In The World of Finance |
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3/20/10 GERMANY
LATEST VICTIM OF PHONY GOLD BAR SCAM Amid international
accusations that U.S. officials in the Clinton administration
replaced gold in Fort Knox with phony, mostly tungsten bars
that were later shipped to China and other places yet unknown,
a German refinery has now discovered that it has received
a bogus “gold” bar as well. Meantime, nonfarm payrolls fell by 20,000 compared with a revised 150,000 drop decline in December. Economists had expected payrolls to be flat. The December figure was revised down sharply from an originally reported 85,000 drop.The Labor Department’s annual benchmark revision to the survey that produces the monthly payroll report painted a bleaker 2009 picture. Last year, job losses were almost 600,000 more than previously reported, the revisions showed. 3/18/10 Wall St extends losses on resources, tech NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks extended losses late on Friday, snapping the Dow's eight-day winning streak, dragged down by resource and technology shares. Credit scores can drop after getting loan help WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some homeowners who sign up for the government's mortgage assistance program are getting a nasty surprise: Lower credit scores. For borrowers who are making their payments on time but are on the verge of default, the Obama administration's loan modification program can reduce their credit score as much as 100 points. That makes it harder to get a loan and can present a problem when applying for a new job.Housing counselors say it's unfair, especially because the news often comes as a surprise to homeowners."Why should people's credit be hurt even worse when they're trying to do the right thing?" said Eileen Anderson, senior vice president at Community Development Corp. of Long Island, a housing counseling group in New York. 3/17/10 3/15/10 Ex-NY bank president first accused of TARP fraud NEW YORK (Reuters) – The former president of New York's privately held Park Avenue Bank was arrested on Monday on fraud charges, the first person accused of attempting to steal U.S. government bailout funds in the financial crisis.The charges came just three days after regulators seized the bank, which had $520 million in assets.A 10-count criminal complaint said Charles Antonucci devised "an elaborate round-trip loan transaction" that he told others was his own $6.5 million investment in Park Avenue Bank, misleading bank regulators. Antonucci made false statements in the bank's application for $11.2 million from TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the complaint. 10 Countries in Deep TroubleWhile the collapsing U.S. housing market may be at the root of the global economic recession, the downturn's effects are being felt hardest overseas. Take Iceland, for instance. Its biggest banks failed, its economy may shrink 10 percent this year, its government fell, its central banker was sacked, the country was bailed out with a $2.1 billion IMF loan, and 7,000 people (in a country of 300,000) took to the streets in protest. Which countries have the greatest chances of being the next stories of failure? U.S.News looked at some countries that are currently facing severe economic disruption that endangers their standards of living, attractiveness to foreign investors, and political stability. First, we examined what Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's had to say about them.....more Ten countries: Mexico, Pakistan, Ukraine, Iceland, Venezuela, Argentina, Latvia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Belarus. Michael Lewis On CBS 60 Minutes Michaels Lewis was a guest on CBS Networks’ “60 Minutes” yesterday, who’s news book with the name “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” is now available on the book stalls. To pick someone to write an autopsy report on the Wall Street financial collapse 18-months ago, you couldn’t do any better than Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis is one of the county’s preeminent non-fiction writers with a complicated mind numbing material in the fascinating yarns. (excerpt)His new book Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine that came out last weekend, Michael Lewis explains that how some of Wall Street’s finest minds managed to destroy $1.75 trillion of wealth in this mortgage market.Michael Lewis in his interview with CBS “60 Minutes” said that this was an episode where capitalist economy was almost demolished just by the capitalist and in the most stunning way they were sort of demolished by their own filing.
3/12/10 Two Job Markets, Worlds Apart The economic outlook is rosy, at least for people at the top of the ladder. The number of U.S. millionaires rose 16 percent in 2009, according to a new report by Chicago-based research firm Spectrum Group. Some 7.8 million households had a net worth of more than $1 million, excluding the value of their home. Part of the reason is that higher-income households typically have more exposure to the stock market, and the S&P 500 has risen about 70 percent since hitting bottom on March 9 of last year.Moreover, in terms of employment, there was no recession for the highest-income households in the fourth quarter last year. The unemployment rate for people in the top 10 percent of income -- those earning more than $150,000 a year -- was just 3 percent, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. For the bottom 10 percent of earners -- workers who bring home less than $12,500 annually -- the unemployment rate was 31 percent....the rest at the link... Senators question $1 million pay for charity's CEO WASHINGTON – A group of Republican senators is questioning high salaries and expensive travel bills for executives at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, raising issues that could jeopardize millions in federal funding for the national charity. The four senators said they were concerned that the chief executive of a charity that has been closing local clubs for lack of funding was compensated nearly $1 million in 2008. They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees. Report Shows How, Collapsing, Lehman Hid Woes It is the Wall Street equivalent of a coroner's report -- a 2,200-page document that lays out, in new and startling detail, how Lehman Brothers used accounting sleight of hand to conceal the bad investments that led to its undoing. The report, compiled by an examiner for the bank, now bankrupt, hit Wall Street with a thud late Thursday. The 158-year-old company, it concluded, died from multiple causes. Among them were bad mortgage holdings and, less directly, demands by rivals like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, that the foundering bank post collateral against loans it desperately needed. But the examiner, Anton R. Valukas, also for the first time, laid out what the report characterized as "materially misleading" accounting gimmicks that Lehman used to mask the perilous state of its finances, Michael J. de la Merced and Andrew Ross Sorkin report in The New York Times. The bank's bankruptcy, the largest in American history, shook the financial world. Fears that other banks might topple in a cascade of failures eventually led Washington to arrange a sweeping rescue for the nation's financial system....the rest of the story at the link
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank. I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter, it appears that some of the records you requested may be in the possession of this department” after I asked for information on approved handgun permits for bankers. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names. .....the rest of the juicy story at the link....so people are finally finding out that there are 'more of us' then there are of them and they haven't been exactly honest nor good in their dealings....and yet the people have to bail them out! The people are not exactly happy campers anymore! 3/10/10 Massive school closures in KC to be done by fall KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kansas City's school superintendent said Thursday the plan to shutter nearly half the district's schools, while "painful," will move forward quickly so that all the closures will be complete by fall. The school board narrowly approved the plan Wednesday night to close 29 of the district's 61 schools to try to stave off bankruptcy. The closures have angered many parents, students and teachers, but administrators say they had no choice because without them, the district would have been in the red by 2011 IRS to Track Online Sellers' Payment Transactions Beginning Next Year Internet sellers who don't report their sales will no longer be under the radar. Starting next year, any bank or other payment settlement company that processes credit cards, debit cards, and electronic payments such as PayPal will have to issue information returns telling the IRS what merchants receive. The new returns are Form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments ...the rest at the link WASHINGTON – Unemployment rose in 30 states in January, the Labor Department said Wednesday, evidence that jobs remain scarce in most regions of the country.The data is somewhat better than December, when 43 states reported higher unemployment rates, but worse than November, when rates fell in most states.Still, five states reported record-high joblessness in January: California, at 12.5 percent; South Carolina, 12.6 percent; Florida, 11.9 percent; North Carolina, 11.1 percent; and Georgia, 10.4 percent.Michigan's unemployment rate is still the nation's highest, at 14.3 percent, followed by Nevada, with 13 percent and Rhode Island at 12.7 percent. South Carolina and California round out the top five. oh but by the way, Tom Delay says there is no excuse for not having a job!...Tom DeLay: Unemployment Benefits Keep People From Looking For Jobs (VIDEO)Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay argued that extending unemployment benefits "keeps people from going and finding jobs." On State of the Union yesterday, Candy Crowley asked DeLay about Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-KY) filibuster that delayed the extension of unemployment benefits. DeLay praised Bunning, and added that "there's some studies that have been done that shows that people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out." Crowley pointed out that saying "people are unemployed because they want to be" is a "hard sell." DeLay responded: "Well, it is the truth."
3/8/10 3/4/10 Senate rejects $250 checks for elderly WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A measure to give some 57 million elderly people, veterans and persons with disabilities a $250 check was rejected by the Senate on Wednesday, a setback for the powerful seniors' lobby.President Barack Obama has called for Congress to approve the payments to make up for their benefits not increasing this year, but the Senate defeated it 50 to 47.The payments would have added $13 billion to a $108 billion job-creation package pending in the Senate.Congress approved payments last year as part of the $862 billion stimulus package. (why not print some more up ....its just 'funny money' anyway???....but what the heck.....they can 'bail-out' AIG, etc.....God forbid they should 'give' money back to the people that it came from in the first place!) 3/2/10 Goldman
Lists New 'Risk': Bad Press In
its annual report, the New York company said "adverse
publicity" could have "a negative impact on our reputation
and on the morale and performance of our employees,
which could adversely affect our businesses and
results of operations." New ghost towns: Industrial communities teeter on the edge RAVENSWOOD, W.Va. — When Henry Kaiser arrived 55 years ago, this place was no place — "a rural problem area," the government called it, so poor and isolated that the population had dropped 15% since 1940.That all changed after Kaiser, the industrialist who'd turned out ships and planes at a record pace in World War II, built the nation's largest consolidated aluminum works here on the banks of the Ohio River.The plant paid Tim Shumaker his first living wage, and he won the right to keep it two decades ago after his union was locked out for 19 months. ....now that has all changed for this community and many others ...as America changed, mostly thanks to the Clinton era and passage of NAFTA.......and the administrations after that and now the present one...putting the final nails in the coffin ....and they wonder why it cand be 'fixed'! ..They should have looked ahead down the road way before this and made better decisions. Ten Commandments for Buying Silver & Gold US Senator Warns of ‘Financial Meltdown’, Applauds China’s Move The US is heading for a debt-driven “financial meltdown” within five to seven years, according to Judd Gregg, the outgoing Republican senator for New Hampshire. In a robust and at times testy video interview for the Financial Times’s View from DC series, Mr Gregg also complimented China for showing rising alarm about the US’s mounting levels of public debt. “We have had China say that they are looking for other places to put their reserves and that is probably a smart decision on their part,” said Mr Gregg, who will not seek re-election in November. “So the warning signs are pretty clear and the path is unsustainable and, at this point, unless we take different actions, unavoidable.” But the senator, who was the most high-profile Repub lican invited by Barack Obama, the president, to join his administration last year, an offer Mr Gregg accepted and then turned down, said he doubted that the two parties would get together to tackle it. Last month 16 Republicans and 37 Democrats voted to establish a fiscal commission – seven votes short of what was needed to prevent a filibuster. Bomb Explodes at JP Morgan Office in Athens
NY Fed Reserve Told AIG to Keep Quiet n November 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — then led by now Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — ordered bailed-out insurer American International Group to limit disclosure on payments made to banks at the height of the financial crisis, The New York Times reports. Market Watchdog Calls Out Federal Reserve To Disprove it is Manipulating Index Futures Charles Biderman, chief executive of TrimTabs Investment Research, is the latest and most credible person to charge that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury (in league with top Wall Street firms) is rigging the stock market on a daily basis. Frustrated Homeowner Bulldozes Home Before Bank Could Seize it in Foreclosure Like many people, Terry Hoskins has had troubles with his bank. But his solution to foreclosure might be unique. Hoskins said he’s been in a struggle with RiverHills Bank over his Clermont County home for nearly a decade, a struggle that was coming to an end as the bank began foreclosure proceedings on his $350,000 home. ”When I see I owe $160,000 on a home valued at $350,000, and someone decides they want to take it – no, I wasn’t going to stand for that, so I took it down,” Hoskins said. The bank claimed his home as collateral, Hoskins said, and went after both his residential and commercial properties. .....Even though he offered the bank $170,000 that someone offered to help, the bank turned it down because they would get more through foreclosure........so he bulldozed it down......he built it, so he took it down and may do the same to his commerical properties.......................a word to the wise....oh...sorry, banks aren't wise....obviously! 2/28/10 2/24/10 On The Money....article in Vogue Magazine with Timothy Geithner. Taken to task for his handling of the financial meltdown, Timothy Geithner opens up to Rebecca Johnson about the toll of the crisis. If last year's bailout of the financial industry caused you to start muttering words like investment banker and robber baron in the same sentence, it may cheer you to know that Timothy Geithner, the man responsible for crafting much of that bailout, agrees with you. "I am," he says, seated in his Washington, D.C., office, an intimidatingly ornate room worthy of a Hogwarts headmaster, "incredibly angry at what happened to our country." ...the rest of the story at the link
(Architecture critics aren’t too impressed with the winner in the US State Department’s competition to design its next London embassy......and are Americans impressed with the price tag of $1 billion?????...well, it's YOUR MONEY FOLKS! .......maybe instead of cutting back on programs to help the American people,this is a way to cut back...on expenditures like this......a moratorium on all govt building projects!) Panic At The Fed Or Back To Normalcy?The decision of the US Federal Reserve to raise its key interest rate was definitely not a sign of confidence in the US economic recovery or a signal that Fed policy is slowly returning to normal as claimed. It was rather a signal of panic over the weakness in US Government bond markets, the heart of the dollar financial system.
