An Overview Of The Fed's Intervention In Equity Markets Via The Primary Dealer Credit Facility | zero hedge

An Overview Of The Fed's Intervention In Equity Markets Via The Primary Dealer Credit Facility | zero hedge: "Recently, Zero Hedge presented a snapshot analysis of the various securities that made up the triparty repo agreement involving JPM, Lehman and the Fed. We uncovered numerous bankrupt companies' equities that were being pledged as collateral for what ultimately was taxpayer exposure."

Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast - Science, News - The Independent

Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast -
Science, News - The Independent: "Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world's top energy economist

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries"

Open Letter to the Queen | Abundancy Partners

Open Letter to the Queen | Abundancy Partners: "Open Letter to the Queen
14th August 2009

Your Majesty,

We, the undersigned, noted with interest the letter to Your Majesty of 22nd July 2009 from the British Academy in which they respond to your question about how the current economic meltdown was missed. They talked of a 'failure of the collective imagination of many bright people' and a 'psychology of denial'.

The Academy wrote 'It is difficult to recall a greater example of wishful thinking combined with hubris.' You will be aware of HRH The Prince of Wales's speech on 9th July 2009 in which His Royal Highness focused on far more serious examples of wishful thinking and hubris. We are writing to you because we are concerned that the British Academy's letter focuses on one particular aspect of current insecurity, namely financial, failing to address the wider context of more serious macro issues facing mankind. We are also writing to the Academy to invite them to debate these issues with us."

Prosperity without growth - Background � Prosperity without Growth? � Sustainable Development Commission

Prosperity without growth - Background Prosperity without Growth? Sustainable Development Commission:

"Prosperity without growth - Background
The SDC's Prosperity without growth? report is based on research and discussion divided into four main areas – 'visions of prosperity', 'economy lite', 'confronting structure', and 'wellbeing policy'.

Here are the background papers and opinion pieces which contributed to our work in these areas, together with some additional background papers, mainly research commissioned by Defra into influences on wellbeing."

Earthscan blog | From Balaton to Buckingham Palace: excursions into the dilemma of growth

Earthscan blog | From Balaton to Buckingham Palace: excursions into the dilemma of growth: "From Balaton to Buckingham Palace: excursions into the dilemma of growth
By Tim Jackson15. September 2009 05:51
Each year at about this time, a motley group of academics, activists and communicators meets for a week in Hungary, on the shores of Lake Balaton some 200 km south west of Budapest. The self-styled ‘Balaton group’ has been meeting since 1982. Their mission: to continue the work inspired by the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth report – first published a decade earlier in 1972."

Gmail - Beyond the boat debate, Hamilton's dire warning, Obama on dope

dire warning,

"Pursuit of economic growth is a failure
Professor Tim Jackson writes:

For the past five decades, the pursuit of economic growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. Questioning that goal-- particularly in this time of global financial crisis-- is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries.

But in fact the pursuit of economic growth has failed. It has failed on its own terms, it has failed to deliver a good life for all, and it’s now in the process of destroying the planet."

Clive Hamilton - Articles

Clive Hamilton - Articles: "Is It Too Late to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change?"

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Finding a route to recovery and reform gets tough now

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Finding a route to recovery and reform gets tough now: "The rescue was unprecedented in scale and scope. It had to be: the world economy went over a cliff. At the beginning of 2009, the annualised fall in a quarterly moving average of world industrial output reached 25 per cent (see charts below). The fall in world trade was even more extreme."

The demise of the dollar - Business News, Business - The Independent

The demise of the dollar -
Business News, Business - The Independent: "In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar."

The problem with our environment is too many of us

The problem with our environment is too many of us: "Natural selection has ensured that we are well-endowed with selfish genes. We will always put self before family, family before community, community before country. Hence efforts to get international agreement on controlling global carbon emissions will always be bedevilled by the "after you" syndrome.

The latest report of the UN population division of March 11, 2009 shows that the world's population is 6.8 billion, and is expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050.

When I was born in 1930, there were only 2 billion people on Earth. What has happened to cause this staggering increase, and for how long can it continue?

Cheap Food — National Geographic Magazine

Cheap Food — National Geographic Magazine: "Our beef comes from Iowa, fed by Nebraska corn. Our grapes come from Chile, our bananas from Honduras, our olive oil from Sicily, our apple juice—not from Washington State but all the way from China. Modern society has relieved us of the burden of growing, harvesting, even preparing our daily bread, in exchange for the burden of simply paying for it. Only when prices rise do we take notice. And the consequences of our inattention are profound."

OpenSecrets | Bundlers for McCain, Obama Are Among Wall Street's Tumblers - Capital Eye

OpenSecrets |

Bundlers for McCain, Obama Are Among Wall Street's Tumblers - Capital Eye: "How did Wall Street's largest firms also become some of the largest donors to John McCain and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns? Take a look at the candidates' rosters of bundlers on OpenSecrets.org, and it becomes clear."

CERA: News: Recent Articles: Oil has reached a turning point

CERA: News: Recent Articles: Oil has reached a turning point: "If “Ethanol” was a country, it would have been ranked number five last year among countries in terms of production growth.

The break point is already here. Oil is in the process of losing its almost total domination in ground transport. It is not going to fade away soon – such is the scale of its use and convenience, it will retain a dominant position for many years. But it will share the transport market with other sources as never before, reinforced by a new drive for fuel efficiency."

WRAPUP 1-Harvard and Yale endowments suffer heavy losses

WRAPUP 1-Harvard and Yale endowments suffer heavy losses: "Harvard and Yale, America's two richest universities, said on Thursday their endowments lost roughly 30 percent of their value last year, showing how severely the financial crisis battered even the world's best managers.

Both schools, long admired for delivering top-notch returns for years, warned about the declines late last year when their presidents told students, faculty and alumni about upcoming heavy cutbacks.

Harvard, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said its endowment dropped 27.3 percent, or $11 billion, to $26 billion in the year that ended on June 30. Despite the loss, the endowment has still returned an average of 8.9 percent every year for the last decade while the average comparable fund has risen 3.2 percent, according to research and consulting firm Wilshire Associates."

Crossroads - The Future of Global Finance - Series - NYTimes.com

Crossroads - The Future of Global Finance - Series - NYTimes.com: "It has long been recognized that the global financial structure — built as it is around the dollar as the world’s reserve currency — has a fundamental design flaw that makes it inherently unstable."

Credit card crisis to grip Britain, IMF warns - Telegraph

Credit card crisis to grip Britain, IMF warns - Telegraph: "The IMF said the crisis would echo the problems already felt in the United States, where it expects 14 per cent of the country’s 1.16bn credit card debt to go unpaid this year, the Financial Times reported."

FT.com | Economists' Forum | US foreign policy and the global financial crisis

FT.com | Economists' Forum | US foreign policy and the global financial crisis: "Not only did the global financial system seize up at the end of last year, but the Asian Development Bank has reported that the total loss of worldwide market wealth is $50 trillion, close to a year’s world output. The loss of stock market wealth alone is $25 trillion. Demand for manufactures, world manufactured output and world trade in manufactures fell off a cliff at the end of last year: Germany’s industrial output was down 19.2 per cent year-on-year in January, South Korea is down 25.6 per cent and Japan is down 30.8 per cent."

The Year of Living Hopelessly | The Big Money

The Year of Living Hopelessly | The Big Money: "As damaging as Lehman's collapse was here, it was worse overseas."

The Year of Living Hopelessly | The Big Money

The Year of Living Hopelessly | The Big Money: "As damaging as Lehman's collapse was here, it was worse overseas."

Food Wars - Monthly Review

Food Wars - Monthly Review: "For some countries, the food crisis was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Some thirty countries experienced violent popular actions against rising prices in 2007 and 2008, among them Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Mauretania, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Somalia, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. Across the continents, people came out in the thousands against uncontrolled rises in the price of staple goods that their countries had to import owing to insufficient production. Scores of people died in these demonstrations of popular anger."

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | The cost of food: Facts and figures

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | The cost of food: Facts and figures: "Explore the facts and figures behind the fluctuating price of food across the globe."

CGIAR: Story of the Month - May 2009

CGIAR: Story of the Month - May 2009: "At the peak of the food crisis, the international prices of wheat and maize reached levels three times those in 2005, while the price of rice grew fivefold over the same period."

