Filed under: agriculture, amazon, amazon rainforest, Argentina, aristocrats, Australia, biofuels, Canada, ethanol, Eugenics, famine, food crisis, food market, food prices, food shortage, Genocide, George Bush, george soros, global elite, health and environment, Henry Kissinger, internationalist, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, NWO, Petrol, rainforest, ruling class, Russia, UN, united nations, US Crops, World Bank | Tags: corn, grain, wetlands, World Food programme
One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars – not people
A grain elevator in Illinois, US. In 2009, 107m tonnes of grain was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol. Photograph: AP
London Guardian
January 22, 2010
One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies.
The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels.
“The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels,” said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington thinktank ithat conducted the analysis.
Last year 107m tonnes of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol. This was nearly twice as much as in 2007, when Bush challenged farmers to increase production by 500% by 2017 to save cut oil imports and reduce carbon emissions.
More than 80 new ethanol plants have been built since then, with more expected by 2015, by which time the US will need to produce a further 5bn gallons of ethanol if it is to meet its renewable fuel standard.
According to Brown, the growing demand for US ethanol derived from grains helped to push world grain prices to record highs between late 2006 and 2008. In 2008, the Guardian revealed a secret World Bank report that concluded that the drive for biofuels by American and European governments had pushed up food prices by 75%, in stark contrast to US claims that prices had risen only 2-3% as a result.
Since then, the number of hungry people in the world has increased to over 1 billion people, according to the UN’s World Food programme.
“Continuing to divert more food to fuel, as is now mandated by the US federal government in its renewable fuel standard, will likely only reinforce the disturbing rise in world hunger. By subsidising the production of ethanol to the tune of some $6bn each year, US taxpayers are in effect subsidising rising food bills at home and around the world,” said Brown.
“The worst economic crisis since the great depression has recently brought food prices down from their peak, but they still remain well above their long-term average levels.”
The US is by far the world’s leading grain exporter, exporting more than Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Russia combined. In 2008, the UN called for a comprehensive review of biofuel production from food crops.
“There is a direct link between biofuels and food prices. The needs of the hungry must come before the needs of cars,” said Meredith Alexander, biofuels campaigner at ActionAid in London. As well as the effect on food, campaigners also argue that many scientists question whether biofuels made from food crops actually save any greenhouse gas emissions.
But ethanol producers deny that their record production means less food. “Continued innovation in ethanol production and agricultural technology means that we don’t have to make a false choice between food and fuel. We can more than meet the demand for food and livestock feed while reducing our dependence on foreign oil through the production of homegrown renewable ethanol,” said Tom Buis, the chief executive of industry group Growth Energy.
Filed under: Africa, Al Gore, Alex Jones, ban ki-moon, Ben Santer, Britain, cap-and-trade, carbon credit system, carbon credits, carbon dioxide, China, climate change, climategate, Co2, Communism, cop15, copenhagen, Copenhagen treaty, corruption, CRU, david de rothschild, deception, Dictatorship, EAU, Empire, famine, Fascism, george soros, global government, Global Warming, global warming hoax, Hadley CRU, Herman Van Rompuy, imf, ipcc, latin america, leaked emails, Lord Monckton, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, man made global warming, mao, maurice strong, Mexico, monckton, New World Order, NWO, One World Government, Rompuy, rothschild, Russia, scandal, stalin, UNIPCC, Venezuela, White House, World Bank, world government | Tags: Anthropogenic Global Warming, Climate Colonialism, Climate Research Unit, Danish text leak, East Anglia University
Copenhagen Births World Government Framework Despite Failure to Reach Agreement
PrisonPlanet – Further, many leaders from Third World nations became angered at the ‘Danish text leak’ revealing plans to burden lesser-developed nations with greater emissions cuts and plans to levy a proposed $100 Billion in ‘green’ debt upon poorer nations, to be paid back at interest, of course. George Soros has proved to be at the center of what has been critiqued as ‘Climate Colonialism’ and would prove deadly to populations at-risk for starvation in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, etc. Already, taking over farmlands for ethanol production in the place of food has been blamed for millions of deaths in the LDCs.
lex also breaks down revelations about the carbon trading and other green schemes. It’s not only players like Al Gore, the Rothschilds and George Soros who stand to make a killing. President Barack Obama– with a great conflict of interest– was a founding investment partner in the Chicago Climate Exchange alongside Maurice Strong, a top Rockefeller agent and leading climate change schemer. Chicago Climate Exchange is written into the architecture of many of the proposals for alternative energy credits, carbon derivatives and other green financial products and stands to provide a worthwhile return on investment.
In the end, the forced-incrementalism towards total world government, with complete dominance over money, debt, food, energy and resources, paid a price in exposure at COP15. Many politicians, journalists and people in general are now well aware that a scam has been forced down upon them– and both their freedom and sovereignty are certainly at stake.
British Peer: Copenhagen Summit Has Established A World Government
Filed under: carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, China, climate change, Co2, copenhagen, Copenhagen treaty, despotism, Eugenics, famine, Genocide, george soros, global tax, Global Warming, global warming hoax, Hoax, imf, India, infanticide, third world, World Bank
India, China, Africa walk out of Copenhagen talks – The Real Reason Why
Developing nations discovered neo-colonial agenda behind globalist carbon tax scam
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
December 14, 2009
Developing countries have walked out on the Copenhagen climate talks, but one of the primary reasons as to why nations like China and India have boycotted the summit is being hidden by the corporate media – namely the fact that the negotiations were doomed once poorer countries learned of the globalist’s neo-colonial agenda as a result of the Danish text leak.
“Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after developing countries withdrew their co-operation,” reports the BBC.
“Delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol. As news spread around the conference centre, activists chanted “We stand with Africa – Kyoto targets now”.
However, the media has completely failed to highlight the real reason behind the walk out – the fact that funds from climate financing, originally allocated to go to the UN and then be doled out piecemeal to third world nations, would instead be paid directly into the coffers of the World Bank and IMF, organizations that have made a habit out of looting poorer countries with crippling debts that cannot be paid back, forcing such countries to hand over their entire infrastructure to globalist loan sharks.
In the leaked Copenhagen text that emerged last week, leaders of third world countries were horrified to discover that developed nations would take on less of a burden than anticipated and that more would be demanded of poorer countries despite the fact that any further cuts in CO2 emissions would further cripple their flimsy economies and poverty-stricken people.
