Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Wed 03.31.2010
G-8 Nations Press for New Sanctions on Iran, As China Resists By Matthew Lee, Associated Press Ottawa (AP) - Top diplomats from the world's leading economies are ramping up pressure on Iran to prove its nuclear ambitions are peaceful, renewing calls for the country to be hit with new international sanctions if it fails to comply. In meetings outside the Canadian capital on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her fellow foreign ministers from the Group of Eight main industrialized nations will warn Iran again it faces fresh penalties if it doesn't come clean on its nuclear program.
Western Civilization and the Economic Crisis By: Andrew G Marshall - MarketOracle.co.uk The Impoverishment of the Middle Class The western nations of the world have built their great wealth and societies on the exploitation and plundering of the people and resources of the rest of the world. The wealth, freedom, and structures of our societies have been built on the starvation, robbery, deprivation and murder of millions upon millions of the world’s people, both historically and presently.
Healthcare and Economic Realities by Ron Paul - FinancialSense.com With passage of last week’s bill, the American people are now the unhappy recipients of Washington’s disastrous prescription for healthcare “reform.” Congressional leaders relied on highly dubious budget predictions, faulty market assumptions, and outright fantasy to convince a slim majority that this major expansion of government somehow will reduce federal spending. This legislation is just the next step towards universal, single payer healthcare, which many see as a human right. Of course, this “right” must be produced by the labor of other people, meaning theft and coercion by government is necessary to produce and distribute it.
Inflation raises the value of US coins: NIA NEW JERSEY(Commodity Online): Sustained inflation has rised the denomination values of US coins over the years, according to National Inflation Association which has launched 'Coin Melt Values' as a new feature in its website http://inflation.us/coins. It is updated daily with the latest melt values of U.S. coins that are currently in circulation or were previously in circulation. The purpose of NIA's new feature is to demonstrate how over time, inflation makes U.S. coins worth more than their denomination values, a NIA press release said.
Markets Set To Surprise by Captain Hook - FinancialSense.com Within the space of 24-hours we discover the Fed is still scared stiff (of deflation), the ECB is bailing out Greece (because deflation is already occurring), and the Japanese are doubling recent monetization efforts (because they have been deflating for decades), all pointing to a continuation of a highly accommodative stimulus disposition world wide. This is a large part of the reason stocks are enjoying a record advance, where now we also know why bonds look precarious moving forward, with US Treasuries center stage given a breakout from long-term resistance (see Figure 2) is in the making. Here, it appears the reason this will be occurring is not just due to exploding government deficits; but also, continued strength in stocks aided by bearish speculators who don’t seem to be able to get enough puts in their portfolios as well.
Three Breakouts That Could Break the Rally by Justice Litle - FinancialSense.com Three “breakouts” of recent days – interest rates, the U.S. dollar and China trade tensions – give ample reason to be cautious. . . . . . . . .
Breakout #1: Interest Rates. . . Because Uncle Sam borrows in his own currency, it is technically impossible for the U.S. government to default. It’s just a matter of printing more scrip. But if the U.S. government is forced to “monetize” its debt – i.e. pay it off by printing reams of fresh dollars – that could be a de facto default if not a de jure one. (“De facto” is a Latin expression that means “by the fact,” or “in practice.”) When a government monetizes beyond the point of no return, bad debt becomes bad currency. The value of the currency then plummets. . .
Breakout #2: The $USD. . .
Breakout #3: China Trade Tensions. . .
Gold Finds "Strong Physical Demand" Even as Dollar Rallies; Scrap Supplies Light By: Adrian Ash - GoldSeek.com THE PRICE OF GOLD gave back a 0.6% rise as New York trade began on Tuesday, slipping back to $1107 an ounce as world stock markets struggled near 18-month highs and the Dollar rose on the currency market. Silver Prices earlier rose to their best level since March 18, up 4.4% from last week's low, to hit $17.41 an ounce at the London Fix. German Bunds rose slightly, UK gilts fell, and US Treasury bonds held flat, with 10-year debt yielding 3.87%. Crude oil ticked below $82 per barrel. "Strong underlying physical demand for gold has continued," reports Walter de Wet at Standard Bank in London, "[and] in recent days has become even stronger.
Hoarding, Penny-Pinching And Buying Gold Karlyn Bowman - Forbes.com How Americans are coping with the recession. Fifty-four percent of Americans surveyed in the Pew Research Center's latest poll said there had been a time in the past year when they or someone in their household had been without a job or looking for work. A year ago 39% gave that response. That's a huge change--and only one of the many survey indicators revealing the widespread pain from the recession. In another question in the poll, only 10% said there were plenty of jobs available in their communities, while 85% said jobs were hard to find.
Gold Price Manipulation, Fact or Fantasy? By: Toby Connor - MarketOracle.co.uk If gold is being manipulated by the powers that be how then in the world did gold manage to rise from $250 to over $1200? I have to say if someone is manipulating the price of gold they are doing a damn poor job of it. I have to ask, when gold was rallying hard last November, where was the manipulation then? I didn't hear a peep from the conspiracy crowd all month. When gold was rocketing higher in late 2007 and early 2008 where, were the conspiracy buffs? Was there a conspiracy to raise the price of gold at that time?
Gold advances on euro gains SINGAPORE (Commodity Online) : Gold prices advanced in Asian trade Tuesday as the dollar eased against the euro ahead of the quarter end. Gold for immediate delivery was seen trading at $1110.39 an ounce at 11.30 a.m Singapore time while April delivery was at $ 1110.24 an ounce at the same time. However, other precious metals like Silver, platinum and palladium lost strength after rallying in the previous session on news that China's annual economic growth will reach 12 percent this quarter following strong industrial output growth last month.
Here’s What a Veteran Trader Sees for Gold Prices… By Adam Hewison, Guest Writer, Money Morning Gold has made some dramatic moves in the last 18 months and we expect it will undergo some equally dramatic moves in the future. But not right now. While I recognize that gold is one of the few "commodity" markets that people are really passionate about, the purpose of this article is not to take sides either with the gold bugs or those who reject the argument that gold is "forever." Rather, I want to discuss my interpretation of the market's cycle.
Is it the right time to buy gold? Stewart Thomson - CommodityOnline.com A wipeout may be coming. A stock market wipeout. To get a real wipeout, you need to have a convergence of a number of major fundamental events. The factors are not exactly in place for a wipeout, but they are moving quickly towards that scenario. Since price anticipates fundamentals, the situation may be even more dire. I want to take you back to Dow 6500, to gold 680. The theme at Dow 6500 and gold 680 was a major selling climax. Huge numbers of the investment world engaged in a maniacal “sell it all, short it all” frenzy.
‘Silver expected to have greater volatility’ From a U.S. perspective, we still see gold between $900 and $1,200 an ounce, and continue to believe that we could see gold at $1,500 by year end. Likewise for silver, $15 to $20 an ounce appears to be a reasonable trading range, and with silver we would expect to have greater volatility. The case has never been better for having a position in precious metals as a store of value. With the bailout of Greece or Portugal, the euro may be in trouble, and yet the U.S. is also becoming an increasingly uncertain place to do business.
Manipulation, Fact or Fantasy By: Toby Connor - GoldSeek.com Amazingly enough...or maybe it's not so amazing, every time gold corrects we see the conspiracy theories flying thick and heavy. I've questioned these theories I don't know how many times and I have yet to receive a logical answer. Now that I think about it, I don't believe I've ever received any answer. If gold is being manipulated by the powers that be how then in the world did gold manage to rise from $250 to over $1200? I have to say if someone is manipulating the price of gold they are doing a damn poor job of it. I have to ask, when gold was rallying hard last November, where was the manipulation then? I didn't hear a peep from the conspiracy crowd all month.
What Could Be the Largest Fraud in History Andrew Maguire & Adrian Douglas - KingWorldNews.com Andrew is an independent metals trader turned whistleblower at the center of a storm for exposing what could be the largest fraud in history involving countries, banks and government leaders. Adrian Douglas Board of Director from GATA, the man who Andrew reached out to joins in this interview where they discuss a fraud so extraordinary and so unimaginable that it is the kind of thing that only happens in Hollywood thrillers. They also discuss the CFTC sponsored meeting on metals which was an unmitigated disaster because it additionally exposed the fraud on a grander scale.
By Andrew Maguire - KingWorldNews.com From: Andrew Maguire Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 12:51 PM To: Ramirez, Eliud [CFTC] Cc: Chilton, Bart [CFTC] Subject: Silver today
Dear Mr. Ramirez:
I thought you might be interested in looking into the silver trading today. It was a good example of how a single seller, when they hold such a concentrated position in the very small silver market, can instigate a selloff at will.
These events trade to a regular pattern and we see orchestrated selling occur 100% of the time at options expiry, contract rollover, non-farm payrolls (no matter if the news is bullish or bearish), and in a lesser way at the daily silver fix. I have attached a small presentation to illustrate some of these events. I have included gold, as the same traders to a lesser extent hold a controlling position there too. . . .
CFTC Hearing; Poised to Act! (CFTC aiming to regulate silver market!) by Jason Hommel I was pleasantly surprised by the CFTC meeting in Washington DC on March 25th, it was much better than I expected. I think the CFTC is likely to do something to help stop the excessive and concentrated short position in silver at the COMEX, and there are many reasons why, as I detail below. I was very impressed with the quality and intelligence of the questions asked by the CFTC commission members. CFTC chairman, Gary Gensler continually brought up issue of the large silver concentration as being a potential problem to deal with. The main questions seemed to be "how to deal with it", and "what would happen"? I don't think he would ask that, unless he knew there was a problem that needed to be fixed.
China May Let Yuan Strengthen Next Month, BlueGold’s Jen Says By Simon Kennedy March 30 (Bloomberg) -- China may allow its currency to trade freely next month, helping to counter criticism it’s giving its exporters an unfair advantage, said Stephen Jen of BlueGold Capital Management LLP. “I maintain the view that it is likely that China refloats the renminbi in April,” before a meeting of U.S. and Chinese officials in Beijing, Jen, a managing director at BlueGold in London, wrote in a report to clients today.
China Economists Urge Renewed Yuan Rise China should allow the yuan to resume its gradual appreciation, two new advisers to the central bank said on Tuesday, as Beijing faces intense U.S. pressure to let its currency rise. The clock is ticking down toward an April 15 ruling by the U.S. Treasury on whether China is deliberately manipulating its currency to keep its exports competitive and gain an unfair advantage in global markets. Beijing allowed the yuan to rise 21 percent against the dollar between July 2005 and July 2008 before effectively repegging the currency, also known as the renminbi, near 6.83 to the dollar to help its exporters ride out the global credit crunch.
China shows new divisions on yuan Victoria Bi and Kevin Yao, Reuters China displayed new divisions on Tuesday over how to respond to mounting U.S. pressure to let its exchange rate rise. Two new advisers to the central bank called for the yuan to resume its gradual appreciation, but they were slapped down by Commerce Minister Chen Deming, who said a stronger currency would not wipe out China's trade surplus with the United States.
G-20 Leaders Seek Cooperation on Currencies for Balanced Growth By Simon Kennedy -- March 30 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama and four other Group of 20 leaders said currencies should be taken into account in efforts to deliver balanced global growth, a statement that may presage increased international pressure on China. “We need to design cooperative strategies and work together to ensure that our fiscal, monetary, foreign exchange, trade and structural policies are collectively consistent with strong, sustainable and balanced growth,” Obama, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote to their G-20 counterparts in a letter.
Greece Isn’t Europe’s Only Problem By William Pfaff - truthdig.com The Greek crisis has precipitated the existing crisis of the European Union. The EU crisis began with the abortive attempt to write a European constitution that could find ratification, and with the expansion of the EU to 27 members. These two events effectively terminated postwar Europe’s attempt to establish a political federation. A monetary union, however, was successfully created, with its common currency, the euro, but the threat to its success, known from the start, was that national economic differences, dictating different policy choices, with consequent national budget discrepancies, would eventually undermine the euro.
Irish Banks’ ‘Appalling’ Lending Puts Them in $43 Billion Hole By Dara Doyle and Colm Heatley -- March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Ireland’s banks need $43 billion in new capital after “appalling” lending decisions left the country’s financial system on the brink of collapse. The fund-raising requirement was announced after the National Asset Management Agency said it will apply an average discount of 47 percent on the first block of loans it is buying from lenders as part of a plan to revive the financial system. The central bank set new capital buffers for Allied Irish Banks Plc and Bank of Ireland Plc and gave them 30 days to say how they will raise the funds.
Fraud on the Street Robert Reich The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday it had begun an inquiry into two dozen financial companies to determine whether they followed accounting practices similar to those recently disclosed in an investigation of Lehman Brothers. Where on earth has the SEC been? It’s now clear Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was bogus before the bank collapsed in 2008, catapulting the Street and the world into the worse financial crisis since 1929. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s recent report details what just about everyone on the Street has known since the firm imploded – that Lehman defrauded its investors. Even Hank Paulson, in his recent memoir, referred to Lehman’s balance sheet as bogus.
Bill Gross May Be Predicting Bull Run in Stocks by David Pauly March 30 (Bloomberg) -- This may be the best news for stocks in a long time: Bill Gross, who manages the world’s biggest bond fund, says the 30-year bull market in fixed-income securities is ending. Though Gross, who runs Pacific Investment Management Co.’s $214 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, would never tell you to buy stocks, isn’t that what he means? Pimco, which Gross co-founded, more or less said as much in December. It announced the Pimco Global Opportunities Fund, which will invest in stocks, though it also will buy bank loans, junk bonds and distressed securities.
Banks: Time to Take Money Off the Table By MICHAEL PANZNER - DailyFinance.com Bank shares have been something of a one-way bullish bet for quite some time. But several developments suggest the sector, especially small and mid-size lenders, could come under significant pressure in the months ahead. For one thing, authorities have in recent days stepped up their warnings about looming problems in commercial real estate (CRE), which will almost certainly hurt the industry. Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, noted in a CNBC interview that there were nearly 3,000 banks that have "'dangerous concentrations in commercial real estate lending.'" As a result, she said, "the economy will face a 'very serious problem' that will have to be resolved over the next three years."
Fitch Downgrades Illinois and Warns of Further Actions as Budget Gap Widens JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN -- Illinois is financially the fifth largest US state with a 2008 GDP of approximately $633 Billion. To put this in perspective, the 2008 GDP for the nation of Greece was approximately $357 Billion. The largest state is California with $1.8 Trillion in 2008 GDP, roughly on a par with Russia, Spain, or Brazil. The US is also considering accounting rule changes that will require the states to more accurately reflect and more fully fund their pension obligations for government employees.
State Debt Woes Grow Too Big to Camouflage By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH - NYTimes.com California, New York and other states are showing many of the same signs of debt overload that recently took Greece to the brink — budgets that will not balance, accounting that masks debt, the use of derivatives to plug holes, and armies of retired public workers who are counting on benefits that are proving harder and harder to pay. And states are responding in sometimes desperate ways, raising concerns that they, too, could face a debt crisis.
States Rights… Bye, Bye! by David N. Vaughn - FinancialSense.com Good Morning Americans! It’s Friday…somewhere. What is the price of gold? Who cares? As long as those blue days of under 300 an ounce don’t return. Dear heaven forbid. I’ll never forget those days. Everyday you watched the gold price hoping it would at least climb over 280. And then one day it might hit 291 and you were ready to celebrate with a bottle of Champaign. And all during this time you watched exploration, production companies and even fair size companies you never thought would fail…go bankrupt. Bankruptcy was an every day event.
Congressman McFadden's Speech - 1934 On the Federal Reserve Corporation The Federal Reserve - A Corrupt Institution "Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed. The Fed has cheated the Government of these United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the Nation's debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over.
Marx or Mises by James Cook - FinancialSense.com Hatred of capitalism appears to be widespread among liberals these days. In fact, this animosity seems to be more virulent than ever. This worrisome trend needs to be confronted and neutralized lest it spread. If too many people begin to see capitalism as an evil they will vote for politicians who will destroy capitalism and the country will face certain ruin.
How Americans Have Coped With Decline By: Rick Ackerman - GoldSeek.com . . . . In order to cope with this development, meaning finding a way to keep that “normal” alive, Americans adopted coping mechanisms. First was the double-earner family, but when that failed to suffice, it was credit, credit, credit. Those that benefit(ted) from this were happy to oblige. Both changes had their costs, and they were not only financial. The loss of a stay-at-home parent (usually the Mom) had many non-economic costs as well. (To those women who chose to work instead of mother, this was not a loss; but many had no choice but to work).
Aging Boomers May Bring Fiscal Blessings Instead By Chris Farrell - BusinessWeek.com Older workers who can't retire comfortably are likely to be needed in the workplace as the economy grows, easing threats of an entitlement load In 1935, Harry Hopkins, head of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, took a call at his home from U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau Jr. Both were on the New Deal committee whose work led to the creation of Social Security. At one point their conversation focused on the demographics of aging. Hopkins: "Well, there are going to be twice as many old people 30 years from now, Henry, than there are now." Morganthau: "Well, I've gotten a very good analysis of this thing…I'm simply going to point out the danger spots…I'm not trying to say what they should do—I want to show them the bad curves…." Hopkins: "That old age thing is a bad curve."
The Fannie May and Freddie Mac debacle by Sol Palha - FinancialSense.com When Geithner states that they will do everything to make sure these institutions have the capital they need to function, he is basically stating that they are willing to use tax payer’s money to fund two worthless entities, instead of dismantling them. Trying to keep these agencies floating is akin to pouring money into a bottomless pit. One of the old lines was that these two agencies helped make housing affordable by providing an avenue for individuals who would not normally qualify for a mortgage. The following quote was extracted their site.
U.S. housing market shifts from liar loans to hard cash Barrie McKenna - Globe and Mail About 27 per cent of home sales in March were made in cash Remember the NINJA mortgage? No income, no job, no assets. Exotic U.S. mortgages are disappearing in the Spartan post-meltdown era, supplanted by a decidedly old-school mode of financing – cash. In what experts say is a sign the battered U.S. housing market is cautiously finding a bottom, more Americans than ever are choosing to plunk down cold, hard cash to buy homes. Cash was the currency of choice in 27 per cent of all homes purchased in the United States in March, according a survey by the U.S. National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Almost Every Mortgage Written Last Year Underwritten by US Government By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com . . . . Congress passed a bill permitting the US government to take over the health sector...about 17% of US GDP. Let's see. The feds don't have any money, right? They've got the biggest deficits ever, and will have to borrow $2.4 trillion this year just to keep the lights on. And now comes news that Social Security has gone into deficit for the first time ever...and 7 years ahead of schedule. The feds took over the mortgage finance industry last year. Practically every single mortgage written last year was underwritten by the US government.
Home prices inch up, but analysts fear rebound is fading By Renae Merle - Washington Post Home prices rose modestly in January, according to a closely watched index released Tuesday, but some housing industry analysts remain concerned about the sustainability of the housing sector rebound. Home prices in 20 cities tracked by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index rose 0.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in January compared with December. That was the eighth consecutive monthly increase in the index. Compared with the same period a year earlier, prices were down 0.7 percent.
Home price dip extends to 4th month By Les Christi - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The market seems to have pulled the rug out from under housing industry hopes for a sustained early recovery. After a five-month run-up in home prices starting last spring, prices have now fallen for four consecutive months, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 cities, a gauge of market values, released Tuesday.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Reports Mortgage Interest Rates by FHFA - realestaterama.com -- Washington, DC - March 30, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) — The Federal Housing Finance Agency today reported that the average interest rate on conventional 30-year, fixed-rate, mortgage loans of $417,000 or less increased 3 basis points to 5.13 percent in February. The average interest rate on 15-year, fixed-rate loans of $417,000 increased 11 basis points to 4.65 percent in February.
Census Day Is Near, Carrying a Weight Far Beyond the Raw Numbers By KATE ZERNIKE and JIM RUTENBERG - NYTimes.com -- Thursday is Census Day — the date when Americans are urged to fill out their census forms if they want to avoid a visit from a federal worker — and the deadline will put to test a months-long campaign by antigovernment activists who are encouraging people not to complete the questionnaires. The census has been subject to boycott efforts before, but officials fear that participation rates will be particularly low this year, as a wave of sentiment against the establishment has been stoked by Tea Party groups and politicians who court them.
Census Numbers Uncensored by Vedran Vuk - FinancialSense.com The Census aims to be every man’s hero. It promises an economic stimulus, a reduction in unemployment, and greater funds for every community. Of course, the reality is much closer to a game of musical chairs with your money. And guess who will be left standing? The most immediate impact of the Census is that it distorts unemployment rates. With 1.2 million hired temporarily during the fall, the Census is already skewing the unemployment numbers in the government’s favor. Specifically, the fall data shows unemployment at 9.8% (Sept), 10.1% (Oct), and 10% (Nov).
IT Problems Put Accuracy of Census at Risk, Say Government Auditors By Edwin Mora - CNSNews.com -- Washington D.C. (CNSNews.com) – Information Technology (IT) problems at the U.S. Census Bureau could cause inaccuracies in this year's constitutionally mandated decennial tabulation of the U.S. population, according to government auditors. “IT problems place the efficiency and accuracy of Non-Response Follow-Up at risk and final decennial costs remain uncertain,” testified Judith Gordon, the principal assistant inspector general for Audit and Evaluation at the Department of Commerce, which runs the Census Bureau.
Obama: 'Tea party' features 'core group' against him By AP - WashingtonTimes.com WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Obama said Tuesday he believes the "tea party" is built around a "core group" of people who question whether he is a U.S. citizen and believe he is a socialist. But beyond that, Mr. Obama told NBC, he recognizes the movement involves "folks who have legitimate concerns" about the national debt and the government taking on too many difficult issues simultaneously.
Most Say Tea Party Has Better Understanding of Issues than Congress Rasmussen Reports -- In official Washington, some consider the Tea Party movement a fringe element in society, but voters across the nation feel closer to the Tea Party movement than they do to Congress. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of U.S. voters believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Only 30% believe that those in Congress have a better understanding of the key issues facing the nation.
LaRouche Reiterates Danger of Assassination Attempt on Obama -- Mar. 29, 2010 (EIRNS) — This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC). The proliferation of terrorist threats, such as that represented by the "Christian militia" arrests in Michigan, should be taken very seriously, said Lyndon LaRouche today. We're in an environment like that before JFK's assassination, and President Obama should cut his bravado out now. His ego is his biggest vulnerability, and if he wants to survive, he should restrict his activity, and keep himself safe. As in the run-up to the JFK assassination, many of these so-called militia and terrorist groups will be bogus," LaRouche continued. "Most of them will be nothing—but they will create a cover for a real operation to go ahead. Just as before 9/11, when the advertised threat was a terrorist incident through demonstrations in Washington, D.C., but the reality was the Saudi-assisted plane-bomb operations which occurred.
Militia Raids Part Of Government Effort to Provoke Violence, Purge Dissent Steve Watson & Paul Watson - Prisonplanet.com -- News of a bust on nine members of a militia group in Detroit who were planning to “levy war” against the United States and “oppose by force” the nation’s government, should be treated with extreme suspicion, given that every major terror bust in the U.S. in recent years has been contrived. According to an indictment (PDF) unsealed this morning in U.S. District Court in Detroit, eight men and one woman were training in modern combat techniques for a prophesized battle with the anti-Christ.
Feds: Militia plotted uprising against U.S. By John Seewer ASSOCIATED PRESS WHEATLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- Members of a rural Michigan-based Christian militia who believed a battle with the Antichrist was coming were plotting to attack police officers in hopes of fomenting a violent uprising against the government, federal prosecutors allege. Seven men and one woman believed to be part of the group called Hutaree were arrested over the weekend after raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. A ninth suspect was arrested Monday night after a search in southern Michigan and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday.
Militia arrests timed to prevent violence, official says By CNN.com Detroit, Michigan (CNN) -- Federal authorities decided to arrest members of the Hutaree militia group upon learning they were planning an exercise in April that might have included violence, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday. "They talked about doing a covert reconnaissance exercise," said Barbara McQuade, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Michigan, in an interview with CNN's Drew Griffin. "And they did also say that, in connection with the exercise, if they came upon anyone from the public or law enforcement who kind of stumbled upon them in the midst of this exercise, they were prepared to kill them." That moved authorities to act, she said.
America I'm 63 and I'm Tired" By Robert A. Hall - GoldCoastChronicle.com I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired. I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
Dollar stores have plenty of items made in America Marlene Alexander - walletpop.com If you're not a regular dollar store shopper, you might be surprised to learn that there are many items in store that were not made in China. In one short visit, I found many products that were made in America, passing over any item with the phrase "distributed by" prefacing a U.S. company and choosing only the ones that declared themselves to be manufactured by an American company in a U.S. state.
Secret Experiment Going on While You Sleep Did You Know? By A.J. Plourde - GCC/Staff Geneva, Switzerland is known as the place of the headquarters of the World Court in The Hague. It is also the home to the world's largest Atom Smasher, called the LHC. Last Friday, the LHC was once again started and a new experiment in Mass Matter separation and reorganization began. All this without any fan fare, or bally hoop, as a lead up to the most colossal experiment of this type to take place to date. The entire major Physicists' of the world are in Geneva observing the test.
CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes By Bill Gertz - WashingtonTimes.com Report finds Tehran keeping options open Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report. "Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so," the annual report to Congress states. A U.S. official involved in countering weapons proliferation said the Iranians are "keeping the door open to the possibility of building a nuclear weapon."
China Said to Execute Thousands in ’09 By MARK McDONALD - NYTimes.com HONG KONG — China executed more people last year than the rest of the world combined, according to a report published Tuesday by Amnesty International. Amnesty said there were “thousands” of Chinese executions in 2009 — the precise number is considered a state secret — and the rights group called on Beijing to divulge how many it carries out. The report said that at least 714 people were executed in 17 other countries, led by Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Methods of execution included beheading, stoning, electrocution, hanging, firing squads and lethal injection.
China Hospital Dumps 21 Babies as Medical Waste into River The bodies of 21 babies, believed dumped by hospitals, have washed ashore on a riverbank in eastern China, state media reported Tuesday. Video footage showed that the bodies — stashed in yellow plastic bags, at least one of which was marked "medical waste" — included some infants several months old. Some wore identification tags with their mothers' names, birth dates, measurements and weights. The official Xinhua News Agency said there were also fetuses among the bodies.
Obama Says He Wants Tougher Iran Sanctions in Weeks By Julianna Goldman and Helene Fouquet March 30 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he believes the United Nations will agree on new sanctions for Iran in a matter of weeks if the Islamic republic fails to comply with resolutions aimed at limiting its nuclear program. Obama said he and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed at their meeting today on the need for tougher steps. “The door remains open if the Iranians choose to walk through it,” Obama said at a joint news conference with Sarkozy at the White House. “In the interim we are going to move forcefully on a UN sanctions regime.” Sarkozy said France and other European nations will support stronger action at the UN.
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David Walker Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility David Walker, President, CEO, Peter G. Peterson Foundation; Former Comptroller General of the U.S.; Author, Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility One of Americas foremost independent financial experts, former comptroller general of the U.S. and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office from 1998-2008, Walker will discuss a range of compelling ideas, including how to control spending, save Social Security, dramatically alter our health-care system, reform our tax system and re-engineer the base of the federal government all taking into account the Obama administrations efforts to-date to do the same. He will address a range of policies and operational and political reforms needed to ensure that Americas future will be better than its past.
BY OVERWHELMING REQUEST:
Kitty Werthmann Interview
Kitty Werthmann Part 2
Kitty Werthmann Part 3
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away Fort Worth Christianity & Culture ExaminerRene Girard By: Kitty Werthmann What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote.. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. . .
Freedoms can disappear in a hurry if we aren't careful Kitty Werthmann For the Argus Leader published: 3/11/2003 Kitty Werthmann, 77, of Pierre, is president of the South Dakota Eagle Forum. She lobbies the state Legislature on family issues. She has lived in the United States since 1950 and has been a U.S. citizen since 1962. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. I lived in Austria under Adolf Hitler's regime for seven years. Dictatorship did not happen overnight. It was a gradual process starting with national identification cards, which we had to carry with us at all times. We could not board a bus or train without our ID card. Gun registration followed, with a lot of talk about gun safety and hunting accidents. Since the government already knew who owned firearms, confiscation followed under threat of capital punishment.
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Tues 03.30.2010
CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes By Bill Gertz - WashingtonTimes.com Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report. "Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so," the annual report to Congress states. A U.S. official involved in countering weapons proliferation said the Iranians are "keeping the door open to the possibility of building a nuclear weapon."
Hollow recovery Robert Higgs - NYTimes.com Growth without more jobs and rising incomes The Federal Reserve on March 15 reported that industrial production increased 0.1 percent in February. Before the politicians start celebrating, they should realize that credit goes to the winter weather - which boosted mining and utility production by increasing energy demand - not to their "stimulus." Indeed, while overall industrial production rose slightly in February, manufacturing fell by 0.2 percent. Meaning, the recovery's strength remains unimpressive. Consider personal income. According to the Commerce Department, personal income declined in 42 states last year. It rose in just six states and the District of Columbia, where government payments were the driving force.
Can Obama avert a fiscal catastrophe? By Fred Hiatt - WashingtonPost.com Last summer President Obama told me that once health reform became law, he could pivot to the "broader structural changes" needed to bring the federal deficit under control. Without health reform, he said during a July telephone interview, there would be no hope for fiscal reform. With it, he would be in a position to "start laying out a broader picture about how we are going to handle entitlements in a serious way." Well, it's been six days since he signed the bill, and he still hasn't saved Social Security. Just kidding. We can give him another day or two. But the long-term threat is no joke, as Obama has acknowledged many times. If Obama does not pivot, the country will be in serious trouble.
Obama Transcends Ideology by Riling Both Flanks Commentary by Albert R. Hunt March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, charges former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is “the most liberal president” in modern times, pursuing “an agenda that really is foreign to mainstream America.” Other Republicans routinely talk about the president’s “socialist” agenda. Simultaneously, the left wing says he’s a traitor to their cause. Liberal bloggers regularly accuse him of selling out to corporate interests, claiming that he has failed to keep his campaign commitments. Former Democratic Party Chairman and ex-presidential candidate Howard Dean has echoed some of these sentiments.
Why Your Grandfather's Economics Was Better Than Yours Steven Kates presents the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture at the 2010 Austrian Scholars Conference. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno. The ASC is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, and is for scholars interested or working in this intellectual tradition. Held at the Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, March 11-13, 2010.
Rapid Rise in US Budget Deficit Projection By: Reported by Steve Liesman, written by Michelle Lodge - CNBC.com -- Many Americans know the deficit has exploded this year. What may be less well-known is that the problem is not confined to this year or next, but stretches out at least a decade and represents a historic, multi-trillion-dollar change in the country's fiscal fortunes. CNBC, working with the Congressional Budget Office, found that the 10-year outlook for the nation's deficit has deteriorated by almost $8 trillion. In effect, every man, woman and child in the United States has taken on an extra $25,000 in debt, CNBC has learned.
Gold rises as dollar weakens; China demand seen growing By Nick Godt & Claudia Assis, MarketWatch Commerzbank sees potential for retracement to $1,100 this week NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures rose Monday on dollar weakness, improved market sentiment, and expectations that Chinese demand for gold could double in the next 10 years. Gold for June delivery, the most actively traded contract, settled $6.10 higher, or 0.5%, at $1,111.50 an ounce by the close of floor trading in New York. The shortened trading week leading up to Good Friday and Easter opened with commodities moving broadly higher as investors embraced prospects that a worldwide economic recovery is on track.
Gold Near Highest in a Week as Economic Optimism Lifts Stocks By Kim Kyoungwha -- March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Gold traded near a one-week high as Asian stocks gained after higher U.S. consumer spending and improving confidence in Europe bolstered optimism that the global economy is on course for a recovery. Gold for immediate delivery fluctuated between a gain of 0.2 percent and a loss of 0.1 percent and last traded $1.07 lower at $1,108.65 an ounce at 9:18 a.m. in Singapore. The metal is headed for a quarterly gain of 1.1 percent, after advancing 8.9 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31.
China gold demand to double, mines may drain WASHINGTON (Commodity Online) : World Gold Council on Monday said world’s largest gold producer China’s gold demand is expected to double over the next decade. In a report, WGC said China’s domestic gold demand is expected to double from current levels over the next decade due to jewellery consumption and investment needs. But China's domestic gold mines may be exhausted within six years, the council said
In gold we trust Alexandra A. Seno - Globe and Mail In the cool weather of the first few months of the year, India’s wedding season swings into high gear. Indian brides and grooms of means like to stage lavish celebrations, and on display at those nuptials is another grand Indian love affair: gold, for which the country has had a long-standing affection. India is the world’s biggest consumer of the commodity, and much of it goes into women’s jewellery.
China's gold demand "snowballing", WGC says By Tom Miles and Eadie Chen BEIJING (Reuters) - China's gold demand is expected to double over the next decade due to jewellery consumption and investment needs, the World Gold Council (WGC) said in its first report on the world's fastest growing consumer of the metal. Currently the world's second-largest gold consumer after India, China has seen its gold demand grow at an average rate of 13 percent per year over the past five years.
China emerging as largest gold consumer: WGC BEIJING (Commodity Online): Gold is glittering in China, the largest producer and second biggest consumer of the yellow metal in the world. There is a gold buying frenzy across China that the yellow metal is becoming the best investment bet in the country. According to a report from the World Gold Council (WGC), China has emerged as the largest and fastest growing consumer of gold in the world, overtaking India. Currently, though India is the biggest gold consumer, growing demand and increasing appetite for the yellow metal in the Chinese rural areas and towns are making the dragon country a truely ‘golden country.’
Dollar Near Week Low Versus Euro as Recovery Saps Safety Demand By Yoshiaki Nohara and Ron Harui March 30 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar traded near a one-week low against the euro as signs the global economy is improving damped demand for the U.S. currency as a refuge. The greenback was close to the lowest level in a week versus the Australian currency before reports today that may show France’s economy grew at the fastest pace since March 2009 and U.S. consumer confidence rebounded. The yen rose against the euro, snapping a four-day loss, on speculation exporters took advantage of its slide to the lowest level in almost two weeks to buy the currency. Australia’s dollar also held onto yesterday’s gains after commodity prices surged.
Prepare for the Worst Presented by Congressman Ron Paul at "The Failure of the Keynesian State," the Mises Circle in Houston, sponsored by Jeremy S. Davis. Recorded Saturday, 23 January 2010. Includes introductory remarks by Mises Institute president Douglas E. French, and by Institute founder and chairman Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr..
Greece Raises $6.7 Billion in Bond Sale By DAVID JOLLY - NYTimes.com Just days after European Union leaders agreed to stand behind Greece as it struggled to restore its public finances, the authorities in Athens put their new guarantee to the test Monday, selling 5 billion euros of seven-year bonds to refinance debt. The bonds, worth $6.7 billion, were priced to yield 6 percent, according to banks that managed the sale, meaning that Greece was paying a princely 3.34 percentage points above what Germany, considered the European benchmark, pays to borrow at a similar maturity. It was also well above the rates paid by the governments of Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy, other countries where indebtedness has caused concern.
Greece Pays Bond Investors 5 Times Spain Yield Spread By Caroline Hyde and Sonja Cheung March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Greece, the European Union’s most indebted member, offered more than five times the yield premium of comparable Spanish debt to lure investors to its first bond sale since a bailout was agreed to for the nation. Greece priced the 5 billion euros ($6.7 billion) of seven- year bonds to yield 310 basis points more than the benchmark mid-swap rate, according to a banker involved in the transaction, who declined to be identified before the sale is completed.
