January 2010 – Infinite Unknown

IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri was told of false Himalayan glacier melting claims before Copenhagen

January 30, 2010 by Infinite

Add that to Climategate! Global warming is a scam.

nepal_001
Most experts believe that the Himalayan glaciers will take centuries to melt

The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.

The IPCC’s report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions.

Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.”

Asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at Copenhagen, he said: “That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit. It wasn’t in the public sphere.”

However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error. He said that Dr Pachauri had replied: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”

The Himalayan glaciers are so thick and at such high altitude that most glaciologists believe they would take several hundred years to melt at the present rate. Some are growing and many show little sign of change.

Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as “voodoo science”.

International Fund to Buy Off Taliban Leaders in Afghanistan Will Cost Hundreds of Millions

January 30, 2010 by Infinite

The US bought Osama Bin Laden, who died a long time ago, before. Brilliant strategy!

The elite has really some excellent ideas to further loot the taxpayers.

My guess is that most of this money will never reach any Taliban leader.

LONDON — An international fund amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars will be established this week in a bid to buy off Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.

An outline for the strategy, which will be principally funded by the US, Japan and Britain, was reported to have been drafted at a meeting in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago of top-level diplomats from 20 countries.

The announcement of the establishment of the Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, which will seek to “split the Taliban” by luring into mainstream politics any leaders not connected to, or ready to break their links with, al Qa’eda is due to be announced at the end of Thursday’s summit on Afghanistan in London.

Some will see the plan as the most public acknowledgement yet that there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.

But, assuming the scheme is approved on Thursday, it will represent the most comprehensive political attempt to draw the sting out of the insurgency since the fall of the regime in 2001.

According to The Times yesterday, the draft communiqué to be issued at the end of the conference also foresees Afghan troops “taking the lead and conducting the majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years”.

FBI investigates another alleged ‘Ponzi-style’ scheme: Thousands in US, Canada ‘financially destroyed’

January 30, 2010 by Infinite

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents in South Florida are investigating allegations of yet another massive investment fraud in which thousands of investors across the United States and Canada are said to have lost $170 million.

The investigation began last month after a 50-page preliminary report about the “Ponzi-style” scheme was sent to a Miami federal judge by a court-appointed special master. The report called for sweeping criminal investigations by U.S. and Canadian law enforcement.

“The unassailable fact [is] that thousands of investors/owners, and by extension their families in the U.S. and Canada, as well as other countries, have been financially destroyed,” says the report by Miami lawyer Thomas Scott, a former federal judge and U.S. attorney.

Investors allegedly sank those now-missing millions into time share units and other property owned by the EMI Sun Village Resort and Spa in the Dominican Republic. But the money actually went to fund the lavish lifestyle and gambling debts of the resort’s developers, court papers say.

“That money has now been almost completely lost”, the report says. “The investors’ plight is tragic. The cause of that plight is criminal.”

Nouriel Roubini: US Economic Growth ‘Very Dismal and Poor’

January 30, 2010 by Infinite

Related article:

– US: GDP Mirage – The Last Hurrah:

Digging beneath the surface there is nothing to cheer about in the GDP numbers. Moreover, this weakness is in the face of the largest stimulus measures the world has ever seen, not just in the US, but globally. Money supply in China is growing at 30% and housing bubbles are likely to pop in Australia, Canada, and the UK. Problems in Greece, Spain, and Iceland continue to mount.

GDP is a mirage of sand blowing in the wind. So is global growth. It is a mistake to believe government spending can possibly provide a solid foundation for a lasting recovery.

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) — New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who anticipated the financial crisis, called the fourth quarter surge in U.S. economic growth “very dismal and poor” because it relied on temporary factors.

Roubini said more than half of the 5.7 percent expansion reported yesterday by the government was related to a replenishing of inventories and that consumption depended on monetary and fiscal stimulus. As these forces ebb, growth will slow to just 1.5 percent in the second half of 2010, he said.