Walden Bello - The global food price crisis - a critique of orthodox perspectives - Transnational Institute

Walden Bello - The global food price crisis - a critique of orthodox perspectives - Transnational Institute: "
Walden Bello critiques the orthodox views of economist Paul Collier on the global food price crisis. Collier argues that not enough food was produced to meet increased demand from Asia, thanks to a failure to promote commercial farming in Africa, the European Union ban against GMOs and the diversion of American grain to biofuels production.

Bello counters that a globalised system of production has 'created severe strains on the environment', 'marginalised large numbers of people from the market, and contributed to greater poverty and greater income disparities within countries and globally'. Defenders of peasant agriculture, says Bello, blame 'capitalist industrial agriculture, with its wrenching destabilisation and transformation of land, nature, and social relations' for today's food crises, with 'rates of profit determining where investment will be allocated' rather than the desire to satisfy 'the real needs of the global majority'.

Matt Taibbi - Taibblog – The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits - True/Slant

Matt Taibbi - Taibblog – The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits - True/Slant: "So what’s wrong with Goldman posting $3.44 billion in second-quarter profits, what’s wrong with the company so far earmarking $11.4 billion in compensation for its employees? What’s wrong is that this is not free-market earnings but an almost pure state subsidy."

Donation Record as Colin Powell Endorses Obama - NYTimes.com

Donation Record as Colin Powell Endorses Obama - NYTimes.com: "Because Mr. Obama has raised more than $600 million, Mr. McCain said, the “dam has broken” for future presidential campaigns. Mr. McCain, who accepted public financing and received an $84 million allotment from the treasury, suggested he may well be the last presidential candidate to run under the current rules established at the end of the Watergate era."

Is Goldman Sachs Evil? Or Just Too Good? -- New York Magazine

Is Goldman Sachs Evil? Or Just Too Good? -- New York Magazine: "“If you didn’t like the policy,” he says of the decision to bail out AIG and pay off its debts to Goldman, “one avenue for pursuing your own interests was to attack Goldman Sachs.”

It’s a sore spot for good reason. The AIG rescue is the incident from which all other Goldman conspiracy theories spring—the original sin, in a sense, of Goldman’s current public tarring. It’s the act that first made the average man on the street sit up and say, “Hey, wait a minute. The secretary of the Treasury, who used to be the Goldman CEO, just spent $85 billion to buy a failing insurance giant that happened to owe his former firm a lot of money. Does that smell right to you?” It also seems to have the legs of a potential scandal, with Neil Barofsky, the inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, conducting an audit of the buyout.

Then again, if you’ve just posted $3.44 billion in second-quarter profits in an environment where, say, Morgan Stanley just reported a $1.26 billion loss, what does it matter what people say? The answer lies in another of Whitehead’s principles: Reputation must be closely guarded, because it is “the most difficult to regain.”"

Nancy Miller - The New Wall St. – Goldman Sachs exec offers ‘Bailouts for Dummies’ - True/Slant

Nancy Miller - The New Wall St. – Goldman Sachs exec offers ‘Bailouts for Dummies’ - True/Slant: "So that makes us all dummies: First the government forces Goldman to take $10 billion in loans to ensure its health. Then it gets another $8.1 billion through the AIG back door to cover fully hedged positions. Maybe Cohn should explain to stressed out small business owners and families at risk of losing their homes how they can come out as well as Goldman Sachs. He could call it “Bailout for Dummies”. I bet it would be an overnight sensation."

Matt Taibbi - Taibblog – New Info: Goldman Really Was In Trouble - True/Slant

Matt Taibbi - Taibblog – New Info: Goldman Really Was In Trouble - True/Slant
t seems things were worse than even I thought at the bank, with then-COO John Winkelreid putting up his Nantucket house for sale in order to raise quick cash and management discussing taking the company private to avoid catastrophe. Hagan describes a bank that was in crisis,

Bank Bonus Tab: $33 Billion - WSJ.com

Bank Bonus Tab: $33 Billion - WSJ.com
Nine banks that received government aid money paid out bonuses of nearly $33 billion last year -- including more than $1 million apiece to nearly 5,000 employees -- despite huge losses that plunged the U.S. into economic turmoil.

Bank Bonus Tab: $33 Billion - WSJ.com

Bank Bonus Tab: $33 Billion - WSJ.com: "Nine banks that received government aid money paid out bonuses of nearly $33 billion last year -- including more than $1 million apiece to nearly 5,000 employee"

Peter Martin: How big is one trillion?

Peter Martin: How big is one trillion?
Another example of a trillion.

Deposit a million dollars a day into an account.

After a year the account would have 365 million dollars.

After a thousand years the account would have 365 billion dollars, ie a bit more than a third of a trillion dollars.

A this rate it would take 2740 years to accumulate a trillion dollars.

U.S. Bailouts So Far Total $2.98 Trillion, Official Says - WSJ.com

U.S. Bailouts So Far Total $2.98 Trillion, Official Says - WSJ.com: "WASHINGTON -- A special inspector general overseeing government efforts to bail out portions of the private sector said Tuesday the U.S. so far has committed nearly $2.98 trillion toward stabilizing financial companies and rescuing domestic auto makers.

Meanwhile, only $109.5 billion remains in a $700 billion program that was launched as a way to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets, Neil Barofsky told lawmakers. Mr. Barofsky has come to be known as the 'TARP cop' because his office is responsible for policing the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program."

History of U.S. Gov’t Bailouts - ProPublica

History of U.S. Gov’t Bailouts - ProPublica

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? - NYTimes.com

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? - NYTimes.com:
Krugman long article: "Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field’s problems. More important was the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy."

Adding Up the Government’s Total Bailout Tab - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

Adding Up the Government’s Total Bailout Tab - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

Big Estimate, Worth Little, on Bailout - NYTimes.com

Big Estimate, Worth Little, on Bailout - NYTimes.com
$27 trillion bailout

Adding Up the Government’s Total Bailout Tab - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

Adding Up the Government’s Total Bailout Tab - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com: "Adding Up the Government’s Total Bailout Tab

Beyond the $700 billion bailout known as TARP, which has been used to prop up banks and car companies, the government has created an array of other programs to provide support to the struggling financial system. Through April 30, the government has made commitments of about $12.2 trillion and spent $2.5 trillion — but also has collected more than $10 billion in dividends and fees. Here is an overview, organized by the role the government has assumed in each case."

Firm overseeing Harvard endowment _ battered by recession _ names 2 senior managers

Firm overseeing Harvard endowment _ battered by recession _ names 2 senior managers: "Harvard spokesman John Longbrake said the university was projecting a 30 percent decline in the value of it endowment in the fiscal year that ended June 30. The fund — the largest in higher education — was valued at $36.9 billion on June 30, 2008."

Endowment Losses From Harvard to Yale Force Cuts (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

Endowment Losses From Harvard to Yale Force Cuts (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Harvard will “have to reshape and reset to being more like a $24 billion university than a $36 billion university,” President Drew Faust said in May.

Epoch Times | China Using Up Natural Resources Fast, Report Says

Epoch Times | China Using Up Natural Resources Fast, Report Says: "China is drawing on natural resources such as farm land, timber and water twice as fast as they can be renewed in its drive for development, a report from Chinese and international environmentalists said on Tuesday."

CHINA: APPETITE FOR MEAT MAY FORCE COUNTRY TO IMPORT GRAIN. | Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting > Agriculture from AllBusiness.com

CHINA: APPETITE FOR MEAT MAY FORCE COUNTRY TO IMPORT GRAIN. | Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting > Agriculture from AllBusiness.com

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China’s stimulus shows the problem of success

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China’s stimulus shows the problem of success: "problems looming. More investment thanks to China’s rescue package threatens to worsen the already severe overcapacity, while the cash injection is already creating asset bubbles."

New Statesman - The Spectre at the Feast: Capitalist Crisis and the Politics of Recession

New Statesman - The Spectre at the Feast: Capitalist Crisis and the Politics of Recession: "It is too soon to tell what those new thoughts might be. But three things are reasonably clear. The first is that there is more to be learned from Schumpeter and Marx than from any of the other great names of the past. The second is that what Gamble calls the “anti-capitalist” (in effect, green) critique of neoliberalism cuts closer to the bone than any other on offer. The third is that the best starting point for the long road to reconstruction that the left now has to take is Gamble’s new book."