Greece to Issue Seven-Year Bond By CLARE CONNAGHAN And MARK BROWN - WSJ.com Greece continued to pay a stiff premium Monday to raise €5 billion ($6.71 billion) in its third syndicated bond offering of the year, a demonstration that the announcement last week of a possible European Union rescue package has done little to lower the troubled country's high cost of borrowing. Compared with Greece's two previous bond issues in 2010, demand was relatively subdued. The seven-year bond attracted around €7 billion in bids. Greece's two earlier bond offerings this year had seen bids totaling three times what was eventually sold. Greece is paying a coupon of 5.9% on the new bond, more than twice what Germany—Europe's safest credit—pays for comparable borrowing.
Sarkozy, Obama set to face off for market control By David M. Dickson - WashingtonTimes.com Two very different visions on how to regulate markets and prevent the next world economic crisis will clash when President Obama hosts French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the White House on Tuesday. Even as Mr. Obama spars with congressional Republicans over tougher regulations of the U.S. financial markets, he faces criticism from Mr. Sarkozy and other Western European leaders that Washington is being too timid, criticisms that Mr. Sarkozy repeated in only slightly veiled form the day before his Washington stop.
The Ballad of Sallie Mae WSJ.com - A cautionary tale of public subsidy and arbitrary politics. President Obama today signs his nationalization of the college student loan market, which will put the Department of Education directly in charge of doling out cash to students and colleges. It's one more plank in the cradle-to-grave entitlement state, but this landmark is also a good moment to recount the rise and fall of Sallie Mae. It's a cautionary tale for our times about public subsidy, arbitrary politics and doing business with the government.
Treasury to begin selling Citi shares WashingtonTimes.com NEW YORK (AP) -- The Treasury Department said Monday it will begin selling the stake it owns in Citigroup Inc., which could result in a profit of more than $8 billion. The government received 7.7 billion shares of Citigroup in exchange for $25 billion it gave the bank during the 2008 credit crisis. It said it will sell the shares over the course of this year, depending on market conditions. Like any investor, the government likely will hold on to its shares if prices fall steeply. However, Citi shares have been rising steadily with the broader market in recent months, which means the Treasury Department stands to pocket a hefty profit. Citi shares rose 8 cents to $4.39 in early trading Monday. The government would make about $8.8 billion in profit on its stake in Citigroup if it sells the stock for $4.39 a share. The Treasury Department received its stock for a price of $3.25 a share last year.
U.S. Treasury Plans to Sell Citigroup Common Shares in 2010 By Michael J. Moore and Rebecca Christie March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc.’s largest shareholder, the U.S. Treasury Department, is planning to sell its 27 percent stake this year in what could become the biggest profit for the bank-bailout program. The Treasury will dispose of its 7.7 billion common shares of New York-based Citigroup over the course of 2010 using a “pre-arranged written trading plan,” the agency said yesterday in a statement. The Treasury’s stake had a market value of $32.2 billion as of yesterday’s closing price, for a paper profit of $7.2 billion.
S.E.C. Looks at Wall St. Accounting By LOUISE STORY - NYTimes.com The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday it had started an inquiry into about two dozen financial companies to determine whether they followed accounting practices similar to those recently disclosed in an investigation of Lehman Brothers. The commission is interested in transactions known as repurchase agreements, which are a common way that investment banks provide funds for trading activities. The commission wants to know whether other Wall Street players used tactics like those that Lehman used to mask their debt levels from investors.
Rothschilds Bring In an Outsider to Run the Show By JULIA WERDIGIER - NYTimes.com LONDON — More than 200 years ago a German banker, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, sent his five sons to different European cities to guarantee the survival of what became one of the most prominent banking dynasties. This month, his great-great-great-grandson David de Rothschild, a baron, took an equally unusual step to ensure the future of the family-owned firm: For the first time, he passed some responsibilities of running Rothschild to someone outside the family.
Punks and Plutocrats By PAUL KRUGMAN - NYTimes.com Health reform is the law of the land. Next up: financial reform. But will it happen? The White House is optimistic, because it believes that Republicans won’t want to be cast as allies of Wall Street. I’m not so sure. The key question is how many senators believe that they can get away with claiming that war is peace, slavery is freedom, and regulating big banks is doing those big banks a favor. Some background: we used to have a workable system for avoiding financial crises, resting on a combination of government guarantees and regulation. On one side, bank deposits were insured, preventing a recurrence of the immense bank runs that were a central cause of the Great Depression. On the other side, banks were tightly regulated, so that they didn’t take advantage of government guarantees by running excessive risks.
Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’? By Chris Hedges - TruthDig.com The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.
American Federalism and the Civil War Mises Daily: by Lord Acton Excerpted from a lecture delivered in 1866 and published in 1907 in Historical Essays and Studies. For many years before the outbreak of the Civil War, the United States had become an object of anxiety or of envy to many, of wonder and curiosity to all mankind. Their prosperity, attached by a thousand beneficent links to the prosperity of England, seemed even more splendid and more secure. The rapid growth of their population united the marvels of Lancashire with the marvels of Australia; it created vast cities, and peopled an enormous territory with their overflow.
The Constitutional Crisis Started Long Ago By Frank Salvato ChapitolHillCoffeeHouse.com The cry that our country is in the midst of a “constitutional crisis” is heard frequently in our society but those who are making the claim at this particular point in time are correct. The United States Constitution and the entirety of the Charters of Freedom are under attack and the well-being of our country, nay, its very existence as the Framers intended, hangs in the balance.
David Walker Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility David Walker, President, CEO, Peter G. Peterson Foundation; Former Comptroller General of the U.S.; Author, Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility One of Americas foremost independent financial experts, former comptroller general of the U.S. and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office from 1998-2008, Walker will discuss a range of compelling ideas, including how to control spending, save Social Security, dramatically alter our health-care system, reform our tax system and re-engineer the base of the federal government all taking into account the Obama administrations efforts to-date to do the same. He will address a range of policies and operational and political reforms needed to ensure that Americas future will be better than its past.
States Could Lose $1,400 Per Person Missed in 2010 Census Count By MATTHEW SCOTT - DailyFinance.com If you think all of those reminder notices asking you to send in your Census 2010 form by the suggested April 1 deadline date are overkill, think again. States could stand to lose an average of $1,400 for each person not counted. Even worse, taxpayers will end up footing the bill for the $1.5 billion it will cost to track down those who fail to send in the forms by mail.
No mail on Saturdays: The first step By Annalyn Censky NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Saturday mail could be one step closer to cancellation when the United States Postal Service submits an official proposal to a government regulatory board on Tuesday to eliminate six-day delivery. A new five-day delivery schedule could save the cash-strapped Post Office $3 billion annually, the agency said. Earlier this month, USPS said it plans to incur about $238 billion in losses in the next 10 years if it doesn't revamp its outdated business model.
$600 million in housing aid on the way for 5 more states By Hibah Yousuf - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Five more states will receive federal funding to help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure, the Obama administration announced Monday. Last month, President Obama unveiled the Hardest Hit Fund, which pumped $1.5 billion into state housing agencies in California, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Michigan. These five were originally identified because they had been hardest hit by the housing bust, with prices declining more than 20%.
Subprime Debt Rallies as U.S. Enhances Loan Aid: Credit Markets By Jody Shenn March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Subprime-mortgage securities are rising at an accelerating pace as the U.S. begins to encourage reductions to homeowners’ balances, which may lead to fewer foreclosures and a quicker end to the housing slump. A Markit ABX index of credit-default swaps tied to 20 subprime-loan bonds rated AAA when created in the first half of 2006 climbed 3.2 percent last week to 49.1, the highest since January 2009, according to Markit Group Ltd.
Commercial Real Estate Collapse
Overqualified? Yes, but Happy to Have a Job By MICHAEL LUO - NYTimes.com GRANDVIEW, Mo. — Don Carroll, a former financial analyst with a master’s degree in business administration from a top university, was clearly overqualified for the job running the claims department for Cartwright International, a small, family-owned moving company here south of Kansas City. But he had been out of work for six months, and the department badly needed modernization after several decades of benign neglect. It turned out to be a perfect match.
Recession lightens wallets BY DAVE FLESSNER - TimesFreePress.com First drop in income since 1949 With nearly one in every five Americans out of work sometime during the past year, personal income fell for the first time in 60 years. The average Tennessean earned $744 less in 2009 than he or she did the previous year, according to a new government report. The income drop was even greater in Georgia, where per capita income fell by $1,063, according to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. "The last time we had a decline in personal income was in 1949," said David Lenze, a spokesman for the bureau.
Thousands to lose jobless benefits April 5 By Jennifer Liberto WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- Extended jobless benefits will run out for at least 212,000 Americans out of work after April 5 because the Senate closed up shop Friday afternoon without a deal to extend filing deadlines. Senate Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on passing a House version of the extension of deadlines to apply for federal unemployment benefits and the COBRA health insurance subsidy.
Rep. Burgess: Government Can Force Us to Buy General Motors Products If Obamacare Mandate Upheld in Court By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter -- (CNSNews.com) – Representative Michael Burgess (R-Texas) told CNSNews.com that if the mandate in the health care law requiring individuals to purchase health insurance or be penalized is upheld by the courts, the federal government could mandate anything, such as requiring all Americans to purchase a General Motors car.
CNN Poll: Americans divided on repealing health care law Washington (CNN) - Most Americans disapprove of the health care reform law, but that does not translate into majority support for the "repeal and replace" strategy backed by most GOP leaders, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday indicates that 56 percent of the public disapproves of the new legislation, with 42 percent approving of the bill that President Obama signed into law last week. Tuesday the president signs into law fixes to the original legislation that were approved by Congress last week.
Obama's health care reform: VAT or Sinkhole? by Shawn Tully (Fortune) -- In President Obama's 2011 budget, a kind of fiscal "cigarette warning" appears in a box on page 146 under a table displaying a future of big deficits and mounting debt. The Administration, the warning declares, is creating a "Fiscal Commission" to "achieve sustainability over the long-run." With those bland words, the Administration is acknowledging that the immense weight of the national debt poses a dire threat to the economy, unless America takes radical action. Yet with the signing of the $931 billion healthcare overhaul, fixing future budget problems becomes far more difficult. The reform will immensely swell the amount of federal borrowing, even while the Administration touts the bill as a model of fiscal responsibility.
Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent By JOHN SCHWARTZ and ANDREW POLLACK - NYTimes.com -- A federal judge on Monday struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property United States District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet issued the 152-page decision, which invalidated seven patents related to genes whose mutations have been associated to breast cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York joined with individual patients and medical organizations to challenge the patents last May: they argued that genes, products of nature, fall outside of the realm of things that can be patented. The patents, they argued, stifle research and innovation and limit testing options.
Companies Push to Repeal Provision of Health Law By STEVEN GREENHOUSE - NYTimes.com An association representing 300 large corporations urged President Obama and Congress on Monday to repeal a provision of the health care overhaul that prompted AT&T, Caterpillar and other companies to announce substantial charges for the current quarter. The association, the American Benefits Council, said the provision — which reduces the tax deductions for companies with drug coverage for their retired employees — would deal a significant blow to corporate profits and would discourage companies from hiring more workers.
Obama’s Medicare Nominee May Rekindle Health Debate By Drew Armstrong and John Lauerman March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Donald M. Berwick, a Harvard University scholar and long-time critic of U.S. health care, will be thrust into the political fight over the overhaul law as President Barack Obama’s choice to run Medicare and Medicaid. Obama will nominate Berwick, 63, to oversee medical programs for more than 100 million poor, elderly and disabled Americans, an administration official said March 27, insisting on anonymity. The pick, requiring Senate confirmation, follows last week’s approval of the biggest revamp of the U.S. system since the 1960s, without support from a single Republican.
Sen. Carper: ‘Not Likely’ That States Can Overturn Individual Mandate in Health Care Law By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter -- (CNSNews.com) -- Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) did not say where in the Constitution Congress is given the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance, but said it is "not likely" the states will be able to overturn the individual mandate that is in the health care bill, which was signed into law on Tuesday. So far, attorneys general from 13 states have filed lawsuits against the federal government, arguing that requiring people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
Carper: 'Not Likely' States Can Overturn Individual Mandate CNSNews.com interviewed Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) regarding state suing the federal government over the individual mandate in the health care law.
FDA pressured to combat rising 'food fraud' By Lyndsey Layton - Washington Post The expensive "sheep's milk" cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow's milk. And a jar of "Sturgeon caviar" was, in fact, Mississippi paddlefish. Some honey makers dilute their honey with sugar beets or corn syrup, their competitors say, but still market it as 100 percent pure at a premium price. And last year, a Fairfax man was convicted of selling 10 million pounds of cheap, frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam as much more expensive grouper, red snapper and flounder. The fish was bought by national chain retailers, wholesalers and food service companies, and ended up on dinner plates across the country.
GM unveils 40 mpg compact CNNMoney.com - The automaker's new Chevrolet Cruze ECO will get very high gas --mileage without relying on any hybrid technology GM unveiled details this weekend about the new Chevrolet Cruze Eco. Available later this year, the Cruze ECO will get more than 40 mpg on the highway -- without the use of hybrid technology. The car's city fuel economy hasn't been announced yet, and neither has its price. The Cruze Eco will essentially replace the Cobalt XFE high-efficiency car, since the Cobalt line has been discontinued.
Will a Tea Partyer save Harry Reid's job? By Marc A. Thiessen - WashingtonPost.com This past weekend, the Tea Party rallies moved from the steps of the U.S. Capitol to Searchlight, Nev., home of the man activists hold responsible for passage of Obamacare: Senate majority leader Harry Reid. On Saturday, traffic into the tiny mining town where Reid grew up (population 700) was backed up for miles, as 7,000 people gathered for the Tea Party Express "Showdown in Searchlight." Activists carried signs that read, "Harry: Searchlight Needs You, America Doesn't." And Sarah Palin drew raucous cheers when she told Reid, "You're fired." But will a self-proclaimed Tea Party candidate end up saving Harry Reid's job in November?
Tea and Mockery By JAMES TARANTO - WSJ.com The Bloomberg news service takes a cheap shot. As the mainstream media's campaign against the tea-party movement has grown more vicious, Heidi Przybyla, a reporter for the Bloomberg news service, decides to take a different approach: (relatively) gentle mockery. "Tea Party Advocates Who Scorn Socialism Want a Government Job," reads the headline of a dispatch she filed Friday, reporting on a new Bloomberg poll. . . . . . . . Is it really possible that Przybyla or her editors can't imagine ways in which the federal government could foster job creation other than by expanding the government payroll? The headline is designed to portray tea-party sympathizers as hypocrites and losers, but to anyone paying attention, it actually shows Bloomberg to be biased to the point of dishonesty.
Nine Charged in Militia Plot By ALEX P. KELLOGG, LAUREN ETTER AND TIMOTHY W. MARTIN - WSJ.com Michigan Religious Group Plotted Violent Government Offensive, U.S. Charges ADRIAN, Mich.—Nine members of an anti-government militia group were charged Monday with conspiring to kill a law-enforcement officer in an effort to start a "war" against the U.S. government, authorities said. The group, known as Hutaree, planned to kill an unidentified local law-enforcement officer in April and then attack local, state and federal officers who came to Michigan to attend the funeral, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan said in a 12-page indictment.
China struggles with stance on nuclear power as summit nears By John Pomfret - WashingtonPost.com -- BEIJING -- Two weeks before the United States hosts a summit on nuclear security, one of its most important invitees, China, has yet to RSVP. Chinese President Hu Jintao will be in the neighborhood for a meeting in Brazil three days after the Washington summit is scheduled to end April 13. But China's coyness in accepting an invitation that went out to the leaders of more than 40 countries reflects an uncertainty about how to deal with the Obama administration's call for a nuclear-weapons-free world and its role as a rising nuclear power, even while the United States and Russia move to cut their nuclear stocks, according to Chinese government sources and Western analysts.
China Missed Chance for Open Rio Trial, Rudd Says By Marion Rae March 30 (Bloomberg) -- China “missed an opportunity” to be transparent and give companies more confidence by hearing charges of industrial espionage against four Rio Tinto Group executives in secret, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said. China had the chance “to demonstrate to the world at large transparency that would be consistent with its emerging global role,” Rudd said in Melbourne today. There are “serious unanswered questions” about the conviction of Stern Hu, the Australian executive who led Rio’s iron ore unit in China.
Moscow Attack a Test for Putin and His Record Against Terror By CLIFFORD J. LEVY - NYTimes.com -- MOSCOW — Brazen suicide bombings in the center of Moscow on Monday confronted Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin with a grave challenge to his record of curbing terrorism, and raised the possibility that he would respond as he had in the past, by significantly tightening control over the government. The explosions, set off by female suicide bombers in two landmark subway stations, killed at least 38 people and wounded scores of others, touching off fears that the Muslim insurgency in southern Russia, including Chechnya, was once again being brought to the country’s heart.
Russia braces for terrorism's return as 38 die in subway bombings By Philip P. Pan - WashingtonPost.com -- MOSCOW -- With a pair of powerful blasts on Moscow subway cars that killed at least 38 people Monday, two female suicide bombers shattered Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's claim to have contained a separatist insurgency in Russia's southwest and forced the nation's capital to brace for a terrorist comeback after several years of calm.
Suicide blasts kill 38 in Moscow subway By David Nowak ASSOCIATED PRESS Female Chechen rebels suspected in bloody strike MOSCOW | Female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Monday in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 38 people and wounding more than 60, officials said. The carnage blamed on rebels from the Caucasus region follows the killings of several high-profile Islamic militant leaders there. The blasts come six years after Islamic separatists from the southern Russian region carried out a pair of deadly Moscow subway strikes and raise concerns that the war has once again come to the capital, amid militants' warnings of a renewed determination to push their fight.
UAE: Head of largest sovereign wealth fund missing DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- The United Arab Emirates state news agency says the head of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund -- the world's largest -- is missing after his glider crashed in Morocco.
Pyongyang not ruled out in sinking of warship By Jean H. Lee ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL | A naval mine dispatched from North Korea may have struck the South Korean warship that exploded and sank near the Koreas' disputed sea border, the South's defense chief told lawmakers Monday, laying out several scenarios for the maritime disaster. Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said there was no sign of a direct attack from rival North Korea, but military authorities have not ruled out North Korean involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan late Friday night.
Kitty Werthmann Interview
Kitty Werthmann Part 2
Kitty Werthmann Part 3
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away Fort Worth Christianity & Culture ExaminerRene Girard By: Kitty Werthmann What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote.. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. . .
Freedoms can disappear in a hurry if we aren't careful Kitty Werthmann For the Argus Leader published: 3/11/2003 Kitty Werthmann, 77, of Pierre, is president of the South Dakota Eagle Forum. She lobbies the state Legislature on family issues. She has lived in the United States since 1950 and has been a U.S. citizen since 1962. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. I lived in Austria under Adolf Hitler's regime for seven years. Dictatorship did not happen overnight. It was a gradual process starting with national identification cards, which we had to carry with us at all times. We could not board a bus or train without our ID card. Gun registration followed, with a lot of talk about gun safety and hunting accidents. Since the government already knew who owned firearms, confiscation followed under threat of capital punishment.
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Mon 03.29.2010
Seven arrested in FBI raids linked to Christian militia group Jennifer Chambers / The Detroit News At least seven people, including some from Michigan, have been arrested in raids by a FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana as part of an investigation into an Adrian-based Christian militia group, a person familiar with the matter said. The suspects are expected to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Monday. On Sunday, a source close to the investigation in Washington, D.C. confirmed that FBI agents were conducting activities in Washtenaw and Lenawee counties over the weekend in connection to Hutaree, a Christian militia group. Detroit FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold told The Detroit News the federal warrants in the case are under court seal and declined further comment.
Fed raids in Michigan may be tied to Hutaree, a Christian-militia group BY NIRAJ WARIKOO - DetroitFreePress.com -- Federal agents conducted raids over the weekend in Lenawee and Washtenaw counties that news media reports linked to Hutaree, a Christian-militia group in the area. Agents also conducted raids in Indiana and Ohio and arrested at least three people. FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said agents arrested two people Saturday after raids in two Ohio towns. A third arrest made in northeast Illinois stemmed from a raid in northwest Indiana. The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation led by the FBI in Michigan, according to a statement from agents in Illinois.
The coming of an American Reichstag? By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director 25 March 2010: A federal intelligence source reported in an interview last evening that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have been called in to “actively investigate incidents of violence and threats” made to at least ten Democrats and one Republican lawmaker since Sunday. Their involvement was reportedly requested by top House leadership and one unnamed, high-level White House official. According to this source, who agreed to speak to this writer under the strict condition of anonymity, “a ‘watch list’ has already been created that specifically names and turns their focus on various pro-life and tea-party organizations and individuals who are considered a threat to domestic security, continuity of government operations, and to the lives of lawmakers and their families.”
Four banks fail; FDIC pulls back on loss shares by Karey Wutkowski (Reuters) - Four small banks across the United States were seized by regulators on Friday evening, ticking up the year bank failure tally to 41. The continued parade of bank collapses comes as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is pulling back on loss-share agreements designed to lure bidders into taking on the assets of troubled banks. Two of the banks that were seized were in Georgia, which has accounted for about one-sixth of all failures since the beginning of 2008.
U.S. Bank Failures Reach 41 This Year as Four Lenders Are Shut By Phil Mattingly - BusinessWeek.com -- March 28 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators shut down four banks in Arizona, Georgia and Florida, bringing the total for the year to 41 as small lenders struggle with bad loans tied to commercial real estate. The banks seized March 26, including Desert Hills Bank of Phoenix, Arizona, had total assets of $1.24 billion and deposits of $1.1 billion, according statements from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Regulators have seized 181 U.S. lenders since the start of 2009.
Fed's Warsh warns on inflation risk complacency by Kristina Cooke and Steven C. Johnson (Reuters) - Central bankers should keep "a very open mind" about potential economic shocks that could emerge in the United States and overseas, a top U.S. central bank official said on Friday. Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh told a Shadow Open Market Committee conference that the United States should not be complacent about inflation risks, adding that market signals and economic data were sending a variety of messages.
How the Next Middle East War Could Start By RONEN BERGMAN WSJ.com The three most plausible scenarios all involve Iran. This May, Israel will celebrate its 62nd Independence Day. And barring the unexpected, the country will have good reason to celebrate. This will have been the safest year in a decade and a half for Israeli civilians—the year with the fewest fatalities in acts of war or terror. Ironically, Israel's most bitter foes are responsible for this achievement. The leadership of both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza have imposed a temporary policy of nonconfrontation on their respective followers, as well as on other armed groups operating within the territories they control. They are now part of the administration and don't want to be blamed for igniting another war in the region. As a result, the once almost daily rocket attacks on civilian targets in the north and south of Israel have been reduced to a trickle.
America and the Next Major War By: Clif Droke - GoldSeek.com In the current phase of relative peace and stability we now enjoy, many are questioning when the next major war may occur and speculation is rampant as to major participants involved. Our concern here is strictly of a financial nature, however, and a discussion of the geopolitical and military variables involved in the escalation of war is beyond the scope of this commentary. But what we can divine from financial history is that “hot” wars in a military sense often emerge from trade wars. As we shall see, the elements for what could prove to be a trade war of epic proportions are already in place and the key figures are easily identifiable.
Axelrod: World has united against Iran By ASSOCIATED PRESS - WashingtonTimes.com WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top White House adviser said Sunday the United States is making progress in its efforts to find allies to hold the line on Iran's nuclear ambitions. David Axelrod, President Obama's senior political adviser, told CNN's "State of the Union" that at the start of the Obama administration, Iran was united while the world was divided on how best to deal with Iran. Mr. Axelrod said the situation now is reversed -- the world is coming together while Iran itself is divided. He said he's pleased with the cooperation that the Russians have offered and believes Moscow will support fresh penalties against Tehran.
The Final Treaty by J. R. Nyquist - FinancialSense.com More than twenty years ago, working on a book that was later titled Origins of the Fourth World War, I inserted a quote from the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, which states: "That nuclear weapons, whose terrible effects are suffered, indiscriminately and inexorably, by military forces and civilian population alike, constitute, through the persistence of the radioactivity they release, an attack on the integrity of the human species and ultimately may even render the whole earth uninhabitable." The treaty further states: "That general and complete disarmament under effective international control is a vital matter which all the peoples of the world equally demand."
Sell-off in US Treasuries raises sovereign debt fears By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk Investors are braced for a further sell-off in US Treasuries after dramatic moves last week raised fears that the surfeit of US government debt is starting to saturate bond markets. The yield on 10-year Treasuries – the benchmark price of global capital – surged 30 basis points in just two days last week to over 3.9pc, the highest level since the Lehman crisis. Alan Greenspan, ex-head of the US Federal Reserve, said the abrupt move may be "the canary in the coal mine", a warning to Washington that it can no longer borrow with impunity. He said there is a "huge overhang of federal debt, which we have never seen before". David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff said Treasury yields have ratcheted up 90 basis points since December in a "destabilising fashion", for the wrong reasons. Growth has not been strong enough to revive fears of inflation. Commodity prices peaked in January and US home sales have fallen for the last three months, pointing to a double-dip in the housing market.
Treasuries Find Greenspan’s Canary Fainting in Mine By Susanne Walker - BusinessWeek.com March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s warning that rising yields on government debt will drive up American borrowing costs is resonating with the world’s biggest bond traders, who say this month’s losses in the market for U.S. Treasuries are just the beginning. Higher yields are the “canary in the mine,” Greenspan said in a March 26 interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt.” The increases reflect concern over “this huge overhang of federal debt which we have never seen before,” he said. The budget deficit, which hit $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009, will drive Treasury sales to a record $2.43 trillion this year, a February survey of 10 dealers showed.
Credit Crisis, Outrage, Far From Over Bob Chapman - InternationalForecaster.com Bernanke re-nominated, outrage at banks, insolvency the real state of banks, crime pays when you are at the top, sovereign debt crisis around the world, debt and derivatives products were all just a ponzi scheme, the problem wont go a way when the system is purged, PIMCO Bill Gross warns of inflation, big cutbacks in services... The re-nomination of Ben Bernanke, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has to be one of the ultimate political insults, particularly coming from Republicans, as did his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, both have taken America and the world down the sewer. Ben Bernanke saved Wall Street, the banks, insurance companies and a myriad of other Illuminist firms.
Feds Warsh: Fed cannot be "ultimate rescuer" WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve must steer clear of dabbling in fiscal policy or risk losing its hard-fought independence, a top Fed official said on Friday. "The Fed, as first responder, must strongly resist the temptation to be the ultimate rescuer," Fed Governor Kevin Warsh said in a speech prepared for delivery to the Shadow Open Market Co. "No matter the congressional calendar or the pleadings of the elected, the Fed is not a repair shop for broken statutes or broken financial ecosystems," he said.
Europe has left Greece hanging in the wind By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk However you dress it, the Greek package agreed by EU leaders is a capitulation to German-Dutch demands. There will be no European debt union as long as Angela Merkel remains Iron Chancellor of Germany. The Frankfurter Allgemeine summed up the deal succinctly: "No member of Europe's monetary union should be liable for the debts of another state. Bilateral credit from Berlin for Athens is not the same as German acceptance of responsibility for Greek debt." This shatters the assumption since Maastricht that monetary union leads inexorably to fiscal union. By drawing the IMF into Euroland's affairs, Germany has broken the spell and reduced EMU to a fixed-exchange system with knobs on, like the 1930s Gold Standard that it so resembles. No wonder Jean-Claude Trichet at the European Central Bank is cross.
Ron Paul on Healthcare and Foreign Policy
Gold: The United States Of Crisis John Ing Last year it was Wall Street's debts, this year it is sovereign debt problems. Just when everybody was told it was safe to go into the water, once again investors are told that yet another bailout is needed to stem the threat of a default. This time it is sovereign defaults. Taxpayers are again being asked to pony up as governments pile up more debt, further devaluing their purchasing power. When will it end? Investors are losing confidence in propping up heavily indebted governments, banks and corporate entities, either explicitly or implicitly. Inflation and currency depreciation is next.
Gold may trade above $1,100 this week By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com Gold may trade above $1,100 this week. A move to $1,140 or even higher is quite possible based on short-term short covering. There have been heavy volumes of buying and selling between $1,084 and $1,130 over the last two weeks, reflecting a battle between shorter term investors liquidating positions based on a stronger dollar and economic indicators and longer term investors taking price dips as opportunities to buy.
The Gold Price will be affected by the Oil price in future – How? Julian D.W. Phillips - FinancialSense.com -- For many years it was believed that the oil price had a direct impact on the gold price. Then the ‘credit crunch’ arrived, after the oil price had hit $145+ before tumbling to $35 a barrel. Since then the oil price has been treated as irrelevant to the gold price. We at Gold Forecaster believe it only had an indirect influence on the gold price in the first place.
Big Oil Entering the Shale Natural Gas Arena by Hans Wagner - FinancialSense.com Successful exploration of natural gas from shale has contributed to a drop in natural gas prices during the past two years. Yet the large energy companies have taken notice of the potential from natural gas from shale, lead by Exxon’s acquisition of XTO Energy and the Total/Chesapeake joint venture. Does the move by “Big Oil” indicate a strong future for shale based natural gas?
IMF Gold Not Up For Sale? GoldSeek.com I wish I could talk about the recent CFTC hearings in regards to position limits on metals in a more favourable light, but it seems all the build-up was for naught. There were too many opposed to limits and when it really comes down to it the powers that be are the ones who don’t want position limits, so there is a snowballs chance in hell of ever seeing any as far as I can see. Is that so bad after-all? Perhaps not.
Divide home loans with ounce price of gold! By Adrian Ash - CommodityOnline.com It is hard to say quite how the latest slug of tax-payer cash thrown at US housing will affect prices. Because at first glance, the $14 billion of aid (aka meddling) apportioned on Friday seems set to both inflate and depress prices. Subsidizing over-priced contracts stops the market from clearing, and people whose homes are worth less than their mortgage can now seek government-backed loans to cover the difference. But that's only thanks to lenders writing down what they're owed – or rather, what the securitized bonds holding their debtors' mortgages are due at maturity – thus resetting the existing loan's value closer to current reality.
Is IMF holding back its gold sale plan? By Tyler Durden - CommodityOnline.com In an exclusive report, Kitco has just released yet another stunner in the world of precious metals. It turns out that Eric Sprott has attempted to purchase gold from the IMF, according to information provided to Kitco by Frank Holmes, CEO of US Global Investors. "I just spoke with Eric Sprott, who bid to buy [the IMF's remaining gold on the block] and they refuse to sell it." As Kitco points out, "the IMF might be holding out for a bigger buyer or a central bank or for higher prices. But Holmes argues the IMF's rejection of Sprott's bid means markets are being manipulated."
ECU Group's Philip Manduca "We Are At A Tipping Point" And The Only Thing That May Save The Euro Is A Collapse Of The US by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com -- For once, some actually good insight from a CNBC guest. Philip Manduca, Head of Investment of the ECU Group, discusses Greece and the very severe implications of what the final outcome will look like. "Trichet said the Greeks are crooks, and they've been lying about the numbers. There is a deeply embedded corruption within the Eurozone. Combined with the endemic European socialism and there is just no way you are going to get spending cuts and tax raises and maintain a GDP that makes any sense of the percentage aspect of debt to GDP. So the whole show is wrong. This is an intractable situation, this is going to continue on and on. The only hope for the Eurozone, and the Euro as a currency, is that someone takes the spotlight soon, and that may be the United States." Watch the rest as Philip's perspective is spot on...Not to mention that he sees gold as the only alternative to the fiat bonfire soon to engulf the western world.
Gold is the long term currency of choice . . . get long of gold
Former Goldman Commodities Research Analyst Confirms LMBA OTC Gold Market Is "Paper Gold" Ponzi GoldSeek.com -- When we put up a link to last week's CFTC hearing webcast little did we know that it would end up being the veritable (physical) gold mine (no pun intended) of information about what really transpires in the commodities market. First, we obtained direct evidence from Andrew Maguire (who may or may not have been the target of an attempt at "bodily harm" as reported yesterday) of extensive manipulation in the silver market. Today, Adrian Douglas, director of GATA, adds to the mountain of evidence that the commodities market, and the CFTC, stand behind what is potentially the biggest market manipulation scheme in the history of capital markets (we are assuming for the time being that all allegations of the Fed manipulating the broader equity and credit markets are completely baseless). Using the testimony of a clueless Jeffrey Christian, formerly a staffer at the Commodities Research Group in the Goldman Sachs Investment Research Department and now head and founder of the CPM Group, Douglas confirms that the "LBMA trades over 100 times the amount of gold it actually has to back the trades."
GATA's Murphy produces evidence suggesting specific instance of silver and gold manipulation at CFTC hearing Author: Lawrence Williams - MineWeb.net -- Testimony from GATA's Bill Murphy to the CFTC hearing in Washington could be embarrassing for some major investment banks. Some observers feel that the Gold Anti Trust Association (GATA's) long held views on a conspiracy by some major banks and government entities to manipulate precious metals prices are off-target, but the latest evidence produced by GATA chairman Bill Murphy in open testimony at the CFTC hearing is compelling assuming the source material is accurate.
Bill Murphy of GATA Reveals Whistle-Blower in Gold Price Suppression
Silver can pull you out of debt By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com Make no mistake about it: silver is an investment for trying times. As one the most beautifully shiny metals, silver's true economic beauty shines through in a world ruined by rampant inflation and growing debt. The Barter Economy A barter economy is one of the most primitive economic models, wherein goods and services are traded, with each party believing it received the better end of the bargain. An example would be that of a plumber and an electrician. The plumber can fix pipes, install a toilet and improve the general condition of a variety of plumbing, but likely could not rewire the light switch.
‘Silver gives better opportunity for investments’ By Dr Jeffrey Lewis - CommodityOnline.com As observed by many analysts across the world silver has been surpassing gold investments in yielding attractive returns for the investors. In last one year, silver has drawn attention of global investor community as the grey metal has outperformed gold by gaining over 24% against 16% return in gold. India, which has been the largest consumer of gold, is now found changing its focus to better yielding precious metals like silver. Several bullion traders in India have shown their interest in launching varied products for silver investments.
Dollar to Fall as U.S., U.K. ‘Two Peas In a Pod’, Barclays Says By Inyoung Hwang March 26 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar may weaken versus the pound as expanding record budget deficits in the U.S. begin to weigh on the economic recovery and the world’s primary reserve currency, according to Barclays Plc. Even though the U.S. and U.K. suffer from being consumption-driven economies with large deficits, the financial crisis had a harsher effect on sterling, Paul Robinson, a currency strategist in London at Barclays Capital, wrote in a note to clients today. He said the greenback benefited from its status as a safe-haven currency and the view the budget deficit in the U.S. would be easier to cut than in the U.K.
Ron Paul: Executive Orders are Unconstitutional We Need a Private Option in Healthcare
Tedbits 2010 Outlook by Ty Andros - FinancialSense.com When Hope Turns to Fear, Part V 2010 Outlook Conclusions As we near the APEX of the countertrend rallies in many markets and economies, the air is full of HIGHLY-COMBUSTIBLE situations just waiting for someone to light the MATCH. The full debacle of the next leg down in developed world economies is at the doorstep. What event will act as catalyst is unknowable, and the list of candidates is mountainous. Corruption and criminality within the public sectors, crony capitalists and banksters set the stage for an explosive cocktail, are set to immolate the private sectors that still produce wealth and the public at large.
S&P readying for a crash…..to 1110-1120 By SHAILY - InvestingContrarian.com This week COT data was quite illustrative of what the big boys are doing. Infact it was deja vu for me as it gave me taste of what the big boys aim to do when they need to get off their positions. I was part of all this as we used to unload huge and massive speculative postions and leaving the small guys holding the batter. For the first time in the last 6 months, we have the small traders (even retail) becoming hopeful of the rally to go on. And guess what? The big boys including the commercials and large funds and traders have gone short. This is bearish. Very!
