Dear (American Citizens),
Across the country and around the world, people are taking the future into their own hands: they're taking to the streets and saying “enough!” to the status quo. We're here to present an inspiring alternative – and engage Americans in bringing a thriving future to life.
From Palo Alto, CA to Philadelphia, PA, from New York City to cities nationwide, Transitioners have joined Occupy protests. They are leading story-telling and visioning groups, providing information about Transition to protesters, and standing together in solidarity. They are stepping up where this phenomenal change is most visible and providing pathways and next steps for a truly resilient, thriving future.
Will you make a donation now to help Transition US do everything possible to foster change at this historic moment? Your generous contribution will help us build a solid foundation for the world we want to see.
Now is a great time to help – and help us keep the momentum going. Since Transition US was founded just three years ago, 103 Transition Communities have formed -- on islands like Vashon, in Washington State; in boroughs like Media, Pennsylvania; and in cities like Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
There are 54 million Americans who now live in a population center with an active Transition Initiative! Add to that the growing numbers of Americans who live in areas where Transition Initiatives are in formation. Now that’s significant!
This year Transition US is taking a bold step: we're seeking to raise $100,000 by the end of the year, to give this burgeoning movement a big boost at a critical time. Will you make a financial contribution now to support our work, and the work of Transition Communities across the country?
Your help will roll-out inspiring efforts like our new Transition Streets project, where we'll take Transition to clusters of households and improve energy efficiency, reduce transportation miles, increase the quantity of food consumed and grown locally, save water and reduce waste.
Your support will develop advanced training for community leaders and enable them to grow and deepen their Transition efforts locally.
And your contribution will help us develop robust models for Energy Descent Action Planning: concrete road maps communities across America will use to create a thriving, post-carbon future.
Help us strengthen the power and creative genius of people and communities to make the shift to a thriving, sustainable society. Help us get the Transition Movement into more hearts and hands by making a contribution today.
We've opened the door. Let's bring America through.
Sincerely,
Carolyne, Carl, and the TUS Team
PS – Help us ensure a flourishing future for our children and for generations to come. Thanks for your good work!
Your Donation: All contributions to Transition US are tax deductible. It saves us time, paper and money when you donate by credit card over our secure server. If you can't contribute on-line, please mail a check made out to Transition US to:
Transition US
PO Box 917
Sebastopol, CA
95473
Photo Credits: Occupy Wall Street Wendy Annibellvia & Revive The Roots in Smithfield, RI
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Why BEARS Are Concerned About The Eurozone Crisis #celente #MikeRuppert #zerohedge
The numbers are scary and the fringe media is making mainstream slowly but surely, which means their dire predictions about currency and trade wars is REAL. Contagion is inevitable.
Amplify’d from advisorperspectives.com
Note from dshort: During the summer I posted a set of charts illustrating the dramatic market behavior during the Panic of 1907 and the Financial Crisis of 2008. A century separated these two momentous market episodes, and the underlying causes were quite different. However, the overall volatility and general patterns of decline and rally are remarkably similar. In response to a request, I've updated the charts through October 28.
The first chart is a nominal view of the two periods showing the percentage declines over time from their peaks in 1906 and 2007.
Now let's adjust for inflation, which had a significant impact on the earlier period. During the first half of the 20th century, episodes of high inflation and deflation were commonplace. See this chart for an illustration of those early inflationary/deflationary cycles.
Was the 1907 low the historic bottom for the Dow? Unfortunately, no. The secular bottom occurred nearly 15 years later — a year after Germany signed an armistice with the Allies to mark the official end of World War One.
Both periods involved a financial crisis. The pre-Federal Reserve 1907 Bankers' Panic was dampened by a bailout of the system by J. P. Morgan, who put up his own money, and persuaded other New York bankers to do likewise. The Federal Reserve has introduced a number of tactics to shore up the modern banking system. Naturally there are many differences between the two eras. But one inference we can make from the earlier period is that secular bear markets can last for very long periods of time.
Of course, investors had many opportunities to create wealth in the market over those eight decades. The bottom in 1921 was followed by the Roaring Twenties. And even during the Great Depression, dividends in the vicinity of 5% were coveted source of income. A few years after World War II, the secular bull market that began at mid-century would provide a sound opportunity for wealth creation.
