ongoing issues in Libya, who spelled out the risks associated with the Obama administration's rumored prospective airstrikes on targets in Libya. Two days ago, the New York Times reported that the administration was preparing an operation inside Libya, including the possibility of drone strikes. Breitbart News reported yesterday that a senior Department of Defense official said that the administration was advance planning for a "substantial air package" that could include manned flights.

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Thursday 10.04.2012

Medium to long term outlook for Gold remains bullish
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Medium to long term outlook for Gold remains Bullish, said Adrian Day, the president of Adrian Day Asset Management, although he would not be surprised by a short-term correction after a rally in the third quarter.
"August and September are traditionally strong months for gold, while there is usually a pullback in October, before resumption in November picking up at the end of the year," said the Fund manager.
"So such a price retreat in the immediate term will not cause too much concern, though we are taking some gains in the gold stocks before this correction. We fully expect new highs by early next year, if not this," Adrian added.

Gold inches up, long-term prospects seen promising
Services report comes in better than expected; volumes thin
By Claudia Assis and Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures found firmer footing on Wednesday, closing higher after a wobbly start to the day and a brief dip after a positive U.S. services report.
Gold for December delivery rose, to settle at $1,779.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices traded as high as $1,784 an ounce.

Silver - The People's Metal
BY RYAN JORDAN - FinancialSense.com
Why Silver?
Throughout Western history, silver has been at the center of the world economy, the driver of empires, and an asset that has probably cost just as much if not more blood and treasure to extract than gold. Today, as the world faces sobering realities ranging from debt crises to concerns about resource growth, silver is once again slowly coming onto people's radar screens, and for good reason.

Fed Confused Reality Doesn't Conform To Its Economic Models, Shocked Its Models Predict "Explosive Inflation"
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Below are several excerpts only the brains of those practicing the world's most useless profession (and we are very generous with that assessment) could possibly come up with, in attempting to explain the shocking outcome of reality continuously refusing to comply with their exhaustive and comprehensive Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DGSE - don't worry: it sounds complicated - it must be very serious and important, and be thus very credible and good at predicting stuff; it is neither) models.

No recovery until 2018, IMF warns
Fund's chief economist Olivier Blanchard says global economy will take a decade to recover from the financial crisis
By Phillip Inman - The Guardian
The International Monetary Fund's chief economist has warned that theglobal economy will take a decade to recover from the financial crisis as the latest snapshot of the UK economy suggested that growth in the third quarter will be at best anaemic.
Olivier Blanchard said he feared the eurozone crisis, debt problems in Japan and the US, and a slowdown in China meant that the world economy would not be in good shape until at least 2018. "It's not yet a lost decade," he said. "But it will surely take at least a decade from the beginning of the crisis for the world economy to get back to decent shape.

This Pattern Joins the Mounting Evidence for Recession 2013
BY DAVID ZEILER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
Don't worry about scanning headlines every day to determine the U.S. economy's chances of entering a recession in 2013.
We already know the answer.
Such indicators as gross domestic product (GDP), consumer spending, durable goods and exports all point to an economy not in a slow recovery, but on the verge of a 2013 recession.
That's because the trend lines, rather than showing gradual improvement, are moving in the opposite direction. The economy, after spending months with its head just barely above water, is about to go under.

The War Between Credit and Resources
BY GREGOR MACDONALD - FinancialSense.com
The Federal Reserve is probably not ready to take the aggressive plunge into Nominal GDP Targeting, but it likely will.
Such a policy, which received wider attention during Ben Bernanke's Congressional questioning last year and was also highlighted this year in a paper delivered at the Jackson Hole conference (Woodford, opens to PDF), has not caught any visible traction with Washington policy makers possibly because it's seen as either too radical, or simply too new.

Keiser Report: Debt Erasers (E348)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the nine scariest words in the English language - "I'm from JP Morgan and I'm here to help you." They also discuss deferred prosecution agreements and celebrities and bloggers shilling for banksters in California's mortgage contract-asset seizure market. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Jaromil about bitcoin as a digital charm bracelet and the revolution in accounting science - triple entry accounting.

The ECB - EUR22 Trillion Is Missing
by Mark J. Grant - ZeroHedge.com

"To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, but to imagine your facts is another." -John Burroughs

Yesterday I published the assets/liabilities of the European Central Bank as provided by them. I provided some analysis that I thought was relevant as I also asked all of you to look at the numbers yourself. To be quite open; I was stunned by the data they provided and shocked by the implications. I had not seen the data in any other source or commented about by anyone and the subject, while admittedly complex, and perhaps made more complex by design, is a huge wake-up call for anyone investing in Europe.
The ECB lists, as of the end of the 1st quarter of 2012, 16.304 trillion Euros ($ 21.032 trillion) in assets and 17.334 trillion Euros ($22.631 trillion) in liabilities.

Spain Denies Bailout Story, Gartman:
"Everyone Needs to Own Gold"
BY BEN TRAYNOR - FinancialSense.com
Spot market old prices rallied to $1781 per ounce ahead of Wednesday's US session, recovering from slight losses earlier in the day to stay in line with recent trading, while stock markets were broadly flat and the Euro reversed earlier gains, as analysts speculated on when and whether Spain will request a bailout.
Silver prices rose briefly above $34.90 an ounce before easing back, while other commodity prices fell and UK and German bonds gained.
"We do not, at this stage, believe that another significant up move [for gold], that is to say to the $1900 level, will be seen before further consolidation has occurred," says Axel Rudolph, senior technical analyst at Commerzbank.

Spain fears harsh rescue terms from AAA Nordic parliaments
Senior officials from Germany and other parts of the eurozone's AAA core have warned Spain privately that angry parliaments are likely to impose stringent conditions on any further rescue loans.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Fear of escalating demands by Germany, Finland and Holland is a key reason why Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy continues to drag his feet on a full sovereign bail-out.
Spain's refusal to act has frozen the eurozone rescue machinery and begun to rattle markets. The European Central Bank will not buy Spanish bonds until the country requests aid from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and signs a "Memorandum" giving up fiscal sovereignty.

Fiscal Confrontation
And The Declining Influence Of The United States
By Simon Johnson - BaselineScenario.com
It is axiomatic among most of our Washington elite that the United States cannot lose its preeminent global role, at least not in the foreseeable future. This assumption is implicit in all our economic policy discussions, including how politicians on both sides regard the leading international role of the United States dollar. In this view, the United States is likely to remain the world's financial safe haven for international investors, irrespective of what we say and do.

Reggie Middleton on Apple's "iBubble,"
and the JP Morgan/Bear Stearns Lawsuit

The Woman Who Took the Fall for JPMorgan Chase
By SUSAN DOMINUS - NYTimes.com
In February of 2011, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive officer ofJPMorgan Chase, approached the podium of one of the ballrooms at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Key Biscayne, Fla., where 300 senior executives from around the world were attending the bank's annual off-site conference. By that time, the cold fear of the financial crisis was cordoned off in the near-distant past, replaced by a dawning recognition that the ensuing changes in business — the comparatively trifling risk limits, the dwindling bonuses, the elevated stress levels — might actually be permanent. That day, Dimon took the opportunity, according to a bank employee in attendance, to try to inspire his team, to rouse them from the industrywide sense of malaise. Yes, there were challenges, Dimon said, but it was the job of leadership to be strong. They should be prudent, but step up — be bold. He looked out into the audience, where Ina Drew, the 54-year-old chief investment officer, was sitting at one of the tables. "Ina," he said, singling her out, "is bold."

Shorting U.S. Bonds Is Still Trade of the Decade
Still Short Bonds
By Doug Kass - TheStreet.com

"The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth." -- Jean de La Bruyère

I maintain the view that shorting the U.S. fixed-income market is still the trade of the decade.
And, despite the known headwinds of slowing domestic and non-U.S. economic growth and the threat of the fiscal cliff, I now believe that the potential exists for bonds to experience pricing pressure (and an increase in bond yields) over the near term.
This view runs counter to consensus expectations after the Fed has recently embarked on QE3 and to my skeptical view on its impact on the real U.S. economy but consider the following factors:

Taxmageddon Will Hit 88%, Spur Recession
By Merrill Goozner - FiscalTimes.com
If the lame duck Congress and President Obama drive over the fiscal cliff on New Year's eve without passing new tax legislation or extending a host of expiring tax breaks, the average American household would get slapped with a $3,500 tax hike next year, according to a new analysis from the Tax Policy Center. Nearly 7 out of every 8 households will pay higher taxes.
Allowing the tax breaks to expire would theoretically raise $536 billion for the federal government next year, the analysis said, which is sharply higher than Congressional Budget Office projections that only looked at the fiscal year that began Monday. However, most economists believe a fiscal shock of that magnitude would immediately throw the economy into recession, which would sharply reduce actual collections.

Big firms that avoid taxes are moochers, small companies say
By Jose Pagliery - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- When big companies offshore profits to dodge taxes, small business owners say they are left footing the bill -- and they're not happy about it.
A U.S. Senate panel recently reviewed how Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard shaved billions off their taxes in recent years by moving profits offshore.
Microsoft avoided paying nearly $7 billion by transferring almost half of its U.S. revenue to a subsidiary in Puerto Rico and moving patents to foreign subsidiaries.

Romney signals limits on tax breaks
By Jeanne Sahadi - Money.CNN.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- With just a month to go before Election Day, Mitt Romney has finally started to talk about more specific ways he could pay for his proposed tax cuts.
In an interview with a Denver TV station earlier this week, Romney offered what a campaign spokeswoman called an "illustrative example" for how to help pay for his plan, which would slash income tax rates by 20%.
Romney said limits could be put on how much a tax filer claims initemized deductions. "As an option, you could say everybody's going to get up to a $17,000 deduction. ... And higher income people might have a lower number."

Gerald Celente - Goldseek Radio - September 28, 2012

Wake Up America,
We Are Being Distracted
From the Real Issues by MSM Lackeys
By Graham Summers - ZeroHedge.com
It's time to wake up, America.
The mainstream media is attempting once again to draw the public's opinion towards issues that are ultimately fringe issues that impact a small percentage of us in order to ignore the large-scale major issues that affect all of us.
When I saw mainstream media, I am referring to any major media outlet, including satirical quasi-political shows such as the Daily Show. All of these shows, op-eds, media appearances are in fact one colossal game meant to draw our attention away from what matters to items that don't really matter all that much.

Fed Policy Is Working - Moral Hazard Is Back
BY JOHN RUBINO - FinancialSense.com
A near-death experience isn't something one gets over right away. So it's no surprise that the US leveraged speculating community was a tad more cautious than usual for a while. Real estate investors, for instance, still bought houses, but only on very favorable terms where rental income would clearly exceed expenses. And investment banks still repackaged loans into asset backed securities, but on a very small scale, since there weren't that many willing/able buyers for exotica that was "toxic" so recently.

Can Money Buy Jobs? Central Bankers Think So
By SUZANNE MCGEE, The Fiscal Times
The unprecedented action initiated by the Federal Reserve last month – its open-ended third round of quantitative easing – has been highly controversial in many quarters. So much so that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke tackled the issue head-on at the Economic Club of Indiana yesterday.
In a speech titled "Five Questions about the Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy," Bernanke tried to counter claims that the Fed's commitment to low interest rates means that the federal government gets to borrow more cheaply and rack up an even higher level of debt, or that the Fed is "monetizing" that debt through its securities purchases. "Using monetary policy to try to influence the political debate on the budget would be highly inappropriate," Bernanke told his audience. (He added that it also probably wouldn't work.)

Romney lands punches against subdued Obama in first debate
By Cameron Joseph - TheHill.com
Mitt Romney came out firing on President Obama in the opening minutes of the presidential debate, drawing sharp contrasts with the president's economic plan and accusing him of misleading the public on Romney's own plan.
Romney peppered his attacks with memorable phrases, claiming Obama's policies were "trickle-down government" and that the president was instituting an "economy tax" on the middle class.

First Presidential Debate:
Questions That are Unlikely to Be Asked
By Robert Reich - Truthdig.com
Governor Romney: You've said that you have used every legal method to reduce your tax liability. You've also said that as president you would close tax loopholes in order to help finance a major across-the-board tax cut. What specific tax loopholes have you used that you would close? A followup: Would you close the loophole that allows private-equity managers to treat their income as capital gains, subject to a 15 percent tax, even when they risk no capital of their own?
President Obama: You have spoken eloquently of the need to reduce the influence of big money in politics. What specific measures will you advance if you are reelected to accomplish this goal?

Romney tells Obama: 'I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut'
By Bernie Becker - TheHill.com
Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee, stressed at Wednesday's debate that his tax plan would not add to the deficit or hit the middle class after facing repeated claims to the contrary from President Obama.
The former Massachusetts governor maintained that he would pay for his plan to cut tax rates by ending tax preferences for the highest earners, and said that under no circumstances would he increase the tax burden on the middle class.

Romney Floats a Cap on Tax Breaks...Is It for Real?
By JOSH BOAK, The Fiscal Times
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney finally dangled some possible specifics about how he could slash all marginal tax rates by 20 percent and not blow-up the deficit—cap deductions at $17,000.
Tax policy experts will suss out competing models of how this idea to broaden the base would impact government revenues and deficits that have pushed the outstanding national debt to the size of the $16 trillion U.S. gross domestic product.