FT.com / Books / Essays - What a carve up

FT.com / Books / Essays - What a carve up: "Over the past 10 months, publishers have issued books about the credit crunch with almost the enthusiasm and frequency with which banks once issued structured products. As with structured products, however, many of them are the same material in new packages."
John Kay on Crisis books

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China’s growth figures fail to add up

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China’s growth figures fail to add up: "China’s gross domestic product figures are among the world’s most closely watched since they can move markets or boost hopes of an imminent recovery.

But the latest set of first-half numbers provided by provincial-level authorities are far higher than the central government’s national figure, raising fresh questions about the accuracy of statistics in the world’s most populous nation."

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China’s buying spree

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - China’s buying spree
$50 billion in deals

What Makes Mr. Zhang Save?

What Makes Mr. Zhang Save?: "Michael Pettis is a finance professor at Peking University and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


Reprinted from Summer 2009 Wilson Quarterly"

China Vies to Be Leader in Electric Vehicles - NYTimes.com

China Vies to Be Leader in Electric Vehicles - NYTimes.com: "TIANJIN, China — Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that."

But electric vehicles may do little to clear the country’s smog-darkened sky or curb its rapidly rising emissions of global warming gases. China gets three-fourths of its electricity from coal, which produces more soot and more greenhouse gases than other fuels.

A report by McKinsey & Company last autumn estimated that replacing a gasoline-powered car with a similar-size electric car in China would reduce greenhouse emissions by only 19 percent. It would reduce urban pollution, however, by shifting the source of smog from car exhaust pipes to power plants, which are often located outside cities.

Op-Ed Columnist - Empire of Carbon - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Empire of Carbon - NYTimes.com: "Historical injustice aside, the Chinese also insisted that they should not be held responsible for the greenhouse gases they emit when producing goods for foreign consumers. But they refused to accept the logical implication of this view — that the burden should fall on those foreign consumers instead, that shoppers who buy Chinese products should pay a “carbon tariff” that reflects the emissions associated with those goods’ production. That, said the Chinese, would violate the principles of free trade.

Sorry, but the climate-change consequences of Chinese production have to be taken into account somewhere. And anyway, the problem with China is not so much what it produces as how it produces it. Remember, China now emits more carbon dioxide than the United States, even though its G.D.P. is only about half as large (and the United States, in turn, is an emissions hog compared with Europe or Japan).

The good news is that the very inefficiency of China’s energy use offers huge scope for improvement. Given the right policies, China could continue to grow rapidly without increasing its carbon emissions. But first it has to realize that policy changes are necessary."

Rating Agencies: Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch (REVISED VERSION) | The Big Picture

Rating Agencies: Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch (REVISED VERSION) | The Big Picture

“Helping spur the boom was a less-recognized role of the rating companies: their collaboration, behind the scenes, with the underwriters that were putting those securities together. Underwriters don’t just assemble a security out of home loans and ship it off to the credit raters to see what grade it gets. Instead, they work with rating companies while designing a mortgage bond or other security, making sure it gets high-enough ratings to be marketable.”

with good links

Las Vegas rides out the recession | The Guide | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

Las Vegas rides out the recession | The Guide | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California: "Gary Loveman, the CEO of Harrah's, was paid $92.3 million in 2008."

China Economy: The Collapse of Manufacturing and the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) | Economic News | EconomyWatch.com

China Economy: The Collapse of Manufacturing and the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) | Economic News | EconomyWatch.com

Shanghai, 23 Feb 2009. In the summer of 2008, with trade and inflation both rampant, it cost on average $1,400 to transport a container from Asia to Europe. By January 2009, the price from China to Europe had collapsed to $0, excluding fuel and handling.

China Economy: The Collapse of Manufacturing and the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) | Economic News | EconomyWatch.com

China Economy: The Collapse of Manufacturing and the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) | Economic News | EconomyWatch.com

Shanghai, 23 Feb 2009. In the summer of 2008, with trade and inflation both rampant, it cost on average $1,400 to transport a container from Asia to Europe. By January 2009, the price from China to Europe had collapsed to $0, excluding fuel and handling.

China Economy: The Collapse of Manufacturing and the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) | Economic News | EconomyWatch.com

China Economy: The Collapse of Manufacturing and the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) | Economic News | EconomyWatch.com

Shanghai, 23 Feb 2009. In the summer of 2008, with trade and inflation both rampant, it cost on average $1,400 to transport a container from Asia to Europe. By January 2009, the price from China to Europe had collapsed to $0, excluding fuel and handling.

German property giant Hypo Real Estate may need £8.6bn rescue - Telegraph

German property giant Hypo Real Estate may need £8.6bn rescue - Telegraph

The admission is the latest evidence that mounting losses in Europe's banking system have yet to be tackled."The bank clearly has a solvency problem," said Michael Endres, head of the board in an interview with Welt am Sonntag. "It wouldn't surprise me if a capital injection of €10bn proved insufficient."

RealClearMarkets - Articles - The SEC Killed Wall Street On April 28, 2004

RealClearMarkets - Articles - The SEC Killed Wall Street On April 28, 2004

In this unusual case, one particular afternoon, on April 28, 2004, drastically changed the equation.

Credit card debt information (2006-2007)

Credit card debt information (2006-2007)

Credit card industry facts (2006-2007)

• The top 10 credit card issuers controlled approximately 88 percent of the credit card market at the end of 2006, based on credit card receivables outstanding (Source: FDIC)
• With its acquisition of MBNA, Bank of America became the nation's largest credit card issuer in 2006, followed by Chase and Citi. (Source: Nilson Report)

Op-Ed Contributor - The Greenback Effect - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - The Greenback Effect - NYTimes.com

Buffet: The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery. But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.

RGE - Roubini Project Syndicate Op-Ed: A Phantom Economic Recovery

RGE - Roubini Project Syndicate Op-Ed: A Phantom Economic Recovery: "he end of this severe global recession will be closer at the end of this year than it is now, the recovery will be anaemic rather than robust in advanced economies, and there is a rising risk of a double-dip recession. The recent market rallies in stocks, commodities and credit may have gotten ahead of the improvement in the real economy. If so, a correction cannot be too far behind."

FT Alphaville » Blog Archive » How the failure of Lehman Bros is like SARS, and swine flu

FT Alphaville » Blog Archive » How the failure of Lehman Bros is like SARS, and swine flu
An external event strikes. Fear grips the system which, in consequence, seizes. The resulting collateral damage is wide and deep. Yet the triggering event is, with hindsight, found to have been rather modest. The flap of a butterfly’s wing in New York or Guangdong generates a hurricane for the world economy. The dynamics appear chaotic, mathematically and metaphorically.

'We're in the Middle of a Crash': Black Swan - Financials * Europe * News * Story - CNBC.com

'We're in the Middle of a Crash': Black Swan - Financials * Europe * News * Story - CNBC.com
Black swan--things will get worst before we get better, and we have to de-leverage big time

There's no quick fix to the global economy's excess capacity - Telegraph

There's no quick fix to the global economy's excess capacity - Telegraph: "Too many steel mills have been built, too many plants making cars, computer chips or solar panels, too many ships, too many houses. They have outstripped the spending power of those supposed to buy the products. This is more or less what happened in the 1920s when electrification and Ford’s assembly line methods lifted output faster than wages. It is a key reason why the Slump proved so intractable, though debt then was far lower than today.

Thankfully, leaders in the US and Europe have this time prevented an implosion of the money supply and domino bank failures. But they have not resolved the elemental causes of our (misnamed) Credit Crisis; nor can they. Excess plant will hang over us like an oppressive fog until cleared by liquidation, or incomes slowly catch up, or both. Until this occurs, we risk lurching from one false dawn to another, endlessly disappointed. "

Iceland's krona proves the magic wand as Europe ails - Telegraph

Iceland's krona proves the magic wand as Europe ails - Telegraph: "Those who point to Iceland as a scarecrow exhibit of what happens to a small country caught in a financial storm without the shield of euro membership have the matter backwards, as will become ever clearer over the next two years.

The OECD expects Iceland's economy to shrink 7pc this year. This is much better than Ireland at minus 9.8pc, and recovery will come sooner."

Credit tightening threatens China's 'giant Ponzi scheme' - Telegraph

Credit tightening threatens China's 'giant Ponzi scheme' - Telegraph: "Credit tightening threatens China's 'giant Ponzi scheme' China's loan growth plunged in July while exports fell 23pc from a year ago after grinding lower for nine months as consumers in the West tighten their belts further."