Bottom line: Bear markets run their course and the Bull eventually returns. But history tells that, especially during those secular declines, patience and risk management are definite virtues.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1gdos
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
European Financial Crisis Claims First US Victim, Greek Trojan Horse Boomerang? MF Global Not TBTF
Jon Corzine is ex Goldman Sachs, who helped the Greeks hide all their debt in order to enter the Eurozone (trojan horse). Now the Eurozone exposure to MF Global is causing their collapse. The ripple effect should impact US financial services firms to the point of additional bankruptcies IF the US government doesn't BAILOUT any more TBTF.
Boomerang.
It turns out the American Achilles Heel is GREED and DEBT.
Amplify’d from www.forbes.com
MF Global Bankruptcy's Biggest Losers
Today MF Global became the first casualty of the European debt crisis leaving behind dozens of unpaid creditors.
Jon Corzine’s MF Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today after a tumultuous week that including the firm’s stock plunging 67%, record quarterly losses and revelations over the firm’s European debt exposure. MF Global said it had total assets of about $41 billion against liabilities of almost $39.7 billion.
In a filing with the Southern District of New York bankruptcy court the New York firm reveals 50 firms that are owed the largest amounts of money by MF Global. MF Global noted in it’s bankruptcy filing that it’s “unable to determine the precise number of holders of its debt securities” but that debt securities are held by more than 500 holders.
Many of the names on the list appear to be vendors and companies that provided services for MF Global. A global IT consultancy out of Fairfax, Virginia, Headstrong Services, is owed $3.9 billion.
JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank are the largest unsecured creditors on the list. JPM’s claims add up to about $1.2 billion while Deutsche Bank’s multiple claims reach roughly $1 billion. Both are listed as trustees for notes they’ve likely sold to investors so the amounts don’t reflect their own exposure to MF Global.
Meanwhile the firm’s largest shareholders are Fidelity’s asset management group Pyramis Global Advisors with roughly 14 million MF Global shares, or 8.4% of the firm’s common stock. That’s followed by Guardian Life Insurance Company’s 12.8 million shares and further down the list TIAA-CREF with 9.5 million shares.
Shareholders are typically at the bottom of the bankruptcy totem poll, and San Diego State University professor of finance Dr. Dan Seiver says they should expect recovery of “next to nothing.”
Here’s a complete list of shareholders who hold more than 5% of common stock as of September 30, 2011.
- Fidelity 13,917,938 shares 8.44% common stock
- RS Investments* 12,879,811 7.81%
- Fine Capital Partners 21,504,101 7.37%
- Cadian Capital Management 10,180,286 6.17%
- TIAA-CREFF 9,520,582 5.77%
- Piper Jaffray 9,132,597 5.54%
- Dimensional Fund Advisor 8,920,497 5.14%
- Rydex Security Global Investors 8, 456, 992 5.13%
*RS Investments is an independent subsidiary of Guardian Investor Services LLC (GIS). GIS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. A spokesperson for the company says shares in MF GLobal were actually held by RS Investments’ RS Partners Fund (RSPFX) and not Guardian Life, and adds that RS Partners Fund has since sold its entire position in MF Global and is no longer a shareholder.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g976
Senate Bill Proposes Selling Residency to Solve USA Housing Crisis #visabill
Yes, you read right. While the Congress, Banks, and the Federal Reserve have allowed an enormous asset bubble followed by a debt to be created right underneath our noses, two members of the Senate now propose selling residency to foreigners that invest over $500,000 in the US housing market.
Great, so all the Chinese manufacturing billionaires, Saudi oil Sheikhs, and Russian natural gas and oil tycoons can buy American assets and bailout the housing crisis. They are essentially proposing selling residency as well as our assets.
American homeowners that are underwater cannot negotiate with their banks unless they fall behind and destroy their credit. They continue to suffer while Congress sends tax dollars to banks via TARP bailouts and selling off to foreign investors that benefited from our failed energy and trade policies.
BRILLIANT!! Destined to Fail - America that is. WTF are these people thinking?
Amplify’d from www.finance-ol.com
U.S. immigration new bill: $ 500,000 purchase at least 3 years residence visa delivery
October 22nd, 2011
admin
money to buy a set.
Be spent 500,000 to buy a house residence visa
According to the U.S. “The Wall Street Journal,” 20 reported that two U.S. senators on Thursday to submit to Congress a new bill, to those who invest in the United States at least $ 500,000 foreigners to buy houses issue a temporary resident visa.
According to Utah Republican Senator Mike– Lee (Mike Lee) and New York Democratic Senator Charles – Schumer (Charles Schumer) motion filed in the United States at least $ 500,000 investment for foreigners to buy houses will be 3 residence visa, but in working through the normal procedure for obtaining a visa still not work in the U.S. before. They will be allowed to take any age of a spouse and children under the age of 18, but once they sold the purchased property, their right of abode also will be canceled.
