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Americans must prepare themselves for a massive collapse in the dollar as investors around the world dump their US assets, a former Bank of England policymaker has warned.
By Edmund Conway
05 Jan 2009
The long-held assumption that US assets - particularly government bonds - are a safe haven will soon be overturned as investors lose their patience with the world’s biggest economy, according to Willem Buiter.
Global Corporate Profits to Drop in ’09; More Bankruptcies Loom
By Katie Hoffmann and Joseph Galante
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — Corporate earnings will continue to slump into the first half of 2009 amid the first simultaneous recessions in the U.S., Japan and Europe since World War II.
by Jim Davies
Exclusive to STR
January 5, 2009
A financial report I encountered says that “President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, has said his first priority will be to pass an economic stimulus plan that will invest in public works and create or save 3 million jobs.” I don’t doubt that it’s accurate, and so am horrified.
By Scott Lanman and Vivien Lou Chen
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve officials, after taking the historic step of cutting the benchmark interest rate to as low as zero, are calling for greater government spending to help revive the U.S. economy.
Suzy Jagger and Christine Seib
January 5, 2009
The role of America’s federally regulated banks in the $50 billion Bernard Madoff investment scandal has come into question after it emerged that a number of victims of his alleged Ponzi scheme thought they had invested their money with an ordinary bank.
By Charles V. Bagli
January 5, 2009
NEW YORK: Vacancy rates in office buildings exceed 10 percent in virtually every major city across the United States and are rising rapidly, a sign of economic distress that could lead to yet another wave of problems for the beleaguered financial sector.
Sheldon Richman
The New Deal did not end the Great Depression. This statement will come as no shock to FEE supporters, but it will to the many people who never encountered it before. Now people are encountering it — in newspaper columns and news-talk shows.
by Kevin R. C. Gutzman
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was sold to the public at the time as being justified in part by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and his harboring of al Qaeda terrorists. In the wake of the Bush Administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, word leaked out that several prominent figures around Bush long had wanted to invade Iraq; for them, 9/11 was the perfect cover, and the WMD and al Qaeda arguments mere window dressing. By the time the world knew the justifications were false, Iraq had been conquered and Saddam had been removed.
by Michael Gaddy
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
~ Noah Webster
by Laurence M. Vance
Because I am a conservative evangelical, but not an evangelical conservative, I was intrigued by the title of a new book I saw recently on display in the book exhibit hall at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature: How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative (Zondervan, 2008). Did the author mean conservative in the theological sense or the political sense? Since one of my primary interests is the intersection of religion with politics and economics, I could almost hear the book begging for a review. I was both pleasantly surprised and tremendously disappointed.
by Larry L. Beane II
The good news is that history always repeats itself – so we can see what’s coming down the pike. The bad news is that history always repeats itself – so we can see what’s coming down the pike.
Sigh.
Take this little snippet from the very clever book, the Traveler’s Guide to the Ancient World: The Roman Empire, which is a “travel guide” to the City of Rome and its environs from the year 300 AD. Note the following quote on pages 20–21:
By Cliff Kincaid
January 5, 2009
Our media have been in awe of Barack Obama’s physique, his workouts and basketball skills. But his lies about the proposed federal “stimulus” plan are what really deserve scrutiny.
Mike Allen of Politico.com quotes Republican consultant Frank Luntz as complimenting Obama for coming up with the deceptive phrase, “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” to describe the largest federal spending bill in history that is mainly designed to bail out state and local governments that have already spent too much taxpayer money.
By: Devvy
January 5, 2009
Americans all across this country are expressing their doubt as to whether or not Barack Hussein Obama (or whatever his real, legal name might be) is constitutionally (legally) eligible to hold the office of President of the United States. Last month, America Online (AOL) conducted a poll that must have shocked Obots and his attorneys. The question was: Do you think there is any merit to the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s citizenship? A whopping 52% said yes; 42% said no and 6% said not sure. Looks like O’Reilly’s flogging of the ‘tin foil’ kook aid drinkers isn’t selling so well out there. Not that the big O would dream of giving any credible coverage to the issue; he’s fair and balanced didn’t ya know?
by Alan Stang
January 5, 2009
Recently, I received a complaint from a now happily departed reader. He took issue with a recent piece in which I recalled the history of our centuries-long conflict with Islam. The reader said he has no interest in history. He is only interested in “now.” Specifically, he wants to hear about the Jews, nothing else. Happily, he announced that he is no longer with us, so there is no chance that these modest comments could offend his belligerent ignorance.
