Blipits

[Original_Intent]

Glen, let's just agree that currently we have the worst of inflation and deflation; we have price inflation and wage deflation.

Was at Costco yesterday, the 4 x 1 lb. bacon was over $18!

We saw many items that have gone up 30% from a year ago.

Still waiting for that $5/oz. silver you keep saying is right around the corner...

[bobhenstra]

G, I don't think I would be able to listen to that for very long To much noise, to much controlled confusion, like some churches I've attended! No room for the Spirit to testify!

[Jason]

Glen, let's just agree that currently we have the worst of inflation and deflation; we have price inflation and wage deflation.

Was at Costco yesterday, the 4 x 1 lb. bacon was over $18!

We saw many items that have gone up 30% from a year ago.

Still waiting for that $5/oz. silver you keep saying is right around the corner...

Agreed. Albeit disagree on the source/cause. The market prices for meat are just beginning to catch up with the supply destruction that has occurred over the past 5 or 6 years. Cow/Calf pairs (Black Angus variety) were going for over $3200 at the auction here last week. Lost over 150,000 head last October in the snow storm that hit South Dakota. That pales to the herd slaughter throughout the midwest with the 2 or 3 year drought that ended in 2012. Lowest number of cattle since the early 50's.

Hogs are a little different story but still challenging. Take 2012 -

"We're not running out of hogs."

John Nalivka, president of agricultural research firm Sterling Marketing, on the U.S. pig population hitting record levels. U.S. farmers will raise 117.1 million porkers this year, the most in at least a half century, as world output increases 2.7 percent to an all-time high, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. The glut is putting pressure on futures prices, which may drop 10 percent to 78 cents a pound in Chicago by year-end, analysts predict.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/ ... 526257.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2014 -

The nation’s pig farmers are struggling to get to grips with a deadly virus that has wiped out more than 10 percent of the animals in less than a year and sent retail pork prices soaring to record highs.

The highly contagious killer stalking U.S. hog farms is known as PEDv - Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus. Puzzled scientists are searching for its origins and a cure, while farmers are suffering devastating financial losses.

Since June 2013 as many as seven million pigs have died in the United States due to the virus, said Steve Meyer, president of Iowa-based Paragon Economics and consultant to the National Pork Board.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... aring.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

According to a spokesman from Iowa-based Paragon Economics, consultant to the National Pork Board, over 7 million pigs have died since June 2013 due the virus, which has spread to over 30 states. So far, most scientists believe that PEDv is transmitted from pig to pig by contact with pig manure. “Something like a tablespoon of PEDv infected manure is roughly enough to infect the entire U.S. hog herd,” said Rodney “Butch” Baker, swine biosecurity specialist at Iowa State University, speaking to Huffington Post.

Read more: Killer Pig Virus PEDv Has Killed 10% Of The US Pig Population in Less Than a Year | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

http://inhabitat.com/killer-pig-virus-p ... an-a-year/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The killer stalking U.S. hog farms is known as PEDv, a malady that in less than a year has wiped out more than 10 percent of the nation's pig population and helped send retail pork prices to record highs. The highly contagious Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus is puzzling scientists searching for its origins and its cure and leaving farmers devastated in ways that go beyond financial losses.

"It's a real morale killer in a barn. People have to shovel pigs out instead of nursing them along," Goihl said.

Since June 2013 as many as 7 million pigs have died in the United States due to the virus, said Steve Meyer, president of Iowa-based Paragon Economics and consultant to the National Pork Board said. United States Department of Agriculture data showed the nation's hog herd at about 63 million as of March 1, 2014.

PEDv was first diagnosed in Ohio last May and has spread within a year to 30 states with no reliable cure in sight. U.S. packing plants may produce almost 2 percent less pork in 2014, according to Ken Mathews, USDA agricultural economist.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/ ... IC20140427" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interesting how we go from all time highs to 10% down in less than a year do to a mysterious virus....have to run that by the virus folks (microbiologists) that have increasingly shorter and shorter life spans (and disappearances). Bill Gates buddies...and where a good chunk of his tax free non-profit foundation money goes every year...

Be interesting to see how the drought story goes this year in central California that produces 50% or so of the nation's fruits and vegetables.

Yeah my crystal ball on silver certainly isn't doing so hot. Plateaued at $20 (plus or minus a buck or so) for quite some time now. Have to admit the Federal Reserve has done a pretty good job of keeping the deflation wolf at bay for more time than I ever previously gave them credit for. I still think its coming. Others think $200/oz is coming. Time will tell the story one way or the other.

[Jason]

G, I don't think I would be able to listen to that for very long To much noise, to much controlled confusion, like some churches I've attended! No room for the Spirit to testify!

Perhaps you are right. I'll make an attempt to do a little better...







and last of all...a neighbor from a ward I used to live in...

[Jason]

The U.S. cattle herd started the year at the smallest since 1951 as ranchers struggled to recover from years of drought. Cow slaughter fell 7 percent in the first quarter of 2014, signaling that animals are being held back for breeding. The start of a herd expansion can take almost three years. American pork production may drop as much as 7 percent as a piglet-killing virus spread, Rabobank International estimates.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-0 ... e-day.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/Stat ... or.aspx?CA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Koopmann, who has had to cull about half of his own herd down to 200 mother cows, said cattle ranchers are faced tough decisions due to a lack of forageable food and basic water supplies.

Rebuilding their herds in the future will be a steep road for many ranchers.

According to his estimate, approximately 140,000 mother cows had to be liquidated either as breeding stock or sent off for slaughter and processing.

An average cow requires about three percent of its body weight daily in dry matter, he said. An average mother cow needs around 12 to 18 gallons of water a day to sustain itself.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-n ... l/26595624" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Despite some healthy downpours that California received in March, on Thursday the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a key source of water for farms and cities, was 13 percent of the historic average for this date. Most major cities received half or less of their average rainfall this year.

San Jose, with 6.32 inches since last July 1, was at 43 percent of average rainfall. Oakland, 50 percent. And San Francisco, 54 percent.

Major reservoirs, hamstrung by 2013 being the driest year in recorded California history, are mostly at about half of their historic average for the beginning of summer.

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_2 ... ity-raised" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The coffee crop across Central America is already suffering due to the plant-choking fungus called coffee rust, or la roya, according to an article by the New York Times.

The article states that the latest epidemic of coffee rust started in Central America three years ago and has advanced to the highest elevations. Coffee rust outbreaks in the 1970s and 1980s were contained at lower elevations.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-n ... 1/26663474" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Farmers increase bio-security to combat deadly pig virus
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/87fd ... d62e86.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PEDv thrives in cold, damp environments, and after slowing last summer its spread accelerated during the past winter. In mid-December, there were over 1,500 cases but by mid-April, that had more than tripled to 5,790, according to USDA data.

Altogether, of nearly 15,000 samples tested for PEDv about 32 percent have been positive.

The virus "acts like a lawn mower" on the villi in a pig's intestines, which are the tiny projections that aid digestion, said Tony Forshey, chief of animal health at the Ohio Department of Agriculture. With their villi gone, the piglets cannot absorb nutrients from food or water, contract diarrhea and die from dehydration.

So far, no vaccine has been able to completely protect pigs from the disease. An Iowa company, Harrisvaccines Inc., has made some progress, while pharmaceutical giants Merck Animal Health and Zoetis Inc have joined with universities to begin vaccine development.

"There is no silver bullet for PEDv," said Justin Ellis, marketing manager at Alltech, which developed a feed additive designed to reduce risk of the disease.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/2 ... 21471.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MERS Jeddah As SARS Guangzhou - Emergence
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/05111 ... gence.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Saudi Arabia warns of MERS risk from camels as cases rise
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/ ... 6520140511" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Saudis report 10 more MERS cases, 7 deaths
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspect ... s-7-deaths" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Over the last week, investigators have worked to track down every person who shared space with the unidentified elderly patient before he showed up at the hospital, including passengers on the April 24 flight that brought him from the Saudi capital of Riyadh to Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Through passenger manifests, credit card receipts and other clues, they have also traced people who rode with the man on the bus he took from the airport to northwestern Indiana on April 27.

