Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Friday 07.30.2010
Gold - The Battle is Already Won
Gary Tanashian - SilverBearCafe.com
This morning's email from gold general Jim Sinclair - under siege yet again from the troops in the "community" - prompts this morning's post.
Mr. Sinclair often writes with a war mentality pitting the gold community against the evil bullion banks - and a good chunk of the rest of the financial world. Don't get me wrong, I think there is plenty of evil out there (it seems that on Mondays following a meeting or conspiracy of the assembled dignitaries in the G20 my investment accounts take the hit) but apparently a good chunk of the "community" gets its panties all in a bunch every time gold takes the hard hit.
President Visits New York but Wall Street Isn't at Home
By LAURA MECKLER And BRODY MULLINS - WSJ.com
President Barack Obama heads to New York City on Wednesday for a pair of high-dollar fund-raisers-a tough task given the many Wall Street executives who are put off by his rhetoric and policies.
Mr. Obama raised a record $15 million from Wall Street donors for his presidential campaign, but his relationship with many of those donors began to fray not long after he took office, and donations have fallen.
Wall Street executives "feel like a spurned lover," says Paul Equale, a financial-services lobbyist who also advises Wall Street firms on dealing with Washington.
Trillions for Wall Street... Zilch for You Know Who
Mike Whitney - SilverBearCafe.com
On Tuesday, the 30-year fixed rate for mortgages plunged to an all-time low of 4.56 per cent. Rates are falling because investors are stillÊ moving into risk-free liquid assets, like Treasuries. It's a sign of panic and the Fed's lame policy response has done nothing to sooth the public's fears. The flight-to-safety continues a full two years after Lehman Bros blew up.Ê
Housing demand has fallen off a cliff in spite of the historic low rates. Purchases of new and existing homes are roughly 25 per cent of what they were at peak in 2006. Case/Schiller reported on Monday that June new homes sales were the "worst on record", but the media twisted the story to create the impression that sales were actually improving! Here are a few of Monday's misleading headlines: "New Home Sales Bounce Back in June" - Los Angeles Times. "Builders Lifted by June New-home Sales", Marketwatch. "New Home Sales Rebound 24 per cent", CNN. "June Sales of New Homes Climb more than Forecast", Bloomberg.
How Washington is Far Worse off Than Rome
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
07/29/10 Alexandria, Virgina - While there have been many comparisons of how the US' current descent from its solitary superpower status bears an uncanny resemblance to the crumbling Roman Empire, Jim Rickards, in an interview with King World News, explains how the US is actually in a far worse situation.
From Zero Hedge: ".... alas, the similarities are just far too many, starting with the debasement of the currencies, whereby Rome's silver dinarius started out pure and eventually barely had a 5% content, and the ever increasing taxation of the population, and especially the most productive segment – the farmers, by the emperors, to the point where the downfall of empire was actually greeted by the bulk of the people as the barbarians were welcomed at the gate with open arms.
SEC Says New Financial Regulation Law Exempts it From Public Disclosure
By Dunstan Prial - FOXBusiness
So much for transparency.
Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.
Banking Disaster Largely Ignored By Mainstream Media
Greg Hunter - SilverBearCafe.com
Last week, bank failures quietly passed the 100 milestone for the year. I say "quietly" because the bank failure story has gone largely unreported or, at least, under-reported by the mainstream media. Just to give you an idea of how fast the bank insolvency problem is accelerating, last year, at this time, 64 banks had been taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. So far, this year, 103 banks have already been taken over by the FDIC. There is no question the bank failures the FDIC will have to deal with will be greater than the 140 insolvent banks closed last year. At this point, we just don't know how many more, but dozens more than last year for sure.
Four Shocking Bombshells Bernanke Did NOT Tell Congress About Last Week Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. - SilverBearCafe.com
In his testimony before Congress last week, Ben Bernanke lifted the Fed's skirt and gave us a glimpse of the disasters now sweeping through the U.S. economy.
But there are four bombshells he did NOT talk about:
FIRST and foremost, what's CAUSING the economy to sink? The stock market has not yet crashed. Interest rates have not yet surged. Gasoline prices have not skyrocketed. There has been no recent debt collapse, market shock, or terrorist attack.
So what is the invisible force that's suddenly gutting the housing market, driving consumer confidence into a sinkhole, and killing the recovery that Washington was so avidly touting just a few months ago?
Bernanke won't say. But the answer is clear: The recovery had very little substance to begin with. Rather, it was, in essence, a mirage - a dead cat bounce bought and paid for by Washington's massive bailouts, stimulus programs, and money printing.
Why the Fed won't raise rates
Citigroup to pay $75 million to settle SEC charges it misled investors over subprime investments WashingtonPost.com
Citigroup, one of the nation's largest banks, agreed Thursday to pay $75 million to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint that it misled investors about $40 billion of its holdings in sub-prime mortgage investments that sent the bank to the edge of collapse.
After its $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs, the SEC's resolution of the case with Citigroup represents a third major Wall Street institution this year agreeing to regulatory sanctions for behavior that was at the core of the financial crisis. Citigroup received one of the largest taxpayer bailouts.
China allows IMF to share results of economic report
By Howard Schneider - Washington Post Staff Writer
The International Monetary Fund on Thursday released its first detailed assessment of the Chinese economy in four years, a document less interesting in its details than for the fact that it was made public at all.
There were the expected broad conclusions -- that the country's currency is undervalued, growth is vigorous, property values may be rising too fast -- and some new insights. The Chinese were, it turns out, spooked by the recent crisis in Europe and are concerned that the developed world is drowning in debt, and as a result, they have become even more cautious than usual in their own policies.
Europe's €30 trillion headache
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
European banks have amassed €30 trillion in liabilities and face a serious funding threat over the next two years as authorities withdraw emergency support, according to a new report by Standard & Poor's
The rating agency said banks are at risk of a vicious circle as sovereign debt fears and financial stress feed off each other. "Banking sector woes are eroding sovereign credit-worthiness, which is in turn reducing the real and perceived capacity of governments to support weak banks," said S&P.
"The collective funding needs of Europe's banks are vast. The industry is much larger than America's or Asia's. Most of their mortgages and other personal loans stay on their balance sheets and require funding. This contrasts with the US, where financial institutions securitize (these) loans and which do not require balance sheet funding," said Scott Bugie, S&P's credit strategist. Total liabilities are €23 trillion for the eurozone and €8 trillion for the UK, Sweden, and Denmark.
To Hell with Free Trade
by Alan Caruba - CapitolHillCoffeeHouse.com
It's funny how bits of knowledge stick in your head. Literally a half century ago, while taking a history class at the University of Miami, a professor said, "Nothing happens in the world until someone sells something to someone else."
The study of history can help one understand the present and frequently help predict the future. The world has experienced astonishing change in the last century thanks to trains, planes, automobiles, radio and television, and, of course, computers and the Internet.
It is natural for each new generation to accept such technological innovations as having always existed, but even automobiles are a relatively new mass produced invention. A hundred years ago in 1910, there were only 8,000 cars in the entire nation and only 144 miles of paved road.
Fed official warns of deflation fears
Fed official backs more asset purchases
The Fed is trying so hard not to scare the market that it risks putting the economy to sleep, a top Fed official said.
By promising to leave short-term interest rates near zero for an extended period, the Fed "may be increasing the probability of a Japanese-style outcome for the U.S.," St. Louis Fed President James Bullard (right) said in a paper released Thursday. He says the best bet for avoiding that sort of slowdown is another round of Fed asset purchases.
The support for another round of asset purchases is noteworthy because Bullard has been both a supporter of Fed asset purchases and a worrier about the potential inflationary impacts. His support for more asset purchases suggests he believes the balance has swung against inflation.
Senator demands probe of BP tax break
By Annalyn Censky - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two days after BP said it will write off the cost of the oil spill cleanup against its income taxes, a U.S. senator is calling for a Congressional probe into the company's tax plans.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, requesting a series of hearings on the matter and calling BP's plans to take a tax write-off "unacceptable."
On Tuesday, BP said it took a $32 billion charge in the second quarter for clean-up costs, resulting in tax savings of about $10 billion.
A Store of Rubbish
Peter Souleles B. Com. LLB. - SilverBearCafe.com
Rest assured that the price and position of gold are underpinned and guaranteed by spendthrift governments and accommodating central bankers who do not understand that they cannot generate more and more public debt in the process of taking the place of unemployed workers and maxed out consumers and plugging the gaping holes left by insolvent banks and corporations. Moreover they will compound the problem by allowing the concentration of wealth and income into fewer and fewer hands. They will however continue this stupid process until they are forced to print a fresh load of worthless paper with which to pay back everyone in useless currency. In the current economic climate they can attack gold, but they cannot destroy it. Paper manipulations and media distortions can be very effective in scratching gold's surface and scaring weak hands into giving it up, but they cannot create jobs, win wars, redeem the securities held by Social Security Trust Fund or repair decaying infrastructure. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf himself recently stated that "U.S. fiscal policy is unsustainable, and unsustainable to an extent that it can't be solved through minor changes" and even the Fed's Beige Book has now put off recovery for another 5-6 years. With the current policies of the USA, Europe, China and Japan, recovery will only be possible after a complete collapse.
How the Threat of Monetary Inflation Keeps a Currency Strong
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com
07/29/10 Paris, France – Here’s the latest from The Telegraph: Drip after drip of deflation data… Today’s release on manufacturing activity by the Richmond Fed is pretty ghastly, as you would expect given that the effects of fiscal stimulus are now wearing off at an accelerating pace – before the happy handover to the private sector is safely consummated – and given that the structural East-West imbalances that lay behind the global crisis are getting worse again… This follows yesterday’s horrendous fall in the Texas business activity index from the Dallas Fed, which fell from -4 in June to -21 in July. “Thirty-one percent of firms reported a worsening of activity, up from 22 percent in June,” said the bank. Texas New Orders were -9.6 in July, -8.2 in June, and +15.8 in May. Capacity Utilization was -0.6 in July, +2.7 in June, and +18.7 in May. This of course is why Fed chair Ben Bernanke has been giving strong hints of QE2 (helicopters again) if necessary.
Here is where it gets so interesting we can barely sit still. Ben Bernanke is threatening to drop money from helicopters (quantitative easing). In a better world, a banker who threatened to inflate the currency would be punished immediately. People would take him at his word. They would dump his paper money immediately. The price of it would drop. He’d be forced to protect it.
Emanuel: Obama Aims to Improve Business Relations
By GERALD F. SEIB - WSJ.com (free) Obama Plans Regulatory Review
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, mindful of business complaints about his administration, plans to review regulatory decisions to see whether there are "things that can be done in a more sensible way," his top aide said.
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in a video interview with WSJ.com that Mr. Obama held a meeting this week with aides to discuss various regulatory decisions. "They've gone through a review process, but he's heard what [business leaders] have had to say, and he wants to have a further review to see if in fact there are some things that shouldn't be done."
The Market Is a Hologram Masking Deflation
Max Keiser - SilverBearCafe.com
Since the global financial crisis started in earnest in 2008, there has been a debate raging in economic circles. Is the economy experiencing inflation or deflation?
The first consideration in solving this riddle is to agree on terms. Rising or falling prices at your local grocery store is 'price inflation' but not inflation as defined in terms of an expanding money supply.* In other words, retail prices moving up and down are the secondary effects of an expanding or contracting money supply; the primary component in understanding the 'flations.'
Getting back to what happened in 2008, when the markets hit the skids, the government reacted by increasing the money supply; just as they did after the 1987 crash, the Long Term Capital Management crisis, the dot-com crash, 9/11, and the sub-prime crash. But unlike any of those instances, the money supply kept shrinking and prices kept deflating (notwithstanding the price of a few items).
Keiser Report No:64
George Carlin Never Would've Cut It at the New Goldman Sachs
By CASSELL BRYAN-LOW And AARON LUCCHETTI - WSJ.com Firm Bans Naughty Words in Emails; An 'Unlearnable Lesson' on Wall Street?
There will never be another s- deal at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The New York company is telling employees that they will no longer be able to get away with profanity in electronic messages. That means all 34,000 traders, investment bankers and other Goldman employees must restrain themselves from using a vast vocabulary of oft-used dirty words on Wall Street, including the six-letter expletive that came back to haunt the company at a Senate hearing in April. "[B]oy, that timberwo[l]f was one s- deal," Thomas Montag, who helped run Goldman's securities business, wrote in a June 2007 email that was repeatedly referred to at the hearing.
Rangel hit with 13 ethics charges
By Sean Lengell - The Washington Times Bipartisan panel of colleagues puts longtime lawmaker on trial
Kicking off a politically perilous process, the House ethics committee on Thursday officially lodged 13 charges against Rep. Charles B. Rangel, including that he used his office to raise $8 million for a college public policy center named after him and failed to file taxes while he was Congress' chief tax writer.
Last-minute efforts to strike a deal to head off a public trial fell short as Republicans said that chance had passed.
Mr. Rangel was not present as two of his colleagues sat as prosecutors and eight others sat as a kind of jury, tasked with deciding the fate of the New York Democrat who earlier this year was pressured into giving up the chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Still Too Big to Nail
Commentary by Jonathan Weil
July 29 (Bloomberg) -- The White House says it's finally ready to consider new ideas for what to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Still absent from the government's agenda is any serious effort to hold anyone accountable for their ruin or investigate why they collapsed.
Back in December 2003, after Freddie disclosed what in retrospect was a relatively mild accounting scandal, its regulator published an exhaustive 185-page report cataloguing the company's financial-reporting abuses. In May 2006, the same regulator disclosed similar findings about Fannie's books in a report covering 348 pages.
Fixed mortgage rates keep falling
By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times
The average on a 30-year loan drops to 4.54%, while 15-year mortgages are down to 4%, Freddie Mac reports. This marks the sixth straight week of record lows.
The Gershwin standard is "Nice Work If You Can Get It." The refrain in today's housing market would be: nice loans - if you can get them.
Fixed mortgage rates have dropped again, marking the sixth straight week of record lows in Freddie Mac's survey of what lenders are offering to highly qualified borrowers.
Foreclosure activity continues to increase
By Dina ElBoghdady - WashingtonPost.com
Foreclosure activity climbed in three-quarters of the nation's largest metro areas in the first half of the year compared to the same time a year ago, but declined in some of the hardest hit regions, RealtyTrac reported on Thursday.
The report found that 154 of the 206 metro areas with a population of 200,000 or more posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity, which covers everything from the time borrowers receive a default to the sale of the property via auction or on the traditional real estate market.
Foreclosures boom among nation's most creditworthy
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
A record number of borrowers once judged the most creditworthy are heading into foreclosure as the job market leaves more homeowners unable to keep up with mortgage payments.
Foreclosures among borrowers with prime conforming loans have shot up 425% since January 2008, according to Lender Processing Services, which compiles mortgage data. Conforming loans are those eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal agencies that buy mortgages from lenders.
Jumbo prime loans not eligible for purchase by Fannie or Freddie have done even worse - foreclosures on those have increased nearly 600%.
Homes will sell if priced right; foreclosures have impact
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
Emily Rennie's three-bedroom house in Oakland was a beauty in a sweet location. Walking distance to the lakeshore. Close to shops. A refurbished patio in the back. Inside, a modern kitchen with granite countertops.
Listed at $539,000 when she put it on the market, the Excelsior Avenue house was missing one crucial thing: The right price. After a few weeks with no offers, she cut the price to $499,000 in May. Then she cut it to $475,000 in June. She is still hoping for an offer.
Foreclosure warnings are on the rise in most metro areas
StarTribune.com
LOS ANGELES - Households across a majority of large U.S. cities received more foreclosure warnings in the first six months of this year than in the first half of 2009, new data show.
The trend is the latest sign that the nation's foreclosure crisis is worsening as homeowners battling high unemployment, slow job growth and an uneven rebound in home prices continue to fall behind on their mortgage payments.
In all, 154 out of 206 metropolitan areas with at least 200,000 residents posted an annual increase in foreclosure activity between January and June, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
California 'fiscal emergency' declared
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal state of emergency, putting pressure on lawmakers to pass a state budget that is now more than a month overdue.
California's economy, which is the eighth largest in the world, faces a budget deficit of $19bn (£12bn).
Mr Schwarzenegger said that without a budget in place the state's government would run out of cash by October.
He also ordered most state employees to take three days unpaid leave a month.
Earlier this month, the governor ordered 200,000 state workers to be paid the minimum wage because no budget had been passed.
Schwarzenegger Blocks the Latest Shot in the War On Farmers
Jesse Kline - Reason.com
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would have mandated overtime pay for agricultural workers who are on the job for more than eight hours in a day. California is already the only state to provide overtime pay to employees working over 10 hours; this bill would have gone significantly further. According to the Los Angeles Times:
Saying he didn't want to damage California's agricultural economy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vetoed a first-in-the-nation bill that would have given farmworkers the same rights to overtime pay enjoyed by all other hourly workers in California.
California workers stiffed again
By Julianne Pepitone, staff reporter
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- California's state workers just can't catch a break.
For the past year and a half, 200,000 of them have been forced to take three unpaid furlough days a month -- losing as much as 14% of their pay.
The furlough order expired July 1, when workweeks and full salaries were restored.
But the reprieve was short: The state's workers are getting slapped back down.
On Wednesday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state agencies to reinstitute "furlough Fridays" starting Aug. 1.
Gerald Celente on Tony Cruise WHAS 27 July 2010
Employers get tough on insuring 'family'
By Parija Kavilanz, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Think your whole family is covered by your company health plan? Get ready to prove they're actually your kin.
Under the new health care legislation, beginning next year employers will have to provide coverage for dependents of employees till age 26.
That will further inflate coverage costs for companies at a time when employers are already bracing for a 9% jump in their health care plan expenditures in 2011.
Americans Cut Back on Visits to Doctor
By AVERY JOHNSON, JONATHAN D. ROCKOFF and ANNA WILDE MATHEWS - WSJ.com (free)
Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs.
The drop in usage is showing up as health-care companies report financial results. Insurers, lab-testing companies, hospitals and doctor-billing concerns say that patient visits, drug prescriptions and procedures were down in the second quarter from year-ago levels.
"People just aren't using health-care like they have," said Wayne DeVeydt, WellPoint Inc.'s chief financial officer, in an interview Wednesday. "Utilization is lower than we expected, and it's unusual."
Is an Internet sales tax coming?
UPDATE: Adds opposing resolution from Rep. Paul W. Hodes (D-N.H.)
By Ylan Q. Mui - WashingtonPost.com
A movement is slowly building in Washington to banish one of the biggest perks of shopping online: not paying sales tax.
That's because the perk has also cost states as much as $23 billion in
lost revenue by some estimates, and they want it back. Rep. Bill
Delahunt (D-Mass.) this morning enlisted Republican South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds (R) and other state lawmakers to rally support for his
proposed Main Street Fairness Act, which would make it easier for
states to go after the money.
White House proposal would ease FBI access
to records of Internet activity
By Ellen Nakashima - Washington Post Staff Writer
The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.
The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" --
Afghan Crooks Given Taxpayer Money
Memo outlines backdoor 'amnesty' plan
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times Immigration staffers cite tools available without reform
With Congress gridlocked on an immigration bill, the Obama administration is considering using a back door to stop deporting many illegal immigrants - what a draft government memo said could be "a non-legislative version of amnesty."
The memo, addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and written by four agency staffers, lists tools it says the administration has to "reduce the threat of removal" for many illegal immigrants who have run afoul of immigration authorities.
"In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, USCIS can extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals and groups by issuing new guidance and regulations, exercising discretion with regard to parole-in-place, deferred action and the issuance of Notices to Appear," the staffers wrote in the memo, which was obtained by Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican.
BORN IN THE USA? U.S. Selective Service in Obama cover-up?
Mysterious Social Security Number now wreaks havoc in online search By: Joe Kovacs - FourWinds10.com (TruthWinds.com)
Is the U.S. Selective Service System now blocking access to President Barack Obama's online registration records?
Members of the public searching the federal database for the commander in chief's registration are suddenly finding new difficulty, possibly due to the startling revelation of Obama's alleged use of a Connecticut-based Social Security Number.
The Selective Service System, or SSS, collects names of Americans for use by the Department of Defense in the event of a national emergency. On its website, it says it provides the nation "with a structure and a system of guidelines which will provide the most prompt, efficient, and equitable draft possible, if the country should need it."
Feds think public can't HANDLE THE TRUTH
about toxic dispersants says EPA Sr. Analyst
EPA Senior Policy Analyst Hugh Kaufman on MSNBC July 28, 2010
When the Watchmen Are Silenced
By Jan Markell -
There is now a war on words in America. The battle to further censor words, transform words, twist words, and silence words is raging. The Left in leadership is determined to rob Americans of one freedom after another but the greatest loss would be our free speech. As stated in the July 26 issue of The American Thinker, "It's a frightening thought: Government takeover of the media. But having tightened their grip on health care, financial services, and energy, it's only logical that the Democrats should turn their attention to the media. "Discussions underway at the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission point toward a dangerous new effort to regulate what Americans read and hear. The takeover under discussion would apply across the board to print media, radio and television, and the Internet. The result of proposed regulations would be nothing less than an end to free speech in America."
Our America - The Gary Johnson Initiative
America is in a crisis that affects the future of every citizen in our land. There is no THEY poised and ready to swoop in to protect our liberties and restore what has been taken. There is YOU and there is ME. We alone have to shoulder the burden of advancing the cause of freedom in our nation. Each of us has a role and a duty to perform because its OUR America. The time is now. The price of our liberty will only get higher the longer we delay. Mission Statement: OUR America Initiative seeks to broaden the parameters of the public policy debate of current topics in the national arena. We look to enlighten the population about civil liberties, free enterprise, limited government, and traditional American values. It is our aim to increase the amount of discussion and involvement regarding all-important issues.
The OUR America Initiative is a 501(c)(4) political advocacy committee and may receive unlimited donations from both individual and corporate donors. Gary Johnson is not a current candidate for any federal political office. Gary Johnson serves as Honorary Chairman of Our America Initiative:
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Alex Jones' EndGame HQ full length version
Alex Jones' Fall of the Republic HQ full length version
Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states as Big Government claims ownership over our water
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger - NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) Many of the freedoms we enjoy here in the U.S. are quickly eroding as the nation transforms from the land of the free into the land of the enslaved, but what I'm about to share with you takes the assault on our freedoms to a whole new level. You may not be aware of this, but many Western states, including Utah, Washington and Colorado, have long outlawed individuals from collecting rainwater on their own properties because, according to officials, that rain belongs to someone else.
As bizarre as it sounds, laws restricting property owners from "diverting" water that falls on their own homes and land have been on the books for quite some time in many Western states. Only recently, as droughts and renewed interest in water conservation methods have become more common, have individuals and business owners started butting heads with law enforcement over the practice of collecting rainwater for personal use.
SILENCE OF THE SHEEP
by John Hinderaker - PowerLine.com
Andrew Klavan wrote a book called Empire of Lies. It was slated to be published in France by Seuil Policiers, but the editor who bought the book left that firm, and the new editor decided not to publish Klavan's book. This wasn't because she thought it wouldn't sell; it wasn't an economic decision at all, as Klavan had already been paid. Rather, the editor explained that "she can not publish . . . because of the political and religious aspects of the story." That is, the book's protagonist is a conservative Christian. Not only that, the liberal media is a sort of collective villain.
Klavan applies this experience to recent headlines here in the U.S., and contrasts liberals with conservatives:
[E]verywhere, the Left favors fewer voices and less information, and conservatives favor more. Everywhere, the Left seeks to disappear its opposition, whereas the Right is willing to meet them head-on. ...
The New American: A Rebirth Of The Old Guard
By Giordano Bruno - Neithercorp Press - 07/26/2010
.... The primary threat, not just to the New American but to every living person, is Elitism. There is nothing more vile than an elitist: they demand fealty from the masses even though they hate and despise the common man. They are fully aware of their conscience, but see it as a hindrance to their pursuit of dominance and so ignore it. They fancy themselves as "godlike" and imagine themselves to be intellectually superior to the rest of us, even though they have proven on numerous occasions to be rather foolish. Their ego-mania is so immense that they are virtually incapable of recognizing the fallibility of their philosophies. And, they are willing to sacrifice anything and anyone accept themselves to get what they want, meaning they are the worst kind of cowards exacting the worst kind of oppression.
As horrifying as elites are, the New American is unphased. He knows that an uncompromising sense of despotism can only be met with an uncompromising sense of liberty. He knows that because he is confident in his values and refuses to negotiate them away, elitists fear him. They recognize that men who are defending their home, who are wise, who hold the moral high ground, and who are unafraid, are difficult if nearly impossible to defeat. More than anything else, the elites quake at the thought of the New American Guard.
Economic Warnings From Niall Ferguson and Nassim Taleb
By: Gary North - MarketOracle.co.uk
Two widely respected economic commentators, Harvard's Niall Ferguson and Nassim "black swan" Taleb, have offered highly pessimistic assessments of what lies ahead for the American economy.
Information like this is widely ignored by investors in weeks when they have decided that nothing can stop them: they will get rich by investing in the American stock market, no matter what. On July 21, Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking committee that "the economic outlook looks unusually uncertain." Stocks fell sharply as soon as he gave his testimony. But the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered at the opening bell the next day, and then rose by almost 400 points over the next three business days. There was no news that countered Bernanke's assessment. Investors simply shrugged it off.
US Treasury Running on Fumes, Down to the Last Trillion in Red Ink
By: Paul Craig Roberts - MarketOracle.co.uk
The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. WikiLeaks' release of the Afghan War Documents "puts the lives of our soldiers and our coalition partners at risk."
What nonsense. Obama's war puts the lives of American soldiers at risk, and the craven puppet state behavior of "our partners" in serving as US mercenaries is what puts their troops at risk.
Keep in mind that it was someone in the US military that leaked the documents to WikiLeaks. This means that there is a spark of rebellion within the Empire itself.
China Tells America to Mind Its Own Business
From theTrumpet.com
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invoked a heated response from Chinese officials last Friday. Clinton stated that America might step in to referee a long-simmering territorial dispute between China and its smaller neighbors in the South China Sea.
Speaking at a forum of Southeast Asian countries in Vietnam, Mrs. Clinton surprised Beijing by saying America had a "national interest" in mediating the dispute of the Spratly Islands between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Indonesia.
The islands and surrounding sea floor supposedly contain large oil and gas deposits.
Clinton's assertion may have evoked an abnormally heated response due to the fact that 20 U.S. and South Korean warships and 200 aircraft are currently conducting war games in seas between Korea and China.
George Soros' gold ownership is a classic hedge
By Michael J Kosares - CommodityOnline.com
The hubbub started when hedge fund guru George Soros proclaimed gold to be in a bubble, and it is still roiling nearly six months later. Gold advocates jumped to its defense, while critics took the offensive. As it turns out though, Soros was not really issuing a warning so much as he was explaining why he was making a considerable investment in gold bullion. Only days after calling gold the "ultimate asset bubble," the financial press reported Soros had doubled his holdings of physical metal. Both the advocates and the critics had misinterpreted what Soros was trying to say.
Gold Counting Down to Assault on $1300
By: Bob Kirtley - MarketOracle.co.uk
Sam Kirtley writes: We remain convinced that gold has yet to make its high for the year, and expect an assault on $1300 to begin in about a month from now.
Despite our bullishness, we are not convinced that buying more call options on gold is the right move for now, since we expect action to the upside to be fairly limited over the next few weeks.
Our reasoning for this is partially due to the fact this is a seasonally weak time of year for gold, but also since we saw heavy selling in 'out of the money' gold call options and futures this week, whenever the yellow metal showed some strength. This indicates that there could be a lot of trapped speculative longs that will be looking to exit their positions as soon as the price turns just slightly in their favour, creating a dampening effect on the price.
Short sellers drive down gold again Short selling ahead of the August options expiry date seems to have contributed to a nearly 2% sell off in gold yesterday before the price steadied at the $1,160 level
Author: Lawrence Williams - MineWeb.co.za
LONDON - Belief that the economic downturn is ending and August options expiry has led to gold and other precious metals being caught in a wave of short selling, with prices slipping sharply. The big question facing investors is does this indicate the end of the 10-year gold bull market and if so, will the other precious metals decline in its wake, or will they be supported by the presumption that their industrial usage will see demand hold up?
In truth this is probably far too early to call. The northern summer months normally suggest a weak time for gold with holidays meaning that smaller trading volumes can have an undue influence on the overall market. And have we really exited the economic mire yet?
2011: The Year Of The Tax Increase
Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Unless the U.S. Congress acts, there is going to be a massive wave of tax increases in 2011. In fact, some are already calling 2011 the year of the tax increase. A whole host of tax cuts that Congress established between 2001 and 2003 are set to expire in January unless Congress chooses to renew them. But with Democrats firmly in control of both houses that appears to be extremely unlikely. These tax increases are going to affect every single American (at least those who actually pay taxes). But this will be just the first wave of tax increases. Another huge slate of tax increases passed in the health care reform law is scheduled to go into effect by 2019. So Americans that are already infuriated by our tax system are only going to become more frustrated in the years ahead. The reality is that the U.S. government will soon be digging much deeper into our wallets.
The following are some of the tax increases that are scheduled to go into effect in 2011....
America's Quiet Banking Collapse
From theTrumpet.com
Seven more banks fade into history.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (fdic) announced that it had seized the assets of seven additional banks, on Friday. During 2010 so far, 103 banks have gone bankrupt, putting the nation on pace for the most bank failures since the Savings and Loan crisis during the 1990s.
America's quiet banking collapse may be one of the most underreported stories of the year.
If the rate at which banks continue to fail continues, 175 institutions will become wards of the state by the end of December. In 1992, during the height of the banking crisis, 179 banks were shut, so this year could be a record - of the bad kind.
Bank reforms to pinch consumer credit
By Patrice Hill - The Washington Times Will raise fees elsewhere
Call it the law of unintended consequences.
That's what many finance experts are saying will be the result of Congress' latest attempt to micromanage the world of consumer credit through the financial-reform measure President Obama signed into law last week.
Many are predicting that well-meaning provisions to force banks to lower their fees for debit card services will boomerang once again and result in less credit available for consumers - the same phenomenon seen when Congress enacted a law a year ago to rein in credit card fees.
Don't Lose Sleep over Deflation
By: Michael Pento - MarketOracle.co.uk
After hearing the dire warnings of deflation that have become the standard talking points of most economists, American investors may be reaching for a bottle of Prozac. I believe that their anxiety is misplaced. Unfortunately, modern economists don't understand what deflation is or why, in reality, we have much more to fear from inflation.
Moderate deflation is actually the natural trend of a productive economy. If a producer can increase his output per unit of input, then he can afford to expand his market by lowering prices while still increasing profits. In that way, deflation allows consumers to buy items that they may not have previously afforded. It also promotes savings, which is essential for investment and capital development.
CBO Warns of Increased Risk of U.S. Fiscal Crisis
By Philip Klein The American Spectator
The Congressional Budget Office today released a new report on the risk of a fiscal crisis occurring in the United States due to our long-term debt, and its conclusions largely echo points that I've been trying to make repeatedly.
The bottom line is that the longer we prolong dealing with our debt problem, the greater the risk of a fiscal crisis, and the more unattractive the options become for digging ourself out of the mess.
Warren seen gaining key consumer protection post
By Ronald D. Orol and Greg Robb, MarketWatch Surviving doubts inside and outside the White House
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- An increasing number of Washington observers see improving odds that Elizabeth Warren will become the head of the important new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, surviving mixed feelings from the Obama administration and determined opposition from bank lobbyists and Republicans.
Speculation about Warren's nomination has captivated Washington since the president signed into law earlier this month historic regulatory changes for the banking and financial industries.
Consumer advocates and a group of Democrat lawmakers in recent days have expanded their campaigns to seat the Harvard Law School professor.
Are the Rich Just Lucky?
By CATHERINE RAMPELL [read the blog guest posts and comment yourself]
Christopher Bergin, the president and publisher of Tax Analysts, makes an interesting observation about the rhetoric the Obama administration has been evoking in its efforts to end some of the Bush tax cuts:
When talking about the rich, Treasury Secretary Geithner and President Obama refer to them as "fortunate," insinuating - if not just stating it outright - that the rich are lucky. That's why they're rich. This is a point of view I'd expect from a couple of liberal arts college professors, not from those in charge.
Consumer confidence retreats further in July
By Anne D'Innocenzio - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW YORK (AP) -- Americans' confidence in the economy eroded further in July amid worries about a job market that has proved stubbornly stagnant. The report raised concerns about the overall economy and the back-to-school season.
The Conference Board, a private research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index slipped to 50.4 in July, down from the revised 54.3 in June. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected 51.0. The decline follows last month's nearly 10-point drop, from 62.7 in May, which marked the biggest drop since February, when the measure also fell 10 points.
The second straight month of declining confidence follows three months of increases.
Cities threaten to cut 500,000 jobs
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporter
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Cash-strapped cities and counties have been cutting jobs to cope with massive budget shortfalls -- and that tally could edge up to nearly 500,000 if Congress doesn't step up to help.
