Is the dollar terminal?

[Jason]

Rumors flying...

Expats recalled as North Korea prepares for war
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 45018.html

N. Korea says it is at 'brink of war' with S. Korea
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201011 ... ar-101126/

As South Korea Proceeds With Joint US Military Exercises, North Korea Vows Retaliation
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/south- ... etaliation

North Korea Warns South Korea That It May Launch Additional Attacks
http://themostimportantnews.com/archive ... al-attacks

Meanwhile...

Unofficial Problem Bank list increases to 919 Institutions
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

Surge Of Inexplicable After Hours Selling Takes Gold Volatility Index To All Time Low
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/surge- ... l-time-low

European Debt Crisis Cheat Sheet
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/europe ... heat-sheet

[Original_Intent]

With all the rumors of war regarding Korea, THIS will probably be the time that Israel will actually attack Iran.

[Jason]

With all the rumors of war regarding Korea, THIS will probably be the time that Israel will actually attack Iran.

One of these days I believe that's going to happen....or the US attacks Iran.

[Jason]

Obama To Freeze Government Salaries At All Time High

In 10 minutes the teleprompter in chief will announce that he is about to freeze government salaries for two years. Of course, government workers thank him, as this means federal salaries which have exploded in the past 5 years will be stuck at all time highs for at least two years, even as nominal salaries for everyone else (except FIRE workers of course) continue to decline. As we suggested a few days ago, in order to promote some vaguely credible idea of austerity, instead of freezing salaries, Obama needs to be cutting. Why? One look at the chart below explains it all.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/obama- ... -time-high

A Strong Luxury Market or Bath?

Tiffany results give excellent insight into the luxury market mania. At the flagship US store in New York sales were down 3%. It was up a modest 8% in the US as a whole. Japan was up 2%, but the rest of Asia was up a whopping 24%. Growth for sure, but Chinese consumer consumption is $2 trillion, or one-tenth the size of Europe and the US combined. I am not quite sure what to make of the 22% increase in Europe. Sales of items under $500 declined, but high jewelry and diamond sales drive expensive purchases much higher. That, ladies and gents, is the foundation of the luxury boom of 2010.

The TIF result couldn’t be more clear. This mania is directly correlated to the Chinese speculative real estate mania, which I originally covered in a report in Russ Winter’s Actionable (a subscription service). This one makes the US real estate bubble look like child’s play. The Chinese authorities have taken measures to check this, but the mania has just spilled over into Hong Kong . As with all great manias, people feel that they have hit the jackpot, but in reality there are less than a million millionaires in China, suggesting that much of this fleeting bubble-mania wealth is driven by Wannabees. Wannabees drove the US housing bubble, and we are still dealing with the aftershocks. For those who wished they had played the US bust aggressively, now you have an even bigger mutha to play as China will be much worse.

A prevailing myth is that even in the US the wealthy are now carrying the consumer based economy. Usually when the discussion is centered around the US, the bottom 60% are dismissed as irrelevant, as if the US was really a banana republic of sorts. Nor is there particular concern about how this indebted lower tier affects the holdings (largely bonds and stocks) of the 5% who hold the securities that represent their debts. The belief is that the Fed or the government will take care of most of the risk of holding investments dependent on, drum roll please, debts owed by the lower 60% or 80% in the banana republic. Incidentally, despite the Ministry of Truth barrage going into Black Friday about improving employment, there were 1,651 mass layoff events (at least 50 workers) in October, resulting in 148K job losses – 121 more mass layoffs than in September.

http://www.wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs ... ahoo!+Mail

Number of the Week: 492 Days From Default to Foreclosure

492: The number of days since the average borrower in foreclosure last made a mortgage payment.

Banks can’t foreclose fast enough to keep up with all the people defaulting on their mortgage loans. That’s a problem, because it could make stiffing the bank even more attractive to struggling borrowers.

In recent months, the number of borrowers entering severe delinquency — meaning they missed their third monthly mortgage payment — has been on the decline, falling to about 700,000 in October, according to mortgage-data provider LPS Applied Analytics. But it’s still more than double the number of foreclosure processes started.

As a result, banks are taking progressively longer to foreclose. The average borrower in the foreclosure process hadn’t made a payment in 492 days as of the end of October, according to LPS. That compares to 382 days a year ago and a low of 244 days in August 2007.

In other words, people who default on their mortgages can reasonably expect, on average, to stay in their homes rent-free more than 16 months. In some states such as New York and Florida, the number is closer to 20 months.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/ ... reclosure/

Black Friday Sales Rise 0.3% as Shoppers Wait for Retailers to Cut Prices
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-2 ... tores.html

Terms of Enslavement; Irish Citizens Say "Default"; Agreement Violates EU and Irish Laws; 50 Ways to Leave the Euro
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29

Revolution Roundup #2: As Mass Rebellion Spreads Throughout Europe, Americans Dance With The Stars
http://ampedstatus.com/revolution-round ... -the-stars

6 Reasons To Start World War III If You Are A Globalist
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/11/6-r ... ii-if.html

North Korea Declares A State Of “Ultra-Emergency” And Threatens To Unleash A “Sea Of Fire” Upon South Korea
http://themostimportantnews.com/archive ... outh-korea

US lied for war in Iraq, lies for war in Iran, beware Korea war lies today
http://dailycensored.com/2010/11/28/us- ... ensored%29