This plan is that the two members of a broader immigration part of the program. They hope that this motion can help to absorb excess inventory through to boost the U.S. housing market downturn.
According to the American Association of Realtors (National Association of Realtors) data, as of the end of a 3, residential real estate sales in the United States about $ 82 billion from foreign buyers, compared with the previous year’s $ 66 billion increased significantly. The past purchase of foreigners in the United States, Canadians accounted for a quarter, China, Mexico, Britain and India buyers account for another quarter.
If the measuresmotion was passed by Congress, will be present to add U.S. visa program. Schumer said: “This is not a child to spend the federal government needs children can stimulate more ways.”
Reported that the U.S. has implemented a series of visa programs, including those in the United States to invest and create jobs, business visas for foreigners to attract foreign investment. New bill, if passed, will become an important supplement to the existing visa program.
The U.S. housing market suffered heavy losses in the financial crisis, and so far recovery is weak. Economic downturn, weak job market and household wealth for many Americans purchase prohibitive, resulting in an oversupply of housing market, housing prices continue to slump. The new bill is the hope to attract foreigners to buy property in the United States, to stimulate the real estate market recovery.
Recently, the United States, low prices have attracted a large number of foreign investors into the market. According to the U.S. National Association of Realtors statistics, one in 3 years as of today, foreign investors in the U.S. residential market, a total investment of about $ 82 billion, compared with an increase of about $ 16 billion.
Visas generally can not hold this job
The new visa if foreigners who enter the United States, except through the normal procedures to obtain regular work visa, or not in the United States. These people can bring a spouse and children under 18 years of age to enter the United States, but if you sell real estate in the United States, they will not be able to legally stay in the United States.
New residence visa will be independent of the current U.S. visa program to allow the applicant to wait for another visa without being expelled. New items will no visa quota restrictions.
According to the National Association of Realtors data, in the past one, Canadians accounted for a quarter of people buy a house overseas, and China, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Indians together accounted for a quarter.
New visa vision has won some supporters, including the famous investor Warren Buffett. Buffett has called this summer to encourage more “affluent immigrants” to the United States to buy a house.
Buffett 8 to accept the public broadcasting company reporter, said: “If the relaxation of immigration policies to allow 500,000 families enter the United States, and they must have significant net assets and everything, you will soon solve the problem.”
However, some industry sources questioned the relaxation of immigration policies. Realogy CEO Richard Smith said foreign home buyers buy a house in the United States without the “stimulus” measures, “many Americans are willing to buy a house, just need to fix the economy.”
However, some industry sources questioned the relaxation of immigration policies. Realogy CEO Richard Smith said foreign home buyers buy a house in the United States without the “stimulus” measures, “many Americans are willing to buy a house, just need to fix the economy.”
New visa measures envisaged in San Marino, California areas may be more targeted, because the region is increasingly favored by foreign people buy a house. Maggie Navarro said real estate agent to relax immigration policy may have an enormous impact, because many people buy from China is facing visa problems.
U.S. technology companies urged to relax immigration policy
1018, according to United States “newspaper” reported that the U.S. and multinational corporations to retain foreign high-tech talent to apply for visas the delays and difficulties encountered, and painful. They had abroad, rather than expansion of facilities and operations in the United States. That trend is to put pressure on President Barack Obama, forcing him to shelve comprehensive immigration reform policy – that would cause anger is a key risk Hispanic voters – perfect for engineers and computer programmers and other technical personnel to provide work permits and green card the system.
Company executives warned Obama: “I want high-tech immigration reform attached to the highly controversial comprehensive immigration reform, the United States can not stand.” Quoted Reuters news that General Electric (GE), Boeing (Boeing), DuPont (DuPont) and other companies, said, “given that the U.S. economy is facing challenges in the era of globalization, we need to rethink.” American Chamber of Commerce would like to take rapid action for skilled workers, because according to Obama also refused to Capitol Hill to solve without permit workers and border security requirements, will not soon reach an agreement.
General Chamber of Commerce and more promise repair (Thomas Donohue) said, “I’m not sure you can make such a large number of things we may need time to do one thing, which is one of the things done as soon as possible.”
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Michael Bloomberg) said that in order to retain foreign students in the United States caused by the U.S. visa application software, electronics, pharmaceutical and aerospace industry professionals on the “critical gap,” he said, frankly will reject these students outside of the door is what we have done the most stupid thing. We can not refuse to have skilled people, they are our country’s growth and success of the need. It is undermining our own economy the United States each paid 65,000 H-1B skilled workers visa, usually every one or two to run out of places are serious restrictions on foreign students and the selection of experts.