Bank-Tax Concept Gains Momentum By BOB DAVIS - WSJ.com WASHINGTON—The U.S. and European governments are moving toward a consensus on taxing large banks to cover the cost of any future bailouts rather than asking taxpayers to foot the bill, as happened regularly in past banking crises. The tax proposals vary. Germany and Sweden would use the money to fund a "resolution authority" that would use the money to shut troubled banks whose failure would put the broader economy at risk. Others, such as France, would assess the fee after a crisis passed.
Scrutiny rises of failed bank purchases By Suzanne Kapner and Helen Thomas in New York - FT US regulators to rethink rules on buying discounted assets US regulators are stepping up their scrutiny of rules that enable buyers of failed banks to take an accounting gain – dubbed “Christmas capital” – by acquiring assets at a discount, according to people familiar with the discussions. Regulators are discussing guidelines to limit how much of a bank’s capital can be comprised of such gains. The talks involve leading bank regulators, including the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
China warned of growing ‘land loan’ threat By Geoff Dyer in Chongqing - FT.com Local governments use public terrain as collateral The Guanyinxia forest stretches up to the mountains north-west of the big central Chinese city of Chongqing. Most is protected land. “Our purpose is mainly preservation – not to make money,” says Liu Siyang, Communist party secretary of the government bureau that manages the forest. Yet the same forest has a double life in the commercial world. It has been used as collateral by a company controlled by the local government forestry bureau to help secure a Rmb300m loan it took out last year from a state-owned bank, which was then spent on infrastructure projects in Chongqing.
Think deficits don't matter? Just ask Portugal MoneyWeek.com What happened yesterday? Little of consequence. At least, not here in the UK. Alistair Darling stood up. He gave a speech in which he tried to clear the Labour party of any responsibility for the state of the economy they've been running for the past 13 years. He bribed first-time buyers. He battered cider drinkers. Then he sat down.
GMAC unit sold to Wells Fargo By Helen Thomas and Suzanne Kapner in New York - FT Wells Fargo said on Wednesday that it had agreed to buy a division that provides financing to small businesses from GMAC, the troubled car and home lender, cementing its position as a leader in the field. The division provides working capital to about 150 small and medium-sized businesses, mainly suppliers of consumer products to large retailers such as Walmart and Target.
Supply fears start to hit Treasuries By Michael Mackenzie in New York and David Oakley in London - FT -- The bond vigilantes are finally flexing their muscles. A long period of stability for the US government bond market showed signs of cracking this week as a lack of investor appetite for new debt sent the benchmark 10-year yield to its highest level since last June. For more than a year, analysts have been warning that record sized debt sales by the US Treasury were at odds with a 10-year yield sitting comfortably below 4 per cent. This week, the yield on 10-year notes jumped from 3.65 per cent to a peak of 3.92 per cent on Thursday. On Friday it was 3.87 per cent.
Fed Officials Signal Asset Sales to Play Bigger Role By Craig Torres and Scott Lanman March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve officials are moving toward a consensus that asset sales will play a more prominent role in their exit from the most expansive monetary policy in the central bank’s history. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told legislators yesterday that “restoring the size and composition” of the Fed’s record $2.32 trillion balance sheet to a “more normal configuration” is a long-term policy goal. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said in an interview the central bank must start making plans now for future asset sales.
US Justice Department Names JP Morgan and UBS as Conspirators in US Muni Bond Fraud and Bid Rigging JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN -- The big American banks are starting to look more like criminal enterprises than a well managed financial system that is put forward as 'the envy of the world." Just yesterday a whistle blower stepped forward and named J. P. Morgan in a price manipulation scheme in the metals markets that reaps millions in profits by cheating investors. The CFTC commissioners said in this same public meeting that the markets have never been more transparent and efficient, even as they had known of this allegation for months, and apparently failed to seriously investigate. And there was no mention of this in the mainstream media.
CBO report: Debt will rise to 90% of GDP By David M. Dickson - WashingtonTimes.com President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday. In its 2011 budget, which the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released Feb. 1, the administration projected a 10-year deficit total of $8.53 trillion. After looking it over, CBO said in its final analysis, released Thursday, that the president's budget would generate a combined $9.75 trillion in deficits over the next decade.
FHA's Florida fiasco By Tami Luhby - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- What the hell happened to the FHA's loans in Florida? The state dominates the list of troubled metro areas for Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages. In fact, 16 of the top 25 locales with the highest default rates are in Florida, as of December, with tiny Punta Gorda on the Gulf Coast leading at 22.7%. The poor performance of Florida's FHA loans has helped drag the agency down to its lowest point in decades, raising concerns that taxpayers will have to bail it out. The agency is in the midst of overhauling its operations to shore up reserves, which have fallen well below the level required by Congress.
FDIC Stands Between J.P. Morgan and a WaMu Payoff By DAN FITZPATRICK - wsj.com The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. backed away from its support for a $1.4 billion tax break benefiting J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., setting up a battle between the regulator and the nation's second-largest bank. The tax benefit stems from J.P. Morgan's acquisition of Washington Mutual and is part of the bankruptcy proceedings of the failed Seattle thrift's parent company. Washington Mutual is eligible for $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion in refunds based on a 2009 economic stimulus bill that allowed companies to apply losses from 2008 and 2009 against taxes paid in the previous five years.
Convoy of U.S. Military Armored Personnel Vehicles I was driving home from work today and did a double take as I rounded the Shuster Park Way bend to Tacoma. On the tracks behind an BNSF train [engine #5394] I saw railcar after railcar of U.S. Military Armored Personnel Vehicles heading southbound towards Oregon. If it wasn't for the Northbound Sounder transit train causing this train to pause, I would have missed it entirely.
Europe agrees IMF-EU rescue for Greece By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk After weeks of discord, Europe's leaders have agreed to an emergency facility for Greece backed by the International Monetary Fund and bilateral loans from eurozone states. The accord was vague on figures and aid can be invoked only as a "last resort" if Greece is shut out of the capital markets. Since Greece is already paying an untenable debt premium, the wording once again leaves it unclear what exactly has been settled. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch premier, leaders of the two key creditor states, imposed their demand that the IMF must be central to any rescue. While the Eurogroup is to play a "co-ordinating" role, Germany and Holland will retain a veto over use of the facility. Greece said it was "satisfied" by the terms.
Papandreou Faces 15.5 Billion-Euro Bond Burden After Aid Plan By John Fraher and Simon Kennedy -- March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, fresh from winning a European Union aid package last week, now has to prove he can keep his nation’s finances afloat. His government still has to raise as much as 15.5 billion euros ($21 billion) by the end of May, almost as much debt as it sold in the first quarter, says Petros Christodoulou, head of the country’s debt agency. Failure to do so could spark a new round of the fiscal crisis and trigger the use of the aid plan crafted by EU leaders in Brussels on March 25.
Gerald Celente on Politics & Religion Another economic collapse coming this year; no real economic recovery
Obama, scolding GOP, makes 15 appointments By Kara Rowland - WashingtonTimes.com Now that Congress has left for spring break, President Obama is making more than a dozen recess appointments to fill key administration posts at the Departments of the Treasury, Homeland Security and others, the White House announced Saturday. Citing "months of Republican obstruction," Mr. Obama made 15 appointments in all, including Craig Becker, a controversial nominee to head the National Labor Relations Board. The Senate last month voted against proceeding to confirm Mr. Becker, a former union lawyer.
White House defends special appointments By ASSOCIATED PRESS - WashingtonTimes.com WASHINGTON (AP) -- David Axelrod, President Obama's senior political adviser, has defended a decision to do an end run around Congress on 15 appointments to federal boards and agencies. Mr. Axelrod said in an interview to be aired Sunday morning on CNN's "State of the Union" that the administration faces a "huge number of vacancies" and Republicans won't act on the nominations of 77 people.
Social Security Makes History With Negative Cashflow By Bill Bonner -DailyReckoning.com 03/26/10 Baltimore, Maryland – The US government is going broke. An item in The New York Times tells us that for the first time in its history, this year the Social Security program is turning cashflow negative. Social Security “surpluses” were the source of the Clinton administration’s claim to have been running a balanced budget. Well, it was balanced…if you counted the excess Social Security contributions. But now the Social Security system is running in the red, just like everything else. And now the government is in charge of our health too.
TARP watchdog slams Obama foreclosure program By Tami Luhby NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama's foreclosure prevention program will likely fall far short of its goal and may even do more harm than good, a government watchdog said Tuesday. The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the Treasury Department set targets that weren't "meaningful," mismanaged the implementation of the program, and now risks a substantial number of "re-defaults," with many participants ultimately losing their homes anyway
Second mortgages complicate efforts to help homeowners By Renae Merle - WashingtonPost.com As government regulators and lenders work to stabilize the housing market, one of the factors that helped propel the housing boom of the past decade is now taking a central role in thwarting their efforts: second mortgages. Programs to help distressed borrowers so far have focused on lowering the payments on their primary mortgage. But during the go-go years of the housing market, millions of homeowners took out a second or even third loan backed by their home. Many were piggyback mortgages, which enabled home buyers to put little or no money down, while others took advantage of rising home prices to secure home-equity lines of credits.
Obamacare' cops: $1 billion to force new tax compliance 16,000 new IRS agents to be required under health-care reform By Jerome R. Corsi - WND.com -- Collecting taxes under the Democrats' newly passed health-care plan will cost the federal government more than $1 billion a year in salaries alone, Republicans in Congress estimate. The legislation will require the IRS to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes imposed on Americans, according to a House Committee on Ways and Means Committee Republican report prepared March 18 for ranking members Reps. Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Charles Boustany, R-La.
Healthcare Reform Losers: BY KERRI SHANNON, Associate Editor, Money Morning Companies Providing Retiree Benefits Face Multi-Million Dollar Tax Costs After sending letters of protest to Congress in the months prior to the healthcare law's approval, U.S. companies are now facing multi-million dollar after-tax hits this year due to a tax provision in the new legislation, labeling them healthcare reform losers instead of winners. Part of the new healthcare law places a federal income tax on government subsidies given to companies that provide retirees and their spouses with drug benefit plans. The 28% subsidy was created as Medicare Part D, adding a prescription plan for senior citizens to the Medicare Act of 2003. To encourage companies to continue offering retirees a drug plan, the tax-free subsidy reduced companies' costs. Fewer senior citizens then went through Medicare's prescription program - which would have cost taxpayers much more than the subsidy price.
Health-care overhaul begins now By Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com As someone who has spent the past year tangled in the minutia of excise taxes and curve bending and subsidy levels, it is good to finally say this: With the passage of the reconciliation fixes, the health-care reform debate is finally over. But if you're thrilled to hear that, then I also have some bad news: Health-care reform itself is just beginning. This bill marks an evolution, not a revolution, for our health-care system. Whether it proves the cornerstone of a better, fairer, more affordable system or simply another expansion of the federal welfare state has as much to do with what happens when the law is implemented as with what's written in the legislation.
Obamacare bait & switch By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Editorial Campaign health plan promises fail reality test The health care bill that President Obama signed last week bears little resemblance to the reform package he once touted from the campaign trail. With the final legislative product in hand, it's worth evaluating how it compares to the promises Mr. Obama made to voters regarding the plan's cost, its features and the reform process itself. The difference between then and now couldn't be more stark.
Obama dares GOP to repeal HealthCare CNN.com Obama returns to Iowa to sell health care Iowa City, Iowa (CNN) -- President Obama hit the road Thursday to sell the merits of the newly enacted health care law, telling an enthusiastic Iowa crowd that the measure will lead to greater economic security for most Americans. "This is your victory," Obama said at the University of Iowa. Health care reform "was about the future of our country. And today ... that future looks stronger and more hopeful and brighter than it has in some time." The crowd, in turn, repeatedly chanted Obama's campaign theme: "Yes, we can." Obama made his remarks as the Senate passed a package of changes to the health care law. Congressional Democrats have promised to approve the changes before the end of the week.
Health reform's immediate impact: Your benefits By Parija Kavilanz - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Under the new health care legislation, experts say the first changes Americans with employer-based insurance will see is in their benefits. Companies don't have to make any immediate tweaks to their plans, but they will have to incorporate a few of the federally mandated changes by open enrollment time late in 2010, said Tracy Watts, partner with employee benefits consulting firm Mercer.
Brewer wants AZ legislators to let her sue federal government over health care mandates Phoenix Business Journal - by Mike Sunnucks -- Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is asking the Legislature to grant her the authority to sue the federal government over new health care reforms and mandates. Brewer, a Republican, opposes the health care reforms approved by the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama. She does not like federal mandates on states, employers and individuals and argues it's an over-reach of federal power.
Companies say health care costs hard to swallow By JOSH FUNK (AP) The health care overhaul will cost U.S. companies billions and make them more likely to drop prescription drug coverage for retirees because of a change in how the government subsidizes those benefits. In the first two days after the law was signed, three major companies — Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Valero Energy — said they expect to take a total hit of $265 million to account for smaller tax deductions in the future. With more than 3,500 companies now getting the tax break as an incentive to keep providing coverage, others are almost certain to announce similar cost increases in the weeks ahead as they sort out the impact of the change.
Ron Paul's Definition of Our God-Given Rights Article by Anna Webb. Life, liberty, and the right to keep the fruits of our labor – not health care nor education. Crowds cheered former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul's claim that "the revolution is alive and well in Idaho," in a speech Saturday at the Morrison Center that at times took on the feel of a revival meeting. Americans, he said, have misunderstood the definition of "rights," which are God-given and include "life, liberty and the right to keep the fruits of our labor." Those rights include neither education nor health care.
Continental to lay off 150 more workers Houston Business Journal Continental Airlines Inc. is laying off 150 ground workers, including bag handlers, at seven U.S. airports and hiring contractors in their place. The Houston-based carrier said late last week that the layoffs would take effect on June 1 in Providence, R.I.; Greensboro, N.C.; Richmond and Norfolk, Va.; Pensacola, Fla.; St. Louis and Kansas City.
Hawaii loses 4,200 construction jobs Pacific Business News (Honolulu) Hawaii’s construction employment plunged 12.4 percent, or by 4,200 jobs, year-over-year in February. The state’s seasonally adjusted construction employment totaled 29,600 jobs in February, down from 33,800 a year earlier, according to the latest statistics from the Associated General Contractors of America, based in Washington, D.C. Hawaii ranked No. 21 among the states in terms of percentage change in construction jobs, with No. 1 being the best. Construction job counts declined in 49 states and the District of Columbia between February 2009 and February 2010.
U.S. Michigan Consumer Index remains Flat by Anthony Cherniawsk - FinancialSense.com Confidence among U.S. consumers was higher than anticipated in March as companies slowed the pace of job cuts and stocks advanced. Gains in confidence and fewer job losses may help sustain consumer spending and fuel the economy in coming months. A pickup in Americans’ purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy, hinges on employment growth that has yet to materialize. Bernanke Wants to End Bank Reserve Requirements Completely: Does it Matter? What Chaos will Result?
Doctor-starved: America's heartland in crisis By Parija Kavilanz NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- For one doctor practicing in America's heartland, the new health care law and its incentives to keep doctors on the farm is a start, not a solution, to the medical care crisis afflicting rural America. "It's good that there will be an increase in Medicare and Medicaid payments to primary care doctors who work in underserved areas," said Dr. Downs Little. "But there is still a lot of work to be done." For Little, 60, these new measures came too late. Little, a primary care internist, closed his Lottsburg Va.-based practice on Dec. 31. Lottsburg, located in Northumberland County, is in one of the nation's designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA).
Why a $14/hour employee costs $20 By Catherine Clifford - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- You probably cost your boss a lot more than you think you do. For Jim Garland, who owns a corporate aircraft cleaning and support services company, a $14 per hour worker has a true cost of $19.63 per hour, or about 40% more than base pay. This so-called "loaded rate" includes fixed expenses -- federal and state taxes, health insurance, workman's compensation, uniforms, and paid time off -- along with soft costs like the time spent training a new hire.
'Tea Party Express' stop in Phoenix draws crowd by Parker Leavitt - The Arizona Republic The "Tea Party Express" was greeted by about 1,200 to 1,500 supporters as it rolled into Phoenix on Sunday, the third stop on a three-week, cross-country tour that ends in Washington, D.C., on April 15. Activists from across Arizona and from as far as Seattle gathered at the Arizona State Capitol complex to sing, chant and voice their distaste of taxes, health-care reform and big government.
Tea Party priorities split Ohio GOP BY JON CRAIG AND LISA D. PRESTON COLUMBUS - When the Tea Party movement began last year, it was all about reining in government spending, questioning the massive federal stimulus package and defeating the Obama administration's health-care plan. This year, it is all about electing candidates who will do that for them. In Ohio, that has led to a split in Republican ranks, with party regulars and Tea Party activists lining up on opposite sides in GOP primaries for secretary of state and Ohio auditor.
Tea Party activists protest in Buffalo Posted by: Kate McGowan - WIBV.com Rus Thompson gives plan for upcoming election BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Tea Party activists have protested twice in the past week in Buffalo. On Saturday, organizer Rus Thompson laid out his plan for the upcoming election. "I co-founded an organization called Primary Challenge and our whole objective was to run people against the incumbents in the primary," Rus explained. Supporters are now demonstrating on a regular basis.
1 in 4 Americans censoring thoughts under Obama By Bob Unruh - WND.com Confidence in constitutional liberties plunges further still Nearly one American in four routinely censors his or her own thoughts "much" or "always" under President Obama's administration, and those who believe their personal liberties have plunged since inauguration day have grown significantly from 49 percent to more than 55 percent in just one month. This month, of course, was when Democrats rammed through a bill that essentially nationalizes health care, creating new requirements for consumers to purchase a government-chosen plan or face penalties.
Gun Charges After FBI Raids in 3 States FOXNews.com - AP The FBI conducted weekend raids in three states and arrested at least three people, and a militia leader in Michigan said the target of at least one raid was a Christian militia group. ADRIAN, Michigan -- The FBI said Sunday that agents conducted weekend raids in three states and arrested at least three people, and a militia leader in Michigan said the target of at least one raid was a Christian militia group. The raids took place in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, the FBI said. Federal warrants were sealed, but a federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said some of those arrested face gun charges and officials are pursuing other suspects. Some of the suspects were expected in court Monday.
Colorado Taxi Drivers to Spy for Cops Marybeth Brush - KKTV Making our community safer; that’s the goal of a new partnership starting today with a local business and Colorado Springs police. The drivers of Yellow Cabs will now be an extra set of roving eyes and ears to help police catch criminals. One of those drivers is Andy Michopoulos. A Yellow Cab has been his office for three years. But now he will be doing double duty in an effort to help keep our city safe. “As a driver who’s out at all times of night and all over the city, you see things going on and to have a direct way of reporting that to the police is definitely a plus,” says Michopoulos.
Massive 'maelstrom' to blast incumbents By Bob Unruh - WND.com 2010 'will make 1994 election look like light summer breeze' A new survey shows a political "maelstrom" brewing in the U.S. that threatens not only Democrats in power but Republicans who have the tag "incumbent" attached to their name. "They say movie sequels are never as strong as the original film, but politics can be different. There is every indication that, following the passage this week of the massive national health-care legislation, the political maelstrom brewing across the country is building to proportions that will make the 1994 Republican Revolution look like a light summer breeze," said Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies. "But this time, Democrats may not be the only endangered incumbents, as this data shows Republican congressmen are also in serious danger."
Palin to tea party rally: Don't sit down, shut up By MICHAEL R. BLOOD SEARCHLIGHT, Nev. (AP) - Sarah Palin told thousands of tea party activists assembled in the dusty Nevada desert Saturday that Sen. Harry Reid will have to explain his votes when he comes back to his hometown to campaign. The wind whipped U.S. flags behind the former Alaska governor as she stood on a makeshift stage, holding a microphone and her notes and speaking to a cheering crowd. She told them Reid, fighting for re-election, is "gambling away our future." "Someone needs to tell him, this is not a crapshoot," Palin said.
2010 Will Be a Tough Census By Conor Dougherty - WSJ.com The 2010 Census is likely to be one of the more challenging population counts in recent history, a fact that could raise the cost of the census and reduce the accuracy of the count. “The recession could make it a lot harder to find people,” says Sean Reardon, a professor at Stanford University, who studies income inequality. It all comes down to bad timing. The government always knows when the census will be, but the state of the economy is a crapshoot. This year’s census will take place in the aftermath of the worst recession in a generation. While economists say it’s likely the U.S. emerged from recession sometime around summer 2009, the jobless rate is expected to remain well above 9% for the remainder of the year.
Washington Murdered Privacy At Home And Abroad by Paul Craig Robert - TakiMag.com In the Swiss newspaper Zeit-Fragen, Professor Dr. Eberhard Hamer from Germany asks, “How Sovereign is Europe?” He examines the issue and concludes that Europe has little, if any, sovereignty. Professor Hamer writes that the sovereign rights of Europeans as citizens of nation states were dissolved with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty on Dec. 1, 2009. The rights of the people have been conveyed to a political commissariat in Brussels. The French, Germans, Belgians, Spanish, British, Irish, Italians, Greeks, and so forth, now have “European citizenship whatever this may be.”
China’s Geely to Buy Ford’s Volvo in Record Deal By Ola Kinnander and Keith Naughton - BusinessWeek.com March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Zhejiang Geely Holding Co. agreed to buy Volvo Cars from Ford Motor Co. for $1.8 billion in the biggest overseas acquisition by a Chinese automaker more than one-and-half-years after the two companies first entered discussions. The price includes a $200 million note and the remainder to be paid in cash, Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said yesterday in Gothenburg, Sweden. Time spent on seeking regulatory approval in different jurisdictions means the companies now aim to complete the deal in the third quarter, Geely Chairman Li Shufu said.
U.S. and E.U. Agree to Expand Open Skies Accord By JAMES KANTER and NICOLA CLARK BRUSSELS — The European Union and the United States agreed Thursday to expand a three-year old accord that allows airlines to operate more freely across the Atlantic. The move will increase access to each other’s markets and narrow differences over environmental regulations, but industry executives were disappointed that no agreement was reached to remove the remaining barriers to foreign ownership and control of airlines. Siim Kallas, the European Union transport commissioner, hailed the agreement as a “major step forward” that would remove “constraints on foreign investment and market access that have been holding back the development of the most important aviation market.” Mr. Kallas said he would seek approval by the bloc’s 27 transport ministers and the European Parliament by the end of June.
Arabs to unite against Israel at annual summit AFP - breitbart.com Arab leaders open their annual summit on Saturday determined to send a clear message to Israel that any plan to "Judaise" Jerusalem would spell doom for the Middle East peace process. The summit is the first to be hosted by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, the longest-serving Arab head of state who considers Israel the "enemy" and has frequently lambasted Arab countries who seek peace with the Jewish state.
LIBYA: Arabs pledge $500 million to Palestinians in East Jerusalem LATimes.com -- Arab foreign ministers gathered in the Libyan city of Surt in preparation for Saturday's Arab League summit announced their plan to more than triple aid to Palestinians living in East Jerusalem from $150 million to $500 million in response to the construction of new Israeli settlements, Secretary General Amr Moussa told reporters Friday. The request for more aid was made by the Palestinian Authority, which would presumably be responsible for distributing the money.
Chinese Activist Surfaces After a Year in Custody By ANDREW JACOBS - NYTimes.com BEIJING — Gao Zhisheng, the Chinese rights activist who has been missing for more than a year, has resurfaced near his hometown in northern China. In a brief telephone interview on Sunday, Mr. Gao said that he was no longer in police custody, but that he could not give any details of his predicament. “I’m fine now, but I’m not in a position to be interviewed,” he said from Wutai Mountain, the site of a well-known Buddhist monastery. “I’ve been sentenced but released.”
Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning Atomic Sites By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD - NYTimes.com -- WASHINGTON — Six months after the revelation of a secret nuclear enrichment site in Iran, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands. The United Nations inspectors assigned to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are now searching for evidence of two such sites, prompted by recent comments by a top Iranian official that drew little attention in the West, and are looking into a mystery about the whereabouts of recently manufactured uranium enrichment equipment.
On the Edge with Max Keiser - 26 March 2010 - (1/3)
On the Edge with Max Keiser - 26 March 2010 - (2/3)
On the Edge with Max Keiser - 26 March 2010 - (3/3)
USA's Coming Crisis, Peter Schiff, David Walker, Jim Nussle, Ron Paul(NWO SERIES/Economic Collapse)
Like Christmas By Larry Wilke - CapitolHillCoffeeHouse.com "It’s just going to be like Christmas. It’s going to be great. You know, no worries about the bills..” This was the cathartic cry of one DeCarlo Flythe, yet another of the fifties of millions of new beneficiaries of today’s Bolshevik benevolence. What was once a “privilege” has now been “changed” into a “right” through collectivist chicanery and socialist sorcery. This became a “right” based solely upon the totalitarian tenets of “fairness” enabled by sclerotic socialism, not the Constitution of the United States but these type of annoying details do not matter when you have an “agenda” to impose..
U.S. Plans Big Expansion in Effort to Aid Homeowners By DAVID STREITFELD - NYTimes.com The Obama administration on Friday will announce broad new initiatives to help troubled homeowners, potentially refinancing several million of them into fresh government-backed mortgages with lower payments. Another element of the new program is meant to temporarily reduce the payments of borrowers who are unemployed and seeking a job. Additionally, the government will encourage lenders to write down the value of loans held by borrowers in modification programs.
Obama To Take Big New Step On The Foreclosure Crisis, As He Orders Lenders To Cut Jobless Homeowners A Break by Joe Weisenthal - BusinessInsider.com -- Things are starting to happen on the foreclosure front which will probably have long-tern negative consequences, but which in the short term may mitigate the the situation somewhat. Until now, the big news of the week has been Bank of America (BAC) announcing plans to get serious about principal reduction -- the one one form of mortgage mod that actually can work in some cases.
Obama Administration to Announce Expansion of HAMP Principal Reductions and Help for Unemployed Mandelman Matters Okay, so I feel a little bit like Charlie Brown looking at Lucy holding out a football, but that being said… On Friday, the White House is expected to announce an expansion of the president’s Making Home Affordable loan modification program to include reducing the mortgage loan balances for some homeowners, and providing additional temporary assistance to unemployed homeowners. Although unofficial, the rumors are that the expansion will allow unemployed borrowers to make significantly reduced payments—or potentially a break from making any payments at all—for at least three and in some cases, up to six months. The changes are also said to require banks to consider writing down principal loan balances as part of the formula for lowering monthly payments under the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP.
Obama's New Radical Foreclosure Plan: Pay People To Sell Their Homes Short by Jonathan Miller - BusinessInsider.com The Obama administration has come up with a radically aggressive plan to reduce foreclosure activity which has remained alarmingly high. The key ingredient is to encourage lenders/services to allow more short sales – selling the home for less than the amount of the mortgage without going after the debtor for the shortfall. Mortgage modification plans have not been successful to date. The New York Times page 1 story today Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss does a masterful job in presenting the program and summarizing the problems of the issue to date, I just wish the title wasn’t so simplistic.
US Debt: A Bigger Threat than Terrorism? By Dave Gonigam - DailyReckoning.com 03/25/10 Baltimore, Maryland – Public opinion polls are a dime a dozen. But put a few of them together, and an interesting picture starts to emerge… Let’s start with the one that hits like a two-by-four: 79% of Americans polled by Fox News and Opinion Dynamics believe it’s possible the US economy could “collapse.” Republican, Democrat, independent – doesn’t matter, the majorities are overwhelming.
US Debt Reaches Tipping Point By: Dr. Jeffrey Lewis - GoldSeek.com Even the most statist economists can understand that a country’s debt has reached its saturation point once the change in Gross Domestic Product is less than the change in the federal debt. However, now the metrics of the American economy look even worse than the picture painted above. For each new dollar in federal debt, with productivity as measured by an increase or decrease in the GDP, 45 cents of wealth is destroyed.
Will Fed Finagling Send Gold Skyrocketing Again? By PETER COHAN - DailyFinance.com Investors don't expect the Fed to raise interest rates for a while. According to CNNMoney, the spread on a 10-year interest rate swap, reflecting how much an issuer of floating-rate bonds would pay to fix the interest rate on those bonds, turned negative this week for the first time. This is great news for gold bugs, who love nothing more than a chance to chatter about the Fed's out-of-control money printing. But this prolonged low-interest theory is at odds with the opinions of analysts at Moody's (MCO), which threatened to downgrade its U.S. debt ratings last week. The credit rating agency is worried that the rate the government pays to borrow money for five years will "nearly double between now and 2012," according to CNNMoney, and that higher interest expense could crowd out other, more productive, ways to spend government money.
Gold ticks higher as euro bounces By Lewa Pardomuan of Reuters SINGAPORE - Gold has regained strength after the euro rebounded from a 10-month low against the US dollar, while steady purchases from jewellers in Asia offered additional support. Bullion has dropped nearly $US14 this week, mainly due to a rally in the dollar and uncertainty over a bailout package for debt-ridden Greece, but an increase in ETF holdings showed gold still attracted investors as currencies remained volatile. The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust , said its holdings stood at 1,124.647 tonnes as of March 25, up 4.568 tonnes from the previous business day.
Was gold price really manipulated? By Jon Nadler - MarketOracle.com Following their (sovereign debt jitters-induced) worst drop in seven weeks, gold prices managed to stabilize in the overnight period. Bullion climbed back towards the $1095.00 value zone after the euro regained a bit of lost ground ahead of the start of an EU summit later today. The common currency remains not too far from ten-month lows against the US dollar however, as credit problems in various EU nations continue to roil the markets and unnerve investors. For the moment, however, the euro got a bit of a reprieve following assurances by ECB President Trichet that emergency collateral rules will be extended beyond the end of this year.
EU Worries Jump-Start Spot Gold By Andrea Tse - TheStreet.com NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- New York spot gold prices have gained ground late afternoon with European Union leaders convening at a Europe Union summit, and troubleshooting Greece's debt troubles at the top of their priority list. "Following their (sovereign debt jitters-induced) worst drop in seven weeks, gold prices managed to stabilize in the overnight period," Kitco analyst Jon Nadler writes. "Bullion climbed back towards the $1,095 value zone after the euro regained a bit of lost ground ahead of the start of an EU summit later today."
Gold/Silver ratio moves sharply in favor of Silver Is silver performing better than gold? If so, why is silver turning out to be a better investment proposition than gold? In its latest Metals Monthly, VM Group research for Fortis Bank Nederland says that the gold/silver ratio has moved sharply in silver’s favor. Here is what Fortis Bank Nederland says on silver investment: "Silver has performed strongly recently, especially in comparison with gold.
CFTC to probe silver market manipulation By Debbie Carlson - MarketOracle.com The CFTC said it continues to look into allegations of market manipulation in the silver market from August 2008 when prices fell, but an acting director of surveillance at the agency proposed possible reasons why it may have happened. In written testimony at the CFTC’s hearing about possible position limits on the metals futures markets, Steve Sherrod, acting director of surveillance at the CFTC’s division of market oversight noted when Comex silver prices fell sharply there was no magnitude change in the aggregate long or short positions in the commitment of traders’ positions in the agency’s weekly data. Nor was there a significant change in open interest during the period of July and August 2008. These are some of the reasons critics claim manipulation.
China may keep yuan cheap, increase gold reserves By Thomas Hart Wilkins, CFA At a Meeting of the New York Society of Security Analysts entitled, “Gold: A Necessary Asset Class Not Just for the Doomsday Scenario” New York City, March 25, 2010 I wish to start our discussion tonight by assuming that we are turning the clock to a new Day Light Losing Standard by saying today’s date is June 5, 1947 rather than 2010. I start June 5th by saying: “Tomorrow will be the 3rd anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy and I have just learned that Secretary of State, George Marshall, will speak in a few minutes at Harvard University. He will advocate a plan for economic recovery of Europe of Western Europe. This will prevent European governments from destabilizing.
The Competitive Currency Devaluation Era Gains Momentum Ed Rollins - GoldSeek.com You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising budget is big enough. Portugal has just had its credit rating cut and both Greece and Spain are now begging the EU to set up a bailout fund to help the beggar nations (PIIGS) who are unwilling to curb their spending habits. In our previous article, we made the following comments. Indirectly they have been begging for assistance from the very start. This aid package will trigger other beggar members of the PIIGS group to eventually join the handout club. Next in line is probably Spain. If the top members of the EU wanted to send a strong message to the weak members they should have stuck hard and fast to their previous claims that no aid would be forthcoming. Euro Woes, Part II: Have We Entered the Devalue or Die Era?
China Officials Wrestle Publicly Over Currency By KEITH BRADSHER - NYTimes.com BEIJING — Signs are emerging of conflicting views among China’s leaders over whether to allow the country’s currency to rise against the dollar. The conflict, which has broken into rare public view, seems to be mainly between China’s central bank and its Commerce Ministry. But how it is eventually resolved could decide the course of trade tensions between China and the United States. Many experts contend China deliberately undervalues its currency, the renminbi, making Chinese exports more competitive on global markets and creating jobs in China at the expense of employment elsewhere.
Greenberg Says China Ties at Risk From U.S. Debate Over Yuan by Sara Eisen and Andrew Frye -- March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the investor and executive who helped open the insurance market in China, said U.S. politicians are putting relations with that country at risk by openly demanding a stronger yuan. “Doing this publicly is just a very tragic mistake,” said Greenberg, who led American International Group Inc. as chief executive officer for nearly four decades until 2005. “The risk is that we’ll have a relationship with China that’ll go down the toilet,” he said yesterday in a telephone interview with Bloomberg Television.
Niall Ferguson Repeats The Line About China Not Revaluing Its Currency Because Its Leaders Have Big Egos by Joe Weisenthal - BusinessInsider.com -- Here's a video of Niall Ferguson on Bloomberg today talking China, the yuan, and all the same trade stuff that everyone's been chewing on for awhile now. At one point he's asked why China doesn't revalue it, and he gives the stock answer about China not wanting to be bullied, but how they should. This whole thing about China, and its ego, and its desire not to be bullied or humiliated is an old story and it gets repeated about a whole host of topics.
Niall Ferguson
Admiral: China's buildup aimed at power past Asia By Bill Gertz - WashingtonTimes.com U.S. role in region challenged The commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific said Thursday that the buildup of Chinese armed forces is continuing "unabated" and Beijing's goal appears to be power projection beyond Asia. "China's rapid and comprehensive transformation of its armed forces is affecting regional military balances and holds implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region," said Adm. Robert F. Willard, the Pacific Command leader. "Of particular concern is that elements of China's military modernization appear designed to challenge our freedom of action in the region."
Swap Spreads Plunge as Portugal Downgrade Boosts Risk By Liz Capo McCormick March 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. interest rate swap spreads plunged to the lowest levels in over two decades after Fitch Ratings’ downgrade of Portugal raised the risk of owning sovereign debt and corporate bond issuance surged. The difference between the rate to exchange floating- for fixed-interest payments and comparable maturity Treasury yields for 5 years, known as the swap spread, touched 11.25 basis points, the narrowest since at least 1988, or as far back as Bloomberg compiles data. Ten-year swap spreads turned negative yesterday for the first time. Seven- 30-year swap spreads were also negative, while two-year swap spreads touched the narrowest since 1993 at 9.635 basis points.
Constitutional Awakening By Walter E. Williams - CNSNews.com If there is anything good to say about Democrat control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, it's that their extraordinarily brazen, heavy-handed acts have aroused a level of constitutional interest among the American people that has been dormant for far too long. Part of this heightened interest is seen in the strength of the tea party movement around the nation. Another is the angry reception that many congressmen received at their district town hall meetings. Yet another is seen by the exchanges on the nation's most popular radio talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and others. Then there's the rising popularity of conservative/libertarian television shows such as Glenn Beck, John Stossel and Fox News.