Local governments are looking to eliminate 8.6% of their total full-time equivalent positions by 2012, according to a new survey released Tuesday by the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and United States Conference of Mayors.
Pain, but no gain: local governments face budget doom
By Darius Dale, contributor - CNNMoney.com
FORTUNE -- State and local governments are facing a vicious cycle thanks to our financial crisis. Since home prices haven't really recovered, tax revenues are down. Since tax revenues are down, governments are cutting jobs, which means cutting services to homeowners. That means governments are spending less money in their communities, and employing less people, perpetuating the decline in property values that caused tax revenues to decrease in the first place.
Indeed, the first sentence of the executive summary of the latest National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) Fiscal Survey of State Budgets reads: "Fiscal 2010 presented the most difficult challenge for States' financial management since the Great Depression and fiscal 2011 is expected to present states with similar challenges."
U.S. durable-goods orders sink 1.0% June's decline comes as a surprise for economists expecting a solid gain By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Weakness in many categories of built-to-last products drove orders for new U.S.-made durable goods down by 1.0% in June, the second straight monthly decline and the biggest drop in 10 months, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.
Excluding a 2.4% decrease in transportation goods, orders fell 0.6%, the second decline in the past three months.
Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had been looking for 1.0% growth in durable-goods orders last month. See economic calendar and forecasts for all major indicators.
At 'Old GM,' Unwanted Assets Linger Disposal of Hundreds of Properties, Some Decrepit or Contaminated, Drags On Amid Bankruptcy
By MIKE SPECTOR - WSJ.com
A year into the process of shedding GM's "bad assets," only one former factory and a few other properties have found a second life.
The vast majority of the auto maker's closed offices, decrepit plants and parts depots that were left behind in bankruptcy court remain on the market or are slated for demolition. Some of the properties are contaminated with toxic waste; others are cavernous structures way too big for alternative uses. Few sport good locations.
It could take years to dispose of the 200 remaining properties, the detritus of one of the country's biggest-ever bankruptcies.
Dr. Housing Bubble blog Banks cherry picking individual foreclosures that show up on the MLS in Culver City and Pasadena with proof: Southern California lenders pushing out properties in Culver City with an average price tag of $300,000. Median sale price for city is $600,000. Shadow inventory average price is $443,000 with loans at an average of $552,000. 141,000 homes in Southern California are distressed yet MLS only reflects 83,000 total properties.
Party like its 1999. The U.S. homeownership rate is now down to levels last seen in 1999. In essence, every effort to push homeownership rates upwards with absurd Wall Street gimmicks (the entire toxic mortgage disaster) but also the government backed implosions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have basically been one giant waste of time and money for the public (many became filthy rich). Why? These efforts focused on quick and easy money at the expense of long-term sustainability. For many decades, we were doing well with large down payments and the vanilla flavored 30 year fixed mortgage. It is no coincidence that the entire game collapsed when Wall Street lobbyist bought out government plutocrats and turned our entire economy into one giant housing casino. Southern California is still very much in a housing bubble phase. Prices even today are disconnected from market fundamentals. Inventory is still growing and the shadow inventory figures remain elevated. Why? The government took a bazooka of easy money, tax credit gimmicks, and other financial shenanigans to hide the fact that people don't have stronger wages to support current prices. We went into bubble 2.0 here in SoCal in many areas. That bubble will burst.
Residential Housing Market is Still Burning Down
MadHedgeFundTrader
Today, the Commerce Department reported that June new home sales, at 330,000, were up a blistering 24%. So is the crash in residential real estate over? It's off to the races, right? Wrong! Much of the gains were cancelled out by whopping great downward revisions which caused April to shrink from 504,000 to 422,000, and May to shrivel from 300,000 to an unbelievable 267,000, a 60 year low. Every time I update my prediction that home prices are either going south or nowhere for a decade, my inbox gets flooded with angry emails from real estate agents around the country and other industry apologists screaming that I am missing record home affordability and historic low 30 year mortgage interest rates.
More Men Make Harassment Claims
By DANA MATTIOLI
Since the start of the recession, a growing number of sexual harassment complaints have come from men. Some 16.4% of all sexual harassment claims - or 2,094 claims - were filed by men in fiscal 2009, up from 15.4%, or 1,869 claims, in fiscal 2006, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
While male victims sometimes experience behavior like groping and unwanted sexual advances, employment lawyers say increasingly "locker room" type behavior like vulgar talk and horseplay with sexual connotations have been the subject of claims.
Ron Chapman, an attorney with employment law firm Ogletree Deakins in Dallas, says in most cases the man suing is someone who has been fired or laid off.
People Begin Living Without Electricity and Water in California
Unemployment rises in most metro areas
AP - MSNBC.com
Tuscaloosa, Champaign, Alexandria some of areas hit hardest
WASHINGTON - The unemployment rate in about three-quarters of the nation's largest metro areas rose last month as nearly one million teenagers entered the work force looking for summer jobs.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that the unemployment rate rose in 291 of 374 areas in June from May. It fell in 55 areas and was flat in 28. That reverses the trend of the previous three months, when joblessness fell in most metro areas.
Why Doesn't Job Retraining Work? Despite billions spent and the best of intentions, the American workforce resists reinvention.
By James Ledbetter - WashingtonPost's TheBigMoney.com
Health care reform or no health care reform, we don't have enough doctors in this country. A Harvard economist, writing in the New York Times Magazine, has declared: "Today, the shortage of doctors in the United States is worse than at any time in the last fifty years. This is not to say that the total number of doctors has decreased; actually, the total is now higher than ever. I speak of the increased gap between our doctors and our total population."
It's an odd finding to contemplate - that at a time of massive unemployment, a critical, well-paying field like medicine should go wanting for workers. Perhaps odder still: The words cited above were written when the country was coming out of a recession and the economy was actually growing. I'm not, however, referring to 2010, but to 1950.
As Unemployment Extentions Run Out,
Social Serices Agencies Begin To Take Children
Toyota delays Prius production in U.S.
SILICON VALLEY / SAN JOSE BUSINESS JOURNAL
Toyota is holding off on a Prius plant in the U.S. until 2016, according to reports late Wednesday, and the company is still undecided on where the cars will be built.
In 2008 Toyota said it would begin building the cars at a Mississippi plant, but now the weak economy and slower than expected hybrid sales in the U.S. have contributed to a change in plans.
Reuters, citing an unidentified executive of the carmaker, said the Corolla model will be built at the Mississippi plant instead, and the Prius will probably only begin U.S. production after a remodel.
GM to sell electric car Volt for $41,000
AP - WashingtonTimes.com
DETROIT (AP) - General Motors Co. said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt electric car will cost $41,000 when it goes on sale in November.
While the price is about $8,000 more than its closest rival, the Nissan Leaf, GM said it will offer a $350-per-month lease deal that's essentially equal to the Leaf's. That will put the battery-powered Volt within reach of many people, GM said.
Both cars also are eligible for a federal tax credit that will cut their prices by $7,500. The Volt would fall to $33,500 while the Leaf's would drop to $25,280 from nearly $33,000.
Some states, such as California, Georgia and Oregon, offer additional tax breaks that lower the price further.
Furlough Fridays Back On in California as Schwarzenegger Declares Fiscal Emergency
By GIL RUDAWSKY - DailyFinance.com
Faced with a $19.1 billion deficit and no hope for digging out, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday declared a fiscal emergency.
Under the rules of the emergency, Schwarzenegger ordered three furlough days per month for all but essential state employees. State offices will be closed three Fridays a month.
The closures and furloughs will remain in place until a budget is enacted. California government workers are used to the so-called "furlough Fridays," living with them for 12 months, ending this past June.
"Every day of delay brings California closer to a fiscal meltdown," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Our cash situation leaves me no choice but to once again furlough state workers until the Legislature produces a budget I can sign."
"Top Secret America": The Rest Of The Story
Dr. Chuck Baldwin
The Monday, July 19, 2010, edition of The Washington Post featured an investigative report entitled "Top Secret America," with the subtitle, "A hidden world, growing beyond control." The report begins, "The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
"These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
A Federal Judge Blocks Parts of Arizona's Immigration Law
By JONATHAN BERR - DailyFinance.com
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton threw a monkey wrench into the deeply contentious debate over illegal immigration by declaring parts of Arizona's controversial immigration law to be unconstitutional. She based her decision on the bedrock legal principal that federal laws preempt state laws. Arizona's law was scheduled to go into effect on July 29.
"The Court by no means disregards Arizona's interests in controlling illegal immigration and addressing the concurrent problems with crime including the trafficking of humans, drugs, guns, and money," she wrote. "Even though Arizona's interests may be consistent with those of the federal government, it is not in the public interest for Arizona to enforce preempted law."
FEDS OBTAIN INJUNCTION AGAINST ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LAW
John Hinderaker - PowerLine.com
A federal judge in Arizona has issued a preliminary injunction blocking key enforcement provisions of the new Arizona immigration law from taking effect until the legality of these provisions is fully litigated. The judge, Susan Bolton (a Clinton appointee), found that the Justice Department's preemption argument is likely to prevail at trial.
I haven't had time to analyze the opinion. Andy McCarthy has, and finds it unpersuasive .
It's clear to me that the Arizona law doesn't conflict or interfere with immigration legislation Congress has passed. If there is any interference or conflict, it is with the way the Obama administration wants to enforce such legislation -- i.e., passively at best.
Ariz. Sheriff: I'll Jail Immigration Protesters
By Staff, Associated Press
Washington (AP) - The sheriff of the most populous county in Arizona says he's "not going to put up with any civil disobedience" when the state's new immigration law takes effect.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that if protesters want to block his jail, he'll put them in it.
----- oil crisis is NOT over -----
Majority of spilled oil in Gulf of Mexico unaccounted for in government
data By David A. Fahrenthold and Leslie Tamura - Washington Post
Back in May, BP's chief executive told a British newspaper that "the Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean," and the vast amounts of oil and chemical dispersants dumped into it were small by comparison. After he said that, BP's well leaked for two more months. Hayward's upbeat assessment was cast as one of many gaffes committed on his way to resignation.
Now, 14 days after the well was closed and 100 days after the blowout, U.S. government scientists are working on calculations that could shed some light on Hayward's analysis (even if they can't shed light on why he said it). They are trying to figure out where all the oil went.
Is Matt Simmons Credible?
by Robert Rapier - OilPrice.com
I am going to address a touchy subject in this essay, but I simply can't ignore it any longer. I have noticed that a lot of people are finding my blog through keyword searches of "Debunking Matt Simmons." About two and a half years ago, I did write an essay called Debunking Matt Simmons. Because of Matt's recent claims about the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there has been a spike in interest over whether his claims related to the disaster are actually credible. So now seems like a good time to revisit the subject.
The topic is touchy because Matt Simmons has long been revered in the energy business, and some of his fans will be upset with me for writing this.
BP's Blueprint for Emerging From Crisis
By JAD MOUAWAD and CLIFFORD KRAUSS - NYTimes.com
BP said on Tuesday that it had set aside $32.2 billion to pay for the biggest offshore oil spill in United States history.
But the company acknowledged that its costs might be much higher - especially if it was found grossly negligent, criminally liable or was faced with a huge jury award for punitive damages in connection with the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people and sent millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
'BP Has to Change Its Entire Culture'
Spiegel.de
British oil giant BP presented its new CEO on Tuesday after announcing that Tony Hayward was stepping down. The fresh face at the helm may help improve public relations, but German papers on Wednesday argue that the company really needs to rethink its entire strategy.
It was the worst-kept secret in business. On Tuesday BP announced that Tony Hayward, its gaffe-prone CEO, is to make way for Bob Dudley, who will be the American to lead the British oil giant. It will be hoping that a fresh face at the helm will help it turn a new page. But with the company also announcing huge losses as it faces the bill for a massive clear-up operation in the Gulf of Mexico, it may be some time before it puts the disaster behind it.
On the Surface, Gulf Oil Spill Is Vanishing Fast; Concerns Stay
By JUSTIN GILLIS and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON - NYTimes.com
The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected, a piece of good news that raises tricky new questions about how fast the government should scale back its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf after the April 20 oil rig explosion are largely gone, though sightings of tar balls and emulsified oil continue here and there.
Millions Of Fish Wash Ashore In Gulfport
Not Yet Known If Oil Spill Was Factor - WDSU.com
GULFPORT, Miss. -- Something besides oil washed ashore along a section of beach in Gulfport this week.
Millions of small dead fish have washed ashore just east of Jones Park. The fish are believed to be menhaden.
Low oxygen levels in the water are typically to blame when large numbers of the tiny fish wash up dead, experts said. Harrison County leaders said it's too soon to tell if the fish-kill is related to the oil spill.
"If it's oil-related, the BP contractors will have to pick it up," Harrison County Sand Beach Director Bobby Weaver said. "If not, we'll dispatch a county crew to come down here and get it."
Deep undercurrents stir in the Middle East
By Victor Kotsev - ATimes.com
On the surface, the Middle East is so still it is almost unbelievable. Not that nothing is happening, on the contrary, but the comparison with just a few weeks ago is enough to raise an eyebrow. Back then, amid military maneuvers and loud threats, every other analyst (including this one, though with some caution was predicting an imminent flare-up.
So far, not only has the cataclysm not happened, but the voices have quieted down somewhat. "Plainly I was wrong," writes Bret Stephens for the Wall Street Journal, discussing his earlier prediction of an Israeli strike on Iran.
Russia Plans A Share Sale To Investors
By ANDREW E. KRAMER - NYTimes.com
MOSCOW - The Russian government, which just a few years ago was salting away billions of dollars in oil revenue, is now confronting such a gaping budget deficit that ministers approved a wide-ranging plan on Wednesday to sell off state property, senior officials said.
It would be, by some estimates, the largest privatization program in Russia since the post-Communist sell-off of the 1990s. Still, the government plans to sell only minority stakes in the companies, retaining control while letting private investors share a larger part of the risks and profits.
US goes fishing for trouble
By Peter Lee - ATimes.com
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton roiled China at the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers' meeting in Hanoi by stating that the United States had "a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia's maritime commons, and respect for international law in the South China Sea".
She also expressed support for a "collaborative diplomatic process" on the matter of disputes in the South China Sea - anathema to China, which is committed to a series of separate bilateral negotiations with the various nations with claims on the Spratly (called Nansha by Chinese) and Paracel (Called Xisha by Chinese) Islands.
North Korea Exposes America's Weak Will
By Richard Palmer - theTrumpet.com
Far from being a show of strength, America's joint military exercises with South Korea show that it will not stand up for its allies.
North Korean despot Kim Jong Il is threatening the United States with nuclear war over joint naval drills with South Korea.
The exercises, coming four months after a torpedo sunk the South Korean ship ChonAn, are intended to be a show of force and unity by the U.S. and South Korea. They include the uss George Washington, a nuclear-powered supercarrier that hosts 70 aircraft and 5,000 personnel.
The U.S. also levied new sanctions against North Korea on July 21. It froze the assets of North Korean leaders and imposed travel bans on some of them.
Titled "Invincible Spirit," the military exercises involve 8,000 sailors, 200 aircraft and 20 ships. They began on Sunday, lasting till Wednesday. The lead-up to these exercises, however, shows that the spirit behind America's alliance with South Korea is far from invincible.
'War Logs Could Shatter Hopes of Success in Afghanistan'
Spiegel.de
The uncovering of almost 92,000 United States military war logs by WikiLeaks provides further evidence that the US and its allies are failing to make headway in Afghanistan, write German commentators. The logs may contain few surprises, but their gruesome illustration of the scale of operations over years has the potential to wreck any hopes that the war can be won.
The 91,731 war logs uncovered by WikiLeaks and provided to SPIEGEL, the Guardian and the New York Times are likely to fan public opposition to the mission in the West because they outline in compelling detail how the allies are failing to bring peace to Afghanistan, German media commentators write.
Washington's Hidden Enemy Logs Suggest Pakistani Intelligence Controls Course of War
By Matthias Gebauer, John Goetz, Hans Hoyng, Susanne Koelbl, Marcel Rosenbach and Gregor Peter Schmitz - Spiegel.de
Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, appears frequently in the war logs obtained by WikiLeaks. They suggest that even as Pakistan served as an ally to the United States, it was still secretly helping the Taliban in its insurgency in Afghanistan. The documents also suggest a major role is played by former ISI chief Hamid Gul.
Editor's note: The following article is an excerpt from this week's SPIEGEL cover story. The facts in the story come from a database of almost 92,000 American military reports on the state of the war in Afghanistan that were obtained by the WikiLeaks website. Britain's Guardian newspaper, the New York Times and SPIEGEL have all vetted the material and reported on the contents in articles that have been researched independently of each other. All three media sources have concluded that the documents are authentic and provide an unvarnished image of the war in Afghanstan -- from the perspective of the soldiers on the ground.
The fear economy
By Chris Isidore, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- FDR said we have nothing to fear but fear itself -- and even though we're a long way from the Great Depression, uncertainty about the economy is proving pretty scary, and a major drag on the recovery.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that there is "unusual uncertainty" about the nation's economic outlook. And every piece of good news seems to be clouded by fear of the unknown.
For example, companies are turning in healthy profits, and are sitting on a record-breaking pile of cash -- nearly $1 trillion and growing.
Ahmadinejad: US Expansion Of War In Middle East Imminent
Steve Watson - Prisonplanet.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stated that he believes the US, backed by Israel, is preparing to attack two countries in the middle East within months as part of an expansion of the 'war on terror'.
Ahmadinejad also stated that the attacks would function as a psychological war on Iran, without specifying whether he believed Iran would be physically attacked or how he had reached his conclusions.
"We have precise information that the Americans have devised a plot, according to which they seek to launch a psychological war on Iran," Ahmadinejad told Iranian state media Press TV.
The Foreign Investment Solution for American Jobs
By ROBERT M. KIMMITT and MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER - WSJ.com (free) You know that battery plant in Michigan the president visited the other day? It's Korean-owned.
At the ground-breaking ceremony for a new factory in Michigan this month, President Barack Obama touted the fact that 300 people will soon be employed building lithium-ion car batteries there. "These are jobs in the industries of the future," Mr. Obama said at the Compact Power Inc. plant. "You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America."
Nowhere in his remarks did the president mention that Compact Power is a subsidiary of LG Chem Limited, a multinational firm headquartered in South Korea. But it is important for the administration to acknowledge explicitly that it can promote job creation by supporting investment in the U.S. by foreign companies like LG Chem. Such support should begin with free trade agreements (the U.S.-South Korean agreement remains stalled in Congress), but extend far beyond.
America, the Odd Man Out
By: John Browne - GoldSeek.com
At long last, a good portion of mainstream economists now concede that a 'double dip' recession is in the cards for the United States. To head off the pain, sixteen top economists addressed an open letter to the President urging him to "stimulate" the economy with a massive new round of government spending. We feel this is a recipe for driving a recession into a depression. However, there can be few doubts that such a move is being considered in the highest policy circles. Flush from victories in financial regulation and healthcare, the Administration may feel the conditions are ripe to push through another bold initiative.
World splits in two as East tightens while West stays super-loose
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk India has raised interest rates and issued a stark warning on inflation dangers, joining China, Brazil, and other tiger economies in concerted moves to tighten policy.
The central bank raised its reverse repo rate a half point to 4.5pc, still far below the level of inflation. Food prices have been rising at 16pc.
"Inflationary pressures have exacerbated and become generalized. Real policy rates are not consistent with the strong growth that the economy has been witnessing. It is imperative that we continue to normalise our policy," said the bank, which also raised its repurchase rate a quarter point to 5.75pc.
Confirmed: U.S. Fiscal Woe Is Worse Than Greece
By Dian L. Chu, Economic Forecasts & Opinions
Reading the annual Long Term Budget Outlook by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has become an increasingly depressing experience in recent years. This year seems even more so than ever.
The latest projection puts the federal debt rising to 62% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the end of the year (from 40% pre-crisis), the highest percentage since just after World War. (See Graph)
The Psychology of Gold
Chuck DiFalco - SilverBearCafe.com
Investor psychology remains at least as important to an asset price as the fundamentals underlying the asset. As the "dot com" bubble of the late 1990's and the housing bubble of last decade reminded us, psychology occasionally controls asset price. Gold as an investment has clearly rebounded from its morose lows of the early 2000's. However, the precious metal has not yet reached anywhere near the mania, and hence the lofty prices, of those two bubbles. Yes, gold's fundamentals continue to be bullish. The reason gold hasn't yet topped is psychology.
Gold to rally in tandem with $ in foreseeable future
Vikas Ranjan - CommodityOnline.com
We really have a situation that is mixed. It seems to us that the world is divided into two camps. First are the Western countries that have debt fatigue. They are keen to get the deficit and debt down and are facing weak domestic demand. Second are the emerging countries like Brazil, China and India, which are growing fast and do not seem to have that problem.
Overall, we feel most of the developed nations in the Western world will look to reduce deficits and debt. However, we would say the U.S. is an exception because of its grim unemployment conditions and very sluggish economy. It still believes in expansive monetary and fiscal policies. The emerging economies will continue to grow at a relatively fast clip. So, in the end, that will leave us with a world economy that will grow but at a sluggish pace for maybe the next year or so.
Gold fizzles out on US housing data
By Geena Paul
LONDON (Commodity Online): Finally, the US housing sector is back on track posting a 24 per cent growth in June. June's rebound in new home sales should be viewed as a major boost to the US economy. But the problem is that any good news from the world's biggest economic power is a setback to the gold prices, which have been maintaining record levels in the recent past.
Bullion market is set to fall in the coming days following data from the commerce department showed a 24 per cent leap in new home sales from May to June.
Deflation Defies Expectations - and Solutions
By JON HILSENRATH - WSJ.com (free)
The old bogeyman of deflation has re-emerged as a worry for the U.S. economy. Here's something else to fret about: After studying more than a decade of deflation in Japan, economists have slowly realized they have no idea how it works.
Deflation is usually associated with a Great Depression-like drop in demand. Consumer prices, incomes and asset prices fall. Interest rates go to zero, as low as they can go. As prices and incomes fall, the cost to borrowers of servicing debt does not, sucking life out of the economy and pushing prices down further. A bad situation, in short, gets worse.
In 1932, U.S. consumer prices fell 10% and between 1929 and 1933 they fell 27% in all.
32 entities overseas got US taxpayer bailout money Goldman Sachs reveals where bailout cash went
DesMoinesRegister.com
Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night.
Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.
Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, "I hope it's as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money."
Geithner "knew a lot more ... than he told" about AIG bailout
DesMoinesRegister.com
Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night.
Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.
Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, "I hope it's as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money."
He added, "We thought originally we were bailing out AIG. Then later on É we learned that the money flowed through AIG to a few big banks, and now we know that the money went from these few big banks to dozens of financial institutions all around the world."
America's Social Experiment
by Robert Morley, theTrumpet.com Can America afford socialism when the economy is deteriorating and politicians have spent the nation to the verge of bankruptcy?
What's the 21st-century version of the guillotine?
America may soon find out, if New York Times writer David Brooks is right. When historians look back on this time, he says, "they will be amazed that a nation that professed to hate bureaucracy produced so much of it."
But "[i]f the reforms fail-if they kick off devastating unintended consequences or saddle the country with a maze of sclerotic regulations-then the popular backlash will be ferocious," Brooks writes.
Yes, America is embarking on a social experiment unprecedented in its history. Republicans and Democrats both seem interested in just one thing: more power. And that means bigger government, more wasteful, inefficient, bureaucratic regulation and eventually higher taxes (and/or inflation) to pay for it.
But isn't that what wrecked Greece, Argentina and the Soviet Union? Yes, but that doesn't seem to matter. What matters is that politicians maintain their power and satisfy the special interest groups that put them there.
The Breakup of the United States
Michael S. Rozeff - SilverBearCafe.com
As the dissatisfactions of Americans with their national government grow, so does the likelihood of the breakup of the United States. I believe that most Americans can improve their well-being by ending the national government, that is, ending the Union. I believe that this goal should shape politics if politics is to do much good.
I don't think Americans are going to be the first people in the modern era to initiate a large-scale anarchy. But Americans might conceivably move back to a federal form of government something like that under the Articles of Confederation. If so, the problem is how to proceed. Many Americans feel (and are) trapped and thwarted by government power.
Battle Over Expiring Bush Tax Cuts Likely to Shape Fall Elections
BY DON MILLER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
A colossal battle is shaping up in Congress over what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of this year. It's an issue that entails sufficient economic and political consequences that could shape the fall elections and fiscal policy for years to come.
The expiring tax breaks received little public attention this year as Congress tussled with heavyweight issues like healthcare reform and financial regulation. But the fate of the tax cuts will be a major focus of debate in September when lawmakers return to Washington from their summer recess and the midterm campaign gets rolling.
The tax hike nobody's talking about
By Blake Ellis, staff reporter - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Get ready for a smaller paycheck.
At least that's what could happen if Congress doesn't approve President Obama's proposal to extend the Making Work Pay tax credit soon.
The credit, introduced last year as part of the government's stimulus package, boosts paychecks by up to $400 for single filers and up to $800 for joint filers, by reducing the amount of tax withheld from each paycheck.
Opposition Mounts Against ObamaCare Tax Provision
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Business advocates are hoping Congress scraps a tax provision in the health care overhaul law that they say is overly burdensome to smaller companies.
So far, Senate and House Republicans have pushed for repeal of this specific provision of the health care bill. Even Democrats asked that the Internal Revenue Service move cautiously in enforcement of the provision.
'Bush-ama' tax cuts: The $2.2 trillion decision
By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- They're often called the "Bush" tax cuts. But at this point they might as well be called the Bush-ama tax cuts.
That's because President Obama has embraced the tax relief measures introduced in 2001 and 2003, proposing they be extended indefinitely for most Americans. If lawmakers do nothing, the measures expire Dec. 31.
The tax cuts lowered income and investment tax rates, boosted the child credit, reduced the estate tax, and narrowed inequalities affecting married taxpayers.
Let Them Eat Losses
By Gerald Celente - The DailyReckoning.com
07/26/10 Rhinebeck, New York - This had nothing to do with the so-called "Trickle Down" theory. This was "Gush Up." In Bush/Obama economics, the richest and biggest that had lost billions through bad investments, or were in danger of going bust, had to be rescued. If the †ber-Rich weren't saved, there would be nothing left to trickle down to the population below. By government decree, those taxpayers who had never felt any trickle to begin with, now had to finance the failed financiers.
If taxpayers found themselves unable to understand the thinking behind "Gush Up", it was not surprising. Why should it make sense? Nothing else did. The entire financial system had been hijacked by bandits. It was criminal from beginning to end.
Treasury To Hold Conference On Fannie, Freddie Treasury To Hold Conference On Future Of Mortgage Funding System Next Month (AP) CBSNews.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Treasury Department, under fire for not developing a concrete plan for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, says it will hold a conference in next month to discuss their future.
The administration says it will hold a conference on the future of the mortgage funding system on Aug. 17 at the Treasury Department.
Geithner: U.S. Should Retain a Mortgage Backstop
By NICK TIMIRAOS and DAMIAN PALETTA - WSJ.com (free)
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday the government should retain "some type" of federal guarantee to ensure that Americans can easily finance home loans, in what could be the latest salvo between the Obama administration and Republicans over the future role of the public sector in the housing market.
The statement cuts to the heart of one of the most vexing policy questions in Washington: what to do with the costly government-run mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Both companies were taken over by the U.S. in 2008 as they teetered towards collapse. So far, the Treasury has injected $145 billion in taxpayer aid to keep them afloat and that figure could climb in the coming months.
Census: Homeownership again hits 5-year low in South
TRIANGLE BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Brian Austin
Homeownership rates in the South dipped to their lowest level in five years during the second quarter, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
The Bureau found that in the South, which includes North Carolina, 69.1 percent of the region's households were owner-occupied. That's higher than the national average, but down 0.1 percentage points since the first quarter and 0.9 percentage points since the second quarter of 2009.
The second quarter of 2010 matched the fourth quarter of 2009 for the lowest South homeownership rate since 2005.
Supply of Homes Set to Grow
By ROBBIE WHELAN - WSJ.com (free)
Sales of new homes are near 47-year lows, yet the supply of new and existing homes is expected to grow in the months ahead as construction ramps up and a wave of foreclosed homes hits the market.
In June, new-home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 330,000 units, the Commerce Department said Monday. While that was up 23.6% from the all-time low of 267,000 in May, the June figures were the second lowest on record.
Chance of Double-Dip US Recession is High: Shiller
By: Reuters - CNBC.com
The state of the U.S. economy is worrisome and there is a high possibility of a double-dip recession, one of the property market's most well-known economists said Tuesday.
Gerald Celente- Beware Of Media Deception
States face another $12 billion budget shortfall
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporter - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- States filled an $84 billion gap to balance their 2011 fiscal year budgets, which took effect earlier this month. But they could collectively face a new $12 billion hole if Congress fails to help cover growing Medicaid costs.
Without another injection of government money for Medicaid, four states -- California, Texas, North Carolina and New York -- could face new gaps exceeding $1 billion each, while 21 others could see shortfalls over $100 million, according to a budget report issued by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Consumer confidence retreats further in July Consumer Confidence Index erodes further in July to 50.4 as job worries take toll on outlook AP - Yahoo finance
NEW YORK - A monthly consumer survey shows that Americans' confidence in the economy eroded further in July amid job worries. The reading raises concern about the economic recovery and the back-to-school shopping season.
U.S. Economy: Consumer Confidence Slips to Five-Month Low
By Shobhana Chandra
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- American consumers lost confidence in July, shaken by mounting concern over jobs and wages that threatens to constrain the economic recovery.
The Conference Board's sentiment index fell to 50.4, below the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the lowest level in five months, figures from the New York-based private research group showed today. Another report showed home prices rose more than forecast in May as a government tax credit temporarily underpinned sales.
More Job-Seekers Hitch Ride on Asian Economy
By BETTINA WASSENER - NYTimes.com
HONG KONG - Shahrzad Moaven quit a public relations job in London and moved to this teeming metropolis four months ago to take up what she saw as a more exciting post: communications director at the exclusive jeweler Carnet.
Jan Mezlik, 29, moved here from the Czech Republic in late April for a job as a trainer in a physical therapy studio called Stretch. For him, the move brought a secure job and the chance to learn to become a yoga instructor.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has resulted in increased Unemployment in the U.S.
by Mark Vorpahl - GlobalResearch.com
On July 7, 2010, President Obama made the following remarks:
We're also reforming our own restrictions on exports, consistent with our national security interests. And we hope to move forward on new agreements with some of our key partners. I've instructed U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to begin discussions to help resolve outstanding issues with the pending Korean Free Trade Agreement before my visit to Korea in November. It's an agreement that will create new jobs and opportunity for people in both of our countries.
We also want to deepen and broaden our relations with Panama and Colombia. So we're working to resolve outstanding issues with the free trade agreements with those key partners, and we're focused on submitting them as soon as possible for congressional consideration.
Census: Moves because of evictions increase
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
More Americans say they moved because they were evicted or wanted to spend less money and now live in a worse house with more people, new Census data show.
The 2009 American Housing Survey shows the stark effect the recession and housing crisis have had on some people's lifestyles in just two years. The survey, last conducted in 2007, captures the brunt of the downturn's impact on housing.
"It seems to mark some erosion in the standard of living of Americans," says James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. "It's not surprising given the depths of the recession. ... Some portions of Americans are now in survival mode."
Home Vacancies Rise as Ownership Reaches 10-Year Low
By Kathleen M. Howley
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- About 18.9 million homes in the U.S. stood empty during the second quarter as surging foreclosures helped push ownership to the lowest level in a decade.
The number of vacant properties, including foreclosures, residences for sale and vacation homes, rose from 18.6 million in the year-earlier quarter, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report today. The ownership rate, meaning households that own their own residence, was 66.9 percent, the lowest since 1999.
Apartment Rentals Surge in U.S. on Foreclosures, Jobs
By Prashant Gopal
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. apartment landlords are seeing a surge in rentals as mounting foreclosures reduce homeownership and an improving job market for young adults encourages them to find their own places to live.
The number of occupied apartments increased by 215,000 in the 64 largest U.S. markets in the first half, according to MPF Research. That's almost double the units added in all of 2009 and the most since the firm began tracking the data in 1992. The vacancy rate declined to 6.6 percent last month from 8.2 percent in December.
Requests for help paying utility bills surge upward
BARBARA COTTER - Colorado Springs Gazette
Light switches, furnaces and water faucets aren't the typical gauges of economic health, but at Pikes Peak United Way's 2-1-1 call center, they tell a tale of people who continue to struggle to pay their bills in a weak economy.
According to a report released Monday by the 2-1-1 Information and Referral Hotline, requests for utility bill assistance in the fiscal year ending June 30 jumped 20 percent from the previous year, outstripping requests for help with food and rent.
Recession leads to uptick in utility shut-offs in N.J.
Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
These days, washing the dishes at the Schultheis house means filling 5-gallon water jugs at a neighbor's house and lugging them across the street.