Although the United States each paid 100 million copies to permanent residence “green card” given to only 15% of skilled workers and their families, and these places have the nationality requirement, strictly limiting the power of talent in America.
Union leaders fear that the employment of foreign workers, said they would accept less than American wages. But supporters said the skilled migration, wage differentials were expanded. They say immigrants are generally create jobs, because they are likely to start a business than the United States twice, but also help them access to foreign export markets.
Obama foreign workers is likely to be handled carefully, because as part of his 2012 re-election, his greatest effort is to reduce U.S. unemployment.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g8d3
Monday, October 31, 2011
FDIC Commits Premeditated Suicide w/ New Coverages? $BAC #ows
I wonder if these changes coincidentally cover Bank of America's latest $75 TRILLION swap from the investment banking side to the depositor's side.
...All funds in a "non-interest-bearing transaction account" are insured in full by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from December 31, 2010, through December 31, 2012. This temporary unlimited coverage is in addition to, and separate from, the coverage of at least $250,000 available to depositors under the FDIC's general deposit insurance rules....
Temporary UNLIMITED coverage?
Amplify’d from www.chase.com
Enjoy greater peace of mind with FDIC insurance
on your Chase deposit accounts.
NOTICE OF CHANGES IN TEMPORARY FDIC INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR TRANSACTION ACCOUNTS
All funds in a "non-interest-bearing transaction account" are insured in full by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from December 31, 2010, through December 31, 2012. This temporary unlimited coverage is in addition to, and separate from, the coverage of at least $250,000 available to depositors under the FDIC's general deposit insurance rules.
The term "non-interest-bearing transaction account" includes a traditional checking account or demand deposit account on which the insured depository institution pays no interest. It also includes Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts ("IOLTAs"). It does not include other accounts, such as traditional checking or demand deposit accounts that may earn interest, NOW accounts, and money-market deposit accounts.
For more information about temporary FDIC insurance coverage of transaction accounts, visit
www.fdic.gov.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g6sc
Fracking Issues Clarify America's Dependency & Desperation on Energy
Clearly Congress, the EPA, and the Whitehouse are sacrificing their own citizens health, wealth, and ways of life as well as food supplies, and water supplies, for the near term energy needs of marco economics.
Amplify’d from www.cnbc.com
Drilling Debate in Cooperstown Turns Personal
Sunday, 30 Oct 2011 | 4:37 PM ET
The New York Times
The letter that arrived in Kim Jastremski’s mailbox on County Highway 52 suggested that she stop protesting the possibility of natural gas drilling. It seemed more of a threat than a request.
Computer-generated, unsigned and sent to about 10 other opponents of a practice known as fracking, it compared them to Nazis and said they were being watched while picking up their children at school in their minivans.
Jennifer Huntington’s abuse is more public, like comments online suggesting that people find out where her dairy sells its milk so that they can stop buying it, or the warning that her farm, which has a lease with a gas company, “will fall like a house of cards when your water is poisoned.”
She and other drilling proponents have also been called “sellout landowners that prostitute themselves for money.”
The debate over horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the injection of huge quantities of chemically treated water underground to free up natural gas, has become increasingly contentious across the Eastern United States, with dozens of communities passing or considering bans.
But that ill will often takes its most intimate form in small towns and rural areas like this one, best known as the home of baseball’s Hall of Fame, where fracking has emerged as the defining, non-negotiable political issue.
The dispute has pitted neighbor against neighbor, and has often set people who live in suburbs or villages against the farmers and landowners who live outside them. The discord is compounded by hard times on both sides and by communication online giving everyone instant access to limitless information confirming their point of view.
And if gas companies have the power and money, fracking opponents, who are concerned about ecological threats like the possible contamination of drinking water, often have the numbers and the intensity to dominate local discourse. “There’s no arguing with a person who is opposed to hydrofracking,” said Bill Michaels, a councilman in the Town of Otsego, which includes parts of Cooperstown.
After waiting to take a position, he eventually supported changes to the town’s land-use law that would prohibit fracking, but he still faces opposition from a slate of antifracking candidates. “There is no debate or conversation,” he added. “This is so important to so many people it’s pretty much hijacked everything else.”
The state plans to hold hearings in November before issuing final regulations on gas drilling, and the first gas wells drilled under the new rules could be possible next year.
