Saturday, December 26, 2009

Records in Treasury Yield Curve and Russian Benchmark Rate

From Jenna Orkin:

Economy
Treasury Yield Curve Steepens to Record on Debt-Auction Demand Concerns
Here we go.
Russia Cuts Benchmark Rate to Record Low to Spur Lending, Stem Ruble Bets
Yield curve predicting inflation, not growth surge
UK gilts sell-off
MPC unanimous against printing more money (UK)
Rates rise looms closer
Mukherjee Says No Time Set for Withdrawing Stimulus
Treasury uncaps credit line for Fannie, Freddie
Regulator approves millions for Fannie, Freddie execs
Regulators shutter 2 big Calif. banks, 5 others
Japan Jobless Rate Climbs for First Time Since July as Job Prospects Wane
U.S. credit card companies face tough 2010 with new rules
Copenhagen Shows New World Order May Be Led by US, China
The New World Order 'Is Already Underway'
U.S. pay czar Feinberg OKs compensation at some bailout firms
AIG CEO Said to Have Taken Lead in Feinberg Pay Talks: WSJ Link
Ford accepts $2bn Chinese offer for Volvo
Harvard Swaps Are So Toxic Even Summers Won't Explain (from Vantage Point)
Japan PM under fire over budget scandal
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: "We face a state fiscal crisis of unparalleled dimension"
States' Jobless Funds Being Drained by Recession
Schwarzenegger May Appeal to Obama as $21 Billion Deficit Defies Solution
Santa Holds Up Bank To Pay Elves

War/Intelligence
Jetliner incident may be terror attack, U.S. officials say
Americans 'face Pakistan terror charges'
Al-Qaeda hideouts hit in Yemen
Taliban release video of US soldier
How CIA fell victim to gambler's con
Walmart Sued for Secret Bathroom Surveillance
REPORT: Two CIA Black Site Prisons in Lithuania
Russia to work on new nuclear missiles
Germany Intensifies Mission in Afghanistan
NATO says no deadline for Afghan troop withdrawal (from Rice Farmer)
Guttenberg's Plans to Talk To Taliban: The Beginning Of The End Of Afghanistan
US: Guantanamo Prisoners Not ‘Persons’ (from Vantage Point)
Guantanamo prison may stay open until 2011
Report: Bin Laden daughter hiding in embassy in Iran
Gates proposes $2 billion for unstable countries
Study: Haitian children enslaved
Opinion: Can Software Be Racist?

Energy
US OIL INVENTORIES: Crude Stocks Down Much More Than Expected
Massive load-shedding in Karachi
Bayer Must Pay Farmers For Contaminated Rice Crop
If you think this is an about-face of previous decisions, think again. The compensation package of $2 million is negligible to Bayer. No punitive damages.

Climate Change
Ice Melting Faster Everywhere
Saving the Indigenous Soul: Derrick Jensen Interviews Martin Prechtel (from Vantage Point) Loan Program May Stir Dormant Nuclear Industry (from Rice Farmer)
Animals 'on the run' from climate change
Warming Already Speeding Up Insect Breeding
Little egret arrives in Britain thanks to global warming
Climate change creeps across globe
Rare birds seeing revival, says RSPB
Slop buckets are popular

12 comments:

Paul said...

Bravo gamedog!

“I have a very low carbon footprint, drive less than 2000 miles a year (mostly business) probably walk and cycle further, self sufficient in fuel (wood stoves), 50% of our food, produce minimal waste of less than a carrier bag full in 8 weeks which is ALL re-cycled, and no prodigy, our impact stops with us. We're planting a community forest garden this spring, encouraging our local community to join in, slowly educating permaculture principles.”

You are living the ideals I aspire to!

I consider myself an environmentalist - in the sense that I care about the environment, and consider it to be crucial for humanity’s well being. Values that I expect the majority here would hold.

However I am almost reluctant to admit it. There is a propaganda war going on to grab our thinking. The elites are split into many different factions - and each has their own scams ( = different profit streams?). In the MSM an environmentalist is portrayed as someone who is a crusader for AGW and carbon trading and accepts Al Gore as a climate saving messiah. In many extreme corners of the internet an environmentalist is portrayed as someone who is concerned about the growth of the human population so MUST be in favour of population control so MUST be in favour of eugenics so MUST be in favour of genocide... doh!

I am neither of these extremes - and I very much doubt anyone else here is either. I respect your views on AGW - I take the point of view that there is too much disinformation on both sides to be convinced one way or the other. TPTB have control of most source of information - and most sources of information seem to have been abused for their benefit. That does not mean do nothing - it means being prepared for both eventualities as far as is possible. I agree with you that carbon trading is yet another money making scam for the elites. I also agree with you that “climate change” has been successfully used to deflect from any number of other environmental issues - peak oil and ocean death zones to name just two.

I therefore find no incongruity between your views on AGW and your exemplary environmentally aware lifestyle.

Namaste

Peter J. Nickitas said...

Jenna:

Here's an article from "Energy and Capital" that ties energy and currency as the FTW Roadmap has done for years.