Using the toilet means dumping a bucket of water by hand into the tank before each flush. When the family wants to shower, it needs to impose on sympathetic friends.
"I feel horrible; I know my kids must feel horrible," said Maria Schultheis, who lives in the house with her husband and twin teenage sons. "I'm humiliated because I never had to live like this."
The town water department shut off the Schultheises' water about a month ago after the family fell behind on payments on a $1,700 overdue bill. John Schultheis -- a computer programmer who has been out of work for three years -- watched in disbelief as town workers turned off the water valve near the curb of his three-bedroom bungalow in a quiet middle-class neighborhood in the Lake Hiawatha section of Parsippany.
Kerry may still owe $500K in taxes on his yacht
By: Mark Hemingway - Washington Examiner
Fox 25 in Boston reports that even though Kerry may have docked his yacht in Rhode Island to avoid the 'sails tax' -- he may still be owe back taxes in the Bay State:
Kerry may still be on the hook for a half million dollars in excise taxes because he docked his yacht in Massachusetts less than six months after buying it.
The controversy came up following a report that Kerry moored the multi-million dollar yacht in Rhode Island , rather than the Bay State to save on sales tax.
People Begin Living Without Electricity and Water in California
I couldn't find statistics for local utility shut offs in my area, but I knew we would start to see more and more of this.
Houses everywhere are going vacant. People don't say goodbye, they don't leave a number, they just disappear. With their disappearance we add another vacant house to the street. But families living in housing without utilities is a new sight for me to behold. I spoke recently with a rep from So Cal Edison who, full time contacts residence who have had their electricity turned off due to non payment. She has a negotiator sent in and they work on a reduced payment. It's amazing to me, that now, it is becoming acceptable in California to camp out in your home.
Credit Cards Take From Poor, Give to the Rich
By Michael S. Derby - WSJ.com (free)
Credit cards appear to be the reverse Robin Hoods of the financial world.
A new paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston says merchant fees and reward programs offered by many credit-card issuers essentially take money from those who have the least and give it to those who have the most. The imbalance may have to be remedied via government intervention, the authors, Scott Schuh, Oz Shy and Joana Stavins, argued. The paper was published as part of the bank's Public Policy Discussion Papers on Monday.
U.S. Cities, Counties are Poised to Cut 500,000 Jobs
By William Selway
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. local governments may cut almost 500,000 jobs through next year to cope with sliding property taxes, a decline in state and federal aid and added need for social services, according to a report released today.
The report, a result of a survey by the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties, showed local governments are moving to cut the equivalent of 8.6 percent of their workforces from 2009 to 2011. That suggests 481,000 employees will lose their jobs, according to the report, which said the tally may yet rise.
Caught Red-Handed With Outrageous Salaries, City Officials Take Pay Cuts, Resign By Rocky Vega - the DailyReckoning.com
07/27/10 Alexandria, Virgina - The furor we discussed last week over obscene levels of municipal pay in the tiny 38,000-person city of Bell, California - where an average resident's salary is about $25,000 and the city manager was paid $800,000 - is hurtling toward its initial phases of resolution.
This week its council members voted to slash their own salaries from $100,000 to $8,000 per year and at least two members will not pursue re-election. The Attorney General and District Attorney are looking into criminal charges.
Seattle lost 16 percent of construction jobs since '09
PUGET SOUND BUSINESS JOURNAL (SEATTLE)
Seattle lost 16 percent of its construction jobs, or 12,400 jobs, from June 2009 to June 2010, according to a new analysis of federal employment data released Tuesday by the Associated General Contractors of America.
The number of construction jobs declined in 285 out of 337 cities nationwide for June, and officials with the AGC said the data show that weak overall demand for construction is outpacing the benefits of the $135 billion in construction-related stimulus spending.
Calif. City Manager Robert Rizzo Steals a Shocking $800,000 a Year,
Police Chief Loots $457,000
Freedom of photography: Police, security often clamp down despite public right
By Annys Shin - Washington Post Staff Writer
A few weeks ago, on his way to work, Matt Urick stopped to snap a few pictures of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's headquarters. He thought the building was ugly but might make for an interesting photo. The uniformed officer who ran up to him didn't agree. He told Urick he was not allowed to photograph federal buildings.
Urick wanted to tell the guard that there are pictures of the building on HUD's Web site, that every angle of the building is visible in street views on Google Maps and that he was merely an amateur photographer, not a threat. But Urick kept all this to himself.
Disputed chemical bisphenol-A found in paper receipts
By Lyndsey Layton - Washington Post Staff Writer
As lawmakers and health experts wrestle over whether a controversial chemical, bisphenol-A, should be banned from food and beverage containers, a new analysis by an environmental group suggests Americans are being exposed to BPA through another, surprising route: paper receipts.
The Environmental Working Group found BPA on 40 percent of the receipts it collected from supermarkets, automated teller machines, gas stations and chain stores. In some cases, the total amount of BPA on the receipt was 1,000 times the amount found in the epoxy lining of a can of food, another controversial use of the chemical.
On the Bloated Intelligence Bureaucracy
by Ron Paul
I have often spoken about the excessive size of government, and most recently how waste and inefficiency needs to be eliminated from our military budget. Our foreign policy is not only bankrupting us, but actively creating and antagonizing enemies of the United States, and compromising our national security. Spending more and adding more programs and initiatives does not improve things for us; it makes them much much worse. This applies to more than just the military budget.
Recently the Washington Post ran an extensive report by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin on the bloated intelligence community. They found that an estimated 854,000 people hold top-secret security clearances. Just what are all these people up to? By my calculation this is about 11,000 intelligence workers per al Qaeda member in Afghanistan. This also begs the question - if close to 1 million people are authorized to know top secrets, how closely guarded are these secrets?
From WikiLeaks to the Killing Fields
WSJ.com Liberals contemplate withdrawal from Afghanistan, heedless of the consequences.
Innocent civilians become the tragic casualties of war. Insurgents plant thousands of IEDs. Special-ops teams hunt down insurgents. The Taliban may have a few Stinger missiles. Pakistan plays a double game with the Taliban. The U.S. government can't keep its secrets. The New York Times has about as much regard for those secrets as a British tabloid has for a starlet's privacy. The Obama administration blames everything on Bush.
Is any of this news? Not exactly.
Next step for Wikileaks: Crowdsourcing classified data
By Patrick Thibodeau - Computerworld.com
U.S. condemns publication, but its response to breach is uncertain
Computerworld - WASHINGTON - The release on Sunday by Wikileaks of more than 90,000 documents about military operations in Afghanistan may just be the start of problems for the U.S. government.
The online publication of the documents, which offer an inside -- and potentially embarrassing -- look at the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009, represent a failure by the U.S. to control its classified data from insider threat. And it throws open to the whole world a chance to crowdsource the information the documents contain.
Pyongyang's nuclear threats continue
AsiaNews.it
As US-South Korean military exercises get underway, North Korea's press warns Pyongyang "will immediately wage an act of deterrence" if "the military provocation" does not stop. Some experts believe North Korea might actually do something.
Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) - "North Korea will immediately wage an act of deterrence based on self-defence when dialogue is not resumed or the military provocation (the joint naval drill) crosses the line," warned the Chosun Sinbo, a newspaper published in Tokyo (Japan) by the General Association of Korean Residents, as US-South Korean military exercises get underway.
Disappearing Act: $8.7 Billion of Iraq Development Money Missing
Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
The Defense Department is unable to account for $8.7 billion of the $9.1 billion in Development Fund for Iraq monies it received for reconstruction in Iraq, reports Federal News Radio today.
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) issued a report today that claims a "weakness" in the DoD's "financial and management controls left it unable to properly account for $8.7 billion of the $9.1 billion in DFI funds." The money vanished "because most DoD organizations receiving DFI funds did not establish the required Department of the Treasury accounts and no DoD organization was designated as the executive agent for managing the use of DFI funds," explains the Inspector General. "The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss."
Gerald Celente on Dr. Bill Deagle Nutrimedical report 20 July 2010
----- more on oil crisis -----
July 26, 2010 CNN Anderson Cooper: BP Blows off Leaders of "Small People" (Gulf Coast Residents)
July 26, 2010 CNN Anderson Cooper:
Where is the Oil? Part 2 of 3
July 26, 2010 CNN Anderson Cooper:
BP Owned Trans-Alaska Pipeline Ticking Bomb - Part 3 of 3
July 27, 2010 CNN Anderson Cooper Part 1
July 27, 2010 CNN Anderson Cooper Part 2
Toxic black rain is now falling in the Gulf
Allen L Roland
A toxic black rain is now falling in the Gulf and the EPA and BP are doing everything to deny its existence but the truth is slowly emerging as millions of Gulf Coast residents are now becoming sick because of the lethal effects of oil and dispersants.
It's day 96 of the toxic Gulf deep water oil gusher (not spill). The huge toxic slow-moving plumes beneath the surface have finally been confirmed but the toxic air plumes are still being denied by the Government and BP - but there is plenty of evidence that they are not only there but causing significant health and environmental damage.
BP to cut U.S. tax bill by $10 billion because of losses in gulf spill
By Jia Lynn Yang - Washington Post Staff Writer
BP said Tuesday that it plans to cut its U.S. tax bill by $9.9 billion, or about half the amount pledged to aid victims of the disaster, by deducting costs related to the oil spill.
A portion of that could be refunded from taxes BP paid in earlier years.
The company disclosed its intentions as part of its second-quarter earnings report, in which it said it would record a $32.2 billion charge to reflect the costs of the spill.
Under U.S. corporate tax law, companies can take credits on up to 35 percent of their losses.
The credit for BP could mean, however, that taxpayers will indirectly foot part of the bill for the $20 billion fund that BP established to compensate people and businesses harmed by the disaster.
Oil spewing from well near Louisiana marsh
Boom placed around 20-foot-high plume; tugboat hit well, officials say
Adding insult to the Gulf's injury, an oil platform hit by a tugboat is now spewing oil and natural gas near a Louisiana marsh area, officials said Tuesday.
The oil and gas is shooting up 20 feet into the air, the office of Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said.
Altered BP photo comes into question
By Steven Mufson - Washington Post Staff Writer
Apparently BP is no more adept at doctoring photos than it is at plugging deep-sea oil leaks.
A blogger has noticed that the oil giant altered a photograph of its Houston crisis room, cutting and pasting three underwater images into a wall of video feeds from remotely operated undersea vehicles. The altered photo is displayed prominently on the company's Web site.
Thad Allen Says Gas Seep is from the Rigel Gas Field. Is BP's Oil Well Making Rigel Leak ... Or Vice Versa?
George Washington's blog
On July 23rd, Admiral Thad Allen said that the seep 3 kilometers from the leaking BP well was from the Rigel gas field: David Dishneau: Admiral, this is David Dishneau from The Associated Press. I have a question regarding that seep that we've been trying to, that was identified within three kilometersÉ And I know that the Interior Department now is trying to assist with identifying that but the AP has developed a map that shows the two old wells within the radius that you described. And I wondered if I could show you this map and you could point out which of those you believe. Admiral Allen: You caught me without my glasses. I think I can answer your question. I think we believe it might be attributed to what's called the Rigel well, r-i-g-e-l
Rep. Markey says Congress unable to
"PUBLICLY disclose" integrity of wellbore
Bob Cavnar on MSNBC's News Live re:
BP Oil Spill & Toxic Mud 07-26-2010
Methane Gas Danger Overlooked by Obama Admistration in Oil Spill
BP Coverup: Surf Boiling Like Acid - Oil on Pensacola Sand
CNN confirms methane "bubbling" from surface at unknown distance from well
Don Van Nieuwenhuise - director of geoscience programs at the University of Houston - explained to CNN that the pressure at the bottom of the well is 11,000 psi, and so scientists have calculated that it should be 8,000 psi at the top of the well:
Double-Dip Recession? One Reliable Measure Says It's Inevitable
By DAN BURROWS - DailyFinance.com
Economists as a group aren't particularly good at calling recessions. Perhaps Paul the Octopus, the psychic cephalopod who went eight-for-eight calling World Cup match winners, should weigh in on whether the U.S. economy is headed for a double-dip recession.
Unfortunately, in the real world of reason, an economic indicator with a perfect 40-year history of predicting recessions just said a double-dip is coming for sure.
Chavez threatens to halt sale of oil to U.S.
By Ian James AP - WashingtonTimes.com Warns against attack by Colombia military
CARACAS, Venezuela | President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to halt oil sales to the United States if Venezuela faces any military attack by its U.S.-allied neighbor Colombia.
Mr. Chavez said in a speech to thousands of supporters that if there is an "armed aggression against Venezuela" from Colombia backed by the U.S., "we would suspend shipments of oil."
Mr. Chavez said that "we wouldn't send one more drop" of oil to the United States, which is the top buyer of oil from the South American country.
Latent Hyperinflation "Like Lighter Fuel on a Camp Fire"
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
07/26/10 Alexandria, Virgina - The Daily Reckoning perspective is one of "soft-core deflationism"É where the economy looks likely to experience both less recovery and more deleveraging than most prognosticators probably now anticipate.
Yet, an international panic, political or otherwise, could instead lead the nation onto an inflationary path. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph, himself a deflationist, looked yesterday at how historical precedents of inflation, and hyperinflation, also offer guidance for the future. From the Telegraph:
"Each big inflation - whether the early 1920s in Germany, or the Korean and Vietnam wars in the US - starts with a passive expansion of the quantity money. This sits inert for a surprisingly long time. Asset prices may go up, but latent price inflation is disguised. The effect is much like lighter fuel on a camp fire before the match is struck.
Hyperinflation is Your Future
Economic Rant - SilverBearCafe.com It means printing worthless unbacked Monopoly money
That's what it means. Quantitative easing means HYPERINFLATION. This is theft. There is no mystery at all about inflation. There is only one case of inflation, and that is printing unbacked money. The Federal Reserve (which isn't federal and has no reserves) has devalued the dollar 95% since 1913 when they were formed illegally in direct violation of our Constitution. Right, our 1912 dollar is now worth 5 cents. Inflation is theft. This is exactly what communist Mugabe did to destroy Rhodesia. That prosperous once fine country is now poverty stricken one party dictatorship Zimbabwe.
World events are getting worse and worse by the day. Israeli and American troops are concentrated on the Iranian border. This will be the worst mistake America has ever made, even worse than the horrendous Iraqi war
The Coming Rise In Prices
Howard S. Katz - 321Gold.com
Last week I argued that the theory of a coming decline in prices just around the corner was a balloon full of hot air, and like all such balloons it was bound to sail into the atmosphere. So far from this "deflation" theory being true, it is a deliberate falsehood and in fact is a very good indicator that the exact opposite will happen.
The rationale (not the real reason) for the existence of the Federal Reserve is to combat what is called "deflation" and "depression" (both assumed to come causelessly out of nowhere and to be bad. The real reason for the Federal Reserve is to assist (and provide government support for) the bankers in their creation of money.
US Money Supply Prompts a Hard Goodbye
By The Mogambo Guru - The DailyReckoning.com
07/26/10 Tampa, Florida - The way that federal taxes are going up next year by huge percentages is Very Interesting News (VIN) for gold-bugs like me, and probably the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution, too, if they were still alive, as we all think that gold-as-money is the only "way to go" because it absolutely precludes rapid increases in the supply of money, which is important because increases in the money supply cause increases in prices, which is important if you think that paying $1,000 for a loaf of bread is important or if milk costs $2,000 per gallon, and pretty soon the rest of the world is going to wake up to that fact, too.
Soft-Core Deflationism
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com
07/26/10 Paris, France - There are two major schools of thought on what is coming next ... and two renegade, home-schools too. There are those who believe we have a recovery ... though weak ... that will continue and eventually bring the economy back to health. This is the line of the Obama Administration and most mainstream economists.
Then, there are those who think the recovery will not come as planned ... and that the feds' efforts to spur a recovery - along with strong demand from Asia and the emerging markets - will lead to higher levels of inflation, destroying the dollar and bonds. This is what Marc Faber expects. He urges listeners to avoid going too heavily into cash, since it might be the number one victim of inflation. Instead, you'll do better in stocks and real estate, he says.
Gerald Celente: Wall Street Boys run the show
only Ron Paul has firm grasp
Gold May Advance as First Monthly Drop Since March Spurs Demand
By Kim Kyoungwha
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- Gold, little changed, may gain on speculation that a drop in prices in July, the first monthly loss since March, is spurring some physical demand.
Gold for immediate delivery rose as much as 0.2 percent to $1,185.65 an ounce and traded at $1,184.85 at 9:04 a.m. in Singapore. The metal touched a record $1,265.30 an ounce on June 21 and has weakened 4.6 percent in July. August-delivery futures in New York were also little changed at $1,187.90 an ounce. "The regional physical markets are still seeing bargain hunting, which is helping to underpin values," David Wilson, an analyst at Societe Generale in London, wrote in a report yesterday. "The continued uncertainties in the markets are expected to sustain investment interest and we look for further price gains."
Gold's Slide Is Only Temporary
By RHIANNON HOYLE - WSJ.com $$
LONDON - Gold prices slid to a two-month low last week, but analysts and traders believe demand is robust enough to prevent an even sharper drop in prices in coming weeks.
After falling to $1,175 a troy ounce Tuesday, a 7% drop from the June high, gold prices rebounded modestly through the rest of the week to close at $1,187.70. The comeback occurred even as investor fear - often a key driver of gold prices - continued to ease.
Why do U.S. asset managers fear government confiscation of gold? This is the first part of a proposed series of articles that looks at the possibility of the confiscation of gold by one government or more. Author: Julian D.W. Phillips - MineWeb
BENONI (GOLDFORECASTER.COM) -
Mr John Levin of HSBC in a recent gold conference pointed out that some top U.S. Asset Managers were fearful of the possibility of government confiscation of gold -(a story broken by Mineweb in early June - See: U.S. asset managers worried Obama could confiscate gold.) He explained, that on being told that the bank's U.S. vaults had sufficient space available for their gold he was told that they did not want their gold stored in the U.S.A. but preferably in Europe because they feared that at some stage the U.S. Administration might follow the path set by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 and confiscate all U.S. gold holdings as part of the country's strategy in dealing with the nation's economic problems.
Ron Paul: We Cannot Even Maintain the Zinc Standard
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
07/26/10 Alexandria, Virgina - The US Mint has had trouble keeping up with precious metal coin demand for most of this year, and it now appears the investigation into why that's the case may also consider the economics of penny and nickel production.
The US House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy has been looking into why there are backlogs at the Mint, especially with proof and uncirculated coins, and what can be done to improve the production process.
For quite some time it's been easy to find disclaimers such as this on the US Mint website: "Due to the continued, sustained demand for American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins, 2009-dated American Eagle Gold Proof Coins were not produced." The bullion coins are made available through authorized dealers and not directly through the Mint.
Bullion, coin dealers call for investigation of U.S. coin blanks supply A congressional subcommittee has been asked to investigate the growing backlog in and foreign procurement of U.S. bullion and collectors' precious metals coin blanks manufactured by the U.S. Mint.
Author: Dorothy Kosich - MineWeb
Witnesses before and members of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy have urged Congress to direct the U.S. Mint to buy U.S. manufactured blanks for gold and silver bullion coins and discontinue the practice of using Australian-made blanks.
Meanwhile, the Director of the U.S. Mint Edmond Moy told the subcommittee that, if the Mint can begin production by September, "we will be able to produce about 830,000 one-ounce silver American Eagle coins to meet collector demand for this product in the remaining months of 2010."
Economic Conflict Between China and the US May Reappear at Any Time
Written by Robert M Cutler - OilPrice.com
Political friction over economic issues between the US and China has faded for the time being, but its sources remain and may reappear at any time.
Currency issues have been at the center of relations between the US and China since the end of last year. Earlier this month the Obama administration chose not to name China as a ‘currency manipulator.’ Doing so would have opened the door to imposing heavy tariffs on Chinese imports. The next day, China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced that it would not divest its US Treasury holdings.
The US Mint Fraud
Bix Weir
One of the more disingenuous frauds the citizens of the United States are being subjected to these days is coming out of the US Mint. For over 2 years the Mint has been illegally rationing gold and silver American Eagles and now the Director of the U.S. Mint, Edmond Moy, is finally on the hot seat.
"A congressional subcommittee has been asked to investigate the growing backlog in and foreign procurement of U.S. bullion and collectors' precious metals coin blanks manufactured by the U.S. Mint."
Geithner urges ending tax cuts for the wealthy
By Christi Parsons and Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau
The Treasury secretary says allowing some Bush-era tax breaks to expire will not harm economic recovery and is 'the responsible thing to do.'
As the White House gears up for a fight to end controversial Bush administration tax cuts, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Sunday that allowing those targeted at the wealthy to expire is "the responsible thing to do" and would not deter economic growth.
President Obama's plan would end the tax cuts for only 2% or 3% of the highest-earning Americans, Geithner said, while sending an important message to the world about the U.S. commitment to fiscal austerity.
New regs raise bank deposit insurance, may cut fund fees
By John Waggoner, USA TODAY
Bank depositors will get more insurance, and mutual fund investors may pay lower fees in new regulatory developments Wednesday.
As part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed by President Obama on Wednesday, the $250,000 limit on federal deposit insurance will become permanent. It had previously been set to expire after 2013.
The bill also makes the $250,000 insurance limit retroactive to the six banks that failed between Jan. 1, 2008, and Oct. 3, 2008. The largest of those bank failures was IndyMac, which failed in July 2008 and had $19.1 billion in deposits.
SEC Watchdog Agrees with Issa:
Goldman Settlement Timing Is Fishy and Will be Investigated
Talk of Recovery Hides Collapse
by Bob Chapman - The International Forecaster
July 24 2010: Confidence by propaganda, election time coming, inflation by quantitative easing, major countries deep in debt, IMF could use interest rates to prick bubbles, massive injections of money must end and then return to the gold standard.
The talk of recovery pervades insider thinking. The major media worldwide plays the same refrain. This is a desperate attempt to befuddle the public with misdirected propaganda to preserve confidence in a system that is in a state of collapse. As CNBC leads the charge, loss of faith in the system grows with each passing day. In spite of control of the major media by elitists, talk radio and the Internet hammers away incessantly with the truth influencing more and more 24/7 worldwide. As a result of the success of the alternative media a good many investors realize we have a systemic credit crisis that has turned into a debt crisis as well. The residential real estate collapse is still collapsing with no end in sight. That has been joined by a commercial credit crisis, which has forced banks, Wall Street and corporate America to keep two sets of books - Europe and England as well.
Spain shines on stress test, Germany flunks
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph.co,uk Europe's stress tests for banks have greatly reduced pressure on Spanish lenders but have so far done little to ease broader strains in the interbank credit markets.
Three-month Euribor rates have crept up to a one-year high of 0.889pc. The "Libor-OIS spread", watched as a key gauge of stress in the system, also nudged up to 26 basis points.
The refusal of some Landesbanken and German lenders to reveal exposure to EMU sovereign debt has raised suspicions that they have something to hide. Credit default swaps measuring bond risk jumped from 140 to 150 points for HSH Nordbank, with smaller rises for LB Berlin (154), West LB (127), Norddeutssche LB (125) and Deutsche Postbank (121).
Missouri to return $574,000 to Bankers Life customers
ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL
Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan said Monday that $574,000 will be returned to more than 100 investors, many of them seniors, who suffered losses after their savings were mishandled by a former Bankers Life and Casualty Co. insurance agent.
The agent, James Otto, of Overland Park, Kan., was not registered to sell securities or give investment advice but he still gave advice to customers on how to manage their securities investments held at other firms, according to a cease-and-desist order from the state.
First State Bancorp faces delisting
NEW MEXICO BUSINESS WEEKLY
The parent company of First Community Bank said Monday that its stock was being delisted by NASDAQ, effective at the open of business Wednesday.
First State Bancorp made the announcement in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The stock closed at 36 cents per share Monday.
First Community lost $25.7 million in the first quarter, $110.5 million in 2009, and $153 million in 2008. It has been trying to raise capital to boost its reserves.
Industries Find Surging Profits in Deeper [JOB] Cuts
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ - NYTimes.com
. . . . Many companies are focusing on cost-cutting to keep profits growing, but the benefits are mostly going to shareholders instead of the broader economy, as management conserves cash rather than bolstering hiring and production. Harley, for example, has announced plans to cut 1,400 to 1,600 more jobs by the end of next year. That is on top of 2,000 job cuts last year - more than a fifth of its work force.
As companies this month report earnings for the second quarter, news of healthy profits has helped the stock market - the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up 7 percent for July - but the source of those gains raises deep questions about the sustainability of the growth, as well as the fate of more than 14 million unemployed workers hoping to rejoin the work force as the economy recovers.
Impact the New Appraisal System is Having on the FHA Mortgage Market
Posted By: Rosemary Rugnetta
July 26, 2010 (FreeRateUpdate.com) - With FHA implementing new rules regarding appraisals, there is considerable discussion on how these rules are affecting appraisers and consumers. These new rules were set up in order to cut down on fraud while, at the same time, raising the quality of the appraisal. The impact that the new appraisal system is having on the FHA mortgage market depends on which group is discussing these changes.
Housing market still in basement
By Alan Zibel AP - WashingtonTimes.com Many metro markets likely to see further home-value drops
Thought the housing crisis was over? Not quite.
Despite four years of falling prices and recent signs that they were finally bottoming out, homes are expected to lose still more value in many metro areas over the next year.
Parts of the country already pummeled by the housing crisis, such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami, will be hit hardest. But even some places that have rebounded or held up relatively well - including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. - will suffer, too.
Supply of Homes Set to Grow
By ROBBIE WHELAN - WSJ.com (free)
Sales of new homes are near 47-year lows, yet the supply of new and existing homes is expected to grow in the months ahead as construction ramps up and a wave of foreclosed homes hits the market.
In June, new-home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 330,000 units, the Commerce Department said Monday. While that was up 23.6% from the all-time low of 267,000 in May, the June figures were the second lowest on record.
America's new debtor prison: Jail time being given to those who owe
Martha C. White - WalletPop.com
Debtors prisons were federally abolished in the United States in the 1800's, yet in certain states, they seem to be making a comeback. Out of Minnesota come disturbing reports of Americans being thrown in jail due to outstanding bills -- sometimes for as little as $85. The Star-Tribune of Minneapolis profiles a number of people who say their debts got them jailed, including Joy Uhlmeyer a 57-year-old patient care advocate who was pulled over on her way home from visiting her elderly mother and put in jail for a night for missing a court hearing about unpaid debt.
Bankruptcy can save your house from foreclosure
By Les Christie, staff writer - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Slick TV commercials and online ads tell delinquent borrowers that they can save their homes by filing for personal bankruptcy. But is it true -- or just too good to be true?
True!
Bankruptcy can bring foreclosure proceedings to a halt, end harassment from debt collectors, and give borrowers time to make up missed payments and reorganize their finances. In some cases, bankruptcy can also help mortgage borrowers save their homes permanently.
Gas prices creep up across the country
USAToday.com
NEW YORK (AP) - Drivers across the country woke up to higher prices at the gas pump on Monday, as retail gasoline rose overnight.
The average price of a gallon of unleaded regular gained half a cent from Sunday at $2.742, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
In its weekly survey of gas pump prices released Monday afternoon, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said the average price for a gallon of regular rose 2.7 cents from a week ago, to $2.749. California drivers paid the most at $3.13 a gallon, while motorists in Gulf Coast states paid an average of $2.59.
US Faces Water Supply Crisis: Study
Written by Charlotte Dudley - OilPrice.com
A new study says climate change will take a "serious toll" on American water supplies in the coming decades, with the group behind the report calling on Congress to pass "meaningful legislation" to reduce global warming pollution.
The report, prepared by consulting firm Tetra Tech for Washington, DC-based global environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), was based on analysis of publicly available water use data and climate models. It found that 14 states face an extreme or high risk to water sustainability, or are likely to see limitations on water availability as demand exceeds supply by 2050.
Migrants sell up, flee Arizona ahead of crackdown
By Tim Gaynor - Reuters.com
PHOENIX, July 25 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan mother Lorena Aguilar hawks a television set and a few clothes on the baking sidewalk outside her west Phoenix apartment block.
A few paces up the street, her undocumented Mexican neighbor Wendi Villasenor touts a kitchen table, some chairs and a few dishes as her family scrambles to get out of Arizona ahead of a looming crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Rampant Racism in the Criminal Justice System
By BILL QUIGLEY - Counterpunch
The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people.
Saying the US criminal system is racist may be politically controversial in some circles. But the facts are overwhelming. No real debate about that. Below I set out numerous examples of these facts.
The question is - are these facts the mistakes of an otherwise good system, or are they evidence that the racist criminal justice system is working exactly as intended? Is the US criminal justice system operated to marginalize and control millions of African Americans?
Tancredo declares run against GOP
By Valerie Richardson - WashingtonTimes.com Seeks Colorado governorship
Former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo made good on his high-noon ultimatum Monday by announcing that he would enter the Colorado governor's contest as a third-party candidate, essentially dashing the GOP's last hopes of winning the race.
"I am going to seek the nomination of the American Constitution Party for Governor of Colorado," said Mr. Tancredo in a statement.
Mr. Tancredo still must file papers with the Colorado secretary of state and register as a member of the American Constitution Party. Even so, the mere announcement of his candidacy appeared to doom any chance of victory for likely Republican nominee Scott McInnis while ensuring victory for the likely Democratic pick, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.
Schwarzenegger: No budget until he's gone?
By Shane Goldmacher - Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Nearly four weeks into the fiscal year without a budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested Monday that California might have to wait until his successor is sworn in next year to get a spending plan -- unless lawmakers give him everything he wants.
Schwarzenegger says the Legislature must curtail public pensions and change California's taxation and budgeting systems before he will sign a budget this year, his last as governor. He leaves office in January.
Google Updates Plans to Sell Applications to Federal Government
By AMIR EFRATI - WSJ.com - $
Google Inc. announced plans to sell special email, word-processing and other services to government agencies, keeping data generated by those applications in a system in the U.S. that is segregated from customers outside the government.
The move won't necessarily make the data more secure than it is for other users, Google executives said, but it accommodates the preferences of some federal agencies that are migrating to so-called "cloud computing" offerings and away from applications run on government servers. The Obama administration is pushing the shift to cut some of the federal government's $76 billion annual computing and software budget.
Ruling Lets Owners Alter iPhone Software
By BEN WORTHEN And AMY SCHATZ - WSJ.com (free)
Apple Inc.'s control over its iPhone and other devices via its iTunes store was undercut Monday by a federal ruling legalizing jailbreaking, or altering the devices to install unapproved software, a practice used now by a small number of customers.
The Library of Congress, which helps oversee copyright law, removed a legal cloud over altering of iPhones, iPads and iPods, to install and run software not purchased from Apple.
Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at Electronic Freedom Foundation, the digital-rights organization that pushed for the change, said the ruling could open the door for third-party app stores. "Innovators now know that there will be customers for them," she says.
India unveils prototype of $35 computer
By ERIKA KINETZ - WashingtonTimes.com
MUMBAI, INDIA (AP) - It looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.
If the government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latest in a string of "world's cheapest" innovations to hit the market out of India, which is home to the 100,000 rupee ($2,127) compact Nano car, the 749 rupees ($16) water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery.
GOOGLE TO JOIN FORCES WITH N.S.A.
By NWV News writer Jim Kouri - PPJ Gazette
An alleged intrusion into Google's immense cyber system has provoked the Obama White House to accelerate in plans for government monitoring of the Internet, something that should be triggering alarms throughout the nation, according to security experts.
According to the Obama White House, Google will now work with the National Security Agency (NSA) to stem a "crisis." However, more than a few Washington insiders are wary of such a partnership.
One political strategist points to a statement by President Barack Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel: "Never let a crisis go to waste."
"Rahm Emanuel is a Chicago from-the-gut politician who is the last person you want having access to your personal information or monitoring your Internet activities," said political strategist Mike Baker. "This is a crisis that will be used against Americans not the Chinese."
North Korea Warns of Nuclear Response to Naval Exercises
By Bomi Lim and Bill Varner
July 24 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea said it would counter U.S. and South Korean joint naval exercises with "nuclear deterrence" after the Obama administration said the government in Pyongyang shouldn’t take any provocative steps.
North Korea will "llegitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises to be staged by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet forces," the National Defense Commission said, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
When Globalism Runs Its Course ... The Year America Dissolved
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - CounterPunch
It was 2017. Clans were governing America.
The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives' war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.
As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and
the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.
EU adopts trade sanctions against Iran
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
The move is aimed at pressuring Tehran to curb its nuclear program and return to talks. The sanctions may have greater effect than U.S. restrictions because of Iran's substantial trade with the EU.
Reporting from Beirut - The European Union formally adopted harsh and unprecedented restrictions on trade with Iran on Monday in an effort to pressure Tehran to comply with international demands to curb its nuclear development program, which Western governments and analysts believe is aimed at building nuclear weapons.