Reforming Credit | The American Prospect

Reforming Credit | The American Prospect: "he retail abuses were connected to the wholesale collapse most explicitly through the whole sub-prime loan system: Mortgage companies marketed loans to moderate-income consumers on terms that would become unaffordable after a brief period of 'teaser' rates. These retail loans were connected to the wholesale part of the system through an elaborate web of overlapping relationships. The mortgage companies were bankrolled by big Wall Street investment banks; the loans were bundled into high-risk securities; packages of those securities were then blessed with triple-A ratings by corrupt rating agencies; big commercial banks bought some of the securities through off-balance-sheet affiliates; and some of these securities were insured by firms like AIG. When the retail loans began going bad, the entire system collapsed, bringing down the giant banks and investment banks whose bets on these loans were very highly leveraged. The sub-prime circuit provides a snapshot of the rot in the entire system."

Insiders Detail How Bottom Line Drove Credit Ratings - ProPublica

Insiders Detail How Bottom Line Drove Credit Ratings - ProPublica: "During the mortgage boom, the agencies gave much of the risky securities their highest credit rating, effectively preserving the illusion that they were risk-proof."

Study Finds Flawed Practices at Ratings Firms - NYTimes.com

Study Finds Flawed Practices at Ratings Firms - NYTimes.com

The analyst at the credit ratings agency was blunt: “Let’s hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.”

Waiting for Dough

Waiting for Dough: "More than any other country over the past two decades--more even than China--Ireland has given up its traditional culture for the global economy. In a quarter century, it went from being a little, poverty-stricken, priest-ridden agricultural backwater to a swingin', low-tax, wide-open, unregulated global-economy entrepôt. Last year, on paper, it was the seventh-richest country, per capita, in the world, ahead of the United States and trailing only a few oil exporters and tax havens. In the decade up to 2007, Ireland's GDP increased 350 percent. House prices quintupled."

No Rhyme or Reason

The Heads I win, tails you lose Banking Bonus Culture

NY Attorney generals Report

http://www.ft.com/cms/097ca69e-7d28-11de-b8ee-00144feabdc0.pdf?source=cmailer

FT.com / Companies / Banks - Bonus breakdown

FT.com / Companies / Banks - Bonus breakdown: "JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs paid the most million-dollar bonuses in 2008, while two banks that lost almost $28bn each last year, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, also made hundreds of their employees millionaires, according to a newly released report on bonus payments by government-supported banks."

10 Questions Worth Asking the Bank Bosses - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com

10 Questions Worth Asking the Bank Bosses - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com

the scandals worth following up

Rudd’s essay: an economist’s take - Crikey

Rudd’s essay: an economist’s take - Crikey

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has followed up his critique of neoliberalism with a new essay in the Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age on the causes of the crisis, and the policies needed after recovery. With one exception, his key explanations for the crisis are the same as those identified by myself and the handful of other economists who predicted this crisis before it happened.

Where I differ again with the Prime Minister is over whether this government stimulus alone is sufficient to avoid a depression.

Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America - STWR - Share The World's Resources

Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America - STWR - Share The World's Resources: "The financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse, according to a 231-page report issued today by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation.

The report, 'Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America,' shows that, from 1998-2008, Wall Street investment firms, commercial banks, hedge funds, real estate companies and insurance conglomerates made $1.725 billion in political contributions and spent another $3.4 billion on lobbyists, a financial juggernaut aimed at undercutting federal regulation. Nearly 3,000 officially registered federal lobbyists worked for the industry in 2007 alone."

World Warned of ‘Food Crunch’ Threat - STWR - Share The World's Resources

World Warned of ‘Food Crunch’ Threat - STWR - Share The World's Resources: "World Warned of ‘Food

Hundreds of millions more people could slip into hunger as a result of volatile food prices and increasing energy and water scarcity, according to two new reports that together detail the threats to global food security and expose the lack of adequate coordinated international action to tackle hunger."

Iceland Puts $2 Billion Into Collapsed Banking Sector - NYTimes.com

Iceland Puts $2 Billion Into Collapsed Banking Sector - NYTimes.com

Goldman Sachs to make record bonus payout | Business | The Observer

Goldman Sachs to make record bonus payout | Business | The Observer: "President Barack Obama's government could issue $3.25tn of debt before September, almost four times last year's sum. Goldman, a prime broker of US government bonds, is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from selling and dealing in the bonds."

"Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms."

GOLDMAN SACHS FIRES BACK AT ARTICLE IN ROLLING STONE SAYING THEY RIGGED WALL STREET - New York Post

GOLDMAN SACHS FIRES BACK AT ARTICLE IN ROLLING STONE SAYING THEY RIGGED WALL STREET - New York Post

Activate 09: Arianna Huffington: obsessiveness is the greatest strength of online news | Media | guardian.co.uk

Activate 09: Arianna Huffington: obsessiveness is the greatest strength of online news | Media | guardian.co.uk: "President Obama took office with an ambitious agenda to reform energy, Wall Street and healthcare, but he has failed to reform the energy and financial industries and is now fighting a fierce battle to reform healthcare, she said.

'The vested interests fighting reform and the past which they represented are very well organised, and the future that they resist is very poorly organised,' she said."

Harper's Magazine - The Next Bubble

Harper's Magazine - The Next Bubble

The coming $12 trillion dollar alternative energy bubble.
The only thing worse than having it is not having it.

Goldman Sachs- the Bubble Machine

The Great American Bubble Machine
The Ruse and Rise of Goldman Sacks
Rolling Stone July 3, 2009

Banking system like South Sea bubble, says senior Bank of England official | Business | guardian.co.uk

Banking system like South Sea bubble, says senior Bank of England official | Business | guardian.co.uk

A senior Bank of England official today compared the banking system over the last 20 years to the South Sea bubble of the early 18th century and said bankers had merely "resorted to the roulette wheel" to keep up with each other.

The Bank's executive director for financial stability, Andy Haldane, said in a speech in Chicago that having been stable over much of the 20th century, returns in the banking system relative to the wider stockmarket shot up after 1986 until 2006.

IMF Global Financial Stability Report -- Responding to the Financial Crisis and Measuring Systemic Risks -- April 2009 -- Contents

IMF Global Financial Stability Report -- Responding to the Financial Crisis and Measuring Systemic Risks -- April 2009 -- Contents: "Global Financial Stability Report Responding to the Financial Crisis and Measuring Systemic Risks"

IMF: Toxic asset fallout could reach $4 trillion - Apr. 21, 2009

IMF: Toxic asset fallout could reach $4 trillion - Apr. 21, 2009: "Global Financial Stability Report"

Boom days are over in Las Vegas | Business | guardian.co.uk

Boom days are over in Las Vegas | Business | guardian.co.uk
Bursting skywards in the middle of America's gambling capital, seven glittering towers are nearing completion. The lavish $11bn (£6.7bn) CityCenter complex will boast a casino, four hotels, luxury apartments, a fire station and even an on-site power station. But its timing could hardly be worse.

David Einhorn: Bailout Bubble Redux | GreenLightAdvisor Views

David Einhorn: Bailout Bubble Redux | GreenLightAdvisor Views
Einhorn elaborates in his typically lucid fashion that Washington policymakers, et al, have set a new bubble in motion, the “Bailout Bubble.” The administration is reflating the economy back to 2006 levels....Most of the institutions that ran into major trouble were AAA rated entities. Fannie, Freddie, AIG, monolines, GE all were AAA rated

Adding Up the Government’s Total Bailout Tab - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

Adding Up the Government’s Total Bailout Tab - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com: "hrough April 30, the government has made commitments of about $12.2 trillion and spent $2.5 trillion — but also has collected more than $10 billion in dividends and fees. Here is an overview, organized by the role the government has assumed in each case."

Visualizing One Trillion Dollars | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice

Visualizing One Trillion Dollars | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice

Irish restaurants | Irish economy

Irish restaurants | Irish economy: "The country’s biggest spenders, the property developers, owe billions of euros. Building contractors, architects and realtors sit idly in their offices. The over-extended banks aren’t lending money. Thousands lose their jobs every week. High earners in the government, the media and business are being forced to accept pay cuts"

Oxford loses 100million in credit crunch | UK News | The National Student

Oxford loses 100million in credit crunch | UK News | The National Student

Oxford University has revealed that it has lost more than £100 million as a result of the global economic recession. Over the course of the past year investments in the University have fallen from £689 million to £593 million.

The University’s financial statement was published on January 12. It covered the period July 2007 to July 2008 and exposed what the University has described as a “relatively modest decline” of 5.1%, from £688.6m to £653.5m.

