October 3, 2009 – Infinite Unknown

The great drought in East Africa; No rainfall for three years

October 3, 2009 by Infinite

Rotting carcasses testify to the scale of the disaster looming in East Africa.

No rainfall for three years has left the Kenyan landscape strewn with animal carcasses

On the plains of Marsabit the heat is so intense the bush seems to shiver. The leafless scrub, bleached white by the sun, looks like a forest of fake Christmas trees. Carcasses of cattle and camels are strewn about the burnt red dirt in every direction. Siridwa Baseli walks out of the haze along a path of the dead and dying. He passes a skeletal cow that has given up and collapsed under a thorn tree. A nomad from the Rendille people, he is driving his herd in search of water.

He marks time in seasons but knows that it has not rained for three years: “Since it is not raining there is no pasture,” he says. Only 40 of his herd of sheep and goats that once numbered 200 have survived. Those that remain are dying at a rate of 10 every day.

Already a herder before Kenya’s independence he has never seen a drought like this.

“If I was young I would go to look for cash work. I am old. I may just die with my animals.”

Across East Africa an extraordinary drought is drying up rivers, and grasslands, scorching crops and threatening millions of people with starvation. In Kenya, the biggest and most robust economy in the region, the rivers that feed its great game reserves have run dry and since the country relies on hydropower, electricity is now rationed in the cities.

And yet, it is in the semi-desert on the southern fringe of the Sahel zone where the most dramatic changes are being felt. Droughts are nothing new here and the nomadic way of life where herders follow patchy rains across the seasons developed centuries ago as a response to precarious natural resources. The herds of cattle, sheep, goats and camels – which are venerated by the nomads – were built up in the good years to pad the margins of life when the rains failed. But this way of life is being overwhelmed, even the camels are dying of thirst.

The Economic Recovery is an Illusion: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Warns of Future Crises

October 3, 2009 by Infinite

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and Debt is Recovery

In light of the ever-present and unyieldingly persistent exclamations of ‘an end’ to the recession, a ‘solution’ to the crisis, and a ‘recovery’ of the economy; we must remember that we are being told this by the very same people and institutions which told us, in years past, that there was ‘nothing to worry about,’ that ‘the fundamentals are fine,’ and that there was ‘no danger’ of an economic crisis.

Why do we continue to believe the same people that have, in both statements and choices, been nothing but wrong? Who should we believe and turn to for more accurate information and analysis? Perhaps a useful source would be those at the epicenter of the crisis, in the heart of the shadowy world of central banking, at the global banking regulator, and the “most prestigious financial institution in the world,” which accurately predicted the crisis thus far: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS). This would be a good place to start.

The economic crisis is anything but over, the “solutions” have been akin to putting a band-aid on an amputated arm. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank to the world’s central banks, has warned and continues to warn against such misplaced hopes.

US: Personal Bankruptcy Filings Soar

October 3, 2009 by Infinite

Consumer bankruptcies topped one million for the first nine months of this year, the highest point since the system was overhauled in 2005.

The number of personal bankruptcy filings for the nine months rose to 1,046,449 as of Sept. 30, the American Bankruptcy Institute, an organization made up of attorneys, accountants and other bankruptcy professionals, said Friday, using data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center. There were 773,810 personal bankruptcy filings for the same time period in 2008.

September’s filings reached 124,790, 41% higher than the same month last year.

FDIC Seizes Three More Banks, Bringing Failure Toll This Year to 98

October 3, 2009 by Infinite

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) — Banks in Minnesota, Michigan and Colorado were shut by regulators, bringing this year’s toll of U.S. failures to 98 amid the worst financial crisis in more than seven decades.

Jennings State Bank of Spring Grove, Minnesota, and Warren Bank of Warren, Michigan, were closed by state regulators and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver, the agency said yesterday in statements on its Web site. Southern Colorado National Bank of Pueblo was closed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC said.

“Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC,” the agency said. “There is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance coverage.”

Regulators this year have closed the most banks since the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s as lenders struggle with mounting losses on real-estate loans. U.S. job losses accelerated last month as the unemployment rate climbed to the highest level since 1983.

U.S. payrolls dropped by 263,000 in September, exceeding the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey, the Labor Department said yesterday. The jobless rate rose to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent in August, while working hours matched a record low.

The FDIC deposit-insurance fund has been depleted by 120 bank failures in the past two years. The agency proposed asking banks to prepay three years of premiums to raise $45 billion. Yesterday’s failures cost the fund $293.3 million.