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4/9/2005

South Korea Considers Deploying Armed Robots Along DMZ :.

The Defense Ministry plans to deploy robots with combat capability along the heavily fortified inter-Korean border as part of revamped security measures to deter North Korean infiltration.

Robots with weapons mounted on their frames are each expected to be able to observe from 2 and 1 kilometers during the day and night, respectively, and will have the capability to record voices and take pictures in a 180-degree circle.

"The ministry is considering robots which could detect, trace and hit targets automatically or be controlled remotely by operators," said Col. Shin Byung-chul of the ministry public affairs office.



Best Buy Customer Arrested for Paying with $2 Bills :.

I thought this was an urban legend. Nope. It's real:

PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta's place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher's car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta's idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.

For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.

Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.

Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he's handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.

Have a nice day, Mike.


4/8/2005

U.S. Warns of Need for More Opec Production :.

If we're closing in on 99% of maximum output NOW, where's the oil for all of the "future growth" going to come from?

Personally, I thought we had at least until 2007 before the wheels fell off the cart. Maybe not:

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will need to increase production further to balance the oil market in the second half of the year,the US government said on Thursday.

The warning, from Gay Caruso, head of the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the US Department of Energy, is one of the most vocal since George W. Bush was elected president in 2000.

Under US pressure the oil cartel last month increased its official production ceiling, or quota, by 500,000 barrels a day to 27.5m b/d.

Mr Caruso, who is considered the number two in the department, said Opec would need to pump an average of 30.2m b/d this year. Its production last month was 400,000 b/d below that level, at 29.8m b/d.

He also warned that the world's spare output capacity would fall further next year from the current 1m b/d equivalent to 1 per cent of global demand. Traditionally, a cushion of less than 5 per cent is seen as risky.



IMF Warns: 'Permanent Oil Shock' :.

I didn't pull the info out of the log from yesterday, but there was a hit from IMF looking for the driving ban document:

The world faces "a permanent oil shock" and will have to adjust to sustained high prices in the next two decades, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday in the starkest official warning yet about the long-term outlook for energy supplies.

Predicting surging demand from emerging countries and limited new supplies from outside the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries after 2010, Raghuram Rajan, IMF chief economist, said: "We should expect to live with high oil prices."

"Oil prices will continue to present a serious risk to the global economy," he added.

"The shock we see is a permanent shock that is going to continue... and countries need to adjust to that," said David Robinson, deputy IMF chief economist.



Pop: Home Forclosures Rose 50% Between February and March :.

In what could be a crack in the housing market's sturdy foundation, the number of foreclosed homes put up for sale rose 50 percent between February and March, according to a new study by Foreclosure.com.



FAA Searches Google for Biometric IDs and "First Responders"

The FAA user (host: enduser5.faa.gov, ip:204.108.8.5) conducted the following Google search: Homeland Security Department, FIRST RESPONDERS TO GET BIOMETRIC IDS.



The Invisible Hand (of the U.S. Government) in Financial Markets :.

Excellent article. This is a must read if you are unfamiliar with these issues:

The U.S. government is manipulating all major U.S. financial markets---stocks, treasuries, currencies. This article shows how it is possible and how it is done, why it is done, who specifically is doing it, when they do it, and where they get the money to do it.



The Next Wave Of Offshoring :.

Everywhere there are open sewers, PHBs are building datacenters:

Over the next decade, offshoring will knock millions of white-collar Americans and Europeans out of work, blowing a hole in the middle class from Los Angeles to London, from Boston to Berlin, from Toledo to Tokyo, from Austin to Amsterdam.

"I don't think most people appreciate the magnitude of the change in the world's workforce," says Intel's chief executive, Craig Barrett. "Over the next 10 years you are going to see major, major dislocation," he warns. He should know. Intel is hiring thousands of new workers overseas.

Big and small companies alike in industry after industry have done the math and are rushing to move even their most specialized jobs to Asia to cut wages by between half and four-fifths. "We're now outsourcing investment banking to Mumbai," says Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. "I don't know why we would ever hire another software programmer in New York again."



Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Could "Threaten" Economy :.

Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could threaten the economy if Congress fails to curb their investment activities, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Thursday.

In a second day of hearings before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on the hot political issue of how to rein in government-sponsored enterprises, Snow told Congress to limit the size of the companies' mortgage portfolios, saying they are not needed to fulfill the core mission of supporting housing.

What's more, their size and the interest rate risk they carry potentially threatens the financial system and the economy.



The Pentagon's Flying Saucer :.

Before the Pentagon decided that it wanted to stock soldiers' backpacks with miniature unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, Defense Department researchers had a slightly different idea: give G.I.s their own flying saucers instead.


4/7/2005

Oil: Sharp Selloff :.

Good news. For now.

Crude oil and gasoline fell for a fourth day as hedge funds and other speculators sold futures on signs that increased U.S. refinery output will boost fuel supplies.


4/6/2005

Eclipse On Pope's Funeral :.

Don't you just love these guys?

Those who say eclipses herald history-shaping events will find support for their superstition when, on Friday, the sun will be briefly plunged into darkness on the day of Pope John Paul II's funeral.



Scary Days Could be Ahead for Adjustable-Rate Mortgages :.

Cryptogon contributors, check your email for Premium Content. I've sent out some interesting information that directly relates to this. I can't reveal this information here:

For millions of homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages, it's gut-check time.

Short-term interest rates have been rising steadily since they dipped to record lows last spring. The average initial rate for a one-year ARM is now 4.33%, up from 3.46% a year ago, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac. So if your one-year ARM is about to hit its first birthday, you're going to have to dig deeper to pay the monthly mortgage bill.

Most ARMs contain caps on how much their rates can increase each year. But even with those limits, an adjustment can be painful.