Mitt Romney plan leaves 72M uninsured
By BRETT NORMAN | Politico.com
Mitt Romney's health care plan wouldn't just insure fewer people than "Obamacare" — it would make the uninsured problem worse than it would have been if the law had never passed, according to a comparison of the two plans by a research group with a history of pro-"Obamacare" studies.
The analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based health care research foundation, found that under Romney's health care plan, the uninsured population would soar to 72 million by 2022 — 12 million higher than if nothing had been done at all.

Obama: Seniors at 'mercy of insurance companies'
under Romney's plan
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
President Obama hit Mitt Romney's Medicare plan hard during Wednesday night's debate, arguing that seniors would be "stuck" with private insurance.
Romney, as he has throughout the campaign, sought to set the initial terms of the Medicare debate by attacking Obama for cuts included in his healthcare law.
"I can't understand how you can cut Medicare $716 billion for current recipients," Romney said of the health law's cuts.

15-member 'board' mentioned in debates... pay attention!
Rolling Back the Obamacare Banana Republic
By Michelle Malkin - Creators.com
A rising chorus of repeal-mongers, outraged at the Obama administration's federal health care power grab, took over Washington this week. Nope, it's not the tea party. It's Democrats Against the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). Yes, Democrats.
What's IPAB? A Beltway acronym for subverting the deliberative process.
The 15-member panel of government-appointed bureaucrats was slipped into Section 3403 of the Obamacare law against the objection of more than 100 House members on both sides of the aisle. IPAB's experts would wield unprecedented authority over Medicare spending — and in time, over an expanding jurisdiction of private health care payment rates — behind closed doors.

Obama's Electoral College Ph.D.
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Truthdig.com
If we elected the president by popular vote, we would have heard some different spin going into the debates. With the presidential election looking closer in the national polls than it does in the swing states, the pressure on Mitt Romney from his party and the pundits alike would have been rather less demanding.
In one sense, this is surprising. Our antiquated Electoral College actually gives Republicans an advantage. By guaranteeing every state three electors regardless of population, the system offers outsized influence to smaller, mostly Republican rural states.

Why is Obama Winning?
By Harold James - Project-Syndicate.org
PRINCETON – James Carville, Bill Clinton's chief campaign strategist in 1992, famously expressed a bit of established insider wisdom about winning elections: "It's the economy, stupid." Incumbents win if the economic outlook is rosy, and are vulnerable – as George H. W. Bush was – when times are hard. Indeed, throughout Europe – in France, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom – governments have been turned out of office in the face of a crisis that they have seemed unable to address.
By this standard, President Barack Obama should now be in a hopeless situation. According to United States Census data, household income fell in 2011for the fourth consecutive year. Unemployment remains persistently high, despite the $787 billion stimulus package in 2009, and house prices, though recovering slowly, remain far below their pre-2008 peak.

POLL: 85% OF MIDDLE CLASS SAY
THEY'RE WORSE OFF THAN 10 YEARS AGO
by BEN SHAPIRO - Breitbart.com
Barack Obama portrays himself as the great defender of the middle class. But the American public seems to agree with Vice President Joe Biden that under Obama's watch, the middle class has been "buried." According to a new poll, 85 percent of self-described middle class people say it's tougher now than it was 10 years ago for middle class people simply to maintain their standard of living. 62 percent of those people say blame lies largely with Congress; another 54 percent blame banks; 47 percent blame corporations; 44 percent blame Bush; 39 percent blame foreign competition. Surprisingly, just 34 percent blame the Obama administration.

ISM Shows Higher Prices, Slower Employment Growth
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
The Institute for Supply Management, or the ISM, managed to show that the nonmanufacturing sector posted its 33rd consecutive month of growth. The ISM's Report on Business showed a reading of 55.1% for the month of September. This is above the 53.7% recorded in August and above expectations. Dow Jones was calling for only 53.1% and Bloomberg was calling for 53.1%.
The Business Activity Index came in at 59.9%, 4.3 percentage points higher than the 55.6% reported in August. The New Orders Index came in at 57.7%, an increase of 4 percentage points from August.

U.S. economy may be nipping at apartment sector
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK | Wed Oct 3, 2012 12:22am EDT
(Reuters) - The U.S. apartment sector posted its smallest vacancy decline in nearly two years, raising the possibility that the strongest commercial real estate category may be succumbing to the sluggish economy, according to real estate research firm Reis Inc.
For nearly two years apartment landlords have been able to boost rents and fill their buildings as Americans, either burned by the housing bust or unable to get a mortgage, turned to renting instead of owning a home.

How the Fiscal Cliff Could Kill the Housing Recovery
By BRIANNA EHLEY - FiscalTimes.com
Just when it looked like the much-battered housing market was making a comeback, industry home-sale monitor Clear Capital predicts that the market will begin to lose its momentum if Congress does nothing to avert the fiscal cliff, according to a report by The Oregonian's Elliot Njus.
"Confidence is key to turning the recovery's near term sprint into a marathon," Alex Villacorta, Clear Capital's director of research, told the newspaper. "The sooner businesses and consumers are reassured, the more likely they are to build, purchase, or loan on a house." And by reassured, he means hearing from congressional leaders and the White House that the economy won't get clobbered by a mix of $607 billion in tax increases and spending cuts in early January.

A Nation of Takers? Behind the Entitlement Explosion
By MERRILL GOOZNER, The Fiscal Times
At some point in tonight's debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney will be asked about his views on the 47 percent – the beneficiaries of government programs he dismissed as potential supporters during a private talk to wealthy campaign donors during the spring primary season.
As he has done many times since those surreptitiously recorded comments became public, he will express empathy for those who need a helping hand. But he will probably also defend the basic belief behind the comments: that America cannot thrive if it continues down the path toward becoming an "entitlement society," where a growing share of the population depends on government largesse.

Ferrari seized in food stamp fraud case
(Reuters) - Federal investigators uncovered two grocery store owners who trafficked in more than $1 million in food stamps apiece and seized four luxury cars, including a Ferrari, from one of them, the Agriculture Department's watchdog agency said on Wednesday.
In Lake Charles, Louisiana, the owner of two grocery stores was ordered to pay more than $1.7 million in restitution and was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison after trading food stamps for cash and other goods, the department's inspector general said in a report.

TSA to install molecular body scanners
TSA is introducing the new full body scanner system to the American airports. The scanners will be capable of detecting every tiny trace of any substance of your body to find gunpowder or any bomb making materials. However the devices can also trace the level of adrenaline in the body. RT's Kristine Frazao has more on the subject.

Stocks Up, Bonds Up, USD Up, Gold Up; Oil Plungapalooza
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
It wouldn't be the new normal markets if something freaky did not happen. WTI crude was crushed lower (back under $88) and now down almost 10% from pre-QEternity on supply build (totally ignoring the Iran and Syria-Turkey SNAFUs). HPQ stunned investors back to reality and fell 13% to nine-year lows. AAPL did it again - same 310ET time, same velocity of liftathon - which dragged indices up off what could have been a red close. Equities entirely disengaged from risk-assets soon after the US equity open this morning and never looked back as Treasury yields pushed higher into the open and slid lower all day, the USD rose quietly all day long, and gold drifted sideways to modestly higher on the day. VIX limped lower on the day but on the week stocks are up around 1%, Treasury yields down 1-2bps, USD unchanged, and gold/silver marginally higher (with WTI -4.6%). Healthcare and Financials are up around 1.75% on the week with Materials and Energy down 0.6%. Gold and Stocks are recoupled.

Latest Cyber-Attack Disrupts Iran's Internet Access
By Charles Kennedy - OilPrice.com
Iran has been the target of a number of cyber-attacks this year, and even though it increased the level of its cyber security following the Stuxnet virus in 2010, which successfully attacked and disrupted the centrifuges at a uranium enrichment facility, the occasional worm does get through and cause havoc.
On Wednesday Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi, secretary of the High Council of Cyberspace, told the Iranian Labour News Agency that a new cyber-attack had effectively targeted Iran's infrastructure and communications companies, severely disrupting the internet across the whole country.

Earth's magnetic field overdue
for a chaos-causing (possibly life-altering) flip
By Chris Wickham, Reuters - NationalPost.com
LONDON — The discovery by NASA rover Curiosity of evidence that water once flowed on Mars – the most Earth-like planet in the solar system – should intensify interest in what the future could hold for mankind.
The only thing stopping Earth having a lifeless environment like Mars is the magnetic field that shields us from deadly solar radiation and helps some animals migrate, and it may be a lot more fragile and febrile than one might think.
Scientists say earth's magnetic field is weakening and could all but disappear in as little as 500 years as a precursor to flipping upside down.

Why Oil Prices Are Entering a "New Normal"
BY DR. KENT MOORS, Global Energy Strategist, Money Morning
One of the things I have learned from almost four decades of doing this is that oil and gas specialists know a great deal about what they do for a living.
However, few of these specialists really understand enough about what the person to the right or left of them does. This tends to breed tunnel vision.
And these days it has become a serious problem.
That's because what is now hitting the oil and gas markets requires a more expansive and integrative understanding of what is actually taking place.
The truth is energy markets are evolving.
We are entering a period in energy and oil prices that I have begun calling the "New Normal."

Alert! Petrodollar Threat, On The Edge Of Global War.
By Gregory Mannarino

The Devastating Economic Impact
of Constantly High Oil Prices
By Gail Tverberg - 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.
He looks at a variety of data to come to this conclusion: Fuel economy of cars sold in since October 2007; longer term vehicle miles travelled; monthly car and light truck sales since 2006; and consumer sentiment by month.
I don't agree with Hamilton's analysis. As I see it, increasingly high oil prices weaken an economy because they reduce discretionary spending and indirectly cause people to be laid-off from work. They have many other adverse effects as well–they tend to raise food prices, with similar effect. The laid-off workers require unemployment compensation payments, and the same time they are contributing less tax revenue. All of this creates a huge imbalance between revenue collected by governments and expenditures paid out. If oil prices rise again, it will tend to make the imbalance worse.

$1 billion dollar project underway to drill into Earth's mantle
TheExtinctionProtocol.wordpress.com
October 2, 2012 – EARTH - Humans have reached the moon and are planning to return samples from Mars, but when it comes to exploring the land deep beneath our feet, we have only scratched the surface of our planet. This may be about to change with a $1 billion mission to drill 6 km (3.7 miles) beneath the seafloor to reach the Earth's mantle — a 3000 km-thick layer of slowly deforming rock between the crust and the core which makes up the majority of our planet — and bring back the first ever fresh samples. It could help answer some of our biggest questions about the origins and evolution of Earth itself, with almost all of the sea floor and continents that make up the Earth´s surface originating from the mantle. Geologists involved in the project are already comparing it to the Apollo Moon missions in terms of the value of the samples it could yield. However, in order to reach those samples, the team of international scientists must first find a way to grind their way through ultra-hard rocks with 10 km-long (6.2 miles) drill pipes — a technical challenge that one of the project co-leaders Damon Teagle, from the UK's University of Southampton calls, "the most challenging endeavor in the history of Earth science." 'A ship flying in space:' Earth seen through the eyes of an astronaut. "It will be the equivalent of dangling a steel string the width of a human hair in the deep end of a swimming pool and inserting it into a thimble 1/10 mm wide. Their task will be all the more difficult for being conducted out in the middle of the ocean.

OCTOBER SURPRISE:
OBAMA PLANS MAJOR AIRSTRIKE ON LIBYAN TARGETS
by BEN SHAPIRO - Breitbart.com
Today, a Defense Department official confirmed to Breitbart News that there is advance planning for a "substantial air package" against targets in Libya. Military sources suggest that this means that flight missions against Libyan targets will include manned flights, not merely drones.
The New York Times reported yesterday that the Obama administration is preparing an operation to "kill or capture militants" involved in the Benghazi attack resulting in the murder of our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. According to the Times, the Joint Special Operations Command is putting together "so-called target packages of detailed information about the suspects." These files are a coordinated project with the CIA and the Pentagon.

NATO calls Syria's attack into Turkey
a 'flagrant breach' of international law
By Carlo Muñoz - TheHill.com
NATO members convened an emergency meeting of alliance leaders on Wednesday in an attempt to pull Turkey from the brink of war with neighboring Syria.
Ankara demanded the NATO sit-down after Syrian troops shelled targets in neighboring Turkey with Ankara responding with their own bombardment inside Syria, across the countries' shared border, according to recent news reports.

Russia warns NATO to stay away from Syria
Moscow sends message to West, Gulf Arabs not to intervene militarily in Syria; report: Assad tours Aleppo, orders city "cleansed."
By REUTERS - JPost.com
MOSCOW - Russia told NATO and world powers on Tuesday they should not seek ways to intervene in the Syrian war or set up buffer zones between rebels and government forces.
The statements from Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was one of Moscow's most specific warnings yet to the West and Gulf Arab leaders to keep out of the 18-month-old conflict.
"In our contacts with partners in NATO and in the region, we are calling on them not to seek pretexts for carrying out a military scenario or to introduce initiatives such as humanitarian corridors or buffer zones," Gatilov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Turkey strikes back at Syria after mortar kills five
By Seyhmus Cakan and Kadir Celikcan - FiscalTimes.com
AKCAKALE, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkish artillery hit targets inside Syria on Wednesday after a mortar bomb fired from Syrian territory killed five Turkish civilians, while NATO called for an immediate end to Syria's "aggressive acts".
In the most serious cross-border escalation of the 18-month uprising in Syria, Turkey hit back at what it called "the last straw" when a mortar hit a residential neighborhood of the southern border town of Akcakale.
NATO said it stood by member-nation Turkey and urged Syria to put an end to "flagrant violations of international law".

