Blipits

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Jason
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Blipits

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On the auction block in Detroit: almost 9,000 homes and lots in various states of abandonment and decay from the tidy owner-occupied to the burned-out shell claimed by squatters.

Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.

The tax foreclosure auction by Wayne County authorities also stood as one of the most ambitious one-stop attempts to sell off urban property since the real-estate market collapse.

Despite a minimum bid of $500, less than a fifth of the Detroit land was sold after four days.

The county had no estimate of how much was raised by the auction, a second attempt to sell property that had failed to find buyers for the full amount of back taxes in September.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33471824/ns ... al_estate/
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an opinion piece published by The New York Times, laid out a number of benchmarks for success in the upcoming global climate talks, planned to be held in Copenhagen.

Among them, Ki-moon argued in the Tuesday edition that a "global governance structure" must be levied to ensure that nations collaborate on how resources are deployed and managed.
- http://rawstory.com/2009/10/chief-calls ... se-gasses/
The amount of television watched by children reached an eight-year high, according to figures released by Nielsen yesterday. The analysis based on 2008 figures reported the time spent watching live and recorded television, as well as movies and gaming systems. When added all up, children ages 6 to 11 spend more than 28 hours in front of a television every week.
- http://slatest.slate.com/id/2233691
Des Moines, Iowa (AP) - After burning through $1 million in savings and seeing no end to their losses, dairy farmers Jake and Lori Slegers figured they didn't have much choice -- they had to kill the cows.

So one day last summer their sons tagged all 1,571 cows, loaded them onto trailers at their farm south of Fresno, Calif., and watched them rumble away to a slaughterhouse.

Lori Slegers said her husband came into the house and broke down.

"He said it was the hardest thing he ever had to do," she said. "Luckily, my boys could do it."

Growing demand in developing nations drove up milk prices when times were good, and dairy farmers expanded their herds. But the global recession hurt exports and left farmers with too much milk on their hands. Milk processors cut the price they were willing to pay farmers, in many cases below what it cost to produce milk.

In the past year, hundreds of farmers have come to the same conclusion as the Slegers: The only way to raise prices is to reduce the supply, and that means killing cows. In some cases, whole herds have been turned into hamburger. In others, farmers have kept their best producers and sent the rest to slaughter.
- http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/56136
Billionaire globalist George Soros told the Financial Times during an interview that China will supplant the United States as the leader of the new world order and that America should not resist the country’s decline as the dollar weakens, living standards drop, and a new global currency is introduced.

Asked what Obama should discuss when he visits China next month, Soros stated, “This would be the time because I think you really need to bring China into the creation of a new world order, financial world order,” adding that China was a reluctant member of the IMF who didn’t make enough of a contribution.

“I think you need a new world order that China has to be part of the process of creating it and they have to buy in, they have to own it in the same way as the United States owns…the current order,” said Soros, adding that the G20 was a move in this direction.

Soros said that there was a flight from currencies across the board, and that this is why the price of commodities, notably gold and oil, were generally rising. He also stated that an orderly decline of the dollar was “desirable” and that the entire system needed to be reconstituted towards a global currency.
- http://www.prisonplanet.com/soros-china ... order.html
Here's something rather rotten from the State of Denmark. Its government yesterday unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, nappies, sunscreen lotion and moisturising cream.

The 326-page report, published by the environment protection agency, is the latest piece in an increasingly alarming jigsaw. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminising male children all over the developed world. And anti-pollution measures and regulations are falling far short of getting to grips with it.

The results build on earlier studies showing that British children have higher levels of gender-bending chemicals in their blood than their parents or grandparents. Indeed WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund), which commissioned the older research, warned that the chemicals were so widespread that "there is very little, if anything, individuals can do to prevent contamination of themselves and their families." Prominent among them are dioxins, PVC, flame retardants, phthalates (extensively used to soften plastics) and the now largely banned PCBs, one and a half million tons of which were used in countless products from paints to electrical equipment.

Young boys, like those in the Danish study, could end up producing less sperm and developing feminised behaviour. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes.

And it is in the womb that babies are most vulnerable; a study of umbilical cords from British mothers found that every one contained hazardous chemicals. Scientists at the University of Rochester in New York discovered that boys born to women exposed to phthalates had smaller penises and other feminisation of the genitals.

The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising, so much so that some 250,000 babies who statistically should have been boys have ended up as girls in Japan and the United States alone. In Britain, the discrepancy amounts to thousands of babies a year.
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthc ... girls.html
Turns out coursing a few gigavolts of financial stimulus current through even an economy the size of the U.S. will still get Frankenstein off the slab, however briefly.
- http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/ ... its_a.html
Fox News, under the guise of a news story, gives free advertising time to the United States Military’s Human Resources Department. (And the Obama White House claims that Fox News doesn’t support him. Silly gooses!) As far as I can tell, this is not one of those spoof videos that are always on youtube —though after watching it, you’ll wish it was.
- http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/a ... 41462.html
PRESIDENT Barack Obama's decision last week to label swine flu a national emergency will likely increase demand for a vaccine that is already in short supply. Yet by the time large amounts of vaccine arrive, it may be too late to stop most infections.

On 23 October, Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, reported that the US had received 27.4 million doses of vaccine. This is not enough even for the country's 42 million most vulnerable people: pregnant women, people caring for babies, children under 4, front-line healthcare workers and under-18s with medical problems.

By now, the US should have had 120 million doses, according to predictions in July. This estimate was cut to 45 million when it emerged in August that the vaccine virus was growing at half the usual rate. Now even some of those doses have not arrived. Several companies are now using a faster-growing strain to make vaccine, but supplies won't arrive for weeks.
- http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... nline-news
You're right, as more money is available, work your way towards 6 to 12 months worth of food. Either way you're going to use it no matter what, and you sure can't live without it.

I'm of a different opinion regarding the first (and for many the only) weapon to own.

A used Glock in good condition isn't that expensive, and if nothing else at least get a revolver but I've always insisted on a handgun first, and enough training to be profficient with it.
Of course its less powerful, but you can't drop a shotgun in your jacket's pocket or carry in in your waist and that makes all the difference.

Street, or home, the handgun will cover both, while the shotgun will only be a home defense gun, and even at that, you dont carry a shotgun all the time in the house or keep it handy. Entering or leaving your home, the garage, unless you conceal carry you'll be unarmed when you need it the most.
Another couple things I'd like to mention: A shotgun, specially a pump action shotgun, requires a LOT of skill to operate, specially at close range and against several targets many operators will transition to their handgun when in CQC, which is the most common self defense range.

A shotgun also needs to be aimed well, at close range there's no difference between shogun shells and solid projectile, they both make a single hole. It takes several more feet and even then the spread isnt that much you can afford not to aim as you should.

One of the worst inconveniences with shotguns and close range fighting: A) You need both hands to operate B) It requires a complex mechanical movement that requires both hands for each shot.
Shotguns are nice, but for all these reasons, I always recommend a handgun as a first and maybe only firearm.
- http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2009/10/firs ... ndgun.html
Despite that fact, delinquencies have moved steadily higher with the 30 day + delinquency now reaching close to 50% of all outstanding Option Arms. If our economists are right about the size and timing of the Fed Funds rate hike (approx. 1% per quarter starting in Q2 next year), the impact on borrowers of these types of loans could be very significant. Those who are slightly delinquent or barely holding on could see their payments move substantially higher with the impact possible late next year.”
- http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=9779
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/arch ... -ARMs.html
Who is Valerie Jarrett? The brain of Barack and Michelle Obama. The alter ego, the “mind meld”. The head of the pimple on a rash of pimples infecting our executive branch. She’s the one who brought in Van Jones, and who knows how many other communist radicals. Read her background – her roots (Chicago tentacles) go way back and very deep into Obama’s background. An insider. In fact, she’s so inside, she’s at the center of it.

The media is hammering Glenn, attacking him at every turn. He is the new “cause du jour” object of the Saul Alinsky Left, who have identified him, polarized him, and are attacking him in an all-out effort to destroy him. For those who are unable to listen to him explain it this morning, his transcript will be available at his site later today.

Why is this important? Because it is a high def example of what Obama and his army of radicals do. Like a heat seeking missile, they attack to destroy anyone who threatens their mission. Both Rush and Glenn are major targets. It is brutal. And the point is this: what they’re doing to Glenn et al, they’ll do next to us. We are in their crosshairs. Mister Smooth and Cool in the White House is the window dressing to a nefarious bunch who’ll stop at nothing to enforce their regime of “hope and change” on all of us. And Valerie Jarrett is the General who’s planning the strategy and issuing marching orders. Familiarize yourself with this pimple.
- http://stopjarrett.com/
Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday said it will begin taking ratings actions in Q409 as needed to account for updated assumptions underlying US residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) loss projections.

