Archive for March, 2009
Dollar Sharply Lower
March 19th, 2009Via: BBC: The dollar has fallen against all major currencies after the US Federal Reserve announced a plan to buy $1.2tn (£843bn) of debt to boost its economy. The dollar fell by 3.8% against the euro and by 3.6% against the pound. The US currency also declined against the yen, the Norwegian krone, the Australian […]
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions
March 19th, 2009Thank you. IL AU$100 MS CA$25 SP $20 DT $10 AS $20 MW $20 CD $25 JB $25
Scenes from the Recession
March 19th, 2009Via: Boston Globe: The state of our global economy: foreclosures, evictions, bankruptcies, layoffs, abandoned projects, and the people and industries caught in the middle. It can be difficult to capture financial pressures in photographs, but here a few recent glimpses into some of the places and lives affected by what some are calling the “Great […]
Fed to Pump Another $1 Trillion Into U.S. Economy
March 19th, 2009Via: IHT: The Federal Reserve sharply stepped up its efforts to bolster the economy on Wednesday, announcing that it would pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities. Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to […]
FED TO BUY U.S. TREASURIES
March 19th, 2009WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. Well, guys, there it is. The main mechanism of U.S. debt financing has broken down. This is, by far, the most serious economic development to occur in my lifetime (I’m 37). What will happen, and when, as a result of this, […]
Goldman Sachs Offers Loans to “Stretched” Employees
March 18th, 2009I couldn’t make it up if I tried. Via: New York Times: Goldman Sachs got its bailout. Now some of its bankers, those aristocrats of Wall Street, apparently need a bit of a bailout too. Goldman, which accepted billions of taxpayer dollars last fall and, as learned Sunday, was also a big beneficiary of the […]
Army Investigating How and Why Troops Were Sent Into Alabama Town After Murder Spree
March 18th, 2009I was beginning to wonder why the U.S. Army didn’t write back. *snort* I guess they’ve been busy trying to figure out how to eat such a giant shit sandwich.
The Long and Sadistic History Behind the CIA’s Torture Techniques
March 18th, 2009Via: Slate: In the 20th century, there were two main traditions of clean torture—the kind that doesn’t leave marks, as modern torturers prefer. The first is French modern, a combination of water- and electro-torture. The second is Anglo-Saxon modern, a classic list of sleep deprivation, positional and restraint tortures, extremes of temperature, noise, and beatings. […]
AIG: It’s Not the Bonuses. It’s That AIG’s Counterparties Are Getting Paid Back in Full
March 18th, 2009I’d bet that the choreographers of this scam assume that the average person doesn’t know the difference between million and billion. That’s the first bet. The second bet I’d make is that this entire spectacle has been concocted to shift the focus away from where the really big money is going. (Hint: Goldman Sachs.) So, […]
Obama May Widen Drone War Over Pakistan
March 18th, 2009Via: Wired: Six times in the last two months, the new administration has used unmanned aircraft to strike at Taliban camps in the largely-ungoverned tribal wildlands on Pakistan. That could be just the start, however. New York Times reports that President Obama’s national security team is considering an expansion the target set, to include the […]