By: Geoff Metcalf
Monday, January 05, 2009
Reality looms just around the corner as President-elect Obama prepares for his coronation/inaugural. As the confluence of saying and doing approaches one is reminded of the final scene in the 1972 Robert Redford movie “The Candidate”, when after finally winning the election he wasn’t supposed to, the winner is seen turning to his campaign poobah and asking, “Marvin … What do we do now?”
‘Very intrusive powers – as intrusive as someone busting down your door’
January 04, 2009
Police and state intelligence agencies from several countries may soon be working together to secretly hack into private citizens’ personal computers without their knowledge and without a warrant.
Anonymous
1-5-9
Just got this from another YahooGroup owner and thought I would pass along the information:
Yahoo is Tracking Group Members
If you belong to ANY Yahoo Groups - be aware that Yahoo is now using “Web Beacons” to track every Yahoo Group user. It’s similar to cookies, but allows Yahoo to record every website and every group you visit, even when you’re not connected to Yahoo.
(Remember…THESE are the “best and the brightest”…as The Mogombo Guru says, “We’re Freakin’ Doomed”!…Paul)
By James Cusick
January 04, 2009
GORDON BROWN’S “DECISIVE” strategy to recapitalise Britain’s banks and get them lending again with a £37 billion bail-out, which he claimed has been copied all over the world, has not worked - and the Treasury has no plan B yet.
(The day is going to come when these “officals” (criminals) are get a long overdue “Spankin’”…Paul)
By JOAN LOWY
WASHINGTON – Motorists are driving less and buying less gasoline, which means fuel taxes aren’t raising enough money to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.
(Kinda gives a new meaning to “NO TICKEE…NO LAUNDRY!”…:)…Paul)
By Keith Bradsher
HONG KONG: At the docks here, the stacks of shipping containers that used to loom above the highway overpass are gone. Logistics managers say they negotiate deeper discounts every week on ships that are leaving half empty.
(They better be worrying about more than their “Socialist Indoc” society…They better start “worrying” about survival…Just a thought…Paul)
Denise-Marie Balona
January 4, 2009
TAVARES - State leaders will gather in Tallahassee on Monday to start the debate on how to cover a $2.3 billion shortfall in Florida’s budget.
(These “shoplifters” should be marching on their state capitols,…perhaps later…Paul)
By GEORGE MAST
January 4, 2009
When push comes to shove, some shoppers are doing more than just pinching pennies — they aren’t paying at all.
By Shobhana Chandra
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. economy probably lost more jobs in 2008 than in any year since the end of World War II as firings rippled from homebuilders and automakers to banks and retailers, a government report may show this week.
By Katie Hoffmann and Joseph Galante
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — Corporate earnings will continue to slump into the first half of 2009 amid the first simultaneous recessions in the U.S., Japan and Europe since World War II.
Earnings at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies will probably fall in the first half, marking eight straight quarters of declines. In Europe and Asia, the outlook may be even worse as the recession curbs demand for retail goods and exports.
By: Bob Chapman
Sunday, 4 January 2009
US MARKETS
…
A re-inflation is on its way. You can just see it coming. Nuts of taxpayer largesse are being stuffed into baggy little banker cheeks via TARP, to be hoarded until the Fed gives the word. An explosive Fed balance sheet, rampant monetization of treasuries, bailouts galore and exchanges of treasuries for toxic waste are offsetting whatever deflationary impacts are affecting the money supply on account of falling asset prices, CDS losses and de-leveraging, to the tune of over $9 trillion dollars. The overall money supply, known as M3, is once again exploding. Treasuries are being sold like hot-cakes to morons seeking a zero return and a perceived safe-haven, with failures to deliver growing ever higher because people are loathe to give up the treasuries they already own for fear they will never get them back, meaning that there is plenty of money on the sidelines waiting to be deployed. Note that the orchestrated takedown of commodities and stocks were red herrings to scare people into thinking that deflationary forces were taking over. These red herrings were orchestrated to justify the Fed’s zero interest rate policy, which has created mega-spreads for killer profits among the anointed. Some prices are falling, yes, but the money supply is not contracting, which is the true measure of deflation.
At annual meeting, economists see little chance recession will end in `09
By Greg Robb
Jan. 4, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - The idea that the U.S. economy is going to recover in the next six months is given little credence at a gathering of top academic economists here over the weekend.
