July 29, 2011

The EU Crisis is an Elaborately Scripted Farce

Greece Bonds Collapse, Interest Rates Surge to Near 40% as ECB Announces They Will Allow 'Temporary Default'

July 19, 2011

Alexander Higgins Blog - European bankers have announced they will allow a temporary default on Greece sovereign debt which in turn caused Greek bonds to crash and send interest rates for the nation skyrocketing to a nearly 40% yield on their 2 year bond.

Even though Greek Politicians have allowed themselves to be blackmailed into forcing harsh austerity measures on the people of Greece to secure a banker bailout loan to pay off the interest on their original bailout loan, the bankers continue their oppression of the Greek government.

Now, the Euro-banker scum have announced a plan that will allow Greek to temporarily default on their sovereign debt as the corporate media continues with their chants to “Give Greece What They Deserve”.

Of course, the announcement by the bankers have caused Greek bonds to collapse, sending the interest rates that Greece must pay to burrow money from the bankers to almost a 40% yield on a 2 year bond.

Business Insider reports:

Holy Cow, Greece!

While most things are rallying today, there is one huge gigantic red mark.

Greek 2-year yields are just exploding, and now nearing 40%.

Greece Bonds Collapse. Interest Rates Soar With Yeild On 2 Year Greek Bond Nears 40%

Greece Bonds Collapse. Interest Rates Soar With Yeild On 2 Year Greek Bond Nears 40%

Source: Business Insider

Of course that means record profits for the bankers who have forced Greece into taking that bailout loans. Now the markets run amuck with the normal fear mongering of the threat that an eminent complete freeze in liquidity causing a worldwide bank collapse.

That make little sense considering the Euro-bank borrowings has just reached a 2011 high, nearing the highest levels since the 2008 financial collapse.

That is of course, unless the fear is meant to inspire panic among the masses and force the government to open taxpayer wallets to hand over even more money to the banker establishment.

A Phony EU Crisis

Europe's leaders have grasped the nettle. Faced with a spiraling bond crisis in Italy and Spain and the greatest threat to the EU project for 50 years, they have ripped up their bail-out strategy and taken a large stride towards a "liability union." – UK Telegraph

The Daily Bell
July 22, 2011

Dominant Social Theme:
Oh, it is the end of the world. The EU is dead. Oh, it is not the end. Long live the EU and the great men and women who saved it ... History is being made ... etc. ... etc. ...

Free-Market Analysis: We have watched the unraveling of Europe for over a year now and can say with some shock and dismay, as the final act grows near, that what we have been treated to is probably nothing more than an elaborately scripted farce. Or call it a dominant social theme (the EU is in trouble and needs rescue by the great statesmen of Brussels).

Now a deal has been struck to “save” Greece (though it is the banks that are being saved yet again, not Greece). The Germans won’t like it as Merkel seems now to have committed them to guarantee, at least informally, hundreds of billions of euros in PIGS assets. But apparently whether the “little people” like something or not doesn’t matter now in this “new” world.

The only danger is over-reach. The crisis, long expected, may still spin out of control or prove insoluble. But there is no doubt the Eurocrats expected this crisis and planned for it. The idea was to use its chaos to create a closer European federation and that is just what they're trying to do. Out of chaos, order ...

The elites that stand behind the EU are trying to build a one-world order, and they will stop at nothing to get it. The same thing is going on in the US with the debt crisis. An orchestrated agenda. The Americans will eventually get European-style austerity. They simply don't understand the ramifications yet.

These economic crises cannot be pure happenstance. We've suggested they can spin out of control, and perhaps they will; but they are all manmade events, the direct outcome of economic constructs and policies of enormous wealth and control. Somebody set up the 100 central banks around the world that report directly to the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. These are quasi-private entities, many of them. Are we supposed to believe that no one takes a profit on them? That there is no way they compensate their creators?

The money and power is unimaginable. The BIS controls the central banks that in turn control the big banks around the world. The stock exchanges with their endless mergers are controlled as well; and the bond markets, it seems.

If the elites control the banking industry – and they do – then they must also control currency markets – at least to some extent. And we are supposed to believe that Greece, little Greece, caused such havoc with this financial system that Merkel and Sarkozy had to meet to save it in the nick of time?

Increasingly, we don't believe it. The entire amount of the Greek default is in the low hundreds of billions. That's pocket change for these trillionaire, globalist banking families and their corporate, religious and military enablers. It's walking-around money. They can spend more than that in a day, an hour even.

The whole thing is a set up. It must be. A shadow play. A crisis created to build further global governance. The only question is whether they can control the resultant fallout in the long term, for the damage far exceeds Greece now.

The Internet has certainly made that more questionable, for it has informed Europeans of what's really going on and helped organize them. Still, the EU grinds on. Dominant social themes of the elite are rarely if ever cancelled. They tend to continue until they meet immovable resistance, either from the marketplace or people.

Constitutions mean nothing. Promises are made to be broken. Treaties are talk for children, merely incremental markers trailing in the wake of global governance. By their actions ye shall know them. As with sharks, their momentum must be never stilled. Here's more from the Telegraph article:

The three rescued countries of Greece, Ireland and Portugal have in turn been offered a lifeline out of crippling debt-deflation. The tetchy negotiations dragged on for hours, with an irascible Finland at one point demanding that Greece offer the Parthenon, the Acropolis and its islands as collateral for the second €110bn (£97bn) rescue package. France and its allies abandoned their long struggle to prevent a Greek default, opening the way for the first sovereign insolvency in Western Europe since the Second World War. Objections from the European Central Bank were swept aside. Germany has obtained its fig leaf concession: burden-sharing for bankers.

As a quid pro quo, Germany has dropped its vehement opposition to debt sharing and crossed the line in the sand towards fiscal federalism. It has agreed to turn the eurozone's €440bn bail-out fund (EFSF) into what amounts to a European Monetary Fund, and arguably into an EU Treasury in embryo ... Global markets surged as the details of the EU statement leaked. Credit default swaps measuring bond risk on Ireland and Portugal saw the biggest one-day fall on record. Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said politicians and markets had finally "come together" for the first time since the crisis began.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said the goal was to "go to the root of the problems", but she may not find it easy to secure political assent for such sweeping concessions from her own parliament. The accord is a spectacular volte-face. Her mantra until now has always been that "collectivisation of risks" would be a grave error ... EU officials hope that a debt rollover plan for Greece can be limited to a short technical default. The ECB has backed down on its threat to reject Greek bonds as collateral. The formula will not be extended to Portugal and Ireland. It is understood that rating agencies will hold fire for the sake of global stability.

How neat is this? Like watching a play where all the problems are resolved in the third act. We even learn that the markets rallied in relief (at least to begin with) after the deal was announced! Yes, the EU has moved one step further (a big one) toward federal consolidation. The question is only whether the Germans, in aggregate, will resist, and what will be the results if they do. The Zero Hedge website claims today that this new deal places Germany in the position of underwriting the whole of the failing PIGS universe. The Germans may wake up in open revolt.

