By AL GORE
Published: February 27, 2010
It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. Story
BY BARBARA BARRETT - Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- A year ago, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick was appointed to the House Intelligence Committee, a prestigious post she had long sought.
There, top-secret briefings unveiled truths about homegrown terrorism she had only suspected. And won't reveal.
"I can't tell you. I'm not being coy," Myrick said in an interview. "There's a threat out there to our security. ... It's worse than I thought."
Myrick, a Charlotte Republican and former mayor of the city, contends that extremists are working their way into U.S. Muslim communities, infiltrating government institutions and influencing American citizens to attack their own country. Her activism earns plaudits from some conservatives - but criticism from Muslim constituents who fear that her tone endangers a community 3 million strong and deeply imbedded in the nation's fabric. Tonight, months after pledging to do so, Myrick will meet with Charlotte's Muslim community.
Since 9/11, Myrick has worried that the dangers of terrorism on U.S. soil were underestimated and has proposed a multi-pronged approach to fighting Islamic radicalization called "Wake Up America."
(1) ‘Press 1 for English’ is immediately banned. English is the official language. Speak it or wait at the border until you can.
(2) We will immediately go into a two year isolationist posture to straighten out the country’s attitude. NO imports, no exports. We will use the Wal-Mart policy, ‘If we ain’t got it, you don’t need it.’
(3) When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it.
(4) All retired military personnel will be required to man one of our many observation towers on the southern border (six month tour). They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens..
(5) Social security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn’t put nuttin in, you ain’t gettin nuttin out. Neither the president nor any other politician will be able to touch it.
(6) Welfare – Checks will be handed out on Fridays at the end of the 40 hour school week and the successful completion of urinalysis and a passing grade.
(7) Professional Athletes–Steroids. The FIRST time you check positive you’re banned for life.
(8) Crime – We will adopt the Turkish method, the first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There are no more life sentences. If convicted of murder, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for your victim; gun, knife, strangulation, etc.
(9) One export will be allowed, Wheat. The world needs to eat. A bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil.
(10) All foreign aid using American taxpayer money will immediately cease, and the saved money will pay off the national debt and ultimately lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we’ll ask the American people if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision whether it’s a worthy cause.
(11) The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day in Congress.
(12) The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc.
Through the Reconstruction Acts and the forced amending of the Constitution, a military coup took place during the time period of 1867-1868 to put into place the government of North Carolina which is operating today.
Prior to Reconstruction, states were OVER the federal government. This is how it was designed by the founders and apparently it worked quite well. However, during Reconstruction congress anulled the state of North Carolina and put into place a new body politic, a new form of voting and a new Constitution, all foreign to our organic law. Contrary to the wishes of the founders and what is allowed by the Constitution, this was not a government of consent by the people, but a government of fraud, coercion and force.
This same government is in power today. Because of what happened during Reconstruction, states are now under total control by the Federal government. No longer do we have North Carolina citizens, but now we are all U.S. Citizens subject to the wishes of the Federal government. In fact, the majority of us agree and confirm to being U.S. Citizens when we sign our voter’s registration! Prior to Reconstruction the Federal government had NO CONTROL OR AUTHORITY over the lives and property of the people of the several states. In fact, there were only a handful of activities which the federal government was granted authority in this area. However, today we see a total invasion of the Federal government in nearly every aspect of our lives.
“In order to claim your rights as a state citizen, you must BE one.”
Ainsworth, currently the governor of the re-established republic, is looking now for candidates to run for office in the re-established de jure state of North Carolina. “We need every county represented. More people are also needed to be state citizens. The concept is to once again become the body politic which was lawfully put into place prior to reconstruction. If we can do this and the current government wants to crush us, it would be an act of treason.”
To many of us this method would sound a bit extreme, however the legal argument is sound and so far the state has refused to touch it. This is good in the sense that the rights of state citizens can still be fought for; but bad in the sense that the current state government of North Carolina refuses to prove its lawfulness. Ainsworth is hopeful that with increased numbers, the cause will be successful. “To put it simply, it’s just a matter of people obeying the law — the true law, not the government put into place by military force.”
John Ainsworth’s Raleigh Town Hall presentation is currently available online in a series of nine YouTube videos. Watch the videos here: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
John’s video presentation is also available on DVD. Please contact Cliff Muncy (cliff@muncyweb.com) at 336-924-0402 for order information.
Bookings
If you would like for John Ainsworth to speak in your area, please contact him at 704-620-0673 or email him directly at republiclost@gmail.com.
The dollar's fate is intertwined with that of the global economy
Border guards in Chiasso see plenty of smugglers and plenty of false-bottomed suitcases, but no one in the town, which straddles the Italian-Swiss frontier, had ever seen anything like this. Trussed up in front of the police in the train station were two Japanese men, and beside them a suitcase with a booty unlike any other. Concealed at the bottom of the bag were some rather incredible sheets of paper. The documents were apparently dollar-denominated US government bonds with a face value of a staggering $134bn (£81bn).
How on earth did these two men, who at first refused to identify themselves, come to be there, trying to ride the train into Switzerland carrying bonds worth more than the gross domestic product of Singapore? If the bonds were genuine, the pair would have been America's fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the UK and just behind Russia.
A bank teller counts dollars at a bank in Shanghai: China appears to be braced for more trouble in financial markets
A Communist Party directive leaked to the Chinese-language edition of the Asia Times said dollar reserves should be limited to US Treasuries or agency mortgage debt such as Freddie Mac that enjoys Washington's implicit backing.
The OECD has piled the pressure on the Chinese government to revalue their currency
A front-page story in the state’s China Information News said the record $34bn sale of US bonds in December was a "commendable" move. The article was republished by the National Bureau of Statistics, giving it a stronger imprimatur.
FOXNews.com
White House green jobs adviser Van Jones quit the post last year after he was dogged by past remarks and associations, but that isn't stopping the NAACP from awarding him one of its Image Awards
White House green jobs adviser Van Jones quit the post last year after he was dogged by past remarks and associations, but that isn't stopping the NAACP from awarding him one of its Image Awards -- and even calling him a "American treasure."
Jones, who served as an adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, generated mounting criticism last summer, first for calling Republicans "assholes" during a videotaped address earlier in the year and then for signing a petition in 2004 supporting the "9/11 truther" movement, which believes the Bush administration may have been involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Scott Brown is not the GOP ‘golden boy’! He is, after all, from Mass. Conservatives were thrilled that he won the senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy, but weren’t or shouldn’t have been under any illusion that he’s a Reagan conservative.
Conservatives should not be quick to throw him under the bus. We should be glad to have him voting and not Martha Coakley. Let’s not look for him to be the head of the party!
It's good work if you can get it
President Obama is presiding over the largest federal work force in decades. In the current fiscal year, the number of civilian workers will grow by 153,000, to 1.43 million. These are the only jobs Mr. Obama can legitimately claim to have created. Unfortunately, they are subsidized by deficit spending. Story
Inhofe intends to ask for a probe of the embattled climate scientists for possible criminal acts. And he thinks Gore should be recalled to explain his prior congressional testimony.
February 23, 2010 - by Charlie Martin
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Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate Files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).
Senator Inhofe also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back to the Senate to testify.
President Obama was more of a European-style prime minister who has just lost a no-confidence vote when he stood before Congress Wednesday night. He seemed angry and defensive. He has polarized the parties and federalized the elections. President Obama spent very little time on Security. He never mentioned the Christmas Day Bomber or the Gitmo prison. He gave no solutions for dealing with terrorists. He did not explain why he allows terrorists to have lawyers that cause them to refuse to talk. He appeared to condemn war without mentioning the fact that Americans were fighting in Yemen as he spoke. It is very frightening in view of the execution of the Iran opposition leaders today.