The Fed chief's semiannual report to Congress should feature both impassioned debate over financial regulation and lots of questions about the central bank's evolving strategy to remove unprecedented monetary stimulus from the financial system. 2/23/10 2/22/10 Mixed blessing: credit card reform may shock some NEW YORK (AP) -- Your next credit card statement is going to contain an ugly truth: how much that card really costs to use.Now, thanks to a long-awaited law that goes into effect Monday, you'll know that if you pay the minimum on a $3,000 balance with a 14 percent interest rate, it could take you 10 years to pay off.During the past nine months, credit card companies jacked up interest rates, created new fees and cut credit lines. They also closed down millions of accounts. So a law hailed as the most sweeping piece of consumer legislation in decades has helped make it more difficult for millions of Americans to get credit, and made that credit more expensive. It wasn't supposed to be this way ...(yeah...the more they 'fix' things......the more we get the shaft!) Democratic jobs bill advances past GOP filibuster A bipartisan jobs bill cleared a GOP filibuster today with critical momentum provided by the Senate's newest Republican, Scott Brown of Massachusetts.The 62-30 tally to advance the measure to a final vote on Wednesday gives both President Barack Obama and Capitol Hill Democrats a much-needed victory -- even though the measure in question is likely to have only a modest boost on hiring.
2/19/10 (ok...lets do a little math here folks....everyone of these employees, pay federal taxes, state taxes as well as county and city taxes added in. Everyone of those people put into some kind of retirement plan I would guess, hoping for retirement someday. These people might lose their homes, so that stops real estate taxes from them, they might lose their cars, so the banks lose payments there and will have to go find the cars, and if they people are living in the cars, they will be homeless. These people are consumers, so there goes the businessess that have depended upon their purchasing power to sustain them. These people will be getting unemployment from the govt and ....free medical care if they can't afford it anymore because they will lose their medical plans....so more outgo from 'us' with nothing coming in from them, plus the horrible emotional and financial costs to them and their families with no jobs! Children might have to be pulled out of schools if the parents aren't living in the districts anymore, thus the schools lose money from the govt for the students attendance. The children will lose their friends, and possibly not be able to attend school and that affects their future schooling/jobs and lives. .......its called 'penny-wise and pound-foolish if anyone remembers that phrase!.............is anyone studying economics anymore at all????) 2/18/10 Fed
bumps up rate banks pay for emergency loans
The Federal Reserve decided Thursday to boost the
rate banks pay for emergency loans. The action is part of a
broader move to pull back the extraordinary aid it provided
to fight the worst financial and economic crisis since the
1930s.
L.A. council agrees to 3,000 more job cuts by July 1 Under the threat of a credit rating downgrade, the Los Angeles City Council on Thursday instructed agency heads to eliminate 3,000 additional city jobs “by any means necessary, including layoffs” by July 1. The reduction — aimed in part a wresting further concessions from the city’s unions — would be in addition to 1,000 job cuts already in the works. Those alone are expected to lead to 250 to 350 workers receiving pink slips, officials said. 2/11/10 GOP Rep. Paul Ryan tackles Obama's path to deficit disaster The new era of Democratic bipartisanship, like cut flowers in a vase, wilted in less than a week. During his question time at the House Republican retreat, President Obama elevated congressman and budget expert Paul Ryan as a "sincere guy" whose budget blueprint -- which, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), eventually achieves a balanced budget -- has "some ideas in there that I would agree with." Days later, Democratic legislators held a conference call to lambaste Ryan's plan as a vicious, voucherizing, privatizing assault on Social Security, Medicare and every non-millionaire American. Progressive advocacy groups and liberal bloggers joined the jeering in practiced harmony. The attack "came out of the Democratic National Committee, and that is the White House," Ryan told me recently, sounding both disappointed and unsurprised. On the deficit, Obama's outreach to Republicans has been a ploy, which is to say, a deception. Once again, a president so impressed by his own idealism has become the nation's main manufacturer of public cynicism. During his question time at the House Republican retreat, President Obama elevated congressman and budget expert Paul Ryan as a "sincere guy" whose budget blueprint -- which, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), eventually achieves a balanced budget -- has "some ideas in there that I would agree with." Days later, Democratic legislators held a conference call to lambaste Ryan's plan as a vicious, voucherizing, privatizing assault on Social Security, Medicare and every non-millionaire American. Progressive advocacy groups and liberal bloggers joined the jeering in practiced harmony. The attack "came out of the Democratic National Committee, and that is the White House," Ryan told me recently, sounding both disappointed and unsurprised. On the deficit, Obama's outreach to Republicans has been a ploy, which is to say, a deception. Once again, a president so impressed by his own idealism has become the nation's main manufacturer of public cynicism.
2/9/10 2/8/19 Sovereign Risk Meets Sovereign Reality After months of shrugging off debt problems in Dubai, Greece and other smaller economies, markets yesterday seemed suddenly aware of the risks of sovereign default. Back in November, when the question of Dubai's solvency came to a head, it was ultimately bailed out by its rich older brother, Abu Dhabi. Now, the European Union is doing its best to avoid promising a similar bailout to Greece, though in the end few believe Brussels will allow Athens to go under.The current crisis in Greece is only the worst example inside the EU. The PIGS—Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain—all boast public debt above or headed for 100% of GDP. Though the PIGS acronym was apparently coined by British bankers, Britain, Ireland and Iceland also smell distinctly of bacon......(.more at the link on more and more countries going under....and no end in sight!) The
Bankruptcy of the United States is Now Certain It's
one of those numbers that's so unbelievable you have to actually
think about it for a while... Within the next 12 months,
the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term
debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending,
which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion. Put the two
numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can
the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That's
an amount equal to nearly 30% of our entire GDP. And we're
the world's biggest economy. Where will the money come from? 2/5/10 FED GAVE Banks Access to 23.7 TRILLION DOLLARS NOT $700 Billion! videoSpending America Into Oblivion At the invitation of the Republicans, President Obama spoke at the Republican retreat last Friday. During the following Q & A, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas rose to ask the final question: "You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy." (the whole story at the link) Brown: Stimulus didn't create one new job Newly-sworn Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown says the last economic stimulus bill did not create even one new job, a claim that most economists would dispute. Brown made the assertion moments after he was sworn in Thursday by Vice President Joe Biden to the seat held for nearly half a century by the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy 2/4/10 Gold - China's End Game? video Italy Seizes Bank of America, Dexia Assets Amid Probe (Update2) Italy’s financial police are seizing 73.3 million euros ($102 million) of assets from Bank of America Corp. and a unit of Dexia SA as part of a probe into an alleged derivatives fraud in the region of Apulia. Police are investigating losses on derivatives linked to the sale of 870 million euros of bonds sold by the regional government in 2003 and 2004, according to an e-mail from the prosecutor’s office in Bari today. The banks misled the municipality, located in the heel of Italy, on the economic advantages of the transaction and concealed their fees, the prosecutor said.House agrees to $1.9 trillion more debt The House on Thursday voted to allow the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt — an increase of about $6,000 more for every U.S. resident that provided a vivid election-year reminder of the nation's perilous financial condition. Already, the accumulated debt amounts to roughly $40,000 per person.(the actual figure is much bigger, as they aren't even counting the interest accumulated on this amount) Card company results show waning credit card use Shoppers still reach for plastic at the checkout, but the card they grab most often these days is a debit card, not a credit card.That was spelled out Thursday in MasterCard Inc.'s fourth-quarter results. The payment processor posted a 23-percent profit leap, but its shares were beaten down as the numbers revealed further evidence of the fading use of credit cards, whether by choice or necessity."People have been utilizing credit, obviously, to a much less extent," MasterCard Chief Financial Officer Martina Hund-Mejean said in an interview.Meanwhile, rival Visa Inc.'s results not only showed a huge profit gain, but also its dominance of debit, which consumers use more often to buy necessities like food and gasoline. That shielded the San Francisco company's stock from the session's widespread declines. Stocks
tumble on worries about jobs, European debt Stocks buckled
Thursday under the growing belief that the global
economy is weaker than many investors expected
and likely to stop companies from hiring. The Dow
Jones industrials briefly traded below 10,000 for
the first time in three months.A flood of bad news,
including rising debt levels in European nations
and an unexpected jump in the number of Americans filing
for unemployment
benefits,
had investors pulling money out of assets like
stocks and commodities that look increasingly
risky. Fears of more disappointing news Friday, when the government
issues its
January employment report, contributed to the slide. 2/3/10 Pelosi, Congressional Delegation Take Heat For $1 Million Climate Summit Trip Although the climate summit in Copenhagen took place in December, it has recently emerged that the large congressional delegation headed by Nancy Pelosi charged taxpayers some $1 million for the trip. Newly filed congressional expense reports indicated that more than 150 people—including legislators, staff and even some family members—made the trip at a cost of $2,200 a day, CBS News reported. Further CBS investigation found that 59 House and Senate staff flew commercial to the Danish capital, costing taxpayers $408,064, while the rest used three military jets, which cost $168,351 for the flight time.2/2/10 The Coming Grab at Your Wealth and Retirement If you cannot or will not physically leave the United States, then -- for the safety and welfare of your family -- please consider moving to the few states that are fiscally prudent...at least, comparatively speaking. Compared to what? Consider New York and Florida as just two examples. From the New York Daily News: Sucking on cigarettes and slurping sugary sodas could get a whole lot more expensive under Gov. Paterson's new budget proposal.But even the "sin tax" hikes on top of a $1 billion boost in taxes and fees won't raise enough revenue to stave off sweeping cuts in school and health care spending in the $134 billion 2010-2011 budget. Paterson reported stated, "We cannot keep spending money that we do not have." Apparently the STOP SPENDING! alternative has not occurred to him.