France, Ireland and Hungary Seize Pensions As Part of Move By Governments to Use Long -Term Assets to Fill "Short-Term Deficits"
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2 ... seize.html

Big Inflation is Rapidly Developing
http://www.wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs ... ahoo!+Mail

The Stench of US Economic Decay Grows Stronger
http://www.blacklistednews.com/index.php?news_id=11682

Hundreds Of Nuclear Warheads "Secretly" Being Trucked From Washington To Texas!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh6sAhoh ... r_embedded

CIA brain experiments pursued in veterans’ suit
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-ta ... rsued.html

SURVIVE ANYTHING! Chapter 2: Food Crisis
http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=936

Equity futures are lower this morning, the morning after Ireland (or the cronies thereof) accepted an ill-gotten “rescue.” This “rescue” won’t benefit anyone but the central bankers, it’s nothing but a crime of the highest order - perpetrated not just on the people of Ireland, but also against the people of United States and much of Europe as well. The amount of interest they are paying is absurd, the actual interest rate is substantially higher than the touted 5.8% due to the finer terms of the agreement. Ridiculous, the Irish should have defaulted on the bonds that were the bankers problem in the first place, they should leave the European Union, and they should produce their own money without being indebted to the private bankers.

Meanwhile our bonds dropped like a stone, the dollar is higher with the euro substantially lower, oil and gold are slightly higher, while grain futures are soaring.

There are no economic reports today, just TWO POMOs to help cement the destruction of America. The Employment Situation Report this Friday will be the highlight of the week with quite a bit of data beginning tomorrow.

No violence yet on the Korean Peninsula as China offered to hold talks in December. That’s interesting, perhaps they are keeping their dog on a leash for now. Not sure if we’re bent on provoking a reaction or not, the events here are obviously important.

The Wikileaks document release is something. It is exposing the U.S. as the grand manipulators that we have unfortunately become. Of course the manipulators try to paint Assange as a rapist and as someone doing damage to real people… sorry, but he is simply shining light on cockroaches who are squirming because their actions cannot stand up in the light of day. Indeed it is weakening the U.S., not because of Wikileaks, but because we have an incompetent government who is doing evil work in support of the central banks. Of course our government tried to hack the Wikileaks site, then they release this nonsense pinning it on a “hacktivist for good,” LOL:

'Hacktivist for good' claims WikiLeaks takedown

(CNN) -- A computer hacker who calls himself "The Jester" claimed responsibility for the cyber attack which took down the WikiLeaks site Sunday, shortly before it started posting hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

The Jester, who describes himself as a "hacktivist for good," said he took the controversial site down "for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations."

He normally attacks Islamist websites, announcing "TANGO DOWN" on his Twitter account when claiming to have attacked a site. "Tango Down" is Special Forces jargon for having eliminated a terrorist.
Over the past few days, the Jester has targeted a handful of websites for reasons including "online incitement to cause young Muslims to carry out acts of violent jihad," "distributing jihadist instructional materials," and "for the online radicalization of young Muslims in US and Europe."

The Jester describes himself as "an ex-soldier with a rather famous unit, country purposely not specified."
"I was involved with supporting Special Forces, I have served in (and around) Afghanistan amongst other places," he told the website threatchaos.com early this year.


The “Jester,” what a joke. This is obviously CIA and they are turning themselves into a joke along with the entire Administration. It’s quite sad to watch your country fall to this level. And as far as our Administration’s claims for potentially endangering people, why YES, it is our Administration who has placed many people in real danger with their actions and their brainwashing of the public.

Want to see another example of brainwashing? Here’s another CNN article from this morning telling us what energy hogs the Chinese are!

Okay, so who’s the energy hog? China has more than 4 times the population and produces FAR more actual goods than the U.S., yet uses about the same amount of energy! What’s really going on is that the U.S.’s GDP is the result of FINANCIAL ENGINEERING, it is FALSE. Yet we drive around in giant sized S.U.V.’s and F-350s producing little that’s real.

And while that is certainly not the most important news story of the weekend, it is important because it demonstrates the propaganda being disseminated here in the United States. We have become far better at warping people’s minds and perspectives than the Russians and Pravda ever were. Again, this deception originates at the central banks. They own and control the production of money, our politics, our markets, the military industrial complex, the media, everything – and it’s all false, based entirely on FRAUD. It started with the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank who is NOT “Federal,” they hold NO RESERVES, and they are not really even a BANK.

I know that’s a very negative world view, but one that I sadly believe to be reality. If we truly love the ideas and principles that our country is based upon, then we need to acknowledge those realities and set about fixing them. Investing in the “markets?” They are way too far gone for long term “investing,” they won’t be safe again until WHO controls them is changed. Get out the popcorn, it’s going to be quite a show from here on out.

http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2010/1 ... -1129.html

[Original_Intent]

That last quote is both depressing and also outstanding in that it sums things up nicely. propaganda is alive and well in the U.S. better than any the soviets ever managed on their people.

We have sowed the wind and about to reap the whirlwind. Batoning down the hatches at my place.

[Jason]

That last quote is both depressing and also outstanding in that it sums things up nicely. propaganda is alive and well in the U.S. better than any the soviets ever managed on their people.

We have sowed the wind and about to reap the whirlwind. Batoning down the hatches at my place.

Yeah Nathan has a knack of saying it as it is. He's the one that produced the debt saturation chart that took the financial world by storm in Feb/March of 2010.

