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Putin made a comment about possible energy shortages and obstructed growth prospects, but urged constructive inter-dependence. This could be regarded as a threat, and should be taken as a claim for leadership. Putin reminded the group of his recommendation in 2006 for cooperation among energy suppliers, consumers, and transit countries. These suggestions fell on deaf ears over two years ago, but now after the Ukraine incidents, their time has clearly come. Putin wants a new international legal framework for energy security, with clear-cut legal statutes. Some of what Putin mentions comes as a reaction to US financial sources that are exerting extreme force on energy prices with political motive. Putin openly called for a balanced price determination system free from the vagaries of financial derivative instruments.

One might detect a theme in much of what Putin urges for new systems. Putin pursues a new energy framework to possibly serve as the foundation for a new financial structural foundation. This is a natural progression, based upon a solvent foundation, that would play into Russian strength. See the February reports for details. However, hard assets and natural resources must supplant the corrupt networks that control price systems in the current broken apparatuses. Putin is attempting to fill a dangerous vacuum. The Western leaders are caught in a vise, caught in a policy pattern toward more of the same ineffective elixirs. Putin also delivered stern warnings about NATO, whose broken treaties cause great stress. The nettlesome trend toward NATO inclusion for former Soviet Republics has also caused great stress. Expect extremely loud backfires on this front, as Ukraine will probably be used as a display case for Russian power. They will destroy the Ukrainian political structure, punish them for permitting themselves to be used as US puppets, and probably carve the nation into territories. Other Eastern European nations had better take notice.

BARTER SYSTEMS INITIATED

New important barter systems are soon to spring up. Just this week, China entering the on-ramp to the barter system highway by lending Russia $25 billion in return for a guaranteed 20 years of energy supply. It is not so much a loan, as an initial stake in a new trade system. My sources indicate that two bilateral barter accords are in progress, soon to be made public. The Russians have another bilateral barter plan with Germany, soon to be hatched. These plans will catch the Untied States off guard, and isolate the US. The pricing for commodity resources will circumvent the US-UK corrupted systems. In the process, the US will find itself outside looking in. Commodity supply routes will be redirected from Russia to China, from Canada to China, from Australia to China, and from Venezuela (as well as the Andes region) to China.

CHINESE LEADER WEN FIRMS BARTERS

Utah is among the number of states that now use a partial or fully electronic election system, and Premier Election Solutions, a subsidiary of Diebold, is the company that sold the machines to the state. To convince Utah decision-makers that Diebold was a big company with a substantial presence, Kathy Dopp, founder of UtahCountVotes.org, reported that a company representative told the decision-makers in 2006 that Diebold “has about 20 offices in Utah.” When pressed further, the representative refused to give the locations of any of the offices. In fact, the White Pages lists 18 Diebold offices.

However, when calls were made to all of these offices, only one picked up the phone. And when the addresses of offices listed under Diebold in the White Pages were visited, the addresses turned out to belong to either a Wal-Mart, a Sam’s Club, or no building at all. In the end, 16 of the 18 Diebold offices in Utah listed in the White Pages were false listings. One is in Salt Lake, and the other is in Bountiful.

The leaders of Europe’s wealthiest countries pledged on Sunday to help the IMF to raise at least a further $200 billion for crisis loans, but there was little sign on Monday that EU members will be able to find such sums while facing their own pressures.

Treasury sources said that Gordon Brown, as chairman of the G20 group of leading economies, would hold a series of bilateral meetings in the run-up to the London summit on April 2. These meetings will tackle the issue of reforming regulation and global financial institutions, as well as the more delicate task of raising funds for the IMF, the international lender of last resort, which is based in Washington.

The world has a much more complex financial system than in the 1930s, Mr. Taleb told Bloomberg Television, and that makes the current problems worse. Bonuses paid on Wall Street encouraged risk-taking with no regard for losses, he added.

Rare and unforeseen events are known as “black swans,” after Mr. Taleb’s 2007 book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.” Mr. Taleb said the current financial crisis isn’t one.

“The black swan for me would be for us to emerge out of this unscathed and return to normalcy,” Mr. Taleb told Bloomberg. Compared to the Great Depression, he said, this crisis is “very different, and it requires much more drastic action.”

Taleb’s book was published in May 2007, about three months before the credit crisis exploded.

Open Interest data for Friday is confirming that positions are already being rolled into May. This is unusual to have positions being rolled so early before the next expiry but the USO has created a different crude oil market. The front timespread on WTI (Apr/May) is logically starting to weaken as length is taken out of April WTI and as traders start to position themselves for the USO free lunch. This in turn is making for a wider Brent premium to WTI and an improvement of the product crack. If Petrologistics is right on the level of compliance then given that WTI will remain for a while distorted on the USO rolls, this could make for an even wider prompt premium of Brent versus WTI and a strong rebound of US Gulf cash physical values during the roll of indices.

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From ice-cream parlors to tanning salons, franchisees’ defaults on loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration are piling up in amounts unseen in years. A list of loans at 500 franchises shows the number of defaults by franchisees increased 52% in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2008, from fiscal 2007. Loan losses totaled $93.3 million, a 167% jump from $35 million just 12 months earlier.