It doesn't seem bothersome, anymore, than Greek unrest. The shadow play continues. The ECB was immoveable in its rigor up until the last minute. But somehow the ECB backed down. The rating agencies that were so horrible have suddenly retreated. Everyone has "compromised." Problems have magically evaporated. Frau Merkel had threatened not to attend the meeting, but somehow in a single evening she was able to come to yet another "historic" breakthrough with Nicolas Sarkozy.

Perhaps the Eurocrats are merely desperate. Or perhaps they are following a script. We’ve seen it before. US Congressional Democrats sacrificed their careers to pass the leveling health care Act. Now Merkel is sacrificing her career to prop up the EU. Maybe she has been promised something.

Will the Germans riot in the streets? There is already a German Tea Party movement. How about Greece and Spain? Summer is not over yet. And yet … perhaps not. Perhaps, somehow, the elites can impose a federation on nation-states that have been independent for 2,000 years or longer. We don’t see how, (the EU with its debts seems unworkable) but one thing we’re convinced of now is that the elites are arrogant enough to try. The whole mechanism reeks of arrogance.

There is no end to their mischief and scheming. We've been privileged to watch how history operates for the past several years and we've paid close attention. We've come to the conclusion, as Henry Ford once said, that history is bunk. It's directed. This EU "grand compromise" has been in the works for months, for years – perhaps for decades.

What a farce! It began with the mysterious leaked argument between Sarkozy and Merkel – like the first shot of a war. The EU then was said to be on the edge of a breakup. Sarkozy had threatened to withdraw France. The union teetered – and the crisis was on! And on ... and on ... and on ...

Endless meetings, constant market movements, the mainstream media bewailing every moment. The EU is on the brink. The euro is on the brink. The Greeks are rioting (that was real); the Spanish are protesting (that was real, too). But it was just an act. It's all too neat, too well orchestrated.

And now we are starting to see the liniments of what is REALLY planned.

"The communiqué called for a "Marshall Plan" to bring the Greek economy back to life. "To be credible, the EFSF needs to be proportional to the scale of contagion: we think €2 trillion is needed," one top Eurocrat is quoted as saying.

The “transfer” that the Germans were assured would never happen is now starting to take place. Others will pay, too. But in Germany there is the constitutional question, as well. We are told German judges are to evaluate the legality. Yet what judge on earth would pull down the union at this point? If the German people want to stop what’s going on, they will have to do so themselves, non-violently if possible in the streets. Of course that hasn’t yet helped the Greeks.

Step by step, promotions are implemented and international structures are built. The politicians and generals in the modern era are literally actors on the stage. Some stand athwart history and others position themselves "progressively." Miraculously, accommodations are reached in the nick of the time. Alternatively, war is declared. The narrative is provided. History is "written."

Even in war, the elites apparently control both sides of the conflict. The goals are achieved via the Hegelian Dialectic that allows the powers-that-be to push the larger social conversation in whatever direction they choose. Of course, that's always towards a greater global union these days.

Conclusion: Thank goodness the extraordinary Brussels bureaucrats have once more performed a miracle, salvaging the EU yet again, at least for now. Was there ever any doubt?

Czech President: Climate Change Movement a Threat to Democracy

"The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself." - Club of Rome, Environmental Think-Tank Consultants to the United Nations

Green Agenda Has Parallels with Excesses of Communism

July 28, 2011

Herald Sun - In a serendipitous coincidence of timing, in the space of two hours this week, Australians were afforded a sharp, momentary insight into the two opposing ideological mindsets that are competing for the soul of our nation.

In a Sydney hotel on Monday night, Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an economist who fought against communism, was warning of the new threats to our freedom he recognises in the doctrine of global warming.

Almost simultaneously, in a Hobart casino, Greens senator Christine Milne was unilaterally announcing, on ABC-TV's Q&A show, that the Government would be conducting an inquiry into the section of the Australian media that she finds "extreme(ly) bias(ed) against action on climate change".

Milne's every illiberal pronouncement was greeted with applause by an audience that seemed full of tree huggers, bearded public servants and other recipients of government largesse, about the only growth industry left in Tasmania.

Klaus, on the other hand, was speaking to an audience of economic liberals and climate change realists invited by the Institute of Public Affairs, the Melbourne-based free-market think tank.

"Twenty years ago we still felt threatened by the remnants of communism. This is really over," Klaus said.

"I feel threatened now, not by global warming -- I don't see any -- (but) by the global warming doctrine, which I consider a new dangerous attempt to control and mastermind my life and our lives, in the name of controlling the climate or temperature."

Klaus, 70, who has twice been elected as Czech President and is its former prime minister, is one of the most important figures in post-communist Europe. His experiences under totalitarian rule have made him exquisitely alert to the erosion of democratic freedoms.

He said environmentalists had been arguing for decades that we should reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, using various farcical ploys from the exhaustion of natural resources to the threat of "imminent mass poverty and starvation for billions".

Those same environmentalists shamelessly talk now about dangerous global warming.

"They don't care about resources or poverty or pollution.

"They hate us, the humans. They consider us dangerous and sinful creatures who must be controlled by them.

"I used to live in a similar world called communism. And I know it led to the worst environmental damage the world has ever experienced."

Global warming alarmists "want to change us, they want to change our behaviour, our way of life, our values and preferences. They want to restrict our freedom because they themselves believe they know what is good for us. They are not interested in climate. They misuse the climate in their goal to restrict our freedom. Therefore ...what is in danger is freedom, not the climate".

He described the parallels he sees between the loss of freedom under communism and the new global warming doctrine.

Under communism, "politics dictated the economics and dictated life. Our main ambition during the dark communist days was to change that and create an autonomous society and autonomous economic system with only a marginal role played by politics ... I am sorry to discover now politics dictates the economics again. And the global warming debate is the same story (in which) politicians dictate the issue".

He said because of his experience of communism, "maybe I am over-sensitive. I am afraid that some of the people who spend their lives in a free society don't appreciate sufficiently all the issues connected with freedom.

"So my over-sensitivity is like an alarm clock warning about the potential development, which I am really afraid of."

With Klaus's words ringing in my ears I went home and watched a recording of Milne's performance on Q&A.

There Milne was equating those decent Australians who have been exercising their democratic right to protest at anti-carbon tax rallies with the crazed gunman who killed 76 people in Norway on the weekend.

"It's been pretty shocking around Australia over the last month or two in relation particularly to the carbon price," she said.

Coupled with her view that the voices of those in the media who are against the carbon tax ought to be investigated, it was a chilling echo of the attack on freedom Klaus had just warned against.

The speed at which the arrogance of the Greens has grown since they entered a power-sharing arrangement with the Gillard Government almost a year ago, and the shambolic acquiescence of the Government to their demands, has caught us unawares. It has lulled us into accepting as normal some remarkably illiberal ideas.

