Famous Investor Jim Rogers: Incompetence In Washington, Abolish The Fed And The Treasury

“Mr. Geithner has been wrong about everything for the last 15 years.”


Added: 12. December 2009

How the Obama administration inflates the number of jobs created

See also:

$160,000 Per Stimulus Job!?! The White House Calls That ‘Calculator Abuse’ (ABC News)

Sour ‘stimulus’ plan reduces employment (OneNewsNow)

Featherbedding stimulus job numbers (Washington Examiner)


NY jobs don’t add up

Just 300 stimulus hires

The feds and the city are using some funny math to inflate the number of jobs created by the $787 billion stimulus program so far — with the tally including thousands of brief, low-wage summer jobs for youths.

New reports just released by the Obama administration claim New York state has “created/saved” 40,625 jobs — including 25,526 in the city.

A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg told The Post that the city had “created” 3,000 jobs and that the rest represented already employed teachers and other city employees who faced possible layoffs without the federal “shot in the arm.”

The spokesman could not immediately give a breakdown of what the new jobs entailed. But a memo issued by Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler suggested the number of stable new jobs was under 300.

The memo had a footnote explaining that the city used a formula required by the feds to count 2,882 “full-time-equivalent” as created jobs.

That number was based on 19,518 youths who took part in a summer employment program, Skyler said. The seven-week program paid minimum wage — less than $8 per hour — for residents age 14 to 24 to work in local businesses, public facilities and nonprofit groups and included some training, officials said.

Read moreHow the Obama administration inflates the number of jobs created

New York judge puts hold on mandatory swine flu vaccinations

mandatory-swine-flu-vaccination
New York wants all health workers to get flu vaccines.

NEW YORK (CNN) — A New York state Supreme Court judge Friday granted a temporary restraining order against a requirement that all health care workers in the state get H1N1 flu vaccinations.

The state health commissioner had said the workers had to be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu by November 30 or risk disciplinary action.

The Public Employees Federation filed suit, and Judge Thomas McNamara on Friday granted the restraining order, which will be in effect at least until the State Supreme Court can review the case during a hearing scheduled for October 30.

In a news release, federation President Kenneth Brynien called the decision “a big step in the right direction.”

Peter Banks, a council leader for the organization, added that its members “are not against the vaccination program; what we are against is the mandating, putting conditions of service over an unproven vaccine.”

Read moreNew York judge puts hold on mandatory swine flu vaccinations

Police State: Cops Attack Anti-War Demonstrators In Rochester, New York


Date: 15th Oct 09

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New York Medicaid Fraud May Reach Into Billions

It was created 40 years ago to provide health care for the poorest New Yorkers, offering a lifeline to those who could not afford to have a baby or a heart attack. But in the decades since, New York State’s Medicaid program has also become a $44.5 billion target for the unscrupulous and the opportunistic.

It has drawn dentists like Dr. Dolly Rosen, who within 12 months somehow built the state’s biggest Medicaid dental practice out of a Brooklyn storefront, where she claimed to have performed as many as 991 procedures a day in 2003. After The New York Times discovered her extraordinary billings through a computer analysis and questioned the state about them, Dr. Rosen and two associates were indicted on charges of stealing more than $1 million from the program.

It has drawn van services, intended as medical transportation for patients who cannot walk unaided, that regularly picked up scores of people who walked quite easily when a reporter was watching nearby. In cooperation with medical offices that order these services, the ambulettes typically cost the taxpayers more than $50 a round trip, adding up to $200 million a year. In some cases, the rides that the state paid for may never have taken place.

School officials around the state have enrolled tens of thousands of low-income students in speech therapy without the required evaluation, garnering more than $1 billion in questionable Medicaid payments for their districts. One Buffalo school official sent 4,434 students into speech therapy in a single day without talking to them or reviewing their records, according to federal investigators.

Read moreNew York Medicaid Fraud May Reach Into Billions

Cash-strapped states weigh selling roads, parks, lotteries

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota is deep in the hole financially, but the state still owns a premier golf resort, a sprawling amateur sports complex, a big airport, a major zoo and land holdings the size of the Central American country of Belize.

Valuables like these are in for a closer look as 44 states cope with deficits.

Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash.