“The headline number will look large and big, but actually when you dissect it, it’s very dismal and poor,” Roubini told Bloomberg Television in an interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “I think we are in trouble.”

Roubini said while the world’s largest economy won’t relapse into recession, unemployment will rise from the current 10 percent, posing social and political challenges.

The Illuminati Banksters: JPMorgan vs. Goldman Sachs

February 1, 2010January 30, 2010 by Infinite

JPMorgan vs. Goldman Sachs: Why the Market Was Down for 7 Days in a Row

We are witnessing an epic battle between two banking giants, JPMorgan Chase (Paul Volcker) and Goldman Sachs (Geithner/Summers/Rubin). Left strewn on the battleground could be your pension fund and 401K.

The late Libertarian economist, Murray Rothbard, wrote that U.S. politics since 1900, when William Jennings Bryan narrowly lost the presidency, has been a struggle between two competing banking giants, the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The parties would sometimes change hands, but the puppeteers pulling the strings were always one of these two big-money players. No popular third party candidate had a real chance at winning, because the bankers had the exclusive power to create the national money supply and therefore held the winning cards.

In 2000, the Rockefellers and the Morgans joined forces, when JPMorgan and Chase Manhattan merged to become JPMorgan Chase Co. Today the battling banking titans are JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that gained notoriety for its speculative practices in the 1920s. In 1928, it launched the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp., a closed-end fund similar to a Ponzi scheme. The fund failed in the stock market crash of 1929, marring the firm’s reputation for years afterwards. Former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers all came from Goldman, and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rose through the ranks of government as a Summers/Rubin protégé. One commentator called the U.S. Treasury “Goldman Sachs South.”

FDIC Seizes Six More Banks; US bank failure tally hits 15 for 2010

January 30, 2010 by Infinite

Yesterday’s actions cost the fund $1.86 billion, the FDIC said.

Source: BusinessWeek

Regulators shut down banks in 5 states

(WASHINGTON) –Regulators shut down a big bank in California on Friday, along with two banks in Georgia and one each in Florida, Minnesota and Washington. That brought to 15 the number of bank failures so far in 2010 atop the 140 shuttered last year in the punishing economic climate.

The failure of Los Angeles-based First Regional Bank, with nearly $2.2 billion in assets and $1.9 billion in deposits, is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund $825.5 million.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the bank as well as the others: First National Bank of Georgia, based in Carrollton, Ga., with $832.6 million in assets and $757.9 million in deposits and Community Bank and Trust of Cornelia, Ga., with $1.2 billion in assets and $1.1 billion in deposits; Florida Community Bank of Immokalee, Fla., with $875.5 million in assets and $795.5 million in deposits; Marshall Bank of Hallock, Minn., with $59.9 million in assets and $54.7 million in deposits; and American Marine Bank of Bainbridge Island, Wash., with $373.2 million in assets and $308.5 million in deposits.

US: GDP Mirage – The Last Hurrah

January 30, 2010January 30, 2010 by Infinite

4th quarter GDP came in at 5.7%. Discounting revisions (and probably even counting them), that was the last hurrah. Here is the story from two highly respected analysts.

Dave Rosenberg: The Houdini Recovery

First, the report was dominated by a huge inventory adjustment – not the onset of a new inventory cycle, but a transitory realignment of stocks to sales. Excluding the inventory contribution, GDP would have advanced at a much more tepid 2.2% QoQ annual rate, not really that much better than the soft 1.5% reading in the third quarter.

Second, it was a tad strange to have had inventories contribute half to the GDP tally, and at the same time see import growth cut in half last quarter.

Third, if you believe the GDP data – remember, there are more revisions to come – then you de facto must be of the view that productivity growth is soaring at over a 6% annual rate. No doubt productivity is rising – just look at the never-ending slate of layoff announcements. But we came off a cycle with no technological advance and no capital deepening, so it is hard to believe that productivity at this time is growing at a pace that is four times the historical norm. Sorry, but we’re not buyers of that view.

