Filed under: cancer, Chemical Warfare, Congress, deception, Empire, environmental disaster, EPA, Eugenics, GAO, Genocide, government crimes, government regulation, health and environment, infanticide, softkill, toxic earth, toxicity | Tags: health alert, toxic furnature
17,000 toxic chemicals kept secret from consumers
Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
January 4, 2010
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States — from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners — nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.
The policy was designed 33 years ago to protect trade secrets in a highly competitive industry. But critics — including the Obama administration — say the secrecy has grown out of control, making it impossible for regulators to control potential dangers or for consumers to know which toxic substances they might be exposed to.
At a time of increasing public demand for more information about chemical exposure, pressure is building on lawmakers to make it more difficult for manufacturers to cloak their products in secrecy. Congress is set to rewrite chemical regulations this year for the first time in a generation.
Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, manufacturers must report to the federal government new chemicals they intend to market. But the law exempts from public disclosure any information that could harm their bottom line.
Government officials, scientists and environmental groups say that manufacturers have exploited weaknesses in the law to claim secrecy for an ever-increasing number of chemicals. In the past several years, 95 percent of the notices for new chemicals sent to the government requested some secrecy, according to the Government Accountability Office. About 700 chemicals are introduced annually.
Some companies have successfully argued that the federal government should not only keep the names of their chemicals secret but also hide from public view the identities and addresses of the manufacturers.
“Even acknowledging what chemical is used or what is made at what facility could convey important information to competitors, and they can start to put the pieces together,” said Mike Walls, vice president of the American Chemistry Council.
Although a number of the roughly 17,000 secret chemicals may be harmless, manufacturers have reported in mandatory notices to the government that many pose a “substantial risk” to public health or the environment. In March, for example, more than half of the 65 “substantial risk” reports filed with the Environmental Protection Agency involved secret chemicals.
“You have thousands of chemicals that potentially present risks to health and the environment,” said Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that documented the extent of the secret chemicals through public-records requests from the EPA. “It’s impossible to run an effective regulatory program when so many of these chemicals are secret.”
Of the secret chemicals, 151 are made in quantities of more than 1 million tons a year and 10 are used specifically in children’s products, according to the EPA.
The identities of the chemicals are known to a handful of EPA employees who are legally barred from sharing that information with other federal officials, state health and environmental regulators, foreign governments, emergency responders and the public.
Last year, a Colorado nurse fell seriously ill after treating a worker involved at a chemical spill at a gas-drilling site. The man, who later recovered, appeared at a Durango hospital complaining of dizziness and nausea. His work boots were damp; he reeked of chemicals, the nurse said.
Two days later, the nurse, Cathy Behr, was fighting for her life. Her liver was failing and her lungs were filling with fluid. Behr said her doctors diagnosed chemical poisoning and called the manufacturer, Weatherford International, to find out what she might have been exposed to.
Weatherford provided safety information, including hazards, for the chemical, known as ZetaFlow. But because ZetaFlow has confidential status, the information did not include all of its ingredients.
Mark Stanley, group vice president for Weatherford’s pumping and chemical services, said in a statement that the company made public all the information legally required.
“It is always in our company’s best interest to provide information to the best of our ability,” he said.
Behr said the full ingredient list should be released. “I’d really like to know what went wrong,” said Behr, 57, who recovered but said she still has respiratory problems. “As citizens in a democracy, we ought to know what’s happening around us.”
The White House and environmental groups want Congress to force manufacturers to prove that a substance should be kept confidential. They also want federal officials to be able to share confidential information with state regulators and health officials, who carry out much of the EPA’s work across the country.
Walls, of the American Chemistry Council, says manufacturers agree that federal officials should be able to share information with state regulators. Industry is also willing to discuss shifting the burden of proof for secrecy claims to the chemical makers, he said. The EPA must allow a claim unless it can prove within 90 days that disclosure would not harm business.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is trying to reduce secrecy.
A week after he arrived at the agency in July, Steve Owens, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, ended confidentiality protection for 530 chemicals. In those cases, manufacturers had claimed secrecy for chemicals they had promoted by name on their Web sites or detailed in trade journals.
“People who were submitting information to the EPA saw that you can claim that virtually anything is confidential and get away with it,” Owens said.