  • For instance, there is the drastic reshaping of the economy by the carbon tax Gillard assured us we would not have, and its six unaccountable new bureaucracies.

  • There is the media inquiry flagrantly designed by the Government and Greens to punish only the media organisation whose newspapers (such as this one) have most embarrassed them and exposed their mistakes.

  • THERE is the idea that companies that create wealth and jobs for Australia are evil "big polluters", and that our most important industry, mining, should be saddled with a "super-profits tax".

  • There is the idea that there is something so wrong with private school funding that an inquiry is needed, and that the Greens' policy of 30 per cent death duties on estates over $5 million is perfectly reasonable.

We are like frogs in boiling water.

Even Reserve Bank chairman Glenn Stevens this week blamed the "increasingly bitter political debate" for declining consumer confidence.

No, the bitterness of the debate comes from the fact people feel their way of life being compromised by a Government that is a rule unto itself and seems to believe it knows better than us what is good for us.

The carbon tax is a factor, but the single most unsettling event was the live cattle trade fiasco, which is still unresolved. It prompted the feeling that, if the Government can suddenly and arbitrarily stop a legitimate thriving industry in its tracks, based on a one-sided television show, with no right of reply, then what can it do to me? That is a very sobering thought.

It is what stops people shopping, and it is what makes the debate bitter.

The more the Government turns a deaf ear to the people, the louder the people shout. And then, what is the reaction of an undemocratic Government but to find ways to muzzle dissent?

Read more here and here and here.

Chaos and Poverty - Ron Paul's Urgent Warning!

Ron Paul's Urgent Warning!



July 26, 2011

truchangeRONPAUL2012 - The time is now, we must stand with Dr.Paul in the fight for freedom and liberty! If you have not already done so PLEASE join a local meet up group. As well join us in a nationwide sign bomb for 2 hours on 10/10/11 and let the public know that there are a lot of us that support Ron Paul regardless of what the main stream media says or shows.

RONPAULSIGNBOMB.com
We are rapidly approaching a dangerous time in our history. Society as we know it is vulnerable to political and social unrest. This impending crisis comes as a consequence of our flawed foreign and domestic economic policies…

Dangerous times indeed

The only way that we can prevent blood from running in the streets is to offer a better idea of the proper role of government in a society that desires first and foremost, liberty. That is impossible without a firm commitment by our leaders to the ideas of freedom, the source of all creative energy and prosperity.

An all powerful ‘State’ is a threat to that ideal. The prevailing attitude of the people, as it once was in early America, must be that of liberty and self reliance, rather than the Nanny State and dependence. If this is understood, a smooth, although not painless transition to a free society is achievable. Ignoring this option will be very destructive to everything that is dear to the hearts of most Americans.

We must immediately embark on…

  • Balance the budget by reducing spending

  • Change our foreign policy to that of non-intervention

  • A full audit and more supervision of the Federal Reserve, leading to abolishing the Federal Reserve

  • Legalize competition to the Federal Reserve with competing currencies

  • Regain respect for civil liberties while reigning in the CIA

  • Ween ourselves off the dependence of wealth transfers by the government

  • Abolish ‘crony’ capitalism – no subsidies, no bailouts, no regulatory or tax privileges to protect the powerful elite

  • Eliminate the income tax, the inheritence tax, and the tax on savings and dividends
Ron Paul

UK Government Will Not Be Able to Maintain 'Gold Standard' Public Pensions

Pensions in UK Could Fail, Leaked Letter Reveals

Jul 28, 2011

Epoch Times - In a leaked letter, Britain’s Health secretary was exposed as expressing severe doubts about plans to reform public sector pensions.

In a private letter to the chief secretary of the treasury—the United Kingdom’s third most senior minister—written in April and leaked to the Daily Telegraph this week, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley warns that the coalition government would not be able to meet its commitment to maintaining “gold standard pensions.”

Reforms could prompt staff to opt out of National Health Service (NHS) pension schemes, leaving the treasury with reduced income while still having to pay for past pension promises, he wrote.

Lansley expressed his fear that key public workers could strike over the reforms.

The government plans to reform public service pensions on the basis of the Hutton Report, published in March, and is currently in negotiations with trade unions. The report argues that existing pensions, which are now based on workers’ final salaries, should instead be based on workers’ average pay. It also wants to raise the retirement age and put a cap on the cost of public sector pensions for the taxpayer.

Lansley wrote in the letter that in the NHS it currently takes an average of 18 years to receive a pension, and as such, it seems unrealistic to suggest that the pension scheme design should be based on 48-year careers in future to receive a full pension. Lansley also wrote,

“In the NHS, if it appears that we intend to significantly reduce the value of future accrual we also face the risk of opt out from higher paid groups as well as the lower paid.”
He said that this would create significant financial pressure on the Social Security budget both in the short and long term. Lansley warned that unless the government’s plans were changed “it is difficult to see how a negotiated agreement could be reached with the trade unions.”

A Department of Health spokesman said in a statement responding to the leak:
“Things have moved on since this was written.”
The chief secretary last month put forth the government’s commitment to “protect the low paid and ensure low- and middle-income earners get a pension at retirement broadly as good as they get now.”
“And less than 10 days ago the whole of Cabinet signed up to the need for pension reform and agreed to further talks taking place on a scheme by scheme basis.
The letter said that government is committed to keeping public service pensions strong, but since people are living longer, pensions are costing taxpayers more, “so it is only fair that public service workers pay more toward them.”

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said that the letter accurately expressed the views of union negotiators and confirms that the government is grabbing money from public-sector workers to pay down a deficit, money they did nothing to create.

Barber says the government making a grab of public sector pensions and imposing so many extra costs on workers that “there is a very real danger that staff will simply opt out of their pensions.” This would increase the deficit, as the government will still have to pay current pensions but will not get any benefit from the contributions of those who leave their schemes.

July 28, 2011

Big Banks Are Using Taxpayer Money to Bulldoze Foreclosed Homes

BofA Donates Then Demolishes Houses to Cut Glut of Foreclosures

The oversupply of homes once prompted Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), to quip in February 2010 that one solution was to “blow up a lot of houses -- a tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program.’”

July 27, 2011

Bloomberg - Bank of America Corp. (BAC), faced with a glut of foreclosed and abandoned houses it can’t sell, has a new tool to get rid of the most decrepit ones: a bulldozer.

The biggest U.S. mortgage servicer will donate 100 foreclosed houses in the Cleveland area and in some cases contribute to their demolition in partnership with a local agency that manages blighted property. The bank has similar plans in Detroit and Chicago, with more cities to come, and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Fannie Mae are conducting or considering their own programs.

Disposing of repossessed homes is one of the biggest headaches for lenders in the U.S., where 1,679,125 houses, or one in every 77, were in some stage of foreclosure as of June, according to research firm RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, California. The prospect of those properties flooding the market has depressed prices and driven off buyers concerned that housing values will keep dropping.