Billionaire elitist George Soros subsequently told Copenhagen delegates how poorer nations would be forced to take on what he described as “green loans” in the name of combating climate change, a policy that would land the already financially devastated third world with even more debt, payable to globalist institutions such as the IMF.
Soros said that $100 billion should be provided in loans to poorer nations to help slow global warming. The proposal would entail third world countries paying back interest to the governments of the richer nations to stem a perceived crisis that they have had little or no direct involvement in creating.
In what amounts to little more than modern day colonialism, debt forgiveness requires countries to sell their health, education, electric, water and other public services to globalist corporations. Such “structural adjustment conditionalities” have led to massive cuts to health and education budgets in the third world.
Poorer countries have also had to discontinue subsidies and trade restrictions that support local business and development.
As we have documented, third world nations are already laboring under skyrocketing food prices caused by climate change policies. This has led to millions of people starving to death because the cost of even the most basic staple foods has spiraled beyond their means. In places like Haiti, people who were scraping a living on mud pies now cannot afford them and are dying in droves.
Poorer countries continue to be politically neutralized and socially and economically dismembered by such policies. This is the primary reason why these countries are now boycotting the Copenhagen summit, but you won’t hear a word about it in the mainstream media, because it is owned by the same globalists who want to keep the lid on the fact that the global carbon tax scam is set up to benefit themselves and themselves only.
Poorer countries who were promised a slice of the pie are now discovering that they in fact face a further plundering as a result of the very same policies that were introduced in the name of helping them.
Filed under: Censorship, CNN, corruption, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Fox News, george soros, Illegal Immigration, intimidation, La Raza, lou dobbs, Mainstream Media, Martial Law, media censorship, mediaopoly, MSNBC, New World Order, North American Union, Posse Comitatus, Propaganda, truth movement | Tags: Robert Dilenschneider
Dobbs Was Forced Out Say Sources, CNN Insiders
Huge severance package was part of deal offered by higher ups who “wanted him out”
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
November 16, 2009
Sources close to Lou Dobbs and Insiders at CNN have indicated that the legendary anchorman was forced to resign from the network because his coverage was not “middle of the road” or “opinion-free” enough for the network.
According to comments by Robert Dilenschneider, a spokesman for the anchorman, CNN was so determined to remove Dobbs, it gave him an $8 million severance package to leave.
CNN boss Jonathan Klein was unhappy with Dobbs’ coverage regarding illegal immigration, according to Dilenschneider. The Network head believed Dobbs was at odds with CNN’s mandate to occupy the middle ground between Fox News and MSNBC.
Dobbs has also recently aired stories regarding concerns over a shift away from national sovereignty toward a North American Union. He also regularly broached the drive toward a New World Order in addition to Martial Law and the erosion of Posse Comitatus.
The severance package was negotiated after it became clear that the feud between Klein and Dobbs could not be resolved without Dobbs’ exit.
Dobbs had eighteen months left to run on a $12 million contract.
“They wanted him out,” Dilenschneider told The New York Post. “The end came quickly once the exit package had been negotiated.”
Another CNN insider, Chris Plante, claimed that left leaning bias was to blame for Dobbs’ exit.
“His opinions are out of lockstep with the rest of the mainstream news media,” Plante, a seventeen year CNN correspondent, told Howard Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program.
Plante described Dobbs, as “the last conservative voice on the channel,” and added that the higher ups felt he no longer fit in and had to go.
Plante added that CNN hosts Campbell Brown, Anderson Cooper, and Larry King are not “completely neutral,” prompting Kurtz to ask, “Are you suggesting that those hosts lean to the left?”
“Yes, I am” Plante responded.
Watch the video:
Filed under: CNN, Dictatorship, Empire, george soros, Geraldo Rivera, Illegal Immigration, La Raza, lou dobbs
CNN Lou Dobbs quits because shots fired on his home?
Filed under: Alan Greenspan, bailout, Bank of England, bernanke, Big Banks, BOE, Britain, central bank, CFR, China, CNBC, Communism, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dow, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, energy, Europe, european union, fannie mae, Fascism, Federal Reserve, freddie mac, George Bush, george soros, global economy, gold, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, henry paulson, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, interest rate cut, interest rate cuts, jim rogers, martgage companies, Media, Merrill Lynch, mortgage, mortgage companies, mortgage lenders, Oil, Paulson, rate cut, real estate, Russia, Stock Market, subprime, subprime lending, Taxpayers, United Kingdom, US Economy, US Treasury, Wamu, washington mutual, WW2 | Tags: run on banks
Fannie and Freddie Seized…Cost to Taxpayer: Over $1 Trillion
Contrarain Profits
September 8, 2008
Uncle Sam has finally taken over Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE). Yesterday, the Bush administration placed the mortgage giants under a conservatorship, putting billions of dollars of taxpeyers’ money at risk in the process.
The Treasury says it will stump up $200 billion to back the companies in exchange for a 79.9% stake in each. The government is now the biggest player in the US mortgage market.
Don Rich warns that the government’s bailout spells trouble for anyone holding US dollars. A major issue is that the Congressional Budget Office’s estimation of the costs of the bailout is far too conservative…
This from last Thursday’s Daily Reckoning:
A recent study from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has zero credibility. It pegged likely taxpayer losses in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts at $25 billion. For those with a sense of history, it is worth remembering that the S&L bailout had a $160 billion price tag. The numbers diverge so far from reality as to be laugh-out-loud funny. Funny, that is, except that the CBO estimate demonstrates a willful disconnect with the actual consequences of federal government actions.
As demonstrated below, the real cost of the bailouts will easily exceed $1.3 trillion. In fact, the real cost is likely to range between $1.3 trillion to $1.6 trillion, and is not unlikely to reach $2.5 trillion.
Between 2001 and 2007, Fannie and Freddie purchased or guaranteed $700 billion of Alt-A and subprime loans. Given the default rates on these loans – and the fact that the price of the housing that is the ultimate security of the loans will, for reasons demonstrated below, fall by at least thirty percent – this alone implies a loss for Fannie and Freddie on the order of $210 billion.
Fannie and Freddie acknowledge already-impaired loans on the balance sheet of $19 billion, which they have used creative accounting to avoid deleting from the shareholder equity account. This means that Fannie and Freddie have a maximum of $64 billion in capital remaining.
Given the inevitable losses on the Alt-A/subprime portion of their portfolio, it must be the case that if the federal government, as it is doing, guarantees Fannie and Freddie’s solvency, the difference between the loss and the capital to be made up by the government (i.e., the taxpayers) must equal, not $25 billion but $147 billion.