So far, nearly all the fellow travelers — about 112 — have been traced, and none has tested positive for the crown-shaped virus that causes MERS. At least 50 hospital workers who had even the slightest contact with the man remain in home isolation, but they also show no symptoms. The same is true for the Indiana relatives whom the man, an American living in Riyadh, had come to visit.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mer ... tml#page=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;





There's more than one oil price around the world and as the following comprehensive (but brief) overview from Morgan Stanley's Global Energy Teach In shows, crude oil pricing across the world is dynamic and multi-factorial - from fundamental factors (such as simple supply and demand and seasonality) to macro factors (such as USD strength, macro sentiment, and "burden") and risk premia (e.g. geopolitics), the following provides everything you wanted to know about global crude oil fundamentals, but were afraid to ask...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-1 ... afraid-ask" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Central banks are taking on policies that appear to indicate a deep and profound recession. The only issue with this is that the US recession ended in 2009. Why continue expanding at such an aggressive pace? The chart above shows continued aggressive expansion of central bank balance sheets. First, many US banks were fully insolvent. That is, they had overplayed their hand and were holding onto assets that were way overvalued. This led to the foreclosure crisis. But a funny thing happened. The US allowed these toxic assets to fall into the Fed’s balance sheet and policy makers allowed mark to market accounting to be suspended. Little by little banks inflated the housing market back up. This dramatically helped banks stay afloat while fully manipulating the market at the public’s expense. Keep in mind millions of people lost their homes yet every large major bank actually has become bigger and salaries of these financiers are back to where they once were. In an incestuous twist, many of those foreclosures are now owned by the new rentier class as they chase yields in every asset class.
http://www.mybudget360.com/global-debt- ... sion-debt/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It fits the pattern of gratuitous bank enrichment perfectly, but this time, the big beneficiaries of the Fed are foreign banks. A JPMorgan analysis, cited by the Wall Street Journal, figured that in 2014 the Fed would pay $6.74 billion in interest to the banks that park their excess cash at the Fed – half of that amount, so a cool $3.37 billion, would line the pockets of foreign banks with branches in the US.

This is where part of the liquidity ends up that the Fed has been handing to Wall Street through its bond purchases. Currently, the Fed requires that banks keep a minimum balance of $80.2 billion at the Fed. Banks can keep up to $88.2 billion at the Fed as part of the “penalty-free band.” In theory, as “penalty-free” implies, there’d be a penalty on balances above $88.2 billion.

But the total balance was $2.66 trillion in April, up from $2.62 trillion in March and from $1.83 trillion a year ago. The balances in excess of the “penalty-free band” have reached $2.57 trillion. The highest ever. The penalty on that?

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/20 ... dissipates" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The next battle against Wall Street may be brewing and this one is in Los Angeles City Hall. If it erupts, the soldiers will be a scrappy, wonky, and sophisticated phalanx of labor, neighborhood, and religious activists. Their research has exposed the fact that Wall Street banks were paid $200 million in fees alone last year by the City of Los Angeles; many millions more than the city spent on fixing its streets.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/los-angele ... et/5381622" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

NY AG seeks info from major banks on dark pools
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101646860" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The class of 2014 expects to make bigger bucks than those who graduated the year before, but they're already behind in the first step: getting a job.

Only 11% secured a job two months before graduation, according to a survey conducted in March by Accenture. Meanwhile, even more of them are leaving school with debt. Nearly 80% of those surveyed are facing at least $10,000 in loans.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/08/pf/coll ... ?iid=HP_LN" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The question becomes: how realistic is it to presume that the US consumer will go on the mother if all shopping sprees in this climate (pun very much intended)? We know housing won’t be a part of that spree, new home sales and mortgage applications won’t allow it. So you tell me what could make it happen. What are they going to be buying? More Obamacare? I don’t see where that kind of growth would come from, Durden doesn’t, and neither does Steen Jakobsen. You?

http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-r ... p-numbers/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The financial markets in the West are barely pulling themselves together these days and over the last few weeks and months we have discussed the underlying issues at length; especially in the United States the pressure is on as the Fed’s tapering program continues ruthlessly. The US is not the only part of the world, however, where the skies are grey above the markets. We have not read a lot of positive news about the East lately either, where specifically China’s economy is in a slump.

For months, if not years, we have listened to the story of the inflated Chinese real estate market, which is a bubble that could pop at any moment. But, until now we have not seen a large scale Chinese real estate crisis like the one we had in the US a few years ago, only local price fluctuations. That the Chinese real estate market is expanding rapidly has not been a secret for a long time, since significant economic growth usually goes hand in hand with a growing real estate market. Of course it also goes hand in hand with bubbles, especially in regions where the economy is developing the fastest. For example, real estate bubbles are forming in different places along the Chinese coast line, although it remains concentrated around those areas for now.

Another problem is burdening the Chinese real estate market, however, as banks become less and less willing to lend money; the Chinese credit market is floundering and this could have bigger consequences. The stress in the financial markets is caused by the hesitation of different players, and market watchers have underlined slowing economic activity as the cause of this phenomenon instead of rising debt positions. Indeed, although Chinese debt is very large in nominal terms, debt ratios remain within reason: government 53%, households 31%, the financial sector 17%, etc. That is not so bad compared to Western statistics that show percentages north of 100% in many cases. Of course, if the Chinese economy slows down significantly today these percentages will go up fast.

The fact that the Chinese economy is not running as smoothly as it did before the crisis became painstakingly obvious again when the latest Chinese PMI figures were posted this week. The ‘HSBC China manufacturing PMI’ ended up at 48.3 for April and although that figure is higher than the previous one from March (48), it still highlights a shrinking Chinese manufacturing industry (< 50). Considering the fact that the Chinese economy is mainly driven by output, rather than consumption, this is not good news.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/20 ... s-currency" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Saxobank Warns China Is Exporting Deflation (And It's Not Going To Stop Anytime Soon)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-0 ... ytime-soon" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

80 percent of sales in Irvine going to foreign buyers from China?
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/cash ... rom-china/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China on Sunday signed a deal to build a $3.8 billion rail link between Kenya's Indian Ocean port of Mombasa and Nairobi, the first stage of a line that will eventually link Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/China_si ... 8/Y/M.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China is buying up American energy production and resources as Washington stands by and watches.
http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2014/05 ... -reserves/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Japan Balance Of Payments Current Account Collapses To Record Deficit
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-1 ... rd-deficit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Japan Debt Update: ¥1,020,000,000,000,000.00
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-1 ... 0000000000" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

David Cameron: Taxes will rise unless we can raid bank accounts
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... ounts.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Suspension of gas supplies to Ukraine cannot be ruled out
http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/731007" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ukraine crisis EXCLUSIVE: US and Europe planning to ‘cut off’ Russia’s gas supply
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 41096.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ukraine Scrambles Fighter Jets, Intercepts Airplane Carrying Russian Deputy Premier
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-1 ... ty-premier" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So, private pilots have offered their skills to the Ukrainian Border Service. Since Easter, private small planes and helicopters are taking over patrol jobs on some Ukrainian borders.
http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2014/05 ... g-borders/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

400 Blackwater Mercs Deployed In Ukraine Against Separatists, German Press Reports
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-1 ... ss-reports" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ukraine guardsmen open fire on crowd in east after referendum
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-gua ... eferendum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BBC reporters at polling stations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions spoke of chaotic scenes, no voting booths in places and no electoral register. At least one person is reported to have been killed by armed men loyal to Ukraine's government.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27360146" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bomb Blast Kills Five In Northwest Pakistan
http://www.rferl.org/content/pakistan-r ... 80901.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Suicide Car Bomber Kills Five In Afghanistan
http://www.rferl.org/content/afghanista ... 80884.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Militants In Iraq Kill 20 Soldiers
http://www.rferl.org/content/iraq-milit ... 80697.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Complete Chronology of the Benghazi Deception
http://modernsurvivalonline.com/the-com ... deception/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

David Hogberg of the National Center for Public Policy Research said: “If you had your plan prior to March 2010 when Obamacare became law, it was supposed to be grandfathered in. You were supposed to keep it, but the Department of Labor came out with these grandfather regulations. It’s almost like telling a guy you can keep walking on the beach as long as you don’t get any sand on your feet. It’s almost impossible not to violate.”