The handful of EPA officials privy to the identity of the chemicals do not have other information that could help them assess the risk, said Lynn Goldman, a former EPA official and a pediatrician and epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“Maybe they don’t know there’s been a water quality problem in New Jersey where the plant is located, or that the workers in the plant have had health problems,” she said. “It just makes sense that the more people who are looking at it, they’re better able to put one and one together and recognize problems.”
Independent researchers, who often provide data to policymakers and regulators, also have been unable to study the secret chemicals.
Duke University chemist Heather Stapleton, who researches flame retardants, tried for months to identify a substance she had found in dust samples taken from homes in Boston.
Then, while attending a scientific conference, she happened to see the structure of a chemical she recognized as her mystery compound.
The substance is a chemical in “Firemaster 550,” a product made by Chemtura Corp. for use in furniture and other products as a substitute for a flame retardant the company had quit making in 2004 because of health concerns.
Stapleton found that Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient similar in structure to a chemical — Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP — that Congress banned last year from children’s products because it has been linked to reproductive problems and other health effects.
Chemtura, which claimed confidentiality for Firemaster 550, supplied the EPA with standard toxicity studies. The EPA has asked for additional data, which it is studying.
“My concern is we’re using chemicals and we have no idea what the long-term effects might be or whether or not they’re harmful,” said Susan Klosterhaus, an environmental scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute who has published a journal article on the substance with Stapleton.
Chemtura officials said in a written statement that even though Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient structurally similar to DEHP does not mean it poses similar health risks.
They said the company strongly supports keeping sensitive business information out of public view. “This is essential for ensuring the long-term competitiveness of U.S. industry,” the officials said in the statement.
Filed under: alan grayson, audit the fed, Big Banks, campaign for liberty, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economy, economy collapse, Federal Reserve, GAO, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, Mel Watt, private bank, Ron Paul, secret meetings, Stock Market, tarp, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: House Financial Services Committee, watt amendment
Ron Paul’s Fed Audit Bill Passes House Financial Services
Politico
November 20, 2009
The House Financial Services Committee has approved Rep. Ron Paul’s measure to drastically expand the government’s power to audit the Federal Reserve.
The measure, based on a Paul proposal that has attracted more than 300 co-sponsors, passed, 43-26, as an amendment to a financial reform bill. Florida Democrat and fellow Fed critic Alan Grayson co-sponsored the amendment with Paul and played a leading role drumming up support for it among committee members. The adoption of this amendment is an extraordinary victory for Paul, whose libertarian, anti-Fed leanings have often been dismissed by the political establishment.
The amendment would give the Government Accountability Office much greater to audit the Federal Reserve, which has a long history of independence from congressional audits. Paul and Grayson beat out a competing measure offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), who after weeks of negotiations with the pair felt their measure would threaten the Fed’s monetary policy.
Grayson, however, told POLITICO in an interview that Watt’s amendment would add more restrictions on the GAO’s ability to audit the Fed, not less. “And there’s a crying need to expand it because the Federal Reserve has completely changed the way it’s done business since a year and a half ago.”
The House Financial Services Committee will vote on approving the underlying bill after Thanksgiving recess.
Filed under: central bank, Credit Crisis, david walker, DEBT, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, fannie mae, freddie mac, GAO, George Bush, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, Inflation, mortgage companies, neocons, real estate, Stimulus Package, Stock Market, subprime, subprime lending, tax rebates, Uncategorized, US Economy
US debt now at an astonishing $53 trillion
SF Gate
July 17, 2008
As the Bush administration proposes backstopping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a $300 billion line of credit and Congress contemplates another economic stimulus, the question is who will bail out the government?
“People seem to think the government has money,” said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. “The government doesn’t have any money.”
A rare consensus has developed across the political spectrum that the government’s own fiscal affairs are precarious, with an astonishing $53 trillion in long-term liabilities, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Filed under: California, cancer, GAO, health and environment, Lockheed Martin, Military, Military Industrial Complex, NASA, Syria, UN | Tags: golan heights, perchlorate, SEC, Security and Exchange Commission, trichloroethylene
Lockheed: U.S. must pay for rocket-test cleanup
Washington Times
July 7, 2008
One of the nation’s largest federal defense contractors says the U.S. government should pay the cleanup costs – likely in the tens of millions of dollars or more – from pollutants leaked during the production and testing of U.S. military and space rockets.
