Imagine a number between 1 and 700 trillion. Now mutiple by 0. What do we have left? Read on.
Fried in the financial sun
There is a new report from the US Comptroller of the Currency titled "OCC's Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivative Activities, Fourth Quarter 2007", which shows that total bank holdings of derivatives is estimated to be "only" US$164.2 trillion, whereas I seem to remember that the global glut of derivatives is upward of $700 trillion, which are both numbers so big that I cannot even begin to comprehend the enormity of them.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
From the beginning.
What are the historical origins of Al Qaeda? Who is Osama bin Laden?
The alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorists attacks, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war, "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders".(Hugh Davies, "`Informers’ point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers." The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998). In 1979 the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA was launched in Afghanistan:
"With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, who wanted to turn the Afghan Jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually, more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad." (Ahmed Rashid, "The Taliban: Exporting Extremism", Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999).
This project of the US intelligence apparatus was conducted with the active support of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which was entrusted in channelling covert military aid to the Islamic brigades and financing, in liason with the CIA, the madrassahs and Mujahideen training camps.
U.S. government support to the Mujahideen was presented to world public opinion as a "necessary response" to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.
The CIA’s military-intelligence operation in Afghanistan, which consisted in creating the "Islamic brigades", was launched prior rather than in response to the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. In fact, Washington’s intent was to deliberately trigger a civil war, which has lasted for more than 25 years.
The CIA’s role in laying the foundations of Al Qaeda is confirmed in an 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who at the time was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter:
Brzezinski: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, [on] 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Question: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War? ( "The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser", Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998, published in English, Centre for Research on Globalisation, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html, 5 October 2001, italics added.)
Consistent with Brzezinski’s account, a "Militant Islamic Network" was created by the CIA.
The alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorists attacks, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war, "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders".(Hugh Davies, "`Informers’ point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers." The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998). In 1979 the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA was launched in Afghanistan:
"With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, who wanted to turn the Afghan Jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually, more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad." (Ahmed Rashid, "The Taliban: Exporting Extremism", Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999).
This project of the US intelligence apparatus was conducted with the active support of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which was entrusted in channelling covert military aid to the Islamic brigades and financing, in liason with the CIA, the madrassahs and Mujahideen training camps.
U.S. government support to the Mujahideen was presented to world public opinion as a "necessary response" to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.
The CIA’s military-intelligence operation in Afghanistan, which consisted in creating the "Islamic brigades", was launched prior rather than in response to the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. In fact, Washington’s intent was to deliberately trigger a civil war, which has lasted for more than 25 years.
The CIA’s role in laying the foundations of Al Qaeda is confirmed in an 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who at the time was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter:
Brzezinski: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, [on] 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Question: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War? ( "The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser", Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998, published in English, Centre for Research on Globalisation, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html, 5 October 2001, italics added.)
Consistent with Brzezinski’s account, a "Militant Islamic Network" was created by the CIA.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Go shopping!
By BRETT ARENDS
Load Up the PantryApril 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com
Load Up the PantryApril 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A Tale of 3 Als
Al Gore and Al-Zawahari both claim that "global warming climate change" blah blah blah, is destroying the planet. AG uses film footage from a 2004 disaster Hollywood movie, The Day After Tomorrow. AZ wings it on a Q&A with like minded Muslims on an Islamist militant website (undisclosed IP). The Al Gore segment was presented as fact, although it is not confirmed if it was in fact the big Al we all know and love as the one to toss in the towel in 2000 presidential elections. Unconfirmed rumors swirl that it is him as compared to previous voice comparisons. Big Al Z. the # 2 man (hhhhmmmm sounds like a vice-pres... no no no not the same I guess) a CIA created front organization claims the exact same GWCC. Who would have thunk it? Al Qaida the enviromentalists! After all AZ's orginization crashes planes into buidings and spews jet fuel and ASBESTOES and MERCURY, DIOXINS ( by the way C. Whitman EPA Director was let off the hook by a judge for her "the air is safe to breathe" edict) and other nasty particulates into NYC, Va. and Pa. They (AQ_ now keep yor Als straight) have a change in heart, those caves get mighty hot with global warming espesially without air conditioning! It would therefore be logical that the origin of the message stems from ONE SOURCE! And to that source I say GFY! Your Al Qaida, Al Gore, Al Zawahiri propoganda is pure bullshit.
AL GORE AL QAIDA AL ZAWAHIRI FEED YOU LIES,LIES, LIES. Do not believe anything Al says!!!!
AL GORE AL QAIDA AL ZAWAHIRI FEED YOU LIES,LIES, LIES. Do not believe anything Al says!!!!
WTF?
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/417305
Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Party on.
Priest disappears into the sky on party balloons. I wonder what it would take to get the Pope to try this? Or the entire Bush regime?
Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Party on.
Priest disappears into the sky on party balloons. I wonder what it would take to get the Pope to try this? Or the entire Bush regime?
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A fist full of dollars
The numbers are large; the government's response is equally massive. So before you look at one more stock quote or any other news item, I think it behooves you to understand what this means and what to do about it ...
New Evidence of A Credit Crack-Up
Until recently, economists have had only anecdotal evidence of credit troubles.
They knew that individual banks were taking losses. They knew that many banks were tightening their lending standards. And they realized that there were hiccups in the credit markets.
So they called it the “credit crunch” — essentially a slowdown in the pace of new credit growth.
But we didn't buy that. Earlier this year, we warned that America's credit woes involved much more than just a slowdown. We wrote that it was actually a credit crack-up — an outright contraction of credit the likes of which had never been witnessed in our lifetime.
Wall Street scoffed. No one had seen anything like this happen before, and almost everyone assumed that it would not happen now.
They were wrong.
Indeed, three new official reports are now telling us, point blank, that the credit crack-up is already beginning!