Sean Hannity: 'If You Look Up the Dictionary Definition of Socialism, This Is It' By Terence P. Jeffrey - CNSNews.com -- In a preview of his book "Conservative Victory-Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda," due to be released Monday, Sean Hannity said of the policies President Barack Obama has been pursuing: "If you look up the dictionary definition of socialism, this is it." Hannity made the observation in a video interview with CNSNews.com.
CNSNews.com: Sean, what is the consistent theme you see in these earlier associations of Barack Obama--the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers--and what he's doing as president? What is the theme that you see there?
Sean Hannity: That's a great question. Well, because, look, Obama is a socialist. If you take over banks, if you take over car companies, if you take over financial institutions, the way that he has--now the health care system. If you're going to use every crooked deal that you can come up with to get a bill like that passed--most recently the health care bill--that is by definition, if you look up the dictionary definition of socialism, this is it.
Fed's Hoenig Backs More Diverse Financial System By Luca Di Leo - WSJ.com The U.S. economy would be better off with a system in which there are fewer big financial firms that were at the root of the recent crisis, a top Federal Reserve official signaled on Wednesday. In a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig endorsed a proposal that could force large banks to get rid of divisions that make risky bets with their capital. "I suggest that our economy would be better served by a more diverse financial system," Hoenig said. The growth of big financial companies to a level were they pose a threat to the overall economy has distorted the financial system, the Fed veteran added.
Bernanke Hints at Timing of Exit Strategy By SEWELL CHAN - NYTimes.com WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, hinted on Thursday that the central bank might be open to selling part of its huge portfolio of mortgage-backed securities when the time came to start tightening credit. In testimony Thursday before the House Financial Services Committee, Mr. Bernanke did not depart from the Fed’s stance that it intended to keep short-term interest rates near zero for “an extended period,” given that unemployment remained high and inflation was expected to remain low.
Budget 2010: Little to safeguard UK's AAA rating By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk Bond vigilantes and rating agencies gave a frosty reception to the Budget, warning that Alistair Darling has done little to restore faith in UK finances or safeguard its AAA rating. "Public debt does not fall materially until after 2014-15. This projected path leaves the public finances vulnerable to shocks," said Brian Coulton from Fitch Ratings, responding to the Budget. While eurozone states are cutting their deficits to 3pc of GDP within three years, Britain is cutting to 5.2pc over four years. "We don't see why the UK thinks it has more time than other countries," he said.
Jim Rogers quizzed on euro, Greece bailout, EU future
Chinese Banker Faults Greece Efforts By ALEX FRANGOS And KATIE MARTIN - WSJ.com A senior Chinese central bank official criticized the handling of the Greek debt crisis, highlighting global concern about the situation in Europe. Speaking at a conference in Hong Kong, Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, also said China "should and could" import more goods to keep its trade surplus small. And he noted that the central bank's efforts to tighten monetary policy were having their intended effect, even without China having to raise interest rates.
Eurozone agrees to Greek rescue deal By Quentin Peel, Ben Hall and Joshua Chaffin in Brussels Eurozone leaders on Thursday night agreed a rescue package for Greece including assistance from the International Monetary Fund as well as bilateral loans from fellow euro-member states. “We hope that it will reassure all the holders of Greek bonds that the eurozone will never let Greece fail,” said Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council. “If there were any danger, the other members of the eurozone would intervene.” The agreement followed a breakthrough earlier in the day between France and Germany on the principles of a rescue.
Trichet comments damp risk appetite By Telis Demos in New York - FT Euro tumbles to fresh 10-month low First, a senior Chinese central banker warned that the Greek crisis was just the beginning. “We don’t see decisive actions telling the market we can solve this,” Zhu Min, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, was reported as saying. His comments caused the euro to dip to a 10-month low versus the dollar, and encapsulated a nagging worry among investors that high levels of government indebtedness is one of the main risks facing the global economy.
Britons Cling to Services, Despite Debt By LANDON THOMAS Jr. - NYTimes.com LONDON — Britain operates one of the largest welfare states in Europe. And that, it seems, is just fine with many of the British. Despite the worst recession since World War II, many people here show little appetite for shrinking a system that eats up half the nation’s economic output, more than in Portugal, Greece or Spain — all of which are trying to push through painful cuts. Indeed, as Britain’s Labour government confronts a yawning budget deficit, public sector workers are mobilizing to head off any reductions in wages or jobs.
Regulators push InterBank to find buyer Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal - by Chris Newmarker InterBank, a Maple Grove-based savings and loan mired in bad mortgages, has until June 30 to find a buyer or face further sanctions, according to a recent order from regulators. The prompt corrective action directive, issued March 18 by InterBank's regulator the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), orders the thrift to arrange a merger, or find a party willing to buy its assets and liabilities. InterBank, which has $701.2 million in assets, lost $16.3 million in 2009. It lost $23.4 million the previous year. Its risk-based capital ratio is 6.6 percent; a financial institution typically needs a ratio above 10 percent for regulators to consider it well-capitalized.
Citigroup signs up for mortgage modification program NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. today became the latest lender to commit to the government's program to modify second mortgages as a recovery in the housing market appears to be in jeopardy. With Citi on board, now four big owners of home mortgages in the U.S. have joined the program - part of the Obama administration's $75 billion loan modification plan aimed at reducing monthly payments to help customers stay in their homes. Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. already participate. A collapse in the housing market late in 2007 helped push the economy into recession as home prices fell and defaults skyrocketed. A recovery in the sector has been slow and uneven as customers continue to struggle to pay their loans. Home sales are sliding, prices are stalling and foreclosures are rising. Making matters worse, mortgage rates will likely climb after next week when the Federal Reserve ends a program that has driven them down.
Bank Launches Big Plan to Cut Mortgage Debt By JAMES R. HAGERTY And NICK TIMIRAOS - WSJ.com Under pressure by Massachusetts prosecutors, Bank of America Corp. said Wednesday it would reduce mortgage-loan balances as much as 30% for thousands of troubled borrowers, in what could presage a wider government effort to encourage banks to offer debt reduction to ease the mortgage crisis. The plan is one of the boldest moves yet to address the plight of millions of U.S. homeowners who are "under water," owing more on their homes than they're worth. It could make it easier for the Obama administration to move in a similar direction with its existing loan-modification program, although senior government officials and many bankers remain very wary of offering to cut loan balances as the main way of helping distressed borrowers.
Bernanke: Fed Likely to Sell Some of Its Mortgages Eventually By Jon Hilsenrath Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke carves out new ground in his testimony to Congress today, saying the Fed is likely to start at some point gradually to sell some of its large holdings of mortgage backed securities. His goal, he says, is to get his $2 trillion balance sheet down to below $1 trillion. One way to do that is to sell mortgage-backed securities. This matters a lot for millions of Americans because if the Fed sells pieces of its trillion-dollar mortgage portfolio, it could put upward pressure on mortgage rates.
Washington to run student loans By Jennifer Libert WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- Congress passed a bill Thursday to make Washington the one-stop shop for cheap student loans and to boost need-based scholarships. Starting July 1 nearly all federally backed student loans, like Stafford loans, will come directly from the federal government. The measure prevents private student lenders, including Sallie Mae (SLM, Fortune 500) and Nelnet (NNI), from making loans, although both have federal contracts to service government loans to students.
Futile Attempts To Reflate The Housing Bubble & The Deadly Cost By: Daniel R. Amerman, CFA When a financial bubble bursts – can it be reflated? And what are the risks for all of us the reflation attempt fails? In this article we will briefly review the six factors that came together to create the real estate bubble in the United States. As we will cover, the government has deemed a return to a normal housing market – one which is governed by market forces – to be politically unacceptable. Instead, an artificial mortgage market has been created with massive interventions in three different categories as the government attempts to reflate the housing bubble. Quite a risky undertaking, but the politicians have decided they are willing to risk everything the taxpayers and savers have, in an attempt to remain in office. These interventions include the Federal Reserve effectively creating money out of thin air to fund almost the entire mortgage market at below market rates. We will explore why the three interventions will not succeed in replacing the six sources of the bubble, and the severe risks for all of us when attempting the economically impossible becomes politically mandatory. We will close with a discussion of the likely implications for the housing market and the value of the dollar, as well as a brief discussion of alternative solutions for protecting your net worth.
Homeowners Facing Foreclosure Take Own Lives Walt Hunter - PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) The foreclosure crisis in Philadelphia is now becoming a matter of life and death. Eyewitness News has learned that in the past month, two homeowners took their own lives before sheriff's deputies arrived to tell them that they were being evicted. On March 5, deputies arriving to post an eviction notice on Lynda Clark's South Philadelphia home found she had hanged herself. "It's devastating for everyone. We're not even family members and it's just devastating to us," Captain Albert Innaurato of the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office said. Less than three weeks later, owner Gregory Bellows shot and killed himself shortly before deputies arrived to evict him from his Roxborough home.
Apartment rents cheaper than stays in homeless shelters By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY Cities, states and the federal government pay more to provide the homeless with short-term shelter and services than what it would cost to rent permanent housing, the U.S. government reports. A study of 9,000 families and individuals being released today by the Department of Housing and Urban Development finds that costs to house the newly homeless vary widely, depending on the type of shelter and social services provided by the six cities in the report.
Negative equity homes in Atlanta years from turnaround Atlanta Business Chronicle Metro Atlanta homeowners who are underwater in their mortgages are not expected to reach positive equity until 2016, according to First American CoreLogic research published Thursday. A borrower is in negative equity if he or she owes more on the mortgage than the home is worth. First American CoreLogic said more than 11.3 million -- or 24 percent of -- residential properties with mortgages in the United States had negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter of 2009. For the typical underwater borrower in the United States, it will take until late 2015 or early 2016 for negative equity to disappear.
Social Security to pay more in benefits this year than it takes in USAToday.com - OnDeadline.com The Social Security system this year will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, The New York Times reports, quoting the Congressional Budget Office. The switch comes six years earlier than expected, The Times says. The newspaper quotes Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, as saying payments have risen more than expected during the recession because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, he says, there are fewer paychecks to tax.
Will America break up? By Jeffrey T. Kuhner - WashingtonTimes.com Abortion threatens to split the nation like slavery President Obama is splintering America. The passage of Obamacare was a historic victory for liberal governance. Yet, its true cost may be that it triggers the eventual breakup of the country. Mr. Obama has achieved what his liberal predecessors - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton - could only dream of: nationalized health care. Obamacare signifies the government take-over of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. It has dealt a mortal blow to traditional America. We are now a European-style socialist welfare state. The inevitable permanent tax hikes, massive public bureaucracy and liberal ruling elites will stifle competition and initiative.
More Doctors Giving Up Private Practices By GARDINER HARRIS - NYTimes.com WASHINGTON — A quiet revolution is transforming how medical care is delivered in this country, and it has very little to do with the sweeping health care legislation that President Obama just signed into law. But it could have a big impact on that law’s chances for success. Traditionally, American medicine has been largely a cottage industry. Most doctors cared for patients in small, privately owned clinics — sometimes in rooms adjoining their homes.
Study: Retired couple will need $250,000 for health care BOSTON (AP) — Relief to seniors facing high prescription drug costs is one of the first changes to come under the health care overhaul. But that won't offset the relentless increase in retirees' medical expenses. A couple retiring this year will need a quarter of a million dollars, on average, to cover medical expenses in retirement, according to a study to be released Thursday by Fidelity Investments. The estimate is up 4.2% from Fidelity's projection last year. The financial services company has updated its estimate annually since 2002 as part of its business helping employers design workplace benefits programs.
Final health care bill approved; on to Obama By Jennifer Haberkorn - WashingtonTimes.com Passes in House 220-207 Congress passed the final repairs to President Obama's landmark health care overhaul plan Thursday, successfully pulling off a plan to circumvent a Republican filibuster put together shortly after Senate Democrats lost their supermajority in January. The bill passed the Senate 56-43 with five more votes than needed, but it had to go back to the House for another vote after Republicans were able to delete two provisions.
Final Piece of Health Bill Hits Snag By GREG HITT - WSJ.com WASHINGTON-The last piece of President Barack Obama's remake of the nation's health-care system hit a parliamentary snag early Thursday in the Senate, and will be headed back to the House for one final vote before becoming law, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said. The legislation makes a handful of changes to the sweeping health bill, including bolstering government subsidies to help individuals purchase health insurance and closing a politically unpopular gap in prescription-drug coverage under Medicare, the health insurance for seniors. The measure has been debated in the Senate since Tuesday, and Democratic leaders had hoped to conclude Senate action Thursday.
Cantor Says Campaign Office Was Shot At, Accuses Dems of Exploiting Threats FOXNews.com Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain." Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain."
Markey Received Threats Over Health Care Vote Alan Gathright, 7NEWS TheDenverChannel.com Caller: 'Better hope I don’t run into you in a dark alley with a knife, a club or a gun' FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Colorado Rep. Betsy Markey is among more than 10 Democrats in Congress who have received threats over voting for passage of the hotly contested health care reform bill. A man called Markey's congressional office the day before the Sunday vote and told an assistant that "[you] better hope I don’t run into you in a dark alley with a knife, a club or a gun," MSNBC reported Wednesday. The FBI is investigating threats against the lawmakers after acts of vandalism that included shattered windows at four Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas and a severed gas line at the Virginia home of a Democratic lawmaker’s brother, MSNBC reported.
"DROP DEAD": White Powder Package Sent to Rep. Weiner's Office Preliminary field tests show white powder is harmless By JONATHAN DIENST - NBCNewYork.com Authorities are investigating a package with white powder and an angry letter that referenced the health care legislation that was sent to Congressman Weiner's Kew Gardens office today. The letter said the Congressman should "drop dead" and complained about the historic health care legislation passed by Congress this week. Preliminary field tests showed the white powder was harmless. Such testing is routine to determine whether the substance is in any way hazardous. It is being sent to a lab for further detailed testing as a precaution -- also common practice. Most often, officials say, these letters are hoaxes.
Threats against lawmakers spread after health vote By LAURIE KELLMAN and JIM ABRAMS WASHINGTON (AP) - A fax bearing the image of a noose. Profane voice mails. Bricks thrown, a gas line cut. White powder sent to an office. Democrats and a few Republicans revealed mounting numbers and unsettling details of threats against them Thursday in the emotional aftermath of the passage of the health care overhaul. Lawmakers uniformly condemned the harassment, but that's where the agreement ended. Democrats said Republicans were slow to condemn the vigilantism, while Republicans said Democrats were playing politics with the threats.
Senate Approves Health Care Reconciliation Bill By ARTHUR D. POSTAL - Property-Casualty.com NU Online News Service WASHINGTON-The Senate has approved a final reconciliation bill that completes that chamber's action on pending health care reform measures. It was approved 56-43 on a party line vote today. Democrats had predicted that they would get 52 votes on the measure. The bill is H.R. 5872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010. House final approval was expected to follow shortly. All but one Republican Senator voted "no," Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., did not vote. Democratic Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas, voted against it, as did Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. In a statement after the vote, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which drafted what he called a "substantial portion" of the bill that President Obama signed Tuesday, hailed the Senate action.
Judge Andrew Napolitano Speaks Out Against 'Obamacare' Law on The Alex Jones Show 1/5
Judge Andrew Napolitano Speaks Out Against 'Obamacare' Law on The Alex Jones Show 2/5
Judge Andrew Napolitano Speaks Out Against 'Obamacare' Law on The Alex Jones Show 3/5
Judge Andrew Napolitano Speaks Out Against 'Obamacare' Law on The Alex Jones Show 4/5
Judge Andrew Napolitano Speaks Out Against 'Obamacare' Law on The Alex Jones Show 5/5
Cuban leader applauds US health-care reform bill By PAUL HAVEN AP via WashingtonPost.com HAVANA -- It perhaps was not the endorsement President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for. Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago. "We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government," Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president's hand against lobbyists and "mercenaries."
MoneyMorning.com wants to hear what you think about health care legislation.
We Want to Hear From You: What Do You Think About the New Healthcare Law? MoneyMorning.com After months of controversy, political bickering and maneuvering, and intense media speculation and scrutiny, this week became a historically significant moment in the annals of U.S. healthcare when U.S. President Barack Obama signed the new healthcare bill into law. Thus begins a new chapter in the healthcare saga, when the country will feel the effects of this sweeping, costly and controversial policy overhaul. . . . . e-mail your healthcare-related questions and comments to: Mailbag@MoneyMapPress.com
Deere: Health-Care Law to Raise Expenses Associated Press - WSJ.com Deere & Co. said Thursday that the new health-care law will raise its fiscal 2010 expenses by approximately $150 million. The farm-equipment maker said most of the after-tax expenses will likely be incurred in the second quarter and that its 2010 earnings forecast of about $1.3 billion didn't account for the expense increase because it was given prior to the law's signing. Deere, based in Moline, Ill., is the second company this week to indicate that the new law will increase its costs. On Wednesday, heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said the new law would create a $100 million drag on its first-quarter earnings.
Conservative David Frum loses think-tank job after criticizing GOP By Howard Kurtz - Washington Post Three days after calling health-care reform a debacle for Republicans, David Frum was forced out of his job at the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday. The ouster also came one day after a harsh Wall Street Journal editorial ripped the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, saying he "now makes his living as the media's go-to basher of fellow Republicans" and accusing him of "peddling bad revisionist history."
Nano car bursts into flames, raising safety fears By Erika Kinetz, AP via USAToday.com MUMBAI, India — Satish Sawant was proudly driving his first car home from the showroom: A brand-new silver Tata Nano, draped with a celebratory garland of marigolds. Then there was smoke. And then there was fire. Minutes after the software engineer's wife and five-year-old son clambered out of the back seat, smoke from the engine, located in the Nano's rear, erupted into flames that engulfed the tiny car. His ordeal showed just the latest problem with the low-cost Nano — raising fresh questions about safety and quality as top Indian carmaker Tata Motors sets its sights on global expansion and aims to ramp up production of the Nano with a new factory next month.
Houston Police To Begin Training Officers To Staff Checkpoints Sarge, an Anonymous Police Officer - Infowars.com The Houston Police Department is poised to do what no other civilian police department in the United States has yet to publicly do. On the desk of the Chief of Police is the authorization to begin training officers to staff checkpoints at key infrastructure points throughout the city. Although the talk about creating such a group has been discussed among supervisors of the Special Response Group for years, only in the last few months have those talks become reality. This idea received support of the former Chief of Police Harold Hurtt, but wasn’t signed before he retired on December 30, 2009 due to it being under review by departmental lawyers. Now under the just-named Chief of Police Charles McClelland, it stands ready to be signed and implemented almost immediately.
Dogs suffer cancer after ID chipping By Chelsea Schilling - WorldNetDaily.com 'I saw it growing every day, and I could see it taking his life' Do implanted microchips cause cancer in dogs and cats? That's the question owners are asking after highly aggressive tumors developed around the microchip implants of two dogs, killing one and leaving the other terminally ill. The owners – and pathology and autopsy reports – suggest a link between the chips and formation of fast-growing cancers.
U.S. Fails to Persuade Israel on Housing Plan By HELENE COOPER and ISABEL KERSHNER - NYTimes.com WASHINGTON — With Israeli officials saying that construction on a contentious Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem could begin at any time, President Obama seemed to have failed on Wednesday to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give a written commitment to rein in any further building and to move ahead on peace talks with the Palestinians. Mr. Netanyahu left the United States early on Thursday. But before departing for Jerusalem, he said that he thought some progress had been made in healing the rift with Washington, The Associated Press reported. “I think we have found the golden path between Israel’s traditional policies and our desire to move forward toward peace,” he said, according to The A.P.
Bin Laden Threatens US over Alleged 9/11 Plotter By Staff, Associated Press - CNSNews.com Cairo (AP) - Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatened in a new audio recording released Thursday to kill any captured Americans if the U.S. executes the self-professed mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks or any other al-Qaida suspects. The U.S. is still considering whether to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his fellow plotters on military tribunal for their role in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Obama administration is also looking into recommendations for civilian trials, and is expected to announce a decision soon. In a brief 74-second audio tape aired on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden said if the U.S. decides to execute any al-Qaida suspects in its custody - and explicitly mentioned Mohammed - his terror network would kill American captives.
Kitty Werthmann Interview
Kitty Werthmann Part 2
Kitty Werthmann Part 3
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away Fort Worth Christianity & Culture ExaminerRene Girard By: Kitty Werthmann What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote.. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. . .
Freedoms can disappear in a hurry if we aren't careful Kitty Werthmann For the Argus Leader published: 3/11/2003 Kitty Werthmann, 77, of Pierre, is president of the South Dakota Eagle Forum. She lobbies the state Legislature on family issues. She has lived in the United States since 1950 and has been a U.S. citizen since 1962. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. I lived in Austria under Adolf Hitler's regime for seven years. Dictatorship did not happen overnight. It was a gradual process starting with national identification cards, which we had to carry with us at all times. We could not board a bus or train without our ID card. Gun registration followed, with a lot of talk about gun safety and hunting accidents. Since the government already knew who owned firearms, confiscation followed under threat of capital punishment.
Tom Woods vs Neil Siegel on States' Rights - NPR Debate 3/23/10
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away Fort Worth Christianity & Culture ExaminerRene Girard By: Kitty Werthmann What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote.. I’ve never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. . .
Freedoms can disappear in a hurry if we aren't careful Kitty Werthmann For the Argus Leader published: 3/11/2003 Kitty Werthmann, 77, of Pierre, is president of the South Dakota Eagle Forum. She lobbies the state Legislature on family issues. She has lived in the United States since 1950 and has been a U.S. citizen since 1962. hose of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. I lived in Austria under Adolf Hitler's regime for seven years. Dictatorship did not happen overnight. It was a gradual process starting with national identification cards, which we had to carry with us at all times. We could not board a bus or train without our ID card. Gun registration followed, with a lot of talk about gun safety and hunting accidents. Since the government already knew who owned firearms, confiscation followed under threat of capital punishment.
Now, Can We Have Health-Care Reform? By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR. - WSJ.com ObamaCare doubles down on a failing system. A certain kind of person—we get emails from them all the time—understands exactly nothing about the health-care debate, but thinks they know who the villain is: the insurance industry. Barack Obama is not one of them. In the desperate hours he played to public ignorance. But from the beginning, the industry was his ally because he set out to solve its biggest problem—which is not the same as America's biggest problem. We'll let Angela Braly, CEO of insurer WellPoint, take the story from here. She was recently hauled before Congress to justify her company's proposed 39% rate hike in California. She explained the source was two-fold: rising medical costs and healthier customers dropping their coverage, forcing the sick to pick up the tab.
Obamacare: Ending the Elderly American Life League exposes the euthanasia agenda of the sponsors of HR 3200. Henry Waxman and co-sponsors John Dingell, George Miller, Peter Stark, and Frank Pallone all voted against a federal ban on use of drugs for physician assisted suicide. Not only that, Barack Obama equates physician-assisted suicide with "end of life issues" and the elderly.
ObamaCare Day One Companies are already warning about higher health-care costs. Democrats dragged themselves over the health-care finish line in part by repeating that voters would like the plan once it passed. Let's see what they think when they learn their insurance costs will jump right away. Even before President Obama signed the bill on Tuesday, Caterpillar said it would cost the company at least $100 million more in the first year alone. Medical device maker Medtronic warned that new taxes on its products could force it to lay off a thousand workers. Now Verizon joins the roll of businesses staring at adverse consequences.
The Federal Reserve as a Confidence Game: What They Were Saying in 2007 Mises Daily: by Mark Thornton . . . . I will describe central banking as a confidence game. The Federal Reserve plays a confidence game with us. A confidence game (also known as a bunko, con, flimflam, hustle, scam, scheme, or swindle) is defined as an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. The victim is known as the mark, the trickster is called a confidence man, con man, or con artist, and any accomplices are known as shills. Confidence men exploit human characteristics such as greed, vanity, honesty, compassion, credulity, and naïveté. The common factor is that the mark relies on the good faith of the con artist. Here I will concentrate on the Fed's basic confidence game of trying to gain and maintain our confidence in its system and getting us to not take proper precautions against the negative effects of its policies.
Health Care Bill -- bad medicine & unconstitutional
Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest. Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it. Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”
No Obamacare for Obama By THE WASHINGTON TIMES Democrats exempt themselves from socialist medicine President Obama declared that the new health care law "is going to be affecting every American family." Except his own, of course. The new health care law exempts the president from having to participate in it. Leadership and committee staffers in the House and Senate who wrote the bill are exempted as well. A weasel-worded definition of "staff" includes only the members' personal staff in the new system; the committee staff that drafted the legislation opted themselves out. Because they were more familiar with the contents of the law than anyone in the country, it says a lot that they carved out their own special loophole. Anyway, the law is intended to affect "ordinary Americans," according to Vice President Joe Biden (who - being a heartbeat away from the presidency - also is not covered), not Washington insiders.
Gross Says Health-Care Reform to Raise Liabilities By Susanne Walker March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest mutual fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said health-care reform will add to, rather than subtract from, U.S. deficits and unfunded liabilities. “Long-term bondholders beware,” Gross wrote in a monthly investment outlook posted on Newport Beach, California-based Pimco’s Web site today. “No investment vigilante worth their salt or outrageous annual bonus would dare argue that current legislation is a deficit reducer. It will add $562 billion to the deficit over the next decade.”
Ronald Reagan speaks out on Socialized Medicine
Healthcare Intervention: The Bigger Picture Mises Daily: by Doug French The prospect and reality of Obamacare have woken up many people to the need to stop the socialization of medical care in America. It will produce here what it has produced everywhere: stagnation, overutilization, rationing, and the sacrifice of individual well-being in the name of collective justice. This is the result not only of every experiment in socialized medicine but of every experiment in socialism generally. The reasons were spelled out by Mises in 1922. He explained that, without property and market prices, economic rationality disappears. The result is unworkable, chaotic, and impoverishing.
Your Medical Records Aren't Secure By DEBORAH C. PEEL - WSJ.com The president says electronic systems will reduce costs and improve quality, but they could undermine good care if people are afraid to confide in their doctors. I learned about the lack of health privacy when I hung out my shingle as a psychiatrist. Patients asked if I could keep their records private if they paid for care themselves. They had lost jobs or reputations because what they said in the doctor's office didn't always stay in the doctor's office. That was 35 years ago, in the age of paper. In today's digital world the problem has only grown worse. A patient's sensitive information should not be shared without his consent. But this is not the case now, as the country moves toward a system of electronic medical records.
U.N. health organization praises U.S. health reforms Matthew Bigg (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. World Health Organization on Wednesday praised U.S. healthcare reforms signed by President Barack Obama this week as a breakthrough, stepping into a sharp domestic political debate. "The people in this country and their leaders are courageous. That (healthcare reform) is an unprecedented achievement," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said. She was speaking to reporters after a lecture in which she argued that unrestricted market forces were limited as a means of redressing imbalances in global health care. The reforms of the $2.5 trillion healthcare sector passed by Congress after months of heated debate will extend health insurance to 32 million Americans who currently have none.
Health bill sparks death threats to lawmakers By Edward Luce - FT More than 10 Democratic lawmakers have received threats, some of them to their lives, since they voted to enact the healthcare bill on Sunday, Steny Hoyer, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, said on Wednesday. Pointing to the high level of Republican rhetoric against the healthcare reform, which has included references to fighting “a war for the survival of America” over a bill that Barack Obama, president, signed into law on Tuesday, Mr Hoyer implied such talk had fuelled the increase in threats.
Obama's constitutional malpractice Health care plan would make the Founders sick By THE WASHINGTON TIMES Americans have grown used to Congress claiming the right to regulate and control everything they do. But by what right can Congress force Americans to purchase health insurance? This question is at the root of lawsuits filed by 14 states challenging Obamacare's requirement that those without health insurance must obtain it or face fines of $2,085 per household or 2.5 percent of income - whichever is greater.
Dingell: It will take some time for ObamaCare to "control the people"
Obamacare and the Death of Detroit, the First U.S. City To Face Extinction By: Gary North - MarketOracle.co.uk To understand what is going to happen to America's health care delivery system, we must first understand what has happened to Detroit. Detroit is dying. Yes, I know that there are lots of books on "The Death of. . . ." That word sells books. But Detroit really is dying. It is the first metropolis in the United States to be facing extinction. We have never seen anything like this in American history. It is happening under our noses, but the media refuse to discuss it. To do so would be politically incorrect. Two factors tell us that Detroit is dying. The first is the departure of 900,000 people – over half the city's population – since 1950. It peaked at 1.8 million in 1950. It is down to about 900,000 today.
Healthy tax increases, not only on wealthy By David M. Dickson Half-trillion dollars over 10 years to pay for bill When it comes to the taxes associated with the new health care bill, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s assessment stands: It's a big — very big — deal. The historic overhaul of the nation's health care system that President Obama signed Tuesday, when combined with the fixes making their way through Congress, will raise taxes over the next 10 years by more than a half-trillion dollars.
U.S. Healthcare Reform Bill, Help! I’ve Been Taxed and I Can’t Get Up By: Jeff Clark - MarketOracle.co.uk Like many of you, the passage of the healthcare bill wasn’t met with the popping of champagne in my house. I found myself chanting “Uncle Sam, Uncle Sham” as the day wore on. Higher taxes and other major changes are headed our way. And yet, I think there’s something in the bill that’s even more dastardly. If you’re a supporter of the bill, you’d point to its benefits: Poor adults will get Medicaid. Low-income families will get federal subsidies to buy insurance. Small businesses may get tax credits. Kids will be able to stay on the parents’ policy until they turn 26. Seniors get additional prescription drug coverage. People with pre-existing medical conditions can’t be denied or dropped.
What Money Is: The Few Control The Many
Steny Hoyer: Members are at risk By JAKE SHERMAN - Politico.com House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is warning that some of his Democratic colleagues are being threatened with violence when they go back to their districts — and he wants Republicans to stand up and condemn the threats. The Maryland Democrat said more than 10 House Democrats have reported incidents of threats or other forms of harassment about their support of the highly divisive health insurance overhaul vote. Hoyer emphasized that he didn’t have a specific number of threats and that was just an estimate.
McConnell eyes majority, then repeal of bill By MIKE ALLEN - Politico.com Refusing to concede permanent defeat on health reform, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wants to “repeal the whole bill” and replace it with insurance reforms and other measures that could get bipartisan agreement. “They got health care,” McConnell told POLITICO with a mischievous glint in his eye. “We’ll see whether that’s a gift worth receiving.” McConnell said that if Republicans were to win back the Senate majority in November, “at the top of our list would be to repeal and replace this health care bill.”
Key Part of Law To Be Clarified By LAURA MECKLER and JANET ADAMY - WSJ.com Officials to Instruct Insurers on Requirement to Cover Sick Kids; GOP Proposes Flurry of Changes to Health Package WASHINGTON—The Obama administration said Wednesday it would issue regulations to make clear that insurers must cover sick children, fixing what appears to be a glitch in the new health law. President Barack Obama has repeatedly touted the requirement as one of the law's most important benefits, and one that will take effect this year. But officials suggested Wednesday that the provision was not precisely written and that the Department of Health and Human Services would issue regulations to make its intent clear. "We will seek to ensure that ... nobody feels that there is any ambiguity," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.
Health care bill would save billions on student loans By Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — Banks and other private lenders are about to lose a $70 billion-a-year student loan business, part of a massive overhaul of college assistance programs that received an unexpected boost from President Barack Obama's health care success. The bill would see $61 billion in savings over 10 years from the switch from private loans to direct government lending. It would pay for Pell Grants and provide more than $4 billion to community colleges and historically black colleges. It also would direct about $19 billion to reducing the deficit and offsetting expenses in the health care legislation. In addition, beginning in 2014, college graduates would be allowed to devote no more than 10% of their monthly income to repay their student loans. The current cap is 15%.
Cyber-attack on U.S. firms, Google traced to Chinese Company networks may be compromised By Bill Gertz The cyber-attack on Google and other U.S. companies was part of a suspected Chinese government operation launched last year that used human intelligence techniques and high-technology to steal corporate secrets, according to U.S. government and private-sector cybersecurity specialists. More worrying, however, is the likelihood that the cyber-attacks that led Google this week to end its cooperation with Beijing-controlled censorship and move its search engine service to Hong Kong included planting undetectable software on American company networks that could allow further clandestine access or even total control of computers in the future.
U.S. Dollar Trend and China News Impact on Gold By: Przemyslaw Radomski - MarketOracle.co.uk In the March 12-th commentary we've discussed the influence that China might have on the precious metals market and since the feedback was very positive, we decided to provide you with a follow-up. April 15th is the date to watch. That’s when the U.S. Treasury Department is mandated by law to issue a report identifying nations that “manipulate the rate of exchange between their currency and the United States dollar for purposes of …gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade.” Does China come to mind? Already the decibel level in Washington is rising and President Barack Obama is faced with growing congressional pressure to get tough with China over its currency practices, something he had promised to do during his presidential campaign. The impact of China’s currency manipulation on the U.S. economy cannot be overstated, said 130 lawmakers in a letter to U.S. Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Inflation Will Be Huge in the Years to Come By: Julie Crawshaw - MoneyNews.com Economist and fund manager John Hussman says inflation will be huge. "It should not escape investors that the rapid expansion of deficits during the 1970s and into the early 1980s was accompanied by a hostile inflation climate, while the fiscal discipline of the 1990s produced a very pleasant period of low inflation pressures," Hussman writes in a note to investors. Hussman’s near-term concern continues to be the risk of fresh credit strains, the likely outcome of which he feels will be a flight-to-safety toward default-free Treasury securities and a tendency toward dollar strength and commodity weakness.
Lawmakers urge action on China currency By David M. Dickson Retaliatory measures sought for 'manipulator' nation With U.S. unemployment stubbornly hovering near double-digit levels and November elections fast approaching, lawmakers from both parties are pressuring the Obama administration to label China a "currency manipulator" when the Treasury Department releases its next semiannual report on April 15. "China has a persistent economic strategy, a policy, key to which is the pegging of its currency to the dollar at an undervalued rate," said Rep. Sander M. Levin, the newly installed chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, at a hearing Wednesday to "consider possible solutions."
Faber: Dismal Stocks, Bonds Create New Gold Standard By: Forrest Jones -- Uncertainties surrounding asset classes such as stocks and bonds have created a new gold standard, says Marc Faber, editor of “The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report.” Between 2001 and 2008, gold outperformed stocks and bonds, but beginning in 2009, stocks soared. That, Faber says, sent some investors to gold for safety because normally, retail investors cannot move in and out of different assets like institutional investors.“I think we already have now a gold standard … created by the market place,” Faber tells CNBC. “We have the [exchange traded funds] that have proliferated and we have more and more physical buying of gold.”
Bond Market Collapse and Stock Market Crash This Year to Send Gold Price Soaring MarketOracle.co.uk . . . . The price of gold right now is nowhere near its high in this particular cycle. In other words, gold is still dirt cheap compared to where it will be by the end of this year, next year, and in the years to come. The Fed is caught between a rock and a hard place and will do what governments always do when they put themselves in these positions. They will try to inflate their way out of the mess they created. The problem thus far is that their inflationary tactics are not working the way they would like as deflationary pressures continue to exert their influence on markets. So expect even bigger and further massive injections of money into the system as the Fed tries to maneuver their way out. History clearly shows that governments caught in such a scenario will soon reach the inflection point where the fiat currency implodes and the credibility of the issuing government collapses. This is not just the case with the United States, but Japan, England, and Euro land as well.