[Jason]

Equity futures are down sharply, erasing all of yesterday afternoon’s false straight up POMO induced short covering romp. Oil is down this morning after zooming on yesterday’s huge POMO infusion, yet gold continues to soar. The dollar continues to rocket as the euro gets slaughtered:

Bonds here are higher while spreads across Europe blow wider. Obviously this isn’t going to stop until all of Europe is bailed out… and how’s that going to happen? In the end countries are left with DEBT that cannot be repaid. Anyone who thinks that Ireland is EVER going to repay this “rescue” is simply insane – it can’t happen. Yet the central banks don’t care - they can create the money from nothing time and again – it’s not about money, it’s about CONTROL. But in their fervent and feverish desire to have control, the banks are losing control, the people of the world ARE going to toss them and their debt aside, there is no other outcome that’s mathematically possible.

I’m sure that just having that ‘T’ word on the headline will get me on 10 more watch lists… We have Congressmen branding WikiLeaks’ Assange a “terrorist” in addition to Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Administration brandishing HIM a criminal for exposing THEIR criminal acts (UN seeks answers from Washington). Next Assange says he has information regarding one of America’s big banks, and now we also have Actor Mark Ruffalo placed on terror watch list for supporting a documentary about gas drilling.

Current developments are disturbing to say the least - there is no doubt that the real terrorists reside at the central banks. Those terrorists and those who support them should think long and hard about their standing once the people rise up, and they will, it is only a matter of when.

Meanwhile the markets continue to be a complete and total joke – a façade. Netflix at $200 a share! Give me a break. Yesterday we just pumped $9 billion more into the markets via two POMOs, and one has to wonder when it becomes 3, then 4, then you might as well just run a constant hose straight into the market. Yesterday the “Fed” cited weakness in just 3 companies as justification for pumping an additional $600 billion into the world! LOL, well, I’m a little short, perhaps the “Fed” should consider another $trillion or ten?

Need for QE2 Seen in Pausing Electronics Manufacturing Services

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- In the week before the Federal Reserve announced its $600 billion program to help spur the U.S. recovery, three makers of electronic equipment for companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. announced that demand for their products was weakening.

“Our customer forecasts are more uncertain,” Jure Sola, chief executive officer of San Jose, California-based Sanmina- SCI Corp., said on a Nov. 1 conference call. Some clients “have a lot of inventory in the pipeline” and “are worried about the economy.”

Policy makers led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke cited the deceleration in business spending on equipment and software when they announced Nov. 3 that the Fed would purchase Treasuries in a second round of quantitative easing to prevent inflation from falling further and help bring down unemployment, which has remained above 9 percent since May 2009.


Sweet, sweet POMO… While the central banks suckle the sugar, our real economy rots in the decay. The world became saturated with debt, they lowered interest rates to nothing (except for real people), then they pumped money from nothing, and now governments and people are even more saturated because it’s all the SAME PEOPLE who are responsible for all of it. More debt doesn’t make the problem go away – DUH. So what comes next? That would be the “other” events. You know, ignoring the Constitution, ignoring the rule of law, currency wars, trade wars, real shooting wars, labeling everyone a terrorist – that type of stuff. And there’s plenty more to come… plenty.

Yesterday Simon Black wrote a very provoking piece that was posted on ZeroHedge:

Simon Black Advocates Leaving America As The "Most Effective" Way To Fight The Battle With "The Mob-Installed Government Beast"

Simon Black, better known as Sovereign Man, presents some disturbing thoughts which are sure to get the broader spirits elevated. Instead of continuing to fight what some see as a losing ideological battle with a government which no longer even remotely represents the broader population's interests, Black says simply to walk away: "When you think about it, what we call a 'country' is nothing more than a large concentration of people who share common values. Over time, those values adjust and evolve. Today, cultures in many countries value things like fake security, subordination, and ignorance over freedom, independence, and awareness. When it appears more and more each day that those common values diverge from your own, all that's left of a country are irrelevant, invisible lines on a map. I don't find these worth fighting for ...The government beast in your home country feeds on debt and taxes, and the best way to win is for bright, productive people to move away with their ideas, labor, and assets. This effectively starves the beast and accelerates its collapse. Then, when the smoke clears, you can move back and help rebuild a free society."

This is the “Who Moved My Cheese” type of thinking – best to move on early, which is usually true. However, in this case one must ask if there is a freedom seeking place remaining on the planet? To me such a place needs to be safe and free from the reach of the central bankers! But I don’t see such a place, the central bankers have literally polluted the world with their corruptive filth. It’s so dirty that China and Russia will no longer trade with one another in it:

Meanwhile back at home, your home is simply worth less, despite the very real erosion of your money – do not confuse the dollar index with REAL purchasing power, they are NOT the same (see gold rising today alongside a rising dollar weighted against other worthless monies):

Highlights
Home prices appear to be a growing risk to the economic recovery. Case-Shiller's adjusted index fell for the third month in a row and fell very steeply, down 0.7 percent in September for the composite 10 index. At only plus 1.5 percent, the adjusted on-year rate extended its run of weakness. Unadjusted data, showing a 0.5 percent month-to-month decline and a plus 1.6 percent on-year rate, show similar results. Weakness is no longer concentrated in the West or Florida with declines sweeping across regions.

Oh yeah, oil shooting higher, home prices sinking like a stone – that’ll turn out good for Americans.

And now we have Obama’s “Debt Commission” about to vote on the flavor of AUSTERITY Americans must face!

