George Orwell’s Former London Home Now Surrounded by Dozens of Surveillance Cameras
April 4th, 2007Via: This Is London:
The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell’s 1984 has become a reality – in the shadow of the author’s former London home.
It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell’s vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person’s movements is now here.
According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras – one for every 14 people in the country – and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.
Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell’s fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.
On the wall outside his former residence – flat number 27B – where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.
John McCain Sees Progress in Baghdad; 21 Dead in Bombing the Next Day Where He Stood
April 4th, 2007Via: The Australian:
A NEWBORN baby was one of at least 14 children and adults killed today when a suicide bomber detonated a truck laden with explosives close to a primary school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
The latest massacre of Iraqi children came as 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital.
The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress. [See: McCain’s Potemkin Village]
The Kirkuk bloodshed erupted when a bomber driving a truck full of explosives hidden by sacks of flour targeted an Iraqi police station that US soldiers were visiting. The full force of the blast hit a nearby primary school.
Enronization of America
April 4th, 2007Via: Prudent Bear:
The U.S. economy has been held up for the last half decade only by the housing and consumption bubbles caused by cheap money. Much of its healthy capitalist tissue has rotted internally, and been replaced by corrupt politically-determined rent-seeking. Only when the cheap money finally disappears, and recession occurs, will we be able to tell the full damage caused by the Enronization of America.
Pay to Upgrade DRM Infested Music Files to Open Format
April 4th, 2007I thought this was a lingering April Fool’s joke. Pay extra to get the music files the way they should have been released in the first place?
Tell me another one.
Via: The Inquirer:
Apple and EMI triumphantly announced that they were removing DRM from Apple tracks for a mere $.30 more, upgradable if you got the old tracks. They are also giving it to you at a higher bit rate, 256Kbps instead of the older 128. Sounds good on the surface.
The problem is they snowed you, there is no removal of anything, this is a completely different product. The older ones remain totally DRM infected, cost the same, and if you bought them, you are just as locked in as you were, unless you tithe more.
The content mafiaa distracted you with a shiny thing, and sold you back the rights they had no standing to take in the first place. Readers hate it when I say this, but you are idiots if you bought that line.
CRYPTOGON READER CONTRIBUTES $100
April 4th, 2007I think a few Cryptogon contributors like to try to get me to spit my coffee all over the screen in the morning as I check messages! NH is one of them. He has used this tactic twice now! 😉
To receive 20% of the monthly goal in a single shot is incredible, and reassuring. Thanks, NH, for your extreme generosity.
Sanitizing Gels and Latex Gloves: Plying the Librarian’s Trade
April 3rd, 2007If this one doesn’t belong in the Collapse category, I don’t know what does. I selected a passage to quote that will not turn your stomach, but be warned, if you click through, that this is an extremely grim account.
Via: Tom Dispatch:
Although the public may not have caught on, ask any urban library administrator in the nation where the chronically homeless go during the day and he or she will tell you about the struggles of America’s public librarians to cope with their unwanted and unappreciated role as the daytime guardians of the down and out. In our public libraries, the outcasts are inside.
UK: Armed Forces’ Suicides Surpass Combat Deaths
April 3rd, 2007Via: The Independent:
More servicemen and women have committed suicide over the past two decades than have died in military action, according to new figures.
The latest death toll for those in the armed forces who have taken their own lives has risen to 687 compared with 438 killed during active service in major conflicts such as the Gulf, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.
Ministry of Defence (MoD) figures released this weekend also reveal that the number of suicides among servicemen and women has risen by at least 49 in a year. This is more than three times the number of soldiers killed since the start of war in Afghanistan in 2001 and has raised fresh concerns about the mental welfare of troops. Those most at risk of taking their own lives are soldiers in their early 20s and teenage army recruits.
New Zealand Dollar Breaks Above 72
April 3rd, 2007WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy sell or hold any financial instrument.
If youre gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.
You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when youre sittin at the table.
Therell be time enough for countin when the dealins done.
Now every gambler knows that the secret to survivin
Is knowin what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
Cause every hands a winner and every hands a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
This isn’t a good way to be making money. I know, some of you might think that the decision to move almost everything we had into Kiwi dollars was a cunning plan, and that we should be patting ourselves on the back right now. Wrong. This move is nonsense and it’s going to slam down so hard that average New Zealanders are in for the shock of their lives.
Mainly, this is wealthy people from all over the place chasing better rates on cash bets. That’s really what’s behind this. In the process, New Zealand farmers are going to get nailed to a cross made out of yen and euros.