Many borrowers who took out a one-year ARM at 3.5% last year will see their rate adjust to about 5.5%, says Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH Associates, a mortgage-consulting firm. On a $250,000 mortgage, that works out to an additional $297 a month.

Borrowers who used short-term ARMs to buy homes they couldn't otherwise afford may find themselves unable to make the higher payments, says Barry Glassman, a financial planner with Cassaday & Co. in McLean, Va.

Despite the risks of a big upward adjustment, ARMs are more popular than ever. More than 36% of mortgages had adjustable rates last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That's the highest since the trade group began tracking adjustable-rate mortgages in 1990.



Sony Invention Beams Sights, Sounds Into Brain

Rather than post messages from Cryptogon readers who say that the government is doing this to them already, I'll just post the full text of the Reuters piece below:

If you think video games are engrossing now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp. has been granted a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.

The technique could one day be used to create videogames in which you can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.

The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images.

"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex," the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person, such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear sounds."

According to New Scientist magazine, the first to report on the patent, Sony's technique could be an improvement over an existing non-surgical method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. This activates nerves using rapidly changing magnetic fields, but cannot be focused on small groups of brain cells.

Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.

A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."



Sun, Wind, Fuel Cells Power Cargo Ship of the Future :.

A cargo ship designed to run exclusively on renewable energy is making its debut in the Nordic Pavilion at the World Expo 2005. It harnesses the power of the sun, wind and water and releases zero emissions into the environment.

A concept model of the E/S Orcelle, a cargo ship designed by the Scandinavian shipping company, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, is on display in the Nordic Pavilion. E/S stands for Environmentally sound Ship.

Designed for a future with declining supplies of fossil fuels and increasing environmental responsibility, the concept vessel would have a capacity of 10,000 standard cars and would use only renewable energy sources and naturally-charged fuel cells for power.



GM Debt Ratings Downgraded by Moody's; Ford Motor Under Review :.

Can someone tell me how a company with over $300 billion in debt, and a cash valuation of something like $16 billion, can still be considered "Investement Grade"??? Oh, because GM's rating can't be reduced to junk. It just can't:

General Motors Corp.'s debt ratings were cut one notch to Baa3, the lowest investment grade, by Moody's Investors Service. The ratings company also said it was reviewing Ford Motor Co.'s debt for a possible downgrade.


4/5/2005

The Old Dumb Money Whip Saw Decapitation Trick :.

DISCLAIMER: The following is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

If you recently chased oil prices up, and stayed long, you got creamed over the last couple of days. If you have tried to reverse short, consider my analysis from 4/1/2005, four days ago. In OIL GAPS TO $57.70 and the Magic Mystery Dot I wrote:
Short term, I'd expect people who chased this to get annihilated. This thing is a blood sport. Look for a shakeout period. The goal of the big money players is to accumulate as many long contracts as they can, at the lowest price. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to try to rattle the small time speculators out of their long positions, maybe even convince them to short. Prices will fall. Weak longs will get destroyed. The big fish will be accumulating as the panicked longs get out or reverse short. After a sufficient number of decapitations have occurred (the technical term for this is 'consolidation'), the thing will probably gap up to new highs.
The "shakeout period" may, and I repeat may, be over. The following is from this afternoon:
Crude-oil prices at the New York Mercantile Exchange fell Tuesday, weighed down by a sharp sell-off in gasoline futures and expectations of growing U.S. crude oil inventories.

May crude oil futures slipped 97 cents to $56.04 a barrel.

Gasoline futures, which lifted oil prices to record highs last week amid a reported decline in inventories of the product and refinery problems in the United States and Venezuela, fell 3.36 cents to $1.6880 a gallon as supply worries eased a bit.
The fuse is in the powder keg. The question is, will it get lit right here? Technically, oil is at a make or break point. I've seen this chart pattern a bunch of times and it tends to indicate higher prices are coming. Also, the conscensus is bearish, which means most traders think it's going down. HA! Any supply/shortage related news could gap this thing up in a frightening way.


4/4/2005

It Can't Go Down: A Top Insurance Company as the New Enron? :.

This is shocking. We have moved into the It's-Too-Big-To-Go-Down phase. It can't go down. If GM goes down, the whole damn thing goes down. If Fannie Mae goes down, the whole damn thing goes down. If AIG goes down, the whole damn thing... You get the picture:

American business is facing yet another major scandal involving more accounting shenanigans.

But, this scandal has the potential to cause tsunami-sized damage: It involves a highly respected insurance company, American International Group (AIG) - which is part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average - which has now admitted to $1.7 billion in improper accounting. And, it has enveloped some legends in the financial arena: Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, forced out as chairman of AIG, and Warren Buffet, the Omaha stock market guru, who will be questioned about his possible involvement.

Because AIG is so massive and important to the financial world, regulators will have to tread carefully.
The company's main business is providing reinsurance, that is, it insures insurance companies. This helps the industry to spread its risk among many large and financially sound companies so a single event does not become a financial disaster for one company.

Also, because of AIG's huge size, lawyers don't think the government will bring a criminal charge against the company as it did for Arthur Andersen, Enron's accountant. The criminal charge was a death sentence for the accountant.

"There is an increased reluctance to bring criminal charges that ultimately have the effect of killing a company that otherwise employs a lot of innocent people and has lots of value to it," says Michael Gass, an expert on SEC enforcement at Palmer & Dodge, a Boston law firm. "Instead, there is an increased focus on the individuals responsible."


Related: It Can't Go Down: General Motors' Pause on Way to Junk Is Troubling



AIG Staff Tried to Destroy Documents :.

The new chief executive of embattled insurer American International Group yesterday admitted that employees of the company had been found trying to destroy documents as he sought to allay concerns over the ever-expanding inquiries into the business.




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