Obama's debt commission report: 4 flash points

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Get ready for some heated rhetoric about how to contain the unsustainable national debt.

The spark will be lit by President Obama's bipartisan debt commission, which is set on Wednesday to vote on a final set of recommendations. That report will be an amended version of a plan put out three weeks ago by the panel's co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.

What you hear this week is just the start of a long national conversation. Next year, Obama and Congress will attempt to turn talk into policies.

But for now, here's a look at just four flash points likely to dominate the reaction to the commission's report: Social Security, defense spending, the mortgage interest deduction and the spending vs. taxes debate. [follow link to see their four points]

Sorry, but it is mathematically impossible to austerity our way out of debt. If you take down the debt, you take down the economy! Let me say that again… take down the debt and you take down the economy!

That is because ALL of our money is debt. And that’s why neither debt based stimulus OR austerity will work! The only thing that will work is to produce debt free money and to restructure/ retire the debt that’s already in existence. The real answer cannot be found with the PRIVATE central banks in control of the production of money!

And that makes all the current worldwide “rescues” and austerity talk a realm for the mathematically “challenged” (insane). Current mainstream media is nothing but a central banker marketing arm – REAL PEOPLE must tune them out and focus on REALITY, as hard as that is.

The VIX is jumping again this morning, it is pressing the upper Bollinger bands upwards. I continue to believe that the world’s markets are living on borrowed time and borrowed money, yet we are still moving sidways in the same range. The central bankers are smokin’ some pretty good stuff if they believe this game is going to continue to much longer. Don’t toke on their stuff, man, or next thing you know they will be dragging your neighbor off while telling you they are “terrorists!”

http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2010/1 ... up-is.html
Bold and Underline mine

Generally, as housing has gone, so has gone the economy - but if we can have a jobless recovery, why not a housing-less economy? For a few months, manufacturing has been looking up and the economy seems to be gaining strength while home prices could be stuck in the mud for a long time to come. Freddie Mac says U.S. homes lost 3.1% in value in Q3.

http://seekingalpha.com/news/market_cur ... ource=feed

Case-Shiller: Broad-based Declines in Home Prices in Q3

The Composite 10 index is off 29.8% from the peak, and down 0.7% in September(SA).

The Composite 20 index is off 29.6% from the peak, and down 0.8% in September (SA).

Prices increased (SA) in only 1 of the 20 Case-Shiller cities in September seasonally adjusted. Only Wash, D.C. saw a price increase (SA) in September, and that was very small.

Prices in Las Vegas are off 57.6% from the peak, and prices in Dallas only off 8.1% from the peak.

Prices are now falling - and falling just about everywhere. And it appears there are more price declines coming (based on inventory levels and anecdotal reports).

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

More Than 8 Million Drop out of Credit Card Use
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12270370

Magnitude 6.6 - BONIN ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 000h7t.php

15 Y/O Holds Wisconsin Classroom Hostage Then Shoots Himself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fJ-ipWe ... r_embedded

Americans Are Willing To Trample One Another To Get Their Hands On Cheap Foreign-Made Plastic Crap Even As The United States Turns Into A Post-Industrial Wasteland
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archiv ... -wasteland

Will “Black Friday” Survive – Consumerism Redux
http://dailycensored.com/2010/11/29/wil ... ensored%29

Cyber Monday ended a holiday shopping week of record buying volumes for online retailers, who saw sales gains of 20% from a year prior. Despite the claim this is 'the end of the store as we know it,' online shopping still makes up only 10% of the overall U.S. retail spending pie.

http://seekingalpha.com/news/market_cur ... ource=feed

Bond Sales Tumbling in Worst Month Since Lehman Aftermath: Credit Markets
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-2 ... rkets.html

....some subliminal advertising for bonds -

"We spent too much," he conceded. "I have a fourth grader, an eighth grader and a girl who just finished high school. I should have kept working and put the money in bonds."

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budget ... t-and-hard

New Lady Gaga video urges Senate to repeal military’s gay ban
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/lady ... s-gay-ban/

Pentagon study dismisses risk of openly gay troops
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101130/ap_ ... n_military

With Federal Benefits Set to Expire, Unemployed Workers Face Shrinking Safety Net
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/wit ... hrinking-s

Food Banks Bracing For End Of Extended Unemployment Benefits
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/2 ... 89198.html

.....posted this link below previously....but if you haven't read it....a great collection of some really good advice imo fwiw!

SURVIVE ANYTHING! Chapter 2: Food Crisis
http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=936

Feds illegally raid New Mexico farm school without warrant and find nothing but fresh produce
http://www.blacklistednews.com/index.php?news_id=11697

20 Statistics That Prove That Global Wealth Is Being Funneled Into The Hands Of The Elite – Leaving Most Of The Rest Of The World Wretchedly Poor
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

BABS are a Cali Subsidy
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/babs-a ... to+zero%29

US-Europe Decoupling At All Time Record As SovX - Implied Correlation Spread Indicates Historic Domestic Complacency
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-eur ... to+zero%29

UPS, Dow, Northrop Grumman Borrow Money to Fund Pension Plans; Massive Lies at CalPERS to Hide Pension Losses
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29

Leaks: China knows less about NKorea than thought

BEIJING – China knows less about and has less influence over its close ally North Korea than is usually presumed and is likely to eventually accept a reunified peninsula under South Korean rule, according to U.S. diplomatic files leaked to the WikiLeaks website.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_china_nkorea_wikileaks