First, the Federal Reserve is reporting a big contraction in short-term debts.
The specifics: Based on its Flow of Funds Report (pdf page 18), we can clearly see that ...
Just in the third quarter of last year, “open market paper” (mostly short-term commercial loans) was slashed at the annual rate of $682 billion ...
In the fourth quarter, it shrunk again — at the rate of $337 billion per year, and ...
This shrinkage doesn't even begin to reflect the impact of the Bear Stearns failure or the huge additional bank losses announced so far this year.
I repeat: This is not a mere “slowdown” in new lending, which would be relatively routine. This is an actual reduction in the short-term loans outstanding, which is anything but routine ... which implies a rupture in the nation's credit spigots ... and which could deliver a new shock to the U.S. economy.
If this represented a planned and voluntary effort by lenders to begin trimming America's debt excesses, it might actually be a good thing.
But that's not the case here, not even close. Rather, this debt reduction is almost exclusively forced on lenders by the pressure of events — the plunging value of mortgages, the surging defaults by debtors, and the huge losses that have caught both banks and regulators off guard.
Second, the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is reporting havoc in the derivatives market.
Derivatives are bets and debts placed by banks and others.
In recent decades, derivatives have grown far beyond any semblance of reason. But in its latest report , the OCC reveals that in the fourth quarter of 2007 ...
For the first time in history, the notional value of derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks plunged dramatically — by $8 trillion ...
For the first time in history, U.S. banks suffered a massive overall loss on their derivatives — $9.97 billion, and, again ...
These numbers do not yet reflect this year's disasters at Bear Sterns and other institutions.
The OCC's chart below illustrates the magnitude and drama of the decline:
The chart shows that, until the third quarter of last year, U.S. commercial banks had been making consistent profits from their derivatives quarter after quarter.
Their total revenue from these and related transactions (red line) never dipped into negative territory ... rarely suffered a significant decline ... and was even making brand new highs through the first half of 2007.
Then, suddenly, in the fourth quarter of last year, we witnessed a landmark game-changing event: For the first time ever, U.S. commercial banks lost big money in derivatives in the aggregate ( as you can plainly see by the sharp nosedive of the red line).
Again, if this were part of a planned retreat by the banks to more prudent trading approaches, it would be a positive. But it's anything but!
Indeed, the OCC specifically states in its report that the sudden and unusual reduction in derivatives was due entirely to the turmoil in the credit markets.
And ironically, nearly all of that turmoil was concentrated in “credit swaps” (blue line in the chart) — the one sector that was designed to protect investors from this precise situation.
These credit swaps were supposed to act as insurance policies that big banks and others bought to help cover their risk in the event of defaults and failures. But they're not working out as planned: Just in the fourth quarter, U.S. banks had a net loss (after all profitable trades) of $11.8 billion on credit swaps alone, according to the OCC.
Those losses helped wipe out all the profits they made in other derivatives, leaving a net overall loss of $9.97 billion.
Third, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that this crisis is barely ONE-THIRD over!
In its Global Financial Stability Report(see Executive Summary ), the IMF predicts that the total losses from the subprime and related credit crises could reach $945 billion, or more than triple the already-huge losses that have been announced so far.
The IMF further warns that ...
“There has been a collective failure to appreciate the extent of the leverage taken on by a wide range of institutions — including banks, monoline insurers, government-sponsored entities, and hedge funds — and the associated risks of a disorderly unwinding.” Now, both the OCC and the Fed reports confirm that this “disorderly unwinding” is already beginning.
“The transfer of risks off bank balance sheets was overestimated. As risks have materialized, this has placed enormous pressures back on the balance sheets of banks.” Now, the OCC report confirms that “the transfer of risk” (with credit swaps) has often failed.
“Notwithstanding unprecedented intervention by major central banks, financial markets remain under considerable strain, now compounded by a more worrisome macroeconomic environment, weakly capitalized institutions, and broad-based deleveraging.” This is precisely what we have been warning you about. Now, it's happening!
Looking ahead, the IMF also warns about...
“Deep-seated balance-sheet fragilities and weak capital bases, which mean the effects [of the crisis] are likely to be broader, deeper and more protracted.”
“A serious funding and confidence crisis that threatens to continue for a significant period.”
The U.S. Government's Response
You've seen what the Fed has already done — six rate cuts since August of last year ... unprecedented broker bailouts ... and massive new amounts of liquidity pumped into the banking system.
You've seen where a lot of that money has gone — into foreign currencies, gold and oil.
And you've seen the dramatic market surges which that money can generate. Case in point: The latest jump in crude oil to $117 per barrel.
Now, get ready for more of the same:
More rate cuts, with the next expected as soon as April 30 ...
More Fed bailouts ...
Even wilder money printing, and ...
Larger surges in foreign currencies and commodities, despite intermediate setbacks.
But also start preparing for the day when the credit crack-up temporarily overwhelms the Fed, driving the U.S. economy into a far deeper recession than most people expect.
The Bottom Line for You Right Now
The three official reports support several related conclusions:
First, whether the stock market goes up or down in the near term, this crisis is far from over — and it's likely to get a lot worse.
Bottom line: It's far too soon to waver from a path of safety.
Second, credit is already scarcer and is probably going to be even harder to get as this crisis progresses.
Bottom line: If you're looking forward to a future day when you can buy properties at bargain prices, don't count on doing so with a lot of borrowed money. Instead, be prepared to put up substantial amounts of cash.
Third, some banks won't survive this crisis.
Bottom line: Be sure to keep your bank accounts — including principal, accrued interest and checks outstanding — under the FDIC's $100,000 insurance limit. (Amounts that run above the limit could be at risk.) Plus, for maximum safety, use U.S. Treasury bills or money market funds invested exclusively in short-term Treasuries.