The patient (U.S.) is dying because of poisonous and deadly medication administered by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Government:
Lindsey Williams: The Dollar And The US Will Collapse; Saudi Arabia And Dubai Will Fall; US Will Be Third World Country; The Greatest Depression Is Coming
Gerald Celente: The Greatest Depression
Analyst: One Third Of Banks Could Collapse In 2009
Peter Schiff: “There is going to be an inflationary depression in the US”
Marc Faber: “2009 is going to be a catastrophe”
Ron Paul – TRUTH on Government Fraud funds (12/22/08)
Economic Collapse of 2009 – Greater than Great Depression of 1929
U.S. Economy: Housing Prices Collapse at Near-Depression Pace
Official says California could be broke in 2 months
World faces “total” financial meltdown: Bank of Spain chief

The Neo-Alchemy of the Federal Reserve by Ron Paul
Jim Rogers: If Obamanomics happens it’s all over
Jim Rogers: “America is out of control”
Jim Rogers: The Larger US Banks Are Bankrupt, Totally Bankrupt
Interview with Peter Schiff (12/13/08)
Interview: Peter Schiff still grim on future
Peter Schiff Was Right 2006 – 2007 (2nd Edition)
Peter Schiff: Low Rates, Big Problems
Peter Schiff: The Economic Crisis Is Only Just Beginning (Nov. 24, 2008)
Federal Reserve Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion


Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has hinted that his January budget proposal will include proposals to privatize some of what the state owns or does. The Republican is looking for cash to help close a $5.27 billion deficit without raising taxes.

GOP lawmakers are pushing to privatize the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the state lottery. Both steps require a higher authority – federal legislation in the case of the airport, a voter-approved constitutional amendment for the lottery. But one lawmaker estimated an airport deal could bring in at least $2.5 billion, and the lottery $500 million.

Read moreCash-strapped states weigh selling roads, parks, lotteries

Profiles in Panic: The World of the Rich Collapses

With Wall Street hemorrhaging jobs and assets, even many of the wealthiest players are retrenching. Others, like the Lehman Brothers bankers who borrowed against their millions in stock, have lost everything. Hedge-fund managers try to sell their luxury homes, while trophy wives are hocking their jewelry. The pain is being felt on St. Barth’s and at Sotheby’s, on benefit-gala committees and at the East Hampton Airport, as the world of the Big Rich collapses, its culture in shock and its values in question.


Illustrations by Barry Blitt.

A snapshot: East Hampton, late summer, a lawn party at a house on the ocean overlooking the dunes. The host is a prince of private equity known for dressing well. One of his guests is Steven Cohen, the publicity-shy billionaire whose SAC Capital, with $16 billion under management, is perhaps the most revered of the 10,000 or so hedge funds spawned by this giddily rich time. Nearby is Daniel Loeb, of Third Point, one of the better-known “activist” hedge funds, who hopes to move soon into a 10,700-square-foot, $45 million penthouse at l5 Central Park West, a Manhattan monument to the new gilded age. Gliding easily between them is art dealer Larry Gagosian, so successful at selling Bacons and Serras to Wall Street’s new titans-including to Cohen-that he now travels in his own private jet and has his own helicopter to take him to it.

Read moreProfiles in Panic: The World of the Rich Collapses

More than 29 states face total budget shortfall

At least 29 states plus the District of Columbia, including several of the nation’s largest states, faced an estimated $48 billion in combined shortfalls in their budgets for fiscal year 2009 (which began July 1, 2008 in most states.) At least three other states expect budget problems in fiscal year 2010.

Read moreMore than 29 states face total budget shortfall

McCain suggests military-style invasion modeled on the surge to control crime

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke to the National Urban League, a group “devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream.” When an audience member asked him how he planned to reduce urban crime, McCain praised Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s efforts in New York Cirty before invoking the military’s tactics in Iraq as the model for crime-fighting:

McCAIN: And some of those tactics – you mention the war in Iraq – are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement, etc, etc.

Listen here:

Now that our military experts advocate approaching the “war on terror” with more policing and intelligence gathering, McCain wants to approach urban policing with more military power. (HT: Political Radar)

Read moreMcCain suggests military-style invasion modeled on the surge to control crime

New York Wants All Bronx Adults Tested for HIV

Community-based organizations, hospitals, and health clinics throughout New York City will voluntarily test every adult resident between the ages of 18-64 living in the Bronx for HIV, The New York Times reports.

The decision, announced by The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, comes on the heels of a recent report which shows New York City residents have the highest rate of practicing unsafe sex, and one of the highest HIV rates in the United States.

The Bronx, the report shows, has been hit especially hard.

In 2005, an estimated 250,000 Bronx residents aged 18-64 had never been tested for HIV, and one in four people with HIV did not know they were infected. The report also shows that one out of every four people that found out they were HIV-positive also found out they had full-blown AIDS at the same time.

The department of health website reports the goal of the initiative is that every Bronx resident learns his or her HIV status and has access to quality care and prevention services.

“The Bronx has the opportunity to lead the city in the fight against HIV/AIDS by being the first borough to have all residents tested,” says Thomas R Frieden, MD, MPH, and commissioner of the city’s health department.