2/1/10 Obama's budget includes $100-billion jobs plan Reporting from Washington - President Obama today will propose a $3.8-trillion federal budget that includes a $100-billion jobs package, more education spending and higher taxes on families earning more than $250,000 a year. The budgetary blueprint for fiscal 2011, which starts Oct. 1, is 3% more than the government is spending this year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.The White House envisions a $1.267-trillion deficit in fiscal year 2011, smaller than this year's projected $1.56 trillion. That would be 8.3% of the gross domestic product, down from 10.6% this year. The White House Budget Office forecasts that it could be trimmed to less than 4% of the GDP by 2015. Daddy Warbucks Vs. The Banksters When in the history of the United States has there been a credible movement to remove both the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the US Treasury? The answer is never since the invention of the private bank, the US Federal Reserve.I have been telling you for months that there is a war going on between the Banksters and Daddy Warbucks. This is best understood as the desire to bring the power of the Federal Reserve into the Oval office, not by trusting an appointee but by absolute control over the appointee. Failing that the plan is to emasculate the Fed. The late Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard wrote that U.S. politics since 1900, when William Jennings Bryan narrowly lost the presidency, has been a struggle between two competing banking giants, the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The parties would sometimes change hands, but the puppeteers pulling the strings were always one of these two big-money players. No popular third party candidate had a real chance at winning, because the bankers had the exclusive power to create the national money supply and therefore held the winning cards. In 2000, the Rockefellers and the Morgans joined forces, when JPMorgan and Chase Manhattan merged to become JPMorgan Chase Co. Today the battling banking titans are JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that gained notoriety for its speculative practices in the 1920s. In 1928, it launched the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp., a closed-end fund similar to a Ponzi scheme. The fund failed in the stock market crash of 1929, marring the firm's reputation for years afterwards. Former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers all came from Goldman, and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rose through the ranks of government as a Summers/Rubin protégé. One commentator called the U.S. Treasury “Goldman Sachs South.” Goldman’s superpower status comes from something more than just access to the money spigots of the banking system. It actually has the ability tomanipulate markets. Formerly just an investment bank, in 2008 Goldman magically transformed into a bank holding company. That gave it access to the Federal Reserve’s lending window; but at the same time it remained an investment bank, aggressively speculating in the markets. The upshot was that it can now borrow massive amounts of money at virtually 0% interest, and it can use this money not only to speculate for its own account but to bend markets to its will. 1/29/10 COLLAPSE WILL COME SOONER THAN WE THINK Pasadena Playhouse will close Feb. 7 The Pasadena Playhouse will close Feb. 7 after the final performance of its current production of "Camelot," leaving its future in jeopardy as company leaders explore ways out of its financial woes, including a possible bankruptcy filing.They
Don't Own Shovels, Crowbars Or Even Gloves! (excerpt....please
read the rest of the story at the link) The ever
exploding twin towers of US debt and trade deficits
are to be expected from a country that's engaged
in two foreign invasions, maintains over 170 military
bases overseas, gives trillions of dollars to foreign
bankers, yet produces nothing anyone in the world
wants or can use. With corruption, graft, fraud,
deception, ignorance, and mismanagement, political
regime after political regime has finally collapsed
the US economy, and our middle-class along with
it, all by the careful design of the International
Monetary/Banking Cartel. Soon, we'll be hearing
of the glories of "Recapitalization" from
the chattering-class of Cartel mouth-pieces,
those who perform on television as talking-heads,
that pretend to analyze the day's news. 1/25/10 $6.7
billion to come by June Two days before his State of
the Union address, President Barack Obama got
some welcome good news from General Motors, as the car-maker
announced that it would pay back $6.7 billion in TARP bailout
funds in full by June.
Obama has acknowledged that the bailouts that
he says were necessary to save the economy were
politically unpopular, so any repayment comes as good news
for the administration. Wall Street Firms Cut Pay, ‘Buckling’ to Washington Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank slashed their compensation in the fourth quarter, responding to political pressure that will probably persist as details of bonuses for their top executives emerge in coming weeks. The three Wall Street firms set aside $39.9 billion for pay in 2009, below the 2007 record of $44.7 billion. The total fell short of the $46.1 billion five analysts expected this month and is almost $10 billion less than what some analysts estimated in October. “There’s no question that Wall Street got the message from Washington,” said Michael W. Robinson, a senior vice president of Levick Strategic Communications and former head of public affairs at the Securities and Exchange Commission. “But positioning the big banks with big bonuses as the bad guys has played well for politicians, and they are likely going to keep coming back to it. To some extent, banks are just going to have to be prepared for that.”
RUNNING SCARED ...Key senators lead charge for Bernanke.....THIRTEEN are againt him. Some senators on the Banking panel, such as Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), have indicated they could change their mind. Lawmakers who oppose Bernanke other than those on the Banking panel include Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on "Face the Nation" Sunday that he was "very skeptical" about Bernanke's nomination, but also was wary of the effect that turning down the Fed chairman for another term could have. "The fact is that Chairman Bernanke was in charge when we hit the iceberg. And his policies were partially responsible for the meltdown that we experienced. I think that he should be held accountable," McCain said. When asked if he was backing or opposing Bernanke, McCain said, "I'm both concerned and leaning against." (OUR NOTE HERE: Why oh why do we keep ANYONE in charge when they have been proven to be not only incompetent, but have been part of the ruination of American finances. The man clearly DOES NOT KNOW WHAT HE IS DOING!..........why any of our congressmen/women, sentators would keep him or others into positions of power like this is the really BIG QUESTION! When we have our own supreme court voting that corporations are now considered individuals????....then we have a problem Houston......big problems!) Where does the buck stop??!!! (besides out of American's pockets) 1/20/10 Strategic
Defaults and the Foreclosure CrisisNearly a year after
the Obama administration unveiled its ambitious housing rescue
program, foreclosure tallies continue to break records. Foreclosure
filings were reported on more than 2.8 million properties
in 2009, up 21 percent from the previous year and 120 percent
from 2007, according to RealtyTrac. With nearly 10 percent
of mortgages now delinquent--which is also a new record--even
more homeowners appear headed for foreclosure this year. "A
massive supply of delinquent loans continues to loom over
the housing market," RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio
said in a statement. "Many of those delinquencies will
end up in the foreclosure process in 2010 and beyond." 1/18/10 Goldman Holders Miffed at Bonuses Some of the largest shareholders in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have urged the Wall Street firm to reduce the size of its bonus pool, arguing that it should pass along more of its blockbuster earnings to investors, according to people familiar with the situation.The investors hold tens of millions of shares in Goldman Sachs, which is on track to make the biggest employee payout in the firm's 140-year history. Their complaints in private conversations with the company and at analyst meetings show how anger over its big-money culture is spilling into the ranks of investors who typically shy away ... 1/14/10 Middlemen got $125 million-plus from investors for arranging CalPERS deals Private investment funds paid more than $125 million in fees to scores of middlemen who helped them win business with California's giant public pension fund, a practice that has been the focus of a lengthy investigation, according to documents released this morning.The California Public Employees' Retirement System has invested in private funds represented by the middlemen, or placement agents, for more than a decade, but today CalPERS released thousands of pages of documents that offered the first significant details about the widespread practice. Among those who were paid to seek business deals with the public pension system were two former CalPERS board members, Alfred J.R. Villalobos and William D. Crist, the records show.