That alone would mean that the CBO is blowing smoke with their estimated cost figures, and if you think back to the S&L cost of $160 billion, this is not a surprising result. The real picture is so much worse that it is pretty obvious the CBO is flat out inventing figures just to get the politicians through November.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out how the government is going to get its hands on such money: the Federal printing press…
I don’t know what those people in Washington are taking to sleep at night after all their electorally driven accounting and finance exercises, but I can tell you what they will be doing to keep the government open for business: printing a whole lot of money.
Chairman Bernanke has the discount window open to any collateralization not worth the paper it is written on, so in effect he has the helicopters ready to drop hundred-dollar bills over Wall Street – as he once famously described the ultimate policy instrument of a fiat-money system.
Of course, if he does that, we will have to change his nickname from Helicopter Ben to Hyperinflation Ben, which answers the question of who picks up the tab of bailing out Fannie and Freddie: anyone owning dollars.
Produce a lot of something, and it becomes worth less. And given the losses at Fannie and Freddie, the taxpayer guarantee, and the ongoing initiation of Boomer retirement, only the inflation tax will work to pay for keeping Fannie and Freddie afloat.
Like it or not, we are about to enter interesting times, and it is too bad our supposed professional civil servants at the Congressional Budget Office have failed to tell the emperor the truth: that he is buck-naked bankrupt and getting ready to take a lot of people with him.
P.S Don Rich is an instructor of economics, finance, and political science at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, PA. He also teaches economics, government, and history at Delaware County Community College in Exton, PA. You can leave comments for Don on the mises.org blog.
Greenspan: U.S Economy in ’once-in-a-century’ financial crisis
September 15, 2008
The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shows that the U.S. is “more communist than China right now” but its brand of socialism is meant only for the rich, investor Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Europe on Monday.
“America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich… it’s just bailing out financial institutions,” Rogers said.
Stock markets jumped after the U.S. government’s decision to launch what could be its biggest federal bailout ever, in a bid to support the housing market and ward off more global financial market turbulence.
But Rogers said in the long term the move spelled trouble.
“This is madness, this is insanity, they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. I’m not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for this,” Rogers told “Squawk Box Europe.”
Soros Compares Mishandling Of Current Crisis To Great Depression
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
September 17, 2008
Billionaire investor George Soros has slammed US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for behaving in the same manner as bankers in the 1930’s and mishandling a financial crisis that threatens a repeat of the Great Depression.
Soros told BBC Newsnight that the world was merely at the beginning of a financial storm and warned, “We mustn’t allow the financial system to collapse as it did in the 1930s.”
Referring to Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, Soros stated, “The way Paulson is handling the situation is reminiscent of the way the bankers handled it in the 1930s.”
He added: “The financial system has gone overboard and the financial engineering has grown to big, it takes up too big a share in the world’s resources.”
“Now it is shrinking. When it becomes regulated it will be less profitable than the last 25 years.”
Soros, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, is ranked by Forbes as the 99th richest person in the world with a net worth of around $9 billion.
Ironically, Soros made his name by reaping the dividends of another financial meltdown when he “broke the Bank of England” by short-selling the pound sterling before the currency dropped out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, landing Soros a profit of around $1.1 billion.
In 2006, the highest court in France upheld a conviction that Soros had practiced insider trading when he bought shares in French bank Société Générale after discovering that the bank was on the verge of a takeover.
Soros has repeatedly predicted fiscal armageddon, writing three books about a “superbubble” that is on the verge of collapse.
In response to those accusing him of crying wolf in an effort to panic financial markets and benefit from the fallout, Soros stated, “I have a record of crying wolf…. I did it first in The Alchemy of Finance (in 1987), then in The Crisis of Global Capitalism (in 1998) and now in this book (2008’s The New Paradigm for Financial Markets). So it’s three books predicting disaster. (After) the boy cried wolf three times . . . the wolf really came.”
Respondents to a Daily Mail article about Soros’ comments accused the financier of engaging in wanton hypocrisy.
“I don’t know why on Earth they interview Soros since he has been proven again and again to deliberately spread financial rumour for his own exploitation and gain,” wrote one, “Soros became a multi multi billionaire precisely through manipulating markets like this – if this man says that we are heading for a 1930’s style crash you can guarantee he already has plans to profit from it.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSPEK4365020080917?sp=true
US authorities have now spent $900 billion to prop up the financial system
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/..d=9736054&cKey=1221686585000&ty=ti
Central banks pump £100bn into money markets
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/m..2008/09/17/cncentral117.xml
Treasury announces debt auctions for Fed
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jnS9Vm..m4iAD938I1A80
Fed Pumps $70B Into Financial System
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080916/ap_on_bi_ge/fed_credit_..E44U6Xfx.Fe7GUOQ.D1v24cA
Run On The Bank? Americans Could Lose Their Deposits
http://www.prisonplanet.com/run-on-the-bank-americans-could-lose-their-deposits.html
Merrill Lynch seals future with Bank of America deal
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/bu.._finance/article4755438.ece
Rogers: Dollar To Lose World Reserve Status
http://www.prisonplanet.com/rogers-dollar-to-lose-world-reserve-status.html
Paulson: Congress Has No Authority Here
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/paulson-congres.html
Goldman profit plunges 70 pct amid market slump
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080916/bs_nm/goldmansachs_dc
August home starts seen at lowest level in 17 years
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1638353220080917
Russia halts trading after 17.5% share price fall
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles..ORTUNE5.htm
Dow closed down 450
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20..er=1;_ylt=Al5VvbZImvYKFj5hEtFaLktv24cA
Is Britain Heading For Worst Recession Since 1929?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/09/15/bcnrecession115.xml
Washington Mutual Tumbles 30%
http://news.yaho..CZ6k2k2Rd38VKPgv6b.HQA
Now fear stalks British banks
Inflation rises to 4.7% and FTSE plunges ANOTHER 90 points as global markets tumble in wake of Meltdown Monday
Bush Claims Economy Can Weather Storm
Bailouts Will Push U.S. Into Depression
Filed under: asia, Big Banks, Britain, California, central bank, China, citigroup, Condoleezza Rice, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Euro, Europe, european union, Federal Reserve, florida, food crisis, food prices, forclosure, gas prices, general motors, george soros, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, Inflation, LA, london, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Oil, Petrol, real estate, Stock Market, United Kingdom, US Economy | Tags: Wen Jiabao, Zhou Xiaochuan
Citigroup: Euro May Approach $1.69 by September
Bloomberg
July 2, 2008
The euro may be nearing an “explosive breakout,’’ reaching record levels against the U.S. dollar, according to a Citigroup Global Markets Inc. research note.
