Weekend Economists --Not in Kansas Anymore! July 30-Aug. 1, 2010

Hello, everyone. I was picked up by this tornado, and whirled around until I thought I'd lose my lunch, and then I landed in this Technicolor miniature golf-land...

and that's why WEE is late tonight.

Humph! Having bribed the Munchins with a promise of jam tomorrow (jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never any jam today--cite that!)

As I say, having bribed the Munchkins to let me access the Internet, Here it is:

OZ, the place that ISN'T Kansas, and never will be.



We're off to see the wizard, and maybe he can get us back to the good old US of
A where we were born and raised...because God knows, nobody in DC will even try!

Post them if you've got them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFpVsTuOpK8

NorthWest Bank and Trust, Acworth, Georgia, was closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with State Bank and Trust Company, Macon, Georgia, to assume all of the deposits of NorthWest Bank and Trust.

The two branches of NorthWest Bank and Trust will reopen on Saturday as branches of State Bank and Trust Company...As of March 31, 2010, NorthWest Bank and Trust had approximately $167.7 million in total assets and $159.4 million in total deposits. State Bank and Trust Company did not pay the FDIC a premium for the deposits of NorthWest Bank and Trust. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, State Bank and Trust Company agreed to purchase essentially all of the failed bank's assets.

The FDIC and State Bank and Trust Company entered into a loss-share transaction on $107.6 million of NorthWest Bank and Trust's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $39.8 million. Compared to other alternatives, State Bank and Trust Company's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. NorthWest Bank and Trust is the 104th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the 11th in Georgia. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Crescent Bank and Trust Company, Jasper, on July 23, 2010.

Bayside Savings Bank, Port Saint Joe, Florida and Coastal Community Bank, Panama City Beach, Florida, were closed today by federal and state banking agencies, which then appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver for both institutions. To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into purchase and assumption agreements with Centennial Bank, Conway, Arkansas, to assume all the deposits and essentially all the assets of the two failed institutions.

Bayside Savings Bank was closed by the Office of Thrift Supervision, and Coastal Community Bank was closed by the Florida Office of Financial Regulation.

Collectively, the two failed institutions operated 13 branches, which will reopen as branches of Centennial Bank during normal business hours, including those offices with Saturday hours. Bayside Savings Bank has two branches, and Coastal Community Bank has eleven branches.

Depositors of Bayside Savings Bank and Coastal Community Bank will automatically become depositors of Centennial Bank...As of March 31, 2010, Bayside Savings Bank had total assets of $66.1 million and total deposits of $52.4 million. Coastal Community Bank had total assets of $372.9 million and total deposits of $363.2 million. Centennial Bank did not pay the FDIC a premium for the deposits of the failed banks. In addition to assuming all the deposits from the two Florida institutions, Centennial Bank will purchase virtually all their assets.

The FDIC and Centennial Bank entered into loss-share transactions on $48.3 million of Bayside Savings Bank's assets and $302.8 million of Coastal Community Bank's assets. Centennial Bank will share in the losses on the asset pools covered under the loss-share agreement...

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $16.2 million for Bayside Savings Bank and $94.5 million for Coastal Community Bank. Compared to other alternatives, Centennial Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF.

These two closings bring total closures for the year to 106 banks in the nation, and the 19th and 20th in Florida. Prior to these failures, the last bank closed in Florida was Sterling Bank, Lantana, on July 23, 2010.

The Cowlitz Bank, Longview, Washington, was closed today by the Washington Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Heritage Bank, Olympia, Washington, to assume all of the deposits of The Cowlitz Bank.

The nine branches of The Cowlitz Bank, including the two branches operating in Oregon, and three branches operating in Washington under the name Bay Bank, a division of The Cowlitz Bank, will reopen on Saturday during normal banking hours as branches of Heritage Bank....

As of March 31, 2010, The Cowlitz Bank had approximately $529.3 million in total assets and $513.9 million in total deposits. Heritage Bank paid the FDIC a premium of 1.0 percent for the deposits of The Cowlitz Bank. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Heritage Bank agreed to purchase approximately $329.5 million of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.

The FDIC and Heritage Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on $160.9 million of The Cowlitz Bank's assets....The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $68.9 million. Compared to other alternatives, Heritage Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. The Cowlitz Bank is the 107th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the eighth in Washington. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Washington First International Bank, Seattle, on June 11, 2010.

LibertyBank, Eugene, Oregon, was closed today by the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Home Federal Bank, Nampa, Idaho, to assume all of the deposits of LibertyBank.

The 15 branches of LibertyBank will reopen on Monday as branches of Home Federal Bank...As of March 31, 2010, LibertyBank had approximately $768.2 million in total assets and $718.5 million in total deposits. Home Federal Bank paid the FDIC a premium of 1.0 percent for the deposits of LibertyBank. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Home Federal Bank agreed to purchase approximately $419.7 million of the failed bank's assets.

The FDIC and Home Federal Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on $300.0 million of LibertyBank's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $115.3 million. Compared to other alternatives, Home Federal Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. LibertyBank is the 108th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the third in Oregon. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Home Valley Bank, Cave Junction, on July 23, 2010.

That's the biggest week for bank failures this year I do believe. Is it getting scary ugly smelly out in the tranches or is it just me? Can we expect the pace to continue?

<http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.htm... >

Round and round she goes, where she stops is when money no longer flows.

Rec'd and kicked this twister Ms. Demeter!

FDIC not too far away from tapping into U.S. Treasury $500 billion taxpayer lifeline. Georgia leads the pack with 40 bank failures since 2008.

http://www.mybudget360.com/fdic-flashes-sos-1000-bank-f... /

By the end of the recession, there will be approximately 1,000 bank failures. Does this sound extreme? It should but the numbers don’t cover the entire story. Since 2008 the number of bank failures has reached 269 and this doesn’t include consolidations done through the FDIC where bigger banks ate up smaller banks before they officially failed. Last week, 7 banks failed. At that pace, we are looking at 364 bank failures per year and the actual number of closings per week has consistently gone up. The FDIC is in a precarious situation. The Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) is technically speaking, broke. They have added additional cash reserves by front loading premiums on surviving banks but this can only stunt the financial bleeding for so long. The problems in the banking system run deep and many of the smaller regional banks are failing because of commercial real estate loans going bad.

Here is the actual weekly trend of bank failures: GRAPHIC PORN AT LINK

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fdic-gets-into-the-sec...

The government agency said late Friday that it sold securities in a deal backed by $471.3 million of performing single-family mortgages originated by 16 failed banks. The transaction, part of a pilot program, marks the first time the FDIC has securitized assets during the current financial crisis, it noted.

The top five failed banks involved in the deal were CF Bancorp, IndyMac Bank, Desert Hills Bank, Warren Bank and Republic Federal Bank, according to an FDIC spokesman....

The FDIC usually sells failed banks to other lenders as quickly as possible to protect depositors. However, the process leaves the FDIC with lots of loans, which are sold at regular auctions. But the financial crisis has been so severe that the agency is trying other ways to unload these assets.

"The FDIC uses several strategies to sell assets from failed banks," it said in a statement late Friday. "Securitization is one of the ways in which the FDIC intends to maximize the value of these assets for the benefit of creditors of the failed banks."

Securitization involves packaging up loans and other assets into a security, and then selling it to institutional investors such as pension funds and hedge funds. The securities are sliced into different tranches offering different risks and rewards. The top bits pay the lowest interest rates, but are the last to experience losses if the underlying loans go bad. The bottom slices offer the biggest returns, but also are the first to absorb losses.....

Fed holds mortgages
In 2009, purchased over 1 trillion worth from troubled banks.
Now does not want them and cannot unload them.
WSA Power in Treasury and Fed!!! Help our pals.
Expect to sell gradually as economy recovers.
Fed became one of largest world's mortgage investors because no one else was interested.
During Fall 2008, investors stopped buying mortgage securities
issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two public traded companies-for profit—bought mortgages made by Banks and other lenders, providing money for new rounds of lending, then package those loans into securities for sale to investors. Replenishing their own coffers.

Two days before Thanksgiving 2009, Fed announced it would buy $500 Billion in securities issued by the two companies. By the time the program wound down in March 2010, it had spent more than twice that amount. The Fed now owns mortgage securities with a face value of $1.1 Trillion.

Now comes the Cleanup. Fed can hold the securities until borrowers repaid or refinanced the homes.
Fed expects borrowers will repay $200 Billion by end of 2011. In the meantime, the Fed is collecting regular “interest” payments. Bernanke told Congress-”We've been earning a fairly high income from our holdings and remitting that to the treasury.”

The Fed bought the securities by pumping new money into the economy to stimulate growth.
By selling it will drain money from the economy.
The Fed paid some of the highest prices on record for mortgage securities.
There are no good choices for the Fed. Some Fed officers say raise interest rates before beginning to sell the securities.
Article by binyamin applebaum nyt

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/30/bair-bailout-bank-inte...

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair says future bank bailouts won't likely happen. The big banks will be allowed to fail....

For investors holding stock from the United States' top banks under the assumption that the government won't let them fail, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair says think again.

Steve Forbes: Talking about the big five or big seven or whatever number you want to put on it, would the government really let one of those institutions fail? The markets don't believe it.

Sheila Bair: I know they don't, and this is frustrating to me. I think if they read the bill, I don't know where they think the bailout is going to come from unless Congress authorized it, and we supported this and pushed for it. There are very clear and explicit prohibitions on providing government assistance to an open institution.