Israel versus America versus Iran
By Shlomo Ben-Ami - Project-Syndicate.org
TEL AVIV – Israel's concern about the specter of a nuclear Iran has now degenerated into a crisis of confidence concerning the United States. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has embarked on a campaign to force President Barack Obama to set a red line that Iran must not cross, lest it risk unleashing an American military response. Implicit threats of a unilateral Israeli attack, together with conspicuous meddling in the US presidential election campaign, have compounded Netanyahu's effort to twist Obama's arm.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Israel - Iran Conflict
is Not About Nukes, but Water!

'Psychological war' behind Iran's economic problems,
Ahmadinejad says as currency hits record low
By Yeganeh Torbati and Marcus George, Reuters - NationalPost.com
DUBAI — The Iranian currency fell to a record low on Tuesday as the Islamic republic struggles under the impact of Western economic sanctions and nervous citizens rushed to change their savings into hard currency.
The Iranian government blamed speculators for the rial's collapse and ordered the security services to take action against them.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected criticism of his policies and insisted the country could ride out the sanctions, imposed because of Iran's nuclear program, after the rial lost about a third of its value in a week.

Iran currency crisis sparks Tehran street clashes
Police use teargas and batons on demonstrators and Tehran bazaar closes as value of rial plunges
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan - The Guardian
Hundreds of demonstrators in the Iranian capital clashed with riot police on Wednesday, during protests against the crisis over the country's currency. Police used batons and teargas to try to disperse the crowds.
The day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appealed to the market to restore calm, the Grand Bazaar – the heartbeat of Tehran's economy – went on strike, with various businesses shutting down and owners gathering in scattered groups chanting anti-government slogans in reaction to the plummeting value of the rial, which has hit an all-time low this week.

Hyperinflation Has Arrived In Iran
by Steve H. Hanke via Cato-at-Liberty - ZeroHedge.com
Since the U.S. and E.U. first enacted sanctions against Iran, in 2010, the value of the Iranian rial (IRR) has plummeted, imposing untold misery on the Iranian people. When a currency collapses, you can be certain that other economic metrics are moving in a negative direction, too. Indeed, using new data from Iran's foreign-exchange black market, I estimate that Iran's monthly inflation rate has reached 69.6%. With a monthly inflation rate this high (over 50%), Iran is undoubtedly experiencing hyperinflation.

Iran unrest could undercut Romney critique
By JOSH GERSTEIN | Politico.com
Reports of violent clashes in Iran due to the precipitous drop in value of the country's currency could upset GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's efforts to paint President Barack Obama's Iran policy as ineffectual.
Tehran's central bazaar was reported to have been closed Wednesday and riot police were patrolling the streets as public and merchant frustration boiled over, apparently directed at economic woes caused by international sanctions intensified by the Obama Administration. At least one protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad Wednesday was broken up by tear gas, news agencies reported.

The Real Reason the U.S. Fears Iranian Nukes
by Alexander Reed Kelly - Truthdig.com
Iran wouldn't be stupid enough to attack the United States or Israel with a nuclear bomb, Glenn Greenwald suggests in The Guardian. If it had such a weapon, it would be for the purpose of deterring American aggression.
That's intolerable to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, "one of the U.S.'s most reliable and bloodthirsty warmongers," Greenwald writes. At a talk in North Augusta, S.C., this week, Graham unwittingly revealed a rarely advertised reason American officials want to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of one of the most formidable states in the Middle East:
"They have two goals: one, regime survival. The best way for the regime surviving, in their mind, is having a nuclear weapon, because when you have a nuclear weapon, nobody attacks you."

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Wednesday 10.03.2012

Gold Hovers After Touching New Highs
BY BEN TRAYNOR - FinancialSense.com
Gold Allocation "Part of Diversified Portfolio" says Pimco
Wholesale gold prices hovered in a tight range just below $1780 an ounce for most of Tuesday morning in London, just below a new 2012 spot market high touched yesterday following comments from US Federal Reserve policymakers.
Silver prices traded just below $35 per ounce, close to seven-month highs, while stocks and the Euro ticked higher despite warnings that Spain is underestimating the amount of recapitalization its banks need.

Bill Gross Warning in Outlook Great
For Gold Bugs, Over the Next Decade
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
Bill Gross, a.k.a. ';The Bond King,' was very pessimistic in his monthly PIMCO outlook for October. What is so interesting is that he was actually far less negative than what I was expecting based upon his comments a month ago. Gross took a lot of heat on his "death of the cult of equities" feature even though he was right if you read the article rather than focused on his catchy headline.
We were expecting that Bill Gross would say in his PIMCO October investment outlook that the U.S. was on an immediate path toward the demise of the U.S. and hyperinflation hated by everyone but the most extreme of the gold bugs. That did not happen. Still, Gross was full of warnings that are coming up in the years ahead.

Will Silver Shine Brighter Than Gold?
By Przemyslaw Radomski - SilverSeek.com
Mining executives met this week in a MINExpo convention in Las Vegas and the talk was mostly bullish. They heard Newmont CEO Richard O'Brien say that gold is presently trading more like a currency than a commodity. O'Brien told the audience that investment is the largest growing component of the gold market, currently comprising about 40% of demand. As more currencies weaken, such as the U.S. dollar and the Euro, O'Brien suggests the current bull market for gold will continue well into the future.

Bill Gross: Bonds Could Be 'Burned to a Crisp'
[Google 'title' for FREE article pass]
By MIN ZENG - WSJ.com $$
Bill Gross, the manager of the world's biggest bond fund, warned that bonds could be "burned to a crisp" if the U.S. doesn't tackle its debt problems, even as his fund took in $2.8 billion in new cash last month.
The inflows, released by fund tracker Morningstar Inc. MORN -0.64% Tuesday, comes as the $278 billion Pimco Total Return Fund has churned out a return that has pulled significantly ahead of the benchmark index.

The Fed Plays All Its Cards
By: Peter Schiff - GoldSeek.com
There never really could be much doubt that the current experiment in competitive global currency debasement would end in anything less than a total war. There was always a chance that one or more of the principal players would snap out of it, change course and save their citizenry from a never ending cycle of devaluation. But developments since September 13, when the U.S. Federal Reserve finally laid all its cards on the table and went "all in" on permanent quantitative easing, indicate that the brainwashing is widely established and will be difficult to break. The vast majority of the world's leading central bankers seem content to walk in lock step down the path of money creation as a means to economic salvation. Never mind that the path will prevent real growth and may ultimately lead off a cliff. The herd is moving. And if it can't be turned, the only thing that one can do is attempt to get out of its way.

"Fiscal cliff" fears may impede faster job growth
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 2, 2012 4:36pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. job growth likely improved only slightly in September as businesses remained cautious out of fear a sharp tightening of the government's budget could deliver a big blow to the economic recovery early next year.
Employers are expected to have added 113,000 jobs to their payrolls, an increase from 96,000 in August, with the unemployment rate edging up by a tenth of a percentage point to 8.2 percent, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

Economists: Fiscal cliff a serious threat, but unlikely
By Chris Isidore - Fortune.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Getting economists to agree on almost anything is tough. But on the subject of the fiscal cliff, a survey by CNNMoney found an almost unanimous consensus.
Of 17 top economists surveyed, 14 believe the end of tax breaks and the steep federal spending cuts set to take effect at the start of next year would cause the economy to tumble into a new recession.
Twelve of them believe the fiscal cliff is the most serious risk facing the economy, more serious than the European sovereign debt crisis, business uncertainty about various government regulations or the continued weakness in the job and housing markets.

Do Western Central Banks Have Any Gold Left???
By Eric Sprott & David Baker - GoldSeek.com
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the world's Western central banks lie vaults holding gargantuan piles of physical gold bars… or at least that's what they all claim. The gold bars are part of their respective foreign currency reserves, which include all the usual fiat currencies like the dollar, the pound, the yen and the euro.

The Federal Reserve and the Currency Wars
By José Antonio Ocampo - Project-Syndicate.org
NEW YORK – The United States Federal Reserve's recent decision to launch a third round of "quantitative easing" has revived accusations by Brazil's finance minister, Guido Mantega, that the US has unleashed a "currency war." In emerging-market countries that are already struggling with the impact of rapid currency appreciation on their competitiveness, expansionary measures announced in recent weeks by the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have heightened the sense of alarm at the Fed's decision.

Ben Bernanke Says Federal Reserve Is Not Monetizing The Debt
By 24/7 Wall St. - DailyFinance.com
FOMC Chairman Ben Bernanke is speaking Monday to the Economic Club of Indiana in Indianapolis with his speech titled "Five Questions about the Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy." As far as a brief summary, here are some comments before the full question and answer format presented.
Bernanke sees the economy continuing to expand and he expects that inflation will remain low for the foreseeable future. The growth has not been enough to help the jobs picture very much, but tax reform and fiscal changes would help the economy also as monetary policy cannot fix everything. Bernanke reiterated that the Fed will keep rates low even after the real recovery begins. The part that we are keen to see is that Bernanke claims that the Fed is not monetizing the debt. We will leave that interpretation up to you without any sarcastic comments.

How Does a Currency Drop 60% in 8 Days? Just Ask Iran
By Matthew O'Brien - TheAtlantic.com
In case you were wondering, this is what an economy dying looks like. More specifically, it's what a currency dying looks like. It turns out the latter implies the former, as Iran is quickly finding out.
The chart below compares the official and black market exchange rates between the Iranian rial and the U.S. dollar. The official rate is the fiction the regimes wishes its people lived with, and the black market rate is the fact they actually live with.

America and a ring of fire … of debt
By James Pethokoukis - AEI-Ideas.org
President Obama says the ballooning national debt isn't a short-term problem. I dunno, 2020 doesn't seem so far away to me. Bond manager Bill Gross contends Washington needs to cut the debt "rather quickly over the next five to 10 years." More from Gross:
To keep our debt/GDP ratio below the metaphorical combustion point of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, these [Congressional Budget Office, International Monetary Fund, Bank of International Settlements] studies (when averaged) suggest that we need to cut spending or raise taxes by 11% of GDP.

Dollar Deluge Disguises Deceitful Econ Data
By Bill Frezza - RealClearMarkets
Did someone slip Paul Krugman juice into The Wall Street Journal's water cooler? That's the only conclusion I can fathom after reading a pair of articles celebrating the long awaited return of prosperity.
The Happy Days Are Here Again two-step began with "Home Prices Rise in July" followed by a companion piece, "Consumers Back to Feeling Flush." If you stopped reading at the end of each lede-choking your way through the shameless Obama plug before throwing in the towel-you might believe that the economic witch-doctors in Washington have finally started to deliver on their promised magic. But if you read both pieces from start to finish and haven't forgotten how to do arithmetic, you could only end up scratching your head. Whom are they trying to fool?

The Growth Recession Of 2012 And The Presidential Election
By Charles Kadlec - Forbes.com
The U.S. economy has slipped into a growth recession. The final revision to the second quarter GDP report downgraded real growth to 1.3%, a rate insufficient to produce an adequate number of jobs for a growing labor force.
The economic consequence will be either higher unemployment, a further decline in the labor force participation rate, or a combination of the two. The political consequence will be increased scrutiny of each Presidential candidate's economic program during the debates and through the final days of the campaign.

What Is the Fed Trying to Hide from Americans?
Bernanke Warns His Creator
Editorial, New York Sun
"Bernanke warns congress to butt out of interest-rate policy discussions . . ." is the headline up on the Drudge Report following the speech today by the Federal Reserve's chairman at Indiana. It sounds to us like the chairman is warning Congress against passing Congressman Ron Paul's audit-the-Fed legislation and Congressman Kevin Brady's Sound Dollar Act, both of which would open up Fed policies to inspection. The chairman's speech marks another step in the Fed and the Congress moving into what might be called open, if polite, confrontation.

Greece pushes for austerity deal as time runs short
By Renee Maltezou
ATHENS | Tue Oct 2, 2012 3:46pm EDT
(Reuters) - Greece held a new round of talks with foreign lenders to bridge differences over 2 billion euros of disputed austerity cuts on Tuesday, with time running short to clinch a deal before a meeting of euro zone ministers next week.
Athens has been haggling for weeks over 12 billion euros of cutbacks that its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders have refused to sign off on over fears that some of the proposed savings are unlikely to materialize.

Government: We plan to sue more banks
By Jennifer Liberto - Fortune.com
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- Wall Street banks should be prepared for more lawsuits, a taskforce of federal and state investigators said Tuesday.
The warning came one day after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued JPMorgan Chase-owned Bear Stearns, alleging that bankers committed systemic fraud against investors. The suit was the government's latest attempt to hold the big banks accountable for the financial crisis.

Obama's big budget deficits could mean
a $4,000 a year middle-class tax hike
James Pethokoukis - AEI-Ideas.org
President Obama doesn't think Americans should fret about the exploding national debt. As he told talk show host David Letterman recently, "We don't have to worry about it short term. Right now interest rates are low because people still consider the United States the safest and greatest country on Earth, rightfully so. But it is a problem long term and even medium term."
So, in Obama's view, dealing with the debt is more of a tomorrow thing than a today thing. Or maybe even a day-after-tomorrow thing.

With Liberty And Taxes For All
Best way to limit growth of government is to make sure everyone has "skin in the game."
By Glenn Reynolds, USA Today
"They'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please."
That's a line from a 1980s rock song, but it's a pretty concise summary of the Obama administration's political approach: Vote for us because we'll take other people's money from them and use it to buy you stuff.
Whether it's Sandra Fluke's contraceptives, Obama's "spread the wealth" response to Joe The Plumber, his 1998 plan to make welfare recipients a majority coalition or the free phone in the viral "Obamaphone" video, that's the gist of it. And it obviously works.

