Fear of stricter gun-control laws causing sales to rise

BILOXI — The Saturday after Barack Obama was elected president, people jammed Cook’s Gun Shop in Biloxi, eager to purchase the guns they believe might be off limits beginning next year.

Manager Michael Creel said sales began to increase last year, but they really ramped up after the election. “It started about a year ago when the election started to heat up,” he said. “People were afraid that if the Democrats won, they would institute more control on guns. It kept building, and the Saturday after the election it was pandemonium in here.”

Gun shop owners and managers throughout south Mississippi are reporting similar trends, which also are reflected across the country.

The FBI reported earlier this month that in November it completed more than 1.5 million background checks, a 41.6 percent increase over November 2007. When Bill Clinton was president, he signed a 10-year ban on assault weapons in 1994, but when it expired, President Bush did not reactivate it. Many gun owners are afraid that ban will be put into effect again once Obama takes office next month.

Kevin Riley, owner of Dad’s Super Pawn in Gulfport, said gun sales began picking up about a month before the election. He said ammunition sales also have increased. “We’re selling ammunition by the case where we used to sell it by the box.”

He said people are afraid of stricter gun-control laws but also believe the price could go up if supplies get low.

Riley and Creel said the most popular guns include handguns, semiautomatic rifles and specific military-type guns that are set up for civilians.

They haven’t kept track of the number of gun sales before and after the election, but both said they are selling more guns.

“After Katrina was the most guns I had ever sold in my life,” Riley said. “People were replacing guns they lost in the storm, and they were buying guns to protect their property.”

He said his gun sales haven’t quite reached the post-Katrina levels, but they’re almost there.

Obama has said in the past he believes state and local governments should have some say over gun control. He also has said he believes in a “common-sense approach” to curtail the number of illegal guns that end up on the streets. Those comments have caused gun owners all across the U.S. to buy guns now before any new laws go into effect.

Jerry Frayser, owner of Jerry’s Shootin’ Irons and Pawns in Ocean Springs, said people have bought so many guns, supply is now a problem.

“People have pretty much scooped up what they think will be outlawed,” he said, adding sales have been as high in the past month as they were in the previous six months combined.

“There were so many people who said, ‘Let me get what I can while I can,’ and distributors weren’t prepared for it,” Frayser said. He also said one of his gun distributors sold $3 million worth of guns the day after the election.

Creel said he understands why people are nervous, but he doesn’t think gun control is tops on Obama’s to-do list once he takes office. “He’s got bigger fish to fry – like the economy.”

Under guns laws in Mississippi:

- No permit is required to purchase or carry rifles, shotguns or handguns.

- No registration or license is required for owners of rifles, shotguns or handguns.

- A permit is required to carry a concealed handgun.

The Fed’s Two Trillion Dollar Scam Makes Madoff Look Like A Piker

by Vincent Gioia

As American taxpayers bear the burden of bankrolling multiple financial scams now and into the foreseeable future, the Federal Reserve has refused to disclose the names of recipients or details of assets put up as collateral on two trillion dollars of “emergency” loans given to address the “financial emergency” rushed through congress. The Federal Reserve Bank responded to Bloomberg by saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as other information requested by Bloomberg.

This display of arrogance of power is unprecedented. The government wants taxpayers to take its word for how it’s spending an enormous amount of money. How gullible does the Federal Reserve think the American people are; the answer, very gullible or they wouldn’t have gotten away with the scam.

What started as $700 billion has grown to $2 trillion. Total Federal Reserve lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time November 6. It rose by 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since September 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren’t rated AAA. House Financial Services Committee Representative David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, said Americans had “been bamboozled.” Congress may have been bamboozled but it is the American taxpayer who is left holding the bag because of congressional incompetence.

Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would provide transparency in the $700 billion bailout of the banking system; they also said the money would be used to buy up “toxic mortgages” but the rules changed immediately after Congress gave Bernanke total discretion to distribute the billions of dollars. So now all that Americans can do is complain. Americans have short memories so it is doubtful voters will remember this fiasco in the 2010 congressional elections.