So if these large institutions get into trouble, there will be two options, bankruptcy or this special resolution process. But the special resolution process is just as harsh as bankruptcy in terms of claims priority and the shareholders and the unsecured creditors will absorb whatever losses are attendant to the resolution. If there are unexpected losses at the end of the resolution, there will be an assessment on the industry to recoup those losses. And so I don't--

by the end of this year.

They've played loosey-goosey with the regs there, but this is getting ridiculous.

Surely, there can't be many, every week there seems a bank in Georgia is closed down.

One of the goals of the Shock Doctrine is that public utilities and assets be sold off to private interests as payment for sovereign debt. And then the debt is swapped back and forth between the giant corporations, while the ordinary people and their governments are hung upside down until the last penny falls out of their pockets....

EDF of France has sold its UK electricity networks business to Cheung Kong Infrastructure of Hong Kong for £5.8bn, 45 per cent more than the price originally suggested for the deal, according to a person close to the negotiations.
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/WDI4RR/8AQQEQ/06MUC/JIHY5U/YHC7UK/...

The stand-off between British business and the coalition government over plans to cap immigration was threatening to turn into open conflict after it emerged that many companies would not be allowed to hire any non-European staff for the rest of the financial year.
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/R5WAEE/RN00BJ/FDFZE/26D8T6/D4ERV9/...

US banks are taking advantage of improving earnings and growing investor demand to raise billions of dollars in debt at historically low interest rates, a move that could boost the sector’s profits in coming years.

The burst of fundraising in the US is in stark contrast to Europe where banks have struggled to issue debt as the eurozone crisis and worries about the financial industry have undermined market confidence.
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/R5WAEE/M9BB9Q/HI3M9/9ZJA3D/GKS3VI/...

Instead of categorizing by topic, let's categorize by Character--Wizard of Oz Characters!

(Let's face it, I've been fighting with computers all day, and losing. So this is a classic displacement--see your basic psychology text!)

to our current Treasury Secretary?

Good evening Demeter, and everyone else at WEE.

Proud to be the 3rd rec.

Good evening, Burf!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/...

Wealthy Americans should pay higher taxes to help clear the country's record debts, Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, said...

Multi-dimensional chess, you know.

TOP 400 INCOME PAID AVERAGE 16%
CORPORATIONS PAID 17%

Top 20% paid 30% of Total Income in Federal-State-Local Taxes.
Middle 20% paid 28% almost the same.

1% was blessed so much God's Chosen Few $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ GOD $$$$$$$$$

1979-2007- 1% had 281% increase in Income
Mid 20% got 25%
Bottom 20% got 16%

2001-2008
1% took two thirds of Income Increase
99% took one third
1,500,000 versus 153,000,000 fairness doctine ho hum

1980--1% owned 20% Total Financial Wealth
1989---they owned 36% (80% gain)

2008--
1% owned 43%
10% owned 70%
20% owned 93%
80% owned 7%=120,000,000 workers shafted shafted

Income and Wealth has been zoomed to Top 1%

Where do we go from here?

Ideas?

cswinney2@triad.rr.com olduglymeanhonest

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2825876520100728

Stricter lending standards adopted last year by Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) are beginning to pay off as the mortgage finance giant's "new book" of business is the strongest in a decade, the firm's chief executive said on Wednesday.

Fannie Mae is emphasizing safer, long-term, fixed-rate loans and asking lenders to make loans on homes with better appraisals, to borrowers with better credit and better documentation of income.

"If you take all of these factors together, we're building the strongest book of business we've seen in the last decade," CEO Michael Williams said in remarks prepared for delivery to the group Women in Housing and Finance...

Germans have become less worried about unemployment than at any time in the past two years, triggering a surge in consumer confidence in Europe’s largest economy
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/WDI4RR/KETH8W/T10SH/ZBWBHA/PRL63N/...

The US public’s hope of getting repaid for the bail-outs of Bear Stearns and AIG in the financial crisis increased on Thursday after the Federal Reserve reported a paper profit for the first time on all the holdings of securities bought from the companies
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/IOCBMM/RN00EL/B49CK/C5NMZ1/GKSPF7/...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=...

U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The Treasury’s $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8 trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report released today.

“TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity,” Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said the U.S. has spent less than $2 trillion so far and that Barofsky’s estimates are flawed because they don’t take into account assets that back those programs or fees charged to recoup some costs shouldered by taxpayers....

The country has approved an 80 per cent increase in the minimum wage for its garment industry in a bid to end months of unrest by workers who produce clothes for leading western brands
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/WDI4RR/KETH8W/T10SH/ZBWBHA/C5IRXX/...

Peter Voser, chief executive, says deep-water drilling has important role to play in global energy supply, as the Anglo-Dutch oil group announces a near-doubling in second-quarter profit to $4.53bn
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/IOCBMM/RN00EL/B49CK/C5NMZ1/ZBV57G/...

More than three years into the housing crisis that helped trigger a worldwide recession, the torrid pace of home foreclosures continues to tear at the core of the American dream.

New figures Thursday from Realty-Trac showed that foreclosure activity declined over the first six months of the year in nine of the 10 large metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates.

However, most of the 206 metropolitan areas with 200,000-plus residents didn't fare as well. In fact, three out of four posted year-to-year increases in their foreclosure rates. Seventeen of the 20 hardest-hit areas were in Florida and California

In the first half of 2010, more than 1.6 million U.S. properties were hit with foreclosure filings, which include bank repossessions, default notices and auction sale notices. That's up 8 percent from the first six months of 2009 and puts the U.S. on pace to top 3 million filings this year. That includes more than a million bank repossessions, and while sub-prime borrowers and bad loans led the surge in foreclosures in 2008 and 2009, this year's wave comes from homeowners who've lost their jobs...

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/29/98357/homes-keep-...

Three Russian state-controlled oil companies, including OAO Rosneft and OAO Gazprom Neft, may begin delivering gasoline to Iran in a month, said the head of the Iran Commission of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce Industry.

Talks are being held on a "working level" and the first delivery may take place in late August or September, Rajab Safarov said in an interview in Moscow Thursday. Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi traveled to Moscow earlier this month to sign a "road map" on Russian energy cooperation for the next 30 years.

While the Kremlin in June supported United Nations sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, Russia criticized additional measures adopted by the United States and EU targeting the Iranian energy industry.

Iran, the world's fourth largest crude producer, is vulnerable because it doesn't refine enough oil for its own consumption, making it reliant on imports. The U.S. sanctions penalize foreign companies that sell gasoline to Iran.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/0...

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5841109,00.html?ma...

Moscow has said the new EU sanctions on Iran will undermine efforts for a political-diplomatic resolution with Iran. Russia backed last month's UN sanctions but condemned unilateral measures by the US and the EU. ...

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bp-taking-10-billion-t...

BP PLC will reduce its contribution to U.S. coffers by roughly $10 billion due to a tax credit the company is claiming it incurred from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The oil giant /quotes/comstock/13*!bp/quotes/nls/bp (BP 38.57, +0.10, +0.26%) said Tuesday that it is incurring a charge of $32.2 billion from the Deepwater Horizon disaster response, and as such, it is claiming a $9.9 billion taxation credit.

Asked in a conference call Tuesday about whether it has discussed the tax credit with President Barack Obama's administration, BP's outgoing chief executive, Tony Hayward said: "We have followed the IRS regulations as they're currently written."

The Internal Revenue Service said it's not allowed under federal law to discuss individual taxpayer issues....

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/24/bp-fails-to-put-mon... /

In a deal negotiated last month, President Obama and BP officials agreed the company would pay $5 billion annually over the next four years into an escrow account for damage its oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused. Ken Feinberg, who was appointed to administer oil spill claims out of the escrow fund, has said he “hasn’t been able to start writing claims checks” because BP PLC has failed to deposit any money into the $20 billion fund it promised to create:

Feinberg, who was appointed to administer oil spill claims out of the fund, said he doesn’t have the authority to force BP to deposit the money, but his hands are tied until it does. “I don’t want the checks to bounce,” he said.

The day after the escrow account’s establishment in June, BP CEO Tony Hayward told Congress that BP is “unwavering in our commitment to fulfill all our responsibilities” and the company “won’t stop spending until the job is done.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25288.h...


Congress is in the midst of investigating why Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve did not prevent the subprime fiasco, and now the SEC is suing Goldman Sachs for fraud. But neither the investigation nor the suit addresses the most repugnant aspect of subprime lending, which is the fact that poor people are charged higher interest rates than rich people when they purchase homes, and that this is perfectly legal.

The justification that economists give for this is that the poor have a higher risk of default and must therefore pay a premium for presenting this higher risk. But it is not the borrower who is in default who pays this premium; it is the other borrowers—the ones who do not default—who pay the premium and thus cover the losses caused by the ones who do. Why should a poor borrower be held more responsible than a rich borrower for the default of another poor borrower?

This discrimination against homebuyers based on income is produced by market competition. A rich family is less likely to default, so in order to attract such families lenders offer them a lower interest rate. But someone has to pay to cover the losses from bad loans, and if rich families are given a way not to pay for these losses, then poor families end up getting stuck with the bill. While the motivation for this discrimination may be totally innocent, the result is that it frees rich families from what should be a shared responsibility, shifting it all to the poor.