Obviously, the world wants what New Zealand has. If the New Zealand Government had any courage at all, they would stand up and demand tangible assets for New Zealand’s premium goods so New Zealand could move toward eliminating its high debt and finding a more sensible economic path to tread. The longer New Zealand plays by the rules established by U.S. and European bankers, the worse off the next bust will be.
By allowing this carry trade nonsense to continue, the New Zealand Government is ensuring catastrophe down the road. They’re trying to curb the spending of New Zealanders with higher rates while allowing this funny money casino to continue for wealthy foreigners. Who’s got the balls to stand up and say “No more carry trade swindling.” Helen Clark? HA New Zealand won’t even demand goods to be labeled with their country of origin so it’s fully nuts to contemplate reigning in the operations of the casino. But it’s too late now anyway. The NZ economy would sink like a rusty old ship that just had a massive hole blown through its guts, far below the waterline, if ANY move was made to even slow the funny money racket. Catastrophe later, I guess, is better than catastrophe now.
If you’re a farmer, you probably know about bullshit, and I’m not talking about the stuff that’s good for your garden. I’m referring to headlines like, Fonterra Pours Out Best-Ever Forecast. Gee. That sounds pretty good:
Fonterra yesterday released its most optimistic forecast yet about global dairy demands, which it says could deliver the New Zealand economy a significant boost over the next decade.
Unprecedented demand means global prices for milk powder (which still makes up the bulk of Fonterra’s sales) have hit all-time highs in the past few weeks.
“This is the most optimistic demand forecast that we’ve ever put together as an industry,” said head of strategy and growth Graham Stuart.
It goes on like that for a while, and if you keep reading, you find this:
As long as the dollar remained stable the co-operative was on track to deliver a payout closer to $5/kg of milk solids next year, he said. It has forecast a payout of $4.15/kg this year.
Fonterra was getting “the highest prices for skim milk and whole milk ever traded on the global market”, van der Heyden said. “Spot prices are going through the roof.”
The strong kiwi dollar was masking the extent of Fonterra’s success in delivering good returns to farmers.
Oh. Woops.
For farmers, the message reported in the newspaper is actually the truth: Work harder, produce more of a better product and wind up with less in your pocket as a result. Why? Don’t bother yourself with the finer details of global finance. We know what’s good for you. Trust us.
I’ve got another message for New Zealand farmers: Get small. Get local. Get out of the global casino before the pit bosses in Wellington and that god damned Business Roundtable wipe you out. Work less and do better? That’s right, if you work for yourself and your community and not some foreign bank and middlemen exporters! (Most banks operating in New Zealand are Australian owned. Kiwibank is a quasi government operation. Rabobank is based in the Netherlands and has a higher credit rating than the New Zealand Government.) These guys are getting way too much out of you and they’re literally taking it out of your hide! Stop playing their games.
Sell your goods directly to your neighbors and people close to you. Use farmers’ markets. Instead of your hard work going to pay banks and middlemen, you will get a better price for your goods. With any luck, American and European farmers will do the same, before their top soil is gone, but I wouldn’t count on it. You can make this transition voluntarily, while there’s still time, or you can make it when chaos and starvation constrain your options, or worse.
A message to everyone else: Kiwi dollars, who cares, how does that affect me?
The money is winding up down here because the big consumer economies are doomed, tapped out, collapsing. The shop has been looted and now the criminals are trying to strip the fixtures off the walls. The money is flowing into New Zealand, a small, out of the way place with more sheep than people, and not into the mighty U.S. stock market. How can that be?
U.S. equities are so obviously doomed that Asians and Europeans would rather make reckless currency bets than invest in U.S. companies. This is a shocking criticism of U.S. profligacy and an indication that America’s gig is finally up.
Reckless? Don’t get me wrong, I bet my life on New Zealand, and I’m glad I did. But taking on New Zealand dollar denominated assets is a reckless bet given the debt levels involved. Take a look at the handy Current Account Balance (Per Capita) by Country chart and scroll all the way to the bottom, deep into the red zone where the most indebted people in the world live.
Iceland? I don’t know what happened there. But look at the second and third heaviest debt loads per capita. The U.S. is number two with -$2,778.07 per person. New Zealand is small, but Kiwis know a thing or two about profligacy as well. At -$2,376.76, New Zealand is carrying the third heaviest debt load per person in the world.
And which of the top traded currencies gained the most over the last year, and is now breaking higher?
Forget the bridge, bub, I’ve got some New Zealand dollars to sell ya.
