Archive for March, 2008
Threat to Millions as Food Aid Scheme Runs Out of Money
March 26th, 2008Via: Independent: Faced with the dramatically spiralling costs of wheat, rice and corn, the World Food Programme has made an unprecedented appeal for at least $500m (£250m) to help it continue supplying food aid to 73 million needy people this year. Josette Sheeran, the organisation’s executive director, told journalists yesterday that this was the first […]
Wall Street Journal on Real Estate Collapse: “Demolish some of the least-wanted houses, with taxpayer money if necessary”
March 26th, 2008Via: Wall Street Journal: Let us step back. A great deal of housing debt was created in the last few years to give speculative buyers nominal title to homes that they no longer want. Any postmortem will also show that too much government subsidy for the creation of housing debt was an original sin at […]
Whitney Slashes Outlooks on Four Largest U.S. Banks
March 26th, 2008Via: Reuters: The earnings outlooks for the four largest U.S. banks have been slashed by Oppenheimer & Co analyst Meredith Whitney, who said there is “no clear end in sight” to downward pressure on the sector’s profits. In a report late Tuesday, Whitney said Citigroup Inc, the largest U.S. bank by assets, might lose $1.15 […]
GOLDMAN SACHS REPORT: GLOBAL CREDIT COLLAPSE LOSSES $1.2 TRILLION
March 26th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. It’s like I’ve been saying, along with thousands of other analysts: We haven’t seen anything yet. Now, daddy needs XLF to lean over and die so his Hail Mary April puts on that pig increase in value.. Via: BBC: The credit […]
ABC News Soundbite Version of NSA Intercept Story
March 26th, 2008For those of you who aren’t willing to wade through a post like, NSA, AT&T and the NarusInsight Intercept Suite, and the related documents, here is a condensed version:
Sterilise Parents on Benefits, Says Tory
March 25th, 2008Via: Telegraph: A councillor is facing calls to resign after he said parents on benefits should be sterilised to stop them having more than one child. John Ward, a Conservative member of Medway Council in Kent, made the comments during a discussion about the hunt for the schoolgirl Shannon Matthews. He said her family was […]
U.S. Home Prices Drop 11.4% in January
March 25th, 2008Via: AP: A widely-watched index of U.S. home prices fell 11.4 percent in January, its steepest drop since data for the indicator was first collected in 1987. The decline reported Tuesday in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index means prices have been growing more slowly or dropping for 19 consecutive months. The index tracks the prices […]
Canada: Patriot Act Haunts Google Service
March 25th, 2008The price is right on the Google honeypot. Via: Globe and Mail: Google Inc. is a year into its ground-shifting strategy to change the way people communicate and work. But the initiative to reinvent the way that people use software is running headlong into another new phenomenon of the information technology age: the unprecedented powers […]
D.C.: Police to Ask Residents for Permission to Search Homes for Guns
March 25th, 2008Oh sure. Via: NBC News: A crackdown on guns is meeting some resistance in the District. Police are asking residents to submit to voluntary searches in exchange for amnesty under the District’s gun ban. They passed out fliers requesting cooperation on Monday. The program will begin in a couple of weeks in the Washington Highlands […]
Government to Examine Swings in Crop Futures
March 25th, 2008It is absolute madness that commodities are bought and sold using leveraged vehicles in markets that allow participation by speculators; individuals and organizations who have no interest or connection to the underlying physical commodity. … Participants who are trying to use the futures market in a legitimate manner, to secure supplies of goods, or to […]