Although income discrimination is similar in some ways to racial discrimination, the remedies must be radically different. Under anti-racial-discrimination laws, a lender is not guilty of discrimination if her decision not to lend to a particular individual is motivated by economic considerations. But while it’s legitimate to use the level of a borrower’s income to determine whether that borrower is creditworthy, it should not determine the level of the interest rate she is charged.

If income discrimination is to end, a law that requires banks to offer the same interest rate to all homebuyers, regardless of income, will not suffice. Under such a law, some banks would announce a low interest rate that would be offered to all, but their loan qualification criteria would exclude the poor. Other banks would probably offer a high interest rate to all, but because of the high rate their only customers would be the poor. Each bank would not discriminate, but all the banks collectively would. To solve the problem, the government should establish the criterion for borrowers’ qualifications, requiring that banks offer the same interest rate to any borrower who meets this criterion....

One of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s key ministers is probed as a witness in an investigation into a political donations affair that has rocked the government
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/WDI4RR/KETH8W/T10SH/ZBWBHA/6V4IZ2/...

US regulators charged Samuel and Charles Wyly, two billionaire brothers whose interests range from software to restaurants, with reaping more than $550m in undisclosed gains by trading shares in companies on whose boards they sat
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/IOCBMM/RN00EL/B49CK/C5NMZ1/IYR13W/...

The US bank did not admit to charges that it failed to disclose more than $40bn in subprime mortgage exposure but the settlement includes information that may be useful in cases against it
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/IOCBMM/RN00EL/B49CK/C5NMZ1/5C5YXH/...

The group says it is still making ‘limited’ use of intermediaries and that it has ‘disciplined’ employees involved in SEC allegations that its subsidiaries bribed Iraqi officials between 2000 and 2003
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/FG6LAA/9Z9EU8/CWSVD/40Y8TI/UU80DU/...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2010-0...

Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night.

Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.

Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, "I hope it's as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money."

He added, "We thought originally we were bailing out AIG. Then later on ... we learned that the money flowed through AIG to a few big banks, and now we know that the money went from these few big banks to dozens of financial institutions all around the world."...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/18/goldman-...

The global financial crisis, it is now clear, was caused not just by the bankers' colossal mismanagement. No, it was due also to the new financial complexity offering up the opportunity for widespread, systemic fraud. Friday's announcement that the world's most famous investment bank, Goldman Sachs, is to face civil charges for fraud brought by the American regulator is but the latest of a series of investigations that have been launched, arrests made and charges made against financial institutions around the world. Big Finance in the 21st century turns out to have been Big Fraud. Yet Britain, centre of the world financial system, has not yet levelled charges against any bank; all that we've seen is the allegation of a high-level insider dealing ring which, embarrassingly, involves a banker advising the government. We have to live with the fiction that our banks and bankers are whiter than white, and any attempt to investigate them and their institutions will lead to a mass exodus to the mountains of Switzerland. The politicians of the Labour and Tory party alike are Bambis amid the wolves.

Just consider the roll call beyond Goldman Sachs. In Ireland Sean FitzPatrick, the ex-chair of the Anglo Irish bank was arrested last month and questioned over alleged fraud. In Iceland last week a dossier assembled by its parliament on the Icelandic banks – huge lenders in Britain – was handed to its public prosecution service. A court-appointed examiner found that collapsed investment bank Lehman knowingly manipulated its balance sheet to make it look stronger than it was – accounts originally audited by the British firm Ernst and Young and given the legal green light by the British firm Linklaters. In Switzerland UBS has been defending itself from the US's Internal Revenue Service for allegedly running 17,000 offshore accounts to evade tax. Be sure there are more revelations to come – except in saintly Britain.

Beneath the complexity, the charges are all rooted in the same phenomenon – deception. Somebody, somewhere, was knowingly fooled by banks and bankers – sometimes governments over tax, sometimes regulators and investors over the probity of balance sheets and profits and sometimes, as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says in Goldman's case, by creating a scheme to enrich one favoured investor at the expense of others – including, via RBS, the British taxpayer. Along the way there is a long list of so-called "entrepreneurs" and "innovators" who were offered loans that should never have been made. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's CEO, remarked only semi-ironically that his bank was doing God's work. He must wake up every day bitterly regretting the words ever emerged from his mouth.

For the Goldmans case is in some ways the most damaging. The Icelandic banks, Anglo Irish bank and Lehman were all involved in opaque deals and rank bad lending decisions – but Goldman allegedly went one step further, according to the SEC actively creating a financial instrument that transferred wealth to one favoured client from others less favoured. If the Securities and Exchange Commission's case is proved – and it is aggressively rebutted by Goldman – the charge is that Goldman's vice-president Fabrice Tourre created a dud financial instrument packed with valueless sub- prime mortgages at the instruction of hedge fund client Paulson, sold it to investors knowing it was valueless, and then allowed Paulson to profit from the dud financial instrument. Goldman says the buyers were "among the most sophisticated mortgage investors" in the world. But this is a used car salesman flogging a broken car he's got from some wide-boy pal to some driver who can't get access to the log-book. Except it was lionised as financial innovation....

SEE GOLDMAN'S OPERATING PRINCIPLES, BELOW, FOR IRONY

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry...

GOLDMAN SACHS, the world’s biggest investment bank that is now assailed by accusations of fraud, is poised to reignite controversy over bankers’ bonuses by paying its staff more than £3.5 billion for just three months’ work...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25212.h...

...Unfortunately, the facts of the case merely confirm what everyone already knows; that the subprime fiasco was a scam from the get-go and that no one is going to be held accountable. Levin and his senator pals can engage in a bit of harmless grandstanding if they like, but nothing will come of it. After an afternoon of sanctimonious blather, the fraudsters will head to the links for a quick nine-holes before cocktails and high-fives at the country club lounge. In a week's time, the whole thing will blow over.

WaMu is a drop in the bucket anyway. The entire system is rotten to the marrow. The banks are the worst offenders, but the Fed comes in a close second. The recently revealed details about the NY Fed's role in helping Lehman mislead investors about their true financial condition, is just the latest example of how bad things have gotten.

There were signs as early as 2003 that high-ranking members of the Kleptocracy were planning a major heist. Consider this speech that President Bush gave in December 2003 at the signing of The American Dream Downpayment Act. Here's an excerpt that explains everything:

George W. Bush: "Thank you all. Thank you for coming. Thanks for the warm welcome...I am here today because we are taking action to bring many thousands of Americans closer to owning a home. Our Government is supporting homeownership because it is good for America; it is good for our families; it is good for our economy.

“One of the biggest hurdles to homeownership is getting money for a downpayment. This administration has recognized that, and so today I'm honored to be here to sign a law that will help many low-income buyers to overcome that hurdle and to achieve an important part of the American Dream....”

Bush: "This administration will constantly strive to promote an ‘Ownership Society’ in America...And this is a good time for the American homeowner. Today we received a report that showed that new home construction last month reached its highest level in nearly 20 years. The reason that is so is because there is renewed confidence in our economy. Low interest rates help. They have made owning a home more affordable for those who refinance and for those who buy a home for the first time. Rising home values have added more than $2.5 trillion to the assets of the American families since the start of 2001.”

Bush again: "The rate of homeownership in America now stands at a record high of 68.4 percent. Yet there is room for improvement. The rate of homeownership amongst minorities is below 50 percent. And that's not right, and this country needs to do something about it. We need to close the minority homeownership gap in America so more citizens get the satisfaction and mobility that comes from owning your own home, from owning a piece of the future of America.”

Bush: "Last year I set a goal to add 5.5 million new minority homeowners in America by the end of the decade. That is an attainable goal; that is an essential goal. And we're making progress toward that goal. In the past 18 months, more than 1 million minority families have become homeowners. And there's more that we can do to achieve the goal. The law I sign today will help us build on this progress in a very practical way.”

Bush: "Many people are able to afford a monthly mortgage payment but are unable to make the downpayment, and so this legislation will authorize $200 million per year in downpayment assistance to at least 40,000 low- income families. These funds will help American families achieve their goals and, at the same time, strengthen our communities.”

Just months after he made this speech, Bush took extraordinary steps to block an effort by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to save millions of people from predatory lending. Here's a clip from Spitzer's op-ed in the Washington Post (2003) which gives many of the details:

READ IT AND WEEP. IT DROPPED LIKE A STONE INTO THE WELLS OF FORGOTTEN MEMORY

counterparties as well as US ones.

"The Royal Bank of Scotland is to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the planned $700 billion bail-out that comes courtesy of the American tax-payer if the US Congress gives the financial rescue package the go-ahead this weekend.

"The bank's share of the bail-out will enable RBS to offload billions of dollars of questionable assets.

"The bank's shares closed last Friday at 205p, a 71% fall from their pre-credit-crunch peak. However, analysts and investors predict that the shares will rebound sharply when markets open on Monday morning if the bail-out is approved over the weekend.

"The Edinburgh-based bank will be able to write off a significant portion of its dodgy assets thanks to the bail-out, also known as into Tarp, the Troubled Asset Relief Programme as a result of the bank's significant presence in the US.

"Tarp was the brainchild of US treasury secretary Hank Paulson, who earlier this week got down on his knees and begged Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, to rescue his plan to save Wall Street."

See http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var... .

In Congress, I have an Oct., 2008 e-mail quoting Rep. Brad Sherman (CA):

"The Bank of Shanghai can transfer all of its toxic assets to the Bank of Shanghai of Los Angeles which can then sell them the next day to the Treasury. I had a provision to say if it wasn't owned by an American entity even a subsidiary, but at least an entity in the US, the Treasury can't buy it. It was rejected.

