Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

Wednesday 08.25.2010

The Fed Can Create Money, Not Confidence
Inflation - or stagflation - remains the more serious danger than deflation. By GEORGE MELLOAN - WSJ.com (free)
A report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last week showed that consumers are having difficulty climbing out of the debt hole they dug for themselves before the credit bubble began to deflate in late 2007. The report gives support to the fears of those asset managers and economists who believe the U.S. is facing deflation.
Bill Gross, manager of the $239 billion Pimco bond fund, is one. His evidence is that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), annualized over the last two years, has fallen slightly.

This Economy Is Ripping The Dignity Of Millions
Of Unemployed Americans To Shreds
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you can still put a roof over your head and food on the table for your family, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. There are millions of Americans out there right now that are really, really suffering. The cold, hard reality of it is that there aren't even close to enough jobs out there for everyone right now. It is almost as if we are all caught in a really bizarre game of musical chairs where the losers get stripped of their tickets to the middle class. What this horrible economy is doing to the dignity of millions of middle class Americans is incredibly saddening. There are a lot of very highly educated and very hard working Americans who cannot seem to get jobs no matter what they do and now find themselves doing whatever they can just to survive. It can be really hard to keep your dignity when you played by all the rules and you worked as hard as you could all your life and now you find yourself a half step away from being homeless. Those of us who are still doing okay should never look down on those who are struggling in this economy, because the truth is that any of us could be next.

THE TRUE NATIONAL DEBT
By Jim Quinn - TheBurningPlatform.com
When I read Paul Krugman and the other Keynesian boneheads saying that our debt is not a problem, they quote figures about our debt of $13.3 trillion versus our GDP of $14.6 trillion not being so bad. That is only 91% of GDP. They point to World War II when our national debt reached 120% of GDP. They say everything worked out after that.
Well lets analyze that comparison for just a second. In 1945, Europe, Russia and Asia lay in ruins. The devastation was epic. The United States stood alone as the only unscathed country in the world. America became the manufacturer to the world. We rebuilt Europe and Asia. Our GDP soared, as our National Debt declined from $269 billion in 1946 to $255 billion in 1951, remaining below $300 billion until 1963.
Today our reported National Debt is $13.362 TRILLION. This is the first big lie.

The Multi-Trillion Dollar Debt and What It Mean
to Your Standard of Living Right Now
by Robert Wenzel - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
Current U.S. debt stands at $13,363,228, 000, 000. This number is often broken down on a per capita basis, currently $44,000.
I have always thought of the per capita number as somewhat misleading. I'm guessing that most people who don't have $44,000 in the bank, shrug and think, "Good luck with collecting that from me."
But the way the $13,363,228, 000, 000 should be looked at is debt that results in that much money not being available for private sector business to borrow. It boggles the mind to think what research could be conducted and products produced and created if that money was available for the business sector. In this fashion, the huge debt is impacting the person, right now, who doesn't have $44,000 in the bank, by the products that haven't been created because of the debt. One has to wonder how higher a standard of living a person would face, who doesn't have $44,000 in the bank, but who would live in a world where government borrowed so aggressively.

Economy Caught in Depression, Not Recession: Rosenberg
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com Staff Writer
Positive gross domestic product readings and other mildly hopeful signs are masking an ugly truth: The US economy is in a 1930s-style Depression, Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg said Tuesday.
Writing in his daily briefing to investors, Rosenberg said the Great Depression also had its high points, with a series of positive GDP reports and sharp stock market gains.
But then as now, those signs of recovery were unsustainable and only provided a false sense of stability, said Rosenberg.

Recession or Depression?
David Rosenberg, Gluskin Sheff & Associates chief economist, discusses his belief that we are in a depression, a prolonged recession, despite the government's best efforts.