As it turns out, despite the furor here, the Marcellus Shale, a vast rock formation under New York, Pennsylvania and other states, is so shallow near Cooperstown it is not clear how much gas would be available and what kind of drilling would take place here. And no one expects that fracking will ever come to Cooperstown itself.
Still, at the top of the Village of Cooperstown’s Web site is a statement recommending a statewide ban on gas drilling and fracking. Middlefield, the other town that includes parts of the Village of Cooperstown, was one of the first municipalities to ban gas drilling through changes to its master plan and zoning.
More than 30 antifracking candidates are running for office in Otsego County in November.
The dispute is also running like an electric current through everyday life. Ms. Jastremski, who five years ago moved back to family-owned land when her husband became an English professor at the State University of New York at Oneonta, thought she had found the perfect place to raise her two children, replete with chicken coops, bee hives and a vegetable garden.
But as she became aware of leases that would allow drilling for gas on various properties in the area, she became increasingly wrapped up in fracking politics. Now, she says, she stays up at night crying over what she sees as the possibility of polluted water, an industrialized landscape and having to leave her home as its value plummets. She said she understood the economic pressures facing some farmers, but could not excuse people who want drilling on their land.
“I think even if individuals here are not incredibly greedy, they are being sucked into a corporate greed that’s at work in our country,” she said. “They’re seeing dollar signs everywhere, and they’re not seeing the bigger picture that they’re harming their neighbors.”
Ms. Jastremski, 43, who has a Ph.D. in Slavic Studies and works as a technical writer, says she is uncomfortable with the discord surrounding the issue, like a clash she had at the gym with another mother who stood to gain from a gas lease, but feels she has no choice but to be vocal.
Ms. Huntington, 49, became a lightning rod when her Cooperstown Holstein Corporation, which includes a 379-acre farm with 500 head of dairy cattle, sued the Town of Middlefield seeking to overturn its drilling ban. The suit, filed in September, argues that only the state can ban fracking.
Before that, she decided her daughter should no longer attend the same middle school Ms. Huntington had attended as a girl. She said she acted partly because of antifracking activism in the schools, including a movement to ban fracking on school grounds, and the demographic changes that she said made a dairy farmer’s daughter feel out of place. “I knew as time went by it wasn’t going to be a comfortable place for her,” she said.
Like many farmers, she sees the drilling opponents as largely comfortable urbanites in an area increasingly home to retirees and second-home owners who know nothing about the economics of farming and little about the safety of drilling.
She cites the methane digester her family introduced in 1984, which used manure to produce natural gas that was used in part to heat the county nursing home, or the co-generation unit added to it seven years later that produced electricity for the farm.
“This land and my family are my life,” Ms. Huntington said. “We probably use three to four million gallons of water to feed my cows. I’m not going to spoil something I need to make my living and for future generations to come.”
Proponents of fracking say that many farmers are on the verge of losing their property.
“The term we use is pastoral poverty,” she said. “You have farmers trying to hold on to land that’s been in their family for 100 to 200 years. People like the landscape, but it’s people living in poverty who are maintaining what they like to look at.”
But many businesses fear an industrialized landscape that would be antithetical to the tourism Cooperstown depends on.
Opponents have suggested a boycott of businesses that do not oppose fracking, and have circulated reports via e-mail identifying cars or trucks possibly involved in gas leasing that have been seen at their neighbors’ residences. And some farmers say fracking could ruin them. Siobhan Griffin, an organic dairy farmer, cited a letter from the Park Slope Food Co-op in New York City saying its members would not shop from any area that allows fracking.
Many drilling proponents, meanwhile, say the professionals and retirees drawn to the area have become antigrowth fanatics, opposing a once-a-year music festival proposed in nearby Springfield, wind turbines proposed for Cherry Valley, even additional Little League fields.
Indeed, people on both sides say the ill will probably goes beyond fracking.
“At one time, people in Cooperstown could disagree, but it was never personal,” said Catherine Ellsworth, who writes a column in a local weekly newspaper and supports drilling. “Now it’s more like they want what they want, and that’s it. There’s no sense we’re in this together. But I guess that’s not just here. Society has changed, and Cooperstown has changed along with it.”
This story originally appeared in The New York Times
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g5vi
Sunday, October 30, 2011
World Running Out of Water for the 99% #ows
what people do not yet recognize is that there will be millions of people in Europe, China, India, the USA, and Mexico that will be without water. Those that are in the 1% will continue to have it, those that are not will kill each other trying to get it.