The sanctions bring the European Union closer to the United States' position on trade with Iran, though they are not as sweeping as the strict measures Washington has imposed banning almost all commerce with the Islamic Republic. Europe, however, has far more dealings with Iran than does the U.S., which cut off ties to 31 years ago, making the new restrictions potentially far more biting.
Heavy liability could sink small oil drillers
By Patrice Hill - WashingtonTimes.com Bill puts American businesses at risk
One of the biggest of the big oil companies may be responsible for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, but Washington's response to the BP PLC spill would give an advantage to such major oil companies while threatening to put their small competitors out of business.
Energy legislation that Senate leaders said they may take up this week would sharply raise or eliminate a $75 million cap on oil company liability for economic damage from spills - a change that poses no great threat to giants like BP, which is setting aside $10 billion out of its huge profits and assets to pay for claims related to the spill and has already paid out billions.
----- oil crisis -----
CNN: Spotters having trouble finding oil?
Coast Guard, NOAA reporting only what is on the SURFACE
BP exiles CEO to Siberia BP's Hayward to step down, may be assigned to Russia
By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- BP PLC Chief Executive Tony Hayward will step down from his post in October and be reassigned to the company's joint venture in Russia, according to reports that surfaced as the oil major's board of directors held a pivotal meeting Monday.
Citing an unidentified official close to the matter, reports said Hayward has been lined up to take an unspecified job at TNK-BP, which is the joint venture in Russia.
BP's new CEO has Thunderbird pedigree
PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Mike Sunnucks
New BP CEO Bob Dudley is an alumnus of the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He serves on the Glendale graduate business school's board of fellows and on BP's board of directors.
Dudley is taking over for embattled CEO Tony Hayward, who is stepping down. Hayward and BP have been faulted for their response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and for their sometimes aristocratic statements and attitudes toward the spill.
BP's Russian partners back Bob Dudley to replace Tony Hayward as chief
BP's billionaire partners in Russia indicated they are willing to back their old adversary Bob Dudley as its new chief executive, as the oil giant's board met on Monday night to finalise a radical shake-up.
By Rowena Mason - Telegraph.co.uk
The endorsement will be a boost to BP, as it attempts to draw a line under its Gulf of Mexico oil spill by on Tuesday announcing the departure of chief executive Tony Hayward and revealing hefty impairment charges of up to $25bn (£16bn).
The board is expected to say that Mr Hayward will leave on October 1 to be replaced by the American managing director now in charge of BP's spill response unit.
US bank failures in 2010 surpass 100
By MARCY GORDON - AP -WashingtonPost
WASHINGTON -- U.S. bank failures this year have surpassed a bleak milestone of 100 as regulators shut down banks in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Kansas, Nevada, Minnesota and Oregon.
The seven bank seizures announced Friday bring to 103 the failures so far in 2010. The pace of bank closures this year is well ahead of that of 2009, which saw a total of 140 banks shuttered amid the recession and mounting loan defaults. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis.
William Black: "Unlimited Taxpayer Bailout" of FDIC Coming; FDIC Shell Game Hides the Bailout
Mike Shedlock Last Friday seven more banks failed bringing the total bank failures to 103.More Failures Coming
The FDIC is now deep in the red and the situation is getting worse every week. The situation would be even worse were it not for widespread "extend and pretend" tactics that keep woefully insolvent banks in business. FDIC Shell Game To Hide Bad Assets
To address the situation, the FDIC is going to start selling U.S.-guaranteed FDIC senior certificates. However, it has no Congressional authority to do so according to former thrift regulator William Black.
Unlimited Taxpayer Bailout
Black claims an "unlimited taxpayer bailout" of the FDIC is on the way.
The Death of Paper Money
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk As they prepare for holiday reading in Tuscany, City bankers are buying up rare copies of an obscure book on the mechanics of Weimar inflation published in 1974
Ebay is offering a well-thumbed volume of "Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations" at a starting bid of $699 (shipping free.. thanks a lot).
The crucial passage comes in Chapter 17 entitled "Velocity". Each big inflation -- whether the early 1920s in Germany, or the Korean and Vietnam wars in the US -- starts with a passive expansion of the quantity money. This sits inert for a surprisingly long time. Asset prices may go up, but latent price inflation is disguised. The effect is much like lighter fuel on a camp fire before the match is struck.
Seven EU banks fail stress tests
BBC News
Seven of the 91 European banks that underwent stress tests have failed the healthchecks, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) has said.
They include five Spanish banks - Diada, Espiga, Banca Civica, Unnim and Cajasur. The other two were Germany's Hypo Real Estate and Greece's ATEbank.
The tests assessed banks' ability to survive future economic shocks.
The seven banks would need a total of 3.5bn euros (£3bn) of new capital to meet the standards required, CEBS said.
"[The failed banks] will have to agree with their respective supervisors a plan over a given time period which will explain how this weakness will be resolved," CEBS chairman Giovanni Carosio said.
U.S. Need Not Fear Sovereign Debt Crisis, Unlike Greece, It Actually Is Sovereign
By: Ellen Brown - MarketOracle.co.uk
Last week, a Chinese rating agency downgraded U.S. debt from triple A and number one globally, to "double A with a negative outlook" and only thirteenth worldwide. The downgrade renewed fears that the sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece will soon reach America. That is the concern, but the U.S. is distinguished from Greece in that its debt is denominated in its own currency, over which it has sovereign control. The government can simply print the money it needs, or borrow it from a central bank that prints it. We should not let deficit hawks and short sellers dissuade the government from pursuing that obvious expedient.
Making Sense of the Economic Puzzle
By: Clif Droke - MarketOracle.co.uk
You can tell a lot about the state of the economy by simply looking at the covers of national news magazines. Or perhaps a better way of saying it is that you can get a good sense of how most Americans perceive the state of the economy by perusing the mainstream magazines.
With much fanfare Newsweek magazine proclaimed back in April, "America's Back! (The Remarkable Tale of Our Economic Turnaround)" as it trumpeted what was widely perceived by Keynesians as a legitimate economic recovery based on the latest government data. No sooner had this sentiment been proclaimed than the stock market did an about face and the "flash crash" of May sent equity prices tumbling and had many economists wondering if the market was pricing in a "double dip" recession.
Chinese Central Bank Outlines Plan To Ditch The Dollar As The Yuan's Peg
Vincent Fernando, CFA - BusinessInsider.com
Hu Xiaolian, deputy governor at the Chinese central bank, has released a paper which suggests it's soon time for China to peg the yuan to a basket of foreign currencies, rather than the U.S. dollar alone.
This especially makes sense for China given that, going forward, the U.S. might not the voracious consumer it once was. Thus tying itself at the hip to the dollar might not be as useful as it was before. Hu Xiaolian: Compared with pegging to a single currency, the exchange rate regime with reference to a basket of currencies will help adjust exports and imports, current account, and balance of payment in a more effective manner. It has two-way movements of exchange rate. The RMB exchange rate has been basically stable at an adaptive and balanced level though it may fluctuate in both ways against any particular single currency.
Chinese Banks See Risks in 23% of $1.1 Trillion Loans
By Bloomberg News
July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese banks may struggle to recoup about 23 percent of the 7.7 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) they've lent to finance local government infrastructure projects, according to a person with knowledge of data collected by the nation's regulator.
About half of all loans need to be serviced by secondary sources including guarantors because the ventures can't generate sufficient revenue, the person said, declining to be identified because the information is confidential. The China Banking Regulatory Commission has told banks to write off non-performing project loans by the end of this year, the person said.
U.S. Economy Never Came Out of Recession, Pray and Hold onto Gold
By: The Gold Report - MarketOracle.co.uk
Newsletter Writer Ron Struthers is an old-school straight talker who doesn't mince words. Ron believes the U.S. economy never came out of the 2008 recession and predicts America is about to face a whole new set of debt problems at the state level. "Any one of the U.S. states is bigger than Greece and 40 or more of them are in the same bad shape," he warns. Ron recommends investors fortify their portfolios with 15%-20% physical gold and another 40% in cash, ready to jump on any opportunities the moody markets present. In this short but sweet interview with The Gold Report, Ron also offers some of his favorite gold and silver plays, many of which are in Mexico. ¡Ole!
Deflation 'crisis' doesn't exist
By Bill Fleckenstein - MSN Money The growing fear of falling prices is exactly why we need to protect ourselves from rising ones -- and the money printing that produces them.
"Helicopter" Ben Bernanke appeared before Congress for his semiannual visit July 21. Given the near hysteria sweeping the financial world about possible deflation, I expected to see the Federal Reserve chief's feet put to the fire more than they were regarding when the next round of quantitative easing might begin.
Because he is on record as promising that deflation will not occur on his watch, he has dug himself a bit of a hole in terms of how -- and how quickly -- he must respond to the fear of deflation, let alone the reality, which some believe is already here.
Here Comes Deflation
John Mauldin - BusinessInsider.com
The debate over whether we are in for inflation or deflation was alive and well at the Agora Symposium in Vancouver this this week. It seems that not everyone is ready to join the deflation-first, then-inflation camp I am currently resident in. So in this week's letter we look at some of the causes of deflation, the elements of deflation, if you will, and see if they are in ascendancy. For equity investors, this is an important question because, historically, periods of deflation have not been kind to stock markets. Let's come at this week's letter from the side, and see if we can sneak up on some answers.
Next Big Battle in Washington: Bush's Tax Cuts
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - An epic fight is brewing over what Congress and President Obama should do about the expiring Bush tax cuts, with such substantial economic and political consequences that it could shape the fall elections and fiscal policy for years to come.
Democratic leaders, including Mr. Obama, say they are intent on letting the tax cuts for the wealthy expire as scheduled at the end of this year. But they have pledged to continue the lower tax rates for individuals earning less than $200,000 and families earning less than $250,000 - what Democrats call the middle class.
Obama signs a bill that lets banks have US over a barrel once more
By Liam Halligan - Telegraph.co.uk Last week, President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill - hailed as the most sweeping overhaul of US financial regulation since the 1930s.
"Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes," Obama boomed at the schmaltzy signing ceremony, amid bursts of applause.
"These reforms will put a stop to a lot of the bad loans that fuelled this debt-based bubble," the President gushed to America and the rest of the world. "This bill also empowers consumerse_SLpsdelivering the strongest consumer financial protections in history."
It would be reassuring if we could agree with Obama, concluding that Dodd-Frank will help to prevent the next systemic crisis and associated bail-out of "too-big-to-fail" banks. Reassuring, but wrong.
Ron Paul on Lew Rockwell Show 6/21/10: Gold, Oil, and the Dollar
White House predicts record $1.47 trillion deficit
By Andrew Taylor AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - New estimates from the White House on Friday predict the budget deficit will reach a record $1.47 trillion this year. The government is borrowing 41 cents of every dollar it spends.
That's actually a little better than the administration predicted in February.
The new estimates paint a grim unemployment picture as the economy experiences a relatively jobless recovery. The unemployment rate, presently averaging 9.5 percent, would average 9 percent next year under the new estimates.
Shadow Banking Makes A Comeback
By: Mike Whitney - MarketOracle.co.uk
Credit conditions are improving for speculators and bubblemakers, but they continue to worsen for households, consumers and small businesses. An article in the Wall Street Journal confirms that the Fed's efforts to revive the so-called shadow banking system is showing signs of progress. Financial intermediaries have been taking advantage of low rates and easy terms to fund corporate bonds, stocks and mortgage-backed securities. Thus, the reflating of high-risk financial assets has resumed, thanks to the Fed's crisis-engendering monetary policy and extraordinary rescue operations. Here's an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal:
"A new quarterly survey of lending by the Federal Reserve found that hedge funds and private-equity funds are getting better terms from lenders and that big banks have loosened lending standards generally in recent months. The survey, called the Senior Credit Officer Opinion Survey, focuses on wholesale credit markets, which the Fed said functioned better over the past quarter."
The Health Care Bill Change in 1099 Reporting Requirements Does NOT Target Gold and Silver
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
I had originally included this in my weekly gold and silver market wrap up. But I have received so many emails from alarmed readers about the topic that I thought it would be useful to give it a separate blog entry that is linkable, so it would be easier to answer those who express concern.
Those who originally raised this issue of a change in the law stated it rightly, but since then it has been fanned into a falsehood and a bogeyman, far beyond the proportions of its original scope and intent.
It is true that transactions in gold and silver and more particularly rare coins were exempt from 1099 reporting under the previous 1099 MISC rules. But they were always reportable and taxable on one's tax returns. Goods were exempts, but services were not exempt from 1099 MISC reporting and the thresh hold for them was $600. This law primarily applied to the self-employed and small businesses.
Bullion buyers bank on gold coins
By Claudia Assis, MarketWatch
Precious metal glitters for investors seeking to hedge financial chaos
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Apart from a New York City phone book listing, gold dealer Manfra, Tordella & Brookes, Inc. does no advertising. Lights are on all day because the shop sits in a basement.
Yet MTB, as the firm is known, has never been busier. Every day, people find their way to the Manhattan store with one thing in mind: getting their hands on gold bullion coins, as soon as possible and as much as possible, before the financial Armageddon they fear renders the dollars in their pockets worthless.
Gold to shine for years to come
LONDON (Commodity Online): If anybody thought the recent slide in gold prices is an indication of the yellow metal's losing power to sustain above $1,200 per ounce level, think again.
According to analysts, gold prices are set to rise and rise in the coming months and years. They said gold prices are set to mark an eleventh year of gains in 2011 as investors seek refuge from an uncertain global economic outlook.
A poll of 55 analysts and traders showed expectations for gold prices in 2011 have risen nearly 7% to a median $1,228 an ounce, from a forecast of $1,150 in a similar survey conducted in January, said a report in India's Economic Times.
Gold, Silver in bull market, not in a bubble
By John Browne - Commodity Online
In the first few days of July, the prices of gold and silver appeared to break a five-month upward trend by drawing back about five per cent from the record June peaks. Despite many similar corrections that have occurred frequently during the long bull market in precious metals, pundits nevertheless looked to draw bold and significant conclusions from the drop. But just as investors were getting comfortable with the leading explanation - that a looming double dip recession will prevent inflation and thereby dampen demand for precious metals - the markets for both metals stabilized.
Gold Market Spooked by Deflationary Double-Dip Recession Fears
By: David Galland - MarketOracle.co.uk
Last week, the price of gold again broke below its new base at $1,200, and the U.S. stock market was again under strong pressure, due to a confluence of fears, most of which point to a deflationary double-dip. The fears were fanned by disappointment in the just-released early quarterly results, by the latest CPI reports that show inflation continuing to moderate, and by yet another poll revealing faltering consumer confidence.
Elements of Deflation and the Super-Trend Puzzle
By: John Mauldin - MarketOracle.co.uk
The debate over whether we are in for inflation or deflation was alive and well at the Agora Symposium in Vancouver this this week. It seems that not everyone is ready to join the deflation-first, then-inflation camp I am currently resident in. So in this week's letter we look at some of the causes of deflation, the elements of deflation, if you will, and see if they are in ascendancy. For equity investors, this is an important question because, historically, periods of deflation have not been kind to stock markets. Let's come at this week's letter from the side, and see if we can sneak up on some answers.
(Part 1/2) Peter Schiff on CNBC Fast Money 6/21/10: Spotlight on the Yuan
(Part 2/2) Peter Schiff on CNBC Fast Money 6/21/10: Spotlight on the Yuan
Goldman reveals where bailout cash went
By Karen Mracek and Thomas Beaumont,
Des Moines Register - USAToday.com
Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night.
Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.
Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, "I hope it's as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money."
He added, "We thought originally we were bailing out AIG. Then later on ... we learned that the money flowed through AIG to a few big banks, and now we know that the money went from these few big banks to dozens of financial institutions all around the world."
Private sector must drive economy: Geithner
By Alistair Barr and Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch Treasury secretary plans big changes for Fannie and Freddie
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. economy is gradually recovering, but the private sector now must drive growth rather than the government, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday.
During an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Geithner also said the government has big plans for reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing finance giants that now stand behind most of the mortgages in the U.S. after being bailed out by taxpayers during the 2008 financial crisis.
Fannie and Freddie Hold $30 Billion in Bad Loans
Jody Shenn, Bloomberg - MFI-Miama
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator may identify as much as $30 billion of debt included in mortgage bonds that the companies can force sellers to repurchase, according to Joshua Rosner, an analyst who in 2007 predicted the collapse in the market for the securities.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency this month said it issued 64 subpoenas seeking loan files and other documents related to so-called non-agency mortgage securities bought by the two government-supported companies. The U.S. is trying to determine whether misrepresentations might require issuers to repurchase debt, producing funds from firms that may include Wall Street's largest banks to help repay taxpayer money.
When will unemployment checks be mailed? Not soon
By Tami Luhby
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Kevin Landry had to give up his San Diego apartment because he couldn't afford the rent after his federal unemployment benefits were cut off in early June.
Since then, Landry and his cocker spaniel, Curley, have been sleeping in his 1991 Dodge Dakota in a church parking lot. He sold his possessions and applied for food stamps in order to survive.
And even though President Obama signed a measure Thursday that extends benefits through November, Landry knows he won't get his $475 weekly check anytime soon.
Jobless claims jump in latest week
By Blake Ellis
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance climbed last week, the government said Thursday.
There were 464,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended July 17, up 37,000 from a revised 427,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said.
The number of claims was much higher than expected. A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected new claims to rise to 445,000.
U.S. Jobs Situation Worse Than Broadcast
By: Hans Wagner -
The unemployment numbers for June 2010 were worse than articulated. The headline number said 83,000 private sector jobs were created and the unemployment rate slipped to 9.5% from 9.7%. Sounds like things are looking up. But, as you might expect, the devil is in the details and the details tell a different story.
Birth/Death Rate
The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a statistical model they call the Birth/Death Rate. Do not worry, the Birth/Death model has nothing to do with people being born or dying. Rather it attempts to estimate the number of new business that were born last month and the number of old business that gave up the ghost. They use these numbers to adjust the employment numbers they report each month. The model uses historical statistics and applies seasonality factors to derive their estimate of the number of the number of business that began operation and that closed their doors. This is normal application of statistical theory, as the BLS has to make some sort of estimate. The problem is the birth/death rate tends to skew the employment numbers more than most people realize.
New wave of credit card abuses
By Ben Rooney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A 2009 federal crackdown on abusive credit card practices has exposed a litany of other ways consumers are being hosed.
That's according to a report released Thursday examining the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act.
The study, from the Pew Health Group's Safe Credit Cards Project, found that most of the practices deemed "unfair" or "deceptive" by the Federal Reserve under the law have disappeared from new credit card offers since Congress passed the law.
"Most of the news is good, but we are seeing the rise of new harmful behavior," said Shelley Hearne, managing director of the Pew Health Group.
The Government's Role in the Housing Bubble
The Atlantic
I never would have guessed that years in, we'd still be debating the role of the government in the housing bubble. Conservatives are still pinning most of the blame on the Community Reinvestment Act, while liberals are saying that there's no evidence that government played any significant role--unless, perhaps, it was all the fault of Alan Greenspan.
As it happens, I think that the government did play a role. A big role. But I think it's rather subtler, and thus, rather more problematic, than most people on either side are discussing.
Bart Chilton on Financial Regulatory Reform Legislation, July 2010
Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Commisioner Bart Chilton explaining the significance of the recently passed Financial Regulatory Reform legislation package, including position limits to prevent market concentration.
Why Are Banks Withholding Highend Repossessions Over $300,000 From the Market? by Keith Jurow - RealEastateChannel.com
With the expiration of the first-time buyer tax credit on April 30, there are now two main props keeping the housing market afloat. One is the growing percentage of home sales financed by Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan guarantees. The other is the refusal of banks to put on the market foreclosed homes over $300,000.
In this article, we will take a look at the second factor. A future report will examine the role of the FHA in keeping the market from collapsing.
Chicago and Cook County, IL
Let's begin with Chicago. Cook County is comprised of Chicago and its contiguous suburbs and has a population of roughly 5.3 million residents. It experienced a huge bubble during 2004-2006 and has suffered a substantial drop in both prices and home sales.
Geithner Says Companies 'Cautious' About Hiring
By Ian Katz
July 25 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said U.S. companies scarred by the financial crisis remain "very cautious" and are trying to get more productivity from current employees before hiring new ones.
Job growth is "not as fast as we need," Geithner said in an interview broadcast today on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. Employers "are still cautious, still very cautious," he said. "So they've been trying to get as much productivity out of their employees as possible."
Geithner also said, in a separate interview on ABC's "This Week" program, that allowing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to lapse at the end of this year wouldn't hurt economic growth.
Protesters incensed by Bell officials' high salaries visit mayor's business, home LATimes.com
Residents irate over the high salaries hauled in by their public officials marched Sunday to the businesses and homes of the mayor and City Council members.
A boisterous crowd of more than 200 gathered at the corner of Gage and Corona avenues. Several were wearing T-shirts featuring a city seal and the words "My city is more corrupt than your city."
Their first stop: Oscar's Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by the mayor, Oscar Hernandez. They then moved on to the mayor's house, near Florence Avenue, then to a home on Otis Avenue owned by City Councilman George Mirabal.
At the stops, protesters maintained a moment of silence and then shouted "Fuera!" -- "Out!" Dozens of cars honked as they passed and offered thumbs-up, though one man stopped, defended the city officials and challenged a protester physically.
First Lady Now Requires 26 Servants
By Dr. Paul L. Williams Monday, August 17, 2009
"In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much," she said. "See, that's why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service," - Michelle Obama.
We were wrong.
Michelle Obama, as we reported on July 7, is not served by twenty-two attendants who stand by to cater to her every whim.
She is served by twenty-six attendants, including a hair dresser and make-up artist.
The annual cost to taxpayers for such unprecedented attention is approximately $1,750,000 without taking into account the expense of the lavish benefit packages afforded to every attendant.
Wal-Mart plan to use smart tags raises privacy concerns
By Anne D'Innocenzio, AP - USAToday.com
NEW YORK - Wal-Mart Stores is putting electronic identification tags on men's clothing like jeans starting Aug. 1 as the world's largest retailer tries to gain more control of its inventory. But the move is raising eyebrows among privacy experts.
The individual garments, which also includes underwear and socks, will have removable smart tags that can be read from a distance by Wal-Mart workers with scanners. In seconds, the worker will be able to know what sizes are missing and will also be able tell what it has on hand in the stock room. Such instant knowledge will allow store clerks to have the right sizes on hand when shoppers need them.
Freedom From Tyranny Is Our Goal
By Dr. Robert R. Owens Canada Free Press The Land of the Free is held captive, locked in a two party system where both parties are merely two heads on the same bird of prey
When taxes become destructive they surpass the consent of the governed bending to the will of tyranny. When regulations strangle competition instead of securing it from evil combinations they become counterproductive and defeat the very purpose for which they were proposed. When foreign entanglements bleed the nation but do not secure the peace or defeat the enemy they become interventionist vehicles for vested interests.
JD Hayworth's Republican challenge to John McCain grows as anti-immigrant anger spills onto Arizona's streets State's tough new rules capture mood of growing fury - and are starting to set a national trend
Paul Harris - The Observer - Guardian.co.uk
JD Hayworth, a barnstorming Arizona Republican who is campaigning for the Senate, has strong opinions about his state's new law on illegal immigration.
The law, known as SB1070 and due to come into effect this week, requires police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and makes it a crime not to have valid immigration papers on your person. It has prompted Hispanics to fear racial profiling, immigrants to flee the state in droves, activists to organise consumer boycotts and the Obama administration to sue in federal court.
Chavez warns of US oil cutoff in Colombia dispute
IAN JAMES AFP
Associated Press Writer - CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to cut off oil sales to the United States if Venezuela is attacked by its U.S.-allied neighbor Colombia in a dispute over allegations Venezuela gives haven to Colombian rebels.
Chavez made his warning in an outdoor speech to thousands of supporters, saying: "If there is any armed aggression against Venezuela from Colombian territory or anywhere else supported by the Yankee empire, we ... would suspend shipments of oil to the United States!"
"We wouldn't send another drop of oil to its refineries, not a single drop more!" Chavez shouted, adding that the United States is "the big one to blame for all the tension in this part of the world."
North Korea warns of nuclear 'sacred war'
BBC News
North Korea says it will use its "nuclear deterrent" in response to joint US-South Korean military exercises this weekend.
Pyongyang was ready to launch a "retaliatory sacred war" at any time, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Washington and Seoul say the war games are to deter North Korean aggression.
Tensions between the two Koreas have been high since the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.
An international investigation said the ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, a claim strongly denied by Pyongyang.
North Korea says US military exercises pose 'grave danger' to peace in region Justin McCurry - guardian.co.uk,
After new sanctions aimed at North Korea's nuclear programme, US and South Korea prepare for manoeuvres in Sea of Japan
North Korea warned today that a joint military exercise by the US and South Korea this weekend poses a "grave danger" to regional security, a day after Washington announced new sanctions designed to cut off funding for the regime's nuclear weapons programme.
The north called for the cancellation of the drill, which will involve 8,000 troops, 100 aircraft and 20 ships, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS George Washington.
S Korea-US military exercise begins in the Sea of Japan
BBC News
The US and South Korea have begun a major military exercise in the Sea of Japan, despite threats of retaliation from North Korea.
The navy and air force manoeuvres involve 20 ships, 200 planes and 8,000 US and South Korean personnel.
Washington and Seoul say they want to send a clear signal to the North following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.
An international investigation said a North Korean torpedo sank the ship.
However, the claim has been angrily denied by Pyongyang.
On Saturday, North Korea threatened to use its nuclear deterrent in a retaliatory, "sacred war" in response to the exercise.
Accusations of Iraq war 'cover-up'
Press Association - Guardian.co.uk
The Government has been accused by a former diplomat of covering up key information from the Iraq Inquiry to hide mistakes.
Carne Ross, who quit the Foreign Office in 2004 after criticising Britain's involvement in the war, said he had been denied access to key material ahead of his recent appearance.
The UK's former Iraq expert at the United Nations also claimed he was subjected to "subtle intimidation" from Whitehall to drop references to a classified memo.
Giving evidence to Sir John Chilcot's panel earlier this month, Mr Ross complained about a "culture of unaccountability and, sometimes, dishonesty" in Government.
Two US soldiers 'captured by Taliban' in Afghanistan
By Philip Sherwell in New York - Telegraph.co.uk
The Taliban has captured two US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Islamic insurgents said.
American officials separately confirmed that two US soldiers serving with Nato forces were missing, but did not comment on the Taliban claims.
In the eastern Afghanistan province of Logar, local radio broadcast offers of a $20,000 reward for information that led to the safe release of the pair.
"Early this morning two coalition personnel went missing," the announcement said. "They are believed to have been captured by insurgents somewhere in Logar province.
Taliban claim to capture U.S. sailor, kill another
By Deb Riechmann and Rahim Faiez AP
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Taliban claimed Sunday that they killed a U.S. sailor and kidnapped another as NATO forces ramped up a massive search for the servicemen, who went missing two days earlier in an area held by the militants.
The coalition force set up checkpoints and distributed fliers with the sailors' pictures and are offering thousands of dollars in rewards for their return. There were conflicting reports about whether the body of one of the two had been recovered.
Search Widens for U.S. Sailors in Afghanistan
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ALISSA J. RUBIN - NYTimes.com
KABUL, Afghanistan - As a huge manhunt for two missing American sailors widened throughout a dangerous region of eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, a Taliban spokesman said that one of the Americans had been killed in an ambush and the other one had been captured.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said in Kabul on Sunday that the military would "do all we can" to return the sailors, and the United States military in Afghanistan was offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to their return.
* * * * * Important! * * * * *
Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation Nick Davies and David Leigh - guardian.co.uk
A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.
The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and over 1,000 US troops.
Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan, Reports Assert
By MARK MAZZETTI, JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMIT
and ANDREW W. LEHREN - NYTimes.com
Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan's military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.
The documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.
----- oil crisis -----
Censored Gulf news: People bleeding internally, millions poisoned says 'EPA whistleblower'
Human Rights ExaminerDeborah Dupre' - Examiner.com
"...we have dolphins that are hemorrhaging. People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that's what dispersants are supposed to do... Congressman Markey and Nadler, as well as Senator Mikulski, have been heroes... Mark Kaufman, EPA whistleblower, Democracy Now! Poisoning millions of people
In its report, EPA Whistleblower Accuses Agency of Covering Up Effects of Dispersant in BP Oil Spill Cleanup, Democracy Now! states that "many lawmakers and advocacy groups say the Obama administration is not being candid about the lethal effects of dispersants," so Amy Goodman interviewed Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response and a leading critic of the decision to use Corexit" who disclosed how the officials are lying about many things related to the catastrophe poisoning "millions of people."
(Listen: MP3 Download)
Is BP preparing to use the nuclear option?
PPJGazette - Dr. Tom Termotto, National Coordinator
Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference (International Citizens' Initiative)
There has been much speculation lately about a nuclear device being planned for closing in the BP Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico. The consequences of exercising this option go well beyond killing the Gulf of Mexico; there would be far-reaching and profound ramifications for the oceans of the world. There are many risks associated with this option that must be considered. Let's review some of these before BP finishes the relief wells, which are allegedly being utilized for the strategic placement and detonation of a nuclear device.
DEEP OIL WELL DRILLING ALWAYS BRINGS INCREASED LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVITY
The radioactive levels of the hydrocarbon brew that has been flowing for over 90 days into the Gulf is already cause for alarm. The deeper the well, the greater the likelihood that the oil and gas effluent will have greater concentrations of radioactive components, particularly radium, thorium and uranium.
Tony Hayward to quit BP
Terry Macalister - guardian.co.u Beleaguered oil firm chief executive to be replaced by Gulf of Mexico clean-up chief Bob Dudley
BP is planning to announce the departure of chief executive Tony Hayward alongside its half-year financial results on Tuesday.
The BP boss will be replaced by Bob Dudley, who is currently overseeing the oil spill operation in the Gulf of Mexico.
The exit of Hayward, who has been vilified by American politicians since the 20 April blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig, is the second dramatic change of leadership at BP in less than four years. Lord Browne, Hayward's predecessor, left the oil group after a spat with the then chairman, Peter Sutherland, and a sinking of the share price after the Texas City refinery fire.
Dudley poised to replace Tony Hayward as BP chief
By Graham Ruddick - Telegraph.co.uk
Bob Dudley is set to be named as the new chief executive of BP within 24 hours as the company launches the fight to repair its reputation and finances.
The board of BP will meet this afternoon and is expected to ratify the resignation of existing chief executive Tony Hayward.
Mr Hayward is believed to have been in negotiations over the weekend about his compensation package. Under his contract he is entitled to at least £1.045m - his basic salary - although BP is thought to be keen to avoid any row with the US Government over the scale of the payout.
BP accused of 'buying academic silence'
By Robyn Bresnahan - BBC News
The head of the American Association of Professors has accused BP of trying to "buy" the best scientists and academics to help its defence against litigation after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
"This is really one huge corporation trying to buy faculty silence in a comprehensive way," said Cary Nelson.
BP faces more than 300 lawsuits so far.
In a statement, BP says it has hired more than a dozen national and local scientists "with expertise in the resources of the Gulf of Mexico".
The BBC has obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It says that scientists cannot publish the research they do for BP or speak about the data for at least three years, or until the government gives the final approval to the company's restoration plan for the whole of the Gulf.
BP, Deepwater Horizon and the Armageddon Scenario
Pravda.ru
What exactly is going on in the Gulf of Mexico? When there are reports of media blackouts, then the natural reaction is to start investigating, and in the current environmental catastrophe, the more stones one turns, the more horrific the potential scenario becomes. While scare mongering is as pointless as it is dangerous, the truth remains that the media have the duty to inform.
What exactly is going on in the Gulf of Mexico? US-based geologist Chris Landau and writer Terrence Aym are but two of a growing number of researchers who are trying to find out exactly what is happening, amid reports of a media blackout, amid reports of Federal agents blocking journalists from the centre of operations, amid reports of threats of 40,000-dollar fines and felony arrests. To hide what? Let us see.
BP acquits itself of sole blame for gulf spill after internal inquiry
Tim Webb - The Observer - Guardian.co.uk
Oil company determined to fight claims of gross negligence as speculation grows over Hayward's future
BP will this week reveal that it has cleared itself of gross negligence after an internal inquiry into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
The company believes evidence will emerge of the role that other oil companies and contractors on the project had in causing the worst environmental disaster in US history. But this is unlikely to satisfy its critics. During congressional hearings in the US, politicians have laid the blame for the disaster squarely on BP, accusing it of ignoring standard oil industry safety practices to save money.
Deepwater Horizon alarms were switched off 'to help workers sleep'
Ed Pilkington in New York - guardian.co.uk
Alarms and safety mechanisms on gulf disaster oil rig were disabled, chief technician at Transocean reveals
Vital warning systems on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig were switched off at the time of the explosion in order to spare workers being woken by false alarms, a federal investigation has heard.
The revelation that alarm systems on the rig at the centre of the disaster were disabled - and that key safety mechanisms had also consciously been switched off - came in testimony by a chief technician working for Transocean, the drilling company that owned the rig.