“There is way too much supply,” said Gus Frangos, president of the Cleveland-based Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., which works with lenders, government officials and homeowners to salvage vacant homes. “The best thing we can do to stabilize the market is to get the garbage off.”

BofA’s 40,000

Bank of America had 40,000 foreclosures in the first quarter, saddling the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender with taxes and maintenance costs. The bank announced the Cleveland program last month, has committed as many as 100 properties in Detroit and 150 in Chicago, and may add as many as nine cities by the end of the year, said Rick Simon, a company spokesman.

The lender will pay as much as $7,500 for demolition or $3,500 in areas eligible to receive funds through the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Uses for the land include development, open space and urban farming, according to the statement. Simon declined to say how many foreclosed properties Bank of America holds.

Ohio ranked among the top 10 states with the most foreclosure filings in June, according to RealtyTrac. The state has 71,617 foreclosed homes, Cuyahoga County 9,797 and Cleveland 6,778, RealtyTrac said.

The tear-downs are in varying states of disrepair, from uninhabitable to badly damaged. Simon said some are worth less than $10,000, and it would cost too much to make them livable.

Unwanted Homes

“No one needs these homes, no one is going to buy them,” said Christopher Thornberg, founding partner at the Los Angeles office of Beacon Economics LLC, a forecasting firm. “Bank of America is not going to be able to cover its losses, so it might as well give them away and get a little write-off and some nice public relations.”

Donating a house may create an income-tax deduction, said Robert Willens, an independent accounting analyst based in New York. A bank might deduct as much as the fair market value if a home wasn’t acquired with the explicit intent of knocking it down, he said.

Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae already started donating houses and demolition funds in Ohio. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, the biggest U.S. home lender, gave 26 properties and $127,000 to the Cuyahoga land bank, said Russ Cross, Midwest regional servicing director for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Since 2009, Wells Fargo made more than 800 donations, the bank said.

Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company operating under U.S. conservatorship, made its first deal with the Cuyahoga land bank in 2009, and sells houses to the organization at a “very nominal value,” or about $1 and an additional $200 in closing costs, said P.J. McCarthy, who heads alternative disposition programs.

Fannie Mae sold 200 foreclosures to the Cuyahoga organization in 2010 and has similar programs in Detroit and Chicago. Cleveland is the only city where Washington-based Fannie Mae contributes $3,500 toward demolition, McCarthy said.

“It’s an economically justifiable transaction,” McCarthy said. “Holding on to a property that might sell for $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 for several hundred days is not in anybody’s best interest.”

JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. bank, has donated or sold at a discount almost 1,900 properties valued at more than $100 million in more than 37 states since late 2008, including 22 in Cleveland, said Jim O’Donnell, manager of community revitalization. The majority aren’t demolished, he said.

Nonprofit Role

Citigroup has been donating foreclosures since 2008 through the National Community Stabilization Trust, according to an e- mailed statement from Natalie Abatemarco, managing director for the bank’s office of homeownership preservation. The New York- based company, ranked third among U.S. lenders, is part of the Washington-based nonprofit trust’s pilot program that starts in late August to provide funds for purchases in distressed neighborhoods, and the money can be used toward demolition, Abatemarco said.

Demolishing all of Cleveland’s foreclosed and abandoned properties might cost $250 million, Frangos said. There are as many as 13,000, according to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Neighborhood Progress Inc., a nonprofit organization working to counter the effects of foreclosures in six Cleveland areas, according to its website. The Cuyahoga County land bank owns about 899 properties and will demolish about 700 in the next six to seven months, Frangos said.

Blow Them Up

The oversupply of homes once prompted Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), to quip in February 2010 that one solution was to “blow up a lot of houses -- a tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program.’”

Still, the knockdowns aren’t likely to outpace foreclosures, said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president. Foreclosures may accelerate as banks clear a backlog caused by soft real estate markets and legal disputes over tactics used to seize homes.

“These sorts of programs will basically only be nibbling on the edges,” Sharga said.
Read more here and here.

White House and Media Induced Fear Over 'Debt Fight' Causing Stock Market to Dip

Fear Over Debt Fight Taking Hold With Investors

July 28, 2011

AP - A fast-approaching deadline is bound to heighten anxiety. That's what happening on Wall Street as investors grow increasingly uneasy about the political stalemate over raising the nation's debt ceiling.

The Dow Jones industrial average has closed down for four sessions in a row. And the declines have been steeper each day, reaching almost 200 points Wednesday.

Lawmakers face an Aug. 2 deadline or risk triggering an unprecedented federal default and unpredictable fallout in the economy. As the contentious debate in Washington heated up, initially the stock market didn't show much reaction. But recent days have reflected signs of greater concern.

While no one was panicking, financial professionals who handle the investment accounts of everyday Americans — college funds, retirement accounts and other nest-eggs — said their customers were growing more worried by the day. One said he had not seen this level of anxiety since the 2008 financial crisis.

"We're getting a ton of calls," said Bob Glovsky, president of Mintz Levin Financial Advisors in Boston. "It's all 'What happens if the U.S. defaults? What's going to happen to me?'"

Similarly, Glen Buco, a certified financial planner with West Financial Services in McLean, Va., said he started hearing from worried clients over the weekend, when talks in Washington failed to produce a compromise.

"The expectation was that there would be an agreement by this week. So now people are beginning to worry," Buco said. The calls are mostly coming from clients who are nearing or already retired and living off their portfolios.

But he said they are expressing more irritation at the political sparring and aren't yet panicking, but that may end soon.

Although Wednesday's decline of 198.75 points was not close to the stomach-churning days of the fall of 2008, when the Dow lurched lower and higher by 700 points some days, there were signs that fear on Wall Street was growing.

The concerns have spread overseas. Asian markets tumbled on Thursday, with Japan's bellwether index down about 1 percent, as the threat of a debt default by the world's largest economy rattled investors there.

"Right now the clouds are gathering," said Chris Long, a financial planner in Chicago.

Without a deal by Tuesday, the Obama administration has said the government will be unable to pay all its bills, and could miss checks to Social Security recipients, veterans and others who depend on public help. In addition, credit rating agencies could downgrade their assessment of the government's finances, further unnerving financial markets and perhaps causing interest rates to rise for everyone.

Already, some investors are taking precautions. Richard Shortt, 66, of Somerville, Mass., worries that a default, or even just a downgrade of U.S. debt, could cause bond and stock markets to tumble. Last week he sold about 10 percent of his stock holdings and put the proceeds into a money-market mutual fund.

"It might just be a short-term decline in the markets, but it could last a week or two while this gets resolved," said Shortt, a semi-retired small business consultant. "If we do get any sort of debt downgrade, even if we avoid a default, that will change the game a bit."

Financial advisers typically tell their clients not to tinker with their portfolios or try to play a short-term move in the market to their advantage. Of course, leaving investments alone could be a test of patience for the rest of this week.