The trading pattern, including a so-called double-bottom that tested lows, resembles the one before Feb. 26 that preceded the surge to $1.6019 per euro, analysts Tom Fitpatrick in New York and Shyam Devani in London wrote in the note today.
“ We cannot help but feel that things might be about to get very bad again,’’ the analysts said, referring to the possible combination of falling bond yields and rising oil prices.
The exchange rate may approach $1.69 per euro by September if previous patterns are duplicated, the report said.
The dollar fell to a two-month low, trading at $1.5864 at 12:35 p.m. in New York, down 0.5 percent from $1.5793 yesterday. It earlier touched $1.5887, the weakest since April 24. The dollar reached an all-time low of $1.6019 per euro on April 22.
China’s premier urges US to stabilise dollar
AFP
July 1, 2008
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has again called on the United States to stabilise the dollar, warning the greenback’s decline was posing threats to the global economy.
“China is taking measures to safeguard its stable economic development,” Wen said during a meeting with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday, according to a statement posted on the foreign ministry’s website.
“(We) hope the US will overcome its subprime crisis soon and stabilise the exchange rate of the US dollar, which is significant to the whole world,” he said, according to the transcript posted late on Monday.
The Chinese currency, the yuan, has appreciated about 20 percent against the dollar over the past three years, which has placed enormous pressure on China’s exporters and forced some out of business.
China’s foreign exchange reserves, by far the largest in the world, hit 1.80 trillion dollars at the end of May, meaning even a small decline in the value of the dollar could cause a big loss to the Chinese treasury’s coffers.
It was the second time this year that Wen had spoken out against the weak dollar and problems in the US economy, and the impacts for China.
“The impact of the US subprime mortgage crisis is expanding, (and) the value of the dollar is continuing to fall,” Wen told China’s annual meeting of parliament in March.
“China is now in a critical period in its reform and development, and we must be fully prepared for changes in the international environment and become better able to defuse risks.”
Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan last month spoke out at the falling US dollar, saying it was driving up oil and other commodity prices, stoking inflation and causing pain for developing nations.
Factories hit worldwide as commodity prices soar
Reuters
July 1, 2008
Soaring commodity costs are denting manufacturing activity in Asia and Europe and the outlook looks bleak as new orders drop off in the face of rising prices, surveys showed on Tuesday.
Manufacturing activity in the euro zone contracted in June for the first time in three years while business confidence in Asia’s largest export markets is buckling and output has likely contracted further in the United States.
Purchasing managers indices showed manufacturing activity in the euro zone fell to 49.2 in June, China saw its index fall to a near three-year low of 52.0 while in Britain it contracted at its sharpest rate since December 2001.
Recent News:
http://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/unte..orge-Soros-We/625954.html
Shares tumble as global bear market takes grip
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4272493.ece
Fed Official Admits Inflation Figures Are Cooked
http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0332437420080703
U.S. auto sales hit 15-year low
http://www.reuters.com/article/busi..nessNews&rpc=23&sp=true
China should be alert to stagflation risks in fighting inflation
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6442614.html
Gas Prices Threaten To Shut Down Rural Towns
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-01-small-town-gas_N.htm
Forclosures will rise no matter who is elected president
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20..OhaMLLr1MN3fQC6hph24cA
L.A., Miami Home Foreclosure Rates More Than Double
http://www.bloomberg.co..=aYchgMdpnpC8&refer=worldwide
U.S. food prices up 8.5 percent from last year
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0236099120080702
US banks lose ’fifth’ of their value
http://www.bloomberg.com/app..BH2KL5bScow&refer=europe
American Airlines to cut 8% of staff
U.S. Economy Loses Jobs For 6th Straight Month
Angry Consumers Flooding Fed With Complaints
Filed under: Big Banks, Britain, central bank, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Europe, Federal Reserve, food crisis, food market, food prices, food shortage, gas prices, george soros, Germany, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, Inflation, interest rate cuts, london, michigan, Oil, paris, Petrol, Protest, rate cut, ration, real estate, riot, Stock Market, UN, United Kingdom, US Economy
Fed Auctions Another $75 Billion to Big Banks
AP
June 3, 2008
Battling to relieve stressed credit markets, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday it has provided a total of $435 billion in short-term loans to squeezed banks since December to help them overcome credit problems.
The central bank announced the results of its most recent auction — $75 billion in short-term loans — the 11th such auction since the program started in December.
It’s part of an ongoing effort by the Fed to help ease the credit crunch, which erupted last August, intensified in December and January and took another turn for the worst in March.
The housing, credit and financial crises have weakened the economy and threaten to push it into recession.
Fuel Protests In Paris and London
CNN
June 3, 2008
Truckers and taxi drivers slowed traffic around Paris’ business district to a crawl Tuesday in a protest over rising fuel prices, and hundreds of fishermen demonstrated in London to demand government help.
Dozens of trucks and taxis in Paris drove slowly toward and around the headquarters of oil giant Total in La Defense, site of the main financial district, to protest a new tax on heavily polluting vehicles.
Authorities said the operation snarled traffic on several highways.
Farmers elsewhere in France blocked ports and oil terminals as part of protests started by fishermen last month demanding government aid to help compensate for high fuel costs.
Fishermen from around the United Kingdom demonstrated in central London on Tuesday to demand their government’s help in coping with soaring fuel prices.
Hundreds of fishermen gathered outside the London headquarters of the department responsible for food, seeking financial support for an industry they say is especially vulnerable to rising fuel costs.
Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations, said the cost of fuel for fishing boats was making it impossible for many in the industry to keep going.
“Boats are going out to sea and fish for five days in terrible conditions and we’re not getting enough to even pay our crews,” he said.