The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Interactive Graphic: Elite Endowments Plunge

The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Interactive Graphic: Elite Endowments Plunge

Graphic showing how endowments have declined...see comments for more info

FT.com / Companies / Financials - A to Z of Generation Y attitudes

FT.com / Companies / Financials - A to Z of Generation Y अत्तितुदेस

While craving excitement and challenge, nearly 90 per cent of Generation Ys describe themselves as loyal to their employer, according to the study Bookend Generations , published this week by the US-based Center for Work-Life Policy. In addition, nearly half of this tech-savvy and "connected" generation prefers face-to-face communication at work to e-mails, texts or phone calls.

Loyalty is also a key finding in European research to be published t omorrow. Young professionals interviewed for The Reflexive Generation , a report by London Business School's Centre for Women in Business, surprised even themselves by their commitment.

Wall Street Lays Another Egg | vanityfair.com

Wall Street Lays Another Egg | vanityfair.com: "Not so long ago, the dollar stood for a sum of gold, and bankers knew the people they lent to. The author charts the emergence of an abstract, even absurd world—call it Planet Finance—where mathematical models ignored both history and human nature, and value had no meaning.
by Niall Ferguson"

Wall Street and the Third World | vanityfair.com

Wall Street and the Third World | vanityfair.com

Wall Street’s Toxic Message

When the current crisis is over, the reputation of American-style capitalism will have taken a beating—not least because of the gap between what Washington practices and what it preaches. Disillusioned developing nations may well turn their backs on the free market, warns Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, posing new threats to global stability and U.S. security.

Op-Ed Columnist - Paul Krugman - Home Not-So-Sweet Home, and the ownership obsession - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Paul Krugman - Home Not-So-Sweet Home, and the ownership obsession - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com: "Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream.” So declared President Bush in 2002, introducing his “Homeownership Challenge” — a set of policy initiatives that were supposed to sharply increase homeownership, especially for minority groups. Oops."

Foreign Policy: 8 Steps to a Trillion-Dollar Meltdown

Foreign Policy: 8 Steps to a Trillion-Dollar Meltdown

How did the U.S. financial crisis happen? A review of the road to ruin reveals a course littered with more villains than heroes. The chairman: Is Ben big enough to tell the financial sector to eat its losses? No, it’s not the Great Depression, but the United States is facing a nasty economy-wide retrenchment following the excesses of the 2000s, with no easy way to dance through it. Think 1979 to 1982, when then U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker exorcised consumer price inflation from the economy. The difference today is that the inflationary explosion has been absorbed by prices of assets—houses, stocks and bonds, office buildings—rather than by the prices of things you buy at the store. Here’s how it happened.

Bush drive for home ownership fueled housing bubble - The New York Times

Bush drive for home ownership fueled housing bubble - The New York Times

The free market takes a global hit - MarketWatch

The free market takes a global hit - MarketWatch: "Across the United States, Europe and much of the rest of the developed world, a wave of government interventionism is sweeping country after country. Governments are fast taking control of private companies and entire industries. The state's heavy hand in the economy is signaling a strategic rejection of free-market doctrine.

In its place has come state capitalism, a system in which the state functions as the leading economic actor and uses markets primarily for political gain. In the years to come this may well present a significant challenge to managers and shareowners of companies and other private institutions."

Household Debt - Continuations

Household Debt - Continuations: "Household Debt
In thinking about the possible extent of the current economic crisis, I have been focused on understanding the role of debt. I first started looking at household debt. The Federal Reserve publishes statistics called the “Flow of Funds” which track sources and uses of capital in the economy over time. The following chart shows household debt, broken down into consumer debt (credit cards) and home mortgages, starting in 1966."

The Coming Global Debt Write-Off : KirkSolutions LLC

The Coming Global Debt Write-Off : KirkSolutions LLC:

Repudiation: "Let me propose the following: THERE IS NO WAY TO ‘GROW’ OURSELVES OUT OF THIS CRISIS. The same applies to the rest of the global economy. The numbers are too big – frankly, insurmountable. Sooner or later, Obama, the G20 nations, and everybody else is going to have to face the fact that DEBT WILL HAVE TO BE WRITTEN OFF in order for any of us to survive this mess. Unless we want soup lines and “brother can you spare a dime?” signs littering CNN, there isn’t any other choice. Here’s why."

Consumer tidal wave on the way: China's middle class | csmonitor.com

Consumer tidal wave on the way: China's middle class | csmonitor.com: "Grant expects 700 million Chinese to have joined the 'consumer class' by 2020 compared with less than 100 million today.

That adds up to a five-fold increase in urban consumer spending over the next 20 years to $2.3 trillion a year, according to a recent McKinsey report 'From Made in China to Sold in China.'"

As Consumerism Spreads, Earth Suffers, Study Says

As Consumerism Spreads, Earth Suffers, Study Says: "Approximately 1.7 billion people worldwide now belong to the 'consumer class'—the group of people characterized by diets of highly processed food, desire for bigger houses, more and bigger cars, higher levels of debt, and lifestyles devoted to the accumulation of non-essential goods.

Today nearly half of global consumers reside in developing countries, including 240 million in China and 120 million in India—markets with the most potential for expansion."

AGRI-FOOD THOUGHTS - China Consumer Boom Means Higher Soft Commodity Prices :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website

AGRI-FOOD THOUGHTS - China Consumer Boom Means Higher Soft Commodity Prices :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website: "As incomes rise in China and India, their consumers will dictate prices for oil and food. Their preferences are setting relative prices of nearly all commodities. These preferences have shifted to reflect their higher incomes, and will continue to do so. Chart below portrays per capita consumption of beef and rice by Chinese consumers, per UN FAO. Beef is now a preferred item on the menu at Chinese homes. Magnifying this shift is number of consumers in China and India. Such preference shifts have caused prices of grains and meats around world to rise. Higher beef consumption means raising more beef. Raising more beef means using more grain. More grain is consumed to feed the beef than is freed up from eating less rice. Agri-Food growth cycle that has emerged is really that simple."

Chinese Success Story Chokes on Its Own Growth - New York Times

Chinese Success Story Chokes on Its Own Growth - New York Times: "Few cities anywhere have created wealth faster than Shenzhen, but the costs of its phenomenal success stare out from every corner: environmental destruction, soaring crime rates and the disillusionment and degradation of its vast force of migrant workers, Ms. Zhang among them.

Shenzhen was a sleepy fishing village in the Pearl River delta, next to Hong Kong, when it was decreed a special economic zone in 1980 by the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Since then, the city has grown at an annual rate of 28 percent, though it slowed to 15 percent in 2005."

China factory closure leaves workers asking: now what? | International | Reuters

China factory closure leaves workers asking: now what? | International | Reuters: "Exporters in the once-booming southern province of Guangdong and other industrial hubs have suffered in recent years from rising labor and input costs, a stronger Chinese currency, fewer tax breaks and more stringent testing standards.

Now, credit is constricting as the U.S. crisis spreads. Factories across southern China survive on a precarious diet of loans as they compete for foreign orders with wafer-thin margins.

Yu and about 7,000 other workers were told they would not be paid and as hundreds took to the streets to protest, many wondered: If such a seemingly well-founded company could fail, who was safe in this environment?"

A Textile Capital of China Is Hobbled by the Downturn - NYTimes.com

A Textile Capital of China Is Hobbled by the Downturn - NYTimes.com: "SHAOXING, China — This was a city that globalization built.

Not long ago, 20,000 textile and garment factories were bustling here, crowded with workers knitting and sewing for six, and sometimes seven, days a week to produce the wares sold at big American retailers like Gap and Wal-Mart.

Now, demand is waning in the United States, and Shaoxing, a coastal city that is one of the world’s biggest textile centers, has fallen victim to the global downturn.

Factories here are closing. Some bosses have fled town, leaving thousands of workers in the lurch. And other owners are worried about mounting debts and the prospect of bankruptcy.

Qian Jin, an industry expert, says Chinese textile companies are suddenly in a “struggle for survival.” A warning from Beijing last December was dire, too: As many as two-thirds of the country’s textile and apparel companies could go broke."

20 million jobless migrant workers return home_English_Xinhua

20 million jobless migrant workers return home_English_Xinhua: "BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- About 20 million of China's migrant workers have returned home after losing their jobs as the global financial crisis takes a toll on the economy, said a senior official here on Monday.