NY Attorney General Says More Suits Will Follow JPMorgan
By David McLaughlin and Chris Dolmetsch -
The New York lawsuit over mortgage- backed securities against JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank, will serve as a template for suits against other issuers, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.
Schneiderman alleged that the Bear Stearns business that JPMorgan took over in 2008 deceived mortgage-bond investors about the defective loans backing securities they bought, leading to "monumental losses," according to a complaint filed yesterday in New York State Supreme Court.

JPMorgan Rivals Face Billions in Damages After MBS Case
By David McLaughlin - Bloomberg.com
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)'s rivals may face government lawsuits claiming tens of billions of dollars in damages tied to investor losses on mortgage bonds after New York's attorney general filed a fraud lawsuit against the nation's biggest bank by assets.
A state-federal task force set up this year to investigate misconduct in the bundling of mortgage loans into securities will bring other cases, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Investor losses in the JPMorgan case alone will be "substantially more" than the $22.5 billion cited in his complaint, he said.

Maybe Jamie Dimon wasn't so clever with Bear
By Antony Currie - Reuters.com
Maybe Jamie Dimon wasn't so clever with Bear Stearns after all. Back in March 2008, the JPMorgan chief executive looked pretty shrewd picking up the collapsed investment bank on the cheap, even after raising his offer five-fold to $10 a share. Dimon stuffed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with $29 billion of Bear's worst-looking mortgage assets. Not only did those securities wind up making money, but a new lawsuit filed by New York's top lawman shows that JPMorgan didn't cover all its bases.
Bear's home loan-backed assets were in the red for a while at the New York Fed. Inside JPMorgan, which retained only the first $1 billion of losses, they might have damaged Dimon's fortress balance sheet during the darkest days of the crisis. They did eventually turn a profit for the central bank, as Dimon had suggested they could. But that took almost four years.

Think We're the Most Entrepreneurial Country In the World?
Not So Fast
We're the venture-capital capital of the world, but start-ups and young small businesses play a lesser role in America's economy than in many other rich nations.
By Jordan Weissmann - TheAtlantic.com
America's entrepreneurial streak as one of the things that, theoretically, is supposed to make us exceptional as a country. At least it is if you listen to most politicians. But how do we actually stack up with rest of the world when it comes to building our own businesses?
We are, in fact, pretty unexceptional.
A Start-up Rate Lower than Sweden's (and Israel's, and Italy's...)

The Last Housing Crash Is Not Even Over
But Bernanke Is Already Setting The Stage For The Next One
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is determined to push mortgage rates to record low levels and he is encouraging the banks that the Fed regulates to make home loans more freely. Wait a second - isn't that exactly what caused the last housing bubble? After 9/11, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates and this caused mortgage rates to steadily fall. Financial institutions were urged to help "expand home ownership" in America, and many of them started making home loans to people who never, ever should have gotten home loans. When mortgage rates started to go back up, millions of families with adjustable rate mortgages discovered that they could not make their monthly payments. Mortgage delinquencies absolutely soared and large numbers of mortgage-backed securities suddenly turned into garbage. So what is the Fed doing about it? The Fed recently announced another round of quantitative easing in which it will buy 40 billion dollars worth of these mortgage-backed securities a month. Essentially the Fed is clearing the bad financial paper out of the system and is creating the conditions for another housing bubble. But will we really fix our problems by going back and doing the same things that got us into trouble in the first place?

Countrywide: Don't Look Now, But It's Baaack
Wall Street and consumer advocates, surprisingly, roll out the welcome mat.
By Stephen Gandel - Fortune.CNN.com
FORTUNE --The Federal Reserve's recent decision to buy mortgage bonds until the economy recovers has made home lending more attractive than it has been in years. The spread between what it costs to fund a mortgage loan and what borrowers actually pay is nearly three times as large as usual. So it's perhaps no surprise that one of the first firms to rush into this profit-filled fun house is headed by the former executives of the most notorious subprime lender of the era that led to the financial crisis.

Aging population a boon for health care workers
By Hadley Malcolm, USA TODAY
As Baby Boomers age into retirement by the millions each year, their growing health care needs require more people to administer that care.
That makes fields such as nursing one of the fastest-growing occupations, and hospitals are hiring now to prepare for what's to come.
Central Florida Health Alliance has 140 to 170 open positions a week, and almost 90% of them are for jobs that include registered nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists and pharmacy technicians, says Holly Kolozsvary, human resources director.

Curing the Pre-Existing Conditions of ObamaCare
The administration's emphasis on pre-existing conditions falsely implies that the only way to cover future serious illness is with ObamaCare's heavy-handed requirements.
By Tom Miller and James C. Capretta - The American Magazine
Families USA, an advocacy group closely aligned with the Obama administration, recently claimed that 25 percent of non-elderly Americans, or 65 million people, suffer from a pre-existing condition that would threaten the security of their health insurance if it were not for ObamaCare's protections.
This preposterous claim fits a pattern. ObamaCare's apologists have been trying for three years to divert the public's attention away from the trillion-dollar entitlement expansion, tax hike, and power grab by the federal government that ObamaCare represents. The emphasis on pre-existing conditions is aimed at creating the false impression that the only way to cover anyone who might become seriously ill is with ObamaCare's heavy-handed and government-centric requirements.

Americans May Be Getting Poorer,
But At Least We Are Getting Fatter And Sicker
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
I know, there really isn't any good news in that headline. Americans are steadily getting poorer, fatter and sicker and yet most people continue to operate under the delusion that things are somehow going to get better. Sadly, not only are we not better off than we were four years ago, the truth is that things have been getting worse for a very long time. Median household income in the United States has declined for four years in a row, and it has fallen by more than $4000 overall since Barack Obama has been in the White House. Yet the media insists that we are in the midst of an "economic recovery". A higher percentage of Americans are obese or severely obese than ever before, and Baby Boomers are much sicker than their parents were at the same age. Yet we are supposedly a "health conscious" nation. Technology is advancing faster than we have ever seen before in human history, but the life expectancy of poor Americans has dropped significantly in recent years. So exactly what in the world is going on here?

Facebook Sells More Access to Members
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER - WSJ.com
Facebook Inc. is experimenting with new ways to leverage its greatest asset—personal data on about 900 million people—reigniting concerns about privacy. The strategy: selling access to its users.
To amp up the effectiveness of its ads, Facebook in recent months has begun allowing marketers to target ads at users based on the email address and phone number they list on their profiles, or based on their surfing habits on other sites.
It has also started selling ads that follow Facebook members beyond the confines of the social network.

Startup Says it Can Predict Social Information Flow
By Don Clark - WSJ.com
Twitter Facebook and their ilk have spawned many firms that try to extract insights from the flood of posts. One of the most ambitious is Tellagence.
The Portland, Ore., startup says it can predict how information will flow on social networks. The goal is to allow companies to figure out who is really likely to spread their messages–and avoid wasting time and money on reaching others.
Tellagence, which is giving the first public demonstration of its technology at the Demo conference on Wednesday, says it does not merely analyze what people are saying or count their followers. Nor does it try to make predictions based on past patterns of activity.

Why We Are So Rude Online
Online Browsing Lowers Self-Control
and Is Linked To Higher Debt, Weight
By Elizabeth Bernstein - WSJ.com
Jennifer Bristol recently lost one of her oldest friends—thanks to a Facebook fight about pit bulls.
The trouble started when she posted a newspaper article asserting that pit bulls were the most dangerous type of dog in New York City last year. "Please share thoughts… 833 incidents with pitties," wrote Ms. Bristol, a 40-year-old publicist and animal-welfare advocate in Manhattan.
Her friends, many of whom also work in the animal-welfare world, quickly weighed in. One noted that "pit bull" isn't a single official breed; another said "irresponsible ownership" is often involved when dogs turn violent. Black Labs may actually bite more, someone else offered.

Newly-Discovered Comet May Outshine The Moon
If a recently found comet lives up to expectation it could become "one of the brightest in history", says an astronomer.
News.Sky.com
A newly-discovered comet should become one of the brightest lights in the sky - even outshining the Moon, according to astronomers.
Russian astronomers recently spotted comet 2012 S1 (ISON) 90 million kilometres from the Earth, according to a report by National Geographic.
It is currently a faint glow streaking between Saturn and Jupiter, but as the Sun's gravity draws the comet closer, dust and ice will be blasted off, it giving it a highly-reflective tail.

How Blue Man Group learned to see green
By Dinah Eng - Fortune.CNN.com
(Fortune) -- When the founders of Blue Man Group decided to get bald and blue, they had no idea that shooting goo out of their chests and teaching fractal geometry would turn into two decades of fun and a multimillion-dollar show business enterprise. Today an average of 60,000 people a week attend Blue Man Group performances in six cities around the world -- not including the touring shows -- at an average ticket price of $59, or roughly $3.54 million in revenue a week from sellouts. Co-founders Matt Goldman, 51, Phil Stanton, 52, and Chris Wink, 51, continue to write and produce the shows, perform for special events -- and have no thoughts of retiring. Their story:

The Only Practical Way Out of Our Economic Doldrums
They have not made the connection between their proposed policies and the robust growth rates we need.
By Steve Conover - American.com
In the forthcoming presidential debates, the issue of the federal debt and deficit is likely to come up. Just about everyone agrees that today's trajectory is unsustainable, so the question is not whether the debt and deficit need to improve, but when, and by how much. (For example, see a previous piece on this topic, "Why Growth Matters More Than Debt.")
America's economic experiences during the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton demonstrate that growth is the most effective way to mitigate a debt burden, create jobs, and advance our standard of living. The current presidential campaign, however, lacks a clear growth message from either side.

Cheap Politicians
By Thomas Sowell - PatriotPost.us
Now that the National Football League has apparently learned that it can be costly to hire cheap officials, perhaps the rest of us should learn the same lesson when it comes to government officials, whose bad calls can do a lot more damage.
What do we do when we want a better car, a better home or a better bottle of wine? We pay more for it. We definitely need a lot better crop of public officials. Yet we insist on paying flea market prices for people who will be spending trillions of tax dollars, not to mention making foreign policy that can either safeguard or jeopardize the lives of millions of Americans.

If Obama Wins, What Changes for His Second Term?
If the president prevails on Nov. 6, he's said he hopes to break Washington's stalemate. A look at the odds of an altered GOP, bipartisanship—and Erskine Bowles at Treasury.
by Eleanor Clift - TheDailyBeast.com
With an Obama second term looking like a better than even probability, short of sweeping both chambers of Congress, can the newly reelected president break the stalemate in Washington and govern successfully? He says the partisan fever will break once he cannot run again. He may be right, but President Obama will have to move quickly after the election to send the right signals of strength and resolve, and position himself to take advantage of the recriminations among Republicans that inevitably will surface in the wake of a Romney defeat.

The Hispanic vote in 2012: Important, but not a gamechanger
Henrik Temp - AEI-Ideas.org
The Pew Hispanic Center has released a fascinating report on Hispanics in the 2012 electorate. While you should check it out for the interesting data, overall it confirms what I've written before: The "sleeping giant" of American politics is slumbering on.
That might be surprising given the report's headline number: A 22% increase from 2008 in the number of Latinos who are eligible to vote. As you can see from the chart below, the number of eligible Latinos has skyrocketed to 23.7 million from just 13.2 million in 2000.

The World's Most Dynamic Religion Is ...
By Dennis Prager - PatriotPost.us
For at least the last hundred years, the world's most dynamic religion has been neither Christianity nor Islam.
It is leftism.
Most people do not recognize what is probably the single most important fact of modern life. One reason is that leftism is overwhelmingly secular (more than merely secular: it is inherently opposed to all traditional religions), and therefore people do not regard it as a religion. Another is that leftism so convincingly portrays itself as solely the product of reason, intellect, and science that it has not been seen as the dogma-based ideology that it is. Therefore, the vast majority of the people who affirm leftist beliefs think of their views as the only way to properly think about life.

Cynthia McKinney On Leadership
By Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org
Those who have followed the Republican campaign for the presidential nomination and current contest between Romney and Obama know that the United States has no political leadership in Washington.
Billions of dollars have been spent on political propaganda, but not a single important issue has been addressed. The closest the campaign has come to a political issue is which candidate can grovel the lowest at the feet of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Romney won that contest. But for the rest, well, it is like two elementary school children sticking their tongues out at one another.

Socialism vs. Capitalism: Part I
By Sam Weaver - PatriotPost.us
Many commentators -- including one prominent "conservative" (i.e., traditionalist) pundit -- chastise those on the "far right" who dare to call President Obama a socialist. Make even the slightest hint that you believe our president might harbor Marxist persuasions, and you are quickly branded an intolerant, bigoted zealot unworthy of participation in a free and open society by many of these commentators. If you cannot see it now, I hope that before the end of this article, you will see the irony in this.