The loss projection revisions come as Moody’s expects house prices to continue to decline to a Q310 trough.
- http://www.housingwire.com/2009/10/29/h ... gs-moodys/
Former European Central Bank chief economist Otmar Issing recently said what current officials aren't addressing:

Nobody can be sure that we have a self-sustaining recovery. The challenges facing the ECB are tremendous. "Money multipliers have collapsed everywhere. What M3 is telling us is that confidence is missing. I don't see any way to stabilise M3 in such circumstances.

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes:

Data from the European Central Bank shows that the M3 broad money supply has contracted over the last six months, confounding expectations that ultra-low interest rates would soon boost monetary growth. Loans to the private sector fell 0.3pc from a year earlier, the first such decline since the data started in 1983.
The M3 figures include a wide range of bank accounts...

The picture is even starker in America where M3 has shrunk at an annual rate of 6.5pc over the last three months, a pace of contraction not seen since the 1930s. US bank loans have plummeted since May.
- http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2 ... apsed.html
The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:

• making the world safe for American corporations;

• enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress;

• preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;

• extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a "great power."

This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not.

The United States carried out extremely serious interventions into more than 70 nations in this period.
- http://www.questionwar.com/US_interventions.html
While initial jobless claims have been in a downtrend on a national basis since March, different states have seen different rates of declines. In addition to the weekly national report on initial jobless claims, the Department of Labor also reports claims data on a state by state basis. Although these numbers are not seasonally adjusted, they can help to gain insight as to which areas of the country are recovering (or stabilizing) the quickest. In the map and tables below we have highlighted the ten US states that have seen the largest and smallest percentage declines in initial jobless claims since their recession peaks.

Looking at the chart shows some interesting trends. In terms of states with the largest decreases in jobless claims, all but two of them (North Dakota and Kansas) are in the eastern half of the United States, including Michingan, which has seen the highest decline of any state in the union (84%). Granted, the state had one of the highest unemployment rates, so there is a lot of room for improvement. The southeast has also seen a notable improvement. Four of the ten states with the largest decrease in initial claims are the cluster of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

The states with the smallest decreasees in initial claims for the most part also share some common traits. First of all, just as most of the states with the largest decreases are in the eastern half of the country, all but three of the ten states with the smallest decreases (Arkansas, Florida, and Maryland) are in the western half of the United States. Another theme shared by most of these states is that they are all heavily reliant on tourism. So it would appear that Americans aren't quite confident on their outlooks to spend money on vacations.
- http://bespokeinvest.typepad.com/bespok ... -west.html


Oh man am I glad to get that off my chest!

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Col. Flagg
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Re: Blipits

Post by Col. Flagg »

But Jason, didn't you hear... the recession officially ended today when 3rd quarter GDP figures came in at .20% higher than expected. We're out of the woods... any danger of a full blown collapse of the financial system has been averted... thank you Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner and Obama!! The bail-outs worked... good thing too because I was pretty ticked there for a while.

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Col. Flagg wrote:But Jason, didn't you hear... the recession officially ended today when 3rd quarter GDP figures came in at .20% higher than expected. We're out of the woods... any danger of a full blown collapse of the financial system has been averted... thank you Bush, Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner and Obama!! The bail-outs worked... good thing too because I was pretty ticked there for a while.
LOL See the Paul Kedrosky link....

after that you might review FerFal's advice on handgun vs. shotgun...

of course the sarcasm is just pouring off your statements!

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

threepercentite wrote:whew!
yeah shotgun blast I know.....trying to cut down on the number of my posts.....kill it all in one! Gays, home defense, economy, big pharma, global elites, agriculture, housing, NWO, etc etc etc...LOL

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

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Oil -
This comes via the FT:

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threatens the dominance of the world’s most heavily traded oil futures contract. It is the main contract traded on Nymex.

Before anyone tries to spin this as an anti-dollar move, you should read what else the FT article says:

In January, WTI, which usually trades at a premium of $1-$2 a barrel to Brent, fell sharply, leaving it at a discount of almost $12 – a record gap. This dislocation in the market continued well into the summer.

From January, Saudi Arabia will base the price of oil for its US customers on a new index developed by Argus, the London-based oil pricing company.

The Argus Sour Crude Index will track the price in the physical market of a basket of US Gulf Coast crudes, including Mars, Poseidon and Southern Green Canyon.

The point of this move is not to undermine the dollar but to get away from the WTI contract where prices have been artificially inflated due to storage shortages at Cushing.

A friend familiar with this market also indicated that big bank punters active in this market will like this move as well as it helps them evade the position limits and regulation of the CFTC. He says, “In fact, the lack of transparency and regulation on the Dubai Merc was one of the reasons why you had such successful speculation in the oil market during the spring of 2008.”

I see a spike in oil prices as a risk to any sustained recovery. Anyone with more insight into why the Saudis made this move, do comment.
- http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/10/ ... tract.html

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

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Insiders fighting to get out this morning -
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A huge influx of orders prevented the New York Stock Exchange from disseminating quotes shortly after the start of trading on Friday. NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX - News; Paris:NYX.PA - News), the parent of the exchange, said the delays followed "an inordinate influx" of orders received as Friday's session got under way. Later in the session, the company had to temporarily transfer quote processing to a backup system.

The exchange's quote delays caused some tickers to be locked, but an NYSE spokesman said "trades are still going through." NYSE's Ray Pellecchia also told Reuters the cause of the problem was still under investigation.

The interruption on the NYSE and in the NYSE Amex cash equities trading was resolved around noon.

Traders who declined to be identified said the interruption was caused in part by the early sell-off as well as by NYSE technology.
- http://finance.yahoo.com/news/NYSE-open ... et=&ccode=

Interesting to know how "NYSE technology" causes the problem....

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Col. Flagg
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Re: Blipits

Post by Col. Flagg »

Jason wrote:Insiders fighting to get out this morning -
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A huge influx of orders prevented the New York Stock Exchange from disseminating quotes shortly after the start of trading on Friday. NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX - News; Paris:NYX.PA - News), the parent of the exchange, said the delays followed "an inordinate influx" of orders received as Friday's session got under way. Later in the session, the company had to temporarily transfer quote processing to a backup system.

The exchange's quote delays caused some tickers to be locked, but an NYSE spokesman said "trades are still going through." NYSE's Ray Pellecchia also told Reuters the cause of the problem was still under investigation.

The interruption on the NYSE and in the NYSE Amex cash equities trading was resolved around noon.

Traders who declined to be identified said the interruption was caused in part by the early sell-off as well as by NYSE technology.
- http://finance.yahoo.com/news/NYSE-open ... et=&ccode=

Interesting to know how "NYSE technology" causes the problem....
I liken Wall Street to the Tower of Babel... when it finally collapses because of the evil, look out.

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Swan Song
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Re: Blipits

Post by Swan Song »

Didn't you guys hear? The economy is SOOO good that there won't be a cost of living increase for those on Social Security this year because there has been a decline in inflation....Obviously these people don't buy food, gasoline or clothing :roll:

Jason this is quite a laundry list of what is ailing the world. I'm especially alarmed at how brazen and open they talk about "The New World Order" and "Global Governance". That scares the pants off me!

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Swan Song wrote:Didn't you guys hear? The economy is SOOO good that there won't be a cost of living increase for those on Social Security this year because there has been a decline in inflation....Obviously these people don't buy food, gasoline or clothing :roll:

Jason this is quite a laundry list of what is ailing the world. I'm especially alarmed at how brazen and open they talk about "The New World Order" and "Global Governance". That scares the pants off me!
Keep your pants on! There's much more to come....

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

The housing market is so bad you can't even give away homes these days.

Officials in suburban Barrington put three homes up for a sale at just a dollar a piece - a dollar! - and didn't get a single bidder.

A dollar!
- http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-be ... 66177.html
Since March there has been a massive rally in all sorts of risky assets – equities, oil, energy and commodity prices – a narrowing of high-yield and high-grade credit spreads, and an even bigger rally in emerging market asset classes (their stocks, bonds and currencies). At the same time, the dollar has weakened sharply , while government bond yields have gently increased but stayed low and stable.