Federal policies at one former Lockheed Propulsion Co. rocket plant in California allowed for burning toxic chemical waste in open, unlined dirt pits during the 1970s, according to a lawsuit that Lockheed Martin Corp. filed against the U.S. government.
The practice has been linked to pollution in groundwater and soil.
Lockheed, whose propulsion company helped build rocket motors for the Apollo and Mercury space programs, has faced personal injury lawsuits over the past decade from residents upset about pollution near the now-closed Redlands, Calif., rocket facility, according to U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.
The company wants the government to pay past cleanup costs and to be held liable for future expenses.
A Lockheed spokeswoman declined to comment on the company’s lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in the District. The lawsuit doesn’t say how much money the company is seeking.
Lockheed is reporting more than $500 million in liabilities companywide from “environmental matters,” which include soil and groundwater contamination in Redlands and unrelated projects, according to SEC filings.
According to the lawsuit, Lockheed says two sorts of pollutants – ammonium perchlorate and trichloroethylene – “escaped into the environment in the course of operations at the Redlands facility,” and turned up in local soil and groundwater.
Trichloroethylene, or TCE, is an industrial solvent that can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea and cancer. Exposure to perchlorate can affect the thyroid gland, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999114.html
Filed under: army, credit card, defense department, DoD, fda, GAO, George Bush, Military, NASA, neocons, Pentagon, Taxpayers, Troops | Tags: national science foundation, NSF, the black budget
Inside the Black Budget
$32 Billion of taxpayer dollars for patches?
NY Times
April 1, 2008
Skulls. Black cats. A naked woman riding a killer whale. Grim reapers. Snakes. Swords. Occult symbols. A wizard with a staff that shoots lightning bolts. Moons. Stars. A dragon holding the Earth in its claws.
No, this is not the fantasy world of a 12-year-old boy.
It is, according to a new book, part of the hidden reality behind the Pentagon’s classified, or “black,” budget that delivers billions of dollars to stealthy armies of high-tech warriors. The book offers a glimpse of this dark world through a revealing lens — patches — the kind worn on military uniforms.
“It’s a fresh approach to secret government,” Steven Aftergood, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said in an interview. “It shows that these secret programs have their own culture, vocabulary and even sense of humor.”
One patch shows a space alien with huge eyes holding a stealth bomber near its mouth. “To Serve Man” reads the text above, a reference to a classic “Twilight Zone” episode in which man is the entree, not the customer. “Gustatus Similis Pullus” reads the caption below, dog Latin for “Tastes Like Chicken.”
Military officials and experts said the patches are real if often unofficial efforts at building team spirit.
The classified budget of the Defense Department, concealed from the public in all but outline, has nearly doubled in the Bush years, to $32 billion. That is more than the combined budgets of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Feds use cards for lingerie, iPods, gambling, a $13,000 dinner and more
Washington Post
April 9, 2008
Federal employees used government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner, according to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, which found widespread abuses in a purchasing program meant to improve bureaucratic efficiency.
The study, released by Senate lawmakers yesterday, found that nearly half the “purchase card” transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements for the cards’ use. The overall rate of problems “is unacceptably high,” the audit found.
The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit — including laptop computers, digital cameras and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.
http://www.theseminal.com/2008/04/08/the-tax-mans-gone-belligerent/
What military spending is doing to our economy
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/31/16227/0316/411/487759
Filed under: Africa, asia, biofuels, brent scowcroft, bush senior, central bank, CIA, colombia, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, ethiopia, Eugenics, famine, food prices, GAO, gas prices, Genocide, global elite, Globalism, Great Depression, Greenback, Henry Kissinger, imf, Inflation, Iraq, malthusian catastrophe, Mexico, neocons, Nigeria, Peru, Petrol, philippines, Population Control, riot, riots, Stock Market, tuckey, UN, US Economy, wheat, World Bank | Tags: corn, grains, rice, Robert Zoellick, yemen
World Bank: rocketing food prices have put fight against poverty back 7 years
London Guardian
April 10, 2008
Rocketing global food prices are causing acute problems of hunger in poor countries and have put back the fight against poverty by seven years, the World Bank said today.
Robert Zoellick, the Bank’s president, said that while consumers in rich countries were worried about the cost of filling the fuel tanks in their cars, people in poor countries were “struggling to fill their stomachs. And it’s getting more and more difficult every day.”