Economists' Grail: A Post-Crash Model
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... Collection

Endgame
http://www.eurointelligence.com//index. ... f653d30884

Servicer-Driven Foreclosures: The Perfect Crime?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/11/ ... ahoo!+Mail

[Jason]

South Korea prepares emergency shelters
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/south ... ters-69600

Home prices are taking a double-dip and may "bounce along the bottom" for a while, but never fear - the government may be starting another housing bubble. Most federal high-risk mortgages have been quietly shifted to the FHA - which just announced its intention to push nearly half its home purchase volume into subprime territory by 2014-2017, essentially a guarantee to put taxpayers at risk again.

http://seekingalpha.com/news/market_cur ... ource=feed

U.S. Senator: “It’s All Rigged. The Whole Conversation Is Rigged”
http://themostimportantnews.com/archive ... -is-rigged

Bailout Contagion Hits Europe As Pensions Seized In France, Hungary & Ireland To Pay Banks - Who's Next?
http://dailybail.com/home/bailout-conta ... nce-h.html

In Post-Katrina Killing, NOPD Cop Testifies Why He Shot Man, Another Explains Why He Burned the Body
http://www.propublica.org/nola/story/in ... -explains/

Santa Barbara County Applies New Alcohol Law
http://www.dailynexus.com/2010-11-24/sa ... cohol-law/

"Portugal Insolvent" says Citigroup Chief Economist; Why Ireland Will Default
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29

Supreme Court: Can judges tell California to release 40,000 prisoners?

California has watched its prison population rise to nearly double its design capacity. The state houses 144,000 inmates in 33 prisons built to hold 80,000 prisoners. California has been struggling with a crushing budget deficit.

Prior to the ruling by the three-judge panel, the state’s prison system was operating at 190 percent of capacity. In its ruling, the three-judge panel gave California two years to reduce its prison population to 137 percent of its design capacity.

Kennedy said he’d found testimony in the court record by experts suggesting that the health-care problems could be resolved with a prison population at 145 percent of capacity. But the three-judge panel did not address that issue in its decision, Kennedy said.

Justice Samuel Alito questioned whether the early release of prison inmates might cause an increase in crime. “If I was a citizen of California,” he said, “I would be very concerned about the release of 40,000 prisoners.”

A similar release order in Philadelphia, he said, resulted in measurable increases in murders, rapes, and assaults.

Prison populations can be reduced without triggering an increase in crime, Mr. Specter said. He suggested greater use of good-time credits and transfer programs. California routinely releases 120,000 prisoners on parole each year, he noted.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/20 ... -prisoners

U.S. hits Iran nuclear program with new sanctions
http://www.haaretz.com/news/internation ... bled=false

[Jason]

University Of Calgary Professor And Senior Advisor To Canadian PM Calls For Julian Assange Assassination On National TV
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/univer ... ssassinati

Magnitude 6.1 - FIJI REGION
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... 000hyj.php

Documents Reveal One Bank’s Plan to Squeeze Customers for More Overdrafts
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/rea ... e-overdraf

New data shows foreign banks biggest recipients of Fed money
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/data ... fed-money/

Fed Data Shows B of A and Wells Fargo Biggest Borrowers Under Fed's Emergency Lending Program, Foreign Banks also Borrowed Huge Amounts
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fed-da ... ogram-fore

Dollar Defies Bernanke Skeptics to Become November's Best-Returning Asset
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-0 ... ptics.html

Delta Air Lines is Hiring 1,000 New Flight Attendants; More Than 100,000 Applied
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/delta-air- ... d=12279939

ADP Footnote: Yahoo To Lay Off 10-20% Of Employees On December 13th
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/adp-fo ... ember-13th

Channel Stuffing At GM?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/channel-stuffing-gm

Notwithstanding their advertising campaigns, U.S. carmakers (F, GM) shrunk incentive spending by 7.4% from a month ago, while Japanese carmakers (TM, HMC) - still trying to dig themselves out - boosted their spend. Surprisingly, the newly-viable GM cut its incentive spend by the biggest percentage of the Big 6 - 23%.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/market_cur ... ource=feed

Total Nov. light vehicle sales came in at 12.26M annualized, up 13.2% from a year ago, slightly higher than October, and ahead of consensus of 12M. Still, sales are in line with the bottom of the '90/'91 recession - when there were fewer registered drivers and a smaller population.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/market_cur ... ource=feed

The magical 2.2 housing ratio between median nationwide home prices and household income – Nationwide home prices still inflated by 30 percent based on 50 years of household data.
http://www.mybudget360.com/the-magical- ... ld-income/

North Korean ‘smoking gun’ spotted: Rocket Launchers in Positions aimed at South Korean Yeonpyeong island
December 1, 2010 Administrator No comments
http://defense-update.com/wp/20101201_y ... +Update%29

Escalation in the Korean Peninsula? US and South Korea plan more war games
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... leId=22208

Out-of-this-World Pork in the Beehive State

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) seems to have no qualms about either strong-arming federal agencies to supply pork to his state, or to vociferously take pride in such actions.

In a meeting at NASA headquarters a week and a half ago with other members of the Utah delegation (including his junior colleague, the departing, ousted-by-tea-partiers Senator Bob Bennett), he reportedly bullied NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and his deputy, Lori Garver, to ensure that any new rockets the space agency designed are built to congressional specifications.

