Economy – Page 931 – Infinite Unknown

Authoritarian Governments Aggressively Stockpiling Food to Fight Public Anger

January 30, 2011January 30, 2011 by Infinite

Authoritarian governments across the world are aggressively stockpiling food as a buffer against soaring food costs which they fear may stoke popular discontent.

Riots started in Tunisia initally over the price of staple food like sugar, salt and grain Photo: AP

Commodities traders have warned they are seeing the first signs of panic buying from states concerned about the political implications of rising prices for staple crops.

However, the tactic risks simply further pushing up prices, analysts have warned, pushing a spiral of food inflation.

Governments in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have recently made large food purchases on the open market in the wake of unrest in Tunisia which deposed president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

GASLAND Trailer 2010 (Documentary)

January 30, 2011January 30, 2011 by Infinite

GASLAND – (2010) Directed by Josh Fox. Winner of Special Jury Prize – Best US Documentary Feature – Sundance 2010. Screening at Cannes 2010.

It is happening all across America and now in Europe and Africa as well – rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from a multinational energy conglomerate wanting to lease their property. The Reason? In America, the company hopes to tap into a huge natural gas reservoir dubbed the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground—a hydraulic drilling process called fracking—and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.

But what comes out of the ground with that natural gas? How does it affect our air and drinking water? GASLAND is a powerful personal documentary that confronts these questions with spirit, strength, and a sense of humor. When filmmaker Josh Fox receives his cash offer in the mail, he travels across 32 states to meet other rural residents on the front lines of fracking. He discovers toxic streams, ruined aquifers, dying livestock, brutal illnesses, and kitchen sinks that burst into flame. He learns that all water is connected and perhaps some things are more valuable than money.

Americans Are All Indians Now: Welcome To The Reservation!

January 30, 2011January 30, 2011 by Infinite

Added: 19. Januar 2011

The United States is one big reservation, and we are all in it. So says Russell Means, legendary actor, political activist and leader for the American Indian Movement. Means led the 1972 seizure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in 1973 led a standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a response to the massacre of at least 150 Lakotah men, women, and children by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at a camp near Wounded Knee Creek.

American Indian Russell Means gives an eye-opening 90 minute interview in which he explains how Native Americans and Americans in general are all imprisoned within one huge reservation. Means is a leader for the Republic of Lakotah, a movement that has declared its independence from the United States and refused to recognize the authority of presidents or governments, withdrawing from treaties it made with the federal government and defining its borders which cover thousands of square miles in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.

Means explains how American Indians have been enslaved within de facto prisoner of war camps as a result of the federal government’s restriction of their food supply and the application of colonial tactics, a process that has now also been inflicted on the United States as a whole which has turned into, “one huge Indian reservation,” according to Means.

Means warns that Americans have lost the ability of critical though, and with each successive generation become more irresponsible and as a consequence less free, disregarding a near-perfect document, the Constitution, which was derived from Indian law. Means chronicles the loss of freedom from the 1840’s onwards, which marked the birth of the corporation, to Lincoln’s declaration of martial law, to the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th when Congress “started giving banks the right to rule,” and private banking interests began printing the money.

Eric Sprott: Expect $50 Silver, Gold Possibly $2,150 by Spring

February 18, 2011January 29, 2011 by Infinite

With gold and silver rallying off the lows today, King World News interviewed Eric Sprott, Chairman of Sprott Asset Management which has $8 billion under management.

…..

“We had to go into the market and buy about 15 million net ounces from third parties and it took us about ten weeks. It was a very, very long process and the one thing we can read out of it is obviously there weren’t 15 million ounces sitting around somewhere.”

…..

“I haven’t had time to study where the bars came from, but I can tell you by looking at the pictures of the bars they look like they came right out of the refineries. So I suspect it’s a hand to mouth situation in silver.

…

When asked about price targets for both gold and silver Eric responded, “Our best technical advisor, he thinks (gold) it’s going to $2,150, and he thinks it is going to $2,150 this spring.

…

I think silver is a little easier to predict because I think it’s going to change relative to gold which is a more predictable event and more timely. I’ve always thought that silver should touch $50, and I’m not going to be surprised if it touches it by the middle of this year as people realize there is an absolute shortage.”

Full article here: KingWorldNews

Spain Jobless Rate Surges To 20.33 Percent

January 29, 2011 by Infinite

Yet even at these levels, this is still modest compared to countries like Spain, where the same metric was trending around 40% and is expected to remain there through 2011.

