Month: August 2012

Japan: Incineration Facility Becomes Full Of Radioactive Material

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– Incineration facility gets full of radioactive material, has to restart incineration (Fukushima Diary, Aug 26, 2012):

Radiation keeps getting accumulated in the environment. Even incineration facility is getting full, they are going to incinerate radioactive material.

Incineration facility restarted incinerating radioactive material in Kashiwa Chiba. Kashiwa is known to be one of the worst hotspot. (cf. 13,299 Bq/Kg from home-grown rosemary in Kashiwa)

Read moreJapan: Incineration Facility Becomes Full Of Radioactive Material

36% Of Fukushima Kids Have Thyroid Lumps – Wider Tests Begin (NHK)

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– NHK: “Strong concerns” over 36% of Fukushima kids having thyroid lumps — Now testing outside Fukushima to begin (ENENews, Aug 26, 2012):

Title: Thyroid tests extended to kids outside Fukushima
Source: NHK
Date: Aug. 26, 2012
Emphasis Added

Japan will conduct thyroid tests on children outside Fukushima Prefecture, to determine whether last year’s nuclear accident in the prefecture has anything to do with the discovery of lumps in the thyroid glands of one in three children in Fukushima Prefecture.The decision has been made by the Cabinet Office’s team supporting people affected by the nuclear disaster.

[…]

[Fukushima] prefecture had conducted thyroid checks on 38,000 children by the end of March.
No-one was diagnosed with cancer, but lumps were found in 36 percent of the children.

The prefecture explained that lumps can be found in healthy children, so no special measures are needed, but parents voiced strong concerns over the finding.

Thyroid checks will now be conducted on 4,500 children aged 18 years old or younger in 3 areas outside Fukushima Prefecture by the end of March.

[…]

Cabinet Office says data will be collected in areas that are not affected by radioactive materials released from the crippled nuclear reactors. It says the move is designed not only to alleviate concerns, but also to detect possible effects of the nuclear accident on children’s health, if any, as early as possible.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Is Funding … ‘An Anti-Vaccine Surveillance And Alert System’ … ‘On-Demand Vaccine Delivery Via Low-Cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’

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– Gates Foundation awards 1.7 million to inspire supply chain innovation (TechNet):

An anti-vaccine surveillance and alert system
Seth Kalichman of the http://www.uconn.edu/ in the USA will establish an Internet-based global monitoring and rapid alert system for finding, analysing, and counteracting communication campaigns containing misinformation regarding vaccines to support global immunization efforts.

…

On-demand vaccine delivery via low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles
George Barbastathis of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in the USA will lead a team to develop unmanned aerial vehicles that can be deployed by health care workers via cell phones to swiftly transport vaccines to rural locations and alleviate last-mile delivery problems and improve cost, quality, and coverage of vaccine supplies.

Judgment Day For The Euro And What’s At Stake

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– Judgment Day For The Euro And What’s At Stake (ZeroHedge, Aug 28, 2012):

Hans-Werner Sinn – Judgment Day For The Euro

Hans-Werner Sinn is Professor of Economics at the University of Munich and President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research. He also serves on the German economy ministry’s Advisory Council. Hi… Full profile

Europe and the world are eagerly awaiting the decision of Germany’s Constitutional Court on September 12 regarding the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the proposed permanent successor to the eurozone’s current emergency lender, the European Financial Stability Mechanism. The Court must rule on German plaintiffs’ claim that legislation to establish the ESM would violate Germany’s Grundgesetz (Basic Law). If the Court rules in the plaintiffs’ favor, it will ask Germany’s president not to sign the ESM treaty, which has already been ratified by Germany’s Bundestag (parliament).