2009-01-04
Where are silver prices headed? Will silver prices follow gold in these days of economic meltdown? Yes, silver prices are all set to follow gold prices mainly due to investment demand and ratio play, says a 2009 silver forecast report from Mumbai-based Commtrendz Risk Management Services.
By MICHAEL LEWIS and DAVID EINHORN
January 3, 2009
AMERICANS enter the New Year in a strange new role: financial lunatics. We’ve been viewed by the wider world with mistrust and suspicion on other matters, but on the subject of money even our harshest critics have been inclined to believe that we knew what we were doing. They watched our investment bankers and emulated them: for a long time now half the planet’s college graduates seemed to want nothing more out of life than a job on Wall Street.
By Mary Starrett
January 4, 2009
The word “fascism” has been used for decades to deride political ideaologies of both the right and left. Fact is, fascism has come to America and we have allowed it to happen.
Back in 1944 economist and author John Flynn pointed out that we have been laying the basecoat of fascism here in the U.S. in the book As We Go Marching.
By Derry Brownfield
January 4, 2009
We have been watching the Stock Market, the multi-billion dollar bailout, bank closings, mortgage defaults and now the entire economic mess is being turned over to the “unelected financial elite.” Patrick J. Buchanan writes: “The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people’s wealth, is like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another. We are witnessing what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great. For years Americans have spent more than we earned. We saved nothing. Our standard of living is going to fall. The party’s over. What we are witnessing today is how empires end.”
( I believe it was the author Sinclair Lewis that said…”When Facism comes to America, it will be waving a flag…and carrying a cross…How true!…Paul)
Broadcaster’s annual predictions also assure economic turnaround
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, announced at his staff’s annual prayer retreat that God told him Americans would embrace socialism in 2009 “in order to relieve their pain” and that the economy would rebound under an Obama administration.
‘Light the fire’ order set Mumbai ablaze
Evidence is growing that the bombings were orchestrated by militants in Pakistan
Barney Henderson
January 4, 2009
TENSIONS between India and Pakistan, the rival nuclear powers, are on a knife edge this weekend as Islamabad refuses to admit that the Mumbai terrorist outrage was planned and carried out by Pakistanis.
From a Christian perspective there is only one way to describe U.S. foreign policy: it is evil. It was evil before the United States invaded Iraq, and it would still be evil if the United States withdrew all of its forces from Iraq tomorrow. It is because of our foreign policy that the U.S. military has become – through its wars, interventions, and occupations – the greatest force for evil in the world. U.S. foreign policy sows discord among nations, stirs up strife where none existed, intensifies the hatred that many foreigners around the world have for Americans and each other, and creates terrorists faster than we can kill them.
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man; its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organisation, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are …
What lies behind all this, I believe, is a deep sense of the fundamental antagonism between the government and the people it governs. It is apprehended, not as a committee of citizens chosen to carry on the communal business of the whole population, but as a separate and autonomous corporation, mainly devoted to exploiting the population for the benefit of its own members … When a private citizen is robbed a worthy man is deprived of the fruits of his industry and thrift; when the government is robbed the worst that happens is that certain rogues and loafers have less money to play with than they had before. The notion that they have earned that money is never entertained; to most sensible men it would seem ludicrous. They are simply rascals who, by accidents of law, have a somewhat dubious right to a share in the earnings of their fellow men.
This gang is well-nigh immune to punishment. Its worst extortions, even when they are baldly for private profit, carry no certain penalties under our laws. Since the first days of the Republic, less than a dozen of its members have been impeached, and only a few obscure understrappers have ever been put into prison. The number of men sitting at Atlanta and Leavenworth for revolting against the extortions of government is always ten times as great as the number of government officials condemned for oppressing the taxpayers to their own gain … There are no longer any citizens in the world; there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters; they are bound to die for their masters at call … On some bright tomorrow, a geological epoch or two hence, they will come to the end of their endurance …
James Pethokoukis
January 03, 2009
Here is the latest on the earthquake swarms at Yellowstone:
1) The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory put out an update yesterday evening
Yellowstone Lake Earthquake Swarm Update: 2 January 2008
The University of Utah Seismograph Stations reports that as of 1800 MST on 2 January 2009, seismicity of the ongoing Yellowstone earthquake swarm continues. Over 500 earthquakes, as large as M 3.9, have been recorded by an automated earthquake system since the inception of this unusual earthquake sequence that began Dec. 27, 2008. More than 300 of these events have been reviewed and evaluated by seismic analysts. Depths of the earthquakes range from ~ 1km to around 10 km. We note that the earthquakes extend northward from central Yellowstone Lake for ~10 km toward the Fishing Bridge area, with a migration of recent earthquakes toward the north. Some of the dozen M3+ earthquakes were felt in the Lake, Grant Village and Old Faithful areas. Personnel of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory continue to evaluate this earthquake sequence and will provide information to the NPS, USGS and the public as it evolves.