So what is behind this massive rally? Certainly it has been helped by a wave of liquidity from near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing. But a more important factor fuelling this asset bubble is the weakness of the US dollar, driven by the mother of all carry trades. The US dollar has become the major funding currency of carry trades as the Fed has kept interest rates on hold and is expected to do so for a long time. Investors who are shorting the US dollar to buy on a highly leveraged basis higher-yielding assets and other global assets are not just borrowing at zero interest rates in dollar terms; they are borrowing at very negative interest rates – as low as negative 10 or 20 per cent annualised – as the fall in the US dollar leads to massive capital gains on short dollar positions.

Let us sum up: traders are borrowing at negative 20 per cent rates to invest on a highly leveraged basis on a mass of risky global assets that are rising in price due to excess liquidity and a massive carry trade. Every investor who plays this risky game looks like a genius – even if they are just riding a huge bubble financed by a large negative cost of borrowing – as the total returns have been in the 50-70 per cent range since March.

People’s sense of the value at risk (VAR) of their aggregate portfolios ought, instead, to have been increasing due to a rising correlation of the risks between different asset classes, all of which are driven by this common monetary policy and the carry trade. In effect, it has become one big common trade – you short the dollar to buy any global risky assets.

Yet, at the same time, the perceived riskiness of individual asset classes is declining as volatility is diminished due to the Fed’s policy of buying everything in sight – witness its proposed $1,800bn (£1,000bn, €1,200bn) purchase of Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities (bonds guaranteed by a government-sponsored enterprise such as Fannie Mae) and agency debt. By effectively reducing the volatility of individual asset classes, making them behave the same way, there is now little diversification across markets – the VAR again looks low.

So the combined effect of the Fed policy of a zero Fed funds rate, quantitative easing and massive purchase of long-term debt instruments is seemingly making the world safe – for now – for the mother of all carry trades and mother of all highly leveraged global asset bubbles.

While this policy feeds the global asset bubble it is also feeding a new US asset bubble. Easy money, quantitative easing, credit easing and massive inflows of capital into the US via an accumulation of forex reserves by foreign central banks makes US fiscal deficits easier to fund and feeds the US equity and credit bubble. Finally, a weak dollar is good for US equities as it may lead to higher growth and makes the foreign currency profits of US corporations abroad greater in dollar terms.

The reckless US policy that is feeding these carry trades is forcing other countries to follow its easy monetary policy. Near-zero policy rates and quantitative easing were already in place in the UK, eurozone, Japan, Sweden and other advanced economies, but the dollar weakness is making this global monetary easing worse. Central banks in Asia and Latin America are worried about dollar weakness and are aggressively intervening to stop excessive currency appreciation. This is keeping short-term rates lower than is desirable. Central banks may also be forced to lower interest rates through domestic open market operations. Some central banks, concerned about the hot money driving up their currencies, as in Brazil, are imposing controls on capital inflows. Either way, the carry trade bubble will get worse: if there is no forex intervention and foreign currencies appreciate, the negative borrowing cost of the carry trade becomes more negative. If intervention or open market operations control currency appreciation, the ensuing domestic monetary easing feeds an asset bubble in these economies. So the perfectly correlated bubble across all global asset classes gets bigger by the day.

But one day this bubble will burst, leading to the biggest co-ordinated asset bust ever: if factors lead the dollar to reverse and suddenly appreciate – as was seen in previous reversals, such as the yen-funded carry trade – the leveraged carry trade will have to be suddenly closed as investors cover their dollar shorts. A stampede will occur as closing long leveraged risky asset positions across all asset classes funded by dollar shorts triggers a co-ordinated collapse of all those risky assets – equities, commodities, emerging market asset classes and credit instruments.

Why will these carry trades unravel? First, the dollar cannot fall to zero and at some point it will stabilise; when that happens the cost of borrowing in dollars will suddenly become zero, rather than highly negative, and the riskiness of a reversal of dollar movements would induce many to cover their shorts. Second, the Fed cannot suppress volatility forever – its $1,800bn purchase plan will be over by next spring. Third, if US growth surprises on the upside in the third and fourth quarters, markets may start to expect a Fed tightening to come sooner, not later. Fourth, there could be a flight from risk prompted by fear of a double dip recession or geopolitical risks, such as a military confrontation between the US/Israel and Iran. As in 2008, when such a rise in risk aversion was associated with a sharp appreciation of the dollar, as investors sought the safety of US Treasuries, this renewed risk aversion would trigger a dollar rally at a time when huge short dollar positions will have to be closed.

This unraveling may not occur for a while, as easy money and excessive global liquidity can push asset prices higher for a while. But the longer and bigger the carry trades and the larger the asset bubble, the bigger will be the ensuing asset bubble crash. The Fed and other policymakers seem unaware of the monster bubble they are creating. The longer they remain blind, the harder the markets will fall.
- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a5b3216-c70b ... ck_check=1
Here's another great interview from Nouriel Roubini. He appeared on CNBC this morning explaining how the dollar carry trade has helped to inflate the markets —from stocks to commodities—to bubbly valuations.

The famed bearish economist told CNBC,"Now we are in the mother of all carry trades" noting that cheap dollars are pushing asset prices higher across the board.

The danger, he said, is when this trade reverses and the dollar inevitably heads higher. At that point, Roubini warned , there could be "a market crash all over the world"

Here are the cheery details.....
- http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/rou ... ersal/2148

Friday revealed -
Dollar up, Dow down....it is as simple as that.
See Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi article for more on market dynamics (naked shorts) -
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... ed_swindle

FYI - some cussing.

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Just as a bank would fail if all of its depositors tried to get money out at the same time, CIT wouldn't be able to survive if too many of its customers close their accounts. Some have already been pulling their business in recent months as CIT struggled for survival, but it's still too early to know how many will remain.

CIT is one of the nation's biggest lenders to small and mid-sized businesses, providing financing to a large array of businesses including retailers, energy companies, a small movie studio, and operators of Dunkin' Donuts stores.
- http://finance.yahoo.com/news/CIT-Group ... et=&ccode=

Sometimes people forget that simple fact!

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Col. Flagg
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Location: Utah County

Re: Blipits

Post by Col. Flagg »

Another little tidbit to add to this is the fact that 9 more banks failed over the weekend (or as they now call it - bank failure Friday, to minimize the impact of the failures with regard to the stock market by announcing the failures over the weekend). It was pretty funny this morning... the only news before the markets opened was that 9 banks failed over the weekend and the Dow goes up 150 points. :lol: It's become so blatant now what's going on that only a fool would consider Wall Street legit. What's also interesting about the failures is that they don't include branches of the same bank that were seized and taken over by the FDIC. For example, you could have 20 branches of a bank (like Zions bank) and if Zions bank were to fail, the 'government' report is that one bank failed, even though 20 individual banks (or branches) were affected. :lol: They manipulate the numbers in a similar fashion with regard to unemployment, inflation and just about everything else.

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Recap of the week - http://www.zerohedge.com/article/good-m ... k-mayhem-9


Remittances to Mexico down 15-20% - http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTP ... rief10.pdf

Other references but they are pay per view...
The US Treasury today announced a preliminary estimate of borrowing needs in the Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 quarters. The October-December borrowing need has been revised lower to $276 billion from the $485 billion announced in July 2009. The primary reason for the decline, aside from the need to stay below the $12.1 trillion debt ceiling which would have already been breached had this number been in line with prior expectations, is due to the $185 billion refunded from the Supplementary Financing Program announced earlier, which as of October 28 has been completed. Yet, like everything else with the current administration, current peace of mind comes at a magnified future cost: the US Treasury now expected to issue $478 billion in Treasurys in Q1, and coupled with a net cash decline of $40 billion from Q4, implies that in Q1 2010 over half a trillion in debt will be issued net, if not more.
- http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-tre ... ed-q1-2010
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/tg341.htm
The recent bear rally has driven most of the solvent, semi-solvent and absolutely insolvent CRE stocks up, quite a few approaching 100%, while their macro outlook has deteriorated significantly, along with their fundamentals. Quite a few have actually acted in cahoots with the banks that held their increasingly worthless debt, having issued secondary offerings basically converting the bank holdings of debt that didn't have an icicles chance in the hottest portion of Hell of getting repaid, into worthless toilet paper, heretofore marketed as stock certificates. They have also begun offering this used toilet paper as dividends. If this isn't the sector screaming for me to come back and short it, I don't know what is.
- http://www.zerohedge.com/article/one-hu ... ar-pyramid