The eighty six times the State of the Union Address was interrupted by clapping sounded as though people were “hired” to clap, because of the lack of substance in the speech. Mr. Obama’s speech had many errors. He said he came to Washington to “close the credibility gap and end the outsized influence of lobbyists”. He also said He had “excluded lobbyist from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.”
This cannot be true because he put William Lynn in the Pentagon as Deputy Defense Secretary when Mr. Lynn was a lobbyist for Defense Contractor Raytheon? In addition, Eric Holder was a registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm. Tom Vilsack was registered to lobby as recently as last year on behalf of the National Education Association. Eight other persons in policy-making positions or nominees were registered lobbyists.
How could the president speak so negatively of the Supreme Court ruling on political donations with the judges sitting right in front of him? If he disagreed with them, he should have done so privately, not with all the Democrats standing up around them clapping. Did he not know that the ruling did not affect foreign donations as he claimed? His incorrect judgment on this issue reduces his creditability.
President Obama clearly appeared to have misunderstood that the American people spoke in VA, NJ, NY, and MA. It is unbelievable that he is continuing with his Socialist agenda. The fact that the president wants to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy for the military, shows that the President is not in touch with the Military leaders and the majority of the American people.
He promoted his administration's supposed creation and saving of a couple million jobs despite the loss of 7 million jobs nationwide, and blamed the economy on Bush. He spoke of the 95% of Americans receiving tax cuts last year...and the money recovered from the bank bailouts (by the way that was under Bush). If taxes have been cut, as he claims, fees and service charges of a wide range of goods and services have been added. He proposed using the 30 Billion recovered from the bailout to the banks to extend credit to help small businesses to stay afloat, but we just used that money from the banks.
Overall the speech was full of statements meant to inspire yet they fell short of providing non-partisan solutions. He was lecturing, talking down to the Republicans, all the while acting like a candidate who deeply cares about the American people and the Constitution. He seemed sarcastic and unprofessional in his rhetoric. Certainly not the type of address we have come to expect from a President of the United States.
Read the full manuscript of the investigation into the emails stolen from the University of East Anglia and send in your own annotations. The Full Story
The biggest scandal of our times is a non-story to U.S media. Why are the London papers covering the Climategate collapse, but not ours?
February 21, 2010 - by Charlie Martin
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It’s been called the “biggest scientific scandal in history.” It has everything to earn Pulitzer consideration: lies and misconduct in high places, political implications, even massive financial transactions that may or may not be legitimate or even legal. It’s big news … as long as you read the Telegraph, the Guardian, the London Times, or even major Indian papers.
It’s no news at all if you read the U.S. mainstream media.
OUT THE BACK DOOR DALAI; DON'T SLIP ON THE GARBAGE! From Drudgereport.com
Look at the bright side, Mr. President: It’s just one less leader you need to bow to.
On two occasions, President Obama has made off-handed swipes at Las Vegas, and both times Mayor Oscar Goodman defended his city.
Most recently, Obama, with a straight face, was discussing making wise financial decisions (because he’s been so prudent with our money) and told a crowd in New Hampshire:
“When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”
So when the customary invitation came from the White House to kiss the ring of the visiting president at the airport (Obama was in Las Vegas Thursday, presumably to bail some water out of the sinking S.S. Harry Reid), Goodman fought back. He declined the invitation.
Kudos to Mayor Goodman for standing up for his constituents and not tolerating the president’s attacks on his city – as humorous as they were meant to be.
“We are hurting, we have people in foreclosures, we have people having a hard time feeding their families and we can’t stand to have a flippant statement made,” said Mayor Goodman.
“I haven’t heard an apology, I haven’t heard a response, all I do is get invitations,” Goodman went on to say.
I doubt you’ll get an apology from this administration, Mayor Goodman.
The arrogance forbids it. And sadly, you may miss out on one thing: a picture of the leader of the free world bowing to you.
After the plunge of the Euro in the beginning of 2009 (over 9% in the first two months), the trend changed in March. As a result, within the year the Euro grew by over 10% and reached the remarkable level of $1.5 for one Euro.
This tendency concerns Euro region officials worried about the economic growth of the region. European companies are also concerned with the current state of affairs in the foreign currency market since they think that the level of $1.5 for Euro is the pain threshold for the export-oriented European corporate sector.
According to analysts of Kalita-Finance, for these companies, expensive domestic currency is an export tax of sorts that compromises competitiveness of European goods outside of Europe.
Since March 2009, the dynamics of the currency market was predetermined by the US Federal Reserve System. Regulators made a decision to take non-traditional measures in support of the financial system. Experts say that the measures were boiled down to pumping the bank system with freshly printed dollars.
At its March meeting, Federal Reserve made a decision to start buying out treasury bonds for $300 billion (private monetization of debt). To this sum, they added $1.25 trillion under the program of bonds acquisition and $175 billion for acquisition of agency bonds (bonds issued by a US government-sponsored agency).
Despite the Federal Reserve efforts to pump the financial system with liquid assets, the banks are not willing to credit the real sector. Financial institutions prefer to accumulate the funds generously provided by the Federal Resetves. As a result, the volume of excessive reserves of American banks reached record high levels and exceeded the mark of one trillion dollars.
February 19, 2010 by Chip Wood
Will all those PIGS in Europe get what they deserve? And if they do, should we care?
Sadly, the answers are, probably not. And yes, we should, because what happens there will have a significant impact on those of us here in the good ol’ USA.
First, who are these PIGS (sometimes written as PIIGS and occasionally even as PIIGSTY)? Basically, they are some of the socialist countries in Europe that have gotten their budgets caught in a wringer. They’re facing all sorts of financial problems at home. And unfortunately, their habit of spending money they don’t have is having bad consequences for them… and for us. If that sounds familiar, it should.
The acronym PIGS stands for Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. You can add Ireland to the longer version; and Turkey and Yugoslavia to the longest one. Right now, all of the attention is on Greece, so let’s begin there.
And let’s start with a dirty little secret no one wants to admit: When Greece was admitted to the European Union (EU) a while back, everyone involved knew that Greek authorities lied about the fiscal situation in their country. More >>
Raleigh, N.C. – According to a report in the News & Observer yesterday, Democratic State Auditor Beth Wood owes more than $1,200 in delinquent property taxes on her Wake County townhouse. When reached for comment, Wood blamed debt accrued during the campaign as a reason why she had not paid her tax bill. She did not indicate whether she had plans to settle the debt with Wake County in the near future.
“Wood, 55, makes $123,000 a year as the auditor, a position that is seen as the state’s top financial watchdog. She said Tuesday that her personal finances are irrelevant to her work in state government.” (“State auditor is behind on her property taxes,” News & Observer, 2/17/10)
Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) made the following statement:
“It is the tone-deaf reaction of Democratic elected officials like Beth Wood that have created problems in state government. These politicians believe that there is one set of rules for them and another for everyone else. Powerful Democrats have to obey the same rules as every other North Carolina citizen and it’s time they learn that. If the state auditor cannot pay her own taxes, how can we trust that she is looking out for how our tax dollars are being spent?”
Don’t you think it strange the way the government (which is a competitor in the auto industry) goes so viciously after un-unionized Toyota? Why go after Toyota?
Four more Democratic senators have signed on to a letter asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the public option back up for a vote. Today, Sens. Al Franken, Pat Leahy, John Kerry and Sheldon Whitehouse signed on to the letter sent to Reid yesterday. The original signers were Sens. Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown.
With Democrats pursuing a reconciliation strategy that requires only 51 votes to pass a bill, progressive groups have pushed Democrats to reintroduce the public option in the debate after it failed to get 60 votes in the Senate. Still, its inclusion in a reconciliation bill is a long shot, as many Senate Democrats are loath to refight the public option battle. More >>
Rats leaving the sinking ship of fools!
AMSTERDAM (AP) - Top U.N. climate change official Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was resigning after nearly four years, a period when governments struggled without success to agree on a new global warming deal.