The chances are that the so-called asset-back securities and other paper tied to leveraged buyouts are consumer debt and who knows what other kinds of garbage lies on the banks balance sheets. Yet the Federal Reserve still wants to protect the identities of the banks that are essentially continuing to thrive and expand by buying other banks with American taxpayers’ money. That’s outrageous.

“Notwithstanding calls for enhanced transparency, the Board must protect against the substantial, multiple harms that might result from disclosure,” Jennifer J. Johnson, the secretary for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, said in a letter e-mailed to Bloomberg News. “In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information,” she wrote.

Oh really? Maybe the people who provide the cash should get to be the judge of that. And in any case, who, exactly, will be endangered?

Dangerous – for whom? And what is the danger? You mean some fat cats might lose their jobs or their homes? Or some bankers might have to pay more dues for their country clubs?

Congress has put two trillion dollars, about 1/20 of world GDP, under the control of one man, with no checks and no accountability, and we don’t know where the money went, or to whom. What we do know is that there has been no visible improvement of the financial problems all this money was supposed to correct. What we can assume is that it’s going to the very same people who caused the problem; they will be the ones benefiting. Does this sound like Constitutional government to you? To me, it sounds like a financial dictatorship.

You think Madoff’s $50 billion fraud was something? He’s a piker compared to these guys.

The Federal Reserve responded to Bloomberg’s law suit by saying that there is a trade-secret exemption in the Freedom of Information Act that could be expanded to include potential harm to any of the central bank’s customers. But Bruce Johnson, a lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Seattle, said that expansion is not contained in the freedom-of- information law.

Furthermore, Trade secrets? A trade secret is something like the formula for Coca Cola. A trade secret is an unpatented business or technical process the release of which would harm the competitive position of the holder. I can’t imagine what sort of “trade secrets” might apply to the acquisition of bad debt from poorly managed financial institutions.

The Federal Reserve Bank is a “private” organization, and is NOT a U.S. government agency or entity. Remember how Congress approved about $700 billion but did not require oversight to actually give the money out? This is what happens when you have a for-profit institution that has absolutely ZERO congressional oversight or transparency requirements. And yet people still think the Federal Reserve Bank is a good idea.

The Democrats are in charge and Democrat representative Barney Frank is Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. In an interview November 6, Barney Frank said “The Fed’s disclosure is sufficient and the risk the central bank is taking on is appropriate in the current economic climate.” Barney Frank said he has discussed the program with Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “I talk to Geithner and he was pretty sure that they’re OK. If the risk is that the Fed takes a little bit of a haircut, well that’s regrettable.” – “Such losses would be acceptable if the program helps revive the economy.”

Barney Frank said the Fed shouldn’t reveal the assets it holds or how it values them because of the “delicacy with respect to pricing.” He said such disclosure would “give people clues to what your pricing is and what they might be able to sell us and what your estimates are.” He wouldn’t say why he thought that information would be problematic.

This is who we have “protecting the public interest.”

People seem to forget that those who run the United States government are nothing more than stewards and representatives for the American people. When the President and Congress spend money causing astronomical massive debt they ignore that it is not their personal debt but the collective debt of the American people which is now well over 12 TRILLION DOLLARS and counting.

The so called representatives of the American people in our government just gave out 2 trillion dollars to bailout failing and inefficient private corporations and yet are refusing to specify to the American taxpayers exactly WHO they gave all of our money to in these bailouts; Americans should not stand for it.

Vincent Gioia is a retired patent attorney living in Palm Desert, California

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CBS newsman’s $70m lawsuit likely to deal Bush legacy a new blow

As George W Bush prepares to leave the White House, at least one unpleasant episode from his unpopular presidency is threatening to follow him into retirement.

A $70m lawsuit filed by Dan Rather, the veteran former newsreader for CBS Evening News, against his old network is reopening the debate over alleged favourable treatment that Bush received when he served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. Bush had hoped that this controversy had been dealt with once and for all during the 2004 election.

