Citigroup Posts Loss Amidst Credit Costs

THE DAY OF THE LAST DEBATE

Pump and dump. Pump and dump. The heart beats its last few beats. Blood hemorrhages. Today the Dow lost more than 700 points. Again. Each time it goes up that is fresh money going in. Each time it sinks again that is the fresh money going out.

There has been no capitulation.

The economy of the United States is being destroyed beyond redemption. -- Good.

Only an entirely new kind of economy can emerge in the face of Peak Oil.

Last week I was flipping through the channels and I stumbled across George Soros (gag!) being interviewed by Bill Moyers (gag!). Soros was right when he said it was going to be a bad depression. He was also correct when he said that it was far from over and that this was the end of an era.

However, he was quite wrong when he held up a copy of his new book "A New Paradigm" and then described basically the same one we have now. We -- those who understand the issue -- will not permit a prince of the old paradigm to be the architect of, or perhaps a king in, the new. I called for a New Paradigm two and a half years ago in a speech on the same stage where Abraham Lincoln once spoke; at New York's Cooper Union... Years before that I was out-and-out plagiarized by Gore Vidal when he slapped his name on the original research and writing I had done on Zbig's book "The Grand Chessboard". I can live with that. But we will all be damned if we allow George Soros to define the next epoch of human history for us.

-- What in the World Is Happening With the Global Drug Trade?

Over the last few months I have tracked major seizures of cocaine bothin the Pacific and the Gulf. Three separate seizures involved semi-submersibles of small submarines that don't go under the water but sink flush with it to eliminate radar signatures. (Doesn't work well for satellite surveilance.) Each of those seizures was 3,000 metric tons or more. Then I found that the DEA had recorded earlier seizures this year totaling more than 4,000 tons. The last time I checked (2000), the U.S. was consuming only 6,000 metric tons of cocaine a year. What gives? There is no evidence I know of to suggest that consumption has grown. It's counterintuitive. I don't have the contacts I used to but I can tell you that in L.A. there is virtually no powdered cocaine to be found and it's been that way for months. There is a litle crack out there but I suspect that may be crystal meth -- "crank". Meantime Mexico has errupted into a virtual drug-defined civil war with hundreds, if not thousands, murdered.

Then today Matt Savinar sends me this story about how the world's heroin supply is disappearing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/10/map_of_the_week_the_mystery_of.html. Someone is stockpiling heroin. Heroin is the base drug of morphine. The opium poppy, papaver somniferum, is the source of opium, the most commonly used, and most effective natural pain killer in man's history. Heroin is made from opium. I fear that opium and heroin have become new hot commodities and there is no way that that much opium/heroin could be intended for "recreational" use -- or even to supply addicts. It seems that someone is banking heavily on a lot of people being in a lot of physical pain. -- Good job Matt, as usual. I can't explain what's happening wth cocaine. Is it being hoarded until the price goes up? Not likely, because no one will have money tobuy it in just a few short months. But then again, if it's dirt cheap,say $75 a gram...

I repeat that by itself, all the cash from the global drug trade is not relevant to the current economic crisis. I last estimated all cash generated by illegal drugs at aruound $600 billion a year. By itself, the Lehman bankruptcy was $750 billion or so. Then came the bailouts and the trillions in equity that has been destroyed.

I don't have time to do the research but I'm sure we'll find out what it means soon enough I suspect. This all smells so... , so... BUSH.

Maybe we'll see all the drugs turn up right after the markets bottom. That could squeeze a few final dollars out of the corpse.

-- The Last Debate

Thank God it's over. No major changes. McCain reminded me of Joe McCarthy when he attacked. McCain's face is saved. It was his best performance. Both men lied about energy. It's over.

Now all we have to do is to get to, and through, the election.

MCR

P.S. - Where, oh where is Citigroup? I see that they're in for a chunk of the bailout but the silence is deafening.

-- MCR