Can New Zealand avoid going down the drain along with the U.S.?
As Americans lose the taste for increasingly expensive Kiwi commodities—in terms of U.S. funny money—how will New Zealand cover those interest payments on the shocking piles of debt that are growing larger by the day?
Borrow more?
I’m sure that Ivy League bankers are making the rounds in Wellington and Auckland, explaining how America did it for decades.
Like the man says, “Know when to run.”
Via: Bloomberg:
Australia’s dollar rose to a 10-year high and New Zealand’s to the strongest in almost two years on their interest-rate appeal and a rally in commodities.
The New Zealand dollar is the biggest gainer of the 16 most traded currencies in the past 12 months, followed by Australia’s. In that time, the Reserve Bank of Australia has raised rates three times to a six-year high of 6.25 percent and New Zealand’s central bank once to a record 7.5 percent.
“Rates are really driving currencies, particularly the Australian and New Zealand dollars,” said Jeff Gladstein, global head of foreign-exchange at AIG Financial Products Corp. in Wilton, Connecticut. “You have a real trend in play here, so it’s going to be hard to unseat that in the very near term.”
Australia’s currency traded at 81.63 U.S. cents as of 12:14 p.m. in Sydney compared with 81.47 cents in Asia yesterday and reached 81.82 cents, the highest since December 1996.
The New Zealand dollar was at 72.22 U.S. cents from 71.91 cents and reached 72.42 cents, the strongest since May 2005.
The Southern Hemisphere currencies extended yesterday’s gains as prices rose for commodities, which make up about 60 percent of Australian exports and 70 percent of New Zealand’s. Gold futures for June delivery gained 0.4 percent in New York and copper futures for May delivery rose to an almost four-month high. World dairy prices are the highest since at least 1986.
“As commodities prices rally, demand for their currency grows,” said AIG’s Gladstein. The New Zealand dollar may rise to 72.60 cents today, he said.
Back Into Carry
New Zealand’s currency has gained almost 19 percent in the past year, exceeding the Australian dollar’s 14 percent rally, as investors take advantage of the higher yields in a strategy known as a carry trade.
“The fact the New Zealand dollar is outperforming the Australian dollar suggests people are getting back into the carry trade,” said Tony Morriss, a currency strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Sydney. “The carry is just too attractive for short term players to pass up.” Australia’s dollar may reach 81.90 cents today, he said.
New Zealand government three-year bonds yield 2.09 percentage points more than in the U.S. and 5.68 percentage points more than in Japan.
Related: The Inconvenient Truth About the Kiwi Dollar
New Century, Biggest Subprime Casualty, Goes Bankrupt
April 2nd, 2007Via: Bloomberg:
New Century Financial Corp., overwhelmed by rising defaults from borrowers with poor credit records, became the largest subprime mortgage lender ever to fail as it filed for bankruptcy today.
New Century plans to sell most of its assets within 45 days, said the Chapter 11 filing in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. About 3,200 people, more than half the workforce at the Irvine, California-based company, will be fired. New Century said it already agreed to sell its mortgage billing and collections unit to Carrington Capital Management LLC for $139 million.
The company rode the U.S. housing boom to become the largest independent mortgage lender to subprime borrowers, only to collapse as interest rates rose and home prices fell. New Century’s market value soared to more than $3.5 billion in December 2004, and last year it made about $60 billion in loans. Like rival firms, the company lowered its lending standards to keep business flowing after demand slumped.
“They’re clearly going to be the poster child for bad practices in the mortgage industry,” said Matthew Howlett, an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton in New York. “When all is said and done, the management team will be to blame.”
The court filing protects the company’s assets from creditors. They include many of the Wall Street firms that financed its mortgage loans, such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Credit Suisse Group.
Related: Money: Going Tactical
Iran Accuses U.S. of Violating Its Airspace
April 2nd, 2007The U.S. might be trying to get the Iranians to “paint” aircraft with their air defense systems. The U.S. would use this intelligence for final target selection for the initial phase of the attack. Air defense and communications systems will be hit first.
Via: People’s Daily:
Two U.S. airplanes have violated Iran’s airspace in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, Iran’s state television Sunday quoted a local military commander as saying on its website.
The airplanes on Saturday trespassed Iranian airspace from the northwest of Abadan, Khuzestan province, and disappeared from its southwest, said Colonel Aqili, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Abadan.
“The planes cast out white smoke trails, attracting the local people’s attention,” he was quoted as saying, but without giving the types of the two U.S. airplanes or their duration of the alleged violation.