Read moreUS: GDP Mirage – The Last Hurrah

China suspends military contacts with US over Taiwan arms

January 30, 2010January 30, 2010 by Infinite

China suspended on Saturday military contacts with the U.S. over its plans to sell $6.4 billion worth arms to Taiwan, the official Xinhua agency reported.

China’s Defense Ministry condemned the plans, which the Obama administration announced to the Congress on Friday, to sell weapons to de facto independent Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory.

The ministry said as quoted by the agency that “the Chinese side decided to suspend planned mutual military visits.”

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman earlier on Saturday that the planned arms deal could affect bilateral ties, triggering “consequences both sides do not want to see.” He demanded the sale be cancelled.

S&P Downgrades Britain’s Banking Industry

January 29, 2010 by Infinite

Standard & Poor’s blames move on Britain’s weak economic environment and banks’ dependence on state support

Northern Rock, one of the banks in which the British government has a majority stake. Standard & Poor’s said reliance on state support contributed to its move to downgrade the banking industry’s rating

Britain’s banking industry was downgraded by the international credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, as a result of the country’s “weak economic environment” and the banks’ “high” dependence on state support.

In its second major intervention in Britain in the past year, the agency announced that it was demoting Britain’s banking industry by one tier to its Group 3 out of 10. Banks in Canada, France and Germany are in the first and second groups.

The agency, which placed Britain on “negative watch” last May, said it had acted in light of Britain’s “weak economic environment, the reputational damage we believe has been experienced by the banking industry, and what we see as the high dependence on state-support programs of a significant proportion of the industry”. The government has a majority stake in two banks – RBS and Northern Rock.

Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu Throws $1.4 Billion Loan To Nissan Leaf

January 29, 2010 by Infinite

Photo: Nissan

At today’s press conference at The Washington Auto Show, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu had something to say about electric vehicles, and how the U.S. government would approach aiding EV manufacturers. Although it was originally thought that announcement would concern the loans that Tesla, Fisker et al have received, the surprise announcement concerned Nissan’s Leaf all electric car.

The Leaf, which Nissan says should get 100 miles to a charge, cost around $25,000 to $30,000 and should be in showrooms soon, will be receiving $1.4 billion from the American government to upgrade the company’s manufacturing plant located in Smyrna, Tennessee.

At the D.C. Auto Show Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that the Department of Energy had closed a $1.4 billion loan agreement with Nissan to support the modification of the company’s Smyrna, Tennessee, manufacturing plant to produce both the Nissan LEAF as well as the lithium-ion battery packs that will power them.

The $1.4 billion is part of the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, a $25 billion program that was authorized by Congress in 2007, according to Clean Skies. The Japanese automaker says the loan will allow them to generate up to 1,300 jobs when the Tennessee plants are working at full volume. The factory modifications will begin later in 2010 and include the new battery plant as well as changes to the existing structure for electric-vehicle assembly.

Eventually the plants will construct up to 150,000 Nissan LEAF electric cars a year and as many as 200,000 batteries.

Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Says Russia Urged China to Dump Fannie, Freddie Bonds

January 29, 2010 by Infinite

Sure! That is called ‘his-story’ (Henry Paulson’s fairy tale).

Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows

January 29, 2010 by Infinite

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system — apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout — deserves further congressional scrutiny.

The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. That decision, critics say, amounted to a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been allowed to fail.

That move came a few weeks after the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department propped up AIG in the wake of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s own mid-September bankruptcy filing.

Saving the System

Germany Warns of ‘Fatal’ Eurozone Crisis, Funds Flee Greece

January 29, 2010 by Infinite

Germany has triggered a near-panic flight from southern European debt markets by warning that there will be no EU bail-outs, even though it fears the region’s economic crisis has turned dangerous and could prove “fatal” for the entire eurozone.