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/indeflation-compartflation-energy/897

Peter J. of Minneapolis

Paul said...

gamedog

"I therefore find no incongruity between your views on AGW and your exemplary environmentally aware lifestyle.

Ouch! the morning after that sounds pompous of me! I meant it in a supportive way mate!

Blame it on the port I was given over Christmas :-)

Namaste

gamedog said...

Cheers Paul, there's a ready made doomstead coming up for sale with 5 acres all set up for self sufficiency here...

http://www.go-self-sufficient.com/index.html

Some useful info on the site too, and full of inspiration (i'm not affiliated, I just found it a useful resource) I hope our place is one day even 1/2 as good!

RandD, I think most subjects we cover here are virtually impossible to do anything sensible about other than report, however I'm glad MCR started reporting them when he did, otherwise we might all be in the dark still!

Cheers,

RanD said...

gamedog, We too are glad MCR started reporting most subjects we cover here when he did; in fact we're very VERY glad that he did. Had conditions been in place to begin reporting the dire implications that Mike has since 911 regarding the relationship of petroleum (and natural resources in general) to the human condition, RanD's David would have been reporting it in the early '70s. But, given the hell that Mike has had to go through with even 911 as an asset toward giving credibility to his message, you can bet your booties ol' Dave found it utterly impossible to tell anybody what he saw coming down the pike (which included everything Peak Oil portends (without the PO label) -- back in 1973! The time for "it" just wasn't right -- then. However, thanks to 911, MCR, FTW, and what's going on today, RanD sees the time for "it" being right now.

Which is exactly why RanD said, in the post you referred to: "What we [RanD] see as crucially necessary is to expand our focus from just describing what we're going through to include recognizing and benefitting from the paramount opportunity that this extremely rare moment in our species' evolutionary continuum presents us with." Seriously.

Cheers,

Kim said...

I'd like to pass this story on, because it may be of use. One of Mike's most profound quotes was (and is), about the nature of money, e.g. unless you change the way it works, you change nothing. This was also brought home to me when I stayed at Binna Burra for a week (a beautiful mountain rainforest environment, Queensland, Australia), with The Ethos Foundation. Queensland economist Richard Sanders was one of the key speakers (as were some other key figures in the Australian environmental movement, such as Prof Ian Lowe, and Dr. Graeme Pearman). Anyway, Richard Sanders explained the money system as akin to a relentless cancer, that either grows to infinity (which is impossible), or collapses. Interestingly, Richard also knew (and talked to), Andrew McNamara, the Queensland State politician who spoke out boldly (and frequently), about Peak Oil. Andrew went on to become the Minister for Sustainability, before he lost his seat at the last election. I also got to ask Andrew a key question, when he gave a presentation at The Brisbane Institute, which he called "Highway of Diamonds" (with the obvious reference to the Bob Dylan song). I asked him how an earth any form of sustainability was possible, unless the banking system was changed. "Kim" he said (he knew me from my community activism), "That's a good question, but I don't know." Anyway, living in the Yugambeh region of SE Queensland as I do, and connecting with an indigenous elder, I did some research and came across books on aboriginal trade (before colonisation). Seems personal connections, ritual and ceremony were far more important than the exchange of "Stuff," which also happened (of course), but it was just the icing on the cake, with the "Cake" itself being the rich tapestry of community, and "Song lines" that stretched across the country. OK, but how does that translate today? And I also thought back to the protests at Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, which (much to the chagrin of the organised Left), involved thousands upon thousands of women (from all over the country, and the World), and lasted many years, with no visible form of organisation. Well, I have many friends now - who also have many friends, and I'm thinking about a "Grandmother's Pot." In other words, put something "Into" the pot (but kept in your physical possession), and it generates "Magic Dollars" for you, which you can then spend on anything (that anyone else), has put in the pot. You generate "Magic Dollars" by putting time, skills and physical resources into the "Pot," and making them available to others. In this way, our communal goods and services are the physical and tangible “Reserve” for the “Magic dollars” we issue against them - and they’re (more or less), always in balance. In other words, we’re creating our “Own” money, from our own physical resources - unlike the faceless men who run (and profit from), the banks. They literally create money out of thin air, based on zero physical reserves of anything. And the glue to hold this together? Regular meals and partying at my place, and at anyone else's place in the web of friends. Time now to re-create the Songlines . . . .

pstajk said...

Something to think about ... how often do you become philsophical?

"Nothing that is so, is so." - Shakespeare - Twelfth Night

What do you guys think about this quote?

These six words have been with me since high school, and they have never proved to be wrong (at least from my point of view)

Is it definitive of the human condition?

Is it just a depressing way to look at the world - or is it the world as we understand it, the only way we CAN view the world?

The answer is ... there is no answer. Yes? No?

time / space / LIFE / DEATH / love / hate / up / down / illusion / reality / mind / body / pain / happiness / fate / freewill / subjectivity / objectivity / god / man .... and on and on

Everything has its opposite, no?

What is this? And if you look a step further you can see there are 2 types of everything!

i.e. Hope
A. The hope that I one day own a corvette
B. The hope that my starving children sleep tonight with food in their stomach

Are these 2 different or are they same?

What is the subject to you may be the object to me.
What is the object to me may be the subject to you.