more - http://www.zerohedge.com/article/re-com ... time-again
In this Bloomberg clip, commerce secretary Gary Locke says that "if there is to be another stimulus -- and that’s being hotly discussed and very seriously considered within the administration as well as members of Congress -- it needs to be very targeted, very specific and we need to be very mindful of the deficit as well.In other words, with unemployment not improving after the first $787 billion was spent, with GDP improvements having peaked, and since at this point nothing matters since America will never be able to realistically service its debt, with mid-term elections coming up, and Obama's rating plummeting even despite an orchestrated 50% rally, it is a matter of months, if not days, before the President unveils another multi-trillion Treasury sinkhole. And since no horrible policy decision can go unused, the next stimulus is likely to be promptly followed by the Chairman announcing the next iteration of Quantitative Easing.
- http://www.zerohedge.com/article/here-comes-stimulus-20
In his latest missive, Albert Edwards, among other things, touches on two of the most critical drivers in the current economic climate: deflation and Treasury supply. His observations lead him to conclude nothing good about the follow-through for the current bear market, liquidity driven, short squeeze induced equity rally. However, more relevantly than touching merely on what is a unprecedentedly overpriced equity market, Albert will likely spark some newly-heated discussions between inflationists and deflationists (which in this economy where the only fundamental analysis deals with the Fed's balance sheet and Cash Flow statement, which until HR 1207 is instituted, readers have to mostly guess at, is really all that matters).
- http://www.zerohedge.com/article/full-b ... ode-coming
The Fed now has $15 billion in purchasing power left under the Treasury component of QE. Of the $1,250 billion in MBS projected to be bought by the end of the year, the Fed was already purchased $840 billion, leaving $410 billion in budgeted purchases over the next three and a half months: about $125 billion per month.
- http://www.zerohedge.com/article/atlant ... s-purchase

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/RI/OFBills

A little dated but great insight on Treasury actions - http://www.zerohedge.com/article/open-m ... statistics

Look at China & Japan - http://www.zerohedge.com/article/update-china-and-japan
And here is what a recoveryless, and soon to be crashful recovery looks like:

The resultant delinquency ratio for September 2009 of 3.94% (up from the 3.347% reported one month prior) is now over seven times the 0.54% reported one-year prior in September 2008 and almost 14 times the Realpoint recorded low point of 0.283% from June 2007. The increase in both delinquent unpaid balance and ratio over this time horizon reflects a steady increase from historic lows in mid-2007.
- http://www.zerohedge.com/article/cmbs-d ... accelerate
In principle, we couldn't agree more with Dr. Doom. In practice, we think Roubini is only half way there, implying that the swift reversal will be even uglier (and swifter) than even Nouriel thinks possible. By that, we refer to our analysis of BIS estimates of dollar-denominated duration funding mismatches. Observant readers will recall that this number was estimated as large as $6.5 trillion shortly before Lehman. While the number (hopefully) has declined in the past year, the primary reason why the Fed took on over half a trillion in FX liquidity swaps with foreign banks had precisely to do with providing a near-term dollar-based funding source. And this was the point we made in our previous piece: while it is true that on one hand the global economic system is now faced with a potential massive dollar short squeeze, the fundamental maturity mismatch problems are still endemic to the international system. Simply said, dollar unwind risks are based on both a short squeeze as well as another unsecured/FX swap market implosion, most likely in some form of vicious circle.

Curiously, none other than the NY Fed came out with a research piece, subsequent to Zero Hedge publishing its thoughts, entitled "The Global Financial Crisis and Offshore Dollar Markets" in which it essentially recapped our salient points regarding the inception (but not the consequences) of a predominantly dollar-denominated asset holding philosophy.
- http://www.zerohedge.com/article/roubin ... -way-there
Last edited by Anonymous on November 3rd, 2009, 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

This one deserves its own post....
When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, traditional money repositories, previously considered safe, were all promptly abandoned by investors unsure if they will have access to capital the next day. As a result, money markets, repos, even savings and deposit accounts were plundered in what has been the closest equivalent of a 21st century run on the bank. The only safe venue became US Treasury Bills, as almost overnight nearly half a trillion in very near maturities were invested in the US as the last perceived safe repository of investor capital.
See link for charts....
The rush for near-term safety ended up creating a historic precedent of negative yields on near-term Bills: investors were willing to pay the government to hold their money for them.

So where do we stand a year later?

One would expect that as the financial situation improved, and credit was unlocked, that investors would abandon the safety of low-yielding Bills and pursue risk. Ironically, not only has this not happened, but in the 12 months since October 2008, over half a trillion more, $560 billion to be exact, has been parked in T-Bills. Looking at the entire treasury curve, over 40% of the $7 trillion in marketable treasury securities, matures within one year, a dramatic increase from the roughly 30% a year prior. The chart of the current T-Bill maturity schedule is presented below:
And here is how a Year-over-Year comparison from October 2008 to October 2009 and one year forward maturity data looks. As noted, the overall increase in near-term maturities has increased by a staggering $562 billion, or 25% from the $2.3 trillion in near-term (one year) maturities in 2008.
Practically every monthly period has seen an increase in T-Bill allocation by investors. This is a troubling trend.

But before we get into the details of what potential problems this may bring to the US, as the funding mismatch accelerates, this is how the entire curve of marketable securities looked like as of the most recent available data. As noted previously, over 40% of the entire $7 trillion in marketable securities matures essentially within one year.
The concern is that even as the US debt, which as of Friday was at $11,868,457,477,911.94, and looks like it will hit the $12.104 trillion limit within a few weeks, continues to skyrocket, the interest expense paid on holdings will continue creeping ever higher. Keep in mind, at September 30, the average interest rate on Bills was a historically low 0.347%, and Notes yielded a QE-facilitated 3.043%. With the Fed out, can China and US retail investors support this record low interest at a time when UST supply keeps coming and coming?
And that assumes that the roll of the T-Bills will continue to occur without a hitch, which at a time when the UST QE is over, may be a rather bold assumption.

Yet one thing is clear: so far the proverbial "money on the sidelines" has only found USTs and specifically low-yielding Bills to be attractive. Risky assets have been shunned. So at a time when the equity rally has already had a counterintuitive 60% run up, courtesy of a few HFT platforms, some hedge funds and the Goldman prop trading team, just what is it about the market fundamentals (or the economy) for that matter, that will force investors to leave the security of Bills and go into a massively overbought equity market? (And we say counterintuitive because never before have investors bought risky and safe assets with the same zeal at precisely the same time). The answer is unknown, although with a $9 trillion deficit in dire need of funding over the next decade, it is safe to say that investors in Treasurys will not have problems finding opportunities to park their money.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/observ ... g-mismatch

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

MISH write-up on money....
At any point in time, however, when demand for money increases (people want to hold it as opposed to buy goods and services) prices of goods and services decline decline. This can happen even as money supply increases. It is happening now.

Money vs. Credit

In a gold based economy, a measure of money would be a measure of the supply of gold. However, in a fractional Fractional Reserve system (even one based on gold) more credit can be extended (more gold lent out via paper receipts supposedly "as good as gold") than their is actual gold.

Clearly this is fraudulent.

Even in a fiat system where money is amazingly backed by nothing, more credit can be extended than there is actual fiat currency. This is fraudulent as well, and sooner or later a credit crisis erupts caused by inability to pay back with interest what has been lent.

Indeed the entire banking system in insolvent right now. It is physically impossible to pay back all the credit that has been extended on the fiat base money supply that actually exists.
Clearly we can see from the above charts there is a huge difference between base money supply and M2. There is an even larger difference between base money supply and M3.

Do any of the above measures represent "money"?

Money AMS and True Money Supply

Hoping to clarify the distinction between money and credit, Austrian economic followers have two additional measures, one called True Money Supply, the other Money AMS (Austrian Money Supply). I have a monetary measure called M Prime (M') but that is a representation (as best as I can put together) of Money AMS.

At the heart of the entire debate is the question "How Does One Distinguish Credit Transactions From Money?"

Please consider Money, Credit, Inflation and Deflation by Steve Saville.
Sweeps are automated programs that "sweep" funds from one type of account into another type of account automatically. In this case we are talking about programs that allow banks to "sweep" funds from checking accounts to other types of accounts such as savings accounts that allow money to be lent out.

There are no reserve requirements on savings accounts.

Sweeps were initiated by Greenspan in 1994. Take a look at the following chart to see what has happened since then.
The Fed hides sweeps data in an obscure online publication called swdata.

Note that sweeps data is seldom less than two months old. I have no idea why it takes the Fed 2-3 months to post this data. I suppose we should be grateful they publish it at all. For the missing months, we simply extrapolate forward.

A quick look shows that nearly $800 billion dollars that should be in checking accounts is missing in action. Money, supposedly available on demand, is just not there.