The bankers — whose companies collectively received more than $100 billion in taxpayer assistance to weather the crisis — offered no regrets for executive pay that is now likely to increase as a result of their survival. They did say they are correcting some compensation practices that could lead to excessive risk-taking. The tension at the first hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was evident from the outset. 1/12/10 Bankergate: Emails Expose Criminal Financial Dictatorship At WorkExplosive emails released last week could see Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner become embroiled in criminal charges for his role in a cover up that exposes the monumental criminality behind the $182.3 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. In November and December 2008, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York instructed the bailed out AIG to hide from the public details regarding payments the insurance giant made to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA. Using Fed secured taxpayer bailout money, AIG paid several banks 100 percent of the face value of credit-default swaps, as other financial institutions were negotiating deep discounts for the unregulated paper assets that do not have to be backed by cash. The decision to pay the banks in full may have cost AIG, and therefore taxpayers, at least $13 billion over the odds.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan will decide whether the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. In August, a federal judge ordered that the information be released, responding to a request by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News. 1/11/10 2010: Giant Gathering Storm Clouds The year 2008 bore my mark as the year the system broke. A public article addressed the issues, laid out before the breakdown occurred in September of that year. The consequences for the many failures, the desperate nationalizations, the hasty scrambles to put financial sewage under USGovt ownership, the realization of TARP as a vast slush fund for illegitimate bank rescues, the official monetization plans put forth to prevent bond implosions, and much more occurred in the year 2009 as a recognized aftermath. Here we are in 2010 and the threats must again be laid out. A prelude was offered in an mid-December article entitled "Full Circle of Govt Debt Default" (CLICK HERE) where a global sovereign debt ruin in vicious circle was displayed the sequence that started in the Untied States and will end in the Untied States. Rather than make specific forecasts of extreme events, a list is presented much like a smorgasbord. The odds are 100:1 in favor at least one extreme event occurring in this current calendar year in my view. The odds are very high in favor of several events taking place this year. The key here is that a great many extremely damaging and highly disruptive events loom like giant gathering storm clouds that meet, complete with lightning displays. More terrestrial types might consider that a great many land mine explosives lie in the wide pathways ahead. At least a few extreme craters will be formed. A few financial edifices will be toppled. Great changes come, especially to the global power structures. This time around, the stakes are bigger, and entire nations will face debt failure and national realignment. The ripple effects will reshape the global financial system. (excerpt, the rest of the story............at the link, if you really want the red pill) The
Recession Is Over - The Depression Just Beginning By
Stephen Lendman 1/10/10 Dubai builder's shares fall after Abu Dhabi deal DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Investors battered shares of Arabtec Holding on Sunday after the Dubai construction giant, which helped build the world's tallest tower, agreed to sell a controlling stake to a state-run investment fund in neighboring Abu Dhabi. Arabtec shares plunged 6.9 percent on the first full trading day since details of the deal with Aabar Investments became public. Analysts say the investment's structure could cut the value of stakes held by existing shareholders. Despite investors' doubts, Arabtec could benefit over the long term1/8/10 Washington
Will Turn to the Bankers To Finance U.S. Debt; T-Bills in
Trouble With foreign governments like China announcing
they will be slowing their purchases of U.S. bonds this year,
Washington is going to have to look even more to the banksters
to pay its bills and finance its massive debt. 1/7/10 Geithner's New York Fed Pushed AIG To Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret This post was updated at 2:15 p.m. to reflect new information obtained by the Huffington Post regarding an ongoing investigation into these matters.An arm of the Federal Reserve, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told bailed-out insurance giant AIG to withhold key details from the public about overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs. The sordid tale unfolds in a series of e-mails between the company and the New York Fed obtained by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and first publicly disclosed by Bloomberg News. The matter is the subject of an "ongoing review" by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program(SIGTARP), communications director Kristine Belisle said in an e-mail to the Huffington Post. SIGTARP is headed by Neil M. Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor. Taxpayers have committed about $182 billion to AIG. The under-regulated firm developed and sold complicated derivatives products without having adequate capital in place if those bets went bad, which they eventually did. The firm nearly single-handedly wrecked the entire financial system.....the rest of the story at the link..... (ARE YOU MAD YET?.......send a pink slip to Geithner!) 1/6/10 Investment Forecast for 2010: The Dollar’s Demise Sets the Table1/5/10 Personal Bankruptcy Filings Rising Fast The number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy rose by nearly a third in 2009, a surge largely driven by foreclosures and job losses.And more people are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which liquidates assets to pay off some debts and absolves the filers of others. That is significant because a 2005 overhaul of federal bankruptcy laws aimed to encourage Chapter 13 filings, which force consumers to sign onto debt-repayment plans in exchange for keeping certain assets. The changes were designed to make it more difficult for people to shed their debt, particularly in a Chapter 7 filling. A "means" test, for example, was introduced to separate those who could afford to repay their debt from those who couldn't. A Chapter 7 filing is off the table if the means test determines a person is able to pay back at least a portion of the debt after it is restructured. 1/1/2010 Goldman Sachs denies betting against its clients on CDOs In a rare statement of defence, the American investment bank has offered a detailed explanation of its dealings in mortgage-backed products, particularly regarding collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), in the years preceding the financial crisis. The explanation was prompted by an article in the New York Times in which former Goldman employees and debt experts claimed that the bank knew the CDOs it was designing and selling to clients were highly risky. The sources claimed that rather than warning clients of the dangers, Goldman spent millions of dollars "short-selling" the instruments, reaping vast rewards when they imploded.12/29/09 Broadcom to pay $160.5 million to settle stockholder suits Irvine chip maker Broadcom Corp. has agreed to pay $160.5 million in cash to settle shareholder lawsuits over its stock-option accounting practices.The settlement comes after U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney earlier this month dismissed criminal securities fraud charges against Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III and William J. Ruehle, the former chief financial officer, and he threw out co-founder Henry Samueli's guilty plea to a charge of lying to federal regulators in the backdating investigation.
12/20/09 Obama approves aid to Israel, PA Jewish state receives $2.775 billion as part of agreement granting it $30 billion in coming decade; Palestinians get $500 million for first time. US President Barack Obama this week signed the 2010 foreign aid budget law which includes $2.775 billion in security aid to Israel. This is the second year the budget is transferred to the Jewish state as part of understandings that the American assistance to Israel in the coming decade will total $30 billion.The approved budget comprises, for the first time, $500 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, including $100 million for the training of Palestinian security forces by American general Keith Dayton. The aid will be handed over to the Palestinians under the condition that the American taxpayers' money will only be transferred to a Palestinian government whose members accept the conditions of the international Quartet – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The conditions include recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and accepting past agreements signed with the Jewish state. Recently, the NYC District Attorneys Office was Where all the money goes...Two sets of books/ The government take over of the US economy. originally produced on January 8, 2000 by Walter Burien. The real accounting is contained in what's called Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR) which are not only not made available to the public, their very existence is never mentioned by the news media. Why? Trillions of dollars pays for a lot of corruption. Every time an elected official stands before you and tells you the government is out of money and they have to raise taxes, he or she is lying through their teeth. 12/19/09
There Is No Way Out Of This Box.... Go ahead folks - tell me how we can simply ignore this. How we can pretend that the outstanding debt does not have to come back down to reasonable levels. That these levels are "reasonable" - and that these rates of growth are "reasonable." This is the "magic of compounding" writ large - and in a fashion that is going to inflict severe pain on our population - and the longer we wait to deal with it, the worse it will be. Bernanke, who was at The Fed during Greenspan's time there, should have used his "education" - his claimed knowledge of economics - to make a lot of noise about this and demand that interest rates NOT be lowered to further encourage more debt-based consumption. He did exactly the opposite.
Asian Stocks Fall for Second Week; Chinese Developers Lead Drop Asian stocks fell for a second week, led by Chinese developers on concern the nation will step up measures to curb property speculation. Japanese banks rose on optimism they’ll have at least a decade to implement stricter capital rules, Greentown China Holdings Ltd., a real estate developer in the country, tumbled 18 percent. Mongolia Energy Corp. sank 22 percent on speculation the Hong Kong-listed exploration company will report a first-half earnings loss next week. Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Japan’s third-largest bank by market value, soared 13 percent. Axa Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd. rallied 12 percent after National Australia Bank Ltd. offered A$13.3 billion ($11.8 billion) to buy unit of French insurer Axa SA. “China’s asset markets are a ponzi scheme,” former Morgan Stanley chief Asian economist Andy Xie said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Hong Kong. “Property is heading for one huge bust that will take a year and a half to unfold.” Senate sends big Pentagon budget bill to Obama The Senate is sending President Obama a critical budget bill that combines money for the Pentagon with additional help for the jobless. Senators meeting today during a snow storm are clearing their plate of unfinished business as the legislative calendar runs out for 2009. The 88-10 vote means the Senate can return to the acrimonious debate on healthcare. Democrats hope to pass that bill before Christmas.The $626-billion defense bill contains $128 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and a 3.4 percent pay raise for the military. It includes two-month extensions of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless. There are healthcare subsidies for people out of work, along with money for highways and transit systems. 12/15/09 Obama Far Outdoes Bush in Escalating War -- The Numbers Will Surprise You Increasing numbers of deployed soldiers, mercenaries and drones all add up to Obama being more of a war president than Bush, in terms of hard numbers. As Obama announced plans for escalating the war effort, it has become clear that the Obama Illusion has taken yet another horrifying turn. Before explaining how the Af-Pak surge is a direct attack on the US public, let’s peer through the illusion and look at the reality of the situation. Now that the much despised George W. Bush is out of the way and a more popular figurehead is doing PR for Dick Cheney’s right-hand military leader Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is leading his second AF-Pak surge now, and with long time Bush family confidant Robert Gates still running the Defense Department, the masters of war have never had it so good. The whole story at the link.....please read...(.this is YOUR MONEY, YOUR BOTHERS, YOUR SISTERS, FATHERS AND MOTHERS AND FRIENDS ...AS WELL AS THE COUNTRIES WE HAVE 'INVADED'....ALL THE INNOCENTS WHOSE LIVES AND HOMELANDS ARE DESTROYED..... ) Senate to vote on $1.1 trillion spending bill Senate Democrats overcame a Republican filibuster to clear the way for a vote Sunday on a huge end-of-year $1.1 trillion spending bill that gives budget increases far exceeding inflation to much of the government. The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 60-34 on Saturday to end the GOP filibuster that threatened to hold up the legislation. The final vote would send the measure to President Barack Obama. The 1,000-plus-page bill brings together six of the 12 annual spending bills that Congress had been unable to pass separately because of partisan roadblocks even though the current budget year began Oct. 1. The measure pays for Medicare and Medicaid benefits, and boosts spending for the Education Department, the State Department, theDepartment of Health and Human Services and others. Right after the vote Sunday, the Senate planned to return to legislation to overhaul the health care system, an issue that Democrats hope to reach consensus on in the final days of this year. In the coming week, Congress may try to take a defense spending bill and attach a measure that would raise the $12.1 trillion debt ceiling and initiate new spending and tax cut efforts to stimulate jobs.
12/11/09 House approves massive overhaul of financial regulations The broadest reworking of the rules since the Great Depression would create a new consumer protection agency and give government added powers to dismantle firms in order to protect the economy. Reporting from Washington - The House voted 223 to 202 today to approve the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, a sprawling measure that would create a new agency to protect consumers and give the government broad new powers to dismantle large firms that pose risks to the economy. (oh, another agency to deal with....are these these same people running the 'cash for clunkers' program???.....Oh I feel so much better ...don't you?..oh, and you who work for large firms or have them.......don't you feel all warm and cozy???....oye ve!......and how much is this going to cost us?...where is the funding for this?...and what pocket of 'ours' are they going to pick to get the funds????....think about it!) 12/10/09 Obama's jobs package draws fire from left and right Reporting from Washington - As President Obama began selling his new jobs package, he was pressed Wednesday from both the left and the right, with Republicans warning about ballooning deficits and black lawmakers seeking bolder action on an unemployment rate that approaches 16% for African Americans.12/9/09 Audit: Taxpayers lose $61B on AIG, auto bailoutsThe Treasury Department is acknowledging for the first time that it lost $61 billion on two key programs designed to stabilize the economy after the largest financial crisis in decades. The government is losing more than $30 billion on lifelines extended to insurance giant American International Group Inc., according to Treasury data released Wednesday in an audit by the Government Accountability Office. It also is losing more than $30 billion on rescues of struggling automakers Chrysler and General Motors. Treasury says the losses are offset in part by profits earned from bank bailouts. It says the bank bailouts will net taxpayers $19.5 billion. Over all, the bailouts are projected to cost taxpayers $41.5 billion. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has extended the $700 billion financial bailout program until October, setting up a struggle between Democrats who favor using some of the leftover money to help generate jobs and Republicans who say it should be used to shrink soaring budget deficits. The administration insists the bailout fund is still needed to prevent further turmoil in the banking system. In announcing the decision Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said extending the program also will help homeowners struggling to avoid losing homes to foreclosures and small businesses having trouble getting loans. The administration is now projecting the losses to the government from the bailout program will be around $141 billion — $200 billion less than it estimated two months ago. President Barack Obama said the freed-up money can help reduce the record-high federal budget deficit and "invest in job creation on Main Street rather than Wall Street." .......................UH HUH!........and if you believe that....I have a bridge I wanna sell ya!