Read moreJudgment Day For The Euro And What’s At Stake

The ‘Euphoric’ Economy And Why ‘They’ Didn’t See It Coming

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– The ‘Euphoric’ Economy And Why ‘They’ Didn’t See It Coming (ZeroHedge, Aug 28, 2012):

We are often asked for glossaries or background posts to help in the comprehension of how-we-got-here?, where-here-is?, and where-we-are-going? We hope that our posts, while diverse in nature, build upon one another and provide an educational platform for all levels of market/economy participant (active traders, passive investors, and working / non-working citizens alike) but as far as a succinct primer on how broken the status quo is and the ‘euphoric’ economy that very few could see through their Keynesian “debt doesn’t matter” blinders, Steve Keen’s introductory lecture at UWS is perhaps the most complete soup-to-nuts discussion we have seen recently. From the OECD’s total ignorance to Bernanke’s ‘Great Moderation’ miss; from economic ‘religion’ to science; and from Keynes to Minksy, Keen explains, in language even Chuck Schumer could understand, how more debt doesn’t solve too much debt, how stability breeds instability, and why the US won’t be finished deleveraging until 2025 (at this rate).

This brief lecture seems extremely apropos given we appear to be on the eve of yet another embarkation on the Keynesian ‘stimulate’ experiment – as everyone waits with baited breath for the next morsel of Fed/ECB/BoE/BoJ/PBOC juice…


YouTube

Given the Australian audience, and the purpose of the clip, there is some ‘selling’ of his University course but quite frankly, his discussion of the various ‘players’ in the field of economics over time provides not just a ‘reading’ program but critically the concept that economics is not in equilibrium but is dynamic – as if common sense hadn’t already persuaded you of this…

Genius Female Chimpanzee Found To Be Smarter Than U.S. High School Students

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– Genius female chimpanzee found to be smarter than U.S. high school students (Natural News, Aug 28, 2012):

A twenties-something “genius ape” named Natasha has been found to demonstrate more intelligence than a typical U.S. high school student. The findings have been published in the peer-reviewed science journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

As the paper documents, Natasha repeatedly demonstrates skills and reasoning that escape modern-day high school students. “The caretakers named Natasha as the smartest chimpanzee, precisely the same chimpanzee that our tests had revealed to be exceptional,” wrote authors Esther Herrmann and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (reported at Discovery.com, link below).

According to these scientists, Natasha has demonstrated the following skills; all of which escape the dumbed-down mental capacity of a typical U.S. high school student:

Read moreGenius Female Chimpanzee Found To Be Smarter Than U.S. High School Students

The Rot Runs Deep 2: Don’t Call Out My Scam And I Won’t Call Out Yours

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– The Rot Runs Deep 2: Don’t Call Out My Scam And I Won’t Call Out Yours (ZeroHedge, Aug 28, 2012):

Complicity reigns supreme as everyone benefiting from a scam keeps quiet about everyone else’s skim lest their own share of the spoils fall under the harsh light of inquiry.

The uncomfortable truth is that America has become a nation of skimmers and scammers. The rot runs deep not just in the upper reaches of the financial and political Elites, but in the bottom 99.5% as well.

America can now be summarized by this phrase: “don’t call out my scam and I won’t call out yours.” In other words, all the skimmers and scammers have become complicit, not just in protecting their own scam from the light of day, but in protecting everyone else’s scams, too, lest those who lose their swag unmask someone else’s scam in revenge.

Examples of skimming and scamming abound in finance and government. It’s almost tiresome to even list examples; fortunately for us, tireless truthseeker “George Washington” has amassed a list of bank fraud and malfeasance (reprinted by the equally indefatigable Barry Ritholtz).

It’s easy to skewer the financial and political Elites’ abuses of power, but few look at all the rot below. The fraud and embezzlement-riddled mortgage market of the previous decade included not just investment bankers but non-Elite Americans who lied about their income, debt, and other material facts in order to obtain a fraudulent mortgage.