Dow Faces Bouncy Ride to 5,000
By: CNBC.com
The Dow Jones Industrial Average will lose about half of its value over the next couple of years as it follows a Nikkei-like pattern of several sharp rallies in an overall decline, according to Charles Nenner, founder and president of Charles Nenner research.
Stocks are currently in a bear-market rally, and looking at charts and past trends, unemployment and leading indicators suggest the Dow will drop to 5,000 in the next two to two-and-a-half years, Nenner told CNBC in an e-mail.
Deflation will arrive, along with a sharp double-dip recession, pushing the Dow lower, although, like the Japanese market, stocks will see several jumps of 30 percent to 40 percent, he said.

Charles Nenner on CNBC: Dow 5,000 (Interview with Maria Bartiromo - July 2010)

Precipitous market drop will be bullish for Gold
CommodityOnline.com
Addicted to Profits Newsletter Writer David Skarica has an addiction that might just benefit you. David is addicted to making himself and his subscribers money. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, David predicts that the U.S. economy will decline very slowly, describing the process as "Chinese water torture." David says any precipitous market drop will be pre-empted by further quantitative easing. And this, he says, will be bullish for gold. He also names some companies that might help folks suffering David's sweet affliction.

Rethinking Gold: What if It Isn't a Commodity After All?
Jeff D. Opdyke - SilverBearCafe.com
This won't sit well with some people: Gold isn't a commodity. There. I've said it.
But before you fire off an angry response, hear me out. The facts might change your view of gold's role in a portfolio.
For a long time, we've all heard that gold is a commodity - no different, really, from silver or wheat or pork bellies. Its price ebbs and flows (supposedly) with inflation, which historically drives commodity prices.
Odd, then, that gold's elevated price hasn't fallen in response to tepid U.S. inflation numbers. The Consumer Price Index as of July pegged inflation at just 1.2% for the previous 12 months, not counting seasonal adjustments. Nor has gold reacted to what Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco's chief executive, recently called "the road to deflation" on which he sees the U.S. traveling.
Data show that gold closely mirrors the movement of the U.S. dollar.

Silver plays double regardless of economic conditions
By Richard Mills - CommodityOnline.com
As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information in the time of the ancient Babylonians - long before the periodic table - there were seven sacred metals: gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead and mercury.
In Roman and Greek Mythology, the First Age was called Golden, the Second Age Silver. Apollo, the god of truth and light, and teacher of medicine, carried a silver bow.

Peter Schiff and Marc Faber on CNBC 8/23/10:
Time to Flee U.S. Treasuries!

Bancor:
The Name Of The Global Currency
That A Shocking IMF Report Is Proposing
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Sometimes there are things that are so shocking that you just do not want to report them unless they can be completely and totally documented. Over the past few years, there have been many rumors about a coming global currency, but at times it has been difficult to pin down evidence that plans for such a currency are actually in the works. Not anymore. A paper entitled "Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability" by the Strategy, Policy and Review Department of the IMF recommends that the world adopt a global currency called the "Bancor" and that a global central bank be established to administer that currency. The report is dated April 13, 2010 and a full copy can be read here. Unfortunately this is not hype and it is not a rumor. This is a very serious proposal in an official document from one of the mega-powerful institutions that is actually running the world economy. Anyone who follows the IMF knows that what the IMF wants, the IMF usually gets. So could a global currency known as the "Bancor" be on the horizon? That is now a legitimate question.

"Enron Accounting" Has Bankrupted America:
U.S. Deficit Really $202 Trillion, Kotlikoff Says
by Peter Gorenstein - TechTicker
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts the U.S. budget deficit will hit $1.3 trillion this year. An astronomical figure, to be sure, but that's lower than was projected in March. It's also less than last year's record $1.41 trillion deficit, which was close to 10% of GDP.
And, that's the good news.
As the deficit grows so does the national debt, which is currently more than $13.3 trillion, according to official figures.
But the situation is actually much, much worse, according to Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff.