Amplify’d from 247wallst.com
World Running Out of Water
Posted: October 28, 2011 at 6:30 am
The world is low on water, from the standpoint of supply needed for human use, and the problem has grown rapidly. Worse still, the problem has no ready solution — and probably has no solution at all.
The World Resources Institute predicts that “By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in water-scarce countries or regions, with alarming implications for human wellbeing and global security.” Much of this water will be needed to irrigate crops. That makes the problem a dual one — water for drinking and water for food.
The institute blames developed nations for the overuse of water. That may be true, but a solution assumes that water is portable. It is not, at least not from continent to continent. Water in the U.S. cannot be transported in any significant amount to Africa.
This lack of transportability, along with droughts that already ravaged some parts of the most populated nations, creates a problem that cannot be made better. It is tempting to say that all problems of poverty and famine can be solved, but that is not true from any practical standpoint. Parts of Africa and Asia will be nearly barren of crops in a decade and a half. The trend has already begun. China’s wheat crop failed last year because of drought. The southeastern U.S. has become close to a dust bowl. The portions of north African and impoverished central Africa are in the midst of water shortages that almost certainly will not improve.
The World Resources Institute has raised a point, but it has not offered a solution to the problem. That is because there is no solution.
Douglas A. McIntyre
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g32g
Death of the USD As World Reserve Currency
The Fed is at the epicenter of this process, intervening heavily to keep the natural corrective market forces at bay. In this, it has a dual strategy. The first is to keep asset prices high (i.e., fight asset deflation), which it is doing by keeping interest rates historically low. The second is to keep wage and commodity costs under control, which it primarily does via devaluing the currency (maintaining a “weak dollar”).
Amplify’d from peakoil.com
Eric Janszen: We Are Witnessing The Death Of The Dollar
What do you get when the producer of the world’s reserve currency takes on too much debt? Nothing less than the end of the US Treasury-based monetary system.
So says Eric Jansen, economic and financial market analyst and proprietor of iTulip.com. In chronicling the decline of the global economy over the past decade, Eric has formulated a framework called the “Ka-POOM” theory, which endeavors to understand how the immense run-up in global debt will be resolved.
In short, it looks at the at the credit bubble that began in the early 1980′s, started accelerating in 1995, and has now reached epic proportions. The amounts are so staggering at this stage that Eric believes it is too politically undesirable to let natural market adjustments clear them away – the magnitude of the deflationary pain this would create is simply unacceptable for politicians looking to get re-elected. The only other available option left is to service these debts via a dramatically devalued currency. Hence the key role the Fed is playing today.
The Fed is at the epicenter of this process, intervening heavily to keep the natural corrective market forces at bay. In this, it has a dual strategy. The first is to keep asset prices high (i.e., fight asset deflation), which it is doing by keeping interest rates historically low. The second is to keep wage and commodity costs under control, which it primarily does via devaluing the currency (maintaining a “weak dollar”).
And, of course, through its intervention, the Fed is doing all it can to keep the current financial system in place to perpetuate the process for as long as possible. The end result is a fundamental shift in risk from Wall Street to the taxpayer.
So the big question is: how long can this last? Is there a point at which confidence in the system breaks and market forces finally overwhelm the intervention?
Eric’s answers: “Much longer than most people expect.” And “Yes.”
First off, as the most important central bank in the world, the Fed has supernormal powers. In theory, it can expand its balance sheet infinitely. It’s ability to absorb massive amounts of new liabilities is theoretically limitless – much of which can be easily concealed from an accounting standpoint.
And since the US is both the world’s largest economy as well as the provider of its reserve currency, other countries are compelled to support the current regime. A mortal crack-up in the US economy would deliver undue pain to all its trading partners, so they continue to buy Treasuries in sufficient amount to fund US economic activity.
But that’s not to say they’re happy about it. And here’s where attention should be paid (and where the importance of gold comes in).
For much of the past century, the United States comprised approximately 54-58% of the global economy. Today, it’s share has shrunk down to about 18%. Meaning: it’s relative importance to the global system has diminished.
Issuing the world’s reserve currency is a privilege that must be continually earned through transparency and sound stewardship – qualities the US has been in flagrant lack of in the past several decades as it has been blowing asset bubbles and running trillion-dollar deficits via incurring massive debts and increasing its money supply tremendously. So, even as they continue to support the current Treasury-backed monetary regime, the world’s central banks have begun hedging their exposure.