Another “middle class” scam is practiced by public workers nearing retirement. (Please don’t claim this doesn’t happen, I have first-hand accounts from cousins with 30-year careers in fire and police departments.) Since the pensions are based on the top three years of pay, soon-to-retire workers pile up the overtime to amass much higher pay in their last years. Everyone involved helps make this happen because they expect to pull the same scam when their time comes.

Read moreThe Rot Runs Deep 2: Don’t Call Out My Scam And I Won’t Call Out Yours

From Hard Landing To Train Crash, All Chinese Indicators Have Slammed On The Brakes

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– From Hard Landing To Train Crash, All Chinese Indicators Have Slammed On The Brakes (ZeroHedge, Aug 28, 2012):

As Robin might say “Riddle me this Batman”: how can an country, supposedly growing its economy at over 7%, with factory output up over 9%, manage all of this superlative production while rail traffic is shrinking at almost 5.4% annually?China Freight Traffic Volume – Railways:

Source: Sean Corrigan of Diapason Commodities

Military Muppet: TV Character Urges Israelis To Prepare For Strike On Iran

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See also:

– Israel threatens to attack Lebanon in case of Hezbollah ‘provocations’ – report

– Israelis oppose war with Iran despite govt’s hawkish stance


A photo shows the cover of a new, emergency pamphlet being distributed nationwide by Israeli Army’s Home Front Command August 27, 2012 (Reuters/Israeli Defence Force)

– Military Muppet: TV character urges Israelis to prepare for strike on Iran (RT, Aug 28, 2012):

A new emergency pamphlet in Israel instructs residents to prepare for the worst if Tel Aviv conducts a military strike on Iran. But the face on the brochure isn’t the country’s President or Prime Minister – it’s a Muppet.

The cover of the 15-page leaflet pictures a smiling Moishe Oofnik, the Israeli Muppet version of Oscar the Grouch. He’s the resident pessimist on Rechov Sumsum, Israel’s co-production of the long-running American children’s program ‘Sesame Street.’

Muppets on the popular show are known for teaching children numbers and the alphabet, but Moishe Oofnik has taken on a different job with this pamphlet – instructing Israelis how to react if their nation’s government launches a war against Iran.

Read moreMilitary Muppet: TV Character Urges Israelis To Prepare For Strike On Iran

Consumer Confidence Crashes To 9 Month Low (Despite Record High Stocks)

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– Despite Record High Stocks, Consumer Confidence Crashes to 9 Month Low (ZeroHedge, Aug 28, 2012):

With inflation expectations soaring and jobs plentiful relative to hard-to-get falling slightly, Consumer Confidence plunged its most in 10 months to a level not seen since November of last year. It seems that despite all the hopes and prayers priced into US equity market valuations, the US Consumer remains unimpressed, unhappy, and unemployed. Of course, the ‘good is bad, bad is better’ market has interpreted this as a clear QE-on flag (for this millisecond anyway).Consumer Confidence is at a 9 month low…

having crashed at its fastest pace in 10 months…

Charts: Bloomberg

American Families ARE Getting Poorer

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Flashback:

– Welcome to the Recovery (New York Times, by Timothy Geithner, August 2, 2010)

– It Is Not Just Your Imagination – American Families ARE Getting Poorer (Economic Collapse, Aug 27, 2012):

Did you know that median household income in the United States is lower today than it was when the last recession supposedly ended?  If we are in the middle of an “economic recovery”, how can this possibly be happening?  Stunning new statistics compiled by Sentier Research show that the U.S. economy is not nearly as healthy as we have been led to believe.  According to the study that Sentier Research has just released, median household income in the United States was sitting at $55,470 back in January 2000.  In December 2007, when the recession began, it was sitting at $54,916.  In June 2009, when the recession supposedly ended, it was sitting at $53,508.  Today, it is sitting at $50,964.  This is a long-term trend that is definitely going in the wrong direction.  The fact that median household income in the U.S. is now 4.8 percent lower than it was when the last recession ended is incredibly disturbing, especially since all of the things that we buy on a regular basis just keep going up in price.  Food, gas, electricity, car insurance and health insurance all cost a whole lot more today than they did back in the year 2000, and yet median household income has dropped 8.1 percent since that time.  So what does all of this mean?  It means that American families ARE getting poorer.Yes, the stock market has been soaring, corporate profits have set all-time records in recent years and the big Wall Street banks that were showered with bailout money are absolutely thriving.