Eight weeks before the 2004 presidential poll, Rather broadcast a story based on newly discovered documents which appeared to show that Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard ensured that he did not have to fight in Vietnam, had barely turned up even for basic duty. After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents’ authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election.

He claims breach of contract against CBS. He has already spent $2m on his case, which is likely to go to court early next year. Rather contends not only that his report was true – “What the documents stated has never been denied, by the president or anyone around him,” he says – but that CBS succumbed to political pressure from conservatives to get the report discredited and to have him fired. He also claims that a panel set up by CBS to investigate the story was packed with conservatives in an effort to placate the White House. Part of the reason for that, he suggests, was that Viacom, a sister company of CBS, knew that it would have important broadcasting regulatory issues to deal with during Bush’s second term.

Among those CBS considered for the panel to investigate Rather’s report were far-right broadcasters Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

“CBS broke with long-standing tradition at CBS News and elsewhere of standing up to political pressure,” says Rather. “And, there’s no joy in saying it, they caved … in an effort to placate their regulators in Washington.”

Rather’s lawsuit makes other serious allegations about CBS succumbing to political pressure in an attempt to suppress important news stories. In particular, he says that his bosses at CBS tried to stop him reporting evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. According to Rather’s lawsuit, “for weeks they refused to grant permission to air the story” and “continued to raise the goalposts, insisting on additional substantiation”. Rather also claims that General Richard Meyers, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military official in the US, called him at home and asked him not to broadcast the story, saying that it would “endanger national security”.

Rather says that CBS only agreed to allow him to broadcast the story when it found out that Seymour Hersh would be writing about it in the New Yorker magazine. Even then, Rather claims, CBS tried to bury it. “CBS imposed the unusual restrictions that the story would be aired only once, that it would not be preceded by on-air promotion, and that it would not be referenced on the CBS Evening News,” he says.

The charges outlined in Rather’s lawsuit will cast a further shadow over the Bush legacy. He recently expressed regret for the “failed intelligence” which led to the invasion of Iraq and has received heavy criticism over the scale and depth of the economic downturn in the United States.

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Pros Say: Employment Collapse is Coming

The last week of 2008 began in the green for commodities as oil and gold prices surged following a flare up in violence in the Middle East.

The dollar was broadly lower, especially against the Swiss franc, which rose on safe-haven buying amid the fighting in Gaza.

Experts tell CNBC that further falls in the greenback and employment can be expected.

Look Out for a Collapse in Employment

The next stage in this financial crisis would be the collapse in employment, says Roger Nightingale, strategist at Pointon York. In light of this, he offers advice on how to invest.

* UK Economy Could Lose 600,000 in 2009: Report

Dollar Seen Weakening in the Longer Term

David Forrester, associate director at Barclays Capital sees the dollar weakening in the longer term. He also gives his foreign exchnage direction for 2009.

Middle Eastern Stocks Look Attractive

People aren’t willing to be adventurous going into the end of the year, as most investors have already locked in their positions, Mohammed Yasin, CEO of Shuaa Securities said.

Yasin sees more Middle Eastern investment projects, especially in infrastructure, petrochemical and expansion plans for GCC oil companies, being delayed or “stretched out”.

Oil is likely to trade within the $50 to $60 range next year, Yasin predicts.

Middle Eastern stocks are the best investment bets for 2009, according to Yasin. Government-based companies are the most attractive as they will have access to liquidity and leverage going forward, he added.

Real estate in Abu Dhabi and Saudi telcos make good short-term defensive stocks, Yasin told CNBC.

2009: A Tough Year for Autos

2009 will be a “tough year” for automakers. We expect their total volumes to fall another 10% from what they are currently, Sarwant Singh from Frost & Sulivan said, adding that production and sales will increase in India, where they make low-cost cars.

January Rally The More Gloom

2009 is fast approaching but what will it have in store for investors? We’re not out of the woods just yet, warned Lorraine Tan from S&P Equity Research. But Elissa Bayer from Charles Stanley sees a short-term rally in January.

“2009’s first quarter is going to be extremely difficult,” Bayer said.