12/7/09 FDIC Shuts Down AmTrust Bank, 5 Others: 130 Failed Banks So Far In 2009 Regulators have shut down six more banks, bringing to 130 the number of U.S. banks to be brought down so far in 2009 by recession and mountains of bad debt.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over Ohio's AmTrust Bank, the fourth-largest bank to fail this year, with about $12 billion in assets and $8 billion in deposits. The Cleveland-based bank's failure is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund an estimated $2 billion. 12/6/09 Economy 101: Long-Term Unemployment Worsens Within the vast pool of 15.4 million unemployed workers, a split is emerging: The number of long-term jobless -- those out of work six months or longer -- is growing, while the number of short-term unemployed is declining. The trend highlights a considerable challenge for the economy and policymakers: finding a way for the millions of Americans laid off last fall and early this year to get back to work.The data, buried in Friday's unemployment report, are stark: The number of Americans out of work for 27 weeks or more reached 5.9 million last month, the most on records dating from 1948. That's 18 percent more than just three months ago, when the total was just below 5 million. 11/29/09 I'm Allowed
to Rob You! Want to
see a piece of paper that gives me the RIGHT to rob you? 11/27/09 Stocks slump as news of Dubai debt crisis sinks in The Dow Jones industrial average closes down 154 points, a slight recovery from earlier losses. World markets react strongly to Dubai's announcement that it would freeze its debt repayments. IMF sells 10 tonnes of gold to Sri Lanka The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday it had sold 10 tonnes of gold to Sri Lanka's central bank for 375 million dollars, as part of a restructuring of IMF financial resources. It was the third IMF sale of gold in a month as the Washington-based institution, the world's third-largest official holder of the precious metal, seeks to reduce its dependence on lending revenue and bolster its finances amid the global economic crisis. 11/26/09 Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents -- spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history. In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion -- $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush's term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama's. That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush's for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office. Dubai request for debt 'standstill' raises fear DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Just a year after the global downturn derailed Dubai's explosive growth, the city is now so swamped in debt that it's asking for a six-month reprieve on paying its bills — causing a drop on world markets Thursday and raising questions about Dubai's reputation as a magnet for international investment. The fallout came swiftly and was felt globally after Wednesday statement that Dubai's main development engine, Dubai World, would ask creditors for a "standstill" on paying back its $60 billion debt until at least May. The company's real estate arm, Nakheel — whose projects include the palm-shaped island in the Gulf — shoulders the bulk of money due to banks, investment houses and outside development contractors. COMMENTS: duh!........has anyone else wondered 'what the heck are they thinking"? 11/18/09 Sen. Dodd on Warpath Against Fed A DEMOCRAT SENATOR is defending sweeping financial reforms he recently unveiled, which would strip the Federal Reserve of its broad and unchallenged authority while reining in a greedy Wall Street. On Nov. 10, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, introduced his financial overhaul bill called the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2009, a massive bill that comes in at just over 1,100 pages. U.S. Mortgage Delinquencies Reach a Record High Nearly one in 10 homeowners with mortgages were at least one payment behind in the third quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday Government Web site says stimulus created jobs in nonexistent districts The federal Web site that tracks spending from the Obama administration's $787 billion economic stimulus program reports that the program has created thousands of jobs in congressional districts that don't exist.According to www.recovery.gov, California has seven more congressional districts than the 53 it actually has, including a 99th District. In South Carolina, the site reported Tuesday evening, $40.7 million in economic stimulus funds have gone to seven spurious congressional districts, including 00 and 25. South Carolina has six U.S. House districts. More than $98 billion in improper gov't payments More than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted, much of it on questionable claims for tax credits and Medicare benefits, representing an increase of $26 billion from the previous year.In all, about 5 percent of spending in federal programs in fiscal year 2009 was improper, according to new details of a government financial report that were released Tuesday. Saying the overall error rate was similar in 2008, officials attributed the $26 billion jump to some changes in how to define improper spending as well as an increase in overall spending due to the recession. 11/13/09 Obama eyes domestic spending freeze The Obama administration has alerted domestic agencies to plan for a freeze or even a 5 percent cut in their budgets, part of an election-year push to rein in record deficits that threaten the economy and Democrats' political prospects next fall. China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities, has expressed concern about the size of U.S. deficits. U.S. policymakers worry that alarm over deficits could push foreigners into cutting back on their purchases of Treasury debt. President Barack Obama will visit China as part of his current tour of Asia. White House budget director Peter Orszag said Friday that it is imperative to start curbing the flow of red ink in coming years so as not to erode the fledgling economic recovery and raise interest rates. But he called it a balancing act and said acting too fast could undercut the recovery. 11/11/09 I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs The Sunday Times gains unprecedented access to the world's most powerful, and most secretive, investment bank. Number 85 Broad Street, a dull, rust-coloured office block in lower Manhattan, doesn’t look like a place to stop and stare, and that’s just the way the people who work there like it. 11/6/09 What recovery? Unemployment shoots past 10 percent Just when it was beginning to look a little better, the economy relapsed Friday with a return to double-digit unemployment for only the second time since World War II and warnings that next year will be even worse than previously thought. The jobless rate rocketed to 10.2 percent in October, the highest since early 1983, dealing a psychological blow to Americans as they prepare holiday shopping lists. It was another worse-than-expected report casting a shadow over the struggling recovery. 11/4/09 Fannie Mae to rent out homes instead foreclosing Thousands of borrowers on the verge of foreclosure will soon have the option of renting their homes from Fannie Mae, under a policy announced Thursday. The government-controlled company, through its new "Deed for Lease" program, will allow borrowers to transfer ownership to Fannie Mae and sign a one-year lease, with month-to-month extensions after that. The program will "eliminate some of the uncertainty of foreclosure, keeps families and tenants in their homes during a transitional period, and helps to stabilize neighborhoods and communities," Jay Ryan, a Fannie Mae vice president, said in a statement. Feds: 14 charged in insider trading case Criminal charges have been filed against 14 people, including attorneys and Wall Street professionals, in a widening $53 million insider trading case that has already snared one of the richest men in America, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The actions raise to 20 the number of people who have been charged in the case first disclosed last month with the arrests of Galleon Group founder and hedge fund operator Raj Rajaratnam and five others. After a flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went: The $787 billion stimulus bill was passed in February and was promised as a job saver and economy booster. Here is where some of the money went: - $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state. - $30 million for a spring training baseball complex for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. - $11 million for Microsoft to build a bridge connecting its two headquarter campuses in Redmond, Wash., which are separated by a highway. - $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day. - $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway. - $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women. - $2.3 million for the U.S. Forest Service to rear large numbers of arthropods, including the Asian longhorned beetle, the nun moth and the woolly adelgid. - $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla. - $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla. - $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades. - $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased. - $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn. - $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades. - $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased. - $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn. - $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill. - $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota. - $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan. - $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money - $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio. - $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago. - $356,000 for Indiana University to study childhood comprehension of foreign accents compared with native speech. - $983,952 for street beautification in Ann Arbor, Mich., including decorative lighting, trees, benches and bike paths. - $148,438 for Washington State University to analyze the use of marijuana in conjunction with medications like morphine. - $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri - $3.1 million to transform a canal barge into a floating museum that will travel the Erie Canal in New York state. - $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine, including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival. - $71,000 for a hybrid car to be used by student drivers in Colchester, Vt., as well as a plug-in hybrid for town workers decked out with a sign touting the vehicle's energy efficiency. - $1 million for Portland, Ore., to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles. Sources: News reports, Office of the Senate Minority Leader, Office of Sen. Tom Coburn 10/30/09 Market slide resumes as consumers pull in their horns After a one-day respite, the stock market is getting pounded again today as investors worry that suddenly cautious consumers won’t spend enough to justify higher stock prices.Separate measures this morning showed both the spending and confidence levels of consumers dropping in recent weeks amid mounting job losses and fear that the inchoate economic recovery could falter as government stimulus efforts wind down. California National Bank expected to be seized tonight Bank regulators are expected later today to take over Los Angeles-based California National Bank in what would mark the fourth-largest bank failure in the country this year, according to people familiar with the situation.The bank, a unit of FBOP Corp., is expected to be acquired by the U.S. Bank unit of Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, with no losses to be incurred by depositors, the sources said. The branches would reopen as usual Saturday or Monday as U.S. Bank branches. Gov't says stimulus saved or created 650,000 jobs About 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying it is on track to reach the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.(I'm sorry....and how MANY MILLIONS OF JOBS HAVE BEEN LOST?.......sorry, this doesn't even begin to cut it Mr. Obama!) 10/24/09 Housing:
Best Recovery Bets The average home price is
forecast to plummet over the next two years. But these 5
cities are predicted to post gains. 10/23/09 Bank failures top 100, only part of industry woes The cascade of bank failures this year surpassed 100 on Friday, the most in nearly two decades. And the trouble in the banking system from bad loans and the recession goes even deeper than the number suggests.Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other banks remain open even though they are as weak as many that have been shuttered. Regulators are seizing banks slowly and selectively — partly to avoid inciting panic and partly because buyers for bad banks are hard to find 10/22/09 7,000 unemployed Americans lose their lifeline every day Another day, another 7,000 people run out of unemployment benefits.One month after the House passed a bill extending unemployment benefits, the issue is still being debated in the Senate.(you notice they take no time at all in voting themselves higher pay raises and benefits!!!!!!!!) 10/20/09 Prosecutor: Birmingham mayor took $235K in bribes Deeply in debt and fond of fancy clothes and jewelry, Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford took tens of thousands in cash and expensive gifts from a politically connected investment banker who made millions in county bond business in return, prosecutors said Tuesday. Revised formula puts 1 in 6 Americans in poverty A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure. The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate. The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week. That's higher than the 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million, figure made available recently under the original government formula. California
sues bank, alleging fraud against state's 2 largest pension
funds Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown says Boston-based State
Street Bank and Trust overcharged CalPERS and the state pension
fund for teachers for foreign currency trades. The suit seeks
more than $200 million.Reporting from Sacramento -
California sued State Street Bank and Trust today for allegedly committing "unconscionable
fraud" against the state's two largest public pension funds, and seeks more
than $200 million in overcharges and penalties. The Rich Have Stolen the Economy Bloomberg reports that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and other Wall Street firms. Bloomberg reports that none of these aides faced Senate confirmation. Yet, they are overseeing the handout of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds to their former employers. 10/17/09 Government
by Goldman Sachs "The Financial Services
Modernization Act.' 10/16/09 California job losses continue to climb Job losses for September are higher than expected and almost six times greater than in August, state officials say. L.A. County joblessness soars to 12.7%. Bank of America loses $2.24B as loan losses rise Bank of America Corp. said Friday it lost more than $2.2 billion in the third quarter as loan losses kept rising, providing further evidence that consumers are still struggling to pay their bills.