The first round of cancellations hit those in the individual health-care market. The second round will be for those who get their health insurance through their employers, who were given a delayed deadline by the Obama White House.

http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/insurance-ex ... -canceled/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

HONOLULU (AP) -- The chief executive of Hawaii's largest health insurance company is calling on Hawaii to shut down its beleaguered health insurance exchange, which was set up as part of President Barack Obama's signature health care law.
http://news.yahoo.com/insurance-ceo-shu ... 53745.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Abu Hamza, the radical Islamic preacher notorious for his hate-filled sermons, was in reality working secretly with British intelligence "to keep the streets of London safe" by "cooling hotheads", his lawyer claimed in a US court.
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/ra ... 55759.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The State Department under Hillary Clinton fought hard against placing the al Qaeda-linked militant group Boko Haram on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations for two years. And now, lawmakers and former U.S. officials are saying that the decision may have hampered the American government’s ability to confront the Nigerian group that shocked the world by abducting hundreds of innocent girls.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... rists.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Harvard University – one of America’s most elite institutions – will host the reenactment of a Satanic Black Mass on May 12th.
http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/s ... niversity/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FBI investigating Bundy supporters in BLM dispute
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/25469579/ ... lm-dispute" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Militia to be demonized as radicals by media during upcoming BLM protest
http://intellihub.com/militia-to-be-dem ... m-protest/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Militiamen move on from Bundy fight to next battle with BLM
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/ma ... attle-blm/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;





Here are 10 points to think about if and when you are faced with defending you and your own:
http://www.bioprepper.com/2014/05/08/th ... -yourself/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

10 Questions to Ask About Your Food Storage
http://www.thepreparednesspodcast.com/1 ... t+Posts%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Emergency Preparedness Basics with Essential Oils
http://americanpreppersnetwork.com/2014 ... -oils.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Disaster Preparedness: How Group Psychology Plays a Role in Survival
http://modernsurvivalonline.com/disaste ... -survival/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

James Wesley Rawles – Proceed, with Prayer
http://thedailycoin.org/?p=819" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This article has been contributed by the Strategic Relocation Blog

I have often been asked to comment on Jim Rawles’ concept of the Redoubt for survival relocation. Rawles’ criteria of distance from population threats, defendability, and agricultural suitability focus upon a fairly limited area of the Western US, centered around Idaho, and includes Western Montana and parts of Eastern Washington and Oregon. In reality, it’s a fine area and certainly matches my core recommendations in Strategic Relocation for security, safety and livability, but it may be too limiting for most people.

However, having consulted with people and designed high security residences for the last 40 years around North America, I realize all too well that most people have financial, distance from family, weather and other personal limitations that simply won’t allow for relocation to an area so far north and remote from their needs as the Redoubt. Some people, for example, need access to an international airport hub, which doesn’t exist in the Redoubt. Others need a drier, sunnier climate for health reasons or even more solar potential. Others simply need something closer to the metro area that have to remain in due to job or family reasons.

The map in Figure 1 below represents what I would recommend as an Expanded Secure Relocation Area. I don’t use the term “redoubt” because of its military defense implications. Even though I believe in defensibility at the retreat level I don’t like to infer that some broader military resistance strategy is possible for most people. For individual families I prefer less confrontational strategies of blending in, or getting out of the way, or concealment as the best form of defense for most people.

The area I have outlined is what is generally referred to as the Intermountain West and includes the Great Basin—that high desert plain between the Cascade/Sierra Mountains of Washington, Oregon and California over to the middle of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. These two mountain ranges converge as they get further north and merge in Canada. They provide a pretty formidable barrier for those coming from the West Coast or the Midwest. In addition, the Great Basin has within its boundaries hundreds of miles of trackless desert and mountain areas that provide isolation by distance and hardship for anyone entering the area without vehicles, fuel and water.

That doesn’t mean everything within these bounders is equally safe, secure, or livable.

http://www.shtfplan.com/strategic-reloc ... e_05092014" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Next month, a pilot program of the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” will begin in government agencies in two US states, to test out whether the pros of a federally verified cyber ID outweigh the cons.
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=20771" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The deadly and devastating U.S. severe weather outbreak of April 27 - 30, 2014, has finally drawn to a close. The death toll from nature’s 4-day rampage of deadly tornadoes, extreme flooding, and damaging severe thunderstorms has killed at least 39 people, and will end up costing more than $1 billion, according to disaster expert Steve Bowen of Aon Benfield. NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) lists 133 preliminary tornadoes over the four days in 14 states; damage surveys are on-going, and 38 of these tornadoes had been confirmed as of noon on May 1.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2674" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A few more from Paul (while he's on my mind) -

[Jason]

Could Detroit Become America’s First Chinese City?
http://www.westernjournalism.com/detroi ... nese-city/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Will Detroit Be The First Major Chinese City In The United States?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-0 ... ted-states" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Imagine you're a country attempting to move roughly 250 million people (just a bit less than the total US urban population) into cities -- some of which you haven't even built yet -- within the next dozen years. This will bring your total urban population to approximately 900 million people, or roughly 13 percent of the world's population. In less than 10 years, you will have almost one quarter of the world's 400 largest cities.

Sounds like the ultimate SimCity, right?

But, there's a catch: You only have 7 percent of the world's freshwater resources, and in addition to supporting urban growth, you need to provide water for 400 million rural residents and meet the tremendous demands from agriculture, energy, and manufacturing sectors. What's more, over 20 percent of your supply is so polluted that it can't be used for industrial or agricultural use -- much less for human consumption (a factor that, combined with air pollution, causes an estimated 6 percent reduction in your annual GDP, according to the World Bank).

If you haven't guessed, you're China. And this isn't a simulation.

http://www.ubmfuturecities.com/author.a ... _id=525338&" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chinese investors are expanding their presence in the United States property market with a buying spree extending from gateway cities like New York into middle America, according to industry consultants.

Mainland firms announced commercial real estate transactions worth US$5.9 billion in the United States last year, according to data from New York's Rhodium Group.

Of these, deals worth US$1.8 billion were completed during the year, a new record and up from US$70 million in 2012 and virtually nothing before 2011.

http://www.scmp.com/property/internatio ... jor-cities" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It took just one 15-minute phone call in July to persuade Ifei Chang to join Shanghai-based developer Greenland Holding Group Co. and lead a U.S. expansion. Within three months, she was running $6 billion of projects as part of a record push by Chinese investors into American property.

Greenland reached a preliminary agreement in October to buy a 70 percent stake in the $5 billion Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, New York. That followed a July deal to acquire a $1 billion residential-and-entertainment project in downtown Los Angeles. Chang, who took charge of that site upon arriving in the U.S., is now on the hunt for more investments.

“In China, you climb a ladder where everything is floating and moving so fast,” Chang, 49, said in an interview at her sparsely furnished 46th-floor L.A. office overlooking the empty lot where the Metropolis project will be built. “We come from a country of 1.4 billion people and a lot of economic growth. This kind of project and investment speed is very normal in China. That’s why we are so confident we will deliver this project.”

Chinese investments in U.S. commercial properties jumped almost 10-fold last year from 2012, with Manhattan the biggest area for purchases, followed by other New York City boroughs and Los Angeles, according to research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-0 ... eal-estate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Greenland Holding Group Co., the builder of one of China’s tallest towers, plans to invest in London property after expanding in the U.S., Chairman Zhang Yuliang said.

“We are very interested in London,” Zhang said, adding that the city’s mayor Boris Johnson visited the Shanghai-based company this month. “Greenland has investments in almost all the Chinese cities, so going globally is a must for all big companies like us.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-2 ... nsion.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Greenland Holding Group Co., the Shanghai city government-owned builder of one of China’s tallest towers, plans to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange through an asset swap with an affiliate.

Greenland, set up in 1992 and owned by the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shanghai Municipal Government, is also looking to enter Canada, France and Singapore this year, it said then.

The asset swap is pending the approval of shareholders and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Jinfeng said yesterday. Both Greenland and Jinfeng are controlled by state-owned Shanghai Real Estate Group Co.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-1 ... -swap.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SHANGHAI--Chinese state-owned conglomerate Greenland Holding Group has raised a total of 11.73 billion yuan ($1.93 billion) from five private equity investors by issuing 2.09 billion additional shares as part of efforts to strengthen and expand its business.

The two largest investors are Ping An Innovation Capital Investment Co., which purchased 1.037 million shares for CNY5.83 billion, and a subsidiary of CDH Investments, which paid CNY2.5 billion for 444 million shares. The other investors are Ningbo Huisheng Fund, Zhuhai Puluo Fund and a Shanghai-based subsidiary of State Development and Investment Corporation (SDIC) Fund Management, according to a statement on the Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange's website.

http://online.wsj.com/article/DN-CO-201 ... 00061.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Greenland Holding Group is owned primarily by the Government of China with headquarters in Shanghai. The joint venture would be a Delaware limited liability company.