Fourth, for protection and profit from a falling dollar, invest in the strongest foreign currencies plus other assets that naturally rise with the falling dollar.
New Evidence of A Credit Crack-Up
Until recently, economists have had only anecdotal evidence of credit troubles.
They knew that individual banks were taking losses. They knew that many banks were tightening their lending standards. And they realized that there were hiccups in the credit markets.
So they called it the “credit crunch” — essentially a slowdown in the pace of new credit growth.
But we didn't buy that. Earlier this year, we warned that America's credit woes involved much more than just a slowdown. We wrote that it was actually a credit crack-up — an outright contraction of credit the likes of which had never been witnessed in our lifetime.
Wall Street scoffed. No one had seen anything like this happen before, and almost everyone assumed that it would not happen now.
They were wrong.
Indeed, three new official reports are now telling us, point blank, that the credit crack-up is already beginning!
First, the Federal Reserve is reporting a big contraction in short-term debts.
The specifics: Based on its Flow of Funds Report (pdf page 18), we can clearly see that ...
Just in the third quarter of last year, “open market paper” (mostly short-term commercial loans) was slashed at the annual rate of $682 billion ...
In the fourth quarter, it shrunk again — at the rate of $337 billion per year, and ...
This shrinkage doesn't even begin to reflect the impact of the Bear Stearns failure or the huge additional bank losses announced so far this year.
I repeat: This is not a mere “slowdown” in new lending, which would be relatively routine. This is an actual reduction in the short-term loans outstanding, which is anything but routine ... which implies a rupture in the nation's credit spigots ... and which could deliver a new shock to the U.S. economy.
If this represented a planned and voluntary effort by lenders to begin trimming America's debt excesses, it might actually be a good thing.
But that's not the case here, not even close. Rather, this debt reduction is almost exclusively forced on lenders by the pressure of events — the plunging value of mortgages, the surging defaults by debtors, and the huge losses that have caught both banks and regulators off guard.
Second, the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is reporting havoc in the derivatives market.
Derivatives are bets and debts placed by banks and others.
In recent decades, derivatives have grown far beyond any semblance of reason. But in its latest report , the OCC reveals that in the fourth quarter of 2007 ...
For the first time in history, the notional value of derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks plunged dramatically — by $8 trillion ...
For the first time in history, U.S. banks suffered a massive overall loss on their derivatives — $9.97 billion, and, again ...
These numbers do not yet reflect this year's disasters at Bear Sterns and other institutions.
The OCC's chart below illustrates the magnitude and drama of the decline:
The chart shows that, until the third quarter of last year, U.S. commercial banks had been making consistent profits from their derivatives quarter after quarter.
Their total revenue from these and related transactions (red line) never dipped into negative territory ... rarely suffered a significant decline ... and was even making brand new highs through the first half of 2007.
Then, suddenly, in the fourth quarter of last year, we witnessed a landmark game-changing event: For the first time ever, U.S. commercial banks lost big money in derivatives in the aggregate ( as you can plainly see by the sharp nosedive of the red line).
Again, if this were part of a planned retreat by the banks to more prudent trading approaches, it would be a positive. But it's anything but!
Indeed, the OCC specifically states in its report that the sudden and unusual reduction in derivatives was due entirely to the turmoil in the credit markets.
And ironically, nearly all of that turmoil was concentrated in “credit swaps” (blue line in the chart) — the one sector that was designed to protect investors from this precise situation.
These credit swaps were supposed to act as insurance policies that big banks and others bought to help cover their risk in the event of defaults and failures. But they're not working out as planned: Just in the fourth quarter, U.S. banks had a net loss (after all profitable trades) of $11.8 billion on credit swaps alone, according to the OCC.
Those losses helped wipe out all the profits they made in other derivatives, leaving a net overall loss of $9.97 billion.
Third, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that this crisis is barely ONE-THIRD over!
In its Global Financial Stability Report(see Executive Summary ), the IMF predicts that the total losses from the subprime and related credit crises could reach $945 billion, or more than triple the already-huge losses that have been announced so far.
The IMF further warns that ...
“There has been a collective failure to appreciate the extent of the leverage taken on by a wide range of institutions — including banks, monoline insurers, government-sponsored entities, and hedge funds — and the associated risks of a disorderly unwinding.” Now, both the OCC and the Fed reports confirm that this “disorderly unwinding” is already beginning.
“The transfer of risks off bank balance sheets was overestimated. As risks have materialized, this has placed enormous pressures back on the balance sheets of banks.” Now, the OCC report confirms that “the transfer of risk” (with credit swaps) has often failed.
“Notwithstanding unprecedented intervention by major central banks, financial markets remain under considerable strain, now compounded by a more worrisome macroeconomic environment, weakly capitalized institutions, and broad-based deleveraging.” This is precisely what we have been warning you about. Now, it's happening!
Looking ahead, the IMF also warns about...
“Deep-seated balance-sheet fragilities and weak capital bases, which mean the effects [of the crisis] are likely to be broader, deeper and more protracted.”
“A serious funding and confidence crisis that threatens to continue for a significant period.”
The U.S. Government's Response
You've seen what the Fed has already done — six rate cuts since August of last year ... unprecedented broker bailouts ... and massive new amounts of liquidity pumped into the banking system.
You've seen where a lot of that money has gone — into foreign currencies, gold and oil.
And you've seen the dramatic market surges which that money can generate. Case in point: The latest jump in crude oil to $117 per barrel.
Now, get ready for more of the same:
More rate cuts, with the next expected as soon as April 30 ...
More Fed bailouts ...
Even wilder money printing, and ...
Larger surges in foreign currencies and commodities, despite intermediate setbacks.
But also start preparing for the day when the credit crack-up temporarily overwhelms the Fed, driving the U.S. economy into a far deeper recession than most people expect.