“There is an appetite for equities,” Bayer told CNBC. She noted that people will be investing cautiously until light can be seen at the end of the tunnel.

Mining shares are undervalued, according to Bayer.

Hot on Chinese Domestic Consumption Stocks

Asian investors could look to invest in Chinese domestic consumption stocks, suggests Andrew Sullivan, sales trader at MainFirst Securities.

Expect a V-Shaped Recovery in China

Sun Mingchun, senior China economist at Nomura sees a V-shaped recovery in China, with GDP growth starting to rise in the second-quarter of 2009.

More Bankruptcies for China?

A new wave of bankruptcies may hit China in the first-quarter of 2009, predicts Dorris Chen, head of regional financials research at BNP Paribas Equity, Asia. She tells CNBC where China’s economy is headed in 2009.

Happy ‘08 Ending for Taiwanese Stocks

Taiwanese stocks could close higher by the end 2008, forecasts Seow Hock Hin, senior VP of institutional sales at MF Global. He also assesses the factors that will affect the Taiwan market in 2009.

A Tax Holiday in Singapore?

Singapore’s economy may contract 2% to 5% in 2009 and 2010, says Song Seng Wun, regional economist at CIMB-GK Research. As such, he tells CNBC that the government could give a tax holiday for the next few years to cushion the slowdown.
© 2008 CNBC.com

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Zbigniew Brzezinski-Dr Evil

USA going Bankrupt, State by State

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota is deep in the hole financially, but the state still owns a premier golf resort, a sprawling amateur sports complex, a big airport, a major zoo and land holdings the size of the Central American country of Belize.

Valuables like these are in for a closer look as 44 states cope with deficits.

Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has hinted that his January budget proposal will include proposals to privatize some of what the state owns or does. The Republican is looking for cash to help close a $5.27 billion deficit without raising taxes.

GOP lawmakers are pushing to privatize the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the state lottery. Both steps require a higher authority — federal legislation in the case of the airport, a voter-approved constitutional amendment for the lottery. But one lawmaker estimated an airport deal could bring in at least $2.5 billion, and the lottery $500 million.

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering putting the Massachusetts Turnpike in private hands. That could bring in upfront money to help with a $1.4 billion deficit, while also saving on highway operating costs.

In New York, Democratic Gov. David Paterson appointed a commission to look into leasing state assets, including the Tappan Zee Bridge north of New York City, the lottery, golf courses, toll roads, parks and beaches. Recommendations are expected next month.

Such projects could be attractive to private investors and public pension funds looking for safe places to put their money in this scary economy, said Leonard Gilroy, a privatization expert with the market-oriented Reason Foundation in Los Angeles.

“Infrastructure is more attractive today than ever,” Gilroy said. “It’s tangible. It’s a road. It’s water. It’s an airport. It’s something that is — you know, you hear the term recession-proof.”

Unions don’t like privatization deals out of fear that worker wages and benefits will be squeezed as private operators try to boost their profit by streamlining services.

Taxpayers, too, can lose out if the arrangements don’t work — and sometimes even if they do, said Mark Price, a labor economist with the Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg, Pa. Higher tolls on privatized roads can push drivers onto state-operated roads, wearing them down faster and raising public costs over time.

“You’re privatizing some profits in this process and socializing some losses,” Price said.

Selling or leasing public assets can produce an immediate infusion of cash for the state, while foisting the tough decisions, such as raising tolls, onto private operators instead of the politicians.

“The downsides are often after they leave office,” said Phineas Baxandall, a researcher with the consumer-oriented U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Boston.

Some states struck major privatization deals well before the economic crisis hit.

Indiana, for example, brought in $3.8 billion in 2006 by leasing the Indiana Toll Road for 75 years. Chicago stands to collect $2.5 billion by leasing Midway Airport, if the federal government approves, and has raised an additional $3.5 billion since 2005 through deals for the Chicago Skyway toll road, parking ramps and parking meters.

But in September, investors walked away from a $12.8 billion bid to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike for 75 years after legislators failed to act on the deal. And Texas lawmakers uneasy over a proposed private toll road system approved a two-year moratorium on such contracts last year.