But there has been no economic recovery on “Main Street”.

According to the Sentier Research report mentioned above, incomes have been declining in all geographic regions of the country and in all sectors of the economy….

-Median household income for the self-employed has fallen 9.4 percent since June 2009.

-Median household income for private sector employees has fallen 4.5 percent since June 2009.

-Median household income for government workers has fallen 3.5 percent since June 2009.

-Median household income for Americans living in the West has fallen 8.5 percent since June 2009.

-Median household income for Americans living in the Northeast has fallen 4.9 percent since June 2009.

-Median household income for Americans living in the South has also fallen 4.9 percent since June 2009.

-Median household income for Americans living in the Midwest has fallen 1.1 percent since June 2009.

Remember, the recession supposedly ended in June 2009.

Since that time we have supposedly been in a “recovery”.

Read moreAmerican Families ARE Getting Poorer

Robert Fisk: The Syrian Army Would Like To Appear Squeaky Clean. It Isn’t

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– Robert Fisk: The Syrian army would like to appear squeaky clean. It isn’t (Independent, Aug 27, 2012):

“Our own beloved Free Syria Army has actually advertised its own murders on YouTube”

Every day, a new massacre is reported in Syria. Yesterday, it was Daraya. Slaughter by Syrian troops, according to those opposed to Bashar al-Assad. Slaughter by Bashar’s “terrorist” opponents, the Syrian army said, producing the wife of a soldier whom they said had been shot and left for dead in a Daraya graveyard.

Robert Fisk: The Bloody Truth About Syria’s Uncivil War

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– Robert Fisk: The bloody truth about Syria’s uncivil war (Independent, Aug 26, 2012):

A few hours after the ferocious attack on Damascus by the Free Syrian Army began last month, the new Syrian minister of information, Omran Zouhbi, turned on journalists in the capital. “What are you doing here in Damascus?” he roared. “You should be out with our soldiers!” And within a day, tired images of a primly smiling President Bashar al-Assad and pictures of Syrian troops happily kissing children were replaced by raw – and real – newsreel footage of commandos fighting their way across Baghdad Street under fire from the rebel opponents of the regime, grimy-faced, running from street corners, shooting from the cover of walls and terraces. “We’ve cleaned up here,” one tired but very angry officer said. “So now we’re going to get the rest of those bastards.” Never before – not even in the 1973 war when the Syrian army stormed Observatory Ridge on the heights of the Golan – had the Syrian public witnessed anything as real as this on their television sets.

And – despite all the mythical tales of its presence in every smashed village – the battle for Damascus really was fought by Maher al-Assad’s ruthless 4th Division. The soldiers loyal to Bashar’s younger brother gave no quarter. “It was a slaughter, a massacre,” a Syrian with expert knowledge of the military told me. “A lot of the corpses were already bloated within hours, but you could tell some of them weren’t Syrian; there were Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, one Turk, Sudanese …” He counted 70 bodies at one location, 42 of them non-Arab. The FSA said it lost only 20 men, and claimed that the Syrians emphasised the number of “foreign fighters” they found among the dead. “Syrian soldiers don’t like to think that they are shooting at fellow Syrians – they feel much more comfortable if they believe they are shooting at foreigners,” the young man said.

Read moreRobert Fisk: The Bloody Truth About Syria’s Uncivil War

Webster Tarpley: US-Turkey Alliance Against Syria, ‘Lethal Embrace’ (Video)

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YouTube

– US-Turkey alliance against Syria, ‘lethal embrace’: Analyst (PressTV, Aug 25, 2012):

An analyst has warned that Turkey’s close alliance with the US and the West against the government of Syria would be “a lethal embrace” for Ankara, Press TV reports.