Chen Xiwen, director of the office of the central leading group on rural work, said about 15.3 percent of the 130 million migrant workers had returned jobless from cities to the countryside.

The figures were based on a survey by the Ministry of Agriculture in 150 villages in 15 provinces, carried out before the week-long Lunar New Year holiday which began on Jan. 25.

His remarks came a day after the central government issued its first document this year, which warned 2009 will be 'possibly the toughest year' since the turn of the century in terms of securing economic development and consolidating the 'sound development momentum' in agriculture and rural areas."

The Importance of Geography

"People and ideas influence events, but geography largely determines them, now more than ever. To understand the coming struggles, it’s time to dust off the Victorian thinkers who knew the physical world best."

YouTube - Give It to the Bankers

The US Government Will Not Choose Deflation | Pacific Capital Associates

The US Government Will Not Choose Deflation | Pacific Capital Associates: "The US Government Will Not Choose Deflation

The modern-day monetary system employed in the United States is based on currency that can be created at the bureaucratic touch of a button. In charge of that button is a group of people with a firmly entrenched belief that deflation is the worst of all possible monetary outcomes.

We believe that this state of affairs is simply incompatible with the existence of the type of protracted 'deflationary spiral' about which it has become all the rage to worry. Deflation is a choice in the current monetary regime, and it is a choice that our government simply cannot make.

Before we explain our reasoning, let's deal with the definitional problem inherent in this topic. The word 'deflation' is used by some people to describe a generalized decline in prices. To others, the word describes a decline in the money supply. The word 'inflation' correspondingly refers to an increase in prices or an increase in the money supply, depending on whom you ask."

The Great Debate » Debate Archive » U.S. and UK on brink of debt disaster | The Great Debate |

The Great Debate » Debate Archive » U.S. and UK on brink of debt disaster | The Great Debate |: "Home

Repudiation Argument

John Kemp Great Debate-- John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. –

The United States and the United Kingdom stand on the brink of the largest debt crisis in history.

While both governments experiment with quantitative easing, bad banks to absorb non-performing loans, and state guarantees to restart bank lending, the only real way out is some combination of widespread corporate default, debt write-downs and inflation to reduce the burden of debt to more manageable levels. Everything else is window-dressing.

To understand the scale of the problem, and why it leaves so few options for policymakers, take a look at Chart 1 (https://customers.reuters.com/d/graphics/USDEBT1.pdf), which shows the growth in the real economy (measured by nominal GDP) and the financial sector (measured by total credit market instruments outstanding) since 1952.

r.

WRONGHEADED POLICIES



From this perspective, it is clear many of the existing policies being pursued in the United States and the United Kingdom will not resolve the crisis because they do not lower the debt ratio.

In particular, having governments buy distressed assets from the banks, or provide loan guarantees, is not an effective solution. It does not reduce the volume of debt, or force recognition of losses. It merely re-denominates private sector obligations to be met by households and firms as public ones to be met by the taxpayer."

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Brink of Debt Disaster

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Brink of Debt Disaster: WHY REPUDIATION WILL COME
"The United States and the United Kingdom stand on the brink of the largest debt crisis in history.

While both governments experiment with quantitative easing, bad banks to absorb non-performing loans, and state guarantees to restart bank lending, the only real way out is some combination of widespread corporate default, debt write-downs and inflation to reduce the burden of debt to more manageable levels. Everything else is window-dressing."

Levi Novey: The Amazon Rainforest is More Important than Electric Cars

Levi Novey: The Amazon Rainforest is More Important than Electric Cars: "The facts are plain and simple. Deforestation accounts for 20%-25% of worldwide carbon emissions, whereas the global transportation sector currently accounts for the same amount if not less (15-20%). The Amazon Rainforest is one of the largest forests in the world, and arguably the most important. Nowhere else in the world is there more biodiversity among plants and animals. Did you know that approximately one in every 10 known species in the world lives in the Amazon? It also provides the world with 20% of its oxygen, and contains 20% of the world's freshwater. If that's not enough, 25% of all modern pharmaceutical drugs are derived from rainforest plants, and yet only about 1% have been studied, including those that might help fight cancer.

Since the Amazon Rainforest is so important, we must ask ourselves: 'Why have we (or at least the media) become so bored of discussing the Amazon and deforestation?'"

The Obama Motor Co. - WSJ.com

The Obama Motor Co. - WSJ.com: "Every decision the feds have made since December suggests that nonpolitical management will be impossible. First they replaced Mr. Wagoner -- whom they are nonetheless still paying -- with the more pliable Fritz Henderson as CEO and Kent Kresa as Chairman. The latter are good at playing Washington but unproven in making popular cars. Then Treasury bludgeoned the bond holders in both Chrysler and GM to take pennies on the dollar, which will not make creditors eager to lend to the companies in the future."

General Motors | GM Reinvention | Corporate Information

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid22879159001?bclid=22378947001&bctid=24833632001

General Motors | GM Reinvention | Corporate Information

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid22879159001?bclid=22378947001&bctid=24833632001

Back to Business - Banks Dig In to Resist New Limits on Derivatives - Series - NYTimes.com

Back to Business - Banks Dig In to Resist New Limits on Derivatives - Series - NYTimes.com: "After the 2000 legislation was passed, derivatives trading exploded, helping the biggest traders earn immense profits.

The market now represents transactions with a face value of $600 trillion, up from $88 trillion a decade ago. JPMorgan, the largest dealer of over-the-counter derivatives, earned $5 billion trading them in 2008, according to Reuters, making them one of its most profitable businesses."

FT.com / In depth - The red ink of a greyer future

FT.com / In depth - The red ink of a greyer future: "The next decade was always going to be difficult. As retirement beckons for the middle-aged “bulge” in many national populations, governments have been facing an expensive demographic transformation. Now, the economic crisis makes the outlook only worse."

60 Minutes-AIG: We Own It

How Michael Osinski Helped Build the Bomb That Blew Up Wall Street -- New York Magazine

How Michael Osinski Helped Build the Bomb That Blew Up Wall Street -- New York Magazine: "I wrote the software that turned mortgages into bonds.

Watch the Video
Osinski on His Oyster Farm

Because of the news, you probably know more about this than you ever wanted to. The packaging of heterogeneous home mortgages into uniform securities that can be accurately priced and exchanged has been singled out by many critics as one of the root causes of the mess we’re in. I don’t completely disagree. But in my view, and of course I’m inescapably biased, there’s nothing inherently flawed about securitization. Done correctly and conservatively, it increases the efficiency with which banks can loan money and tailor risks to the needs of investors. Once upon a time, this seemed like a very good idea, and it might well again, provided banks don’t resume writing mortgages to people who can’t afford them. Here’s one thing that’s definitely true: The software proved to be more sophisticated than the people who used it, and that has caused the whole world a lot of problems."

Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With `Fools' Born to Buy Debt - Bloomberg.com

Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With `Fools' Born to Buy Debt - Bloomberg.com: "The bundling of consumer loans and home mortgages into packages of securities -- a process known as securitization -- was the biggest U.S. export business of the 21st century. More than $27 trillion of these securities have been sold since 2001, according to the Securities Industry Financial Markets Association, an industry trade group. That's almost twice last year's U.S. gross domestic product of $13.8 trillion.

The growth over the past decade was made possible by overseas banks, which saw the profits U.S. financial institutions were making and coveted the made-in-America technology, much as consumers around the world craved other emblems of American ingenuity from Coca-Cola to Hollywood movies. Wall Street obliged, with disastrous results: two-thirds of a trillion dollars in bank losses, about 40 percent of them outside the U.S."

Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion (Update1) - Bloomberg.com: "The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.

New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008."

Can China Catch a Cool Breeze?

Can China Catch a Cool Breeze?: "This small wind farm represents an alternate future: that of China as a green technology giant.

The People's Republic of China faces two problems that could be addressed with one solution.

The global economic crisis has hit China hard. The country's exports and Gross Domestic Product growth have dropped dramatically; over the past year tens of thousands of factories have closed, and an estimated 20 million workers have lost their jobs. Social unrest is growing, and many fear it could spin out of control. In the face of that, China must boost its internal investment and consumption. In other words, China, which exports much of its savings, must absorb more of the surplus it generates--it must stimulate its own economy. The Chinese government's $585 billion stimulus package, announced in November and dedicated mostly to infrastructure, is an attempt to do just that. A second, equally massive intervention may be on the way soon."

