Peter Schiff: “There is going to be an inflationary depression in the US”

Part 1:

December 22, 2008 Source: YouTube

Part 2:

December 22, 2008 Source: YouTube

US property developers join queue for government aid

American property developers are pleading for assistance from the US government to help them through tough financial times, joining a lengthening queue for public support behind banks, financial services corporations and carmakers.

Leading American property firms have told politicians in Washington of a looming crisis when $200bn (£135bn) to $400bn of commercial mortgages mature over the next few years. With banks loth to lend money, they may be unable to refinance these loans.

Read moreUS property developers join queue for government aid

Russia approves longer presidency


RIA NOVOSTI/REUTERS Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, speaks with President Dmitry Medvedev in the Gorki residence outside of Moscow. (Dec. 17, 2008)

MOSCOW-The upper house of parliament unanimously approved extending Russian presidential terms on Monday, a constitutional amendment which has fuelled speculation Vladimir Putin will return as head of state.

The Federation Council endorsed a decision by regional assemblies to support a six-year term for future presidents versus four years now. President Dmitry Medvedev, who proposed the changes, now will sign the bill into law.

Read moreRussia approves longer presidency

Oligarchs go cap in hand to the Kremlin as their vast empires begin to crumble


Vladimir Putin talks to Roman Abramovich, whose business interests are reported to have already received a £1.2bn bailout

They bought country houses, super-yachts and football clubs, but the era of the Russian oligarch may be drawing to a close.

Details of the financial bailout being offered by the Kremlin to Russia’s richest men have revealed that many could be stripped of power by next Christmas. The loans will last for one year only and will be collateralised against shares owned by the oligarchs.

Most are expected to struggle to repay the loans within a year, raising the possibility that the Kremlin is trying to engineer the renationalisation of the Russian economy.

The bailout could be a double-edged sword: it may save the oligarchs’ companies in the short-term but could reduce their power and wealth in the long run. According to Zina Psiola, a Russian fund manager at Clariden Leu in Zurich: “Some oligarchs will no longer be oligarchs. It’s extremely unlikely they’ll all be able to repay in a year.”

Figures such as Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, have seen the value of their companies collapse, forcing them to seek government aid or risk defaulting on loans to foreign banks. Evraz, a steel company part-owned by Mr Abramovich, has reportedly already received $1.8 billion (£1.2 billion) from the Kremlin.

Read moreOligarchs go cap in hand to the Kremlin as their vast empires begin to crumble

New Zealand recession deepens

New Zealand’s economy has contracted for a third straight quarter as the combination of a weak housing market and a slowing global economy takes its toll.

The country’s gross domestic product contracted 0.4pc in the three months to the end of September and that follows a 0.2pc decline in the second quarter and a 0.3pc shrinkage in the first three months of the the year. The decline for the latest quarter was in line with economists’ expectations.

Like that of its larger neighbour Australia, New Zealand’s economy has enjoyed a booming housing market over the past decade. However, the bursting of the housing bubble has prompted New Zealanders to apply a sharp brake to their spending.

Read moreNew Zealand recession deepens

Scientists create world’s thinnest material

Researchers have created the world’s thinnest sheet – a single atom thick – and used it to create the world’s smallest transistor, marking a breakthrough that could spark the development of super-fast computer chips.

This innovation will allow ultra small electronics to take over when the current silicon-based technology runs out of steam, according to Prof Andre Geim and Dr Kostya Novoselov from the University of Manchester.

They reveal details of transistors that are only one atom thick and fewer than 50 atoms wide in the journal, Nature Materials.

Read moreScientists create world’s thinnest material

Central banks revolution gathers pace

$20 bills at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving in Washington: central banks are taking unprecedented action to increase the money supply by expanding their balance sheets

A quiet revolution in central banking is gathering speed, as the Federal Reserve ploughs ever deeper into the brave new world of unorthodox monetary policy and other central banks ponder how far they might have to follow.

The world’s central banks have already undergone dramatic changes since the start of the credit crisis more than a year ago. They have cut interest rates with unprecedented rapidity – in some cases to historic lows – and have increased bank reserves massively to meet heightened private sector demand for liquidity.

They have become de facto central counterparties in the money markets, and in some cases even direct lenders to companies. Moreover, by making liquidity available against collateral on terms far more favourable than those that prevail in the private markets, they have become in effect catastrophic risk insurers of last resort for whole classes of financial assets – taking on the risk that the crisis could become so bad that they cannot recoup their loans.

But the latest steps by the Federal Reserve – which cut interest rates virtually to zero last week and said it would create money to finance ever-larger credit operations – break new ground.

Related:
The Neo-Alchemy of the Federal Reserve by Ron Paul
Interview: Peter Schiff still grim on future

Already the Fed arguably has one companion, the Bank of Japan. The BoJ cut rates to nearly zero on Friday, stepped up its purchases of government bonds and said it would buy commercial paper.