Given there are no reserves on savings accounts, as much as $4.5 trillion people think is in their savings accounts is not there either. Moreover, the duration mismatch on savings accounts, sweeps, and likely even CDs is massive.

If even 20% of the people tried to get their money out the system would freeze up.

The banking system is clearly insolvent. Such is the folly of fractional reserve lending.

For a further discussion of money, derivatives, and invisible debt, and the monetary crisis we are facing, please see Janet Tavakoli on Financial Meth Labs.
Except for the monetary stimulus of the Fed fighting the last two recessions, demand deposits have generally been in decline since 1994. It is the only monetary component in a sustained (albeit artificial) downtrend. The point being, in measuring demand deposits, one must add in sweeps.

It has been a long time since I have updated M Prime, but thanks to my friend "TC" I have a couple of new charts.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... asure.html

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Jason
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Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

For the gold bugs....
Gold has hit an all-time high of USD 1,079.20/oz this afternoon after it was revealed that India's central bank had bought 200 MT of the stuff from the IMF in deal worth USD6.7 billion.

The IMF recently announced that it would like to sell a little over 400 MT from it's holdings to help with it's aid programmes to poor countries.

India was the first to step forward with the cash, although China and Russia had been favourites. The move is seen supporting gold prices further, as it appears to confirm that central banks are comfortable entering the market to hold gold at over USD 1,000/oz.

It may also indicate that they feel that gold is a better asset than the US dollar reserves that they will be using to pay for it.
- http://nogger-noggersblog.blogspot.com/ ... -buys.html

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Jason
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Re: Blipits

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NEW YORK — Inside the thick Goldman Sachs investment circular were the details of a secret, $2 billion deal channeled through a Caribbean tax haven.

The Sept. 26, 2006, document offered sophisticated U.S. and European investors an opportunity to buy into a pool of supposedly high-grade bonds backed by residential, commercial and student loans. The transaction was registered through a shell company in the Cayman Islands.

Few of the potential investors knew it, but the ratings of many of the mortgage securities hid their true risks and, in some cases, Goldman's descriptions exaggerated their quality.

The Cayman offering — one of perhaps dozens made through the British territory — occurred as Goldman began to ditch the subprime mortgage business before the U.S. housing market collapsed under an avalanche of homeowner defaults.

In all, Goldman sold more than $57 billion in risky mortgage-backed securities during a 14-month period in 2006 and 2007, including nearly $39 billion issued from mortgages it purchased. Meanwhile, the firm peddled billions of dollars in complex deals, many of them tied to subprime mortgages, in the Caymans and other offshore locations.

Many of those securities later soured, but the sales allowed Goldman to become the only major U.S. investment bank to escape the brunt of the subprime meltdown.
- http://www.goldmansachs666.com/2009/11/ ... art-3.html
It could be yet another opportunity for Goldman Sachs to come out a winner from the financial crisis that it helped create, but the Treasury Department appears poised to squash it.

Treasury officials confirmed on Monday that Goldman Sachs, which reported record quarterly profits last month, has proposed buying or at least borrowing tens of millions of dollars worth of unused tax credits from Fannie Mae, the mortgage finance company that is now owned by the government, The New York Times’s Edmund L. Andrews and Graham Bowley reported.

Fannie Mae cannot benefit from the tax credits, which are tied to investments in low-income housing, because it has lost so much money that it may not owe federal taxes for years to come.

The proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, has been pitched by the Wall Street firm as a win-win idea. Fannie Mae would get cash, which it might be able to pump into more low-income housing investment, while Goldman Sachs and perhaps a syndicate of investors would be able to reduce their taxes.
- http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/ ... y-trip-up/
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc., recipient of a $182.3 billion U.S. government bailout, will release third-quarter results this week without a conference call for analysts and investors.

AIG will skip, for the second straight quarter, the audio presentation and question-and-answer session that accompanied earnings in the past, Christina Pretto, a spokeswoman for the New York-based insurer, said yesterday. AIG, led by Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche, will post results before the start of New York trading on Nov. 6, along with a regulatory filing and financial supplement.

“I don’t think they want to answer any questions,” said Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. “This company has shown itself remarkably unsuccessful in capitalism and remarkably successful in socialism. They are not obligated to do anything they can get away with not doing.”
- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... lKxcdZtWHs
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc will receive 31.3 billion pounds ($51 billion) in a second bailout from the U.K. taxpayer as the two banks agreed to cap bonuses.

The Treasury will inject 25.5 billion pounds of capital into RBS, for a total of 45.5 billion pounds, making it the costliest bailout of any bank worldwide. The government will fund about a quarter of Lloyds’s 21 billion-pound fundraising. Both banks said they won’t pay cash bonuses to workers earning more than 39,000 pounds this year.

The rescue will bring the U.K. closer to full ownership of RBS, while Lloyds will escape government control.
- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... 7ZQc&pos=2
They've got another neat interactive graphic over at the Wall Street Journal (hat tip Patrick) where you can see the timing, size, and location of all 140 banks that have failed since 2008 along with a handy sortable table with important statistics. For maximum enjoyment, click on the first link above and then hit the Play button.
- http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspo ... -over.html

direct link to WSJ graphic - http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/docum ... -sort.html
"In case you failed to catch it in our previous articles this year, we thought we’d state it outright for our readers this month: the United States Government is on a trajectory to default on their obligations. In its current financial condition, it will not be able to fund its forecasted budget deficits and unfunded Social Security and Medicare promises on top of its current debt obligations. This isn’t official yet, and we don’t know when the market will react to it, but there is no longer any doubt about the extent of their trajectory. There simply isn’t enough taxing power, value creation or outside capital willing to support its egregious spending...

The projected US deficit from 2009 to 2019 is now slated to be almost $9 trillion dollars. How on earth does anyone expect them to raise this capital? As we stated in a previous article, in order to satisfy US capital requirements, all existing investors would have had to increase their US bond purchases by 200% in fiscal 2009. Foreigners, however, only increased their purchases by a mere 28% from September 2008 to July 2009 - far short of what the US government required. The US taxpayer can’t cover the difference either. According to recent estimates, tax revenue from all sources would have to increase by 61% in order to balance the 2010 fiscal budget. Given that State government income tax revenues were down 27.5% in the second quarter, the US government will be lucky just to maintain its current level of tax revenue, let alone increase it.

The bottom line is that there is serious cause for concern here – and don’t be fooled into thinking this crisis will fix itself when (and if) the economy recovers. Just how bad is it?..." Sprott Asset Management
- http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.co ... es-of.html
Here's a simple overview of what is increasingly becoming the dominant method of offensive warfare in the 21st Century. Early applications of this methodology to modern conflict have been very successful. In short, it's better to understand its dynamics than to assume it doesn't exist.

There are two basic types of systems disruption:

* Social. Disruption of social networks. Division of the network into non-cooperative or openly antagonistic centers of gravity.
* Physical. The disruption of physical networks, particularly infrastructure.
- http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/glo ... ption.html
November 3, 2009 - In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves.

At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them.

Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industry officials estimate. That’s up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a normal year.

It has happened, oddly, at a time when the two concerns that usually make people buy guns and bullets — crime and increased gun control — seem less threatening than usual.

The explanation for the run on bullets lies partly in economics: Once rounds were scarce, people hoarded them, which made them scarcer.

But the rush for bullets, like this year’s increase in gun sales, also says something about how suspicious the two sides in the gun-control debate are of each other, even at a time when the issue is on Washington’s back burner.

The run started, observers say, as people heeded warnings from the gun-rights lobby that a new Democratic administration would make bullets more expensive or harder to get. Now that the shortage is starting to ease, gun-control groups are voicing their own dark worries about stockpiled ammunition.

In between, in the 12 months since last October, gun shops sold enough bullets to give every American 38 of them.
- http://www.federalobserver.com/2009/11/ ... ps-in-u-s/
All news outlets are describing the proposed facility as a "cyber-security" center, but "Utah news reports, based on federal budget documents, have described the center as a collection point for surveillance of domestic and international telecommunications ... "

(AP) – 6 days ago

SALT LAKE CITY — An intelligence official says the National Security Agency will build a secretive electronic data center at a National Guard camp in Utah.

The deputy director for the Office of National Intelligence for Collection, Glenn Gaffney, says the data center will be dedicated to protecting the nation from cyber-attacks.

But that may be only part of the data center's mission. Utah news reports, based on federal budget documents, have described the center as a collection point for surveillance of domestic and international telecommunications.

