Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Wed 05.13.2009
12.8 TRILLION! On and off balance sheet transactions conducted by Federal Reserve add up to 12.8 trillion, according to numerous articles reported by Bloomberg News.
YouTube Clip of Lawmaker, Fed Official Draws 166,000 [210,593 views & growing] A clip on Google Inc.’s YouTube of a congressman scolding the Federal Reserve’s inspector general on her oversight of taxpayer funds has garnered more than 166,000 viewings in six days since a hearing on Capitol Hill. Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, chastised Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman for what he deemed a lack of oversight of the central bank’s off-balance-sheet transactions. The video titled “Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve?” was posted a day after Coleman’s May 5 testimony to a House Financial Services subcommittee. “Do you know who received that $1 trillion-plus that the Fed extended and put on its balance sheet since last September?” Grayson asked. Coleman responded by saying she didn’t know. “We have not looked at that specific area,” she said in the nearly five-and- a-half minute clip.
High Quality Version: Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? This is a high quality version of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing of May 5, 2009. Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.
Bloomberg April 15th - Dollar Optimism Drops to One-Year Low as Fed Dilutes Currency Economic sentiment improved after global governments and central banks beefed up efforts to combat the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The U.S. government and the Fed have spent, lent or committed as much as $12.8 trillion to shore up the nation’s banking system and economy. In Japan, the government announced a record 15.4 trillion yen ($153 billion) stimulus package on April 10, bringing total spending to 25 trillion yen.
Bloomberg May 2nd - Berkshire’s Munger Says ‘Venal’ Banks May Evade Needed Reform . . . . Munger said policy makers should seek to impose limits on banks that are deemed “too big to fail” after financial institutions worldwide suffered more than $1 trillion in losses. The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the recession.
Bloomberg May 4th - U.S. Markets Wrap: S&P 500 Erases 2009 Loss as Copper, Oil Gain . . . . David Kostin, a Goldman Sachs strategist, upgraded his rating on financial stocks to “neutral” from “underweight” today, citing the economic stimulus package and better-than- estimated results from banks during the first quarter. The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed at least $12.8 trillion to help end the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, according to Bloomberg data.
(Congressman who raised the question of the 9 trillion in off balance sheet transactions) Alan Grayson on Large Financial Institutions: Who will say 'enough is enough'? Rep. Alan Grayson asks a group of witnesses representing parts of the hedge fund industry what the rules should be to prevent large financial institutions from threatening the financial system.
Socialism Coming Back To Haunt U.S. America is more than a country; it is the ideal of liberty. In economic terms, liberty translates into the entrepreneurial spirit of hard work, risk taking and self-reliance. And this spirit has made America rich beyond compare. Unfortunately, over the past four decades, much has been undone. Under the guise of a new, "social" justice, political leaders have turned our native ethics upside down. Profit-taking is now seen as gouging; success is greed; businessmen are predators. This creeping socialist transformation of our culture has finally broken the back of the American economy.
The Very Large Bubble of Government Debt . . . . You do not wipe out twenty five years of credit and leverage excess in a mere eighteen months. We are barely halfway through the liquidation/loss realisation phase. The essential question is which assets are going to perform the best as governments inflate and create a new bubble in government debt? And by the way, it's going to be very large bubble.
Forget the $1.8 trillion deficit the Obama White House admitted to today. Forget the A$60-$70 billion deficit Wayne Swan is going to shove down your face tonight. The true scope of government borrowing is breathtaking, and rather sickening. More importantly, you have to wonder where the money is going to come from, and what will happen when it's not forthcoming from private investors.
Consider the chart below, courtesy of Niels Jensen, writing in John Mauldin's "Outside the Box" e-letter. Niels shows that according to IMF estimates, twelve governments around the world (the 'Dirty Dozen') will have to issue $10.2 trillion in bonds to cover future banking losses and funding requirements in the credit markets as a result of the ongoing financial crisis.
[official version for public consumption] U.S. Budget Gap Is Revised to Surpass $1.8 Trillion President Obama has lately begun pointing to optimistic signs for the economy, but the continuing crisis still bedevils his budget projections and his domestic agenda. The administration, in final budget and tax details released Monday, disclosed a double wallop of bad news from government number-crunchers. First, its Office of Management and Budget reported that the economy had added - both for this year and next - $90 billion to the historically high deficit estimates the administration issued just two months ago.
