Archive for the 'Economy' Category
“Let’s get real,” Prof. Kotlikoff says. “The U.S. is bankrupt.”
October 28th, 2010Via: The Globe and Mail: Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff says U.S. government debt is not $13.5-trillion (U.S.), which is 60 per cent of current gross domestic product, as global investors and American taxpayers think, but rather 14-fold higher: $200-trillion – 840 per cent of current GDP. “Let’s get real,” Prof. Kotlikoff says. “The U.S. […]
Afghanistan: Russia Steps in to Help NATO
October 28th, 2010Rare earth minerals for everyone who helps NATO steal them. In other news: Coalition Win Impossible: Gorbachev. Via: Independent: Russia has agreed to return to the war in Afghanistan at the request of the Western states which helped the mujahedin to drive its forces out of the country 21 years ago. The Independent has learnt […]
Congressional Staffers as Stock Pickers
October 27th, 2010The point is that LOTS of people who aren’t corporate insiders know the news before the market does. They buy before the news comes out. This happens every day. —Insider Crimes, Funny Money and Options Rackets Via: Wall Street Journal: The Journal analysis showed that an aide to a Republican member of the Senate Banking […]
Janitors With Ph.D.s
October 27th, 2010Via: AlterNet: For politicians, boosting college graduation rates has always been a fairly uncontroversial goal to support. The Obama administration is doing so, rather relentlessly, through a number of initiatives designed to better prepare students for college and support them once they get there. The assumptions are 1) that students who graduate from college have […]
Sickening Boondoggle: The New and Improved Marine One Chopper
October 26th, 2010Via: Wired: In this, the first in an occasional series examining tech influence in politics using MAPLight’s nonpartisan political-finance–analysis tools, the trail leads to a mind boggling, 10-year campaign in which three key defense contractors have funneled more than $18 million to the pockets of federal lawmakers, to win various military contracts, including one for […]
Chinese Investment Soars in Brazil; Mainly Related to Oil
October 26th, 2010Via: AFP: Chinese investment in Brazil is expected to reach 30 billion dollars this year, according to observers — a sum aimed at securing access to the Latin American nation’s oil and other resources. The inflow has been sudden, and dramatic. “Up to the end of last year, the amount of Chinese investment in Brazil […]
Bernanke Asset Purchases Risk Unleashing 1970s Inflation Genie
October 26th, 2010WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. Oil is already over $80. Either that USDX support I’ve been mentioning holds, or we could see oil back over $100 in a few weeks. Is the “Recovery” going to run on $100+ oil? *chortle* Via: Bloomberg: For the second time […]
U.S. Falls in Annual Corruption Survey
October 26th, 2010Via: New York Times: Perceptions of corruption in the United States have worsened over the past year, knocking it out of the top 20 in global rankings released Tuesday by the watchdog group Transparency International in Berlin. The top and bottom three countries on the list remain unchanged from 2009: Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore […]
U.S. Slips to 49th in Life Expectancy
October 26th, 2010Via: Reuters: Americans die sooner than citizens of a dozen other developed nations and the usual suspects — obesity, traffic accidents and a high murder rate — are not to blame, researchers reported on Thursday. Instead, poor healthcare may be to blame, the team at Columbia University in New York reported. They found that 15-year […]
Treasury Draws Negative Yield for First Time
October 25th, 2010Via: Bloomberg: The Treasury sold $10 billion of five-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities at a negative yield for the first time in the history of U.S. debt. The securities drew a yield of negative 0.55 percent, the same as the average forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 7 of the Federal Reserve’s 18 primary […]