Gaffney refused to say exactly what would go on at the data center. He was at the Utah Capitol on Friday along with Gov. Gary Herbert and Utah's congressional delegation to talk about the $1.6 billion project.
- http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.c ... er-in.html

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Col. Flagg
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Location: Utah County

Re: Blipits

Post by Col. Flagg »

The primary reason Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail is because it was an institution in direct competition with the 'Fed' banks, which should have sent up red flags to anyone considering the possibility that the bail-outs were legitimate and un-biased. :lol:

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Col. Flagg wrote:The primary reason Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail is because it was an institution in direct competition with the 'Fed' banks, which should have sent up red flags to anyone considering the possibility that the bail-outs were legitimate and un-biased. :lol:
LOL True and very good point!

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* * That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)
- http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/se ... t-tre.html
"The Americans should understand that their monopoly has ended," Gorbachev said earlier, speaking at the presentation of a book by US billionaire and former media mogul Ted Turner at his foundation in Moscow.

"But that America is going to be a leader for a long time, that it is going to be very influential -- this is a fact, whether you like it or not."

Gorbachev praised US President Barack Obama, who has sought to improve the United States' image and repair US-Russian relations that were damaged under his predecessor George W. Bush.

Comparing Obama's efforts with his own attempt to reform the Soviet Union in the 1980s -- which was called "perestroika", or "restructuring" -- Gorbachev said that Obama faced the harder task.

"I do not envy Obama, because I think changing and 'restructuring' America is not easier than changing the Soviet Union," Gorbachev said.

"I wish the Americans luck. I think the president's steps need the support of the American people," he added.

Gorbachev, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, also said he approved of Obama's unexpected Peace Prize victory last month, saying it could help push the United States towards greater multilateralism.

Gorbachev criticised "dividing lines" that he said had reappeared in the world and called on the United States, Russia and Europe to cooperate in creating a "fairer" world order.

"There should be no walls. Now, by the way, dividing lines are beginning to appear again. We need to live in peace in this house called Europe, with all its doors and windows," Gorbachev said.

"Only in cooperation with Russia and the United States can Europe play its role in the global process of creating a new world order," he said, adding this had been a dream of his "good acquaintance" the late pope John Paul II.
- http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=6186
There’s an interesting article in the current New York Review of books (predictably, a book review) detailing the history of the National Security Agency, that shadowy power-behind-the-power to which we surrender much of our privacy. That in itself is interesting, but I found the introduction a bit shocking: the NSA is constructing a datacenter in the Utah desert that they project will be storing yottabytes of surveillance data. And what is a yottabyte? I’m glad you asked.

There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte, a thousand terabytes in a petabyte, a thousand petabytes in an exabyte, a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte, and a thousand zettabytes in a yottabyte. In other words, a yottabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000GB. Are you paranoid yet?
- http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/11/01/ns ... epository/

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

Getting arrested for your DNA...
Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry will allege tomorrow.

The review of the national DNA database by the government's human genetics commission also raises the possibility that the DNA profiles of three-quarters of young black males, aged 18 to 35, are now on the database.

The human genetics commission report, Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?, says the national DNA database for England and Wales is already the largest in the world, at 5 million profiles and growing, yet has no clear statutory basis or independent oversight.

The highly critical report from the government's advisory body on the development of human genetics is published as the number of innocent people on the database is disclosed to be far higher than previously thought ‑ nearing 1 million.

The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as "an 'alien wedge' of criminality".

The crime and security bill published last week by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, proposes to keep DNA profiles of people arrested but not convicted of any offence on the database for six years. This follows a landmark European court judgment last December, ruling illegal the current blanket policy of indefinite retention of DNA profiles whether or not the person has been convicted of an offence.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009 ... se-inquiry
Last night I posted about a report indicating that the Obama administration had “scrambled” to find a reason to fire government inspector Gerald Walpin after they’d fired him for uncovering scandal and corruption involving Americorps and Obama supporter (and former NBA star) Kevin Johnson.

Today comes more news about the uncovered scandal, including pay-offs with tax dollars to underage girls Johnson had either had sex with or had propositioned for sex.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/uh_oh_ ... abuse_inv/
William S. Lind
23 November 2009

One of the ongoing themes of this column has been gangs and the role they play in a Fourth Generation world. Here in the United States they already serve as an alternative primary loyalty (alternative to the state) for many urban young men. Gangs will likely be a major player in 4GW because gang members are expected to fight. Those who won’t do not remain gang members.

The November 15 Washington Post had a story about gangs in Salinas, California, that deserves close attention from 4GW theorists. Salinas is reportedly overrun with Hispanic gangs. The Post wrote that its homicide rate is three times that of Los Angeles. It quoted a Salinas police officer, Sgt. Mark Lazzarini, on one of the classic results of state breakdown, chaos:

“Only half of our gangs are structured; the Norteños,” he said. “The southerners are completely unstructured. Half of our violence is kids who get into a car and go out and hunt. These kids don’t know their victims. How do you stop that? It’s very chaotic.”

Salinas’s new slogan might be, “Salinas: where even the lettuce has tattoos.”

But what is interesting in the Post’s article is not the gangs themselves. It is a new response to the gangs. Salinas has brought in the U.S. military to apply counter-insurgency doctrine to a situation on American soil. The Post reports that:

Since February combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been advising Salinas police on counterinsurgency doctrine, bringing lessons from the battlefield to the meanest streets in an American city…

“It’s a little laboratory,” said retired Col. Hy Rothstein, the former Army career officer in Special Forces who heads the team of 15 faculty members and students (from the Naval Postgraduate School), mostly naval officers…

Rothstein…notes the “significant overlap with how you deal with insurgencies and how you deal with cities that are under siege from gangs.”…

Leonard A. Ferrari, provost of the naval Postgraduate School, embraced the project from the start, hearing…an opportunity for a school “in transition from just a defense institution to a national homeland and even a human security institution.”…

“The idea was, not just Salinas,” Ferrari said, “but is there a national model for this”

From the perspective of 4GW theory, this is an important development. The Naval Postgraduate School is a DOD institution, part of the U.S. government. Its involvement in Salinas marks the federal government’s formal recognition of Fourth Generation war on American soil, and the need for a “national model” to counteract it. If we must involve the U.S. military to lead counterinsurgency efforts in American cities, then it is difficult to deny that we face something like insurgencies in those same cities. Again, the significance is that this is now formally admitted by the U.S. government, not merely noted by “outside the beltway” observers of 4GW.

The U.S. military officers advising Salinas on how to wage an anti-gang counterinsurgency are doing so as volunteers, according to the Post, to avoid Constitutional issues. But the camel’s nose is obviously inside the tent. Many wars have begun by sending “volunteers.” If, as likely, the volunteers prove insufficient, regular troops will follow.

As someone who believes in a strictly limited federal government, the government envisioned by our Founders, I find this troubling. But from a 4GW perspective, I also know it is inevitable.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/lin ... stone.html
AMPATUAN, Philippines – The Philippine president placed two southern provinces under emergency rule Tuesday as security forces unearthed more bodies, pushing the death toll to 46 in some of the deadliest election violence in the nation's history.

Police and soldiers found 22 bodies in a hillside mass grave Tuesday, adding to the 24 bullet-riddled bodies recovered near the scene of Monday's massacre in Maguindanao province, said Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluna of the Central Mindanao region.

This southern region of the Philippines is wracked by violent political rivalries, in addition to a long-running Islamic insurgency, but the killings have shocked this Southeast Asian nation. One adviser to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has described the massacre as the worst in the country's recent history. A media rights watchdog also says that it appears to be the world's worst mass killing of journalists, with as many as 20 reportedly among the dead.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2009/11/s ... ACKFIVE%29

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tick
captain of 100
Posts: 211
Location: SL County, Utah

Re: Blipits

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Gold has hit an all-time high of USD 1,079.20/oz this afternoon after it was revealed that India's central bank had bought 200 MT of the stuff from the IMF in deal worth USD6.7 billion.

The IMF recently announced that it would like to sell a little over 400 MT from it's holdings to help with it's aid programmes to poor countries.

India was the first to step forward with the cash, although China and Russia had been favourites. The move is seen supporting gold prices further, as it appears to confirm that central banks are comfortable entering the market to hold gold at over USD 1,000/oz.

It may also indicate that they feel that gold is a better asset than the US dollar reserves that they will be using to pay for it.
I find it interesting that the IMF would sell 400 MT of gold to help poor countries, and find a buyer (India) for half. Funny thing about this, is in July India got 4.5 Bln from the IMF (http://www.fxopen.ru/livenews.aspx?id=3 ... ture=en-US). Is this whole thing seem jacked up to anyone else?