"The bill is very clear. Assets now held in China and London can be sold to US entities on Monday and then sold to the Treasury on Tuesday. Paulson has made it clear he will recommend a veto of any bill that contained a clear provision that said if Americans did not own the asset on September 20th that it can't be sold to the Treasury.

"Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to bail out foreign investors. They know it, they demanded it, and the bill has been carefully written to make sure that can happen."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26040.h...

On Tuesday, the 30-year fixed rate for mortgages plunged to an all-time low of 4.56%. Rates are falling because investors are still moving into risk-free liquid assets, like Treasuries. It's a sign of panic, and the Fed's lame policy response has done nothing to allay the public's fears. The flight-to-safety continues a full two years after Lehman Bros blew up.

Housing demand has fallen off a cliff in spite of the historic low rates. Purchases of new and existing homes are roughly 25% of what they were at peak in 2006. Case/Schiller reported on Monday that June new homes sales were the "worst on record", but the media twisted the story to create the impression that sales were improving. Here are a few of Monday's misleading headlines:

"New Home Sales Bounce Back in June"--Los Angeles Times. "Builders Lifted by June New-home Sales", Marketwatch. "New Home Sales Rebound 24%", CNN. "June Sales of New Homes Climb more than Forecast", Bloomberg.

It's all bunkum. The media's lies are only adding to the sense of uncertainty. When uncertainty grows, long-term expectations change and investment collapses. Lying has an adverse effect on consumer confidence and, thus, on demand....MUCH MORE!

The bottom line? When Wall Street is hurting, money's never a problem. But when the states are on the brink of default and 14 million workers are scrimping to feed their families, there's not a dime to spare. Explain that to your kids.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GE_SEC_CHARGE...

General Electric Co. will pay $23.4 million to settle federal charges that some of its subsidiaries paid illegal kickbacks to the Iraqi government in order to win contracts under a U.N. program.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a civil complaint filed Tuesday in federal court that GE subsidiaries gave cash, computers, medical supplies and other goods worth $3.6 million to the Iraqi health and oil ministries from 2000 to 2003.

The SEC alleged the kickbacks were in return for contracts to supply medical and water purification equipment under the United Nations' oil-for-food program, which provided humanitarian aid to prewar Iraq.

Cheryl Scarboro, head of the SEC's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit, said GE "failed to maintain adequate internal controls to detect and prevent these illicit payments."...

Barack Obama said education was “the economic issue of our time”, linking America’s declining public schools with its struggles to remain competitive
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/WDI4RR/KETH8W/T10SH/ZBWBHA/HDJUIX/...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-30/imf-says-u-s-b...

The U.S. financial system remains fragile and banks subjected to additional economic stress might need as much as $76 billion in capital, according to the results of International Monetary Fund stress tests.

The findings, released today as part of a broader IMF report on the U.S. financial system, suggested that while the nation’s banking system is stable, it remains vulnerable. Home prices, commercial real estate loans and economic growth have the potential to cause shocks that could expose banks to more losses....The IMF also renewed its call for the Obama administration to push ahead with changes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprise housing companies. The report suggested a partial privatization strategy, in which the government would take over the GSEs’ public housing mission while privatizing investment operations....

THIS IS THE REPORT ON THE THIRD-WORLD ASSESSMENT THAT IMF DID ON THE US THIS SPRING--A REAL SLAP IN BERNANKE'S, ET AL., FACE.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26049.h...

The United States is currently the world biggest weapons supplier — holding 30 per cent of the market — but the Obama administration has begun modifying export control regulations in hopes of enlarging the U.S. market share, according to U.S. officials.

President Barack Obama already has taken the first steps by tucking new language into the Iran sanctions bill signed in early July. His aides are now compiling the "munitions list," which regulates the sale of military items.

The administration's stated reason for the changes is to simplify the sale of weapons to U.S. allies, but potential spinoffs include generating business for the U.S. defense industry, creating jobs and contributing to Obama's drive to double U.S. exports by 2015...

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/news/imf-banks-bailouts-sho...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said the funding for any future banking bailouts should come from two new taxes imposed on the industry itself.

The report from the IMF, which was sent to the G20 nations, urged that all banks should pay the levy, thereby making a "financial stability contribution".

The first tax on all financial institutions would initially be a flat rate, while the second financial activities tax (FAT) would be placed on the total of the financial institutions' profits and remuneration, including bonuses.

In response to the report, the British Bankers' Association (BBA) said: "UK banks have already made structural changes - as well as being required to hold more cash and capital - to limit future risk. The banks have also historically been major contributors to the Exchequer as well as providing direct and indirect employment for around a million people....

(And you thought they didn't have any!)

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/our-people/busine...

Our clients' interests always come first.
Our experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow.

Our assets are our people, capital and reputation.
If any of these is ever diminished, the last is the most difficult to restore. We are dedicated to complying fully with the letter and spirit of the laws, rules and ethical principles that govern us. Our continued success depends upon unswerving adherence to this standard.

Our goal is to provide superior returns to our shareholders.
Profitability is critical to achieving superior returns, building our capital, and attracting and keeping our best people. Significant employee stock ownership aligns the interests of our employees and our shareholders.

We take great pride in the professional quality of our work.
We have an uncompromising determination to achieve excellence in everything we undertake. Though we may be involved in a wide variety and heavy volume of activity, we would, if it came to a choice, rather be best than biggest.

We stress creativity and imagination in everything we do.
While recognizing that the old way may still be the best way, we constantly strive to find a better solution to a client's problems. We pride ourselves on having pioneered many of the practices and techniques that have become standard in the industry.

We make an unusual effort to identify and recruit the very best person for every job.
Although our activities are measured in billions of dollars, we select our people one by one. In a service business, we know that without the best people, we cannot be the best firm.

We offer our people the opportunity to move ahead more rapidly than is possible at most other places.
Advancement depends on merit and we have yet to find the limits to the responsibility our best people are able to assume. For us to be successful, our men and women must reflect the diversity of the communities and cultures in which we operate. That means we must attract, retain and motivate people from many backgrounds and perspectives. Being diverse is not optional; it is what we must be.

We stress teamwork in everything we do.
While individual creativity is always encouraged, we have found that team effort often produces the best results. We have no room for those who put their personal interests ahead of the interests of the firm and its clients.

The dedication of our people to the firm and the intense effort they give their jobs are greater than one finds in most other organizations. We think that this is an important part of our success.

We consider our size an asset that we try hard to preserve.
We want to be big enough to undertake the largest project that any of our clients could contemplate, yet small enough to maintain the loyalty, intimacy and the esprit de corps that we all treasure and that contribute greatly to our success.

We constantly strive to anticipate the rapidly changing needs of our clients and to develop new services to meet those needs.
We know that the world of finance will not stand still and that complacency can lead to extinction.

We regularly receive confidential information as part of our normal client relationships.
To breach a confidence or to use confidential information improperly or carelessly would be unthinkable.

Our business is highly competitive, and we aggressively seek to expand our client relationships.
However, we must always be fair competitors and must never denigrate other firms.

Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business.
We expect our people to maintain high ethical standards in everything they do, both in their work for the firm and in their personal lives.


THIS JUST SCREAMS FOR AN ANNOTATED, BITING COMMENTARY--UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE THINGS TO DO TODAY

Dressed as the characters from the Wizard of Oz. Very clever costumes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3oycSUUFJg&feature=rela...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixj5ayuuct8&feature=rela...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pmTetwUU2s&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twrGemyyZv0&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A6A0r4nM-o&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmJdUNSyAhs&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9N0JbdKdg4&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6RFnyHF-h0&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZyu6BK-mwA&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw_4YhPTm0k&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p95hxGOs9KQ&NR=1

http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2010/07/201073053...

The unemployment rate in Japan has increased to its highest level since November last year while production of cars and electronics fell in June, showing weakness in the world's second largest economy.

The country's jobless rate rose to 5.3 per cent, leaving some 3.4 million people looking for work, the country's ministry of internal affairs and communications said in a report on Friday.

Meanwhile, industrial production retreated 1.5 per cent in June from the previous month as factories reduced output of cars and mobile phones.

International shipments of cars, gadgets and components have been crucial in offsetting weaker demand in Japan. But concern is mounting that Beijing's efforts to cool China's economy, together with doubts over both eurozone and US demand, may hit the Japanese economy...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26052.h...

Western societies and states are moving inexorably toward conditions resembling barbarism; structural changes are reversing decades of social welfare and subjecting labor, natural resources and the wealth of nations to raw exploitation, pillage and plunder, driving living standards downward and provoking unprecedented levels of discontent...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZjr6e0J0Ls&feature=play...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13062.h...

"Could a media system, controlled by a few global corporations with the ability to overwhelm all competing voices, be able to turn lies into truth?..."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26043.h...

The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future.

The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.”

The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online “momentum” for any given event.

“The cool thing is, you can actually predict the curve, in many cases,” says company CEO Christopher Ahlberg, a former Swedish Army Ranger with a PhD in computer science....

ALERT THE TREASURY! GEITHNER REALLY REALLY NEEDS THIS NOW!


INCLUDES VIDEO CLIP

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/elizabeth-warren...

Somebody really, really doesn't want Elizabeth Warren to run the new Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, or "CFPB," which she first envisioned and proposed. Who? The big banks, for sure, as well as others who don't want their misbehavior brought to light. And Tim Geithner, whose vision of Wall Street and its problems is fundamentally different from Warren's. There are others, too -- ideologues like Megan McArdle of the Atlantic, who has made something of a cottage industry out of attacking Warren on specious grounds.