Public vacancy By Derek Scissors - MarketWatch.com Misconceptions on China's role in financing the U.S. deficit BEIJING (Caixin Online) -- The most pressing issue in Sino-American relations right now is that the relationship is misunderstood by both sides. Moreover, the misunderstanding may be sharpening. On the Chinese side, there seems an increasing belief that China is now more important to the U.S. than the U.S. is to China. This is dangerously untrue. On the American side, there is increasing tendency to point fingers at China to avoid our own failures. This will only make matters worse. The misconceptions are many, but perhaps the most important involve the colossal U.S. budget deficit and China's role in financing it, the peg of the yuan to the dollar, and the simplistic notion of mutual Sino-American interdependence. The U.S. and China are interdependent, but China needs the U.S. far more.
Geithner: China letting Fed set yuan's path By Jennifer Liberto - CNNMoney.com WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- In what may be the bluntest assessment by a high-ranking White House official of China's exchange rate policy, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Wednesday that China's undervalued currency makes the nation dependent on U.S. monetary policy. "I think China will be better; they're stronger as an independent country if they're not running an exchange rate policy that, essentially, has the Federal Reserve of the United States setting monetary policy in China," Geithner told CNN's John King in an interview taped for "John King, USA."
Congressman Paul Questions Geithner What part of Austrian economic theory don't you agree with?
Shades of ‘Wall Street’ in Insider Trading Arrests While the sequel to “Wall Street” will finally hit theaters in a few months, it appears other elements of the movie — like the catchy “Blue Horseshoe Loves Anacott Steel” phrase used to abet insider trading — haven’t gone away. Authorities on Wednesday arrested two men, one a UBS investment banker, in connection with an insider trading scheme that purportedly earned about $870,000 in profits. (Read the criminal and civil complaints after the jump.)
JP Morgan Paid $1.9 Billion For Washington Mutual And Now It Wants A $1.4 Billion Tax Refund John Carney - BusinessInsider.com -- JPMorgan Chase is negotiating with the FDIC for a tax refund related to its acquisition of Washington Mutual that could amount to $1.4 billion, The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning. A little noticed change in tax law was incorporated into the extension of jobless benefits last year. Under the new rules companies can use losses to apply for tax refunds against earnings from the past 5 years--up from just 2 years before the change.
Tax-Break Battle Flares By SCOTT THURM And DAN FITZPATRICK J.P. Morgan in Talks for $1.4 Billion; Stimulus Gives $12 Billion to 250 Firms J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is nearing a deal that would allow it to benefit from a tax refund of as much as $1.4 billion, becoming the latest company to tap a little-noticed plank in an economic stimulus bill. That law let companies apply losses from 2008 or 2009 against taxes paid in the previous five years, instead of the previous two years. Failed Seattle thrift Washington Mutual Inc. is eligible for about $2.6 billion in tax refunds, thanks to big losses in 2008. Now J.P. Morgan, which took over WaMu's banking operations in September 2008, is in discussions with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and bondholders about the refund.
Frantic EU Seeks Solution to Greek Debt Crisis The sliding euro and a downgrade of Portugal's debt put renewed pressure on European leaders Wednesday to come up with a bailout plan for Greece and stem the government debt crisis undermining their shared currency. But agreement remained elusive as a Thursday summit approached. Markets increasingly expect any bailout for Greece to involve the International Monetary Fund — and EU governments are discussing whether they would permit that and add financial help from eurozone nations.
Greece to Default ‘At Some Point,’ UBS’s Donovan Says By Ken Prewitt and JoAnne Norton March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Greece will default on its bonds “at some point” as the euro region fails to deal with its first major economic crisis, said Paul Donovan, deputy head of global economics at UBS Investment Bank. “I think it’s in an impossible situation,” said Donovan, who is based in London, in an interview with Bloomberg Radio today. “Europe has failed to clear its first serious hurdle. If Europe can’t solve a small problem like this, how on earth is it going to solve the larger problem, which is the euro doesn’t work. It’s a bad idea.”
Is the IMF to Greece what China is to the U.S.? by Axel Merk - FinancialSense.com If Greece eventually gets funding from the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”), it may not be so different from the U.S. getting its funding from China. There are two main fears in the eurzone against IMF involvement: a perception that Europe can’t solve its problems internally; and the potential influence of the IMF on European policies.
Beware What May Lie Off Balance Sheet at Bank of America by Reggie Middleton - ZeroHedge.com A recent ZeroHedge article (Bank Of America Can Not Deny It Used Repo 105, Response From PricewaterhouseCoopers Pending; The BofA QSPE's ) probes the possibility of BofA engaging in Repo 105-like activities in regards to their QSPEs (off balance sheet vehicles). ZH does seem to uncover a lot of dirt these days. After reading the article, I think it is worth blog fans time to delve deeper into the off balance sheet world of BofA. Here are some older blog posts that ask the hard questions and raises some additional ones.
Hoenig Says Big Banks Must Either Add $210 Billion In New Capital Or Reduce Total Assets By $3 Trillion; Bank Capital Raises Imminent by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com -- In a speech before the US Chamber of Commerce, Kansas Fed's outspoken President Thomas Hoenig said that not only does he endorse the Volcker Rule and urges the U.S. to ban proprietary trading at banks, but, more critically, said that if larger bank holding companies were held under the same capital supervision requirements as smaller regional banks, the big banks would either have to raise a whopping $210 billion in new capital, or reduce their assets by a whopping $3 trillion! Read the last statement and tell us how this is even remotely inflationary. Note, this is not to increase capital prudence, but merely to ensure equal footing with everyone else in the industry. And one wonders why everyone knows that the entire US financial system, now essentially comprised of 5 infinitely big banks, is completely insolvent. The take home - the manipulated market action over the past month is purely to afford the big banks to raise more equity in the form of follow on offerings.
Congressman Paul Questions Bernanke on Monetary Policy
What if It Was All Just a Big Bubble? One of the things that many people go through their entire lives without ever realizing is that conditions haven’t always been the way they remember them to be. Due to the length of a typical lifetime and the number of those years that individuals are productive, it’s reasonable to think that someone in their mid-60s could retire today and look back at the last 40 years only to conclude that what they just experienced was normal. But, what if the last 40 years were anything but normal? What if, in the world of finance and economics, it was all just a big bubble?
Bull Market or Just Bull? by John Brown - FinancialSense.com Last week, the Dow closed at 10,741, up some 64 percent since its 2009 lows, [03/19/10, Yahoo! Finance] when most markets had priced in the likelihood of financial Armageddon. As the markets have rebounded from the brink of disaster, many Wall Street cheerleaders have proclaimed the dawning of a major new bull market. If we measure market cycles biannually, and if bull markets need not eclipse peaks achieved in previous cycles, then this forecast is spot on. Of course, most investors are not saving for next week, but for homes, college tuitions, and retirements. For these longer term investors, the euphoria of the current rally may soon turn to despair when the market faces the unsavory fundamentals of a second financial crisis.
State Regulator Takes Over Ambac's Troubled Contracts By APARAJITA SAHA-BUBNA - WSJ.com Ambac Assurance Corp., the bond-insurance unit of Ambac Financial Group Inc., is handing over to its state regulator control of troubled contracts on securities made up of souring mortgage loans, totaling about $35 billion that could potentially bleed the insurer dry and endanger its commitments to municipal bondholders. As a result, the company's regulator, the Wisconsin Office of the Insurance Commissioner, will suspend payments totaling about $120 million for March to holders of these contracts. These policy holders include banks, pension funds, hedge funds and other insurance companies. As long as the regulator is overseeing these contracts, monthly payments beyond March are also suspended.
Fannie and Freddie Resist Loans for Energy Efficiency By NICK TIMIRAOS - WSJ.com The government's mortgage-finance agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are resisting a White House-backed effort to make it easier for homeowners to get loans to make their houses more energy efficient. The problem: deciding who gets paid first if the borrower defaults. Under the program, homeowners would borrow money from their local government to pay for energy improvements—from high-efficiency furnaces that cost a few thousand dollars, to solar-panel systems that can cost more than $30,000. They would then repay the loan over 15 to 20 years through a special assessment added to their property-tax bills. Local governments would get the funding by selling municipal bonds to investors.
As Pressure Mounts, Bank of America Plans Principal Reductions for Underwater Homeowners Mandelman Maters -- This morning, Reuters has reported that Bank of America has announced a program that will offer what the bank is calling an “earned principal forgiveness” of up to 30 percent for homeowners owing more than 120 percent of the value of their homes. Bank of America says the plan will be available to homeowners nationwide beginning in May of this year. It is certainly the first program of its kind to be announced by such a large financial institution in the sense that it takes a “systematic approach to reducing mortgage principal in an effort to tackle the thorny issue of preventing foreclosures when home values drop well below the amount owed”.
Recovery for the Rich Getting Worse More Slowly By DON MONKERUD Feel upbeat about the economy? You should be. The economy is getting worse more slowly. That's the learned conclusion of two economic experts who debated paths to recovery at the 2010 Panetta Institute Lecture Series in Monterey in March 2010. Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, and Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, find troubling signs in the economy, including high unemployment, risky long-term debt, frozen credit markets, overvalued bank assets, and a failed regulatory system.
Even average Americans have harsh words for Obama By Jennifer Harper Certain robust public perceptions about President Obama have surfaced among average citizens rather than so-called "wingnuts" and "lunatic fringe." A Harris Poll released Wednesday found that 40 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama is a socialist, a third think he's a Muslim, a quarter think he was not even born in the U.S., is not eligible to be president and is a "domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitution speaks of."
California Unemployment Could Average 11.8% for 2010 By BETSY SCHIFFMAN - DailyFinance.com California can't seem to catch a break. Amid the beginnings of a broad national economic recovery, unemployment in the cash-strapped state may average 11.8% for the year, according to projections published by the UCLA Anderson Forecast. While 11.8% is an improvement over the current 12.5% unemployment rate in the state, it's hardly cause for celebration. Economists at the UCLA Anderson Forecast don't think California's unemployment rate will drop below the double digits until at least 2012. By contrast, they predict the national unemployment rate will come in around 9.6% at the end of 2010 and could drop to 9.1% by the end of 2011.
Joblessness casts uneven shadow over election By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch Weak challengers, anger at incumbents may matter as much as unemployment WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- After suffering through the worst economy in a generation and watching millions of jobs disappear in the recession, a few more people are likely to join the ranks of the unemployed: congressional Democrats. If the economy improves, so will the fortunes of members of President Barack Obama's party. But with the country grappling with a jobless rate of nearly 10% and growth only slowly returning, Democrats are finding themselves in a potentially brutal spot as campaign season draws nearer.
Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program on Pace to Increase Real Estate Sales -- RISMEDIA, March 25, 2010—Joe Moshe, Broker/Owner, Charles Rutenberg Realty, says the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program will help stabilize the residential real estate market by allowing the short sale process to move forward more easily. This, in turn, will benefit real estate agents as they perform more short sale closings and homeowners who are attempting to stave off foreclosure. On April 5, 2010, HAFA, a part of the Home Affordability Modification Program (HAMP) which provides financial incentives to servicers and borrowers to lean toward short sales rather than foreclosures, will go into effect. The law will expire at the end of 2012.
Geithner: U.S. Should Keep Hand in Housing Finance MoneyNews.com Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to retain some level of government support but the U.S. housing finance system should not be fully nationalized, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says. Geithner told lawmakers the central role the housing sector plays in the U.S. economy and its vulnerability to financial shocks justified a degree of government backing. His comments on Tuesday followed a call by Republican lawmakers to phase out the two Government Sponsored Enterprises and replace them with a housing finance market where private capital is the primary source of funding.
Bove: Housing Will Fall 15 Percent as Subsidies End By: Ellen Chang - MoneyNews.com The housing market will drop another 10 percent to 15 percent once the federal subsidies end, said Dick Bove, a Rochdale Securities analyst. During the past 12 months, the housing market has been boosted in part by the Federal Reserve purchasing mortgage-backed securities, which in turn has allowed mortgage rates low to remain low. The Fed has said it will stop purchasing the mortgage-backed securities at the end of March. Bove said the short term outlook is difficult to predict since it is unclear what mortgage rates would be without the government subsidies, Yahoo Finance Tech Ticker reported. He said the market currently is “unrealistic.”
Plunge in New Home Sales Shows Housing Market Headed for Double Dip MoneyNews.com -- Sales of new homes fell unexpectedly to their lowest point on record in February, in part because stormy winter weather kept buyers away. The results pointed to the housing industry's struggle to rebound from the worst slump in decades. Sales fell 2.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 308,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. The news follows a report Tuesday that sales of existing homes fell for a third straight month in February, to the lowest level since July.
Congress slams China and Microsoft, praises Google By David Goldman - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two days after Google stopped censoring search results in China, a congressional panel praised the company's actions while excoriating the Beijing government for its record on Internet censorship and human rights. At a hearing held by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Wednesday, lawmakers called on China to allow a free flow of ideas on the Internet and sharply criticized Microsoft for continuing to be complicit with China's censorship laws.
Go Daddy to stop registering Chinese Web sites Phoenix Business Journal - by Patrick O'Grady The Go Daddy Group will no longer accept registrations bearing Chinese domains because of new requirements from the country’s government. Christine Jones, the Scottsdale company’s executive vice president and general counsel, said in testimony before the U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China that the company has stopped accepting new registrations for .CN domain names. The move came after the China Internet Network Information Centre, known as CNNIC, began requesting increased information on new registrants and on existing owners of domain names, Jones said during the testimony.
China tells EU: LEIGH PHILLIPS - EUObserver.com 'Put pressure on US over climate, not developing countries' EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - China's chief diplomat on climate action, Su Wei, has said that the European Union must "seize the time" and increase its climate ambition to a 30 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions. "The EU should raise its target to 30 percent. It's achievable," Mr Su told reporters in Brussels on Monday (22 March) after he and a delegation of Chinese climate officials led by Xie Zhenhua, the vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, met with EU climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard.
US and Israel remain at odds after talks By Daniel Dombey in Washington and Tobias Buck in Jerusalem The US and Israel remained at odds on Wednesday after a meeting between Barack Obama, president, and Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister, failed to reconcile the two sides over future settlement policy and the prospects for peace. Officials from both countries said efforts to bridge the gap were continuing, with George Mitchell, Mr Obama’s special envoy, meeting Mr Netanyahu in Washington on Wednesday ahead of a trip to the Middle East in a few weeks. Diplomats added that Mr Netanyahu had so far not fully met Mr Obama’s demands.
Milton Friedman - The Social Security Myth - from today's show
Milton Friedman - Socialized Medicine Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into motion when government imposes itself into the health care system. (1978)
Whistle-Blower: Banks Give Homeowners the Runaround By DAVID MUIR - ABCNews.com 800-Numbers Lead to Runaround as Banks Refuse to Modify Mortgages A vice president for one of the nation's biggest banks claims customers looking for help in lowering their mortgage payments are often told to call an 800 number -- where he says representatives then give homeowners the runaround. The bank executive spoke to ABC News on the condition that ABC News not show his face or name him, because he feared coming forward would cost him his job.
TARP watchdog slams Obama foreclosure program By Tami Luhby NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama's foreclosure prevention program will likely fall far short of its goals and may even do more harm than good, a government watchdog said Tuesday. The administration's $75 billion loan modification program may help as few as 1.5 to 2 million people, about half the number Obama said it would when he unveiled the program in February 2009, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program wrote in a report.
Geithner promises mortgage fix By Colin Barr (Fortune) -- A long-awaited renovation of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could start to take shape this year, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Congress Tuesday. The Obama administration hopes to propose legislation to fix the nation's housing finance system within months, Geithner told the House Financial Services Committee. The government currently finances almost all home mortgages, thanks to its 2008 takeover of Fannie and Freddie.
Economic Zombies Shuffle Toward Bankruptcy By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com 03/23/10 Paris, France – Zombies Take Over US Health Care! “Obama assures his place in history,” says the editorial in today’s Financial Times. Poor fellow. He’ll be remembered as the guy who let the zombies loose on the US health care industry. It wasn’t a very good industry even before passage of the reform bill. Not because of the doctors and nurses; they’re as competent as other professions. But they’re forced to work under appalling conditions – with lawyers, lobbyists and regulators on their backs! This new reform measure just increases the weight. Now, there’ll be more parasites than ever. Health care is about to turn into a zombie industry…run by brain-dead bureaucrats and kept alive by infusions of blood from the taxpayer.
Gallup: Mid-March Underemployment Reaches 20% By Rocky Vega - DailyReckoning.com 03/23/10 Stockholm, Sweden – Gallup, the polling and research firm, determines underemployment by including both unemployed Americans and those working part-time but who would prefer to be doing full-time work. As the graph below indicates, Gallup research now shows underemployment still trending higher… now reaching 20 percent. According to Gallup.com: “Gallup’s data suggest that while the U.S. unemployment rate has declined over the past month, the employment gains may be largely taking the form of new part-time jobs… “The danger associated with focusing on unemployment is … [when] new [part-time] jobs [are] announced by the government in early April, there is likely to be an enthusiastic, possibly even celebratory, response. Government officials are liable to tout the continued benefits of last year’s stimulus and the future benefits of the new jobs bill. Many Wall Streeters will likely argue that the surge in jobs is simply another confirmation of the strength of the overall economic recovery.
Google's decision signals change in Western businesses' approach to China By John Pomfret - Washington Post -- BEIJING -- The showdown between Google and the world's most populous country marks a turning point in one of the great alliances of the late 20th century -- the bond between Western capitalists and Beijing's authoritarian system. After Google's audacious decision to confront China over the issue of censorship, officials here insisted Tuesday that the Internet giant's case was an isolated one and would not affect China's opening to the West or its market-oriented reforms.
Why the U.S.-China Currency Brawl Puts Global Recovery at Risk By VISHESH KUMAR - DailyFinance.com The bitter debate about health care reform may have taken center stage in the U.S., but it's hardly the only set of fireworks warranting investors' attention. A potentially more vicious international currency showdown is also materializing as some high-profile American lawmakers and economists attempt to force China to raise the value of the yuan. Their proposed weapon: threats of trade sanctions. As a mid-April deadline approaches for the U.S. Treasury Department to consider whether to label China as a currency manipulator, some investors are watching the face-off with horror. Those investors rightly say that the last the thing the fledgling global recovery needs is a trade war between the world's largest economies.
China/Google Feud: What Now?
China censors searches on Google's Hong Kong-based search engine By John Pomfret, Ellen Nakashima and Cecilia Kang - Washington Post -- BEIJING -- China began blocking results for sensitive searches on Google's Hong Kong-based Web site Tuesday, after the Internet search giant said it would redirect users from the mainland to the Hong Kong site in an effort to avoid Chinese censorship. Searches on Google.com.hk for subjects such as the banned spiritual sect Falun Gong or Tiananmen 64 -- shorthand for the June 4, 1989, crackdown on student-led protests in Beijing -- produced a blank screen or an error message on a computer in Beijing, the Chinese capital. Early in the morning, results were generated but the links were blocked. Other signs were mounting that China was intent on punishing the Internet giant for its bold but risky decision to publicly confront China's policy of limiting the free flow of information.
Google Faces Fallout as China Reacts to Site Shift By MICHAEL WINES and JONATHAN ANSFIELD - NYTimes.com BEIJING — As Google began redirecting tens of millions of Chinese users on Tuesday to its uncensored Web site in Hong Kong, the company’s remaining mainland operations came under pressure from its Chinese partners and from the government itself. For weeks, Google had been holding out hope that the Chinese government would allow it to keep its pledge to end censorship while retaining its share of China’s fast-growing Internet search market.
Redirection of users ‘just a little trick’ By Kathrin Hille in Beijing - FT Google’s decision to keep its companies, staff and website in mainland China while placing controversial content just out of reach of Beijing’s censors in Hong Kong was an attempt at a clever finesse. It aimed to achieve its goals of both staying in and leaving the world’s biggest market. But observers caution that the US internet company is perhaps being a bit too smart; the Chinese government’s initial heavy-handed reaction to the announcement suggests Beijing is unlikely to brook much opposition.
U.S. Debt Crisis, Battle for the Budget By: Casey Research - MarketOracle.co.uk Recently the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published its scoring of President Obama's budget for the next 10 years. It shows a budget deficit of $9.8 trillion. That is just shy of $4 trillion worse than the CBO’s baseline budget, a budget that includes only the laws as currently enacted, with no estimates of any new programs lawmakers may add that worsen future projections. That our budget is out of control is no surprise, but the charts I present here should provide some perspective of just how dangerous this set of budget estimates could turn out to be. The first chart below shows the amount of red ink in each year for the two CBO estimates.
Hold gold because the next crisis is brewing by LARRY EDELSON - uncommonwisdomdaily.com Despite gold’s choppy trading range … Despite the fact that it’s entering a period of short-term weakness and may even fall to just below $1,000 an ounce … Everyone — and I mean everyone — should consider owning at least my top three gold mining shares. Why? Here are just a few reasons …
A. Because the financial crisis is far from over. . .
B. Because our own Federal Reserve is seemingly dead set on a weaker U.S. dollar . . .
C. Because the U.S. government is flat broke. . .
D. Because China is beginning to do what everyone from Main Street … to Wall Street … to Pennsylvania Avenue fears most: . . .
E. Because there’s a great crisis in confidence brewing around the globe. . .
Gold outshines S&P on global currency movement Commodity Online It is a common belief that gold is expensive, since it has shot up from USD 400 per ounce in 2001 to USD 1,100 today, which accounts to an increase of nearly 3 times, while the S&P 500 index has risen from a recent low of 683 in 2009 to 1,160 today. Ever since the current gold trend has begun in 2001, gold has appreciated much more strongly and consistently than S&P. The S&P was 6 times the price of gold, and today it is just about the same price, which implies that gold has become 6 times more valuable.
Bullish on Bullion Western investment demand for gold will stay well-supported regardless of the economic outlook, says Rozanna Wozniak, investment research manager at World Gold Council. She tells Michael Yoshikami of YCMNET Advisors, CNBC's Martin Soong & Karen Tso why.
"Don't Sell Gold" Says SocGen Strategist as "Long Emergency" in Government Debt Begins By: Adrian Ash - - GoldSeek.com -- THE PRICE OF GOLD in Dollars slipped back from an overnight rally Tuesday morning in London, edging again below $1100 an ounce as world stock markets ticked higher along with government bonds. US crude oil contracts fell towards $81 per barrel, even as the Dollar eased lower through $1.50 per Pound and $1.35 per Euro. The gold price for UK and Euro investors held 0.5% above Monday's lows at £732 and €814 an ounce respectively. "The case for gold is clear enough, but when should we look to sell?" asks Dylan Grice in his strategy view, Popular Delusions, from French bank Société Générale's London office today.
Greece Exposes Future and Gold Opportunity By: Neil Charnock - MarketOracle.co.uk We are looking at a high probability of a rally in the gold price in the coming weeks which will spur gold stocks into upward motion yet again. This is suggested due to fundamental and technical reasons. Inflation (of the money supply), increasing demand and coming uncertainty as the sovereign debt crisis gradually unfolds are three of the key fundamental drivers going forward. The pace of the increase in the money supply is increasing and causing distortions that are essential to understand.
A Hard Look at Gold, Silver Premiums By: Tarek Saab - MarketOracle.co.uk Lost in the daily commentary about gold and silver prices is the actual cost of taking possession of these precious metals. Unless you trade in paper GLD or SLV, or you store your bullion in overseas vaults with companies like Goldmoney, the actual cost to purchase gold and silver can diverge from the COMEX spot price by as much as 36% (as I will show below). We have analyzed the premiums for these two monetary metals over the past year and a half, and we hope to offer some perspective on "real" market prices.
US dollar index limits gold price surge By Jim Wyckoff April gold futures closed up $4.20 at $1,103.70 Tuesday. Prices closed nearer the session high on short covering following recent selling pressure. The Euro currency moved up from its session low as trading progressed Tuesday, which also encouraged some fresh buying interest in gold. Still, the firmer U.S. dollar index on Tuesday did limit the upside in gold.
Silver Thursday Plus 30 David Morgan - SilverBearCafe.com Unless you are a real silver bug or a much studied gold bug, the concept of Silver Thursday will have little meaning for you. Silver Thursday took place on March 27, 1980, and this-coming Saturday marks the thirtieth anniversary of that event. Generally, the take on Silver Thursday is explained by Wikipedia as follows: "The Hunt brothers had invested heavily in futures contracts through the brokerage firm Bache Halsey Stuart Shields, now Prudential-Bache Securities. When the price of silver dropped below their minimum margin requirement, they were issued a margin call for $100 million. The Hunts were unable to meet the margin call, and facing a potential $1.7 billion loss, the ensuing panic was felt in the financial markets in general, as well as commodities and futures. Many Government officials feared that if the Hunts were unable to meet their debts, some large Wall Street brokerage firms and banks might collapse.
Measuring the Money Supply By Steve Saville - GreenFaucet.com The year-over-year growth rates of popular monetary aggregates M2 and MZM are presently around 2%, which is near their lows of the past 15 years. Furthermore, M3, another popular monetary aggregate, has just experienced the fastest decline in its growth rate in at least 40 years and is now down by about 5% on a year-over-year basis. Note that the Fed no longer reports M3, but unofficial M3 calculations and charts are still available on the internet (here, for example). So, judging by M2, M3 and MZM the US is now in, or bordering on, monetary deflation. However, TMS (True Money Supply) has risen by more than 13% over the past 12 months.
Global derivatives disclosure to rise By Aline van Duyn - FT Watchdogs to get more CDS trade information A transatlantic row that flared up in the wake of the Greek debt crisis over the lack of disclosure to regulators of credit market activity has pushed the new body in charge of collecting global trading data to provide more information to financial watchdogs. Regulators from around the globe including the Securities and Exchange Commission will now be able to obtain breakdowns of trading activity in credit default swaps, including the identity of the investors.
Concerns Over Fiscal Sustainability Threaten Economic Recovery, Suggest More Market Turbulence ResearchRecap.com -- Rising concerns about fiscal sustainability even in AAA-rated countries such as the US and the UK threaten the global economic recovery and suggest market turbulence ahead. Those concerns are highlighted in a complimentary download of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Global Economic Outlook. Report Overview The underlying strength of the global recovery remains uncertain. GDP figures published so far for the fourth quarter of 2009 have shown that the global recovery remains on track, despite continued concerns about its underlying strength. In Asia, the first region to emerge from the downturn, sequential growth has softened, following the stunning turnaround earlier in the year. In the US, growth continued to accelerate, but in the euro zone growth was disappointing, although a renewed improvement is likely in the first half of 2010. The recovery so far is still driven by temporary factors. The global recovery, which started in Asian emerging markets but has since spread to most major regions, is now well under way. Companies and consumers have realised that worst-case scenarios are unlikely to materialise and are adjusting their consumption, investment and hiring behaviour to suit a more benign outlook.
How Much Capital Does it Take to Lift a Dollar? By Bill Baker - DailyReckoning.com 03/22/10 Baltimore, Maryland – On March 18, 2010 the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) wrote CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler a letter calling to his attention evidence that suggests an anti-gold cartel consisting of the U.S. Treasury, the Fed, and the bullion banks has been suppressing the gold price, and that this action is coordinated to further the “strong dollar” policy established by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. If indeed this is the case, since all interventions end badly, a valuable question to answer is whether there are signs that the intervention has gotten long in the tooth. The most obvious would be that the capital required to rescue the ailing buck would be significantly higher than it was prior to the meltdown of the credit markets in 2008. Indeed, Peter Schiff speculated the dollar rally would end badly just three days before the GATA letter was published.
Fed’s Yellen Says Too Soon to Raise Interest Rates By Vivien Lou Chen March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen said it’s too soon to raise interest rates, and she discounted concerns record budget deficits might fuel inflation. “I don’t believe this is yet the time to be tightening monetary policy,” Yellen said in the text of a speech today in Los Angeles. “But as recovery takes firm root and economic output moves toward its potential, a time will come when it is appropriate to boost short-term interest rates.”
MF Global Brings Corzine Back to Wall Street NYTimes.com Jon S. Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey, is back in finance. Mr. Corzine, who is also a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, has become the chairman and chief executive, of MF Global Holdings, a broker in futures, options and derivatives. He will also become a partner at J.C. Flowers & Company, the private equity firm specializing in financial companies. MF Global said Tuesday afternoon that Mr. Corzine would take over from Bernard W. Dan, who resigned from MF Global as chief executive for “personal reasons.” Mr. Dan will remain with MF Global through May 16 help with Mr. Corzine’s transition.
Pay czar takes aim at all TARP takers By David Ellis - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who has clamped down on executive compensation at the nation's biggest bailout firms, now has a new target: any firm that accepted a government lifeline. Unveiling a bold new initiative Tuesday, Feinberg said he would examine compensation paid to top executives at 419 companies made between October 2008 until February 2009, a period when the nation's financial system was teetering on the brink.
New York Fed Warehousing Junk Loans On Its Books Ryan Grim - HuffingtonPost.com As Lehman Brothers careened toward bankruptcy in 2008, the New York Federal Reserve Bank came to its rescue, sopping up junk loans that the investment bank couldn't sell in the market, according to a report from court-appointed examiner Anton R. Valukas. The New York Fed, under the direction of now-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, knowingly allowed itself to be used as a "warehouse" for junk loans, the report says, even though Fed guidelines say it can only accept investment grade bonds.
Geithner: Government Still Has a Role to Play in Housing By SARA HANSARD - DailyFinance.com While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pledged to reform the way Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) operate in the U.S. housing market at a packed hearing on Capitol Hill today, he also said that the two government sponsored enterprises have operated more prudently than much of the private housing finance market. "The GSEs played a generally quite responsible role in... establishing standardized mortgage products, and generally they held to better underwriting standards than was true of the private market," Geithner said at a hearing held today by the House Financial Services Committee on how to reform the housing finance market.
First Corporate Campaign Ads Appear After Supreme Court's Citizens United Decision The Huffington Post | Michael Falcone -- A Texas company recently took out a political ad in several local newspapers, making it one of the first corporations to do so in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that lifted restrictions on corporate political spending. The Texas Tribune reports that the company, KDR Development, paid for an ad against state Rep. Chuck Hopson, formerly a Democratic member of the state legislature who switched parties and ran in the Republican primary for re-election.
A First Step on Fannie and Freddie By SEWELL CHAN - NYTimes.com WASHINGTON — Amid pressure from Congress, the Obama administration is taking a tentative first step in developing a plan to reshape Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge mortgage-finance companies that the government took over in 2008. WASHINGTON — Amid pressure from Congress, the Obama administration is taking a tentative first step in developing a plan to reshape Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge mortgage-finance companies that the government took over in 2008.
Changes Ahead for Fannie and Freddie
Microcosm of Housing Crisis on an Arizona Street By LOUISE STORY - NYTimes.com CAVE CREEK, Ariz. — The uncertain line between hope and despair divides this exurb of Phoenix, where the trim stucco houses used to sell so briskly. It winds around the swimming pools and the pebbled yards of East Montgomery Road like a slow-burning fuse. On one side are people like the Setbackens, Gary and Cissie, who moved here from Washington State and, with prudence, have managed to pay their mortgage bill month after month. On the other side are those like Kelley Carter, who never dreamed that home prices would fall so hard, and got in over their heads.
Existing-home sales fall for third straight month By Renae Merle - Washington Post Existing-home sales fell for the third consecutive month in February, fueling concerns that the tax credit for home buyers that helped revive the market last year won't provide a comparable boost during this spring's buying season. An $8,000 tax credit for qualified first-time home buyers helped give the nation's sagging housing market a lift in 2009. But sales levels have fallen 23 percent since November, when the tax credit was initially scheduled to expire. Congress extended and expanded the tax credit to more buyers, but now some economists worry that, even if there's a pickup in sales over the next few months, it might prove to be temporary.
Existing Home Sales Drop, Supply Climbs By Shobhana Chandra March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of existing U.S. homes fell in February for a third month, and the number of properties on the market climbed by the most in almost two years, casting a pall over the prospects for a recovery. Purchases dropped 0.6 percent to a 5.02 million annual rate, the lowest level in eight months, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. There were 3.59 million houses for sale, a 312,000 increase from January that marked the biggest gain since April 2008.
More Sellers Put Homes on Market, but There Are Fewer Buyers By DAVID STREITFELD - NYTimes.com -- The volume of home sales is slumping even as the number of properties on the market is rising, which is putting new pressure on prices, according to economic data released Tuesday. The triple whammy of bad news stoked fears that the brief recovery in housing was finished and another dip had begun. If that proves to be the case, it could slow the broader economic recovery. “The housing market may remain a noose around the neck of the U.S. economy for some time yet,” Paul Dales of Capital Economics told clients.
Federal government cancels plans for office building in Aurora By Margaret Jackson - The Denver Post -- The federal government has canceled plans to build a 350,000-square-foot office building at Gateway Park in Aurora. Known as Project Keystone, the high-security building was supposed to be occupied by Aerospace Data Facility Colorado, now housed at Buckley Air Force Base. The facility, operated by the U.S. Air Force, provides data to defense and intelligence agencies. "Headquarters decided that the money could be put to better use for other intelligence priorities," said Rick Oborn, a public-affairs officer with the National Reconnaissance Office, the executive agent for the project.
14 states sue to block health care law By the CNN Wire Staff CNN) -- Officials from 14 states have gone to court to block the historic overhaul of the U.S. health care system that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, arguing the law's requirement that individuals buy health insurance violates the Constitution. Thirteen of those officials filed suit in a federal court in Pensacola, Florida, minutes after Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The complaint calls the act an "unprecedented encroachment on the sovereignty of the states" and asks a judge to block its enforcement.
Socialized Medicine, The Road to Wealth Destruction By: Mac Slavo - MarketOracle.co.uk When we discuss wealth, we must keep in mind that we’re not discussing investments exclusively. Wealth takes many different forms, and the ability to generate wealth in the first place is what gives us the ability to make long-term investments. The recently passed health care legislation places an almost instantaneous tax on Americans, even though they will see no benefit from this new tax for at least four years when the law is to be implemented nationwide.
IRS to Monitor Your Health Insurance
From Monday's news page . . . worth repeating
The Wrong Prescription: Democrats’ Health Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority Report from the Republican Ways and Means Committee . . . Democrats will have vastly expanded the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and fundamentally altered the relationship between the IRS and taxpayers. Specifically, this report examines the Individual Mandate Tax (IMT) proposed in the Democrats’ health care legislation. Under this provision, Democrats make the IRS the chief enforcer for a new government-run health insurance system. One of the most troubling aspects of this new IRS authority is the newly granted power to collect additional taxes from Americans whose health insurance coverage is deemed to be insufficient to meet the definition of minimum coverage, as defined by federal bureaucrats, required to be purchased.
ObamaCare: Soon to be the Worst Bill Passed in U.S. History (Part 1) By: Mike Stathis - MarketOracle.co.uk -- With Obama’s healthcare bill ready to sign, democrats are celebrating. Meanwhile, (supposedly) enraged republicans insist payback will come in November. This is part of the typical back-and-forth theatrics staged to galvanize voter support for each party. Please do not allow yourself to be fooled by these games. As the facts show, both parties are essentially the same when it comes to issues that matter most to working-class Americans; free trade and healthcare, as first detailed in America’s Financial Apocalypse.
Doctors brace for a 21% reduciton in Medicare rates in 8 days by Ralph Weber mediBlog.com The health bill which just passed the house calls for a 21% reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates effective almost immediately, and a further 2% reduction every year until total reimbursements are down 41%. This may produce the $500 billion in savings projected by the CBO, but seniors will likely have a hard time finding a doctor able to accept medicare.