Zoellick said the price of wheat has risen by 120% in the past year, more than doubling the cost of a loaf of bread. Rice prices were up by 75%.
“In Bangladesh a two kilogram bag of rice now consumes almost half of the daily income of a poor family. With little margin for survival, rising prices too often means fewer meals.”
Poor people in Yemen, he said, were now spending more than a quarter of their income on bread.
“This is not just about meals foregone today, or about increasing social unrest, it is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth. Even more, we estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is in the order of seven lost years.”
The Bank’s analysis chimes with research from the International Monetary Fund showing that Africa will be the hardest hit continent from rising food prices. More than 20 African countries will see their trade balance worsen by more than 1% of GDP as a result of having to pay more for food.
World Bank expects more high food prices
AP News
April 8, 2008
Rising food prices, which have caused social unrest in several countries, are not a temporary phenomenon, but are likely to persist for several years, World Bank President Robert Zoellick says.
Strong demand, change in diet and the use of biofuels as an alternative source of energy have reduced world food stocks to a level bordering on an emergency, he says.
Speaking to reporters Monday before the bank’s spring meeting this coming weekend, Zoellick said the 185-member World Bank would work with other organizations to deal with the crisis by seeking ways to help farmers, especially in Africa, to increase productivity and improve access to food through schools or workplaces.
“This is not a this-year phenomenon,” he said, referring to the price spike. “I think it is going to continue for some time.”
Zoellick said bank forecasters looking at food prices have concluded that a serious risk exists of a significant increase in poverty, which for some countries will reverse gains made over the past five to 10 years.
http://mparent7777-1.blogspot.com/2008/04/food-as-weapon-rape-of-iraq.html
UN Chief: Food riots are already being reported across the globe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/09/food.unitednations
Grains Gone Wild
http://www.nytimes.com/2008.._r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Food Haitians storm palace in food price riots
http://www.boston.com/news/world/la..rm_palace_in_food_price_riots/
Rice Jumps to Record, Corn Near High as Demand Outpaces Supply
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/new..&sid=aBPFBEmOgnh8&refer=home
Food riots fear after rice price hits a high
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environ..r/06/food.foodanddrink
Food prices to rise for years, biofuel firms say
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL0324014220080403
Rush to restrict trade in basic foods
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a4c2b98..77b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Filed under: Africa, asia, brent scowcroft, bush senior, central bank, CIA, colombia, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, ethiopia, Eugenics, famine, food prices, GAO, Genocide, global elite, Great Depression, Greenback, Henry Kissinger, Inflation, malthusian catastrophe, Mexico, neocons, Nigeria, Peru, philippines, Population Control, riot, riots, Stock Market, tuckey, UN, US Economy, wheat | Tags: grain, Guinea, King George VI, Mauritania, Morocco, rice, rice shortage, soybean shortage, thailand, yemen
Rice Prices Soar Globally Leading To Food Riots
CSM
March 26, 2008
Bangkok, Thailand – – Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week.
Around the world, governments and aid groups are grappling with the escalating cost of basic grains. In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.
In Asia, where rice is on every plate, prices are shooting up almost daily. Premium Thai fragrant rice now costs $900 per ton, a nearly 30 percent rise from a month ago.
Exporters say the price could eclipse $1,000 per ton by June. Similarly, prices of white rice have climbed about 50 percent since January to $600 per ton and are projected to jump another 40 percent to $800 per ton in April.
The skyrocketing prices have prompted millers to default on rice supply contracts and bandits to steal rice as they aim to hoard the crop, and sell it later, as prices continue to rise.
“The farmers are afraid as their fields have been robbed in the nighttime,” says Sarayouth Phumithon, an official at the Thai government’s Bureau of Rice Strategy and Supply. “This is just the beginning. The problem will get worse if the price keeps increasing.”
High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asia Unrest
NY Times
March 29, 2008
Rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world’s largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export.
The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has almost doubled on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest.
Shortages and high prices for all kinds of food have caused tensions and even violence around the world in recent months. Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.
Food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. But the moves by rice-exporting nations over the last two days — meant to ensure scarce supplies will meet domestic needs — drove prices on the world market even higher this week.
This has fed the insecurity of rice-importing nations, already increasingly desperate to secure supplies. On Tuesday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines, afraid of increasing rice scarcity, ordered government investigators to track down hoarders.