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

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NAFTA called for the operation of Mexican trucks in the United States, and the operation of U.S. trucks in Mexico. U.S. trucks generally refuse to enter Mexico because of the extreme danger to life and property.

Now, Obama is dealing with Mexican president Calderon and promises to reinvigorate the Mexican truck program.

As reported by Bloomberg,

"Around 4,500 Mexican trucking companies represented by the National Freight Transportation Chamber, known as Canacar, said in June they were seeking $6 billion in compensation from the U.S. because of the trucking conflict, alleging its northern neighbor wasn’t complying with Nafta."

The occasion of the meeting was an extension to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) started by George W. Bush in 2005. Obama is careful to avoid the SPP moniker. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was also present at the talks.

The three leaders also talked about the drug war and Swine flu, and how the three nations might coordinate efforts to combat both.

Thus, it appears that the road map for the North American Community is still in play.
http://www.augustreview.com/index.php?o ... 7&Itemid=5
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.

Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."

"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill
The Washington Post, in a cost-cutting move, is closing its last three domestic bureaus in the United States at the end of the year.
http://www.alternet.org/rss/breaking_ne ... aking_news

everything is handled from the national desk anyways....

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

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"British banks win 'stunning' victory in landmark ruling on overdraft fees", says The Daily Telegraph, amongst the many media sources to comment on the ruling by our "Supreme" Court.

HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyds are among seven lenders who had asked the Court to halt a challenge to their fees brought by the Office of Fair Trading, but there is more to the ruling than meets the eye.

According to the judgement handed down, the issue depended "on the correct interpretation (in its European context) and application of Regulation 6(2) of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 SI 1999/2083."

However, we then see that: "The 1999 Regulations were made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 in order to transpose into national law Council Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts."

The "victory” then, is one for EU law – which completely goes against the grain of expectations. As for the "Supreme" court, all it was doing was interpreting the diktats of our masters in Brussels. But, as always, in none of the MSM accounts does one see any reference to this.

The Times rails that the "decision is bad for consumers and competition" but it does not tell us why it was made. The invisible "elephant in the room", as always, is positively thriving.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/1 ... ctory.html
A Christmas tree was put up in the Orange County (California) courthouse as the centerpiece for Operation Santa Claus, a charity that provides toys and gifts for disadvantaged children (and one I have worked with in the past).

An intolerant, progressive busy-body was offended, complained and the tree was taken down.

How is this possible, if there is no war on Christmas?
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/200 ... claim.html
On Monday, the United States unsealed terrorism charges against eight defendants for supporting a Somali Islamist group called al-Shabaab. While few lay people in Canada or the United States have heard of al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-connected extremist organization — which controls a significant amount of territory in Somalia — has recently become a particular concern for analysts examining possible homegrown terrorist flashpoints in North America.

Beginning in late 2007, dozens of young men of Somali descent started disappearing from diaspora communities in the West. It turned out they were returning to Somalia to train in Shabaab camps or to take up arms against Shabaab’s enemies within the country. Islamists of non-Somali descent were also travelling there to join Shabaab.

This phenomenon has been repeating itself in a number of countries. Canadian government sources claim that 20 to 30 Canadians have joined Shabaab — a development that public safety minister Peter Van Loan has said “alarmed” him. In the U.S., the disappearances have primarily clustered around Minneapolis-St. Paul, but there are credible reports of disappearances in other U.S. cities with large Somali populations as well.

The Times of London reports that British security services believe “[d]ozens of Islamic extremists have returned to Britain from terror training camps in Somalia.” SAPO, Sweden’s security service, believes that about 20 people have left that country to join Shabaab. And Australian authorities think as many as 40 Somali refugees may have gone from Australia to Somalia to liaise with Shabaab.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blog ... malia.aspx
We’ll get right to the point: garlic has outperformed gold and stocks in China, becoming the country’s best performing asset this year, according to a Reuters report.

And no, the trigger has not been a sudden fear of vampire squids in China, but the idea the bulb could be used to ward off H1N1 flu, according to Morgan Stanley economists cited by the news wire.

Bear with us because the story does get weirder. As Reuters reported:

That chimes with some anecdotal evidence. The China Daily reported last week that a high school in Hangzhou, a prosperous city in eastern China, had bought 200 kg of garlic and forced students to eat it every day for lunch to stay healthy. “I don’t know about H1N1, but it can prevent ordinary colds,” Zhang Ping, 74, told Reuters at a vegetable market in Beijing. “Take me. I’ve not had cold for many years and every year I buy several dozen pounds of garlic.”

Others have been looking for darker forces behind the surge. China Business News said coal mine bosses — who are often depicted as being both extremely rich and nefarious speculators — had been playing the garlic market, hoarding bulbs and hauling them between storehouses.

Dark forces in the form of rich and nefarious coal-mining speculators? (Sounds like - ahem - vampires to us.)

Nevertheless, there is a serious note to all this garlic madness.

Garlic has been the subject of one of the most fiercely contested Sino-American trade wars of recent times, with American farmers lobbying hard to implement tariffs against cheap Chinese exports to the country .

To say China has a monopoly on the global garlic market, therefore, would not be understating matters.

However, before readers (and the French particularly) begin to panic about an upcoming global garlic shortage, it’s worth highlighting that there are also some more mundane explanations for the recent price rally. As Reuters noted (our emphasis):

In some parts of Shandong province, the wholesale price of garlic is up as much as 40-fold. “Too much liquidity in any market can lead to speculation,” analyst Jerry Lou said in a research note this week. “The most recent evidence of asset speculation in China’s commodity markets has been for garlic.”

But a more mundane factor may lie at the root of it all. Garlic prices were extremely low last year, convincing many farmers that it was not worth planting the crop again, a wholesale trader was quoted as saying in the Nanfang Daily. Supply could not keep up with a pick-up in demand from home and abroad, sending prices sky-high, the trader said.

Yi Xianrong, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think-tank, said there was no need for panic. “The garlic market is cyclical. Price rises are short-term and they will fall again before long,” Yi told Reuters.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/11 ... re-attack/
"I think eventually there will be a big bust and then the whole credit expansion will come to an end," Faber added.

"Before that happens, governments will continue printing money which in time will lead to a very high inflation rate, and the economy will not respond to stimulus".

In one of his Gloomiest predictions, Faber, referred to as Dr Doom, said "the average family will be hurt by that, and then in order to distract the attention of the people, the governments will go to war".

"People ask me against whom? Well, they will invent an enemy," Faber said.

"At some stage, somewhere in future, we will have a war - that you have to be prepared for. And during war times, commodities go up strongly,” said Faber.

"If you want to hedge against war, you don't want to own derivatives in UBS and AIG, but you have to own them physically, like farmland and agricultural commodities. That is something to consider for you as a personal safety and hedge. You have to own some commodities," he added.

Discussion of Ideas From The Article

Faber: There will be another war and it will be against an imaginary enemy
Mish: I certainly agree the next war will be against an imaginary enemy. Nearly every war is against an imaginary enemy and/or of no vital interest of the US. WWI, Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf War II were all needless. WWII was a direct result of WWI. The "War on Terror" is preposterous. Terror is a method. Waging a war on a method against an enemy that has no real country is bound to fail and waste a lot of money in failure. As for where next, given Obama's sabre rattling against Pakistan, that is one place to keep an eye on. Iran is another.

Faber: The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones will go down relative to gold.
Mish: I concur. The question is in what way. The key word in the above sentence is "relative". Gold can easily stay flat, rise, or drop while the bottom falls out of the S&P.

Faber: Eventually there will be a big bust and then the whole credit expansion will come to an end. Before that happens, governments will continue printing money which in time will lead to a very high inflation rate, and the economy will not respond to stimulus.
Mish: The economy is not responding to stimulus right now, at least in any meaningful way. 100% of the GDP growth was directly related to government stimulus. The idea that government spending can start a genuine economic recovery is ridiculous. Nonetheless, government spending can start an artificial boom. The housing bubble is an example of an artificial boom. However, for a boom to start, individuals and businesses have to be willing to go along. That is the way it works in a credit based economy. Right now personal credit is contracting, credit card lending is falling, and businesses simply do not want to expand in the face of tax increases and high unemployment. Unless and until the Fed reignites another credit boom, high inflation is unlikely. The fear now should be more of what Congress does than what the Fed does. Yet it seems Congress is getting a bit leery over these huge deficits. Congress will spend of course, but will it be enough to matter much? I doubt it, at least until we have more purging of consumer and corporate debt via bankruptcy.

Faber: US government will increase its stimulus spending should the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fall toward 900.
Mish: Agreed but it will not help for reasons stated above.

