Thursday, February 18, 2010

Italy Could Be Greece Times Five; Argentina Steps Up Falklands Row

From Jenna Orkin

Europe/Headlines
Think Greece Is Scary? Now Get Ready For Spain
Italy derivates draw scrutiny
This could be five times worse than Greece.
Argentina steps up Falklands row Britain says drilling for oil and gas will go ahead despite Argentinian moves to require permits.
Greek Politicians Want Germany To Pay War Reparations In Order To Make Up For Their Debt Disaster
Greece loses EU voting power in blow to sovereignty
BNP Paribas: To Save Europe, Devalue The Euro Faster Than Americans Can Devalue The Dollar
IMF to Start Sales of 191.3 Metric Tons of Gold
Readers Digest UK magazine could fold within weeks
Unemployment claimants up again
UK Number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance rose by 23,500 in January to 1.64 million
France Moves Closer to Unprecedented Internet Regulation

US
States must fill $1 trillion pension gap, study says
National Security "Experts" Discuss Doomsday from Rice Farmer
"For reasons unexplained", scenario includes blowing up of pipelines in the US
Dr Doom: China Will Drag Down US Stocks By 20%
Fed thinking of selling debt to withdraw stimulus
Treasury Yield Curve Steepens to a Record as 10-Year Securities Decline
Fed Minutes Show Greater Appetite for Asset Sales
Seven Signs of the Fed's Eventual Exit Strategy
Soaring Lumber Prices and Strong D.R. Horton Report May Not Signal an Immediate Rebound in Housing Stocks
US bank lending tumbles
Concerns that Fed jumped the gun by withdrawing emergency stimulus.
Jobless figures raise fears
Number claiming jobless benefits in January jumped to 13-year high.
AIG to Keep up to 25% of Derivatives Portfolio

Energy
The hidden danger of an oil spike
15 Countries That Will Get Creamed In An Oil Spike

World/China
Obama Meeting Dalai Lama Shows Pretense of U.S.-China Friendship Must Wane
Jim Rogers: The US And China Are On A Serious Political Collision Course
Chinese Housing Bubble?
Iran Offers Up Huge Natural Gas Bribe To China To Stave Off Security Council Sanctions Europe-China Connection Could Rattle Stocks
Yemen could become first nation to run out of water - from Rice Farmer
After Dubai hit, Israelis question Mossad methods
Brzezinski Warns of False Flag Attack to Trigger Iran War
Beyond Bush: Regime Rotation, Not Regime Change

Science
Bayer Must Pay. $1.5 Million to Farmers for GM Contaminated Rice
Fear of spiders can develop before birth

Gold
Soros buys gold
Billionaire doubled gold assets weeks before calling it 'ultimate bubble'.

And...
Americans are 'most attractive' people in the world, poll finds
Must be our obesity.

21 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you have any researched compiled on Brooksley Born? Ever try to speak with her about derivatives? If people want answers about what happened in the economy, I suggest you find as much information about Brooksley as possible.

OrwellianUK said...

The Brzezinski link doesn't work. It should go to Oilempire

Better still, here is an archive of the Senate Document from which he gave his speech

Jeff said...

Setting up the war:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61H4EH20100218
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61H4FT20100218
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/6788f896-1be8-11df-a5e1-00144feab49a,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F6788f896-1be8-11df-a5e1-00144feab49a.html&_i_referer=

Jenna Orkin said...

orwellian

fixed thx

Instinkt said...

http://www.worldometers.info/

Statistics relevent to every aspect of your life. Its scary.

Peddler on the Hoof said...

it's looking like the us wants to attack iran 'for real' this time...

makes sense... keep the imperial war machine churning and bankers getting fatter with more wars. deny oil to japan/china.

Scott said...

Can you guys lay off the business insider links? Their stories have eye-grabbing headlines, but inside, there's little information, few sources cited, mostly just opinion. I'm not against analysis like the stuff at Mish or even zero hedge, but BI disappoints me almost every time.

Scott said...

I don't think you should phrase the Brzezinski link in the present tense if the speech you're linking to is three years old. In that speech, he implied that the Bush Administration might run a false flag causus belli to invade Iran. I hardly see how that's a story now.

OrwellianUK said...

Jenna, File this under "Big Brother"

School used laptop webcams to spy on students

NB Patton said...

I would like a moment to salute the bravery and courage of Andrew Joseph Stack (1956-2010).

A true Winter Patriot, I only wish he had access to a 747.

May all of the cowards who condemn his beautiful act, suffer the extreme forms of despotic servitude he died to defend against.

"All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative."
-Ayn Rand

"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado"
-Emiliano Zapata

andrew said...

The banks and the wealthy people now in full control of the United States of America are petrified at the statement Joe Stack left behind. That's why their FBI has tried to bury it.

Here's an excerpt, "I remember reading about the stock market crash before the "great" depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn't it ironic how far we've come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn't have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it's "business-as-usual". Now when the wealthy (mess) up, the poor get to die for the mistakes... isn't that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn't limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at "big brother" while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won't continue; I have just had enough."

This was no Tea Party patriot! Joe Stack was a cold-blooded revolutionary.

SteveDucey said...

I was perusing Ebert's Blog today and noticed this from before Christmas:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/12/the_ten_best_documentaries_of.html#more

As I'm sure you can guess, "Collapse" made the cut.

stu said...

Has Glenn Beck seen Collapse? I was watching Thursday's episode and his segment on the Titanic and building lifeboats seemed to be lifted and slightly adapted from the way MCR discusses the exact topic in Collapse. It would be nice if he'd just have Mike on to discuss the sustainability movement, but I don't see that happening.

Peter J. Nickitas said...