States Sue Over Overhaul That Will Bust State Budgets By Pat Wechsler March 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama faces a fight over the health-care overhaul from states that sued today because the legislation’s expansion of Medicaid imposes a fiscal strain on their cash-strapped budgets. Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania are among 14 states that filed suit after the president signed the bill over the constitutionality of the burden imposed by the legislation. The health-care overhaul will make as many as 15 million more Americans eligible for Medicaid nationwide starting in 2014 and will cost the states billions to administer.
Ron Paul: Bill Makes Health-Care System Worse
National Health Caress by Butler Shaffer - LewRockwell.com The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself. ~ James Wolcott An otherwise mature and well-educated man I know still believes that professional wrestling is on the up-and-up; that the grapplers who toss one another around in the ring are engaged in fights as genuine as those that take place in gang-ridden neighborhoods. For this man, and so many others like him, such spectacles are more than just enjoyable entertainment: they are the real thing.
Obama to sign abortion order behind closed doors By Joseph Curl - WashingtonTimes.com A day after a lavish bill signing White House ceremony on health care reform, President Obama will sign an executive order barring the law from allowing federally funded abortion, but he'll do so behind closed doors and with no media allowed. The executive order, which the White House aaid Tuesday will "reaffirms the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Acts consistency with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion," was crucial to securing the votes of at least 10 pro-life Democrats.
Healthcare Intervention: The Bigger Picture Mises Daily: by Doug French The prospect and reality of Obamacare have woken up many people to the need to stop the socialization of medical care in America. It will produce here what it has produced everywhere: stagnation, overutilization, rationing, and the sacrifice of individual well-being in the name of collective justice. This is the result not only of every experiment in socialized medicine but of every experiment in socialism generally. The reasons were spelled out by Mises in 1922. He explained that, without property and market prices, economic rationality disappears. The result is unworkable, chaotic, and impoverishing.
That Didn't Take Long.... by Karl Denninger - market-ticker.org From the forum: "So I just got a call from my health insurance provider. My family rates are going up $200/month ... $2400/year per employee effective April 1st. Didn't take long after signing to get this s**t going. . . So much for the "my plan will save Americans" $2500/year in Healthcare premiums. . . F***ing liar in chief. " . . . Yes, this law will induce people to hire, it will improve health access, and it will be positive for the consumer, economy, stock market and spending.
Small Business Worries About Health-Care Costs
Health care dictatorship: A crime against America by Mike Adam - NaturalNews.com It's amazing that the day before the health care "reform" bill is passed in America, the FDA announces that one of the most popular statin drugs sold in America causes so much kidney damage that it might kill you. And then the day after this health care bill passes, the FDA announces that a popular rotovirus vaccine made by Merck is being halted because it is contaminated with a mysterious DNA sequence from a pig virus called porcine circovirus type 1 or PCV-1. The reason this is important is because cholesterol drugs and vaccines represent what conventional American medicine is all about: Drugs and injections. It's not about health and prevention; it's about drugs and injections (and surgery too, of course). And the legislation that was just passed is focused entirely on how to expand the failed system of drugs and injections so that it causes harm to everyone rather than just those who voluntarily choose to be suckered into it. This is the medical equivalent of a wartime draft that forces soldiers into battle against their will.
Healthy without health insurance in America
Health-Care Cost Lies Make Us Sing the Blues: March 23 (Bloomberg) -- “So lie to me, lie to me, I’d rather have it that way.” Every historic moment has its soundtrack, and passing U.S. health-care legislation is no exception. The song for this bill is “Lie to Me,” recorded by blues singer Brook Benton in 1962. Benton’s song is a plea to the woman who cheated on him to lie to him about it and instead say everything’s fine. The tune came to mind while watching some voters applaud Democratic leaders as they promise that the new law will reduce budget deficits by $1 trillion. “Just lie, lie, lie.”
U.S. Drug Move Said to Deprive Elderly By DUFF WILSON - NYTimes.com A Senate panel will hear complaints on Wednesday from nursing home operators, doctors, nurses and pharmacists that a Drug Enforcement Administration narcotics crackdown has left seriously ill patients crying for pain relief. The D.E.A. says it is merely enforcing the law that requires pharmacies to wait for prescriptions that are signed by physicians before dispensing potent painkillers like Vicodin, Percocet and morphine. But the nursing home groups say the new enforcement rules upend many years of practice in which the government informally allowed nurses to speed the process by taking doctors’ orders orally, or from medical charts, and passing them along to pharmacies, similar to the procedures used in hospitals.
Medicare vs. Government Insurance
US-Israeli spat plants seeds of crisis By Victor Kotsev Last month, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published an analysis of three simulations conducted recently by experts at Harvard University, Tel Aviv University and the Brookings Institution. The simulations explored different scenarios for how the Iranian crisis would develop, and an outcome they had in common was rising tensions between the United States and Israel and a failure of the sanctions policy to halt Iran's nuclear progress. "Game play suggests," the analysis points out, "that an eventual US-Israeli crisis is likely." Even without Iran, tensions between the two allies have been running high during the past year. As far as the Iranian question is concerned, the row of the past couple of weeks seems to more than confirm the predictions. Moreover, it is likely to be just the beginning of, or a dress rehearsal for, a larger crisis in relations.
U.S. Bolsters Chemical Restrictions for Water By CHARLES DUHIGG - NYTimes.com The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday that it would overhaul drinking water regulations so that officials could police dozens of contaminants simultaneously and tighten rules on the chemicals used by industries. The new policies, which are still being drawn up, will probably force some local water systems to use more effective cleaning technologies, but may raise water rates.
France ditches carbon tax as social protests mount By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk France is facing its own 'spring of discontent' as strikes shut schools, courts, railways and metro services, and trade unions vowed mass protests across the country. President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday scrapped the country's proposed carbon tax and reshuffled his cabinet in populist tilt after suffering a crushing electoral defeat over the weekend, when his Gaulliste UMP party lost every region other than in its bastion of Alsace and the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. The vote saw a resurrection of both the Socialist Party and the far-Right National Front, showing how the delayed effects of rising unemployment can change the political landscape long after recession has passed. The jobless rate has risen to 10.1pc, up from 8.7pc a year ago. A quarter of those aged under 25 are out of work.
29 sickened by led poisoning CHENZHOU, Hunan - The number of patients sickened by lead poisoning rose to 29 Sunday in Chenzhou City of central China's Hunan Province, health officials said. The Chenzhou Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine received 10 more children Sunday, bringing the number of patients tested to have excessive levels of lead in their blood to 29, 28 of whom were below the age of 14, said a statement from the public health bureau of Chenzhou. Another two people demanded to be treated in the hospital but tests showed no excessive lead in their blood. Most of the patients were in stable condition, said Wang Feixiong, a doctor with the hospital. There could be more reports of sickened children, said Liu Jianrong, deputy head of the hospital. The cases emerged about 10 months after 254 children were found with excessive levels of lead in their blood in Chenzhou in July last year.
China, Russia sign major agreements worth $1.6bn China Daily Key powers agree to cooperate on economy, technology and energy Beijing - China and Russia signed 15 deals cumulatively worth $1.6 billion in the Russian city of Vladivostok over the weekend, with more coming up on Monday. The documents were signed during Vice-President Xi Jinping's tour of the country. Xi arrived in Russia Saturday at the invitation of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He is expected to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Putin in Moscow on Monday.
Imploding America by Jack D. Douglas - LewRockwell.com he wild-eyed, in-and-out "Health Care" burger BO and his henchmen and women cooked up at yesterday's spending and tax orgy on the Hill front-loads the freebies for the least productive parts of society and back-loads the trillions in new taxes, regulations, radical changes, and costly cuts for the more productive Americans. The vastly contorted garbage ingredients of this messy burger are such vast pies in the skies that no honest and intelligent person who has watched governments at work in the U.S. for a half-century or more believes a word of it until it happens. The non-partisan, judicious mock-up of the mess and the impossibility of containing the costs by the Concord Coalition is a good summary of where it is today. As the Coalition knows, no one knows where this burger mess will be tomorrow because it still has vast hurdles to jump and will have to make all kinds of new "miracle compromises" and payoffs to get to wherever they wind up.
IMF warns of acute debt challenges for West By James Quinn - Telegraph.co.uk The International Monetary Fund has warned that advanced economies such as the UK and US are facing an 'acute' challenge in reducing debt loads following the financial crisis which could in turn hamper economic growth. The International Monetary Fund has warned that advanced economies such as the UK and US are facing an 'acute' challenge in reducing debt loads following the financial crisis, a problem which could in turn hamper economic growth. John Lipsky, the IMF's first deputy managing director, said that high levels of government debt and fiscal deficits have already led to increased risks for a number of countries.
Greece accuses Germany of 'squalid game' in debt crisis By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk Greece has further complicated its chances of an EU rescue package this week, accusing Germany of exploiting the debt crisis to enrich its banks and drive down the euro for global export advantage. "By speculating on Greek bonds and allowing credit institutions to participate in this squalid game, some people are making money," said deputy premier Theodoros Pangalos. "As long as southern Europe is under fire and the euro is falling , they (the Germans) can win massive exports in the rest of the world," he said. It is the second time in a month that Mr Pangalos has lashed out at Germany. In February he said Berlin had no right to lecture Greece because the Nazis had stolen his country’s gold reserves and caused the death of 300,000 people during the Axis occupation.
Greek Stalemate Deepens as Trichet Rejects Loan ‘Subsidy’ Call By Andrew Davis and James G. Neuger -- March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Europe’s stalemate over possible aid for debt-encumbered Greece deepened as European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet spoke out against offering low- interest loans for which the Greek government has pressed. Trichet’s demand for stringent terms and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s push for sanctions against nations that breach deficit limits heightened the chance that Greece will leave a March 25-26 summit empty-handed. That could force Prime Minister George Papandreou to decide whether he’s ready to fulfill his threat and turn instead to the International Monetary Fund.
Marc Faber - on Greece, Fed policies in USA and moral hazard. Bailouts are a form of regulating markets; gold and dollar / euro and monetization process.
700% Higher Gold by Warren Bevan - FinancialSense.com Gold has much further to run in the years to come and silver even more-so. There is no other possible outcome as world fiat currencies continue to be devalued. It is that simple. Read on to find out why 700% is the minimum move higher. The CFTC meeting on position limits is finally coming up this Thursday March 25, where invited guests will get the chance to make a five minute presentation before receiving questions from the panel.
Is ObamaCare Good for Gold? By Josh Lipton - Minyanville.com The pending health-care overhaul might be out of favor with many Americans, but it could prove very popular for fans of the yellow metal. The Wall Street Journal is out with a poll today, which shows opinion solidifying around the health-care legislation, with 48% calling it a “bad idea” and 36% viewing it as a “good idea.”
THE UNKNOWN U.S. GOLD COIN & HOW THE DOLLAR IS KILLING THE NATION Peter Souleles B. Com. LLB. WHAT PROPS UP THE DOLLAR - They say that what doesn't kill you makes you strong. Well it now appears that what makes you strong can also kill you. If you are wondering how that can be, then stop and think about what is REALLY propping up the dollar. Is it the fact that it constitutes most of the world's foreign reserves? No. Is it because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government? No. The dollar is being propped up by two major factors. Firstly, it is the military supremacy of the USA which thus far has stopped a successful invasion of the nation whilst simultaneously setting up theatres of war and military bases in every corner of the globe. The second factor is the continued support of the dollar by China.
Why gold is the easiest commodity to trade By Howard S Katz - CommodityOnline.com This is directed toward those readers who have heeded the siren song of the establishment and have put their assets into the stock market. I say to you: NO STOCKS, NO STOCKS, NO STOCKS, not at this time. The basic reason is that we are in the second upswing of the commodity pendulum. First, what is the commodity pendulum? And second, why should this affect your decision to put your assets into stocks?
Gold not willing to close below $1,100 FXstreet.com (Barcelona) – Gold price attempted to move south today bottoming at 1,191.50 area in European session. However, US investors were unconvinced to extends gold losses and detected today's low as an inflection line to instead drift price back up beyond 1,100 again. The precious metal currently holds steadily around 1,102.00 zone.
Gold recovers on bargain hunting SINGAPORE (Commodity Online) : Gold prices recovered in Asian trade Tuesday, after fell to a month-low figure as the euro extended losses versus the dollar. Gold for immediate delivery was seen trading at $ 1104.02 an ounce at 11.30 a.m Singapore time while US gold futures for April delivery was at 1104.8 an ounce at the same time. Analysts said bargain hunting lifted the precious yellow metal while a steadier euro helped ease worries about tighter monetary policy.
Inflation and the Asian Consumer Boom By Bill Bonner - DailyReckoning.com 03/22/10 Paris, France – The Dow fell on Friday. It was down 37 points. Another day older. Another day not wiser. We don’t know any more than we did the day before. Oil fell $1. Gold dropped $19. Hmmm… Inflation? Deflation? Analysts and pundits are trying to look into the future. What’s coming? Higher prices…or lower ones? Forget looking into the future. It’s hard enough to tell what is going on right now. Our prediction, years ago, was that we would see BOTH inflation and deflation. But even we didn’t foresee such a mix of inflation and deflation AT THE SAME TIME.
Should Obama Confront China? Mackie Jimbo - TheAtlantic.com President Obama's troubles with China are rapidly accumulating. Right now, there's the pressing matter of Iran: Obama needs China to endorse sanctions, which China seems loath to do. China's intransigence on revaluing its currency and agreeing to climate change initiatives are also plaguing the administration and fueling anti-China sentiments in Congress. The foreign policy cognoscenti in Washington are calling for action. So, with tension between the two countries rising, is it time for Obama to get tough on China?
U.S., China May Have Bilateral Forex Talks, Zhou Says By Ye Xie March 22 (Bloomberg) -- People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said his government and the U.S. may engage in bilateral discussions about currency values, adding that too much political “noise” isn’t “helpful.” U.S. policy makers are under pressure as they try to reduce unemployment by boosting exports, Zhou told reporters at the Inter-American Development Bank’s annual meeting today in Cancun, Mexico.
China’s Wen Urges Ford, Rio Chiefs to Help Avoid Currency War By Bloomberg News -- March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao appealed to chief executive officers gathered in Beijing to help the world avoid a trade and currency war as lawmakers in the U.S. call for stronger measures to compel China to revalue the yuan. “I would like to make another appeal to all responsible countries and all the world’s entrepreneurs with a conscience,” Wen told CEOs including Ford Motor Co.’s Alan Mulally and Rio Tinto Plc’s Thomas Albanese yesterday. “They must not fight a trade war or a currency war because this will not help us in meeting the current difficulties.”
Yuan’s Gradual Gain to Have Little G-10 Effect, JPMorgan Says By Anchalee Worrachate -- March 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Chinese yuan’s appreciation is likely to be incremental and have a limited effect on the world’s principal developed-market currencies, including the U.S. dollar and the euro, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. China will return to “gradual appreciation” by mid-year rather than announce a one-time revaluation, and allow a 5 percent cumulative move by the end of 2010 as the global economy strengthens, said John Normand, head currency strategist at JPMorgan in London. The strength of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, will be more keenly felt in Asian nations such as South Korea and Malaysia, since their exports are more focused on China, he said.
U.S. Stocks Halt Global Drop, Dollar Falls; Commodities Recover By Michael P. Regan and Rita Nazareth -- March 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks rose and the dollar erased gains, helping commodities reverse losses, as a rally in drug and technology shares overshadowed concern higher interest rates and swelling public debt will stifle the global recovery. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 0.5 percent to 1,165.81 at 4:32 p.m. in New York, as health-care shares climbed after the U.S. House passed legislation to allow uninsured Americans to get medical coverage and chipmakers gained on an analyst upgrade. The MSCI World Index of global stocks rose 0.2 percent. The Dollar Index slipped 0.1 percent, and the S&P/GSCI Index of commodities advanced 0.2 percent.
Bernanke Running Amuck by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. - MoneyAndMarkets.com Fed Chairman Bernanke is running amuck, and for the first time since the birth of the U.S. dollar, our government is egregiously abusing its power to print money. Specifically, from September 10, 2008 to March 10 of this year, he has increased the nation’s monetary base from $850 billion to $2.1 trillion — an irresponsible, irrational and insane increase of 2.5 times in just 18 months. It is, by far, the greatest monetary expansion in U.S. history. And you must not underestimate its sweeping historical significance.
Judge Napolitano Interview March 9, 2010 Campaign for Liberty's Kevin Brett interviews Judge Andrew Napolitano at CPAC 2010.
Senate panel backs financial reform bill Kevin Drawbaugh and Rachelle Younglai (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Monday, approved landmark financial regulatory reform legislation, pushing the fight over the issue to the full Senate in April. The committee voted 13-10 along party lines to pass a 1,336-page bill, which will need more than a simple majority to move ahead on the Senate floor -- arithmetic that was key to Republicans' acquiescence to a quick committee decision. The bill would set up a council of regulators to oversee financial risk, create a process for liquidating distressed financial firms, crack down on derivatives markets, and take other steps meant to avert another financial crisis.
States Cracking Down on Mortgage “Net Branches” Implode-O-Meter If you’re “net branching” with a company that plays in the grey area with some of HUD’s regulations, now may be the time to make a change. Net branching peaked during the boom, and for the most part crashed with the meltdown, but it has survived. While the term “net branch” is on its way out, branches will always be around. Branches are valuable to mortgage lenders because branch managers use their own money to secure office space, pay for marketing, processing, employees, computers, and phones etc. With the help of the lenders’ resources and support, branch managers operate as a banker/broker, in charge of everything doing business in multiple states without costly surety bonds or a broker license, collecting 75-90% of yield spread premiums and origination fees. It can be a profitable venture for both parties.
Community bank opens despite odds By RICHARD M. BARRON - News-Record.com GREENSBORO — In a world where banks are folding like $100 bills, a group of Greensboro bankers has found a creative way to slip around the economy’s obstacles and open a new community bank. The founders of The Gate City’s Community Bank needed to raise $12 million to open the bank, but the bad economy slowed them down. At the $9 million mark, when fundraising slowed, the bank’s local startup team decided to take a different approach. Gate City found another startup bank, Albemarle Bank & Trust in Greenville, that was facing similar challenges. Together, they found a strong, small savings bank, West Town Savings Bank in Cicero, Ill., that needed money. Gate City and Albemarle pooled some of the capital they raised and bought stock in West Town. They are now independent divisions of that bank.
Reshaping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac WASHINGTON, March 22 (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to lay out the Obama administration's broad vision for restructuring mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Tuesday in congressional testimony. Geithner has said that any specific legislative proposals will not come until 2011 at the earliest. His testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday is expected to be the first step in a long journey to make changes to the existing housing finance system. The government seized Fannie and Freddie at the height of the financial crisis, in what at the time was said to be a temporary measure to ensure credit remained available for homebuyers.
Fannie, Freddie messy government tie tough to cut Lynn Adler and Richard Leong (Reuters) - With the housing sector still on the ropes, the Obama administration on Tuesday will begin to sketch out plans for the market's two biggest financing pillars, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After hitting its worse slump since the Great Depression, the housing market is being very slowly resuscitated by the government with massive dollops of cash and the help of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government has relied on the companies, which combined guarantee nearly half of all outstanding mortgages, to mop up bad loans in a bid to help struggling homeowners. Along the way, the government was forced to take control of the two firms, at a cost to taxpayers that has reached $125 billion so far.
Pressure grows to overhaul Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac By Jim Puzzanghera - LATimes.com Lawmakers plan to push the Obama administration to come up with an exit strategy for the troubled housing finance agencies, which have been propped up by bailout money. Reporting from Washington -- It is the forgotten bailout: $125.9 billion spent by taxpayers so far to rescue housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- nearly twice what's been pumped into American International Group Inc. -- and with no end in sight. But in a hearing Tuesday, lawmakers will start pressing the Obama administration for an exit strategy as the government faces an unlimited commitment for the next three years to the housing finance agencies, which are almost single-handedly keeping the fragile real estate market afloat.
Lenny Dykstra suing chase over bad mortgages thetruthaboutmortgage.com Former Philadelphia Phillie (and Met) Lenny Dykstra, also known simply as “Nails,” has sued JPMorgan Chase for $100 million over mortgages he obtained during the housing boom. Dykstra claims he was “fraudulently induced into borrowing more money than he could afford,” leading to his eventual bankruptcy. The lawsuit involves $20.5 million in mortgage loans, $12 million of which came from former lending giant WaMu, now owned by Chase, and another $8.5 million in the form of a second mortgage.
Lennar Looks to Distressed Debt as Slump Persists By John Gittelsohn March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Lennar Corp., the third-largest U.S. homebuilder, is investing in failed bank loans and distressed real estate assets to boost revenue as demand for new houses shows few signs of revival. The Miami-based company’s purchase last month of a share of $3.05 billion of delinquent loans seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from failed lenders takes the builder into territory so far dominated by private equity firms such as Thomas J. Barrack’s Colony Capital LLC and Barry Sternlicht’sStarwood Capital Group LLC.
Three Reasons Housing Market Will Head Lower By Andrew Mickey - GoldSeek.com It’s one of the most pressing questions facing investors today. Is the housing market about to recover? With the housing market at the center of the credit crunch, any recovery in the housing market could quickly turn the Wall Street recovery into a Main Street recovery. Consumers would start shopping again. Employment would rebound. And stocks would likely make the next move higher. But we’re coming out of a genuine bubble decades in the making. And decades of overinvestment creating oversupply are rarely worked off in a couple of years.
Pimco Bets on Asian Bonds as U.S., Europe Risk ‘Policy Mistake’ By Shelley Smith -- March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Investors should buy Asia-Pacific bonds rather than Europe and U.S. debt because of faster growth in the region and less risk of government policy that would damp the economic recovery, according to Pacific Investment Management Co. “Politics are going to play a very important role in how an investor looks at asset classes over at least the next 12 months,” Brian Baker, chief executive officer of Pimco Asia Ltd., said in an interview in Hong Kong. “As policy makers withdraw from their fiscal stimulus, and as regulations are put in place in the financial system in the developed world, we run the risk of a policy mistake” that may weigh on markets, he said.
FDA warns about pig virus in GSK rotavirus vaccine Rotarix Triangle Business Journal The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising doctors to temporarily avoid using GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccine for rotavirus after the drug maker found traces of a pig virus in the vaccine. GSK (NYSE: GSK) said that the virus, called PCV-1, does not multiply in humans and is not known to cause illness in people. The company discovered trace amounts of the virus in the vaccine Rotarix while working on the development of a new virus-discovery method.
Gerald Celente on Dori Monson Show 18 Mar 2010
5 next steps for health care By David Ewing Dunca (Fortune) -- Those of us alive last night will one day retell the story of how mere mortals in Congress and the White House defeated a combined army of Harpies, Gorgons and Minotaurs that for decades have thwarted all efforts to reform the American health-care system. So maybe most of America last night was riveted not by Parliamentary antics in Congress, but by college basketball. Nonetheless the House of Representatives did the deed when they passed the Senate's health reform bill at 10:44 pm. A package of changes to the bill still needs to be approved by the Senate, but the basic health-care bill will become law when President Obama signs it.
What health care reform means for your business By Neil deMause - CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The sweeping health-care bill passed by the House of Representatives Sunday, and now headed for President Obama's desk, promises a sea change in the way that small business owners purchase and provide health insurance for themselves and their employees. But many of the provisions won't kick in until 2014 -- and the final rules could still be changed by amendments that will now be considered by the Senate.
Republicans mobilize healthcare opposition By Janet Hook and James Oliphant - LATimes.com Conservatives plan procedural maneuvers to drag out the debate before the final bill is cleared in the Senate. A dozen states pledge to fight the bill in court. Following their decisive healthcare defeat in the House, Republicans on Monday prepared a three-pronged effort to wage a continuing fight against the bill -- beginning with a drive this week to stall follow-up legislation in the Senate. And even before the healthcare bill has become law, Republicans are backing an effort by a dozen state attorneys general to challenge the bill's constitutionally in court, and they are making it a 2010 campaign priority to call for the law's repeal.
Health-Care Overhaul Fight Moves to States, Agencies By Alex Nussbaum March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Health legislation passed yesterday by the U.S. House changes some rules immediately on insurance coverage while leaving much of the fight over how to remake the medical system to federal regulators, states and courts. Insurers led by UnitedHealth Group Inc. and WellPoint Inc. must cover children with pre-existing health problems within the first year of the legislation and let parents keep children on their insurance plans through age 26. The insurers will also be banned from revoking coverage because of severe illness and from limiting lifetime or annual benefits.
10 states line up to sue over health bill, Florida AG says (CNN) -- Ten states plan to file a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health care reform bill, Florida's attorney general announced Monday. Bill McCollum, the Republican attorney general under fellow Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, told a news conference that the lawsuit would be filed once President Obama signs the health care bill into law. He said he'll be joined by his counterparts in Alabama, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington. All of the attorneys general in the 10 states mentioned by McCollum are Republican, but McCollum said the lawsuit would be about the law and not politics.
16,500 New IRS Agents by Ron Paul - LewRockwell.com Healthcare Reform Passes Following months of heated public debate and aggressive closed-door negotiations, Congress finally cast a historic vote on healthcare late Sunday evening. It was truly a sad weekend on the House floor as we witnessed further dismantling of the Constitution, disregard of the will of the people, explosive expansion of the reach of government, unprecedented corporate favoritism, and the impending end of quality healthcare as we know it. Those in favor of this bill touted their good intentions of ensuring quality healthcare for all Americans, as if those of us against the bill are against good medical care. They cite fanciful statistics of deficit reduction, while simultaneously planning to expand the already struggling medical welfare programs we currently have.
Health reform leaves Americans split, confused Michelle Nichols (Reuters) - The overhaul of the healthcare system is being hailed in political circles as the biggest health policy change in four decades, but President Barack Obama's landmark reform has left some Americans divided and confused. "I don't know about it," Kathy Ivcich, 53-year-old Chicago real estate agent, while showing clients a home in Chicago. "That's why I have to watch the news tonight to get the low-down, because I have no idea whether, or how, it will affect me, as an independent contractor," she said.
Florida says several states to file healthcare lawsuit by Michael Connor MIAMI, March 22 (Reuters) - Florida's attorney general will file a lawsuit with nine other state attorneys general opposing the healthcare legislation passed by Congress, a spokeswoman said on Monday. "The health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last night clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state's sovereignty," Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican, said in a prepared statement announcing a news conference.
Virginia to sue U.S. over healthcare reform NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - Virginia's attorney general said he plans to sue the federal government over the healthcare reform legislation, saying Congress lacks authority to force people to buy health insurance. Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, a Republican, said on Monday that Congress lacks authority under its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce to force people to buy insurance. He said the bill also conflicts with a state law that says Virginians cannot be required to buy insurance.
What Now? By John LeBoutillier - CapitolHillCoffeeHouse.com Is the passage of the so-called Health Care Reform really a huge political victory for President Obama and the liberal Democrats? Or is it actually the beginning of their political obituary? Here is what will answer these questions…
ACORN disbanding because of money woes, scandal By MICHAEL TARM CHICAGO (AP) -- The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues - six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. "It's really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives and right-wing activists that have taken away our ability to raise the resources we need," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said. Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore revenue that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal.
In Chinese court, Rio Tinto mining executive admits taking bribes By David Pierson - LATimes.com Stern Hu of the British-Australian mining firm faces up to 20 years in prison. The case comes as the business environment for non-Chinese firms is perceived to be increasingly difficult. Reporting from Beijing -- In a case that has become a flash point for the foreign business climate in China, an Australian mining executive admitted Monday to taking bribes while working as a chief iron-ore negotiator in China. Australian Stern Hu and three Chinese employees of the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Group have been held since July, accused of stealing commercial secrets and accepting millions of dollars in bribes.
Broken China By Paul Smalera - CNNMoney.com The burgeoning superpower keeps sabotaging its relationships with the outside world. Google has long been embarrassed by having to restrict its search results in China and promised to stop the practice as soon as it could. The company agreed to self-censor in 2006 as a devil’s bargain to gain access to the Chinese market. But after last year’s successful and major hacking of its Chinese operations (possibly at the direction of Chinese leaders) CEO Eric Schmidt seems to have had enough. “Something will happen soon,” he said about the company’s China presence, just last week.
Google raises stakes in China censorship row Tania Branigan in Beijing - guardian.co.uk, Search giant moves operation to Hong Kong to avoid Beijing's rules after two-month standoff over internet freedom Google shut down its search service in the Chinese mainland last night after a two-month standoff with Beijing over online freedom and an alleged intrusion by hackers. But Chinese authorities attacked the internet giant as "totally wrong" for its decision to shift its Chinese-language offering to Hong Kong. The move allowed the firm to stop self-censoring the service, although the government's filtering system would still prevent mainland users from seeing the results of many sensitive searches.
Google China
Google Stops Censorship, Making Block by China Likely By Brian Womack March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., following through on a pledge to stop censoring search results in China, began serving mainland Chinese users via its unfiltered Hong Kong site, a move that could prompt the government to block the service. The company began redirecting traffic from its Google.cn site to Hong Kong, a part of the country that isn’t subject to censorship laws. The move, which escalates a two- month dispute with the government over censorship, was “totally wrong,” the official Xinhua news agency said.
China angry as Google stops censoring search results By Nick Allen in Los Angeles and Peter Foster in Beijing - Telegraph.co.uk Google has stopped censoring its search results in China in defiance of the country's authorities, sparking a furious response from Beijing. The internet giant said yesterday it was closing its China-based search engine and redirecting visitors to an uncensored site based in Hong Kong. The move follows a long stand-off with Chinese regulators over censorship and hacking and sets up a showdown which could see Google turn its back on the world's biggest internet market. Google's announcement came amid heightened diplomatic tensions between China and the United States over a range of issues from internet freedom to the yuan exchange rate, economic sanctions on Iran and US weapons sales to Taiwan.
Iceland Prepares for Second, More Devastating Volcanic Eruption by Roger Boyes - LewRockwell.com -- Iceland is preparing for an even more powerful and potentially destructive volcano after a small eruption at the weekend shot red-hot molten lava high into the sky. About 500 people were safely evacuated from the land close to the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which is around 120 kilometres (75 miles) southeast of the capital, Reykjavik. The country's two airports were closed for most of the day and transatlantic flights re-routed to avoid the risk of ash blocking visibility and destroying engines.
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Regulators shut 7 banks in 5 states; 37 in 2010 USAToday.com WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators have shut down seven banks in five states, bringing to 37 the number of bank failures in the U.S. so far this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the banks: First Lowndes Bank, in Fort Deposit, Ala.; Appalachian Community Bank in Ellijay, Ga.; Bank of Hiawassee, in Hiawassee, Ga.; and State Bank of Aurora, in Aurora, Minn. Earlier, the agency said it had shuttered Advanta Bank, based in Draper, Utah; American National Bank of Parma, Ohio; and Century Security Bank of Duluth, Ga. The bank failures this year follow the 140 that succumbed in 2009 to mounting loan defaults and the recession.
House Passes Health Care Bill, Sweeping Legislation on Its Way to Become Law By HUMA KHAN, JONATHAN KARL and Z. BYRON WOLF - ABCNews.com Anti-Abortion Democrats' Decision to Vote 'Yes' Put Bill Over the Top The House of Representatives passed the sweeping health care bill with a narrow margin, securing a significant victory for President Obama, who lobbied hard this week for the controversial legislation. The vote was certain after the House Democratic leadership finalized a deal this afternoon with anti-abortion Democrats to vote for the health care bill in exchange for an executive order from Obama affirming no federal funding for abortion.
The Wrong Prescription: Democrats’ Health Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority Report from the Republican Ways and Means Committee If H.R. 3590, the Senate Democrats’ health care bill, is enacted, which could happen as early as this week, Democrats will have vastly expanded the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and fundamentally altered the relationship between the IRS and taxpayers. Specifically, this report examines the Individual Mandate Tax (IMT) proposed in the Democrats’ health care legislation. Under this provision, Democrats make the IRS the chief enforcer for a new government-run health insurance system. One of the most troubling aspects of this new IRS authority is the newly granted power to collect additional taxes from Americans whose health insurance coverage is deemed to be insufficient to meet the definition of minimum coverage, as defined by federal bureaucrats, required to be purchased.
Inside the Pelosi Sausage Factory By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL - WSJ.com Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak sold his anti-abortion soul for a toothless executive order. Last week Republican Rep. Mike Pence posted on his Facebook site that famous Schoolhouse Rock video titled "How a Bill Becomes a Law." It's clearly time for a remake. Never before has the average American been treated to such a live-action view of the sordid politics necessary to push a deeply flawed bill to completion. It was dirty deals, open threats, broken promises and disregard for democracy that pulled ObamaCare to this point, and yesterday the same machinations pushed it across the finish line.
The Fat Lady Hasn't Sung By JOHN FUND - WSJ.com Twelve Democrats who voted for ObamaCare in November voted against the "Slaughter Solution." House Democratic leaders are trying to create an aura of inevitability about their ability to pass health care. Yesterday, they trotted out two members, Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee and Betsy Markey of Colorado, who said they are switching their votes to favor the bill after voting "no" on the first version last November. They join Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who announced he would switch from "no" to "yes." But largely lost in the coverage is the fact that Democrats also have to worry about more than 40 members who voted in favor of health care four months ago but now are publicly undecided. The Hill newspaper, which according to my Congressional sources keeps the most accurate tally, says 214 members are currently committed or leaning against the bill, and 169 members are committed or leaning in favor. While Speaker Pelosi is certain to win over the majority of the undecided, she needs 216 votes to win, which means she must nearly run the table on the 40 or so wavering former "yes" votes.
Gold bull market to accelerate thanks to bonds By Jordan Roy-Byrne A few weeks ago I wrote about the true cause of hyperinflation, which is a major break or failure in the bond market. It has nothing to do with demand, bank lending or the velocity of money as many have suggested. It is a confidence issue. It is not a rise in inflationary expectations but a loss of confidence in a country being able to repay its debts. As confidence is lost, interest rates rise. Monetization occurs when the cost of servicing the debt consumes too much of the overall budget, so that the government can’t provide basic services or loses its ability to function on a day-to-day basis. The important point to note is that deflationary forces lead to hyperinflation. Once again, it is not demand, bank lending or increased velocity. Those things do not trigger severe inflation; they merely can be a symptom after the trigger. And by the way, increased velocity is basically another form of increased demand. Fundamentally, they are no different. Is anyone paying attention to the first domino in the sovereign debt crisis?
Gold steady after drop; eyes greenback and Greece By Nick Trevethan SINGAPORE, March 22 (Reuters) - Gold was steady on Monday as dollar strength that drove bullion 1.7 percent lower in the previous session, its biggest loss since early February, weighed on the market. The dollar was steady versus the euro on Monday, having jumped on Friday on speculation that debt-laden Greece may have to turn to the International Monetary Fund for help, rather than its euro-zone neighbours, sending commodities sharply lower.
I.M.F. Warns Wealthy Nations on Debt By SEWELL CHAN and KEITH BRADSHER - NYTimes.com BEIJING — The global economic crisis has left “deep scars” in the fiscal balances of the world’s advanced economies, which should begin to rein in spending next year as the recovery continues, the No.2 official at the International Monetary Fund said Sunday in Beijing. In a speech at the China Development Forum in Beijing, the I.M.F. official, John Lipsky, who is the deputy managing director, offered a grim prognosis for the world’s wealthiest countries, which are at a level of indebtedness not seen since the aftermath of World War II. For the United States, “a higher public savings rate will be required to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability,” Mr. Lipsky said.