20% of Americans hit by major economic loss
By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A new study released Wednesday estimates that 20% of Americans suffered a significant economic loss last year - the highest level in the past 25 years.
The new Economic Security Index looks at the interaction of three key variables that have a direct bearing on a person's economic security: income loss, medical expenses and debt.
A Few Reasons Why This Depression Will Be Even Greater
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com
07/22/10 Vancouver, British Columbia - "This is the Greater Depression... and it's going to be worse... far worse... than the Depression of the '30s," said Doug Casey.
"We're just in the eye of the hurricane now. It seems calm. But the other side of the storm is going to hit soon. And it's going to be much worse..."
California family bought worthless second mortgage from Wells Fargo at foreclosure auction Jondi Gumz, Santa Cruz Sentinel
BOULDER CREEK -- Roberta and Randall Strand thought they were getting a great deal on a foreclosure and helping their daughter and future son-in-law become homeowners. Instead they are holding a worthless second mortgage.
The home they bought for just under $98,000 and fixed up for $25,000 is scheduled for a foreclosure auction this afternoon to satisfy a debt of more than $529,000.
Public Debt Replaces Private Debt in the Name of Progress
By Bill Bonner - The DailyReckoning.com
07/22/10 Vancouver, British Columbia - The Dow fell 109 points yesterday. Gold was flat. Otherwise, all quiet on the financial front.
We're keeping these reckonings short this week. Your editor is attending a financial conference in Vancouver. He doesn't want to miss anything.
Fed chief urges Congress to continue stimulus spending
By Jeannine Aversa AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Thursday that the fragile economy still needs government stimulus spending to strengthen the recovery and help reduce unemployment.
Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Mr. Bernanke did urge lawmakers to come up with a credible plan to reduce the government's record-high budget deficits in the long run. But he said they shouldn't move now to slash spending or boost taxes in the near future.
Obama signs bill to cut misguided federal payments
By Kara Rowland - WashingtonTimes.com
President Obama on Thursday called on federal agencies to crack down on improper payments made by the government, signing into law a new measure he said would reduce waste and fraud by $50 billion by 2012.
Improper payments, ranging from wholesale fraud to government checks sent to the wrong person or in the wrong amount, totaled $110 billion in 2009 - the highest amount ever.
"When government doesn't work like it should, it has a real effect on people's lives," said Mr. Obama, noting the wasted money amounts to fewer resources for schools, tax relief or other priorities.
Bernanke Admission by Omission
By: Andrew B. Busch - CNBC Contributor
I think the most "captivating" part of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was not what he said, but what he omitted. Yes, the unusually uncertain comment captured the essence of why businesses aren't hiring with European debt crisis, health care, Fin Reg and taxes all creating the miasma.
However, the chairman didn't address or dwell on the Seinfeld economic theory of a double dip. He brushed off comments asking for details of what the Fed would do to stimulate the economy if it sank again from these levels. (Read Bernanke's Testimony Here)
Top Banks Paid $1.6 Billion in Excessive Bonuses, U.S. Finds
By ERIC DASH - NYTimes.com
With the financial system on the verge of collapse in late 2008, a group of troubled banks doled out more than $2 billion in bonuses and other payments to their highest earners. Now, the federal authority on banker pay says that nearly 80 percent of that sum was unmerited.
Wall Street reform: Now, it's the law
By Jennifer Liberto, senior writer
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- As soon as President Obama's name showed up on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law Wednesday, the way the financial industry does business changed.
Immediately, regulators get new powers to take down failing giant financial firms -- powers they didn't have in 2008 when the investment firm Lehman Brothers collapsed and threatened the entire financial system.
No Wonder the Outlook for the Economy is "Unusually Uncertain" ... the Fed is Killing It
Washington's Blog
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified today that the outlook for the economy is "unusually uncertain".
That's not surprising.
Nothing has changed since I made the following points last December.
High-Level Fed Officials Slam Bernanke
Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn conceded that the government's actions "will reduce [companies'] incentive to be careful in the future." In other words, he's admitting that the government's actions will encourage financial companies to make even riskier gambles in the future.
Business Knows More than Obama, He Should Follow their Roadmap
By: Larry Kudlow - CNBC Anchor
.... But uncertainty over the regulatory-and-tax rules of the road is exactly what has buffaloed business and stifled the animal spirits that are so necessary for investment and job creation.
The clash between business and the administration has become the high-drama news story of the summer. Business leaders have slammed the White House over policies they regard as hostile to jobs, including taxes, trade, and all manner of new regulations. And amidst a sub-par and virtually jobless recovery, their grievances have resonated with the electorate.
Did Financial-Reform Politics Influence the SEC's Goldman Case?
By ABIGAIL FIELD- DailyFinance.com
How much did politics influence the Securities and Exchange Commission in its lawsuit against Goldman Sachs (GS)? It sounds like we'll find out, thanks to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Suspicious of the timing of the suit, coming as it did during the financial-reform legislation debate, Issa asked the SEC inspector general, H. David Kotz, to investigate.
The Fed's toughest foe: Deflation
By Chris Isidore, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Battling inflation has historically been a major aim of the Federal Reserve. But central bank policymakers now have an even bigger worry: deflation.
Prices have been slowing for three months. And members of the Federal Reserve openly voiced concerns about deflation at their last meeting.
2010 Bank Failures Add Up To Nearly $17B FDIC Hit
The Bank Implode-O-Meter
Boy, it really starts to add up, doesn't it? This makes quick work of almost half of the FDIC's $40B pre-payment trick. What next?
Note also that these failures are far from completely "resolved", and that the below FDIC costs are just preliminary estimates - the ultimate losses to the wishfully-named "insurance fund" will probably be higher (for example the losses due to IndyMac were ultimate revised upwards by at least 20%, and that is before taking into account long-term bond guarantees the FDIC has provided for most of its bank failure interventions. Or the fact that Congress just made the FDIC guarantee $250k per account, retroactive back to Jan 1., 2008.)
Treasuries Tumble, Pushing Two-Year Yields Up From Record Low
By Susanne Walker and Paul Dobson
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries fell, pushing two-year note yields up from a record low, as higher-than-forecast corporate profits eased concern the Federal Reserve may have to consider more stimulus measures to help sustain the U.S. economic recovery.
Two-year yields had touched all-time lows for a third consecutive day and 10-year note yields traded at a 15-month low after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said yesterday policy makers were prepared to take further action as needed. A report today showed sales of U.S. previously owned homes in June decreased less than forecast.
At-a-Glance: Provisions of Wall Street Reform Bill
President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system. Following is a brief look at the bill's main provisions:
Swaps Push-Out:
Volcker Rule:
Wall St 'Death Panel':
Consumer Watchdog:
The Big Picture:
Behind the Hedge:
Insurance Cops:
Bank Cushions:
Fed Scrutiny:
Debit Cards:
China rating agency condemns rivals
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing - FT.com
The head of China's largest credit rating agency has slammed his western counterparts for causing the global financial crisis and said that as the world's largest creditor nation China should have a bigger say in how governments and their debt are rated.
"The western rating agencies are politicised and highly ideological and they do not adhere to objective standards," Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, told the Financial Times in an interview. "China is the biggest creditor nation in the world and with the rise and national rejuvenation of China we should have our say in how the credit risks of states are judged."
China Throwing World's "Biggest Creditor Nation" Weight Around
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
07/22/10 Alexandria, Virgina - In a recent Financial Times interview, Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co., lashes out with harsh words against "politicised and highly ideological" Western rating agencies. Guan insists Dagong Global ratings are superior to those of his competitors. He defends his agency's assessment, of rating China's debt higher than the US, as being due to its status as "the biggest creditor nation in the world."
According to the Financial Times:
"'The western rating agencies are politicised and highly ideological and they do not adhere to objective standards,' Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, told the Financial Times in an interview. 'China is the biggest creditor nation in the world and with the rise and national rejuvenation of China we should have our say in how the credit risks of states are judged.'
Why the silver price looks set to surge
Joss Smith - SilverBearCafe.com
Silver has an ugly reputation as the 'poor man's gold'. Most investors hate it. In fact, many would prefer to class it among the base metals - along with nickel, zinc and copper.
But they are missing out on what could be a pretty remarkable investment opportunity. Because in truth, silver is probably the most undervalued of all metals in the market today. Why?
Well, the strongest recommendation for silver at this time is that it is both a precious metal and an industrial metal. And that means two opportunities to profit. The first will be if economies continue to recover and industrial demand rises. The second is as an inflation hedge if economies perform less well than I expect.
Carryover from Thursday News page ...
Oil expert Simmons insists '20 million people are entrapped in harm's way'
John Kaminski - SilverBearCafe.com They're still lying about the oil disaster
Oil expert Simmons insists '20 million people are entrapped in harm's way'
Oil industry insider Matt Simmons blew the whistle on the made-for-TV capping of the so-called oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, July 15, during an interview on KPFK radio, the NPR station in Los Angeles.
Simmons, former energy adviser to the second President Bush, explained that according to his reading of the data from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, capping of the so-called riser and the subsequent announcement by U.S. President Obama was "the biggest con job we've ever seen."
ZIRP Lending Won't Stop US Depression
Elaine Meinel Supkis - SilverBearCafe.com
One of the stupidest ideas on earth is, the Federal Reserve's central banking system works to prevent bubbles, stop the endless 'business cycle' of ups and downs and create jobs. It obviously has totally and utterly failed at all of these things! Pretending that it does these things is foolish. When we have to choose a path to take, the best thing to do is to look at who else is on this path and then see where they are already.
In our present case, all we have to do is look to Japan. For a dozen years, I used to debate with other online economists, the Great Depression of Japan which began roughly when I began regularly posting on the internet, back when it was very small and mostly academic in nature.
Obama on new law: 'No more taxpayer bailouts'
by Annalyn Censky, staff reporter
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After more than a year of effort by its advocates, President Obama signed the Wall Street reform bill into law Wednesday, promising that the measure will put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts of failed banks. "Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes," Obama said in a ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington. "There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period."
FHA - "We are Officially Broke"
Submitted by Bruce Krasting - ZeroHedge.com
SUMMARY: A recently issued independent actuarial study shows that the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMIF) capital ratio has fallen below its statutorily mandated threshold.
We can pretend that that the FHA does not need a bailout, but it does. Unlike its bad siblings, Fan and Fred, there has never been a question whether Uncle Sam is on the hook with FHA. We don't need a fancy conservatorship this time. Tim Geithner over at Treasury will just write the checks to cover the shortfalls. The good news is that those debts will not show up on the Federal balance sheet. They don't count because there are "assets" behind these loans.
Good mornin' shine
Bill Bonner - SilverBearCafe.com
Last Friday, everything went down. Well, almost everything. The Dow fell 261 points. Gold dropped $22. Copper. Oil. The dollar. You name it; it went down.
Unless you name US Treasury bonds - which were up!
What does this mean? Maybe nothing. But since it accords with the direction we think the markets ought to be taking, we'll say it's a trend. It's a Great Correction. Asset prices go down. Cash goes up.
Let's go back and see where we've come from. Then, maybe we'll see more clearly where we're going.
In 1999, the US stock market - led by the NASDAQ - clearly topped out. The bubble in the tech sector blew up. Equities started down.
Newark mayor: No toilet paper for city offices
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporter
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In a desperate attempt to fill a $70 million budget hole, Newark's mayor is taking a chainsaw to the town's budget -- even going so far as to cut toilet paper from the 2010 budget.
"Every single contract that does not go to the core function of our city in providing safe streets, providing fire protection, or other things to keep our city afloat will now be cut," Booker said during an emergency press conference Wednesday.
G.M. Buys a Subprime Lender for $3.5 Billion
By NICK BUNKLEY - NYTimes.com
DETROIT - General Motors said Thursday it had agreed to buy a financing company, AmeriCredit, for $3.5 billion so it can lease more vehicles and increase sales to consumers with lower credit ratings.
The transaction, expected to close in the fourth quarter, gives G.M. a captive financing arm for the first time since 2007, when it sold control of GMAC Financial Services. G.M. recently considered starting a new financing arm or reacquiring GMAC, now known as Ally Financial, to strengthen its lending capabilities and to raise the carmaker's value ahead of a public stock offering.
Purchases of U.S. Existing Homes Fell in June
By Bob Willis
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of U.S. previously owned homes fell in June for a second month, adding to evidence the market will slump as the effects of a federal tax credit fade.
Purchases of existing houses dropped a less-than-forecast 5.1 percent to a 5.37 million annual rate, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The number of transactions will be "very low" in coming months, reflecting the end of the government incentive, the group's chief economist said in a news conference.
Existing home sales fall 5.1%
By Ben Rooney, staff reporter
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In the latest sign of renewed turbulence in the housing market, an industry group said Thursday that sales of existing homes fell 5.1% in June.
The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales fell last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.37 million units, down from 5.66 million in May. Sales year-over-year were up 9.8%.
New wave of credit card abuses
By Ben Rooney, staff reporter
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A 2009 federal crackdown on abusive credit card practices has exposed a litany of other ways consumers are being hosed.
That's according to a report released Thursday examining the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act.
The study, from the Pew Health Group's Safe Credit Cards Project, found that most of the practices deemed "unfair" or "deceptive" by the Federal Reserve under the law have disappeared from new credit card offers since Congress passed the law.
Job seekers' latest hurdle: Credit checks
By Chris Isidore, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Falling behind on your bills? It could cost you a job.
An increasing number of employers are using credit checks to screen potential job applicants. So missed payments on your mortgage, car or credit card could keep you from getting hired.
According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 60% of employers are using credit checks when filling at least some of their openings. Only 35% reported checking credit in a 2003 survey, and only about 13% did so 1996.
Jobless Claims in U.S. Increased More Than Forecast
By Shobhana Chandra
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- More Americans than projected filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, a sign firings remain elevated even as the economy is expanding.
Initial jobless claims jumped by 37,000 to 464,000 in the week ended July 17, exceeding the highest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The survey median projected claims would climb to 445,000. The number of people receiving unemployment insurance and those getting extended payments dropped.
The Future of Nuclear Energy: Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
Rod Adams -SilverBearCafe.com
Pick up almost any book about nuclear energy and you will find that the prevailing wisdom is that nuclear plants must be very large in order to be competitive. This assumption is widely accepted, but, if its roots are understood, it can be effectively challenged.
Recently, however, a growing body of plant designers, utility companies, government agencies and financial players are recognizing that smaller plants can take advantage of greater opportunities to apply lessons learned, take advantage of the engineering and tooling savings possible with higher numbers of units and better meet customer needs in terms of capacity additions and financing. The resulting systems are a welcome addition to the nuclear power plant menu, which has previously been limited to one size - extra large.
Charlie Rangel will face ethics charges
By Kara Rowland - WashingtonTimes.com
Inquiry could hit Democrats
House investigators on Thursday said they will charge senior Rep. Charles B. Rangel with ethics violations, setting the stage for an unpleasant battle that could haunt Democrats as they prepare to face voters in November.
The accusations will be made public next week, when a subcommittee of the House ethics panel meets for the first time to consider the charges. The bipartisan group of eight lawmakers then will determine whether the allegations have been proved.
Mexico Vs. The People Of Arizona
Written by Joanne Galloway - The Raw Deal
What in the name of the Declaration of INDEPENDENCE is going on with our country?
According to a recent article: "Seven other Latin American countries want to join Mexico in supporting a lawsuit challenging Arizona's immigration enforcement law. Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru filed separate, nearly identical motions to join Mexico's legal brief supporting the lawsuit filed by U.S. civil rights and other advocacy groups"
I've yet to find the identity of the "federal judge who formally accepted Mexico's complaint". I'm interested to know the judge's name, background, and ruling record - and if it's actually Constitutional?
State department warns Mexico travelers
PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL
The U.S. State Department has extended its travel warning for Mexico citing continued violence in northern cities and states, including Nogales, which borders Arizona.
The warning also includes Juarez, Tijuana and Monterrey, where many U.S. businesses have operations. The alert extends a warning in May issued to tourists and other travelers.
The Real U.S. Government
BY GLENN GREENWALD -Salon.com
The Washington Post's Dana Priest demonstrates once again why she's easily one of the best investigative journalists in the nation -- if not the best -- with the publication of Part I of her series, co-written with William Arkin, detailing the sprawling, unaccountable, inexorably growing secret U.S. Government: what the article calls "Top Secret America." To the extent the series receives much substantive attention (and I doubt it will), the focus will likely be on the bureaucratic problems it documents: the massive redundancies, overlap, waste, and inefficiencies which plague this "hidden world, growing beyond control" -- as though everything would better if Top Secret America just functioned a bit more effectively. But the far more significant fact so compellingly illustrated by this first installment is the one I described last week when writing about the Obama administration's escalating war on whistle blowers:
The War That Never Ended
OP-ED by W. R. McAfee, Sr. - The PPJ Gazette
Joan Veon recently pointed a light at where the globe's money is concentrated today.
Controlling currency is key to the financial "elite's" end game. They've done this through their central banks, fiat money, usury, etc. as a means to control nations through their currencies.
The British, seeing a U.S. colony plum, couldn't defeat America militarily during the revolution, so they tried again in the War of 1812. They succeeded in burning the White House and Capitol before being defeated again a couple years later; agreeing to a treaty in 1814.
QUEEN GIVES MARCHING ORDERS TO THE UNITED NATIONS
By Joan Veon - NewsWithViews.com Hail Caesar!
Regarding the queens speech to the United Nations, we were told by the British Mission to the United Nations that the queen "Will be taking a global perspective. She will touch on progress made since she was last here and challenges that remain."
For a woman who says she is not head of any country - only titular head of state of 16 countries including Australia, Canada and New Zealand and the nominal representative of 54 governments in the British Commonwealth, who is fooling who? Why should the people of the world listen to a little old lady from Britain? The answer is because her hereditary demands it.
Judge doubts constitutionality of a portion of Arizona's immigration law
By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
A U.S. district judge questions the provision that makes lacking immigration documents a crime but is skeptical of barring the requirement for police officers to check immigration status.
Reporting from Phoenix - A federal judge on Thursday expressed skepticism that a key part of a controversial Arizona law to control illegal immigration is constitutional.
Obama Is Preparing to Bomb Iran
[Op-ed] Webster G. Tarpley
After about two and a half years during which the danger of war between the United States and Iran was at a relatively low level, this threat is now rapidly increasing. A pattern of political and diplomatic events, military deployments, and media chatter now indicates that Anglo-American ruling circles, acting through the troubled Obama administration, are currently gearing up for a campaign of bombing against Iran, combined with special forces incursions designed to stir up rebellions among the non-Persian nationalities of the Islamic Republic. Naturally, the probability of a new fake Gulf of Tonkin incident or false flag terror attack staged by the Anglo-American war party and attributed to Iran or its proxies is also growing rapidly.
The Strategic Ramifications of a US-Led Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Written by Gregory R. Copley - OilPrice.com
The United States and the NATO allies are preparing to disengage and soon withdraw from Afghanistan and even the most vocal advocates of the "long-term commitment" do not anticipate more than five years of active US and NATO involvement. All the local key players - in Kabul, Islamabad, and countless tribal and localized foci of power - are cognizant and are already maneuvering and posturing to deal with the new reality.
Irrespective of the political solution and/or compromise which will emerge in Kabul, the US is leaving behind a huge powder keg of global and regional significance with a short fuse burning profusely: namely, the impact of Afghanistan's growing, expanding and thriving heroin economy.
Invisible Empire A New World Order Defined Full
----- Oil Crisis -----
Matt Simmons Says Gulf Clean Up Will Cost Over $1 Trillion, Sees BP At $1, Says "We Have Now Killed The GoM"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
Matt Simmons shares some startling revelations in his latest Bloomberg TV interview, in which he says none of the propaganda matters on TV 24/7 (photoshopped or not) as the ultimate clean up cost will likely be well over $1 trillion, and a result he is unconcerned about his BP short. He ultimately see the stock going down to $1. What Simmons alleges however is far more startling and audacious: that this is a joint cover up effort between the administration and BP, in which both entities keep throwing sand in the eyes of observers while distracting everyone from the matter at hand: "What we don't know anything about is the open hole which is caused by the drill bit when it tossed the blow-out preventer way out of the holeÉand 120,000/day minimum of toxic poison has now covered the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. So what they're talking about is the biggest environmental cover-up ever.
Ships ordered to leave Gulf spill site ahead of storm
USAToday.com
The federal government ordered dozens of ships to evacuate the site of BP's busted oil well as Tropical Storm Bonnie sweeps toward the Gulf of Mexico.
"Due to the risk that Tropical Storm Bonnie poses to the safety of the nearly 2,000 people responding to the BP oil spill at the well site, many of the vessels and rigs will be preparing to move out of harm's way beginning tonight," National Incident Commander Thad Allen, who's in charge of the U.S. response to the Gulf oil spill, said in a statement Thursday evening.
Gulf spill could cost region $22.7 billion in travel dollars
By Marnie Hunter, CNN
(CNN) -- Perception is the wild card in how the oil disaster will affect the Gulf coast region's travel revenue, according to analysis conducted by Oxford Economics for the U.S. Travel Association.
The effects of the oil spill on the region's travel industry could last up to three years and cost up to $22.7 billion, according to the study released Thursday.
Gulf oil spill: Well will stay sealed through storm
LATimes.com
Federal officials said Thursday that they would leave the damaged BP well sealed even if the site is evacuated in advance of a storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico.
"The decision has been made to leave the cap on even if the well is unattended," national incident commander Thad Allen said during an afternoon briefing.
The cap, installed last week, has stopped the gusher of oil that spewed into the gulf for three months. But the possibility existed that BP would be required to open it in the event of a storm and the evacuation of underwater robots and other equipment that are keeping a close watch for any new leaks.
Abandoning the Capped Oil Well: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Washington's Blog
BP will leave the cap on the oil well while it vacates the area for a number of days to avoid the coming tropical storm.
What could possibly go wrong?
One expert warns that increasing pressure might have an unintended danger:
Bill Gale, a California engineer and industrial explosion expert who is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, said... that gas hydrate crystals could be plugging any holes in the underground portion of the well, and they could get dislodged as pressure builds.
A bag and a trap. Oil spill invention is a keeper
By Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times
'It's not rocket science, but it works,' a BP official says of Gerry Matherne's device, one of thousands engineers have sorted through that claim to clean up the sludge in the Gulf of Mexico.
Reporting from Bayou La Batre, Ala. - Gerry Matherne recently built a helicopter from "a bit of this and a piece of that," which made him a minor star on YouTube when the engine died in midair and he didn't. He somehow landed the crippled craft beside power lines.
What If He Is Right...
James Howard Kunstler
Just when America was celebrating the provisional end of BP's Macondo oil blowout, and getting back to important issues like Kim Kardashian's body-suit collection, along comes Matthew Simmons with a rather strange and alarming outcry on doings in the Gulf of Mexico that contradicts the mood of renewed festivity, as well as just about every shred of reportage from any media outlet, mainstream or otherwise.
Oil expert Simmons insists '20 million people are entrapped in harm's way'
John Kaminski - SilverBearCafe.com They're still lying about the oil disaster
Oil expert Simmons insists '20 million people are entrapped in harm's way'
Oil industry insider Matt Simmons blew the whistle on the made-for-TV capping of the so-called oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, July 15, during an interview on KPFK radio, the NPR station in Los Angeles.
Simmons, former energy adviser to the second President Bush, explained that according to his reading of the data from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, capping of the so-called riser and the subsequent announcement by U.S. President Obama was "the biggest con job we've ever seen."
"The TRUTH about the BP (BS) Disaster" Chris Landau on Rense Radio 1/4
"The TRUTH about the BP (BS) Disaster" Chris Landau on Rense Radio 2/4
"The TRUTH about the BP (BS) Disaster" Chris Landau on Rense Radio 3/4
"The TRUTH about the BP (BS) Disaster" Chris Landau on Rense Radio 4/4
The CLEAR Act of Another Federal Land Grab
Cassandra Anderson - Infowars.com
U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) addressed Congress on July 15th to report the Natural Resources Committee's passage of HR 3534, the Consolidated Land, Energy and Aquatic Resources Act (CLEAR Act) of 2009. Congressman Gohmert said that the bill was to "deal with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico" but it contains plans for the federal government to acquire land and was introduced in 2009.
The CLEAR Act is ambiguous so if the bill is passed, federal agencies will determine how it is implemented and how the land will be used.
Taking From the Broke and Giving to the Jobless
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
07/21/10 Alexandria, Virginia - When the wealthiest citizens can design tax shelters, Swiss and otherwise, and the poorest can either pay no taxes or receive refunds, the burden of generating US tax revenue falls squarely on the shoulders of the middle class. That same middle class essentially made up of those hardest hit by today's correcting economy.
Robin Hood, a sort of redistributive folk hero, rose to fame by robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. How times have changed! Apparently, for the White House, it's good enough to work that "magic" a few notches down... taking from the working-poor taxpayer and giving to the unemployed.?
DC Declares War On States
Chuck Baldwin - InfoWars.com
Among the limited duties of the US Government enumerated in the federal Constitution is Article. IV. Section. 4. "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion." However, for several decades now, the federal government in Washington, D.C., has shown great ambition and propensity to engage in activities to which it was never authorized, and to ignore those responsibilities with which it is specifically charged. The responsibility of the federal government to protect each State against invasion is a classic example of the latter.
China: The US Is "Insolvent and Faces Bankruptcy"
By: Jesse - MarketOracle.co.uk
The common thought amongst even reasonably educated and economically literate Americans is that China is 'stuck with US Treasuries' and has no choice, so it must perform within the status quo and do as the US wishes, or face a ruinous decline in their reserve holdings of US Treasuries.
And with real short term US Treasury interest rates decidedly negative, meaning that it is costing you money to hold dollars, there is a case to be made that there are a lot of 'price takers' out there in this world. Wow, they are just that good, aren't they. Having their heyday in a genuine deflation. A subtle tax levied on all holders of US dollars, probably more significant because of the official understatement of inflation. Yo, come git some.
I think China is already diversifying their reserve portfolio, and more stealthily and effectively than one would imagine.
US Economic Outlook: Bad and Getting Worse
By The Mogambo Guru - The DailyReckoning.com
07/21/10 Tampa, Florida - It was raining outside, and so I was stuck inside the house, listening to my family remind me that I was just a worthless, penny-pinching, hateful old man who loves gold, silver and oil more than I love them, which I hasten to add is not exactly true in all respects, but you gotta admit that gold, silver and oil will treat me very nicely as they soar in price along with inflation in prices because of the insane levels of money creation by the Federal Reserve so that the loathsome Obama administration can deficit-spend us into hyperinflation, whereas spouses and children will be just a heavy millstone around my poor, aching neck, dragging me down, down, down by forcing me to spend money on them for their food and medical care and all the rest of that expensive crap.
So I was thinking that my economic situation had gotten a lot worse, and that I am probably the only guy in the whole world whose life Really, Really Sucks (RRS), when I saw a new survey by AlixPartners showing that 71% of Americans report that their economic situation is "the same," "somewhat worse" or "a lot worse" than this time last year. Wow!
U.S. Stocks Drop, Treasuries Gain on Bernanke's Growth Outlook
By Caroline Dye and Nikolaj Gammeltoft
July 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks slid, while Treasuries and the dollar rallied, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the economic outlook remains "unusually uncertain" without offering additional measures to stimulate growth. Oil dropped on an unexpected increase in inventories.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.3 percent to 1,069.59 at the 4 p.m. close in New York, halting a two-day advance. The yield on two-year Treasuries sank to a record low for the fourth time in five days and the Dollar Index surged 0.6 percent. Oil slipped below $77 a barrel, while copper rallied 3 percent after Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. said the outlook for the metal is "positive."
U.S. Treasury Bond Fraud and Debt Monetization
By: Jim Willie CB - MarketOracle.co.uk
A significant feature of fiat money systems is the privilege for the custodian to commit fraud, big fraud, gargantuan fraud, even counterfeit. Fannie Mae might function as the clearinghouse for numerous massive role programs with $trillion fraud behind each, hidden from view, especially since it was conveniently nationalized. Follow some other fraud schemes, right out in the open. Surely such recount only touches the surface, but these shenanigans are advanced forms of fraud. They are smoking guns of USTreasury fraud and counterfeit, with strong whiffs of monetization. Much more monetization is to come, fully endorsed and sanctioned. Other clever techniques are being used, given the Quantitative Easing has officially been halted.
Economic Meltdown: The Final Phase
Giordano Bruno - SilverBearCafe.com
In the financial life of every culture built upon faulty monetary policy, there are points at which the thin thread of economic faith; the thread that ties the entire failing system together, the thread made tangible by the hopes (and sometimes ignorance) of the general populace, finally snaps. From Ancient Rome, to Weimar Germany , to Argentina , to modern day America , no society fueled by unsustainable debt and fiat inflation can duck the 'Fiscal Reaper' for very long. The U.S. alone has survived since the early 1970's (after Nixon removed the last vestiges of the gold standard) on nothing but questionable credit practices and baseless optimism, but there is a limit to the power of fantasy. This is a fact that most mainstream financial analysts and some in the American public refuse to grasp. Mere belief in the enduring nature of the marketplace is not enough; the fundamentals must also support that belief.
Congress should look under the TARP
Examiner Editorial - Washington Examiner
This is not the first time that Neil Barofsky, special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, has harshly criticized the Treasury Department for its utter lack of transparency and accountability in administering the massive federal bank bailout. But in his latest quarterly report to Congress, the independent watchdog warns that total taxpayer support for the financial system increased by another $700 billion during the past year -- with precious little to show for it. Some of that increase went to supply capital to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so these quasi-governmental entities could continue guaranteeing mortgages and supposedly stabilize the housing market that they were so instrumental in causing to collapse.
Obama signs bill to overhaul Wall Street
By Edward Luce and James Politi in Washington - FT.com
Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations since the 1930s, less than two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The new law was promptly endorsed by Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, who said it made "significant progress" towards reducing the likelihood of another crisis and placed the US financial system on a "sounder foundation".
But other comments from Mr Bernanke provided a sharp reminder of challenges ahead for Mr Obama. The Fed chief saw no immediate relief for the weak job market and said the US economy faced "unusually uncertain"prospects.
Republican Whip Eric Cantor Discusses Fin Reg,
Regulation, Job Creation & The President's Agenda
Financial Reform Returns $200 Million to Depositors of Six Failed Banks
By MATTHEW SCOTT - DailyFinance.com
Depositors of six failed banks will have about $200 million returned to them because of a provision in the newly passed Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (also known as Dodd-Frank) that permanently raises the standard maximum federal deposit insurance amount from $100,000 to $250,000.
President Obama signed the financial reform legislation into law on Wednesday morning. Among its myriad provisions, Congress decided to make the temporarily increased insurance protection on consumer accounts retroactive to 2008, the year the financial crisis began.
Bernanke Says Fed Is Prepared to Act as Needed
By Scott Lanman and Joshua Zumbrun
July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said central bankers "remain prepared" to act as needed to aid growth even as they get ready to eventually raise interest rates from almost zero and shrink a record balance sheet.
While Fed officials plan for the exit, "we also recognize that the economic outlook remains unusually uncertain," Bernanke said today in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee. "We will continue to carefully assess ongoing financial and economic developments, and we remain prepared to take further policy actions as needed to foster a return to full utilization of our nation's productive potential in a context of price stability."
No Fed Plans to Give More Support, Bernanke Says
By SEWELL CHAN - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Federal Reserve, in saying that it had no immediate plans to provide additional support to the economy, dashed the hopes of some economists and executives who have been pushing for action to add momentum to the sluggish recovery.
The chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Wednesday that the recovery was continuing at a modest pace, though with a "somewhat weaker outlook."
He projected that the unemployment rate would remain well above 7 percent through the end of 2012, and the duration of President Obama's current term. That, too, was a discouraging note to Washington incumbents facing tough re-election fights.
The Huge Question Facing Bernanke Today: Can He Stimulate Some More?
by Joe Weisenthal - BusinessInsider.com
Ben Bernanke will testify in front of Congress today on matters related to the economy for his Semi-annual Monetary Policy Report.
From Republican Congressmen, you can expect a lot
of questioning about taxes, the deficit, the size of the Fed's balance sheet, and other key talking points.
Democrats who favor more stimulus may wonder what more the Congress and Bernanke can do to stimulate the economy.
There's definitely been loud chatter lately about the possibility of more easing.
Ben Bernanke Sends Stock Market Lower...
By: Jack Steiman - MarketOracle.co.uk
You have to love honesty, and that's what we heard today when Mr. Bernanke told congress that things in the United States are not very good at all. That although the expectations are for 3.5% GDP (gross domestic product), the risk is towards weakness from that perspective. The moment this news came out, along with other tidbits not too friendly for Wall and Main Street, the market tanked out. No holding back either.
Mind the gap: why the bond markets are signalling a depression
By Jeremy Warner - Telegraph.co.uk Something potentially momentous has happened in financial markets in the past two months.
