From Jenna Orkin:
Economy: US
Fed Offers Two Cents on the Audit-the-Fed Dollar
Fed Says: Audit Us and Interest Rates Rise
Doubts cast on strength of US recovery
Volcker: You call this an economic recovery?
Jobless rate rises in all US cities in August
September Unemployment: Ouch!
Unemployment Confronts Obama Rhetoric With Threatened Chronic Joblessness
Danger: Corporate defaults ahead
U.S. firms oppose rules to curb short selling
The New Normal
Financial Sense University
“Career risk” driving rally
Trade Wars Guarantee An End To The Party
Companies in U.S. Cut More Jobs Than Forecast; Unemployment Rises to 9.8%
Social Security Benefit Requests Exceed Forecasts as U.S. Recession Bites
GDP Reliance Hid Problems in Economy, Stiglitz Says: CFO Link
BofA, Wells Fargo, JPM, Citigroup FDIC Fees May Top $10 Billion
Trojan Horse Steals Money from Your Bank Account
Forbes lists eight reasons to "remain worried about housing":
The federal tax credit, worth $8,000, is set to expire at the end of November. That will make housing $8,000 more expensive for first-time buyers. The Fed is also ending its $1.45 trillion shopping spree. It has been supporting housing by buying mortgage-backed derivatives. What will happen when it stops?
Mortgage lending standards are tightening up generally. Houses are still not cheap. Forbes cites Shiller's numbers, putting the average house 41% higher than it was in 2000. Incomes did not increase during that period; ergo, houses are still too expensive. Damaged psychology. It will take time for potential homeowners to get over the shock of a bear market.
The end of summer has arrived. Housing sales always go up in the summer. People relocate in summer, when school is out. Then, sales fall with the autumn leaves. There are still huge numbers of houses that will be foreclosed.
Forbes says only 12% of option ARMs have been reset. More foreclosures will increase the supply of desperate sellers and decrease prices. There's a 'shadow inventory' hanging over the housing market; it could be vast. Everyone knew it would be hard to sell a house in 2009. Many potential sellers held back, waiting for the market to stabilize. As they put their houses up for sale, that too will hold prices down.
Collectively, Economists Are A Perpetually Optimistic Lot
“Hope is not a strategy”
Europe/Asia
Icelandic offices raided
KPMG and PwC addresses targeted in inquiry linked to failed banks.
'Planned recession' could avoid catastrophic climate change
Romanian Government Collapses: Will That Affect IMF Debt?
Georgia Started Russia War, EU Says
Russia plays pipeline politics
Russia's proposed South Stream energy pipeline is a potential weapon with which it could gain the upper hand in Europe. And as with the best chess players, for Russia, a situation of defense because of the rival Nabucco pipeline could become a position of attack. It can re-establish the former Soviet influence, attempt to reach the Mediterranean after three centuries of failures, and take on a dominant position in Europe.
Kazakhs, Azeris, Try to Find New Oil Routes
Russia Can Help the U.S. in Afghanistan
Russia, Belarus Hold Joint Military Exercises
Keeping Iran Honest: Scott Ritter
Big Money: China buys a commodity of different sorts
Girl killed by leaflet drop in Afghanistan
Al-Qaida Warnings: Threat of Terror Escalates in Germany
Energy
Preparing for Peak Oil: How Our Lives Will Change Forever
From the San Francisco Peak Oil Task Force
Gasoline Faces Risk of Meltdown
Tools to Chart Mexico's Declining Oil Production
From the Law of Unintended Consequences Department:
Egyptian Swine-Flu Slaughter Leaves Cairo Without Pigs to Devour Garbage
PS: Will repost articles from Rice Farmer once email difficulties are worked out.
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New Jersey Schools Mandate Vaccination or Expulsion
Russia is Currently the World's Largest Oil Producer
This year we've had the most acorns fall from our oak tree in Maryland over the past 25 years of observing and keeping records. It's more than the summer of 1993 which corresponded to the worst winter in the past 25 years across the Central and Eastern US(Winter of '93/'94). This winter is going to be historic(maybe 1 in 75 or 100 yr winter) for the Central and Eastern US. It should be interesting to watch natural gas supplies, even in the face of lowered demand and new supply.
People just don't understand the exponential function.
check out the oil drum today,saudi faces gas shortage,of all places.With demand growing at 7% per year,that means in 10 yrs to achieve this it will use as much gas that has been used there in all of time.Twilight in the desert indeed.Same with the people here in anchorage,blaming the gas shortage on those environmentalists that won't let them drill.X-senator Stevens and Palin seem to be salesmen these days,drill baby drill.THis will end in disaster,no mitigation plan.
I continue to be fascinated by the Half Past Human Web Bot project - forecasting future trends based on a linguistic analysis of Internet content.
I found an interesting radio interview with Clif about the project and its most current forecasts (click here) and have bought the latest “Shape of things to come” report, which runs to 50 pages of very hard reading (in more than one sense). I was planning to do a quick and short summary to publish here - but then I picked up the following.....