Yes? No?

Morality / Darwinism

What are the 2 that work in unison? A snake eating itself? Infinity?

The "REAL" answer: BOTH at the exact same time at the exact same moment - Ying and Yang = Perfection

But you know that nothing like perfection exists, that is it does not exist indefinitely - perfection happens in a split second or in a few short moments WHEN BOTH COME TOGETHER --- day and night collide - a SUNSET / man and woman combine - LOVE / sea and land combine a BEACH

So ... is "Nothing that is so, is so"? Yes and no, right?

"Nothing that is so, is so."

We = 2 (and 1)

BALANCE

If the world were perfect that is always perfect - wouldn't life be boring? Would we not be human? Would we not only be god?

No controversy - no humanity? No FTW? ...

pstajk said...

Google the word "philosophy"

The first link to come up is one for a skin care product line!!!!!

Hahahahaha ... oh my, this culture

We live in the dregs of human society.

It is embarrassing; it really is.

Unknown said...

pstajk

The notion that "nothing is true" is quite different than the obvious fact that "nothing is absolutely, unassailably true in verbal terms that we can understand and express."

"Sunny days are nice" is an extreme example. From the perspective of someone in an oppressively dark and cold climate (North American winter), where a sunny day offers welcome relief, this seems a universal truth. But of course, under slightly different conditions (Algerian summer?) there is really nothing to celebrate about a sunny day.

Even a truism such as "Love is good" can be sophistically twisted away from the meaning in which it is intended, and the evil consequences of "love" can be demonstrated all too convincingly.

Yet this does not mean, that the love one perceives as good does not have its good characteristics. What the person feeling love perceives as good really is good. The mistake comes in trying to verbalize an absolute statement about the subjective, relative, conditioned particular case.

Sometimes we string several particular cases together and show common characteristics. When Christmas comes, I get gifts (thinks the kid). Therefore, an essential characteristic of Christmas is that one gets gifts. Should December 25th arrive without gifts, it would not be Christmas. This is essentially what the scientific method does to create a hypothesis, which it then tests experimentally.

Even when the experiment confirms the hypothesis, it has to pigeonhole reality into a very narrow range of meaning. We thus get drugs that are "good for you" because they solve a particular condition in most cases, even though they contain mercury and often have undesirable "side effects". Scientifically, the drug IS good for you, if you are a generic cross-section of society and we are only considering your likelihood of getting the flu. Not getting the flu is good, yes?

Western philosophy, trapped as it was in Judeo-Christian monotheism until after WWII, has a strong tendency to seek absolutes -- things that are universally true: Right and Wrong, God and the Devil, Truth (which must be one, unassailable, absolutely real body of eternal knowledge, rather than a vague, changable and relative condition of certain ideas).

The reason I take the trouble to engage you on this point is that, although one can make objections to the absoluteness of relatively true statements, they are relatively true anyway. If I say "Today is Monday", a sophist can deconstruct this and prove that somewhere it is already Tuesday, or that some Amazonian people has a different way of looking at time. But that answer is still useful and important in certain circumstances, and we MUST look for what seems true and act on it now and in the near future.

It will be VERY IMPORTANT to decide what is true, and either move right or left or stand still or jump, depending on the information we consider "true". That some objection could be made to the proposition, that resources on Earth are finite, does not mitigate the danger we face in continuing along the path of gluttony. Those who shrug and rely on a cynical relativism, as though the truth of resource depletion were no more true than the Little Mermaid, will (IMHO) come to a sorry end, by and large.

gamedog said...

RandD, thanks for the clarification, I admit some of your posts/writing style leaves me a little discombobulated at times (not a criticism btw)

Pound could soon be worth less than euro, warns CEBR

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/6896334/Pound-could-soon-be-worth-less-than-euro-warns-CEBR.html

Pay cuts on the cards for next year

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iWNU0NWVH_MQU0i_c6xS-mSgvpRw

and more worrying since Obamas time limit runs out 12/31/09...

Israel Recalls all of its Ambassadors Worldwide

http://www.eutimes.net/2009/12/israel-recalls-all-of-its-ambassadors-worldwide/

Cheers,

RanD said...

pstajk, It appears you are stumbled by the word "nothing". Rephrasing Shakespeare's near idiomatic aphorism to read: "Nothing by definition is nothing, and that is so." should relieve you of your confusion. As for the word/thought-play/exercise (or word-play/thought-exercise) of your post, it is wonderful, delightful to read... despite being premised on a common misreading of the Bard's wonderful, delightful to read "six words"! Thankyou!

RanD said...

"...the evil consequences of "love" can be demonstrated all too convincingly." ?

Evil consequences come as a consequence of bad thinking and correlated bad decision making, not of "love". As commonly observed: People 1. commonly make misstatements premised on statements they commonly misread/misperceive, and/or 2. purposely make misstatements in service to subversive objectives (i.e., sophism). Whatever the reasons for misstating anything, however, all, ultimately, share common origins: ignorance and/or carelessness (only an ignorant mind would implement sophism).

Moreover: misstatement has produced the destruction of many good words such as those the Judaean-Christian prophets gave us, for instance.