Wonders of the World: Parthenon, Greece
Funds flee Greece as Germany warns of “fatal” eurozone crisis

The yield on 10-year Greek bonds blasted upwards by over 40 basis points to 7.15pc in a day of wild trading. Spreads over German Bunds reached almost four percentage points, by far the highest since Greece joined the euro, and close to levels that risk a self-feeding spiral. Contagion hit Portuguese, Spanish, Irish, and Italian bonds.

George Papandreou, the Greek premier, said in Davos that his country had been singled out as the weak link in a “attack on the eurozone” by speculators and political foes. “We are being targeted, particularly by those with an ulterior motive.”

Marc Ostwald, from Monument Securities, said the botched bond issue of €8bn (£6.9bn) of Greek debt earlier this week has made matters worse. Many of the investors were “hot money” funds that bought on rumours that China was emerging as a buyer, offering them a chance for quick profit. When the China story was denied by Beijing and Athens, these funds rushed for the exit.

However, a key trigger yesterday was testimony in Germany’s parliament by economy minister Rainer Brüderle, who said there would be “no bail-outs” for struggling debtors and no move to a “European economic government”.

“A few European nations are exhibiting dangerous weaknesses. That could have fatal consequences for all countries in the eurozone,” he said. Despite the warning, he said each country must solve its own problems.

How Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped Hitler’s rise to power

January 28, 2010January 28, 2010 by Infinite

Not only has Prescott Bush helped to finance Hitler, but he was involved in a plot to overthrow FDR and to implement a fascist dictatorship in the US:

– G. W. Bush and Adolf Hitler signed a Directive 51:

But what really struck me was the BBC story aired on July 23rd, 2007, documenting President George W. Bush’s grandfather’s involvement in a 1933 plot to overthrow the U.S. government and install a fascist dictatorship.

– FDR’s Response to the Plot to Overthrow Him

The son and the grandson of Prescott Bush, who has committed HIGH TREASON, became Presidents of the United States of America!

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today’s president

George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator’s action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Totally Mad Scientists: Simulated Volcanic Eruptions to Block Sun

January 28, 2010 by Infinite

1. Those idiots should study nature, doing their best to understand it and not experiment with it.

2. There is no such thing as man-made global warming and global warming in general is a total scam.

– Godfrey Bloom Exposes the Global Warming Scam (European Parliament, Strasbourg, 20.01.2010)

(More information below the following article.)

A geoengineering project to block the sun by simulating volcanic eruptions would be 100 times cheaper than cutting greenhouse gas emissions, climate change scientists said.

One proposal is for a fleet of ships that would spray seawater into the sky that would leave behind salt crystals to brighten clouds Photo: NASA

A global plan to put man-made particles into the atmosphere to deflect the Sun’s heat would rapidly lower global temperatures until cuts in carbon dioxide emissions took effect, they argued.

They acknowledged concerns about geoengineering but said multi-national experiments should begin soon before it is too late to reverse climate change or in case a rogue state carried out separate measures.

The environmental scientists, David Keith of the University of Calgary in Canada, Edward Parson of the University of Michigan and Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University, were writing an editorial in the journal, Nature.

They called for governments to establish a multimillion-pound fund for research into the simulated volcanoes and other solar-radiation management techniques for shielding the Earth against sunlight.

“The idea of deliberately manipulating Earth’s energy balance to offset human-driven climate change strikes many as dangerous hubris,” they wrote.

Controller: Pennsylvania Capital Should Weigh Bankruptcy

January 28, 2010 by Infinite

The Pennsylvania State Capitol building seen from State Street in Harrisburg.

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) — Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the capital of the sixth-largest U.S. state by population, should skip a $2.2 million debt service payment due Feb. 1 and consider bankruptcy, City Controller Dan Miller said.

Harrisburg faces $68 million in payments this year in connection with a waste-to-energy incinerator and should weigh Chapter 9 protection from creditors or state oversight through a program known as Act 47, Miller said today. Chapter 9 bankruptcy allows municipalities to reorganize rather than liquidate.