“This will set a model not only for the city but for the whole country,” he says.

Read moreNew York Wants All Bronx Adults Tested for HIV

Study: 1 in 4 adults in NYC have herpes virus

NEW YORK (AP) – A city Health Department study finds that more than a fourth of adult New Yorkers are infected with the virus that causes genital herpes.

The study, released Monday, says about 26 percent of New York City adults have genital herpes, compared to about 19 percent nationwide.

The department says genital herpes can double a person’s risk for contracting HIV.

Herpes can cause painful sores, but most people have no recognizable symptoms.

Among New Yorkers, the herpes rate is higher among women, black people and gay men.

The health department urges consistent use of condoms, and says its STD clinics offer free, confidential herpes testing.

June 09, 08

Source: AP

NY considers creating ‘organ-removal’ ambulance

Saving the living has always been the No. 1 priority for a New York City ambulance crew. But a select group of paramedics may soon have a different task altogether: saving the dead. The city is considering creating a special ambulance whose crew would rush to collect the newly deceased and preserve the body so that the organs might be taken for transplant.

The “rapid-organ-recovery ambulance,” still in the early planning stages, could raise a host of ethical questions and strike some families as ghoulish. But top medical officials in the Fire Department and Bellevue Hospital say it has the potential to save hundreds of lives.

Generally in the U.S., only people who die at hospitals are used as organ donors, because doctors are on hand with life-support machinery and other equipment to preserve the organs and remove them before they spoil. Surgeons have only a few critical hours before kidneys, livers and other body parts suffer damage that renders them unusable.

(When I read this article I had a lot of second thoughts what this might be all about. – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreNY considers creating ‘organ-removal’ ambulance

Unmarked chopper patrols NY city from high above

On a cloudless spring day, the NYPD helicopter soars over the city, its sights set on the Statue of Liberty.

A dramatic close-up of Lady Liberty’s frozen gaze fills one of three flat-screen computer monitors mounted on a console. Hundreds of sightseers below are oblivious to the fact that a helicopter is peering down on them from a mile and a half away.

“They don’t even know we’re here,” said crew chief John Diaz, speaking into a headset over the din of the aircraft’s engine.

The helicopter’s unmarked paint job belies what’s inside: an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates — or scan pedestrians’ faces — from high above the nation’s largest metropolis.

Police say the chopper’s sweeps of landmarks and other potential targets are invaluable in helping guard against another terrorist attack, providing a see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage against bad guys.

“It looks like just another helicopter in the sky,” said Assistant Police Chief Charles Kammerdener, who oversees the department’s aviation unit.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that no other U.S. law enforcement agency “has anything that comes close” to the surveillance chopper, which was designed by engineers at Bell Helicopter and computer technicians based on NYPD specifications.

The chopper is named simply “23” — for the number of police officers killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The $10 million helicopter is just part of the department’s efforts to adopt cutting-edge technology for its counterterrorism operations.

The NYPD also plans to spend tens of millions of dollars strengthening security in the lower Manhattan business district with a network of closed-circuit television cameras and license-plate readers posted at bridges, tunnels and other entry points.

Police have also deployed hundreds of radiation monitors — some worn on belts like pagers, others mounted on cars and in helicopters — to detect dirty bombs.

Read moreUnmarked chopper patrols NY city from high above

Environment head not liable for 9/11 assurances

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cannot be held liable for assurances she gave about air safety following the September 11 attacks in New York, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

Christine Todd Whitman led the agency at the time of the attacks and was sued by people who lived and worked in lower Manhattan who accused her of statements that “falsely represented … that the air in and around lower Manhattan was safe to breathe.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that Whitman was faced with conflicting information about dangers posed by the dust and that she had passed on assurances that came from the White House.

While the judges understood the concern that the agency’s performance was “flawed,” they said that “legal remedies are not always available for every instance of arguably deficient governmental performance.”

The court also noted that Congress has set aside a process to compensate victims of the attacks.

“A bare allegation that the head of a government agency, guided by a relevant White House office, knew that her statements were false and ‘knowingly’ issued false press releases is not plausible in the absence of some supporting facts,” the decision said.

Rescue workers and others who spent time near the disaster site have reported a variety of respiratory ailments that they believe came from breathing the ash and dust caused by the collapse of the Twin Towers.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Daniel Trotta and David Storey)

Tue Apr 22, 2008 2:39pm EDT

Source: Reuters

NYC Freedom Tower plans found in trash

The government agency building a 102-story skyscraper at the World Trade Center site is investigating the discovery of two sets of blueprints for the building that a homeless man says he found in the trash.