His departure takes effect July 1, five months before 193 nations are due to reconvene in Mexico for another attempt to reach a binding worldwide accord on controlling greenhouse gases. De Boer's resignation adds to the uncertainty that a full treaty can be finalized there.
De Boer is known to be deeply disappointed with the outcome of the last summit in Copenhagen, which drew 120 world leaders but failed to reach more than a vague promise by several countries to limit carbon emissions - and even that deal fell short of consensus.
But he denied to the AP that his decision to quit was a result of frustration with Copenhagen. More >>
Slowly but Surely, Europe Rises Against Islam
02/17/2010 [article] /
The number of Muslim buildings in Germany has been growing steadily. There were only three mosques in the FRG in 1970. Nowadays, the number of mosques and prayer halls makes up nearly 2,500. Kreutzberg, a district of Berlin, is known as "Little Istanbul" because it looks like an Oriental city. Other large cities, such as Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt-am-Main have a similar situation
The country’s national debt is 300 billion Euros (112 % of GDP), and the budget deficit is nearly 13 percent. Greek media says that by spring the country will require 54 billion Euros. The lion share of this amount was to be given to Greece by the EU that is not pleased with a possibility of a default in one of its countries. However, there is information that Papandreou is going to ask Russia for 10 billion Euros loan
Rumor has it that Timothy Geithner is on his way out as Treasury Secretary, due to his involvement in the AIG scandal that is now unraveling in hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Bob Chapman writes in The International Forecaster:
Each day brings more revelations of efforts of the NY Fed and Goldman Sachs to hide the details of the criminal conspiracy of the AIG bailout. . . . This is a real crisis on the scale of Watergate. Corruption at its finest.
But unlike the perpetrators of the Watergate scandal, who wound up looking at jail time, Geithner evidently has a golden parachute waiting at Goldman Sachs, not coincidentally the largest recipient of the AIG bailout. At least that is the rumor sparked by an article by Caroline Baum on Bloomberg News, titled “Goldman Parachute Awaits Geithner to Ease Fall.” Hank Paulson, Geithner’s predecessor, was CEO of Goldman Sachs before coming to the Treasury. Geithner, who has come up through the ranks of government, could be walking through the revolving door in the other direction. More >>
Administration officials stopped saying that last year after journalists and think tankers across the political spectrum examined the supporting data posted on the official recovery.gov Web site and found it full of factual holes.
Thousands of jobs were claimed to have been saved or created in phantom congressional districts and ZIP codes. Thousands of raises given to public employees were counted as jobs saved or created. The Examiner's David Freddoso and Mark Hemingway examined media investigations and found nearly 100,000 phony positions. In other words, the claim that 2 million jobs were saved or created by the Obama economic stimulus program was exposed as being about as trustworthy as the used car salesman's assurance that the clunker on his lot was owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sunday.
The fiasco prompted Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag to issue new "simplified guidelines" for how to measure the effect of the stimulus program on employment. But, as Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote in a Jan. 8 letter to recovery.gov's inspector general, the new guidelines actually raised additional credibility questions about White House assertions on the stimulus program's effectiveness.
Said Issa: "The new guidance counts every job that is funded using stimulus money -- even if it existed before the Recovery Act, and was not in any danger of being eliminated -- as 'created or saved.' This definition ignores the plain meanings of the words 'created' and 'saved,' and makes Recovery.gov's 'JOBS CREATED/SAVED' label a falsehood, further eroding the confidence of the American people in their government."
Some of the president's closest economic advisers also made some startling claims in connection with the new Economic Report. Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Christina Romer, for example, said the economic stimulus program saved millions of Americans from "destitution." The dictionary defines destitution as "utter poverty" and the "lack of the means of subsistence." Who could have imagined that wasting money on fake jobs would yield such miraculous results?
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obama_s-misleading-jobs-rhetoric-84422777.html#ixzz0fpJkw6y3
In the first eight fiscal years of FDR’s presidency, before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, federal spending as a percentage of GDP never exceeded 12 (despite the Depression). During those years, it averaged only 9.85 percent. Under Obama, annual spending as a percentage of GDP will average almost two-and-a-half times that much.
In fiscal 1942, when the U.S. started dramatically ramping up expenditures to fight World War II, federal spending equaled 24.3 percent of GDP. In 2010, the first full fiscal year of the Obama era, spending will reach 25.4 percent of GDP.
Under current estimates, Obama will not beat FDR’s overall record for borrowing, although he will nearly double FDR’s pre-World War II rate of borrowing. From 1934-41, FDR ran annual deficits that averaged 3.56 percent of GDP. Obama, according to OMB, will run average annual deficits of 7.05 percent GDP. When you include the war years of 1942-45, FDR ran average annual deficits of 9.76 percent of GDP. Even without a world war, Obama’s overall prospective borrowing is at least competitive with FDR’s
And Obama and FDR share one historic debt-accumulating distinction. By OMB’s calculation, they are the only two presidents since 1930 to run up annual deficits that reached double figures as a percentage of GDP. Obama will run up a deficit this year of 10.6 percent of GDP. The last time the deficit hit double digits as a percentage of GDP was 1945 -- when Germany and Japan surrendered. More >>
BP PLC and two other major firms quit a lobbying group focused on shaping global-warming policy.
Several companies are quitting an influential lobbying group focusing in on legislation, despite the administratin's push to use the budget to pass greenhouse gas legistlation. WSJ's Grainne McCarthy reports in the News Hub.
Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won't renew their membership in the three-year-old U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes as debate over climate change intensifies and concerns mount about the cost of capping greenhouse-gas emissions. More >>
3.5 MILLION: Jobs Obama Promised Stimulus Would Create By End Of 2010. (President Barack Obama, Remarks At The Signing Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act, Press Release, Denver, CO, 2/17/09)
2.8 MILLION: Jobs Lost Since Obama Made That Promise. (U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10)
6.3 MILLION: Jobs Obama Must Now Create To Keep Promise By End Of 2010. (President Barack Obama, Remarks At The Signing Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act, Press Release, Denver, CO, 2/17/09; U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10)
1.1 MILLION: Jobs Obama’s Economists Project Will Be Created By End Of 2010. (David Jackson, “Obama Economic Report: Stagnant Job Growth This Year,” USA Today, 2/11/10)
5.2 MILLION: Jobs By Which Obama’s Economists’ Projection Leaves Him Short In Keeping Promise. (U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10; David Jackson, “Obama Economic Report: Stagnant Job Growth This Year,” USA Today, 2/11/10)
6 PERCENT: Not Surprisingly, Number Of Americans That Say Obama’s Stimulus Created Jobs. (Stephanie Condon, “Poll: Economy Brings Down Obama's Job Approval Rating,”CBS News’ “Political Hotsheet” Blog, 2/11/10)
7.7 PERCENT: Unemployment Rate When Obama Was Selling Stimulus In January 2009. (U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10)
8 PERCENT: Unemployment Rate Obama Pledged Stimulus Would Prevent Us From Reaching. (Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, "The Job Impact Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Plan," 1/9/09)
9.7 PERCENT: Current Unemployment Rate. (U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10)
16.5 PERCENT: Current Unemployment Rate When Underemployed And Discouraged Workers Are Included. (Sara Murray, “Signs Of Hope As Jobless Rate Dips,” The Wall Street Journal, 2/6/10)
334,000: Americans That Have Given Up Looking For A Job Since Stimulus Was Signed. (U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10)
47: States That Have Lost Jobs Since Stimulus Was Signed. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10)
10: States That Moved From Single-Digit To Double-Digit Unemployment Rate Since Stimulus Was Signed. (U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/16/10)
$862 BILLION: Updated Cost Of Stimulus, $75 Billion Increase From Last Year’s Cost Estimate. (“The Budget And Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2010 To 2010,” Congressional Budget Office, 1/26/10; Douglas Elmendor, Director, Congressional Budget Office, Letter To Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 2/13/09)
440: Number Of Nonexistent Congressional Districts That Received Stimulus Funds. (Richard S. Dunham, “Site Lists Jobs In Imaginary Texas Districts,” Houston Chronicle, 11/18/09)
$6.4 BILLION: Amount Of Stimulus Funds That Went To Nonexistent Congressional Districts. (Richard S. Dunham, “Site Lists Jobs In Imaginary Texas Districts,” Houston Chronicle, 11/18/09)
$18 MILLION: Cost Of Stimulus Website, Recovery.gov. (Rick Klein, “$18M Being Spent To Redesign Recovery.gov Web Site,” ABC News’ “The Note“ Blog, 7/8/09)
DALLAS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Texas and several national industry groups on Tuesday filed separate petitions in federal court challenging the government's authority to regulate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Texas, which leads U.S. states in carbon dioxide emissions due to its heavy concentration of oil refining and other industries, will see a major impact if U.S. mandatory emissions reductions take effect.