Matt Damon fracking film backed by big OPEC member
By Steve Hargreaves - CNN.com
Matt Damon's new film on fracking, "Promised Land", is generating some buzz -- though probably not the kind studio execs were hoping for.
Last week, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation pointed out that in the trailer for film, one of the financial backers listed is Image Nation Abu Dhabi.
Image Nation Abu Dhabi is, in turn, owned by Abu Dhabi Media - a state media company for the United Arab Emirates. The UAE, an OPEC member, is the world's third-largest oil exporter.
For a film that highlights the dangers of fracking -- the controversial process that has unleashed an energy boom in the United States -- this may be problematic, as evidenced by Twitter posts Monday:

North and South Korea 'on the verge of nuclear war'
A senior North Korean diplomat warned a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York that "a spark of fire could set off a thermonuclear war" on the Korean Peninsula.
By Julian Ryall in Tokyo - Telegraph.co.uk
Pak Kil-yon, Pyongyang's vice-foreign minster, put the blame for the tense state of inter-Korean relations firmly on South Korea's conservative government and claimed the citizens of the North feel "shame" and "political terror."
Monday's speech was the first time a representative of North Korea has addressed the General Assembly since Kim Jong-un assumed power after the death of his father in December last year.

Why Is Germany Collecting Taxes for the Catholic Church?
How easy would it be for Berlin to forcibly tax all Germans and turn over their money to Rome, when it is already involved in tithe collection for state-recognized religions?
BY ANDREW MIILLER - theTrumpet.com
The German Catholic Bishops Conference issued a decree in September warning that those Germans who opted out of paying the country's "church tax" would no longer be entitled to sacraments, religious burial or any part of parish life.
This "church tax" is a special tax collected in Germany and several other Western European nations that was introduced in the 19th century in compensation for the nationalization of religious property. All Germans who officially register as Catholics, Protestants or Jews on their tax documentation must pay a religious tax of 8 to 9 percent on their annual income tax bill.

Sunday Law Warning
The National Sunday law will begin in the United States Of America, it will then be enforced in the rest of the world. This is the Mark 666. The Mark of the Beast. Be warned.

Pawns in the Game
by William Guy Carr
Here is a TRUE story of international intrigue, romances, corruption, graft, and political assassinations, the like of which has never been written before. It is the story of how different groups or atheistic- materialistic men have played in an international chess tournament to decide which group would win ultimate control of the wealth, natural resources, and man- power of the entire world. It is explained how the game has reached the final stage. The International Communists, and the International Capitalists, (both of whom have totalitarian ambitions) have temporarily joined hands to defeat Christian-democracy. The cover design shows that all moves made by the International Conspirators are directed by Satan and while the situation is decidedly serious it is definitely not hopeless. The solution is to end the game the International Conspirators have been playing right now before one or another totalitarian-minded group impose their ideas on the rest of mankind. The story is sensational and shocking, but it is educational because it, is the TRUTH. The author offers practical solutions to problems so many people consider insoluble.

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Archived Page Link
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Tuesday 10.02.2012

Gold is Breaking out to the Upside
By John Thomas - OilPrice.com
Look at the $25 move in gold today, and it's clear that an upside breakout is imminent. It made this move on a whisper of a rumour about a speculation that China may take out an eyedropper and tickle their economy with a few more drops of stimulus.
This is proof positive of how sensitive the barbarous relic is to global QE/stimulus. Given that we can expect a steady dose of this medication from central bankers for years to come, the outlook for gold today is probably better than for any other single asset class. Gold charts are breaking out all over and have already broken out to new all-time highs against the Swiss franc, the Australian dollar, and the Euro. It is just a matter of time before the party spreads to the dollar.

The Only Way To Fight The Fed? Own Gold
Americans may finally be waking up to the realization that their best defense against more than 20 years of Fed mismanagement is a shiny yellow metal.
By Bill Fleckenstein, MSN Money
These days there is no shortage of chatter about the Federal Reserve's latest round of quantitative easing (akaQE3), and I detect there is a small, yet growing, level of dissatisfaction with the Fed's policies. It seems that savers have finally begun to find their voice -- somewhat in light of the fact that their money is slowly being stolen by the Fed's money printing.
From the stock bubble of the late 1990s, to the even bigger and more devastating housing bubble, to its recent policy of guaranteeing inflation and offering little reward to savers, the Fed has eviscerated the middle class and made poor people poorer.

QE3 – Pay Attention If You Are in the Real Estate Market
BY CATHERINE AUSTIN FITTS - FinancialSense.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.

The Source of High Inflation: Government Spending
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
Inflation is generally viewed as a monetary phenomenon (print money excessively and you get inflation), but let's use a very simple definition: any loss of purchasing power. If your income buys fewer goods and services, for whatever mix of reasons (geopolitical, weather, monetary, fiscal, etc.), that's inflation "on the ground."
Consider this breakdown of the components that together make up the standard measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index (CPI): (courtesy of dshort.com) What are the obvious major sources of inflation? Energy, medical costs and college tuition.

Word of the Day: Fiscal Cliff!

U.S. group urges $2 trillion alternative to fiscal cliff "time bomb"
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON | Sun Sep 30, 2012 4:55pm EDT
(Reuters) - The independent watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense will unveil a $2 trillion deficit-reduction proposal in hopes of averting an economic debacle at year's end known as the fiscal cliff.
On Monday, the group plans to detail about 130 specific deficit-reduction steps the U.S. Congress could take to replace across-the-board spending cuts of $1.2 trillion that are scheduled to take effect on January 2. These would occur just as tax increases for all income groups are due to kick in.

5 Big Shadow Banking Threats to Everyone and Everything
By Dan Freed - TheStreet.com
NEW YORK (TheStreet)-- Shadow banks -- entities that provide credit as banks do but aren't subject to the same types of regulations -- were arguably at the center of the 2008 financial crisis. However, while rules for banks have been tightened since 2008, most experts agree that little if anything has been done to regulate shadow banks more closely.
"Nothing has changed in terms of the regulatory structure of shadow banking. It's certainly the case that top regulators and analysts are much more aware now of problems that could go wrong and we don't have all of these very shaky asset backed securities floating around that would lead to the kind of meltdown that we saw a few years ago," says Yale University professor Andrew Metrick. However, he adds, "the main pillars of the money market mutual fund system, securitization and repo are not regulated any differently than they were in 2008,"

Is The US Already In A New Recession?
New data give support to those who believe the U.S. economy is already contracting.
By Christopher Matthews, TIME.com
What's in a name? Would a recession by any other name be as painful? That's the debate that raged a few years ago as economists and commentators debated whether we were officially in a recession or not. As economist Paul Krugman argued in 2007:
"The official definition of recession has become delinked from peoples' actual experience. Right now, we're in an economy with deteriorating employment and incomes, collapsing home prices, and business retrenchment. Is it also an economy in recession? Who cares?"

Bernanke tackles critics of Fed's growth push
By Ann Saphir
INDIANAPOLIS | Mon Oct 1, 2012 2:21pm EDT
(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday delivered a broad defense of the U.S. central bank's controversial bond-buying stimulus plan, saying it is necessary to support a flagging economic recovery.
Bernanke pushed back against accusations that the Fed's policy is laying the groundwork for inflation, enabling the government to run large budget deficits, undercutting the dollar and hurting savers.

Fed chief Ben Bernanke says
stimulus is not a green light for 'bad fiscal policy'
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has hit back against critics who accuse the central bank's stimulus plan of allowing the US to run a "bad fiscal policy".
By Richard Blackden - Telegraph.co.uk
In a broad defence of quantitative easing, whose latest round began last month, the Fed chief said it is not risking future inflation or "monetising" the government's debt through its purchase of Treasury bonds.
The Federal Reserve, which will mark its 100th anniversary next year, has embarked on the third major round of an effort to stimulate demand from US consumers and encourage businesses to accelerate their hiring.

Bair Blasts Geithner, 'Culture of Greed,' in Blunt Memoir
By Daniel Akst - Bloomberg.com
Anyone who doubts that our financial system remains a combustible stew of greed, inadequate regulation and perverse incentives need look no further than "Bull by the Horns," a blunt new memoir from Sheila Bair, the former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Bair piloted that agency through the darkest days of the financial crisis, consistently advocating a tougher stance toward the financial giants whose recklessness -- abetted by slavish or inept regulators -- was responsible for the mess.

Volcker Says Fed Bond-Buying Has No Effect on Inflation
By Zeke Faux - Bloomberg.com
Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the U.S. central bank's latest bond-buying program isn't creating inflationary pressure.
"It's not going to have a profound effect on the economy and it's not going to have any effect on inflation in the short run," Volcker said today at a forum sponsored by Bloomberg Link at theNew York Athletic Club. "The basic situation is not an inflationary situation."

"The Federal Reserve Is a Cartel" - G. Edward Griffin

Why the Euro Crisis Is Nowhere Near Being Over
Bailouts and easy money won't be able to resolve the structural problems of the euro zone, and increasing austerity won't fix things either.
By MICHAEL SIVY - Time.com
It's astonishing, but everyone is behaving as though the euro crisis were over. Long-term bond yields are bellwethers of investor confidence. And over the past few months, yields on 10-year Spanish bonds have fallen from 7.5% to 6%, while those on similar Italian issues have dropped to 5%. The U.S. stock market seems equally upbeat. The S&P 500 finished the third quarter last week at its highest level in more than four years. Share prices are shrugging off not only the likelihood of an economic slump in 2013, but also the possibility that a crisis in the euro zone could send shock waves throughout the global banking system.

Why Germany must face up to its €1 trillion headache
Here's another fine mess the political hubris of the euro has got Europe into.
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk
One of the most mind-boggling debates going on in euroland right now – only one of many, but particularly guaranteed to make the head spin, this one – is over the build-up of so-called "Target 2" claims and liabilities. Target 2 is the mechanism by which money is transferred around the euro area to ensure that each national central bank has sufficient euros to fund its banking system.
Accumulated cross border claims are now so extreme that they threaten to leave German taxpayers with huge losses should the euro break up, or any one of its members leaves.

Spain Adds $32 Billion Power-System Bailout to Bank Rescue
By Ben Sills - Bloomberg.com
After Spain's rescue of its banks and cash-strapped regions, the 2013 budget reveals a bailout of the power industry to cover 25 billion euros ($32 billion) of debt accumulated by the electricity system.
The spending blueprint released two days ago adds 100 billion euros to the nation's debt from the rescue packages by the end of 2012, driving its ratio to gross domestic product up 16.8 percentage points to 85.3 percent of total output.

Another domino falls as Hollande pushes France into depression
If French President François Hollande thinks he can assuage the bond markets by dishing out tax-heavy austerity instead of genuine reform, he has been given very bad advice.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph.co.uk
His tragically-misguided budget offers no strategic plan to reverse -- or even to stop -- thirty years of slow national decline. He offers no worthwhile measures to slim the Leviathan state, now a Nordic-sized 55pc of GDP, without Nordic labour flexibility or Nordic free markets.
He does not tell us how he will stem the slide in France's share of eurozone exports over the last decade, down from 17pc to 13pc, or what he will do about the disastrous swing in France's trade balance from a surplus of 2.5pc of GDP to a deficit of 2.4pc since 1999.

Keiser Report: Defraudsters (E347)
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the audacious finance oligarchies and high speed stock manipulators OOPSING again by front running clients (oops!) and manipulating market prices (oops!). And, once again, the US regulators have just 'aw shucks' fined them a small portion of their ill-gotten gains. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Will Carless of VoiceOfSanDiego.com about the billion dollar cost of repaying back a $105 million dollar loan to Poway School District in San Diego.

The Fiscal Cliff Will Cost a Median-Income Family $2,000
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Doing nothing is the natural state of the 112th Congress. But if Congress does nothing to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" of 2013, taxes would increase by half-a-trillion dollars and deep spending cuts in defense and other government spending could push the U.S. into an official recession.
How would you pay for the fiscal cliff? Nine in ten Americans would see higher taxes. The payroll tax cut would go away. The stimulus tax credits for the poor would go away. The Bush tax cuts first passed in 2001 and 2003 and re-signed by Obama would go away. Almost every major tax rate affecting families -- whether payroll, income, or investments -- would go up.

Nearly 90 percent of Americans
would see taxes rise if 'fiscal cliff' hits
By Lori Montgomery, Updated: Monday, October 1, 4:03 PM
Nearly 90 percent of Americans would face higher taxes next year if Congress lets the nation hurtle over the "fiscal cliff," the year-end precipice of tax hikes and spending cuts that threatens to throw the nation back into recession.
A study published Monday by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center finds that taxes would go up by a collective $536 billion next year, or about $3,500 per household, reducing after-tax income by more than 6 percent — an "unprecedented tax increase."

U.S. Households Face Tax Increase From 2013 Fiscal Cliff
By Richard Rubin - Bloomberg.com
U.S. households are facing an average tax increase of $3,446 in 2013 if Congress doesn't avert the so- called fiscal cliff, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said in a study released today.
The top 1 percent of households face some of the largest tax increases in 2013 and would see their after-tax incomes fall by 10.5 percent if Congress does nothing. That would translate to an average tax increase of $120,537 for that group.

Lacy Hunt: "No Increase in Standard of Living Since 1997"
BY CASEY RESEARCH - FinancialSense.com
There's a belief among certain economists – and the wider population – that if the government takes a more active role in the economy, the social outcome can be improved. Dr. Lacy Hunt, executive VP of Hoisington Investment Management Company (HIMCO), says it's a false belief… and he has proof to back it up. An unprecedented buildup of debt, he shows, can only lead to one outcome: a drop in Americans' standard of living.

"There Was No Increase In The Standard of Living
Since 1997" - Lacy Hunt

Jobs Outlook Seen Weak as U.S. Companies Reporting Cost Cuts
By Shobhana Chandra and Steve Matthews - Bloomberg.com
Weakening demand is forcing new and accelerated cost reductions at companies from Bank of America Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) to Staples Inc. (SPLS) and Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ), dimming the outlook for an already struggling U.S. labor market.
Even as consumer confidence and housing show signs of recovering, sales for businesses in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.9 percent from a year earlier in July through September, the second consecutive quarterly drop and biggest decline since 2009, according to analyst forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. A 1.2 percent gain projected for October-December still is smaller than the 5.4 percent rise in this year's first three months.

