Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Zynga’s Secret Dealer for High Value Farmville Addicts
September 13th, 2010Via: Valleywag: The company behind Mafia Wars and Farmville doesn’t like to talk about the sad addicts who fuel its profits. But it does quietly run a special store for them, where imaginary credits are bought with very real bank transfers. The minimum purchase in Zynga’s underground “Platinum Purchase Program” is $500, payable by wire […]
British Troops Allegedly Transporting Heroin on Military Aircraft
September 13th, 2010My guess is that this particular story is due to upstarts, but keep in mind: Planned British Covert Operation Included Training in “Farming and Irrigation Techniques” for Taliban Fighters. For the real, state sponsored narcotics trafficking program—tons, not a kilo here, a kilo there—look at things like the U.S. built heroin bridge and Blackwater/Xe’s “aviation […]
U.S. Poverty on Track to Post Record Gain in 2009
September 12th, 2010Via: AP: The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.
China Blacks Out Towns to Meet Energy Goal
September 8th, 2010Via: AP: Chinese steel mills and mobile phone factories are being idled and thousands of homes in one area are doing without electricity as local governments order power cuts to meet energy-saving targets set by Beijing. Rolling blackouts and enforced power cuts are affecting key industrial areas. The prosperous eastern city of Taizhou turned off […]
Afghan Security Forces Beat Angry Customers to Prevent Run on Kabul Bank
September 8th, 2010Via: Guardian: Afghan security forces used batons on unruly customers scrambling to withdraw their savings today from the country’s biggest bank, which is mired in a scandal of corruption and mismanagement. Kabul Bank’s troubles have threatened to add a financial crisis to Afghanistan’s other woes, with military and civilian casualties at record levels as a […]
John Le Carre on Russia, Banking and the Deep State
September 8th, 2010Via: BBC: “I was laughed at, in a way, when the Cold War ended and the wall came down,” he told Today presenter Justin Webb. “‘Poor old Le Carre, what will become of him? Nobody’s spying anymore.’ “The reality is, the budgets have never been bigger, the recruitment has never been more wholesale.” Today’s Russian […]
Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds
September 8th, 2010What a mess. Via: Vanity Fair: In addition to its roughly $400 billion (and growing) of outstanding government debt, the Greek number crunchers had just figured out that their government owed another $800 billion or more in pensions. Add it all up and you got about $1.2 trillion, or more than a quarter-million dollars for […]
Gold Trying to Break Higher
September 7th, 2010WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. $1256.70 is the close to beat. $1265.05 is the high to beat. It’s currently $1257. This is a big make or break area.
Should U.S. Government Debt Be Rated Junk?
September 7th, 2010Via: Fortune: Typically, a bond receives junk status due to its increased risk of default, and therefore pays higher yields to the owners of the bonds to make up for the risk. In general, the owner of a bond is subject to many risks: interest rate risk, inflationary risks, currency risk, duration risk, and so […]
The True Cost of the Iraq War: $3 Trillion and Beyond
September 7th, 2010Via: Washington Post: Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration’s 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war. But today, as the United States ends combat in […]