The alternatives are to sell assets such as an historic downtown market; an island in the Susquehanna River that includes the city’s minor-league baseball stadium; and the city’s parking, sewer and water systems, according to a preliminary 2010 budget and an emergency financial plan submitted yesterday.

“What I’m suggesting is we stop paying the debt service until we have a plan or we decide which way to go, in bankruptcy or Act 47,” Miller, a former city council member who became controller this month, said in a telephone interview. “I think it could save our assets instead of selling them.”

Rep. Marcy Kaptur Chews up Timothy Geithner

January 28, 2010 by Infinite

Added: 28th Jan 10

Timothy Geithner does not want Americans to know who really controls and is behind the Federal Reserve.

The elite created the Fed. The same elite also controls the US government.

‘The Federal Reserve is above the law’. (Google that!)

– SEC Mulled National Security Status For AIG Bailout Details (Reuters)

– Rep. John Mica encourages Treasury Secretary Geithner to resign (CNBC)

– America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship! (Kitco)

– Ron Paul on FOX NEWS: Wall Street Bailout FRAUD

– The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: Financial Mafia Controlling US and Wall Street (RT)

– Senator Jim Bunning: SEC Should Probe NY Fed Staff Over AIG (Bloomberg)

– SEC hides AIG bailout documents until 2018; Federal Reserve Seeks to Protect US Bailout Secrets (Bloomberg/Reuters)

– Timothy Geithner’s Fed Told AIG to Limit Swaps Disclosure (Bloomberg)

– Famous Investor Jim Rogers: Incompetence In Washington, Abolish The Fed And The Treasury (CNBC):

“Mr. Geithner has been wrong about everything for the last 15 years.”

– Congressman Michael Burgess To Timothy Geithner: ‘You Should Have Never Been Hired’ (FOX NEWS)

– Prof. William Black: Timothy Geithner ‘Burned Billions,’ Shafted Taxpayers on CIT Loan (Yahoo Finance)

– New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for AIG Swaps Squandered Billions of Taxpayer Money (Bloomberg)

– Rep. Brad Sherman: Geithner rejects $1 trillion limit on bailout power (Section 1204 is unlimited in dollar amount!) (The Hill)

– Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Closest Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds (Bloomberg)

– The Federal Reserve buys Fannie Mae bonds; Timothy Geithner is a liar (CNBC)

– Dennis Kucinich: Federal Reserve No More “Federal” Than Federal Express!

Greece’s debt crisis: Chinese whispers drive up Greek yields

January 28, 2010 by Infinite

– Greece, Portugal Debt Concerns Start to Infect Companies, Banks (Bloomberg):

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — Investor concern about the ability of Greece and Portugal to lower their budget deficits is starting to hurt the debt of national utility companies and banks.

The cost to insure Greek sovereign debt against default surged to a record today, spurring a rise in credit-default swaps on Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA and National Bank of Greece SA. Swaps on Portugal Telecom SA and Energias de Portugal SA jumped as the perceived risk of holding their government debt rose.

“If you fear a Greek crisis then you should not only avoid government bonds but corporates as well,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit SpA in Munich. “And if you fear Greece you should also fear Portugal and Spain.”

Chinese whispers drive up Greek yields

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou speaks during an economic policy speech aimed to soothe international markets increasingly worried by the country’s ballooning public debt and budget deficit, in Athens. (AP)

(Financial Times) — Greece’s debt crisis returned to financial markets with a vengeance as agitated investors demanded the highest premiums to buy its government bonds since the launch of European monetary union over a decade ago.

The yield spread between 10-year Greek bonds and benchmark German Bunds widened dramatically on Wednesday, by almost 0.7 percentage points at one point, in what one trader called a “capitulation” to sellers worried about Greece’s ability to refinance its debt.