MADRID (AFP) – Spain announced Friday its jobless rate surged to a 13-year record above 20 percent at the end of 2010, the highest level in the industrialized world, as the economy struggled for air.

It was more bad news for an economy fighting to regain the trust of financial markets and avoid being trapped in a debt quagmire that has engulfed Greece and Ireland and now menaces Portugal.

Another 121,900 people joined Spain’s unemployment queues in the final quarter of the year, pushing the total to 4.697 million people, said the national statistics institute INE.

Bank Bailouts Explained (Must-See!!!)

January 29, 2011 by Infinite

Added: 28. January 2011

Germany Promised US in 1967 Not to Convert Dollars to Gold

January 29, 2011January 29, 2011 by Infinite

Thanks to GATA consultant Dimitri Speck and U.S. economist James K. Galbraith, a copy of the so-called Blessing letter, written on March 30, 1967, can be published for the first time on the Internet. The letter’s text refutes the widespread assumption among German gold bugs that the letter promised the U.S. government that the German central bank, the Bundesbank, would never relocate the German gold reserve from New York to Germany as long as U.S. troops were stationed in Germany. The letter has nothing to do with the location of the German gold reserve.

Instead, the letter, written by the Bundesbank’s president at the time, Karl Blessing, and sent to the then-chairman of Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, William McChesney Martin Jr., made this important promise on behalf of the Bundesbank:

“By refraining from dollar conversions into gold from the United States Treasury, the Bundesbank has intended to contribute to international monetary cooperation and to avoid any disturbing effects on the foreign exchange and gold markets. You may be assured that also in the future the Bundesbank intends to continue this policy and to play its full part in contributing to international monetary cooperation.”

Speck, author of the German-language book “Geheime Goldpolitik” (“Secret Gold Politics,” about which more information is available at http://www.gata.org/node/9349), puts the Blessing letter in context:

“In 1967 the Americans and British threatened to reduce their troops in West Germany on account of the cost. Because of the Cold War, West Germany wanted to avoid a reduction in military forces but didn’t want to pay more for those forces. Part of the resolution of the issue was the Blessing letter, which confirmed Germany’s waiver of conversion of dollars into gold. Thus Germany, like other countries, bought security by accumulating dollar claims as foreign-exchange reserve.

“The right of governments to convert dollars into gold from the U.S. Treasury was canceled by the U.S. government in 1971. But four years earlier the Blessing letter affirmed the formal renunciation of the largest dollar holder, Germany, of conversions of dollars into gold. The letter was thus an essential step toward the global dollar standard, which was recognized already by the U.S. government and communicated in internal documents.”

The Blessing letter is archived at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Because of his research, Speck gave the decisive encouragement for its publication here. Galbraith, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and author of “The Predator State,” gave the decisive help in obtaining a copy of the letter.

The Blessing letter can be viewed at GATA’s Internet site here:

http://www.gata.org/files/BundesbankLetter-03-30-1967.pdf

The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto

January 29, 2011January 29, 2011 by Infinite

There is no such thing as coexistence with GMOs.

Once the food supply is contaminated it’s all over.

“The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must.”
– Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011

In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto’s controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for “coexistence” with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.

In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and “seed purity,” gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the “conditional deregulation” of Monsanto’s genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of “conditional deregulation,” this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.

USDA Secretary Vilsack Statement on Record US Soybean Sale to China

January 29, 2011January 29, 2011 by Infinite

Washington—Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued Jan. 25 the following statement on the reported sale of 2.74 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans to China in the 2011-12 marketing year:

“Today’s sale of 2.74 million tons of U.S. soybeans to China is the single largest daily soybean sale since USDA began issuing daily sales reports in 1977.

Angry JP Morgan BANKSTER Boss Hits Out At ‘Banker Bashing’

January 28, 2011January 28, 2011 by Infinite

So let’s take a look at JP Morgan:

– Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out of Billions, JP Morgan Knew About This Fraud Since Spring 2008

– JP Morgan Sold Investors MBS Covered By ‘SACK OF SHIT’ Loans … Then Shorted All Those With Exposure: A Goldman-AIG Redux

– JP Morgan Admits Overcharging Several Thousands of Military Families on Mortgages And Improper Foreclosures

– How JP Morgan Gets Rich On Food Stamps And Profits From Poverty

– Interview With Whistleblower Bill Murphy On Gold And Silver Market Manipulation

– JP Morgan Banksters Get $10 BILLION Pay And Bonus Pot

– Change: Obama Appoints JPMorgan Bankster and Clinton Veteran As New Chief of Staff

– JP Morgan Chase Ransacked Home of Man on His Death Bed

Criminals!