The President's attempting to split the baby when it comes to appointing Ms. Warren, but the facts and public perception are aligned and present him with a stark reality: He must choose between appointing Ms. Warren or placating the big banks. There is no Third Way. Unfortunately for the President, Elizabeth Warren is a yes or no question....

MASSIVE ANALYSIS OF MUD-SLINGING ATTACKS ON WARREN

...Elizabeth Warren's view of what needs to be done to fix Wall Street is fundamentally different from Tim Geithner's or Larry Summers'. Her view is correct -- and it's also more popular politically. The President's attempt at a "nuanced" solution -- that Elizabeth Warren will "play a role" even if she's not appointed to lead CFPB - is a nonstarter. The banks, and the public, would see that decision for what it is: A surrender to financial interests at the expense of the American consumer.

The Megan McArdles of this world will wail and gnash their teeth If Elizabeth Warren is appointed, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that if Warren doesn't run CFPB, the same regulators who mismanaged the economy in general - and consumer protection in particular - will still have the upper hand. Any answer but "yes" to the Warren question would be a disaster, both on its merits and politically. You don't need a spreadsheet to figure that out.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/08/knives-out-for-e...

It should come as no surprise that a financial services industry powerful enough to water down meaningful reform in the US and internationally (Basel III rules were weakened to allow, for instance, that mortgage servicing rights be included in regulatory capital calculations) would probably have its way in blocking the nomination of Elizabeth Warren as head of the new consumer finance protection agency.

Let’s face it: the plan to deep six the consumer watchdog was set when it was changed from being an independent body as originally proposed and instead moved into the Fed, the most bank friendly and arguably the least industry expert of the US bank regulators. It might have had a hope of being effective had it been housed at the FDIC, which does not like cleaning up bank messes and therefore is less prone to swallow industry BS than the other Federal bank overseers, but it is now clearly meant to be a mere election time talking point (not that that is working either, since a surprisingly large majority, 80%, understands that financial “reform” is merely branding by the Obama Ministry of Truth). So why would Congress do a 180% change and allow someone with the moxie, legal expertise, and profile with the media to make the agency effective take the reins?

In case you missed it last week, Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, washed his hands as far as Warren’s candidacy was concerned. From Bloomberg:



Yves here. Note Dodd employs the time-tested formula of bigots out to cover their footprints: “Personally, I’m all in favor of hiring {fill in minority in question, such as blacks, woman, transexuals, former drug addicts, one-eyed midgets}. But I’m not sure {fill in preferred scapegoat, such as "our customers" or "our organization"} is ready to accept them.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-elizabeth-warren-...

Reporting from Washington —
For a soft-spoken, unfailingly polite university professor, Elizabeth Warren has a surprising knack for making people squirm — particularly on Wall Street.

She's done it to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and other administration officials. As head of the watchdog panel monitoring the $700-billion federal bank bailout fund and a former high school debating champion, Warren often has put them on the defensive with pointed questions, such as: "Do you know where the money went?"

She's done it to lobbyists and lawmakers who unsuccessfully fought the creation of a new federal agency to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. As a bestselling author who can make complex issues understandable, Warren frustrated opponents by keeping the focus on the industry's failures.


"I want to turn to these guys sometimes and I want to say, 'What part of "We bailed you out" do you not get?'" she said on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" in January.

Now Warren has Wall Street executives, bankers and business groups extremely nervous. As the person to propose such an agency and one of its most outspoken advocates, the Harvard law professor is a leading candidate to be nominated by President Obama as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

That would make Warren, 61, one of the most powerful regulators of the financial industry...

Thanks and welcome! Post any time!

what fun is life without the wicked?


The Ruling Elite Called
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform

I just got off the horn with the Ruling Elite. We had an emergency conference call and to tell you the truth, they ain’t happy. You little people are not responding the way you are supposed to. A significant portion of you are not getting more optimistic because they tell you to. Instead of just reading the headline on Bloomberg that durable goods orders skyrocketed in June, you actually read the details that said durable goods orders plunged. It is getting difficult for the ruling elite to keep the masses sedated and dumbed down. These damn bloggers, with their facts and critical thinking, are throwing a wrench into the gears. Obama and his crack team are working round the clock to lock down the internet, but it will take time. Not that they are totally dissatisfied. They’ve been able to renovate their penthouses and purchase new mansions in the Hamptons with the billions in bonuses you supplied through TARP. The $1.2 trillion supplied by your children and grandchildren to buy up toxic mortgages off their balances sheets was a godsend. They will never call you suckers, to your face.

Their spirits were buoyed by the 2,600 pages DONK (Dodd/Frank) financial reform bill. So many loopholes, so little time. Obama and his crack team of Obamanistas in the White House, supported by their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, have been able to easily manipulate the non-thinking masses into believing this bill would have stopped the last financial crash and will stop the next one. The Ministry of Truth has been working overtime utilizing Federal Reserve paid shill economists like Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi to perpetuate the myth that the actions taken in the last 18 months have averted a Depression, saved 8 million jobs, created a long-lasting recovery, wiped out Swine Flu, and earned Paul Krugman a nobel prize in fiction.

(snip)

The ruling elite are letting you slide on your mortgages and you have the gall to withdraw $20 billion from U.S. equity funds and not buy into this fake stock rally. Don’t you realize that when the stock market goes up, the economy follows? Everyone knows this. But, instead you sit on the sidelines and refuse to invest in the stock market. The super computers of the mega-banks are getting tired of trading with each other and single-handedly making the stock market appear safe. Just because the ruling elite have vaporized $10 trillion of your net worth in the last two years, you hold a grudge? Remember the mantra “Stocks For the Long Run” that the ruling elite burned into your brains through CNBC and the rest of the shillstream media? Why are you so suspicious of our advice. Ignore the fact that the S&P 500 today is at the exact level it reached on March 24, 1998. They meant the really really long term.

Here is the message from the ruling elite to you ignorant masses: Debt got us into this mess and it sure as hell is going to get us out. They have convinced the mainstream media that the reason the economy is sputtering is because the average Joe is not doing their part. This crazy concept of saving for a rainy day seems to be catching on. This is very dangerous. Savings could lead to investment and long-term stability. The ruling elite will have none of that foolishness. The mainstream media is telling you that this new found austerity will push us back into recession. The talking heads continue to pound away that you have reduced your spending too much, when anyone with a calculator and half a brain (Krugman doesn’t make the cut) can determine that the decrease in consumer debt outstanding is completely the result of write-offs by the mega elite banks. Consumers are living off their credit cards at this point.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-ruling-elit...

Thanks for posting.


Great WEE theme this week too, Demeter.

"It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare
system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the
military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's
totally out of control."

Ron Paul - (1935-) American physician, US Congressman


"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man and brave, and
hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him for then it
costs nothing to be a patriot."

-- Mark Twain- (1835-1910)


We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was
"legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was
"illegal."

~Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Why We Can't Wait, 1963

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26038.h...

July 28, 2010 "fff" - July 27, 2010 - - Those who understand the exploitative nature of big government suspected that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do with the security of the American people and much to do with power and money. Still, the magnitude of the scam, as revealed by the Washington Post last week, is astonishing.

Naturally, the politicians justify the growth in intelligence operations on national security grounds. To make sure such attacks never happen again, they said, new powers, agencies, personnel, and facilities were imperative.

Now the truth is out: the post–9/11 activity has been an obscene feeding frenzy at the public trough. Any resemblance to efforts at keeping Americans safe is strictly coincidental.

“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work” the Post’s Dana Priest and William Arkin write. “After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.”

It would be a mistake to chalk up the government’s conduct to bureaucratic bumbling. This is not bumbling. It is highway robbery. Everyone who was well connected, either in government or the “private” sector, wanted a piece of the action, and chances are that he — and many others — got it. It doesn’t matter that multiple agencies do the same work and keep their findings secret from one another. It doesn’t matter that the volume of paperwork is beyond anyone’s capacity to absorb it. What matters is money, power, and prestige. This is the mother of all boondoggles.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/07/27/en_eco_esp_ve...

The action taken by the European Union entails freezing of the funding from the International Development Bank

World Affairs
The European Union ordered on Tuesday to freeze all the funds and economic resources from the International Development Bank of Venezuela, a subsidiary of Iran's Export Development Bank, for presumed ties with the Iranian nuclear program.

The action, disclosed on Tuesday in the European Union official journal, is directly applicable in all the community countries and it is binding, Efe reported.

The Venezuelan bank, already punished by the US Department of the Treasury, denied on its website any cooperation with nuclear activities in Iran and quoted then President of the Superintendence of Banks and Other Financial Institutions, María Elena Fumero.

According to the senior officer, a review of the agency represented by her did not find "any evidence of these facts."

In addition, she said that the purpose of the entity is to "provide the public with bank services under the license of Universal Bank, in accordance with Venezuelan banking standards and regulations."

http://blogs.ft.com/martin-wolf-exchange/2010/07/25/the... /

TOO LONG AND INVOLVED TO EXCERPT--BUT DEVASTATING!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26029.h...

It was 2017. Clans were governing America.

The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.

As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.

The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money.

With the dollar’s demise, import prices skyrocketed. As Americans were unable to afford foreign-made goods, the transnational corporations that were producing offshore for US markets were bankrupted, further eroding the government’s revenue base.

