We Are Change confronts Al Gore on Climate Gate – Chicago, November 2009
posted by Josiah Garber on November 30, 2009
in Economics, Politics
Mark Pittman, Reporter Who Challenged Fed Secrecy, Dies at 52
posted by Josiah Garber on November 30, 2009
in Economics, Politics
By Bob Ivry
Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) — Mark Pittman, the award-winning reporter whose fight to make the Federal Reserve more accountable to taxpayers led Bloomberg News to sue the central bank and win, died Nov. 25 in Yonkers, New York. He was 52.
Pittman suffered from heart-related illnesses. The precise cause of death wasn’t known, said his friend William Karesh, vice president of the Global Health Program at the Bronx, New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
“He was one of the great financial journalists of our time,” said Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for economics. “His death is shocking.”
A former police-beat reporter who joined Bloomberg News in 1997, Pittman wrote stories in 2007 predicting the collapse of the banking system. That year, he won the Gerald Loeb Award from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the highest accolade in financial journalism, for “Wall Street’s Faustian Bargain,” a series of articles on the breakdown of the U.S. mortgage industry.
Pittman’s push to open the Fed to more scrutiny resulted in an Aug. 24 victory in Manhattan Federal Court affirming the public’s right to know about the central bank’s more than $2 trillion in assistance to financial firms. He drew the attention of filmmakers Leslie and Andrew Cockburn, who featured him prominently in their documentary about subprime mortgages, “American Casino,” which was shown at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival in May.
‘One Reporter’
“Who sues the Fed? One reporter on the planet,” said Emma Moody, a Wall Street Journal editor who worked with Pittman at Bloomberg News. “The more complex the issue, the more he wanted to dig into it. Years ago, he forced us to learn what a credit- default swap was. He dragged us kicking and screaming.”
Vaccine Nation – Director’s Cut (Gary Null) – Documentary
posted by Josiah Garber on November 27, 2009
in Health
America’s Final Collapse : When History Repeats!
posted by Josiah Garber on November 27, 2009
in Economics, Politics, War & Peace
How Does Inflation Hurt the Poor and Middle Class?
posted by Josiah Garber on November 26, 2009
in Economics, Politics
Let’s consider how inflation works on your savings. If the total amount of money in existence is increased by 5% in one year, then all money is devalued by 5% that year. Barring all other variable prices will eventually rise by 5%. This is no different in principle, than having 5% of your money taken out of your savings account.
Doubt that we have inflation? Consider this: today’s dollar is worth about 5 cents compared to 100 years ago. What does this mean? It means that if you were born 100 years ago and your parents put a dollar in a safe for you, today you would have lost 95% of it’s value. Our government is continuing as routine a policy of inflation.
We’ve all heard that some inflation is good for the economy (it’s not, but we’ll leave this argument for another day), but is it good for the poor and middle class? Certainly it is not. Inflation eats away at the savings and security of those who cannot protect themselves against it.
The poor have no assets to protect them against inflation.
The middle class have some assets to protect them against inflation.
The rich have most of their assets protected against inflation.
Those with Government contracts are protected against inflation because they receive the newly created money through government contracts. This is value indirectly stolen from the poor and middle class and given to the rich.
Consider this: you are poor and you would like to save up cash for a large purchase. As you save money, you reach a point when the cash you have in savings loses value faster than the rate at which you can save.
Each year new money is created out of nothing and put into existence. This is an indirect tax on the poor and middle class or anyone who is not hedged against inflation. This is an immoral, though lawful, system.
Suggested Reading
Gold hits record on falling dollar, India buying.
posted by Josiah Garber on November 25, 2009
in Economics
By Jan Harvey
LONDON (Reuters) – Gold prices hit record highs above $1,180 an ounce in Europe on Wednesday, boosted by the euro’s move through $1.50 against the dollar and by a report that India may consider buying more bullion from the IMF.
Spot gold hit a high of $1,182.70 an ounce and was bid at $1,179.90 an ounce at 1536 GMT, against $1,168.90 late in New York on Tuesday.
U.S. gold futures for December delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange also hit a record $1,183.20 an ounce and were later up $14.40 at $1,180.20.
The dollar fell to a 15-month low against the euro due to views that U.S. rates would stay low and as Russia said it would diversify currency reserves, though it pared losses after a mixed batch of U.S. data.
Meanwhile India’s Financial Chronicle newspaper said on Wednesday that India is open to buying more gold from the International Monetary Fund, which has around another 200 tonnes to sell. The IMF said it had no comment to make on the report.
Standard Chartered analyst Daniel Smith said further Indian buying could be “potentially very bullish” for gold.
“Most commodities are rallying on the back of the weaker dollar, and that move is potentially quite significant,” he said. “Gold has been outperforming on the back of this general rally in commodities, and that tells us that there is more to this than just the dollar story.”
“My feeling is that we are going to keep going higher for the time being,” he added.