Recent News:
http://depression2.tv/d2/node/118
Rationing at UK supermarkets as world prices soar 70 per cent
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne..world-prices-soar-70-cent.html
$75 Credit Card Limit At Pumps Causes Anger
http://www.usatoday.com/money/i..dollar-limit_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
UN To Meet On Food Price Crisis
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080..O9baHV0rJPOROrgF
George Soros: ’We face the most serious recession of our lifetime’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/ma..=/money/2008/05/26/ccsoros126.xml
German shops running out of milk
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7435613.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/..S-agents-try-to-beat-property-slump.html
U.S. Bank Failures Loom
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default..05..8story_28-5-2008_pg5_26
U.S. Has $99.2 Trillion In Unfunded Liabilities
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=9581
U.S. Record $4 Gasoline Remains a Bargain in Europe
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?..ive&sid=aB9b2rPXKVBY
US attacked at food summit over biofuels
Oil will fall to $60 a barrel, says BDT manager
US home prices drop at sharpest rate in 20 years in 1st quarter
Greenspan says recession still likely in U.S.: report
Big Banks Use Astrology To Play Markets
Weimar Inflation In America
Blair Used Taxes To Build Real Estate Empire
Filed under: alaska, BP, brazil, central bank, CFR, chevron, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Euro, exxon mobil, famine, food market, food prices, food shortage, gas prices, GDP, george soros, global elite, global government, Global Warming, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, Hoax, Inflation, Iraq, Kurdish, lindsay williams, Lindsey Williams, Mexico, middle east, MSNBC, nation building, New World Order, occupation, Oil, OPEC, peak oil, Petrol, Stock Market, US Economy, War On Terror, Warren Buffett | Tags: robert hirsch
Experts Push “Peak Oil” Scam to Predict $15 a Gallon Gas Prices
Infowars
May 26, 2008
Editor’s Note: The following video is a prime example of hysterical “Peak Oil” scaremongering. In fact, there is no shortage of oil — the reserves are increasing, not decreasing. Consider the following examples: In 2006, Chevron announced a huge oil discovery in the the Lower Tertiary zone of the Gulf of Mexico, described as “one of the nation’s biggest oil discoveries in decades,” and Brazil discovered giant new offshore oil fields in 2005 (expected to produce 773 million barrels of oil by 2025). Add to this BP’s discovery of new oil fields near the Shetland Islands, recent discoveries in the Timor Sea, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya, offshore Trinidad, in Pakistan, Angola, in the Ordovician Red River Strata of southeastern Saskatchewan, and elsewhere. Earlier this month, the Kurds of northern Iraq announced a major oil find, estimated at about 2 billion barrels. In the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil alone.
Add to this an “intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates,” writes Chris Bennett (see Lindsey Williams interview below). “Deeply entrenched in our culture is the belief that at some point in the relatively near future we will see the last working pump on the last functioning oil well screech and rattle, and that will be that. The end of the Age of Oil. And unless we find another source of cheap energy, the world will rapidly become a much darker and dangerous place.” It is a meticulously nurtured myth.
Peak Oil takes a page from publicly available CFR and Club of Rome strategy manuals that say global government needs to control the world population through neo-feudalism by creating artificial scarcity that will result in massive social unrest, widespread famine, and endless war. $15 a gallon gas will most certainly help this agenda along.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7IJEEIBwrE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80XMKbnHuEs
From David Edwards and Raw Story, May 24:
Robert Hirsch, senior advisor for Science Applications International Corporation, sat down with MSNBC’s Alex Witt to discuss the possibility of an upcoming oil crisis. Hirsch says that gas could reach $15/gallon within a few years because it is “essentially certain” the world has reached the maximum levels of oil production.
“The problem is that there’s not that much oil left in the ground,” Hirsch says. “What we’ve done is been very fortunate to have oil production increase as our economies have developed over the past decades. And now we’re reaching a point where we’re about to get, or we may be, at the maximum world oil production. After that, oil production will then decline and prices, of course, will continue to do what they’ve been doing recently. So what we’ve got today may be the ‘good old days.’”
Hirsch addressed the timeframe in which the US could see $15/gallon gas: “It could happen within a matter of months. It could happen within a matter of a few years. But it’s essentially certain that we are at the maximum of world oil production. And after that, we’ll go into decline, and when there’s much less oil available, then, of course, the price of oil is going to increase dramatically.”
Fuels, heating oil, and consumer products that rely on petroleum will all be impacted by the decline in world oil production. Hirsch estimates the world GDP declining at the same rate as oil production.
Oil Expert: By Summer, Oil To Hit $200 Per Barrel
This is reality, energy is in the hands of profiteers and has lost touch with the real expenses. There is no logic here, says Davor Stern.
Javno
May 23, 2008
Oil prices have once again crashed through the ceiling with a record price of 135 dollars per barrel because of the concerning fall in American reserves of crude oil with 5.32 million barrels. The fact is that this is only a continuation of the crisis; food is getting more and more expensive, petrol and diesel are rising in price every other week in Croatia (as well as in many countries around the world), and there is no end in sight to the price hikes.
This is reality, energy is in the hands of profiteers and has lost touch with the real expenses. There is no logic here – Davor Stern told us in a telephone conversation. Davor is the former director of Croatia’s largest oil company INA, as well as an oil expert.
Record earnings by oil companies
He added that oil companies earn a lot. Igor Dekanic from the faculty of mining, geology and oil, said that European oil companies are breaking the borders of profitability.
– The largest companies like IBP, Shell, Exxon, the French Total and the Italian Enia have the largest profits in history. That is a general trend with privatized companies in the world – says professor Dekanic.
Stern stresses that the market itself has some sort of logic, however, the current situation is in a state of psychosis.
– By summer we can expect oil prices of 200 dollars per barrel, and that is not the opinion of the trade, but my own prediction. It is impossible to give any projections of the prices, but one thing is certain, the sky is the limit – says Stern.