The government was forced to print money in order to pay its bills, causing domestic prices to rise rapidly. Faced with hyperinflation, Washington took recourse in terminating Social Security and Medicare and followed up by confiscating the remnants of private pensions. This provided a one-year respite, but with no more resources to confiscate, money creation and hyperinflation resumed.

Organized food deliveries broke down when the government fought hyperinflation with fixed prices and the mandate that all purchases and sales had to be in US paper currency. Unwilling to trade appreciating goods for depreciating paper, goods disappeared from stores.

Washington responded as Lenin had done during the “war communism” period of Soviet history. The government sent troops to confiscate goods for distribution in kind to the population. This was a temporary stop-gap until existing stocks were depleted, as future production was discouraged. Much of the confiscated stocks became the property of the troops who seized the goods...


...America’s collapse occurred when government ceased to represent the people and became the instrument of a private oligarchy. Decisions were made in behalf of short-term profits for the few at the expense of unmanageable liabilities for the many. Overwhelmed by liabilities, the government collapsed.

Globalism had run its course. Life reformed on a local basis.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26032.h...

The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. WikiLeaks’ release of the Afghan War Documents “puts the lives of our soldiers and our coalition partners at risk.”

What nonsense. Obama’s war puts the lives of American soldiers at risk, and the craven puppet state behavior of “our partners” in serving as US mercenaries is what puts their troops at risk.

Keep in mind that it was someone in the US military that leaked the documents to WikiLeaks. This means that there is a spark of rebellion within the Empire itself.

And rightly so. The leaked documents show that the US has committed numerous war crimes and that the US government and military have lied through their teeth in order to cover up the failure of their policies. These are the revelations that Washington wants to keep secret.

If Obama cared about the lives of our soldiers, he would not have sent them to a war, the purpose of which he cannot identify. Earlier in his regime, Obama admitted that he did not know what the mission was in Afghanistan. He vowed to find out what the mission was and to tell us, but he never did. After being read the riot act by the military/security complex, which recycles war profits into political campaign contributions, Obama simply declared the war to be “necessary.” No one has ever explained why the war is necessary.

The government cannot explain why the war is necessary, because it is not necessary to the American people. Any necessary reason for the war has to do with the enrichment of narrow private interests and with undeclared agendas. If the agendas were declared and the private interests being served identified, even the American sheeple might revolt.

MORE AT LINK

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26023.h...

The housing depression will last for a decade or more. This is by design. The Fed has been working with the banks to withhold inventory so prices do not fall too fast or too far. That way the banks can manage their write-downs without slipping into insolvency. But what's good for the banks is bad for the country. Capital impairment at the banks, means no credit expansion in the near-term. It means the economy will continue to contract, unemployment will remain high, and deflation will push down wages and prices. Everyone will pay for the mortgage-backed securities scam that was engineered by the banks.

Typically, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and real estate lead the way out of recession. But not this time. Both PCE and RE will stay depressed and act as a drag on employment and growth. Last week, in testimony before the congress, Fed chair Ben Bernanke made it clear that the Central Bank has no intention of providing extra monetary stimulus to make up for rapidly-dissipating fiscal stimulus or the winding down of government subsidies for auto, home, and appliance purchases. The economy must muddle through on its own. But without additional pump-priming, disinflation will turn to outright deflation and the economy will sink into negative territory. Bernanke knows this, but he's absolved himself of any further responsibility. It's just a matter of time before the next slump.

Look at housing. The facts are grim. This is from Charles Hugh Smith:

About two-thirds of U.S. households own a house (75 million); 51 million have a mortgage and 24 million own homes free and clear (no mortgage). Most of the other 36 million households are moderate/low income and have limited or no access to credit and limited or no assets....

....There are remedies for our housing woes, but they require massive government intervention. Mortgages must be restructured in a way that keeps as many people as possible in their homes. That means bondholders and banks will have to take a sizable haircut, which is the way capitalism is supposed to work when risky investments blow up. The write-downs will force many of the banks into bankruptcy, so the Obama administration will have to resurrect the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) to resolve the banks, replace management, and auction off their downgraded assets. It's all been done before. When the toxic assets and non performing loans have been purged from bank balance sheets, the banks will be able to fulfill their function as providers of credit to consumers, households and small businesses. Credit expansion will lower unemployment, reduce excess capacity and increase GDP. The economy will begin to grow again. Regrettably, Bernanke has chosen the path of deception and deflation, which is why there won't be any real recovery until he is removed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/opinion/27herbert.htm...

The pain coursing through American families is all too real and no one seems to know what to do about it. A rigorous new analysis for the Rockefeller Foundation shows that Americans are more economically insecure now than they have been in a quarter of a century, and the trend lines suggest that things will only get worse.

Rampant joblessness and skyrocketing medical costs are among the biggest factors tearing at the very fabric of American economic life so painstakingly put together in the early post-World War II decades.

The analysis was done by a team of researchers led by Professor Jacob Hacker of Yale University. They created an economic security index, which measures the percentage of Americans who experience a decrease in their household income of 25 percent or more in one year without having the financial resources to offset that loss. (Major medical expenses were counted as a decrease in available income.)

The team’s findings were grim. Simply stated, more and more families are facing utter economic devastation: completely out of money, with their jobs, savings and retirement funds gone, and nowhere to turn for the next dollar...

See you all tomorrow, if nothing else happens...

http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/oz.html

Money and Politics in the Land of Oz
By Quentin P. Taylor

Here is the extraordinary story behind the extraordinary story of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'. Most of us have seen the movie version of this allegorical tale, but few of us are aware of what the various characters, places and things represented in the mind of Frank Baum, the tale's author. Professor Quentin Taylor of Rogers State University invitingly titles the piece presented below 'Money and Politics in the Land of Oz'. Though 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was written over 100 years ago, the themes will be recongizable to those with an interest in golden matters. Though gold is painted as a villain in Baum's story, it represented then many of the same things fiat money does today. Whereas gold was considered a tool of oppression by the Populists of 1900, it is considered an instrument of financial and personal freedom today. So, as you can see, we have come full circle, and gold has travelled a yellow brick road of its own. Happy reading. --Mike Kosares

Abstract: L. Frank Baum claimed to have written The Wonderful Wizard of Oz "solely to pleasure the children" of his day, but scholars have found enough parallels between Dorothy's yellow-brick odyssey and the politics of 1890s Populism to suggest otherwise. Did Baum intend to pen a subtle political satire on monetary reform or merely an entertaining fantasy?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD, INDEED. LOL - How I luv this tale...traumatized for life by the twister though.

"Dark Side of the Rainbow" or the "Wizard of Floyd". (Filed under things that make me go, Hmm...)

Dark Side of the Rainbow (also known as Dark Side of Oz or The Wizard of Floyd) refers to the pairing of the 1973 Pink Floyd music album The Dark Side of the Moon with the visual portion of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. This produces moments where the film and the album appear to correspond with each other. The title of the music video-like experience comes from a combination of the album title and the film's song "Over the Rainbow". Band members and others involved in the making of the album state that any relationship between the two works of art is merely a coincidence.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25284.h...

On a Tuesday this April, Former regulator William Black appeared before the House Committee on Financial Services and beat the living-tar out of Lehman CEO Dick Fuld for 8 full minutes. It was a moment of sheer, unalloyed pleasure that will be savored for a long time to come.

"Lehman’s failure is a story in large part of fraud," Black roared. "Lehman was the leading purveyor of liars’ loans in the world. For most of this decade, studies of liars’ loans show incidence of fraud of 90%. ... If you want to know why we have a global crisis, in large part it is before you."

When the camera shifted to Fuld, he looked confused. "Why is this bearded man saying these terrible things about me. I am a Wall Street banker," he mused. "Don't they know that I create jobs and allocate capital to enterprising entrepreneurs?"

Black again: "Let’s start with the repos. We have known since the Enron in 2001 that this is a common scam, in which every major bank that was approached by Enron agreed to help them deceive creditors and investors by doing these kind of transactions.....And so what happened? There was a proposal in 2004 to stop it. And the regulatory heads...killed it."

SEE THE REST OF THE CRIME REENACTED AT LINK

http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2010/07/anatomy...

WONKISH, BUT DETAILED AND COMPREHENSIBLE

I EXPERIENCED THIS MYSELF--MY BUSINESS DRIVEN INTO GROUND WHEN LANDLORD'S SON OPENED A QUISNOS NEXT DOOR...FREE RENT!

http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2010/07/30/americ... /

The American economy is so awful, the Wall Street Journal reports that parents of means are now resorting to buying franchise businesses to keep their adult children employed, shelling out six figure sums to purchase their little darlings Pita Pit restaurants and College Hunks Hauling Junk moving trucks:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703292704...

WSJ: When the Folks Give You the Business



Moreover, a recent survey by Merrill Lynch of affluent Americans (defined as those with investment assets of at least $250,000) found that one-third were currently supporting at least one adult aged child, with 28% doing so to help maintain the child’s standard of living and another 21% saying their son or daughter was unemployed, and need the aid. If you are already giving your adult children funds from the First National Bank of Mom and Dad, it isn’t a huge logical leap to then decide it is better to give the money in the form of a business rather than in the form of a no-strings attached hand-out.

Chris Hedges lectures on how to make a change--and which changes to make.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25298.h...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1a8a5cb2-9ab2-11df-87e6-00144...


...Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French chronicler of early America, was once misquoted as having said: “America is the best country in the world to be poor.” That is no longer the case. Nowadays in America, you have a smaller chance of swapping your lower income bracket for a higher one than in almost any other developed economy – even Britain on some measures. To invert the classic Horatio Alger stories, in today’s America if you are born in rags, you are likelier to stay in rags than in almost any corner of old Europe.

Combine those two deep-seated trends with a third – steeply rising inequality – and you get the slow-burning ­crisis of American capitalism. It is one thing to suffer ­grinding income stagnation. It is another to realise that you have a ­diminishing likelihood of escaping it – particularly when the fortunate few living across the proverbial tracks seem more pampered each time you catch a glimpse. “Who killed the ­American Dream?” say the banners at leftwing protest marches. “Take America back,” shout the rightwing Tea Party demonstrators.

Statistics only capture one slice of the problem. But it is the renowned Harvard economist, Larry Katz, who offers the most compelling analogy. “Think of the American economy as a large apartment block,” says the softly spoken professor. “A century ago – even 30 years ago – it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed. The penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken elevator is what gets people down the most.”

Unsurprisingly, a growing majority of Americans have been telling pollsters that they expect their children to be worse off than they are. During the three postwar decades, which many now look back on as the golden era of the ­American middle class, the rising tide really did lift most boats – as John F. Kennedy put it. Incomes grew in real terms by almost 2 per cent a year – almost doubling each generation....

http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2010/07/29/accessing-us-st... /

Explanation on TED here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_th...
-- and note they now offer an "interactive transcript" which makes it easier to get to the info you want.

This is a project of Stephen Wolfram, and the service can search all kinds of info; I just happened across this particular capability.

Edited to add: the page where you type your question in is at http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=who+owns+the+inter... . (Unfortunately, I stumped it with my first question: who owns the internet?)

"Accessing U.S. State-Level Economic Data with Wolfram|Alpha
July 29, 2010

"Wolfram|Alpha launched with an extensive database of United States economic data, derived from the Federal Reserve Bank’s FRED database. Over the past year, we’ve continued to improve our handling of this data in a variety of ways—teaching Wolfram|Alpha to return more related statistics along with any specific result, improving our linguistic abilities so we can answer more complex questions, and increasing the frequency with which we update this data. Wolfram|Alpha is now refreshing its collection of FRED-derived data on a daily basis, so you can always access the latest available data on the national economy.

"We’ve also begun to expand our coverage of economic data for smaller geographic areas in the United States, starting with state-level statistics. This means Wolfram|Alpha users can now query for the latest available information on a variety of economic topics, including gross state product, unemployment, health insurance coverage, and housing-related data.

"As always, one of the strengths of Wolfram|Alpha is that it allows you to compare and analyze different pieces of data—and with this data set, you can quickly uncover strong correlations between various economic properties. It’s easy to see that the house price index tends to move together with employment and state tax collections. You can also use Wolfram|Alpha to run simple calculations of productivity in U.S. states, or to find out a given state’s share of the national economy or workforce.

"To make it even easier to explore this data, you can also use the new Wolfram|Alpha Widget Builder to create simple tools for analyzing and comparing the economic properties of states. To get you started, here’s a small selection of widgets focused on US state economies—ranging from the serious to the slightly silly. Try them out:"

SHINING CITY ON A HILL
I had a Dream on it.
It was covered with gleaming Gold.
It was surrounded with castles of Trump
It contained 11,000,000 people
At the bottom of the shining hill resided 134,000,000 persons in their
rotting homes.
The children on the shining hill attended schools with luxury rooms, caviar for lunch. Transportation in stretch, video equipped, limousines
The shining city wealthy had keys to vaults containing all the national wealth.
Their members controlled those keys.
The worship center om the shining hill had daily worship services and prayers resounded from the mountaintop “We want more. We are God's chosen few we want more”.
The High Priest chanted “give more you shall receive more.”
The Kings of Gold Mountain responded “Those undeserving. lazy, indolent at the bottom of our mountain have have 7% of our Gold and we want it” We are the chosen few As God has decreed so get it get it get it”.
The High Priest from WSA said I will assign some of our Princes to get it for you.
I choose King Ronald I of Alzheimer and Prince George II of Dumb.
King Ronald I did his best to get the 7%. He failed.
Prince George II assigned Sir Richard of Darth to use his mighty horde of warriors and go take the 7%
from those lazy nothings down below our shining city.
Sir Richard set out to get Gold but lost his way in the darkness that surrounded him wherever he traveled.
He led his warriors over a cliff they could not see in the darkness of his evil.
The cliffs of Afhan stopped the Kingdom of the shining hill from gaining all the nations wealth and the 135,000,000 stormed the hill to destroy the shining city and it's multitude of wealthy Kings, Lords, Princes and today the multitudes are singing from the mountaintop Praise To Obama Praise To Obama the True God May He Reign Forever.

Peace on Earth Goodwill To All
cswinney2@triad.rr.com olduglymeanhonest

The Younger Kid is between apartments--so she came over to do laundry and gave me the coins that fell out in the washer.

Now, THAT'S change I can believe in!

Wizard of Oz is on its 4th generation of viewers by now, at least. The Younger Kid tried to read all the Oz stories, but they lacked a certain pertinence to modern life. But the film captures a moment in history--and does so beautifully. It will never grow old.

from Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_f...

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film directed primarily by Victor Fleming from a script mostly by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf, with uncredited contributions by others. It was based on the 1900 novel of the same name by L. Frank Baum, who died twenty years before this film was released. It features Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr and Frank Morgan, with Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charles Grapewin, Clara Blandick and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins. Notable in its use of special effects, use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling and unusual characters, The Wizard of Oz has become, over the years, one of the best known of all films. Its impact, however, was not nearly as strongly felt at the time of its original release.

Dorothy Gale, a 12-year-old Kansas farmgirl, is knocked unconscious during a tornado. She, her dog Toto, and the farmhouse are apparently transported to the magical Land of Oz, where she sets out on the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to ask the Wizard of Oz to return her to Kansas. During her journey, she meets a Scarecrow, a Tin Man and a Cowardly Lion, who join her, hoping to receive what they lack themselves (a brain, a heart and courage, respectively). They are pursued by the Wicked Witch of the West, who wants her dead sister's magic ruby slippers, now worn by Dorothy. At the end of the film, Dorothy finds herself back in her own bed at the farmhouse, but in Kansas, where her aunt tries to convince her that she dreamt her adventures in Oz.

Initially, The Wizard of Oz made only a small profit due to its enormous budget, despite largely favorable critical reviews. "Over the Rainbow" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the film itself received several Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Telecasts of the film began in 1956, and because of them the film has found a larger audience—its television screenings were once an annual tradition and have re-introduced the film to the public, making The Wizard of Oz one of the most famous films ever made. The Library of Congress named The Wizard of Oz as the most-watched film in history. It is often ranked among the top ten best movies of all-time in various critics' and popular polls, and it has provided many memorable quotes...

Differences from the original novel

Whereas the novel, as well as its sequels and other adaptations, has achieved popularity among children 5 years of age and up, the 1939 film is more popular among younger children. Due to this, the movie follows the novel only in a very general way for the most part, though several phrases (e.g. "I am Dorothy, the Small and Meek"; and "Oh no, my dear, I'm a very good man; I'm just a very bad Wizard") are taken almost directly from the book. Many details are omitted or altered, while many of the perils that Dorothy encountered in the novel are not even mentioned in the movie. The Good Witch of the North (who has no name in the book) and Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, are merged into one character. To take advantage of the new vivid Technicolor process, Dorothy's silver shoes were changed to ruby slippers for the movie.<4><5> Due to time constraints, a number of incidents from the book, including the China County and the Hammerheads, were cut. The role of the Wicked Witch of the West was also enlarged for the movie (in the book, she is only present for one chapter) to provide more dramatic tension throughout the film. The novel also never depicts Dorothy as a damsel in distress to be rescued by her friends, but rather the reverse, with Dorothy, a figure heavily influenced by the feminism of Matilda Joslyn Gage, rescuing her friends. Nevertheless, the film was far more faithful to Baum's original book than many earlier scripts (see below) or film versions. Two silent versions were produced in 1910 and 1925 and the seven-minute animated cartoon in 1933 (the 1925 version, with which Baum had died six years earlier and thus had no association, made Dorothy a princess of Oz, rather like the later sci-fi TV miniseries Tin Man). The 1939 movie interprets the Oz experience as a dream, in which many of the characters that Dorothy meets represent the people from her home life (such as Miss Gulch, Professor Marvel and the farmhands, none of which appear in the book). In L. Frank Baum's original novel, Oz is meant to be a real place, one to which Dorothy would return in the author's later Oz books and which would later provide a refuge for Aunt Em and Uncle Henry when unable to pay the mortgage on the new house that was built after the old one really was carried away by the tornado.