The Bottom Line for You Right Now
The three official reports support several related conclusions:
First, whether the stock market goes up or down in the near term, this crisis is far from over — and it's likely to get a lot worse.
Bottom line: It's far too soon to waver from a path of safety.
Second, credit is already scarcer and is probably going to be even harder to get as this crisis progresses.
Bottom line: If you're looking forward to a future day when you can buy properties at bargain prices, don't count on doing so with a lot of borrowed money. Instead, be prepared to put up substantial amounts of cash.
Third, some banks won't survive this crisis.
Bottom line: Be sure to keep your bank accounts — including principal, accrued interest and checks outstanding — under the FDIC's $100,000 insurance limit. (Amounts that run above the limit could be at risk.) Plus, for maximum safety, use U.S. Treasury bills or money market funds invested exclusively in short-term Treasuries.
Fourth, for protection and profit from a falling dollar, invest in the strongest foreign currencies plus other assets that naturally rise with the falling dollar.
Paranoid?
I would not be so paranoid if they were not out to get me!!!! Anyhoo for the rest of you, you can check out the real and imagined incidents here,
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
Monday, April 21, 2008
Odds & ends
LHC update NYT.
Gauging a Collider’s Odds of Creating a Black Hole
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/science/15cern.html?refer=science
I think if it takes out the Bush regime it might be worthwhile!
PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO F******* PARK ON BRINK OF EXTINCTION
DRIVERS who can position their car in the middle of a parking space at a supermarket are sliding closer to extinction, conservationists have warned.
Yet another symptom of climate change? Or is he just an unspeakable bastard who deserves to die?Research teams have recorded a sharp decline in numbers over the last decade, despite strenuous efforts to educate the public about how easy it is to just put your car in the middle of a parking space.
Man found in Lady Bird Lake was teacher, FBI target
Austin police said Thursday that they are leaning toward a ruling of suicide in the death of a middle school teacher and activist whose body was found Wednesday in Lady Bird Lake with his hands and legs bound and tape over his eyes.
What no 3 shots to the head type suicide? Only in America!
BUSINESS WEEK: THERE IS NO GAS SHORTAGE
But Washington, Wall Street, and ethanol and oil and gas companies want you to think there is, says automotive expert Ed Wallace
It's all a SCAM SCAM SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
There I feel better now.
Mental Detox Week - April 21 to April 27 (formerly TV Turnoff)
I like the sounds of this... silence.
Microwave Ovens: The Curse of Convenience
The following is a summary of the Russian investigations published by the Atlantis Rising Educational Center in Portland, Oregon. Carcinogens were formed in virtually all foods tested. No test food was subjected to more microwaving than necessary to accomplish the purpose, i.e., cooking, thawing, or heating to ensure sanitary ingestion.
Here's a summary of some of the results:
* Microwaving prepared meats sufficiently to ensure sanitary ingestion caused formation of d-Nitrosodiethanolamines, a well-known carcinogen.
* Microwaving milk and cereal grains converted some of their amino acids into carcinogens.
* Thawing frozen fruits converted their glucoside and galactoside containing fractions into carcinogenic substances.
* Extremely short exposure of raw, cooked or frozen vegetables converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.
* Carcinogenic free radicals were formed in microwaved plants, especially root vegetables.
The Fallacy of "Climate Change"
"Climate Change" seems to be the new buzzword these days among environmentalists and politicians who were formerly the proponents of "Global-Warming". Unfortunately, the term "climate change" is a meaningless phrase. The climate is always changing, about as often as the weather in fact. Some years are warm, while others are cool. Some years are dry, while others are wet. There are El Niños, and there are La Niñas. There have been ice ages and warm periods throughout Earth's history. And the term "Global Climate Change" is not much better. That simply tells us that the climate is changing everywhere in the world. Yeah, and so...?
TransLink Cops Will Continue To Taser Fare Dodgers
The new uniforms will be brownshirts and lots of belts. Seriously though they just raised property taxes in the Greater Vancouver area 3-5 % to pay for shit like this. If they used a taser on a suspected terrorist it is called torture. Don't pay $2.50 and you get 50,000 volts. This is cruel and unusual punishment only for being suspected of not paying or not letting go of a handrail. What have we become?
SHOCKING EVIDENCE.
Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the Gulf Stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Posted Apr 19, 2008 10:11 PM PSTCategory: SCIENCE/HEALTH
Oh, did I mention this came from a Washington Post article on changes in the arctic as found in the Monthly Weather Review for November 1922?
Gauging a Collider’s Odds of Creating a Black Hole
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/science/15cern.html?refer=science
I think if it takes out the Bush regime it might be worthwhile!
PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO F******* PARK ON BRINK OF EXTINCTION
DRIVERS who can position their car in the middle of a parking space at a supermarket are sliding closer to extinction, conservationists have warned.
Yet another symptom of climate change? Or is he just an unspeakable bastard who deserves to die?Research teams have recorded a sharp decline in numbers over the last decade, despite strenuous efforts to educate the public about how easy it is to just put your car in the middle of a parking space.
Man found in Lady Bird Lake was teacher, FBI target
Austin police said Thursday that they are leaning toward a ruling of suicide in the death of a middle school teacher and activist whose body was found Wednesday in Lady Bird Lake with his hands and legs bound and tape over his eyes.
What no 3 shots to the head type suicide? Only in America!
BUSINESS WEEK: THERE IS NO GAS SHORTAGE
But Washington, Wall Street, and ethanol and oil and gas companies want you to think there is, says automotive expert Ed Wallace
It's all a SCAM SCAM SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
There I feel better now.
Mental Detox Week - April 21 to April 27 (formerly TV Turnoff)
I like the sounds of this... silence.