The Ken Rogoff Study That Tim Geithner Refuses To Read Niels C. Jensen of Absolute Return Partners isn't buying the green shoots thing. He's also thinks the huge market move is just a suckers' rally. In ARP's May letter, he notes that 1929-1932 saw four massive rallies of 20%+ and that such rallies are the hallmark of bear markets. But Niels' real problem is with debt. Specifically, the amount of debt the world is going to have to take on during the recovery from this crisis. This mountain of debt, Niels says, is likely to be vastly larger than the IMF, the US government, or anyone else is expecting. . . . . . . . . total private wealth across the world today is about $37 trillion less the losses incurred in 2007-09, so the real number is probably closer to $30 trillion now. Total global savings (loosely adjusted for the big losses in 2008) are probably somewhere in the region of $100 trillion. In other words, financing this crisis could absorb one-third of total global savings.
Ron Paul On Fox Business "...runaway Inflation is horrendous"
Rumsfeld 2.3 Trillion Dollars missing Pentagon 1 DAY before 4/9-11
Gold Remains Undervalued vs. the Dollar Gold and silver prices rose last week (gold was up 3.1% and silver rose sharply by 11.6%) as the US dollar fell sharply and broke down technically and US bonds continue to sell off aggressively. Stock markets remained sanguine as ever and continued on their merry way despite valuations looking very ripe and the recent bear market rally looking long in the tooth.
How Will Gold Perform in the Coming Equity Crash? The multi-billion dollar question for precious metal investors today has to be how gold will perform as this sucker's rally in stocks goes spectacularly bust. Retail equity investors will surely wake up last, having not noticed that insiders and professional traders have been putting their shorts on or selling in the past week or so. In the equity rout we saw last autumn gold and silver stocks plunged with the rest, and even the precious metals themselves were sold off as funds scrambled to raise cash to meet margin calls. Will it be the same story this time?
Gold Gains, Dollar Sinks as Bernanke Declares US Currency "Strong", Prices "Stable" THE GOLD PRICE rose sharply for US investors in London on Tuesday morning, touching $922.50 an ounce as world stock markets held flat and the Dollar fell hard on the currency markets. The Euro hit its best level in 8 weeks near $1.37, while US crude oil broke fresh 6-month highs above $59 per barrel. Government bond prices retreated from Monday's bounce, pushing 10-year US Treasury yields back up to 3.20%. "It is too early to expect an economic recovery and we see [the 40% gain in world equities since March] as a bear market rally only," says the May edition of Metal Matters from London market-makers Scotia Mocatta.
Billions for Bankers - Debts for the People Editor's Note: This compilation provides a overview of central banking, the Federal Reserve and the specific steps that the Globalists have used to thawart the United States Constitution for the purpose of redistributing the wealth of our country. Knowledge is empowering. The concepts you are about to entertain may upset you. As a responsible patriot, you must grasp the reality of the globalist's motives and share this information with others..... Johnny Silver Bear "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson
[multi-part series - well done] Prologue: Three Types of Conquest History reveals nations can be conquered by the use of one or more of three methods.
The most common is conquest by war.
A second method is by religion
The third method can be called economic conquest
1 .The Real Story of Money Control in America Americans, living in what is called the richest nation on earth, seem always to be short of money. It's impossible for many families to make ends meet unless both parents are in the work force.
2. Money is "Created", Not Grown or Built. Economists use the term "create" when speaking of the process by which money comes into existence. "Creation" means making something which did not exist before
3. Bankers' Depression of the 1930's. In 1930 America did not lack industrial capacity, fertile farmlands, skilled and willing workers or industrious families.
5. Power to Coin and Regulate Money When we can see the disastrous results of an artificially created shortage of money, we can better understand why our Founding Fathers, who understood both money and God's Laws, insisted on placing the power to "create" money and the power to control it ONLY in the hands of the Federal Congress.
6. How We Lost Control of the Federal Reserve Instead of the Constitutional method of creating our money and putting it into circulation, we now have and entirely unconstitutional system.
9. The interest amount is never created The only way new money (which is not true money, but rather credit representing a debt), goes into circulation in America is when it is borrowed from the bankers.
11. Gambling Away the American Dream To grasp the truth that periodic withdrawal of money through interest payments will inexorably transfer all wealth in the nation to the receiver of interest, imagine yourself in a poker or dice game where everyone must buy the chips (the medium of exchange) from a "banker" who does not risk chips in the game.
12. Continuing Cycles of Debt and War But instead of peace and debt-free prosperity, we have ever-mounting debt and cyclical periods of war.