“They (Turkish authorities) have to understand that the alliance with the US and the British is a lethal embrace, in other words, the Anglo-Americans are going to love them to death,” Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian from Washington, told Press TV on Friday.

Tarpley added that Ankara’s support of the Western-backed insurgents in Syria would also harm the national interests of the country in the future.

“They will play them against Syria, in the full knowledge that the blowback from that conflict is likely to destroy modern Turkey. So they should cease and desist, there is nothing to gain in this and everything to lose and it has a lot to do, I am afraid, with the psychology of Erdogan and Davutoglu, who have been, essentially, conned by Obama,” he said.

Since the onset of the foreign-backed insurgency in Syria, Turkey has actively played the CIA assigned role of arming, funding and supporting the anti-Syrian terrorists.

Turkey, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has also set up a secret base near its border with Syria to send military supplies to the insurgents.

Read moreWebster Tarpley: US-Turkey Alliance Against Syria, ‘Lethal Embrace’ (Video)

Spain: Catalonia Region Demands €5 Billion Bailout, Will Not Tolerate Conditions

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– Spain’s Catalonia Region Demands €5 Billion Bailout, Will Not Tolerate Conditions(ZeroHedge, Aug 28, 2012):

Beggars can once again be choosers. In other news, non-news (the Catalan bailout was announced at least two times before) is news again, and magically drives the amnesiac market all over again.From Cinco Dias, courtesy of the always amusing google translate, which makes any news, no matter how tragic, quite hilarious without fail:

Catalonia 5,023,000 calls but will not accept the State Policies

The Catalan government today applied to join the Spanish Government Autonomous Liquidity Fund, which will borrow EUR 5.023 million, but has warned he will not accept “political conditions” to provide some resources “that are of the Catalans”.

Read moreSpain: Catalonia Region Demands €5 Billion Bailout, Will Not Tolerate Conditions

Bank Of Amerika: ‘CODE RED … RISK OF SELL-OFF IS HIGH’

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QE3 is already prized in (… and the Fed will probably continue to print until the US is ‘running out of trees’).

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
– John Maynard Keynes

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. … This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
– Alan Greenspan

Quantitative easing = printing money = creating money out of thin air = increasing the money supply = inflation = hidden tax on monetary assets = theft!

– BofA: ‘CODE RED … RISK OF SELL-OFF IS HIGH’ (Business Insider, Aug 25, 2012):

Yesterday, BofA’s top North America economist Ethan Harris penned a bearish note on the the U.S. economy, writing that it “is in the eye of the storm” and that a number of troubling headwinds loom on the horizon.

BofA strategists Arjun Mehra and Cheryl Rowan have a warning more precisely aimed at the stock market. In a note to clients entitled Code Red, Mehra and Rowan claim there is “limited upside from here” and the “risk of a sell-off is high.”

The strategists point out that stocks have managed to rally even in spite of one of the worst earnings seasons in years and growth slowing in the U.S. and around the world. They think the explanation is the “Bernanke Put;” in other words, investors are expecting more monetary easing in the form of QE3.

But in spite of the dovish language from the Fed this past week, Mehra and Rowan are concerned that the central bank may disappoint.

From the note:

Risk of a sell-off is high

Economist Michael Hanson points out an interesting circular relationship between the stock market and Fed policy. There are some who believe the Fed will not launch QE3 so long as stock prices remain high, yet the stock market is high because it anticipates QE3. Should the Fed disappoint at the September 12-13 FOMC meeting, the risk of a stock sell-off is high. S&P 500 support on a correction is in the 1360-1325 area. Additional support is at 1300-1250. Attention will be on the Jackson Hole symposium next week to get a feel for the Fed’s tone.