The mayhem unfolded after Greece denied it had given a mandate to Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank, to sell government debt to China. Greek 10-year bond yields closed at 6.70 per cent, 0.48 percentage points up on the day.

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Athens was wooing Beijing to buy up to €25bn of government bonds in a deal promoted by Goldman. China had not yet agreed to such a purchase, the FT said.

The government’s comments unsettled markets because of their implication that China, with $2,400bn in foreign exchange reserves, was not interested in increasing its exposure to sovereign Greek debt.

Experts, though, said that heavier Chinese purchases of Greek debt would be no less disturbing. For the eurozone, “a member country implicitly rescued by China would be an even worse signal than an IMF programme,” said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at Unicredit.

The Greek finance ministry said Athens wanted to diversify its sources of funds, and meetings with institutional investors would continue in Athens as well as the US and Asia.

Shares in Greek banks tumbled after Greece’s denial that it had mandated Goldman. The yield spread on Portuguese and Italian government bonds widened as traders fretted about other peripheral eurozone countries with high public debt and rising budget deficits.

False Flag: The Attack on the USS Liberty

January 28, 2010January 28, 2010 by Infinite

For more information watch this documentary:

– Dead In The Water – The Sinking of the USS Liberty (BBC)

You can trust the government!

Added: 13. Januar 2009

Tony Blair Was Warned By All 27 Senior Government Lawyers That Iraq War Was Illegal

January 27, 2010 by Infinite

– US and UK knew that Iraq Didn’t Have WMDs

– Tony Blair ‘knew Iraq did not have WMD before war started’

Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign Office’s chief legal adviser at the time of the 2003 invasion

TONY Blair was warned two months before the invasion of Iraq that it would be illegal to go to war without UN backing, it was revealed yesterday.

Senior Government lawyers told the Iraq inquiry that they advised the action had “no legal basis in international law”.

Last night it was reported every one of the 27 lawyers in the department advised the war was illegal.

Yesterday Sir Michael Wood, who was the Foreign Office’s chief legal adviser, told the hearing he warned the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw an invasion would “amount to the crime of aggression”.

Sir Michael said he considered resigning in protest at the decision to join the US-led attack. He described how he was sidelined after he made clear his objections to military action.

His deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, quit in protest on the eve of the invasion in March 2003.

In her first public account of the circumstances leading to her resignation she described the Government’s treatment of the legal advice as “lamentable”.

The explosive revelations intensified pressure on the former Prime Minister, who will face the Chilcot inquiry on Friday.

Rep. John Mica encourages Treasury Secretary Geithner to resign

January 27, 2010 by Infinite

Added: 27. Januar 2010

– SEC Mulled National Security Status For AIG Bailout Details (Reuters)

– America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship! (Kitco)

– Ron Paul on FOX NEWS: Wall Street Bailout FRAUD

– The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: Financial Mafia Controlling US and Wall Street (RT)

– Senator Jim Bunning: SEC Should Probe NY Fed Staff Over AIG (Bloomberg)

– SEC hides AIG bailout documents until 2018; Federal Reserve Seeks to Protect US Bailout Secrets (Bloomberg/Reuters)

– Timothy Geithner’s Fed Told AIG to Limit Swaps Disclosure (Bloomberg)

– Famous Investor Jim Rogers: Incompetence In Washington, Abolish The Fed And The Treasury (CNBC):

“Mr. Geithner has been wrong about everything for the last 15 years.”

