In the Last Six Weeks, the Federal Reserve Has Doubled the Amount of Total Credit in the Banking System Since 1913
November 1st, 2008Via: Contrarian Profits – Richard Daughty:
Almost a trillion dollars of new credit in 6 weeks! Gaaaahhhh! My hands now mysteriously clenched into Mogambo Fists Of Outrage (MFOO), I am forced to clutch a pencil between my teeth and try to laboriously calculate that if $1,803 billion in Federal Reserve credit is up $915 billion in 6 weeks, then the percentage change is, ummm, wait a minute, ummm, carry the one, ummmm, well, the percentage change is, ummm, well, who the hell cares what the damned stupid exact percentage is when you can just freaking LOOK at the problem to see that TFC has about doubled? Yow! A 100% gain! In 6 weeks!
My brain is staggered! In 6 lousy weeks, all of the total credit in the banking system created by the Fed since 1913 was almost instantly (poof!) doubled! Gaaaahhhh! We’re freaking doomed!
…
And don’t get me started on foreclosures, falling earnings, falling employment, insane levels of money and credit creation, or the horrors of inflation, because then I will also get started yammering about how gold, silver and oil have got to be the biggest bargains out there right now, and trust me when I tell you that you do not want to get me started!
China: Melamine Regularly Added to Animal Feed
November 1st, 2008Via: AP:
First it was baby milk formula. Then, dairy-based products from yogurt to chocolate.
Now chicken eggs have been contaminated with melamine, and an admission by state-run media that the industrial chemical is regularly added to animal feed in China fueled fears Friday that the problem could be more widespread, affecting fish, meat and who knows what else.
Nevada Has Highest Percentage of ‘Under Water’ Households
November 1st, 2008Via: Wall Street Journal:
Nevada leads the U.S. in the proportion of households whose mortgage debt exceeds the current estimated value of their homes, a condition known as being “under water,” according to a new study.
First American CoreLogic, a real-estate data firm based in Santa Ana, Calif., estimated that 48% of owners of single-family homes with mortgages in Nevada are under water. That compares with 18% nationwide.
First American said it based its estimates on data for 42 million properties, accounting for more than 80% of U.S. home mortgages.
Many Americans are under water because they bought homes at or near the peak of the housing boom and put little or no money down. Home values in the Las Vegas metro area have fallen 36% since peaking in early 2006, estimates Zillow.com, another real-estate data provider.
Many underwater homeowners can wait for prices to recover. The problem arises for those who lose jobs or have to move. They will have trouble selling their homes for enough to pay off the mortgage and thus may face foreclosure.
Research Credit: Lagavulin
U.S. Government’s Borrowing Needs “Unprecedented”
October 31st, 2008At the last minute, Hank splits and throws this Anthony Ryan guy under the bus to deliver the news.
Via: Blomberg:
The U.S. Treasury faces historic financing demands from a weakening economy and the added costs of a $700 billion Wall Street rescue program, the department’s top domestic finance official said today.
“This year’s financing needs will be unprecedented,” said Anthony Ryan, the Treasury’s acting undersecretary for domestic finance, at a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference in New York, where he was a last-minute substitute for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Ryan’s borrowing outlook comes after Treasury officials spent much of the past month publicly praising the rescue plan’s virtues. The Treasury needs to sell debt to raise money for the new initiatives and also cope with a weaker economy, two factors analysts say may push the country’s budget deficit to more than $1 trillion for the current fiscal year.
Research Credit: bozomind
The 2008 sElection
October 31st, 2008Very briefly, I’d like to write a couple of things about the next farce, nonsense pageant that’s about to go down.
The way I see it is as follows:
If Obama and Biden are installed, it means that the U.S. will continue to be Sovietized for integration into the ascendant global prison system. Biden is a high priest in the ranks of global elite enablers. The glow of the All Seeing Eye shines brightly on this ticket.
Then there’s the generalized zombie cult crack-up factor that surrounds this Obama thing. Votive candles? Panties? I’d suggest investing in smelling salts and organizations that train cult deprogrammers for the aftermath of this one.
If McCain and Palin are installed, it means that the elite would rather overtly collapse the U.S. before proceeding with the Sovietization plan later on. McCain is senile and Palin is as batshit crazy and corrupt as a person can be.
Two paths, two different types of bad.
If I had to guess, I would say that it will be Obama/Biden.