Microwave Ovens: The Curse of Convenience
The following is a summary of the Russian investigations published by the Atlantis Rising Educational Center in Portland, Oregon. Carcinogens were formed in virtually all foods tested. No test food was subjected to more microwaving than necessary to accomplish the purpose, i.e., cooking, thawing, or heating to ensure sanitary ingestion.
Here's a summary of some of the results:
* Microwaving prepared meats sufficiently to ensure sanitary ingestion caused formation of d-Nitrosodiethanolamines, a well-known carcinogen.
* Microwaving milk and cereal grains converted some of their amino acids into carcinogens.
* Thawing frozen fruits converted their glucoside and galactoside containing fractions into carcinogenic substances.
* Extremely short exposure of raw, cooked or frozen vegetables converted their plant alkaloids into carcinogens.
* Carcinogenic free radicals were formed in microwaved plants, especially root vegetables.
The Fallacy of "Climate Change"
"Climate Change" seems to be the new buzzword these days among environmentalists and politicians who were formerly the proponents of "Global-Warming". Unfortunately, the term "climate change" is a meaningless phrase. The climate is always changing, about as often as the weather in fact. Some years are warm, while others are cool. Some years are dry, while others are wet. There are El Niños, and there are La Niñas. There have been ice ages and warm periods throughout Earth's history. And the term "Global Climate Change" is not much better. That simply tells us that the climate is changing everywhere in the world. Yeah, and so...?
TransLink Cops Will Continue To Taser Fare Dodgers
The new uniforms will be brownshirts and lots of belts. Seriously though they just raised property taxes in the Greater Vancouver area 3-5 % to pay for shit like this. If they used a taser on a suspected terrorist it is called torture. Don't pay $2.50 and you get 50,000 volts. This is cruel and unusual punishment only for being suspected of not paying or not letting go of a handrail. What have we become?
SHOCKING EVIDENCE.
Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the Gulf Stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Posted Apr 19, 2008 10:11 PM PSTCategory: SCIENCE/HEALTH
Oh, did I mention this came from a Washington Post article on changes in the arctic as found in the Monthly Weather Review for November 1922?
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Iran,9/11,
Washington 'speechless' after Ahmadinejad 9/11 comment
The United States said Wednesday it was "speechless" after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced doubts about the accepted version of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. "I am not sure what you say about a statement like that. It leaves one speechless," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.Posted Apr 16, 2008 04:41 PM PSTCategory: 911
Okay, allow me to fill in.
Let's start with the fact that the BBC reported the collapse of WTC-7 20 minutes BEFORE it happened, with the building still standing in view of the camera while the news lady reported its destruction.
Then we have the way WTC-7 collapsed straight down, looking just like a controlled demolition. In the wreckage, obvious signs of the use of cutter charges were found on the load-bearing members of all three buildings.
Finally, there is the very strange manner in which President Bush, even after being told of the second impact, simply sat and read his book. More tellingly, the Secret Service protective detail, whose only task is to protect the President, did nothing, proving that they knew in advance Bush would not be a target that day.
Someone was able to warn Rudy Giuliani that the towers were going to fall. How did they know, given that no steel-framed building had ever before collapsed from fire? Was it FEMA, who coincidentally was in New York the night before, ready to go?
And who sent an advance warning to Odigo, sent before the hijacked planes had even left the ground? Who were the Mossad agents who cheered and clapped as the towers fell?
And just what is the secret evidence that links those arrested Mossad agents to 9-11, evidence which has been classified by the US Government?
Please feel free to send these links to everyone you know.
The United States said Wednesday it was "speechless" after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced doubts about the accepted version of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. "I am not sure what you say about a statement like that. It leaves one speechless," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.Posted Apr 16, 2008 04:41 PM PSTCategory: 911
Okay, allow me to fill in.
Let's start with the fact that the BBC reported the collapse of WTC-7 20 minutes BEFORE it happened, with the building still standing in view of the camera while the news lady reported its destruction.
Then we have the way WTC-7 collapsed straight down, looking just like a controlled demolition. In the wreckage, obvious signs of the use of cutter charges were found on the load-bearing members of all three buildings.
Finally, there is the very strange manner in which President Bush, even after being told of the second impact, simply sat and read his book. More tellingly, the Secret Service protective detail, whose only task is to protect the President, did nothing, proving that they knew in advance Bush would not be a target that day.
Someone was able to warn Rudy Giuliani that the towers were going to fall. How did they know, given that no steel-framed building had ever before collapsed from fire? Was it FEMA, who coincidentally was in New York the night before, ready to go?
And who sent an advance warning to Odigo, sent before the hijacked planes had even left the ground? Who were the Mossad agents who cheered and clapped as the towers fell?
And just what is the secret evidence that links those arrested Mossad agents to 9-11, evidence which has been classified by the US Government?
Please feel free to send these links to everyone you know.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The Black Death of finacial collapse.
