Archive for July, 2008
Welcome to the Frozen Economy
July 16th, 2008If I refer to Southern California as a death trap, what do the population centers of the North East represent? Via: Business Week: The Polar ice cap may be melting, but the U.S. economy is frozen, starting right here in my small town. Gradually rising levels of dismay at the gas pump and in the […]
Court Affirms: Bush Can Order Indefinite Military Detentions of Civilians in the United States
July 16th, 2008Via: New York Times: President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision. But a second, overlapping 5-to-4 majority of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the […]
ALL ITALIANS TO BE FINGERPRINTED
July 16th, 2008Via: Reuters: Italy may demand all its citizens be fingerprinted, a move aimed at defusing widespread criticism of government plans to force Roma people and their children to provide fingerprints as a way of tackling criminality. That policy has been condemned by the European Parliament, by Romania, where many Roma come from, and by religious […]
Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names
July 16th, 2008Via: ACLU: The nation’s terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government’s own reported numbers for the size of the list. “Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ‘suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have […]
Contaminated U.S. Site Faces ‘Catastrophic’ Nuclear Leak
July 16th, 2008Via: New Scientist: ONE of “the most contaminated places on Earth” will only get dirtier if the US government doesn’t get its act together – clean-up plans are already 19 years behind schedule and not due for completion until 2050. More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in 177 underground […]
U.S. Faces Global Funding Crisis, Warns Merrill Lynch
July 16th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. In a recent comment, I wrote: It’s pretty clear that the Fed is more interested in selling out the dollar over time than letting the whole thing come crashing down all at once. They could have just let Freddie and Fannie […]
Cops to IndyMac Customers: Remain Calm or Face Arrest
July 16th, 2008I would not assume that the banking situation will continue to unwind in an orderly manner. If the herd begins to smell trouble, it will move with astonishing speed and ferocity. Don’t get caught trying to move your money to the exit as millions of zombies attempt to do the same thing. —EMERGENCY: U.S. GOVERNMENT […]
MASSIVE INTERVENTION
July 15th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. The Plunge Protection Team (Working Group on Financial Markets) is out in force right now. Yep, that was getting a bit hairy and the PPT stepped in. Everything whipsawed at once. We’re seeing an honest to g0d, by-the-book, fake-out, bullshit crank, […]
Wholesale Prices Soar in June; Sales Are Sluggish
July 15th, 2008Stagflation. But don’t bother looking for that term in the AP piece below. Via: AP: The economy showed the depth of its twin problems on Tuesday, slow growth and rising inflation, as the nation wrestled with a teetering financial system, a slumping dollar and rising prices for food and fuel. The Labor Department reported that […]
Worried About Foreclosure? Hope That Your Bank Implodes
July 15th, 2008Via: Wall Street Journal: IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the failed thrift, reopened its doors under federal control Monday and promptly moved to toss ailing homeowners a lifeline by halting all foreclosures on the mortgages it owns. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, who has been one of the most outspoken officials calling for banks to […]