Virtually unnoticed, the yield on long dated pan-European sovereign debt has slipped below that on equities. So what, you might say; that's what happens when shares go down and bonds go up. But in fact this reversal in the traditional relationship between bonds and equities is an extraordinarily unusual event. It's happened only three times in the past 50 years. Alarmingly, all three of those occasions have been in the past decade. What are markets trying to tell us?
There are two ways of looking at the phenomenon. Either it is an aberration, and therefore a buy signal for stock markets, or much more worrying, it marks the final death knell for Europe's 60-year love affair with equities, and therefore the start of a generalised retreat from risk that will see the economy stagnate or worse for perhaps decades to come.
Fed chief focused on keeping recovery alive
By JEANNINE AVERSA (AP)
WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke heads to Congress Wednesday with a message of reassurance: The Fed stands ready to take new steps to bolster the recovery if the economy worsens.
The Fed chief kicks off back-to-back appearances on Capitol Hill at a delicate time for the economy. The recovery, which had been flashing signs of strengthening earlier this year, is losing momentum. And fears are growing that it could stall.
The Fed's Near-Death and Rebirth Experience
by Ronald D. Orol and Greg Robb - MarketWwatch
At risk of losing all oversight powers, Fed fights to regulate another day
November 10, 2009 was a dark day in annals of the Federal Reserve. Sen. Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, went before the microphones and minced no words: the central bank's role in the preventing the financial crisis had been an "abysmal failure" and the Fed should get out of the bank-regulating business entirely.
Dodd went on to outline his sweeping financial reform bill to gut the Fed's oversight of banks - powers that had been painstakingly won in almost two decades of turf wars by Fed chief Alan Greenspan, who reigned unmatched over Wall Street and the financial system.
Gold, Silver, and Bernanke's Bluff
Jesse's Café Américain - SilverBearCafe.com
The Federal Reserve and its friends in the European central banks, the IMF, and BIS are running a bluff against the developing nations and the rest of the world, and to their shame, the majority of their own people.
They will have to engage in wider scale monetization and 'quantitative easing,' which is a polite euphemism for the debasement of the currency, to cover the collapse of their expansion of the money supply, the misprision of felony, and the subornation of perjury, to facilitate the mass transfer of wealth from the public to their friends. This is why they must operate in the dark. Ponzi schemes must always expand, and always in secret.
New Gold-Backed Currency Could be in Use Next Month
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
07/21/10 Alexandria, Virgina - Malaysia, well, at least its northern state of Kelantan, is putting the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham into circulation as legal tender and it could be implemented as early as mid-August. It won't be the first nation using gold coins - Indonesia has already minted about 25,000 pieces for use in Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore - but, they are going to be useable in a rather comprehensive fashion.
According to The Guardian:
"If information on its website is to be believed, the council has the blessing of the state's Islamist government, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (Pas), to kickstart the dinar in three moves. First, the state will pay a quarter of its public servants' salaries using the dinar. Second, all state companies will accept dinar payments. Lastly, some 600 commercial enterprises will also embrace this currency.
Gold Coin Sellers Angered by New Tax Law
By RICH BLAKE - ABC News Amendment Slipped Into Health Care Legislation Would Track, Tax Coin and Bullion Transactions
Those already outraged by the president's health care legislation now have a new bone of contention -- a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny.
The issue is rising to the fore just as gold coin dealers are attracting attention over sales tactics.
Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099 forms are used to track and report the miscellaneous income associated with services rendered by independent contractors or self-employed individuals.
These 72 Analysts Believe Gold Will Go Parabolic To Between $2,500 and $15,000!
Lorimer Wilson - SilverBearCafe.com
Believe it or not, I have identified 72 economists, academics, gold analysts and market commentators who have developed sound rationale as to why gold could quite possibly go to a parabolic top of at least $2,500 an ounce to even as much as an unimaginable $15,000 before the bubble finally pops!
When I first began writing about such projections I was satisfied with identifying 10 individuals who were of the opinion that gold would attain a peak greater than $2,500. That list has grown to 72 (see below) of which 44 believe that $5,000 or more for gold is likely. I encourage you to check out their articles and their rationale for such high gold prices in the years (and in some cases just months) to come.
Explained Time and Time Again: Currency Induced Cost Push Hyperinflation
Jim Sinclair - SilverBearCafe.com "Nothing will unnerve the paper gold shorts more quickly and do more to undercut their confidence than to strip them of the real metal and force them to come up with more hard gold bullion to make good on deliveries. "Stand and Deliver or Go Home" should be the rallying cry of the gold longs to the paper gold shorts." --Trader Dan Norcini
If gold market participants were all tank drivers their machine would have but one gear - reverse. The smallest book in the world is the book of confirmed gold price visionaries.
Someone says deflation and the long gold positions hit the fan. Gold banks make their short covers even though the fuel in Bernanke's Helicopter Money Drop is founded in the dreaded use of the "D" word.
As credit card holders play it safe, issuers increase non-penalty service fees By Ylan Q. Mui - Washington Post Staff Writer
After the recession forced credit card companies to purge their rosters of the riskiest loans, the industry is facing a new problem: customers who are too good.
Card issuers have long found their bread and butter in penalty fees and high interest rates paid by consumers who carry a balance. But that business model has been upended by the legions of consumers who were overwhelmed by debt when the recession hit, forcing the industry to write off billions of dollars in loans. In addition, new federal laws limit how much card companies can charge risky customers.
Chinese central bank member says yuan could go down
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- China will let its currency fall if needed to support exports, a Chinese central bank advisor said in an interview published Wednesday.
"Now that there is flexibility in the renminbi, the exchange rate of the currency will decline if it becomes necessary to support exports," Zhou Qiren said in an interview with Japan's Asahi Shimbun.
After almost three years of keeping its currency -- known both as "renminbi" or "yuan" -- tied to the U.S. dollar, China last month began allowing the yuan's daily trading band to fluctuate.
China Has a Painful Debt Bubble Surprise for the Global Economy
By: Claus Vogt - MarketOracle.co.uk
China implemented one of the world's most aggressive economic stimulus programs to fight the recession of 2008. And the country went on something akin to a debt binge.
Credit growth surged as much 50 percent - an unprecedented peak. Such a policy can jump start an economy. But it lays the groundwork for imbalances and major bubbles.
Yes, I am aware that China is said to be different ... but I don't believe it!
Instead I'm fully convinced that even Chinese central planners cannot escape economic laws. Eventually the piper will have to be paid.
And payback time may be just around the corner as ... China's Housing Bubble Continues to Inflate
Recently I discovered the following chart published by international banking giant HSBC.
It compares the housing markets of Japan, the U.S., Hong Kong, and China. And it shows total residential housing value relative to GDP, which in my opinion makes for a good economic measure.
Poor Chinese Are Throwing Money Into An Unescapable Capital Trap
Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds - BusinessInsider.com
Chinese citizens have poured their life savings into speculative real estate. This is not just misallocation, it is an inescapable capital trap.
China's citizens have few options for investing their immense savings. Chinese households are prodigious savers: China boasts a savings rate of 38%, fully ten times that of the U.S. But Chinese savers have few choices on where to invest their money: they can either leave it in a savings account which draws 2.25%, less than the inflation rate of 3.1%, or invest in real estate or domestic stocks.
The money pouring into property has created a worrisome asset bubble in housing, which rose 12.4% year-on-year in May, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics.
Payback time for state firms tied to payoffs Dozens of Chinese state firms are in hot seat after U.S. admission of bribery By Tang Jiajie, Caixin Online - MarketWatch.com
SHANGHAI (Caixin Online) -- When the U.S. government announced last year that former executives at California-based valve manufacturer Control Components Inc. (CCI) had pleaded guilty to numerous counts of bribery, employees at dozens of companies in China heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Only six Chinese businesses had been implicated in the multimillion-dollar bribery case by the time the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the convictions.
But, in fact, the pleas filed by CCI's ex-employees merely marked a stage, not the conclusion, for the illegal cash-for-contracts case. Eventually, U.S. officials charged dozens of other Chinese companies -- including leading power concerns and design institutes -- with accepting payoffs from CCI over several years.
Welfare & Warfare
Jim Quinn - SilverBearCafe.com
Most people in America associate the Democratic Party with spending on welfare programs and the Republican Party with spending on warfare. Until reading Niall Ferguson's brilliant The Ascent of Money, I never realized that welfare and warfare have gone hand in hand for over a century.The immortal German warmonger Otto von Bismarck was the first politician to introduce social insurance legislation in the 1880s. His reasoning was not strictly humanitarian. According to Bismarck, "A man who has a pension for his old age is much easier to deal with than a man without that prospect." Bismarck was a shrewd politician who realized that when you provide people something for nothing, they will vote for you. When you go to war with France, a population sedated with entitlements is more easily malleable and controllable. David Lloyd George rolled out pensions and national insurance in Great Britain prior to World War I in order to win votes. Politicians began a century of addiction to welfare programs, as the poor voted for those that promised them the most. The world has now reached its limit of unfunded promises. The financial crisis in the last two years was caused by politicians throughout the world promising benefits to their citizens and paying for these benefits with borrowed money. Margaret Thatcher aptly summed up what has happened:
Weak economy, Fed ease, China, WWIII
Bailout watchdogs slam Obama housing programs
By David Lawder - Reuters.com
(Reuters) - Obama administration housing rescue programs have been ineffective at preventing a rise in home foreclosures even as the government's support for the mortgage market grew by nearly $700 billion in the past year, U.S. bailout watchdogs said on Wednesday.
Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, heaped more criticism on the Treasury for its failure to adopt more realistic goals for the number of people expected to benefit from its program to modify mortgages and slash monthly payments.
"Treasury's continued indications that this is a successful program without identifying these goals and benchmarks is simply not credible," Barofsky told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. "And I fear that the growing public suspicion that this program is an outright failure will continue unless and until Treasury adopts this recommendation and comes clean with what its goals and expectations are."
7 Questions Washington Must Answer to Fix Housing Policy
Daniel Indiviglio is a staff editor at TheAtlantic.com
With President Obama signing the big financial regulation bill today, Washington will feel like it's done enough for a while when it comes to making new rules for banks and Wall Street. Next on its 'to do' financial policy checklist is housing. After all, the biggest hole in the Dodd-Frank bill was a complete lack of reform for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
But one of the legislation's chief architects, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA), has already indicated that the GSEs and housing policy will be a major focus going forward, with hearings starting in September. The White House has also said that officials will release a new housing strategy sometime next year. Experts are also beginning to weigh in. A special series from The Economist provides some good ideas. Another piece in the recent edition of the National Review also argues for key changes. What should be done?
Countrywide VIP Loans Reached Deep Into Fannie Mae Countrywide VIP loans reached deep into Fannie Mae during expanded business relationship ABC News - AP
The former Countrywide Financial Corp. gave preferential loans to more than three dozen employees of Fannie Mae while the two giant housing enterprises were locked in an expanding, multi-billion dollar business relationship in subprime mortgages, documents show.
Discounted mortgages written by Countrywide, once the nation's largest subprime lender, were granted to a far wider group of Fannie employees than the four top executives executives whose preferential loans were previously disclosed, according to Countrywide documents provided to Congress under a subpoena.
Action List for the Newly Unemployed
Charles Hugh Smith - SilverBearCafe.com As employment continues declining, newly unemployed people will have to adapt to the unwanted change in circumstance.
I consider it highly likely that another leg down in employment is getting underway.
As the Federal stimulus peters out and the Central State's ability to borrow $1.5 - 2 trillion a year to fund the status quo begins pushing up against the financial equivalent of the speed of light (as you approach c, it takes much more energy to increase velocity), then jobs which were only recently considered secure will be lost and the people who held them will be unemployed.
The $787 billion stimulus package, "cash for clunkers," the credit for new home buyers, the $1.2 trillion in mortgages the Federal Reserve purchased--all of these programs stabilized employment at around 131 million jobs. Now that these programs have ended or been reduced, employment is set to undergo a a new decline which could be characterized as a "phase shift."
The Scariest Unemployment Graph I've Seen Yet
Derek Thompson is a staff editor at TheAtlantic.com
The median duration of unemployment is higher today than any time in the last 50 years. That's an understatement. It is more than twice as high today than any time in the last 50 years.
OK, you're saying, but what does this mean? Does it mean we must increase the duration of unemployment benefits to protect this new class of unemployed, or does it mean we need to stop subsidizing joblessness? Does it mean we need to expand federal retraining programs, or does it mean federal retraining programs aren't working? Does it mean we need more stimulus, more state aid, more infrastructure projects, more public works ... or does it mean it's time to stop everything, stand back and let business be business?
How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America
BY DON PECK - The Atlantic
HOW SHOULD WE characterize the economic period we have now entered? After nearly two brutal years, the Great Recession appears to be over, at least technically. Yet a return to normalcy seems far off. By some measures, each recession since the 1980s has retreated more slowly than the one before it. In one sense, we never fully recovered from the last one, in 2001: the share of the civilian population with a job never returned to its previous peak before this downturn began, and incomes were stagnant throughout the decade. Still, the weakness that lingered through much of the 2000s shouldn't be confused with the trauma of the past two years, a trauma that will remain heavy for quite some time.
The Retirement Nightmare:
AlterNet / By Scott Thill
Half of Americans Have Less Than $2,000 Banked for Their Golden Years
With declining earnings and a culture of borrow-and-consume, America's workers face a future of uncertainty and little money to pay for their retirement.
The days of quietly retiring with a nest egg built up from years of savings from a long career on the verge of disappearing. For tens of millions of Americans, facing rising costs, shrinking incomes and growing debts they already have disappeared.
Swiss endure safe-haven agony from euro flight
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk Switzerland is fighting a losing battle to stop massive inflows of funds from investors fleeing sovereign risk in the euro area and the rest of the world, raising the risk of a violent spike in Swiss franc if global debt jitters return.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) said it lost over 14bn francs (£8.8bn) in the first half of the year in a forlorn attempt to hold down the currency against the euro.
"If we have a US slowdown with a fresh financial crisis, everybody is going to want to buy the Swiss franc, along with bottled water, tins hats, and a shotgun," said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. "Now that Japan's debt is around 200pc of GDP the franc has displaced the yen as the ultimate safe haven."
Google Faces 38 States in Expanding Privacy Investigation
By DAWN KAWAMOTO
Google gained a clearer picture Wednesday of who's taking aim at its Street View data collection methods, as part of a privacy probe led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who last month announced the launch of the multistate investigation into Google's collection of personal WiFi information by its controversial Street View vehicles as they cruised major cities worldwide.
Blumenthal says 38 states and the District of Columbia will be participating in the investigation, with Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Texas on the executive committee. Other states joining the coalition include New York, Mississippi, Vermont, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, Montana and Rhode Island.
Foreign Regulators Also Investigating
Google's Wi-Spying and Intelligence Ties Prompt Call for Congressional Hearing PRNewswire-USNewswire
SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 19 -- Citing new information about Google's classified government contracts and the Internet giant's admitted Wi-Spying activity, Consumer Watchdog today said it is more imperative than ever for the Energy and Commerce Committee to conduct hearings into possible privacy violations by Google.
In a letter to Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Ranking Member Joe Barton, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group's John M. Simpson wrote: "Based on today's Washington Post, it appears that Google holds classified U.S. government contracts to supply search and geospatial information to the U.S. government. In addition, White House records show that Google executives have been holding meetings with U.S. national security officials for undisclosed reasons. Finally, it also appears that Google's widely criticized efforts to collect wireless network data on American citizens were not inadvertent, contrary to the company's claims."
Nebraska town hit with 2 lawsuits
By Rachel B. Duke - WashingtonTimes.com
Groups seek to block ban on hiring, housing of illegal aliens
Two liberal groups each filed lawsuits Wednesday against the town of Fremont, Neb., in order to put a stop to its new ordinance banning people from hiring illegal immigrants or renting homes to them.
Mirroring arguments made against Arizona's immigration crackdown, the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the American Civil Liberties Union claim the ordinance encourages racial profiling against Hispanics or other U.S. citizens who may appear to be foreign-born, and also intrudes on federal prerogatives.
Arpaio setting aside space at Tent City to enforce SB1070
PHOENIX BUSINESS JOURNAL
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is setting up a section of his Tent City jails in Phoenix for people arrested for violating Arizona's new immigration law.
The new law allows police to question people stopped for other reasons about their immigration status, but faces court challenges that could delay the July 29 effective date.
Arpaio has housed suspected illegal immigrants and other prisoners in tents since 1993, and the new section would have room for 100 prisoners.
Storms threaten to shut down BP's Gulf well efforts
By Colleen Long and David Dishneau - AP -WashingtonTimes.com
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Tropical rainstorms moving toward the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday threatened to shut down undersea efforts to seal BP's ruptured well, interrupting work just as engineers get close to plugging the leak with mud and cement.
Retired U.S. Coast GuardAdm. Thad Allen said a weather system brewing in the Caribbean could force crews to abandon their watch over the experimental cap that's been bottling oil a mile below the surface of the water for nearly a week.
BP left out of plan 4 Oil Firms Commit $1 Billion for Gulf Rapid-Response Plan
By JAD MOUAWAD - NYTimes.com
Four of the world's biggest oil companies said on Wednesday that they were committing $1 billion to create a rapid-response system to deal with deepwater oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, seeking to restore public confidence in the industry after the BP disaster painfully exposed how unprepared the industry was for a major accident.
The voluntary effort, which involves building a set of modular containment equipment that would be kept on standby for emergency use, comes as oil companies seek to persuade the Obama administration to lift a temporary ban on deepwater drilling. The moratorium was imposed after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20 and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the gulf.
In suburbs across the nation, the intelligence community goes about its anonymous business. Its work isn't seen, but its impact is surely felt.
The brick warehouse is not just a warehouse. Drive through the gate and around back, and there, hidden away, is someone's personal security detail: a fleet of black SUVs that have been armored up to withstand explosions and gunfire.
Along the main street, the signs in the median aren't advertising homes for sale; they're inviting employees with top-secret security clearances to a job fair at Cafe Joe, which is anything but a typical lunch spot.
Oil Spill Research and Technology Development
Congressman Brian Baird (WA-03), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, speaks on the House floor in support of H.R. 2693, the Federal Oil Research Program Act. Congressman Baird is a co-sponsor of the bill which establishes a more comprehensive federal research plan for oil spill prevention and response. H.R. 2693 passed the House on July 21, 2010.
Double dip looks doubly certain
By Robert P. Murphy The economic recovery is just an illusion
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (MarketWatch) -- Economists and financial analysts are currently arguing whether the economy will experience a "double dip," a recession followed by a short recovery, followed by another recession.
Some think the worst is behind us, and that output and employment will slowly but steadily increase during the next few years. Others believe we are headed for another crash. The lessons from the last business cycle favor the case for pessimism.
Barack Obama sends 1,200 National Guardsmen to seal Mexican border
Ewen MacAskill in Washington - guardian.co.uk Attempt to stop illegal immigrants and drugs comes as critics warn Arizona law will lead to racial profiling
About 1,200 soldiers from the US National Guard are to be deployed along the border with Mexico from 1 August to try to tackle the twin problems of illegal immigration and drug-smuggling.
About half of the troops are to be sent to Arizona, which is at the centre of the national debate over illegal immigration. The state is planning to introduce a law next week to crack down on people entering unlawfully.
Arizona: Arpaio's immigration war threatens Obama administration
Ed Pilkington in Phoenix - guardian.co.uk Sheriff Joe Arpaio has proved highly popular with voters, and other states are now following his lead
Behind Arizona's new immigration law SB 1070 stands the figure of the law enforcement officer who styles himself "America's toughest sheriff". The law amounts to a state-wide extension of the war on illegal immigration that Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been waging in Phoenix.
Arpaio is in charge of policing Maricopa County, which covers the city and which has about half of the state's 500,000 undocumented immigrants. Since 1992, when he was first elected to the post, he has gained a reputation for being a media-savvy controversialist who has pioneered such headline-grabbing innovations as forcing criminals to wear pink underwear and sweatshirts.
More Rich Americans Renounce U.S. Citizenship for Lower Taxes
By JONATHAN BERR - DailyFinance.com
A U.S.-born resident of Ireland recently came into some money after he and his wife sold a farm they inherited from her parents. Instead of enjoying his windfall, the man is furious at the Internal Revenue Service for penalizing him for running afoul of the agency's confusing regulations regarding the reporting of income from foreign bank accounts. He is so mad, according to his attorney, Jane Bruno, that he's considering renouncing his U.S. citizenship.
While such a move is drastic, it's also becoming increasingly common. In fact, so many people are eager to renounce their U.S. citizenship for tax reasons, that in some U.S. embassies there's a waiting list to escape from the clutches of Uncle Sam.
America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution
By Angelo M. Codevilla - The AmericanSpectator.com
As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.
Gary Shilling: The U.S. Is on the Cusp of Deflation
By NIKHIL HUTHEESING - DailyFinance.com
During the past two years, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been trying to ward off deflation. But now, Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co and a well-known market bear, says in a video interview that the efforts have not worked and that the U.S. economy is entering a deflationary stage. Shilling says we should expect to have 2% to 3% annual rates of deflation per year for the next decade.
He could be right. Earlier this month, the consumer price index, which measures inflation, dropped by 0.1% in June following a 0.2% fall in May and a 0.1% fall in April. Shilling says that 53% of the components of the index, by weight, showed price declines on a year-over-year basis. That, combined with the country's massive government debt and consumer debt, makes the chances of deflation seem more likely and suggest that the Fed's efforts have not completely succeeded.
Hungary's IMF revolt augurs ill for Greece
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph.co.uk The collapse of Hungary's talks with the International Monetary Fund and the EU is a chilly reminder that sovereign debt crises do not end with a rescue package and a click of the fingers. As austerity drags on for year after year, democracies react.
"We told the IMF/EU that further austerity was out of the question," said Hungary's economic minister Gyorgy Matolcsy, offering no hint that the Fidesz government is willing to back down despite yesterday's surge in Hungarian default costs by 51 basis points.
The Fidesz movement - an amalgam of libertarians and nationalists with a Left-populist tilt - won a crushing victory in April on a campaign of defiance against both Brussels and the IMF. It has been spoiling for a fight ever since.
Gerald Celente interview with MiningStockTalk.com 19 July 2010
Breaking the Bank: Closures Keep Climbing in 2010
By GIL RUDAWSKY - DailyFinance.com
The economy may be showing signs of life, but the banking industry remains in critical condition. In fact, the struggling industry is on track to surpass last year's 140 bank closures this year, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reporting 96 closures as of the end of last week. At this same time last year, the FDIC had logged approximately 70 closures.
Banking closures are a lagging indicator, says independent banking analyst Bert Ely. In other words, banks are still feeling the aftereffects of bad loans and the mortgage crisis even though the economy has turned up. "There are still a lot of problems in the banking system," Ely says.
Leading Indicators Have Turned South
By Jeff Harding, on July 19th, 2010
I have been following leading indicators for a while and today David Rosenberg ran some forecasts from his favorite leading indicator measure, the Economic Cycle Research Institutes's (ECRI) Weekly Leading Index (WLI). Their chief economist, Lakshman Achuthan, is frequently seen on CNBC's programs. His WLI is turning down and has been for a while.
Rosenberg said:
The growth rate on the ECRI leading index did it again! It sank further into negative terrain, now at -9.8% during the week ending July 9, down from -9.1% the prior week. This was the tenth deterioration in a row and the growth index is now negative for six straight weeks. We have never failed to have a recession with the ECRI at current levels but there is also inherent volatility in the index that requires acknowledgment. Our reckoning is that in the past few weeks, the index has gone from pricing in even-odds of a double-dip to two-in-three odds. It may take a while, but Mr. Market will figure it out before long.
Why Banks Aren't Lending
By Jeff Harding - The Daily Capitalist Loans Fall; Credit Continues to Contract
The megabanks have settled back to earth as they all reported very modest Q2 gains as compared to Q1. Today Goldman Sachs reported that their earnings profit 82% in Q2. Previously commercial banks JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and BofA all reported declines.
The headline for the group is Goldman because of their (former) stellar reputation. They had $1.15 billion of settlements related to their SEC fraud allegation settlement of $550 million and a tax settlement with the UK regarding the taxation of bonuses. If you strip out the settlements they would have had EPS of $2.75 vs. $4.93. What was really interesting was that their mainline business, trading operations, was off 39%; apparently they bet wrong on market volatility because they didn't see the euro crisis coming:
Raising Taxes to Combat Recession: The Ultimate Fiscal Folly
By The Mogambo Guru - The DailyReckoning.com
07/20/10 Tampa, Florida - When I saw that Illinois cleverly solved its budget crisis by just not paying its bills, I knew that the end is near, or would be, if we still had a dollar that was not a stupid fiat currency, because nowadays it would be child's play for the Federal Reserve to just create as money as any state wanted! And they can do it in less time than it takes to tell you about it, too!
And then the Federal Reserve can turn right around and use that money to buy up all the state debt out there! Wipe debt completely out! And flood the economy with money!!!
Suing Obamacare
By Douglas Smith - The AmericanSpectator.com
While the lawsuit brought by twenty States challenging the constitutionality of the Obama Administration's healthcare legislation initially received much publicity, the Administration's recent response to that lawsuit has garnered relatively little attention. However, even a cursory review of the Administration's motion to dismiss the case presents an expansive view of government power and a narrow construction of individual liberties that is profoundly troubling.
President Obama to push Congress on pay-fairness bill
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - President Obama plans to press Congress today to pass pay-equity legislation that would make it easier for women to sue employers who pay them less than their male counterparts, the White House said Monday.
"Women deserve equal pay," White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said in an interview, citing government statistics that show women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn. "It's a very fundamental right."
Obama Gives Housing Affordability High Marks in Second Scorecard
by DIANA GOLOBAY - HousingWire.com
Home affordability remains near 10-year highs, according to the second edition of the Administration's Housing Scorecard released today by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Treasury Department.
The July scorecard is the second aggregate of housing initiative reports, updated since the July scorecard showed 340,459 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modifications had become permanent so far. HAMP servicers added 51,000 permanent modifications - before cancellations - in June, according to the new scorecard. "The housing market is performing better than the predictions made over a year ago," said HUD assistant secretary Raphael Bostic, in a statement. "We're absolutely not claiming victory, but due to the Obama Administration's efforts, improved home affordability is continuing to provide opportunities for prospective, qualified, homebuyers, while promising neighborhood stabilization efforts are helping hard hit neighborhoods start to recover."
Bob Chapman on Goldseek Radio July 17, 2010
FDIC Selling Corus Bank Loans Is Bet on Failed Condos
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Developer Norman Radow expected some thanks in April when he offered to repay a $35 million defaulted loan on a 32-story San Diego condominium project he had taken over, originally financed by failed Corus Bank. Instead, his new lender urged him to keep the money.
Even more striking to Radow was that the lender was a company majority-owned by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., an arm of the government swamped with bad debts, whose partners were private investors led by Starwood Capital Group LLC.
Countrywide probe snares Fannie, Freddie execs
By JAKE SHERMAN - Politico.com
Employees at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - including top executives - received 173 cut-rate loans from Countrywide Financial, according to a congressional probe, the latest accusation that the lender tried to curry influence with people in power.
A Republican-led investigation revealed that Fannie Mae employees - including an assistant to the CEO, a government relations lobbyist and a vice president for sales - received 153 favorable loans, while 20 VIP loans were issued to employees at Freddie Mac. Countrywide Financial collapsed in the 2008 housing meltdown and was swallowed by Bank of America, but its connections to powerful political figures continue to reverberate in Washington.
• FHA only starting to tighten loans standards (for real this time, maybe),
• deed-in-lieu of foreclosures growing, and fining banks for neglected properties.
• BofA FHA insured delinquent loans increase nearly 200 percent in one year.
DoctorHousingBubble.com
Last week HUD came out with laser focused ways of addressing its impending insolvency because of defaulting FHA insured loans. Now some of you were under the impression that something was already done to tighten lending standards given the precarious situation the housing bubble brought to our economy. Yet that is not the case and incredibly, what passes for basic due diligence today seems excessive because only a few years ago loans were given out to people making $14,000 a year and financing their $720,000 home purchase. FHA insured loans have become the staple of moving properties especially in areas like California. The 3.5 percent minimum down payment is all people can muster up and apparently this has caused further deterioration in this market.
HUD is seeking public comments for the next 30 days on the below:
Estate tax to return in 2011, and it could hurt ordinary folks
By Sandra Block, USA TODAY
In life, George Steinbrenner beat the Red Sox. In death, he beat the IRS.
Steinbrenner's death on July 13 occurred six months after the federal estate tax expired. Forbes magazine estimates the Yankees owner's net worth was $1.15 billion, so the timing of Steinbrenner's death could save his heirs up to $500 million in federal estate taxes.
But future heirs may not be so lucky. The federal estate tax is scheduled to return with a vengeance on Jan. 1, 2011, imposing a levy of up to 55% on estates valued at more than $1 million. And the same congressional paralysis that allowed the tax to expire in 2010 could thwart efforts to pare it back, estate planning attorneys say.
Jumbo Mortgage: Prudent Borrowers Rewarded By Lowest Jumbo Rates Ever
Posted By: Jeff Bowman
July 20, 2010 (FreeRateUpdate.com) - Solid, ultra low interest rate jumbo mortgage loans are being actively funded by remembering the lending philosophy we relied on before the risk could be passed onto some unsuspecting pension fund via a CDO created by a trader at a Wall St Bank. With trillions in mortgage loan losses across the nation, major changes were needed. Regulatory reform passed Congress last week, but it wasn't hard for the jumbo mortgage market to fix our own problems.
Normalcy has returned. The jumbo loan environment has settled into a prove it, we double verify it, and we fund it environment for well qualified borrowers. The recent national statistics show about 14% loans with a principal balance of 1m+ are at least 60 days late. This is up sharply in the last six months from the 9.78% figure that we ended 2009. Hopefully these default figures will flatten out and fall as the better jumbo loans of 09-10 perform much better than the loans closed in 04-08.
Housing Starts in U.S. Slide More Than Forecast as Credit Ends
By Bob Willis
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Housing starts fell in June to the lowest level in eight months after the expiration of a U.S. government tax incentive caused sales to slump.
Work began on 549,000 houses at an annual rate last month, fewer than the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and down 5 percent from May, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington.
The retreat following the end of government support shows it will be difficult for the industry that precipitated the recession to sustain a recovery. Mounting foreclosures will swell the supply of houses on the market and pressure prices, while prospective buyers shy away as a lack of jobs shakes confidence in the world's largest economy.
Man facing foreclosure tries to blow up bank
TheTruthAboutMortgage.com An Illinois man facing foreclosure reportedly attempted to blow up the bank that held his mortgage.
Last Friday at around 8 p.m., the disgruntled homeowner crashed into a PNC bank branch in his hometown of Lockport in an apparent attempt to destroy it.
The man then set off a four-inch mortar, typically reserved for fireworks shows, which blew off the roof of his car and shattered windows in the front of the bank.
Fortunately the bank was closed at the time and there were no reported injuries.
The homeowner, David Whitesell, has been charged with arson and criminal damage to property with an incendiary device, both felony offenses.
He was being held on a $30,000 bond and expected to appear in court this week.
Many don't qualify for Obama's foreclosure prevention
By Tami Luhby
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- More delinquent homeowners learned last month that they don't qualify for foreclosure help in the Obama administration's program, according to federal data released Tuesday.
Fresh concerns over the housing market's health have renewed interest in the success of foreclosure prevention programs such as the president's. An increase in foreclosures, combined with the recent drop in housing sales, could send home prices plummeting again.
About 40% leave federal mortgage aid program
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
The number of homeowners dropped from the Obama administration's signature program to modify mortgages for cash-strapped homeowners is larger than the number of those receiving permanently lower monthly payments under the program.
The program puts homeowners into five-year programs with lower monthly payments on their mortgages, but first they must provide proof of income and get through a three-month trial period making all payments on time. About 530,000 homeowners, or about 40% of 1.3 million borrowers enrolled, have had their lower mortgage payments canceled, the Treasury Department reported Tuesday.
More than 500,000 trial loan modifications canceled
TheTruthAboutMortgage.com
More than 40 percent of the trial loan modifications started under HAMP were canceled as of the end of last month, but permanent mods totaled nearly 400,000, according to the latest Treasury report.
Of the 1,282,912 trials started, 520,814 have been canceled, 364,077 are active, 389,198 are permanent, and the remaining 8,823 were permanent but subsequently canceled.
The most common causes of trial cancellations included missing documentation, trial plan default, and ineligibility due to debt-to-income ratios already being below 31 percent.
Most who were canceled were put in an alternative modification.
Poll: Faith in Social Security system tanking
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - Battered by high unemployment and record home foreclosures, most Americans seem to have lost faith in another fundamental part of their personal finances: Social Security.
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that a majority of retirees say they expect their current benefits to be cut, a dramatic increase in the number who hold that view. And a record six of 10 non-retirees predict Social Security won't be able to pay them benefits when they stop working.