The Black Death of financial collapseBy James Cumes 11/04/08 "Asia Times" -- -- The financial and economic crisis now upon us is by far the most menacing of the past century - even more so than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is not just a "subprime" crisis; it is systemic - affecting the entire financial system. It is also global, affecting various countries in various ways but affecting them all. In achieving a certain "globalization", we have been uniquely successful in globalizing collapse, chaos and misery. It is a globalization which, in our short-sighted negligence, we never envisaged. In this crisis, even a country such as Australia is no more than a subordinate, neo-colonial, financial and economic dependency. In essence, we have reverted to what we were before and during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when Whitehall, Westminster and the Bank of England played the tune to which we jigged. Then, from 1945 to 1969, for the first time, we played our own tune of full employment and stable economic growth. Wild radicals such as minister Eddie Ward in the governments of John Curtin (1941-45) and Ben Chifley (1945-49) warned us to be wary of Wall Street. The cynics might now say that Eddie, who died in 1963, was right. After 1969, we forgot his warning. Indeed, the Americans themselves forgot to guard against the chicaneries of Wall Street, where eternal vigilance should always be the watchword. They forgot what the mania of Wall Street can do to the reality of Main Street; and we shared their amnesia. From 1969 and especially from 1971, when the United States cut the dollar link with gold, Australia surrendered any worthwhile independence in its economic and financial thinking. We swallowed American financial and economic formulae, whether we were academics or policymakers, industrial entrepreneurs, banks or providers of "financial services." We did not entirely switch off tunes played by Britain, the more so as its prime minister Margaret Thatcher formed her slapstick band with US president Ronald Reagan to drum up support for "free" markets, "free" trade, privatization, globalization and the free flow of almost everything, including speculative capital in unqualified pursuit of private profit. Corporation and consumer greed marched in step towards global disaster. Rational economics based on real investment, productivity and production died in favor of speculative and often Ponzi pretensions. The cowboy junk-bond merchants of the 1980s metamorphosed into respectable, mostly young and usually idolized financial wizards who "perfected" sophisticated, highly complex credit devices. From the 1990s, these highly leveraged instruments took the form of derivatives, private-equity, hedge-fund and mortgage securities, abbreviated to CDOs, SIVs and the rest. Allied with "free" markets, deregulation and the uninhibited flow of all kinds of finance, those financial devices destroyed industries and the jobs that go with them. With casual indifference, they also destroyed the self-reliant working and middle classes until then typical of robust free-enterprise economies. Theirs was not Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction" but wholesale destruction of their own economies and, eventually, their own financial "system". They destroyed personal savings and created massive indebtedness. They undermined the power and security of the United States itself as they "outsourced" real economic strength and stability to countries especially in Asia. The Asian Tigers, China and others grew into "powerhouses" whose creation, historically, would otherwise have taken them generations. Our eminently creditable aim of peaceful change through development of developing economies was distorted, largely through negligent inadvertence, into financial, economic and social self-destruction. Looming global collapse, with political and strategic uncertainties, are our inevitable legacy. Consumerism rages, industry guttedThe speculative, Ponzi mania spread especially to Anglo-Saxon countries and to other developed countries in lesser degree. Australia took to "free" markets, "free" trade, free-floating currencies, deregulation, privatization, globalization, derivatives, hedge funds, private equity, wildcat mortgages and leverage-without-limit as a duck to water. Consumerism raged. Industry was gutted. Debts ballooned. The value of the currency fell at home and abroad. Despite low-cost imports, inflation flourished. In 2008, the Australian dollar can perhaps buy as much in real terms as five or 10 cents did in 1969. A situation in which real public and private investment was replaced by "ownership investment", massive leverage and speculative finance, in which consumption grew and debts spread, could not persist, except so long as ever more money flooded in to support the insupportable. Once the flood slowed or stopped, a Ponzi-type collapse was inevitable. But few saw it that way. Warren Buffet belatedly called derivatives weapons of mass destruction; but most saw the financial devices as belonging to a "new era". They represented a "new paradigm". Far from being a threat to stable growth in a stable financial system, they "spread risk" and made everyone more secure and of course more wealthy. The wealth effect was a particular feature of the residential mortgage business. Funds were available from many new banking and non-banking sources, including hedge funds and private equity, as well as pension and mutual funds; and sources that, in their magnitudes, were new, such as the carry trade. Funds marketed wholesale and retail mortgages. Liability could be shifted even or especially for debt in the deepest sense sub-prime. Mortgages also enabled homeowners to expand consumption through mortgage-equity withdrawals (MEW). In a real sense, MEWs were symptomatic of multitudes of individuals - and, in effect, whole societies - high-living it off their capital. That enabled a process of growth that was both irresistible and inherently unsustainable. However, the Ponzi scheme to shame all others may yet be waiting to deliver its coup de grace. One commentator has drawn attention to "the bad news [which] is the US$500 trillion derivatives market". He says that "This is an area that the general public does not even know exists. Few professionals understand this market. There is no regulation as government just let it go ... and go it did. You must expect a 5% default problem. That is a $25 trillion number ... It can create insolvent institutions all over the world ... It is the making of the first global depression. The world is not ready." Unprepared for depressionAustralia is not ready either. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told us late in March that Australia's economic prospects remain "sound, strong and good". The Reserve Bank of Australia shares that view. Eerily, they echo US President Herbert Hoover in 1929 immediately before the stock market crash of that year. Australia's situation contains some positive features. High commodity prices, it can be argued, are likely to persist, even though volatile, at least in the short term. A member of Iceland's central bank board recently said that "fears of a meltdown in my sub-arctic homeland are vastly overblown. True, the current account deficit was 16% of GDP last year, but that's an improvement from more than 25% in 2006. And while net private-sector debt is about 120% of GDP, there is virtually no public debt in Iceland. This is largely the result of unparalleled political stability and continuity." Australia's situation may not be as dire as Iceland's; or indeed as dire as that of the United States or New Zealand; but all three of us have some negatives like those of Iceland. Like all booms of such size and speculative character, the Australian housing boom must soon demand payment of its account. From their peak, prices could fall 30% to 50%. Industry researcher BIS Shrapnel does not agree; but we must expect that our housing boom, even more robust than the American, will collapse along the same general lines as the bust occurring right now in the United States. The high "unaffordability" of housing for the average home-seeker, as distinct from speculator, suggests that the bust will be savage. The real-estate, building and associated industries will suffer severely, with massive job losses. Simultaneously, profitable investment opportunities elsewhere may have vanished with the widespread collapse of the "financial services industry". How likely is such a collapse? So far, although some non-banking financial institutions have gone to the wall, the four major banks have seemed largely immune. "The take-up of the Australian economy is still good," Rudd said last week in New York. Australia had "limited exposure" to the subprime mortgage woes that erupted in