Boehner: Geithner and Summers should go
'Virtually' no one in the White House has run a small business
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- President Barack Obama should call for the resignation of both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, the head of the White House's national economic team, House Minority Leader John Boehner said Tuesday.
"President Obama should ask for -- and accept -- the resignations of the remaining members of his economic team, starting with Secretary Geithner and Larry Summers," Boehner (R., Ohio) said in an economic address to the City Club of Cleveland.
The comments came as Republicans prepare their economic line of attack ahead of mid-term elections for Congress.

Boehner: Obama economic team should resign
By thomas Ferraro - Reuters via MSNBC.com
John Boehner urges Obama to oust economic team
WASHINGTON - The top Republican in the House of Representatives called on Tuesday for President Barack Obama to fire his economic team in a campaign-style speech meant to focus voters on the weak American economy.
House Republican leader John Boehner said Obama should begin clearing house by replacing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Larry Summers.
"It's time to put grown-ups in charge. It's time for people willing to accept responsibility," Boehner told a civic group in Cleveland.

Geithner Resignation Calls May Increase as 2010 Election Nears
By Robert Schmidt and Lorraine Woellert
Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as part of a grilling on Capitol Hill yesterday, was asked by a Republican lawmaker to resign. It is a call he is likely to hear again and again as next year's election campaign heats up.
Earlier in the week, a Republican challenger for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut had demanded Geithner quit, lambasting him for being "cozy" with banks bailed out by the federal government. Two other Republicans have requested hearings into Geithner's handling of the bailout of insurer American International Group Inc.

Why Bernanke Isn't Having a Nervous Breakdown
by Robert Wenzel - EconomicPolicyJournal.com
The short answer is that he is too delusional.
WSJ has a detailed report about the inner thinking of various Fed members, here.
Bottom line: The deliberating body of the Federal Reserve doesn't have a clue. It does not appear most of the members understand how Bernanke's new tools work. It does not appear that most members understand the difference between low interest rates and Fed money printing. Further, the confusion is multiple and from many different directions.
But what really caught my eye in the WSJ report was this snippet:

Before the meeting, officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which manages the Fed's portfolio, had grown concerned, according to people familiar with the matter. The Fed's portfolio of mortgage-backed securities was about to begin shrinking much more rapidly than anticipated, as low mortgage rates led more Americans to refinance their mortgages. That in turn meant the mortgage-backed securities held by the Fed were being paid off.

Call in the Helicopters:
What We Need to Stimulate the Economy
By CHARLES HUGH SMITH - DailyFinance.com
What if the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve stopped trying to stimulate the economy by encouraging more borrowing with quantitative easing -- and instead dropped money into household bank accounts?
In an era of rising concern about massive Federal deficits, such a policy may seem like the wrong idea at the wrong time, but proponents have an interesting argument, which the country should understand without dismissing out of hand.
While the economics jargon can get very heavy in discussions of monetary and fiscal policy, the basic ideas aren't that difficult to understand.

Hard-nosed Fed sends global markets reeling
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The global bond markets and the twin havens of the yen and Swiss franc have been flashing warning signs for weeks, tracking leading indicators as they topple like dominoes. They always sniff trouble first.
Wall Street and Western bourses have until now brushed aside worries that recovery in the US, Japan and southern Europe may be stalling - as have commodity markets - betting the lords of finance will come to the rescue with more liquidity if needed.
Equity investors learned this week that they had misjudged the risk of a relapse as fiscal stimulus wears off, and misread the willingness of the US Federal Reserve to respond. Wrongly viewing Ben Bernanke's Fed as a soft touch, they took a fresh blast of quantitative easing for granted before it was agreed.