Recent News:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/busi..y/23/oil.commodities1
Gold Hits Over $930, Oil $135, Euro $1.57
http://www.reuters.com/article..er=2&virtualBrandChannel=10005
OPEC: Oil market is going ’crazy’
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=56937§ionid=3510213
Buffett blames banks for credit crisis
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSL2561340920080525
It’s Not An Oil Crisis It’s A Dollar Crisis
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/schiff/schiff052308.html
Alaska Drilling Would Only Save 75 Cents Per Barrel
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/38223.html
Buffett Sees Deep U.S. Recession
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200805..oENIM35QA3Eqb.HQA
Food prices high for foreseeable future, says UN
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/23/unitednations.food
George Soros: rocketing oil price is a bubble
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/ma..2008/05/26/cnsoros126.xml
Global Warming Bill Could Spike Gas $1.50 to $5 a Gallon
http://www.businessandmedia…/20080515172437.aspx
Economist Challenges Government Data
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/25/BU6K10JTEF.DTL
Gas Prices Could Top $5 A Gallon In Bad Economy
http://cbs2chicago.com/consumer/gas.prices.oil.2.719683.html
Gas Could Go To $10
http://www2.nysun.com/article/75363
Euro, Franc, Krona to Benefit From Oil Price, Barclays Says
Economy Slows To A Crawl
Government Green Lights Gulf Dollar Abandonment
Federal Reserve May Want Inflation
Fed Cuts Key Interest Rate By A Quarter Point
U.S. Economic Collapse News Archive
Filed under: Alan Greenspan, central bank, Chicago, China, citigroup, Credit Crisis, DEBT, dollar peg, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Euro, Federal Reserve, gas prices, george soros, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, henry paulson, imf, Inflation, Oil, Paulson, Petrol, platinum, silver, south africa, Stock Market, UAE, US Economy, washington mutual
Gold hits highs of $940, Current Price is $924
IBT Times
April 11, 2008
Gold pushed as high as $940 just before the open of the New York session on Thursday, then fell off until the noon hour, but then reversed field once again, moving higher to finish at $929.40/oz., down $4.60. Overnight, gold has edged lower.
Platinum was higher in the European markets, but declined in New York, to end at $2026/oz., unchanged. Overnight, platinum has slipped lower.
Silver peaked at $18.40 in early London trading, fell off until mid-morning in New York, then traded sideways for the rest of the day, closing at $17.95, down 22 cents. Overnight, silver has been flat.
It was a mixed day for the precious metals, with early weakness giving way to a spate of buying later in the day, and no major changes by the end.
Oil Prices Above $112 As Supplies Fall, Current Price $110
AP
April 9, 2008
The price of oil has surged to a new record, with a barrel a crude trading above $112 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
A government report that oil and fuel supplies were lower than expected last week gave crude a push past its latest milestone. But months of buying by speculators and by investors seeking refuge from a falling dollar have also lifted oil to its new heights.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery has traded as high as $112.16, surpassing the previous trading record of $111.80 set ast month.
US Dollar Hits New Record Low Against Euro
RTT
April 10, 2008
The US dollar declined against its major counterparts in early deals on Thursday, hitting a fresh record low against the euro. Against its other major counterparts, the dollar weakened to new multi-day low during this time period.
The US trade balance, initial jobless and continuing claims are the major economic events slated for release later in New York morning.
The US dollar plummeted to new record low of 1.5915 against the euro at about 5:10 am ET Thursday, compared to yesterday’s closing value of 1.5832.
The dollar may face $1.65 against the euro by October
Bloomberg
April 7, 2008
Optimism for a dollar rebound that pervaded the currency market at the start of the year is fading.
Futures traders doubled bets against the greenback in the past two months, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington show. Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, which handle almost 40 percent of global foreign exchange trading, say the currency may slump to $1.65 per euro by October.
Recent News:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWBT00874120080410
Fed: Severe Downturn Possible
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRS00005820080409?sp=true
South Africa: Analysts Say Gold Can Top $1000 Again
http://allafrica.com/stories/200804100124.html
Greenspan: I have no regrets on Federal Reserve’s past policies
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080408/bs_nm/usa_economy_greenspan_dc
The Great Chinese Crash of 2008
http://www.fool.com/investing/in..reat-chinese-crash-of-2008.aspx
Soros: USD Won’t Be World’s Reserve Currency
http://www.nytimes.com/2008..Y&pagewanted=print
Soros sounds the alarm again on world economy
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/11/business/11soros.php
Federal Credit Cards Misused
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy../ST2008040803504.html
U.S. Economy: Consumer Sentiment Drops to 26-Year Low
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/n..=af8M_eEjb_QY&refer=home
Gas, Diesel Prices Hit New Records
http://www.bloomberg.com..087&sid=af8M_eEjb_QY&refer=home
Gas Tops $4 In Chicago
http://cbs2chicago.com/consumer/gas.prices.milestone.2.697232.html
G24: IMF Regulatory Failures Caused Crisis
http://news.yahoo.com/s..bNmbqT52QemoOrgF
Official: UAE to maintain dollar-peg policy
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/08/content_7940355.htm
WaMu gets $7 billion infusion, cuts jobs, sees big loss
IMF: Mortgage Crisis May Cost $945 Billion
Dollar Falls Against Euro, Heads for Weekly Decline, Before G-7
US Fed prepares to replenish war chest
US trade deficit jumps despite weak dollar
Pound falls to 80p against the euro
IMF Says U.S. Crisis Biggest Since 1930s
IMF: Global Intervention Needed On Credit Crisis
Current crisis is worst since Great Depression: Soros
Soros Predicts End Of Easy Borrowing
Govt Expects Gas To Hit $4
Filed under: amazon, biofuels, BP, brazil, carlyle group, ethanol, famine, food crisis, food market, food prices, gas prices, GE, George Bush, george soros, health and environment, malthusian catastrophe, Mexico, Oil, Pakistan, Petrol, shell, UN, washington, wheat | Tags: corn, grain, grasslands, malaysia, rain forest, rainforest, soybean, wetlands
Destroying the Amazon Rainforest to Fight Global Warming
Biofuel industry to destroy valuble wetlands, grasslands and forests to cash-in on the global warming trend
Time
March 30, 2008
From his Cessna a mile above the southern Amazon, John Carter looks down on the destruction of the world’s greatest ecological jewel. He watches men converting rain forest into cattle pastures and soybean fields with bulldozers and chains. He sees fires wiping out such gigantic swaths of jungle that scientists now debate the “savannization” of the Amazon. Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texas cowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, says it’s going to get worse fast. “It gives me goose bumps,” says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier. “It’s like witnessing a rape.”
The Amazon was the chic eco-cause of the 1990s, revered as an incomparable storehouse of biodiversity. It’s been overshadowed lately by global warming, but the Amazon rain forest happens also to be an incomparable storehouse of carbon, the very carbon that heats up the planet when it’s released into the atmosphere. Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions, and most of its emissions come from deforestation. Carter is not a man who gets easily spooked–he led a reconnaissance unit in Desert Storm, and I watched him grab a small anaconda with his bare hands in Brazil–but he can sound downright panicky about the future of the forest. “You can’t protect it. There’s too much money to be made tearing it down,” he says. “Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work.”
This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels. An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate.