In December, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide endanger human health, opening the door for the agency to issue mandatory regulations to reduce them.
Texas said it had filed a petition for review challenging the EPA's "endangerment finding" with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Texas has also asked the EPA to reconsider its ruling.
"The EPA's misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. More >>
– like deciding to try foreign terrorist enemy combatants, most notably confessed 9/11 mega-terror architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in a New York City civilian courtroom with all the constitutional rights, privileges and protections afforded U.S. citizens. Or the decision to treat al-Qaida-trained terrorist Umar "underwear bomber" Abdulmutallab as an American criminal suspect and not a foreign enemy combatant – thus allowing him to lawyer up and avoid the very questioning that has proven in the past to yield precious intel capable of saving thousands of innocent lives.
So, the analysts put forth their various arguments: The Obama-Holder Justice Department is obsessed with proving to the world that America is fair and just, even to terrorists; they're offering a political bone to the far left that is disappointed in Obama for his failure to "fundamentally transform" America into a socialist utopia in one year; they're stealthily setting up Bush, Cheney and the CIA for later prosecutions; they believe capitalist America is imperialist and exploitive and that all people of color, even Islamic jihadists, are somehow quasi-"victims" of the U.S. and thus deserving of the legal presumption of innocence; and so on.
Whatever merit these observations may have, I'd like to suggest a different reason – a little more deep-seated, a little more basic and a whole lot more disturbing.
To dramatize my point, I'd like you to reflect for a few moments on one of Holder's predecessors – Ramsey Clark, who was America's attorney general during Lyndon Johnson's administration.
Here's how I summarize Ramsey Clark's shockingly subversive life in my new book, "How Evil Works":
After serving as America's chief law enforcement official, Clark emerged as the radical, America-hating leftist he always was, traveling to Hanoi to support America's enemies during the Vietnam War, meeting Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 while condemning the "crimes of America," accusing President George H. W. Bush of "genocide" and "crimes against humanity" for the 1991 Gulf War, and defending the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. After the 9/11 attacks, Clark predictably opposed any retaliation against Afghanistan or al‑Qaida. Most recently, he served as chief defense counsel for Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi special tribunal's trial of the former dictator, referring to Saddam respectfully as a "commander … courageous enough to fight more powerful countries." After Clark complained that the tribunal, which ultimately convicted and sentenced Saddam for war crimes, was "a mockery of justice," the Iraqi judge threw Clark out of the courtroom, declaring in Arabic, "No, you are the mockery … get him out, out!"Somehow, no matter how malevolent the enemy, no matter how insane, widespread, and vicious his deeds, some of us mysteriously come around to siding with him.
In other words, Ramsey Clark – though he had served as America's top justice official – proved to be a person who, at virtually every turn, sympathized with injustice by supporting America's enemies.
To put it bluntly, some people, for whatever reason, are just plain sympathetic toward corruption and tyranny. Is Eric Holder the new Ramsey Clark?
As they say, let's look at the record.
It's not just since he's been Obama's attorney general that Holder has been making perverse decisions, such as his determination to abort the prosecution of two menacing New Black Panther Party members in paramilitary garb who brazenly threatened Philadelphia voters with a nightstick on Election Day 2008 – widely considered the most blatant voter intimidation case in modern history.
Before joining the Obama administration, Holder earned more than $2 million a year as a senior partner at the law firm of Covington & Burling, which – as Michelle Malkin reports in "Culture of Corruption," specializes in "putting on the best terrorist defense":
Among the firm's other celebrity terrorist clients: 17 Yemenis held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The law firm employed dozens of radical attorneys such as David Remes and Marc Falkoff to provide the enemy combatants with more than 3,000 hours of pro bono representation. Covington & Burling co-authored one of three petitioners' briefs filed in the Boumediene v. Bush detainee case, and secured victories for several other Gitmo enemy combatants in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. …
The result? One of the Yemeni Gitmo detainees defended by Holder's firm, notes Malkin, was "released in 2005 – only to blow himself up … in a truck bombing in Mosul, Iraq, in 2008, killing 13 soldiers from the Second Iraqi Army division and seriously wounding 42 others."
Holder's entire track record is profoundly disturbing – from his central role as Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general in pardoning two Weather Underground terrorists, whose lengthy terrorism sentences were commuted, to his last-minute springing of notorious fugitive tax cheat Marc Rich.
Although there are many such Holder decisions, one in particular seems especially relevant right now: In 1999, as a top Justice official in the Clinton administration, Holder successfully pushed for the release of 16 violent Puerto Rican terrorists – against the urgent protests of the many NYPD officers maimed by them, the federal prosecutor, the entire FBI and other law enforcement agencies. As the Los Angeles Times reported:
The 16 members of the FALN (the Spanish acronym for Armed Forces of National Liberation) and Los Macheteros had been convicted in Chicago and Hartford variously of bank robbery, possession of explosives and participating in a seditious conspiracy. Overall, the two groups had been linked by the FBI to more than 130 bombings, several armed robberies, six slayings and hundreds of injuries.
One hundred and thirty bombings? Pardon me, but just throwing up our hands and saying with a shrug, "Oh, that rascal Eric Holder, he's just so liberal, that's why he does this kind of stuff" does not satisfactorily explain why someone at the highest levels of government can consistently and reliably side with evil. More >>
Following a cold snap in the Northeast, Lake Erie's surface is virtually frozen over for the first time in about 14 years.
The ice ranges in thickness between paper thin along the northern shore and several inches along the southern shore, where many people are ice skating.
GoErie.com reports that the lake hasn't completely frozen since the winter of 1995-1996.
Although the ice cover is considered complete, prevailing winds have created some cracks in the ice.
There are also reportedly ice chunks floating off the coast of Dunkirk, N.Y., which is one of the deepest parts of the lake and would naturally be one of the last places to freeze.
Lake Erie, with an average depth of 62 feet, is the most shallow of the five Great Lakes, which is why it is the only one that completely freezes over.
Since lake-effect snow depends on warmer lake temperatures compared to the air, the frozen lake will deter large amounts of snowfall to the lee of the lake.
The current cold snap will keep the lake mostly, if not completely, frozen for at least the rest of the month.
Story by AccuWeather.com's Gina Cherundolo
Somebody in Wisconsin doesn't like President Barack Obama all that much.
An unnamed company has paid for a billboard along Highway 41 in Oshkosh that reads, "Impeach Obama."
The tagline says: "America's small businesses are failing; help us spread the message."
It was paid for by an unnamed company represented by Tom Wroblewski who told the AP the sentiment is that Washington politics are bad for small businesses. More >>
It has been a bad—make that dreadful—few weeks for what used to be called the "settled science" of global warming, and especially for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is supposed to be its gold standard.
First it turns out that the Himalayan glaciers are not going to melt anytime soon, notwithstanding dire U.N. predictions. Next came news that an IPCC claim that global warming could destroy 40% of the Amazon was based on a report by an environmental pressure group. Other IPCC sources of scholarly note have included a mountaineering magazine and a student paper.