The Social Security Squeeze Can Be Solved
Businessweek.com's Chris Farrell says the program's shortfall is far easier to fix than Medicare or Medicaid - and smart policy could make it even stronger in the years ahead
By Chris Farrell - BusinessWeek.com
The footsteps of an aging America are hard to ignore, especially with daily alarms ringing over the federal government's debt and deficit. The leading edge of the baby boom generation is reaching its retirement years and at the core of the long-term fiscal challenge lie the three main entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. (The other main spending items weighing on the fiscal ledger are defense and interest on the debt.) Spending on entitlements is growing faster than the economy and revenues.
"This debt is like a cancer," said Erskine Bowles, co-chair of President Obama's bipartisan panel on deficit reduction, at the annual meeting of the National Governors Assn. on July 11.
Unemployment rate falls in 39 states in June
By Christopher S. Rugaber AP - Washington Times
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate fell in most states in June, mainly because more people gave up searching for work and were no longer counted.
Fewer states saw job increases, the latest evidence that the economic recovery is slowing.
The jobless rate declined in 39 states and the District of Columbia last month, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That's a slight improvement from May, when 37 states saw their rates decline.
But only 21 states saw net job gains in June, the government said. That compared with 41 the previous month and is the fewest this year.
The decline in job creation reflects the layoff of thousands of temporary census workers. Those jobs inflated total payrolls in May and then reduced them in June.
Jobless benefits extension passes Senate test
By Tami Luhby - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- More than 2.5 million unemployed Americans are one step closer to having their unemployment benefits restored.
A bill that would push back the deadline to file for extended unemployment benefits until the end of November passed a key procedural hurdle in the Senate Tuesday. The vote was 60-40, the minimum margin needed to end debate on the measure.
Unemployment benefits won't cure economy
by CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER - AP -MSNBC.com
But approval to extend aid will likely mean the recovery won't evaporate
WASHINGTON - For jobless Americans struggling to pay their bills and keep their homes, the restoration of unemployment benefits could keep their crisis from getting worse.
The same might be said of the broader economy.
Senators voted 60-40 to move ahead on the bill, clearing the way for a final vote in the chamber on Wednesday. The proposal would keep providing unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks to more than 5 million long-term unemployed. The injection of an estimated $33 billion into a $14.6 trillion economy over the next five months won't be enough to energize the recovery. But economists say it could at least help sustain it.
Lobster tales: 5-year ban coming to East Coast?
By Aaron Smith
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Consider the lobster: The population of the crustaceans is at such low levels along the East Coast that a regulatory agency is proposing a five-year ban on harvesting them between Cape Cod and Virginia.
"Long Island Sound, in particular, has been in poor health since 1999," said Toni Kerns, senior fishery management plan coordinator at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. "We had a die off in the fishery."
Hawker issues letter to workers regarding future of company
KSN TV
WICHITA, Kansas - Hawker Beechcraft's CEO is confirming new details about the future of the company here in Wichita as workers fear what it could mean for their jobs.
A letter was sent to employees Tuesday discussing possible changes. It comes on the heels of some unsettling news from the union last week when it said the company could reduce the Wichita workforce by 75 percent in the coming two years.
The following is the letter in its entirety that was sent to Hawker Beechcraft employees Tuesday:
Dear Hawker Beechcraft Employees:
Last week, we confirmed to the news media that we are continuing a series of conversations with Union leadership to discuss the serious challenges that the company faces during these unprecedented economic times. ...
RNC fails to report to FEC $7 million in debt
By Ralph Z. Hallow - Washington Times
Steele dodged, memo alleges
The Republican National Committee failed to report more than $7million in debt to the Federal Election Commission in recent months - a move that made its bottom line appear healthier than it is heading into the midterm elections and that also raises the prospect of a hefty fine.
In a memo to RNC budget committee members, RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen on Tuesday accused Chairman Michael S. Steele and his chief of staff, Michael Leavitt, of trying to conceal the information from himby ordering staff not to communicate with the treasurer.
Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate
as a Tax By ROBERT PEAR - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government's "power to lay and collect taxes."
And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.
Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
NAACP president: "We were snookered" by Fox and Breitbart
BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT - Salon.com
The NAACP, which had originally (and prematurely) jumped all over Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod in response to the edited Breitbart tape that "proved" she was a racist, has now issued a new statement apologizing for getting "snookered" by Andrew Breitbart and Fox News.
Said NAACP President Ben Jealous in the new statement:
With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.
Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.
White House wants it both ways on Sherrod firing
BY JUSTIN ELLIOT - Salon.com
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement today explaining that he asked for Georgia rural development director Shirley Sherrod's resignation yesterday because "the controversy surrounding her comments would create situations where her decisions, rightly or wrongly, would be called into question making it difficult for her to bring jobs to Georgia."
As Alex Pareene explained, the controversy Vilsack is referring to was whipped up when Andrew Breitbart released an edited video clip of Sherrod, it was mindlessly picked up by other media, and the Obama administration followed suit.
But now that Breitbart's story of Sherrod being a racist has been exposed as bogus, the White House is trying to have it both ways: They say they support Vilsack's decision but at the same time had absolutely nothing to do with his making it.
Extreme heat has killed 2,000 cattle
KSN TV
OTTAWA COUNTY, Kansas - The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is estimating some 2,000 cattle are dead as a result of the extreme heat in the last week. Now cattle handlers are just praying for cooler temperatures and more wind.
"It's not been fun, it's not been good," said Perry Owens, Ottawa County Feeders manager.
Owens is one of many cattle handlers across the state dealing with cattle deaths from the past weekend all because of the blistering heat.
"When you get into these kinds of situations, the cattle don't have the ability to cool off and especially the ones that are getting closed to being finished," he said.
Owens says cattle have a lot of weight on them, so it's harder to cool them down.
Smile For The Camera: Big Brother Is Watching You Speed Via Satellite
by Richard Read - LewRockwell.com
Satellites do many awesome things: they allow us to communicate with friends and family, they help us find our way home when we're lost, and of course, they bring us television - delicious television. But there are a few downsides to those hunks of metal and circuitry floating above the surface of the earth, and for drivers in Britain, one of those downsides is now speed traps.
In London and Cornwall, a pilot program has just been launched that combines all the fun of terrestrial speed cameras with the creepy omniscience of GPS. In a nutshell, the program - called "SpeedSpike" - uses positioning satellites to track motorists as they travel between traffic cameras. By calculating the time it takes a driver to move from one point to the other, SpeedSpike can determine whether or not the motorist has been speeding. When the car reaches the second camera, calculations are made, and if they're out of line - blammo! - a photo is taken of the license plate, and a ticket is mailed to the owner.
BOMBSHELL Washington Post Investigation:
More than a dozen Washington Post journalists spent two years developing Top Secret America.
Top Secrect Americapart 1 (from yesterday's news page): A hidden world, growing beyond control
Top Secret America - part 2 National Security Inc. WashingtonPost.com
The intent of the memorial is to publicly honor the courage of those who died in the line of duty, but it also conceals a deeper story about government in the post-9/11 era: Eight of the 22 were not CIA officers at all. They were private contractors.
To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post.
Help Wanted: Professionals with security clearances
Max Keiser: NSA & CIA: The Secret America
Alex Jones Tv 1/6
Max Keiser: NSA & CIA: The Secret America
Alex Jones Tv 2/6
Max Keiser: NSA & CIA: The Secret America
Alex Jones Tv 3/6
Max Keiser: NSA & CIA: The Secret America
Alex Jones Tv 4/6
Max Keiser: NSA & CIA: The Secret America
Alex Jones Tv 5/6
Max Keiser: NSA & CIA: The Secret America
Alex Jones Tv 6/6
Congress, White House react to 'Top Secret America'
WashingtonPost.com
On Monday morning, Acting Director of National Intelligence David C. Gompert weighed in on the reporting in The Washington Post series "Top Secret America."
As the day progressed, lawmakers and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs weighed in as well.
"Do you have any problem with what the Post published? Did it in your view compromise national security?" Gibbs was asked at the daily briefing Monday.
"Well, look, I'm not going to get into some of the discussions that we had," Gibbs said. "Obviously there were some concerns. And I think The Post covered that there were some concerns, about certain data and the availability of some of that data."
The Real U.S. Government
BY GLENN GREENWALD - Salon.com
The Washington Post's Dana Priest demonstrates once again why she's easily one of the best investigative journalists in the nation -- if not the best -- with the publication of Part I of her series, co-written with William Arkin, detailing the sprawling, unaccountable, inexorably growing secret U.S. Government: what the article calls "Top Secret America." To the extent the series receives much substantive attention (and I doubt it will), the focus will likely be on the bureaucratic problems it documents: the massive redundancies, overlap, waste, and inefficiencies which plague this "hidden world, growing beyond control" -- as though everything would better if Top Secret America just functioned a bit more effectively. But the far more significant fact so compellingly illustrated by this first installment is the one I described last week when writing about the Obama administration's escalating war on whistle blowers:
Orwell's nightmare--big brother is here
by Anthony G. Martin - Conservative Examiner
In George Orwell's chilling novel, 1984, the author depicts a future society in which citizens are controlled by an all-seeing, all-knowing big government, referred to as 'big brother.' Orwell's nightmare is here, now.
A sampling of the major news stories today merely prove we are now living under the very tyranny about which Orwell warned and about which stalwart defenders of liberty such as Ayn Rand, Barry Goldwater, M. Stanton Evans, and Whitaker Chambers kept an ever-watchful eye
Obama's War on the Internet
The Ministry of Truth
Philip Giraldi - Uruknet.info
The Ministry of Truth was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by government to control information in his seminal novel 1984. A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. In Italy, Germany, and Britain the anonymous internet that most Americans are still familiar with is slowly being modified. If one goes into an internet cafŽ it is now legally required in most countries in the European Union to present a government issued form of identification. When I used an internet connection at a Venice hotel, my passport was demanded as a precondition and the inner page, containing all my personal information, was scanned and a copy made for the Ministry of the Interior -- which controls the police force. The copy is retained and linked to the transaction. For home computers, the IP address of the service used is similarly recorded for identification purposes. All records of each and every internet usage, to include credit information and keystrokes that register everything that is written or sent, is accessible to the government authorities on demand, not through the action of a court or an independent authority. That means that there is de facto no right to privacy and a government bureaucrat decides what can and cannot be "reviewed" by the authorities. Currently, the records are maintained for a period of six months but there is a drive to make the retention period even longer.
----- oil crisis -----
Tony Hayward preparing to resign from BP
By CNNMoney.com staff
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- BP's beleaguered chief executive, Tony Hayward, is preparing to step down from his position within the next 10 weeks, the Times of London reported Tuesday, citing "sources" close to the company.
Hayward and his management choices have drawn a barrage of criticism since BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico 92 days ago. Its share price hammered, BP is fighting to ensure that it has the resources to pay the billions it now faces in fines, cleanup expenses and compensation claims from local workers and businesses.
Transocean Employees Become Focus of BP Oil-Spill Investigators
By Joe Carroll and Laurel Brubaker Calkins
July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Transocean Ltd. employees onboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig when it exploded in the Gulf of Mexico have become the focus of a U.S. government probe into the cause of the fatal disaster.
Stephen Bertone, chief engineer on the rig, and Mike Williams, chief engineer technician, were designated as parties of interest yesterday by a joint U.S. Coast Guard-Interior Department investigative panel. That boosted to five the number of Transocean workers who could face criminal charges stemming from the accident that killed 11 people.
Gulf oil spill chief says seepage at another well
By Frederic J. Frommer AP -Washington Times
The federal government's oil spill chief said Tuesday that seepage two miles from BP's oil cap is coming from another well, tamping down fears that leaks from the ruptured well mean it's unstable.
Retired Coast GuardAdm. Thad Allen also said five leaks in and around BP's well are more like "drips," and aren't yet cause for concern.
The leaks and seepage had raised concerns that the mechanical cap choking off the flow of oil was displacing pressure and causing leaks deep underground. That could cause instability in the seafloor and make the environmental disaster even worse and harder to fix.
Adm. Allen said the well appears stable, and he extended testing of the experimental cap by another day, which means the oil will remain shut in.
Natural Oil Seep Causes White House Panic
Written by Al Fin - OilPrice.com
Officials had worried that the seep - usually a flow of hydrocarbons from the seafloor - could have been evidence that oil, gas or both were escaping from the well up to the seafloor, forcing the government to order BP to remove the cap and resume oil collection.
But seeps also occur naturally, and in a briefing for reporters Monday afternoon, BP said that government and company scientists were coming to the conclusion that the seep was probably of natural origin and unrelated to the well.
BP Considers New Plan to Permanently Seal Well
By HENRY FOUNTAIN - NYTimes.com
As scientists on Monday allayed concerns that BP's well in the Gulf of Mexico was damaged, the company said it was considering an alternative plan that could permanently seal the gusher sooner than had been anticipated.
Kent Wells, a senior vice president for BP, said the company was studying the possibility of a "static kill," in which heavy mud would be pumped into the recently capped well. Also known as bullheading, the procedure would force the oil and gas back down into the reservoir.
US orders new emergency plan as seepage detected near capped well
Telegraph.co.uk
The US government ordered BP to submit an emergency plan for reopening its capped Gulf of Mexico oil well after experts detected seepage from the surrounding seabed.
Tensions emerged as the US government's point man on the worst environmental disaster in US history also told the British energy giant to report swiftly on a "detected seep" and "anomalies" near the well.
BP - which said Monday the bill from the leak had risen to $3.95 billion (£2.58 billion) - had earlier acknowledged that some bubbles had appeared near the wellhead but expressed optimism that the cap installed three days earlier could stay on.
Soros-funded group wants feds to probe talk radio
By Aaron Klein - WorldNetDaily
Says cable-news networks engaged in 'hate speech'
A George Soros-funded, Marxist-founded organization with close ties to the White House has urged the Federal Communications Commission to investigate talk radio and cable news for "hate speech."
The organization, calling itself Free Press, claims media companies are engaging in "hate speech" because a disproportionate number of radio and cable-news networks are owned by non-minorities.
WND previously reported Free Press published a study advocating the development of a "world class" government-run media system in the U.S.
Free Press was one of 33 organizations that drafted a 25-page petition asking the FCC to "initiate an inquiry into the extent and effects of hate speech in media and to explore non-regulatory means by which to mitigate its negative impacts."
Government Policies Pushing Towards Depression
John Browne - 321Gold.com
Despite several quarters of rising GDP, and the upbeat exertions of Administration spokespeople, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has yet to announce the recession is over. Their reluctance is well-founded. It is beginning to dawn on even the more optimistic analysts that the tepid growth we have seen over the past three quarters is only an interlude in an otherwise grave and prolonged recession. Moreover, the respite will cost dearly as the United States has racked up a generation worth of debt for dubious benefit.
The paltry number of new jobs currently being created still fall far short of the 375,000 per month needed to offset the 125,000 new entrants to the job market due to population growth and to erode the 8 million people laid off in the past year alone. Meanwhile, house prices continue to fall and credit continues to contract. With retail sales dropping in June and the Leading Economic Index (LEI) standing at minus 7.7 per cent, it should be clear that the US economy is heading back towards recession, following a temporary distortion created by some $1.3 trillion in federal stimulus. In short, the stimulus has failed.
Leading Chinese Economists Urge Government To Dump U.S. Treasuries, Buy Gold Steve Watson - Infowars.net Fears reemerge that China could resort to "nuclear option"
Prominent economists in China are calling for their government to ditch vast holdings of U.S. Treasuries in favour of tangible assets such as gold, a move that would have a far reaching impact on the economy.
Reuters reports that Yu Yongding, a former academic adviser to the Chinese central bank has appealed to state representatives to move away from U.S. debt and invest in assets denominated in other currencies, as well as other financial instruments and real goods.
"Masses of Worthless Paper"
By Frederick Sheehan - DailyReckoning.com
07/19/10 North Weymouth, Massachusetts - We wince at congressional ineptitude but in one category legislative aptitude is improving: propaganda. The on-again, off-again finance bill (it's on-again) was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most extensive remapping of financial regulation since the 1930s." It is nothing of the kind.
Where to open a critique is as much a problem as where to close it. So, this will start and end at the source: the Federal Reserve. In a single sentence, the Journal captured the most compelling reason to heave the proposed legislation into the BP oil spill: "The Federal Reserve would emerge as the pre-eminent regulator, with responsibility for the most complex financial companies."
Debt Overhang Hinders Recovery
Euro and European crises, a stress test, no solution in sight, lenders without sanity, banks nervous, austerity measures could force a depression, stage two of the credit crisis, most debt yet to be written off.
The crisis affecting Europe is nothing new. It goes back three years and the beginning of the credit crisis, 60% of the subprime CDOs, collateralized debt obligations, had been sold to European institutions. These were the mortgage bonds, which contained a variety of toxic waste, which the rating agencies, S&P, Moody's and Fitch, in collusion with banks and brokerage houses, had sold as AAA bonds, when in fact their ratings should have been considerably lower. The holders of these bonds in many instances became insolvent and had to be bailed out by capital injections from central banks, most of the funds were lent by the Federal Reserve.
These debt problems, as in the US, have never been resolved. Those companies and institutions have over the past three years been allowed to keep two sets of books.
Unions to banks: modify more mortgages or we'll pull our deposits
TheTruthAboutMortgage.com
Several very large unions representing some 500,000 working families may pull their money out of certain financial institutions if they don't do more to help those facing foreclosure.
The so-called "Move Your BIG Money campaign" aims to put pressure on large banks that have done what they feel has been very little to prevent avoidable foreclosures and prop up the fragile housing market.
The movement is tied to a letter sent to the big banks from NYC Comptroller John Liu and union leaders last week, which laid out a number of concerns and asked for solutions by September 1.
Specifically, they want to know what banks are doing to increase loan modifications, including principal balance reductions, what's being done to expedite the process, and what's being done to improve performance so homeowners don't lose their homes in the process.
Congress Passes Bankster Consolidation Bill
Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
Change has arrived. But it is not the sort of change imagined by the fawning mobs of 2008 at Obama's campaign rallies. Obama and Congress have pulled a three-card Monte on the American people. It's called "financial regulatory reform" and it hands unprecedented power over to the Federal Reserve.
"This historic reform creates the strongest protections for consumers in history and the toughest financial regulations since the Great Depression," declares a triumphant White House.
Ron Paul's call for putting the bankster Fed under a microscope has evaporated. "Just a few months ago, amid populist anger at the Fed for failing to prevent the financial crisis of 2008 and bailing out Wall Street, Congress was talking of stripping the central bank of its supervisory oversight of banks or forcing it to submit to congressional audit of its interest-rate decisions," the Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday. "Instead, the new law gives the Fed more power and a better tool box to help prevent financial crises."
Europe freezes out Goldman Sachs
Elena Moya - The Observer Shocked by past deals with Italy and Greece, governments are excluding the Wall Street bank from sovereign bond sales
European governments are turning their backs on Goldman Sachs, the all-conquering investment bank that has suffered a series of blows to its reputation, capped by the biggest ever fine imposed on a Wall Street firm.
According to data from Dealogic, Greece, Spain, France and Italy have all denied the bank a lead role in their recent sovereign bond sales.
Last Thursday, Goldman agreed to pay a $550m fine to settle US regulators' claims that the bank misled investors in a mortgage-backed security. Goldman admitted that its marketing materials were incomplete, because they failed to state that the same third party that helped choose the assets had taken a bet against them.
Moody's cuts Irish credit rating over debt woes
By Shawn Pogatchnik AP - WashingtonTimes.com
DUBLIN (AP) - The Moody's agency cut Ireland's credit rating Monday, citing the country's swelling national debt, the unpredictable cost of its bank-bailout plans and its weak growth prospects for the next three to five years.
Shares on the Irish Stock Exchange slumped after Dietmar Hornung, Moody's lead analyst for Ireland, announced that the New York-based agency was dropping its credit-worthiness rating one notch to Aa2. Moody's previously cut Ireland's rating to Aa1 from the top grade, Aaa, in July 2009 as Ireland plunged into its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Why Hasn't Ben Bernanke Warmed Up the Helicopters Yet?
by Peter Gorenstei - Tech Ticker
For all the talk of "Helicopter Ben" and how the Federal Reserve's extraordinary measures in 2008 and 2009 were going to set off hyper-inflation, it now appears deflation is the greater threat to the economy. The Consumer Price Index fell 0.1% in June, more than expected and a third-straight decline. Core CPI did gain 0.2%, a positive, but still far from a reading of rapid inflation.
Given the looming deflation threat, should the Fed be doing more? That's the question Aaron discusses in the accompanying clip with Dan Gross, columnist with Newsweek.
In 2008, the Fed pulled out every tool in the shed to save the financial system; Bernanke & Co. even invented some new ones. Most notably, the Fed backed the commercial paper market, bought a trillion dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities and rescued AIG.
George Soros Says U.S. Shouldn't Cut Stimulus
By MELLY ALAZRAKI - DailyFinance.com
Billionaire investor George Soros has once again added his voice to the ongoing debate over stimulus versus budget cuts. After recently criticizing Germany for its budget cuts, he clearly says the U.S. shouldn't cut stimulus measures yet because the economy hasn't strengthened enough and there are no signs of inflation, Bloomberg reported.
"I think the timing is wrong with withdrawing the stimulus," Bloomberg quotes Soros, who spoke at the Hamptons Institute in East Hampton, N.Y., on July 16. "Cutting employment benefits, cutting aid to states that are losing tax revenue, these are counterproductive because you can only grow your way out" of the financial crisis, said Soros.
Bad Day for the WSJ
By Howard S. Katz - GoldSeek.com
A recurrent theme in my articles has been that our current economic system is intended to steal your wealth and that a vast amount of information being taught as economics is intended to justify this stealing and to trick you into falling for its program.
As with any misinformation, one must make a distinction between a deliberate lie and an honest mistake. As I have studied this, it is clear to me that, at the very top, it is deliberate. For example, John Maynard Keynes was a deliberate fraud. He did not believe Keynesian economics. It was a useful tool toward his goal of attracting the bankers to support him and his followers. Keynes was a confidence man; our current economic system is a confidence game, and the intent is to steal the wealth of all the marks.
How and Why The World Financial System Has to Collapse
By: Jeff Berwick - The Dollar Vigilante
"Bond Vigilante" - Definition: "A bond vigilante is a bond market investor who protests monetary or fiscal policies they consider inflationary by selling bonds, thus increasing yields." - Wikipedia
"Dollar Vigilante" - New Term: "A dollar vigilante is a free market individual who protests the government monopoly on money and financial policies such as fractional reserve banking and un-backed fiat currencies by selling those same fiat currencies in favor of other assets, often including gold and precious metals."
Many people today don't even realize it because anyone alive today has always lived under an artificial, non-free market financial system. No one even questions the fact that every country has a "central bank" and that every country outlaws any use of currency except for the one it produces.
HAS THE DOLLAR CRISIS BECOME EVEN MORE LIKELY?
Submitted by John Butler - FincialSense.com
Back in 2006, while working for a major US investment bank, I was asked by the Chief Global Economist to participate in a small survey to estimate the probability of the US economy facing a currency crisis - that is, one that forces interest rates higher - during the coming two years. Concerned that an eventual bursting of the US credit/housing bubble could lead to the dollar losing its pre-eminent reserve currency status, I placed the probability at some 60%, which was the highest response in the survey.
In 2007, he repeated the same survey. This time, I raised the probability to some 75%, as I believed there was clear evidence at that point that the credit/housing bubble was indeed bursting. Once again, this was the highest response in the survey.
The End-Game and The Illusory Gold Bubble
Darryl Robert Schoon - 321Gold.com
When the end-game began, gold was $35 per ounce. Today, gold is $1200. When the end-game is over, gold will be far higher.
Midway through 2010 we are approaching the end of the end-game, the resolution of the monetary imbalances that began in 1971. For more than 2500 years, gold was money: but, in 1971 that changed. After 1971, money was no longer connected to gold. For the first time in history, money had no intrinsic value.
After the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1945 until 1971, the world's currencies were anchored to the US dollar which was convertible to gold. Thus, directly or indirectly, all currencies could be exchanged for gold; but on August 15,1971 the US cut the ties between the US dollar and gold; and all currencies became fiat.
These 72 Analysts Believe Gold Will Go Parabolic To Between $2,500 and $15,000! By: Lorimer Wilson - GoldSeek.com
Believe it or not but I have identified 72 economists, academics, gold analysts and market commentators who have developed sound rationale as to why gold could quite possibly go to a parabolic top of at least $2,500 an ounce to even as much as an unimaginable $15,000 before the bubble finally pops!
When I first began writing about such projections I was satisfied with identifying 10 individuals who were of the opinion that gold would attain a peak greater than $2,500. That list has grown to 72 (see below) of which 44 believe that $5,000 or more for gold is likely. I encourage you to check out their articles and their rationale for such high gold prices in the years (and in some cases just months) to come.
Should the Fed Buy Gold At $5,000 per Ounce? Should Mexico Go to a De Facto Silver Standard?
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
These are two different interviews on two related topics: the place of specie in the reconstitution of national currencies in facilitating the recovery from a financial crisis.
I have to confess that there were some historical observations made by Lee Quaintance that made me scratch my head, wondering if we were coexisting in the same or parallel universes. I have tried to note them as they occurred in the text. What was most puzzling is that they seemed to be inserted in a line of thinking with which I was in completely agreement. Perhaps I just need another cup of coffee.
But in sum I found both interviews innovative and thought provoking. The concept of using Gresham's Law to induce people to save is interesting. I think the valuation model which my friend Hugo puts forward for a silver coin needs some work and some further thought, most likely on my part.
Government Mules
By David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research
Watching my children grow older, now heading into the treacherous shoals of the teenage years, has been a visceral reminder of how the human mind develops. As young children, we see the world with fresh eyes and wonderment, and then quickly begin testing the physical and societal bounds as part of morphing into our more mature selves.
As we age into our teens and beyond, the testing of boundaries evolves into a series of calculations. If I do "A," we wonder, will it lead to "B" or maybe "Z"?
From a young age, most of us are told to advance
our education and otherwise better ourselves so that we will be able to find a good job, or a succession of good jobs, that will provide sustenance and security lasting most of a lifetime before retiring to dawdle about in our golden years.
At least that is the modern view of life pursued by the vast majority of the citizenry in the developed world.
But having spent some time in rural Argentina recently - where it seems to me that most people spend more time living and less time planning to live - I have had some time to ponder the assumptions embedded in this view.
What if, I wonder, the whole modern construct of what passes for making the right moves in an advanced society is plain wrong?
True Lack of Deleveraging in the Housing Market
By Rocky Vega - The DailyReckoning.com
07/17/10 Baltimore, Maryland - Has there been significant deleveraging in the US housing market? Not really. Instead, with already $7 trillion in home equity lost, mortgages have come down only $270 billion. It's a significant discrepancy that's going to have to come into alignment somehow.
Jesse's CafŽ AmŽricain explains:
"This debt must be resolved. There are two major ways to do it: repayment and default.
"Repayment is probably a fantasy, if not beating a dead horse. The homeowners do not have the money with which to pay the loans given the current state of employment and wage stagnation, and the mortgages are for the most part on houses whose value is significantly under water compared to the debt, as in ' just mail in the keys.'
"Straight up default, writing off the debt even through foreclosure, is also probably out of the question, because it would essentially vaporize the balance sheet of the US banking system which is also insolvent, to a greater degree than most understand, and if they understand it, would admit."
Stocks waver after homebuilder confidence drops
By STEPHEN BERNARD - The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Stocks are fluctuating in a narrow range after a report showed that the nation's homebuilders are losing faith in the economy.
The market gave up most of its early gains Monday after the National Association of Home Builders said its homebuilders' confidence index sank to 14, its lowest level since March 2009.
The report is the latest in a series of disappointing housing numbers that began appearing after the government's home buyer tax credit expired at the end of April.
How do I find out who owns my mortgage?
by John W. Schoen - Senior producer - MSNBC.com
Homeowners who are having trouble with their mortgages seem to get the same advice wherever they turn: at the first sign of trouble, call your lenders and see if you can work out a payment plan. But that means figuring out who owns your mortgage - which is not as easy as it looks. I have been trying unsuccessfully to find out who owns my mortgage but the servicing company just gives me a run around. Don't I have a right to know who owns my mortgage? I need to work out a loan modification but can't find out who to call and the servicing company isn't helping. - J. W., Chesapeake City, Md.
Of the many nightmares facing homeowners caught up in the mortgage mess, this one is perhaps the most frustrating. From individual lenders to the government-sponsored Hope Now Alliance devoted to untangling this mess, the advice to borrowers is the same: as soon as you think you're headed for trouble, contact the lenders to see about working out an alternate payment plan.
Six million to lose homes in next two years
TheTruthAboutMortgage.com
As a result, the national home ownership rate will fall to just 61.7 percent.
Here's the math: [see stats]
The numbers might be even worse if you factor in the additional five million homeowners with no equity in their homes, assuming they strategically default.
Fortunately, most borrowers don't walk away voluntarily until equity falls to -62 percent of their home's value, at least that's how the study from the Federal Reserve goes.
You could also argue that homeowners with less than five percent equity in their homes could default as well, as you need an equity cushion to unload a home to pay for associated closing costs (and to buy a new one).
Homeowners Use Airbnb's Room-Renting Site to Dodge Foreclosure
By Ari Levy and Dan Levy
July 19 (Bloomberg) -- Nichelle Morant was on the verge of losing her three-unit house in Brooklyn, New York, earlier this year, after tenants renting the second and third floors lost their jobs and moved out.
With bills mounting and foreclosure looming, Morant converted the space into a bed and breakfast. Using the San Francisco-based rental site Airbnb.com to take reservations, she was soon raking in $4,500 a month, enough to cover her mortgage.
"This has been our stimulus package," said Morant, a pastry chef, who lives with her family on the ground floor of the home. "We were going to lose our house."
After Training, Still Scrambling for Employment
By PETER S. GOODMAN - NYTimes.com
In what was beginning to feel like a previous life, Israel Valle had earned $18 an hour as an executive assistant to a designer at a prominent fashion label. Now, he was jobless and struggling to find work. He decided to invest in upgrading his skills.
It was February 2009, and the city work force center in Downtown Brooklyn was jammed with hundreds of people hungry for paychecks. His caseworker urged him to take advantage of classes financed by the federal government, which had increased money for job training. Upgrade your skills, she counseled. Then she could arrange job interviews.
Elizabeth Warren on the Foreclosure Crisis
Elizabeth Warren is the only person I've seen in Washington D.C. that is both aware of what consumers are facing today, and I believe truly cares about homeowners in this country. She gets it in ways that no one else in government does, and she appeared just a few days ago on PBS to talk about the new agency and the foreclosure crisis. And I found it breathtaking to watch, and hear what she she had to say.
She says... "It's about respect. I believe that the American people ought to be part of the conversation about what's happening in our economy, and what's happening in Washington D.C. and what's happening on Wall Street. I truly believe that if the insiders get together and rewrite all the rules, those will be rules that will benefit the insiders and the rest of America will just be left out of it."
America's 'disappeared': The homeless of the big cities
By Wayne Madsen - Online Journal Contributing Writer
They were always seen by all who passed by, broke and idle in a number of Washington, DC, parks and grassy nooks. After 9/11, however, they began to disappear and in large numbers. "They" were the familiar faces of Washington's homeless.
From Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue
from the White House, to Virginia Avenue across from the State Department, and Franklin Square, amid the city's glass and steel towers housing DC's power elite to tony Georgetown, many homeless people, both those truly down on their luck and those who were mentally ill, began to disappear.
As one Washington homeless advocate told this editor, "These people simply vanished."
23,808 homeless people in Iowa
Quad-City times
DES MOINES - There were 23,808 people in Iowa classified as homeless and another 15,351 people were considered "at risk" of becoming homeless last year - both figures representing double-digit increases compared to 2008, according to a state study issued Tuesday.
Within the overall counts, families made up 14,068 of Iowa's homeless and 13,153 of those at-risk of becoming homeless.
The report was prepared by the Iowa Institute for Community Alliances and issued to Gov. Chet Culver on behalf of the Iowa Council on Homelessness. It indicated there likely was some overlap between the homeless and at-risk populations but the total of 38,078 people who received emergency and transitional services was an unduplicated count for 2009. Homeless were reported in every county in Iowa.
Cities Rent Police, Janitors to Save Cash
By TAMARA AUDI - WSJ.com (free)
Faced with a $118 million budget deficit, the city of San Jose, Calif., recently decided it could no longer afford its own janitors. So the city's budget called for dropping its custodial staff and hiring outside contractors to clean its city hall and airport, saving about $4 million.
To keep all its swimming pools open and staffed, the city is replacing some city workers with contractors.
"These are cases where the question is being asked, 'Is this a core service at the city level?' " said Michelle McGurk, senior policy adviser to the San Jose mayor.
After years of whittling staff and cutting back on services, towns and cities are now outsourcing some of the most basic functions of local government, from policing to trash collection. Services that cities can no longer afford to provide are being contracted to private vendors, counties or even neighboring towns.
The Jobless Effect: Is the Real Unemployment Rate 16.5%, 22%, or. . .?