the United States last year, he said. "We have excellent balance sheets in terms of our principal corporates and the banks themselves ... The default rate in Australia is minuscule by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development standards." We don't know how far banks and other potentially exposed institutions have concealed their liabilities and to what extent and how soon they will be forced to reveal whatever bad news there is. Within this broad question, we also do not know how far they are exposed to losses from the massive and still largely mysterious menace of derivatives. In some measure, Australia's major banks have certainly been involved in the wide range of structured securities - CDOs, SIVs, and the rest. A report on April 4, 2008, that local councils in New South Wales have lost US$200 million and perhaps up to $400 million on investments in CDOs is a worrying sign that other and even bigger losses may yet be revealed in a variety of institutions, including banks. It seems scarcely credible that an economy which, for so many years, has absorbed so much of American theory and practice - so much of the American financial character - can be wholly immune from the penalties inflicted on its American model. The subprime crisis first hit the United States after a housing about-turn that began as far back as 2005 or 2006. An unequivocal downturn in housing in Australia has yet to check in; but non-bank lenders are already withdrawing from the market. Wholesale mortgage lenders are closing shop, perhaps as a prelude to a sharp housing decline. The carry trade which has presumably provided funds for mortgages and other financial services in Australia has been volatile for some time. If it unwinds completely, that could not only intensify mortgage problems but also impact on Australia's external balances. Our deficits have so far tended to persist at a less healthy level than the commodity boom might have encouraged us to hope. Our aggregate private overseas debt is said to amount to the order of half a trillion dollars. Against that background, the current depreciation of the United States dollar might foreshadow what awaits our own currency. Lagging impactEconomic and financial change in the United States tends to have a lagging impact on Australia. An acute awareness of the severity of our crisis may consequently not emerge before the second half of 2008. When it does, what will the Rudd government do? Currently, it seems as unaware of the magnitude of the challenge it faces as the James Scullin government was in 1929. So the present government might become just as bewildered as Scullin and stagger just as blindly and ineffectually when they are called on to act. In the 1930s, we listened to the likes of Otto Niemeyer of the British Treasury who was also a director of the Bank of England. Will the Rudd government this time listen to the Americans and the likes of US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke? If they do, catastrophic outcomes might not be in short supply. Our only real hope lies in clear, independent thinking by those not too steeped in the flawed policies responsible for our current crisis. We must see clearly that fundamental, comprehensive financial and economic reform is imperative. We must adapt that fundamental reform to our own needs, as the John Curtin and Ben Chifley governments did between 1941 and 1949. As we did then, we must simultaneously try to guide the international community out of the calamitous course that has evolved since 1969, and return it to the goal of stable, peaceful, global change which, as a primary objective, we pursued between 1945 and 1969. While we embark on this journey, a high level of political volatility in Canberra is inevitable. Rudd might succeed; but the Labor Party and government might split two or three ways as they did between 1929 and 1932. Another Joe Lyons, prime minister from 1932 to 1939, might emerge. Whoever he might be, the odds are that he will be even less likely to find quick or easy solutions than Lyons was during the long and bitter years of depression. Those years ended only in the even deeper tragedy of world war. James Cumes is a former Australian ambassador to the European Union and Australian representative at the United Nations. He is the author of among other works The Human Mirror: The Narcissistic Imperative in Human Behaviour. (Copyright 2008 James Cumes.)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Gas tips
Tips On Filling Up At The Gas Station Author Not Known4-9-8
I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are also paying higher, up to $3.50 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon..
Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose , CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,8 00,000 gallons. Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.
When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3)stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some other liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money. One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying i ts empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount. Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up--most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some f the dirt that normally settles on the bottom. Hope this will help you get the most value for your money. DO SHARE THESE TIPS WITH OTHERS!
I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are also paying higher, up to $3.50 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon..
Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose , CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,8 00,000 gallons. Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.
When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3)stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some other liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money. One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying i ts empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount. Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up--most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some f the dirt that normally settles on the bottom. Hope this will help you get the most value for your money. DO SHARE THESE TIPS WITH OTHERS!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
OBL No evidence for 9/11
No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI responded, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." Tomb continued, "Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11."
The "fat Bin Laden " tape is a CIA forgery.
Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI responded, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." Tomb continued, "Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11."
The "fat Bin Laden " tape is a CIA forgery.
Large Hadron Collider
In search of the Higgs boson or so called "God Particle", that which explains how the Universe formed. CERN will be firing up the 17 mile circular particle accelerator later this year. In 1964 University of Edinburgh proffessor Peter Higgs (now 78) postulated these particles have mass but little else. They move through an invisible field of bosons sticking together to form larger mass, eventually creating everything we see today stars, planets, us. The team at CERN are 90% certain they will find Higgs boson. Proffessor Higgs hopes to have confirmation before he turns 80. A lawsuit has been filed in Hawaii to stop the LHC from starting for fear it could create a mini black hole and set off a chain of events that are unstoppable or producing a "stangelet" an extremely dense form of matter that could fall straight down through the earth. Or a "phase transition” could occur that would rip the “fabric of space itself”, creating a vacuum that would expand like a bubble and destroy all the atoms in our galaxy." The lead scientists have stated that these are "very,very unlikely."
Smashing atoms
— The European particle physics laboratory’s accelerator will smash beams of protons against one another at 0.999997828 times the speed of light. It is housed in a tunnel 17 miles long, about the same length as the London Underground’s Circle Line
— When the tunnel was cut, the ends met with only 1cm of error
— Each proton will go around the tunnel 11,245 times a second
— The proton beam will carry the equivalent energy of an aircraft carrier sailing at 11 knots
— The superconducting cables used to power the LHC would stretch around the Equator 6.8 times. All the filaments would stretch to the Sun and back five times, plus a few trips to the Moon
— The cooling apparatus could keep 140,000 fridges full of sausages at a temperature a little above absolute zero
— The beam pipes contain a vacuum similar to that found in space.