Under the joint venture’s operating agreement, the joint venture will be managed by a 5-person board of managers, three of whom will be appointed by Greenland and will hold the titles of Chairman, CEO and CFO, and two of whom will be appointed by FCRC and will hold the titles of Vice Chairman and President.

http://ourtimepress.com/?p=12025" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

“It’s outrageous that a project receiving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in exchange for badly-needed affordable housing for working people from Brooklyn could soon be controlled by a foreign government. ESDC has repeatedly abdicated its responsibility to the people of the State of New York with the Atlantic Yards project and is poised to do so again.” said Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of The Fifth Avenue Committee.

http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com ... inese.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bobhenstra]

Thanks G! Interesting watching it all happen!

[BroJones]

Wait -- is China buying up property in the US just as an investment; OR are they in fact planning to send hundreds of millions of Chinese to occupy the properties they are buying?

Imagine you're a country attempting to move roughly 250 million people (just a bit less than the total US urban population) into cities -- some of which you haven't even built yet -- within the next dozen years. This will bring your total urban population to approximately 900 million people, or roughly 13 percent of the world's population. In less than 10 years, you will have almost one quarter of the world's 400 largest cities.

Sounds like the ultimate SimCity, right?

But, there's a catch: You only have 7 percent of the world's freshwater resources, and in addition to supporting urban growth, you need to provide water for 400 million rural residents and meet the tremendous demands from agriculture, energy, and manufacturing sectors. What's more, over 20 percent of your supply is so polluted that it can't be used for industrial or agricultural use -- much less for human consumption (a factor that, combined with air pollution, causes an estimated 6 percent reduction in your annual GDP, according to the World Bank).

If you haven't guessed, you're China. And this isn't a simulation.

[mes5464]

Wait -- is China buying up property in the US just as an investment; OR are they in fact planning to send hundreds of millions of Chinese to occupy the properties they are buying?

Both. They are planning to send many of their people here AND they want to empty the countryside and move those people into mega cities.
It is Agenda 21 in action.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29754&p=467925&hilit=china#p467925" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29754&p=435525&hilit=china#p435525" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29754&p=435084&hilit=china#p435084" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29754&p=432598&hilit=china#p432598" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=29754&p=419183&hilit=china#p419183" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/world ... d=all&_r=1&" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Original_Intent]

Wait -- is China buying up property in the US just as an investment; OR are they in fact planning to send hundreds of millions of Chinese to occupy the properties they are buying?

Imagine you're a country attempting to move roughly 250 million people (just a bit less than the total US urban population) into cities -- some of which you haven't even built yet -- within the next dozen years. This will bring your total urban population to approximately 900 million people, or roughly 13 percent of the world's population. In less than 10 years, you will have almost one quarter of the world's 400 largest cities.

Sounds like the ultimate SimCity, right?

But, there's a catch: You only have 7 percent of the world's freshwater resources, and in addition to supporting urban growth, you need to provide water for 400 million rural residents and meet the tremendous demands from agriculture, energy, and manufacturing sectors. What's more, over 20 percent of your supply is so polluted that it can't be used for industrial or agricultural use -- much less for human consumption (a factor that, combined with air pollution, causes an estimated 6 percent reduction in your annual GDP, according to the World Bank).

If you haven't guessed, you're China. And this isn't a simulation.

Amazing to see prophecy being fulfilled to the letter. 2015.75.

[Jason]

Thanks G! Interesting watching it all happen!

Indeed!

Both the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured images an eruption at Sakura Jima on May 23, 2014.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Spring came early to southern Alaska in 2014, bringing warm and dry weather. By the end of May, vegetation was already primed to burn. So when a fire broke out on the Kenai Peninsula on the evening of May 19, 2014, it quickly blew up into a massive wildfire. Called the Funny River Fire, it had burned more than 43,000 acres by 5:30 p.m. local time on May 21.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wildfire in Alaska is bigger than the entire city of Seattle
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1805259" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Slide Fire, reported just before 4 pm May 20, is burning in Oak Creek Canyon just north of Slide Rock State Park.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

California Drought Threatens Food Supply of All Americans; Collapsing Aquifer Sinking the Land
http://www.weather.com/tv/tvshows/ameri ... d-20140521" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Torrential rains on May 14 - 15 in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have caused extreme flooding that has killed at least 38 people
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2681" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More record May heat seared Southern California on Thursday, and fierce Santa Ana winds continued to fan nine wildfires in San Diego County.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2680" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One of the worst droughts in California's history has devastated more than a half-million acres of the most fertile farmland in America. In communities like Sacramento, "water police" go from door to door to enforce conservation measures. There's even a mobile "app" to report neighbors to city authorities so they can be fined for wasting water.

With the Sierra snowpack at 4% of normal as of May 20, Californians will desperately need what little water remains behind its dams this summer. Authorities have warned some towns like Folsom—home of Folsom Lake—to expect daily rationing of 50 gallons per person, a 60% cut from average household usage.

Yet last month the Bureau of Reclamation drained Folsom and other reservoirs on the American and Stanislaus rivers of more than 70,000 acre feet of water—enough to meet the annual needs of a city of half a million people—for the comfort and convenience of fish.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 74370.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

According to Thursday’s release of the U.S. Drought Monitor, 100 percent of the state is now in one of the three worst stages of drought. Exceptional drought, the highest stage, runs from Los Angeles to San Francisco and inland to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The first 4 months of the year in Oklahoma were the second driest start to the year on record for the state, Crouch said. The only drier year was 1936, during the Dust Bowl.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... f-drought/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Gov. Brown: ‘We’re Getting Ready For The Worst’ California Fire Season
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/0 ... alifornia/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

USDA warns of sticker shock on U.S. beef as grilling season starts
http://news.yahoo.com/u-faces-higher-fo ... iness.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Solution To Record Meat Prices: The Return Of Pink Slime
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-2 ... pink-slime" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Organic food shortage hits US
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/24501646/o ... ge-hits-us" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

farmers are getting older – the average age was 58.3 years.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/busine ... shrinking/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The US shale oil "miracle" has about as much believability left as Jimmy Swaggart. Just today, we learned that the EIA has placed a hefty downward revision on its estimate of the amount of recoverable oil in the #1 shale reserve in the US, the Monterey in California.

As recently as yesterday, the much-publicized Monterey formation accounted for nearly two-thirds of all technically-recoverable US shale oil resources.

But by this morning? The EIA now estimates these reserves to be 96% lower than it previously claimed.

Yes, you read that right: 96% lower. As in only 4% of the original estimate is now thought to be technically-recoverable at today's prices: From 13.7 billion barrels down to 600 million. Using a little math, that means the hoped for 2.8 million jobs become 112k and the $24.6 billion in tax revenues shrink to $984 million.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/8555 ... disappears" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Economist: We Are On The Verge Of Another Recession, By The End Of July It Will Become Apparent To All Americans.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/economis ... americans/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As Goes Walmart, So Goes America: “Major Holes Are Starting to Form In Its Business”
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/a ... s_05232014" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Muslim cleric who backed fatwa on ‘killing of U.S. soldiers’ promoted by State De
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... -soldiers/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For the first time, members of Danab and the CIA-trained Somali intelligence unit known as “Alpha Group,” who agreed to be interviewed on the condition they were not identified, gave detailed accounts of the extent to which the Americans are now involved in training forces in a country from which they fled two decades ago.
http://www.phantomreport.com/cia-traine ... lpha-group" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China, Japan exchange barbs over action by warplanes in East China Sea
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/ ... 1920140525" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China And Russia Hold "Massive" Joint Naval Drill: This Is What It Looked Like
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-2 ... -it-looked" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Russia and China join forces in "de-dollarization" of currency reserves
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_05_25/Rus ... rves-7748/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China and Russia Agree to Contain the United States
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... tates.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China's state-owned sector told to cut ties with U.S. consulting firms
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/ ... AH20140525" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;?