LEAP forms similar conclusions to those found here:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17697

Peter J. of Minneapolis

Unknown said...

If one of us finds that "the storm raging in my head" is urging one to fly a plane into a hellish complex of cubicles and wound 13 overworked secretaries and accountants, one should pull back, and consider.

Sirhan Sirhan was not clear about what he was doing. He had handlers and was woozy at the time he (maybe) shot Robert Kennedy. Why do people go out and murder a dozen people in a shopping mall? Voices in their heads.

And what is the result? More gun control legislation, more security cameras, weird machines looking inside our underpants, and so on. Abridgements of the constitution, possibly for "the security of French citizens" (the internet censorship article).

In 1296, for five months, an aescetic monk named Pietro da Morrone was pope, due to a political division between two camps in the cardinal college. The leader of one camp became his "handler", or assistant. This was during a time of unprecedented financialization in medieval Europe, at the zenith of the papal monarchy. The handler, who succeeded him as Pope Boniface VIII, was fully interested in the worldly affairs of the Church, and in his own career.

The unworldly monk, however, gave encouragement to the fairly sizable number of Catholics who practiced the humility and communalism of St. Francis, who had died earlier in the century. This was a serious threat the burgeoning culture of wealth acquisition and concentration, to which the future Boniface VIII was so deeply committed.

The "assistant" carved a hole in the wall and projected "a divine voice" into the chamber of the aescetic pope, confusing him and encouraging him to resign. When Celestine did, in fact, offer his resignation, Boniface was in a position to take the tiara.

Boniface then imprisoned his predecessor, who shortly thereafter died in his tiny cell. Boniface went on to declare, "it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff." There could not be a more totalitarian statement -- Boniface meant this assertion in spritual as well as temporal terms: every thought, act, private sentiment and public association should be subject to the control of one man.

This statement was the very apex of the papal monarchy. Boniface was attacked by Philip the Fair, a powerful king of France who began the tendency toward nation-building under aboslute rulers by having the pope humiliated and nearly executed. (Some said he died, a month later, from bashing his head into a wall over and over). Philip, who is also known for torturing and executing the Knights Templar and taking their possessions, assumed the absolutism of the pope.

The powers desired by Boniface for the papacy tended in the future to be contended for by kings, then by a tight oligarchy of nobles and high gentry. After a relatively brief widening of the oligarchy, sometimes known as democracy, we now see these powers asserted once more, this time by a corporate elite. And their ability to control minds has expanded tremendously since the days of poor Pietro da Morrone.

So if you are wracked by demons and hear voices telling you to kill secretaries in the name of God or Freedom or whatever, RESIST. Someone may be setting you up, and resistance is much more noble in the day-to-day righteous actions that you may (or, admittedly, may not) be able to get away with as you live out what Life you have.

Peddler on the Hoof said...

I also wish that guy had a 747 and that he could tractor-beam lying defrauding CEOs etc into it and take them away to the caymans permanently. (the way ken lay supposedly is hanging loose in SA -tho doubtful)

in current issue of bloomberg markets they cover a billionaire whistle-blower. kudos to him! from portugal.

of course us media don't cover mossad's assassination in dubai either.

best wishes all.

Peddler on the Hoof said...

just planted some pole beans tonight. whoopee.

gamedog said...

Big Brother:School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

William Engdahl: Wall Street in death agony as World's financial fulcrum

Shy Wolf said...

NB, et-al: Stack was a chicken shit coward who didn't have the balls to pull himself up from his own morass. Not to mention, a selfish shit who obviously didn't care a bit about the wife and child he was leaving to fend for themselves- probably to now get on the welfare/dotgov rolls so people who have guts and determination can now support them. (You can bet no insurance company is going to pay off on a suicide!)
Not to mention, he is a murderer and now his family is going to have to live with that as well. They're going to have fun living with that in the family tree.
Bravery? Patriot? Where? He was a coward who wanted the fed to care for him. Patriot? How did his act help anyone? Who did it serve good? What profit was in it for anyone? What part of the Patriot agenda did his murderous act enlarge?
Beautiful act? Yah, sure... like deserting family and country is a beautiful thing to do. To burn down his own home, leaving his family homeless and now on the streets, is a beautiful act?
Better rethink your standards.
Shy III

Raymond said...

now there's something, nb patton, purveyor of "every man for himself free markets" quoting and honouring a man who pursued land distribution and equity for the poor.

NB Patton said...

Shy Wolf,
You appear to have a polar opposite philosophic framework than I... I can live with that.

Raymond,
HHAAAAAhahaha, Well played sir!
Yes, it is an all too common, tragic, and frustrating occurrence. An Intelligent, brave, courageous, self sufficient and motivated man who dedicates his life to achieving liberty and freedom,... By way of socialism, or anarchy!!!
BAAAHH, Epic fail! If only those "freedom fighters" would understand that socialism is forcibly organized slavery, and that anarchy relegates societies to tribal/gang warfare for conflict resolution; perhaps they would change their goals?

Anyway, I like the quote, and many other aspects of the lives of men like Zapata and Guevara etc., but not EVERYTHING about them, including their ultimate goals.

One more thing I would like to point out. I think that choosing (of your own free will) to work cooperatively with people that have common ideas and goals is almost always in one's SELF INTEREST. It is something that I do every day of my life, and I think it is THE crucial aspect of any strong society or community. What I do not condone is a government who forces this "cooperation". There have been different levels and configurations of this in all governments throughout history ranging from none, all the way to the socialism of the Soviet Union.

I am a man who prefers the "none" version of "social programs" in GOVERNMENT... Which is totally separate from how I choose to cooperate of my own free will with those whom I choose to associate with.