The increase in rice prices internationally promised to put more pressure on prices in the United States, which imports more than 30 percent of the rice Americans consume, according to the United States Rice Producers Association. The price that consumers pay for rice has already increased more than 8 percent over the last year.
But the United States is fortunate in also exporting rice; poor countries ranging from Sengal in West Africa to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific are heavily dependent on imports and now face higher bills.
Kissinger’s Plan For Food Control Genocide
Tehran Times
March 18, 2008
On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in November 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine. Brent Scowcroft, who had by then replaced Kissinger as national security adviser (the same post Scowcroft was to hold in the Bush administration), was put in charge of implementing the plan. CIA Director George Bush was ordered to assist Scowcroft, as were the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and agriculture.
The bogus arguments that Kissinger advanced were not original. One of his major sources was the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 “to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population.” The commission found that Britain was gravely threatened by population growth in its colonies, since “a populous country has decided advantages over a sparsely-populated one for industrial production.” The combined effects of increasing population and industrialization in its colonies, it warned, “might be decisive in its effects on the prestige and influence of the West,” especially effecting “military strength and security.”
NSSM 200 similarly concluded that the United States was threatened by population growth in the former colonial sector. It paid special attention to 13 “key countries” in which the United States had a “special political and strategic interest”: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. It claimed that population growth in those states was especially worrisome, since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=412984
Imagine you were already slowly starving and food prices suddenly double
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9421.shtml
Bread, milk, egg prices spike, draining locals’ wallets
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/186/story/119284.html
Food prices rising across the world
http://www.printthis.clickability.com..d.ap%2Findex.html&partnerID=21210
Filed under: Afghanistan, GAO, George Bush, Iraq, Military, nation building, occupation, Pullout, Saddam Hussein, Troops, War On Terror
Iraqi sees need for U.S. military until 2018: report
Canada.com
January 14, 2008
Iraq’s defense minister said on Monday his country would need foreign military help to defend its borders for another 10 years and would not be able to maintain internal security until 2012.
Abdul Qadir’s remarks, in an interview with The New York Times posted on the newspaper’s Internet site, could become an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.
“According to our calculations and our timelines, we think that from the first quarter of 2009 until 2012 we will be able to take full control of the internal affairs of the country,” Qadir said.
“In regard to the borders, regarding protection from any external threats, our calculation appears that we are not going to be able to answer to any external threats until 2018 to 2020,” he said.
President George W. Bush has said U.S. troops may have to stay in Iraq for years but most presidential candidates, especially Democrats, would like them to withdraw much faster.
Qadir is currently visiting the United States. On his agenda is weapons acquisitions for the new, U.S.-trained Iraqi army. According to the Times, these included ground vehicles, helicopters, tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers.
The United States disbanded the country’s previous armed forces built by Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president who was executed in December 2006.
The United States and Iraq have said they would negotiate a formal agreement governing the legal status of American military forces in Iraq but talks have not yet formally begun.
http://voanews.com/english/2008-01-15-voa69.cfm
GAO: Bush admin fudged numbers to make Iraqi govt. look good
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM..1dya7NN_PLKDEwD8U6HL7O1
Filed under: bernanke, central bank, China, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, energy, Europe, Federal Reserve, GAO, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, interest rate cuts, morgan stanley, Northern Rock, poll, rate cut, silver, Stock Market, UBS, United Kingdom, US Economy
Fed promises as much money as the banks want
Fed Has Auctioned Another $20B in Funds to Commercial Banks to Combat Credit Crunch
AP
December 21, 2007
The Federal Reserve, working to combat the effects of a severe credit crunch, announced Friday it had auctioned another $20 billion in funds to commercial banks at an interest rate of 4.67 percent. Fed officials pledged to continue with the auctions “for as long as necessary.”
The central bank said it had received bids for $57.7 billion worth of loans, nearly three times the amount being offered, indicating continued strong interest in the Fed’s new approach to providing money to cash-strapped banks.
It was the second of four scheduled auctions. The first auction, on Monday, of $20 billion resulted in loans being awarded at an interest rate of 4.65 percent. There were 93 bidders seeking $63.6 billion at the first auction and 73 at the second.
Two more auctions will occur in early January. In a statement Friday, the central bank said it would continue with further auctions “for as long as necessary to address elevated pressures in short-term funding markets.”