Feds: Taxpayers would cover layoff costs under sequester
By PHILIP EWING | Politico.com
Taxpayers would be on the hook for the costs of laying off defense industry workers if automatic, across-the-board budget cuts were to take effect Jan. 2.
Defense giant Lockheed Martin, which backed off Monday from an earlier threat to issue thousands of layoff warnings later this month just as voters were preparing to go to the polls, said it welcomed a notice from the Office of Management and Budget that affirmed vendors could bill Uncle Sam if "contract actions" next year meant they were forced to close plants and lay off employees.

Karl Denninger on the Hidden GDP Tax
and Losing the Deficit Debate

U.S. Food Prices 2013: Just How Bad is This Bacon Shortage?
Money Morning staff reports
Americans, at least the ones who eat meat, love bacon.
In the late 1990s, the average American consumed just under 17 pounds of bacon per year. By 2007, that number had risen to almost 18 pounds of the pork delicacy on an annual basis.
Unfortunately, consumers the world over might be forced to shell out more for their bacon next year due to escalating food inflation.
Britain's National Pig Association (NPA) last week called a global bacon and pork shortage "unavoidable," citing shrinking herds. The trade group said production fell across Europe last year and is declining again in 2012, according to CBS News.

Lockheed accepts Obama's 'guidance' and will delay sending tens of thousands of layoff notices until after the election
By Doug Powers - MichelleMalkin.com
As we discussed on Saturday, the Obama administration has offered to cover expenses (court-ordered penalties, severence costs, etc) for contractors willing to ignore the WARN Act by delaying sending layoff notices to tens of thousands of their employees who will likely be hit by Pentagon budget cuts.
Following up on that, today, Lockheed Martin said "count us in":
Lockheed Martin said Monday it will not issue employee layoff notices this year, ending an election-year showdown with the Obama administration.

How to Erase a Debt That Isn't There
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON - NYTimes.com
GREETINGS, unhappy homeowners! Here's some wonderful news:
"We are canceling the remaining amount you owe Chase!" says a letter that JPMorgan Chase sent recently to thousands of home loan borrowers. "You are approved for a full principal forgiveness of your Home Equity Account," says another, from Bank of America.
Jackie Esposito, of Guilford, Conn., got a letter like that. But she wasn't elated — because she doesn't owe the money anymore. She and her husband filed for bankruptcy three years ago. The roughly $64,000 they owed Chase has been legally wiped out.
What's going on?

JPMorgan Sued by N.Y. for Fraud Over Mortgage Securities
By David McLaughlin and Chris Dolmetsch - Bloomberg.com
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank, was sued by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman over accusations that a business acquired in its takeover of Bear Stearns Cos. fraudulently marketed and sold mortgage-backed securities.
JPMorgan deceived investors about the defective loans backing securities they invested in, leading to "monumental losses," Schneiderman said in a complaint filed today in New York State Supreme Court.

Changes in mortgage servicing to take effect
By Brady Dennis - WashingtonPost.com
A significant element of the government's historic settlement with big banks over foreclosure abuses takes effect Tuesday, when firms face a deadline for carrying out more than 300 changes in the way they service mortgages and treat struggling homeowners.
Much of the hoopla surrounding this year's $25 billion government settlement has focused on the banks' agreement to reduce the loan balances of some borrowers and undertake more refinancings for thousands of Americans.

Construction Spending in U.S.
Unexpectedly Decreased in August
By Lorraine Woellert - Bloomberg.com
Construction spending in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in August for a second month as declines in commercial and government projects overshadowed the strongest pace of home building in three years.
The 0.6 percent drop, the biggest decrease since July 2011, followed a revised 0.4 percent decline in July that was smaller than previously estimated, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. The median estimate of 43 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.5 percent rise.

Why Medicare Premium Support
Would Not Cost Future Beneficiaries $6,400 More
By Rea S. Hederman, Jr. - Heritage.org
Opponents of Medicare premium support routinely charge that it would cost future retirees $6,400 more annually. In fact, this dollar amount is incorrect, and the charge is erroneous. Such false charges are based on an outdated Congressional Budget Office (CBO) model of House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan's (R–WI) 2011 budget proposal.

Supreme Court asks DoJ to weigh in on reviving healthcare suit
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
The Supreme Court is weighing whether it should revive a religious university's lawsuit over President Obama's healthcare reform law.
Liberty University is trying to revive its lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in that case after its landmark healthcare ruling this summer, but Liberty says its case presents different issues and should get a new hearing in a lower court.

Warning Issued on Alternative Hip Replacement Procedure
By BARRY MEIER - NYTimes.com
A major study released on Monday urged women to avoid an alternative hip replacement procedure known as "resurfacing" and also recommended against its use in smaller men.
The study reflected the experiences of some 32,000 patients followed by the National Joint Registry of England and Wales. The report was sponsored by the British registry and published in a medical journal, The Lancet.

Scientists create GM cow to cut milk allergies in children
Calf was cloned with extra genetic material that 'switches off' the protein allergen
By STEVE CONNOR - Independent.co.uk
Scientists have created a genetically modified (GM) cow that produces milk with low levels of a protein known to cause allergic reactions in a significant proportion of children. The researchers believe it could one day lead to the sale of "hypoallergenic" milk from herds of GM cows.
The calf had been cloned and genetically engineered with an extra piece of genetic material that switched off its natural gene for producing a milk protein called beta-lactoglobulin, which is not present in human milk and causes allergies in some young children.

PlaceRaider: The Military Smartphone Malware
Designed to Steal Your Life
The US Naval Surface Warfare Center has created an Android app that secretly records your environment and reconstructs it as a 3D virtual model for a malicious user to browse
THE PHYSICS ARXIV BLOG - TechnologyReview.com
The power of modern smartphones is one of the technological wonders of our age. These devices carry a suite of sensors capable of monitoring the environment in detail, powerful data processors and the ability to transmit and receive information at high rates.
So it's no surprise that smartphones are increasingly targeted by malware designed to exploit this newfound power. Examples include software that listens for spoken credit card numbers or uses the on-board accelerometers to monitor credit card details entered as keystrokes.

3-D Printer Company Seizes Machine From Desktop Gunsmith
By Robert Beckhusen - Wired.com
Cody Wilson planned in the coming weeks to make and test a 3-D printed pistol. Now those plans have been put on hold as desktop-manufacturing company Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer rented out for Wiki Weapon, the internet project lead by Wilson and dedicated to sharing open-source blueprints for 3-D printed guns. Stratasys even sent a team to seize the printer from Wilson's home.
"They came for it straight up," Cody Wilson, director of Defense Distributed, the online collective that oversees the Wiki project, tells Danger Room. "I didn't even have it out of the box." Wilson, who is a second-year law student at the University of Texas at Austin, had leased the printer earlier in September after his group raised $20,000 online. As well as using the funds to build a pistol, the Wiki Weapon project aimed to eventually provide a platform for anyone to share 3-D weapons schematics online. Eventually, the group hoped, anyone could download the open source blueprints and build weapons at home.

The Wiki Weapon

Warren Buffet Purchases Two Huge Wind Farms in California
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Warren Buffett, the US investment tycoon, has once again shown his commitment to the US renewable energy market by announcing his plans to buy two huge Californian wind farms.
MidAmerican Energy Holdings, which is owned by Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway investment company, will purchase two phases of the wind farm project being constructed in the Tehachapi Mountains by Terra-Gen Power.
MidAmerican Energy Holdings announced yesterday that it has agreed to buy the two phases for an undisclosed fee.

The Real Debate Will Take Place on Facebook and Twitter
Campaigns are gearing up
to shape social media reactions in real time.
By DAVID TALBOT - TechnologyReview.com
When President Obama and Mitt Romney take the stage for their first debate in Denver tomorrow night, a far more extensive shadow debate will unfold across social media. Campaigns and supporters will aim to seize the online "conversation" in a vast game of spin unfolding well beyond the telecast and media coverage does.
As a sign of just how pervasive and crucial social media has become, in some states elected officials are only one degree of "friend" separation from nearly every Facebook account holder in that state, says JD Schlough, a Democratic political strategist. And by one analyst firm's count, Twitter has 140 million U.S. users, more than 30 million of whom joined in 2012 alone.

The greatest political showdown on earth
It's make-or-break time in the world's most important, and expensive, election. On the eve of tomorrow's televised debate between the presidential candidates (the first of three), Rupert Cornwell looks forward to a momentous month
By RUPERT CORNWELL - Indepencent.co.uk
The largest, the longest, the costliest and the cruellest exercise in democracy on the planet is approaching its climax. Thirty-six days from today (barring a repeat of the Florida deadheat a dozen years ago) a new American president will have been elected – in the event of a victory by Mitt Romney, the 45th in a line stretching back to 1789 and George Washington.
The winner will be the last man standing after a contest that formally began with Iowa's caucuses last January, and continued through a four-month primary season and the late summer party nominating conventions. Now come four presidential and vice-presidential debates, capped by a final draining sprint to the finishing line on 6 November. In reality, though, the process has been under way almost from the instant Barack Obama was sworn into office on the freezing Washington morning of 20 January 2009, promising a new beginning for his country in the midst of its worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Official resigns after report
finds VA spent $6.1M on lavish conferences
By Jordy Yager - TheHill.com
The head of Human Resources for the Veterans Affairs Department resigned after an inspector general's (IG) report found that the agency spent $6.1 million on two weeklong conferences.
The 142-page IG report investigated about $762,000 in "unauthorized, unnecessary, and/or wasteful expenses" during two conferences held in Orlando, Fla., that included $49,516 to produce a parody video of the late-Gen. George S. Patton.

I am a job creator: A manifesto for the entitled
By Steven Pearlstein - WashingtonPost.com
I am a corporate chief executive.
I am a business owner.
I am a private-equity fund manager.
I am the misunderstood superhero of American capitalism, single-handedly creating wealth and prosperity despite all the obstacles put in my way by employees, government and the media.
I am a job creator and I am entitled.
I am entitled to complain about the economy even when my stock price, my portfolio and my profits are at record levels.

Romney slams Obama over Middle East, calls for new course
(Reuters) - Mitt Romney launched a fresh attack on President Barack Obama's Middle East policy on Monday, saying the United States is moving dangerously closer to being pulled into the region's chaos and that puts "our security at risk."
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, the U.S. Republican presidential nominee pointed to recent developments in Syria, Libya and Egypt as well as uncertainty over Israel and Iran and called for "a new strategy toward the Middle East," although he offered no new details about his proposed plans.

SUPER-RICH IRONY
Why do billionaires feel victimized by Obama?
By Chrystia Freeland, New Yorker
One night last May, some twenty financiers and politicians met for dinner in the Tuscany private dining room at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. The eight-course meal included blinis with caviar; a fennel, grapefruit, and pomegranate salad; cocoa-encrusted beef tenderloin; and blue-cheese panna cotta. The richest man in the room was Leon Cooperman, a Bronx-born, sixty-nine-year-old billionaire. Cooperman is the founder of a hedge fund called Omega Advisors, but he has gained notice beyond Wall Street over the past year for his outspoken criticism of President Obama. Cooperman formalized his critique in a letter to the President late last year which was widely circulated in the business community; in an interview and in a speech, he has gone so far as to draw a parallel between Obama's election and the rise of the Third Reich.

How Obama & Allies Are Suppressing News
of Economic Disaster Ahead
Even the European Union
is delaying key decisions until after November.
By Arnold Ahlert - PatriotPost.us
On May 7th, it was revealed that the Obama administration spent $8.35 billion on a "demonstration project" designed to postpone the vast majority of Obamacare's Medicare Advantage cuts until after the election. On July 31st, it was revealed that the Labor Department warned defense contractors against notifying workers of impending layoffs before the election as well, despite the fact that it would require violating the law to do so. On September 21, it was revealed that a report on the Greek bailout will also be postponed until after the U.S. election. On September 13th, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke announced that he will be pursuing a third round of Quantitative Easing (QE3), once again under the auspices of "stimulating" the economy. The over-arching theme here is clear: anything that constitutes an "inconvenient reality" for this president, especially with respect to economics, will be delayed until after the election.

Ross Perot: No 2012 endorsement
By PATRICK GAVIN - Politico.com
Ross Perot, the billionaire who shook up the 1992 presidential campaign, has largely remained silent since his emergence on the nation's political stage nearly two decades ago and as he emerges from the shadows (in part to drum up interest in his forthcoming autobiography) he's remaining silent about one more thing: The current top candidates running for office.
Pressed by USA Today's Richard Wolf to endorse a candidate, Perot declined, despite the fact that "members of his family have donated almost exclusively to Republicans in recent years."

Professor: Drones Will Soon Be Able To Kill During War
Without Human Assistance
WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Drones could soon operate without the help of humans.
Agence France-Presse is reporting that the Pentagon wants its drones to be more autonomous, so that they can run with little to no assistance from people.
"Before they were blind, deaf and dumb," Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force, told AFP. "Now we're beginning to make them to see, hear and sense."
Ronald Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that drones will soon be able to kill enemies on their own independently.