Since the climategate email story broke in November, the standard defense is that while the scandal may have revealed some all-too-human behavior by a handful of leading climatologists, it made no difference to the underlying science. We think the science is still disputable. But there's no doubt that climategate has spurred at least some reporters to scrutinize the IPCC's headline-grabbing claims in a way they had rarely done previously.
Take the rain forest claim. In its 2007 report, the IPCC wrote that "up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state."
But as Jonathan Leake of London's Sunday Times reported last month, those claims were based on a report from the World Wildlife Fund, which in turn had fundamentally misrepresented a study in the journal Nature. The Nature study, Mr. Leake writes, "did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning."
The IPCC has relied on World Wildlife Fund studies regarding the "transformation of natural coastal areas," the "destruction of more mangroves," "glacial lake outbursts causing mudflows and avalanches," changes in the ecosystem of the "Mesoamerican reef," and so on. The Wildlife Fund is a green lobby that believes in global warming, and its "research" reflects its advocacy, not the scientific method.
The IPCC has also cited a study by British climatologist Nigel Arnell claiming that global warming could deplete water resources for as many as 4.5 billion people by the year 2085. But as our Anne Jolis reported in our European edition, the IPCC neglected to include Mr. Arnell's corollary finding, which is that global warming could also increase water resources for as many as six billion people.
The IPCC report made aggressive claims that "extreme weather-related events" had led to "rapidly rising costs." Never mind that the link between global warming and storms like Hurricane Katrina remains tenuous at best. More astonishing (or, maybe, not so astonishing) is that the IPCC again based its assertion on a single study that was not peer-reviewed. In fact, nobody can reliably establish a quantifiable connection between global warming and increased disaster-related costs. In Holland, there's even a minor uproar over the report's claim that 55% of the country is below sea level. It's 26%.
Meanwhile, one of the scientists at the center of the climategate fiasco has called into question other issues that the climate lobby has claimed are indisputable. Phil Jones, who stepped down as head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit amid the climate email scandal, told the BBC that the world may well have been warmer during medieval times than it is now.
This raises doubts about how much our current warming is man-made as opposed to merely another of the natural climate shifts that have taken place over the centuries. Mr. Jones also told the BBC there has been no "statistically significant" warming over the past 15 years, though he considers this to be temporary.
All of this matters because the IPCC has been advertised as the last and definitive word on climate science. Its reports are the basis on which Al Gore, President Obama and others have claimed that climate ruin is inevitable unless the world reorganizes its economies with huge new taxes on carbon. Now we are discovering the U.N. reports are sloppy political documents intended to drive the climate lobby's regulatory agenda.
The lesson of climategate and now the IPCC's shoddy sourcing is that the claims of the global warming lobby need far more rigorous scrutiny. Article >>
Robert Watson has held talks with Al Gore over creating a research group
The UN body that advises world leaders on climate change must investigate an apparent bias in its report that resulted in several exaggerations of the impact of global warming, according to its former chairman.
In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem. More >>
The IPCC's 2007 report that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 has exposed a wider problem with the way that some evidence was presented
The impact of global warming has been exaggerated by some scientists and there is an urgent need for more honest disclosure of the uncertainty of predictions about the rate of climate change, according to the Government’s chief scientific adviser.
John Beddington was speaking to The Times in the wake of an admission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that it grossly overstated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers were receding.
Professor Beddington said that climate scientists should be less hostile to sceptics who questioned man-made global warming. He condemned scientists who refused to publish the data underpinning their reports.
He said that public confidence in climate science would be improved if there were more openness about its uncertainties, even if that meant admitting that sceptics had been right on some hotly-disputed issues. More >>
Peter Taylor from Ethos UK speaks about The Corporatization of the Environmental Movement including pension funds, The Fraud of Cap and Trade, the IPCC, Al Gore, the Computer Models Predicting Global Warming and his experience of how Greenpeace and other Environmental Organizations have been hijacked. Source Listen
Michael Walsh: As ‘Global Warming’ Hoax Dies, MSM is AWOL: Is Anybody Home?
Rich Trzupek: Is the Great ‘Global Warming’ Snowjob Finally Coming to an End?
Kyle-Anne Shiver: Why Does the MSM Ignore Al Gore’s ‘Global Warming’ Million$?
Michael Walsh: Al Gore, Call Your Agent: It Really May Be Time to Give Back That Oscar
By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 5:12 PM on 14th February 2010
Carbon dioxide is "essentially harmless" to human beings and good for plants. So now will you stop worrying about global warming?
Utah's House of Representatives apparently has at least. Officially the most Republican state in America, its political masters have adopted a resolution condemning "climate alarmists", and disputing any scientific basis for global warming. More >>
New 'cold war' gaining steam LONDON – A secret intelligence report warns a number of Western nations soon could be caught up in a new "cold war" brewing between China and the United States, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The dispute apparently was sparked by a Washington decision to arm Taiwan with $6.4 billion of state-of-the art weapons systems. The deal includes 60 Black Hawk helicopters, 114 Patriot anti-missile missiles and 12 Harpoon missiles.
Now the impact could be felt in Britain as well as Germany, France and other European nations that have substantial trading relationships with China. More >>
This racket means big money to AFSCME, which runs the union, writes the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank.
Today the Department of Human Services siphons about $3.7 million in annual dues to the union….
The money should be going to home-based day-care providers — themselves not on the high end of the income scale. Ms. Berry now sees money once paid to her go to a union that does little for her…
Read more: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/02/11/forced-unionization/#ixzz0fLgZn8ze
"Hate speech is unwelcome in Montgomery County Public Schools," said an e-mail to the offices of Regina Griggs, national director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, known as PFOX. "I would like to ask that you immediately cease distribution of your flyers at our public schools.
"We intend to pursue every method possible to protest your actions if you choose to continue," the message warned. More >>
"It doesn't get much more fascist than this! It's a sexual revolutionary's dream," wrote Linda Harvey of Mission America.
Under the legislation by Democrat Rep. Jared Polis, Jennings "can create pro-homosexual programs and policies to their hearts' delight," Harvey wrote.
Jennings founded the "Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network" and now heads the office of "Safe and Drug Free Schools" at the Department of Education.
Polis' proposal would provide special protections for students who claim they are discriminated against because of their "perceived sexual orientation." The bill would call down the wrath of the federal government on offenders by classifying "actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity" alongside race, color, sex, disability or national origin as factors on which protections are based. More >>
NYT: THE BLIZZARDS ARE FROM THE WARMING...
Sure, that make sense…NOT! Nothing but bs from the Times!
By Jordan Fabian - 02/09/10 01:24 PM ET
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) on Tuesday used the D.C. snowstorm to make a political jab, saying that it provides evidence for global warming skeptics.
The conservative senator took to Twitter on Tuesday amid reports that the area is due to receive another 10 to 20 inches of snow this week:
It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries "uncle"
Some conservatives have echoed DeMint's sentiments that the snowstorm should poke holes in evidence backing global warming.
DeMint took direct aim at the former vice president, who is one of the foremost proponents of government action to counter global warming.
Reports of more snow caused the House of Representatives to call off the rest of its votes scheduled for this week. The Washington, D.C. area was blanketed with about two feet of snow last weekend, causing the Senate to adjourn Thursday earlier than expected on Thursday.
The South Carolina senator was not the first Republican to use the snowstorm to make a political point. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) said that absence of votes in the House is a plus for taxpayers.
February 9, 2010
EPW HEARINGS POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER
UPDATE: The following Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearings have been postponed due to inclement weather this week:
- The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, will hold a hearing entitled, "Collaborative Solutions to Wildlife and Habitat Management."
- The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States."
Once the hearings are rescheduled, information will be posted at www.epw.senate.gov
Tue Feb 9, 2010 2:44pm EST
WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A jobs-creation bill that could pass the Senate this week would delay a scheduled 20 percent reduction in doctor payments under the Medicare health-insurance program, according to a copy of the text obtained by Reuters.