Why is China keeping quiet about its claim on this South China Sea island?
http://www.theage.com.au/world/why-is-c ... zro1h.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

European Voters Are Revolting; France Warns "Situation Is Grave For Europe"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-2 ... ave-europe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

6,000 US troops head to Jordan for military drills
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/05/22 ... war-games/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

3-Star General Bombshell, US Preps With Thailand For Martial Law In America – Infowars
http://beforeitsnews.com/global-unrest/ ... 59232.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nearly one-third of all pregnancies in the city of Detroit end in abortion, a statistic public health officials blame on rising poverty and dwindling access to affordable contraception.

Of an estimated 18,360 pregnancies among Detroit residents in 2012, the most recent year for which data are available, 5,693 ended in abortion, or 31 percent.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2014 ... s-abortion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Children's MMA: Sebastian Montalvo photographs child cage fighters trained to fight in arenas
http://www.news.com.au/world/childrens- ... public_rss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Over a two-year period police in the UK investigated over 235 reports of sex crimes by children under ten, according to the The Mail on Sunday .

In one case two boys aged five were accused of a series of rapes on other children in the Thames Valley.

The paper also reported the case of a six-year-old girl investigated over alleged sexual offences. The youngest suspect was just four.

The appalling statistics were blamed by a leading UK children’s charity on easy access of online porn.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/ ... 6931160256" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nearly universal internet access has made pornography more widely available than ever, a trend that some experts warn could have major negative effects on people's lives and intimate relationships.

As many as 90% of respondents in a 2012 survey by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation said they started watching pornographic videos when they were minors, said Kang Shu-hua, head of the foundation, at a press conference in Taipei on Friday.

The survey solicited responses from 1,676 people aged 21-30, of which 341 were women.

A total 79% of respondents said they look at porn on a weekly basis and 22% watch it at least once a day, Kang said.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subc ... ainCatID=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BrentL]

leigon, will do me a favor and turn your unparalleled research ability to Fukushima. I would like to have good resources.

[Jason]

Same Ol Stuff...

Japan’s nuclear authority will allow Fukushima's nuclear power plant operator, TEPCO, to build an underground ice wall isolating radioactive water build-up. This is despite earlier concerns that the wall might cause the ground to sink.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) no longer has reservations about the 32 billion yen (US$314 million) government-funded project, in which a giant “wall of ice” is to be built around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant’s four reactors, Kyodo news agency reported.

http://rt.com/news/162100-fukushima-ice-wall-tepco/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Japan’s nuclear regulator approved a plan this week to freeze the ground around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to prevent contaminated water from seeping into the region’s water supply.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) plans to begin construction on the “ice wall” in June, the AFP reported. The frozen wall is meant to block groundwater under nearby hills from flowing under the power plant and mixing with radioactive water, polluted after an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 damaged nuclear reactors.

The $314 million government-funded plan requires TEPCO to use pipes carrying coolant to freeze the ground nearly 100 feet deep and nine-tenths of a mile around four reactors and related buildings.

Last week, TEPCO also began releasing water with low levels of radiation deemed safe into the Pacific Ocean. The company plans to release 100 metric tons of that groundwater into the ocean each day, a quarter of the water that enters the facility daily.

http://www.ibtimes.com/fukushima-freeze ... er-1591852" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Japan will attempt to staunch the massive amounts of contaminated groundwater flowing into the sea from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex with a giant wall of ice.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the government oversight body created after the ongoing Fukushima crisis revealed previous official watchdogs to be ineffective, has signed off on construction of a network of pipes, pumps and compressors designed to freeze the ground and create a mile-long “ice wall” to block the path of water flowing between surrounding mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

The plan, adapted from procedures used to dig tunnels near waterways, has been discussed for over a year. No ground-freezing project of this size has ever been attempted, and there is no real sense of how well it would work.

http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scru ... enial.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Despite an earlier understanding that they will be disclosed, the interviews with around 772 people involved in the Fukushima 2011 nuclear disaster will apparently still not be made public as far as the current administration is concerned.
http://japandailypress.com/japanese-gov ... s-2648740/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The identity of the individual in the prime minister's office who exacerbated the nuclear disaster seems destined to forever remain a mystery. Yoshida gave hours of testimony to the government's Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations between July and November 2011. The Asahi Shimbun recently obtained a copy. Yoshida died last July of esophageal cancer.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disast ... 1405270056" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Water sampled from a well at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has been found to contain levels of radioactive tritium that exceeds the limit for dumping it into the Pacific, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The discovery was the first report of over the limit tritium in groundwater at the wells since Tepco began discharging water into the ocean last week.

In samples taken from one of the 12 wells on Monday, 1,700 becquerels per liter of tritium was detected, exceeding the maximum limit of 1,500 becquerels, the utility said on Tuesday.

Tritium levels in samples taken last month also topped the limit.

Tepco stopped pumping water from the well on Tuesday night, and said it plans to step up groundwater monitoring.

The utility is now releasing groundwater from the 12 wells into the sea after temporarily storing it in tanks and checking radiation levels.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/0 ... 4fqTnaTKRM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is isolated from the rest of Japan by police checkpoints, security fences, and barricades. It remains a desolate wasteland three years after the meltdown, when Fukushima residents had just hours to grab their belongings and leave. Radioactive water is leaking, soil is contaminated, and workers must brave dangerous conditions as they try to slowly and painstakingly take the power plant apart -- a process expected to take decades.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/21/world/asi ... it-ripley/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

...ya know its bad when they are trying to freeze the ground 100 ft down for over a mile...

[Jason]

Party officials say Obama plans to attend a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender gala with Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
http://www.ny1.com/content/news/209608/ ... -lgbt-gala" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In an astonishing challenge to traditional Catholic doctrine, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, nominally Catholic, has taken to telling San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone that he should not attend the National Organization for Marriage’s June 19 march on the Supreme Court in Washington D.C.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Cali ... l-Marriage" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A record number of Americans are risking their financial futures by making early withdrawals from their retirement accounts.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/record-nu ... -accounts/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In other words, too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. The CFED calls these folks “liquid asset poor,” and its report finds that 44% of Americans are living with less than $5,887 in savings for a family of four. The plight of these folks is compounded by the fact that the recession ravaged many Americans’ credit scores to the point that now 56% percent of us have subprime credit.
http://time.com/2742/nearly-half-of-ame ... -paycheck/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Over half of Americans (52%) have had to make at least one major sacrifice in order to cover their rent or mortgage over the last three years, according to the “How Housing Matters Survey,” which was commissioned by the nonprofit John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and carried out by Hart Research Associates.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/over-5 ... 2014-06-03" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Consumer credit, for instance, surged past the $3 trillion mark in the second quarter of 2013 and continues on an upward trajectory, according to the most recent numbers from the Federal Reserve.

At $3.04 trillion, the total is up 22 percent over the past three years. Student loans are up a whopping 61 percent.

Total household debt, according to the Fed's flow of funds report, is at $13 trillion, nearly back to its pre-crisis level in 2007 and a shade below government debt of $15 trillion.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101103819" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mortgage rates are on the rise again this week, with the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate moving up to 4.34 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.34 discount and origination points.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bankrate- ... 00391.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The homeownership rate in the U.S. declined to the lowest in almost 19 years as rising property prices and mortgage rates held back demand. The share of Americans who own their homes was 64.8 percent in the first quarter, down from 65.2 percent in the previous three months, the Census Bureau said in a report today. The rate is the lowest since the second quarter of 1995, when it was 64.7 percent.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-2 ... -1995.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

US senators have called for an end to the increasing use of false numbers to balance the financial ledgers of the Department of Defense.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/14 ... -accounts/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another conspiracy "theory" becomes conspiracy "fact" as The FT reports "a cluster of central banking investors has become major players on world equity markets." The report, to be published this week by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), confirms $29.1tn in market investments, held by 400 public sector institutions in 162 countries, which "could potentially contribute to overheated asset prices." China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange has become “the world’s largest public sector holder of equities”, according to officials, and we suspect the Fed is close behind (courtesy of more levered positions at Citadel), as the world's banks try to diversify themselves and "counters the monopoly power of the dollar." Which leaves us wondering where are the central bank 13Fs?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-1 ... ion-market" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pope Francis has launched a scathing attack on the global economic system, warning it is near collapse because of a 'throwaway culture' of greed and the 'atrocity' of youth unemployment.

The Roman Catholic leader openly blasted the 'idolatrous' economy for disregarding the young, which he says has led to shocking levels of youth unemployment and will lead to a lost generation.