St Louis Fed Explains Why The Fed Has Cornered Itself
Between Deflation And (Hyper) Inflation
by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
In its September Monetary Trends letter titled "The Monetary Base and Bank Lending: You Can Lead a Horse to Water..." the St Louis Fed analyzes the phenomenon that has all monetarists up in arms, namely the surge in the monetary base and the very muted increase (and outright alleged drop in the case of the M3) of monetary stock, going back to the core topic at every debate over hyperinflation/deflation: the money multiplier, and its current reading of well below 1. What is the reason for this discrepancy: as the St Louis Fed explains: "The answer centers on the willingness of depository institutions (banks) to lend and the perceived creditworthiness of potential borrowers. A deposit is created when a bank makes a loan. Ordinarily, bank loans-and hence deposits-increase when the Fed adds reserves to the banking system. How ever, despite an increase in reserves of over $1 trillion, total commercial bank loans were some $200 billion lower in May 2010 than in September 2008. Banks added to their holdings of securities, which resulted in a modest increase in deposits and the money stock, but many banks were reluctant to make new loans." And herein lies the rub: if and when the economy ever picks up, and at this point that looks like an event that may well never happen, "Many economists worry that bank lending and monetary growth will eventually surge and, ultimately, cause higher inflation."

Fed divided over policy direction, WSJ reports
By MarketWatch
TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- At its Aug. 10 meeting, at least seven of 17 Federal Reserve officials opposed or hesitated over the decision to stimulate the economy by keeping the Fed's securities portfolio from winding down, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
At issue was whether to reinvest principal payments to the Fed back into the markets.
The Wall Street Journal report said Fed members were divided into two camps.
New York Fed President William Dudley, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen and others were concerned about the economy and "more inclined to act," it said.

Fed Split on Move to Bolster Sluggish Economy
By JON HILSENRATH - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON - The Aug. 10 meeting of top Federal Reserve officials was among the most contentious in Ben Bernanke's four-and-a-half year tenure as central bank chairman.
With the economic outlook unexpectedly darkening, the issue was a seemingly technical one: whether to alter the way the Fed manages its huge portfolio of securities.
But it had big implications: Doing so would plunge the Fed back into the markets and might be a prelude to a future easing of monetary policy, moves that divided the men and women atop the central bank.

* * * * * Important! * * * * *

Indymac Boys Get Sweetheart Deal
Those Indymac boys were given deal by the FDIC, and borrowers were strong-armed. February, 2010.

FDIC Insurance Limits and Indymac Bank Loan Modifications
from September, 2008.

Stocks Drop After Sharp Fall In July Home Sales
NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks are falling after another disappointing report on the housing market renewed worries about the economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average is down 60 points in midday trading Tuesday following news that sales of previously occupied homes fell to their lowest level in 15 years. The National Association of Realtors says sales plunged 27 percent last month to an annual rate of 3.83 million.
Investors seeking refuge from the latest stock swings piled back into Treasurys, sending interest rates lower.

Carts and Horses
Peter Schiff - SilverBearCafe.com
In a CNBC debate last week, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich presented a set of contradictory beliefs that unfortunately reflect the conventional wisdom of modern economists. In a discussion with Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore, Reich correctly and comprehensively listed the reasons why American consumers could spend so lavishly before the crash of 2008 and why they can no longer keep up the pace. But instead of making the logical conclusion that former levels of spending were unsustainable and that spending should now reflect current conditions, he advocated that government take on additional debt so that tapped out consumers can spend like they used to.
To achieve this, Reich called for lowering taxes on working Americans and raising taxes on the rich. He argued that middle-income Americans are more likely to spend additional dollars while the rich are more likely to save and invest. As a "demand-side" economist, Reich made clear that spending is superior to savings and investing as a catalyst for growth.

Corporate America, it's time to spread the wealth
Businesses are sitting on a record hoard of cash, but they're not using it to hire workers or pay existing ones better wages. Broadly distributing the fruits of economic growth is the only way to sustain that growth.
ByMichael Hiltzik - LATimes.com
Corporate America must be in a bad way. Job growth has stagnated, the prospects for hiring, at least in the near term, seem grim, and the polls of top executives sound universally glum.
And yet, operating earnings of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index jumped 38.4% in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters, and companies are sitting on an estimated $1.8 trillion in cash -- by some measures, a record mound of cash.
Somebody's making money in this economy. Unfortunately, it's not the middle class or the working class. And that's our real problem.