David Fisher, who managed Minnesota’s state-owned properties a few years ago under former Gov. Jesse Ventura, warned that the state has a hard time finding buyers for properties such as old mental institutions.

Fisher said some public properties belong in private hands, such as Giants Ridge Golf & Ski Resort, a top-rated getaway in Biwabik, and Ironworld, a museum and library in Chisholm. Both are owned and subsidized by Iron Range Resources, a state agency.

“Certainly those things could be privatized, I think without harm to the state, but I don’t know that you could find the right buyer,” Fisher said.

By MARTIGA LOHN, Associated Press Writer Martiga Lohn, Associated Press Writer – Sat Dec 27, 3:39 pm ET

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Calvin and Hobbes on the Financial Crisis

IMF warns of ‘disturbing’ UK debt: 44.2% of UK gross domestic

The level of debt in the UK is “disturbing,” the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

But Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the BBC that given the severity of the economic downturn, more government borrowing was the lesser of two evils.

Mr Stauss-Kahn was responding to a BBC question about it being easier to get insurance against McDonald’s defaulting than UK government bonds.

He said 2009 would be “a really bad year” and society was going to suffer.

Public debt has risen to £650bn – 44.2% of UK gross domestic product. Consumer debt is more than £1.4 trillion.

In last month’s pre-Budget report, the chancellor announced plans for a £20bn economic stimulus package, which would bring public debt close to 50% of GDP.

‘Less bad solution’

Shaun Ley, of BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, asked Mr Strauss-Kahn: “Markets seem to have made their own judgements about this: it is cheaper to get insurance against big multinationals like BP and McDonald’s defaulting than it is to get insurance against UK government bonds going under. That is quite disturbing, isn’t it, when a country is viewed in that way?”

“Yes, it is,” Mr Strauss-Kahn said. “That is a good example of the fact that we are facing something which is almost unknown.”

He said governments around the world had no choice but to step in and spend more.

“I’m specially concerned by the fact that our forecast, already very dark… will be even darker if not enough fiscal stimulus is implemented,” he said.

“The threat is that big today that I think that between two different problems, increasing deficit – which is never good – and fighting against recession – which is even worse – we have to choose the less bad solution.”

He added that measures announced by the G20 group of leading industrial countries last month may not be sufficient to revive the global economy.

Interest rate cuts would not do enough and governments had to use fiscal stimulus, he said.

It would take a spending package equivalent to about 2% of global GDP – about $1.2 trillion (about £800bn) – to make a real difference, he said.

“The problem is that all the whole society is going to suffer,” he added.

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World faces “total” financial meltdown: Bank of Spain chief

MADRID (AFP) — The governor of the Bank of Spain on Sunday issued a bleak assessment of the economic crisis, warning that the world faced a “total” financial meltdown unseen since the Great Depression.

“The lack of confidence is total,” Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said in an interview with Spain’s El Pais daily.

“The inter-bank (lending) market is not functioning and this is generating vicious cycles: consumers are not consuming, businessmen are not taking on workers, investors are not investing and the banks are not lending.

“There is an almost total paralysis from which no-one is escaping,” he said, adding that any recovery — pencilled in by optimists for the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 — could be delayed if confidence is not restored.

Ordonez recognised that falling oil prices and lower taxes could kick-start a faster-than-anticipated recovery, but warned that a deepening cycle of falling consumer demand, rising unemployment and an ongoing lending squeeze could not be ruled out.

“This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression” of 1929, he added.

Ordonez said the European Central Bank, of which he is a governing council member, would cut interest rates in January if inflation expectations went much below two percent.

“If, among other variables, we observe that inflation expectations go much below two percent, it’s logical that we will lower rates.”

Regarding the dire situation in the United States, Ordonez said he backed the decision by the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates almost to zero in the face of profound deflation fears.

Central banks are seeking to jumpstart movements on crucial interbank money markets that froze after the US market for high-risk, or subprime mortgages collapsed in mid 2007, and locked tighter after the US investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in mid September.