An angry Jamie Dimon tells World Economic Forum that blanket criticism of banking industry is unfair

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan, said some banks were stabilising influences during the financial crisis. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

The head of JP Morgan has delivered a furious tirade against “banker bashing”, complaining that the entire industry is being tarred with the same brush and implying that bankers have become political whipping boys.

Jamie Dimon, one of Wall Street’s best known and most respected chief executives, told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos that there was a “huge misconception” that all banks ran into trouble during the financial crisis. In fact, he said, JP Morgan and its stronger rivals were “stabilising” influences and he insisted that banks would not “bend down and accept” abuse.

“Not all banks needed the Tarp [US government bailout money]. Not all banks would have failed,” said Dimon. “That one assumption drives a lot of arguments.”

Dimon, who was once characterised as Barack Obama’s favourite Wall Street banker but who fell out with the administration over financial reform, made clear his fury at the tone of public, political and media attacks on banks.

“This really is a terrible thing to do,” said Dimon. “I don’t lump all the media together. There’s good, there’s bad, there’s smart, there’s responsible, there’s irresponsible media. I don’t put them all together. It’s an unproductive and unfair way of treating people.”

US: Welcome to Foreclosureland!

January 28, 2011January 28, 2011 by Infinite

‘Recovery’ is ‘The Greatest Depression’!

Take the foreclosure tour here:

– A Frightening Satellite Tour Of America’s Foreclosure Wastelands (The Business Insider)

RealtyTrac is out with the total foreclosure numbers for 2010. On the whole things are getting worse.

72 percent of major metro areas saw an increase in foreclosure volume. Although some of the worst hit areas in Nevada, California and Florida improved from 2009, the foreclosure rate in these areas remains shockingly high. If not for some foreclosure suspensions due to the robosigning scandal, these numbers would have been higher.

For a frightening way to visualize the foreclosure crisis, we’re borrowing a Google maps technique described by Barry Ritholtz.

Government Economists: America Faces The Biggest Budget Deficit In History

January 28, 2011 by Infinite

Commentary:

Obama in 2006:

‘Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.’
– Barack Obama

And now Obama has increased the national debt more than all other US Presidents in history combined.

Elite puppet President Obama is serving his elite masters agenda to bankrupt America and to destroy the US dollar.

And he is doing a much better job than former elite puppet President G. W. Bush.

Some quotes:

“When a country embarks on deficit financing and inflationism you wipe out the middle class and wealth is transferred from the middle class and the poor to the rich.”
– Ron Paul

“Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”
– Ron Paul

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”
– John Adams

“The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debts.”
– Henry Ford

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution — taking from the federal government their power of borrowing.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“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

“By a continuing process of inflation ( = quantitative easing = printing money), 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

“Capital must protect itself in every way… Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”
– J. P. Morgan

“The dollar represents a one dollar debt to the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Banks create money out of thin air to buy Government Bonds from the U.S. Treasury…and has created out of nothing a … debt which the American people are obliged to pay with interest.”
– Wright Patman

Facts:

– US Government Borrows 40 Percent Of Every Dollar It Spends

– US Government Spends $6.85 Million Per Minute

– Geithner Warns Lawmakers That Failure to Raise US Debt Limit ‘Precipitates a Default by the United States’ With Catastrophic Economic Consequences

– US Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’

– Three Horrifying Facts About the US Debt ‘Situation’

Prepare for collapse and the Greatest Depression.

Economists warn cuts will not make a dent in America’s massive deficit
Experts fear his ‘innovate’ rallying cry will actually COST money
Republicans: Spending cuts don’t go far enough
Dow Jones gives mixed response to Obama speech
Federal budget deficit to hit $1.5 trillion this year

President Obama’s rallying cry for Americans to pull together quickly unravelled today as government economists revealed the biggest budget gap in U.S. history.

The weak economy and a new round of tax cuts will push up the U.S. deficit this year to almost $1.5 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

At 9.8% of the country’s entire gross domestic product, the staggering amount of debt is one of the largest as a share of the US economy since World War Two.

Davos WEF 2011 – Prof. Nouriel Roubini: G20 has become G-Zero

January 28, 2011January 28, 2011 by Infinite

Stewardship of the global economy is in disarray due to a vacuum of leadership, senior economists have warned.

Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University, and Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the media group WPP, lamented a lack of joined-up global leadership, describing co-ordinated efforts to address trade imbalances, capital flows, water resources, immigration and climate change as “G Zero”.

“There is complete disagreement and disarray. That’s the sense of the G Zero,” Mr Roubini said, explaining the new buzzword at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference in the Swiss resort of Davos.