Most of you know that I view the U.S. President as relatively insignificant unit of analysis when it comes to trying to understand events. I also realize that the patterns of ritual abuse that these elections represent have f@cked up a lot of people for good. This is the stuff of religion, and worse. Feel free to use this post as an open thread to unburden yourself on this situation, if you wish. Just don’t expect me to respond to any of it. I’ve said more about this than I wanted to already, and now I have that can’t-quite-vomit feeling in my gut.
European Countries Tired of ‘Difficult’ Irish Says Eurocrat
October 31st, 2008People standing in the way of a greater Soviet Europe will need to be made offers they can’t refuse.
Via: Belfast Telegraph:
European countries are in no mood to renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty just to accommodate the “difficult” Irish, according to the highest-ranking EU civil servant from Ireland.
Secretary General of the European Commission, Catherine Day, said Ireland’s ‘No’ vote has tarnished the country’s image and damaged its ability to influence events in the EU.
She told a Dail committee yesterday that when Irish representatives at meetings try to voice concerns on issues other than Lisbon, the mood among other delegates is that “the Irish are being difficult” again.
This has led to the Irish having to “think twice” before raising issues, she added.
Ms Day said that the ‘No’ vote has meant that, for the time being, other member states tend to view Ireland only through the prism of the Lisbon Treaty.
“But I do not believe that Ireland’s image has been tarnished irrevocably, provided we are able to ratify in a reasonable time period.
“The mood in most of the other member states is that they want to get on with the real agenda and put an end to the institutional debate.
“Lisbon gives us the tools we need to face the challenges of the 21st century — and these challenges look even bigger today in the aftermath of the financial crisis then when the treaty was agreed.”
She said the Irish Government was not coming under any “undue pressure” to make a final decision.
She told the Committee on Ireland’s Future in the EU that she didn’t think it was politically conceivable that the EU would “throw away” eight years of work because the Irish don’t want to proceed.
“There is a sense of concern and frustration in other member states. Many years of debating went into it.”
“I think the other member states are very keen to accommodate Ireland in providing reassurances,” she said. “I don’t see any willingness to re-open the treaty.
“The goodwill does not go so far as to changing the treaty.”
California to Cut Water Deliveries to Cities, Farms
October 31st, 2008Death trap.
Via: AP:
California said Thursday that it plans to cut water deliveries to their second-lowest level ever next year, raising the prospect of rationing for cities and less planting by farmers.
The Department of Water Resources projects that it will deliver just 15 percent of the amount that local water agencies throughout California request every year.
Since the first State Water Project deliveries were made in 1962, the only time less water was promised was in 1993, but heavy precipitation that year ultimately allowed agencies to receive their full requests.
The reservoirs that are most crucial to the state’s water delivery system are at their lowest levels since 1977, after two years of dry weather and court-ordered restrictions on water pumping out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This year, water agencies received just 35 percent of the water they requested.
Farmers in the Central Valley say they’ll be forced to fallow fields, while cities from the San Francisco Bay area to San Diego might have to require residents to ration water.
Mike Young, a fourth-generation farmer in Kern County, called the projections disastrous.
“For the amount of acres we’ve got, we’re not going to have enough water to farm,” he said.
Young said he will be forced to fallow a fifth of his 5,000 acres. Water will go to his permanent crops — pistachio, almond and cherry trees — but most of his tomatoes and alfalfa will not get planted.
“We’ve got to start spending money on next year’s crop now,” Young said.
Jim Beck, general manager of the Kern County Water Agency, noted that fewer plantings would yield fewer crops and a decrease in the number of farm hands hired.
“We’re seeing a phenomenon in the Central Valley where growers who have been in the business of agriculture are laying off workers who have been with them for 20 or 30 years because they don’t have the water,” Beck said. “It’s one thing to see brown lawns and shorter showers in urban areas. The real impact in the Central Valley is people are having to find new jobs.”
In Southern California, the Metropolitan Water District — the agency that supplies water to about half the state’s population — has depleted more than a third of its water reserves. The agency’s general manager, Jeff Kightlinger, said Californians must immediately reduce their water use to stretch what little water is available.
“We are preparing for the very real possibility of water shortages and rationing throughout the region in 2009,” Kightlinger said, adding that his board will consider rationing during its meeting next month.
The State Water Project delivers water to more than 25 million residents and 750,000 acres of farmland.