The new auction process was announced by the Fed last week in a coordinated action with central banks around the world trying to address a global credit crunch.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues decided to try the new process because their efforts to inject funds into the banking system through the Fed’s discount window, which makes direct loans to banks, had proven less successful than Fed officials had hoped.
Many banks had avoided using the Fed’s discount window out of concern that investors would see the move as an indication of underlying problems at their financial institutions.
The auction process was developed as a second way to get money into the banking system with the hopes that it would not carry the stigma of the discount window.
The Fed said Friday that it would announce on Jan. 4 the sizes of the next two auctions which will be held Jan. 14 and Jan. 28. Officials have said the Fed will evaluate the interest in the auctions after the initial four and determine whether more auctions will be scheduled.
The new auction results cover short-term loans for 35 days.
The global credit crisis has made banks reluctant to lend to each other even as the Fed has been lowering its federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other for overnight loans.
The rate currently stands at 4.25 percent, a full percentage point lower than it was in September when the Fed began slashing rates in the wake of a severe credit squeeze that had roiled global markets in August.
The 4.67 percent rate for the second $20 billion in funds and the 4.65 percent rate for the first auction means that banks who are using the auction process to get needed reserves are getting them at a rate slightly below the 4.75 percent rate they could get in direct loans through the discount window.
The Fed cut the federal funds rate and the discount rate by a quarter-point at its last meeting on Dec. 11, disappointing investors who had hoped for a bigger half-point reduction in the funds rate.
Many economists believe the Fed will keep cutting rates with three more quarter-point reductions expected in the funds rate at the Fed’s first three meetings of the new year.
Analysts believe that a serious slowdown in overall economic growth will force the Fed to continue cutting rates even though some Fed officials have expressed worries that the rate cuts could exacerbate inflation pressures, which have flared up again, reflecting a renewed surge in oil prices.
People & Power – Death of the dollar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54MUm2P1jOU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdrNbhdl7uU
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1821436620071219
Gold climbs above $800 in London as dollar drops; silver gains
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=159758
Northern Rock Rescue Cost $100B
http://www.fmnn.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=52822
US Inflation Soars – Largest Rise in Producer Prices Since 1973!
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article3128.html
US foreclosure filings up 68 pct in Nov.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071219/ap_on_bi_ge/foreclosure_rates
U.S. Dollar’s Credibility Being `Stretched,’ UBS Economist Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601…o4&refer=home
US Federal Reserve’s subprime regulations shield Wall Street banks
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/mort-d21.shtml
Economy teeters on brink, says Resler
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/mailto.a…&siteid=mktw
GAO Says Government Failed Yet Another Financial Audit
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf…2&dcn=todaysnews
One in Five Americans Must Borrow to Heat Homes This Winter
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/71071/
Morgan Stanley secures $5bn from China
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.j….9/bcnmorgan119.xml
CNN: Ron Paul Says U.S. Going Broke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP6MtMq5cBw
ECB Offers Banks Unlimited Funds
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7149329.stm
Overstock.com CEO warns of depression
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-TLfmLTiqA
Filed under: 9/11, Alan Greenspan, central bank, China, Credit Crisis, DEBT, ECB, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, european central bank, Federal Reserve, foreclosure, GAO, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, Inflation, interest rate cuts, New Hampshire, pound, rate cut, Stock Market, subprime, subprime lending, United Kingdom, US Economy
Central Banks to Pump Billions into World Financial System
NY Times
December 13, 2007
A day after the Federal Reserve disappointed investors with a modest cut in interest rates, central banks in North America and Europe on Wednesday announced the most aggressive infusion of capital into the banking system since the terrorist attacks of September 2001.
Most market specialists and economists welcomed the effort but concluded that it would probably have only limited success in addressing broader problems in the global economy and the credit markets.
In response, stocks initially surged in New York, but most of the early gains dissipated in afternoon trading as the market moved wildly up and down through the day.
The effort to grease the wheels of bank lending suggested that policy makers were increasingly concerned about the risk that economies could fall into recession because of failures in the credit markets, which have seized up again in the last couple of weeks after they overcame a bout of panic in August and September.
Economists and market specialists say policy makers are trying to reassure bankers that they will stand firm as the lenders of last resort. The coordinated action is being led by the Fed, which will lend $40 billion this month. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Canada will lend $50.2 billion this month and next.
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