— Engineers look for leaks so small that they would cause a car tyre to go flat in 10,000 years
Source: Cern
Smashing atoms
— The European particle physics laboratory’s accelerator will smash beams of protons against one another at 0.999997828 times the speed of light. It is housed in a tunnel 17 miles long, about the same length as the London Underground’s Circle Line
— When the tunnel was cut, the ends met with only 1cm of error
— Each proton will go around the tunnel 11,245 times a second
— The proton beam will carry the equivalent energy of an aircraft carrier sailing at 11 knots
— The superconducting cables used to power the LHC would stretch around the Equator 6.8 times. All the filaments would stretch to the Sun and back five times, plus a few trips to the Moon
— The cooling apparatus could keep 140,000 fridges full of sausages at a temperature a little above absolute zero
— The beam pipes contain a vacuum similar to that found in space.
— Engineers look for leaks so small that they would cause a car tyre to go flat in 10,000 years
Source: Cern
Monday, April 7, 2008
Iraq's heating up
7 US occupation force soldiers killed in Baghdad
The surge provided more targets for the resistance. Mc Cain still thinks things are going swell in Iraq.
Shia Battles Spread to Baquba:
The fighting spreads to Baquba despite al-Maliki's pathetic attempt to control the situation.
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/04/you-cant-handle-truth_07.html
You can't handle the truth.
The surge provided more targets for the resistance. Mc Cain still thinks things are going swell in Iraq.
Shia Battles Spread to Baquba:
The fighting spreads to Baquba despite al-Maliki's pathetic attempt to control the situation.
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/04/you-cant-handle-truth_07.html
You can't handle the truth.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Zero
Zero is nothing. It is the absence of all things. It is empty. Nada. Nil. Zero represents a numerical value (the absence of value), but it also represents the void, the vast still emptiness which existed before all of creation and will probably exist long after the death of our universe. The universal symbol for zero is an empty circle.
That is the number of reasons for the U.S. to invade Iraq. That is the number of reasons to occupy Iraq. The most unfortunate part is that empty circle has been filled with over 1 million Iraqi deaths, 4000 (reported) U.S. soldiers dead. These numbers do not include civillian mercenaries, that have died. Nor does it include the number of veterans that have commited suicide. The most atrocious war crime of all has been committed by the Bush administration invasion without provocation. When will the world wake up and arrest those responsible for this crime against humanity? You must ask the question, what natural resource does my country have that they would be willing to invade and occupy? If Iran is to be bombed by the U.S. then Russia will enter the fray and things get ugly from there. We are faced with an uncertain future of peaceful co-existence. There will be no peace until there is no one left on earth. ZERO.
That is the number of reasons for the U.S. to invade Iraq. That is the number of reasons to occupy Iraq. The most unfortunate part is that empty circle has been filled with over 1 million Iraqi deaths, 4000 (reported) U.S. soldiers dead. These numbers do not include civillian mercenaries, that have died. Nor does it include the number of veterans that have commited suicide. The most atrocious war crime of all has been committed by the Bush administration invasion without provocation. When will the world wake up and arrest those responsible for this crime against humanity? You must ask the question, what natural resource does my country have that they would be willing to invade and occupy? If Iran is to be bombed by the U.S. then Russia will enter the fray and things get ugly from there. We are faced with an uncertain future of peaceful co-existence. There will be no peace until there is no one left on earth. ZERO.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
DNA Identification. WTC
The identification of victims from the collapses of the World Trade Center towers were undertaken with new a software program written by Charles H. Brenner Ph.D.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
USG lying about Basra
The US Government has backpedaled on their involment with Operation Knights Assault. The claim they make is that Mr. al Maliki thought this up all on his own and initiated the assault on Basra without their approval. The following quotes from last Tuesday show that the US forces worked in concert with 30,000 Iraqi Army on the assault against the Sadr-Mehdi militias in Basra and Sadr City. This from Asia Times Online,
These suggestions that it was Maliki who miscalculated in Basra are clearly false. No significant Iraqi military action can be planned without a range of military support functions being undertaken by the US command. On March 25, just as the operation was getting under way in Basra, US military spokesman Colonel Bill Buckner said "coalition forces" were providing intelligence, surveillance and support aircraft for the operation. Furthermore, the embedded role of the US Military Transition Teams makes it impossible that any Iraqi military operation could be planned without their full involvement. A US adviser to the Iraqi security forces involved in the operation told a Washington Post reporter by telephone on March 25 he expected the operation to take a week to 10 days. Operation Knights Assault also involved actual US-Iraqi joint combat operations. US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner denied on March 26 that any "conventional" US forces were involved in the operation. Only on March 30 did the US command confirm that a joint raid by Iraqi and US special forces units had "killed 22 suspected militants" in Basra.
These suggestions that it was Maliki who miscalculated in Basra are clearly false. No significant Iraqi military action can be planned without a range of military support functions being undertaken by the US command. On March 25, just as the operation was getting under way in Basra, US military spokesman Colonel Bill Buckner said "coalition forces" were providing intelligence, surveillance and support aircraft for the operation. Furthermore, the embedded role of the US Military Transition Teams makes it impossible that any Iraqi military operation could be planned without their full involvement. A US adviser to the Iraqi security forces involved in the operation told a Washington Post reporter by telephone on March 25 he expected the operation to take a week to 10 days. Operation Knights Assault also involved actual US-Iraqi joint combat operations. US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner denied on March 26 that any "conventional" US forces were involved in the operation. Only on March 30 did the US command confirm that a joint raid by Iraqi and US special forces units had "killed 22 suspected militants" in Basra.
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