FBI saw mortgage fraud early

FBI saw mortgage fraud early: "The FBI was aware for years of 'pervasive and growing' fraud in the mortgage industry that eventually contributed to America's financial meltdown, but did not take definitive action to stop it.

'It is clear that we had good intelligence on the mortgage-fraud schemes, the corrupt attorneys, the corrupt appraisers, the insider schemes,' said a recently retired, high FBI official. Another retired top FBI official confirmed that such intelligence went back to 2002.

The problem, according to the two FBI retirees and several other current and former bureau colleagues, is that the bureau was stretched so thin that no one noticed when those lenders began packaging bad mortgages into bad securities."

William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis: "As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an 'epidemic' of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds.1 When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a 'weapon' to defraud we categorize it as a 'control fraud'"

Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS William Black Interview

US watchdog calls for bank executives to be sacked | Business | The Observer

US watchdog calls for bank executives to be sacked | Business | The Observer: "Elizabeth Warren, chief watchdog of America's $700bn (£472bn) bank bailout plan, will this week call for the removal of top executives from Citigroup, AIG and other institutions that have received government funds in a damning report that will question the administration's approach to saving the financial system from collapse.

Warren, a Harvard law professor and chair of the congressional oversight committee monitoring the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), is also set to call for shareholders in those institutions to be 'wiped out'. 'It is crucial for these things to happen,' she said. 'Japan tried to avoid them and just offered subsidy with little or no consequences for management or equity investors, and this is why Japan suffered a lost decade.' She declined to give more detail but confirmed that she would refer to insurance group AIG, which has received $173bn in bailout money, and banking giant Citigroup, which has had $45bn in funds and more than $316bn of loan guarantees."

A New Way Forward

A New Way Forward: "Build Out Your Action
Your friends want to know this is happening

Subject: Time to push the bankers out!
We need to talk about the government's handling of the banking crisis. 94% of Americans dislike the bailouts, more than 50% support the banks' temporary nationalization. It's time to take the economics debate into our own hands. On June 10, we're holding national educational forums on 'Why are bankers sitting on the bailout money? What is nationalization? What went wrong?'

I am not going to stand by and let the administration continue to pretend they don't know what is going on. I want an end to rewards for bank CEO's, and learn about new policies that protect us against a massive meltdown ever again.

In April, thousands of Americans protested against the corruption and greed fueling our current policies. Now, we need to help answer people's questions and fears about how to get rid of the toxic assets and how to stop bankers from sitting on the bailout money. In the same way that the banking industry has been pushing politicians to act in their favor, these forums can help all of us push for policies to rebuild the economy. FInd yours here: http://www.anewwayforward.org

This website, called 'A New Way Forward,' is hosting these forums, but individuals are organizing them for their home states. The forums are being built from the ground up. Obama needs to see that there is real political viability to policies that put the public first.

New York, NY USA The Tank
June 8, 2009 at 7:00pm
354 West 45th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues"

Les Leopold, author of The Looting of America, Explains the Financial Collapse and Bailout // Current

Les Leopold, author of The Looting of America, Explains the Financial Collapse and Bailout // Current: "Les Leopold, author of The Looting of America, Explains the Financial Collapse and Bailout"

The Bailout Is a Fraud That Could Bring Down Obama | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet

The Bailout Is a Fraud That Could Bring Down Obama | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet: "the banks are insolvent. That's why they must rely on the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But at the same time, they are claiming to be healthy. Both things can't be true.

So we get smiley-face reports about how Goldman and Wells Fargo are posting record profits. Investors and citizens are supposed to be excited to see those profit numbers--comprised of their own tax dollars plus the banks refusing to accurately value their toxic assets.

This is more than an unfortunate downturn, Black says. It is the result of massive, pervasive fraud, and a deregulatory culture that has nurtured criminal behavior by very highly paid bank executives.

The whole culture is rotten. And the regulators come right out of that corrupt, Wall Street culture."

Les Leopold: Fear and Looting in America: Be Happy as Wall Street walks off with Your Money

Les Leopold: Fear and Looting in America: Be Happy as Wall Street walks off with Your Money: "if we had the courage to put a very small tax on each and every Wall Street financial transaction (see my proposal in Looting of America), we would generate more than enough funds to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, promote alternative energy, create green jobs and finally slow down global warming.

I don't know about you, but if my kids could go to college without accumulating massive debts, be assured access to decent health care, not worry that globalization would continually undermine their livelihoods, and finally see the waning of global warming, I'd be one happy Da"

What the Wall Street wants us to forget? | 21 May 2009 | www.commodityonline.com

What the Wall Street wants us to forget? | 21 May 2009 | www.commodityonline.com: "Wall Street is praying that we forget how they broke open the Treasury vault to the tune of trillions in loan guarantees, subsidies and interest free money in addition to the more highly publicized TARP funds -- the largest transfer of wealth since African-American slaves built the South. It would be nice if we forgot about proposed wage caps on bankers. It would be nice if we stopped talking about ridiculous reforms and regulations that might prevent banker and hedge funds operators from walking off with hundreds of millions in private booty. Better to turn our attention to the auto industry. And maybe, if it all breaks just right, most of us might start to believe that the real problem all along was Detroit, rather than the wildest Wall Street casino ever created. It would be much better for the wealthy if we returned to one of our favorite pastimes: blaming autoworkers’ health care and pension benefits, or blasting big government for interfering in the economy."

Les Leopold

Les Leopold: "The Labor Institute"

nomi

nomi prins

former banker at goldman and bear Stearns

The Reckoning - From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble - Series - NYTimes.com

The Reckoning - From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble - Series - NYTimes.com: "But now, hundreds of cities and government agencies are facing economic turmoil. Far from being isolated examples, the Wisconsin schools and New York’s transportation system are among the many players in a financial fiasco that has ricocheted globally."

National Journal Magazine - The Next Crisis Is On The Way

National Journal Magazine - The Next Crisis Is On The Way: "Last week, the bond market hesitated when it was asked to absorb a new tranche of government debt. Fears about long-term fiscal viability may already be coming to the fore, and the recovery has not even started yet. Sooner rather than later, the White House will have to start talking about serious spending cuts, serious tax increases, or both"

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Fixing bankrupt systems is just the beginning

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Fixing bankrupt systems is just the beginning: "the path to recovery is likely to be slow, whichever is chosen. As the latest World Economic Outlook notes in an important chapter, recessions that follow financial crises are unusually severe. So, too, are globally synchronised recessions. But now we are living through a globally synchronised recession that coincides with a huge financial crisis that emanates from the core countries of the world economy, particularly the US. This is a recipe for a long recession and a weak recovery. Whatever is done about the financial system, “deleveraging” is the order of the day (see chart). The UK’s position in this looks dire. But that of the US looks quite bad, too, even compared with that of Japan in the 1990s."

FT.com / China - China has long way to go to dislodge dollar

FT.com / China - China has long way to go to dislodge dollar: "Why is a country that is still poor, people are increasingly asking, lending so much money to a rich country – especially when officials warn constantly about a possible slump in the dollar. Beijing has also reacted angrily to anyone who suggests its huge build-up in foreign currency reserves contributed to the orgy of liquidity in global financial markets.

Some of the outrage is understandable – who does not believe that profligacy in the US was at the heart of the crisis? Yet China’s huge exposure to the dollar is partly a trap of its own making.

If the Chinese currency had appreciated more rapidly in recent years, the economy might not have experienced such turbo-charged growth rates – but its reserves would not have exploded so quickly and the much-needed shift to domestic demand would be more advanced.

It is all very well for Beijing to criticise irresponsible behaviour in the US, but for China to run a current account surplus of 8-9 per cent of gross domestic product, as it has been doing, someone on the other side of the ledger must be running big deficits."

FT.com / Comment / Editorial - Sound and fury in the world economy

FT.com / Comment / Editorial - Sound and fury in the world economy: "Economies are behaving unpredictably and will continue to do so. The instability is both cause and consequence of the great uncertainty that has been spreading out from the financial markets. Fearful and confused, people react erratically to changing news, reinforcing confused market behaviour.

It does not help that our economic theories were constructed for a different world. Most models depict economies kept close to equilibrium by smooth adjustments. But we face a very real danger of large, abrupt changes: bank collapses or currency crises. And unlike what most models assume, prices are not properly clearing all markets: the cost of credit may be record-low – but it is hard to find lenders not shrinking their balance sheets."