After several decades of being net sellers, the world’s central banks became net buyers of gold in the second quarter of 2009. As Eric puts it:
There was no plan B in the global monetary system when it switched over to the US Dollar reserve basis for global monetary reserves. The only fallback is gold. Gold is the only reserve asset that central banks hold other than dollars and to some extent euros – but it is mostly gold. So gold is the fallback. What I thought was going to happen is that, over time gradually, that there would be an increase at some point in gold holdings by central banks as they hedged the marginal increase and the number of Treasury bonds that they needed to hold as a result of conducting trade with the US and also simply maintaining the US economy through low interest rates and providing sufficient investment to continue to offer the US government.
What is very interesting to me is starting in the second quarter of 2009, right after the financial crisis is when global central banks became net buyers of gold which to me indicated that they had as a group, determined that it was time to more seriously hedge their dollar assets, even as they continue to buy Treasury bonds to increase their hedging.
Before that there were effectively two teams, there were the buyers who were countries like India and Russia and China, and the sellers which are most of your European countries and that structure of the gold market occurred and was maintained until the second quarter of 2009 and it shifted to a much broader base increase in the number of governments participating in the gold market including Saudi Arabia, Mexico and other allies of the United States.
Eric sees this move by central banks of positioning themselves closer to the door as a natural step to the inevitable endgame here, which is the dissolution of the US Treasury dollar-based monetary system. Due to entrenched special interests, politics, escalating commodity scarcity, and other factors – he does not see the US taking necessary corrective action before confidence in the solvency of the US and its currency collapses.
As such, Eric advises investors position themselves into gold and assets that take advantage of rising rents and energy prices.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Eric Janszen (runtime 43m:46s):
Read more at peakoil.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g30u
Thursday, October 27, 2011
UN is Signaling the Economic Hitmen to Target the Developing World's Young #nwo #ehm
Just focus on the title: UN: World will miss economic benefit of 1.8 billion young people, unless of course the developing world continues down the path of infinite growth leveraged on the debt backs of the G20 that is hopelessly in debt and crumbling while the supranational banks who have no national identity or loyalty continue to make trillions.
End the Debt. End the Fed. End the World Bank. End the IMF.
Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk
UN: World will miss economic benefit of 1.8 billion young people
Population report says lack of education, infrastructure and jobs will mean a generation's potential will be wasted
• Write a letter to the 7 billionth person
The world is in danger of missing a golden opportunity for development and economic growth, a "demographic dividend", as the largest cohort of young people ever known see their most economically productive years wasted, a major UN population report warned on Wednesday.
The potential economic benefits of having such a large global population of young people will go unfulfilled, as a generation suffers from a lack of education, and investment in infrastructure and job creation, the authors said.
"When young people can claim their rights to health, education and decent working conditions, they become a powerful force for economic development and positive change. "This opportunity [for] a demographic dividend is a fleeting moment that must be claimed quickly or lost," said the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), in its Global Population Report, published just days before the UN forecasted the world population will pass 7 billion. Of this 7 billion, 1.8 billion are aged between 10 and 24, and 90% of those live in the developing world.
The report also reveals average life expectancy across the globe has risen by 20 years since the 1950s, from 48 to 68, as healthcare and nutrition have improved, while infant mortality has fallen fast, from 133 deaths per 1,000 births in the 1950s to 46 per 1,000 today.
These successes area a cause to celebrate, the United Nations said. Fertility has also halved, from 6 births per woman to 2.5 over the same period, though there are stark regional differences – fertility is 1.6 births per woman in east Asia but 5 per woman in some parts of Africa.
The report found a "vicious cycle" of extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequality leading to high death rates, that in turn encourages high birth rates. Only by investing in health and education for women and girls can countries break the cycle, as improving living conditions will allow parents to be more confident that their children will survive, and therefore have smaller families.
Crucial to this will be allowing women and girls greater freedom and equality, in order to make their own choices about fertility. Hundreds of millions of women would prefer to have smaller families, but are unable to exercise this preference owing to a culture of repression.
"Governments that are serious about eradicating poverty should also be serious about providing the services, supplies and information that women need to exercise their reproductive rights," said Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UNFPA. On the empowerment of woman, he said at a press conference in London: "we have come a long way, but we are not there yet. There is no group that gives up power voluntarily. Men will not give up power to women voluntarily. Women have to fight. Women need to work together."
One way of doing so highlighted in the report is to provide a good level of sex education to adolescents, and access to modern methods of contraception.
The report said: "When women have equal rights and opportunities in their societies and when girls are educated and healthy, fertility rates fall ... the empowerment of women is not simply an end in itself, but also a step towards eradicating poverty."