Geithner aides made millions on Wall Street Obama administration officials now working on fixing and regulating the financial system were beneficiaries of several million dollars in pay from Wall Street and private equity companies, it has been revealed. Financial disclosure forms show that prior to joining the government, Gene Sperling, a senior Treasury adviser, was paid $887,727 by Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches to companies that included Stanford Group, the company run by Sir Allen Stanford, who has since been charged with fraud. Treasury Alert! America’s Last Great Bubble Is About to Explode Chuck Butler. Since its inception on April 24th, 1917, U.S. Treasury bonds have been heralded, applauded and embraced the world over. They saved America from two World Wars, a depression and several recessions. They funded our empire. But now, they’re about to rip us apart and take the rest of the world down with us. 10/2/09 Before the Station fire, a cost-cutting memo Three weeks before the deadly Station fire erupted, the U.S. Forest Service issued a cost-cutting order to reduce its use of state and local firefighters, documents and interviews show. Reinforcements from Los Angeles County were scaled back early in the battle against the fire in the Angeles National Forest, and federal officials now say they are investigating the actions that allowed the blaze to rage out of control. (and the cost now is ???....because of penny pinching short-sighted-ness!) Unemployment
rate rises to 9.8% as employers cut more jobs than
expected Reporting from Washington -
The nation's labor market took a turn for the
worse in September as employers eliminated a net 263,000
jobs, far more than expected and reversing a pattern of steadily
declining payroll losses in recent months, the Labor Department
said today. 9/20/09 Note greets Sacramento T.G.I. Friday's customers: Restaurant is closed Ten T.G.I Friday's restaurant locations in Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest were closed over the weekend, the latest in the persistent toll of business ills blamed on the economy.(Oh yeah....psssst, dont' tell them but the President says it is getting better...uh-huh!) Last week, 70 Jack in the Box restaurants in Central California were closed as the local franchisee, Kobra Associates Inc., filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California. The Jack in the Box restaurant re-opened Friday afternoon The Sins Of Seven By Seven Are you aware that the US dollar is trading as of today, September 17, 2009 at 0.6580 against the Euro? If you are American, planning a trip to the EU, you had better double check your credit card limit because it will be 35% less than you think it is in the EU. It will actually be even more severe because Americans cannot run their cards into the red negative limits in the EU. The card limits stop well short of what can be done in the US. The dollar is in free fall because of two major reasons: 1.) the irresponsible spending and debt levels of the US government; and 2.) central banks and major holders of dollars are moving away and reducing their holdings. 9/17/09 CAUTION: Monetary System Collapse It WILL happen if we don't change course. Tickerguy shows you the numbers, depicted in graphs. Every man, woman and child in America needs to see this video. Come check out the text at http://market-ticker.org/archives/143...
9/10/09 The day before 9/11 vid $2.3 trillion missing Overspending on Debit Cards Is a Boon for Banks Banks and credit unions have long pitched debit cards as a convenient and prudent way to buy. But a growing number are now allowing consumers to exceed their balances — for a price.Banks market it as overdraft protection, and the fees it generates have become an important source of income for the banking industry at a time of big losses in other operations. This year alone, banks are expected to bring in $27 billion by covering overdrafts on checking accounts, typically on debit card purchases or checks that exceed a customer's balance.In fact, banks now make more covering overdrafts than they do on penalty fees from credit cards. 9/8/09
8/22/09 Economic wisdom, The great American money hole 8/18/09 Even Laguna Beach isn't recession-proof In the land of hillside mansions and ocean views, there are food banks. And the recipients aren't all low-income families. Some are white-collar workers who have fallen on hard times. WHY ARE WE BANKRUPT?The Costs of Illegal Immigration total is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR AND IF YOU'RE LIKE ME HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY; IT IS $338,300,000,000.00 WHICH WOULD BE ENOUGH TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY.
8/17/09 Stocks plunge as investors worry about consumers Investors' rising fears about consumer spending are turning stocks into a risky investment again. Stocks fell by the sharpest amount in six weeks and Treasury prices soared Monday as investors around the world feared that consumers are too anxious to spend the economy into recovery. The losses on stock exchanges extended the heavy selling that began Friday with a disappointing reading on consumer confidence. And bond investors, once again searching for a safe investment, bought heavily into Treasurys. (and just 'what' are the consumers supposed to use to spend?? more credit card debt?...I don't think so....we finally are 'getting it'! ) 8/16/09 Chicago: City Government Closed For Business On Monday If you planned to check out a library book, visit a city clinic or have your garbage picked up on Monday, you're out of luck. The City of Chicago will basically be closed for business on Aug. 17, a reduced-service day in which most city employees are off without pay, according to a release from the Office of Budget and Management. City Hall, public libraries, health clinics and most city offices will be closed.The 2009 budget anticipates saving $8.3 million due to the reduced-service days. (of course in the long run...since people lost salaries, that cuts down on the amount of commerce done in the city [and other places] and it cuts down on income taxes to the feds and the state....domino effect...but who is counting?..Obviously 'no one') 8/10/09 Three More US Banks CollapseBy Patrick O’Connor US regulators closed another three banks last Friday: First State Bank and Community National Bank, based in Florida, and Oregon’s Community First Bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is expected to pay out $185 million to cover closure costs and insured deposits for the three institutions. A total of 72 US banks have collapsed so far this year, up from 25 in all of 2008 and three in 2007.
7/26/09 *****Fed Planning 15-Fold Increase In US Monetary Base***** The fed is planning moves that would more than double its balance-sheet assets by September to $4.5 trillion from $1.9 trillion. Whether expressing approval or concern over the fed’s intentions, most commentators fail to understand the real magnitude of the projected expansion of the US monetary base because they don’t take into account the amount of dollars circulating abroad. At least 70 percent of all US currency is held outside the country, and this means the US monetary base is considerably smaller than the fed’s overall balance sheet. Liquidity is gone vid The #1 question. Here's a reality check 7/23/09 The National Debt Road Trip A great visual video to show how much we are in debt and how we have been getting there up till now, and how fast we are going and in what direction......real fast! HOW CALIFORNIA COULD TURN ITS IOU’S INTO DOLLARS California has over $17 billion on deposit in banks that have refused to honor its IOUs, forcing legislators to accept crippling budget cuts. These austerity measures are unnecessary. If the state were to deposit its money in its own state-owned bank, it could have enough credit to solve its budget crisis with funds to spare.
7/20/09 7/18/09 Regulators shut banks in Calif., Ga. and SD Regulators on Friday shut two banks in California and two smaller banks in Georgia and South Dakota, boosting to 57 the number of federally insured banks to fail this year.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the four banks. The two biggest were Temecula Valley Bank, in Temecula, Calif., with $1.5 billion in assets and deposits of about $1.3 billion as of May 31 and Vineyard Bank, National Association, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. It had assets of $1.9 billion and $1.6 billion in deposits as of March 31. U.S. Mint gold, silver coin sales 'temporarily suspended' - again Unprecedented demand, a shortage of blanks, and restrictive policies and regulations continue to exacerbate what is almost becoming a chronic shortage of gold and silver coins authorized by the U.S. Mint. The U.S. Mint has again "temporarily" suspended sales of almost all of its gold uncirculated and proof coins, along with nearly all of silver uncirculated coins because of the limited availability of blanks.