On Friday afternoon, for example, it's plausible that Congress could reach a deal in mid-afternoon and send the Dow soaring 300 points in the final hour of trading. It's also plausible that there's still no deal and traders decide staying in the market over the weekend is too risky, and send the Dow plunging.

Investors who rode out the financial turbulence in 2008 without rejiggering their portfolios have made up most of their losses. The stock market has almost doubled since its post-meltdown low in March 2009. Many people who withdrew their money from the stock market during the worst haven't come close to breaking even.

The memory of the fall of 2008 remains vivid. The Dow plunged 778 points in a single day when Congress surprised investors by rejecting an early version of $700 billion legislation to bail out the nation's biggest banks.

"We've been through this, or something like it," said Leisa Aiken, a financial planner in Chicago. "I think what we went through in 2008 has toughened clients up a little. They realize that they will get through it if they don't give in to a knee-jerk reaction."

This time around, analysts say, the chances of similar turmoil are small but growing. Standard & Poor's, one of the rating services, has said that "the reverberations of the showdown may be deep and wide — particularly if Washington does not come to a timely agreement on the debt ceiling."

Bond traders were still betting on a last-minute deal on the debt. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which should rise when investors believe there is a greater risk they won't get their money back, has stayed near 3 percent all month.

Even if Washington sails past the deadline without raising the debt limit, bond traders believe the Obama administration will keep up its interest payments and cut spending on everything else. The resulting shock to the economy and other financial markets would make Treasury bonds a safe place for investors to hide, which could result in lower yields.

One measure of investor concern, the Vix, or volatility index, shot up 14 percent on Wednesday. The tone of the market changed this week, as nervous investors began moving money out of stocks, said Howard Ward, a chief investment officer at asset manager GAMCO.

He said the stock market will likely become more volatile as the weekend nears, and while he said he was not repositioning his portfolio, he admitted:

"Right now I'm pretty worried."

July 27, 2011

More Than 270,000 Organic Farmers are Taking on Corporate Agriculture Giant Monsanto

Organic v. Monsanto

July 18, 2011

Utne.com - More than 270,000 organic farmers are taking on corporate agriculture giant Monsanto in a lawsuit filed March 30. Led by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, the family farmers are fighting for the right to keep a portion of the world food supply organic—and preemptively protecting themselves from accusations of stealing genetically modified seeds that drift on to their pristine crop fields.

Consumers are powerful. For more than a decade, a cultural shift has seen shoppers renounce the faster-fatter-bigger-cheaper mindset of factory farms, exposéd in the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. From heirloom tomatoes to heritage chickens, we want our food slow, sustainable, and local—healthy for the earth, healthy for animals, and healthy for our bodies.

But with patented seeds infiltrating the environment so fully, organic itself is at risk. Monsanto’s widely used Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola seed has already turned heirloom canola oil into an extinct species. The suing farmers are seeking to prevent similar contamination of organic corn, soybeans, and a host of other crops. What’s more, they’re seeking to prevent Monsanto from accusing them of unlawfully using the very seeds they’re trying to avoid.

“It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement,” says Public Patent Foundation director Dan Ravicher in a Cornucopia Institute article about the farmers’ lawsuit (May 30, 2011), “but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement.”

Even as the megacorporation enjoys soaring stock, the U.S. justice department continues to look into allegations of its fraudulent antitrust practices (The Street, June 29, 2011):

Monsanto, which has acquired more than 20 of the nation’s biggest seed producers and sellers over the last decade, has long pursued a strict policy with its customers, obligating them to buy its bioengineered seeds every year rather than use them in multiple planting seasons. Farmers who disobey are blacklisted forever.

It’s a wide net Monsanto has cast over the agricultural landscape. As Ravicher points out,

“It’s actually in Monsanto’s financial interest to eliminate organic seed so that they can have a total monopoly over our food supply.”
Imagine a world devoid of naturally vigorous traditional crops and controlled by a single business with a appetite for intellectual property. Did anyone else feel a cold wind pass through them? Now imagine a world where thousands of family farmers fight the good fight to continue giving consumers a choice in their food—and win.

Read More...

July 26, 2011

Who Holds the U.S. Debt?

Who Holds the U.S. Debt?

July 26, 2011

The Mess That Greenspan Made - The folks at Congressional Quarterly have compiled this handy interactive chart for anyone who wants to see how much and to whom the U.S. owes its $14.3 trillion.

Click to enlarge

It’s that $4.5 trillion “Foreign investors” category that keeps policy makers up at night, though, domestic investors might someday tire of the nation’s spendthrift ways too. The big difference between the two groups is the U.S. dollar – the value of foreign investors’ holdings are affected by both the value of their Treasuries and the dollar exchange rate, whereas domestic holders see only the fluctuating bond price. This could be important someday, especially if today’s slide in the trade-weighted dollar accelerates.

July 25, 2011

Congress' Decision to Raid Another $100 Million from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Will Cause a 'Catastrophic' Setback for American Innovation, Competitiveness and Job Creation

Patent Office Reforms Derailed

April 25, 2011

Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel - Reacting to Congress' decision to raid another $100 million from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency's director has thrown the brakes on nearly every one of its planned internal reforms, triggering new warnings that the congressional action will cause a "catastrophic" setback for American innovation, competitiveness and job creation.

"It's a tax imposed on innovators," said Paul Michel, recently retired chief justice of the federal court in Washington, D.C., that handles patent cases.

Because the patent office is structured to be self-supporting by charging fees without costing taxpayers a penny, Congress effectively has helped itself to funds that belong to garage entrepreneurs, start-ups and inventors, Michel said Monday.

"Instead of helping innovators by speeding the patent system, Congress is impeding innovators by taxing their innovations," he said.
As reported in a series of stories in the Journal Sentinel since 2009, the patent office has struggled for years to keep up with the burgeoning number and complexity of patent applications it receives. Crippled by the ongoing series of raids on its fees dating to the early 1990s, it has fallen desperately behind and now has a backlog of more than 1.2 million applications awaiting a final decision - nearly tripled from about 10 years ago.

Patent office director David Kappos, a former IBM executive who was appointed less than two years ago to turn around the agency, late last week sent a memo to his examiners that "reluctantly" details how the latest congressional budget actions will cripple his efforts:

  • He indefinitely postponed a pilot program that guarantees fast-track examination of applications within a year to those who pay an additional fee. The program would have gone into effect next week.

  • For the second time since he took over, Kappos imposed a hiring freeze at the chronically understaffed agency. Since 2005, the patent office has aimed to hire 1,300 new examiners each year just to chip away at the backlog. But with deficits of nearly $1 million per working day, it hires only sporadically at best.

  • The agency suspended all overtime - halting one of the few approaches at its disposal to eat into its backlog - and slashed the training budget for new examiners, who typically need three years to gain competence.

  • Plans to open the agency's first satellite office, in Detroit, meant to ease overcrowding at its campus outside Washington, have been "postponed until further notice."