– Congressman Michael Burgess To Timothy Geithner: ‘You Should Have Never Been Hired’ (FOX NEWS)

– Prof. William Black: Timothy Geithner ‘Burned Billions,’ Shafted Taxpayers on CIT Loan (Yahoo Finance)

– New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for AIG Swaps Squandered Billions of Taxpayer Money (Bloomberg)

– Rep. Brad Sherman: Geithner rejects $1 trillion limit on bailout power (Section 1204 is unlimited in dollar amount!) (The Hill)

– Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Closest Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds (Bloomberg)

– The Federal Reserve buys Fannie Mae bonds; Timothy Geithner is a liar (CNBC)

Marc Faber: Obama Makes Bush Look Like a Genius

January 27, 2010 by Infinite

Date: 27th Jan 10

US Economy: Sales of New Homes Fall, Capping Worst Year Ever

January 27, 2010 by Infinite

‘Unexpectedly’:

– US Housing Starts ‘Unexpectedly’ Fall in December:

WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – New U.S. housing starts unexpectedly fell in December, pulled down by a drop in construction activity for single-family dwellings, a government report showed on Wednesday.

– ‘Surprise’ rise in new US jobless claims

(Financial Times) — The number of US workers making first-time claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, as the government worked through a pre-holiday backlog of filings.

There is no recovery!

A sign publicizing a tax credit for first-time buyers stands outside a home for sale in Raleigh, North Carolina (Bloomberg)

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) — Sales of new homes in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in December, capping the worst year on record and signaling the government’s tax-credit extension has yet to shore up demand.

Purchases declined 7.6 percent to an annual pace of 342,000, marking the fourth decrease in the past five months, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. For all of 2009, sales declined 23 percent to 374,000, the lowest level since records began in 1963.

The falloff following the expected expiration of an $8,000 incentive for first-time buyers indicates the market remains dependent on government assistance. A setback in housing, combined with a jobless rate projected to average 10 percent this year and record foreclosures that will push up supply, may pressure home prices and builder profits for much of 2010.

“It’s going to be a long slog for housing,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York forecasting firm. “We will see a decline in home prices and there is still a lot of shadow inventory out there that we need to get through.”

PIMCO’s Bill Gross: UK a ‘must to avoid’ as its debt lies ‘on bed of nitroglycerine’

January 27, 2010 by Infinite

Highly recommended:

– PIMCO’S Bill Gross: ‘Let’s Get Fisical’ (… or why the US will not make it.)

Related articles:

– Britain Faces New Souvereign Debt Crisis As PIMCO Pulls Out

– Bank of England’s ‘nerves’ to be tested as inflation jumps most on record in December

Bill Gross deals blow to government with warning to his investors that Britain’s debt makes it a ‘must to avoid’

The government’s hopes of claiming credit for reviving the British economy suffered a severe blow today when the world’s biggest buyers of bonds warned that the UK was a “must to avoid” for his investors as its debt was “resting on a bed of nitroglycerine”.

The intervention by Bill Gross, co-founder of California-based fund managers Pimco, came on the day official figures confirmed that Britain had emerged from the deepest recession since the 1930s – but only by the narrowest of margins.

The economy grew by 0.1% in the final three months of last year, much weaker than even the most cautious expectations in Westminster and the City. The unexpectedly sluggish performance prompted Alastair Darling to warn that Britain could yet fall back into recession, telling the Guardian “there will be hiccups along the way”.

S&P Threatens to Downgrade Japan’s Government Debt

January 27, 2010January 27, 2010 by Infinite

– Japan’s debt at risk. Is US next? (CNN Money):

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s raised the prospect of a downgrade in Japan’s sovereign debt rating Tuesday. That’s reigniting fears that the U.S. could be next.

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services threatened Tuesday to downgrade Japan’s government debt by a notch, saying the young government isn’t fixing the nation’s bloated finances as fast as expected.

Lowering the outlook on Japan’s AA rating to negative from stable, S&P said: “The Japanese government’s diminishing economic policy flexibility may lead to a downgrade unless measures can be taken to stem fiscal and deflationary pressures.”

The surprise threat to Japan’s rating, the third-highest that S&P assigns, hit the yen and Japanese government bond prices and prompted concern that the move might dim previously robust prospects for bond issuance throughout Asia over the near term.

“The ratings on Japan could fall by one notch if economic data remain weak and measures to boost medium-term growth are not forthcoming, given the country’s high government-debt burden and its weak demographic profile,” S&P said.