Read moreCentral banks revolution gathers pace

Secret of the Lusitania: Arms find challenges Allied claims it was solely a passenger ship

Her sinking with the loss of almost 1,200 lives caused such outrage that it propelled the U.S. into the First World War.

But now divers have revealed a dark secret about the cargo carried by the Lusitania on its final journey in May 1915.

Munitions they found in the hold suggest that the Germans had been right all along in claiming the ship was carrying war materials and was a legitimate military target.


Doomed: A contemporary view of the sinking of the Lusitania off Ireland in May 1915

Read moreSecret of the Lusitania: Arms find challenges Allied claims it was solely a passenger ship

Blind man navigates obstacle course using ‘blindsight’

A man who was left completely blind by multiple strokes has been able to navigate an obstacle course using only his “sense” of where hazards lie.

The feat is an example of “blindsight”, the ability of some blind people to sense things that they cannot see.

Scientists already knew that the man, known only as TN, reacted to facial expressions that he could not see.

Brain scans showed that he could recognise expressions including fear, anger and joy in other people.

However, he is totally blind and normally walks using a stick to alert himself to objects in his path.

To test the extend of his blindsight, scientists constructed an obstacle course made up of boxes and chairs arranged in a random pattern.

Not only was TN able to safely manoeuvre the course he did not bump into a single box or chair.

Professor Beatrice de Gelder, from the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, who led the study, said: “This is absolutely the first study of this ability in humans.

Read moreBlind man navigates obstacle course using ‘blindsight’

Afghan parents selling their sons to survive

Afghan parents are selling their sons to wealthy women unable to have their own.

Afghan parents selling their sons to survive
Channel 4 footage shows eight-year-old Qassem saying goodbye to his family Photo: CHANNEL 4 NEWS

The trade in children is spurred by the battered country’s economy and the failure of foreign aid to reach beyond the coffers of central government in the capital Kabul.

While girls are are rarely traded, boys can fetch substantial sums – at least in the eyes of the poor couples who give up a child simply to allow the rest of the family to survive.

A cameraman working for Channel 4 News, Mehran Bozorgnia, witnessed the sale of an eight-year-old boy, Qassem, to Sadiqa, a wealthy woman from Kabul, outside the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

As the meeting began, the boy’s father, Nek Mohammed, knew he only had a final few moments with his son. Sadiqa was business-like. “Kiss your father and mother goodbye now – it is time,” she said, before handing over $1,500 (£1,000). Mr Mohammed began to weep.

Read moreAfghan parents selling their sons to survive

UK economic downturn accelerates

The recession in the UK economy in the three months to September was worse than previously thought, official data out on Tuesday showed, underlining the speed of the downturn.

Gross domestic product shrank by 0.6 per cent between the second and third quarters of this year – the worst performance since the end of 1990 – the Office of National Statistics reported.

That compares with an earlier estimate that the UK economy had contracted by 0.5 per cent in the quarter, and is worse than the consensus view of economists who had expected GDP to remain unrevised.

The pound, which has moved closer to parity with the euro in the last week, came under renewed pressure following the release of the revised figures.

Read moreUK economic downturn accelerates

GM Stock, Bond Investors Bet It Won’t Stay Afloat Even With U.S. Lifeline


Rick Wagoner, chief executive officer of General Motors Corp., speaks at a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Detroit, Dec. 19, 2008. Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg News

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said the biggest U.S. automaker got “what we asked for” with $9.4 billion in U.S. loans over the next 24 days. Investors bet that it’s not enough.

Related: Stocks in U.S. Fall on Concern Loans Won’t Save Car Industry: GM Declines

GM dropped as much as 18 percent today in New York trading to extend yesterday’s 22 percent plunge, while credit-default swaps on GM bonds rose 0.5 percentage point in a sign of increasing concern that the Bush administration’s bailout may end in a default.

The stock-price slide erased the 23 percent gain on Dec. 19, when Detroit-based GM received a federal aid package to help the automaker stay in business until March 31 while it crafts a plan to shut plants, shed brands and reduce debt.

Read moreGM Stock, Bond Investors Bet It Won’t Stay Afloat Even With U.S. Lifeline

U.S. Economy: Housing Prices Collapse at Near-Depression Pace

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) — Sales of single-family houses in the U.S. dropped in November by the most in two decades and resale prices collapsed at a pace reminiscent of the Great Depression, dashing speculation the market was close to a bottom.

Purchases of both new and existing houses dropped 7.6 percent, the biggest decline since January 1989, to an annual rate of 4.43 million, government and industry figures showed today. A 13 percent drop in the median resale price was the most since records began in 1968 and was likely the largest since the 1930s, the National Association of Realtors said.