The schematic documents for the Freedom Tower, under construction at ground zero, were marked “Secure Document – Confidential,” the New York Post reported Friday.

The documents, dated Oct. 5, 2007, contain plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall, and the location of air ducts, elevators, electrical systems and support columns, the Post reported.

Michael Fleming told the newspaper he found the documents on top of a public trash can in downtown Manhattan, with written warnings on it to “properly destroy if discarded.”

Read moreNYC Freedom Tower plans found in trash

Body Scanners at Airports in NYC and LA

Airports in New York and Los Angeles have become the latest equipped with body scanners that allow security screeners to peer beneath a passenger’s clothing to detect concealed weapons.

The machines, which are about the size of a revolving door, use low-energy electromagnetic waves to produce a computerized image of a traveler’s entire body.

Passengers step in and lift their arms. The scans only take a minute, and Transportation Security Administration officials say the procedure is less invasive than a physical frisk for knives, bombs or guns.

Someday, the “millimeter wave” scans might replace metal detectors, but for now they are being used selectively.

Los Angeles International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York saw their first scanners installed Thursday, each at a single checkpoint. Phoenix Sky-Harbor International Airport got one of the machines in October.

Modest travelers may have concerns about the images.

The black and white, three-dimensional scans aren’t as vivid as a photograph, but they do reveal some of the more intimate curves of the human form, maybe with as much clarity as an impressionist sculpture by Auguste Rodin.

Read moreBody Scanners at Airports in NYC and LA

Merck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors

The drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal.

The article, based on documents unearthed in lawsuits over the pain drug Vioxx, provides a rare, detailed look in the industry practice of ghostwriting medical research studies that are then published in academic journals.

The article cited one draft of a Vioxx research study that was still in want of a big-name researcher, identifying the lead writer only as “External author?”

Vioxx was a best-selling drug before Merck took it off the market in 2004 over evidence linking it to heart attacks. Last fall, the company agreed to a $4.85 billion settlement to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits filed by former Vioxx patients or their families.

The lead author of Wednesday’s article, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said a close look at the Merck documents raised broad questions about the validity of much of the drug industry’s published research, because the ghostwriting practice appears to be widespread.

“It almost calls into question all legitimate research that’s been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry with the academic physician,” said Dr. Ross, whose article, written with colleagues, was published Wednesday in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. and posted Tuesday on the journal’s Web site.

Read moreMerck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors

Nuclear attack on D.C. a hypothetical disaster

A nuclear device detonated near the White House would kill roughly 100,000 people and flatten downtown federal buildings, while the radioactive plume from the explosion would likely spread toward the Capitol and into Southeast D.C., contaminating thousands more.

The blast from the 10-kiloton bomb – similar to the bomb dropped over Hiroshima during World War II – would kill up to one in 10 tourists visiting the Washington Monument and send shards of glass flying the length of the National Mall, in a scenario that has become increasingly likely to occur in a major U.S. city in recent years, panel members told a Senate committee yesterday.

“It’s inevitable,” said Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, who has charted the potential explosion’s effect in the District and testified before a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. “I think it’s wistful to think that it won’t happen by 20 years.”

(What is this article about? Preparing the people for what is coming. – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreNuclear attack on D.C. a hypothetical disaster

U.S. Foreclosures Jump 57% as Homeowners Walk Away

April 15 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 57 percent and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners lost their homes to lenders.

More than 234,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, or one in every 538 U.S. households, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said today in a statement. Nevada, California and Florida had the highest foreclosure rates. Filings rose 5 percent from February.

About $460 billion of adjustable-rate loans are scheduled to reset this year, according to New York-based analysts at Citigroup Inc. Auction notices rose 32 percent from a year ago, a sign that more defaulting homeowners are “simply walking away and deeding their properties back to the foreclosing lender” rather than letting the home be auctioned, RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer James Saccacio said in the statement.

Read moreU.S. Foreclosures Jump 57% as Homeowners Walk Away

Developer Sues to Win $12.3 Billion in 9/11 Attack

Larry A. Silverstein, who has won nearly $4.6 billion in insurance payments to cover his losses and help him rebuild at the World Trade Center site, is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from airlines and airport security companies for the 9/11 attack.Mr. Silverstein, the developer of ground zero, sought the damages, whose amount was not previously known, in a claim filed in 2004, that says the airlines and airport security companies failed to prevent terrorists from hijacking the planes used to destroy the buildings.

His case was consolidated last week with similar, earlier lawsuits brought by families of some victims of the attack and by other property owners. But in seeking $12.3 billion, he is by far the biggest claimant in the litigation.

Read moreDeveloper Sues to Win $12.3 Billion in 9/11 Attack