Read moreBank Of Amerika: ‘CODE RED … RISK OF SELL-OFF IS HIGH’

‘Obama Has Millions Of Fake Twitter Followers’ (USA Today)

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– Obama has millions of fake Twitter followers (USA Today, Aug 24, 2012):

President Obama’s Twitter account has 18.8 million followers — but more than half of them really don’t exist, according to reports.A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama’s crowd includes “fake followers,” The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.

“The practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, released a Web tool last month called the Fake Follower Check that it says can ascertain how many fake followers you and your friends have,” the Times reports.

Read more‘Obama Has Millions Of Fake Twitter Followers’ (USA Today)

For Spain, The Real Pain May Be Just Beginning (Chart Of The Day)

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– Chart Of The Day: For Spain, The Real Pain May Be Just Beginning (ZeroHedge, Aug 28, 2012)

Up until now, the title of “Spain’s scariest chart” belonged to one depicting its youth (and general) unemployment, both of which are so off the charts it is not even funny (especially to those millions of Spaniards who are currently unemployed). As of today we have a contender for joint ownership of said title – Spain’s monthly deposit outflows, which in July hit the highest amount ever, and where the YTD deposit outflow is now the highest on record. One look at the chart below confirms that nobody in Spain got the June 29 Euro summit memo that “Europe is fixed”…

And some other ugly charts confirming memo non-receipt:

Read moreFor Spain, The Real Pain May Be Just Beginning (Chart Of The Day)

The Program: A 32-Year NSA Veteran Speaks Out On Top Secret Domestic Spying Program ‘Stellar Wind’ (Video)

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Watch the video HERE.

– The Program (New York Times, Aug 22, 2012):

It took me a few days to work up the nerve to phone William Binney. As someone already a “target” of the United States government, I found it difficult not to worry about the chain of unintended consequences I might unleash by calling Mr. Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency turned whistle-blower. He picked up. I nervously explained I was a documentary filmmaker and wanted to speak to him. To my surprise he replied: “I’m tired of my government harassing me and violating the Constitution. Yes, I’ll talk to you.”

Two weeks later, driving past the headquarters of the N.S.A. in Maryland, outside Washington, Mr. Binney described details about Stellar Wind, the N.S.A.’s top-secret domestic spying program begun after 9/11, which was so controversial that it nearly caused top Justice Department officials to resign in protest, in 2004.

“The decision must have been made in September 2001,” Mr. Binney told me and the cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. “That’s when the equipment started coming in.” In this Op-Doc, Mr. Binney explains how the program he created for foreign intelligence gathering was turned inward on this country. He resigned over this in 2001 and began speaking out publicly in the last year. He is among a group of N.S.A. whistle-blowers, including Thomas A. Drake, who have each risked everything — their freedom, livelihoods and personal relationships — to warn Americans about the dangers of N.S.A. domestic spying.

Read moreThe Program: A 32-Year NSA Veteran Speaks Out On Top Secret Domestic Spying Program ‘Stellar Wind’ (Video)

Venezuela Ramps up China Oil Exports Unsettling Washington

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– Venezuela Ramps up China Oil Exports Unsettling Washington (OILPRIZE, Aug 21, 2012):

The biggest geostrategic change of the past decade overlooked by Washington policy wonks in their fixation on their self-proclaimed “war on terror” is that Latin America has been throwing off the shackles of the Monroe Doctrine.

These ignored developments may well soon refocus Washington’s attention on the Southern Hemisphere, as Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez reorients his country’s to China.