14. Citizen Control of U.S. Currency Money, issued in such a way, would derive its value in exchange from the fact that it had come from the highest legal source in the nation and would be declared legal to pay all public and private debts.
15. Creating a Debt-Free America With debt-free and interest-free money, there would be no direct confiscatory taxation and our homes would be mortgage-free without approximately $10,000-per-year payments to the bankers.
16. Controlling Public Debate and Opinion We realize that this small, and necessarily incomplete, article on money may be charged with oversimplification.
17. Spread the Word and Do Something to Fix Things The "almost hidden" conspirators in politics, religion, education, entertainment, and the news media are working for the banker-owned United States, in a banker-owned World under a banker-owned World Government! (This is what all the talk of a New World Order promoted by Presidents Bush and Clinton is all about.)
18. Quotes From Prominent People "Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value ---- zero." --VOLTAIRE (1694-1778) (huge list of great quotes. . . )
19. What You Can Do Pray for America's release from this wicked money control, which is at the root of our debts and wars.
The Root of Your Economic Problems Rising debts and increasing bankruptcies are the result of Congress suspending the free coinage of metals - into money - and switching us to bank credits as our medium of exchange.
The Critical Mathematical Flaw Economists and bankers choose not to discuss a very significant flaw in the present banking system.
"The refusal of King George to operate an HONEST colonial MONEY SYSTEM which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the manipulators was probably the prime cause of the Revolution." Benjamin Franklin
Is America Overstretched? O! Bama! Whither takest thou us? There are two broad theories concerning the great men of history. One says that history is made by great men. The other says great men are made by history. But here at The Daily Reckoning we think they're both wrong. In our book, great men don't really exist. They are merely invented by the historians. History needs heroes. Sometimes tragic heroes… sometimes comic… the historians take what they've got to work with and set them spinning. But if you look at their leading characters closely, they look little different from the rest of us… just fellow passengers on the big bus. . . . . . . . . The bear market in property has put one out of every four homeowners underwater. And now the recession/depression threatens to knock the stuffing out of the rest of the economy.
Follow the Money… out of the U.S. dollar? Recently, stock markets appear to have experienced an almost euphoric phase, seemingly shrugging off most negative news flow day after day. Whether or not you believe in the so-called "green shoots" of economic recovery, a significant economic rebound, or a continued decline in economic activity, one thing seems abundantly clear: investors have been becoming less risk averse. The most commonly followed "fear indicator", the VIX index, has retracted (likewise, other commonly followed indicators such as the TED spread has tightened and OIS spreads have reverted to levels not seen since the Lehman Brothers collapse), three month T-bill yields have recently risen and equity markets around the world have rebounded from March lows.
Dollar Fails Crucial Test "This move has really lit a fire under the dollar bears," says Chuck Butler. "Many institutional investors use the dollar index as their means of trading the dollar. And to see it fall through its 200-day moving average was enough proof for them that the dollar is heading south. "The 200-day moving average, for those of you unfamiliar with this term, is a long-term moving average that helps determine the overall health of the asset, which, in this case, we're talking about the dollar. It is, for all practical purposes, a dividing line, if you will, between as asset being healthy and one that is not."
Tax Revenues Collapse! Medicare And Social Security Going BUSTRuh-oh. The Treasury has just come out with a big warning on Federal tax revenues. It boils down to this: Receipts are vanishing at a faster rate than expected (surprise!) and the entitlement programs are careening towards insolvency. According to the latest estimates, Social Security will take in less in revenue than it pays out each year by 2016. That's just a few years. And the program will go completely insolvent by 2037 if no serious changes are made. Medicare will be insolvent by 2017.
Social Security and Medicare Will Cost More Than The Value Of Everything In The United StatesHere's the good news: future costs of Social Security and Medicare won't require higher taxes. Now here's the bad news: the reason these programs won't require higher taxes is that they'll be so expensive that there's no possible way to pay for them through taxes. Everything in the US (not counting people) is worth about $50 trillion and those two programs will cost $80 trillion, unless they are reformed.
Social Security, Medicare bleeding faster The deep economic recession has brought the days of reckoning for Social Security and Medicare much closer, with Medicare's program for hospital stays already running in the red and Social Security expected to start taking in less cash than it pays out beginning in 2016. A new report detailing the programs' deteriorating finances makes it clear that Congress will have to decide sooner than it had expected to either curtail the programs or find new sources of revenue to bolster them. Taxpayers and recipients probably will have to pay more as a result, analysts said.