All G7 countries, except Canada and Germany, will have debt-to-GDP ratios close to or exceeding 100 percent by 2014 CT News - ConspiringTimes.com - Lipsky Says Debt Challenges Face Advanced Economies -- Advanced economies face “acute” challenges in tackling high public debt, and unwinding existing stimulus measures will not come close to bringing deficits back to prudent levels, said John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. March 21 (Bloomberg) – All G7 countries, except Canada and Germany, will have debt-to-GDP ratios close to or exceeding 100 percent by 2014, Lipsky said in a speech today at the China Development Forum in Beijing. Already this year, the average ratio in advanced economies is expected to reach the levels seen in 1950, after World War II, he said. The government debt ratio in some emerging market nations had also reached a “worrisome level.”
Lipsky Says ‘Acute’ Debt Challenges Face Advanced Economies By Joyce Koh March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Advanced economies face “acute” challenges in tackling high public debt, and unwinding existing stimulus measures will not come close to bringing deficits back to prudent levels, said John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. All G7 countries, except Canada and Germany, will have debt-to-GDP ratios close to or exceeding 100 percent by 2014, Lipsky said in a speech yesterday at the China Development Forum in Beijing. Already this year, the average ratio in advanced economies is expected to reach the levels seen in 1950, after World War II, he said. The government debt ratio in some emerging-market nations has also reached a “worrisome level,” he said.
Jim Rogers Says 2012 Recession Will be Worse Central Banks printing money are driving stocks higher, but has not bought any shares since November 2008. Does not pay any attention to the Fed because they do not know what's going on. Expects U.S. Economy to have a worse recession than 2008-09 which will be worse because of the huge debt burden.
Another Recession Is Coming-Jim Rogers-CNBC-3-17-2010
Divisions Between the US and Europe Widen Over Greek Financial Bailout By: Global Research - MarketOracle.com -- Stefan Steinberg writes: The Greek government is preparing to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial help in the next few weeks to avert a default on its national debt. The move to engage the IMF follows the failure of European finance ministers meeting in Brussels earlier this week to agree on any concrete plan to provide financial backing for Greece. The principal obstacle at the Brussels meeting was the hard line taken by Germany. On Thursday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told the European Parliament that the interest rate Greece is forced to offer investors for servicing its debt is unsustainable, and that his government had complained to the IMF. Papandreou said the inflated borrowing costs would more than offset his government’s savings from the sweeping austerity measures it has introduced.
Markets spooked as Greek rescue plan crumbles By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk Europe’s rescue plan for Greece appears to be crumbling after the country threatened to call in the International Monetary Fund unless Brussels comes up with real money on acceptable terms within a week. The inability of the eurozone to put together a viable package after a month of talks has dismayed markets, which thought the terms of a deal had already been agreed. Yields on 10-year Greek bonds spiked 17 basis points yesterday to 6.26pc. The euro fell two cents against the dollar to below $1.36. "The facade of unity among eurozone members hardly held for more than a day," said Beat Siegenthaler from UBS. Greek Premier George Papandreou told the European Parliament that his country was running out of patience. It is in effect already subject to the full rigours of an IMF-style austerity plan but without enjoying any of the benefits. He said the savings from cost-cutting measures were vanishing into the pockets of bond-holders through higher interest rates.
Can central banks save Greece with gold reserves? By Adrian Ash Gold held flat for US investors in London on Friday, heading for a 2% weekly gain as the Dollar rose against everything but the commodity-currencies on the forex market. European stock markets edged 1% higher from last Friday's finish, while Euro and Sterling bonds both ticked lower as their currencies fell sharply. Gold priced in Pounds neared its second-highest weekly close at £743 an ounce, just shy of the £750 finish hit a fortnight ago. The Gold Price in Euros rose within 1% of March 5th's all-time peak at €838 an ounce.
Once Again Risk Aversion is Taking Center Stage by James Hyerczyk - FinancialSense.com Once again risk aversion is taking center stage as traders are buying the Dollar and shedding higher risk currencies. The main concern driving the Dollar higher overnight is Greece’s ability to obtain financial aid. Traders are pricing in the strong possibility that Greece will not receive aid from the European Union and be forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund for help.
Debt Saturation in the US Dollar Economy JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN The debt must be liquidated and income in the form of real wages must increase to bring this relationship back into balance. This is going to be a dangerous path for the US monetary authority to tread, because a misstep will lead to an inflationary spiral that will surprise most economists as did the stagflation of the 1970's, which up until that point was considered to be almost impossible according to the prevailing theory of that day.
Has Germany just killed the dream of a European superstate? By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk So after weeks of Euro-bluff it looks ever more like an IMF rescue for Greece after all, and hence for any other eurozone nation driven to ruin by the wrong monetary policy. German and Dutch leaders have concluded in the nick of time that they cannot defy the will of their sovereign parliaments by propping up a country that lied about its deficits, or risk court defeats by breaching the no-bail-out clause in Article 125 of the EU Treaties. Chancellor Angela Merkel has halted at the Rubicon. So has Dutch premier Jan Peter Balkenende, as well he might in charge of a broken government facing elections in a country where far-right leader Geert Wilders is the second political force, and where the Tweede Kamer has categorically blocked loans for Greece.
Greek leader warns Berlin that EU at risk if no aid Breitbart.com Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou implicitly criticised Germany on Saturday for opposing efforts to help his country out of its fiscal crisis, warning they risked destabilising the EU. "We have struggled for years to build a strong Europe, economically stable and with social solidarity," Papandreou said at a meeting of the national council of his socialist PASOK party. But "many forces forget the political importance of the euro, and are withdrawing the substance of the political vision of the European project, which is a joint effort to develop our economy in a calm and stable climate," he added.
Merkel gives Greece EU stability pledge Breitbart.com German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Greece's Prime Minister Georges Papandreou Sunday that the European Union would do "everything necessary" to preserve eurozone stability, her office said. Merkel told Papandreou in a phone conversation that the "EU was determined to undertake everything necessary to preserve the stability of the eurozone," a statement said. Merkel also "confirmed her support for Greek reforms", while Papandreou "underlined that Greece did not need financial aid," the statement added.
China Accuses U.S. of Politicizing Yuan as Trade Surplus Sinks By Bloomberg News March 22 (Bloomberg) -- China warned the U.S. against imposing sanctions over the value of the yuan, arguing that the exchange rate issue has been politicized and that a rise in protectionism threatens the global economic recovery. Pressure on China to strengthen the yuan does “no good to anyone,” China’s Commerce Minister Chen Deming said at the China Development Forum in Beijing yesterday. China’s trade balance likely slipped into the red in March, although the yuan was stable, showing that exchange rate changes have a “limited” impact on trade, Chen said.
China's corrupt Communists in the frame for graft By Peter Foster in Beijing - NYTimes.com A Chinese artist has risked the wrath of the Communist Party by preparing to mount exhibition that highlights its burgeoning number of corrupt officials. The daring new art work highlights the scale of graft in the world's largest emerging economy, which wages a constant war on corruption. The work, entitled "Hall of Fame", contains the portraits of 680 officials who have been successfully been prosecuted for embezzling, stealing or collecting bribes. The installation by the Beijing-based contemporary artist, Zhang Bingjian, aims to confront viewers with portraits of the jailed officials all painted in the crimson red of China largest denomination 100 yuan banknote.
Academic Paper in China Sets Off Alarms in U.S. By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZA - NYTimes.com It came as a surprise this month to Wang Jianwei, a graduate engineering student in Liaoning, China, that he had been described as a potential cyberwarrior before the United States Congress. Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist and China specialist, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 10 that it should be concerned because “Chinese researchers at the Institute of Systems Engineering of Dalian University of Technology published a paper on how to attack a small U.S. power grid sub-network in a way that would cause a cascading failure of the entire U.S.”
Jim Rogers on Chinese Currency and Trade War: My Thoughts By: Dian L Chu - MarketOracle.com In a Business News Network interview on Mar. 18, Jim Rogers, famous investor and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI) speaks about the recent currency and trade confrontation between the US and China: Rogers thinks the U.S. should try to explain to the Chinese that it is to their benefits to allow some flexibility in their currency. For instance, yuan's appreciation will in turn lower the cost of China’s imports and its supply chain. He acknowledges that the Chinese understand that their currency policy will need to change eventually in order to become a major player on the world stage. Although the yuan has appreciated some in the past few years, but it is just not up to the expectation of the U.S. Rogers estimates Chinese renminbi (yuan) could replace the dollar as the next reserve currency of the world in the next 10 to 20 years.
U.S. China Dispute Over Currency Manipulation and Bubbles Discusses China / U.S. currency manipulation dispute, says China will eventually have to float its currency if it wants to become a serious global economic and financial player. Only expect a short-term rally in the Dollar, favor's Canadian Dollar for the long-run. Expects China economy to do well even if China housing bubble bursts
China Warns Against U.S. Trade Sanctions By TERENCE POON - WSJ.com BEIJING--China's commerce minister on Sunday cautioned the U.S. against citing the Chinese currency as a reason for imposing trade sanctions, saying Beijing "won't turn a blind eye" to such moves, as both nations intensify their verbal sparring on the yuan exchange rate. With China recovering swiftly from the financial crisis even as Europe and the U.S. try to deal with stubbornly high rates of joblessness, Beijing's decision to keep the yuan largely unchanged against the U.S. dollar since July 2008 has increasingly drawn flak. Critics say an undervalued yuan is giving Chinese exporters a competitive edge against exporters elsewhere.
Bernanke Says Large Bank Bailouts ‘Unconscionable,’ Must End By Steve Matthews and Phil Mattingly -- March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said government bailouts of big financial companies are “unconscionable” and must be ended as part of a regulatory overhaul following the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. “It is unconscionable that the fate of the world economy should be so closely tied to the fortunes of a relatively small number of giant financial firms,” Bernanke said yesterday in a speech in Orlando, Florida. “If we achieve nothing else in the wake of the crisis, we must ensure that we never again face such a situation.”
Fed must reveal bank loan info from financial crisis, court rules By Larry Neumeister And Jeannine Aversa, Associated Press NEW YORK — The Federal Reserve must reveal documents identifying financial companies that received Fed loans to survive the financial crisis, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in two separate opinions that such information isn't automatically exempt from requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
Conservatives Promise Bank Levy By ALISTAIR MACDONALD And DAVID ENRICH - WSJ.com Banks moved back onto center stage in U.K. politics over the weekend, as the opposition Conservative Party said it would introduce a U.S.-style bank levy if it wins this spring's general election. The levy would repay taxpayers for bailing out banks during the credit crunch, Conservative leader David Cameron said in a speech Saturday. In a rare pairing, bank representatives joined with the Labour government to criticize the Tory proposal as vague, populist and potentially dangerous, claiming it could make British banks uncompetitive.
Bernanke: Fed should oversee all banks By Julianne Pepitone NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As Congress considers limiting the Federal Reserve's regulatory authority to just the country's largest bank holding companies, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated on Saturday that the central bank should retain power over banks of all sizes. "Because of the remarkable diversity of the U.S. financial system, a supervisory agency that focused only on the largest banking institutions, without knowledge of community banks, would get a limited and potentially distorted picture of what was happening in our banking system as a whole," Bernanke said in a speech to the Independent Community Bankers of America.
Fed Ends Bank Exemption Aimed at Boosting Mortgage Liquidity By Craig Torres March 20 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Board removed an exemption it had given to six banks at the start of the crisis in 2007 aimed at boosting liquidity in financing markets for securities backed by mortgage- and asset-backed securities. The so-called 23-A exemptions, named after a section of the Federal Reserve Act that limits such trades to protect bank depositors, were granted days after the Fed cut the discount rate by half a percentage point on Aug. 17, 2007. Their removal, announced yesterday in Washington, is part of a broad wind-down of emergency liquidity backstops by the Fed as markets normalize.
Watch the Bond Market, not Bank Lending or Velocity by Jordan Roy-Byrne - FinancialSense.com A few weeks ago we wrote about the true cause of hyperinflation, which is a major break or failure in the bond market. It has nothing to do with demand, bank lending or the velocity of money as many have suggested. It is a confidence issue. It is not a rise in inflationary expectations but a loss of confidence in a country being able to repay its debts. As confidence is lost, interest rates rise. Monetization occurs when the cost of servicing the debt consumes too much of the overall budget, so that the government can’t provide basic services or loses its ability to function on a day-to-day basis.
Public Pension Deficits Are Worse Than You Think By ANDREW G. BIGGS - WSJ.com How can fund managers assume an 8% rate of return? Pension plans for state government employees today report they are underfunded by $450 billion, according to a recent report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. But this vastly underestimates the true shortfall, because public pension accounting wrongly assumes that plans can earn high investment returns without risk. My research indicates that overall underfunding tops $3 trillion. The problem is fundamental: According to accounting rules adopted by the states, a public sector pension plan may call itself "fully funded" even if there is a better-than-even chance it will be unable to meet its obligations. When that happens, the taxpayer is on the hook. Yet public pension plans ignore market risk even as they shift into risky foreign investments, hedge funds and private equity.
Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winner who threatens the world By Jeremy Warner - NYTimes.com Paul Krugman, an American economist, wants to start a trade war with China. It would be worse than the 1930s, says Jeremy Warner. When the self-proclaimed "conscience of liberal America" and a one-time free trader to boot starts arguing for protectionism, you know that things have come to a pretty pass. But that's what's happened over the past week. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, has taken to advocating a 25 per cent "surcharge" – he refuses to use the more descriptive term of "import tariff" – on goods from China as a way of bringing the Chinese leadership to heel over currency reform. So potentially dangerous and out of character is this idea that when I first read it, I assumed he was being ironic. But sometimes the cleverest of people can also be the most stupid, and he's now said it so often that you have to believe he's serious.
Alan Greenspan - just admit you screwed up already!!
State-Owned Banks: The Future of Banking? By ALICE GOMSTYN - ABC News Business Unit State Officials Look to North Dakota Bank Model to Create Jobs; Critics Fear Marxism, Fannie Mae-Style Meltdown When the recession challenged Pam Wanner's bakery, she found comfort in what might seem a surprising place: her bank, the Bank of North Dakota, the only state-owned bank in the country. BND teamed up with a private, local bank in 2007 to provide Wanner's Twisted Bakery with a $100,000 loan that the bakery used to invest in equipment to create gluten-free products. Though the recession slowed Wanner's business plans, she's optimistic that her gluten-free herb breads and pastries will help Twisted's bottom line bounce back. If not for BND, she said, she probably never would have gotten such a loan at all.
Prudential will come to regret lack of clarity By Damian Reece - NYTimes.com Prudential shareholders will be forgiven for wondering what, exactly, is going on at the insurer. The company has fallen flat on its face over Tidjane Thiam’s appointment as a non-executive of French bank Soc Gen. There are conflicting versions but obviously Soc Gen was clearly of the view Thiam had accepted its invitation and announced it on Wednesday. It was met with dismay among Pru shareholders who were expecting Thiam to be utterly focused on the company’s delicate manoeuvre to buy AIA for $35.5bn. It turns out the appointment had not been signed off by the Pru board. The right hand did not know what the left was doing. This is unforgivable during such an important process as a takeover, which requires careful and precise choreography.
Hey, Big Spender: You Need a Surtax By ROBERT H. FRANK - NYTimes.com LAST year’s stimulus spending is running out, yet unemployment stays stubbornly near 10 percent. And as state and local governments keep cutting their budgets, the economy desperately needs an additional spending boost. Concerned about growing federal deficits, however, many in Congress appear reluctant to act. Their worries are misguided. Yes, deficits are bad, but protracted unemployment is far worse. Still, it seems unlikely that additional stimulus legislation can attract the supermajority now required to clear the Senate. And even without such legislation, huge budget deficits loom for years. In the long run, these deficits will impoverish our grandchildren, just as the deficit hawks assert.
Thousands face multiple foreclosures LATimes.com Though signs of recovery in the housing market are emerging, thousands of people in Southern California are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure--someone of them even face losing two or three homes, Alana Semuels reports today. The problem is especially visible in areas that attracted speculative buyers during the boom. In Maricopa County in Arizona, which includes Phoenix, at least 283 individuals have received a foreclosure notice on two or more properties since 2006, according to data provided by RealtyTrac Inc.
Some homeowners face repeated foreclosures
Supply of Foreclosed Homes on the Rise Again By JAMES R. HAGERTY - WSJ.com The supply of foreclosed homes that banks need to sell is rising again, signaling further downward pressure on home prices in some parts of the U.S. Mortgage analysts at Barclays Capital in New York estimated that banks and mortgage investors held a total of 645,800 foreclosed homes in January, up 4.6% from 617,286 a month earlier. According to Barclays, the supply peaked at around 845,000 in November 2008 and then declined through 2009.
Authentic Wealth Enhancement Essentials by DeepCaster LLC "Inflate, Deflate, Confiscate" -- U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft (RIP) on the Mega-Banks favorite technique. “The shadow banking system is still alive and growing. According to a new paper (PDF) by the Levy Economics Institute of U Miss, the derivative exposure of Goldman Sachs was 33,823% of its assets in 2009 (as compared to 25,284% in 2008). They are still leveraged to the hilt and the US government (i.e. the U.S. taxpayer) is the backstop.” "The U.S. Federal Reserve's framework is a corrupt one in that its regional banks are managed by board members who are officers from the very private institutions they are designed to govern, says Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Consuming Our Capital by Butler Shaffer - LewRockwell.com It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ones. ~ Alfred North Whitehead A sure-fire sign of a business enterprise in decline is when it begins using its invested capital to pay operating expenses. Such signs of ill-health are not confined to the world of commerce and industry, but can exhibit themselves in the life of any system. We are witnessing the practice in the collapse of Western Civilization, as we scurry to meet short-term demands by sacrificing the foundations upon which our culture has long been grounded.
Sultans of Swap - ACT II - The Sting! by Gordon T Long - FinancialSense.com There are 7 stages to executing a successful sting operation. Whether this is the modus operandi behind the Sultans of Swap operating in the $605 Trillion OTC Derivatives market or just simple coincidence, I will leave it to you shrewd reader to determine. The seven stages do however offer us an instructive theater guide to better understanding these murky instruments called Interest Rate Swaps.
Retire in Poverty by Ron Holland - LewRockwell.com The 10 Step Final Countdown to Retirement Plan Nationalization As the United States travels down the long road from the first limited government republic model of our Patriot Founding Fathers to a Washington style form of fascist national socialism, both health insurance and our private retirement system will eventually be nationalized and much of our retirement wealth confiscated all in the name of protecting us. But in a democracy, unlike total fascist and communist systems, great pillage and wealth attacks by government does not happen over night like Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany against Jewish wealth and property. The same can be said for Stalin's starvation of the Ukraine and forced collectivization and confiscation of all private property and farms. By necessity in a democracy, it is a slow, incremental step-by-step process and this provides the means for American investors to protect and defend their retirement assets.
Gerald Celente: Great 2010 Crash is looming
Jihad as American as apple pie, says US-born cleric CT News - ConspiringTimes.com WASHINGTON (AFP) – Violent jihad, or Islamic holy war, is “becoming as American as apple pie,” US-born fugitive cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi said in an unauthenticated message released Friday. “Western jihad is here to stay,” warned Awlaqi as he commented on a blonde American who dubbed herself “JihadJane” and has pleaded not guilty to trying to recruit Islamist militants to murder a Swedish cartoonist. “Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea,” the US-Yemeni cleric said in an English-language message posted on militant forums and released by the US-based SITE monitoring agency.
Business school grads flocking to Asia for jobs By Michelle Conlin - BusinessWeek.com Exodus of talent from U.S. may be part of structural shift in corporate world James Tsai is the sort of MBA corporate recruiters covet. He went to a good prep school, earned a degree with honors from Middlebury College, and made vice-president in Bank of America's international wealth management group at the age of 26. Today, Tsai is about to graduate, straight A's in hand, from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, a top-rated program in America. And he's hustling to land his first post-MBA job — in China. Executive Class strivers like Tsai used to have just one post-grad career destination, the U.S. Not anymore. "I am doing everything I think I can to get over there," he says. Every era has its version of the MBA dream. In the 1980s, it was about conquering Wall Street and choppering off to the Hamptons. The late 1990s saw a stampede to Silicon Valley. In the mid-aughts, the gilded, clubby preserve of private equity beckoned.
Phoenix lands near bottom of metro job list Phoenix Business Journal Private-sector employment declined in January in all of America’s 100 biggest labor markets, including Phoenix, according to figures released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Private-sector jobs now stand at 1.44 million, down from 1.53 million a year ago and 1.49 million in January 2005. Ten years ago, the number was 1.34 million. The loss of 90,300 jobs from January 2009 to January 2010 puts Phoenix in the No. 95 slot, while the percentage drop of 5.91 percent puts the metro area at No. 92.
Denver area lost 49,400 jobs in a year Denver Business Journal The Denver metro area lost 49,400 private-sector jobs -- 4.78 percent of the total -- in the 12 months ending in January, according to an analysis of new federal jobs data. The analysis is by G. Scott Thomas, projects editor of the Denver Business Journal's sister paper, Business First of Buffalo, N.Y. The Denver-Aurora-Broomfield area had 1,033,800 workers in the private sector in January 2009, and 12 months later it had 984,400, Thomas' analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates. Denver's total private-sector job loss over the 12-month span ranked 16th highest among the nation's top 100 metro areas, Thomas reported. Its precentage of job loss ranked 27th highest of the 100 metros.
More Ugly Housing Data by Adam Brochert - FinancialSense.com Every month, tout TV and mainstream financial sites like Yahoo! Finance and Marketwatch re-print propaganda pieces from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and other vested interests related to real estate. The headlines are ALWAYS spun to look positive, as comfort is more important than truth. The NAR has been calling the bottom in housing every month since before the top was in! Statistics are twisted and tricks like comparing the current month to the prior month instead of the same month in the prior year are used routinely to baffle, confuse, satiate and/or soothe those who still turn to mainstream media sources for truthful data. The numbers in housing are becoming surreal.
Home values in Phoenix metro could fall again because of 'shadow inventory' by Catherine Reagor - The Arizona Republic --Phoenix area home prices could experience another drop in value because of tens of thousands of properties that could flood the market in 2010. This shadow inventory, located across metropolitan Phoenix, is threatening the recovery of the real estate market and overall Arizona economy. It includes an unknown number of pending foreclosures, bank-owned homes bought at foreclosure auctions by investors who might try for a quick sale, thousands of homes foreclosed on by banks that have not yet put them up for resale and homes that will go into foreclosure after their owners abandon them and walk away from their mortgages.
House Passes Landmark Legislation Overhauling U.S. Health Care By Laura Litvan, James Rowley and Kristin Jensen -- March 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. House passed the most sweeping U.S. health-care legislation in four decades, rewriting the rules governing medical industries and ensuring that tens of millions of uninsured Americans will get medical coverage. The 219-212 vote marks the biggest victory yet for President Barack Obama, who will soon sign the bill into law. Only Democrats voted for the legislation, underscoring a partisan divide that promises to make health care the defining issue in November’s congressional elections.
In Nebraska, issues of immigration and abortion collide By DeeDee Correll - LATimes.com A bill is withdrawn that would have provided prenatal care for illegal immigrants. It had support from the state's powerful antiabortion contingent, but immigration has stirred growing anger here. Reporting from Denver - Nebraska long has regarded itself as a staunchly antiabortion state. But for months, the state has wrestled with an issue that pits its signature conviction against another belief -- that illegal immigrants should not receive tax-supported services. So two viewpoints collided with this question: Should Nebraska pay for prenatal care for the unborn children of illegal immigrants?
The Lunatic Left Is Getting Desperate by Thomas J. DiLorenzo - LewRockwell.com The Huffington Post recently (March 18) sunk to a new low by publishing an attack on “Ron Paul and the Tea Parties: States’ Rights and the 17th Amendment” by one Leonard Zeskind, a “former” Stalinist rabble-rouser. According to the Wilcox Collection on Contemporary Political Movements at the University of Kansas’ Spencer Research Library, Zeskind began his communistic career of agitprop in the ’70s as a “front man” for the “Sojourner Truth Organization” whose stated objective was “to motivate the working classes to make a revolution.” The Organization quoted its role model, Josef Stalin, who insisted on the need for “iron discipline” in agitating for a communist revolution in America.
U.S. Census Tracks Mail, Raising Fears Among Some by Jean Spencer - LewRockwell.com Census Bureau officials are counting on an advanced postal tracking system to speed up responses and save the government millions of dollars in follow-up letters and visits by census takers. But some privacy advocates and lawmakers are troubled by the tracking system, which they say oversteps privacy bounds. The 2010 Census forms arrive this week at 120 million addresses across the country. Each piece of Census mail comes with a unique barcode that lets the U.S. Postal Service and the bureau track individual letters as they travel to and from the bureau. Each time a letter zips through sorting equipment – typically five times between the initial mailing and delivery – it generates data that are fed into a computer system that lets the bureau monitor its progress.
November, 2010: More Rearranging of Deck Chairs by Scott Lazarowitz - LewRockwell.com You’ve probably heard the expression, "Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," which refers to making futile changes to a failing situation. This November’s elections will be such a case of rearranging the deck chairs on Titanic America, because the real problem that needs to be addressed is systemic, and serious systemic changes need to be made. There will be those who will say, "No, no, don’t say that, we have a chance to win back both the House and the Senate this November!" But these are times that call for a dose of reality. Unfortunately, many people involved with the Tea Party movement seem to have the misguided notion that the Founders’ structure of the federal government is adequate, but that the people in Washington just need to be replaced. However, the Founders’ forming a federal government with centralized power and authority and a compulsory territorial monopoly has been shown to be an immense error. Inherent in such a structure is the violation of property and individuals’ rights to life and liberty, hence America’s steady moral decay over the last century. And inherent in federalism is the violation of state independence and sovereignty.
Hatch Says It’s ’Nuts’ to Think House Vote Ends Health Issue By Nicholas Johnston March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senator Orrin Hatch said Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are “nuts” to think tomorrow’s vote on health-care legislation will resolve the issue. If the measure passes, Senate Republicans have enough votes on at least two points of order to alter the measure and send it back to the House for a second round of votes, Hatch said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “If those people think they’re only going to vote on this once, they’re nuts,” Hatch said as House Democratic leaders rounded up support before the scheduled vote on President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
The Health Plan's Devilish Principles by Murray N. Rothbard - LewRockwell.com Murray wrote against Hillarycare in 1994; his article is also relevant to Obamacare in 2010. The standard media cliché about the Clinton health plan is that God, or the Devil, depending on your point of view, "is in the details." There is surprising agreement among both the supporters and all too many of the critics of the Clinton health "reform." The supporters say that the general principles of the plan are wonderful, but that there are a few problems in the details: e.g., how much will it cost, how exactly will it be financed, will small business get a sufficient subsidy to offset its higher costs, and on into the night.
Wal-Mart to slash grocery prices (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc will cut food prices and mount a new ad campaign over the next six weeks, a threat to other U.S. grocers that sent an industry shares index down more than 2 percent on Friday. A Morgan Stanley analyst first reported the world's largest retailer's plan, calling it a major setback for other U.S. grocers, and the company confirmed the promotions in an email. "While this helps address Walmart's traffic woes, we view this as a major setback for the grocery stocks, which have been rallying on hopes of a return to more rational pricing," Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Wiltamuth wrote in a note on Friday.
US-NATO “Strategic Concept”: Global Warfare CT News - ConspiringTimes.com Missile Shield And Nuclear Weapons The civilian chief of the world’s only, and history’s first self-proclaimed global, military bloc is having a busy month. Via: Global Research – North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen delivered an address in Washington, DC on February 23 on the military alliance’s new 21st century Strategic Concept along with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her predecessor twice-removed Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser James Jones, the last-named a former Marine Corps general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
Fury as Google puts the SAS's secret base on Street View in 'very serious security breach' By DAILY MAIL REPORTER -- Military chiefs and MPs blasted internet giant Google today after its Street View service included detailed pictures of the headquarters of the SAS. Internet users can peer around the entrance to Credenhill, Herefordshire, which has never before appeared on maps for security reasons. The base is even marked as 'British SAS' on the website and offers users a detailed 180 degree view of the perimeter boundary. MPs and military top brass have demanded Google removes the pictures, claiming it makes the SAS a target for terrorist attacks.
Spy in the sky that sees round corners CT News - ConspiringTimes.com WHY jump in a cab to “follow that car” when an airborne drone could do the job for you? The US Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing a radar system which sees around corners and down into “urban canyons”. DARPA hopes to be able to track vehicles across an entire city using just a few uncrewed aircraft. NEW SCIENTIST - Traditional radar relies on direct line of sight, so it’s tricky to track a vehicle that keeps nipping behind buildings. But DARPA believes that by using buildings as mirrors, it will be possible to identify a target vehicle from radar reflections. The experimental system is called Multipath Exploitation Radar
Trading Day : March 18, 2010: China in a Mess Chinese economic bubble is built with DEBT and is likely to burst. Guess they figured if we could do it and prosper, then they could as well. Stay tuned, . . . we'll see how well they fair with nobody buying their debt.
Chinese Official’s Threat Sets Off a Media Furor By SHARON LaFRANIERE and JONATHAN ANSFIELD - NYTimes.com BEIJING — In another era, the brusque response of Li Hongzhong, the governor of Hubei Province, to a reporter’s question about a scandal on his home turf might have been the end of it. Infuriated that the reporter would even ask about the case — in which a waitress at a karaoke bar killed a government official in self-defense — he threatened to go to her boss, seized her audio recorder and marched off, according to reports of the encounter.
Google in China: we're closing tomorrow By Rupert Neate - NYTimes.com Google will tomorrow set out plans to close down its Chinese search engine after refusing to comply with China’s strict censorship laws. The company is expected to announce the closure of google.cn by as early as April 10 after the Chinese government refused to acquiesce to demands that it stop self-censorship of the site. It is understood that Google will continue to operate other services in the country and will maintain its research and development operations. The technology giant surprised the multi-billion pound digital industry in January when it told China that it would pull out of the country unless it was allowed to present uncensored search results.
China Technology Rules Hurt U.S. Companies as Google Exit Looms March 22 (Bloomberg) -- China’s new rules to encourage home-grown technology are causing U.S. companies to lose sales, according to an American Chamber of Commerce survey released today in Beijing. Twenty-eight percent of 203 members responding to the survey said they are losing business because of the policy. Among technology companies, 37 percent of 49 respondents said their businesses were being hurt now, with 57 percent predicting they would be set back by the new regulations.
China vs the US - The Battle For Oil
On the Edge with Max Keiser - 19 March 2010 - (1/3)
On the Edge with Max Keiser - 19 March 2010 - (2/3)
On the Edge with Max Keiser - 19 March 2010 - (3/3)
Yuan Poised to Become Reserve Currency, Goldman’s O’Neill Says -- By Keith Jenkins -- March 19 (Bloomberg) -- China’s yuan is destined to become a global reserve currency rivaling the dollar and the euro, as the nation’s economic power increases the currency’s allure, said Jim O’Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The Chinese government will “eventually” allow the yuan, or renminbi, to trade freely on foreign-exchange markets, dropping the system under which it controls its value, O’Neill wrote in an essay that formed part of a report published today for Chatham House, a London-based foreign affairs research organization.
Betting on Economic Recovery By Joel Bowman - DailyReckoning.com Flirting With Disaster 03/18/10 Taipai, Taiwan – Markets were dallying last we checked, up a bit, but not enough to sway an opinion. The majors in the US are up on average 5% for the past month, aided, as far as we can tell, by slapdash political rhetoric, myopic investor optimism and cherry-picked data analysis. That said, a 5% gain is a good month by just about anybody’s measure. So why are we so dour? The short answer is, “we’re not…we’re just cautious.” In his terrific book, Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, Nassim Nicholas Taleb explores, among other things, something he calls the “zoology” of bullish and bearish sentiment. In one particular example, Taleb describes the scene in a New York office when he is asked to give his forecast on the trajectory of the market over the coming week.
The “Sucker Rally” Will Come to an End By Rocky Vega - DailyReckoning.com 03/18/10 Stockholm, Sweden – It’s refreshing to come across the sucker’s rally concept again. It has been a long time now. It’s slipped so far from all the headlines of late it seemed like we were the only people who still recalled that it’s what we’re seeing taking place. The talented person with the sucker’s rally insight? No less than Rick Rule, founder and chairman of Global Resource Investments and regular Agora Financial Investment Symposium speaker, who recently shared his current thoughts on the economy.
Marc Faber: We Have a New Gold Standard By: Antonia Oprita - CNBC.com The markets have created their own gold standard because of uncertainties regarding other asset classes, Marc Faber, author of "The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report," told CNBC Thursday. "I think we already have now a gold standard … created by the market place," Faber told "Squawk Box Europe." "We have the (exchange traded funds) that have proliferated and we have more and more physical buying of gold," he said.
Comex Gold Boosted By Greek Uncertainty By Allen Sykora of Dow Jones Newswires Gold futures shrugged off a muscular dollar Thursday and rose anyway as investors showed a preference to hold the metal rather than the major currencies as uncertainty continues to swirl around Greece's debt situation. Lightly traded but nearby March gold rose $3.40, or 0.3%, to settle at $1,127.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Most-active April climbed $3.30, or 0.29%, to $1,127.50. On the surface, gold's move might not appear major. Yet several observers said the modest gain reflected strength since the U.S. dollar index was more than half of a point higher as the Comex gold pit closed. The metal historically has an inverse relationship to the dollar, benefiting as a hedge against dollar weakness, but conversely running into selling when the dollar rises.
Gold May Gain on Alternative to Dollar, Low Rates, Survey Shows by Nicholas Larkin -- March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Gold may gain on speculation demand will increase as investors seek an alternative to the dollar and low interest rates, a survey showed. Ten of 17 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 59 percent, said bullion would rise next week. Five forecast lower prices and two were neutral. Gold for delivery in April was up 2.3 percent for this week at $1,126.60 an ounce at 12:46 p.m. in New York yesterday.
Central Bank Gold Holdings Expand at Fastest Pace Since 1964 By Nicholas Larkin -- March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Central banks added the most gold to their reserves since 1964 last year amid the longest rally in bullion prices in at least nine decades, data compiled by the World Gold Council show. Combined holdings rose 425.4 metric tons to 30,116.9 tons, an increase worth $13.3 billion at last year’s average price, according to the data. India, Russia and China said last year they added to reserves. The expansion was the first since 1988, the data from the London-based council show.
The Bizarre Art of Central Banking Ron Paul teaches Ben Bernanke a lesson on Austrian free-market economics, but the Chairman is not listening. Instead, he tries to defend his actions by asserting that "central banking is an art" that requires guesswork.
Dollar Bulls Beware Peter Schiff By late 2009, as the U.S. dollar flirted with multi-year lows against most foreign currencies, big investment players crowded into trades that shorted the greenback. Commentators noted that the anti-dollar momentum had taken on a life of its own and that the trade had become too crowded. It is true that markets have a nasty tendency to move against the crowd. When a lot of traders agree on a particular trade, it's more likely that in the short-run the opposite trade will be a winner. The 2008 "flight to safety" rally of the U.S. dollar was a once in a lifetime event that presented huge opportunities for aggressive currency traders. By December 2008, after rallying 25% over the previous five months, the dollar topped out. However, there were many speculators who had come somewhat late to the party, as well as many others who had ridden the dollar up and were thus sitting on huge unrealized gains.
Treasuries Head for Weekly Gain as Greek Crisis Boosts Demand By Theresa Barraclough March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries headed for a weekly gain as speculation that Greece will fail to secure financial aid from the European Union increased demand for government debt. Benchmark 10-year notes snapped two weeks of losses after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou set a one-week deadline for the EU to compile an aid package before it goes to the International Monetary Fund. The difference between 2- and 10- year yields was near the lowest since January after a U.S. government report yesterday showed consumer prices stopped rising last month.