  • Upgrades to the agency's antiquated and dysfunctional computer system will be cut to "mission critical" upgrades only.
"We have not come by these decisions easily," Kappos wrote. "I recognize that these measures will place additional burdens on your offices, your staff, and your ability to carry out the agency's mission."
Legislators siphoned the funds as part of the emergency spending bill to avert a shutdown of the federal government this month.
"I see a negative impact on pendency (the length of time required to get a patent) and backlog," said Barry Grossman, a senior patent attorney in Milwaukee at the Foley & Lardner law firm. "The program reductions will not promote technological progress and innovation, nor will they reduce pendency, reduce the backlog or improve quality."
According to a Journal Sentinel analysis, patents awarded by the agency last year took nearly four years from application to issuance, on average - more than twice the agency's benchmark of 18 months.

Because more than a half-million new applications arrive every year - the number rises each year - the office has been unable to catch up. Under a best-case scenario made before the latest congressional raid, Kappos predicted that the agency could reduce its backlog to manageable levels by 2015.

While Beijing invests heavily in China's patent system - now the world's third-biggest, behind the United States and Japan - American innovation activists decry Washington's divestment in the U.S. patent system. The patent system has always been linked to the American dream: The issuance of single patents launched IBM, General Electric and Johnson Controls, not to mention much of Silicon Valley as well as Madison's biotech economy.
"There is no great surprise why we are having a jobless recovery," said Eugene Quinn, a Washington, D.C.-area patent attorney and author of the IPWatchdog.com blog.
Washington's policy-makers appear oblivious to the importance of intellectual property and the historical role that the patent system plays in the nation's economy, Quinn wrote in reaction to the latest diversion.
"The PTO has to throw up its hands and cease trying to make progress, treading water at best, but more likely drowning," Quinn wrote. "Pathetic."

The latest diversion comes as key Senate and House leaders as well as the White House have started to extol the importance of the agency. President Barack Obama and his advisers have vowed to strengthen the nation's innovation economy, and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke used an appearance in Milwaukee this month to tout the fast-track examination system.

Pending legislation called the America Invents Act of 2011 deals largely with patent litigation but also includes a provision to allow the patent office to keep its fees. Yet even if Congress passes the legislation - it has rejected three previous attempts over the past four years - the agency wouldn't gain control over its finances until the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

Michel, the former patent court judge, called the latest diversion "catastrophic and devastating."

Michel noted that small companies and start-ups create the bulk of new jobs in the U.S. economy, and those are the entities hardest hit by a dysfunctional patent office.

"The delays in the patent office are already the biggest problem in the American patent system," Michel said, "and they are holding back new companies, new technologies and new jobs."

IBM May Not Be the Patent King After All

IBM wins more U.S. patents than any other company, but Microsoft's are worth much more money, says a study conducted for Bloomberg BusinessWeek

January 13, 2010

Business Week - No one beats IBM (IBM) on patents. For 17 years running, Big Blue has been granted more U.S. patents nullthan any other applicant, raking in an ­unprecedented 4,914 in 2009. That tally is more than the number of patents granted last year to Microsoft (MSFT), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Oracle (ORCL), Apple (AAPL), Accenture (ACN), and Google (GOOG) combined. IBM's worldwide portfolio now covers more than 40,000 inventions for everything from microprocessors for video games to the ­erasable read-write CD.

Nonetheless, a study conducted for Bloomberg BusinessWeek by Ocean Tomo, a Chicago intellectual property consulting firm, concludes that IBM's collection of U.S. patents over the past five years ranks only eighth in value. No. 1 is Microsoft, which ranked third, with 2,906 patents issued last year.

"The arms race approach doesn't pay off," says Mark Chandler, general counsel of Cisco Systems (CSCO). "It doesn't do you a lot of good just to have a lot of patents."

IBM maintains one of the last university-like laboratories in American business and, based on outlays through the first three quarters of 2009, the company spent $5.8 billion on research and development last year, or 6% of its total revenue. Aside from protecting its products and services from imitators, IBM's patents produce considerable income: Fees from licensing and custom-developing intellectual property for other companies through Sept. 30 were on track to top $1.1 billion in 2009.

"Their patent department is a profit center," says Bruce Lehman, former head of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and now chairman of the International Intellectual Property Institute, a Washington think tank.

The race for patents is not merely a matter of bragging rights. Pfizer (PFE) relies on a single set of patents covering cholesterol drug Lipitor for a fourth of its total sales, an estimated $11 billion last year. Qualcomm (QCOM) collects almost all its revenue—$10.4 billion in 2009—from selling licenses for and making the chips containing its patented 3G mobile-phone technology, known as CDMA.

Too many service-related patents?

IBM may be shortchanging itself, according to the Ocean Tomo study. To determine the firepower of companies' patent portfolios, the consulting firm analyzed five years of patents awarded to the world's 1,000-largest public companies by revenue. Among the dozens of measuring sticks Ocean Tomo used to judge the significance of a company's breakthroughs were the number of prior patents cited, patent renewal payments, and litigation.

In all, Microsoft's portfolio was assessed at 3.3 times that of IBM's.

"This is something that IBM people won't accept, but it's accurate nonetheless," says Steve Lee, president of Ocean Tomo's patent-rating division.
He says IBM's portfolio includes a large number of service-related patents, which do not command as high a price as the video-game and software patents that heavily weigh in Microsoft's portfolio.

"The ultimate value is not some rating," says Manny Schecter, IBM's chief patent counsel. "It's the leverage we are able to get from the patent [licensing] negotiations."

At Microsoft, Horacio Gutiérrez, the company's chief intellectual property officer, says patents are treated not as a profit center but "as a currency that you use to trade to another company" for its patents.

Volume is an important gauge of a company's innovation, he adds, but "only if they are high-quality patents."

Read More...

July 24, 2011

Corporate Seizure of Public Property at Bargain Prices is the Goal of Austerity Programs

Each and every day, people around the world are realizing that the one-world government is based upon a hybrid Socialism-Communism economics system — a system of corporate governance and ownership of natural resources, land, water, and complete control of human beings. It is a system based upon the marriage of corporations, science and politics. It is a system that is funded by us, the world’s people. But what do knowing people do? We can’t fight manufactured super viruses, HAARP and psychotronic weapons; and we certainly cannot fight global nuclear arsenals. But we can, however, refuse to think and participate in the global economics systems, which were set up to literally enslave humankind. - Nancy Levant, Get Off the Globalization Grid, Part 1, NewsWithViews.com, August 23, 2005

What’s Behind the Global Bankers’ Austerity Programs: Seizure of Public Property for Corporations

June 15, 2011

Wayne Madsen Report - What lies in store for Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and, in short order, the United States, is the wholesale sell-off of public property to private corporations at bargain basement prices.