At the beginning of October, following passage of the new NASA re-authorization bill, the senator gloated about his success in inserting language in it that he hoped would guarantee continuing contracts for ATK, the northern-Utah manufacturer of the Shuttle-style solid rocket boosters.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/out-of-thi ... ive-state/

Mitigating Meltdown
http://sitrep.globalsecurity.org/articl ... ltdown.htm

10 Skills Needed To Thrive In A Post-Collapse World
http://www.countercurrents.org/green011210.htm

Hughes Precision Products (HPP) Forged and Billet AR (AR-15/M16) Lower Receivers for Tactical AR Rifle/Carbine/SBR Builds
http://www.defensereview.com/hughes-pre ... br-builds/

FN SCAR PDW
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

Vickers Tactical Training Carbine Videos
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010 ... rm+Blog%29

Another day, another HUGE gap, this time it’s up. Everyday now begins with a gap, a sign of a sick and broken market which is a reflection of a sick and broken monetary system. But hey, Santa must be coming to town and it’s time to rally even if Santa is sky high living on crack. The dollar is down, the euro is up, bonds are down significantly (rates higher), oil is zooming again ($85+), gold is higher, and most food grains are higher too.

The market is pushing on SPX 1200 again, if it breaks and we run higher, it could signify the beginning of wave 5 up. The RUT is already challenging its recent high.

The still worthless MBA Purchase Applications Index supposedly moved 1.1% higher in the past week, however, refinancings fell hard, down 21.6% (in one week?) to bring the overall index down 16.5%. Here’s Econoday:

Highlights
Prospective home buyers are applying for mortgages, at least they have been for the last couple of weeks. The purchase application index rose 1.1 percent in the November 26 week, adding to and confirming the prior week's double-digit gain and making a new post-stimulus high. Low home prices and low mortgage rates are stimulating demand.

Yet rates aren't as low as they were, rising six basis points in the week to an average 4.56 percent for 30-year loans. The 30-year rate was below 4.30 percent only three weeks ago. The rise has been cutting into refinancing applications which fell 21.6 percent in the week for the third decline in a row. Watch for anecdotal comments on the housing sector in this afternoon's Beige Book.


Nothing but contradictory drivel – the MBA won’t show us absolute figures, their goal is marketing, not economic reporting.

The Challenger Job Cut Report which tracks announced mass layoffs rose sharply in November, up 28.2%, rising from 37,986 to 48,711 – ho, ho, ho, Merry…

But not to worry, the bulls are getting behind another worthless report, this one from ADP whose estimate of job growth more than doubled from last month’s 43,000 (revised all the way to 82,000), coming in at 93,000 supposed new private jobs for November. Of course despite their track record for never aligning with the BLS, they do set expectations among the non-thinking crowd. Keep in mind that Friday’s Employment Report is going to be negatively affected by seasonal corrections to their Birth/Death model, as November is one of only two months that the BLS subtracts jobs out with this ridiculous adjustment. If nothing else, they seem to be consistent with their months when looking at one year to the next. Bottom line – do not expect a strongly positive report due to this adjustment which will likely be negative:

Nonfarm Productivity and Labor costs were released this morning, the headline number rose from 1.9% to 2.3%, but that is a miss on expectations of a 2.4% productivity rise - here’s Econopray:

Highlights
Companies are still squeezing out as much output as possible from the current workforce instead of adding to payrolls as productivity for the third quarter got a boost. Nonfarm business productivity for the third quarter was revised up to a 2.3 percent gain from the initial estimate of 1.9 percent. Analysts had forecast a 2.4 percent increase in productivity. Growth in unit labor costs for the third quarter was unrevised compared to the original estimate of an annualized 0.1 percent decline. The market median forecast called for an incremental upward revision to no change. Productivity is up from a minus 1.8 figure for the second quarter while unit labor costs improved from a 4.9 percent spike the prior period.

Productivity is up largely due to a 3.7 percent rebound in nonfarm business output after a 1.6 percent rise in the second quarter. Also, hours worked eased to a 1.4 percent increase from 3.5 percent in the second quarter. Compensation rose an annualized 2.2 percent after a 2.9 percent boost the quarter before.

Year-on-year, productivity was up 2.5 percent in the third quarter-down from 3.7 percent in the second quarter. Year-ago unit labor costs moved up to an annualized minus 1.1 percent from minus 1.9 percent in the second quarter.

It's the best of both worlds for profits-productivity is up and costs nudged down. But for the unemployed, the trend means slow hiring. There was little market reaction on the news.


First note that this report does not square with the ADP jobs added report… this report indicates a decrease in work hours which means fewer workers not more. This report is just another deeply flawed report – it too is influenced by the value of a dollar, as goods sold can rise in price and if true inflation is not adjusted (it’s not) then this figure becomes meaningless. Actually it becomes more of a gauge showing the DIFFERENCE between reported inflation and REAL (real) inflation… if you follow that. In other words, if sales measured in dollars increase, but I don’t actually sell more items, then productivity is artificially raised and didn’t really happen. Am I right? What’s gold doing?

http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2010/1 ... d-121.html

California busted through the high they set on April 26th 2010, of $8.82 billion in unemployment borrowing from the Fed, this past week. On Monday they had $8.91 billion in unemployment debt.....and from now through April.....is when we had the serious ramp-up in unemployment borrowing last year. Between November 30th of 2009 and April 26th of 2010 California added $3.98 billion in unemployment debt. Be interesting to see how this year goes.....