“There is no agreement on anything. We are in a world where there is no leadership,” he added.

UK: Retailers Cut Equivalent of 10,000 Jobs in December

January 28, 2011January 28, 2011 by Infinite

Stores reduced working hours and refused to offer overtime during busy Christmas period, reducing staff levels by 1.5% on 2009

December was a difficult month for many retailers, who reduced the number of staff hours. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Store bosses cut the equivalent of more than 10,000 full-time jobs in December as they reduced staff working hours and neglected to offer overtime during the industry’s busiest month of the year.

The number of hours worked by retail employees was 1.5% lower in December compared with the same month of 2009, according to the BRC-Bond Pearce Retail Employment Monitor.

The authoritative survey, whose respondents speak for 50% of the sector’s turnover, also reported a “noticeable weakening in sentiment” over the last 12 months. It said one in three retailers planned to cut jobs by April compared with 13% a year ago.

“December was a difficult trading month for some retailers,” said the BRC’s director general, Stephen Robertson, who said the 1.5% fall in hours worked was equivalent to the loss of about 10,300 full-time jobs. “Overall, employment growth faltered because stores were less busy, so there were fewer working hours than the previous year.”

The grim figures came as a plan to build a £300m shopping centre in Wolverhampton, which would have been anchored by Marks & Spencer and Debenhams, looked likely to be shelved.

US: Organic Consumers Association Funded by Big Pharma and Rockefeller! Food Freedom Betrayal!

January 28, 2011January 28, 2011 by Infinite

Our food supply is in jeopardy. Not only from outside forces such as poisons from China, but from within. The very people that we look to for guidance seem to be working together to lead us straight into global food governance in the form of Codex Alimentarius. This is especially alarming when you consider that the very organizations such as the USDA and FDA, that are charged with the safeguarding and regulation of our food supply are at the forefront of the battle, leading us straight into worldwide genocide using food as a weapon.

But the USDA and FDA do not stand alone. There are others who consider food to be “fair game” in this war against the people, and they just happen to control some very large purse strings. So, who holds the purse strings behind the push to obliterate any food safeguards we may have? Let’s just pick two – Rockefeller and Merck, then take a closer look at a few of the “trusted” organizations that they fund.

The Purse Strings

Rockefeller

Let’s take a look at just a part of what the Rockefeller crime family is involved in concerning our food supply.

Today, the Rockefellers use coercive population control tactics and food as a weapon through a front organization, CGIAR (Consultative Group on Agricultural Resources) as the Rockefellers are trying to distance themselves from public- just like the Rothschild clan has done. Engdahl reports that CGIAR operates under the umbrella of the UN World Bank, and its primary focus is the spread of GMO crops. CGIAR was created by the Rockefellers and the Ford Foundation, along with the UN World Bank in 1971 with $350 million dollars a year in funding. (MorphCity)

Financed by generous Rockefeller and Ford Foundation study grants, CGIAR saw to it that leading Third World agriculture scientists and agronomists were brought to the US to master the concepts of modern agribusiness production, in order to carry it back to their homeland. In the process they created an invaluable network of influence for US agribusiness promotion in those countries, most especially promotion of the GMO Gene Revolution in developing countries, all in the name of science and efficient, free market agriculture.(InformationLiberation)

The Rockefeller Foundation spent more than $100 million for the advance of the GMO revolution. (Engdahl – Seeds of Destruction)

Part of the Rockefeller dynasty includes a group known as Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors:

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advises donors in their philanthropic endeavors throughout the world. The foundation is headquartered in New York City and adheres to John D. Rockefeller Sr.’s practice of managing philanthropy “as if it were a business.”[1] Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors currently advises on and manages more than $200 million in annual giving in more than 60 countries.[2] (Wikipedia)

Philanthropy can be used by business to advance a corporate image that is acceptable to certain groups of people in order to put up a benevolent facade while all the time conducting business as usual, which may or may not be so benevolent.

Merck

Now let’s take a peek at Merck:

Alert: Get Out of Your Dollar Assets Now!!!

February 18, 2011January 27, 2011 by Infinite

Only PHYSICAL gold and silver are real, everything else is an illusion.

More important information on gold and silver(!) below the following article.

With gold and silver near recent lows and the US Dollar having broken key support at 78.50, the Godfather of newsletter writers Richard Russell had this warning for his subscribers, “Remember, many leading nations want to eliminate the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If this happens, it will be one of the worst financial catastrophes in US history.”