FT.com / UK - Germany drags eurozone faster into slump

FT.com / UK - Germany drags eurozone faster into slump: "The eurozone recession intensified markedly earlier this year. It outpaced the US slowdown in ferocity and was dragged down by a contraction of almost 4 per cent in the German economy.

Gross domestic product in the 16-country region contracted by a greater-thanexpected 2.5 per cent in the first quarter, according to official data yesterday. That deepened what was already the worst recession in continental Europe since the second world war. The final quarter of 2008 had seen a 1.6 per cent fall in GDP."

FT.com / UK - Germany's troubles spark talk of Weimar

FT.com / UK - Germany's troubles spark talk of Weimar: "As the government unveils a dismal 2009 forecast today that will confirm Germany is in its steepest postwar recession - it should show the economy contracting 5-6 per cent - talk in Berlin is not about this slump, but about the one of 80 years ago that brought the Nazis to power."

FT.com / China - China stuck in ‘dollar trap’

FT.com / China - China stuck in ‘dollar trap’
China’s official foreign exchange manager is still buying record amounts of US government bonds, in spite of Beijing’s increasingly vocal fear of a dollar collapse, according to officials and analysts.

Web Series Like 'The Guild,' 'Sorority Forever' Are in a Prime Time of Their Own - washingtonpost.com

Web Series Like 'The Guild,' 'Sorority Forever' Are in a Prime Time of Their Own - washingtonpost.com: "Seen any good TV lately? I have. I haven't seen it on TV, though, not even replayed on Hulu.com. Hulu is amateur hour. I'm deep into Web-only stuff right now. And it's really, really good."

Waiting for CNBC : CJR

Waiting for CNBC : CJR: "So what are the right problems with CNBC? i called Taleb a few weeks after his Power Lunch appearance to get his opinion. Few are better positioned than Taleb to answer the question. He is, for one, a professional trader of derivatives, the unregulated securities that accelerated the panic of ’08. If CNBC neglected a journalistic duty, it began with ignoring derivatives and other securities that are difficult to invest in or even get pricing data for.

As it happens, the market for those securities is far bigger than the stock market on which CNBC focuses its energies. It is also far more lucrative; a startling if little-noticed February column in the Financial Times by Citigroup’s chief global equity strategist pointed out that global equities delivered a negative 29 percent return over the ten years prior, in stark contrast to government bonds, which had delivered an 80 percent return. The real action over those ten years, however, took place in riskier bonds and the complicated “swaps” that gained and lost value in tune with the market’s perception of their creditworthiness and the direction of interest rates. The advent of those securities essentially made it possible, and profitable, to speculate on bonds as one would stocks—for those able to play the bond market, which requires not only serious cash but a Bloomberg terminal for tracking prices. And that’s just bonds: the prices of derivatives like credit default swaps, which rise and fall in accordance with underlying bonds, are almost impossible for someone who’s not a derivatives trader to find out; there’s no exchange or clearinghouse for the things, even as hundreds of trillions of dollars in “notional” value were tied to them at the height of the crisis. The problems with CNBC are all rooted in an underlying fraud, an insider game that was not CNBC’s creation."

Power Problem : CJR

Power Problem : CJR: "he press’s role is, as always, ambiguous. On the one hand, no one at Forbes sold a single collateralized debt obligation to any German pension fund, so the press certainly can’t be blamed for causing the crisis. On the other hand, Bloomberg News employs 2,300 business journalists, The Wall Street Journal, 700-plus, The New York Times, 110, etc., and all business-news organizations purport to cover the financial system and imply, if not claim outright, mastery over a particular beat—the one that just melted down to China to the shock of one and all. So the press isn’t exactly an innocent bystander, either. It’s not 100 percent responsible, and it’s not zero percent. It’s somewhere in the middle, closer to zero than fifty, I’d say, but it had something to do with it."

Salon.com Life | It's cheap -- but can you swallow it?

Salon.com Life | It's cheap -- but can you swallow it?

The past few years have been an age of unprecedented food snobbery, a time of green markets and artisanal produce, when even casual foodies are addicted to "Top Chef" and restaurants list their heirloom ingredients like a wine list. From food blogs to best-selling books, food is not just part of a national conversation, it's also an aspirational lifestyle -- to eat organic is to live the good life.

Meanwhile, fast food restaurants became symbolic of our cultural rot. "Fast Food Nation" and, later, "Super Size Me" waved tent-size flags about the dangers of American overindulgence. For a certain segment of the population, what once seemed like a guilty pleasure became more akin to moral defeat. Comedian Patton Oswalt seemed to sum it all up when he called one egregious KFC meal a "failure dish in a sadness bowl."

FT.com / Markets / Ask the expert - The future of capitalism

FT.com / Markets / Ask the expert - The future of capitalism: "Never again should we let ideology guide central banking and its regulatory responsibilities. Central banks need new mandates that explicitly tie their policy targets to the requirement of containing the excesses of asset bubbles and the severe economic distortions they spawn. Then, and only then, can the new financial system be on much sounder footing than the old one. But that’s not to say that we in the industry shouldn’t take a long and hard look in the mirror before we embark on our own Herculean task of attempting to rebuild a failed financial system."

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - This crisis is a moment, but is it a defining one?

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - This crisis is a moment, but is it a defining one?

Is the current crisis a watershed, with market-led globalisation, financial capitalism and western domination on the one side and protectionism, regulation and Asian predominance on the other? Or will historians judge it, instead, as an event caused by fools, signifying little? My own guess is that it will end up in between. It is neither a Great Depression, because the policy response has been so determined, nor capitalism’s 1989.

Let us examine what we know and do not know of its impact on the economy, finance, capitalism, the state, globalisation and geopolitics.

A Reporter at Large: Anatomy of a Meltdown: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

A Reporter at Large: Anatomy of a Meltdown: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Bernanke’s knowledge of Lincoln was more limited, but one morning the man who organizes the parking pool in the basement of the Fed’s headquarters had given him a copy of a statement Lincoln made in 1862, after he was criticized by Congress for military blunders during the Civil War: “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right will make no difference.”

Bernanke keeps the statement on his desk, so he can refer to it when necessary.

China in crisis

China in crisis: "China is facing its greatest economic challenge for many years, says Elliot Wilson. Journeying across the country, he finds silent factories, desolate shopping malls – and migrant workers in despair"

The phones have stopped ringing on the sales desk

The phones have stopped ringing on the sales desk: "The drying up of orders has brought a dramatic 26 per cent fall in China’s exports in the year to February. In the past seven months, exports have plummeted by $725 billion, with almost 90 per cent of this decline occurring in the first two months of 2009.

For an economy accustomed to phenomenal growth over the past 15 years – driven in large part by exports of mass-produced household products and consumer goods to (until now) ever-expanding Western markets – such figures ring alarm bells. In Beijing they have sparked fears of social and political unrest as unemployment has climbed and migrant workers are forced back into rural areas for subsistence living."

Op-Ed Columnist - Empire of Carbon - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Empire of Carbon - NYTimes.com

China cannot continue along its current path because the planet can’t handle the strain.

School Lawsuit Facts: Latest Update: From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble

School Lawsuit Facts: Latest Update: From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble

Letter From Berlin: Parties Plan to Bash CEOs in Election Campaign - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Letter From Berlin: Parties Plan to Bash CEOs in Election Campaign - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International: "'Hooligans, Pyromaniacs and Gangsters'

Meanwhile, hardly a day goes by without the senior SPD politicians sharply criticizing top business leaders. SPD Chairman Franz Müntefering says that banks had 'hooligans, pyromaniacs and gangsters' on their payrolls. He also likes to call them 'modern robber barons.'"

AFP: $1 tln at risk in German banks: report

AFP: $1 tln at risk in German banks: report: "$1 tln at risk in German banks: report

Apr 25, 2009

BERLIN (AFP) — Germany's banking system is exposed to over one trillion dollars' worth of 'toxic' or risky assets, news media in Europe's largest economy said Saturday citing a confidential financial watchdog report.

Within the 816-billion-euro headline sum (1,080 billion dollars), 355 billion euros are held in the network of Germany's regional state banks, according to the document revealed by the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and the online edition of Der Spiegel magazine."

Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

Ireland's efforts to sell sovereign debt are being hurt by anger among powerful German investors who think it is disloyal toward the European Union, the head of the Irish debt management agency said on Thursday.

Michael Somers said a stream of bad news about the Irish economy was also complicating the government's efforts to raise a record 25 billion euros ($34 billion) this year to help plug a yawning budget deficit.