In 2006, water agencies received their full allotment, in part because of heavy rains and a thick Sierra snow pack that year. But last year, a federal court limited water pumping out of the delta to protect the threatened delta smelt.
Even with Thursday’s dire projection, a wet and snowy winter could mean that cities and farms ultimately get more water, said Ted Thomas, a spokesman for the state water department. But that wouldn’t affect the court order.
“We are anticipating drastically reduced water supplies, regardless of weather conditions,” Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors, said in a statement.
Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow said the bleak outlook underscores the governor’s call to retool California’s massive water storage and delivery system.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger favors building more dams and designing a new way to funnel water through or around the environmentally fragile delta. The proposals have failed to gain traction in the Legislature.
Schwarzenegger this year called on water agencies to voluntarily cut water use 20 percent by 2020. He stopped short of issuing a mandatory conservation order, a strategy yet to used by the state, Snow said.
“The governor has sounded the wake-up call, and the clock is ticking,” Snow said in a statement.
UK: Maniac Nanny State Kidnaps Obese Children
October 30th, 2008Via: Telegraph:
Obtained under Freedom of Information laws, reports showed one boy aged six in Derby was taken from his home by social workers because he was dangerously obese.
Another boy in London, aged 12, was put into care with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 28 – 60 per cent above the 17.5 average for his age.
In Cumbria, social services intervened when one girl aged only eight weighed over 9st and wore size 16 clothes.
Dr Colin Waine, former head of the National Obesity Forum, called for closer monitoring of children to avoid them being taken into care.
He told The Daily Mirror: “This would enable appropriate action to be taken so we eliminate the need for such drastic measures. I’m looking for a position where this never becomes necessary.”
Recent figures suggest a third of 13-year-olds are obese or overweight, and that a million children in England will be obese within five years.
Earlier this month, Tam Fry, a member of the National Obesity Forum’s board, told a conference that youngster over-fed by their parents should be treated as victims of abuse, as happens with malnourished children.
Mr Fry said: “It is drastic but it’s a long-term therapy. For the sake of the children it does need to be done because we have got children who are horrendously fat.”
Research Credit: ottilie
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Visits Cryptogon
October 30th, 2008The U.S. Department of Homeland Security user (host: bcp2.cbp.dhs.gov, ip: 63.167.255.152) visited the following Cryptogon page:
They Made a Killing: The Use of Knowledge of Covert Operations in the Stock Market
The session began as a referral from Reddit. (Defending the Homeland on Reddit? Mmm hmm.)
Don’t Look Now, There’s a Huge Wave of Inflation Coming Toward Us
October 30th, 2008Via: Alternet:
…The policies that Paulson and Bernanke did implement at such staggering cost have only begun to do their full long-term damage, which will probably come in a round of even more serious inflation. Together, the Treasury and the Fed have spent or loaned over a trillion dollars in financial-sector aid. As set out by economist Brad Setser of the Council of Foreign Relations, besides steering $950 billion into the U.S. financial system ($500 billion sent over by the Treasury), the Fed has provided still another $450 billion of dollar liquidity to European central banks to spread around on that continent. This decision by the United States to be the lender of last resort, in tandem with Washington’s late September and October scare rhetoric about U.S. and world economy seizing up unless Congress passed the Paulson-Bernanke bail-out plan, has internationalized the crisis and made the U.S. dollar the pretended currency of the rescue instead of the vulnerable currency of the underlying problem. Something similar happened back in August 2007, when for 4-5 weeks a flight to “safety” and U.S. treasury debt buoyed the U.S. dollar. September and October have brought this result on an even larger scale.
Administration economists have said not to worry. This trillion won’t be inflationary because that effect will be lost amid the 2008 assets deflation. This is probably more bunk from economic experts who have been right about practically nothing in the last few years. Global commodity indexes have been rising since 2003, although carefully crafted federal statistics kept that pressure from being acknowledged in the U.S. until 2008. Now the common wisdom is that declining commodity prices spell a long-term decline. The better likelihood is that inflation, still much in evidence globally, is only taking a breather, as it did circa 1971 and circa 1974 during the 1967-1980 inflation cycle. Within a matter of months, Washington’s huge 2008 borrowing and soon-to-be-record trillion-dollar budget deficits will send inflation to new heights, and the current “treasuries bubble” and “U.S. dollar bubble” will pop.
Research Credit: Eileen