The fallacy of cheap home prices and the two income trap
dual income households underscore massive housing inflation.
Nationwide home prices overvalued by 25 percent.
DrHousingBubble.com Blog
Housing inflation has run at an elevated pace since the 1970s and ramped up starting in the 1990s. Yet what masked much of the pain was access to easy credit but also the rise of the two income household. The housing bubble is worse than many expect and probably for the wrong reasons. Many readers make the wrong assumption that because we are largely a two income household nation that home values had to rise simply because of this transition. It was a simple 2 plus 2 calculation. This is wrong and it is more likely that home values grew in the last decade more on the introduction of exotic mortgage products that didn't rely on income measures. There is little debate that many cities in California are still in major housing bubbles. Yet nationwide home values are still overpriced by 25 percent. Let us examine why.

Why nobody wants to buy a house
With government bribe money gone, so is any sane demand
By MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Nobody wants to buy a house. Nobody in their right mind, anyway.
Oh, sure, a lot of gullible first-time buyers got lured into the market over the last 18 months to take advantage of an $8,000 federal tax credit (not realizing how little difference that money will make when the first property-tax bill hits at the same time the roof springs a pesky leak and the city hits you with a special assessment for sidewalk repair). But that tax credit has expired -- and, with it, any semblance of demand for homes.

Home buyers scatter in July after incentives end
BUSINESS FIRST OF COLUMBUS
The expiration of federal tax-credit incentives led Central Ohio home shoppers to tap the brakes in June, but slam on the pedals in July, according to new statistics from the Columbus Board of Realtors.
The board on Tuesday reported sales of 1,483 single-family homes and condominiums last month, down 28 percent from 2,057 a year ago. Home sales dropped 36 percent from June after a modest 4 percent monthly decline from May.

Housing in 'Double-Dip': Economist Zandi
By: Michelle Lodge - Special to CNBC.com
The US housing market is in a double-dip recession, Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi told CNBC Monday.
"Tomorrow we are going to get an existing home sales number that that I think is going to be very, very weak, closer to 4 million units, which I think would be a new low in this cycle," said Zandi, who is also the author of forthcoming Paying the Price.
"We probably, almost assuredly, will experience more house price declines. By those two criteria, I think that would qualify as a double dip."
Home prices fell 5.1 percent in June to an annualized pace of 5.37 million homes, the weakest since March.

Sales of previously occupied homes plunge
By Dina Elboghdady - WashingtonPost.com
Purchases of previously built single-family homes plunged in July to their lowest level since May 1995 as job fears trumped today's low mortgage interest rates and relatively affordable home prices.
The sales of existing single-family homes, condominiums and townhouses fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday. That's a 27.2 percent drop from June, about twice as much as analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected. That's also a 25.5 percent drop from the same time a year ago. The sales of all these housing types combined was the lowest since the group started tracking the numbers in 1999.

Existing-home sales plunge 27.2%
Inventory of unsold homes jumps to 11-year high
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The sale of existing U.S. homes sank 27.2% in July -- the biggest one-month drop ever -- largely because of the phase-out of a federal tax credit, according to an industry trade group.
The National Association of Realtors said existing-home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million in July from 5.26 million the month before. Sales of single-family homes fell to the lowest rate in 15 years.

Diving home sales stoke new worries about economic recovery
U.S. sales fall for the third consecutive month to the lowest rate since 1999, pushing down stocks and fueling fears of a 'double dip' in the housing market.
By Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
The end of a popular government stimulus program drove home sales in July to their lowest levels in more than a decade, fueling fresh concerns about the economic recovery.
Home sales fell 27.2% nationwide from a month earlier, the National Assn. of Realtors reported. That was a much bigger drop than expected, as the boost evaporated from a now-expired federal tax credit that had been driving sales this spring. The plunge came despite rock-bottom rates on home loans.
Concern over the summer swoon reverberated from Wall Street to the White House. The Dow Jones industrial average briefly slid below the 10,000 benchmark and was down 1.3% on the day.