The bill also extends soon-to-expire jobless payments, healthcare subsidies for the unemployed and highway-funding programs, according to the text of the bill, which has not yet been introduced. Source >>
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Is there any way out of Europe's debt morass?
Greece's efforts to restore confidence in its finances have only called attention to its woes, and now investors are fretting debt contagion could spread to other countries, starting with similarly troubled Portugal, but with markets wondering who's next.
Some experts believe a bailout may be needed to prevent a continental conflagration—but EU leaders resist the idea, while going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund would be a humiliating step they're unlikely to take.
A growing chorus of voices is predicting a less dramatic, but potentially more corrosive, outcome: a years-long grind of fiscal pain that neither plunges Greece into default nor restores its finances to health.
As it denies the possibility of a bailout, the EU has been desperately voicing its confidence in Greece's ability to contain spending and pay down debt in the hopes that investors will give the country a break and stop betting on its fiscal demise. More >>
BY DAVID BRADSHAW ~ Editor, Real Money Perspectives
January 2010
The dollar is making new economic headlines daily as the world rushes to find a new reserve currency with a more trustworthy store of value. Meanwhile, the Fed, Treasury and White House are embracing a weaker dollar, while espousing a "strong dollar". These recent news headlines detail what's at stake as the world makes plans to ditch the dollar ASAP.
* Dollar Crisis Looms if US Doesn't Curb Debt: "The U.S. must soon raise taxes or cut government spending to curb its debt, and failure to act will risk a crippling dollar crisis as investor confidence ebbs. The national debt has risen above 50% of GDP (gross domestic product) from 40% two years ago, and within 20 years will blow past a previous record above 100% of GDP set after World War Two without stern official steps," reports Reuters.
* 'End US dollar dominance', urges France: "President Nicolas Sarkozy urged an end to the US dollar's global dominance, warning that its weakness poses an 'unacceptable' threat to European competitiveness. The world is multipolar, the monetary system must become multi-monetary. 'A dollar-based system ... might have made sense in the 20th century but doesn't make sense in the 21th century,' said Prof Stiglitz, an adviser to former US president Bill Clinton," reports AFP.
* Gulf petro-powers to launch currency in latest threat to dollar hegemony: "The Arab states of the Gulf region have agreed to launch a single currency modeled on the euro, hoping to blaze a trail towards a pan-Arab monetary union. The move will give the hyper-rich club of oil exporters a petro-currency of their own, greatly increasing their influence in the global exchange and capital markets and potentially displacing the US dollar as the pricing currency for oil contracts. Between them they amount to regional superpower with a GDP of $1.2 trillion, some 40% of the world’s proven oil reserves, and financial clout equal to that of China. "The US dollar has failed. We need to delink," said Nahed Taher, chief executive of Bahrain’s Gulf One Investment Bank," reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at Telegraph.
The Dethroning of King Dollar?: "Dollar murdered. Drowned in red ink. Clues point to the White House." So might a tabloid headline read as the angry mourners gathered to affix blame for the end of the era in which the dollar served as the currency in which the world does business -- its reserve currency. Unless Bernanke drains liquidity from the financial system, and shrinks the Fed's balance sheet by winding down $2 trillion in support programs, the dollar's decline will accelerate, shattering confidence in its long-term value," reports The Weekly Standard.
* The Last Great Dollar Crisis: "The more the U.S. becomes financially overextended, the more it is at the mercy of seemingly insignificant financial events. The U.S. has few viable alternatives to deficit reduction and eventually tightening the money supply. If the U.S. government cannot muster the will to rein in the money supply and the national debt on its own, it faces the prospect of a rival power increasingly constraining U.S. economic policy options or a collapse in global confidence in the dollar," reports WSJ.
* Top Analysts See No Bottom Dollar Slump in Dollar Slump: "The most accurate dollar forecasters predict the world’s reserve currency will continue sliding even when the Fed begins to raise interest rates, which policy makers say is an extended period away. 'History tells us the dollar shouldn’t start rising on a sustained basis until 12 months after the Fed starts to lift rates,' said Callum Henderson, the global head of foreign-exchange strategy for Standard Chartered," reports Bloomberg.
U.S. Backs Strong Dollar; Trading Partners Not Convinced: "The U.S. reiterated its support for a strong dollar Thursday but Pacific Rim trading partners remained skeptical, continuing their calls on Washington to stabilize its sliding currency, languishing near 15-month lows against a basket of currencies. 'They have to make good on what they profess. The volatility is hurting us in a serious way,' Russian Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin told Dow Jones Newswires," reports WSJ.
China Hints at Departure From Dollar Peg: "China sent its clearest signal yet that it was ready to allow yuan appreciation after an 18-month hiatus, saying on Wednesday it would consider major currencies, not just the dollar, in guiding the exchange rate. China hinted at a shift from an effective dollar peg that has been in place since the middle of last year," reports CNBC.
The Great Shrinking American Dollar: "The American government needs to control its budget deficit to stop confidence in the dollar from falling further. Our government collects far too little in taxes for what it spends. There is no choice but to raise taxes soon and rein in spending. Short-term rates (controlled by the Fed) will stay low, while long-term rates (market-determined and affected by trust in our Treasury and Fed to keep the value of dollar strong) will rise as people fear their dollar investments will be debased," reports NY Times.
Geithner Reaffirms 'Strong Dollar' Importance "U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner said that maintaining a strong dollar is "very important" for the country's economy, sticking to his mantra on foreign-exchange policy as the U.S. currency continues its broad downtrend," reports WSJ.
Fed Gov Sees 'Orderly' Dollar Depreciation"The U.S. dollar has so far had an orderly depreciation, Fed Dallas President Richard Fisher said when asked about the carry trade on Tuesday. He said he was aware of risks the FOMC ran of fueling the trade by stating the Fed would hold its funds rate at exceptionally low levels for an extended period," reports Reuters.
Three Things To Stop the Dollar's Decline: "Since 2001, four consecutive Treasury secretaries have made 'a strong dollar policy' the cornerstone of their rhetoric on the U.S. currency. Over that period of time, the currency has lost nearly a fifth of its value. Hint to the current Treasury secretary: it's not working. Here are three ways Federal Reserve and the Treasury could stop the dollar's decline without changing current policy too much. #1: Change the rhetoric. #2: Build a credible plan to reduce deficits. #3: Coordinate policy with Europeans and other foreign central banks," reports CNBC.
* G20 leaves door open for fresh pressure on dollar: "We're probably looking at fresh dollar weakness in the short term in the wake of the G20 meeting, said Kenneth Broux, senior markets economist at Lloyds TSB. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of 20 major countries, meeting in Scotland Nov. 7-8, launched a "framework" in which they will discuss how to reduce trade and savings imbalances between nations," reports Reuters.
* Mother of all carry trades faces an inevitable bust: "The US dollar has become the major funding currency of carry trades as the Fed has kept interest rates on hold and is expected to do so for a long time. Traders are borrowing at negative 20% rates to invest on a highly leveraged basis on a mass of risky global assets that are rising in price due to excess liquidity and a massive carry trade. The longer and bigger the carry trades and the larger the asset bubble, the bigger will be the ensuing asset bubble crash. The Fed and other policymakers seem unaware of the monster bubble they are creating," reports Financial Times.
* Valuing Bonds, Dollar Is Crazy in World Gone Mad: "In price is knowledge," one editor used to scream at me. Not anymore. The ad-hoc combination of quantitative easing, government stimulus packages and zero-interest-rate policies has distorted markets beyond recognition. You know markets have gone mad when the yen is perceived to be a refuge and the dollar is the catalyst of choice for re- inflating a global bubble," reports Bloomberg.