The 77-year-old also criticised the economy - which he said had 'fallen into a sin of idolatry, the idolatry of money' - for surviving on the profits of war.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ssage.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As Iraq's mounting unrest pushes crude oil prices to their highest levels this year, a report Friday predicts that global oil demand will increase, but Iraq's supplies may not be at "immediate" risk. "While Iraq's production potential is huge, so are the political hurdles it is facing," the IEA says, noting the significant gains that Sunni insurgents have made in the country's north since launching a military campaign earlier this month. The Islamic militants, after taking control of the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit, have said they will march on Baghdad.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bus ... /10418419/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Washington: US companies were on Thursday evacuating hundreds of Americans working with the Iraqi government from a major airbase, US officials said, as Islamic militants swept towards Baghdad.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-compa ... zs6gn.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Iran deployed its Revolutionary Guard to help Iraq battle insurgents from a group inspired by Al-Qaeda, according to a recent report. In the meantime, the US is mulling airstrikes to support the Iraqi government.
http://rt.com/usa/165612-us-iran-allies ... nsurgency/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Chinese, on the other hand, would have a much harder time if Iraq’s 3.7% of global production suddenly went offline. China, which is increasingly dependent on energy imports, is now that country’s largest foreign customer, taking an average 1.5 million barrels a day, almost half of Iraq’s production. China National Petroleum Corp., a state enterprise, swooped up Iraqi oil after last decade’s war—Beijing, by the way, sold arms that ended up in the hands of insurgents fighting Americans—by accepting Baghdad’s razor-thin margins and onerous conditions.

Then, many said it was China that won the Iraq War because it signed the major oil deals afterwards. As a result, Beijing now has a lot riding on the outcome in Iraq as ISIS takes on the Shiite-dominated ruling group in Baghdad. No wonder the Chinese Foreign Ministry in recent days has been coming out with announcements supporting the Maliki government. Said Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Friday, “For a long time, China has been giving Iraq a large amount of all types of aid and is willing to give whatever help it is able to.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang ... -be-china/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Several days ago we showed "gruesome" footage of the ISIS jihadists as they engage all opposing forces with unspeakable brutality, clearly designed to demoralize any resistance in their remarkable blitzkrieg which has so far allowed them to steamroll virtually unopposed from northern Iraq all the way to towns located some 50 miles from Baghdad.

Just what ISIS/ISIL's Baghdad strategy is remains unclear. According to Reuters, "in Baghdad on Sunday, a suicide attacker detonated explosives in a vest he was wearing, killing at least nine people and wounding 20 in a crowded street in the centre of the capital, police and medical sources said. At least six people were killed, including three soldiers and three volunteers, when four mortars landed at a recruiting centre in Khlais, 50 km (30 miles) north of Baghdad."

For now, the southern offensive appears to have been halted with Reuters reporting that "the rapid advance south towards Baghdad appeared to slow over the weekend", however this has been offset by "fierce fighting in the town of Tal Afar 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul near the Syrian border."

More importantly, Iraq's resistance movements appears to be gathering steam as "volunteers were gathered by army to join fighting to regain control of the northern town of Udhaim from ISIL militants." As reported last week, the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric urged his countrymen to take up arms and defend the country against the hardline insurgents, many of whom consider Shi'ites as heretics, resulting in thousands of volunteers.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-1 ... i-soldiers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

...heard from some non-media sources that 3000 American spec ops folks were deployed Mon/Tues...but the news is claiming the opposite

The U.S., which routinely has an array of ships in the region, has the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and an accompanying Navy cruiser in the northern Arabian Sea, while two Navy destroyers from the Bush strike group have moved into the Persian Gulf.

The ships carry Tomahawk missiles, which could reach Iraq, and the Bush is carrying fighter jets that could also easily get to Iraq.

Obama suggested it could take several days before the administration finalizes its response to the situation on the ground in Iraq.

http://m.lvsun.com/news/2014/jun/13/oba ... o-it-them/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

US Orders Partial Evacuation Of Baghdad Embassy As Aircraft Carrier Arrives In Gulf

Earlier today we reported that despite, or rather due to, all the confusing propaganda from either side, it was not exactly clear whether and how far away from Baghdad the ISIS offensive had been halted (if at all). It appears the confusion has also impacted none other than the US State Department, which moments ago announced it would evacuate an "substantial number" of the whopping 5,500 staff situated in the US embassy in Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris river, staff which incidentally is the largest of any US embassy. Additionally, the State Dept said that some additional U.S. govt security personnel will be added to Baghdad staff as result of instability and violence in certain areas of Iraq.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-1 ... rives-gulf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

US warship, 50 fighter jets ready in Persian Gulf as Iraq crisis escalating
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/14 ... aq-crisis/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

US orders 3 warships move into Persian Gulf over Iraq crisis
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/15 ... sian-gulf/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -isis.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Oil industry analysts are warning a brewing civil war between Islamic militants in Iraq could potentially send gas prices soaring here in the Southland. KNX 1070′s Pete Demetriou reports the price of crude oil has shot up to $107 per barrel – the highest in 10 months – on reports that soldiers with the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria captured two towns in an ethnically mixed province northeast of Baghdad.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/06/ ... a-bargain/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Iraq's implosion could redraw Middle East boundaries
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/ ... 0K20140613" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Gazprom has reaffirmed its Monday deadline for Ukraine to pay its debts after talks between Moscow and Kiev ended without agreement. The Russian gas giant said it will cut Ukraine's supply if Kiev fails to pay $1.95bn (£1.15bn) by 06:00 GMT.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27862849" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Kiev, Ukraine: Ukrainians have called Vladimir Putin many bad names, among them a Nazi, a dictator and just plain evil. But nothing has caused a firestorm quite like a Ukrainian diplomat's use of a schoolyard epithet to describe the Russian president during an unscripted moment on Saturday night.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/the-puti ... zs8zh.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As the 'negotiations' between Europe, Ukraine, and Russia were taking place this afternoon, technically unconfirmed reports of convoys of Russian military vehicles moving towards the Ukraine border were growing. As the 2amET gas-cut-off deadline looms, it appears Putin is mobilizing a significant force ahead of what will likely mean retaliatory actions by either Ukraine military forces or Ukraine militants. As InfoResist reports, up to 200 units are moving towards Ukraine from Kaluga and in the Rostov region, Russia.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-1 ... t-deadline" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

About a month ago we showed photos of the Chinese police engaged in a drill designed to crush a "working class insurrection", in which the police did precisely what would be required to end a middle class rebellion. It made us wonder: what does China know that the US doesn't. As it turns out, nothing.

Because long before China was practicing counter-riot ops using rubber bullets, all the way back in 2008 the US Department of Defense was conducting studies on the dynamics of civil unrest, and how the US military might best respond. The name of the project: "Minerva Research Initiative" and its role is to " “improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S."

The Guardian which first revealed the details, reports that, "The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term "warfighter-relevant insights" for senior officials and decision makers in "the defense policy community," and to inform policy implemented by "combatant commands."

The premise behind Minerva is simple: study how violent political overthrow, aka mass civil breakdown, happens in the day and age of social networks, and be prepared to counteract it - by "targeting peaceful activities and protest movements" - when it finally reaches US shores.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-1 ... -breakdown" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term "warfighter-relevant insights" for senior officials and decision makers in "the defense policy community," and to inform policy implemented by "combatant commands."

Launched in 2008 – the year of the global banking crisis – the DoD 'Minerva Research Initiative' partners with universities "to improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US."

