Thursday, May 06, 2010

From Jenna Orkin

Economy
President of Greece says his nation on the brink of an 'abyss'
Deadly anti-austerity protest erupts in Greece
Greek Violence Threatens to Scare Away Tourists Needed for Saving Economy
Timing a Greek default
Why Not Even A Default Would Fix Greece's Problems
"There's only one solution and that's leaving the euro."
Americans shouldn’t get smug about Europe’s woes
UK budget deficit 'to surpass Greece's as worst in EU'
Roubini: 3 Out Of The 4 PIGS Will Get Creamed
Will the IMF buckle?
"The IMF can't afford to bail-out the rest of southern Europe."
Trichet May Be Forced Into Crisis Mode as ECB Keeps Benchmark Rate at 1%
Czech Central Bank Unexpectedly Lowers Benchmark Rate to Record-Low 0.75%
Bank Default Swaps Surge as Moody's Raises Sovereign Debt Contagion Alert
Euro zone warned of contagion
Sea of Red in Asia as Debt Fears Escalate
There's A Global Shortage Of U.S. Dollars
Roubini: America Faces Inflation Or Default, But What's Really Scary Is That The GOP Could Soon Win Congress
Secret Erik Prince Tape Exposed - Vantage Point
Congress Refuses to Outlaw Insider Trading For Lawmakers - from Rice Farmer

Oil Spill
Gulf containment effort to be attempted Thursday
Dome to be Temporary Solution for Oil Spill
In Gulf of Mexico, Chemicals Under Scrutiny
It's hard to scrutinize a product whose ingredients are a trade secret. - JO
Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf, Despite Better Alternative
Obama biggest recipient of BP cash
Oil Spill May Permanently Change Gulf Coast
Safety warning over BP rig five years ago
BP Cited for 13 Safety Violations at Washington Plant

Terror/Intelligence
Brain-Scan Evidence Rejected by Brooklyn Court
Osama bin Laden 'living in luxury in Iran' - from Elizabeth Miller
Air Force Treating Wounds With Lasers and Nanotech

Environment/Infrastructure/Science
Farmers in oyster disease protest
US: Water Infrastructure: The Unseen Crisis - from Rice Farmer
"240,000 water main breaks occur around the United States each year."
Earth Could Become Too Hot for Humans - from Elizabeth Miller
Half the Amazon Could be Lost by 2050, Says Study - from Elizabeth Miller
Americans "bombarded" with cancer causes: report
Note: This article fails to identify Dr. Kripke as a doctor.
Peru, Chile border rocked by strong 6.4 magnitude earthquake
Pro-faith scientist wins £1m award
Posted by at

10 comments:

TheProfessor said...

Human hair can absorb oil... who knew?

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=resources/lifestyle_community/green&id=7425819

2:56 PM
Bryan said...

It would be good if more people were leaving comments on CollapseNet.com about the Beta-testing and how CollapseNet is working.

4:30 PM
BCDeL said...

The story linked below seems pertinent in light of this afternoon's market-drama and the following popular explanations thereof:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/05/poltergeist-gets-into-nyse-stockbrokers-handhelds/

Here are two of the most puzzling observations of the day:
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/05/06/accenture-went-to-a-penny-at-248-pm/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fmarketbeat%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+MarketBeat+Blog%29

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/05/06/procter-gamble-something-strange-was-going-on/

5:10 PM
PeakedOut said...

this story was from last July, but it might relate to today's stock drop.

FBI: Russian Programmer Stole Stock-Trading Secret Code


A computer programmer working for Goldman Sachs was arrested last week on charges that he stole proprietary source code for software his employer uses to make sophisticated, high-speed, high-volume stock and commodities trades.

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/aleynikov/#ixzz0nDpXXRUh


http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/aleynikov/

11:22 PM
v said...

Dispersant 'may make Deepwater Horizon oil spill more toxic'

GrTz,

V

12:29 AM
gamedog said...

The UK election was a non-event, no party has the majority required to form a gov, so it's deffo a "hung" parliament. Seems even if Lab does a deal with the LibDems they still won't have a majority. Some polling stations closed with huge queues outsides, opening the way for legal challenges, this indicates the turnout was higher than expected.

TV is still full of pundits talking hot air, I expect this to be the case for at least another week.

Under Lab rules, Gordo the gold seller will have to step down as leader in Sept whatever happens. I'm expecting Milliband (bilderberger 93) to replace him.

More than 70 people an hour declared insolvent

4:44 AM
Weaseldog said...

It looks like the human element is leaving the markets. When the stocks dropped, some to zero, there were no buyers.

I think a significant part of the problem is that the boomers are starting to withdraw a significant stream of funds from the casino.

We've been trained to think of the markets as investments. But really, it's a gambling casino where you buy a chit and hope that when you sell it, you can find a bigger sucker.

And when more people are buying than selling demand drives the price up. When more people are selling, then supply drives it down.

It's my thinking that we're just beginning to see the effect of the boomers retiring en-masse.

It's going to be difficult for the PPT to offset the increasing river of funds, going out from retirement fund disbursements.

Worse with unemployment high, boomers are cashing out or borrowing from their 401ks. the big kicker I think in the folks borrowing is that a large fraction will never repay. The unemployment problem isn't temporary. they'll never earn enough money ever again, to repay the fund.

This month is not over. I previously laid out arguments, beginning with our actual, not projected oil decline, for why May would be crisis month. Yesterday's activity I think is just the beginning. May happens to be in the middle of a business quarter and follows two other conditions. A lousy quarter for the US economy and a dramatic ramp up of gasoline prices. We saw this pattern in 2001. At that time, I thought it was significant enough that I sold all of my gambling positions in the stock market, in January 2001.

As to oil... The EIA expects 1.5% growth. It's my rule of thumb to subtract 3% from their estimates to find a more accurate number. I expect that in a year or two, we'll learn that world oil production has been in decline all this year.

5:09 AM
Jeff said...

Looks like the clampdown is underway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/world/07rights.html?hpw
this is as bad as the patriot act.

6:49 AM
Sebastian Ernst Ronin said...

Weaseldog, re "I expect that in a year or two, we'll learn that world oil production has been in decline all this year."

Yes, as Kenneth Deffeyes so simply pointed, out we shall require the benefit of looking in the rear-view mirror...of this, our runaway freight.

7:38 AM
Unknown said...

Jeff

(About the "clampdown")...

Seems like something THEM would like to do, like national ID cards or that blood-heating ray beam machine for "crowd control". This would be the thin end of a wedge designed to let the current administration decide who's on "our" side, and disenfranchise other citizens. Eventually, anyone who protested could be a non-citizen.

But they won't get it. The gains are too small, the resistance too serious, to waste too much effort ramming this through. There's other stuff they absolutely have to do, like keeping faith in the stock market, or managing the wind-down of two embarrassing wars at once. Don't need another Greece, with bank-burnings and general rejection of the whole program.

Thanks for the hedzup, but I don't worry much about this one. You might go over to Kunstler's blog for his latest on parallels with the French Revolution. The ruling class is really up against the wall already.

8:48 AM

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