Archive for February, 2008
Bank Reserves Go Negative
February 7th, 2008Reader Brad tipped me off to this situation. Via: Minyanville: Here’s an interesting excerpt from the book Investing Public Funds by Girard Miller about borrowed reserves: “Another useful indicator of the Federal Reserve’s relative monetary policies can be found weekly in the Federal Reserve data. A key statistic is the net free reserves or net […]
“Euros Accepted” Signs Pop Up in New York City
February 7th, 2008HAHA Shop keepers are taking a page from the Irish Pub Owner’s in America playbook. Via: Reuters: In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain’t what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise. “We had decided that money […]
Troubled Homeowners: Can’t Pay? Just Walk Away
February 7th, 2008Can’t pay? Just walk away. It has a nice, simple ring to it. Kinda catchy. Jingle mail is another term that’s making its way around suburban ghettos and corporate boardrooms. Jingle mail is what happens when the zombie slobs leave their house keys in the mail box and “just walk away” from their upside down […]
Afghanistan: Planned British Covert Operation Included Training in “Farming and Irrigation Techniques” for Taliban Fighters
February 6th, 2008“The British Army provided security cordons around meetings between two senior British intelligence officers and leading members of the group responsible for producing the opium that is used to make 90% of the world’s heroin.” —Britain in Secret Talks with the Taliban But it gets so much better! The British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or […]
Gulf States May Have to Drop Dollar Pegs
February 6th, 2008Interesting development, with so many of the Intertubes getting damaged in the region… Via: Bloomberg: Gulf states including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will have to revalue their currency pegs this year following the dollar’s decline and U.S. interest- rate cuts, said Bear Stearns Cos. and Merrill Lynch & Co. Five nations lowered […]
Problems with Five Undersea Fiber Optic Cables
February 6th, 2008It’s a definite WTF moment. Via: Khaleej Times: A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran […]
U.S. Citizens Will Soon Require Clearance by Department of Homeland Security to Return to Their Own Country
February 6th, 2008I wonder if the Department of Homeland Security can guess which finger I’m holding up right now? Via: Practical Nomad: Under new regulations and procedures announced to take effect over the next month, citizens of the USA will, for the first time, be required to obtain USA government permission in order to return home to […]
NSA to Monitor Computer Networks of All Federal Agencies
February 6th, 2008Via: Washington Post: President Bush signed a directive this month that expands the intelligence community’s role in monitoring Internet traffic to protect against a rising number of attacks on federal agencies’ computer systems. The directive, whose content is classified, authorizes the intelligence agencies, in particular the National Security Agency, to monitor the computer networks of […]
A Garbage Tip that Stretches from Hawaii to Japan
February 6th, 2008Via: Independent: A “plastic soup” of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said. The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world’s largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater […]
Gold Selling Off
February 5th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. Goldbugs may want to review, Weekly Gold Chart Has Formed a Shooting Star… or Something, especially the second part about the multilane highway. I really didn’t want to get that one right.