* Let the dollar prove itself - Ron Paul: "The long-term strength of the dollar will only be weakened by maintaining the Fed's monopoly on our monetary system. Our foreign creditors are already moving to dethrone the dollar as the world's currency. The prospect of American citizens also turning away from the dollar toward alternate currencies should provide an impetus to the U.S. government to regain control of the dollar and halt its downward spiral," reports CNN.
* A Dollar’s Worth of Foreign Policy: "How do you catch a falling dollar? A classic approach would be for the U.S. government to stand ready to raise interest rates and adopt plans for future fiscal austerity. It would be responsible, but it would not be much fun, particularly at a time when U.S. unemployment is approaching 10%. Suppose, instead, the dollar continues to slide and loses its premier status among world currencies. There could be domestic political benefits, but it would leave key countries economically bruised and seething," reports Foreign Policy.
* Dollar's fall setting off alarm bells overseas: "The dramatic decline of the U.S. dollar is aiding the American economic recovery but setting off alarm bells overseas, with corporate executives, politicians and pundits calling it among the biggest threats to the rebounds underway in Europe and Japan. Yet analysts say the fall of the dollar reflects a basic economic truth: the U.S. financial situation is no longer as solid as it once was. Rather than being undervalued, many argue that the dollar has room to fall further. The risk remains of a full-blown run on the dollar that could force the Federal Reserve to suddenly raise interest rates, dealing a potentially severe blow to the U.S. recovery. But for now, the weak dollar is one problem the United States loves to have," reports The Washington Post.
* The Dollar Depends on Politicians Now:"The reality is that Mr. Bernanke cannot totally blame politicians. He could do what Paul Volcker did, and raise dollar interest rates to send a message to the market that he will not allow the dollar to be destroyed. But that is not likely to happen. There has been no indication that Mr. Bernanke will raise interest rates anytime soon, much less raise them to the level needed to convince the market that he intends to preserve the purchasing power of the dollar. Sadly, the dollar is no longer as good as gold. It is now only as good as the empty rhetoric of politicians and central bankers," reports James Turk at HoweStreet.
* Weak Dollar Is Protectionist Barrier: "The dollar is likely to continue depreciating and the 'new normal' will see consumers shedding debt in an attempt to balance their books. I think the dollar is an over-owned currency. The Chinese, the Asians have basically owned too many dollars for too long. In the new normal for the world economies, investors will have to get used to a very low return on asset market. The standard of living in the US is likely to go down with the dollar, as we've spent too much over the past 20 years. Let's face it, a lower dollar is basically a protectionist barrier, Bill Gross, the influential manager who runs top bond fund Pimco, told CNBC.
* Devaluing Our Way Out of the Crisis: "Now the policy in the U.S. is to devalue and inflate its way out of the crisis, as the word out of Washington officials such as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is that a weak dollar will not only help create more exports, but will restructure the economy permanently towards exports and away from consumer spending. If a weak currency were the way, as John Tamny of RealClearMarkets notes, Argentina would be an economic powerhouse. And to which I would add Zimbabwe would be a superpower," reports Fox Business.
* Dollar to drop further, will hurt UAE: "The dollar will fall further against major currencies. The decline is attributed to the trillions of dollar pumped into the US economy to contain the global financial crisis and which in turn has led to a rise in dollar supply. All indicators show that the dollar continues to fall. The International Monetary Fund along with other organizations believe that now is the best time to depeg from the dollar in the Gulf Co-operation Council said Dr Mohammed Al Assoumi, a Dubai-based analyst," reports Business24-7.
* Mr. Geithner: Stop Passing The Buck On The Dollar: "To claim that a falling dollar is great because it boosts the earnings of multi-national corporations is tantamount to saying a rise in the number of car crashes would be a wonderful for Americans because they can invest in air bag makers. It looks like the plan the U.S. wants to pursue is to continue to discourage foreign investment, punch our bankers (the Chinese) in the nose and punish those who are savers by crumbling our currency. But please, Mr. Geithner, let's not pretend it benefits anyone except those who are heavily in debt--chief among them our government," reports Forbes.
* What a U.S. Decline Means for Investors: "The dollar's decline is only a symbol of the greater problem. In the investment world, America's importance may be shrinking. According to data tracked by FactSet Research, U.S. companies now account for barely 30% of the value of the world's publicly-listed companies. A decade ago, that figure was more than 50%," reports WSJ.
* Dollar Decline Draws International Protest: "This could end up being viewed as the week when dollar weakness became too much for the rest of the world to bear, setting the scene for tense encounters at the upcoming meeting of G-20 finance ministers. "Some sort of crisis is looking inevitable," said Neil Mellor, a currencies analyst at The Bank of New York Mellon in London. "You can't continue down this road without something giving way, and it's clear that the U.S. is not going to do anything to put meat on the bones of its strong-dollar policy. Most experts agree that unless the dollar's decline becomes much more rapid, U.S. authorities will continue to stand by and let the buck fall. "This is a benign cyclical descent," reports WSJ.
* Why Dollar's Continued Slide May Undermine Global Status: "A weak currency can have serious long-term implications. Imported products become more expensive. The price of oil and other commodities is directly tied to the value of the dollar. Many investors are using commodities as a hedge against dollar weakness. That has sent oil prices sharply higher, creating a drag on the economy. Longer term, a weak dollar gives the U.S. less borrowing power. That makes financing the national debt more expensive, making the budget deficit even worse, and hurting the dollar even more," reports CNBC.
* Dollar hegemony for another century: "The dollar will still be the world’s dominant reserve currency in 2030, sharing a degree of leadership in uneasy condominium with the Chinese yuan. A currency reflects the strength of an economy and society over time. Of course, if the US were stupid enough to enact the 10-year spending plans projected by the White House — with a deficit of $1.9 trillion in 2019 — the country will be ruined. I do not think America has so far lost its senses that it will commit suicide in this fashion," reports London Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
* Dollar Suicide: "We’re doing it to ourselves. Dr. Bernanke is, in effect, the dollar incarnate — the walking embodiment of the soundness of our currency — if the dollar does die, it will not have been murder. It will have been suicide. Dollars are just like works of art: The more copies there are relative to demand, the less each one is worth. As with Monet, so with money — only Monet has remained scarce and valuable. As the U.S. money stock has continued to explode, the exchange value of the dollar has tumbled," reports National Review.
* The Dollar's Fall: Deal With It: "The dramatic recent fall of the value of the U.S. dollar grabs headlines every day, even as the U.S. stock market surges to new recovery highs. People are talking about a "dollar crisis," So while it may feel like a blow to our national prestige to have the dollar be just another currency, that's probably inevitable — and probably all for the best. So as an investor, what do you do? Buy gold. Gold is the alternative to all currencies, not just the dollar," reports Smart Money.
* Next big political issue? The U.S. dollar: "The state of the dollar probably hasn’t been a first-tier political issue in the United States since, say, the presidential election of 1896. Back then, it manifested as whether or not America would stay on the gold standard or switch to a bimetallic one. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 88% of Americans say the dollar should remain the dominant global currency. They sure think a weaker dollar is a sign of a weaker America. It is just a matter of time before global financial markets reject America's dismal deficit outlook, and that could lead to a punishing dollar crisis," reports Reuters.
* Dollar To Drop 20%: "The dollar will extend its drop versus the euro over the next two to five years, falling as much as 20% to an all-time low under a widening U.S. budget deficit. Policy makers favor the dollar’s slide as a means of supporting a recovery," Harvard’s Professor Niall Ferguson, author of "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World" said to Bloomberg.
* Dollar to Hit 50 Yen, Cease as Reserve: "The dollar may drop to 50 yen next year and eventually lose its role as the global reserve currency," Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.’s chief strategist Daisuke Uno said. "We can no longer stop the big wave of dollar weakness. The greenback is heading for the trough of a super-cycle that started in August 1971. After the dollar loses its reserve currency status, the U.S., Europe and Asia will form separate economic blocs. The International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights may be used as a temporary measure," reports Bloomberg.