Propelled by mounting anxieties over soaring oil costs and climate change, biofuels have become the vanguard of the green-tech revolution, the trendy way for politicians and corporations to show they’re serious about finding alternative sources of energy and in the process slowing global warming. The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group. Renewable fuels has become one of those motherhood-and-apple-pie catchphrases, as unobjectionable as the troops or the middle class.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
Biofuels do slightly reduce dependence on imported oil, and the ethanol boom has created rural jobs while enriching some farmers and agribusinesses. But the basic problem with most biofuels is amazingly simple, given that researchers have ignored it until now: using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon.
Backed by billions in investment capital, this alarming phenomenon is replicating itself around the world. Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that its ranking among the world’s top carbon emitters has surged from 21st to third according to a report by Wetlands International. Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidly that it’s running out of uncultivated land. But most of the damage created by biofuels will be less direct and less obvious. In Brazil, for instance, only a tiny portion of the Amazon is being torn down to grow the sugarcane that fuels most Brazilian cars. More deforestation results from a chain reaction so vast it’s subtle: U.S. farmers are selling one-fifth of their corn to ethanol production, so U.S. soybean farmers are switching to corn, so Brazilian soybean farmers are expanding into cattle pastures, so Brazilian cattlemen are displaced to the Amazon. It’s the remorseless economics of commodities markets. “The price of soybeans goes up,” laments Sandro Menezes, a biologist with Conservation International in Brazil, “and the forest comes down.”
Deforestation accounts for 20% of all current carbon emissions. So unless the world can eliminate emissions from all other sources–cars, power plants, factories, even flatulent cows–it needs to reduce deforestation or risk an environmental catastrophe. That means limiting the expansion of agriculture, a daunting task as the world’s population keeps expanding. And saving forests is probably an impossibility so long as vast expanses of cropland are used to grow modest amounts of fuel. The biofuels boom, in short, is one that could haunt the planet for generations–and it’s only getting started.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/01/biofuels.energy
Analyst Predicts Corn Rationing In 2008
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5662307.html
Filed under: Britain, central bank, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Europe, european union, Federal Reserve, george soros, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, interest rate cuts, morgan stanley, rate cut, Stock Market, United Kingdom, US Economy, US Treasury
Soros: Central Banks Have Lost Control
Reuters
January 23, 2008
Business leaders rattled by a slump in global markets appealed to the U.S. and other central banks on Wednesday to get a grip on the global economy and some accused them of losing their nerve.
With share prices tumbling again despite an emergency U.S. interest rate cut on Tuesday to counter fears of recession, top executives expressed alarm as they gathered for an annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos.
“Central banks have lost control,” said financier George Soros, echoing the concerns of many of the more than 2,000 business and political leaders arriving in the snow-clad mountain town for the World Economic Forum meeting.
In a debate on the U.S. economy, 59 percent of participants agreed with a motion that central bankers had lost control.
Officials from Washington tried to counter the gloom.
“The U.S. economy has sound economic fundamentals,” David McCormick, U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, said, challenging the view of many around him that a U.S. recession was inevitable.
“While we continue to believe the U.S. economy will grow, it will grow at a slower pace and there is no doubt downside risks have increased,” he said.
But many executives said the surprise decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday to cut interest rates by 75 basis points looked like a panic move.
“I’m sort of worried that all they did yesterday was to hit the snooze button. (This is) excessive monetary accommodation that just takes us from bubble to bubble to bubble,” said Stephen Roach, Asia head of U.S. bank Morgan Stanley.
Lawrence Summers, a former U.S. treasury chief, was critical too: “It’s hard to give a high grade (to central banks) for what’s happened in the last six months.”
Soros: End Of Dollar Reserve
IHT
January 24, 2008
The United States has filled various roles at the World Economic Forum over the past decade: dot-com dynamo, benevolent superpower, feared aggressor, and now, wounded giant.
On the first day of this conference, a parade of bankers, economists, and political officials expressed deep fears about the faltering American economy, peppered with blunt criticism of its institutions, chiefly the Federal Reserve, which some accused of sowing the seeds of today’s crisis.
George Soros, the financier who made a fortune betting against the pound, went so far Wednesday as to say that the downturn would put an end to the long status of the dollar as the world’s default currency.
“The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom,” Soros said. “It’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/mon..08/01/23/bcndollar123.xml
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/..&in_page_id=1770
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/pe..st-recession-for-50-years,13683
Filed under: Alex Jones, bernanke, Big Banks, Britain, central bank, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Europe, european union, Federal Reserve, George Bush, george soros, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, India, Inflation, interest rate cut, interest rate cuts, job market, offshoring, Paul Craig Roberts, pound, rate cut, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street, WW2
Top Economist Warns Of “Serious Breakdown” In World Financial System
Father of Reaganomics warns that massive interest rate cut could undermine dollar’s status as world reserve currency
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
January 22, 2008
Father of Reaganomics and former editor of the Wall Street Journal Paul Craig Roberts today warned that the Fed’s shock 75 basis points interest rate cut would only succeed in putting average families through the ringer and could even portend the collapse of the dollar as the world reserve currency.
Speaking on The Alex Jones Show, Roberts said that average hard working families, and not money casino cowboy shareholders, would be the biggest victims of the latest downturn as a recession looms on the back of the surprise rate cut.
“The more important thing is the hardship for the average American family – many of them have not had any real increase in their income for years and they’ve lost jobs to offshoring, they’ve lost jobs to work visas for foreigners and now they’re confronted with losing jobs to recession,” said Roberts.
“They also are heavily indebted and have used up their home equity in consumption and many of them now have mortgages that threaten them with being homeless and so I think the worst part of this will not be felt by Wall Street and banks and shareholders but by the average American family – I think they’re now going to go through the ringer,” he concluded.
Roberts speculated on the impact that today’s rate cut would have on the dollar, further undermining its position as the world reserve currency.
“It is true that in the long run the decline of the dollar could cause it to lose its reserve currency role and if another currency has a rythm to take its place, it would be very hard to conduct international trade on the basis that it is now where you have a reserve currency that one accepts in payment,” said Roberts, adding that the massive interest rate cut today only signalled more inflation despite the tax rebate.
Roberts said that he expected the economic decline to be slow and gradual, but that it was inevitable that the living standards of Americans would drop, similar to when the pound lost 80 per cent of its value during the two world wars and lost its status as a world reserve currency.
Roberts said that the only solution to the current crisis was to cut the current defense budget in half and halt the offshoring of jobs by U.S. corporations.