What the despots who gather in their secretive lairs at Davos, Cernobbio, Bilderberg, and G8/G20 are bringing about is a world where no property is owned by the state, which by default means the people. Total corporate control over every facet of life equals extreme fascism.

What is occurring in Greece is a bellwether for what will befall other nations in Europe, as well as the United States, if the bankers get their way. And in Greece, the people know how generations of investments by the taxpayers are being turned over to vampire capitalists who have the full backing of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, and the European Central Bank.

The European and global bankers have demanded that the Greek government sell off entirely or assume a minority stake in a number of state enterprises and utilities.

For example, this year global capitalists are slated to acquire 84 percent of OTE, the Greek telecommunications provider. In addition, private bankers will assume 66 percent ownership of the Greek Postal Savings Bank; 51 percent of the National Lottery; 60 percent of the Salonika Water Authority; 68 percent of DEPA, the natural gas utility; and 25 percent ownership of the ports of Piraeus and Salonika.

Next year, the capitalist grab for public property increases in intensity with Athens International Airport coming under 79 percent private ownership. The global capitalists will also obtain 100 percent ownership of the Egniata toll motorway; 60 percent of Hellenic Post; 66 percent of OPAP, the state-run video-lotto and online sports betting firm; 73 percent of the Athens Water Authority; 83 percent of DEI, the Greek Electric Authority; and 51 percent of the Greek Regional Airports Authority.

The Greek Communist Party has vowed to fight against the acquisition of public property by the private sector. In fact, it is the Communist parties of Europe that have been the most vocal against the power grab by the bankers but their opposition to the privatization moves receives very little attention by the corporate-controlled media.

Massive sell-off lists of public property are now being drawn up by the governments of Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ireland. In the United States, there are calls for the privatization of the US Postal Service, Social Security, and Medicare.

One Libyan government official this reporter spoke to in Tripoli, during an intensive NATO bombing assault, opined that the same fate is in store for the Libyan Socialist Jamahiriyah. With the highest standard of living in Africa, Libyans could witness the U.S.- and NATO-backed rebel government begin to sell off Libyan government assets to global capitalists.

The Libyan official said, “These people [global bankers] would sell the air if they could get away with it.”

Former TSA Official Admits Full Body Scanners and Enhanced Pat Downs Violate the Fourth Amendment

The TSA’s Invasive Searching, Pat-Downs, and Backscatter X-Rays

November 23, 2010

Maine Martial Arts - There’s been a lot of buzz about the TSA’s screening procedures, which include the backscatter x-ray (apparently known by some TSA personnel as the “porno scanner”) and enhanced pat downs. Complaints are that the scanners are invasive, and the pat-downs amount to sexual assault.

One of the best, and most detailed, takes on the entire situation comes from security expert Bruce Schneier. I urge you to read it and examine as many of his links as possible.

Here’s my take:

The TSA’s new security technology and enhanced pat downs do not make us safer.

One might argue that it’s OK to trade our 4th amendment rights for the right to safer air travel. Even if this were OK – the new security measures do not make us safer. Here are some of the reasons:

  • Rafi Sela, former chief of Airline Security for Israel stated, “”I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747.” (more on the Israelis in a bit)
  • The TSA has never caught a single terrorist, every enhanced security precaution is a response to the last attack. The body scanners and enhanced pat-downs are a response to the underwear bomber. X-raying shoes is a response to the shoe bomber. Most recently, terrorists tried to mail bombs to blow up planes. The mailed bombs were not detected by current technology – human intelligence stopped them.
  • The Israelis use behavioral profiling and have, arguably, the safest airline in the world. No pat-downs, no body scanners. They have even caught people who had bombs but didn’t know it (the two thought they were smuggling drugs).

The TSA screening is likely to kill more people than terrorists do

Bruce Schneier breaks down the numbers, but given radiation dosages alone, we can expect more people to die from backscatter x-rays this year than from terrorists. However, these new x-rays focus all of the ionizing radiation on the surface of the skin – rather than having it pass through the body. This may mean higher incidents of melanoma from these scanning machines.

Additionally, Nate Silver on the Cites a Cornell Study that:

“Roughly 130 inconvenienced travelers died every three months as a result of additional traffic-fatalities brought on by substituting ground transit for air transit. That’s the equivalent of four fully-loaded Boeing 737s crashing each year.”

Personally, I know of many people who are not traveling by air specifically to avoid the TSA searches.

The searches are invasive and most likely unconstitutional

Certain government officials are going around stating that the American public is in favor of the body scanning x-rays. This is a blatant misuse of statistics and essentially a lie. The question people responded to, back in 2008, was something like,

“There is a new technology that may help officials spot weapons people are trying to carry on planes, should airports deploy such new technology.”
Of course people said yes – there was no downside.

What if we asked the question this way:

According to research your chances of dying from a terrorist attack are lower than the following: dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered. We would like to use technology to slightly mitigate that risk by some unmeasurable amount but we would suspend your fourth amendment rights, take naked pictures of you and your children and show them to strangers, and allow strangers to sexually assault you and your children. Oh yeah, if you don’t want us to violate you or your children, you’ll be fined $10,000. Would you be in favor of such measures?

How many people would agree to that?

Reports of abuses by the TSA abound. IANAL (I am not a lawyer), but I believe that the searches are unconstitutional. Don’t take my word for it: here’s video of a former TSA official admitting they violate the 4th amendment.

July 23, 2011

Big Brother on Steroids: Cops Using License Plate Scanners to Track Motorists

Lawyer: Cop Scanner ‘Crosses Line’ in Massachusetts

July 21, 2011

Boston Herald - Civil libertarians are raising the alarm over the state’s plans to create a Big Brother database that could map drivers’ whereabouts with police cruiser-mounted scanners that capture thousands of license plates per hour — storing that information indefinitely where local cops, staties, feds and prosecutors could access it as they choose.

“What kind of a society are we creating here?” asked civil rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate, who along with the ACLU fears police abuse. “There comes a point where the surveillance is so pervasive and total that it’s a misnomer to call a society free any longer.”

The computerized scanners, known as Automatic License Plate Recognition devices, instantly check for police alerts, warrants, traffic violations and parking tickets, which cops say could be an invaluable tool in thwarting crime. The Executive Office of Public Safety has approved 27 grants totaling $500,000 to buy scanners for state police and 26 local departments. The purchases are on hold while state lawyers develop a policy for the use of a common state database all the scanners would feed.

Some ALPR scanners already are deployed on Massachusetts roads. State police have two. Several cities use them for parking enforcement. Chelsea has four scanner-mounted cruisers.

“It’s great for canvassing an area, say after a homicide if you are looking for a particular plate,” said Chelsea police Capt. Keith Houghton. “You can plug it in, and drive up and down side streets. It sounds an alarm if you get a hit.”

He said Chelsea’s information is overwritten after 30 days and is not shared with the state.

EOPS spokesman Terrell Harris said the state wants the scanner information fed into the Public Safety Data Center, where local, state and federal authorities could access it.