The market is sensitive to speculation of further official sector buying after news in early November, that India’s central bank had bought 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF, sparked a rally.
Russia, Sri Lanka and Mauritius have since also announced gold acquisitions, and traders speculate that more central banks, particularly in Asia, could be open to gold acquisitions to diversify their foreign exchange reserves.
DIVERSIFICATION
“We have had relatively supportive news from the central banks, particularly in Asia, confirming that there is demand for gold as a means of diversifying their large foreign exchange reserves,” RBS Global Banking & Markets analyst Daniel Major said.
“There is plenty more potential for central banks to buy either IMF gold or other gold in the market to try and boost their reserves,” he added.
Expectations for further reserve diversification, as well as prospects for further dollar weakness and fears over inflation in 2010 have all fueled investment demand for the precious metal, and could lead to further sharp prices gains.
“Central bank and other investor demand could see gold move to $1,500/oz in the next 3-6 months,” Fairfax said in a note.
Gerald Celente on the Lew Rockwell Show – November 2009
posted by Josiah Garber on November 25, 2009
in Economics, Politics
FDIC Insurance Fund Falls Into the Red
posted by Josiah Garber on November 24, 2009
in Economics
By ERIC DASH
Published: November 24, 2009
The government-administered insurance fund that protects depositors fell $8.2 billion into the red for the first time since the fallout from the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s as the pace of bank failures accelerated in the third quarter.
Bank customers, however, should remain confident that their deposits would be protected since the bulk of that negative balance reflects money the agency has set aside to cover future bank failures.
Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation officials warned in October that the deposit insurance fund had been depleted, but Tuesday’s third-quarter report card on the banking industry marked the first time that hard numbers had been released. Even amid early signs that the economy is recovering, the report suggested that the country’s 8,100 lenders remain in fragile condition.
In its state of the industry report, the F.D.I.C. reported that banks posted a $2.8 billion gain in the third quarter, after a $3.7 billion loss in the previous period. Meanwhile, the number of “problem banks” that run the biggest risk of collapse increased to 552, from 416 in the second quarter. Bad loans of virtually every stripe — credit cards, mortgages, small business and commercial real estate — continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace.
“The credit adversity we have been discussing for some time remains with us, and we expect it will be a couple of more quarters before we see a meaningful improvement in that trend,” Sheila C. Bair, the F.D.I.C. chairman, said. “I am optimistic that if we address these problems head on, we will see clear signs of improvement in bank earnings and lending in 2010.
Even so, the number of bank failures will likely keep climbing. So far, the F.D.I.C. has seized and sold 124 banks in 2009, and analysts expect hundreds more to collapse in the months ahead. That has put significant pressure on the F.D.I.C. fund, which posted a negative balance for the first time since 1992 when regulators cleaned up the carnage from hundreds of failed thrifts and other commercial lenders.
Perpetual war is here — and Americans are getting used to it
posted by Josiah Garber on November 23, 2009
in War & Peace
by Ron Smith
A new poll shows a substantial majority of Americans have resigned themselves to the reality of our nation’s perpetual foreign wars. They don’t like it, but they see it happening and know there is nothing they can do about it. The poll, conducted by Clarus Research Group, showed that 68 percent of us agree with idea that we won’t either win or lose the war in Afghanistan, now eight years long, but will instead just remain there. The image of flies and flypaper again swirls in my head, just as it did at the time of the invasion of Iraq. We invaded these places and now we’re stuck there, and President Barack Obama is likewise stuck, not on flypaper, but on the horns of a dilemma: Does he send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, as his area commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has publicly demanded, or does he change strategies a la Joe Biden and rely more on special ops and drones to harass the Taliban and kill whatever members of al-Qaeda we can find?
The news is filled with stories about this showdown and the political consequences of what the president may decide to do. There are some calls for Mr. Obama to fire Mr. McChrystal for acting like Gen. Douglas MacArthur did during the Korean War, when he challenged the strategic decisions of President Harry Truman. The counterpoint, as is always the case, comes from people who say the civilian leadership should stay out of the way and let the generals wage war however they decide. That’s more or less the position of the Republicans in Congress. That this subservience to the Pentagon would make the United States a sort of gargantuan Honduras doesn’t seem to bother these people.
Republican and Democratic members of Congress met with Mr. Obama at the White House this week to deliver their exhortations, all of them promising to back whatever decision is reached, and the president saying he’ll need some time to make his decision. That was to be expected, considering that it took him eight months to figure out what kind of dog to get for his daughters. The one thing he has promised – and this certainly feeds the public’s resignation about the war – is that he won’t, under any circumstance, withdraw from Afghanistan.
In a recent television interview, former career diplomat and one-time Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said he sees another Vietnam debacle shaping up in Afghanistan but that there is no way to walk away from it, since to do so would be to suffer a loss of America’s credibility. He bemoans another quagmire, yet says we must go ahead and be mired.
The Ground Truth – Trailer
posted by Josiah Garber on November 18, 2009
in War & Peace