Medicare, Social Security Funds Worsen in Recession The financial health of Social Security and Medicare, the two main safety nets for American retirees and the elderly, is declining as the recession cuts payroll-tax contributions just as the baby-boom generation begins to retire. The Social Security trust fund will run out of assets in 2037, four years sooner than previously forecast, the trustees said today. Spending on Medicare, the health insurance plan for the elderly, will reach a legal limit by 2014, the same year predicted in 2008, the trustees' report said.
No, Citigroup Is Not Using "Most" Of Its TARP Money For Lending Sorry, but Citi's new spin campaign really warrants some counterspin. As we noted this morning, Citigroup is gin up some buzz from the fact that it's taken $45 billion from TARP, and that this past month it's lent out an incremental $45 billion (some of it even to cash-strapped cities, how patriotic!)
Citigroup: $45 billion TARP money goes toward loans Citigroup Inc said on Tuesday that the committee overseeing its use of $45 billion of taxpayer money had approved the use of nearly all of that sum to make loans. The New York-based bank said the committee had approved $44.75 billion of lending initiatives as of March 31, including $8.25 billion for new programs in the first quarter. Citigroup said the new loans included $5 billion to municipalities, universities and nonprofit hospitals; $2 billion to help fund small and midsized businesses; $1 billion for residential mortgages; and $250 million for auto loans.
Bill Coming This Week To Guarantee Entire Muni Market One of the most insane ideas we've heard of may soon become reality. Fox Biz is reporting that the House Financial Services Committee is set to take up legislation this week that would establish a federal backstop for all Municipal bonds and muni insurance. This would, of course, represent another massive expansion of the government's guarantees and turn all states into Fannie and Freddy.
Dollar Falls to 7-Week Low on Speculation Global Slump Easing The dollar fell to a seven-week low against the euro after Chinese government reports today added to signs the worst of the global economic slump is over, sapping demand for the greenback as a refuge. Demand for the dollar also waned after David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times that the nation's AAA credit rating may be cut. Australia's dollar rose against the U.S. currency after better- than-expected retail sales data from China provided more evidence of a rebound in the world's third-largest economy.
Dollar Falls as China May Rebound; U.S. Debt Ratings Threatened The dollar fell to the weakest level versus the euro since March, on speculation Chinese government reports today will add to signs the worst of the global economic slump is over, sapping demand for greenback as a refuge. Demand for the U.S. currency also waned after David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, wrote in an opinion piece published by the Financial Times that the nation's AAA credit rating may be cut. Australia's dollar rose against the greenback before retail and industrial production data from China that may add to evidence of a rebound for the South Pacific nation's biggest trading partner.
Dollar Falls to Two-Week Low Against Yen on U.S. Rating Concern The dollar fell to a two-week low against the yen and declined versus the euro after a Financial Times article said the U.S. AAA credit rating may be at risk. The dollar dropped for a fourth day versus the yen after the former U.S. comptroller general David Walker wrote in the FT that the U.S. government should create a "fiscal future commission" to rein in the country's finances because its credit rating may be cut.
Bernanke Says U.S. Banks Must Test More to Identify Other Risks Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said efforts by U.S. banks to raise capital are "encouraging" and called on firms to identify other risks through internal stress tests. The banks, especially those with "trading and investment banking businesses," should keep monitoring "operational, liquidity and reputational risks," which weren't addressed by the exam concluded last week, Bernanke said in a speech yesterday at a Fed conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia.
Taylor Says Fed May Not Have Much Time Before Rate Rise Needed The Federal Reserve may soon need to raise interest rates, said a former Treasury official who devised a formula for rate-setting based on the outlook for inflation and growth. "My calculation implies we may not have as much time before the Fed has to remove excess reserves and raise the rate," John Taylor, a Treasury undersecretary under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, said today at an Atlanta Fed conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia.
Paul Krugman Says Rapid Recovery 'Extremely Unlikely' Paul Krugman, Princeton University's Nobel Prize-winning economist, said global economic prospects don't justify the two-month rally that has restored $8.9 trillion to stock markets around the world. Speculation government spending packages and interest-rate cuts worldwide will reinvigorate the global economy has helped the MSCI World Index rally 37 percent since falling to its lowest since 1995 on March 9. The U.S. Standard & Poor's 500 Index surged 34 percent in that time.
Uh Oh, Look Who's Bullish Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the decline in the U.S. housing market may be bottoming and it's "very easy to see" financial markets continuing to improve. "We are finally beginning to see the seeds of a bottoming" in the housing industry, Greenspan said today during a conference of the National Association of Realtors in Washington. The U.S. is "at the edge of a major liquidation" in the stock of unsold properties, which may help to stabilize prices, Greenspan said.