Russia-China missile defense? 'Maybe not right now'

Syria tells US and its allies to stop 'interfering' in its civil war
Foreign minister tells UN general assembly that peace in Syria requires countries to stop financing and supporting opposition
AP - Guardian.co.uk
Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, has accused some UN security council members of supporting "terrorism" in the country in a speech clearly aimed at the US and its allies who support the opposition.
Addressing the UN general assembly's annual ministerial meeting, Moallem said that peace in Syria would require Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya and others to stop arming, financing and supporting the opposition.
He also alluded to the anti-Islam video that provoked violent demonstrations around the Muslim world.

Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan
could be speeded up, says Rasmussen
Redeployment of some troops might be accelerated, says Nato chief, who admits 'green on blue' attacks have hit morale
By Ian Traynor in Brussels - The Guardian
The retreat of western forces from Afghanistan could come sooner than expected, the head of Nato has said as he conceded that the recent Taliban strategy of "green on blue" killings had been successful in sapping morale.
In an interview with the Guardian Nato's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, responded to pressure for a faster withdrawal from Afghanistan by stating that the options were being studied and should be clear within three months.

Ahmadinejad at the UN: Sympathy for the Devil?
By Ken Blackwell, coauthored by Bob Morrison - PatriotPost.us
It is beyond reason. The inmates clearly have control of the asylum. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rant before the UN General Assembly in New York this week would better have been delivered in Stockholm. The famous Stockholm Syndrome was named for the way some hostages began to identify with their terrorist captors. It was offered as a psychological disorder.
In New York, at the UN, this psychological disorder is the new order of business. Ahmadinejad called for a new world order. Of what? A rule of a UN world body dominated -- or at least held hostage by -- the Terroristans that make up an increasing number of the members of the General Assembly.

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Monday 10.01.2012

Gold in Euro terms breaks all time high,
more to come: Commerzbank
LONDON (Commodity Online): Following several attempts in recent days and weeks, gold hit all time record high of 1,380 euros an ounce on Thursday and spot metal has been above $1,780 an ounce several times this week, said Commerzbznk, the second largest German bank after Deutsche Bank.
The Commerzbank expected to gold to maintain its lure as a store of value. Given the current market environment, the price is likely to continue on its upward trajectory.

After Barclays,
more banks may open bullion vaults in London
LONDON (Commodity Online): After the opening Barclays' first precious metals vault in London this month, more banks are likely to open gold vaults as demand for storage facility has risen on QE3 measures that has made gold bullish again.
The Barclays facility designed by Brink's Ltd is one of the largest in Europe and can store gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium. Barclays officials said the new facility was opened to cater to increasing demand from clients.

Sparkle in Gold is not just a weak Dollar story: Sharps Pixley
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): The recent sparkle in gold is not just a weak dollar story,"said Sharps Pixley in a commodity research note.
According to Sharps Pixley, the bullion dealer notes gold is on the way to a roughly 11% rise in the third quarter in dollar terms, although it remains around 7.5% below its all-time record hit slightly more than a year ago.

Fixing America's Fiscal Problem
By Martin Feldstein - Project-Syndicate.org
CAMBRIDGE – With America's elections less than six weeks away, it is time to think seriously about what will be done afterwards to deal with the nation's fiscal mess. Regardless of who wins, addressing the problem can no longer be postponed.
Americans are rightly focused on the "fiscal cliff" looming at the start of 2013, when, under current legislation, virtually all tax rates will rise, sucking more than 3% of GDP out of households and businesses. In addition, automatic cuts in government spending on defense and non-defense programs will subtract nearly another 1% of GDP in 2013 and similar amounts in future years. The Congressional Budget Office warns that falling off the fiscal cliff would push America's economy into a serious recession next year.

Debt limit lurks in fiscal cliff talks
By James Politi in Washington - FT.com
Congress is unlikely to reach an agreement to increase the US debt ceiling during the "fiscal cliff" negotiations at the end of year, raising the prospect of a fresh perilous brush with default in early 2013.
According to several lawmakers, congressional aides and analysts, there is scant probability that US lawmakers will have the political will – or time – to include a rise in the US borrowing limit as part of the talks to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Another domino falls
as Hollande pushes France into depression
If French President François Hollande thinks he can assuage the bond markets by dishing out tax-heavy austerity instead of genuine reform, he has been given very bad advice.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
His tragically-misguided budget offers no strategic plan to reverse -- or even to stop -- thirty years of slow national decline. He offers no worthwhile measures to slim the Leviathan state, now a Nordic-sized 55pc of GDP, without Nordic labour flexibility or Nordic free markets.
He does not tell us how he will stem the slide in France's share of eurozone exports over the last decade, down from 17pc to 13pc, or what he will do about the disastrous swing in France's trade balance from a surplus of 2.5pc of GDP to a deficit of 2.4pc since 1999.

France Raises Tax on the Rich to 75%
in Order to Rescue the Economy
By Editorial Dept - OilPrice.com
It's now official. The top tax rate in France is now 75% for those who make over a million euros. Moreover, there is a new band of 45% for those who make over 150,000 euros. Don't forget the existing VAT on all purchases.
Europe is imploding and instead of fixing onerous work rules, France Hits Rich and Business to Slash Deficit.

Greek-Spanish Pension Split Illustrates Europe's Dilemma
By LANDON THOMAS Jr. - NYTimes.com
The differences in approach could not be more distinct — or telling.
Two of the most economically distraught countries in the euro zone, Greece and Spain, mapped out additional budget cuts last week.
In the case of Greece, under last-chance pressure from its international creditors, the governing coalition tentatively agreed on an austerity package that includes some of the most severe cuts in public pensions ever imposed in a developed country. Pension payouts to retirees would be trimmed by as much as 10 percent.

SPAIN'S DEBT TO RISE TO 90.5% OF GDP IN 2013
MADRID (AP) -- Spain's public debt will reach 90.5 percent of its gross domestic product in 2013 with its new austerity budget, according to government documents.
Spain also revised its debt ratio forecast for this year to 85.5 percent of GDP, up from 79.8 percent.

Ahead Of Major October Redemptions,
Spanish Treasury Cash Slides To Two Year Low
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
A month ago, when we first presented the dwindling Spanish treasury cash position, we wrote: "once the next Spanish State Liability update is posted, we wouldn't be surprised to see this number plunge to a new post-Lehman low. Yet what is scariest is that all else equal (and it never is), at the current run rate Spain may well run out of cash by the end of the year even assuming it manages to conclude all its remaining auctions through year's end without a glitch." The August cash balance update was just released by the Banco de Espana, and there's good news, unsurprising news and bad news.

Germany told to 'come clean' over Greece
German Chancellor Angela Merkel must "come clean at long last" and admit that Greece will need help for another seven or eight years, the German opposition leader said over the weekend.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"The Greeks must stand by their commitment, but we must give them time. We cannot tighten the screws any futher," said Peer Steinbruck, the Social Democrat candidate for chancellor. He said the political and economic fall-out from Greek ejection from the euro would be devastating and must be avoided.
The plea came amid reports that Berlin is so worried that a Greek crisis would spin out of control that it is ready to back the next €31bn payment to Athens under its EU-IMF Troika rescue, despite failure to comply with the terms. Wirtschaftswoche, a German news magazine, said Greece's parliament merely needs to vote on a list of detailed reforms.

Party's Over: How Did Brazil's Economy Get So Bad So Fast?
High taxes, poor infrastructure, and astonishingly complicated regulations have conspired to bring an end to the Brazilian Decade
By David Rohde - TheAtlantic.com
SAO PAULO - For decades, Denis Dias's parents could never break into Brazil's middle class. They started a bakery and a pizzeria in the 1970s and 1980s, but the country's economic instability and hyper-inflation consumed their businesses and their hopes. His father ended up owning a newsstand. His mother worked as a maid. And Denis attended dilapidated state-run schools.
Over the last 10 years, Denis and at least 35 million other Brazilians have achieved their parents' dream. Denis is a corporate lawyer at a Brazilian energy company and a new member of Brazil's middle class, now 100 million people strong. Denis, his company and his nation have ridden the exports of iron ore, soy, oil and other natural resources to prosperity.

Exposing China's Shadow Banking System
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
We have in the past attempted to take on the gargantuan task of exposing the multi-trillion Chinese Shadow Banking system (not to be confused with its deposit-free, rehypothecation-full Western equivalent), most recently here. Alas, it is has consistently proven to be virtually impossible to coherently explain something as decentralized and as pervasive as an entire country's underground economy, especially when the country in question is the riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma known as China. Today, however, courtesy of AsiaFinanceNews we get a report as close as possible to the most comprehensive overview of what may soon be (especially if rumors of tumbling Chinese municipal dominoes are correct) the most talked about subject in the financial world: China's Shadow Banking empire.

The Federal Reserve Sends Thank You Letters To Congress
For Letting Them Destroy Our Economy In Secret
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The Federal Reserve continues to pump up this "bubble economy" by recklessly printing money and by setting interest rates artificially low, and the U.S. Congress continues to stand aside and allow them to systematically destroy our economy. The U.S. Congress could choose to end this madness at any time, but the truth is that Congress won't even pass a law that would allow the American people to see what is going on over at the Federal Reserve. Congress has voted down every single bill that would authorize a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve. So the folks over at the Fed will continue to be able to destroy our future in secret. In fact, back in July Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke actually sent five thank you letters to members of Congress that gave speeches on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives encouraging their fellow lawmakers to vote against the bill to audit the Fed. Since the U.S. Congress continues to refuse to do anything to hold the Federal Reserve accountable, the Fed will continue to print unprecedented amounts of money, it will continue to set interest rates insanely low and it will continue to pump up the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world. Unfortunately, all debt bubbles eventually burst, and when this one does it is going to be a financial nightmare unlike anything we have ever seen before.

Major Banks Hit with Biggest Cyberattacks in History
By David Goldman, CNNMoney via DailyFinance.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- There's a good chance your bank's website was attacked over the past week.
Since Sept. 19, the websites of Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), U.S. Bank (USB) and PNC Bank (PNC) have all suffered day-long slowdowns and been sporadically unreachable for many customers. The attackers, who took aim at Bank of America first, went after their targets in sequence. Thursday's victim, PNC's website, was inaccessible at the time this article was published.

JPMorgan, Bank of America Forgive Debts that No Longer Exist; Wonderful News! But For Whom?
By Mike Shedlock - GlobalEconomicAnalysis.com
In February, five of the nation's largest banks agreed on a $25 billion settlement over widespread, systemic mortgage fraud and related issues.
The $25 Billion Deal, announced with huge fanfare, was supposed to help up to a million struggling homeowners, primarily via debt forgiveness.
Let's flash forward a few months to see how debt forgiveness is working out in practice.
Today, the New York Times notes Banks Forgive Debt That Isn't There.

Presenting The World's Biggest Hedge Fund
You Have Never Heard Of
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The world's largest hedge fund is not located in the top floor of some shiny, floor-to-ceiling glass clad skyscraper in New York, London, Hong Kong or Shanghai. It isn't in some sprawling mansion in Greenwich or Stamford which houses a state of the art trading desk behind a crocodile-filled moat. Instead it can be found in tiny, nondescript office in Suite 225 located on 730 Sandhill Road in Reno, Nevada.

Is The Money-Laundering Driven Real Estate "Boom" Ending?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
One by one all the money-laundering loopholes in a broke world are coming to an end. First it was Swiss bank accounts, which for centuries guaranteed the depositors absolute secrecy, and as a result saw money inflows from all the wealthiest savers in the world, who felt truly safe their wealth (obtained by legal means or otherwise) would not be redistributed forcefully. In the ecosystem of finance, Switzerland was thedepositor bank. Then 2008 happened, and starting with the US, shortly to be followed by every other insolvent country, demands were issued for a full list of people who had used Zurich and Geneva bank vaults to avoid the risk of asset taxation, capital controls and confiscation on their own native soil. The result was the end of the Swiss banking sector as the ultimate target of all global money laundering. In the ensuing power vacuum, others have sprung up to take its place, most notably Singapore, but its days as a tax-haven are numbered by how long it takes China to fall face first into a hard landing at which point no saving on the Pacific seaboard will be safe.
Now, it is the turn of real estate.

Warning over US health insurance exchange
By Alan Rappeport in Washington - FT.com
Healthcare experts and watchdog groups are warning that a new plan by two US companies to create private health insurance exchanges, if adopted widely, could leave employees at risk as companies try to shift costs to their workers.
Sears, a US retailer, and Darden Restaurants, which operates Olive Garden and Red Lobster, said last week they were unveiling a new "defined contribution" health insurance model. The scheme would give employees a lump sum of money and allow them to choose from a menu of insurance options with a wider variety of choices.

Giving Up on the American Dream:
Are We Being Glum or Realistic?
Nearly three-fifths of Hispanics and African-Americans believe their children will enjoy greater opportunities. Only about a fourth of whites agree. Here's why that matters.
By Ronald Brownstein - TheAtlantic.com
When Robert and Helen Merrell Lynd studied Muncie, Ind., during the 1920s for their classic book,Middletown, nothing surprised them more than the lack of working-class resentment toward the business class.
For Middletown's working-class families, most of them dependent on factory jobs, life was often fragile and insecure. Yet, the Lynds found, workers didn't conclude from those conditions that the economic deck was stacked against them. The Lynds "came away puzzled by the fact that the city was becoming methodically divided, but despite that growing disparity there wasn't any overt hostility from the working-class toward that middle [and upper] class," says James Connolly, director of the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University in Muncie. "There was a strong sense in the working class that they had a shot [to get ahead], and this went along with a strong tendency to stress the individual's responsibility for their own success or failure."