Richard Russell continues:

“Please study the daily chart (above). This is the US Dollar Index. Today there’s no definition for the dollar. So how do we price the dollar? At one time, the dollar was priced in terms of the time-honored standards — gold and silver. But today we must price the dollar against other fiat currencies. “A dollar is worth so much against the yuan, or so much against the pound sterling, or against the euro and so forth.”

Thus we have the Dollar Index, an index that pits the dollar against six other fiat currencies. To get back to the chart, we see that the Dollar Index is now trading below its blue 50-day moving average. The 50-day, in turn, is below the red 200-day MA. Thus, the Dollar is in the classic bearish configuration as long as it trades below its 50-day MA.

Note also that the Dollar has now broken below three preceding lows, a bearish situation.

Furthermore, MACD has turned bearish, pushing the blue histograms into negative territory (bottom of the chart).

The real news, the critically important news, centers around the US dollar. It’s as if you are reading a report on a building you want to buy. The report tells you all about the heating system, the repairs to the roof, the condition of the wood floors, but the report leaves out the critical fact that the foundation of the house is crumbling.

So it’s the dollar, the dollar, the dollar, that I’m directing my subscribers’ attention to. If the dollar collapses, every investment you own will be adversely affected — your home, your stocks, your insurance policies, your bonds, your 401K — everything that is denominated in dollars.

The Russell advice — swap your dollars for physical gold or CEF, GLD, or SGOL. In other words, do as China and Russia and many other nation are now doing — get out of your dollar assets.

…..

Full article here: King World News

Standard & Poor’s Downgrades Japan’s Credit Rating On Debt Concerns, Yen Tumbles, Yields Rise

January 27, 2011 by Infinite

In other news:

– Forex traders send yen tumbling (Financial Times)

– Japan Yields Rise on S&P Downgrade (Wall Street Journal)

–Dollar Jumps Vs Yen After Japan’s Debt Rating Cut (ABC News)

–FOREX-Yen slides on S&P downgrade of Japan long-term debt (Reuters)

Standard & Poor’s on Thursday cut Japan’s credit rating for the first time since 2002, accusing the government of lacking a “coherent strategy” to ease the highest debt of any industrialised nation.

The US credit risk appraiser cut its rating on Japan’s long-term sovereign debt to “AA minus” from “AA”, saying that it expected the country’s groaning fiscal deficits to stay high in coming years.

It was the first downgrade of a G7 member since Italy in October 2006, and underlined mounting problems with national debts since the 2008 financial crisis. Four eurozone members including Spain suffered downgrades last year.

“The downgrade reflects our appraisal that Japan’s government debt ratios — already among the highest for rated sovereigns — will continue to rise further than we envisaged before the global economic recession hit the country and will peak only in the mid-2020s,” S&P said.

“The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)-led government lacks a coherent strategy to address these negative aspects of the country’s debt dynamics,” it said.

The Japanese currency tumbled following the announcement, with the dollar gaining by a more than a yen to 83.20 yen from around 82.12 in earlier trade, before recovering to around 82.76 to the dollar.

Italy Seizes $20 Billion More Fake US Government Bonds

January 27, 2011January 27, 2011 by Infinite

Flashback:

– Another $100 Billion of U.S. Government Bonds Seized in Italy

– The Bearer Bond Saga: It Gets More Odd

– The Japanese Bond Smugglers Are Missing

– The US Bearer Bonds ‘Coincidence’

– The Saga Of The Bearer Bonds; Smuggled Bonds Are Probably Genuine

– Italy Seizes $135 BILLION Of US Bonds: Smuggling Or Counterfeit-Printing?

And now:

– 20 billion USD bond fraud (Croatian Times):

A 20-billion US dollar haul of fake US government bonds has been seized by police in Italy in a raid on a counterfeiting gang.

The bogus bearer bonds were unearthed when police doing routine traffic checks stumbled across them in a car they had stopped in Fermo.

Six people have been arrested and are being quizzed by police over the 40 bonds, each for 500 million US dollars.

“They are very good, very detailed forgeries,” said a police spokesman.

Italian authorities have confiscated $20 billion in counterfeit U.S. government bonds.

Authorities say the bonds were of a quality that theoretically could have defrauded financial institutions.

But a stop at a highway rest area where a group of Carabinieri military police were taking a break proved to be the undoing of the group.

A Carabinieri statement said officers did a routine search of the vehicles after the “suspicious” behaviour of the men and found “to their surprise” a briefcase with 40 bonds 0each valued at $500 million.

Officials said Wednesday that U.S. officials confirmed the bonds were counterefeit. The six men are under investigation for receiving stolen goods.