Interbank markets are a key link in the chain which provides credit to businesses and households.

Japan asked US to prepare for nuclear strike on China

The Japanese prime minister awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974 for his opposition to atomic weapons secretly pleaded with Washington to use nuclear missiles against China in the event of a conflict breaking out in the region, it has emerged.

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Last Updated: 4:17PM GMT 22 Dec 2008

Documents declassified by the government in Japan have disclosed that Prime Minister Eisaku Sato asked the US to retaliate immediately with nuclear weapons in the event of war. Mr Sato made the plea during talks with then US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara in Washington in January 1965.

China had conducted a successful atomic weapons test three months previously and there was concern in Tokyo that a relatively minor incident in the region might lead to a full-scale military exchange between two nations that still harboured hostility dating back to World War II.

Mr Sato was prime minister from 1964 to 1972, making him Japan’s longest-serving leader, and is best remembered for his opposition to nuclear weapons in a country that still bore the scars of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

FEDERAL RESERVE SETS STAGE FOR WEIMAR-STYLE HYPERINFLATION

The Federal Reserve has bluntly refused a request by a major US financial news service to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from US taxpayers and to reveal the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Their lawyers resorted to the bizarre argument that they did so to protect ‘trade secrets.’ Is the secret that the US financial system is de facto bankrupt? The latest Fed move is further indication of the degree of panic and lack of clear strategy within the highest ranks of the US financial institutions. Unprecedented Federal Reserve expansion of the Monetary Base in recent weeks sets the stage for a future Weimar-style hyperinflation perhaps before 2010.

On November 7 Bloomberg filed suit under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesting details about the terms of eleven new Federal Reserve lending programs created during the deepening financial crisis.

The Fed responded on December 8 claiming it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about ‘trade secrets’ and ‘commercial information.’ The central bank did confirm that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to the requests.

The Bernanke Fed in recent weeks has stepped in to take a role that was the original purpose of the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The difference between a Fed bailout of troubled financial institutions and a Treasury bailout is that central bank loans do not have the oversight safeguards that Congress imposed upon the TARP. Perhaps those are the ‘trade secrets the hapless Fed Chairman,Ben Bernanke, is so jealously guarding from the public.

Coming hyperinflation?

The total of such emergency Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion on Nov. 6. It had risen by an astonishing 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren’t rated AAA. They did so knowing that on the following day a dramatic shock to the financial system would occur because they, in concert with the Bush Administration, had decided to let it occur.

Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion (Update2)

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.

“If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.

The Fed stepped into a rescue role that was the original purpose of the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The central bank loans don’t have the oversight safeguards that Congress imposed upon the TARP.

Total Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time Nov. 6. It rose by 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren’t rated AAA.

‘Been Bamboozled’

Congress is demanding more transparency from the Fed and Treasury on bailout, most recently during Dec. 10 hearings by the House Financial Services committee when Representative David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, said Americans had “been bamboozled.”

Bloomberg News, a unit of New York-based Bloomberg LP, on May 21 asked the Fed to provide data on collateral posted from April 4 to May 20. The central bank said on June 19 that it needed until July 3 to search documents and determine whether it would make them public. Bloomberg didn’t receive a formal response that would let it file an appeal within the legal time limit.

On Oct. 25, Bloomberg filed another request, expanding the range of when the collateral was posted. It filed suit Nov. 7.

In response to Bloomberg’s request, the Fed said the U.S. is facing “an unprecedented crisis” in which “loss in confidence in and between financial institutions can occur with lightning speed and devastating effects.”

Data Provider

The Fed supplied copies of three e-mails in response to a request that it disclose the identities of those supplying data on collateral as well as their contracts.

Funny Posters

Sexual brainwashing: The elimination of the sexes

In our society, men are made to be women and women are made to be men. Let me repeat that: In our society, men are made to be women and women are made to be men.