This is a full list of the changes made to the book by the movie

This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (July 2010)

1. The magical shoes Dorothy gets at the beginning are the Silver Shoes (Not Ruby).
2. The time spent in Oz is real, not a dream.
3. The three farm workers, Professor Marvel, and Miss Gulch do not appear in any Oz book at all.
4. The Wicked Witch of the East and the Wicked Witch of the West are not related at all.
5. The Wicked Witch of the West does not appear in the book until Dorothy and friends travel to the West on the Wizard's orders.
6. Dorothy and her friends are sent by the Wizard to kill the Witch, not to take her broomstick.
7. Glinda is the Good Witch of the South, not the North.
8. Glinda does not appear in the book until the final pages, when she tells Dorothy how to use the Silver Shoes to get home. Dorothy and her friends have to journey to Glinda's palace, and along the way they have several adventures, none of which are in the film. However, they do encounter a group of fighting, talking trees, as in the film, and the Tin Man chops off their branches so that the four travelers can pass.
9. Munchkins all wear blue.
10. When Borothy and the Scarecrow first encounter the Tin Man, his jaws, rather incredibly, are the only part of his body not rusted, and he speaks clearly. His jaws rust later in a scene not in the film, in which he cries.
11. The road is called the Road of Yellow Brick, not the Yellow Brick road.
12. The journey to the Emerald City is much more dangerous and long than depicted in the movie.
13. No one sings in the book (obviously, since the book is not a musical).
14. The Silver Shoes can be removed while the person wearing them is still alive.
15. The unnamed elderly Good Witch of the North greets Dorothy when she first arrives in Oz.
16. All witches in Oz wear white, not pink or black.
17. Dorothy is not rescued by the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion at the Witch's Castle, she rescues them after killing the Wicked Witch.
18. Glinda does not come to the Emerald City at the end of the story. Dorothy and friends have to travel to the south to ask for her help.
19. The Wizard appears in more than one form, not just a giant floating head.
20. The four companions visit the Wizard one at a time, not all at once.
21. The four companions stay in the Emerald City for several days.
22. Dorothy becomes the Witch's captive for several days, forced to work for the Witch.
23. The Winkies, the Witch's slaves, all wear yellow.
24. The Winged Monkeys are only bound to serve the Witch three times as she owns a cap that controls them. After performing a task they leave.
25. Dorothy takes the cap of the Winged Monkeys after killing the Witch and uses it herself.
26. When using the Silver Shoes magic Dorothy clicks the heels together three times and says that she wishes to go home to Kansas. She does not say "There's no place like home".
27. The Wizard's balloon was dismantled after he first arrived in Oz, and Dorothy and he build a new one out of green cloth.
28. The Wizard is from Omaha, Nebraska, not an old Kansas man.
29. The Emerald City did not exist when the Wizard arrived in Oz. When he was first made the ruler of Oz the Emerald City was built on his first order.
30. The keeper of the gate to the Emerald City does not deny Dorothy and friends entrance to the city.
31. The Munchkins think Dorothy is a Good Witch because she wears a faded white and blue checked dress. White being the color of a witch and blue being the color of the munchkins.
32. Dorothy's house lands in a ditch no where near a Munchkin village, and only somewhat near the road of yellow bricks.
33. Dorothy's house never returns to Kansas.
34. Dorothy's house is a one room building. She does not have a separate bedroom.
35. All Munchkin houses are painted blue.
36. The gift given to the Scarecrow is not a diploma but cereal stuffed in his head to mimic brains.
37. The gift given to the Tin Man is not a heart clock but a stuffed satin heart put into the Woodsman's chest and then patched over with tin.
38. The gift given to the Lion is not a medal but a bowl of liquid said to be courage that the lion drank. From the description, one can infer that it is wine.
39. The Wicked Witch of the West does not have green skin.
40. The Wicked Witch has only one eye.
41. The Wicked Witch melts from water because her wickedness had dried her blood out of her body years ago. No explanation is given in the film as to why she melts.
42. The Good Witch of the North gave Dorothy a magic kiss on her forehead that protected her. That is why the Wicked Witch of the West would not harm her.
43. Dorothy is saved from the poppy field by field mice not by Glinda.
44. When Dorothy returns to Kansas the Silver Shoes fall off over the desert surrounding Oz.
45. In the final chapter, Dorothy tumbles into Kansas in a field near her Aunt and Uncle's farm, and a new farm house wis already being built by her Uncle Henry.

W. C. Fields was originally chosen for the role of the Wizard, but the studio ran out of patience after protracted haggling over his fee. Instead, Frank Morgan was cast on September 22. According to Aljean Harmetz, when the wardrobe department was looking for a coat for Morgan, they decided that they wanted a once elegant coat that had "gone to seed." They went to a second-hand shop and purchased a whole rack of coats, from which Morgan, the head of the wardrobe department and director Fleming chose one they thought had the perfect appearance of shabby gentility. One day, while he was on set wearing the coat, Morgan turned out one of the pockets and discovered a label indicating that the coat had once belonged to Oz author L. Frank Baum. Mary Mayer, a unit publicist for the film, contacted the tailor and Baum's widow, who both verified that the coat had indeed once belonged to the writer. After filming was completed, the coat was presented to Mrs. Baum. Baum biographer Michael Patrick Hearn disbelieves the story, it having been refuted by members of the Baum family, who never saw the coat or knew of the story, as well as by Margaret Hamilton, who considered it a concocted studio rumor.

The Younger Kid made her stage debut as the Scarecrow in Middle School. I thought she did an excellent job of it, too, even though I am her mother.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01sun2.html?p...



Farms go out of business for many reasons, but few farms do merely because the soil has failed. That is the miracle of farming. If you care for the soil, it will last — and yield — nearly forever. America is such a young country that we have barely tested that. For most of our history, there has been new land to farm, and we still farm as though there always will be.

Still, there are some very old farms out there. The oldest is the Tuttle farm, near Dover, N.H., which is also one of the oldest business enterprises in America. It made the news last week because its owner — a lineal descendant of John Tuttle, the original settler — has decided to go out of business. It was founded in 1632. I hear its sweet corn is legendary.

The year 1632 is unimaginably distant. In 1632, Galileo was still publishing, and John Locke was born. There were perhaps 10,000 colonists in all of America, only a few hundred of them in New Hampshire. The Tuttle acres, then, would have seemed almost as surrounded as they do in 2010, but by forest instead of highways and houses.

It was a precarious operation at the start — as all farming was in the new colonies—and it became precarious enough again in these past few years to peter out at last. The land is protected by a conservation easement so it can’t be developed, but no one knows whether the next owner will farm it.

In a letter on their Web site, the Tuttles cite “exhaustion of resources” as the reason to sell the farm. The exhausted resources they list include bodies, minds, hearts, imagination, equipment, machinery and finances. They do not mention soil, which has been renewed and redeemed repeatedly. It’s as though the parishioners of the First Parish Church in nearby Dover — erected nearly 200 years later, in 1829 — had rebuilt the structure on the same spot every few years.

It is too simple to say, as the Tuttles have, that the recession killed a farm that had survived for nearly 400 years. What killed it was the economic structure of food production. Each year it has become harder for family farms to compete with industrial scale agriculture — heavily subsidized by the government — underselling them at every turn. In a system committed to the health of farms and their integration with local communities, the result would have been different. In 1632, and for many years after, the Tuttle farm was a necessity. In 2010, it is suddenly superfluous, or so we like to pretend.

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/770-billion-neg...

Mark Zandi and Robert Shiller have released a report detailing the state of the troubled housing sector, and it isn't pretty. Here are the highlights:

There is almost $2.4 trillion mortgage debt for homes in negative equity, 19% of all U.S. households

The total negative equity is $771 billion, $234 Billion in just California

There are 4.1 million homeowners with more than 50% negative equity (they owe 50%+ more than their homes are worth), 672,000 in just California...

GRAPHIC PORN AT LINK!

The United Arab Emirates said it would suspend BlackBerry mobile communication services from October 11 because they operate outside of its laws, after India also raised similar concerns about Research in Motion’s network in recent weeks.

The move will be frustrating to the estimated 500,000 BlackBerry users in the UAE, which is the region's business and tourism hub.
Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/BLH300/5CYQ3M/HI3M9/3OYCCO/PRL0F0/...

7/15/10 Michael Hudson has had a long, varied and distinguished career as a Wall Street insider, leading economist, expert on financial history, and Research Professor at the University of Missouri. He's also an author, consultant, head of a Harvard-based economic and financial history group, and president of the Institute for the Study of Long Term Economic Trends (INSLET).

Hudson's latest economic views will be discussed, including his recent article on Europe's Fiscal Dystopia: The New Austerity Road to Financial Serfdom.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-...

or direct link to audio
http://029bdc8.netsolhost.com/rss/ProgressiveNewsHour/P...

the jig is up--but the word has to get out. Fat chance of it happening on DU.

When all around you is a conspiracy to lie, cheat and steal, how can you NOT be a theorist of conspiracy?

Over in the petting zoo there's a thread on whether or not "double-dippers" are the cause of the recession or at least helping it along:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

hamerfan

The ability to reason is not an innate gift--it is a mental discipline requiring study and application. Or the hard lessons of experience.

To think that a few non-affiliated bloggers and columnists can sink the entire world into depression is to ignore the powerful who have already done so, taken their profits, and are now fleeing for a safe house. Probably in Dubai.

But there are no safe houses for these people, they just don't know it yet.

Revolution is beginning to look like the best we can expect out of the deal. It's the revolution that was aborted by the assassinations in the 60's. It could have happened peacefully, and the rich could have kept their comfort levels high, but now it will be violent and the rich will be hunted down. They are going to regret it. What cannot continue, will not continue.

Our Concluding music: Over the Rainbow--far too apt for the topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhzbzwPNgXA

If we just believe.

I believe my wallet is empty. Yep, I just checked. My beliefs were correct.

No safe houses. Anywhere. In this shitstorm.
My favorite version of the tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgGvml0cOKA&feature=rela...