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -breakdown" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

At least two Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces attacked the besieged Gaza Strip and the West Bank. According to reports on Sunday, Israeli warplanes carried out multiple attacks on the Gaza Strip, hitting several areas in the besieged enclave including the city of Khan Yunis.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/16 ... aza-strip/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A device containing radioactive substances was stolen from a government research facility and authorities are working to track it down, Mexico's No. 2 official said.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2 ... in-mexico/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Torrential rain brought deadly floods to southern Brazil and Paraguay in June 2014. The top image, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on June 11, 2014, shows flooding in the Paraná River system in Brazil’s Paraná state. The floods have killed 10 people in Paraná, and forced a state of emergency in 130 Brazilian cities, reported Reuters.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Natura ... &src=nhrss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hurricane Cristina is headed downhill after peaking as powerful Category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds and a central pressure estimated at 935 mb at 11 am EDT Thursday, June 12, 2014. The double feature of Category 4 hurricanes Cristina and Amanda gives 2014 two of the five strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Eastern Pacific so early in the year:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... rynum=2700" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TOKYO — Two moderate earthquakes struck off Japan’s eastern coast near Fukushima early Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but officials said there was no immediate risk to the stricken power plant.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/nati ... -fukushima" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says more than 3 tons of radioactive water may have leaked from barriers surrounding storage tanks. Tokyo Electric Power Company made the announcement on Friday following the discovery of water leaking around 2 of its storage tanks on the hillside earlier this week.
http://fukushimaupdate.com/tepco-contam ... age-tanks/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another powerful earthquake shook the Northwest Arctic on Friday. It is the fourth magnitude 5.5 quake to rock the region in six weeks. Like the previous three, Friday's episode was initiated about 10 miles from Noatak and was measured at a depth of 10 miles.
http://www.thearcticsounder.com/article ... _northwest" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An advisory alert has been issued for a remote volcano in the western Aleutian Islands after dozens of earthquakes were reported in the area, an early sign of volcanic unrest. The change means that five volcanoes being monitored in Alaska are now simultaneously active, the most in recent memory, said Matt Haney, a research geophysicist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/2 ... tists-busy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

After a 30-year repose, Mauna Loa may be slowly stirring to life. While there are no signs of impending eruption, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has recorded an increased level of seismic activity on the flanks and summit of Mauna Loa over the past 13 months.
http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/volcano ... ring-giant" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

US health officials are on high alert as a mosquito-borne virus that yet has no cure has struck six of the US states. The virus called chikungunya causes severe joint pain which can last for years.
http://rt.com/usa/166024-usa-incurable- ... nya-virus/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Lancet: Fluoride IS a Neurotoxin!
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/06/the ... toxin.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Shire , a research and development corporation that specializes in marketing “specialty medicines for symptomatic conditions to meet significant unmet patient needs”, has been asked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct clinical trials of Vyvanse, a pharmaceutical drug marketed to children for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Because more than 10,000 toddlers age 2 or 3 are medicated for ADHD with Ritalin or Concerta; preschool-aged children have proven to be a prime target for pharmaceutical corporations.

Shire will begin clinical trials on pre-school aged children in 2015 because the company is “committed to continuing to add to the scientific body of knowledge about ADHD treatment options for patients.”

http://www.occupycorporatism.com/home/f ... schoolers/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jason]

silver is up a bit

[bobhenstra]

silver is up a bit

Dang, only have 10 or 12 silver coins left.. I once did a lot of metal detecting and some of the coins I dug up were so pretty I had to keep them.

Thanks G!

[Jason]

silver is up a bit

Dang, only have 10 or 12 silver coins left.. I once did a lot of metal detecting and some of the coins I dug up were so pretty I had to keep them.

Thanks G!

You probably are ok! Pretty coins usually tend to hold their value....especially those special finds from special digs in never to be disclosed locations...

http://www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_chart ... graphs.plx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bobhenstra]

They're pretty in my eyes! I won't sell them, when I kick off they'll go to my kids, I won't care what they'll do with them! Many years ago I found a very rare arrowhead on private land. It was made of pearlite, a rockhounders name for a translucent form of white agate, very pretty! But I gave it to one of my grandkids who put it up for auction to help pay for her mission, a cause far more important than any arrowhead! She returns from Italy in November.

I have her new boy friend all ready for her-------- :ymhug:

[Jason]

They're pretty in my eyes! I won't sell them, when I kick off they'll go to my kids, I won't care what they'll do with them! Many years ago I found a very rare arrowhead on private land. It was made of pearlite, a rockhounders name for a translucent form of white agate, very pretty! But I gave it to one of my grandkids who put it up for auction to help pay for her mission, a cause far more important than any arrowhead! She returns from Italy in November.

I have her new boy friend all ready for her-------- :ymhug:

LOL...how'd you pick him?

[Steve Clark]

They're pretty in my eyes! I won't sell them, when I kick off they'll go to my kids, I won't care what they'll do with them! Many years ago I found a very rare arrowhead on private land. It was made of pearlite, a rockhounders name for a translucent form of white agate, very pretty! But I gave it to one of my grandkids who put it up for auction to help pay for her mission, a cause far more important than any arrowhead! She returns from Italy in November.

I have her new boy friend all ready for her-------- :ymhug:

LOL...how'd you pick him?

His only to criteria are:
1. Were you ordained to the priesthood?
2. Are you republican?

Can't go wrong if the answer is yes to both of those.

[Jason]

They're pretty in my eyes! I won't sell them, when I kick off they'll go to my kids, I won't care what they'll do with them! Many years ago I found a very rare arrowhead on private land. It was made of pearlite, a rockhounders name for a translucent form of white agate, very pretty! But I gave it to one of my grandkids who put it up for auction to help pay for her mission, a cause far more important than any arrowhead! She returns from Italy in November.

I have her new boy friend all ready for her-------- :ymhug:

LOL...how'd you pick him?

His only to criteria are:
1. Were you ordained to the priesthood?
2. Are you republican?

Can't go wrong if the answer is yes to both of those.

LOL...well the American Party has yet to get fired up and really going.

Anyone who starts to look enticing turns out to be something different. Ron Paul was a globalist loving sham!

Priesthood holder is probably the best initial starting ground that I can think of. All laws should be correlated with God's laws or else its just a dead end road and general waste of energy.

Republican though...agree with that one. Not much difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. Its like a choice in color of cloths you wear. Means nothing with regard to what's inside. Both parties have been corrupted for quite some time...or should I say the folks involved are corrupted. Same goes for government....its not the government that is the problem....its the general wickedness and disobedient folks in charge of operations....folks elected by a generally wicked populace....who hired wicked employees.

Secret combinations!

[Jason]

:o)

[BroJones]

Welcome back!

Whoa - how did this thread get to over 500 thousand views??

Cheers

[Jason]

Welcome back!

Whoa - how did this thread get to over 500 thousand views??

Cheers

Lots of links to attract the bots...

Cheers mate!

[Jason]

From 16 December 2014 the Bank of Russia Board of Directors decided to raise the Bank of Russia key rate to 17.00 percent per annum. This decision is aimed at limiting substantially increased ruble depreciation risks and inflation risks.

From 16 December 2014 in order to strengthen the efficiency of monetary policy loans secured by non-marketable assets or guarantees for 2 to 549 days will be provided at a floating interest rate, set at the Bank of Russia key rate level, increased by 1.75 percentage points (up to the present these loans for 2 to 90 days were provided at fixed rate).

Moreover, for further expanse of credit institution ability to manage their foreign exchange liquidity it was decided to increase maximum allotment amount for 28-day FX REPO auctions from 1.5 to 5.0 billion USD and to conduct 12-month FX REPO auctions on weekly basis.

http://www.cbr.ru/eng/press/pr.aspx?fil ... _04_09.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Russia’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate the most since the nation’s 1998 default, making the announcement in the middle of the night in Moscow as policy makers seek to douse investor panic and stem a ruble rout.

The central bank increased the key rate to 17 percent from 10.5 percent effective today, it said in a statement on its website. Policy makers gathered for an unscheduled meeting after a one-point increase on Dec. 11.

Russia’s central bank raised interest rates for the sixth time in 2014 after more than $80 billion spent from its reserves failed to stop a 49 percent selloff of the ruble, the world’s worst-performing currency this year. President Vladimir Putin, whose incursion into Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March prompted the U.S. and its allies to strike back with sanctions, this month called for “harsh” measures to deter currency speculators.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-1 ... cline.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Reuters) - Oil prices slumped to 5-1/2-year lows on Monday, pulling down emerging market assets and boosting demand for the safe-haven yen, while global equity markets fell further after last week's rout amid nagging worries about worldwide growth.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/ ... 1G20141215" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Emerging markets are ending the year much like how they began it -- in freefall.

From Russia to Venezuela, Thailand to Brazil, stocks, bonds and currencies across the developing world are plunging.

The Russian ruble tumbled past 64 for the first time on record today while Venezuelan bonds sank below 40 cents on the dollar and Thai stocks fell the most in 11 months. Brazil’s corporate debt market is reeling as a graft probe of state oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA infects the market.

All of this has something of a familiar feel to it, dating back to 1998, when, just like now, oil was tumbling and driving crude exporters Russia and Venezuela into financial crisis.