The Associated Press January 26, 2011, 10:15AM ET

Source: BusinessWeek

Goldman Sachs Banksters Got Billions From AIG For Its Own Account, Crisis Panel Finds

January 27, 2011January 27, 2011 by Infinite

More info on the criminal Goldman Sachs banksters at the end of the following article.

That is what Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein calls ‘doing God’s work‘.

Goldman Sachs collected $2.9 billion from the American International Group as payout on a speculative trade it placed for the benefit of its own account, receiving the bulk of those funds after AIG received an enormous taxpayer rescue, according to the final report of an investigative panel appointed by Congress.

The fact that a significant slice of the proceeds secured by Goldman through the AIG bailout landed in its own account–as opposed to those of its clients or business partners– has not been previously disclosed. These details about the workings of the controversial AIG bailout, which eventually swelled to $182 billion, are among the more eye-catching revelations in the report to be released Thursday by the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

The details underscore the degree to which Goldman–the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history–benefited directly from the massive emergency bailout of the nation’s financial system, a deal crafted on the watch of then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who had previously headed the bank.

“If these allegations are correct, it appears to have been a direct transfer of wealth from the Treasury to Goldman’s shareholders,” said Joshua Rosner, a bond analyst and managing director at independent research consultancy Graham Fisher & Co., after he was read the relevant section of the report. “The AIG counterparty bailout, which was spun as necessary to protect the public, seems to have protected the institution at the expense of the public.”

Bank of England’s Mervyn King Warns Inflation Could Reach 5 Percent Within Months

January 27, 2011January 27, 2011 by Infinite

Mervyn King ‘nuked’ the UK with quantitative easing, using what economists call the ‘nuclear option’:

– Quantitative Easing Explained

Just exchange the Fed with the BoE and ‘THE BEN BERNANK’ with ‘THE MERVY KING’.

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

– Bank of England extends quantitative easing to £200 billion (Guardian)

And now Mervyn King warns of the fallout of quantitative easing, which is inflation!

Wake up Britain!

Mervyn King is a criminal and an elite puppet.

Britain’s “uncomfortably high inflation” is of more concern to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) than the surprise fall in gross domestic product, Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, has said.

Mervyn King said the idea that the Bank of England could have preserved living standards by preventing a rise in inflation was ‘wishful thinking’ Photo: REUTERS

Mr King warned that inflation was likely to rise to between 4pc and 5pc over the next few months, before falling back next year. He said that inflation has climbed to its current level of 3.7pc because of rising import and energy prices and taxes, and that these factors had squeezed real take-home pay by around 12pc.

In a speech in Newcastle that included references to both Ken Dodd and Leo Tolstoy, Mr King said the shock 0.5pc fall in GDP over the fourth quarter of 2010 served as a reminder of his comment last year that the recovery would be “choppy”. But he added: “Of more immediate concern to the MPC is that we are experiencing uncomfortably high inflation.”

Wheat Futures At 29 Month High As Developing Country Demand Surges In Aftermath Of Tunisia Revolution

January 27, 2011January 27, 2011 by Infinite

Dow Jones reports that wheat futures just hit a 29-month highs on “strong global demand.”

Per the newswire, Algeria bought 800,000 tons of milling wheat, with traders estimating the nation’s purchases for January at about 1.8M. Turkey and Jordan bought wheat last week after rising food prices helped fuel unrest in Tunisia.

“They’re saying, ‘Boy we’ve got to eat. We don’t know where wheat is going to be in a month,’ says PFG Best. CBOT March wheat ends up 18 1/4c at $8.56 1/2 a bushel, while KCBT March climbs 22 1/2c to $9.40 and MGE March jumps 21c to $9.77.

The chart shows the UBS Bloomberg constant maturity Wheat index which confirms the vicious loop of what surging prices and geopolitical instability means to wheat prices.

The higher the prices, the greater the scramble by developing (and soon developed) countries to acquire as much wheat as possible and hoard it, hoping to avoid Tunisia’s fate, which of course will lead to even greater price surges. And all of this ignores the impact of the Goblin in Chief, whose money printing fetish has earned him, in our books, the adjective ‘genocidal’.

Once China figures out what is going on, and rice prices finally explode as we fully expect they will, the world will figure out just why…The only silver lining – soon farming will be the most profitable profession in the world. And as bankers only go where the money is, Bernanke’s strategy may in fact lead to the first net natural outflow of bankers from Wall Street in history.

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Slams Greenspan, Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, Summers, SEC, Rating Agencies and Big Banks for Causing Crisis

January 26, 2011January 26, 2011 by Infinite

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is releasing its report Thursday.