“We’re currently working to develop a policy that balances the effective use of this powerful law enforcement tool with the privacy concerns we’re keenly aware of,” Harris said.

The ACLU’s Kade Crockford said the technology, which just allows a faster version of what police do now in running plates, is less of a concern than the state’s plans to store information on average, law-abiding citizens.

“People who aren’t wanted for a crime, all of their information is stored in a database that is shared with another government agency,” Crawford said. “The potential for abuse is very big. We don’t think people who haven’t committed a crime should be tracked by law enforcement.”

The two state police cruisers equipped with scanners patrol the metro Boston area, state police spokesman David Procopio said. He defended police use of the new technology.

“What about the rights of someone who is already a victim to have their assailant brought to justice?” Procopio asked. “There’s a freedom to being able to live your life not worried about being the victim of crime that’s also a freedom worth protecting.”

Silverglate countered,

“If you have cameras everywhere, of course you’re going to reduce the crime rate, but you’re not going to have a society worth preserving. To the American people, freedom means something. There is a line to draw in the sand, beyond which you don’t want the government poking its nose. This crosses the line.”

Sovereign Debt Crisis Is Now Global; Hedge Funds in Heavy De-risking Mode Are Moving Flagships into Majority Cash

It Has Started: Wall Street Is Preparing for a Doomsday Scenario

July 21, 2011

Business Insider - If you're simply looking at their public statements, Wall Streeters seem to be alarmed about the debt crisis, but don't appear to be sliding into panic mode.

In fact, they're just really good actors.

Across the financial sector, many are preparing for a debt doomsday scenario, in which the U.S does in fact default, the New York Times reports.

Firms are "taking steps to reduce the risk of holding Treasury bonds or angling for ways to make profits from any possible upheaval."

It's clear hedge funds have changed gears and many are in heavy de-risking mode, with billion dollar firms like Moore Capital and Soros Fund Management moving their flagships into majority cash.

This was a tactic implemented by a ton of hedge funds when the financial world imploded in 2008 -- so it's a very big statement on how bad they think things may get.

While "hedge funds are stockpiling cash so they can buy up United States debt if other investors flee," banks are looking hard at their treasury holdings and mutual funds "are working on presentations to persuade their boards that they can hold the bonds even if the government debt is downgraded," the NYT reported.

And certainly, one of the worst possibilities that people in the financial industry... have been discussing is that scores of insurance companies, pension funds and mutual funds might be forced to dump their Treasury holdings.

But the problem with trying to prepare for default in a meaningful and specific way is best summed up by the CFO of Wells Fargo (which is stockpiling cash just in the case):

"Because nobody knows what is going to happen, nobody knows how to prepare."

Sovereign Debt Crisis Is Now Global

July 14, 2011

Huffington Post - Any doubt that the Eurozone debt crisis is no longer contained but has metastasized into a full-blown global calamity is rapidly being erased by fast-moving events.

With the second bailout of insolvent Greece in the works, followed by a ratings downgrade to junk by Standard & Poor's, Moody's has now weighed in with a double whammy. Ireland's sovereign debt has been downgraded to junk status, with a clear signal that the marketplace expects the Irish Republic to require a second bailout package, as was the case with Greece.

Moody's has now followed up on its action regarding Ireland with a warning that for the first time in its history, the AAA rating on U.S. government debt is under review for a possible downgrade.

This inauspicious development is in connection with the political dysfunctionality that has afflicted Washington policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches over extending the national debt limit.

With ratings collapsing and bond spreads widening throughout the developed world, it now appears that another member of the infamous PIIGS nations (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) is descending into fiscal anarchy.

Italy is on the verge of requiring a bailout of its own, one which would exceed what has already been allocated to Greece, Ireland and Portugal. In desperation, the Italian senate has voted in favor of austerity measures. Based on the failure of the austerity measures in Greece to prevent a second bailout being required, the desperate action by Italian decision makers is unlikely to work, and has the look of panic rather than thoughtfulness.

Like a tsunami wave that can travel thousands of miles from the epicenter of a major seismic event, the cascading sovereign debt crisis, which had its origins in policy responses to the global financial implosion of 2008 and the Greek debt crisis of 2010, is now ravaging public finances on both sides of the Atlantic.

A point may soon be reached where private investors, Eurozone taxpayers and the IMF can no longer cobble together ever-larger "rescue packages," all of which, with perverse logic, require even larger levels of public debt to construct.

A dark truth may soon permeate this ballooning crisis; the policymakers have no real solutions, and have just about run out of gimmicks and short-term fixes.

The global economic crisis that began with the financial collapse of 2008, far from being resolved or a clear path to recovery being underway, is entering a more dangerous phase, in which sovereign debt reaches the level of unsustainability. The result could very well be paralyzing insolvency among the advanced economies, which could destroy the economic future of an entire generation.

Read More...

Israel PM Guards Tell Women Reporters to Remove Bras

Israel PM Guards Tell Women Reporters to Remove Bras

July 22, 2011

AFP - Foreign journalists on Friday spoke of their distress after being asked to remove their bras for a security check before being allowed into the offices of Israel's prime minister.

The three women were told by security personnel to undress and take off their bras for x-ray in two separate incidents at the Jerusalem offices of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.

All three complied with the request, despite the distress it caused, in an incident denounced by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) as "unnecessary, humiliating and counter-productive."

Each of the women was taken behind a curtain in the lobby of the entrance hall and patted down before being told to undress, then their bras were passed out in full view of male and female colleagues and security personnel, to be put through an x-ray machine.

Their personal effects were also emptied out in public view and put through the machine.

"The Foreign Press Association strongly condemns the continued harassment of journalists attending media events at the prime minister?s office," a statement from the Tel-Aviv based group said.

"This type of treatment is unnecessary, humiliating and counter-productive."

Sara Hussein, who works for Agence France-Presse (AFP), described the incident as utterly humiliating.

"I can only describe the experience as among the most humiliating in my life," she wrote in a complaint to the FPA. "I have covered meetings of presidents at the White House and not been subjected to anything similar."

Neither of the other two women reporters, both of whom were deeply distressed by the incident, wished to be identified. All three have filed detailed complaints with the FPA, which is pursuing the matter with the Israeli authorities.

Officials at the prime minister's office refused to comment directly on the two incidents, saying only:

"We are aware of the concerns and we are looking into the matter."

In January this year, Netanyahu's security staff came under fire for ordering a pregnant Arab correspondent for Al-Jazeera to remove her bra in order to attend a cocktail event for the press at a five-star hotel in Jerusalem.

The FPA said it was considering whether or not to continue sending its members to events where they risked such treatment at the hands of the premier's security team.

"After repeated appeals and promises by security officials, it appears that the prime minister's office does not have the desire to stop this happening," it said.

"The FPA will begin consulting its members over whether the foreign media should no longer cover events at the PM's office as this is the only occasion where this type of incident occurs."

Airport Security -- New Rules