Existing Home Sales Hit 15-Year Low;
Housing Market Weakens
By: Reuters and AP - CNBC.com
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes dropped more steeply than expected in July to their lowest pace in 15 years, an industry group said Tuesday, implying further loss of momentum in the economic recovery.
The National Association of Realtors said sales dropped a record 27.2 percent from June to an annual rate of 3.83 million units, the lowest level since May 1995. June's sales pace was revised down to a 5.26 million-unit pace.
The record drop in existing U.S. home sales in July showed that the country must still do more to improve the economy, White House spokesman Bill Burton said Tuesday.

Goldman Sachs-Its Class WarFare. Oct 2009
Webster Tarpley talks about how there is 1 million new foreclosure claims as the bailout boyz from Goldman Sachs,JP Morgan Chase,Morgan and Stanley BOA,Wells Fargo are still paying top bonuses to their employees..

Housing Slide in U.S. May Drag Economy Into Recession
By John Gittelsohn and Bob Willis
Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Housing led the U.S. out of seven of the last eight recessions. This time, it may kill the recovery.
Home sales collapsed after a federal tax credit for buyers expired in April. Since then, the manufacturing-led expansion, which began in the second half of 2009, has been waning, with jobless claims rising and factory orders falling.
"If foreclosures continue to mount and depress home prices, that could send the economy back into a recession," said Celia Chen, an economist who tracks the industry for Moody's Analytics Inc. "The housing market and the broader economy are closely intertwined."

States Show Few Gains in Fight Against Unemployment
By: Joseph Pisani - CNBC News Associate
State unemployment rates have shown only minimal improvements, with 18 states and the District of Columbia reporting decreases in July, 14 showing increases and 18 with no change at all, government data released Friday showed.
Just a month before, 39 states and the District of Columbia saw their rates decrease.
Nevada had the highest jobless rate in the nation for the third month in a row, since dethroning Michigan for the top spot in May, according to the report released by the Labor Department.

State tax hikes could go too far
By Ben Rooney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Some U.S. states facing steep budget gaps have resorted to tax policies that could be harmful over the long term, a non-profit research group said Monday.
In a review of 2010 changes in state tax policy, the Tax Foundation said certain states have targeted tax increases on high-income earners, smokers and out-of-state business transactions. These taxes may be politically convenient, but the foundation said that relying too heavily on such sources can lead to problems over the long run.

US Said Preparing New Laws
To Seize Americans Retirement Accounts
Posted by EU Times
First They Destroy Private Healthcare in America - Yes, the socialist Democrats won their first battle to destroy the private healthcare system in the US but the automatic IRA bill now in Congress is their next attack to also control, confiscate and destroy the private retirement system. Ultimately, nationalizing healthcare is designed to create a major new government revenue stream by replacing private health insurance with a nationalized, mandatory, government program and their goal is identical with your retirement plan.
Washington will decide the annual forced healthcare premiums on all Americans with the middle and upper wage earners paying far higher premiums than the subsidized voting constituencies who will be the primary beneficiaries of the program. Their goal is to allow Washington to steal much of the annual health premiums (taxes) for current revenue needs and to bailout and subsidize with your premiums the health programs for the voting blocks of poor and underemployed, illegals, unions and the millions of city, county, state and federal government employees. Eventually there will be no private competition available except for the very wealthy and Washington will constantly increase premiums just as they raise taxes today.

Ron Paul on CNN American Morning 8/24/10:
The NYC Mosque Sideshow

Does Barack Obama want to be re-elected in 2012?
By Toby Harnden - Telegraph.co.uk
Few Americans consider themselves bigger than the presidency but Obama might be one of them. The man in the Oval Office, argues Toby Harnden, may already be preparing for a role as a post-president in a post-American world.
When David Plouffe, President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign manager, wrote recently that his former boss was "not concerned with his re-election", there was predictable scepticism.
After all, it has long been a truism that every politician wants to cling to power and a reality that presidential campaigns are planned years in advance. Pronouncements about not looking at polls and concentrating on getting things done are, moreover, standard fare from poll-driven, election-obsessed politicians and their apparatchiks.