By PALLAVI GOGOI - DailyFinance.com
Raghavan Mayur, president at TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, follows unemployment data closely. So, when his survey for May revealed that 28% of the 1,000-odd households surveyed reported that at least one member was looking for a full-time job, he was flummoxed.
"Our numbers are always very accurate, so I was surprised at the discrepancy with the government's numbers," says Mayur, whose firm owns the TIPP polling unit, a polling partner for Investors' Business Daily and Christian Science Monitor. After all, the headline number shows the U.S. unemployment rate today is 9.5%, with a total of 14.6 million jobless people.
Good dog? Homeland Security may want you
By Ken Dilanian, Tribune Washington Bureau
The department is recruiting 3,000 'alert, active, outgoing' canines to sniff for drugs, bombs and cash.
Reporting from Washington - Wanted, to serve their country: a few (thousand) good dogs.
As it guards the borders and hunts for terrorists, the Department of Homeland Security relies on an elite squad of about 2,000 canines to sniff for bombs, drugs and smuggled cash.
Now the department is moving to expand its four-legged force by 3,000 - about 600 dogs a year over the next five years - according to a recent bid solicitation aimed at small breeders across the country.
The Serious Tracking of Americans Begins
EconomicPolicyJournal.com
They have passed the health bill, they have passed the financial regulations bill and they have snuck stuff into the stimulus package bills. They are going to track your money and your body. Here's the first few things they are doing. This is step one. It will only get worse from here.
WHEN THERE IS NO RULE OF LAW
Submitted by Ron Paul - FinancialSense.com
Last week ended with some promising news on finally stopping the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, the administration still seems to believe that shutting down working oil wells is a higher priority than effectively dealing with the broken one. They are again issuing a moratorium on off-shore drilling, while maintaining a de facto ban on new permits even for shallow water drilling, which they previously stated would be unaffected. The courts have twice declared this unconstitutional, over 70 percent of the people see this as unreasonable, yet the administration seems determined to simply end off-shore drilling, at least for those producers that cannot afford to sit idle for an unknown period of time until the ban is lifted.
Road Warrior-level collapse imminent
Alex Jones says we must take corrective action now
Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement
By LAUREN ETTER - WSJ.com (free)
Asphalt Is Replaced By Cheaper Gravel; 'Back to Stone Age'
SPIRITWOOD, N.D. - A hulking yellow machine inched along Old Highway 10 here recently in a summer scene that seemed as normal as the nearby corn swaying in the breeze. But instead of laying a blanket of steaming blacktop, the machine was grinding the asphalt road into bits.
"When [counties] had lots of money, they paved a lot of the roads and tried to make life easier for the people who lived out here," said Stutsman County Highway Superintendant Mike Zimmerman, sifting the dusty black rubble through his fingers. "Now, it's catching up to them."
Kagan's cookbook: The joy of tyranny
By David P. McGinley - WashingtonTimes.com
In Kagan's world, Congress can tell you what to eat
Does Congress have the power to tell people what to eat? Maybe you think that's a stupid question. Nonetheless, it was a question that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was unwilling to answer. The question was posed to Ms. Kagan by Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, during her Senate hearings. In trying to avoid answering the question, Ms. Kagan responded by saying, "Sounds like a dumb law," but she did admit that just because a law might be dumb does not make it unconstitutional. And that was the extent of her answer.
So, can Congress tell us what we should eat? Well, back in 1942, the Supreme Court decided that, indeed, Congress basically can do just that. In the infamous case of Wickard v. Filburn, the U.S. government ordered the owner of a small farm in Ohio, Roscoe Filburn, to cease and desist growing wheat to feed his chickens. Filburn had no intention of selling the wheat, but, nonetheless, he was ordered to destroy it and pay a fine for having the temerity to think he could grow wheat for is own consumption without permission from the U.S. Congress.
A hidden world, growing beyond control
by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin - WashingtonPost.com
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
***** Important Investigation! *****
Top Secret America
Project Subterrene and
Top Secret Undergound Tunnels Under America
----- oil crisis -----
Allen: BP well can remain shut another day because seepage appears minor -USAToday.com
The recently capped well, no longer spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, can remain closed another day because seepage from it does not appear "consequential," a senior U.S. official said Monday.
"We'll go forward with another 24 hours," National Incident Commander Thad Allen, who's in charge of the U.S. oil spill response, said at a news briefing in Washington. He said a seep detected Sunday three kilometers from the Macondo Well does not appear associated with the spill. He said other anomalies --bubbles near the base of the well's blowout prevent and a leak that developed overnight in the cap itself -- don't indicate damage to the well bore.
Feds let BP keep oil cap closed despite seepage
By Colleen Long and Harry R. Weber - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The federal government Monday allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its busted Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite a seep in the sea floor after the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks underground, settling for the moment a rift between BP and the government.
The Obama administration's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said early Monday that government scientists had gotten the answers they wanted about how BP is monitoring the seabed around the mile-deep well, which has stopped gushing oil into the water since the experimental cap was closed Thursday.
BP Hopes to Keep Well Closed, but Seep Is Detected
By HENRY FOUNTAIN - NYTimes.com
After three days of encouraging pressure tests, a senior BP official said Sunday that the company's recently capped well in the Gulf of Mexico was holding up and that BP now hoped to keep the well closed until it could be permanently plugged. But government officials were more skeptical and cited a new potential problem.
That BP plan differs sharply from the one the company and the federal government had suggested only a day earlier, to eventually allow the flow of oil to resume temporarily, collecting it through pipes to surface ships.
Breaking: Seep Found Near Blownout Well, BP Not Complying With Government Demands for More Monitoring
George Washington's Blog
AP notes:
A federal official says scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane near BP's busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico
Both could be signs there are leaks in the well that's been capped off for three days.
The AP article implies that the seeps are new since BP shut off the oil flow into the Gulf as part of its "well integrity test", but doesn't directly address that issue.
But as I pointed out on June 24th:
The Washington Post made a very important point yesterday:
Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, said additional leaks are a possible source of deep-sea plumes of oil detected by research vessels. But this part of the gulf is pocked with natural seeps, he noted. Conceivably the drilling of the well, and/or the subsequent blowout, could have affected the seeps, he said.
"Once you started disturbing the underground geology, you may have made one of those seeps even worse," he said.
Remember that geologists have said that if the well casing is substantially breached, the oil and methane gas will find a way through fractures in the surrounding geology and make it into the ocean. For example, the Houston Chronicle notes:
If the well casing burst it could send oil and gas streaming through the strata to appear elsewhere on the sea floor ....
Obviously, if there are natural oil or gas seeps nearby, there are already pre-existing channels up to the seafloor ... so that may very well be the path of least resistance for the subterranean oil to flow up to the seafloor.
The well is capped. But what else lurks below the surface for BP?
Tim Webb - The Observer,
Success in sealing the gulf spill does not mark the end of BP's problems. Even amid the 'cowboy culture' of offshore drilling, its operational record raises concerns, and allegations are flying about its disregard for safety procedures and propensity to pass the buck
On Friday afternoon, BP senior vice-president Kent Wells was trying hard to contain his elation. The well in the Gulf of Mexico, which had been leaking oil for 88 days, was holding up. The cap, lowered onto the well on Thursday, remained in place. And after numerous failed attempts, the torrent of oil had finally stopped.
"It felt very good to see no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico," Wells told reporters on the daily conference call he hosts from Houston on BP's attempts to stop the leak. An end appeared to be in sight to the worst environmental disaster in US history. Shares in BP rose again on Friday as investors hoped that the company, whose value has plunged by more than a third in the wake of the disaster, was over the worst of the crisis.
BP Well Boss Won't Shed Light on Cause of Oil Spill
By Joe Carroll and Alison Fitzgerald
July 19 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc's chief decision maker on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig declined for the second time to give his version of the events that killed 11 workers and triggered the biggest U.S. oil spill in history.
Donald Vidrine, a BP well-site manager, was asked to attend hearings that start today in Kenner, Louisiana, as investigators from the U.S. Coast Guard and Interior Department try to determine what caused the April 20 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Vidrine declined, citing health problems, said Sue Kerver, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.
Geologist: Depletion of Oil Reservoir "Unlikely"
George Washington's Blog
There are 4 alternative explanations for the unexpectedly low oil pressure in the BP well: (1) A leak in the pipe in the well bore; (2) flow under the well between sand layers; (3) a blockage in the well; or (4) depletion of the oil reservoir.
This essay focuses on the fourth possibility: depletion of the oil reservoir. Specifically, BP claims that the oil well pressure is perhaps 1,200 pounds per square inch less than expected because the oil reservoir has been depleted.
The size of the reservoir is crucial in testing BP's theory. While there are other factors which determine oil pressure, the size of the reservoir is probably the most important.
Giant oil skimmer 'A Whale' deemed a bust for Gulf of Mexico spill
Paul Rioux, The Times-Picayune - nola.com
The massive "A Whale" oil skimmer has effectively been beached after it proved inefficient in sucking up oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill.
The oil is too dispersed to take advantage of the converted Taiwanese supertanker's enormous capacity, said Bob Grantham, a spokesman for shipowner TMT.
He said BP's use of chemical dispersants prevented A Whale, billed as the world's largest skimmer, from collecting a "significant amount" of oil during a week of testing that ended Friday.
Has the Gulf Spill Opened Pandora's Box for Obama?
By Marin Katusa
07/17/10 Vancouver, British Columbia - The White House might be gaping in shock that the US federal court overturned the six-month drilling moratorium, but it really isn't all that surprising. Amid the finger pointing and political posturing, the Obama administration seems to have missed a vital detail - the US oil industry is in a spot of bother.
It's not just America's oil supply and energy security that's in danger after the BP oil spill and the subsequent drilling ban. The Gulf economy is hanging by a thread, and it won't take much to send it over the edge.
Thousands upon thousands of rig workers were effectively laid off when the 33 rigs operating in the Gulf stopped drilling. The full economic impact of the ban is still unrealized, with the layoffs just starting, but estimates put the figure for lost wages as high as US$330 million per month.
BP canvassing investors on possible break up
(Reporting by Mark Potter; Editing by David Holmes)
(Reuters) - Under-fire oil company BP Plc has started canvassing shareholders about a restructuring in the wake of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill which could include a break up of the business, the Sunday Times reported.
The newspaper, citing unnamed BP insiders, said options included selling the group's refineries and petrol stations, scaling back its U.S. operations and ramping-up in-house engineering instead of outsourcing.
These are on top of the sale of about 10 percent of its assets, including its stake in the giant Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska, the Sunday Times added.
Residents outraged: BP dumping oily waste in Gulf landfills
By David
The Gulf area may have to live with oil long after the beaches have been cleaned. Some residents are outraged that BP has been dumping oily waste in landfills in their areas.
After BP crews scoop up the oil off Gulf beaches, the waste is transported to Mississippi's Pecan Grove landfill. Even workers' protective suits, gloves, shovels, rakes and anything else that touches oil is buried there.
The Board of Supervisors in Harrison, Mississippi passed a resolution saying they don't want any BP waste in their community but there is little they can do. BP has cut deals with Waste Management, the owners of the landfill. They answer to the state instead of local county government.
"We don't want it," President of the Board of Supervisors Connie Rocko told CNN's Randi Kaye. "It is valuable landfill space and hazardous to our citizens. Take your waste somewhere else or please find an alternative."
BP's secret 3rd Oil Spill The Big Red One
BP OIL SPILL: Worst case scenario -
Super Volcano of Methane Erupts in the Gulf
Peyton Report: Where Does The Oil Go?
Residents near landfill object to BP oil waste dumping
Regulators shut 6 more banks, making 96 failures for the year
By Marcy Gordon, Associated Press - USAToday.com
WASHINGTON - Regulators on Friday shut down three banks in Florida, two in South Carolina and one in Michigan, bringing to 96 the number of U.S. banks to succumb this year to the recession and mounting loan defaults.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the banks: Woodlands Bank, based in Bluffton, S.C., with $376.2 million in assets; First National Bank of the South, based in Spartanburg, S.C., with $682 million in assets; and Mainstreet Savings Bank of Hastings, Mich., with $97.4 million in assets.
The FDIC also seized Miami-based Metro Bank of Dade County, with assets of $442.3 million; Turnberry Bank of Aventura, Fla., assets of $263.9 million; and Olde Cypress Community Bank of Clewiston, Fla., assets of $168.7 million.
Comparisons to the Great Depression keep popping up
By Adam Shell, USA TODAY
NEW YORK - The images of bread lines, dust storms and squatters' camps are missing in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Stocks have rebounded sharply from the 12-year low hit in March 2009 during the Great Recession. The U.S. economy, while still sluggish, is growing again. And fears of financial Armageddon have mostly faded.
Yet comparisons to the woeful 1930s continue to pop up in Wall Street research reports, newspaper op-ed pieces, doomsday books and the financial blogosphere. There is a nagging sense that the roller coaster ride investors have been on since the 2008-09 financial meltdown may not be over - and that a '30s-style boom-bust, boom-bust cycle can't yet be ruled out - as the economy and markets muddle through the difficult post-bubble workout period.
TRETYAKOV'S WARNING
Submitted by JR Nyquist - FinancialSense.com
Spymaster, double agent and Russian defector Sergei Tretyakov reportedly died on June 13 of cardiac arrest. The story of Tretyakov's life may be read in Pete Earley's book, Comrade J. According to Earley, Tretyakov was the most important defector in many years, and his motive was to warn the American people about Russia. On Earley's official website we are told that Tretyakov "was fond of saying that the Cold War never ended." The American people, however, are not fond of listening.
It is frustrating to deal with this issue because the "end of the Cold War" is the undying myth of our time. We simply cannot abandon this myth, since our hopes and dreams are predicated upon it. America's last four presidents reiterated, again and again, that the Cold War was over. The news media uses the "end of the Cold War" as a standard line in stories related to Russia. It is convenient to believe what our presidents and our media have been saying. But it is flat wrong. "I want to warn Americans," Tretyakov told Earley. "As a people, you are very naive about Russia and its intentions. You believe because the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia is now your friend. It isn't, and I can show you how the SVR [formerly KGB] is trying to destroy the U.S. even today and even more than the KGB did during the Cold War."
Lost in Taxation
WSJ.com (free) The IRS's vast new ObamaCare powers.
If it seems as if the tax code was conceived by graphic artist M.C. Escher, wait until you meet the new and not improved Internal Revenue Service created by ObamaCare. What, you're not already on a first-name basis with your local IRS agent?
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency's new mission in her annual report to Congress last week. Look out below. She notes that the IRS is already "greatly taxed" - pun intended? - "by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public," like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for "the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history." And without "sufficient funding" it won't be able to discharge these new duties.
Social Security money stolen by government
By ALLEN W. SMITH - PPJ Gazette “The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated more than $2.5 trillion that is supposed to be in the trust fund” note: The theft of SS funds has been ongoing since President Johnson took the fund out of trust and put it into the general fund to help finance the Viet Nam War. The Bush2 Administration used SS funds to hide the loss of revenue from his tax cuts the upper 3%; redesignating these stolen funds as “revenues” to hide the theft.
In December, the Obama deficit-reduction commission will make recommendations for budget cuts that will then be voted on, with an up or down vote, by the lame-duck Congress.
Already, there is much speculation that Social Security will be one of the big targets. The rationale for cutting Social Security seems to be that, during such difficult economic times, everything should be a candidate for the chopping block, and that the public should support such cuts out of a sense of patriotism.
The flaw in this argument is that Social Security has not contributed a dime to the budget deficits or the soaring national debt. Social Security is funded exclusively by payroll taxes (also known as FICA taxes), paid into the fund by working Americans.
Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax
By ROBERT PEAR - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government's"power to lay and collect taxes."
And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.
Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
5 places to look for the next financial crisis
By Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
Financial reform has passed. The sprawling legislation is meant to be an air bag protecting us from the next major crash, which of course raises the question: Will it work?
"We would have loved to have something like this for Lehman Brothers," said Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary when the financial system melted down in 2008. "There's no doubt about it."
And he's right: The next time there's a financial crisis, regulators will say a quick prayer of thanks to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for giving them the power and information to quickly figure out what's happened and how to respond.
Blanchflower Says Keep Stimulus to Avoid Deflation 'Nightmare'
By Greg Quinn
July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Former Bank of England policy maker David Blanchflower said the risk of a deflation "nightmare" means officials including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke should keep stimulus in place until there's more evidence that private companies are spending again.
"Deflation is Ben Bernanke's and my nightmare," Blanchflower said in an interview with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio. Most of the global economic recovery "is being driven by stimulus," he said. "Caution to you if you start to take it off."
Dollar Declines to 2010 Low Against Yen; Euro Reaches $1.30
By Catarina Saraiva
July 16 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar dropped to its weakest level in 2010 against the yen as signs the U.S. economy is losing momentum supported speculation that the Federal Reserve will keep borrowing costs low for the rest of the year.
The greenback touched a level weaker than $1.30 versus the euro for the first time since May as a gauge of U.S. consumer confidence dropped more than economists expected and corporate revenue missed analyst forecasts. The yen rallied against all of its major counterparts as a decline in U.S. stocks discouraged demand for higher-yielding assets.
The Men Who Ended Goldman's War
By LOUISE STORY - NYTimes.com
LAST Wednesday at around 3 p.m., the Securities and Exchange Commission and Goldman Sachs settled an epic, seismic battle - one waged over whether the storied investment bank defrauded investors in a transaction that regulators said Goldman had built to self-destruct.
The final terms of the settlement were hashed out over the telephone. On one end, Gregory K. Palm, Goldman's general counsel, agreed to the exact language his bank would use in statements about the settlement. As one of the longest-serving executives of the bank and a Goldman shareholder, Mr. Palm also had his own reputation and his personal fortune on the line.
Goldman Sachs needs to change
FT.com
Compared with what might have been, Goldman Sachs escaped lightly in its settlement with US regulators this week. Having suffered three months of reputational damage since being accused of fraud, it admitted only a "mistake" and paid a record-breaking $550m in fines and compensation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is already facing criticism that it should have been tougher on Goldman. In practice, however, it has regained its own reputation for enforcing securities law toughly on Wall Street. If the SEC had pushed its luck further, it would have been at risk of losing.
CFOs Pick Dollar Bonds as Faith in Euro Wanes: Credit Markets
By Katrina Nicholas and Bryan Keogh
July 19 (Bloomberg) -- European borrowers are selling more of their bonds in dollars than at any time since the euro's record low in 2000 as issuers lose faith in the common currency.
Companies in Western Europe sold $162.8 billion of bonds in dollars this year, 24 percent of their total issuance and up from 16 percent in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Euro-denominated sales fell to 63 percent from 68 percent, the lowest share since 2007 and below the average of the past decade.
Banks eye higher fees to boost declining revenue
By Stevenson Jacobs, Associated Press
NEW YORK - Big banks facing big drops in revenue are looking to Main Street to make up the difference.
Checking accounts, bank statements, even popping into your local bank branch could carry a hefty cost as the nation's mega-banks scramble to offset expected damage from the sweeping financial overhaul. The uncertain future has overshadowed otherwise strong second-quarter earnings at JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America.
All three companies beat expectations this week with profitable results. Yet their stocks tumbled, helping send the wider market sharply lower Friday.
Unintended Consequences
BY TIMOTHY P. CARNEY - The American Conservative
Ironically, lobbyist John Castellani put it best. "While we're each free to choose our actions," Castellani wrote in a recent blog post, "we're not free to choose the consequences of our actions."
It's ironic because Castellani, outgoing head of the Business Roundtable, has spent the last 18 months rallying the business community behind President George W. Bush's and President Obama's big-government agenda of handouts and boondoggles: Wall Street bailouts, Detroit bailout, stimulus, greenhouse cap-and-trade scheme, health care "reform" and more.
But in recent weeks Castellani has darkly warned of the "unintended consequences" of some of Obama's latest proposed regulations -- particularly on Wall Street and labor.
The Debt Supercycle
By: John Mauldin - GoldSeek.com
.... Essentially, the Debt Supercycle is the decades-long growth of debt from small and easily-dealt-with levels, to a point where bond markets rebel and the debt has to be restructured or reduced or a program of austerity must be undertaken to bring the debt back to manageable proportions. As Bank Credit Analyst wrote back in 2007:
"The history of the U.S. is characterized by a long-run increase in indebtedness, punctuated by occasional financial crises and subsequent policy reflation. The subprime blow-up is the latest installment in this ongoing Debt Supercycle story. During each crisis, there are always fears that conventional reflation will no longer work, implying the economy and markets face a catastrophic debt unwinding. Such fears have always proved unfounded, and the current episode is no exception.
Stress-testing Europe's banks won't stave off a deflationary vortex
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Euroland's authorities are inflicting a triple shock of fiscal, monetary, and currency tightening on a broken economy. They are doing so in a region where industrial output is still 14pc below its peak, where growth barely scraped above zero over the winter "recovery", and where youth unemployment is at 40pc in Spain, 35pc in Slovakia, 29pc in Italy, and 26pc in Ireland.
They seem unaware that China is slowing and the US is tipping into a second leg of the Long Slump. Last week's collapse in America's ECRI leading indicator to -9.8 marks the end of the V-shaped rebound. If this means what it normally means - recession within three months - Europe must take immediate action to prevent being drawn into a deflationary vortex. Spiralling public debt precludes further Keynesian spending, so this must come from central bank stimulus. Tight fiscal policy offset by ultra-loose money is the only option for Europe, the US, and Japan.
When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse
by ADAM FERGUSSON
WILLIAM KIMBER - LONDON, 1975 WHEN a nation's money is no longer a source of security, and when inflation has become the concern of an entire people, it is natural to turn for information and guidance to the history of other societies who have already undergone this most tragic and upsetting of human experiences. Yet to survey the great array of literature of all kinds - economic, military, social, historic, political, and biographical - which deals with the fortunes of the defeated Central Powers after the First World War is to discover one particular shortage. Either the economic analyses of the times (for reasons best known to economists who sometimes tend to think that inflations are deliberate acts of fiscal policy) have ignored the human element, to say nothing in the case of the Weimar Republic and of post-revolutionary Austria of the military and political elements; or the historical accounts, though of impressive erudition and insight, have overlooked - or at least much underestimated - inflation as one of the most powerful engines of the upheavals which they narrate.
The Coming Economic Collapse
Economist argues 2011 tax hikes will cause financial disaster
Chinese lesson: Better red than Fed
By Bill Fleckenstein - MSN Money The US could learn something about monetary discipline and pro-capitalistic tax policies from a couple of unlikely sources: China and Russia.
As we continue to walk our economic tightrope between recession and recovery, in many people's eyes one of the biggest factors keeping us upright continues to be China.
As the bond buyer of first resort -- for now -- in our everything-must-go debt bonanza, as well as supplier of cheap labor and consumer goods, China has wedded its fate to our own. Its economic future and, perhaps more importantly, its policies are inextricably linked to ours.
Over the past few weeks, there have been a few developments in China that I'd like to comment on here.
Gold & Silver Rise vs. Falling Dollar as Chinese "Take Refuge" in Precious Metals, World Faces "Shortage of Safe Assets"
By: Adrian Ash - GoldSeek.com
THE PRICE OF wholesale gold bullion and silver rose against the US Dollar on Thursday, nearing new highs for July at $12.15 and $18.50 an ounce respectively, but slipping in terms of other currencies as government bonds fell and commodities gained.
Asian stock markets closed lower - and Eurozone equities held flat - despite investment-bank J.P.Morgan following chip-maker Intel and metals giant Alcoa with stronger than expected quarterly results amid the current US earnings season.
Sterling hit a new 11-week high against the falling Dollar, squashing the gold price in British Pounds back below £790 an ounce.
Ron Paul Silver Ounces Accepted at Michigan Gas Station; Chiropractor Accepts Gold, Silver, Apple Pie;
Back to the Stone Age; Chickens Invade Lansing
by Mike Shedlock
Here's four interesting ways businesses, private citizens, and counties are coping with the economic depression. The first is the most important one. Let's hope it catches on.
Gold, Silver, Copper, Freely Accepted as Money
Connect Mid-Michigan reports Competing currency being accepted across Mid-Michigan.
New types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it's not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency. Right now, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender.
Feds Ignore Due Process, First Amendment, Shut Down Thousands of Blogs
Kurt Nimmo - Infowars.com
Once again, the Obama administration has violated the Bill of Rights. Earlier this month, the feds took down a free Wordpress blogging platform and disabled more than 73,000 blogs. The action was completely ignored by the corporate media. The site, Blogetery.com, was told by its hosting service that the government had issued orders to shut down the site due to a "a history of abuse" related to copyrighted material.
Ron Paul: The People Can Handle The Truth About Unemployment and Inflation
States curb car title lending
By SUDEEP REDDY - WSJ.com States to Protect Borrowers Who Turn to Cars for Cash
Several states are putting curbs on loans backed by car titles - short-term, high-interest debt that critics say too often results in consumers losing their vehicle when they can't keep up with the payments.
Auto-title lending, where the owner of a car hands over its title as collateral, will become illegal in Wisconsin later this year. Virginia will impose new regulations Oct. 1, structuring the loans to keep consumers from falling into a cycle of debt. Illinois last year capped car-title loans at $4,000 and slapped numerous restrictions on the industry.
Collapse in Living Standards in America: More Poverty By Any Measure
by Christine Vestal - GlobalResearch.ca 15 million unemployed, homelessness has increased by 50 percent in some cities
More than 15 million Americans are unemployed, homelessness has increased by 50 percent in some cities, and 38 million people are receiving food stamps, more than at any time in the program's almost 50-year history.
Evidence of rising economic hardship is ample. There's one commonly used standard for measuring it: the U.S. Census Bureau's poverty rate. It guides much of federal and state spending aimed at helping those unable to make a decent living.
Housing, Leading Index Probably Slumped: U.S. Economy Preview
By Bob Willis
July 18 (Bloomberg) -- The housing market took another step back in June as construction and purchases dropped, and a gauge of the outlook for growth signaled the expansion will lose steam, economists said before reports this week.
Builders began work on 580,000 houses last month at an annual rate, down 2.2 percent from May and the slowest pace this year, according to the median estimate of 61 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before Commerce Department data due July 20. Other reports may show sales of existing homes decreased for a second month and the index of leading indicators declined for the first time in more than a year.
Banks selling more homes than homebuilders
The Truth About Mortgage.com
Interesting little tidbit from the good people over at Housing Intelligence. Based on their market data, banks have been selling more homes than homebuilders over the past year and a half.
In December 2005, the share of regular resale home sales peaked at 80 percent.
About a year later, in November 2006, new home sales accounted for nearly 20 percent of transactions, a peak share.
That's about the time things went wrong, what with everyone trying to get in on the frenzy, utilizing things like option arms and zero down financing to get deals done.
At the same time, housing inventory swelled as builders put more and more units on the market in anticipation of a strong buying environment.
Housing outlook clouded by expiration of tax credit
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch Bernanke will be grilled by Congress about further policy steps
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- For the first time in more than two years, the U.S. housing market is standing on its own, without extraordinary help from the government.
It hasn't been pretty. Following the expiration of the home-buyers' tax credit, home building, home sales, and home prices have fallen. It could be months before a clear view of the housing market is revealed.
In the coming week, four major housing indicators will be released. Although everyone expects the numbers in the medium-term to be consistent with a very weak housing market, economists are more uncertain than usual about which way the latest numbers will swing.
Doctors among those arrested in $251M Medicare scams
By Kelli Kennedy, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI - Federal authorities said Friday they are conducting the largest Medicare fraud bust ever in five different states and arrested dozens of suspects accused in scams totaling $251 million.
Several doctors and nurses were among those arrested in Miami, New York City, Detroit, Houston and Baton Rouge, La., accused of billing Medicare for unnecessary equipment, physical therapy and HIV treatments that patients typically never received. Ninety-four suspects were indicted, and authorities said 36 people had been arrested as of Friday morning.
Insurers Push Plans That Limit Choice of Doctor
By REED ABELSON - NYTimes.com
As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country's biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.
The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely to appeal especially to small businesses that already provide insurance to their employees, but are concerned about the ever-spiraling cost of coverage.
Obesity Rating for Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Says HHS
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.
The obesity-rating regulation states that every American's electronic health record must: "Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient's height and weight."
Auto dealers shut down too fast
By Catherine Clifford - CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Automakers GM and Chrysler were pressured to quickly close hundreds of dealerships by the Treasury department without regard for the job losses that would result, according to a government watchdog report out Sunday.
Treasury was charged with helping the car companies out of bankruptcy through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Together they've received over $80 billion in government funding.
"Treasury made a series of decisions that may have substantially contributed to the accelerated shuttering of thousands of small businesses ... potentially adding tens of thousands of workers to the already lengthy unemployment rolls," said the report, released by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), Neil Barofsky.
Biden Owes $219,000 for Campaign Violations
By ROBERT PEAR - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The Biden for President campaign committee owes the Treasury more than $219,000 because it accepted excessive campaign contributions and understated the value of a trip taken on a private plane in the 2008 campaign, the Federal Election Commission said in a new report.
Auditors from the agency found numerous violations of campaign finance rules by the committee that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. used in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
One in Five Federal Student Loans Go Into Default
By ZAC BISSONNETTE - DailyFinance.com
New data from the Department of Education shows that of federal student loan borrowers whose loans entered repayment in 1995, fully one in five -- or 20% -- have since gone into default.
To put that number in perspective, the default rate on first mortgages hit a record high of 5.67% in 2009 and has since pulled back to 3.71%. The default rate on credit cards is 9.14%, and the default rate on car loans peaked at 2.75% last year.
And while defaults on those loans generally require just three months of missed payments, a federal student loan must go close to one year without payments before it is considered to be in default.
Max Keiser-Max Keiser talking to Paul Craig Roberts
07-16-2010 (Part1)
Max Keiser-Max Keiser talking to Paul Craig Roberts
07-16-2010 (Part2)
Max Keiser-Max Keiser talking to Paul Craig Roberts
07-16-2010 (Part3)
Arizona immigration battle turns bitter
Ed Pilkington in Phoenix - guardian.co.uk
The US state's new immigration law is threatening to divide America with panicking Hispanic families fleeing
The intersection of 43rd Avenue and Thomas Road on the west side of Phoenix is lined with the same monotonous range of petrol stations, fast-food outlets, pharmacies and clothes stores that you'll find in any modern city in America's heartlands. It is distinguished only by the exceptionally mundane.
Look closer, though, and a disturbing pattern emerges. Here is a real estate office that is shuttered and empty, here a panaderia - a bread shop - that has closed, and next door to that, a children's clothes store also shut. Across the road a cellphone outlet is boarded up and a large grocery store has vanished. A Mexican restaurant still has its sign proudly boasting "Tacos Since 1975", but there are no tacos being made here any more. A rival restaurant nearby, Marly's Mexican Food, has a sign saying "Drive Thru Open", yet the building has been stripped bare. A handwritten note in the front entrance says "Se cierra el negocio porque nos mudamos de estado" - the restaurant is closed because we've moved out of the state.
Shooting war at the U.S. Mexican border
PPJ Gazette - Michael Webster: Syndicated Investigative Reporter.
On June 7, during a scuffle with some rock-throwing Mexican teenagers in a concrete drainage canal near El Paso, Texas, a U.S. Border Patrol officer shot Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, 15, in the head, killing him. Uniformed, combat ready Mexican forces in the Rio Grande River channel bordering the two cities of El Paso and Juarez brandishing their weapons, assisted by Mexican bystanders throwing rocks and firecrackers, later chased off FBI agents investigating the shooting.
Bye-Bye Batteries: Radio Waves as a Low-Power Source
By ANNE EISENBERG - NYTimes.com
MATT REYNOLDS, an assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at Duke University, wears other hats, too - including that of co-founder of two companies. These days, his interest is in a real hat now in prototype: a hard hat with a tiny microprocessor and beeper that sound a warning when dangerous equipment is nearby on a construction site.
What's unusual, however, is that the hat's beeper and microprocessor work without batteries. They use so little power that they can harvest all they need from radio waves in the air.
IS WAR ON THE HORIZON IN IRAN?
Submitted by Monty Guild - FinancialSense.com
Although many have predicted over the past five years that Iran would be at war with the west or Israel, such an outcome has not developed. We seldom comment on war preparation activities and have not done so recently, and although it is not our normal modus operandi, we would like to point out that currently many signs point to the potential for hostility with Iran to develop. Please note the following points.
Iran is becoming more isolated.
Russia has stated that they believe Iran may be close having a nuclear weapon. Many believe that they may already have developed nuclear weapons. It appears that Russia is starting to moderate their view on Iran to a view more similar to that of the western powers.
Iran's friends in the Arab world, who have helped them in many ways, are starting to move a way from them.
Iran has sold much of the oil they had stored in tankers offshore. It occurs to us that they maybe raising cash for an expected war.
We have noticed several countries buying gold, and a few are selling gold and/or borrowing against their gold holdings. We do not know if Iran is engaged in this activity but if they are expecting war, they are undoubtedly trying to raise cash in order to support that effort.
We notice that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama had a cordial conversation at the White House and Obama has recently expressed more support for Israel.
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