The New York Times has a preview of the report, which shows that the Commission will slam the right people for causing the financial crisis.

Barry Ritholtz gives a good summary of the Times’ article:

The many causal factors highlighted in the FCIC report:

• Alan Greenspan’s malfeasance — his refusal to perform his regulatory duties because he did not believe in them — allowed the credit bubble to expand, driving housing prices to dangerously unsustainable levels; Greenspan’s advocacy for financial deregulation was a “pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages” and “the prime example” of government negligence;

• Ben S. Bernanke failed to foresee the crisis;

• The Bush administration’s “inconsistent response” — saving Bear, but allowing Lehman to crater — “added to the uncertainty and panic in the financial markets.”

• Bush Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. wrongly predicted in 2007 that subprime meltdown would be contained.

• The Clinton White House, including then Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, made a crucial error in “shielding over-the-counter derivatives from regulation [CFMA]. This was “a key turning point in the march toward the financial crisis.”

• Then NY Fed President, now Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner failed to “clamp down on excesses by Citigroup in the lead-up to the crisis;” Further, a month before Lehman’s collapse, Geithner was still in the dark about Lehman’s derivative exposure;

• Low interest rates brought about by the Fed after the 2001 recession “created increased risks” but were not chiefly to blame, according to the FCIC (I place some more weight on Ultra-low rates than they do);

• The financial sector spent $2.7 billion on lobbying from 1999 to 2008, while individuals and committees affiliated with the industry made more than $1 billion in campaign contributions. The impact of which an incestuous relationship between bankers and regulators, Congress and bankers, and classic regulatory capture by the industry.

• The credit-rating agencies “cogs in the wheel of financial destruction.”

• The Securities and Exchange Commission allowed the 5 biggest banks to ramp up their leverage, hold insufficient capital, and engage in risky practices.

• Leverage at the nation’s five largest investment banks was wildly excessive: They kept only $1 in capital to cover losses for about every $40 in assets;

• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency along with the Office of Thrift Supervision, “federally pre-empted” (blocked) state regulators from reining in lending abuses;

• The report documents “questionable practices by mortgage lenders and careless betting by banks;”

• The report portrays the “bumbling incompetence among corporate chieftains” as to the risk and operations of their own firms:

-Citigroup executives admitting that they paid little attention to the risks associated with mortgage securities.
-AIG executives were blind to its $79 billion exposure to credit default swaps;
-Merrill Lynch top managers were surprised when mortgage investments suddenly resulted in billions of dollars in losses;

JP Morgan Sold Investors MBS Covered By ‘SACK OF SHIT’ Loans … Then Shorted All Those With Exposure: A Goldman-AIG Redux

January 26, 2011 by Infinite

“In a nutshell: JPM committed fraud through misrepresentation, then wilfully and maliciously traded AGAINST the entities it had sold misrepresented securities to, and lastly, when even all this failed to rescue the failed bank, it was rescued, courtesy of the US taxpayers. Only in America will this lead to absolutely no jail time whatsoever.”

Today’s mortgage fraud stunner comes from Bloomberg’s Jody Shenn who reports on the ongoing lawsuit between Ambac and former Bear Stearns mortgage unit EMC, now part of JP Morgan. In what can only be classified as fraud-cum-double dipping-cum-AIG/Goldman, “JPMorgan Chase & Co. demanded that a lender repurchase bad mortgages even as it resisted calls to buy back the loans from bonds created by Bear Stearns. “That would be pretty bad” if true, said Joshua Rosner, an analyst at New York-based research firm Graham Fisher & Co. He said such allegations show why “investors and consumers have a right to be distrustful of the banks’ statements.” The bottom line is that JPM, which has so far been able to escape largely unscathed from the fraudclosure scandal, is about to take front and center. The reason: the very first line of the just released Exhibit 1 to the Ambac lawsuit: “In mid-2006, Bear Stearns induced investors to purchase, and Ambac as a financial guarantor to insure, securities that were backed by a pool of mortgage loans that – in the words of the Bear Stearns deal manager – was a “SACK OF SHIT.” But the stunner, and nothing short of a full-blown scandal if proven true, is that Bear Stearns (aka JPM) after funneling misrepresented loans with Ambac’s insurance, “implemented a trading strategy to profit from Ambac’s potential demise by “shorting” banks with large exposure to Ambac-insured securities.” This needs its own congressional hearing right now, followed by a few wristslaps. After all such wholesale fraud can never possibly be prosecuted in the world’s most advanced country.

