Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Yuck.

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/global-economy-sketch-little-faith-no-hope-and-not-a-lot-of-charity-on-the-global-economic-front/

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/global-economy-sketch-little-faith-no-hope-and-not-a-lot-of-charity-on-the-global-economic-front/

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/no-turkeys-here/

System problems.

System problems?

Avgfree does very well with Microsoft. 

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/nooks-specs-are-exaggerated-again/#more-4895

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/us/politics/behind-deficit-panels-failure-a-surprise.html?hp

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/austrian-economics-
the-real-kind/

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-world-crumbles-ecb-spins-fed-smirks-and-us-banks-pillage
Zero Hedge believes in gold as money.  That is nuts.


"Greek banks bought US-minted AAA assets and leveraged them. Norway did too (through the course of working on a Norwegian documentary, I discovered that 8 tiny towns in Norway bought $200 million of junk assets from Citigroup, borrowed money from local banks to pay for them, and pledged 10 years of power receipts from hydroelectric plants in return. The AAA assets are now worth zero, the power has been curtailed for residents, and the Norwegian banks want their money back--blood from a stone.) The same kind of thing happend in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Holland, France, and even Germany - in different degrees and with specific national issues mixed in.  Problem is - when you’ve already used worthless collateral to borrow tons of money you won’t ever be able to repay, and international capital slams you in other ways, and your funding costs rise, and your internal development and lending cease up, you’re screwed - or rather the people in your country are screwed.
In the IMF paper, the authors convincingly make the case that it wasn’t just the US subprime asset meltdown itself that initiated Europe’s implosion, but the fact that our Federal Reserve and Treasury Department adopted a reckless don't-let-em-fail doctrine. Even though Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers failed, their investors, the huge ones anyway, were protected. The Fed subsidized, and still subsidizes, $29 billion of risk for JPM Chase's acquisition of Bear. The philosophy of saving banks and their practices poisoned Europe, as those same financial firms played euro-roulette in the global derivatives markets, once the subprime betting train slowed down.
The first fatal stop of the US bailout mentaility was the ECB’s 2010 bailout of Anglo Irish bank, which got the lion’s share of the ECB's Irish-bailout: $51 billion euro of ELA (Emergency Loan Assistance) and $100 billion euro of regular lending at the time. 
After the international financial community saw the pace and volume of Irish bank bailouts, the game of euro-roulette went turbo, country by country.  More 'fiscally conservative' governments are replacing any semblance of population-supportive ones. The practice of  extracting ‘fiscal prudency’ from people and providing bank subsidies for bets gone wrong has infected all of Europe. It will continue to do so, because anything less will threathen the entire Euro experiement, plus otherwise, the US banks might be on the hook again for losses, and the Fed and Treasury won’t let that happen. They’ve already demonstrated that. It'd be just sooo catastrophic."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8905428/French-and-German-eurozone-woes-rock-markets.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15582433
Debts that cannot be paid will not be paid.  The lenders, the bond holders here, suffer the loss.  Greece will exit the euro very soon.

I have no idea what is happening in Europe.  Obama may have won the destruction of the Republican party. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15824492    ?????

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/world/middleeast/iran-stays-away-from-nuclear-talks.html?ref=world

"United States and Its Allies Expand Sanctions on Iran"

"WASHINGTON — Major Western powers took significant steps on Monday to cut Iran off from the international financial system, announcing coordinated sanctions aimed at its central bank and commercial banks. The measures, a response to a recent United Nations report warning about Iran’s nuclear activities, tighten the vise on Iran but still fall short of a blanket cutoff."

War?   Hillary knows better.  It would explode Indonesia. Arabia must be in terrible trouble.  Marines to Australia.  Myanmar nervous and looking east.

http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=philippines

"Reaffirming Military Ties to the U.S.
During a high-profile visit to the Philippines in November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stood on the deck of a American warship in Manila Bay and reaffirmed the strong military relationship between the United States and the Philippines.
The visit came at a time of heightening tensions in the South China Sea related to the oil-rich Spratly Islands, which are the subject of disputed claims by China, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations. By some estimates, the energy reserves in the areas being disputed by the various countries could rival those of Kuwait.
Following its independence in 1946, the Philippines signed agreements that allowed American military bases to operate in the country. Large American Air Force and Navy bases were closed in the early 1990s after contentious debate in the Philippine Senate, but the 1952 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty — upon which the military relationship is based — has remained intact.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, American military involvement in the Philippines focused on Islamic extremist groups operating in the southern part of the country. In recent years, broader defense coordination has taken place, including American assistance for the outdated naval forces of the Philippines.
The United States currently has no military bases in the Philippines, though visits by American Navy ships and joint drills are common. In October, the United States and the Philippines conducted war games on the island of Palawan, 50 miles from the disputed area with China."

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