* Dollar Decline Must End: "Over the past six months, the dollar has lost 15% while gold has climbed nearly $150. If this continues, spiking inflation and interest rates will choke off the bull market in stocks and do serious damage to the economy. It could happen fast. How to solve this problem? In supply-side terms, cut tax rates for new growth incentives," reports Kudlow at CNBC.
* The Message of Dollar Disdain: "If money is a moral contract between government and its citizens, we are being violated. The rest of the world, meanwhile, simply wants to avoid being duped. That is why China and Russia—large holders of dollars—are angling to invent some new kind of global currency for denominating reserve assets. As the dollar is increasingly perceived as the default mechanism for out-of-control government spending, its role as a reliable standard of value is destined to fade," reports WSJ.
* US policymakers playing with fire as the dollar continues to tumble: "The willingness of foreigners to hold dollar assets has allowed American citizens to consume beyond their means for many years. If the collapse in the MBS market exposed the first chink in American economic armor, a rejection of the dollar as the world's reserve currency could expose an even bigger hole. If other nations begin to believe the US is happy to allow its currency to plummet, they may all head to the exit at the same time. The US is not just playing with monetary fire: it may also be encouraging an epochal shift in the world financial order," reports the Independent.
* Dollar facing 'power-shift': "The US dollar is being hurt by the continued talk of a shift away from a dollar-centric world. As long as the US economy is not strong enough for any rise in interest rates to be conceivable for a long time, the dollar's underlying downtrend will remain in place," reports AFP.
* Russia ready to abandon dollar in oil, gas trade with China: "Russia is ready to consider using the Russian and Chinese national currencies instead of the dollar in bilateral oil and gas dealings, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. 'We are ready to examine the possibility of selling energy resources for rubles, but our Chinese partners need rubles for that. We are also ready to sell for yuans,' Putin said. Britain's Independent newspaper reported last week that Russian officials had held 'secret meetings' with Arab states, China and France on ending the use of the U.S. dollar in international oil trade," reports Russia's RIA Novosti.
* Obama's peace shattered as dollar takes a pounding: "The divergence between Obama's Nobel honor and the marketplace repricing of his country's future would appear to be a stark lesson in the difference between hope and reality. Hope for Obama's plans may soar, but his ability to meet those hopes is shriveling with the value of the currency," reports Sidney Morning News.
* Dollar Reaches Breaking Point: "The anti-dollar trend is unmistakable. The world is changing, and the dollar is losing its status. World leaders are acting on threats to dump the dollar while the Obama administration shows a willingness to tolerate a weaker currency in an effort to boost exports and the economy. Central bank diversification signals that the currency won’t rebound anytime soon after losing 10.3% the past six months," reports Bloomberg.
* Dollar Adrift: "The Fed will let the dollar fall. For a time in the wake of the panic, the dollar benefited from a flight to the relative safety of U.S. Treasurys and other dollar assets. But as this overall global risk aversion has ebbed, the risk calculus has turned and the dollar itself has become more dangerous to hold than non-dollar investments. If the fall of the dollar becomes a rout, this could cause a spike in commodity prices and jeopardize the nascent economic recovery. Washington may not care to notice, but the sell-off in the dollar is a daily global vote on U.S. economic policy. It is not a vote of confidence," reports WSJ.
* 'Benign currency neglect' could spell real danger for US economy: "The dollar is falling because that's what the White House wants. "It's important America continues to have a strong currency," said US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week. "We've made clear our commitment to a strong dollar," added Larry Summers, the Head of President Obama's National Economic Council. These men insult our intelligence. The US government desperately wants a weaker dollar – so boosting exports while lowering the value of America's massive foreign debt," reports London Telegraph.
* "The dollar’s 15% decline against the euro since early March are increasing concern among world leaders. At the same time, Americans are getting poorer. 'The U.S. approves of a constantly weakening dollar but doesn’t want a disruptive collapse,' said David Malpass, former chief economist at Bear Stearns and deputy assistant Treasury secretary from 1986 to 1989," reports Bloomberg.
* The Weak-Dollar Threat to Prosperity: "No countries have devalued their way into prosperity, while many — Hong Kong, China, Australia today — have used stable money to invite capital and jobs. Some weak-dollar advocates believe that American workers will eventually get cheap enough in foreign-currency terms to win manufacturing jobs back. In practice, however, capital outflows overwhelm the trade flows, causing more job losses than cheap real wages create," reports WSJ.
* The Savage Truth About the Shrinking Dollar: "Out-of-control government spending has caused a precipitous drop in the dollar and now we are see it squeezed out in higher gold prices. Our 'weak dollar policy' does not work. It may be good for Wall Street, but it's horrible for Main Street," Swiss America Chairman Craig R. Smith told national talk show host Michael Savage on Wednesday.
* "As the dollar's dominance fades with the emergence of a multipolar world, gold may stand to gain the most of all assets thanks to an unlikely quality -- neutrality. While no major currency is likely to replace the dollar anytime soon, the need for an alternative is clear, and growing," reports Reuters.
* "Growing international chorus wants the dollar replaced as the world's reserve currency, a move that would end the greenback's six decades of global dominance. The dollar has come under attack from abroad as the economic crisis has played out, thanks to the Federal Reserve's decision to flood a seized-up financial system with liquidity last fall," reports WashPost.
* Dollar fall spells BIG inflation ahead: "Your cost of living is getting ready to go up," Swiss America Chairman Craig R. Smith told Neil Cavuto of Fox News Tuesday. "It appears the world is ditching the dollar," agreed Mr. Cavuto. "With Australia raising interest rates .25% early today, they became the first G-20 nation to begin mopping up the excess liquidity created during the global credit crisis to fight future inflation," said Mr. Smith. "Unless the U.S. does likewise, we should expect a sharply weaker dollar and a lower standard of living."
* China calls time on dollar hegemony: "Beijing does not need to raise money abroad since it has $2 trillion in reserves. The sole purpose is to prepare the way for the emergence of the yuan as a full-fledged global currency. "Everybody in the world is massively overweight the US dollar," said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. "As they invest a little here and little there in other currencies, or gold, it slowly erodes the dollar. It is like sterling after World War One. Everybody can see it's happening," reports LonTelegraph.
* The demise of the dollar: "In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar," reports Independent.
* Gulf States Deny Secret Plan to Dump Dollar: "The world's oil producers will continue using the U.S. dollar as the currency for buying and selling crude, high-ranking oil and finance officials in the Gulf said on Tuesday, denying a report in a British newspaper," reports FoxNews.
* Farewell to dollar supremacy: "The sun is setting on the US dollar as the ultra-loose monetary policy of the Federal Reserve forces China and the vibrant economies of the emerging world to forge a new global currency order, according to a new report by HSBC," reports LonTelegraph.
* A stronger US economy requires a weaker dollar: "The US dollar will mainly have to depreciate, if a long spell of over-capacity, high unemployment and low growth is to be avoided, vis-a-vis the currencies of the roughly 50% of the economic universe that we call emerging markets and developing countries. China is the largest of these," reports FinTimes.
* Investors in Treasuries, Dollars Defy Common Sense: "Textbook economics suggests that before long, Japan and other Asian nations will start converting their dollars into euro-denominated securities -- or perhaps a new international currency backed by a basket of, say, euros and yen along with dollars. That would mean a significant decline for Treasuries and the dollar. The U.S. no longer will be supreme. Intuition alone should tell investors to look elsewhere for security," reports Bloomberg.
* Dollar's Pain Is Big Gain for Rivals: "The dollar's slump worsened in the third quarter as investors moved their cash into riskier investments in search of higher returns. The greenback may tumble further in coming weeks as investors bet that other countries will raise interest rates before the Federal Reserve," reports WSJ.
* "The dollar should be devalued because the U.S. economy is less competitive than other economies and has higher debt, and some form of SDR should become the world’s reserve currency," said Wilbur Ross, of WL Ross & Co to CNBC. Source