(photo credit William Banzai)

China vs. JP Morgan: The Battle Over Gold And Silver

January 26, 2011January 26, 2011 by Infinite

Gold is down 6% and silver 12% since the start of 2011. This is the sharpest decline in precious metals since June of last year and with technical support broken at the 50-day moving averages, many are concerned of a deeper correction ahead.

While there are a myriad of factors driving the prices, two of the major opposing forces are Chinese demand for physical gold on the long side and JPMorgan paper schemes on the short side. Which force prevails in the short term remains to be seen, but in the long run the paper shorts will eventually be squeezed, pushing the price for both gold and silver much higher.

Corrections are a healthy and normal part of any secular bull market, allowing the bull to rest its legs, shake out weak hands and prepare for the next phase up. Every correction in precious metals over the past decade has brought so-called “experts” out of the woodwork to proclaim an end to the gold bull market. They were wrong when gold hit $500, $800, $1,000 and will be wrong many times again before gold finally does peak somewhere above $5,000 per ounce.

But the recent slide in gold and silver prices seems like more than the usual correction and profit taking. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act during July of 2010 and many metals analysts believed it would lead to the CFTC implementing sensible position limits. In addition, the passing of the Volker rule and closing of prop trading desks seemed to jump start precious metals into an impressive and steady advance.

Many gold bugs believed they were witnessing the end of the fraudulent gold and silver manipulation that has been occurring so blatantly over the past several years. This manipulation has been painstakingly exposed by GATA over the years, was detailed in an earlier article that I published and has led to a series of lawsuits against JPMorgan and others.

Gold and silver posted impressive gains in 2010, with gold up 30%, while silver rocketed more than 80% higher! But these advances came to an abrupt halt at the start of 2011 and the decline worsened a few weeks later when the CFTC announced the details of it proposed position limits. First off, the proposed limits were way too high to curb manipulation and more importantly, JPMorgan, HSBC and other large investment banks were granted an exemption to the new position limit rules by being “grandfathered.” The CFTC absolutely caved to the interests of JPMorgan and the price of gold and silver both proceeded to tank and drop through key levels of support.

To what degree the CFTC decision is driving the decline in precious metals is unclear. Gene Arensberg recently pointed out that the large commercial banks have actually been covering their short positions lately and that the swap dealers are the ones that have been uncharacteristically piling on the paper shorts. Regardless, big money has certainly been helping to push prices lower, even as the dollar has weakened significantly in the past few weeks.

While the paper market has been driving the spot price lower, the physical market appears to be as robust as ever. Sales of silver eagle coins for the month of January have already set a new all-time record, with ten days still left in the month. Furthermore, silver demand in China has quadrupled versus last year, as the emerging Chinese middle class looks for a hedge against inflation and the Chinese government encourages its citizens to buy gold and silver.

This is a relatively new phenomenon in Chinese culture, as ownership of precious metals was illegal just a few short years back. But this has all changed as China has become the largest producer of gold in the world and is expected to surpass India as the largest consumer of gold as well.

Demand from China is not only coming from the citizens though, as the Chinese government has been accumulating massive amounts of gold and silver for their reserves. After not reporting gold reserves for six years, the Chinese government in 2009 made a surprise announcement that they had nearly doubled their gold reserves to over 1,000 tons. They have been doing this quietly via buying up the production from Chinese mining companies, as well as making purchases in the open market via intermediaries.

China announced annual gold production of 314 tons in 2010 and this number is expected to be around 320 tons in 2011. If the suspicion that China is buying up most of the country’s gold production is true, there could well be another 600 tons or more moved into ‘unofficial’ reserves before the next announcement. Add in purchases in the international market, and it is conceivable that China’s reserves could effectively be doubled again by the end of 2011 to some 2,000 tons.

Congressional Research Service: 1.4 Million Have Been Out Of Work For 99 Weeks Or Longer

January 25, 2011 by Infinite

The real US unemployment rate is not 9.8% but between 25% and 30%:

– Hiding The Greatest Depression: How The US Government Does It

There are 1.4 million “very long-term unemployed” who have been out of work for 99 weeks or longer, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

Ninety-nine weeks is a milestone for the jobless because that’s the limit for unemployment benefits (though 99 weeks are not available in all states). Beyond that point, the jobless aren’t eligible for much help besides food stamps and charity. The job market for anyone out of work that long is downright hostile.

The 1.4-million figure, calculated using the latest data available as of October, is much smaller than some home-cooked estimates circulated online by advocates for additional weeks of benefits for these “99ers.” Some of those estimates are as high as 7 million.