The difference between a future of high fertility rates and one where people are better able to choose is stark: if fertility rates in areas of high population growth come down towards the global average, the world will reach a global population of about 9.3bn in 2050, and about 10bn in 2100. But if fertility rates remain high in the most populous countries, the 2100 population will be more than 15bn.
Osotimehin said countries must do more to help themselves: "It is unacceptable for countries to rely on donor money for reproductive health. The welfare of their people is their mandate." He said it would cost only $2bn to give access to family planning to the 250 million women who would like it but lack access. "The budget of the average developing country does not give enough money to issues of women and reproductive health. That has to change. If it does not change, it becomes unsustainable."
But he also said donors were failing to make sufficient commitments. "Family planning has not been funded as it should have been. Donors need to provide resources ... there has been a reduction [in money made available]."
Osotimehin also said at the press conference that the opportunity had been missed to educate people on reproductive health and family planning, during a drive to prevent HIV infection, echoing comments he made to the Guardian earlier in the month.
With high population growth, many scientists predict thatthe pressure on food and agricultural productivity and other natural resources may become intolerable, and conditions for the poorest people will deteriorate further, rather than improving.
John Cleland, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "The escape from poverty and hunger is made more difficult by rapid population growth."
Rapid growth will also exacerbate the impact of other global problems, such as climate change and other environmental impacts. Steven Sinding, a population expert at Columbia University, said: "The pace of growth poses enormous challenges for many of the poorest countries, which lack the resources not only to keep up with demand for infrastructure, basic health and education services and job opportunities for the rising number of young people, but also to adapt to climate change."
Separately on Wednesday, the Official for National Statistics forecast that the UK population would grow to 70 million by 2020, up from 62.3 million in 2010.
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Africa the Next Target by the Economic Hitmen - Permanent Debt #ehm #ows #nwo
Why does Namibia have a deficit and why would they sell a $500M USD-based bond? Probably because the bankers needed something to help pay their bonuses. Meanwhile they are about to embark on a journey of perpetual debt.
Leaders of Africa, read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and speak with leaders of Argentina, Iceland, Ireland, and Greece before you go any further.
This is driven by predatory capitalism.
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Namibia Said to Sell Debut Eurobond to Fund Budget Deficit
Namibia is selling a debut $500
million international bond to help finance its budget deficit,
according to three people familiar with the transaction.
The 10-year dollar-denominated securities are being sold to
investors in Europe and the U.S., said an official from the
central bank, who declined to be identified because the sale
hasn’t been completed. The bond may be priced to yield between
5.75 percent and 6 percent, according to an investor and banker,
who declined to be identified for the same reason.
Namibia, the world’s biggest miner of offshore diamonds and
the fourth-largest producer of uranium, has a credit rating of
BBB- from Fitch Ratings and Baa3 from Moody’s, the lowest
investment-grade levels. The southern African nation, which
borders South Africa, Botswana and Angola, follows Nigeria, sub-
Saharan Africa’s second-largest economy, which sold its first
dollar-denominated debt in January.
“It sounds relatively attractive compared to African
peers,” Stuart Culverhouse, the chief economist at investment
bank Exotix Ltd., said in a phone interview from London today.
“It’s a relatively unknown name and may have to stimulate
interest through the pricing.”
Bids received for the bond exceeded the amount on offer by
six times, according to the investor. Barclays Capital and
Standard Bank Group Ltd. are selling the bond on behalf of the
government, according to the banker.
Budget Deficit
The government is raising funds to help finance a budget
deficit that’s forecast to widen to 9.8 percent of gross
domestic product in the year through March 2012 from 7 percent
last year.
Namibia has a higher credit rating than sovereign debt
issued by sub-Saharan African nations, excluding South Africa.
Gabon’s dollar-denominated bonds due 2017 yielded 5.117 percent
today, while Ghana’s $750 million of 8.5 percent international
bonds due 2017 yielded 6.152 percent. Nigeria’s $500 million
Eurobonds due 2021 yield 5.965 percent, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg, at 3:52 p.m. in London.
Namibia has “a similar rating to South Africa and
obviously very closely tied to the South African economy,” said
Culverhouse. “If you look at it from that perspective it’s
about 200 basis points over the equivalent South African
Eurobond. From both sides of the argument, it’s a fairly
attractive deal.”
Kenya, Angola, Zambia and Rwanda are also planning to tap
international debt markets to finance rail, power and other
infrastructure projects.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Chris Kay in Abuja at
ckay5@bloomberg.net;
Nasreen Seria in Johannesburg at
nseria@bloomberg.net
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