Greenspan Sees 'Seeds of a Bottoming' in U.S. Housing Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the decline in the U.S. housing market may be bottoming and it's "very easy to see" financial markets continuing to improve. "We are finally beginning to see the seeds of a bottoming" in the housing industry, Greenspan said today during a conference of the National Association of Realtors in Washington. The U.S. is "at the edge of a major liquidation" in the stock of unsold properties, which may help to stabilize prices, Greenspan said.
Records Show Billions Withdrawn Before Madoff Arrest About $12 billion was pulled out of accounts at Bernard L. Madoff's firm in 2008, according to several people briefed on an analysis of Mr. Madoff's business records. About $6 billion, or half, was taken out in just the three months before the financier was arrested in December and charged with operating an extensive Ponzi scheme, these people said.
U.S. Aid to IMF to Be Recalculated - $$ Congressional leaders agreed Tuesday to calculate the cost of a new U.S. contribution to the International Monetary Fund in a relatively inexpensive way, paving the way for possible Congressional approval within weeks. The Obama administration has pledged a $108 billion contribution to the IMF, as part of a $500 billion global boost to IMF resources. The White House has argued that this is a necessary contribution to global financial stability and would send a signal that there is enough money to help prevent struggling countries from becoming further enmeshed in economic crises. Congressional approval would put pressure on European nations, China, Brazil and others to increase their lending to the IMF.
Treasury Expected to Notify Asset Managers Chosen in PPIP Review The Treasury Department is expected to notify a group of asset managers Wednesday that they've been culled from the 104 that applied to oversee the first wave of Public-Private Investment Program funds. The selected firms, widely expected to include mega-managers BlackRock Inc. and the Pacific Investment Management Co., will then negotiate with Treasury over the structure of their proposed funds before they're formally identified as qualified under PPIP, expected in early June, according to a Treasury official.
Freddie Mac to Tap $6.1 Billion in Aid After Loss Freddie Mac is seeking a $6.1 billion investment from the U.S. Treasury, a fifth of the aid tapped in March, as the mortgage-finance company used an accounting rule and gains on derivatives to help curtail losses. A $9.9 billion first-quarter net loss, which pushed Freddie Mac's net worth below zero for the third straight time, was less than half of the losses posted in each of the previous two quarters. Freddie Mac said it will still need more financial help from the government and may have trouble coming up with the cash to pay dividends owed on Treasury funds already borrowed.
Home Prices in U.S. Drop Most on Record in Quarter Home prices in the U.S. dropped the most on record in the first quarter from a year earlier, led by California and Florida, as banks sold foreclosed properties. The median price fell 14 percent to $169,000, the National Association of Realtors said today. Prices dropped in 134 of 152 metropolitan areas, with the deepest declines in Cape Coral and Ft. Myers, Florida, followed by San Francisco and San Jose.
Judge approves GMAC-Chrysler deal A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday ruled that GMAC Financial Services can become Chrysler LLC's preferred lender, potentially sending a slew of new business to the financing company and ensuring that Chrysler's dealers will have access to the loans they need to stay in business. U.S. Judge Arthur Gonzales approved the four-year deal between the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker and GMAC, pending the completion of certain documentation. He also gave pending approval of a risk-sharing agreement between Chrysler and Chrysler Financial, which allows the deal between Chrysler and GMAC to go forward.
GM Tanks As Insiders Run For The Hills Sometimes insiders actually have a pretty good idea of what's going on. And the message, loud and clear, from GM insiders is that barring a miracle -- and we don't mean something unlikely, but an actual, literal miracle -- shares of GM are going to $0. Several execs said last night that they were dumping their entire holdings at their current, undignified levels and today the stock is tanking, down over 20% to about $1.10. It's the lowest the stock's been in over 70 years.
Rethinking the Rust Belt One of the least useful habits of thought fostered by the modern mythology of progress, it seems to me, is the notion that historical change can only move in one direction - the direction in which it seems to be going at the present. Those of us who suggest that today's industrial societies are headed for a process of decline and fall, not that different from the ones that ended civilizations of the past, run up against this insistence constantly. The truism that time only goes one way gets distorted into the claim that since the last three hundred years have seen a great deal of expansion and technical development, the future must follow the same trajectory.