We are brainwashed with a million varieties of “Queer eye for the straight guy,” where homosexual men tell heterosexual men they need to primp themselves and “get in touch with their feminine side.” Men need to cut their hair short, shave their facial hair, shave their chests and body hair etc. They even say men should wear make-up and other ridiculous nonsense. This is all supposedly because women find this attractive.

Forgive me for asking, but since when did homosexual males become the sole arbiter for what women find attractive?

Is this really what women find attractive, or is this what homosexual men find attractive? I’ve never known a self-respecting woman who truly cared about a man’s looks, the most they say is they like it if a man cares somewhat about his appearance, but even if the man didn’t care at all it would never be a deal breaker. Intelligent women judge a man by their character, their “emotional content” for lack of a better word. I realize this is generalizing to a degree, but in general this is the reality.

Now, obviously these shows are totally fake, the so-called reality shows are the phoniest and most blatantly scripted of all TV, but the image they create is real. TV and advertising are all about “perception management,” people emulate what they see on TV. The image of homosexual men being the peak of health and sole arbiter of women’s desires is a common one.

Al Gore sued by Weather Channel Founder and over 30.000 Scientists for fraud

Analyst Max Keiser’s Final Warning: Dollar is Doomed

Dollar’s Days are counted….

America bankrupted dollar worthless social unrest

The US recession the dollar total collapse

Get Ready for the Amero

Financial Times Editorial Admits Agenda For Dictatorial World Government

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

World Bank Predicts Global Gloom

The World Bank has forecast a significant decline in global economic growth in 2009 for both developed and emerging countries.

In a report assessing economic prospects, the Bank has predicted that the world’s annual economic growth will slow to 0.9%, from 2.5% this year.

The rate of growth for emerging economies is expected to be around 4.5%, down from 7.9% in 2007.

The Bank said a deep global recession could not be ruled out.

And its forecast suggests that, on a per capita basis, world growth would be negative in 2009.

“Following the insolvency of a large number of banks and financial institutions… capital flows to developing countries have dried up and huge amounts of market capitalisation have evaporated,” the bank said.

The World Bank has warned that some emerging economies are likely to face serious challenges, including bank failures and currency crises, even if global bail-out plans start restoring confidence in financial markets.

The Bank’s chief economist, Justin Lin, said the financial crisis “has eased tensions in commodity markets, but is testing banking systems and threatening job losses around the world”.

It also warns that capital flows to developing countries are shrinking fast, reducing the level of investment, while the slowdown in world trade is likely to cut into their export markets.

Regional impacts

Even the fast-growing emerging giants, India and China, are likely to suffer from the slowdown. The World Bank projects China’s growth to slow from 11.9% in 2007 to 7.5% in 2009, while India’s growth prospects will be cut from 9% to 5.8%.

The impact of falling commodity prices has been positive for around half of developing countries.

In response to the global downturn, the World Bank is increasing its support for developing countries by helping local banks recapitalise and providing aid for infrastructure projects.

Despite the current crisis, the Bank says that the long-term growth prospects for developing countries remain strong, and this will lead to substantial reduction in world poverty rates by 2015, with just 15% of people living on less than $1.25 per day, compared to 25% in 2005.

However, it warns that severe poverty in sub-Saharan Africa will fall less quickly, with 37% still living on $1.25 per day by 2015.

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The 2012 NWO Agenda (Masterpiece Documentary) ABSOLUT MUST WATCH!!!

The 2012 NWO Agenda 1/11

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US masses naval-air-marine might in Arabian Sea opposite India, Pakistan, Iran

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

December 1, 2008, 9:18 AM (GMT+02:00)

Three US aircraft carriers with strike groups, task forces and nuclear submarines have piled up in the waters of the Arabian Sea opposite the shores of India, Pakistan and Iran, and in the Persian Gulf.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the US began massing this formidable array of floating firepower at the outset of the Islamist terrorist attack on the Indian city of Mumbai last Wednesday, Nov. 26.

Tehran responded typically with a threat of retaliation should the Americans decide to use the Mumbai terrorist attack to hit Iran.

It is more likely, according to our military sources, that the Americans are on the ready in case the rising tensions between India and Pakistan over the New Delhi’s charge of Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai atrocity explodes into an armed clash on their border.