Referees' Strike Shows Problems with Economy
The NFL Referees' Strike
Highlights Larger Truths About the U.S. Economy
NFL owners thought they could get away with treating officials the way corporate America treats its employees.
By Daniel Gross, Daily Beast
"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball," wrote the cultural critic Jacques Barzun in the middle of last century. But if you want to understand what's going on in the U.S economy, you'd be better advised to get to know football. The recently resolved labor dispute between the National Football League and its referees illuminates several larger trends in the economy.
First, when rich and powerful guys defund the rulemakers and regulators, bad things happen—but only the public and the little guys seem to suffer. The NFL officials aren't just workers. We learned they are vital to the quality of the experience in the marketplace—the pace of the game, making sure it is called reasonably, protecting participants from injury, and providing a safety net. They police activity, smack down out-of-bounds behavior, punish wrongdoers, and generally tamp down volatility. Which is very similar to the function that regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were supposed to do. When those entities were underfunded, understaffed, and marginalized, it encouraged an anything-goes environment. And then things went south, it wasn't the owners of the institution that got hurt.

'I'm Working Really Hard, but I'm Not Getting Ahead':
The New Middle Class Trap
How "staying put" became the new "moving up" in U.S. economy
By Jim Tankersley - TheAtlantic.com
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.--One day when John Sherry was 10 years old, his parents picked him up from school and drove to a Ford dealership. They walked into a large showroom with Mustangs parked out front. He watched his parents, neither of them college graduates, ink the paperwork to buy a new, dark-green Taurus. Greg and Beth Sherry let their son sign his name at the bottom of one of the pages, just for fun.
John, who's now 29, says it was the first time he realized that purchasing a car was a bigger deal than buying groceries or a shirt. "I thought, 'Someday, I'm going to be doing that.' " But now, he says, his lips tight and flat, "I don't see myself buying a new car"--ever. "That seems out of my grasp."

Why Does Our Society Look Down
On Unemployed Men So Much?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you are unemployed for an extended period of time, people are going to look at you differently. Unfortunately, this is especially true if you are a man. In our society, men are primarily defined by "what they do". If you have been unemployed for a long period of time, that can make social interactions even more awkward than normal. Most people will instantly become more uncomfortable around you when they find out that you are unemployed. Many will look at you with pity, and others will actually look at you with disdain. Women will not want to date you, and if you are in a relationship unemployment will put a tremendous amount of strain on it. Once you "don't have a job", you will not get the same level of respect from former co-workers, friends, members of your own family and possibly even your own wife. So why does our society look down on unemployed men so much?

Declining sales force Campbell to cut 700
Plants in California, New Jersey to close in 2013
By Candice Choi and Michelle Chapman, AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW YORK — Campbell Soup Co. is closing two U.S. plants and cutting more than 700 jobs as it looks to trim costs amid declining consumption of its canned soups.
The world's largest soup maker said Thursday that it will close a plant in Sacramento, Calif., that has about 700 full-time workers. The plant, which makes soups, sauces and beverages, was built in 1947 and is the company's oldest in the country. That also means it has the highest production costs of Campbell's four U.S. soup plants.

When it costs more to be poor – Fed and government shifting inflation onto rent, medical care, and food. QE3 to widen the gap between the poor and the wealthy.
By MyBudget360.com
Inflation has been picking up since the recession ended in 2009. The problem with the CPI increasing year over year with no rise in household incomes is that the standard of living for most Americans erodes every year that incomes do not keep up. Household incomes are back to levels last seen in the mid-1990s while the cost of necessities has gone up. This brings us to our article today that examines the nuts and bolts of what constitutes the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI attempts to measure the changes in price for consumer goods and services. Overall it did a very poor job of measuring the housing bubble because of the owner's equivalent of rent metric. Today, it is understating inflation because of the excess spending on "wants" that occurred in the 2000s has now shifted to spending on "needs" but is being dragged down by the amount of family spending on needed goods. We will dig deep into this data but suffice it to say that the Fed is creating inflation in items most Americans actually need to live their daily lives and the burden on the poor is actually increasing.

U.S. Postal Service to Default
on Second $5 Billion Retiree Payment
By HOPE YEN, AP - DailyFinance.com
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Postal Service, on the brink of default on a second multibillion-dollar payment it can't afford to pay, is sounding a new cautionary note that having squeezed out all the cost savings within its power, the mail agency's viability now lies almost entirely with Congress.
In an interview, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the mail agency will be forced to miss the $5.6 billion payment due to the Treasury on Sunday, its second default in as many months. Congress has left Washington until after the November elections, without approving a postal fix.

Two Earthquakes Rattle North Texas
3.4 and 3.1 earthquakes shake Dallas County Saturday night
By Reginald Hardwick, Mark Schnyder and Ray Villeda - NBCDFW.com
Two earthquakes rattled North Texas within 10 minutes late Saturday night.
The U.S. Geological Survey confirms a magnitude 3.4 earthquake occured at 11:05:01 p.m. The USGS listed the epicenter at 32.847°N, 96.956°W. That's just southwest of Las Colinas Country Club near North McArthur Blvd. and West Rochelle Road. It was southeast of DFW International Airport.
The second earthquake was a magnitude 3.1. It happened at 11:09:03 p.m. The USGS listed the epicenter at 32.768°N, 96.915°W. That location is Loop 12 Walton Walker Blvd., just north of Interstate 30 in far West Dallas. It is northwest of the city of Cockrell Hill.

Thousands of Bombs Dumped in Gulf of Mexico
Pose Huge Threat to Oil Rigs
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
After World War II the US government dumped millions of kilograms of unexploded bombs into the Gulf of Mexico. This is no secret; many governments dumped their unexploded ordnance into oceans and lakes from 1946 up until the 1970s when it was made illegal under international treaty.
Now that technology has advanced enough for oil companies to drill deep sea wells in the Gulf of Mexico, those forgotten payloads have become a real hazard.

George Soros Bails Out the Democrats with $2 Million
By Walter Hickey - DailyFinance.com
The New York Times has reported that George Soros just gave $2 million dollars to Democratic Super PACs.
Just when everyone thought that Soros was focusing on philanthropy andignoring Democratic calls for cash because of a perceived snub, "The Man Who Broke The Bank of England" is back in action, rescuing the Democrats from an October in which they're severely outgunned financially.

Ahead of Wednesday's first debate, polls suggest Obama's reelection likelyWith five weeks until election day in the US, Mitt Romney's chances are dwindling in the crucial battleground states
By JOSH LEDERMAN - TimesOfIsrael.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Five weeks to Election Day, President Barack Obama is within reach of the 270 electoral votes needed to win a second term. Republican Mitt Romney's path to victory is narrowing.
To overtake Obama, Romney would need to quickly gain the upper hand in nearly all of the nine states where he and Obama are competing the hardest.

Obama's Tyrannical Executive Orders
By Alan Caruba - CanadaFreePress.com
A September 24 a Wall Street Journal editorial warned that President Obama is moving to control the Internet by executive order. "Any day now, the White House will issue an executive order on cyber security, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who said last week that the measure 'is close to completion.'"
It noted that "the White House intends to go ahead with its order in the face of vociferous opposition on Capitol Hill."

Romney's 'Secret' Economic Plan Isn't a Secret
(and It's Not Much of a Plan)
A "tax holiday" for multinational corporations isn't much of a stimulus, unless your goal is to stimulate the top 1%.
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Mitt Romney's official economic plan includes repealing Obamacare and maybe not much else. But Politicoreports that he might have a stealth strategy for helping the economy that includes a grand deficit bargain and a plan to encourage corporations to stop saving and start spending:
Romney's metric-obsessed transition team is fleshing out a "200-day plan" (100 days wasn't enough time to pass a bunch of big bills) aimed at goosing the recovery and creating jobs by bringing corporate cash off the sidelines in the United States and attracting investment from abroad.

Ann Romney: 'I'd be worried for his mental well-being'
In TV interview, candidate's wife admits her fears if he should win White House race
By DAVID RANDALL - Independent.co.uk
Ann Romney has told a television station that if her husband, the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, wins the presidential election, her biggest concern would be his "mental well-being".
In an interview with Nevada's KTVN, Mrs Romney was asked what her biggest worry was should Mitt Romney be elected to serve in the White House. "I think my biggest concern obviously would just be for his mental well-being," she said. "I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness, in his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy. So for me, I think it would just be the emotional part of it."

That Sleekly Designed New Gadget Has One Flaw:
It Can't be Fixed
By M. Joy Hayes, Ph.D., The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
When buying new laptops, cellphones, and other tech devices, it's all about the latest and greatest -- bigger screens, lighter and sleeker designs, more bells and whistles.
But recent reports suggest that these design innovations aren't necessarily an improvement -- in fact, they may even sacrifice product durability, serviceability, and overall life span. Here's how.

Embracing 3-D Printers,
Manufacturer Tells Customers
to Print Their Own Replacement Parts
BY GEETA DAYAL - Wired.com
Want a new part for your synthesizer? Need a replacement knob or dial? In a first, one company is telling its customers to just print their own.
It's a move that signifies a major step into a new commercial marketplace, where customers can buy products directly from companies for on-demand, at-home manufacturing. And while we probably won't see complicated, mechanical products from big corporations reaching us through Thingiverse for a while yet, knobs and dials are the perfect static, detachable objects to begin the movement.

Your Brain on E-Books and Smartphone Apps
By NICK BILTON - NYTimes.com
Last week, my brain played a cruel trick on me. While waiting for my flight to take off, I was reading The New Yorker, the paper version, of course — I know the rules. I became engrossed in an article and swiped my finger down the glossy page to read more.
To my surprise, nothing happened. I swiped it again. Nothing.
My brain was trying to turn the page the same way I do on my iPad, with the swipe of a finger. (I quickly realized that I had to physically turn the page.)

Russia told Assad to shoot down Turkish plane, murder captured pilots, 'leaked Syrian documents' show Devastating intelligence papers purport to prove jet was downed on Moscow's orders, pilots captured alive by intelligence unit and then killed; Damascus had claimed June incident was an accident
By YIFA YAAKOV and TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF
Contrary to previous reports, the two pilots of a Turkish F-4 Phantom which was shot down by Syria in June were not killed in the crash, but were murdered by the Assad regime on Russian orders, according to a devastating series of alleged Syrian intelligence documents leaked to and published by Al-Arabiya on Saturday.
A file "sent from [President Bashar] Assad's palace," said the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya, conveys and thus apparently approves a Russian suggestion to "eliminate" the pilots in the "natural way."

Syrian rebels' backers block arms cache
until bickering factions unite
By KIM SENGUPTA - Independent.co.uk
Stockpiles of arms, including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, are being held in Turkey for use by rebels in Syria's civil war, but their distribution is being held up because of disunity and feuding between the different groups of fighters, The Independent has learned.
In high-level discussions, Qatari and Turkish suppliers told opposition representatives that heavy weapons would not be made available until the various factions agreed to form a coherent command structure.

Israel tells UN: Iran must be given a 'clear red line'
By DAVID USBORNE - Independent.co.uk
Asserting in a dramatic speech to the United Nations that Iran will be ready to build a nuclear weapon by next summer, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told leaders they must draw a clear red line to force the regime in Tehran to back down and end its uranium enrichment programme.
Mr Netanyahu, who brandished a chart drawn in the shape of a bomb with a dangling fuse, insisted that his purpose was to prevent a war, not start one. He added that not delivering the ultimatum he proposes would be akin to what happened when the world waited "too long" to deal with Hitler. "We can't let that happen," he said, insisting the stratagem would work. "I believe that, faced with a clear red line, Iran will back down. At this late hour, there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs and that is the placing of a clear red line on Iran's nuclear weapons programme. Red lines don't lead to war; red lines prevent war."

Steinitz: Iran economy near collapse from sanctions
Finance minister says Iran's oil income losses will reach $45-50 billion; believes US may delineate red lines in coming months.
By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF
Iran's economy is edging towards collapse due to international sanctions over its controversial nuclear program, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio on Sunday.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said that, although sanctions are taking their toll, they are not yet forcing Iran to abandon work that could soon lead to a nuclear warhead.

Tehran threatens Israel with 'full force'
if nuclear facilities are attacked
By CATRINA STEWART - Independent.co.uk
Tehran said it will respond with "full force" to any attack on its nuclear facilities after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged global action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Mr Netanyahu warned that the world has less than a year to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, a prediction that will raise fears of a military confrontation.

Romney: Obama deliberately causing rift between Israel, US
US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pens op-ed in WSJ accusing Obama of downgrading bilateral relations, maintaining a weak Middle East policy that could end up pulling US "into the maelstrom."
By JPOST.COM STAFF
US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday accused US President Barack Obama of deliberately creating a rift between Jerusalem and Washington, in an opinion piece he penned in the Wall Street Journal.
In his article entitled "A New Course for the Middle East," Romney wrote that he believes the US Administration has failed to advance American interests in the region, citing Israel as an example of an ally that has been ignored and let down. "The president began his term with the explicit policy of creating 'daylight' between our two countries," Romney wrote. US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice had used the same expression last month to deny any rift between the two countries in an interview with CNN, saying "the United States is in constant communication with Israel" and adding "there is no daylight" between Jerusalem and Washington.

Iran's Ahmadinejad Says Talks Will Progress After U.S. Election
By Susan Decker - Bloomberg.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said talks over his country's development of enriched uranium will be more productive after the U.S. election and expressed optimism the two sides will "be able to take some steps forward."
"We have seen during many years that as we approach the United States presidential election, no important decisions are made," Ahmadinejad said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program. "Following the election, certainly the atmosphere will be much more stable, and important decisions can be made and announced."

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