[Jason]

New vitamin D recommendations promote nutritional deficiency, protect cancer industry
http://www.naturalnews.com/030598_vitam ... icine.html

Green leafy vegetables reduce risk of diabetes
http://www.naturalnews.com/030595_diabe ... ables.html

In The Shadow of “WikiLeaks” The Sellout Begins
http://www.cakewalkblogs.com/antiestabl ... egins.aspx

More On Wikileaks (From The Judge)
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2291530

Chairman Chavez, Oliver North & "Co-Conspirators Not Named as Defendants"
http://www.madcowprod.com/12012010.htm

Small Investors Are So Bullish, The Last Time They Held This Little Cash Was March 2000
http://www.businessinsider.com/aai-smal ... gle+Reader

Drone attacks stepped up in Paksitan (12-01-2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkqDfYmh ... r_embedded

Drug Company Used Ghostwriters to Write Work Bylined by Academics, Documents Show
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/dru ... -documents

Goldman Sachs Regularly Borrowed From 2 Different FED Emergency Loan Programs, Topping $35 Billion, Yet It Was NEVER Disclosed In Quarterly SEC Filings
http://dailybail.com/home/goldman-sachs ... merge.html

Fed Withholds Collateral Data for $885 Billion in Financial-Crisis Loans
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-0 ... grams.html

Workers affected by loss of unemployment benefits
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2 ... 1_ST_N.htm

Challenger Reports Planned Layoffs Highest in 8 Months; ADP Reports Strongest Job Gains in 3 Years; Impact of State Budget Deficits on Jobs
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims increase to 436,000
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/ ... ed+Risk%29

The yield on the 10 year Treasury is above 3% for the first time since late July. One of QEII's stated goals is to reduce long term borrowing costs, but since the program's start, 10 year yields have climbed about 50 basis points, making big winners out of holders of (TBF) and (TBT).
http://seekingalpha.com/news/market_cur ... ource=feed

The U.S. commercial paper market shrinks to its smallest on record (with available Fed data reaching to 2001), to $1.021T outstanding. The decline was led by the financial unsecured segment, down $33.2B. Now if the Fed were still holding up that market...
http://seekingalpha.com/news/market_cur ... ource=feed

U.S. Postal Service Could Be Insolvent by End of 2011, Senator Carper Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-0 ... -says.html

Netflix CFO Dumps 100,000 Shares Over $200, Has Just 51,563 Shares Left
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/netfli ... hares-left

Wayne County Michigan (Detroit + 35 Cities) Imposes Huge Wage Cuts on AFSCME Union Workers
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29

....10-20% wage cuts.....sounds like deflation in action to me!

Philly Fed's Plosser: If Deflation Accelerates May Need More QE
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/philly ... ed-more-qe

Pushing to brink of war: U.S. sends warships, jets to Korea
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... leId=22221

Fed Data Shows Foreign Banks Huge Beneficiaries of Emergency Lending Programs, Hedge Funds, McDonald’s, Harley-Davidson and Others Also Bailed Out
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2 ... fargo.html

London Student Fees Protest Photos November 30, 2010
http://publicintelligence.net/london-st ... r-30-2010/

Actually the markets sank following this release. If you remember from last week, the actual number of claimants jumped by more than 50k yet was adjusted lower. This week the number was pushed higher by nearly the same number – I’m assuming that’s due to the holiday week, but the DOL does not state so.

Pending Home Sales data is released at 10 Eastern.

Yesterday’s 250 DOW point romp came on yet another giant gap higher, thus denying any retail investor a chance to enter. Again, this market has been taken over so thoroughly that there are very few retail investors left – or should be. Note that the rumor of the U.S. bailing out Europe came in the afternoon well after the romp had already occurred. What’s that tell you about insider knowledge? And then the rumor was denied, or was it? The last rendition I heard is that the “Fed” was going to “lend” $300 billion to the IMF (not a legal entity) so that they in turn could enslave Europe – on OUR nickel. I did hear that Congress would have to approve such funds, but don’t bet your life on it. And all I can say is that should it occur, it won’t be a bailout of the people of Europe, it will be yet another bank bailout for which they will be simultaneously enslaving us as well! THIS NONSENSE HAS TO BE STOPPED.

The media is making WikiLeak’s Assange out to be a criminal, they are doing a full court press. I note that this morning CNN has a headline that says WikiLeak’s release of bank data “Won’t wreck banks.” Just so that you’re not scared, right? But note that’s the worry, otherwise they wouldn’t be making a headline out of it! And thus they turn a whistleblower who’s not even the actual whistleblower into a criminal! The truth is that he is protecting the actual whistleblower by hiding his identity. Why does he have to hide their identity? Because whistleblowers who provide meaningful data in this society get whacked or attacked! It is our Administration and bankers who belong on the most wanted list, certainly NOT Assange. To all Americans who think you are being patriotic by bashing Assange, you are in fact on the opposite side with your "thinking" and need to really contemplate the brainwashing that’s transpiring.

And finally under pressure the “Fed” released data on the more than $9 Trillion it lent out and backstopped during this still evolving financial crisis. You knew they wouldn’t release it all, and indeed we’re now learning they didn’t:

Fed Withholds Collateral Data, Denying Taxpayers Gauge of Risk

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve withheld details on individual securities pledged as collateral by recipients of $885 billion in central bank loans, denying taxpayers a measure of the risks they faced from its emergency aid.

