Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World
February 12th, 2009UPDATE: Contest Results The target was a picture of my ancient, tattered Audio Technica headphones sitting on the concrete floor. There were no direct hits, but 9 of 13 submissions had something to do with round things. For days, it looked like Evil Chopsticks was going to be the closest one, since he or she […]
EU Faces ‘Toxic’ Debt Spiral
February 12th, 2009Via: Telegraph: It is not surprising that European Union finance ministers looked ashen faced in Brussels on Tuesday. The breakfast meeting discussed how EU governments should deal with, in other words pay for, the “toxic” banking assets that triggered the economic crisis. As discussed here on Monday, the European Commission warned that government attempts to […]
Legatus and Reinhardt
February 11th, 2009WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. I follow a lot of deeply strange information as a matter of routine. Almost none of it gets mentioned here. I’m sufficiently weirded out by something that I’ve been watching unfold over the last couple of days and thought I’d open […]
Mexico Drug Gangs Threaten Cops on Radio, Then Kill Them
February 10th, 2009Where are the slingshots? Via: Reuters: Mexican drug gangs near the U.S. border are breaking into police radio frequencies to issue chilling death threats to cops which they then carry out, demoralizing security forces in a worsening drug war. “You’re next, bastard … We’re going to get you,” an unidentified drug gang member said over […]
Saturday Night Live: Conspiracy Theory Rock
February 10th, 2009A minor glitch in the matrix…
Record Swiss Loss of SFr20 Billion for UBS
February 10th, 2009Via: Financial Times: UBS on Tuesday announced the highest loss in Swiss corporate history as Europe’s biggest casualty of the credit crisis said it lost nearly SFr20bn ($17bn, €13.2bn) in 2008. The loss, which was above market expectations, was swollen by a SFr8.10bn loss in the fourth quarter, and came in spite of a surprise […]
Rep. Kanjorski: $550 Billion Disappeared in “Electronic Run On the Banks”
February 9th, 2009It gets pretty good at about two minutes in. By pretty good, I mean, you might want to be wearing a diaper as you watch this. I wonder where Henry Paulson has slithered off to now…
More Americans Killed in Mexico Since 2004 Than in Any Other Country (Outside Military Combat Zones)
February 9th, 2009Via: AP: More than 200 American citizens have been killed since 2004 in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence, amounting to the highest number of unnatural deaths in any foreign country outside military combat zones, according to the U.S. State Department. … The State Department tracks most American homicides abroad but releases few details about the […]
In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures
February 9th, 2009Via: New York Times: Welcome to the American dream in high reverse. Lehigh Acres is one of countless sprawling exurbs that the housing boom drastically reshaped, and now the bust is testing whether the experience of shared struggle will pull people together or tear them apart. The changes in these mostly unincorporated areas outside cities […]
U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailouts as Senate Votes
February 9th, 2009Via: Bloomberg: The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages. The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the […]