The Disappearing Gulf Oil Plumes Redux
Ronald Bailey | Reason.com
Remember the rosy scenario report by the Obama administration that 75 percent of the oil from the BP oil blowout had disappeared. Then a week ago came a somber report in Science declaring that the crude was still lurking Jaws-like below the surface in giant greasy plumes. This report provoked some policymakers and environmentalists to denounce the Obama administration for making stuff up about dire environmental situation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now comes another research report in Science that says that previously unknown bacteria just love dining on the plumes with the result that the plumes are now completely undectectable. As Science News reports:
In May, researchers began reporting that the massive jets of crude emanating from BP's damaged Deepwater Horizon well were creating deep, diffuse plumes of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, chemical oceanographers have been probing the plumes for indirect clues about how quickly native bacteria might be gobbling up the oil.

Red Alert! Attack on the Coasts and Fisheries of Norway!
William B. Fox - SilverBearCafe.com
Dear Fellow Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans:
Contrary to reports that we see in mainstream media that British Petroleum has the "Gulf spill" under control, we see numerous credible reports in alternative media that massive amounts of oil and gas continue to rise from the sea floor at a horrendous rate from over ten locations outside of the main drill hole, which has been badly fractured in many locations beneath the ocean floor.1
We also see many reports of massive clusters of dead fish now washing up on shores all over the East Coast, from Florida to Massachusetts. 2 Many experts fear that a highly toxic stream of contaminated ocean water is now flowing in the Gulf Stream towards Northern Europe, where it could cause severe damage to Norway's fisheries and fjords within about six months if nothing is done. 3 In addition, the 9 Aug 2010 article Special Post - Gulf Stream & North Atlantic Current Dying by Lord Stirling cites concerns by Italian theoretical physicist Dr. Giangluigi Zangari that pollution has already broken the Gulf Loop Current, resulting in a "dramatic weakening in the vorticity of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, and a reduction in North Atlantic water temperatures of 10C." 4 This in turn means that Ice Age conditions could advance on Norway.

The Gulf Crisis is Not Over
Anne McClintock - SilverBearCafe.com
Slow Violence and the BP Coverups
Three vanishing acts are being played out in the Gulf: the disappearing of the oil from the ocean surface by Corexit, the disappearing of the story by the media blockade, and the disappearing from view of the shadowy private contractors who are making a mint helping BP and the Coast Guard keep a cover on the clean-up. This triple vanishing trick, collectively choreographed by BP and sundry federal agencies, culminated on August 4th in a report released by NOAA that claimed 75% of the oil spill had been captured, burned, evaporated or broken down. The White House hailed the report as something to celebrate. Energy advisor Carol Browne announced: "the vast majority of the oil is gone."
A clamor of outrage immediately rose from the Gulf, as residents refused to dance the crisis-is-over, happy-feet dance. Hundreds of locals furiously insisted that they were still seeing masses of oil on ocean, beaches and marshes, and dead fish, dolphins, sharks, birds and other marine life washing ashore. Then on August 18th scientists from the Universities of Georgia and South Florida produced an open challenge to the White House report, asserting that 70% to 79% of the oil in the Gulf still remained in the water. Charles Hopkinson, a professor of marine science at the University of Georgia declared: "The idea that 75% of the oil is gone and of no concern to the environment is just absolutely incorrect."

A blunt view of Afghan deadline
Does Obama's plan help the enemy?
By Mark Mardell - BBC.com
The man in charge of the United States Marines, who has just returned from a tour of Afghanistan, has said President Obama's plan to start withdrawing troops next summer has given sustenance to the enemy.
General James Conway said that it will be a few years before the time is right to hand over to Afghan forces in some key areas.
The assessment by the Commandant of the Marines, who are fighting in the most critical areas of Afghanistan, is the most blunt so far from a senior military figure.

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