“If they can’t do anything about that the world is going to conclude that the dollar is not going to be the reserve currency forever and they’ll start getting out from under it in larger ways and then that pressure on the dollar will mount and become stronger and it will completely cancel the ability to do anything about the domestic economy – whether it’s in recession or depression,” said Roberts, adding that a “real serious breakdown,” the likes of which have not been witnessed so far, will occur if these issues are not addressed.
Roberts said that it was difficult for ordinary people to diversify and find a safe haven because if they bought gold they would become a target for government theft just as happened in 1933.
Roberts added that a total breakdown of the global economy would take place, “If the destruction of the dollar’s role as world reserve currency continues and there’s not a clear alternative that arrives to take its place,” warning that it was the biggest danger and there would be “no way to survive” its impact.
Soros Predicts Worst Recession In 50 Years
First Post
January 22, 2008
Amid collapsing stock prices worldwide, the billionaire investor George Soros has told an Austrian daily, the Standard, that the United States is threatened with recession and the world is facing the worst financial crisis in half a century. “The situation is much more serious than any other financial crisis since the end of World War II,” Soros was quoted as saying.
He said over the past few years politics had been guided by some basic misunderstandings stemming from something that he called “market fundamentalism” – the belief that financial markets tended to act as a balance. “This is the wrong idea,” he said. “We really do have a serious financial crisis now.”
He added he was surprised how little it was understood that a US recession was also a threat to Europe. European shares duly fell nearly six per cent on Monday, their biggest one-day slide since 9/11.
Meanwhile in Mumbai, some market analysts are suggesting Soros shorted the Indian markets last week. Over 15 years after he shorted the British pound in September 1992 and earned one billion dollars, local market sources say one of Soros’s funds may have shorted the Nifty last week.
Filed under: Alan Greenspan, Credit Crisis, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Euro, Fox News, george soros, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, Propaganda, Stock Market, US Economy
Fox News – Dollar inflation is good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MgngVbrAXQ
Filed under: Alan Greenspan, Australia, canadian dollar, canadian economy, China, citigroup, Credit Crisis, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Euro, Federal Reserve, gas prices, George Bush, george soros, global economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, loonie, Oil, Petrol, Stock Market, subprime, subprime lending, US Economy
Gold hits fresh peaks near $850, Oil hits $98 a barrel
Forbes
November 7, 2007
LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Gold raced to a series of fresh 28-year highs and is currently just 1 pct below its historic peak as the dollar sank against major currencies and record oil prices stoked inflation jitters.
The precious metal moves in the opposite direction to the dollar as gold is seen as an alternative asset and moves in line with high oil prices as investors hedge against energy-led inflation.
The weak dollar, which hit yet another low against the euro this morning, spurred buying as it made commodities denominated in the greenback cheaper for those trading in other currencies.
At 10.16 am, spot gold was trading at 839.38 usd an ounce, against 821.30 usd in late New York trade yesterday, having earlier hit 845.58 usd, its fresh peak in almost 30 years.
Analysts are now calling for the metal to hit and even surpass 850 usd, the all time high set in January 1980.
‘With this weaker dollar we will see it (gold) push through 850 usd and even 860 usd today,’ said Ben Coleman, commodities trader at Trade Index. ‘Currency is having a big call on what’s going on with gold, oil and metals,’ he said.
Meanwhile, risk aversion in the equity markets, as fears the US subprime debacle will mean slower growth going ahead, sparked a rush towards safer assets like gold.
‘As long as the financial markets remain fragile and investors risk averse, gold prices will be a beneficiary in our view,’ said HSBC (nyse: HBC – news – people ) analyst James Steel.
Looking ahead, oil is expected to top 100 usd a barrel in the very near future. Today, markets will see if US crude stocks are shown to have fallen last week, as expected, in a weekly report due out at 3.30 pm London time.
New York’s WTI benchmark hit a record of 98.43 usd a barrel this morning, sparking already intense fears inflation is going to impact markets.
‘The flood of speculative cash pouring into oil has resulted in a breach of 100 usd a barrel very much on the cards for today,’ said Bank of Ireland (nyse: IRE – news – people ) analyst, Paul Harris (nyse: HRS – news – people ).
Gold has gained over 30 pct since January, oil’s price has almost doubled and the dollar has lost over 10 pct of its value against the euro since the start of this year.
With the yellow metal near its all time record, not many participants are calling a price top.
‘If we see a sell-off it will be aggressive,’ said Coleman at Trade Index. ‘(But) levels here mean it’s hard to pick a top.’
Elsewhere, other precious metals surged, following in gold’s footsteps and as they garnered strength from the dollar’s weakness.
Silver is now comfortably over 15 usd, previously seen as key resistance level, platinum hit a record high and palladium hit its highest price since April.
Silver was trading at 15.86 usd an ounce against 15.32 usd in New York yesterday, having hit 16.18 usd — its highest price since April last year.
Platinum was steady at 1,471 usd an ounce from 1,472 usd, having earlier set a historic peak at 1489.50 usd. Palladium rose to 376 usd from 375 usd, after striking its highest price of the year of 384.50 usd.
Dollar Slumps to Record on China’s Plans to Diversify Reserves
Bloomberg
November 7, 2007
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — The dollar fell the most since September against the currencies of its six biggest trading partners after Chinese officials signaled plans to diversify the nation’s $1.43 trillion of foreign exchange reserves.
The dollar fell against all 16 of the most-active currencies, declining to the weakest versus the Canadian dollar since the end of a fixed exchange rate in 1950, a 26-year low against the pound and a 23-year low versus the Australian dollar. The New York Board of Trade’s dollar index dropped to 75.21 today, the lowest since the gauge started in March 1973.
“Further weakening of the dollar is very likely,” said Teis Knuthsen, the Copenhagen-based head of foreign-exchange, fixed-income and derivative research at Danske Bank A/S, the Nordic region’s second-biggest lender. China may “diversify out of dollar holdings.”
The U.S. currency slumped to $1.4704 per euro, the lowest since the 13-nation currency debuted in January 1999, before trading at $1.4671 as of 7:15 a.m. in New York, from $1.4557 late yesterday. The dollar dropped the most in two months against the yen, trading as low as 112.87 yen. The euro fell against the yen to 165.84, from 166.99 yesterday.
The U.S. dollar index may be due for a reversal, according to a technical indicator. Its 14-day relative-strength measure fell to 21.38 today, below the 30 mark, which may signal the currency’s decline has bottomed out.
In technical analysis, investors and analysts study charts of trading patterns and prices to forecast changes in a security, commodity, currency or index.
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