(I don’t know if we are at “Peak Oil” at present, but it is worth a study…You can check out www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net…Paul)
by Tom Whipple
Before grappling with 2009, it might be useful to remind ourselves that there is a dark side to what lies ahead.
(Keep Your Eyes On This One…Kiddies…Paul)
By Pat Dawson
We who live along Montana’s Yellowstone River are downstream from a simmering caldera, a geologic hot spot that has become especially active recently. Indeed, Yellowstone National Park contains the floor of a gigantic volcanic cauldron, one that rises and sinks with the forces that lie beneath — hence the picturesque geysers and steam holes. But a wave of recent earthquake activity is raising fears that have their origins 642,000 years ago, when a Yellowstone “supervolcano” exploded so violently that it created the caldera itself. Today, such an explosion — 1,000 times more powerful than the explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980 — would not only cover most of the U.S. with ash but also throw so much dust into the atmosphere that the world’s climate could change.
Are All Americans Guilty?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
January 2 - 4, 2009
On the last day of the old year in CounterPunch, two Israelis, Jeff Halper who heads the Israeli peace movement ICAHD and Neve Gordon who is chairman of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University, asked, “Where’s the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?”
By: Bill Bonner
2 January 2009
U.S. government takes over the economy…
Not much news. Markets were closed yesterday. This morning, stocks in Asia are up. Ah…a new year…new hope… This year has got to be better than 2008. It couldn’t be worse, right?
$2 Trillion Increase May Test Federal Ability to Borrow
By Lori Montgomery
Saturday, January 3, 2009
With President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats considering a massive spending package aimed at pulling the nation out of recession, the national debt is projected to jump by as much as $2 trillion this year, an unprecedented increase that could test the world’s appetite for financing U.S. government spending.
As 2009 begins, does it strike you that we have lived for decades in a golden age? Almost certainly not.
By Charles Moore
02 Jan 2009
Most of us find plenty to dislike and complain of in the world we inhabit (which is just as well for us columnists, who find it hard to fashion 1,200 words about unmitigated good news).
by Justin Raimondo
Editor Richard Spencer has asked me—and indeed all the Takimag gang—to record our predictions for the coming year, but I have to say that I take this to mean he wants us to get our fingers moving and write something–because all punditry is prediction, in an important sense. Every time one advocates a particular policy, or descries another, the author is predicting a certain outcome, good or bad: the question is, which policies will win out in the battle of ideas. As we look at the incoming administration, especially in the context of trends that have been building over time, a certain scenario begins to emerge, with the first act unfolding on the domestic stage:
Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul
by Ellen Brown
January 3, 2009
Cartoon in the New Yorker: A gun-toting man with large dark glasses, large hat pulled down, stands in front of a bank teller, who is reading a demand note. It says, “Give me all the money in my account.”
by Michael S. Rozeff
I quote a Wall Street Journal article dated November 11, 2008, “The U.S. government unveiled a plan Monday to scrap its $123 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. and replace it with a new package valued at about $150 billion.”
by William Norman Grigg
What’s happening in my country is also happening in your country…. You don’t even know it, but you’re the Indians of the 21st Century, and that’s very sad.”
~ Russell Means, Indian Activist and Facilitator of the newly created Independent Republic of Lakota
By: Devvy
January 3, 2009
“What’s the difference between Communism and Capitalism? Answer: The Communists nationalised all the companies first — and then ruined them.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Record numbers of Americans are finally coming to the conclusion that this country is in big trouble. I’ve been writing for well over a decade that it was just a matter of time until all the programs were implemented and the economy crashes that the shadow government will finally make their move. The house of fiat currency would finally burn itself out and you and I would be left holding the smoking ruins while the banker barons end up with the fruits of our labor. Barack Hussein Obama is the chosen one to head up the final phase to reduce all but the richest into abject poverty, nationalize industries and use the iron fist of totalitarian government to keep the rest of us in line.