Oil Advances for Second Day on China's Imports, Weaker Dollar Oil rose for a second day after China, the world's second-biggest energy-consuming country, said yesterday crude imports increased by 14 percent in April. Deliveries reached 16.17 million metric tons last month, or 3.9 million barrels a day, the Chinese customs department reported. Oil also climbed as the dollar fell to the lowest level against the euro since March, bolstering demand for commodities as an alternative investment. "It was fairly encouraging data out of China," said Toby Hassall, research analyst at Commodity Warrants Australia Pty in Sydney. "China and some of the other developing countries have really underpinned demand as a lot of the OECD countries have slipped into recession."
Credit Card Receivables: Even Moody's Thinks the Fed's 'Adverse Case' Is a Joke When even Moody's chimes in and notes that the Fed's "Adverse Case" assumptions are in line with their "Base Case" assumptions, one can't help but wonder in what parallel universe the Federal Reserve is expecting to see its optimistic outcome realized, especially since many of its macro worst case parameters have already been trampled by real economic data.
Schwarzenegger Tells Lawmakers Deficit May Swell to $21 Billion California's budget deficit has grown so severe that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he may be forced to release 40,000 prisoners or lay off 51,000 teachers if voters next week reject three budget balancing measures. The state's projected deficit will swell to $15 billion between now and June 2010, Schwarzenegger told lawmakers late yesterday. Half the gap falls in the current fiscal year that ends in seven weeks. If voters reject plans to sell bonds backed by lottery profits and siphon tax receipts from tobacco and high earners already dedicated to special programs then the deficit would expand by another $6 billion.
Trade Gap Widens as Exports Decrease The U.S. trade deficit widened for the first time in eight months as exports slumped to a two-year low, overwhelming a reduction in American demand for goods made abroad. Analysts detected signs in the report that a record contraction in global trade flows may be easing, highlighting the slowest pace of decline in U.S. imports since they started dropping in August. The figures also showed that American shipments to China in the last two months of the first quarter climbed the most since 2006.
Christians in Mideast Losing Numbers and Influence Christians used to be a vital force in the Middle East. They dominated Lebanon and filled top jobs in the Palestinian movement. In Egypt, they were wealthy beyond their number. In Iraq, they packed the universities and professions. Across the region, their orientation was a vital link to the West, a counterpoint to prevailing trends. But as Pope Benedict XVI wends his way across the Holy Land this week, he is addressing a dwindling and threatened Christian population driven to emigration by political violence, lack of economic opportunity and the rise of radical Islam. A region that a century ago was 20 percent Christian is about 5 percent today and dropping.
Pope's Hitler Youth past revived Following visit to Holocaust memorial JERUSALEM | Pope Benedict XVI celebrated a Mass at the garden of Gethsemane for thousands of pilgrims Tuesday and received a tumultuous welcome that raised the tone of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but repeated criticism in Israel forced Vatican officials to defend the pontiff's past. The pontiff was greeted by a throng of cheering pilgrims as his white popemobile rolled through the olive groves in the Valley of Kidron between the Mount of Olives and the 400-year-old walls of Jerusalem's Old City. The Mass was the first the German pope has celebrated since arriving in Israel on Monday for the start of a five-day visit that has taken him to sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians.
Earth Warming? The earth is warming! About 1/2 a degree over the last century, I think. Some say the Antarctic is re-freezing, and the Arctic is melting. Who knows? All I do know, is that humans have absolutely NOTHING to do with it. It's all a first rate bunch of horse puckey. This guilt trip, that us humans are the cause, is pure and unadulterated nonsense. I'm sick of it. The greenies now are even blaming the cows! Rather than going vegetarian, let's eat the greenies. Now remember a bit of history, say about 15 years ago. Remember? We were all going to freeze to death, and the ice age was coming back! Amazing how things change, isn't it? Today, the media and greenies are having a blast with 'carbon footprints,' and other assorted bits of garbage, trying to make everyone feel guilty about turning on the hot water faucet, or starting a car's engine. Yuk.
Middle East World Economic Forum 2009 - Samir Brikho Samir Brikho, Chief Executive, AMEC, United Kingdom and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2009, taking place at the Dead Sea in Jordan, 15-17, May, 2009
Middle East World Economic Forum 2009 - John P. Drzik John P. Drzik, President and Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Wyman Group (MMC), USA for the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2009
Middle East World Economic Forum 2009 - Chey Jae-Won Chey Jae-Won, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SK Holdings, Republic of Korea and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2009, taking place at the Dead Sea in Jordan, 15-17, May, 2009
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