Read moreVenezuela Ramps up China Oil Exports Unsettling Washington

China Stocks Drop To Fresh Post-2009 Lows Following Plunge In Industrial Company Profits

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– China Stocks Drop To Fresh Post-2009 Lows Following Plunge In Industrial Company Profits (ZeroHedge, Aug 27, 2012):

Today the Chinese stock market did something unthinkable: it plunged to fresh post 2009 lows on news so bad they would have been enough to send the stock markets of such “developed” bizarro economies as the US and Europe limit up. The catalyst, as Bloomberg reports, was that Chinese industrial companies’ profits fell in July by the most this year, a government report showed today, adding to evidence the nation’s economic slowdown is deepening. Income dropped 5.4 percent last month from a year earlier to 366.8 billion yuan ($57.7 billion), the fourth straight decline, National Bureau of Statistics data today showed. That compares with a 1.7 percent slide in June and a 5.3 percent drop in May. What is disturbing is that the slide persisted even as revenue in the first seven months increased 10.6 percent to 50 trillion yuan, today’s report showed. Which means that cost and wage pressures are starting to truly bite Chinese corporations, that the US ability to export inflation to China is much more limited, and that one can forget the PBOC easing monetary conditions any time soon for many of the reasons discussed in the past week. It also means that China is now stuck hoping that Wen Jiabao will at least implement some fiscal stimulus. The reality however, judging by the SHCOMP’s reaction, is that the benefit from fiscal programs in China, and everywhere else, is far more limited than monetary policy intervention. End result: SHCOMP down 1.74%,to 2,055, a three year low.

From Bloomberg:

Today’s data add pressure on the government to step up policy easing to reverse a slowdown that may extend into a seventh quarter. On an inspection of Guangdong province from Aug. 24 to 25, Premier Wen Jiabao said difficulties in stabilizing the expansion are “still relatively large” and called for measures to promote export growth to help meet the country’s annual economic targets, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

“The economy is slowing faster than what had previously been expected,” said Patrick Bennett, a strategist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Hong Kong. The profit outlook is for “further weakness throughout the year,” he said.

Read moreChina Stocks Drop To Fresh Post-2009 Lows Following Plunge In Industrial Company Profits

More Than 70 Earthquakes Hit California Border, Buildings Damaged

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– More than 70 earthquakes hit California border; buildings damaged (Los Angeles Times, Aug 26, 2012):

More than 70 earthquakes hit Imperial County on Sunday — including several that registered stronger than magnitude 4.0. The strongest measured 5.4.

The USGS’s “Do You Feel It” system shows the quakes were felt as far away as San Diego, Temecula and San Clemente. The 5.3 quake was felt in Moreno Valley, Indio, National City and Palm Desert, and in Yuma, Ariz., and Mexico.

A handful of buildings in downtown Brawley had minor damage after an earthquake swarm rattled the area Sunday, officials said. Most of the quakes occurred in and around that California town.

Read moreMore Than 70 Earthquakes Hit California Border, Buildings Damaged

Ron Paul: ‘I Don’t Fully Endorse Mitt Romney For President’

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– Ron Paul: “I Don’t Fully Endorse Romney For President” (ZeroHedge, Aug 27, 2012):

On the ‘new’ eve of the Republican Convention, it appears all is not well in the Romney-Ryan ranks. In what is quite a stunning admission, though not entirely surprising given his outspoken desire for a change to the status quo, the NY Times is reporting that Ron Paul does not fully endorse Romney for President. Mr. Paul, said convention planners had offered him an opportunity to speak under two conditions: that he deliver remarks vetted by the Romney campaign, and that he give a full-fledged endorsement of Mr. Romney. He declined. “It wouldn’t be my speech,” Mr. Paul said. “That would undo everything I’ve done in the last 30 years. I don’t fully endorse him for president.” Whether this is Paul playing an admirable ‘long-game’ and/or standing by his libertarian roots (or angry at his apparent marginalization) is unclear but one thing is for sure; with the dominance of ‘young’ voters (seeking ‘change’?) behind Ron Paul relative to ‘old’ voters with Romney, this rebuff will not help in the fight against TOTUS. As BigStory reports, Paul is telling his supporters to stand firm because “we will become the tent eventually!“