The central bank yesterday released data on 21,000 transactions from $3.3 trillion in emergency lending to stem the financial crisis. July’s Dodd-Frank law required the Fed to disclose the names of borrowers, the size and interest rates of loans, and “information identifying the types and amounts of collateral pledged or assets transferred.”

For three of the Fed’s six emergency facilities, the central bank released information on groups of collateral it accepted by asset type and rating, without specifying individual securities. Among them was the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, created in March 2008 to provide loans to brokers as Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.

“This is a half-step,” said former Atlanta Fed research director Robert Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Sarasota, Florida. “If you were going to audit the facilities, then would this enable you to do an audit? The answer is ‘No,’ you would have to go in and look at the individual amounts of collateral and how it was broken down to do that. And that is the spirit of what the requirements were in Dodd-Frank.”

Fed spokeswoman Susan Stawick in Washington declined to comment.

Public Disclosure
The public disclosure of the lending data should have been prevented because it could spur runs on the banks listed, said Darrell Duffie, a finance professor at Stanford University.

“That’s a very destructive process,” he said. Still, with the data released, “if you’re justified in getting the information, then you’re justified to get enough information to judge the risk the Fed took,” he said.

It is “specifically impossible” to know how much risk taxpayers were taking by looking at pools of collateral grouped by asset class and rating, said Sylvain Raynes, a principal at R&R Consulting in New York and co-author of “Elements of Structured Finance,” published in May by Oxford University Press.

“I need to know the individual composition because a $2 billion pool can be one asset of $2 billion, which would be very risky, or 2,000 assets of $1 million each, and that’s not risky at all,” Raynes said. “The spirit of Dodd-Frank was not respected, and they used the vagueness in the wording of the law to weasel out of fulfilling their duty to the American people.”


What @#$%^&&! How long are the people going to stand for this? You go to the airport and you let them grope you? You apply for a loan and they will demand to see every last aspect of your personal finances, yet when they STEAL money from you, you are not allowed to see jack. That’s because the “FED” is an illegal enterprise who never should have been given the power to create money – its WAY past time to take that power back and to imprison those who would get in the way of that occurring.

And now we’re learning that the central banks are going to have their first European Union joint bond offering! Again, this is probably not legal, but here’s the article:

Europe bailout fund to issue bonds

EFSF BONDS: EUROPE’S BAILOUT fund will issue € 5 billion-€ 8 billion of bonds next month, in what will be the first ever debt offering by the euro zone as a single entity.

The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) will use the triple-A rated debt to help fund its part of the € 85 billion Irish rescue.

Klaus Regling, the head of the facility, said in Singapore yesterday most investors would come from Europe, but there had been strong interest from Asia and the Middle East, where the offering would be a “new way to diversify for investors who are looking for high-quality triple-A assets”.

The bond is likely to be priced at a higher interest rate than similarly rated debt from Germany and France. The news came as prospects of the European Central Bank increasing its purchases of bonds led to market interest rates falling for the so-called peripheral euro zone countries such as Spain, Italy and Ireland.


RIIIIGGGHHT! Give me a BREAK! Triple-A rated? What a joke! “Testing demand,” again, what a joke! We know where the “demand” will come from… it will come from the same #$%hat bankers who simply make up the money from nothing and again indebt the people who will have to slave their lives away to pay it! What a con, the greatest con in the history of the planet by far.

SPX 1200 will now act as support and it appears that we have a wave 5 underway. This wave will be based on nothing but phony money, while real people with what little money they have left continue to withdraw their money from the markets, now into our 31st week of continuous mutual fund outflows. Wave 5’s are notoriously difficult to play – sometimes they truncate, sometimes they extend. They are the distribution wave, the wave that causes people to capitulate just in time for the real reversal to finally come. Front running, as I’ve repeatedly said, is a fool’s game – as is this entire market at this juncture in history.

http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2010/1 ... whole.html

10 Skills Needed To Thrive In A Post-Collapse World
http://www.countercurrents.org/green011210.htm

SURVIVE ANYTHING! Chapter 2: Food Crisis
http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=936

[1984Orwellherenow]

Wow! What a slugfest!!! Dudes, let's see who was right... In hindsight JM totally owned Jason!!! Jason wrong on all his prophecies. Yet, everything JM pointed to as leading and getting better just kept doing so! Amazing! Which side do you all listen to? Doom and Gloom is out, dudes, and Hinckleyesque optimism is in!!!

Please quit trying to scare good people. You are hurting them. Your hysteria will only damage the disadvantaged. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that you're spreading fear while accumulating behind the scenes. That's what a lot of these movers and shakers do. They tell you it's all going to crash, get you to sell, then buy things up on the cheap.

Calm down Mummy, you're frightening the kids. I'd be a little paranoid too if all I read was the links you gave. No matter how much fear you spin I am not going to throw my hand in the air and give up. It's a really good thing the vast majority of society hasn't listened to people like you for the last 250 years. The claims of doom and gloom have always been there, but the crash never came. I'm very thankful people chose to ignore the fear mongering and worked together to advance society.

Look at that, dudes! Spot on!

Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral! Spiral!

SPIRAL UP!

JM FTW, dudes!

[1984Orwellherenow]

How's your track record?

[Squally]

1984/Jmarsigli welcome back. :ymparty: Keep using the dude terminology to cover.... And perhaps you need to get a more Hinckleyesque screen name. Stop being such a pessimist.