Failing Banks Should Go Through Bankruptcy, Key Senators Say By SARA HANSARD - DailyFinance.com -- Two key members of the Senate Banking committee who are negotiating how the government should deal with failing financial firms, indicated today that, in their opinions, large institutions should go through a judicial bankruptcy process, rather than being shut down by the government without court review. "If you're going to take down a major company, there ought to be a little bit of a due process," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said at a forum on financial reform at the National Press Club this morning. "Bankruptcy ought to be the primary process," Warner agreed. "Resolution should only be used as a last resort, and should be so painful that no rational man would ever want to prefer resolution."
Greenspan Says Banks May Need to Raise Reserve Capital by 40% -- By Steve Matthews -- March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said regulators may need to compel banks to raise capital levels by as much as 40 percent, saying that’s a more effective way to ensure stability than new regulatory rules targeting risk. “The most pressing reform that needs fixing in the aftermath of the crisis, in my judgment, is the level of regulatory risk-adjusted capital,” Greenspan said in a paper prepared for a Brookings Institution conference today. “Adequate capital eliminates the need for an unachievable specificity in regulatory fine-tuning.”
Bernanke Criticizes Dodd Plan to Curb Fed Supervision By Craig Torres and Joshua Zumbrun March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke criticized a proposal in the Senate to limit the central bank’s supervision to the largest financial firms, saying it would undercut its ability to spot financial risks. “The insights provided by our role in supervising a range of banks, including community banks, significantly increases our effectiveness in making monetary policy and fostering financial stability,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee yesterday.
Is Fed About To Hike Discount Rate, Again? By: Lee Brodie - CNBC.com The market melt-up appeared to be losing steam on Thursday due to chatter the Fed may hike the discount rate again, after the bell. What's the word on the Street? If you believe in history repeating itself, you may want to take pause, says Guy Adami. The last time the Fed raised the discount rate was February 18th, a Thursday, after the close. And the next day was options expiration, which is what we’re looking at today. I think there’s a reasonable chance they do it. I’d get flat. Looking at the broad market, I can’t help but wonder if the market wants to reverse and go down and this becomes the catalyst.
Fed May Boost Discount Rate Before Next Meeting, Economists Say -- By Joshua Zumbrun and Craig Torres -- March 19 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve may increase the discount rate, charged on direct loans to banks, before the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on April 28, economists said. “It’s going to happen at some point,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “Whether it’s today, whether it’s next week or next month is hard to say.”
Health Bill Would Add 3.8% Tax on Investment Income By Ryan J. Donmoyer and James Rowley March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic congressional leaders would raise to 3.8 percent the Obama administration’s proposed new Medicare tax on investment income to generate an estimated $210 billion to help fund a health-care overhaul plan. The rate is higher than the 2.9 percent President Barack Obama proposed in February. The new tax would apply to income from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties, capital gains and rents for individuals who earn more than $200,000 annually and joint filers reporting more than $250,000, according to the legislation.
Two Really Bad Deals By: Larry Kudlow - CNBC Anchor I don’t know if Obamacare is going to pass the House or not. As of this morning, the Intrade pay-to-play betting parlor is giving a 75 percent probability that it will go through. So Intrade seems to think so. But here’s what I do know: Obamacare’s worst tax hike is the imposition of a new 3.9 percent Medicare payroll tax on capital gains and other investments. What will this do? It will depress the economy, depress wages, and depress jobs. Washington doesn’t understand that you can’t create jobs without new healthy businesses. Can there be anything dumber? Look, raising the capital-gains tax to 24 percent from 15 percent, which includes repealing the Bush tax cut, is a 60 percent tax increase. So, instead of keeping 85 cents on the extra dollar invested, you only get to keep 76 cents. That’s a 10 percent drop in the after-tax incentive for capital formation. Incentives matter.
Skyrocketing Health Care Costs Hamper U.S. Competitiveness By CHARLES HUGH SMITH - DailyFinance.com -- It's no secret that the U.S. outspends other countries on health care. Health insurance alone, including premiums and employee contributions, averaged $12,680 per family in 2008, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a respected health-care nonprofit. Overall, the U.S. spent 17.6% of its gross domestic product P) on health care in 2009, more than double the percentages spent by Japan, Britain, Spain, Italy or Australia. But health-care costs are far more than just a health issue; they're also an economic problem. The skyrocketing bill for health care, including both public and private expenses, is reducing America's competitiveness as a global producer of goods and services.
Health reform: Where the money will come from By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Democrats pushing for health care reform are closer to the finish line than ever, but it's not over yet. And the question of cost will remain a central issue in coming days. On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with a key -- if still very preliminary -- cost estimate. The latest bill is a mix of provisions from a bill the Senate passed last December and proposals made by President Obama recently. Like the Senate version, the so-called reconciliation bill would provide government subsidies to low- and middle-income families buying health insurance on their own, expand eligibility rules for Medicaid and provide coverage for a majority of uninsured Americans. It would also establish a number of insurance reforms.
The Pain in Spain: An Economy in Crisis
Roach Rebuffs Krugman Call to Pressure China on Yuan By Christopher Anstey and Susan Li March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach said a “baseball bat” should be taken to economist Paul Krugman over his call for the U.S. to pressure China into allowing the yuan to appreciate. “We should take out the baseball bat on Paul Krugman -- I mean I think that the advice is completely wrong,” Roach said in an Bloomberg Television interview in Beijing when asked about Krugman’s call, characterized as akin to taking a baseball bat to China. “We’re lashing out at China rather than tending to our own business,” which is raising U.S. savings, Roach said.
Wal-Mart Considers Selling Yuan Bonds in Hong Kong By Shelley Smith and Frank Longid March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is considering selling yuan bonds in Hong Kong as China opens its markets, according to Asia Chief Executive Officer Scott Price. The company is “considering options” that may include yuan-denominated debt, Price said in an interview at Wal-Mart’s Asia offices in Hong Kong yesterday. Such a move would underscore the company’s commitment to support local communities and China’s financial system, he said. “Wal-Mart is in Asia and in China for the long term,” Price said. The company wants “the Chinese people to know that we see a responsibility to help build their economy,” he said.
Rio Tinto Case Mixes Politics, Law in China’s ‘Scary’ Courts By Debra Mao March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Foreign companies that do business in China will be tracking the criminal trial next week of Rio Tinto Group iron-ore chief Stern Hu and three colleagues to see if politics plays as big a role in any conviction as the evidence, lawyers said. The detentions of Hu, Liu Caikui, Ge Minqiang and Wang Yong for allegedly stealing state secrets -- later downgraded to taking bribes and infringing company secrets -- sharpened the focus on a judicial system largely avoided by foreign parties because of its lack of transparency, the lawyers said.
‘Fujian Tigers’ become sneaker powerhouses By Matthew Forney - FT A small and little-known city in eastern China’s Fujian province makes three claims to fame: it boasts the country’s earliest seafaring vessels, a large Islamic temple – and an odd cluster of sneaker companies. At least 10 firms in Quanzhou city make athletic shoes, and four have listed on overseas stock markets. Known collectively as the “Fujian Tigers”, these brands started out stitching together shoes for the likes of Nike and Adidas, then found success under their own names by selling into lower-tier cities.
Keiser Report #26: Markets! Finance! Scandal!
IRAN: Europeans call for action against Islamic Republic for jamming of international satellites by Alexandra Sandels - LATimes.com -- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his French and German counterparts think it's high time for Europe to step up measures against Iran for its alleged jamming of foreign channels such as BBC Persian and Deutsche Welle, which are broadcast by satellite into the Islamic Republic. "Iran has been regularly jamming the broadcasting by satellite of a number of foreign televisions and radio stations . . . since December 2009, a repetition of its practice in the run-up to the disputed elections earlier that year," Miliband, along with counterparts Bernard Kouchner of France and Guido Westerwelle of Germany wrote in a recent letter to the EU's foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton.
Germany Backtracks on Europe Rescue for Greece By MATTHEW SALTMARSH and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ - NYTimes.com -- After weeks of backing a European rescue for the financially troubled Greece, Germany shifted course on Thursday, signaling that help should come from the International Monetary Fund rather than Greece’s neighbors. Turning to the I.M.F. would represent a new and potentially humiliating twist in Greece’s financial drama, which was set off by doubts about Athens’s ability to borrow 53 billion euros this year to finance a yawning budget deficit and refinance waves of debt coming due.
El-Erian Says IMF to Aid Greece After ‘Chicken’ Game By Cordell Eddings and Thomas R. Keene March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The International Monetary Fund will come to the rescue of debt-strapped Greece after a “game of chicken,” according to Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co. “The IMF will come in, but it’s going to be a bumpy process,” said El-Erian, who is also chief executive officer of Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “There is no immediate solution. Don’t underestimate the game of chicken between Greece, the EU and the IMF.”
Greek worries return to unsettle investors By Jamie Chisholm - FT Euro falls and equities pull back from recent highs “Just when I think I’m out...they pull me back in.” Traders may be excused for having a Michael Corleone moment on Thursday after worries about Greek debt returned to stall the risk rally. The FTSE All-World equity index fell back 0.4 per cent from eight-week highs and the euro came under heavy pressure. The costs of insuring eurozone so-called peripheral economies against default were pushed sharply higher, and the Athens stock market fell 3.4 per cent.
Wall Street Banks Using Geithner and the NY Fed to Stifle FDIC Reforms JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN -- The President's Working Group on Financial Markets, aka the 'plunge protection team,' is apparently acting to block financial reforms being proposed by Sheila Bair's FDIC, according to the attached piece from Chris Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, an authoritative source on US Banking. The President's Working Group on Financial Markets consists of:
Time Geither, The Secretary of the Treasury, as Chairman of the Working Group;
Ben Bernanke, The Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,
Mary Shapiro, The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and
Gary Gensler, The Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
This is reminiscent of the actions of Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and Alan Greenspan to block attempts by Brooksley Born, then head of the CFTC, to head off the derivatives crisis back the 1990's, the very crisis which brought the US to the brink of disaster last year.
Fed May Raise Discount Rate Before Next Meeting, Economists Say By Joshua Zumbrun and Craig Torres -- March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve may raise the discount rate, charged on direct loans to banks, before the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on April 28, economists said. “It’s going to happen at some point,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “Whether it’s today, whether it’s next week or next month is hard to say.”
Greenspan Concedes That the Fed Failed to Gauge the Bubble By SEWELL CHAN - NYTimes.com WASHINGTON — Is Alan Greenspan, famous for his libertarian leanings and hands-off approach to Wall Street, having some second thoughts? After more than six decades as a skeptic of big government, the former Federal Reserve chairman, now 84, is gingerly suggesting that perhaps regulators should help rein in giant financial institutions by requiring them to hold more capital. Mr. Greenspan, once celebrated as the “maestro” of economic policy, has seen his reputation dim after failing to avert the credit bubble that nearly brought down the financial system.
Greenspan hits back at housing bubble claims By Edward Luce and Tom Braithwaite Alan Greenspan on Friday will offer his most sophisticated defence so far of his role as chairman of the Federal Reserve in the build up to the 2008 financial meltdown, hitting back at claims that the Fed’s low short-term interest rates were the cause of the US housing bubble. Mr Greenspan’s characteristically abstract assessment – in a 48-page paper he will present on Friday for the Brookings Institution – is likely to fuel debate over how to prevent another asset price bubble at a time when US financial regulatory reform is nearing its endgame on Capitol Hill.
Money Out Of Thin Air: TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com Now Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Wants To Eliminate Reserve Requirements Completely? Up until now, the United States has operated under a "fractional reserve" banking system. Banks have always been required to keep a small fraction of the money deposited with them for a reserve, but were allowed to loan out the rest. But now it turns out that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wants to completely eliminate minimum reserve requirements, which he says "impose costs and distortions on the banking system". At least that is what a footnote to his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services on February 10th says. So is Bernanke actually proposing that banks should be allowed to have no reserves at all? That simply does not make any sense. But it is right there in black and white on the Federal Reserve's own website.... The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system.
Gerald Celente on Happy Hour 16 Mar 2010
Governments Turn to ‘Stealth’ Taxes to Fill Gaps By MATTHEW SALTMARSH - NYTimes.com France, promising to improve the environment, is planning to introduce a carbon tax. In Finland, where the government says it wants to improve diets, taxes are back on candy and soft drinks. Similarly, Denmark has added tobacco and some fatty foods to the list of taxed products. Britain is taking a different tack, considering a so-called horse tax. All these taxes may be presented as serving virtuous ends, but they also have something else in common: they help plug budget holes deepened by the recession, bailouts and billions in stimulus spending.
The American Economy: TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com The Wealthy Make The Mistakes But The Hard Working Middle Class Pays The Price This is how the U.S. economy works much of the time - the wealthy make most of the big economic mistakes but the hard working middle class ends up paying for them. This time around is no exception. The financial crisis of the past several years was caused by Wall Street, but they got bailed out and relatively few of them lost their jobs. However, even though middle class and working class Americans were not the ones who made the mess, they are paying for it dearly. This is especially true when it comes to unemployment. While it is true that jobs are being lost on every level of American society, the reality is that unemployment is hitting Americans on the lowest end of the income scale the hardest.
Health Insurers Toughen Stance in Disputes Over Hospital Rates By AVERY JOHNSON And SUZANNE SATALINE - WSJ.com Health insurers are fighting demands by hospitals for sharply higher reimbursement rates by threatening to drop the hospitals from their health-plan networks, and blaming them for higher insurance premiums. "We've never seen the kind of increases we're seeing right now" from hospitals, says Aetna Inc. President Mark Bertolini. Five years ago, a typical rate increase was about 5%, but this year Aetna granted 50 "must have" rate increases of more than 20%, Mr. Bertolini says.
Government bank auditors got big bonuses By Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — Banks weren't the only ones giving big bonuses in the boom years before the worst financial crisis in generations. The government also was handing out millions of dollars to bank regulators, rewarding "superior" work even as an avalanche of risky mortgages helped create the meltdown. The payments, detailed in payroll data released to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, are the latest evidence of the government's false sense of security during the go-go days of the financial boom. Just as bank executives got bonuses despite taking on dangerous amounts of risk, regulators got taxpayer-funded bonuses despite missing or ignoring signs that the system was on the verge of a meltdown.
Hard times send hotel industry into 'survival mode' By Gary Stoller, USA TODAY Neil Cornelssen says he misses the free cookies in the evening at one hotel and the daily newspaper outside his door at others. He's also noticing that bath towels in a growing number of hotel rooms are shabby and need to be replaced. Cornelssen, a sales manager in Marlton, N.J., is one of many frequent travelers who say they see the tangible effect that the recession has had on the nation's hotel industry. Among them: run-down rooms with fewer bathroom amenities, closed club lounges, fewer concierge staffers, slow room service, reduced hours at restaurants and bars, and infrequent airport shuttles.
Gas prices highest since 2008; jump almost 20 cents in past month By Mark Williams, Associated Press U.S. motorists are paying the highest prices for gas since October 2008. Retail gasoline prices rose on Thursday on an expected increase in demand and as more expensive spring and summer blends of gasoline make their way to the pumps. The nationwide average hit $2.799 per gallon, a penny higher than Wednesday, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
Idaho's plan to downgrade the dollar By Andrew Leonard - Salon.com A bill to allow citizens to pay their taxes with silver medallions gains support. Goldbugs are watching closely With only one state representative dissenting, the Idaho House State Affairs committee voted on Monday to endorse HB 633, a bill that would allow Idaho citizens to pay their state taxes with an official state silver medallion. The news comes just a month after a South Carolina legislator introduced a bill seeking to ban Federal currency altogether, and replace the upstart greenback with gold or silver coins. A half-dozen other states have considered similar legislation, reports the Tenth Amendment Center. But there's a key difference between the Idaho plan and the bills proposed in other states, most of which fall somewhere on a spectrum ranging from Tea Party rage to Ron Paul goldbug-ism. (The South Carolina bill, for example, claims that "the State is experiencing an economic crisis of severe magnitude caused in large part by the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin as legal tender in this State.")
What Happens When You Work As Hard As You Can And It Is Not Enough? TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com -- Once upon a time, most of us who live in America were taught that no matter what happens, if you are willing to work hard enough and long enough you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and be able to live the American Dream. But today that is not reality for millions of Americans. Instead, millions of Americans find themselves working night and day and still not being able to make it. Millions of others have poured their hearts and souls into their jobs and now find themselves out of work and out of luck by no fault of their own. So what do you do when you work as hard as you possibly can and it is just not enough?
Coming Soon: By Joseph Pisani - CNBC.com Take Photo Of Check, Deposit It in Bank Picture this: Soon, consumers will be depositing paper checks straight into their bank account by taking a couple of photos with a smartphone. The technology is already available at USAA, an insurance company and bank that primarily serves military personnel and their families. Larger banks such as Chase and Citi intend to add the technology—known as remote-deposit capture—later this year. Banks have already offered smartphone applications that let customers check balances, transfer funds and make payments. This new addition would take mobile banking a step further.
Janitor Jock Proud to Mop Floors He Once Ruled by Scott Soshnick March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Syracuse University boasts an impressive collection of distinguished alumni. Politicians, authors, journalists and, yes, athletes. For instance, former quarterback Don McPherson, running back Floyd Little and basketball star Dave Bing -- now mayor of Detroit -- are among those who’ve received the George Arents Pioneer Medal, the university’s highest alumni honor, which is awarded based on excellence in one’s field or endeavor. Marty Headd wasn’t honored. He should be. A Syracuse native who played basketball for the Orangemen -- now just Orange -- Headd earned Big East All Conference honors his junior and senior seasons. This, however, is about more than just shooting a basketball. It’s about pushing a broom, too. And never complaining. Not once.
China's one-child policy little enforced and set to end By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Over three decades after China officially introduced its one-child policy, the population-control program no longer applies to most Chinese and looks set to be permanently abolished. While government statistics aren't publicly available, a widely cited figure from state-media reports shows less than 36% of the country's population was subject to the one-child policy, as of 2007. But even this low number may overstate compliance with the once-strict rule than no Chinese couple could have more than one child. Current exceptions abound -- including allowing second children for many rural families, almost all ethnic minorities, families where both parents are themselves only children, and many other cases.
Tiger Deaths Raise Alarms about Chinese Zoos By XIYUN YANG - NYTimes.com BEIJING — A zoo where 11 rare Siberian tigers recently starved to death is fast becoming a symbol of the mistreatment of animals in China, with allegations of misspent subsidies, bribes, and the deaths of at least dozens of animals. The local authorities stepped in over the weekend, taking control of the 10-year-old zoo, in Shenyang in northeastern China, and dispatching experts to try to save the remaining 20 or so tigers, three of which are in critical condition. Among the charges under investigation are employee reports that the zoo used the bones of dead tigers to illegally manufacture a liquor believed to have therapeutic qualities. One employee said he had made vats of the liquor and served it to visiting government officials.
Hillary Clinton, Russians clash publicly over Iran reactor By Megan K. Stack - LATimes.com With Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at her side, the secretary of State reproaches Moscow for building and fueling the plant without assurances on weaponry. Lavrov stands his ground. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had barely arrived in Moscow for nuclear arms and Mideast talks when tensions over Iran flared up publicly Thursday. Meeting reporters alongside her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Clinton reproached Moscow for building and fueling a nuclear power plant in Iran. Tehran is not entitled to generate nuclear energy for civilian purposes, Clinton said pointedly, until it puts to rest suspicion that it is secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
Putin vexes US over Iran nuclear power By Daniel Dombey in Washington and Isabel Gorst in Moscow - FT Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, promised on Thursday that Moscow would help Iran complete a civil nuclear power station by this summer, drawing criticism from Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state. His remarks highlighted the continuing differences between the two powers over how to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Mrs Clinton was visiting Moscow on a trip partly designed to increase the pressure on Tehran by showing America’s unity with Russia.
Iran Dispute Becomes Focus of Clinton’s Russia Trip By MARK LANDLER - NYTimes.com MOSCOW — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russia’s foreign minister clashed publicly Thursday over an announcement that Russia would complete a nuclear power plant in Iran this summer. Mrs. Clinton said the announcement, made during her visit, sends the wrong signal at a time when the West is trying to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. The foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, countered that construction on the plant would go ahead.
Purported al-Awlaki message calls for jihad against U.S. By Paula Newton, CNN London, England (CNN) -- American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is calling for jihad against America, claiming "America is evil" in a new audio message obtained by CNN. "With the American invasion of Iraq and continued U.S. aggression against Muslims, I could not reconcile between living in the U.S. and being a Muslim, and I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other Muslim," he says in the recording that runs more than 12 minutes. Al-Awlaki is believed to be hiding out in hills of southern Yemen with the protection of his very powerful family tribe.
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Thurs 03.17.2010
Medicare Fraud Costs Taxpayers More Than $60 Billion Each Year By CYNTHIA McFADDEN and ALMIN KARAMEHMEDOVIC - ABCNews/Nightline -- In Easy to Execute Scams, Criminals Rip-Off Taxpayers, Make Millions and Run A four month "Nightline" investigation into Medicare fraud makes one thing perfectly clear: this is a crime that pays and pays and pays. The federal government admits that a staggering $60 billion is stolen from tax payers through Medicare scams every year. Some experts believe the number is more than twice that. Fraudulent pharmacies, clinics and medical supply companies seem to pop up like mushrooms in South Florida, the area widely considered to be ground zero in the fight against a crime that requires little training and involves few risks.
He Who Has the Gold Makes the Rules By: Adrian Ash - marketoracle.co.uk The decline of the West, measured in tonnes... AS THE AGE-OLD Golden Rule puts it, "He who has the gold makes the rules" – an historical fact proven most recently by the United States' dominance of global monetary politics since WWII. And given gold's critical role in world history, three telling facts are buried amongst the latest central-bank gold data compiled by the World Gold Council...
3/16/10 Marc Faber: Suggests Gold Accumulation
Jim Rogers Sizes Up Two Global Bubbles By: Antonia Oprita - CNBC.com The euro is unlikely to still exist as a currency over the longer term, the pound will fall substantially in the next few years and US Treasurys and some real estate in China are the world's two current bubbles, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC.com Wednesday. "The euro will probably break up in the next 15 to 20 years," Rogers said in an interview. "Don't get me wrong, I own the euro." "We've had currency unions in history, they didn't survive, this one won't survive either," he explained.
Why George Soros feels that Euro will collapse By Jon Nadler - CommodityOnline.com In a familiar replay of the past fourteen months’ worth of meetings, the Fed concluded on Tuesday that doing nothing as regards the fed funds rate at least, was still the most reasonable course of action. The US central bank thereby acknowledged that the U.S. economic turnaround is still not sufficiently vigorous to spark inflationary processes. Since the Fed saw little justification for hiking the cost of borrowing at this time, it simply reiterated its well-worn “extended period” mantra and thus gave audiences reason to watch the same movie once again. You know; the one where carry traders borrow those ultra-cheap dollars and pump up the prices of everything you saw rising yesterday afternoon, as if the economic recovery was going on right here, right now, at full bore.
Price Fixing! Ron Paul vs. Ben Bernanke at 3/17/10 Financial Services Hearing
Yellen Is Spellin’ Future Inflation By: Larry Kudlow - CNBC Anchor The new Obama Fed is going to be very dovish when it comes to fighting future inflation and defending the value of the dollar. The president has nominated Janet Yellen to be vice chair of the Federal Reserve. Ms. Yellen is a distinguished economist who unfortunately subscribes to the Phillips-curve model that trades off unemployment and inflation. She is considered one of the most "dovish" members of the central bank's policymakers, meaning she is seen to lean toward policies that will boost growth and promote employment rather than those aimed at keeping inflation at bay.
Continued 'soft money' and shining commodities By Martin Hutchinson - CommodityOnline.com For a U.S. president, nominating Fed governors is a little like nominating Supreme Court justices: Since they serve a 14-year term, you have the chance to shape the U.S. Federal Reserve for a decade after your administration ends. What's more - even though Fed governors are subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate - you're far less likely to have trouble getting them through than you do with the Supremes. That's why U.S. President Barack Obama's current chance to nominate three out of the seven Fed governors is legitimate front-page news - and isn't merely the "inside monetary baseball" trivia that occupies much of the daily business section. Probably two of those three governors still will be serving in 2020, long after President Obama has published his memoirs.
"The Dollar Is Going to Suffer": by Aaron Task - TechTicker.com Axel Merk Makes the Bull Case for the Euro Conventional wisdom is that Greece's recent debt offering and pledges of support by EU finance ministers are just a short-term fix, and that the crisis in the euro zone is far from over. "The Greek tragedy is going to continue [and] there will be some ups and some down," says Axel Merk, founder and president of Merk Investments and author of Sustainable Wealth. But Merk breaks with the conventional view about what the Greek saga - and concerns about Europe's other so-called PIIGS - means for the single currency.
China leans toward yuan float By Zhang Huanyu, Huo Kan & Yu Hairong, Caixin Online Professors and policymakers alike agree on need for new forex reform BEIJING (Caixin Online) -- The Chinese government's yuan exchange-rate policy is at another critical juncture. Several quasi-government and independent research organizations have held closed-door discussions since the beginning of the year to discuss exchange-rate mechanisms, and they've submitted policy suggestions to the central bank and government policy makers. What's next? All signs indicate that China is about to resume exchange-rate reforms, a process suspended in July 2008 at the start of the international financial crisis. During a press conference March 6, People's Bank of China Deputy Gov. Su Ning said the central bank would decide when to exit its "special exchange-rate mechanisms" and set a schedule according to economic situations.
Tao Says China-U.S. Closer to Trade War Than Recent Past March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Dong Tao, a Hong Kong-based economist at Credit Suisse AG, talks with Bloomberg's Haslinda Amin about U.S. calls for a stronger Chinese yuan and the outlook for trade between the two countries. Five senators including Charles Schumer of New York and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced legislation March 16 to make it easier for the U.S. to declare currency misalignments and take corrective action. Tao also discusses the outlook for China's economy.
Senate Push May Force Obama to Increase Yuan Pressure By Mark Drajem March 17 (Bloomberg) -- The latest push by U.S. lawmakers to target China’s currency policy may force President Barack Obama to step up pressure for an increase in the yuan’s valuation, senators and analysts said. Five senators including Charles Schumer of New York and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced legislation yesterday to make it easier for the U.S. to declare currency misalignments and take corrective action. Even if the bill stalls, it may have “ripple effects” that lead the Treasury Department to declare China a currency manipulator, William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said.
China Says 'Cannot Be Any Clearer' on Yuan Rhetoric By: Reuters China said on Wednesday it "could not be any clearer" in its repeated commitment to a stable exchange rate after the U.S. Congress threatened to levy duties on some Chinese exports if it fails to revalue its currency. The temperature in the long-running dispute over China's exchange rate regime is rising quickly, with a bipartisan bill introduced on Tuesday in the U.S. Senate that aims to get Beijing to let the yuan rise. Focusing on the yuan will not help to solve problems in the Sino-U.S. bilateral trade relationship, a Chinese commerce ministry official told Reuters.
Ryan Says China `Not Playing Fair' by Devaluing Yuan
Regulators Say MGM Mirage Knew Its Macau Partner Had Ties to Crime By ALEXANDRA BERZON and A.D. PRUITT - WSJ.com --- ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.—New Jersey's casino enforcement agency said MGM Mirage knowingly signed on an unfit partner as it tried to gain a foothold in Macau after Chinese officials denied it a license in the fast-growing gambling mecca. "From the beginning of its efforts to enter Macau, MGM pursued partnerships with persons that it knew were associated with those aspects of gaming in Macau most heavily penetrated by organized crime," New Jersey's Division of Gaming Enforcement wrote in a previously confidential report to the state's Casino Control Commission.
JPMorgan, UBS and Deutsche Bank Charged with Derivatives Fraud JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN -- More like international crime families sending out enticing emails trying to lure and trick the unsuspecting than serious financial institutions. This is banking? Notice that these were operating out of their London units, similar to the AIG derivative scandal that helped to worsen the US financial crisis. The FSA is apparently working hard now to enforce its rules and bring these banks to heel. Contrast that with the SEC in the States which seems reluctant to do anything regarding enforcement, and even when a judge puts them to the task, are able to administer only the mildest of financial chastisement to be passed on to the shareholders.
Angela Merkel defies IMF and France as anger rises over German export surplus By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk --- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defied France and the IMF, refusing to modify Germany’s strategy of export reliance or boost growth to help alleviate the deep crisis sweeping Southern Europe. "Where we are strong, we will not give up our strengths just because our exports are perhaps preferred to those of other countries," she told the German Bundestag. Mrs Merkel swept aside criticisms that Germany and other surplus countries are partly to blame for the widening North-South rift that has led to Euroland’s worst crisis since the launch of monetary union.
Greece threatens to call in IMF as Europe dithers By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk Greece has upped the ante in an escalating game of brinkmanship, threatening to turn to the International Monetary Fund for support unless EU leaders come up with an acceptable rescue package at their next summit on March 25. Premier George Papandreou told reporters in Brussels that he had not ruled out recourse to the IMF, a move that would be viewed as treachery by top EU officials. “Nothing is excluded,” he said when asked about IMF involvement. “If we realise that we will be borrowing at extremely high rates, there are other options. But we would certainly prefer a European solution.”
China asks US groups to back it on currency By Geoff Dyer in Beijing and James Politi in Washington China called on US multinationals on Tuesday to lobby the Obama administration against taking protectionist measures over the Chinese currency, just as attitudes towards China appear to be hardening in the US Congress. Yao Jian, a spokesman at the Chinese commerce ministry, said that some companies had already been lobbying against recent restrictions on Chinese imports to the US and he hoped this would increase.
Ron Paul: Prevent Bubbles, Stop Inflation? End the Fed!
Jobs Bill Passes in Senate With 11 Votes From Republicans By CARL HULSE - NYTimes.com WASHINGTON - The Senate approved and sent to President Obama on Wednesday what Congressional Democrats hope will be the first in a series of bills spurring employment by providing tax breaks and other hiring incentives to businesses. The measure, approved on a bipartisan vote of 68 to 29, would give employers an exemption from payroll taxes through the end of 2010 on workers they hire who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. It also extends the federal highway construction program and takes other steps to boost public building projects.
Fed didn't know about Lehman accounting 'gimmicks' By Ronald D. Orol & Alistair Barr, MarketWatch Bernanke says SEC was told after brokerage firm failed stress tests SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that the central bank didn't know about Lehman Brothers' use of controversial transactions that moved roughly $50 billion of assets off its balance sheet less than a year before it collapsed. During congressional testimony, House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Spencer Bachus asked if the Fed was aware of Lehman's "accounting gimmicks."
Bernanke Warns Against Narrowing Fed Focus By SUDEEP REDDY - WSJ.com Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Wednesday that a Senate proposal to end the Fed's oversight of smaller banks would unwisely narrow the central bank's focus to the nation's largest financial institutions. A proposal by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) would make the Fed the supervisor of the roughly 35 bank holding companies with assets greater than $50 billion. "It makes us essentially the 'too-big-to-fail' regulator," Mr. Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. "We don't want that responsibility. We want to have a connection to Main Street as well as Wall Street."
Bernanke: Fed should monitor all banks By Jennifer Liberto WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made his strongest case yet to Congress on Wednesday for the Federal Reserve keeping its regulatory oversight powers over banks large and small. Bernanke told the House Financial Services panel he's "quite concerned" about proposals to limit the Federal Reserve's regulatory power to watching out for only the biggest banks. He called the proposal a "bad idea."
3/15/10 Peter Schiff on CNBC: Fed is Blowing Air Back in the Bubble
Loan Demand at Stand Still. Are You Nervous About the Year Ahead? by Adam Quinones - MortgageNewsDaily.com --- The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 12, 2010. The survey covers over 50 percent of all US residential mortgage loan applications taken by mortgage bankers, commercial banks, and thrifts. The data gives economists a look into consumer demand for mortgage loans. A rising trend of mortgage applications indicates an increase in home buying interest, a positive for the housing industry and economy as a whole. Furthermore, in a low mortgage rate environment, such a trend implies consumers are seeking out lower monthly payments which can result in increased disposable income and therefore more money to spend on discretionary items or to pay down other debt.
Elizabeth Warren's war (Fortune) -- Elizabeth Warren, who came to Washington in 2008 with the task of keeping tabs on the financial bailout, today faces the unthinkable: business as usual for the Wall Street firms whose dealings plunged the country into the most severe recession in almost 80 years. The Harvard law professor and plainspoken voice of financial reform and consumer protection was asking politicians to level the playing field between Main Street and the banking industry even before Lehman Brothers fell. When Harry Reid appointed her head of the Congressional Oversight Panel two years ago, it furthered her reach in D.C. and gave her more opportunity to whip up support for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
"Our Problems Are Our Own Making": U.S. Can't Blame Woes on China, Merk Says by Heesun Wee - TechTicker.com Tensions between China and the U.S. have heated up recently. At his annual press conference Sunday, China's Premier Wen Jiabao firmly said the Chinese currency, the yuan, is not undervalued. Wen also said U.S. efforts to boost exports by weakening the dollar amounts to "a kind of trade protectionism," as WSJ reported. Senator Chuck Schumer and NYT columnist Paul Krugman joined the fray on the American side, reviving charges of currency manipulation against China.
Will Obama's "Soft Money" Fed Lead to Hard Times for the U.S. Economy? BY MARTIN HUTCHINSON, Money Morning --- For a U.S. president, nominating Fed governors is a little like nominating Supreme Court justices: Since they serve a 14-year term, you have the chance to shape the U.S. Federal Reserve for a decade after your administration ends. What's more - even though Fed governors are subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate - you're far less likely to have trouble getting them through than you do with the Supremes.
If You Liked Fannie and Freddie... By PETER J. WALLISON ... You'll love Chris Dodd's latest reform proposal. It would make many more companies too big to fail and lead to far greater financial consolidation. Think ObamaCare for the financial system. That's one way to understand Sen. Chris Dodd's bill to reform financial regulation. If passed in its current form, the bill would give the government control over the financial system in roughly the same way, and to the same extent, that ObamaCare would take over the nation's health care. There isn't a public option, exactly, but the private firms involved would be so heavily regulated that they would be effectively controlled by the government.
Phoenix Meets the Wrong End of the Boom Cycle By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF - NYTimes.com PHOENIX - Perhaps it was just a matter of time, but three years after this city's housing market collapsed in spectacular fashion, commercial real estate has followed it off the cliff. The average price paid for office space in the Phoenix metro area tumbled more than 50 percent last year, from $205 a square foot in 2008 to $102 a square foot in 2009, according to data compiled by Kammrath & Associates, a local real estate analysis firm. Retail and industrial space underwent similar declines. "Prices are falling like a stone," said Bob Kammrath, who has studied the commercial market in Phoenix since 1981. "I see them going lower."
KB Home ex-CEO tried to keep stock option scheme secret, an executive testifies By Stuart Pfeifer - LATimes.com A former human resources director says he and former chief Bruce Karatz, who prosecutors say made more than $6 million from his options, tried to keep investigators from discovering the backdating. Former KB Home chief Bruce Karatz engineered a massive stock option scheme that made him millions of dollars and then fought to keep it secret from investigators, a longtime company executive testified Wednesday. Gary Ray, who served as KB's human resources director from 1996 to 2006, told a federal jury in Los Angeles that he and Karatz backdated stock options to make them more valuable to themselves and employees and then concealed it from company shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Rivals' Pilots Join Picketing at United By ANN KEETON - WSJ.com CHICAGO—United Airlines' pilots were joined on a picket line Wednesday by counterparts from five other carriers in a show of growing solidarity within their ranks world-wide. The United pilots were protesting an unusual outsourcing deal with Ireland's Aer Lingus Group PLC that starts this month. The head of United's pilots' association also revealed that it had
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