The figures, a stark barometer of the downturn’s severity and scope, could give pause to banks that have loan money about where to lend next. Banks that make SBA-guaranteed loans say they use the annual list as guidance in assessing future commitments.

SBA-guaranteed loans are aimed at providing capital to small businesses that often can’t qualify for conventional credit. Those loans, made through commercial banks and other lenders, can total as much as $2 million for as long as 10 years. The SBA essentially insures a significant portion of the loan to encourage lending and small-business entrepreneurship. The recently passed stimulus package raises that guarantee amount to 90% from 75%.

The annual list, which shows the number of loan failures for the year and failure rates over eight years, is compiled by the SBA and published by the Coleman Report, a lending-industry trade publication based in La Canada, Calif.

The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.5 percent in December from November, compared with a 2.3 percent decline in the previous period, S&P said in a statement.

“There are very few, if any, pockets of turnaround that one can see in the data,” David Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee, said in the statement. “Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path.”

Juggling glasses of white wine and baggies filled with baubles, dozens of women descended on a well-appointed Orange County home this week to trade in their old golden treasures for hefty checks.

There were earrings from ex-boyfriends, ring settings with missing stones and chain bracelets from sorority sisters. One woman brought in her husband’s wedding ring — from a previous marriage.

Julia Geivet, 39, had hopes of selling an “embarrassing” Italian horn bauble she had owned since eighth grade and a few other small trinkets, which she thought might get her $30.

“I figured I’d come get a little money and socialize and chat,” said Geivet, who was recently laid off as a manager at Verizon Communications Inc. “It might not come out to a lot, but right now, every little bit helps.”

She left with a check for $302.92.

Gold is hot. The precious metal soared $25.70 an ounce Friday to $1,001.80, topping the $1,000 mark for the first time in nearly a year. South African Krugerrands, American Eagles and other gold coins are in demand as people seek safe investment havens in uncertain times.

That has people digging through their drawers and jewelry boxes looking for watchbands, cuff links, chains and bracelets that can be sold to jewelers, pawnshops and other brokers to be melted down to feed the growing demand for gold coins.

The party Geivet attended at the Aliso Viejo home of Mary-Margaret Fincher is a twist on the old suburban Tupperware party. Here, however, it’s the guests who do the selling.

Erin Stevenson, who organized the party through her group My Gold Party CA, appraised the jewelry with assistant Richard Bartoletti as guests debated whether to wear heels or flats during pregnancy.

To test the gold, Stevenson shaved off small flecks with a whirring Dremel tool, blanketing the dark wood of the dining table with a luminous sheen. Later, while Bartoletti peered through a magnifier attached to his eyeglasses, looking for karat stamps on the jewelry, Stevenson weeded out gold impostors with magnets and a special acidic gel.

Fincher, 34, said the parties were popular in her hometown of Atlanta. As the host she gets 10% of what is paid out — which this night was $4,000. One woman walked away with a $1,836.88 check.

Stevenson pays about 65% of the market value, which works out to $5.56 for a gram of 8-karat gold, rising to $15.47 a gram for 22k. She then sells the gold to a refiner for a price just under the market trading price.

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Precious metals, including silver and platinum, are benefiting from the panicky belief that “everything else has been destroyed,” said Leonard Kaplan of Prospector Asset Management in Evanston, Ill.

Kaplan says the gold market is on its way to becoming another bubble, like technology stocks in the late 1990s and housing for much of this decade.

“Is it going to end badly? Yes,” he said. “The question is where — is it $1,200, or $1,500, or $1,800?”

For now, however, demand appears to be growing. The U.S. Mint shipped 92,000 1-ounce American Eagle coins to its dealer network in January, up sharply from 22,500 in January 2008.

On Cloverfield Boulevard in Santa Monica, Goldline International Inc. caters to investors looking to buy thousands of dollars in gold bars or coins such as the American Eagle.

On Friday, total sales exceeded $5 million, he said.

The Home Office has suggested that the remote-controlled drones could be used to help police gather evidence and track criminals without putting officers at risk.

The miniature aircraft could be fitted with cameras and heat-seeking equipment, allowing police to carry out aerial reconnaissance from a control room.

They also have the benefit of being quieter than conventional helicopters or spotter planes and are much cheaper to run due to their fuel economy.

While in Beijing on her first overseas trip as US secretary of state, Clinton urged China on Sunday to keep buying US debt, saying it would help jumpstart the flagging US economy and stimulate demand for Chinese exports.

In fact, China has to keep investing in the United States if it wants to protect the value of its trillions in dollar holdings, said Lu Feng, an economist at Peking University’s China Center for Economic Research.

“China is sitting on huge piles of foreign exchange and it will increase its holdings of US Treasuries,” Lu said. “Objectively speaking, helping the US economy is good for both China and the US.”

China overtook Japan last year as the United States’ biggest foreign creditor, and had 696.2 billion dollars of Treasury Bills in December, according to the latest official data from Washington.

Its world-largest foreign exchange reserves, which stood at 1.95 trillion dollars as of the end of December, also mean it is the world’s biggest foreign holder of the US currency.

Clinton sought to highlight the importance of the ever-building inter-dependency between the world’s biggest and third biggest economies.