“Housing is still in a freefall,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

The figures were worse than economists had forecast and signal that the battered housing market that led the economy into a recession may be taking another lurch down. Sliding property values mean more Americans will be under water on their mortgages, destroying household wealth and undermining consumers’ purchasing power.

Read moreU.S. Economy: Housing Prices Collapse at Near-Depression Pace

Terrorism drill to be part of passing torch


Police officers keep watch inside New York’s Grand Central Terminal on the day before Thanksgiving.

WASHINGTON – What would happen if terrorists attacked the United States at the start of Barack Obama’s presidency?

The Bush administration doesn’t want to wait to find out. It’s planning to test the incoming government’s readiness next month in a series of tabletop exercises involving top Bush and Obama officials.

Concerned about the first handoff of presidential power since Sept. 11, 2001, the White House also is preparing briefing books and office manuals designed to bring the incoming Obama administration up to speed in a hurry.

“This is the first wartime transition in 40 years, and it’s probably the first transition in a couple of centuries in which our homeland itself has been under threat,” says White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, who’s supervising the effort. The goal is to “make sure that those who are coming in are as well prepared as they can be to deal with an actual threat here in this country.”

Read moreTerrorism drill to be part of passing torch

Official says California could be broke in 2 months

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California’s chief financial officer warned Monday that the state would run out of money in about two months as hopes of a Christmas budget compromise melted into political finger-pointing by the end of the day.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger began the day on a cheerful note, suggesting that negotiations with Democratic leaders could lead to a budget deal as early as this week to help close the $42 billion shortfall that is projected through June 2010.

“Yesterday we sat there for hours and we worked through it step by step and we made some great progress,” the governor said during a morning news conference in Los Angeles. “So we feel like if we do that two more times like that, I think we can get there … before Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.”

The thaw didn’t last long, as legislative leaders later in the day criticized Schwarzenegger and indicated their work was done until the start of the new year.

The governor faulted lawmakers for “failing to take real action” in addressing the state’s budget deficit but said he will continue working with them on a solution that includes spending cuts, new revenue and an economic stimulus plan.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass responded by suggesting the governor should sign an $18 billion package Democrats sent to him last week containing both cuts and tax increases.

“The single biggest roadblock to having construction on the 405 (freeway) move forward is Arnold Schwarzenegger,” said Bass, a Los Angeles Democrat.

Read moreOfficial says California could be broke in 2 months

Pakistan military on ‘high alert’


Tensions between the two neighbours has been high since last month’s attacks in Mumbai [GALLO/GETTY]

Pakistan’s media has reported that the country’s military is on high alert over a possible attack by India.

The reported move on Monday came as New Delhi said it had handed over to Islamabad a letter from the only surviving attacker from last month’s rampage in Mumbai, which left more than 170 people dead.

The letter said that all 10 attackers were from Pakistan, India’s foreign ministry said.

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Pakistan, said Pakistan’s media had attributed its reports to military sources, who were confirming that the navy, air force and army were on red alert.

“The Pakistani air force have been seen visibly in a number of locations flying close to the Pakistani-India border in what is being described as an aggressive patrolling mode, following reports that India is planning pre-emptive strikes against locations in Pakistan,” Hyder reported.

Hyder said that the chiefs of Pakistan’s three armed forces were holding what had been described as an emergency meeting at general headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Read morePakistan military on ‘high alert’

Gladiators set to return to Colosseum for first time in 2,000 years

Compare a modern soccer and baseball stadium to the Colosseum. Nothing has really changed. The entire society is built around ‘Panem et circenses’ (‘Bread and Circuses’ or ‘Bread and Games’)…and religion.

The crowning achievements to entertain and program you are TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, cellphone towers, cell phones, subliminals, frequencies etc.

If an expert puts electrodes at certain places to your head and measures your brain waves – modified EEG using the Fourier-Transformation – this facts can be proven.

Not even a Faraday cage is safe because they are also using scalar waves that cannot be shielded.

In order to keep you frozen like a rabbit in front of a snake the elite uses to this day ‘Divide et impera’ (‘Divide and Rule’ or ‘Divide and Conquer’).


Gladiators are set to make a return to the ancient Colosseum in Rome for the first time in 2,000 years.

But it’s just for mock fights, organisers emphasised.

Council officials say the proposed plan would not be a ‘carnival’ but a very serious affair.


Maximus come alive: Russel Crowe in ‘Gladiator’

Umberto Broccoli, Rome’s archaeology councillor and TV presenter, said: ‘We need to bring museums alive and speak to the public. We will recreate the atmosphere as it was then.’

Mr Broccoli added: ‘We need to recreate the sights, smells and sounds that were there at the time on the streets.

‘This is the only way to create an atmosphere in a museum that will not be forgotten in a hurry.’