7/15/09 Will Dems allow Goldman to manipulate a cap-and-trade market? Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street leviathan that is heavily invested in the cap-and-trade carbon market scam, has admitted it has developed and used software that can manipulate such financial markets. The revelation came during proceedings in a legal case with enough plot twists to make even John Grisham proud; it was made, not by Goldman, but by an assistant U.S. Attorney. Who are Goldman Sachs? For those of us who are asking.....who in the 'HE double toothpick" are these guys? 7/7/09 The Fate of Representative John Carter’s Proposed Amendments to Cap and Trade Texas U. S. Representative John Carter has galloped in to rescue us from the Cap & Tax bill, HR 2454, by proposing limitations on price increases that would repeal the bill automatically if the program raised diesel or gas prices by more than ten cents a gallon or our home electricity bills went up more than twenty dollars a month. He might just as well have proposed that we turn the whole pack of Democrats out of Congress and the White House for all the good his effort to restrict the tax will be. DeMint amendment to audit the Federal Reserve blocked by Senate Leadership vid 7/5/09 Banksters Love Cap-and-Trade The sweeping new bill which just passed the House last Friday, the Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is ostensibly about climate change, but it is in fact a bill of staggering economic ramifications that is going to accelerate the takeover of the economy by the well-placed financiers who have already plundered the Treasury and the Fed of $12+ trillion and counting. It was rushed through the House in the tradition of such nightmarish legislation as the Patriot Act and the banker bailout of last October: hundreds of pages were added to it at the last minute and it was humanly impossible for anyone to have read it before they voted on it. This, of course, is exactly what Obama promised his administration would never allow to happen, and for good reason; bills passed in this manner are always the result of fear and panic and inevitably results in legislation that would never be passed upon sober second thought. The Coming Economic Apocalypse Astonishing to me is the fact that no one seems to understand the ultimate result of the current policies and practices of Washington D.C. and the Federal Reserve Bank, the Fed. I have studied our economic situation for about 3 hours per day for the last 8 months and conclude we are bankrupt. Think about the facts.Certainly most of the automobile industry, the airlines, 37 out of 50 states, are bankrupt. The lending industry, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac are bankrupt. Insurance giant AIG, bankrupt. The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, or PBGC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, Social Security including Medicare and Medicaid are rapidly approaching insolvency. Biden: "We Misread How Bad The Economy Was" The Obama administration "misread" the depth of the economic troubles it inherited and still expects more new jobs in the long term as the spending pace from the $787 billion stimulus plan quickens, Vice President Joe Biden said.(Runner ups for the 'Darwin' Awards)........HELLOOOOO????? !!!! We Can't Make It Here Anymore - by James Mcmurtry7/4/09 The Great American Bubble Machine Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression / vid WORLD GLOBALIZATION OF THE BANKING & REGULATORY STRUCTURE The power base of the world has shifted…it is no longer in London, New York City, Washington D. C., or Tokyo. Neither is it in Beijing or Moscow. It is Basel, Switzerland. In 1930, the Bank for International Settlements-BIS was set up as a result of the Young Plan which was named after the man who presided over the Allied Reparation Committee, Owen D Young.7/2/09 Cap-and-Trade Means Regulate and Subsidize Last week, prior to voting for the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, House Republican Leader John Boehner spent the better part of an hour reading from the 1201-page bill and the associated 300-page addendum, which had been dumped on Congress' door at 3:09AM. He did so, he told The Hill, because he believed "people need to know what's in this pile of s-it." Ron Paul's 'Audit the Fed' bill 'gaining steam' The Federal Reserve, the counterfeiters who inflate our money supply and whose easy-money policies have given us over 80 years of depressions, bubbles, and booms, is starting to sweat. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)’s “Audit the Fed” bill, HR 1207, is gathering steam, as CQ Politics notes:Both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans have signed on to Paul’s bill, which would force the Federal Reserve to show exactly where every penny it printed up was spent. As you can expect, the head of this criminal institution Ben Bernanke has said that this bill would mean a “takeover” by Congress and “threaten the financial system, dollar, an economy.” Let me get this straight. The Fed prints up trillions of dollars out of thin air, artificially lowers interest rates to increase poor and malinvestment of capital, and gives Americans the rope of cheap credit to hang themselves with. 6/29/09 Bernard Madoff gets maximum 150 years in prison Convicted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison Monday for a fraud so extensive that the judge said he needed to send a message to potential imitators and to victims who demanded harsh punishment. China Decision to Buy $80 Billion of Gold, the Dragon's Hoard First, it used to be that the threat of central bank gold sales would damage market sentiment. Now the threat of significant sales has been met with the threat of significant purchases. Though the dragon hoard depicted by our good friend, Ed Stein is not yet a reality, China can back its desire to own gold with plenty of cold hard cash. At nearly $1.4 trillion in dollar-based assets, and almost $2 trillion in total reserves, $80 billion would consume a paltry 6% of China's dollar reserves. At the same time 2600 tonnes translates to roughly one-third the U.S. gold reserve -- a significant ambition by any measure. To give you an inkling of how this new synergy might work, when the International Monetary Fund announced recently it would like to sell about 400 tonnes of gold, China joined India in publicly pressing the IMF to sell its entire 3200 tonne hoard. On that news the gold market, which had been in a slow slide as a result of the IMF's announcement, turned and took another run at the $1000 mark. First
picture of kidnap gang pensioner who abducted financial adviser
after he lost £2m savings Pensioners battered a
financial adviser with Zimmer frames before kidnapping and
torturing him for losing £2million of their savings. 6/25/09 Administration explores new bond as option for retirement accounts Officials in the Obama administration are moving quickly to develop the investment infrastructure behind the president’s proposal for mandatory automatic enrollment in individual retirement accounts, which could be supported by the creation of Treasury-issued retirement bonds. 6/24/09 Lawmakers reject budget fix; state will begin issuing IOUs next week (California) Obama
Defends Expansion Of Fed Powers President Obama defended
his recent decision to give the Federal Reserve
expanded oversight powers over the nation's biggest financial
institutions, during an exclusive interview with CBS' The
Early Show. While his critics argue the Fed
was partly responsible for letting reckless practices on
Wall Street get out of control, the president disagreed."It
wasn't the Fed," Mr. Obama said. 6/23/09 Man Destroys His House – I Have Nothing To Lose Using The Economic Crisis To Attack Workers California Collapsing Washington and Wall Street seem to be treating California as if it were a sideshow in the financial circus of these turbulent times.It’s not. 6/9/09 Supreme Court won't block Chrysler merger Three Indiana pension funds had said they were being shortchanged by the bankruptcy plan.The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for Chrysler's merger with the Italian automaker Fiat. In an order handed down late today, the court rejected a request for a stay of the sale submitted by three parties, including a group of Indiana pension funds. They had argued that the sale violated normal bankruptcy procedure and that Chrysler had received federal funding for which it was not eligible. 6/6/09 Exclusive Interview with Future Prediction Expert Gerald Celente Human Events had the opportunity to interview forecaster extraordinaire Gerald Celente, President of Trends Research Institute, several days ago -- and the future he predicts looks bleak indeed. In fact, as Mr. Celente sees it, the Great Depression will seem like a mild recession as what waits for us in 2011 hits with the force of a Katrina financial hurricane. 5/28/09 Your Video Ticker for this evening.....update on the financial scene....vid 4/29/09 U.S. economy shrinks 6.1% in the first quarter 4/28/09 O.C.
financier arrested on charges that he violated
currency reporting laws FBI special agents on Tuesday
arrested Orange County financier Danny Pang on
charges that he hid more than $300,000 in cash from the government
by asking relatives and employees to cash checks small enough
to avoid currency-reporting laws.
The arrest came one day after the Securities
and Exchange Commission accused Pang of defrauding
investors of hundreds of millions of dollars, prompting a
federal judge to freeze Pang's assets and those of his Irvine-based
company, Private Equity Management Group Inc. 4/27/09 UNCLE SAM JOINS CORRUPT BANKER'S BOARD ROOM Hank Paulson's heavy handed pressure to force Bank Of America to absorb debt ridden Merrill Lynch last December put Uncle Sam squarely in the Board Room of the First Bailout Bank of Greed and Incompetence ~ with first quarter Big Bank's ' improved ' sham earnings reports showing shocking evidence of corrupt and unscrupulous accounting gimmicks: Allen L Roland4/24/09 Treasury lends $2 billion more to General Motors (thats YOUR MONEY FOLKS! do you think GM is going to give your a free car for the exchange?.......NOT!!!) 4/22/09 Geithner urges global effort to tamp crisis The United States bears "substantial" blame for the woes besetting the world economy but it will take a global effort to ease those strains, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday.Speaking to the Economic Club of Washington, Geithner said it was essential to find a better-balanced model for world growth that relies less on U.S. consumers as economies bid to climb out of the steepest downturn in decades. Freddie Mac official found dead in apparent suicide David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of money-losing mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead at his home early Wednesday in what police said was an apparent suicide. 4/21/09 Top bailed-out firms have money for lobbying The top 10 recipients of the government's $700 billion financial bailout spent about $9.5 million on federal lobbying during the first three months of the year.The biggest spender was bailed-out automaker General Motors Corp., which devoted $2.8 million to lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. It has received $13.4 billion in government loans and could get $5 billion more, according to a government report released Tuesday. 4/11/09 PETER SCHIFF REPORT APRIL 9, 2009 vid TAXPAYER TEA PARTIES ALL ACROSS AMERICA Have you had enough taxation, regulation, over-spending, over-borrowing, bailouts, stimulus packages, and redistribution of wealth? How well is your government serving you? Geithner, Paulson named in $200 billion lawsuit. AIG-related case claims they violated shareholders constitutional rights. A $200 billion lawsuit filed on behalf of shareholders of American International Group has been amended to include Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox as defendants 4/9/09 Is the
future Argentina?Can bankers really
bankrupt and impoverish
a rich country? vid 4/8/09 Next bailout: Life insurance gets lifeline from taxpayers (what about the taxpayers themselves???!!) 4/5/09 20 + States Declaring Sovereignty Under the 10th Amendment!!! Pennsylvania State Rep Sam Rohrer Glenn Beck - 20 States Move to Declare Sovereignty vid W.H. team discloses TARP firm ties 3/28/09 Dear A.I.G., I Quit! The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G. 3/26/09 3/25/09 PETER SCHIFF THE CRISIS IS JUST BEGINNING !!! GOV'T NEEDS BAILOUT NOW !!! vid Hannan Tells Gordon He Is “Pathologically Incapable” U.S.Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms Goal Is to Limit Risk to Broader Economy Japanese Exports Plunge 49% As Global Slump Deepens 3/24/09 LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy 3/23/09 How the markets really work (from 2007) vid3/19/09 Obama Officials Sought To Keep AIG Bonuses: Dodd In a stunning development, Sen. Christopher Dodd said that Obama administration officials asked him to add language to last month's federal stimulus bill to make sure the controversial AIG bonuses remained in place FDIC Failed to Collect Premiums for Years (and what does this mean to us?) 3/14/09 Obama focuses on food safety, picks FDA new chief The nation's food safety system is a "hazard to public health" and overdue for an overhaul, President Barack Obama said Saturday as he focused on that task by filling the top job at the Food and Drug Administration.Obama used his weekly radio and video address to announce the nomination of former New York City Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg as agency commissioner and selection of Baltimore's health commissioner, Joshua Sharfstein as her deputy. Consumer groups applauded the picks. 3/5/09 PETER SCHIFF THE CRISIS IS JUST BEGINNING !!! GOV'T NEEDS BAILOUT NOW !!! vid Newsflash: Wonderboy Treasury Secretary is in over his head For five weeks, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has battled the worst economic crisis in generations with no key deputies in place. That’s made for a rocky debut for the man President Barack Obama put in charge of addressing the financial crisis.With an awkward first television appearance, a bank rescue plan that lacked promised specifics and two restructured bailouts that raised taxpayer risk, Geithner has failed to calm financial markets desperate for answers. And, he is flying 'solo' Fed Refuses to Release Bank Data, Insists on Secrecy (Update3) Auditors' finding ratchets up fears of GM bankruptcy The specter of a General Motors Corp. bankruptcy was raised today by the automaker's own auditors, which said there was "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to continue operating.Although the warning was not unexpected -- GM said last week that such a judgment was likely -- the confirmation of that prospect threw yet another spotlight on the automaker's dire position. GM lost $30.9 billion in 2008 and burned through $19.2 billion in cash, leading it to borrow $13.4 billion from the federal government and, last month, to request $16.6 billion more in taxpayer-funded support. 