Faber: The S&P will not drop below 800 or 900, and eventually will go higher in nominal terms, but not necessary in real terms. A correction is coming in the near term.
Mish: I doubt the bottom is in, but it could be. If it is in, then I expect a retest closer to 700 than 900. It is conceivable the S&P drops to 500, which by the way I think is fair value. Japan had two lost decades and I expect the US will have them as well.

Faber: The capitalistic system 'as we know it today' will collapse.
Mish: Agreed. The credit based fiat model of fractional reserve lending and fabrication of money out of thin air has reached its pinnacle. See Fiat World Mathematical Model for more details. Global wage arbitrage and outsourcing are icing on the cake. Mathematically it is impossible for the current Ponzi scheme of ever increasing levels of debt to survive. When and how it finally blows up is the only issue.

Faber: Central banks will continue to print money at full speed, but long-term this strategy will lead to a fall in purchasing power and living standards, especially in developed countries.
Mish: Agreed

Faber: The years 2006 and 2007 were "the peak of prosperity" and the world economy is not likely to return soon to that level.
Mish: Agreed. I had quite some time ago proposed Peak Credit and her twin sister Peak Earnings have arrived. Here is a snip from the former. ... That final wave of consumer recklessness created the exact conditions required for its own destruction. The housing bubble orgy was the last hurrah. It is not coming back and there will be no bigger bubble to replace it. Consumers and banks have both been burnt, and attitudes have changed.

Faber: The best way to deal with any economic problem is to let the market work it through.
Mish: Agreed

Faber: The way communism collapsed, capitalism will collapse.
Mish: I disagree on a technicality. Capitalism will not collapse, because we are not practicing capitalism. Instead, we are practicing a perverse blend of corporate fascism, socialism, corruption, and padding of the pockets for and by those running the country. Yes, that will collapse.

Faber: “No decent citizen should trust the Federal Reserve for one second. It’s very important that everyone own some gold because the government will make the dollar (in the long term) useless."
Mish: No decent citizen should trust any central bank anywhere. The problems go far beyond the Fed and in the long run all fiat currencies are worthless. Fiat currencies do not float, instead they all sink at varying rates.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... ented.html
I couldn’t decide which story I liked better, so, how about both, starting with George W. Obama and landmines?

The Obama administration has decided not to sign an international convention banning land mines.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy.

“We decided that our land mine policy remains in effect,” he said.

Hope! Change! Obama just can’t be bothered with actually making policy decisions.

And jobs?

As desperate Democratic lawmakers cast about for ways to create jobs from Capitol Hill, a 1970s-era jobs program is getting a fresh look.

Known as CETA — the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act — the program provided direct government funding to hire temporary workers. At its peak in 1978, it had created 725,000 public service jobs and shaved roughly one point off the unemployment figure.

Yeah, that should go over well. Of course, that is part of the plan, to have everyone working directly for and/or beholden to the federal government. Say, I wonder how well that worked out just a few short years later?

Government doesn’t create wealth. They take it from the private industry.
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2009/11/25/j ... landmines/

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Jason
Master of Puppets
Posts: 18296

Re: Blipits

Post by Jason »

The Senate has just passed a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending measure, sending the bill to President Obama for a signature.

The measure includes $447 billion in appropriations for a number of cabinet departments, as well as $650 billion for Medicare and Medicaid.

The bill passed on a largely party line vote, 57-35. Three Democrats voted against the bill: Bayh (Ind.), McCaskill (Mo.) and Feingold. They were balanced out by the three Republicans who voted "yes": Collins (Maine), Shelby (Ala.) and Cochran (Miss.)

The House passed the omnibus bill last week.

Republicans, especially John McCain, had decried the bill for containing 5,000 earmarks totalling almost $4 billion. Democrats pointed out that both parties had inserted pork projects.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... nt-to-obma
FORT JACKSON, S.C. – Thousands of Army recruits in training must line up at least once more before heading home for the holidays, this time for mass inoculations by the hundreds against swine flu.

The Army's largest training camp, just outside Columbia, S.C., and other posts are hurrying to finish the shots before the year-end break. More than 40,000 soldiers in advanced and basic training across the country head home over the next two weeks in a massive troop movement known as "block leave," Army officials said.

"We have been very aggressive in trying to assure the safety of our soldiers," said Maj. Soo Hee Kim-Delio, the Army physician in charge of the inoculations at Fort Jackson. "Our basic training population is at particularly high risk."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091211/ap_ ... _swine_flu
This weekend Ireland's largest public sector union has called the situation "explosive":

Speaking today Peter McLoone, the general secretary of Impact and the chairman of the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said that trust had effectively broken down between unions and the Government and that there was no basis that the parties would be able to go back into discussions in the short term.

Mr McLoone told RTE’s “This Week” programme that he could not rule out the possibility of all-out strikes as the reaction from members to the pay cuts was very strong.

He also indicated that public sector workers would no longer be prepared to engage with the Government on reforms along the lines of those proposed in the talks on an alternative for reducing the public sector pay bill without cutting pay rates.

And by the way, what's "especially dangerous" mean? Strikes? Many government workers would do us all a favor if they went on strike. That would solve budget problems, you see - you don't pay people who don't work voluntarily, and a strike is voluntary! To that I say: Go ahead and strike as it will HELP the budget situation.

If this is a thinly-veiled threat of violence, well, we're already seeing that in Greece. I guess we can add Ireland to the mix without too much trouble eh? Or shall we talk about Italy, where it appears Berlusconi was punched - that is, literally assaulted:

OME (AP) -- Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was punched in the face at the end of a rally on Sunday by a man holding a small statue in his hand, leaving the 73-year-old media mogul with a bloodied mouth and looking stunned, police said. The 42-year-old man accused of attacking Berlusconi in Milan as he signed autographs was immediately taken into custody.

How far are we away from boiled rope and lamp posts folks?

The problem here, like in New York and other US States, is that Ireland, like The United States, refuses to confess to the full extent of the economic damage - nor will they confess to the fact that it is not getting better at any material rate.

Instead, we have the litany of "pumpers" and misleading (if not outright false) so-called "economic indicators" that are put forward with a smug smile, claiming that "we are out of recession."

Oh really?

Then why is New York's financial situation so bad that Governor Paterson has felt the need to do this?

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson will announce Sunday that he is taking the dramatic step of unilaterally withholding 10% in scheduled payments this month to schools and local governments, including New York City, the Daily News has learned.

"He's basically paying out 90 cents on the dollar," one source said.

This of course is going to provoke some pretty strong responses - including lawsuits. Not that it matters; you can't get what doesn't exist, no matter how much you want to complain about it.

This is not limited to New York and Ireland. Indeed, it is pretty much "pick your state" in the US, and among other nations, the list is long and distinguished - especially in Eastern Europe.

The distortions that governments (and traders acting on the "free money" paradigm) have applied to the markets in the last two years are unprecedented. Oil, for example, is trading around $70 - but why? Cushing (the main oil terminal in the US) is full to overflowing, banks are literally parking tankers full of oil at anchor rather than selling it, and every place you can buy and cram a barrel, it has been bought and crammed. This has "created demand" for that oil, but since the oil has not been actually consumed it is false demand - and that supply must, at some point, go to the market.

Kuwait's recent announcement that they may pull their deposited funds (custodial funds) from Citibank is more likely due to their government's knowledge of the book cooking (and oil demand cooking) and radical deterioration in their state finances. Eventually the piper must be paid, and these distortions will disappear. When they do, so will the oil price - and I suspect Kuwait knows this full well.
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1723- ... g-Lie.html
Continuing our series of impending Commercial Real Estate debacles (click for part one), today we focus on CMBX 3 (H1 2007 transactions). As Fitch disclosed on Friday, the November delinquency rate across CMBS increased by 43 bps to 4.29%, while more than double, 9.16% of the entire Fitch universe, was in special servicing. Of this CMBX 3 (together with 4) hold the brunt of the collapse in CRE. Of the 25 deals in CMBX 3, those performing the worst as of the latest remittance report were:

* COMM 06-C8, with 18.3% of all deals delinquent or in special servicing ($680.4 million of $3.7 billion total)
* CSMC 07-C1, with 16.5% of all deals delinquent or in special servicing ($552.3 million of $3.3 billion total)
* LBUBS 07-C1, with 15.6% of all deals delinquent or in special servicing(576.4 million of $3.7 billion total)

And highlighted below are the properties most indicative of the CRE collapse within CMBX 3, and in CRE in general. Once again, this is merely a sample with many other properties already in foreclosure and/or delinquency.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/next-s ... to+zero%29

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