George Ure published an urgent announcement Urgent Web Bot Update Ref: 10/25
One of the big findings is of a very significant raising of global tensions (“similar to that experienced during the Cuban Missile affair”) starting on Oct 25th and lasting for about 10 days. It was previously thought that this could be associated with an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities - but this seems to be receding - and a financial “disaster” seems to be coming to the fore eg. a collapse of the dollar and a suspension of banking.
quote
If correct, this is the beginning of "The Big One" relative to the dollar and the central banking system. Everything else in the modern world depends on this structure...so it will be a big one throughout all of the social infrastructure.
unquote
In general, the full report supports the idea of collapse and gives some (forecasted) dates for specific events. They are very clear that these are just forecasts and no better than 50% accurate. However, in this environment, 50% accurate seems good to me!
I just received the following from my daughter. She's a working RN:
Howdy! I should be taking advantage of Pat and Brent being gone to cut wood by spiffing up the house and planning something for dinner BBUUU...TT...instead I got on the computer to check out how David Icke and his website were doing!!! By far more interesting than doin' the dishes. So...I'm several video interviews into information that I had never heard before but had been suspicious of for some time. Such as a Federal mandate to check all incoming admissions to a nursing home type of facility for the potential exposure of said admission to tuberculosis. This is a process by which the nurse (me) injects 0.1 cc's of a drug called Aplisol just under the skin on the underside of the forearm. 48-72 hours later a nurse takes a look at the injection site for redness and swelling. I've seen only one reaction in 15 years and that was down here in Colorado and the patient was from the VA and had participated in the Korean and Viet Nam wars. Never saw one reaction in Alaska where it was "widely" known that it was endemic in the native population.(?) (Never saw ONE case being treated and there were no TB wards ANYWHERE.) This process of injection and observation is repeated one to two weeks later if no adverse symptoms are observed. A chest X-ray is performed on the patient if a reaction is observed. The X-ray is almost always benign (so I've been told when the process was explained to me) and the results are recorded in the chart. Hmm. A new patient came in recently and per schedule, in I went with my needle and explanation and for the only time ever, this patient balked and firmly told me that no one had been allowed to stick a needle into her body since 1976 when she got her one and only flu shot which resulted in her acquiring Guilliane-Barait
Syndrome. Now I'm reading about just such stuff but in a completely different light that actually illuminates the subject. Har! I just noticed the play on words! Hmm. So I'm reading away and it comes time to switch to Part Four on this video, and I do so and this blank screen comes up saying that they're sorry but the Media Player site is temporarily down for maintenence! In another world this stuff would be just information that I would be suspicious of but kicking me off the site rather confirms the truth of it to me. Maybe I'm just reading more than is there into a simple 'puter glitch but somehow I don't think so. Hmm. Anyway. I'll go back to my in-box and see whatcha'all sent me. Love you! T
Wake up!
RanD
Thank you for sharing....
Namaste
Paul... Lovin' your links to what you're a'lookin' at.
Ciao
From Australia, a find that could fundamentally alter the "great game" with Russia and China:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,26165921-5005200,00.html?referrer=email&source=AusBus_Lunch_email_nl
China may lose rare earth metals monopoly with Greenland development
AN obscure, desolate plateau on the southwestern shores of Greenland could transform the future of consumer technology and shift the balance of power in the global supply of rare earth metals.
The treasure trove beneath the rocks and ice of the Ilimaussaq Intrusion represents the world's largest known reserve of rare earth metals, the "technology" group of lanthanide elements used in products from mobile phones and low-energy light bulbs to hybrid cars and missile guidance systems.
The find has the potential, its developers claim, to severely dent China's global monopoly over rare earth production, a 95 per cent dominance of total worldwide output that Beijing has strategically nurtured for 15 years and recently has started to treat as a potent trade weapon.
According to the Australian mining company with rights to develop it, the site could also spectacularly change the national fortunes of Greenland, which is undergoing significant political change as it draws closer to independence from Denmark.
From January next year, Greenland will gain full sovereignty over its natural resources. The rare earths alone have the potential to double the country's effective GDP. Studies of the site show that the Ilimaussaq reserves would comfortably meet at least 25 per cent of global rare earth demand for the next half-century.
I was hoping to pose this question to Mike himself, but as I see no contact info I think the bloggers will suffice just as well.
Questions about debt in a dire outlook. Mike has sustained that getting out of debt is one of the most important things to do at this point. The possibility of further hardships because I owe money to the bank when things get tight.
I was leaning on this idea, because I understand that when the government(I live in Canada, but US policy affects me just as much) starts to reorganize the monetary system, banks, and everything that is so backwards; that it would be very nice to have no debt, and I'm less likely to be enslaved by such debt.
However, I think the question has changed from when to if. IF the government makes the changes that obviously need to be made in short term. From what I have observed, there has been no attempts to change anything, and we are still seeing a resource grab, and still seeing a country that will hold on to it's way of life until the bitter end.
So why work so hard to become debt free, when the Country looks as though it's going to keep on truckin until everything collapses? I'm convinced that there will be no preparing, no alternatives in place, oil will peak to the point of no return, which will collapse, the banks, government, social norms as we know it.
Who will be coming after the $100,000 mortgage when there is no more bank, no more employees, no more oil? Why not use this borrowed cash to develop our future plans; relocation, building, self sustaining investments?
I argue that I could better spend a loan to prepare for the abyss, then pay it off with nothing to show. I am only 25, I have no house, no mortgage, no assets. I wish to buy a plot of land, build a house, farm my own food and produce my own electricity. I can't do these things without massive debt. The way I see it, get a loan, build, relocate, and when the shit hits the fan, no one is going to enslave me because there will be no one to do the enslaving.
Just my thoughts, please educate me :)
James.
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