2/25/09 U.S. money managers accused of $550 million fraud Two money managers who oversaw investments for Carnegie Mellon University and other institutions were arrested on Wednesday on charges of running an estimated $550 million, decade-long swindle, the latest in a wave of big financial fraud cases. 2.22.09 120,000 people pack streets of Dublin in angry protest against government's handling of economic crisis Up to 120,000 people marched through Dublin today in an emotional and angry national demonstration over the Irish Government's handling of the economic crisis.The sheer size of the turnout meant it had to set off earlier than was organised, with the parade stretching the entire length of its two kilometre route at one stage.Hundreds more lined the streets of the city centre, many clapping and cheering, as both public and private sector workers came together under the banners of several trade unions for one the largest demonstrations ever seen in the capital. THE BURNING PLATFORM David Walker served as Comptroller General of the United States from 1998 through 2008. He is now the CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and leader of the Fiscal Wake Up Tour. He has been a lone voice in the wilderness for the last decade regarding our looming fiscal disaster. As head of the General Accounting Office he would go before Congress and explain that the country need to change course before we flounder in a Perfect Storm of debt. They listened to him respectfully and proceeded to add $5 trillion to the National Debt in the next eight years. The borrowing binge is now entering a hyper-speed phase. President Obama has been only concerned with speed rather than long term corrective actions. 2/17/09 SEC charges Texas financier with 'massive' fraud NEW YORK – Federal regulators on Tuesday charged Texas financier R. Allen Stanford and three of his firms with a "massive" fraud that centered around high-interest-rate certificates of deposit, and raided some of the companies' offices.In a complaint filed in federal court in Dallas, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Stanford orchestrated a fraudulent investment scheme centered on an $8 billion CD program that promised "improbable and unsubstantiated high interest rates." 2/16/09 Kan. suspends income tax refunds, may miss payroll Kansas has suspended income tax refunds and may not be able to pay employees on time, state officials said Monday.The state doesn't have enough money in its main budget account to pay its bills, prompting Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to suggest borrowing $225 million from other accounts throughout state government. But the move required approval from legislative leaders, and Republican leaders refused Monday. With no budget, California to cut 20,000 state jobs California, which is on the brink of running out of cash, will notify 20,000 state workers on Tuesday their jobs may be eliminated, a spokesman for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Monday. DOLLAR
DECEPTION: 2/15/09 Stimulus Verdict: A $3.27 Trillion Porker The gargantuan stimulus bill Congress has rubber-stamped with virtually no Republican support contains tens of billions of the very spending projects that made the legislation a lightning rod for criticism. And although the bill is generally described as costing $787 billion, the Congressional Budget Office reports the actual figure is now closer to $3.27 trillion2/11/09 ABSENT IN GEITHNER'S BANK PLAN / TRUTH AND TRANSPARENCY Congress, White House agree on $790B stimulus bill 2/10/09 California budget deficit imperils 10,000 state workers' jobs Reporting from Sacramento -- As legislative leaders Tuesday moved toward a deal that could wipe out the state's $42-billion deficit with temporary tax hikes on retail sales, cars, gasoline and millionaires, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger threatened to lay off as many as 10,000 state employees if a new budget is not passed this week 2/7/09 Barclays set to give big bonuses to bankers who scuttled Woolworths 2/4/09 Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Bigger Gov't Is Not Stimulus vid1/30/09 U.S. Subsidiaries in Offshore Tax Havens Many of the largest United States corporations, including big banks now receiving federal bailout money, operate scores of subsidiaries in offshore tax havens that may let them evade or defer their tax bills, according to a government study released Friday. California Pension Funds Close ToBankruptcy The two largest pension funds in California, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), have lost billions of dollars in value. Hundreds of thousands of retiring state employees and teachers now face the stark choice of accepting much reduced pension checks or working past their retirement age. Obama’s Bill Hands ACORN $5.2 Billion Bailout Caterpillar says to cut 20,000 jobs Home Depot to cut 7,000 jobs, close Expo chain Card Data Breached, Firm Says A New Jersey credit-card processor disclosed a data breach that analysts said may rank among the biggest ever reported.Heartland Payment Systems Inc. said Tuesday that cyber criminals compromised its computer network, gaining access to customer information associated with the 100 million card transactions it handles each month. Ex-trader tells how he lost so much for one bankPARIS: A year ago, Jérôme Kerviel rocked the financial world with the biggest trading loss in history. Things have moved on since then.The €4.9 billion hole he inflicted on the accounts of Société Générale no longer astonishes after the horrendous losses on subprime mortgages and other risky assets that banks have booked since then.In describing a year later how he nearly wrecked the bank - and found himself facing possible criminal charges - Kerviel sounded like he could be describing the mind-set that led to the whole financial meltdown. "The problem," Le Parisien, a daily newspaper, quoted him as saying Thursday, "is that the bank never says, 'Attention guys! The money you're playing with is not virtual. At the other end of your computer, there are real people, with real lives, pay attention what you do, you could do something very bad to them."'"Everything you do as a trader remains in the virtual world," he added. "It's a little like playing a computer game. Lose or win a few million: It only takes a few seconds." Will Diving Dollar Force Acceptance of ‘Amero’ Currency? 1/10/09 Burien - Follow The Money Again, Please Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime World stocks drop as US jobless rate hits 7.2 pct Stimulus Plan: The Need and the Size The Darkness And The Power The Dictator announced his relief-package for the Big Three yesterday: The media is calling it "a Christmas-gift." This is a LOAN-agreement: Gift's do not come wrapped in razor wire. This too-little-too-late proposal is meant to bring an end to the problem of having to pay anyone, for whatever they do on-the-job in the United States. 12/20/08 Japan stumps up more cash, Belgian govt falls Japan approved extra funding and Germany pledged new measures on Saturday to confront a financial crisis that has toppled banks, wrecked world growth and now played a part in the demise of Belgium's government.Tokyo has joined governments worldwide in pledging hundreds of billions of dollars of fiscal stimulus to lessen the impact of the crisis on their economies, many of which, Japan's included, are already in recession. A Devastating Impact as the Market Unleverages and a Winter of Discontent Two sets of rules on wall street, 50 billion ponzi scheme by Bernard Madoff uncovered, court case for the toxic waste coverup, Paulson's efforts are futile, commercial and residential real estate market alike now frozen, fed is frantic, an elitist engineered collaps of the U.S, derivative problems galore, and no real debate taking place in government As we know there are two sets of rules in banking and on Wall Street - one for the anointed and one for everyone else. 12/18/08 A Second Mortgage Disaster On The Horizon? When it comes to bailouts of American business, Barney Frank and the Congress may be just getting started. Nearly two trillion tax dollars have been shoveled into the hole that Wall Street dug and people wonder where the bottom is. 12/16/08 Bailout payout tops $8 trillion As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. taxpayers. It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners. Amid the tissue paper: • More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. loan guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending arm of General Electric Corp. • $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loan guarantees doled out from the Treasury Department to taxpayers, financial institutions and credit companies. • $300 billion for homeowners from the Federal Housing Authority. • $25 billion in assistance for auto companies from a program overseen by the Energy Department, which is separate from the bailout proposal that tanked last week in the Senate. And $5 trillion worth of new money, loan guarantees and loosened lending requirements from the Federal Reserve Bank. According to Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched these numbers, that amounts to more government aid and assistance than nine other historic bailouts and big government outlays combined. The New Deal, for instance, cost an estimated $32 billion in its day, which would be about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The Marshall Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is the equivalent of a paltry $115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The French got $15 million, which would be worth about $217 billion today. If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA, you still get to just $3.92 trillion — not even half of the taxpayers’ exposure today, according to Bianco.
They are promising a newer and bigger stimulus package early next year — one that could make last spring’s $168 billion government giveaway to taxpayers (remember that fixer?) look like pocket change. Asked just how much the taxpayers are on the hook for, Bianco said: “I just say you should use the number infinity, because nobody understands these numbers, and I would include the Treasury secretary and chairman of the Fed in that group.” There is a bright side, sort of. Only about $2.9 trillion of the government money, loans and guarantees have actually been spent or committed. And some of the deals are structured with the idea that taxpayers could one day make money off them by selling pieces of companies or the government’s new stake in them. But that can’t be done until the economy rebounds, something that most economists aren’t yet willing to predict — probably because it would be even more depressing. Now, all this is not to say that these measures weren’t necessary to save consumers from an even worse fate. That’s a big unanswered question that now will be left to speculators. But the vast majority of the smart economic crowd, from both sides of the aisle, say the job losses and economic calamity that would have ensued without government intervention today would make the Great Depression look like an economic hiccup. “If we don’t fix this, it doesn’t matter if we can’t pay for it,” said Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress. “The problem will only get worse and become harder and even more expensive to fix.” Meanwhile, she said, unemployment rates could soar abruptly, as they did during the Depression. “Every person who loses a job could also lose a house and health insurance and the ability to pay for college,” she added. “We could lose a generation.” Given that, it was something of a wonder when Senate Republicans quashed a $14 billion rescue plan last week for domestic automakers. Republicans had taken a beating on Election Day, in part because of resentment within their own base at the bailout bonanza in Washington. But the automakers’ request seems a pittance given all the taxpayer cash already flooding the private market. Part of the answer might have come from an Obama-style Internet campaign launched by FreedomWorks, a grass-roots organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). FreedomWorks purchased Google search ads that popped up any time someone clicked for information about the auto bailout. The ad urged people to oppose the measure. Thomas Keeley, the organization’s online advertising specialist, said the ad helped them generate nearly 100,000 messages to Congress. “We did very well, especially given the limited time we had on this,” he said. The auto industry wasn’t idle. General Motors and Ford also took out Google search ads urging support for the package — a message that would have been tough to deliver in a big television ad campaign. The cyberspace campaigns are likely a harbinger of how future bailout battles will be waged once Obama takes office with an e-mail list of more than 10 million supporters. Already, Peter Greenberger, who’s heading up Google’s new issues advocacy sales team, says he’s warning interest groups that may take a stand on either side of the Democrats’ expected trillion-dollar stimulus package not “to organize a 20th-century advocacy campaign against a 21st-century administration.”
The democracy will cease to exist
when you take away from those who are willing
to work and give to those who would not. I predict future happiness for
Americans if they can prevent the government
from wasting the labors of the people
under the pretense of taking care of
them. My reading of history convinces
me that most bad government results from
too much government. No free man shall ever be debarred
the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people
to retain the right to keep and bear
arms is, as a last resort, to protect
themselves against tyranny in government. The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time with the blood of patriots
and tyrants. To compel a man to subsidize with
his taxes the propagation of ideas which
he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and
tyrannical. The Origin of the $1 bill US government is on the 'Dole'?
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