Rome has several modern day gladiator schools were ‘students’ can train as a real life Russell Crowe and pretend to be his hero character Maximus.

Whether Russell Crowe himself could be tempted to make an appearance remains to be seen.


Ready for action again: The Colosseum in Italy will see gladiator fights for the first time in 2,000 years

Mr Broccoli added that the proposal would not be tacky – although it had not yet been established whether the mock fights would take place on a purpose-built stage in the centre of the arena or outside.

Read moreGladiators set to return to Colosseum for first time in 2,000 years

German intel head threatens whistleblower site

The BND is just a subunit of the CIA.



Der Präsident des Bundesnachrichtendienstes (BND), Ernst Uhrlau

In the latest twist in a scandal involving the presence of the German intelligence service or Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) in the Balkan nation of Kosovo, the head of the BND has ordered whistleblower website Wikileaks to remove all BND-related files under threat of “immediate prosecution.”

Wikileaks has responded with a press release noting that the demands have no legal force outside Germany, so the order “must be assumed to be an attempt to engage Wikileaks via its German component — or does Mr. Uhrlau suggest it is now BND policy to kidnap foreign journalists and try them before German courts?”

According to Wikileaks, “The threats, made by BND President Ernst Uhrlau, were triggered by the Wikileaks publication of an article by Tom Burghardt, a US journalist, on the BND’s bungled Kosovo operation, together with a classified BND dossier on senior Kosovo figures from 2005 — both of which were specifically named by Mr. Uhrlau.”

The Kosovo scandal began on November 19, when three Germans were arrested in Kosovo’s capital of Pristina on suspicion of throwing explosives at the European Union office. The men, who said they were not behind the incident but were merely observing the crime scene, were identied by the German paper Spiegel as BND agents.

Read moreGerman intel head threatens whistleblower site

Britain’s job ‘bloodbath’

Cabinet minister issues stark warning of carnage for private and public sectors as employers delay huge redundancies until the new year.

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Britain faces an unemployment “bloodbath” in the new year with many tens of thousands of jobs axed in the public and private sectors, according to a cabinet minister. Senior government figures are braced for a dramatic lengthening in dole queues in the first quarter of 2009, as employers delay announcing redundancies until after Christmas.

Read moreBritain’s job ‘bloodbath’

UK house prices won’t recover for a decade

UK house prices will not recover their 2007 peak for at least a decade, Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has warned.

In what ranks as the gloomiest forecast for the UK property market to date, LGIM economist Tim Drayson has predicted that house prices will “fall another 10pc-15pc next year followed by four to five years of stagnation as incomes catch up with house prices”.

“It will be at least 10 years before we see prices return to their 2007 peak levels,” he said. LGIM, part of the insurance giant Legal & General, has been remarkably accurate with other economic predictions in the past year.

Read moreUK house prices won’t recover for a decade

Gloom grows as Japanese exports suffer record fall

Japan has suffered its sharpest fall in exports on record as even previously robust markets hunker down against the shockwaves of the global financial crisis.

Related articles:
Plunge in Exports Reverberates Across Asia
Toyota Expects Its First Loss in 70 Years

The slump in demand for the output of the powerful – and economically pivotal – Japanese export sector comes amid gloomy prognostications about the prospects for the world’s second largest economy.

Japan’s cabinet office yesterday cut its forecast for the third month in a row, declaring that the recession-mired economy was “worsening” in the face of the trade slowdown, falling corporate profits, rising unemployment and weak private consumption. “The economy is likely to continue worsening for the time being,” the office said.

Read moreGloom grows as Japanese exports suffer record fall

Saudi court tells girl aged EIGHT she cannot divorce husband who is 50 years her senior

Mass wedding in Riyadh
Grooms take part in a mass wedding ceremony in Riyadh in June. Governor of Riyadh Prince Salman and a local group organized a mass wedding for about 1600 couples to help people unable to afford expensive ceremonies

A Saudi court has rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man who is 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty.

The divorce plea was filed in August by the girl’s divorced mother with a court at Unayzah, 135 miles north of Riyadh just after the marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom.

Lawyer Abdullar Jtili said:”The judge has dismissed the plea, filed by the mother, because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty.”

“She doesn’t know yet that she has been married,” Jtili said then of the girl who was about to begin her fourth year at primary school.

Read moreSaudi court tells girl aged EIGHT she cannot divorce husband who is 50 years her senior

Where’d the bailout money go? Shhhh, it’s a secret

Where’d the bailout money go? $350 billion later, banks won’t say how they’re spending it.


Elizabeth Warren, who chairs an oversight committee set up by Congress to oversee the bailout, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where’s the money going?

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,'” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

Read moreWhere’d the bailout money go? Shhhh, it’s a secret