Venezuela’s $4 billion of dollar bonds due 2027 sank 3.4 cents to 37.8 cents on the dollar as concern mounts that oil’s collapse will prompt the South American country to default. Crude prices have fallen about 25 percent to the lowest in five years since OPEC decided against cutting production to tackle the glut at a Nov. 27 meeting. Prices are down about 48 percent since mid-June.

In neighboring Brazil, benchmark bonds of oil producer Petrobras, the largest international borrower in the developing world over the past five years, plunged to a record low after it delayed its third-quarter financial results for a second time. The company is investigating new statements from witnesses in what has become Brazil’s largest-ever money laundering and corruption scandal as a rout in stocks and bonds spreads to almost every major Brazilian firm that has business with the state-run company.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-1 ... -rout.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Copper fell the most in two weeks as a gauge of confidence among homebuilders in December trailed analyst estimates, while industrial output rose the most since May 2010 in the U.S., the world’s second-biggest consumer of the metal. Copper fell 15 percent this year, partly on signs of ebbing demand in China, the top user. The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting tomorrow as policy makers consider raising their benchmark interest rate.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-1 ... tdown.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Silver spot -
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An obscure corner of the $12.4 trillion market for U.S. government debt is providing one of the clearest signs yet that bond investors are writing off the threat of inflation for years, if not decades, to come.

Demand for Strips, created when Wall Street banks separate the interest payments from the principal of U.S. debt and sell each at a discount, has boosted the amount outstanding to an average $211 billion this year, the most since 1999, data from the Treasury Department show. The securities, the most vulnerable to inflation of all U.S. government bonds, posted the biggest returns this year by rallying almost 50 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-1 ... -dead.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thailand’s benchmark stock index fell the most in 11 months as energy companies slumped on a rout in crude and investors speculated this year’s rally was excessive relative to earnings prospects.

The SET Index (SET) dropped 2.4 percent to 1,478.49 at the close, taking a five-day decline to 7.5 percent. The gauge briefly tumbled as much as 9.2 percent in afternoon trading before recovering most of its losses. PTT Exploration & Production Pcl (PTTEP) retreated for a seventh day, while its parent PTT Pcl (PTT), Thailand’s biggest energy company, tumbled 4.9 percent. The two stocks represent about 10 percent of the SET Index by weighting.

“Thai stocks have been hit by foreign selling as investors pull out from emerging markets,” said Mixo Das, an Asia ex-Japan equity strategist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Singapore. “A large listed oil-and-gas sector and expensive valuations relative to history are adding more pressure.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-1 ... umble.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Indonesia’s rupiah tumbled to the lowest level since the Asian financial crisis as an uptick in dollar buying by local companies before the year-end coincided with a rout in the sovereign bond market.

The currency slid 1.9 percent to 12,698 per dollar in Jakarta, the lowest close since August 1998, prices from local banks show. That was the biggest drop since Aug. 1. In the offshore market, one-month non-deliverable forwards declined 1.4 percent to 12,919, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-1 ... flows.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

OIL may have captured the headlines recently in commodity markets after a rout in prices, but an equally troubling delinquent in the global energy supply nexus has been coal.

Once the lifeblood of industrial economies in the 19th century, coal has enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance since China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, creating huge demand for energy in Asia’s powerhouse economy.

However, that momentum finally came to a halt over the past couple of years and the reasons for this slowdown can be traced back to some of the same issues that are now hitting prices of its richer cousin, oil. The shale-gas revolution in the US has created a massive surplus in global supply of thermal coal from West Virginia, just as demand from core markets such as India and China has started to weaken.

Thermal coal prices at the world’s biggest export hub in Newcastle, Australia, have tumbled 25pc this year and hit a five-year low last week at around $62 per tonne. Glencore estimates that a quarter of Australia’s thermal coal mines are now unprofitable.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... wdown.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China’s hunger for minerals to build skyscrapers, cars and bridges produced a decade long surge in the price and production of key commodities.

Now, exporting nations are feeling the hit as the China-fueled boom slows.

Topping the list are big commodity players Australia and Brazil, but also resource-rich countries, such as Guinea, Indonesia and Mongolia, where minerals make up a disproportionate share of the economy and employment.

In countries specializing in crucial commodities, such as iron ore and coal, sluggish demand and falling commodity prices are reducing government tax revenue, increasing trade deficits and affecting currency values.

The Australian dollar reached a four-year low in November against the U.S. dollar due in part to sliding raw-material prices and slowing Chinese demand growth for those commodities.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines ... dcc47720e7" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries fell to a 20-month low in October, as yuan appreciation indicated less of an impetus to buy the government securities.

China held $1.25 trillion in U.S. debt as of October, a $13.6 billion drop from September, the Treasury Department said in a monthly report today. The nation remains the largest foreign holder, ahead of Japan, whose stockpile increased $0.6 billion to $1.22 trillion, reducing the gap between the two countries to the narrowest since September 2012.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-1 ... ruary-2013" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Reuters) - Russian arms makers' sales soared 20 percent in 2013, bucking a slowdown in other countries' industries, largely thanks to a Kremlin push to modernise its military, the SIPRI think tank said on Monday.

Russia's figures were strong enough to slow a three-year decline in global arms sales caused mainly by Washington's withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and the economic crisis in Europe, SIPRI researcher Siemon Wezeman said.

"The remarkable increases in Russian companies' arms sales in both 2012 and 2013 are in large part due to uninterrupted investments in military procurement by the Russian Government during the 2000's," Wezeman added.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/1 ... T720141215" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oil and gas account for 70% of Russia’s exports and Moscow needs an oil price in the region of $100 a barrel to balance its budget. The central bank said that the economy would contract by 4.5% in 2015 if the oil price remains at its current level for the next 12 months.

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The pace of the fall has been breathtaking, with oil-related stocks bearing the worst of the pain. We are now closing in on a technical correction [10% fall] after just six abysmal trading sessions. To give some perspective, we already witnessed a 10% fall in the UK market in September and October of this year, but this took place over six weeks, not six days.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... ce-markets" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MOSCOW, December 8. /TASS/. Russian military will soon receive equivalents of the United States’ missile defense systems THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and GMD (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense), the general designer of the Almaz-Antei concern, Pavel Sozinov, said Monday.

“Russia is working on an equivalent of the THAAD missile defense complex, which is capable of intercepting ballistic intermediate range missiles and, to a certain extent, warheads of inter-continental ballistic missiles. It will undergo testing soon,” Sozinov said.

Russia is also creating an equivalent of another US missile defense complex GMD with the ground-based interceptor (GBI) missile,” he added.

http://itar-tass.com/en/russia/765705" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China has developed a new close-in weapon system, or CIWS, called Type 1130, which has the firing power of 10,000 rounds per minute, portal Want China Times said, citing Russia media sources. The particular CIWS model, recently spotted being installed on a PLA Type 054A frigate, can reportedly destroy 90 percent of hypersonic missiles even travelling four times the speed of sound.
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/575830/2 ... mach-4.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Meanwhile, British Defence Secratery Michael Fallon has warned of a "dangerous" mid-air collision with Russian aircraft. The Royal Air Force jets have already been scrambled over 100 times within the year to intercept Russian jets. In a Daily Mail report, the defence secretary has warned that Russia's continued incursions in UK airspace may lead to a passenger aircraft being shot down by accident.

Fallon said Russian Vladimir Putin was playing a "provocative and dangerous" game by allowing Russian Bombers to fly over British skies. He remarked that the aggressive incursions could trigger a war with NATO allies and bluntly said Britain should prepare for the worst scenario as Russia displays its military strength.

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/576036/2 ... er-jet.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MOSCOW — The Russian Navy on Friday successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile for a second time in as many months, proving its reliability following a troublesome development.

The Defense Ministry said the Alexander Nevsky nuclear submarine test-fired a Bulava missile from an underwater position in the Barents Sea. The missile's warheads reached designated targets at a testing range in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula.

http://www.navytimes.com/story/military ... /19621133/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Russia is keeping pace with the U.S. in the field of long-range precision tactical weaponry, and in some areas it even has an advantage. The Tactical Missiles Corporation, which unites all Russian producers of tactical and precision tactical missiles, has issued about ten new products in the last 2-3 years, including long-range missiles. RBTH presents three main new missiles that will be employed by the Russian armed forces starting 2015.
http://rbth.com/defence/2014/12/10/new_ ... 42131.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;