This is indicated by the units now deployed:

1. the USS John C. Stennis, which carries 80 fighter-bombers and 3,200 sailors and airmen and leads a strike group..

This carrier joins two already there, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which patrols the northern Arabian Sea, part of whose strike group cruises opposite Iran’s southern coast; and the USS Iwo Jima, which carries a large marine contingent on board.

2. New to these waters, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, is the Destroyer Squadron 50/CTF 55, which has two task forces: Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA) for strikes against warships and the rapid deployment of marines to flashpoint arenas; and Mine Countermeasures Division 31, which stands ready to prevent New Delhi or Islamabad from mining the Arabian Sea routes connecting their ports. Those routes are vital waterways for US marine traffic supporting the war in Afghanistan.

3. To manage this armada, the command and control vessel, USS Mount Whitney, has been brought over from the Mediterranean.

4. Four nuclear submarines.

The arrival of the southwest Asian marine patrol carrier Stennis and the Mount Whitney to the Arabian Sea opposite Iran’s shores set alarm bells ringing in Tehran. Our Iranian sources note that the Islamic republic’s rulers remember that after al Qaeda’s attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, the Americans did not only invade Afghanistan, but also Iraq and they fear a similar sideswipe.

The Iranian chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Ataoallah Salehi sounded a warning when he stated Sunday, Nov. 30: The “heavy weight” of enemy warships provides the Iranian side with an ideal opportunity for launching successful counter-attacks.

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General Motors May Fail This Month Without Aid, UAW Chief Says

By John Hughes

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) — U.S. lawmakers were told General Motors Corp., the country’s largest automaker, may fail this month if they don’t give the cash infusion the company seeks.

“I believe we could lose General Motors by the end of this month,” Ronald Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers union, told a Senate panel today in Washington.

The Big Three automakers renewed their plea for an emergency federal bailout as a deadlocked Congress showed no progress in deciding how to aid them. GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said his company needs an “immediate” $4 billion, and $4 billion more next month.

“We’re here today because we made mistakes,” Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee. “Forces beyond our control have pushed us to the brink.”

Wagoner, Chrysler LLC Chief Executive Robert Nardelli and Ford Motor Co.’s Alan Mulally together are asking for as much as $34 billion in federal aid. “I am sorry to be asking for this support,” Wagoner told reporters before the hearing began.

Financial Disaster May Lead to Civil Disorder and Wars, Says Secret Citibank Memo

Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year as central banks flood the world’s monetary system with liquidity, according to an internal client note from the US bank Citigroup.
By Ambrose Evans-Pri

The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world’s authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.

This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.

“They are throwing the kitchen sink at this,” said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank’s chief technical strategist.

“The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock.

“Or it will not work because too much damage has already been done, and we will see continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop. We don’t think this is the more likely outcome, but as each week and month passes, there is a growing danger of vicious circle as confidence erodes,” he said.

“This will lead to political instability. We are already seeing countries on the periphery of Europe under severe stress. Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised.”

“What happens if there is a meltdown in a country like Pakistan, which is a nuclear power. People react when they have their backs to the wall. We’re already seeing doubts emerge about the sovereign debts of developed AAA-rated countries, which is not something you can ignore,” he said.

Gold traders are playing close attention to reports from Beijing that the China is thinking of boosting its gold reserves from 600 tonnes to nearer 4,000 tonnes to diversify away from paper currencies. “If true, this is a very material change,” he said.

Mr Fitzpatrick said Britain had made a mistake selling off half its gold at the bottom of the market between 1999 to 2002. “People have started to question the value of government debt,” he said.

Citigroup said the blast-off was likely to occur within two years, and possibly as soon as 2009. Gold was trading yesterday at $812 an ounce. It is well off its all-time peak of $1,030 in February but has held up much better than other commodities over the last few months – reverting to is historical role as a safe-haven store of value and a de facto currency.

Gold has tripled in value over the last seven years, vastly outperforming Wall Street and European bourses.

9/11 StarTrek